The Color of Fear

Respect v Bullies

We now know that 9/11 could have been completely avoided. I will let others speculate on the agenda of those who ignored the intelligence gathered from one key and several other sources.

When *Ahmed Ressam was caught at the border with a car full of explosives precursors and a map to the LAX Airport, it was because an intelligent Border Agent a woman (Just had to add that) was doing her job as she was trained to do it.

(*Note: He was tried in a US court, had an attorney, and serving time in a US Prison)

He was arrested and, without being tortured, yielded significant and timely intel on the planned 9/11 attacks. This intel was verified through the NSA and their agents who were monitoring 'chatter'. It was put into the Presidential Daily Briefing, handed to W while he was on the Golf Course, and ignored.

The consequences of that stupidity and arrogance continues to rack up damage, not only in lives lost on 9/11, not just the clean up crews who suffer and die from toxic/hazardous exposure, not just the spiritual numbing of our nation, but to the continued lives, blood and treasure swallowed by the wars, and the loss of our National standing as a Giant upon the moral High Ground.

Worse, our sense of being safe within our own borders, has been shattered. All because the simpleton in the White House, and his handlers, chose to ignore the greatest threat to our nation since Pearl Harbor.

There were several attacks launched after that, by us. War against Afghanistan and then Iraq, to where we are now considered an "Occuppying Power" in the Middle East.

The division between the US and other Nations, has been profound. The Extreme Right Wing emerging as a screaming clown, running senselessly through the political landscape, chanting mindless fears of Xenophobic rants, seditious cries for secession, racist rants against our president and people of color.

Our Nation, divided by a volatile Wingnut faction which demands "Equal Time" and dominates the airwaves that are monopolized, for the most part, owned by a few corporate entities that has a sole mission of creating fear and hostility to keep us divided, nay--screaming at one another, on their "News" shows, allowing greater crimes upon our economy to glide under the radar for years, until they hit the Wall. (Street)

Companies with agendas of their own that have nothing to do with what is best for the nation or in any way concerned about getting essential information to the public at large, run entire networks.

We are fed a steady diet of vapid criticisms of Obama for shaking the hand of a leader of another nation, as if there was another option? What? Slap him down? Run away from him (like W did)? Order an airstrike on his country? Now, the rants are that he was 'smiling' when he did it. Puh--leeez!

The divisions continue and those who created the divides continue to find any excuse to rant. The media seems more than willing to oblige. Behold, the 'panel discussions' format:

Producers who book these guests tell them to take an opposing position, to hold their ground, and will direct into that earpiece you see them wearing, to 'get more vocal!' or 'Step it up!'.

These are not discussions between intelligent people. This is not teaching us how to discuss or view differing points of view. This is perpetuating the rant and scream tactics that are both dividing our nation and fracturing our image abroad as we appear to be uncivilized, ignorant and rude.

The other side of the news is about a darling singing sensation, and the outcome of a beauty pageant.

There are issues more relevant to be discussed and aired. Very little of any of those come to the fore.

We need to look at how we got here. We need to look at who 'done this to us', (if you like Cowboy colloquialisms). We need to look at the people who were responsible for ignoring the warnings and led us into this quagmire.

The same people who ignored the intel, allowed it to happen, were gleefully ready to start wars, occupy and raid the resources of a nation that had done nothing to us, and torture anyone they captured, and declare they were doing all of the above 'to keep us safe'.

Torture has only one outcome: It yields false confessions. That is all it was ever used for. A nation at fault has serious need of propaganda to control its own citizens, and to justify their ongoing crimes against other nations and Humanity at large.

We traded out our foothold as one of the most respected Nations in hopes of becoming one of the most feared. People attack what they fear.

The Color of Fear

Torture has never yielded valuable information, nor timely information. We must remind our former president and his cronies, that "24" is a TV show, not "real life".

Clearly, the false information yielded by the torture regime was useful against our nation. We were jerked around with daily Terror Alert Levels that ranged from Green to Red. We never went to Green and never went to Red. We were in a more constant State of Yellow, with the occasional "Orange Alert" thrown in to keep us from getting complacent.

We looked like idiots. What do you do under each color? Arm yourself? Strip search anyone you see on the street that doesn't have a white face? Or just stay in a suspended state of fear, and hope and pray that your president will keep you safe?

While praying for the latter, the impulse is to squelch any comments from more rational minds that say how silly all this is. It limited the discussion of what had happened and why, as well as what was happening to us as a nation to Zero.

TV "News" shows, both Mainstream Media and Cable, became accustomed to the Jerry Springer Lite version of 'discussions'. Producers booked guests to have panel discussions that were nothing more than shouting matches, barking into the guest's earpieces to 'hold their position!' and 'Get more vocal!' and 'Interrupt him/her and don't let (them) win!)'.

We lost any real example of how to discuss the very relevant issues.

The aftermath is still in the fermenting stage. Quietly, the Daily Terror Alerts were dropped from newscasts and then the bottom of the screen crawls.

But the aserbic, ranting rhetoric platform of "discussions" in every form of media, lives on. Our journalistic media has become the WWE of information: Scripted, plotted, and delivered with no regard to anything except performance value and fireworks.

Those who justify our nation's criminal actions as having kept us safe v those who say we need to stop bullying the rest of the world.

Lost in all of this, is the simple outstanding fact: WE are being bullied, by our own Government. Elected officials are taking the extreme stances of their party with no regard to how insipid it makes them look. Clearly, it is more than ever, attack along party lines, the Nation be damned.

Those with constructive ideas, worthy notions, get no air time, unless they devolve into the Jerry Springer Lite format that is omnipresent in the media today.

We lose sight of the fact that the information that could have saved us was ignored by W and his squad. It was valid, it was real and it was critical.

The only information that was of any importance to that Administration was extracted by torture for the sake of torture. Those extractions are what led to all those Daily Terror Alerts and the colors of fear that ran our lives, our subconscious and have divided us ever since. All lies, mind you, but that seems to not hold enough water for those who continue to advocate for torture as a valuable tool.

They ignored information that would keep us safe, and preferred to employ only that which, gleaned from torture, held no truths, but would keep us afraid. We were terrorized by our own government. Clearly, they had mastered, for a short time, the merchandizing of fear, and too many of us bought it.

Typical of bullies, they had no ideas for anything constructive. I think they tortured for sport. I think it made them feel powerful. I think they thought they would never be outed. They lied us into a war to justify torturing people to give us false information to justify us being at war, justifying the use of torture... the endless circle of Evil begets more Evil.

The relentless, mindless criticisms of every decision, handshake, facial expression, shows a party either so bereft of an idea or substance, that the only thing they know how to employ is paranoia, to the point of mental illness. They still continue to hawk their flimsy wares of fear and suspicion. It worked so well before...

Sadly, the more intelligent, moderate and progressive voices from within their own ranks, are drowned out, creating more violent contractions. I wonder what kind of miscreant they will birth for the next election cycles, but I am also afraid to look. As ugly and perverted as it was last time, next time promises to be even more extreme.

Despite the rationale that we had to use torture to keep us safe, the proof being that we were not attacked since 9/11, we know better. We know that there were multiple anthrax attacks that remain unsolved. The attacks were aimed solely at critics of the Bush Administration, mind you, but that also is ignored.

Yes, there were scapegoats designed to make it look like the attacks had been solved, but the evidence against the two main targets has fallen apart, even after the suicide of one of the more brilliant scientists we had. Our government had no interest in preventing or solving these multiple acts of terrorism, and the Truth is of little value when propaganda is so readily available, and easily employed.

If torture was of any use in the sense of keeping us safe, why was no one who was tortured able to yield anything of value on those attacks? Were they not asked? Or was it already known who was weaponizing and distributing the anthrax, and there was no hurry to stop them?

That question and many, many others have no air to be asked in the media. We are too busy being distracted by Teabaggers, mindless rants, and singing sensations. We are also seeing a resurgence of other divisive mindless pursuits: Denying women the right to choose at the most critical juncture of her life; Denying Same-Sex Marriage; and who is more Christian than the other; Obama is a Muslim, was not born in the US-- The toybox for distractions is, apparently, bottomless.

I expect the Octomom will resurface as the MSM darling from time to time, when it starts to look like we might be close to talking to one another and figuring things out.

As long as we are kept in a constant state of panic, fear, ignorance, disrespect, suspicion and mindless contention, we are more vulnerable to the both, attacks from hostile nations and worse, from our own government stripping away our rights, damaging our image, squandering our goodwill in the world, all to 'keep us safe'.

The Ignorance Alert for today is High: Orangish-Red, with a dab of insanity.

While We Were Laughing

Easy Prey

While the wingnuts are staging their incoherent rants, hypocritical protests; those with clearer minds and perhaps the essential "common sense" ingredient, are pointing and laughing.

Clearly it is a thinly disguised Obama bashing fest. It's bringing in the racists, the reactionaries and the hysterical fringe.

"The definition of 'stupid'," I was once told, "is someone waking up in a brand new world everyday." In other words, nothing is learned from experience, much less history.

It appears that these fringers, overwhelmingly comprised of loud, angry types, whipped into a frenzy by Right Wing Extremist rhetoric spewing from the orifices of Faux News and their ilk, only the past few months, became aware of the economic situation and the crushing debt the failed policies of the previous Administration. Naturally, they blame the new guy. Well, he IS black you know!

They direct their anger at him. These are the same people who wildly cheered on the dangerous deregulations of the Reagan Years, wherein all the rules that prevented economic meltdown were removed, allowing thieves to run wild, without fear of investigation or consequences.

Those same wild-eyed cheerleaders are now booing and hissing the outcome, the logical result of taking the rules out of the game. Worse, they are arming themselves and want to be viewed as dangerous. They then get paranoid about being viewed as 'dangerous' while advocating killing, assassination, violent overthrow, "by any means possible" chants and rhetoric.

Clearly, the mob mentality is taking hold. That is where a mass of people will act, sometimes violently, but overall without thinking of the consequences.

There is no consistent theme to the meme other than misdirected anger, pointless hate, fueled by the rhetoric of a wealthy fatman and his wealthy cohorts.

Bottom line: The people protesting, IF they are in the upper 10% bracket of $250K+, sure don't look it. IF they are so successful and wealthy, how did they manage to accomplish that with what appears to be an appalling lack of education or mental connection to reality? They cannot even define the term 'fascist' (and some could not spell it correctly), but they held up posters with that in bold letters.

If they are the ones making less, and I strongly suspect they make a lot less, I think they should, if they feel that strongly about it, give back the tax cuts/extra refund that they get this year. They should give it to a cause they firmly believe in. Give it to some Rich guy who 'really knows how they think.'

For those who are taking Ayn Rand to the extreme and are against ALL taxes, look around you. Without taxes, who will pay for the roads, the schools, the hospitals, the military, the congressman, the President, the police and the firemen?

Before taxes, the wealthiest people owned the towns. They paid for the cops. Whom do you think the cops protected? If that is your idea of Democracy, go ahead.

Without taxes we will have no military capable of defending us against those other countries that will invade us and steal our resources for themselves. It will, very quickly, become a moot discussion.

We need taxes. We need taxes to be fair. We have a massive debt incurred mostly by the unfairness/imbalance of how the wealthiest were allowed to hide their assets/income and pay the lowest tax rates on top of that. It became fashionable to not pay taxes if you were wealthy enough. Patriotism be damned. Getting away without paying, that was heroic!

And now, they don't want to pay their share of taxes. If they don't pay them, how does anyone expect the debt to be paid off, ever? Hold up that baby. Yup, $30k in debt already. Whom do you think laid that debt on your child, moron?

We need to be able to come together to undo a whole lot of damage and to save ourselves. But as long as the fringe can suck the air out of any discussion, nothing will get done.

Point and Laugh

We are laughing at the teabaggers. I like to call the Right Wing Fringe "The neverending clown car". Just as you think you have seen the last of the wild-eyed mob mentals spill out, out pops another rhetoric fueled phlame throwing extremist.

We are laughing at them. The wealthiest extremists who flog them on are laughing at them as they get them to rant and protest having the wealthy pay their share of taxes, even though that share is less than the proportion that any of the protesters are paying.

The purpose behind extremism is to prevent us, as a nation, from coming together for our common good. Divided we fail. Division is the goal of extremism. Either side. The intent is to tear away from the center.

While we are all laughing, watching the insanity parade snake its way to the sea, bigger issues go unaddressed. There are bigger issues we NEED to come together on. We need to regain our rights and our standing in the world as having at least a foothold on the higher moral ground.

We need to address Health Care, Market Regulation, Corruption and Infrastructure. Those have all been neglected and we are paying the price, daily. We need to address the War Crimes that were committed under the last administration. We need to investigate and try those who committed torture. We need to get our rights to privacy back and end the domestic spying.

There are enough things about the current administration that need to be looked at and fixed before it is too late. But it won't happen because we are constantly being distracted by the parade of clown cars, some driven by mavericks and former mavericks, and fueled by mindless extremist networks.

Apparently, being stupid is a virtue to the Teabaggers. They are opposed to, among other things, educating our young. Clearly a lack of education has made them the legends they are today.

Not sure how we will look back at this time in our history. Will it be remembered as the last desperate throes of fear mongering pile of hypocrites, smoldering in their own stench?

Or will it be a time when we turned away from the extremism, disengaged from the battles with the mentally skewed, and came together to overcome the damage done.

At some point, the amusement of the insanity will fade. What real damage will have been done during our mock swordfights with cynical sloganeers, that we missed completely?

While some of us engage and disengage in these skirmishes, there needs to be a greater part of us that keeps our eye on the ball that is our nation, and our Rights.

While we are laughing at the Teabaggers for their hypocrisy, and their wealthy sponsors are laughing at them as lackeys, I can't help but sense that an even more dangerous situation is brewing and someone is laughing at all of us, as we self-implode on distractions, as they strip away our Rights.