CHICKEN LITTLE GETS A REALITY CHECK


I suppose that this is one of those “half full or half empty” problems. The events of 9/11 are proof of the fact that we were long overdue for a wake-up call in the harsh world of terror politics. Of course, we had a whole list of calls prior to the events in New York. The World Trade Center itself was attempted the year before. And Al Quida had already tried to sink one our ships, and crazies have been blowing themselves up on the streets of Jerusalem long enough for it to become a commonplace. Of course, that stuff only happens in foreign places where life is cheap and we could care less. What the heck, that don’t happen here. Middle class people with full cable including HBO and IRAs don’t have to deal with terror, right? That’s strictly for the mud people, right?

I suppose that we were too sanguine at that time because we had assumed that the FBI and the CIA or SWAT or one of the other mysterious cop acronyms that we pay taxes for had a handle on things and we could continue to overlook those wacky lunatics like Osama the same way we overlook Jerry Falwell and Malcolm X. You know, maybe a little dangerous, but come on... this is America. Land of the free and home of the pocket fisherman.

Suddenly the TV screens were filled with ugly pictures of American helplessness. Hey, can this be happening? What happened to the perfect anti-terror branch of the FBI as seen on TV? How come they didn’t allow us to continue our slumbers? Heck, they had averted the last fifty dozen attempts to humble us. How dare they be anything less than perfect? One moment we were gorging ourselves at an all you can eat breakfast buffet complete with sugary crepes and the next moment we were watching weaponized airliners plunging against the sides of stock brokerages and careening into the sides of the Pentagon while sausage gravy dripped off our chins onto our dress shirts. What the hell is this?

Of course, right then we got a telling lesson in the power of government, and the pointlessness of exercising power with only hindsight as a guide. Immediately, the skys were swept clear of ALL air traffic. I mean all of it. Suddenly, the vultures were up there alone with only a few B-52s for company. Let’s get that barn door closed before something else happens! And the government, in its finite wisdom, closed the barn doors with an echoing thump. Emphatically. As if Pandora would ever come back. Sigh.

The last couple of years have seen a gigantic shift in the mission of the FBI, the local police, and security both internal and external in all of our institutions. We have accepted the necessity of having minimum wage trolls pawing through our dirty laundry and groping our daughters at airports. Gee, we must look like ragheads. The government says that they need to be able to peer into our clandestine use of library cards in order to protect us from Osama. Huh? Oh, well, you now... security. Well, OK. You want me to come where? Camp Zero? That’s right next to the Holocaust Museum, isn’t it? And while they’re at it, they need to do an end run around the Bill of Rights. Huh? They say that the “war against terror” makes it necessary for them to suspend habias corpus, or at least have that power if they decide to use it... but heck, it’s for security. Uh... Hey, if you weren’t some sort of asshat pinko raghead liberal suckwad you’d proudly give up the keys to the gates of the kingdom and help the government with these clumsy gas valves on the showers at the relocation camps! What? We’re the government.. we’re here to protect you! Yeah, after the fact. OK... you looked at my library card. Has that power caught Osama? No. Have you caught Saddam? No? But gee, you mean he wasn’t hiding in my dirty laundry out at Orlando International Airport? Go figure.

Gee, guys... I guess I got it all wrong. It’s all for my own protection, right? Security... right? As long as you have unlimited power to do what ever you want then I shouldn’t be afraid that you might abuse that power. Please.

It’s time to screw your head back on straight folks. There is no such thing as the “war on terror”. That’s just a bit of jingoism that worked nicely at feeding on our fears after these cretins made us feel stupid and vulnerable on 9/11. Wars are organized acts of aggression conducted by one government against another when reason and diplomacy have failed to serve their political needs. What happened in New York was a criminal act perpetrated by a group of thugs with a lunatic agenda that is based on a deep misunderstanding of who they are and who we are. Those boneheads thought that they could strike out against American capitalism by knocking down an office building or two. That’s the same kind of brain dead thinking that causes some criminal loonies to bomb abortion clinics thinking that if they kill a few doctors and nurses and maybe a few sad, frightened pregnant high school girls they are striking a blow for Christianity. Cordite can’t be used as incense. If you think otherwise you’re as stupid as the nuts who do this kind of low criminal deed. What? God’s work ? Sword of Allah? Give me a break! Retards.

These thugs call themselves soldiers of Allah but they are not soldiers, they’re criminals, and should be treated as such. Soldiers are honorable men fighting for their country and their communities. We don’t need better terror-seeking laser guided arab bonkers. We need better police work. Find the assholes and put them in jail, and if they have committed capital crimes then prosecute them, and if they’re guilty as charged then strap them down in Old Sparky and flip the switch. But let’s do it after the mud people have been before a judge and jury. The last thing we need is to give a blank check to a collection of bone heads who may not be in office long enough to lighten up on their own rhetoric. This ain’t TV folks. We can’t solve every problem in a 30 minute time slot and still have time for a few tampon ads.

Why do we do all these things? Well, we have to DO SOMETHING! If we don’t look like we’re on top of things “they” might find out that we don’t have a clue. We’ve got to get tough on something, even if it’s just ourselves. We can start out being tough this way because we have that capacity. To do anything else might require some careful thought and an intelligent exercise of our very real power to bring about serious change. Do we really want this? I wonder. If we don’t then... then... then what? They might not like us? Hell, they hate us now. Is there anything we can do about it? Not in the short run. But we can use the same strategy that the early Church used with the Romans and the Barbarians. Subversion through absorption. If we can turn all the ragheads into card carrying capitalists they’re not likely to want to blow up their stock brokerages. Heck, it worked on the Russians. We wore them out with money. Fast food and retirement plans, tampons and pocket fishermen. How can they be our enemies? These days, we’re begging rides from them on their space shuttles because ours in in the shop. Why can’t that work in the land of Allah?

Listen folks, Hillary wants to run. Do you want for her to inherit this kind of leverage? That thought makes my blood run cold.

Bob