Be Very Afraid

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Warning: What follows is not for the politically faint of heart. Fair warning...


Here it is again. The threats of mushroom clouds over America. We've heard this before - must have been before the start of last war, I believe. Take a gander:

Excuse me, but I thought we were fighting the above wars to make us SAFER. Perhaps I missed something in the translation.

Not seeing? What kind of fool is concerned with what he is "not seeing?" WTF? Really, if there is anyone among you who believes that this is valid, please raise your hand, if you dare to appear so -- . Remember Roosevelt. Yes, when we had a real president: "WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF. Great words, hey. Courageous words, in fact. But those days are gone. Maybe, for a good, long while. Now we have these scabs instead. What do these idiots want me to do? Build a bomb shelter?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6980108/

But then this happened today:

What's the real deal here?

Nukes and more nukes. Seems they are everywhere. Let me be blunt: Folks, this is state-run propaganda. There is no other word for it. They are trying to scare us into going along with whatever they want to do. This must have been what the 1950s were like. But I'm not afraid of the unseen enemy. You know, the one we fear because we "can't see." It is the one that no longer wishes to lead this country, but desires to take it over.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6978331/

That's right, there is a difference. And it is the heart and soul of America that are in the crosshairs, but not by the "unseen" enemy. So be afraid, be very afraid.

[ February 18, 2005, 16:45: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

"Be very afraid." or "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Think it over.

This is easily the worst administration in American history--as corrupt as the Harding and Grant administrations--as venal, vicious and false as Senator McCarthy and his ilk--well-schooled in the propaganda techniques of Goebbels and Stalin--full of the smug self-satisfaction of men who have gulled a bare majority by the manipulation of phony and irrelevant issues (and who treat that openly as an all but unanimous decision)--in a situation where few indeed are willing to expose the lie, and state the obvious fact that the emperor has no clothes. History will judge them, but we have to live with them, here and now. Do what you can, whenever and wherever you can do it.

Am I ranting again? Must be the weather.

 

Sounds familiar; we have the whole "Be alert, but not alarmed" campaign in Australia. Admittedly, the place we occupy on the world stage is relatively minor, but at least the government is focusing more on doing its job than telling us to be scared. I'll give them this, though: they are absolute masters of spin. There's only one problem that I can see with this argument, which is that it almost defeats the purpose of fighting.

Of course you're going to piss people off when you invade their countries, bomb the hell out of them and kill plenty of bystanders. If someone did that to you, what would your response be? When the USA gets its nose bloodied, they bomb a few targets, or invade a couple of countries. Since you don't have a target, you have to assume everyone is out to get you unless they're your ally, never mind the reasons. And the Republicans, for any other faults they have, are not stupid - they're going to prop themselves up on this as long as it will hold. This has been foreshadowed before by Rumsfeld - a war with no end in sight, because there is no enemy to be seen. Paint the right picture, and all you need is a cowboy in the saddle to keep support high...

"It doesn't matter if it was us or someone else who stirred up this hornet's nest, because we'll protect you from these people! Trust us, we won the war in Afghanistan, we won in Iraq, and we'll keep winning as long as we have to! And if you think we're just creating more potential terrorists by doing this, remember that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and that all that it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing."

The first thing anyone should do when they read or hear something from a bureaucrat or government official in any country is ask how this benefits that person or their office. You're damn right to be suspicious, Chandos. There's no way to read that except as more of the same medicine.

 

@Cernak...Goebbels and Stalin? OMG, you have a straight man who works with you, right?

I'll have more to say for this soon...but for now, I'm too busy laughing at seeing the same people who have slammed the Bush Administration for not PREVENTING the 9/11 attacks, slander the same Adminstration for being overly cautious.

Good Stuff.

 

Hack: Straight man? Not yet. Are you applying?

Bush preventing 9/11: Well, they might've, if they'd paid a little attention to reports that I haven't yet seen contradicted.

[ February 19, 2005, 05:36: Message edited by: Cernak ]

 

So what if Iran wants to build nuclear weapons. Every country has the right to defend itself.

But getting back on topic, I predict more propaganda movies. Time for a remake of 'The Stranger' perhaps?

 

I know the question was rhetoric, but nobody wants anyone to build bomb shelters (except a few in the construction industry -- very lucrative bomb shelters are). No, no, no, you need to be armed with tons of plastic sheeting and the handyman's secret weapon... duct tape. After all, plastic and duct tape will solve all issues of contamination and other unmentionable thing that weren't mentioned by the Department of Homeland Security.

On a more serious note, terrorism has always been around and will always be around (those terrorists we like are called freedom fighters). Anytime, anyone does something some special interest group becomes offended at a terrorist group forms -- it may not be a big group, but a few people with revenge on their mind is all it takes.

Let's face it. We, in America, have pissed of A LOT of people (and not just from this administration's actions). Of course there's a A LOT of disgruntled potential terrorist. There are quite a few terrorist in America (on the FBI's terrorist watch list) most of these are US citizens who hate taxes, or hate that we abolished slavery, or hate that the rich get richer. It just stands to reason that there are some people out there really pissed that we just bombed the ba'jesus out of their former home (and probably killed a few family members).

To quote a Disney flick: WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED?

Terrorism is now a fact of life in America as much as it is for Britain and Israel. It's not propaganda (it is over-hyped, I don't like the scare tactics and the duct tape issue was just plain stupid). There are governments out there that don't like us and the fact we've waved THE BOMB threat at them for so long they want to wave it back at us.

The threat is real. But it's not as bad as the government wants us to think (after all they need to justify their pay). Still, if we're doing dead-guy quotes:

"Speak softly and carry a big stick."

 

Look on the bright side: at least we've avoided the inevitable post-Kerry election victory terrorist attack!

 

@Bion

Out of curiousity, were the terrorists going to be Republicans or foreigners?

 

@TGS: Well, at first I thought it might be foreign terrorists, as you can see in this CNN article. To be sure, I checked Fox as well, as of course CNN is part of the communist far-left MSM, and as we all know, 2004 election news was only fair and balanced if it ended with a paragraph on how Kerry was a flip-flopper. But then, after I did more research, I realized that the biggest terrorist threat was, as you suggest, actually Republican.

 

@BTA

Lessons from the past:

If you do NOT have nuclear weapons you will be attacked - Iraq.

If you ARE building nuclear weapons/have nuclear weapons you will get harsh words and/or some trade sanctions against you - North Korea

If Iran wants to avoid being invaded/liberated then they have no choice but to build these said weapons!

The US is the only country (to my knowledge) to have used nuclear weapons on innocent civillians.

 

Interesting how the US feels it is her place to remind other nations of adherence to international treaties and agreements, yet choses to refuse to be bound by them, or abandons them at will. Some nations are beyond such petty regulations, by virtue of their righteousness I suppose. Or is it nothing more than a matter of power (and the will to maintain that power)?
Makes for a peculiar situation in any event.

Indeed. Of course those civilians died for the greater good, not least the good of their own nation - or so goes the myth. Remorseless and coldblooded reasoning such as this has long since turned me away from the US. I guess the difference of right and wrong is who dies and who throws bombs.

As for the administration striking fear into the hearts of the US citizens: The oldest trick in the book. Fear is always a poor advisor, and the re-election of Bush proves that much. Fear will compromise and take away one's freedom of choice. One will be all too prepared to give it up for the illusion of security. I for one am always wary of the intentions of people who utilize fear. They are brothers in spirit of terrorists.

 

You don't get the point, Iran joined the anti nuclear party, and so officialy swore off Nuclear weapons, if Iran wants to develop the nuclear weapons so badly, then they should remove themselves from the treaty.

Nobody is stopping them from leaving, US is just reminding them that they swore of nuclear weapons and are now violating the treaty.

Do you think that millions and millions of people should die for every square mile of japanese soil?

 

Others have already said it here, but I'll say it again: If the US really want treaties to not be violated, let THEM stop violating every one of them.

Maybe they could set up a good example for the rest of the world to follow

 

Their public statements have only weakened my confidence in them. Should I feel better about their abilities because they don't know anything? Therefore, we should just act aggressively out of fear? That doesn't make any sense to me. Before we start attacking and killing people we need real, reliable info. That's THEIR job, at least I thought it was. Now America wants to act on pure instinct and fear. This is really a serious question: How far are you willing to go along with these guys?

 

Morgoth, my point is that a nation, otherwise not overly concerned with treaties, is suddenly making itself a champion of multilateral affairs. I find this to be as convincing as their flair for human rights - with Guantanamo around the corner.
To me it all looks rather selective.

Even better we have again rumors and threats of pre-emptive strikes and such. I wouldnt call those 'reminders'.
Maybe the US is afraid of the example it has given in the past? *cough*hiroshima*cough* Who knows, their karma might be coming back to them. And their fear of it might be what will bring it about. A self-fulfilling prophecy.

Killing millions of civilians? I dont want to go completely off-topic... but you shouldnt buy their propaganda. A little research will reveal that Japan was quite prepared to surrender. Details details.
However, thats another story.

 

I feel sorry for the poor saps working as analysts in the US intelligence services. The job has got to be boring -- looking through tons of newspapers, magazine articles, phone conversations, web sites, etc. to find anything which MIGHT signify a threat.

If they miss one, someone wants them fired. If they pull the plug early, someone wants them fired. It has to be one of the worst jobs to have -- someone always wants to put various parts of the anotomy in a vice for something.

An analyst is just a person trying to do the best he/she can knowing that if they make a mistake someone could die. They predicted the trade towers, nobody listened -- no one believed such a thing could happen in the US.