About a week ago, I responded to a great diary about the FBI’s “discovery” of an “al Qaeda” cell in Florida. Here’s that comment.
I’m working on a diary that I’m sure would be banned at the orange place because it will state that the latest FBI discovery of an al Qaeda cell in Florida is not a real discovery but a Karl Rove inspired discovery. I know this is true because Rove did this in 2000, 2002 and 2004. This is as true as the election thefts of 2000 and 2004 are true. Indisputable
How many times will we let the Republicans use their Fear and Smear tactic to undermine elections? There will be more of these “discoveries” over the course of the summer and into the fall with more and more right wing bleating about how only the Republicans following our Fearless Leader can keep us safe. They’ll also be playing musical potential terror targets to make sure that the right voters get the message. “Oh my God, honey, they found terrorists right in our neighborhood. Let’s pray for Saint George to save us.” I don’t know what pisses me off more: that these fuckers do this over and over and over, or that Americans keep falling for it.Back in the late ’30s FDR said to Americans that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. When things were bleak and threatening he called on Americans to buck up and suck up and not to let fearmongering Chicken Littles prevail. Now those Chicken Little chickenhawks are in the White House and the VP mansion and their idea of governing is fear mongering. They’ve replaced a democratic model of leadership with a fascistic one.
After the “discovery” of the Florida “terrorists” and their “threat” to blow up the Sears Tower, CNN interviewed a woman in Chicago. She said she worked just a few buildings away from the Sears Tower. She said she was just getting over the fear that had eaten away at her ever since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. She said that now, once again, she was afraid to go to work and was worrying all over again about an attack in her city of Chicago. All I can say to this is Well fucking done, Karl. Mission Accomplished. Not only have you turned real political leadership on its head, you and your bitch George have succeeded in creating fear in your fellow citizens. Who are the fucking terrorists here?
In his Laws Plato has this conversation between a couple of guys, a stranger and a Cretan. Crete was a society that, like Sparta, operated on the principle that “all are invloved ceaselessly in a lifelong war against all” and that peace is really nothing more than “that every society is, by a law of nature, engaged perpetually in an informal war with every other society.” The reason for this perspective is obvious, at least to the Cretan, that a society must be focused “both public and private, with an eye to war, …… in the conviction that without victory in war nothing else, whether possession or institution, is of the least value, but all the goods of the vanquished fall into the hands of the victors.”
This leads to the following conversation, led by the Stranger, and this is one that needs to happen in our own country.
by the definition you have given of the well-constituted society you appear to me to imply that it ought to be organized in such a way as to be victorious in war over all other societies. Is that so? (To which both the Cretan and the Spartan respond of course, how could it be any other way.)
ATH. If this, then, is the right attitutde for a society to adopt towards another society, is the right attitude for village towards village different?
CLIN. By no means.
ATH. It is the same, you say?
CLIN. Yes.
ATH. Well then, is the same attitude right also for one house in the village towards another, and for each man towards every other?
CLIN. It is.
ATH. And must each individual man regard himself as his own enemy? Or what do we say when we come to this point?
We know the answer to this question. We end up with the current America that the radical right has created. The Bush foreign and domestic policies are all of one cloth. They are meant to divide into Us and Them and to be focused on making war against Them. “Them” can be defined as Iraq, the “axis of evil,” liberals, Democrats, states like Louisiana with a Democratic governor when deciding whom to help in the aftermath of Katrina, and even fellow Republicans who don’t tow the party line and do so with the right cheerful attitude of submission and ass-kissage.
Once this division is made, it is the foremost intent of the Bush administration to use fear as a way to intimidate those who aren’t Us. They use this tactic to steal elections and to govern after the theft. (Of course, I have left out the other important tactic in the Right’s trinity, namely LIES, but hey, there’s only so much one can stuff into a diary, and there are many many better things written about Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.)
Fear. Good stuff if you have no respect for your fellow citizens….Oh wait a minute, Bush and his fascistas don’t think of us as fellow citizens. Remember the ad in the 2004 campaign that featured glimpses of wolves looking ferocious, ravenous, dangerous, spooky, lurking in shadows just waiting to get us, and then a voice over that said
In an increasingly dangerous world…..
and went on to falsely accuse Kerry and liberals for voting to cut “intelligence operations” at which time in the ad the wolves got up and menacingly advance toward the camera. And this bullshit all ends with Bush’s voice.
I’m George W. Bush and I approve this message
Here’s Bush on October 30, 2004. Remember the Cretans.
All progress on every other issue depends on the safety of our citizens. Americans will go to the polls Tuesday in a time of war and ongoing threats. (My emphasis) The terrorists who killed thousands of innocent people are still dangerous and they’re determined to strike. The most solemn duty of the American President is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty or weakness in these troubling times, the world will drift toward tragedy. This is not going to happen on my watch.
Regardless of the fact that the world has in fact drifted into tragedy precisely because of George’s watch, the point Bush is trying to make can’t be any clearer. Be afraid for your security and well being and I’ll keep you safe. Actually, the most solemn duty of the President is to “faithfully execute” the laws of the United States and to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Bush has done neither. But as long as he can keep Americans afraid and then lie about who will protect them he will succeed in his aims.
Remember all the multi colored terror alerts. What was their purpose, other than to announce to terrorists when we were not being all that vigilant? Their purpose was to keep Americans afraid. I wonder if they’ll be back in 2006 and 2008?
Fear. The political use of Fear is to intimidate. To intimidate other countries. To initimidate one’s own citizens. It is a fascist tool, not a democratic one.
After reading this diary, one possible response is this. “This is old news. We all know Rove and his hand puppet Bush are all about Fear and Lies.” This is the wrong take. These tactics are as old as every single Rove campaign. These tactics are the only tactics that Bush and the radical religious right use to govern. Because they are “tried and true” means that we can’t allow them to be used with impunity. Kerry showed himself to be weak (which was the whole Rovian point)because he didn’t fight back ferociously at those who attacked him using Fear and Lies. (However Kerry lost because the election was stolen. But he still appeared weak because he wouldn’t stand up to thuggism).
When Jesus sent people out to talk about the “kingdom of God” he told them to have the innocence of the dove, but the wisdom of the serpent. He meant have hope in our cause, but fight those who would intimidate you with every tool of the devil. In the movie Mississippi Burning one of the FBI agents in Mississippi investigating the deaths of three campaign workers says, when arguing with his boss about tactics, “these people came out of the gutter,” and that in order to beat them we have to get right in the gutter with them. Seems to me these are good tactics to replicate. Democrats have to outline principles, not “triangulate,” and then jump in the gutter created by Bush’s fascist tactics and fight back with hope. Hope is a democratic tool, it is anti-fascist. So is righteous indignation at what has been done to our country.
