While i’ve been focused on bridges the past month, all hell has broken loose and civilization as we know it is swirling ever more rapidly into the toilet. Ignoring for the moment the latest outrages of the NSA as it fights like a cornered rat to continue maintaining a Surveillance Society, take a look at what’s going on with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). Feinstein, McCain, et al. are howling for a return of American ground forces to Iraq despite the fact that Iraq’s leaders, while happy to accept some air support, are universally opposed to our sending troops there again. Which means we’ll have to invade them again. Oh come on, it worked out so splendidly the last time, didn’t it?
Worse yet, in order to drum up public support for another invasion, right-wing leaders and media are doubling down on the mantra that ISIS presents a tremendous threat to the safety of Americans. Ummm, how, i ask is that? Their nuclear submarines that are even now cruising off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts? All their nuclear-tipped ICBMs sitting in hardened silos ready to rain death on the Great Satan? Their stealth battleships and aircraft carriers ready to take up positions off American shores to shell and bomb American coastal cities? Their millions of Ebola-infected rats being bred in vast underground laboratories to be carried in giant balloons by the jet stream and released by parachute over the American heartland?
Could a handful of ISIS suicide terrorists infiltrate this country and kill a few people? Of course. Could they come even close to taking out the number of Americans killed every week in auto accidents? Oh please.
We are letting our leaders frighten us into a totalitarian police state for their own good.
So i’ll just keep cranking out the curmudgery until the tanks pull up out front.
The lucky ones will have a view of a garden through their bars.
5 Comments
I was thinking about this the other day… We’ve forgotten the ENTIRE POINT of terrorism. It’s accomplishing EXACTLY what those who are perpetrating it planned: it’s spreading fear among the population of the target and enticing the target to do stupid things in response to that fear, such as to establish (and condone) a Surveillance Society. That’s terrorism. ISIS and all the others know they have no real power, other than the weapons we and the rest of the world sells them… hmm, one would think THAT might get folks to ponder the best way to stop a terrorist organization–but wait, we can’t sacrifice PROFITS, for god’s sake! And besides, we can just equip “our” side better, can’t we?? Anyway, the power of a terrorist organization is in the fear it sows and the knee-jerk reactions to that fear.
So in that kind of war (the “war on terrorism”) I’d say we’re getting routed, convincingly.
Many thanks for articulating this better than i did. As you say, we’re getting routed. The horror is that we’re routing ourselves.
I like the way you put it, too: describing the specific non-existent threats that these groups pose. And the fact that we’re more likely to get killed in a car crash than by a terrorist. Those are very important points.
What makes you so sure those plague-carrying rats are non-existent? Me, i think Homeland Security and the Defense Department should get together and press for funding for a fleet of millions of quadcopters equipped with lasers to fry the rats and their fleas in midair. In their spare time the quadcopters could keep us safe by providing continuous surveillance of our activities.
And BTW, my guru and i are working on this little display problem in the comments. Stay tuned.