SCARING PEOPLE SILLY
By Peter Fredson
February 22, 2006
People wearing bed sheets, Frankenstein masks, triangular black hats, try to scare people on Halloween. They say "Trick or Treat" hoping to get candy.
When I was young if you didn't get candy, or sometimes just for the hell of it, some rowdy young people would toilet-paper the yard, empty garbage cans on the porch, and in the countryside they would turn over an outhouse. But, except for some fundamentalists already terrified of sin, really nobody except the very young participants became frightened.
We have master fright-monger story tellers on radio and TV who dream up Frankenstein or Dracula monsters, creatures from the Black Lagoon, giant man-eating sharks, and crazed people with chain saws, spooks, ghosts, and motel owners who stab young ladies while they are in the shower.
Then we have the original fright tellers, who have been menacing humans for centuries. with stories about demons, Satan, Hell, Apocalypses, and what happens to little people who masturbate.
Now we have a Taliban-type President who creates terror, invents situations which are sure to create terror, purposely lies in order to instigate wars of terror, and, in order to retain this office, periodically scares the hell out of the public with fake alarms, visions of mushroom clouds, and bacteriological labs with anthrax to wipe out entire cities.
We have a President who knowingly lied to create a war against a sovereign nation where there were no terrorists, but after our illicit invasion took to terrorism in order to protect themselves against the murderous onslaught of a master liar. Bush creates terrorists by the dozen.
We are now at war with the entire world.
We have a President who utters the phrase "9/ll" unceasingly, as a pretext to destroy civil liberties, spy on his own citizens, makes warrantless arrests and detentions, unceasingly claims the right to torture and abuse anyone he deems might be involved in terror, has secret "interrogation" facilities in far-away countries, will watch and listen to private meetings and conversations, and in total acts of arrogance is even now planning acts of terror against Iran and Syria.
All this seems to stem from his self-evaluation of someone who may never be questioned, challenged, or brought to any accounting of his actions. He is above any man-made law, the anointed of the Supreme Creator, the modern Julius Caesar.
Even worse is the fact that the entire Republican legislators turn a blind eye to his depredations and vicious lies. They seem caught in a kind of Jello existence, in which they shake and wriggle in satisfaction at not doing the slightest act of evaluation or criticism. Anything, so far, goes.
We wonder if even public murder of a citizen would go unchallenged from the vast claims that he, or she, instigated terrorism. We know a number of instances where this has occurred, and citizens were murdered by guardians of public order, simply because they "acted suspicious."
This President claims the right to send a Hellfire missile to any country in the world, against anyone he labels "terrorist." In the process he does not seem to notice that for every "terrorist" he kills, he also created a dozen or a hundred people aching for understandable vengeance.
He does not seem to understand that dirty tactics do not enhance his soiled reputation of the United States.
His unitary privileges grandly overlook any diplomacy, any debate, any criticism, any legalities, and any consultation of the Constitution. The "diplomats" like John Bolton, whom he appointed by stealth, are shameful irascible creatures that should never represent any country or any organization other than the KKK or Dominionists
At present he is selling off bits of our country under the most false and reprehensible illusion. After years of shouting terror and mentioning 9/ll he is proposing to let a flood of Arabs into our country to take over some strategic port facilities.
I must ask, what happened to all the people that created our ports, managed tugboats, lifted cargo onto the docks? What happened to all the stevedores, to all the union workers, to all the many thousands of people that were perfectly capable of managing our own ports?
How in hell did the Brits get control of our docks, and how in hell can we let the Brits sell the right to manage our ports to people who have fostered terrorism, financed terrorism, and come from the same religious background which sympathizes with terrorism? Is it not because they have tons of money and millions of gallons of petroleum?
We know that Bush is not really frightened of terrorists. In the first place they can't get within striking distance of Bush. We know that Bush uses terror as a front to retain his office. We also know that Bush will consort with anyone with large amounts of money, and large amounts of oil.
Are Americans no longer capable of managing our industries? What did Bush do to all the engineers, all the mechanics, steel handlers, baggage handlers, tug boat operators, crane operators and thousands of other categories of industrial workers? Well, basically Bush outsourced them to make his corporate buddies richer than rich. Money rules the day, not terrorism.
His action is reprehensible, treasonable, unexcusable. He should be impeached immediately. His regime should be changed totally. Bush is a far-greater terrorist than Osama bin Laden. But Bush keeps replaying the Osama record until the grooves are all worn out.