Like Pavlov's dogs, most Americans begin drooling when the mass-media rings the terrorist dinner bell. The purpose of terrorism is to coerce a person or group of people to alter their behavior due to fear; the conquest is achieved by the alteration of behavior.
For women, non-whites, non-Christians, and members of the GLBT community, terrorism has been part of our lives long before the planes slammed into the world trade center. The vast majority of us have altered our behavior based on fear of retaliation since our earliest moment of self-awareness.
- We have been raped.
- We have been beaten.
- We have been shot by police when unarmed.
- We have lost our jobs, been made homeless, jailed, harassed,
and estranged by our families.
In most of the cases above, the violence is intended to "teach a lesson" to someone breaking the gender, race, or class rules of the local clan. We've all heard the mutterings during or after the fact: "You shouldn't have gone there..." "You shouldn't have worn that..." "You shouldn't have held that person's hand..."
Ironically, we have far more to fear when a police officer pulls us over on a quiet, dark road than we do of an ISIS terrorist blowing us up in some random location.
Despite the obvious mathematics, the GOP is going into full-fear-mode. EBOLA, ISIS, the gays, the brown people, the 47%.... all of them are out to get YOU! Sadly, the media, along with most Americans, are gobbling up the headlines like Pavlov's rewarded dogs.
According to the GOP's bastion of intellectual thought, senator-wannabe Scott Brown:
"Anyone who turns on the TV these days knows we face challenges to our way of life, radical Islamic terrorists are threatening to cause the collapse of our country."
Really Scott, you truly believe that America is so weak that we can't deal with terrorism? Scott is showing that his best work was done decades ago when he was a naked pin-up model that we begged not to speak lest he display the vapidness within.
Here's a newsflash GOP:
This year in America...
- Approximately 90,000 women will be raped.
- Thousands of us will be victims of violent hate crimes.
- Tens of thousands will die by gunfire.
- Some of our children will be killed in their schools.
- ~700 employees will become homicide victims at work.
- ~ 45,000 Americans will die because they have no health insurance.
In 2013, 5 people died in the US as a result of "terrorism."
Here's what really scares me:
- That I will get sick while uninsured.
- That my job will be outsourced to give a hedge-fund manager an
extra 2 cents/share dividend and my family will become homeless.
- That a racist, misogynist, or homophobic FOX news viewer will succumb
to the violence-trolling rhetoric of the conservative right-wing and
the resulting violence will spill into my life.
- That the radical right wing will continue tripping over themselves in an
overzealous effort to "out-christian" each other and the result will be laws
damaging to those that I love.
- That my right to make my own healthcare decisions will be taken away from me.
- That elected officials will strip funding away from our infrastructure and taking
care of our most needy citizens in order to fatten the wallets of the 1% under
the guise of "protection."
Fear sells. The GOP always needs an enemy, a "them" to be afraid of. They need someone to hate. The GOP loves to use the claim "I'm not a scientist." when defending their ignorance and denial of climate change. Well, the same applies when they babble about ISIS or Ebola. The vast majority of them are not virologists or military experts and thus their rhetoric should be ignored.
Let common sense, mathematics, and science be our guides. Terrorism has ALWAYS existed and will continue to exist. For the vast majority of us, we have been fighting it all our lives without realizing it. Let the straight, white, christian republican men get their panties in a knot every time a nut with a hatchet goes wild in a subway. For the rest of us, I suggest we remain focused on the larger threats to our families. As President Obama once said, "When you're President of the United States you've got to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,..."
As a country, we can repair our infrastructure, honor our commitment to our senior citizens and veterans, take care of our neediest citizens, AND protect our homeland at the same time. Stay calm and vote with an eye on the true issues that threaten the security of our nation and families.