Posted by pancho from pool0043.cvx20-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.250.43) on Friday, November 29, 2002 at 9:20AM :
In Reply to: Grappling With the Politics of Fear posted by Tony from dsc02-lai-ca-2-141.rasserver.net (207.220.37.141) on Thursday, November 28, 2002 at 11:17PM :
The Vietnam War had more to do with a war on Americans than it did on a bunch of rice paddies. The war on drugs...the war on crime...these are wars conducted against the American people...not crime or drugs. The war on Iraq is the same thing. There is no threat posed by Iraq...none at all. There was no threat from Iran, none from Libya...and none from that biggest paper tiger of all...the dreaded Soviet Union, which couldn't make enough butter for its people but was coming to get us.
These wars and threats to peace and nuclear tensions and paranoia have become the surest way to ride roughshod over the American people and our cherished freedoms...the freedoms that have been frustrating corporate types since the Second World War.
Nixon learned the lesson, as did McCarthey, Cohn and so many others. All they had to do was suggest someone was Pink...never mind Red...and a collective hysteria got them into office. Once in office they went "Red-hunting" and spoke out about our cherished freedoms and all of that. Behind the scenes they packed the court, and committe chairs and set up think tanks to figure out the best ways of remaining in power. Increasingly the best way turned out to be keeping the American people in a constant state of alert...and of course now they've even color coded it, just in case you're real slow.
We signed away a good portion of our patrimony just now because we've been frightened for generations. We've had generations born into Fear. The world only seems to be getting more dangerous...no matter how much we spend and arm ourselves. So...is it working? Hell yes...more and more fortunes are being made as there is more and more fear being created...yes boys and girls CREATED.
After having worked long and hard to make the Palestinian people mad with grief and frustration...it is not that hard to convince people that Palestinians just ARE that way...to suggest they are are not, that something has been done to them...elicits yelps from the other side..."Sure, blame US"!
So how come we blamed anybody for 9/11. What's the matter can't we take responsibility ourselves? Do we always have to blame it on someone else?
In the case of 9/11 about all we DIDN'T do was fly the planes ourselves. We provided the planes and the training...and an FBI that couldn't connect dots...and waited. After first having primed the suspects.
-- pancho
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