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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Paranoia
Strikes Deep
for
release on 08-05-04
I hate to
write another column on terrorism. but it seems to be the subject
of the day thanks to the Dept. of Homeland Insecurity. Based on three
year old
information Tom Ridge has raised the terror alert from yellow to orange
in two cities
and in the same smooth motion has stolen the news cycle from the Democrats.
Then he made the preposterous assertion:
"We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security"
The Poet' Eye sees that our security apparatus resembles six container
ships
laden with Deep Woods Off being imported for the purpose of protecting
us from four
mosquitos. It only takes three mosquitos to constitute a terrorist cell
of mosquitos. And they
are undoubtedly packing biological weapons like malaria or yellow fever
or west Nile virus.
It's all a part of the fear industry. The Republicans figure it's the
only way to save the economy. Sell fear. It's cheap to manufacture and
it has a terrific shelf life. Also, you can sell it over and over again.
Fear is the perfect product.
We can sell you fear of heart attacks (buy our aspirin), fear of imaginary
diseases, impotency, calcium loss and indigestion, fear of explosions
and natural disasters. We can also immunize and insure you against these
fears. We can tantalize you with the ten most wanted criminals and the
top twenty terrorists, raise the alert level from yellow to orange. We
can entertain you with Fear Factor (models in bikinis swallowing worms.)
Fear is big business. We can X-ray your tennis shoes if that makes you
feel safer.
For the past three years whenever there is a TV news story about terrorism,
they always run that piece of footage which shows a half dozen swarthy
looking fellows going hand over hand across a set of monkey bars. You've
seen it. Who are these guys? And how does going across those monkey bars
prepare them to destroy our way of life?
By best estimates Al Qaeda is a diffuse organization with no more than
several thousand members worldwide that is mainly dedicated to the goal
of ending American and western influence and occupation of countries and
lands that they consider holy. Their main complaints are America's support
of Israel and its support of and collusion with the Saudi royal family.
Oh, and now we have given them further annoyance (and recruiting tools)
by invading Afghanistan and Iraq.
If Al Qaeda attacked our shores en masse, it would take only a couple
of troops of boy scouts to vanquish them, yet we are changing our entire
way of life in order to maintain this paranoid hyper-vigilance. It is
definitely to the advantage of those in power in our government to convince
the public that there are 'evildoers' out there just waiting to attack.
This guarantees their jobs, you see. They have established an entire department
of government to insure that you will be sufficiently reminded that you
are in constant danger.
The administration points with pride to the fact that they have protected
you for the past three years because no further terrorist attacks have
been accomplished on American soil. This writer suggests that the paucity
of attacks is more due to the relatively small and impotent and disorganized
force that Al Qaeda really represents, than to any heroic protection measures
instituted by this government. The only thing accomplished by the Patriot
Act is that now the government can better spy on you and keep tabs on
your finances. It surely doesn't protect you from a Tim McVeigh.
The Poet's Eye sees that we are more likely to be struck by lightning
than we are to be truly damaged by terrorists. I'd better be quiet, or
soon they'll be establishing a new level of bureaucracy and declaring
war on the weather.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security--Benjamin Franklin.
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down.
---Stephen Stills, 1966
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