It occurs to me now that the era of Bush is much like the era of Reagan in that both are times of fear and dread. In the era of Reagan we lived in constant fear of the red menace and total nuclear war. Movies like War Games and Red Dawn pounded into us the pressing menace of war with the Russians. And yet, it's clear now that that we were never in any great danger of invasion, and that the cold war, at that time, was no where near as hot as it had been in the days of Kennedy and Johnson.
And here we are, living in fear again. If you listen to the right wing pundits we are fighting World War III, and terror is looming at any local mall or cinema, and god help you if you vote, because they will surely attack that. Tom Ridge has gone so far as to plan for suspension of elections due to terrorist attack.
Seems a bit odd to me since, statistically speaking, if you had been in New York City on September 11th your odds of dying were one in two thounsand. Your odds of dying if you were in the World Trade Center complex were one in eight.
Jack is taking the all-too-common left-wing unrealistic-liberal-with-head-buried-in-the-sand that other kooks like Michael Moore have taken. They try to down play the threat terrorism presents so we might continue the Clinton era "business as usual" approach which solved no problems. Specifically, he didn't solve the problems of health care and social security, though we had an artifical "surplus" and an artifical "boom" with no-revenue dot coms being worth a billion dollars one day and zero the next. Corporations and Wall Street were rampant with criminality during Clinton's time as well; just now are these corporate con-men being brought to justice. Intelligent people in this country, however, treated 9/11 as a wake-up call, which it was. We can no longer pretend the terrorist threat doesn't exist; this country and this planet are in a precarious condition. 9/11 was also part of the post-Clinton economic hangover we've been experiencing.
Terrorists want every man, woman and child in the United Stated to be killed. This is no over-estimation; this comes directly from their literature/propaganda. The numbers Jack is quoting about WTC deaths seem BS to me, is insensitive to those of us who lost loved loved ones in that tragedy, and as usual doesn't list any evidence or sources, but that's besides the point. The real damage terrorism does is to create an environment of "fear and dread" anyways. Unfortunately, a small number of people can do a disproportianate amount of harm.
The big difference between 2004 and 1984, besides the fact that Russia is no longer a threat (thanks to Reagan's foreign policy), is that we can no longer ignore terrorism; it's not just something which happens "over there in Israel". I hope I'm only stating the obvious here. 80's movies like War Games and Red Dawn were not the products of the Reagan administration; they were just a sign of the times. There always need to be a bad guy in the movies, no? At the time, Russia was the only apparent enemy the U.S. had.
Only a true atheistic @#$%^&* would spell God as "god"; an affront to those of us who have religion. Since terrorists lack true religion and spirituality too, it's no wonder he defends them.
The freedoms we live with in America come at a price; the cost of freedom always has a price, which includes constant alertness and constant willingness to fight back. Here we have someone who is not willing to pay that price, but who's more than willing to enjoy the fruits of those who were. A true limousine liberal living in the lap of luxury. He even has a John Kerry banner on his site, but I'd be willing to bet he has put little or none of his own money into the Democrat's coffers, in true two-face, hypocritical Democratic style. God bless him.
What's the point of your comments? Do you feel like your actually going to change Jack with your venom? Do you feel better by coming in to someone's space on the web and leaving your crap? You don't even have the strength to identify yourself?
If you don't like what Jack has to say then don't read his blog. If you feel like what you have to say is so damn important than go get your own damn blog and stop leaving your unwanted crap here. You really are a hateful person, who is obviously jealous of Jack's successes, and intelligence.
Posted by: Lori Herrington at July 12, 2004 12:05 AMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
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