"But seriously, folks ..." - Democratic Underground

NanceGreggs

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Tue Aug-15-06 12:37 AM
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"But seriously, folks ..."

“But seriously, folks …”
By Nancy Greggs

Over the past few weeks, I keep hearing Republicans saying that it’s important for all of us, especially voters, to understand who is taking the War on Terror seriously, and who is not.

Well, put me in the ‘not’ column. Actually, put me in the ‘not a snowball’s chance in hell I’m taking this seriously’ column.

Call me crazy, but I refuse to take anything seriously at the behest of an administration that is so obviously not taking it seriously themselves.

Maybe I’m overly skeptical, but I’m a little hesitant to take their word for anything these days. These were the same guys who ignored every warning they were given leading up to 9-11; the same guys who said Saddam had WMDs, so let’s take him out because we’ll be greeted as liberators, and the whole thing will take a couple of months – tops!

Yes, these are the same guys who went to war in Iraq, the people NOT responsible for 9-11, while Osama Bin Forgotten was storyboarding his next film production. The same guys who have continuously diverted funds from increased security at airports, seaports, transportation centers. The same guys who are handing out DHS money to places like Bumfuk, Montana, because New York City doesn’t have enough monuments or places of interest to make it a likely target – again.

These are the same Mensa members who are throwing gasoline on the anti-American fires they’ve started in the Middle East, while telling us how much safer we are – and for God’s sake, let’s not get silly and look at the actual statistics that show that terrorist violence has been on the rise ever since they’ve been in power.

We’ve got to fight ‘em over there so we don’t have to fight ‘em over here – except for the States-side terrorists who are going to blow up the Sears Tower just as soon as they get the explosives, the know-how to use them, and the bus-fare out of Miami. Or that bunch of kids in the mid-west who had all of those cell-phones -- who's to say they weren't plotting the most diabolical scheme ever devised: telemarketing us all to death. Man, it just gives me the shivers when I think how close we came to total annihilation -- or having our dinners interupted, whichever came first.

But no, no, I’m supposed to take this crap seriously. I’m supposed to look to President “Sit-in-the-Kindergarten-chair for seven minutes after you’ve been told your country is under attack” as the last word in protecting my country against terrorism. I'm supposed to heed dire warnings about imminent nuclear threats from someone who doesn’t have the mental agility to pronounce the word.

We’ve now got people at airports being prevented from boarding a plane with a bottle of Listerine, all so they can fly in complete safety and comfort while sitting on top of a cargo hold full of luggage and boxes that no one has bothered to inspect. Sure, sure, they never did catch that anthrax killer – but just let him show up at LAX with a bottle of Estee Lauder Skin Moisturizer and he’ll be pressing plates in Leavenworth before he knows what hit him.

Yeah, I’m supposed to take Dick Cheney seriously, because he REALLY knows what he’s talking about. According to this paragon of foresight, the Iraqi insurgency has been in its last throes pretty much since we got there, and the signal those ‘Al Qaeda types’ have been waiting for before they blow the United States off the globe is Ned Lamont winning the primary in Connecticut. “Today, Bridgeport – Tomorrow, the World!” It was a blood-curdling cry that emanated throughout the Arab world for days, and I’m sure CNN would have covered it if they’d had enough lead-time to come up with a snappy graphic.

Have you ever been a passenger on a plane and two minutes after lift-off, the pilot comes over the loudspeaker and says, “I have no idea where we just took off from, no flight plan and not a clue where I’m supposed to be headed. But I’m going to stay the course”? No? Me neither. But I can tell you it would instill the same sense of confidence I feel every time Cheney opens his mouth.

Maybe Dick should stick to topics where he has a bit more credibility, like being a role model for the safe use of firearms.

Listening to these idiots lecture me on terrorism is, for someone of my age, déjà vu all over again. It’s just like the ‘sixties, when every Russian was out to get me, but I needn’t fear nuclear attack because that formica-topped desk in my classroom would keep me safe – just like duct tape and plastic sheeting will do the trick in these troubled times.

Yes, folks, we’ve got to take this terrorism threat seriously. That’s why Bush appointed a no-nonsense guy like Chertoff to head up Homeland Security. The only way a terrorist is getting into this country on his watch is if they sneak into NOLA and pass themselves off as a Katrina victim. That’s the ONLY way anyone is guaranteed to duck below his radar screen, and don’t you forget it.

Now Chertoff is talking about lie-detector machines at airports, and if that isn’t the greatest idea since the color-coded alert system, I don’t know what is – except this: Why not hook Bush and Cheney up to a lie-detector machine and ask them if this whole “War on Terror” thing is just a way of destroying our democracy, an excuse to circumvent the law, and a fast-and-easy way to make money for their family and friends? You know, one truthful answer could negate the entire NEED for lie-detectors right then and there. We could save MILLIONS!

Yes, siree, I’m supposed to believe I am being protected from a War on Terror being relentlessly waged against my country while it’s so-called leaders do everything in their power – in between vacations – to make my countrymen the most hated people in the world, wage war on countries that were never any threat, and capture minds and hearts around the world by torturing and killing the very people who already don’t look upon us all that kindly.

Yeah, I’m buying that. Of course, there is that glaringly HUGE problem I have with the whole idea of a War on Terror – exactly how do you do battle with a concept? Maybe the administration should mull than one over, because with all of the prefabricated full-of-holes ‘terror’ plots they’ve allegedly foiled, they are about to have to fight a few other ‘concept’ wars: The War on Boredom, the War on Disbelief, the War on Oh-No-Not-This-Crap-Again.

Telling us to take the War on Terrorism seriously is fast becoming a VERY tired joke, and the behavior of this administration is the not-so-funny punchline.