Necks Out, Chins Up By Ann Medlock

[Demeter]

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ann_medl_071015_necks_out_2c_chins_up.htm



...Go to any airport in this country and you’ll see how well our government is dealing with the terrible danger you’re in. TSA staffers are wanding 90-year-old ladies in wheelchairs, and burrowing through their suitcases. Toddlers are on the no-fly list. Lipsticks are confiscated. It’s all done with the highest seriousness....Here are stats on some things that actually killed American civilians between 1995 and 2005. You could call it a National Terror Alert Reality Check, and add colors at will for each level of risk:

SEVERE
Driving off the road: 254,419
Falling: 146,542
Accidental poisoning: 140,327

HIGH
Dying from work: 59,730
Walking down the street: 52,000
Accidental drowning: 38,302

ELEVATED
The flu: 19,415
Hernias: 16,742

GUARDED
Accidental gunshot: 8,536
Accidental electrocution: 5,171

LOW
Being shot by a police officer: 3,949
Terrorism: 3,147
Carbon monoxide in products: 1,554



Instilling fear in the populace is a fine tool for control. The unspoken subtext is, “Let us do whatever we want to the Constitution, let us start wars wherever it suits us, let us have your kids to send into the meat grinder—because we’re protecting you from Big Bad Wolves.”

Actually, real protections are about as common as real assistance to post-Katrina New Orleans. American undercover teams carrying weapons have tested security at airport after airport, including one used by the actual highjackers—the teams have never been detected, much less stopped. Similar teams have gotten into nuclear power plants. Emergency services still can’t cross-communicate on their networks, as the 9/11 Commission insisted they must. And every hour containers pile up in our ports, unexamined, containing who knows what.

Instead of working seriously on these things that could really help, we get the wanding of grammaw.

I see malfeasance in such security farces while invisible, necessary actions go undone. I see malfeasance in the insult to our national dignity of so much pandering to primitive, monster-in-the-closet fear.

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Here’s one citizen who won’t play. I’m not scared and you shouldn’t be either. We can stick our necks out and our chins up. We’re tough, strong people, and we’re not afraid.

But angry? Oh yeah. Be angry. Be very angry.

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Authors Bio: Ann Medlock is a writer who founded the Giraffe Heroes Project to foster citizen courage by honoring people who stick their necks out for the common good. The Project encourages today's heroes and trains tomorrow's.