The
Poet's Eye
commentary by Lightning Rod
the Poets' Eye is skeptical
without being cynical, innocent
without being naive and
critical without being
judgmental
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Lightning
Rod
World Headquarters
Fear Factor
05-27-04
Terrorists
Planning Summer Attack?
By CURT ANDERSON, AP
WASHINGTON (May 25) -- US officials have obtained new intelligence deemed
highly credible indicating al-Qaida or other terrorists are in the United
States and preparing to launch a major attack this summer, The Associated
Press has learned.
The intelligence does not include a time, place or method of attack but
is among the most disturbing received by the government since the attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001, according to a senior federal counter-terrorism official
who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Tuesday.
------------------
I know this sounds like a parody that Lightning Rod would write, but it's
not. It's the lead story on AOL. (Time-Warner, CNN)
What do they think? That we are living in a spy novel? Then we see Ashcroft
and Mueller standing in front of the photos of brown skinned suspects
doing their John Walsh America's Most Wanted act.
If you will examine the content of the above paragraphs you can see that
there is no real information. It is somebody who won't say who he is,
telling you something he doesn't know shit from shinola about. He doesn't
know when or where or how and he doesn't want to attach his name even
to these vague statements. Is there something fishy here?
There is absolutely no information in these paragraphs, only Message.
And the message is: Get Scared. They figure a scared voter will vote for
the incumbent. As if anything this administration is doing is going to
protect you if some nut ties a six-pack of dynamite sticks to his midriff
and walks into a shopping mall or if a couple of teenagers go crazy with
angst and shoot up their high school or if some misled country boy flips
out on Christian fundamentalist racism and parks a Ryder truck full of
fertilizer in front of a courthouse.
Again and again we have seen these fits of hyper-vigilance inspired by
our new Department of Homeland Insecurity. Five times in the last year
and a half they have dramatized this political irritation by raising the
alert color from yellow to orange and grounding aircraft. Where is the
alert level on national health insurance? The Poet's Eye sees red. The
two hundred billion dollars we have squandered on the Iraq and Afghan
Wars so far would have gone a long way toward endowing a national health
insurance system.
It's a systematic sales job. What are they selling? They are selling you
on the idea that there are 'evildoers' out there just waiting to do you
in. And only the government can protect you and all it costs is total
control over your life and your will and your information and your finances.
What a deal. But does it come with insurance?
So, even though they have jacked up the alert level time after time, we
have seen no terrorist attacks since the big kahoona on 9/11. Why? It's
certainly not because they make you take the change out of your pockets
at airports.
The definition of terrorism is: violence directed against innocents in
order to make a political (or religious) statement. There is precious
little political statement that can be made by blowing up a shopping mall
in Duluth, which is where this poet plans to be during the Olympics.
The definition of war has relaxed in recent times. We have not seen a
real war declared since WWII. Since then the only wars declared have been
in the hyperbole of political speech. We have had Wars on Crime, Wars
on Poverty, Wars on Drugs, and now a War on Terror. All of these wars
are political fabrications, metaphors. Not one crime has been eradicated,poverty
persists, not one drug has been killed or even wounded and terror happens
every night in the dreams of little boys and little girls. These wars
are perfect wars because they will never end.
The Poet's Eye sees that our resources would be better spent if we declared
war on a more tangible enemy than "terror." (Or is it 'terra?')
How about starvation or AIDS? Maybe we should declare war on the uninsured.
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