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| Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933 (Wiki Commons) |
Getting close to 100 years ago now, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, in his first inaugural address, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He was referring to the devastating depression then gripping America. And he backed up his exhortation by fearlessly bashing his cabinet and Congress to enact programs to help the American people. This was very unlike anything anyone--and I sadly include Mr. Obama--has done since that smirking chimp first darkened the White House door.
These days, Americans fear just about everything. They fear "socialized medicine" which is their way of saying, "I have health insurance and I'm afraid if we make it possible for everyone to have it, then I won't be better than you."
They fear gun control, which is another way of saying, "If you take my gun, how am I going to protect myself from the people I FEAR might want to take something of mine?" Forgetting, of course, that it will be more difficult--not impossible as nothing is foolproof--for those who want to rob them to have guns, too.
They fear Arab terrorists because they think 19 of them took down the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon, and plowed a plane full of people into a Pennsylvania field. The fact that all the so-called hijackers died and could not be questioned, and that the only word we have for it that Al Qaeda was behind it came from the mouth of George W. Bush, doesn't impress them with the possibility that all may not be as it seems. The fact that physically the planes could not have taken down the towers also seems lost on them. And the fact that the BBC announced the fall of Tower 7 a full 20 minutes before the building--not hit, not even pinged or set afire--came down in a neat, implosive footprint. It doesn't even occur to them that it might not all be true despite the incontrovertible evidence that Georgie lied to them--and suborned the otherwise honorable Colin Powell into agreeing--that Iraq had WMDs.
Folks, I'm here to tell you, if you doubt even slightly the facts of 9/11 as purveyed by the government and its wholly owned news sources (political donations, people, and a weak FCC said to be run by the CIA and bob's your uncle), then you're fearing the wrong stuff.
What you need to fear is what went on in Boston today, and the almost unanimous outcry that the government is right in locking down a major city, violating human rights and hunting an alleged criminal--note, alleged, not proven guilty, not even charged yet--with all the military hardware at its disposal. The unanimous thought that this is both correct and the American way and a way to ensure their safety. One must ask: Would that be the same safety the military and police guaranteed on Monday when unknown persons for unknown reasons killed three and maimed 180 others? Would it be THAT safety you are happy to allow your freedom to be at least temporarily snatched to ensure?
Would it surprise you to realize that those very protectors, in Boston on Monday for a bombing drill exercise, were as useless as the aircraft involved in the Vigilant Guardian exercise on the East Coast on 9/11? Odd protectors, those, involved in PRECISELY what happened and able to do nothing. Are those the people you are allowing to cage you like rabbits to protect your safety? Did you not notice that after 9/11, they used your fear to erode your personal freedom substantially via the Patriot Act? To compromise your own future and your children's by engaging in at least one war--and probably two--based on lies? To destabilize the global balance of power because Little George wanted to stop those nasty Arabs from walking over Big George's face rendered in a Baghdad hotel floor mosaic after the Gulf War?
Almost universally, Americans think it is OK to hunt the alleged bomber with anything up to and possibly including nuclear devices. They think they'll have a live, arrested bomber at the end of it so they can get to the bottom of it. I think they are wrong; there is no way the bomber will live through capture.
Some of those very fearful people say he's running because he's guilty. Well, of course he would.
But also possibly he's running because he's being chased and doesn't trust law enforcement or US jurisprudence to sort it out ethically and fairly, and who could blame him? People who are caught up in US government matters such as this have a tendency to end up dead, beginning with Booth for shooting Lincoln, right through to BOTH deaths surrounding JFK's murder. The shooter and the shooter of the shooter...amazing, really. The only exception can think of is RFK's killer, Sirhan B. Sirhan.
I can't help but wonder whether Americans are so ready to trade freedom for the illusion of safety just because they have not had war on American soil (unless you count the Indian massacres) since the War of 1812. Americans didn't suffer, as a people, the horrors Europeans suffered in WWII (despite the fact that US likes to claim it "saved" Europe, although the British taking the Battle of Britain with courage and ferocity and all of Europe resisting in ways Americans never imagined had at least as much to do with it. That and Hitler being an overextended madman.)
Americans are a fearful lot, easy prey for any gormless jackass like Bush with his history of lies and no-shows, killing for fun (frogs ARE living beings), and bone-deep lack of compassion; such people, also generally excellent showmen, can play with fearful people the way cats play with mice. And Bush surely did that.
Such people are easy prey for a Congress full of bagmen who promised to keep them safe via draconian erosions of the Constitution if the citizens will just let them take baksheesh from corporations that want to own the world.
They are easy prey for media companies who understand all too well that their continued well-being depends on their convincing Americans of untruths (please see WMDs, above.)
That's enough. That's all I can stomach; it's Friday, and a good dinner will happen soon if I stop writing and start cooking.
After that, I'm taking the weekend off from worrying about how my former countrymen and women are going to justify to their kids or to themselves why they traded their inalienable rights for the hollow promise of safety from deadly acts, itself arising from their former complacence when morals-challenged dimwits like Bush pulled the wool over their eyes again and again and again.
No wonder most of the alternative press calls them sheeple.
