Posted by pancho from pool0576.cvx25-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.218.66) on Monday, January 20, 2003 at 2:15PM :
..that an all powerfull country has degenerated into mass paranoia that the world is filled with enemies out to get them. That could be because the leaders certainly know, and the populace suspects, that to get that wealthy and powerfull in the first place means you've robbed and murdered an awful lot of people around you...people you suspect of being capable of what you just did...if only they had the chance. And since you HAVE robbed them and they don't have the wealth to match your massive armaments...you naturally suspect them of "infiltrating" and being subversive and using "terrorist" tactics...because you know you didn't leave them much else.
Since the Commie Red Scare Menace days we've developed a professional class of politicians who use our paranoia and guilt against us...who harp on our vulnerability when no one is bristling with more Banks or weapons. The same politicians know they can get into office by scaring us with stories of crime in America, how it is rampaging all over the place etc. The end result has been to make us so frightened and unhinged that we've begun to insist on jailing and punishing everyone who screws up, with the result that we're providing advanced training to a larger and larger body of poor, miserable people...turning them from non-violent crimminals to violent and ever more dangerous ones...we're making our nightmares come true.
The same with national security...which has become an obsession to the point where it has become national INSECURITY.
By the time we're done breaking the bank and pissing more and more people off...we'll believe those politicians were right...when they did more than any Al Queda or Saddam to bring us here...and it's all out fault for being so gullible...but also because we don't attend to business at the grass roots level...we don't demand investigations into the number of out and out thieves and crooks running our government...ignoring the fact that it is just these sorts of unscrupulous people who are lying to us in the first place.
Right now our leadership is appealing to what is worst, what is most base, what is most cowardly and unbecomming in our character. You don't survive long if you do that.
-- pancho
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