Freaking out the wrong thing to do
What our great Orange Master says:
Conservatives simply don't understand the real threat, which is international and domestic terrorism carried out by ideological and religious extremists. The people killed by Tim McVeigh are just as dead as the people killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
But terrorists need a basic level of functional ability, as any good law enforcement officer would immediately understand.
Wetting the bed at crazy talk by losers who can't tie their own shoes may be good politics, or so the Bedwetter Faction thinks, but in the end it dulls the public to the real threat. The media may fall for it every time, but normal people aren't even listening to the baloney any more.
Only progressives understand the real threats, both because we say so (to answer conservative logic with similar logic) and because there is more than one type of threat. But the threats have one thing in common: they are the result of extremism. There are Muslim extremists, Christian extremists, Jewish extremists, right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists. None of them represent democracy as embodied by American ideals.
"Terror" is a tactic, not an ideology. German locomotive engineers in France in 1944 were probably justly terrified that partisans would attack them, but in the interest of destroying the Nazi state it was justifiable for the French to disrupt the German war machine. But there's really no doubt that French freedom fighters were right and the Nazis were wrong.
The U.S. is not a fascist state, nor is Israel. The people in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the airliners did not deserve their fate. Ordinary people in Israeli pizzerias and Palestinian refugee camps and the West Bank (and Baghdad for that matter) don't necessarily deserve their fate either.
The real enemy is anti-democratic extremism, be it racist, religious, fascistic or some combination thereof. Either one's movement embraces the ideals embodied in the U.S. Constitution and other democratic traditions, or it doesn't. There can be localized modifications to democracy around the world based on local cultures, but broadly speaking the right to life, liberty and happiness is endowed to all people by their Creator, as some dead white guys once put it.
Not so shockingly, there are movements within the United States that don't always live up to these ideals. Racism, homophobia, xenophobia, religious bigotry and misogyny still rear their ugly heads from time to time. So while Islamic extremism is indeed a grave threat, now and then it would be refreshing if we acknowledge that our own society is less than perfect, and that the way forward should not involve creating more classes of people to hate based on who they are rather than the actions they take.
The idea that Islam is a single, monolithic entity is patently ridiculous on the face of it, but sometimes Republicans veer dangerously close to endorsing that claim. If Joe Zarelli, for example, is going to have a conference about Israel, he takes some responsibility for who he invites and what that person stands for.
And before the government goes crying "wolf," it should take measure of what it is telling the public. It's happened too many times now, and that's a threat to everyone.
Remember, the whole point of terrorism is to sow terror. Every time a conservative or the Bush Adminsitration freaks out at a potential act of terrorism, the terrorist win. They don't actually have to set off the bomb, they just need to scare people. So every freak out is a victory for the enemy. Fox News? One of the terrorists' biggest allies. The Bush Administration? The terrorists couldn't have done it without them. And those "manly men" conservatives that are perpetually wetting themselves in fear?If only our culture had a cautionary tale about what happens to little boys (and US attorneys in Brooklyn) who cry "wolf," maybe they would stop it with the Hyperbole Alerts.
Well, when even the most hapless, incompetent, laughably unworkable plots get them riled up in a tizzy, you don't even need competent terrorists to be effective.
Conservatives simply don't understand the real threat, which is international and domestic terrorism carried out by ideological and religious extremists. The people killed by Tim McVeigh are just as dead as the people killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
But terrorists need a basic level of functional ability, as any good law enforcement officer would immediately understand.
Wetting the bed at crazy talk by losers who can't tie their own shoes may be good politics, or so the Bedwetter Faction thinks, but in the end it dulls the public to the real threat. The media may fall for it every time, but normal people aren't even listening to the baloney any more.
Only progressives understand the real threats, both because we say so (to answer conservative logic with similar logic) and because there is more than one type of threat. But the threats have one thing in common: they are the result of extremism. There are Muslim extremists, Christian extremists, Jewish extremists, right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists. None of them represent democracy as embodied by American ideals.
"Terror" is a tactic, not an ideology. German locomotive engineers in France in 1944 were probably justly terrified that partisans would attack them, but in the interest of destroying the Nazi state it was justifiable for the French to disrupt the German war machine. But there's really no doubt that French freedom fighters were right and the Nazis were wrong.
The U.S. is not a fascist state, nor is Israel. The people in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the airliners did not deserve their fate. Ordinary people in Israeli pizzerias and Palestinian refugee camps and the West Bank (and Baghdad for that matter) don't necessarily deserve their fate either.
The real enemy is anti-democratic extremism, be it racist, religious, fascistic or some combination thereof. Either one's movement embraces the ideals embodied in the U.S. Constitution and other democratic traditions, or it doesn't. There can be localized modifications to democracy around the world based on local cultures, but broadly speaking the right to life, liberty and happiness is endowed to all people by their Creator, as some dead white guys once put it.
Not so shockingly, there are movements within the United States that don't always live up to these ideals. Racism, homophobia, xenophobia, religious bigotry and misogyny still rear their ugly heads from time to time. So while Islamic extremism is indeed a grave threat, now and then it would be refreshing if we acknowledge that our own society is less than perfect, and that the way forward should not involve creating more classes of people to hate based on who they are rather than the actions they take.
The idea that Islam is a single, monolithic entity is patently ridiculous on the face of it, but sometimes Republicans veer dangerously close to endorsing that claim. If Joe Zarelli, for example, is going to have a conference about Israel, he takes some responsibility for who he invites and what that person stands for.
And before the government goes crying "wolf," it should take measure of what it is telling the public. It's happened too many times now, and that's a threat to everyone.
