Faithful Democrats - America: Home of the What??

America: Home of the What??

By Stan Moody

Dec. 31, 07 14:41

Tags: Black Church, Catholic, Economic Justice, Evangelical, Interfaith, Mainline Protestant, Other Christians, Politics, Race and Ethnicity, War and Peace,

We have all heard of the occasional 7-yr. old kid who brings a plastic squirt gun to school in his backpack (sans water) or draws a picture of a firecracker. The local version of Homeland Security is alerted, dispatches its terrorist unit, puts the second grader in shackles and takes him away. The Principal then suspends him for 30 days, and the parents file a lawsuit that goes nowhere.

Let's hear it for the humorless who keep America safe.

Then there is the other extreme - Presidents and wanna-be's protecting us from "them," "them" being folks far enough away so as not to look like us, talk like us, worship like us nor shop like us.

Over the weekend of Dec. 28, candidate Fred Thompson, his eye glued to the monitor, ran an ad in Iowa, expressing his desire to "talk quietly" with the voters. Quietly, he reminded them that "...most Americans know that the terrorists won't rest until a mushroom cloud hangs over one of our cities."[1] If we can stop the kid with the squirt gun we may go a long way toward preventing that from happening. It's something akin to putting a condom on an AK-47.

As the New Year gets underway, I found myself giving some thought as to the extent of terrorist activities worldwide. So I ran a search and came up with a website that flags all the terrorist acts in the world and updates every 310 seconds.[2] The information there is nothing less than riveting.

As I write, a bomb blast is reported in the Philippines, injuring an undetermined number of people. In Thailand, three bombs explode simultaneously, injuring 27. In Sri Lanka, the army intends to kill 10 Tamil rebels a day. In India, police recover 6 crude bombs on a bus. In Pakistan, 30 railway stations, 12 coaches and 9 bridges are torched, 4 children are killed, a school is bombed and a police checkpoint is attacked and 10 military police kidnapped.

In Baghdad, a bomb hidden in a minivan kills two. In Egypt, Hamas holds 1700 passengers of two ferries hostage in the Gulf of Aqaba.

I wondered what might be happening here in the US where, according to Thompson, terrorists won't rest until there is a mushroom bomb over one of our cities.

In Texas, a bombsquad responds to a suspicious device. In Oklahoma, a suspicious device causes street closure near a Federal office building. In Oregon, max rail service is disrupted when a suspicious device is found. In California, a teen allegedly shines a laser beam at an airport bus and a helicopter. In Florida, a plane is diverted to Miami because of an unruly passenger - same thing in PA. In Massachusetts, an arrest is made in a flag burning incident. In New York, a suspicious white powder spurs probe at a Saratoga County office building.

In New Mexico it is reported that abortion clinics are always on alert in the aftermath of violence. In Missouri, the Lenexa post office re-opens after a threat. In DC, police investigate a suspicious vehicle at Reagan Airport. In S. Carolina, police discover a grenade in the parking lot at Hardees Restaurant near Wal Mart. In Virginia, explosives are found in Suffolk.

How we get from there to preventing the mushroom cloud is not quite clear, but it seems more or less like business as usual in River City. I am reminded of an old Bob Newhart routine from his album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. It begins like this: "You have heard of heroic teams of experts disarming a bomb. I wondered what it would be like for a team of not-so experts to disarm a bomb."

He pictures a lazy town on the ocean, where a deputy calls in about a "shell" on the beach. "Do you think that's unusual, Wally, to find a shell on the beach? Oh, it's not that kind of shell. What kind of shell is it, Wally? Oh, I was hoping that was your watch ticking." It goes downhill from there, and the shell eventually sinks a fishing trawler.

I have no idea what Fred Thompson's plan is for averting mushroom clouds, but somehow there is an awfully big disconnect between an exploding bus in India and baby powder at a Saratoga County office building.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VblJq4j0_SE

[2] http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php

LIST OF COMMENTS

1/5. What makes you think it is legitimate?

Stan - what makes you think that this website is legitimate? It could be just another tool of the fear mongers. Did you look at the creator of this site to see their political intentions? Did you google the creator's other sites to see if they were loaded with right wing neocon Bushie propaganda? Did you spend any time finding out any information on this website's creator to see if they have politically motivated affiliations?

Not everything published on the web is true. Sometimes, It is nothing but disinformation which reminds me so much of Orwell's story "1984". I am not saying the web is bad but people should remember that it is a tool to further peoples own personal motives. Sometimes these motives are honest and sometimes these motives are deceptive.

Besides Thompson is irrellevant at this point. I am more worried about John McCain saying last night in NH that he would not care if US troops were in Iraq for the next 100 years. Or Rudy Guiliani trying to make himself a hero when he was far from it. Don't believe me, ask a 911 firefighter who is dying from lung disease.

1 John says: Perfect love casteth out fear because fear hath torment. That word torment translates into worry.

So when they run on fear, well that just seems like an oxymoron to me.

2/5. My Point Must Have Been Too Subtle

Regardless of who produces it, the point I was trying to make was that while terrorism is a life and death struggle in other parts of the world, here in the US we are sending squat teams to check out powdered sugar...

This suggests to me that everything between powdered sugar and a mushroom cloud is up for grabs...It may fall into the category of "straining at gnats while swallowing camels."

While it could be said that taking care of the little stuff indicates readiness for the big stuff, I have my doubts about the capacity of Homeland Security to do much of anything but pad the budget...My instincts are fed by their involvement in the Hurricane Katrina matter, indicating that they serve as a Federal police force rather than as a defense against terrorism...Every state has its own federally-financed homeland security division waiting for the "call."

Remember, as well, that one of the functions of Homeland Security is to enforce the provisions of the scandalous Patriot Act...That brings them ostensibly to your door and mine...

4/5. Much ado about nothing....

There are a lot of Nuclear Weapons on this planet, and it seems likely that some of them may have vanished. I don't think its anything new to say that very wealthy people in the middle east have been buying weapons from the members of the UN Security Council. Rumor has it that was Business as usual during the Cold War.

Having Homeland Security makes a lot of sense.

Now I'm not a panic-monger, and I think it is absurd to suggest that the only way we can have security is by voting for one party or another. However, if we look at the realities of our World, the threat of terrorist violence inside the U.S. is not from the Middle-East.

The real threat of terrorism is from criminals. Anti-social members of our society that are willing to strike into the heart of our families. And in this, the danger is that criminals are of every creed, every religion, every race, and every income.

Last Updated ( Dec. 31, 07 19:09 )

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