Terrorism 2.0
It's been over five years since terrorists brought a nation to its knees by trying to fly four aircraft into buildings and, in three cases, succeeding. Three thousand people died in those attacks. George Bush talked tough. He was going to get Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. He pretty much dared the terrorists to try again. Most people cheered for him because he talked tough.
Yesterday, a major city--Boston--was brought to its knees, not by terrorists, but by its institutionalized fear, a fear fed for political reasons by George Bush. It's easy to blame Turner Broadcasting for the total disruption caused by the light boxes placed around the city to promote a TBS Cartoon Network movie. The mayor of Boston says they were irresponsible. If you've seen a picture of one of the light boxes, you can tell that it looks like a cartoon character with a middle finger uprasied in the well known gesture that does not mean that the target is number one--the one that I made a couple of weeks ago when Bush's helicopters flew over at low level on the trip back from Camp David a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't look like an explosive device or something that could send billions of viruses into the air. It looks like a damn light box. Moreover, the boxes had been in place for a while, in Boston and in nine other cities. By the way, that would be nine other cities where no one decided they were suspicious.
I can't hold TBS responsible; they advertise. Businesses tend to do that. They also tend to try to find new and creative ways to showcase their offerings, and if you don't believe that, just watch the Super Bowl ads. And not all ads produce the desired response with everyone. Hell, I hate the GEICO gecko. The AFLAC duck is great, but not everyone likes him.
I hold Boston responsible. The city leadership has drunk the kool aid of fear served up by the Coward in Chief and his lackeys. They have reached a point at which anything out of the ordinary is suspcious, and anything suspicious is presumed to be connected to terrorism until proven otherwise. I hope the city of Boston recoups not one cent of what it spent sending cops around to blow up light boxes. I hope everyone who suffered a loss because of the intemperate response will sue the city and win.
I don't hope this because I hate Boston. I hope this because it is the fear of terrorism that now controls the United States. Americans bought the idea that we could stop terrorism by invading Afghanistan and capturing bin Laden, even though new terrorists and new leaders would have sprung up to take his place. (And by the way, George, where is bin Laden? How much have we pissed away trying to catch him. Americans bought the idea that terrorists were going to buy weapons of mass destruction because they were cozy with Sadaam Hussein. I suspect that many Americans believed that when Sadaam and Osama were tried and duly hanged, we could all relax. Well, we don't have Osama. There weren't any weapons of mass destruction. Sadaam is dead, and the level of violence has only escalated since his execution. More Americans have died in these misbegotten adventures than died in the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Coward in Chief talks about successes in the war on terrorism, but the "plots" he talks about have all been debunked.
Here's the truth: terrorists do not need to lift a finger to cause harm to the United States. They don't have to die, they don't have to spend money, they don't have to take the risk of being caught before they can carry out their plans (if, in fact, they are still making plans.) The fear of them that the powerful harbor--or pretend to harbor for their own political gain--is just as damaging, and it operates 24/7. We should be far more fearful of what those powerful men can do than of what terrorists will do.
Yesterday, a major city--Boston--was brought to its knees, not by terrorists, but by its institutionalized fear, a fear fed for political reasons by George Bush. It's easy to blame Turner Broadcasting for the total disruption caused by the light boxes placed around the city to promote a TBS Cartoon Network movie. The mayor of Boston says they were irresponsible. If you've seen a picture of one of the light boxes, you can tell that it looks like a cartoon character with a middle finger uprasied in the well known gesture that does not mean that the target is number one--the one that I made a couple of weeks ago when Bush's helicopters flew over at low level on the trip back from Camp David a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't look like an explosive device or something that could send billions of viruses into the air. It looks like a damn light box. Moreover, the boxes had been in place for a while, in Boston and in nine other cities. By the way, that would be nine other cities where no one decided they were suspicious.
I can't hold TBS responsible; they advertise. Businesses tend to do that. They also tend to try to find new and creative ways to showcase their offerings, and if you don't believe that, just watch the Super Bowl ads. And not all ads produce the desired response with everyone. Hell, I hate the GEICO gecko. The AFLAC duck is great, but not everyone likes him.
I hold Boston responsible. The city leadership has drunk the kool aid of fear served up by the Coward in Chief and his lackeys. They have reached a point at which anything out of the ordinary is suspcious, and anything suspicious is presumed to be connected to terrorism until proven otherwise. I hope the city of Boston recoups not one cent of what it spent sending cops around to blow up light boxes. I hope everyone who suffered a loss because of the intemperate response will sue the city and win.
I don't hope this because I hate Boston. I hope this because it is the fear of terrorism that now controls the United States. Americans bought the idea that we could stop terrorism by invading Afghanistan and capturing bin Laden, even though new terrorists and new leaders would have sprung up to take his place. (And by the way, George, where is bin Laden? How much have we pissed away trying to catch him. Americans bought the idea that terrorists were going to buy weapons of mass destruction because they were cozy with Sadaam Hussein. I suspect that many Americans believed that when Sadaam and Osama were tried and duly hanged, we could all relax. Well, we don't have Osama. There weren't any weapons of mass destruction. Sadaam is dead, and the level of violence has only escalated since his execution. More Americans have died in these misbegotten adventures than died in the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Coward in Chief talks about successes in the war on terrorism, but the "plots" he talks about have all been debunked.
Here's the truth: terrorists do not need to lift a finger to cause harm to the United States. They don't have to die, they don't have to spend money, they don't have to take the risk of being caught before they can carry out their plans (if, in fact, they are still making plans.) The fear of them that the powerful harbor--or pretend to harbor for their own political gain--is just as damaging, and it operates 24/7. We should be far more fearful of what those powerful men can do than of what terrorists will do.
posted by amsterdr at 5:00 PM
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