http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2004_08_08.html#001686
Bob Harris over at This Modern World cracks a big story, and makes the case for a fall of all terror all the time.
If the right wing propaganda machine has an amplifier, this is when 'it goes to eleven.'
See extended for some selected tidbits:
from Harris' post:
I haven't seen any news stories about it, but I just got tipped by a guy who works in Washington, and this GSA page confirms: September is about to become "National Preparedness Month."
Heck, this Red Cross page flatly states that Tom Ridge will make the official announcement on September 9th.
Whoa.
.
.
Let's see... searching further... can't find anything about it on the Dept. of Homeland Security site. (No surprise; you want to maximize media impact, not piss it away with a bunch of pre-announcements. Hint to readers: letters to the editor, now, won't diminish any actual security value, but they will defuse the propaganda effect.)
However -- aha! -- the "America Prepared Campaign" has a downloadable .pdf calendar of events.
Fascinating stuff.
.
.
Other September Surprises: a whole "educate the family" campaign, with kits available at various retailers; an in-school "Ready Deputy" duck-and-cover training program; and a website called Readykids.gov (not yet online), all launched in the first week.
Brilliance. Tie the concept of Bush's only winning issue to family and children. Unspoken, deniable implication: "vote for Bush if you want your kids to live." Nice.
On the 7th, there's another newspaper supplement, then -- yep, the official announcement on the 9th. Look for Tom Ridge, possibly flanked by tremulous herds of frightened waifs, sometime around noon EST.
.
.
Bush should be called out on this, and now, by journalists, by the Kerry campaign, and by everyone who prefers actual security over campaign propaganda.
Our tipster said something I want to share:
Those of us who actually work on this sort of thing, in addition to wondering what the other 35 months since 9/11 have been, are of course not thrilled that this is so obviously being politicized.
Yes. Exactly.
It's three years after 9/11, and less than three months before an election, and now we get a National Preparedness Month.
And yes, let's ask Bush and Tom Ridge the simple question: what the hell do these people think the previous 35 months were?
links to sources and much more at This Modern World