When I was a kid, there was a very real possibility that civilization as we knew it could cease to exist within the span of a few minutes. The Soviet Union and the United States between them had 10,000 or so nuclear warheads pointed at each other, and
once or
twice came very close to using them.
The citizens of this country had a very good reason to be terrified. But, generally, we weren't.
(Cross-posted on My Left Wing)
This state of nuclear peril lasted the better part of 40 years. During those 40 years Joe McCarthy came and went, as did Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, the John Birch Society, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, duck-and-cover drills, bomb shelters, Nikita Khrushchev, Alexander Haig, Robert MacNamara, The Domino Theory, and tailfins on cars.
Somehow America as a nation survived all those things. Somehow we managed to wend our way through a few recessions, integration of public schools, 14 days in October, putting men on the moon, several ill-advised wars - including one in Southeast Asia that cost 58,000 American and untold Vietnamese lives - two national scandals involving abuse of presidential power, a handful of political assassinations in this country and several abroad, water cannons and German shepherds, Kent State, OPEC and John Hinckley.
Yes, Americans had plenty of things to be terrified of during those times. Mostly, though, we could rightly have been terrified of literally having everything we knew and loved snuffed out in the time it took to fuel, launch, tip-over, and strike target. Not just the American way of life, but America itself, was truly threatened with utter and near-instantaneous destruction.
But - somehow - America managed to get through all of those years of peril without losing its moral and philosophical bearings. For every Joseph McCarthy, there was a Joseph Welch. For every J. Edgar Hoover or John Mitchell, there was a Frank Church or John Sirica. Although Constitutional provisions were on occasion breached, those transgressions - at least until the 1980s - were addressed and rectified. America and Americans - in the face of real, objective peril - enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, liberty and safety.
But I guess the modern-day Republicans were right:
9/11 changed everything.
No longer would Americans enjoy civil liberties that were the envy of the entire planet. No longer would America hold the high moral ground when it came to its treatment of those it had captured in battle. No longer would Americans know the security of a booming economy, steady well-paying employment, and a federal government that would step in and lend a helping hand when disaster struck. No longer could Americans feel safe in America.
No, all of those pillars of The American Way of Life that Americans had taken for granted during all of the decades of the Cold War and the first decade since - all of them had to be sacrificed for the Global War on Terror.
But, oddly, it wasn't The Terrorists who took them away. It was the American government, run by Republicans.
The Republicans have decided that the Terror Threat Level has been Elevated or High every day since it was introduced MORE THAN FOUR YEARS AGO. That's a total of 52 months, exactly, today.
Wow. Somehow we managed during the Cold War, when we had 5,000 or so nuclear weapons aimed at us with deadly certainty, to get along without a nifty Threat Level indicator. I suppose that's only because George Bush's marketing people are so much better than Dwight Eisenhower's were; otherwise, Ike would've figured out how to include a SWELL FULL-COLOR THREAT LEVEL INDICATOR IN EVERY JAR OF DELICIOUS CHOCOLATE OVALTINE!
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But, no, we merely had to grope our way through the Soviet-induced darkness without the benefit of illegal phone monitoring, illegal physical searches, illegal Executive overrides of Congressional oversight, illegal overseas secret prisons, illegal pre-emptive wars against uninvolved third parties - well, you get the idea.
Huh. I guess I can understand why we had to do without all of those neato Republican-created-and-enabled Executive Terror-Huntin' Tools - I mean, all we were facing was 5,000 nuclear warheads, all aimed at us by a hostile enemy, whereas today - my goodness! - we Americans have serious terror threats facing us. Threats like:
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- A bunch of brain surgeons who haven't quite figured out that they'll need to fit about 2,000 pounds of explosives into their backpacks in order to blow up the Port Authority subway tunnel from New Jersey - and that even if they were freakin' Superman and could pack that much ammonium nitrate and diesel into their Jansport, they still wouldn't succeed in flooding Manhattan with the Hudson River water rushing into the tube
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- A bunch of Miami nutcases with "jihad boots" and a Bible, a veritable army of 7 prepared to wage a "full ground war" against the United States
- The son of an ice-cream vendor in the jihadist hotbed of Lodi, California, who evidently lent new meaning to the code word, "Bomb Pop"
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- Don't forget the Lackawanna Six, arrested almost exactly a symbolic year after The Event That Changed Everything, Including The Constitution.
- And if those weren't enough to frighten you into Constitutional submission, even the Canadians are growing terrorists in the Great White North, complete with paintball guns and camo pants!
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Whew. I'm shaking in my Anti-jihad boots.
But I do feel much better knowing, as Alkibiadesdog pointed out in his diary, that our Department of Homeland Security has stepped into the minds of top-flight Al Qaeda operatives like those notorious assassins listed above. How do I know this? Why, because their list of top potential terrorist targets in the United States, painstakingly assembled following years of careful analysis and Al-Qaeda-like brainstorming sessions, no doubt - perhaps even including some of the key #3 Al Qaeda operatives from the above list - includes such "unusual or out-of-place" sites "whose criticality is not readily apparent" as Old MacDonald's Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, the Mule Day Parade, the Sweetwater Flea Market and an unspecified "Beach at End of a Street."
<awkward silence>
Yes. Well -
Ahhh, so here we are. Terrified.
<clears throat>
But, ya know, I think I've figured out what it is that Americans are really terrified of. And it's not some guys who want to wage a "full ground war" against the United States - or even to crash planes into buildings. Things like that don't really do much damage to The American Way Of Life - only stupid fear-fueled knee-jerk measures taken after such attacks will accomplish that.
No, I think what truly terrify Americans are things like these:
- Not having any medical insurance for you or your kids
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- Not knowing whether your job will be outsourced next month to India
- Sending your son or daughter to serve in the military, knowing their life may be sacrificed in an illegal, immoral war
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- Hearing your President voice the thought of using nuclear weapons
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- Knowing that the next time a hurricane, earthquake, flood, or tornado hits, your government will not be there to lend a hand
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A lot of time, money and energy have been expended on this tragic, pathetic joke of a "War on Terror." We know there are Bad Guys Out There. Always have been. Always will be. Terrific. You have our permission and support to really go get them, to do what's truly necessary and right in the fight against criminals, hoodlums, torturers, and psychopathic killers. But please don't waste our precious, precious resources - including the blood of our children - to compensate for some sordid personal shortcomings that are entirely your own responsibility.
Instead, how about this idea, Mr. President and Republican Congress -
How about you spend all those resources on making Americans feel TRULY safer about the things that terrify them most?
(Here's a hint: None of those things speaks Arabic.) Now - GET GOING!