Fear and What to Fear
Regarding the question on fuel processing plants overseas - when the successful strike is made by terrorists on the fuel processing plants in Saudi Arabia, the world will know it — that’s what I was primarily talking about. Our current glut of cheap gasoline is hardly very interesting to me or anyone else, since it suddenly appears right at “voting” time. They’ll find reasons to raise the price immediately after you punch in your votes.
The idea that they have processed too much fuel for cars and trucks here at home and have to lower the cost to get rid of it seems to be a ridiculous concept to me. The sudden release in reserves simply dropped prices like a rock just prior to National Elections — oh, duh! There could be other reasons, like other suppliers manipulating our voting process as well, but we’ll never know because we have no real news source we can trust any longer. It’s our own fault of course. The larger portion of the general public that chose to change their channels to “Hardcopy” rather than pay attention to real news, which is what drove real news collection by real reporters overseas completely off the air, has demonstrated real democracy in action.
We simply get what we ask for, while those who own things continue to chase the cheaper end, all the while raising costs, and walking off to the bank with all the cream off the top. Sheep are sheep and sheep shearers are and forever will remain sheep shearers.
We’ve really victimized ourselves here because the crushing demands on two working adults in every family now trying to make ends meet has made our time very precious to us. Trying to take the time to understand what’s actually going on is no longer even possible. We the public have demanded shorter and shorter sound bites from the nearly non-existent news media. When we tuned to “Hardcopy,” we tuned out our much needed support to worldwide news bureaus at a time they most required it. They were shut down, consolidated, traded off, or eaten up in the resultant buyouts. The long histories of cooperation, trust, and deep seated connections they had throughout the world were permanently severed. They no longer have access to the news they need to keep us informed. They aren’t there anymore.
Now we demand news that no one can provide. In our anger at being bilked, we now listen to or watch the radical radio or television shows that give us what we want to hear or see, what makes us comfortable, at a time when we are feeling even more stressed and afraid. So, now as a public, we are systematically being broken up into groups of radically-thinking bigoted idiots, and we haven’t got a clue that’s even happened to us. We’ve stopped critically thinking for ourselves because we haven’t time for it.
We go to churches where Crusades are being preached against major elements of our own countrymen, at a time when we should be coming together to weather the storm. And by the way, this isn’t a new crisis folks. Terrorism of this kind has been with us since the mid-sixties or long before that. What’s changed is that back then and up until 9/11 it was fought clandestinely and the average American just didn’t hear about it. And of course the numbers were much smaller back then — or were they? Has politicizing terrorism raised it to hero status and increased its financial and recruitment support a multi-mega-fold? I suggest it has.
First, look at the numbers. There were lots of terrorists back in the eighties. If you doubt my word on this, I suggest, no, beg that you at least obtain and look at one of the copies on “International Terrorism in the 1980s — A Chronology of Events” There are two volumes. Volume !, 1980 — 1983, and Volume II, 1984 — 1987, [Mickolus, Sandler, and Murdock; Iowa State University Press, 1989]. They both list hundreds of terrorist organizations and literally thousands of terrorists events, many of which occurred right here in America, many of which killed American citizens in their homes and work spaces. It went on for decades and no one apparently was aware even though it was public data. Now suddenly the war is public and the data is classified. Go figure! And now that terrorism has been politicized many of the groups who wouldn’t have been caught dead cooperating in the 1980s will now. There’s now an unending supply of volunteers for the terrorists ranks because the label “Freedom Fighter” has attained a heroic or an almost mythical reputation in some areas of the world. And the level of monitory donations to the cause has gone off the charts, where before they were lucky to find enough cash to eat day to day.
What’s my point? Well, a decision was made soon after 9/11 to turn it into a public “War on Terror,” which began to use your “gut level induced fear” to change things in America. What things? How you live your life and how you feel about your guaranteed freedoms under the Constitution. For instance; there are illiterate people of color in this country who have never missed a chance to vote. They live on land given to their family, family’s, family’s, family who were originally slaves, and this can be proven in a court of law. Of course they can’t afford to prove it because they hardly make enough money to pay the taxes on it from year to year. Many of them no longer drive and they certainly do not own passports, but our Congress and Senate who have bought the old fashioned model for what fighting a war means, is currently attempting to change the law, which will require these people to provide proof they are United States Citizens. A ridiculous notion when they’ve not changed their address for nearly 200-years.
There are also mountain people, desert dwellers, ranch hands, farm workers, migrant workers, crop pickers, cutters, shearers, harvesters, herders, miners, diggers, day laborers, unskilled carpenters, and I could go on — basically your below minimum wage American poor who are legal citizens of this country who are about to be disenfranchised, not because they don’t have a drivers license or can’t prove where they live, but because they might not be able to obtain a birth certificate or never owned a passport.
I learned a very long time ago, in a number of other wars, where we tried to instill Democracy. When you counter terrorism, you counter it from the bottom up, not the top down. If the people begin to feel policed, oppressed, and controlled, then they will begin to feel terrorized and afraid. The disenfranchised and unemployed poor are the very ripe recruiting grounds for terrorists. In order for any terrorist to operate they need to live among the people. If they can’t, they cannot hide, they cannot survive, and they will eventually fail in their mission. You need the cooperation of the people, especially the people at the bottom of the totem pole.
You go first and foremost to the people for help to counter terrorism you don’t change the laws to control the people. That’s something I do not believe our government has come to understand yet. They’ve not spoken to anyone in this country about what they need from us that’s of a positive nature, they’ve not asked for the help of the American people, they’ve not treated us with respect, and they haven’t provided or issued a single positive letter of guidance to help reduce the fear which they carry much of the responsibility for having created. Enough said.
