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Home of the Brave: And Please Panic This July 4th
America used to be a country with balls. Now, our government wants to make us into a nation of scaredy cats, existing in a state of constant fear and near-panic, like we were kids worrying if the school bully was waiting for us after school.
Here’s the basic theme for this weekend: Americans need to remain vigilant to the threat of a terrorist attack, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul, warned. He said there has been increased chatter on social media that indicates terrorists may be planning to strike during the celebrations. “I am extremely concerned Syrian and ISIS recruiters can use the Internet at lightning speeds to recruit followers in the United States and then activate them to do whatever they want to do. Whether it’s military installations, law enforcement or possibly a Fourth of July event parade.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re sitting here a week from today talking about an attack over the weekend in the United States. That’s how serious this is,” former CIA deputy director Michael Morell told CBS. “There’s been about 50 people in the last 12 months who have been arrested in the United States for being radicalized by ISIS, wanting to go fight there or wanting to conduct an attack here.”
USA Today added to the fear-mongering, noting “While there was no specific or credible threat of attack, the official said the intelligence bulletin prepared by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI alerted local colleagues to the ongoing threats posed by the Islamic State and other homegrown extremists. The official was not authorized to comment publicly.”
So let’s break this down, ahead of your BBQ, beach time and backyard sparklers.
America has suffered one significant foreign terror attack in the 239 years since the July 4th we celebrate this weekend. That attack was fourteen years ago and while tragic, took a similar number of lives has the number of Americans who have died since from toxoplasmotic brain parasites. The 2011 Report on Terrorism from the National Counterterrorism Center notes Americans are just as likely to be “crushed to death by their televisions or furniture each year” as they are to be killed by terrorists. Perhaps even sadder, about double the number of Americans killed on 9/11 have died in the still-ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Disagree with one set of numbers, pick your favorite statistic/comparison, but you get the idea.
Noteworthy is that while fourteen years ago, and for most of the succeeding years, is that the government warned the attacks were to be carried out or threatened by foreigners. This weekend’s warnings, however, point at Americans who want to do harm to other Americans. That seems to be one of the most significant “achievements” of the fourteen year war of terror, turning us into them.
So this July 4, in honor of America’s 239th birthday, our government tells us not to be brave and free, but to be scared and fearful. We need to watch around us, and we need especially to watch our fellow citizens. One of them might be a lone wolf, supposedly “radicalized” by 140 characters he read on Twitter. We are to balance in our minds the conflicting images of a government that takes away our civil rights and pisses away our tax dollars to protect us while simultaneously saying they may not be able to protect us.
Whatever you do this July 4th, don’t look for me there. I’ll be at home, doors locked, weapons cocked and ready in abject terror, trying not to remember what I’ll be drinking to forget. Happy Birthday America.
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John Poole said...
1America in he ’50s had the “Red Scare” where the principled were persecuted while the weak cowered and would easily “out” anyone to stay in the good graces of an authoritarian government. What should we call these days with another boogieman out there and again an authoritarian Pentagon demanding we never question their tactics and ethos?
07/3/15 9:42 AM | Comment Link
Bruce said...
2BushWhacked! Simply epitomizes the obvious that they only needed the one false-flag to initiate US’ $erial PNAC attacks!! As Bloj0bama would say, c’mon ‘folks’, it’s All Wall $teet-theater!!!
07/3/15 11:53 AM | Comment Link
Helen Marshall said...
3I probably won’t be there as well, as the orgy of adulation of the flag and our “warrior heros” makes it very unattractive to go out this weekend.
07/3/15 12:47 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
4Helen, let’s all stay inside and light a small candle for the late great American Empire. Actually a Roman Candle would be appropriate but not practical.
07/3/15 7:14 PM | Comment Link
teri said...
5As an act of homage to my country of birth and what it has become during my lifetime, I have decided to take the following actions today, July 4, our bestest national holiday evah:
1) I will eavesdrop on the neighbors and secretly tape their conversations as they congregate around the bar-b-que. I will selectively edit the tape and send the result to our local fusion center, reporting them as possible terrorists. They do, after all, have a tendency to animal rights’ activism and shit like that. (You should see the number of bird-feeders in their back yard! Need I say more?)
2) I will call my old boyfriend who had to go to Vietnam and who won the Purple Heart and thank him for his service. Oh, wait, I can’t. He got PTSD and then he got cancer from the Agent Orange and the 2,4-D and then he died. That’s okay; he never wanted to talk about Vietnam anyway.
3) I will log into my bank’s computer system and magically create several millions of dollars in my account. This is how it is done now, I’ve heard, and it’s all legal; just ask Jamie Dimon, who runs the Bank of Crystal Blue Persuasion. He “earned” almost $28mm last year this way. And got to keep it.
4) I will loan this money to the first person who needs it. I get to set the interest rate and I get to make the interest rates go up or down however I wish without regard to quaint “legalities” or the “LIBOR market”. I AM the fucking market.
5) Assuming the person can’t repay the loan, which I’m pretty sure already they can’t, since I get to manipulate the terms and interest as I see fit, I will declare them in default and take their house, their car, all their future earnings and all the earnings of their descendants unto the tenth generation. I will amass a great personal fortune this way and I will do so despite the fact that I created the seed money out of thin air. This is to celebrate the spirit of today’s free-market capitalism as practiced by the USA. With some of my money, I will buy my own pet politician.
6) I will write a letter to the editor about how those Americans being held in jail somewhere by some other country after they snuck over that country’s border should be released immediately. (“Immediately” will be bolded, italicized and underlined three times.) Toot Sweet, if you’ll excuse my French. I will point out that being held in a foreign prison is torture and that the Americans just did not know they had crossed the border and anyway, they are Americans! They deserve to be freed right away and that other country sanctioned or bombed. Bombed is better.
7) I will write a second letter to the editor about those very bad, horrible, job-stealing, foreign-language-speaking foreigners who sneak across OUR borders. They ought to be separated from their foreign children, held in open-air dog kennels in Arizona or secret ICE prisons in old warehouses and not allowed lawyers and then they should be deported. We shouldn’t feed them or give them medical care while they are incarcerated because they are foreigners who tried to sneak into our country. And 20 to a cell, unless they are in solitary confinement. And this is not torture, don’t even start on that shit, because everyone knows America does not torture anyone.
8) I will have some butt implants done so I can look like my BFF idol (I hope she reads this!!!!!), Kim Kardashian.
9) I will eat only genetically modified food which has been heavily sprayed with RoundUp and 2-4,D for each meal today. I will be sure to include plenty of high-fructose corn syrup in my choices. When I do not die by nightfall, I will let everyone know that the anti-GMO people are just stupid and full of shit. And probably terrorists. Fascist, commie terrorists. For sure, un-American.
10) I will stop a random motorist on my way to the store and take all his money and shit. If I can do a citizen’s arrest, I can do a citizen’s roadside seizure.
11) I will find someone who sounds foreign or looks foreign or dresses foreign and I will kill him.
It’s a long list to achieve in one day, I know, but I have that American can-do gumption. America! For amber fucking waves of grain! Fuck, yeah!!
07/4/15 9:25 AM | Comment Link
wemeantwell said...
6Citizen Teri, No. 743725, on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, Minor Blog Monitoring Division, thank you for your patriotic remarks. You embody the spirit of America. May I also ask one small favor? There is a kind of “fun” argument here in the office about which country to invade next. Could you nominate one for us? Some of the guys want to go big, like Russia, but some are leaning toward a weekend project like Mali. Thanks for your help, and God bless!
07/4/15 9:59 AM | Comment Link
teri said...
7Dear wemeantwell,
I am glad you asked. It is good to know that our most democratic of agencies, our own Homeland Security, is taking such an interest in the opinions of all citizens in this great, great country. I expected no less, and am pleased to see that my support of all our wonderful protective agencies is so justified.
Gosh, it’s hard to choose. Being somewhat of an “armchair warrior”, like all good Americans, I do have some thoughts that your fellow office-mates might want to consider.
We – and by “we” I mean the collective US, of course – have the foreigners down in South and Central America pretty well in hand through CIA and NGO covert ops. Won’t be long until we see the governments of Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guatemala, etc. overthrown through “coups”, if you get my drift. I think our banks have done a wonderful job of seeing to it that most of the smaller Eurozone countries like Spain and Portugal are taken care of, not to mention even larger countries elsewhere, such as New Zealand, Japan, and Australia, and heck, even Canada has felt the touch of the economic “downturn” so methodically carried out by our financial boys. Have you seen Greece lately? Bunch of socialists getting the old heave-ho that they so richly deserve from our banking cartels.
Africa is already well invaded by both our military and our covert ops, although most Americans don’t know it, and so there is no need to do more than to continue the course. Wherever the African politicians can’t be subtly dispatched, the drones can do their work.
The ME is fried to a fine howdy-do as far as being independent sovereign nations, along with Afghanistan, thanks to our special interest in the area. We can let that ride keep running as it is for a long time and just create new terrorists as we need to. No-one will argue with spending money to get rid of our latest CIA creation, ISIS, but there is no sense in just bombing the whole zone in one fell swoop; where is the continuous income for out armaments industries in that? And let’s face it, with 80% of the US’ economic activity being related to military and security, we need that revenue stream.
Now, some of your co-workers may not get the picture on Russia. WE don’t need to bomb them. Our Pentagon fellows have it all figured out. First, we have them sanctioned from hellandgone for something they didn’t do (heh, heh) and then we turned that wonderful “free market” loose on them. The price of oil “dropping” and all that – well, shit, I’m sure those Ruskies don’t know what hit them. But here’s the beauty part: we have the European NATO countries re-arming and doing practice drills and doing all kinds of overt threatening stuff. Some new countries even want to join NATO now, thanks to the fine propaganda you guys churned out about Russia and Putin. Hell, Europe has even gone along with all of our sanctions against Russia, despite the fact that it hurts them economically. (I KNOW – anyone who is not American is so stupid!) So, look at this, we get to arm the whole shebang, but when the first bombs fly, let them come from Europe. They can do Russia for us. And subsequently Russia may bomb them back, but what the fuck, we’re talking about sissies, frogs like France and shit, not our own homeland. And, hey, Halliburton or another fine American company like that can help them rebuild later.
Might I suggest Mongolia? Bear with me here. First, it’s been vastly overlooked in international circles for quite some time. Needs attention. They are only fair to middling as far as population goes – only around 3 million, give or take – and shoot, half of them live in just the one city. Piece of cake. Second, they are mostly non-religious and the ones who do follow any religion are mostly Buddhists, with some Muslims thrown in, too. In other words, they are distinctly NOT Christians. On top of that, no-one will feel much sympathy for Mongolia, since they look Chinese and speak Russian. They used to be part of China, and then part of Russia, so they are known to affiliate with known Commies and Fascists and they are geographically in between the two countries. We could take the Mongols out and set up some lily-pads right between those two places. We’ve got Russia focused to the east on Ukraine and Europe right now, and China all busy paying attention to the South China Sea and the Philippines and Japan (AS IF!); we could take out Mongolia, set up those bases and leave some mercs guarding the place. It’s pretty vacant, anyway, wouldn’t take too much jack to hire some Academi or Dynecorps warriors. The Mongols are mostly known for riding horses. Believe that shit? I don’t think they’d have a chance against good old-fashioned American weaponry. What they do have, though, is some land and some minerals. We could get Montsanto to develop something that will grow in all that space, and let our mining companies have at the minerals before Russia and China know what hit their back yards. China and Russia are both trying to develop trade with Mongolia right now as we speak. We need to nip that in the bud. Shee-it, we already have companies making good American dollars in Ukraine, and they aren’t even done with their little civil war yet!
Finally, think of the propaganda value. The Mongol hordes!! Genghis Khan!! Man, it writes itself. Now I know they actually supported our invasion of Iraq and they still have some troops, if you can call them that, in Afghanistan, but Americans don’t know that, and I can assure you that the press won’t tell them. No worry that we’d be accused of attacking an ally.
Well, sir, those are my thoughts. I hope y’all will consider my suggestion in the spirit with which it is offered; the most countries invaded, destroyed, bombed, nuked, and fucked with, all with the least retaliatory harm to this great God-fearing nation as possible.
Very sincerely,
Citizen No. 743725
07/4/15 12:18 PM | Comment Link
Lisa said...
8A cascade of books in the last few decades ponder this important issue:
“Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, “The Closing of the American Mind”, “Cultural Literacy”, “Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling”, “The Age of American Unreason”, “Just How Stupid Are We?” are a few.
The people about whom they are writing do not read.
Hey, happy 4th Peter.
07/4/15 3:26 PM | Comment Link
teri said...
9Lisa,
And let’s add “The Twilight of American Culture” by Morris Berman and “Empire of Illusion” by Chris Hedges.
07/4/15 4:50 PM | Comment Link
Bruce said...
10“Never Fight a Land War in Asia” … a fading old soldier.
07/4/15 7:03 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
11Fuck. Dear Peter..teri, bruce, Rich, Lisa, John, Helen..and whoever I missed… fuck. Great. Now what do I? Now that I’ve read the best comments on the intertubes? Well, it’s a fitting ending for the day. btw..what were you celebrating? I can’t for the life of me figure out what the big deal is? Is today some kind of holiday? I’ve been too busy trying to keep body and soul together. So.. let’s see..what day is it? OMG.
note to self..
your almost out of vodka.
07/4/15 8:10 PM | Comment Link
Bruce said...
12Can’t speak for the rest; but I’m celebrating peace and independence of US by letting my freak flag fly:
http://worldbeyondwar.org/blue/
You’re needing ‘nuther Wallbanger, indeed! Cheers!!
07/4/15 9:54 PM | Comment Link
teri said...
13Pitch,
How ARE you anyway? Things okay?
07/5/15 5:06 AM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
14teri said…
quote”Pitch,
How ARE you anyway? Things okay?”unquote
Hi teri! Well, things are just peachy here. Any time the weather is sunny and warm, it’s a good day. And physically..I’m just dandy. Couldn’t be better. I haven’t posted here much because I’ve been swamped trying to get all the projects done I couldn’t work on during winter, before the next winter sets in. Unfortunately, 3 weeks ago, the main underground electrical feed to my shop developed an open fault. Discovered whoever installed it, only buried the 2″ plastic conduit, 6″ deep. Should have been 18″. Last winter, we changed Propane companys, and when the old company came to pick up their tank, there was 18″ of snow. The feet of the tank was right on top of the conduit, so when they tried to lift it, everything was frozen, clear down to the conduit. As they tried to lift it out, the conduit cracked, which when spring came, allowed water to enter the conduit and corroded one of the #2 aluminum conductors.
Trouble is, at the time, a 3 wire system was code. Not any more. If you pull the line, you have to upgrade to a 4 wire system(don’t ask..it will drive you crazy).
Well, this line is 75′ long, and you have to use a special underground wire, that is also listed to enter buildings. Needless to say, it cost a fortune. Not to mention, digging the trench down to 18″, which at 70yrs old, just about killed me. Hahaha! But I did it. Also had to install a new breaker box at the meter. Ready to hook everything up today. Hallelujah! Three weeks and $700 later and I’ll finally have power.
Now if I only had three of ME! Too many projects and all of them are important. I just hope I get them done before winter. Next project..finish machining 8 sheets of white melamine for the shop shelving to put everything away that’s been in boxes for 2 yrs since I moved here. Then, I’ll have room for an 318 engine rebuild for a 2001 Dodge van I just bought. On the way home from the sellers house, the oil pressure dropped to zero. GAK! Didn’t even make it home. Needless to say, the seller gave all but $300 of my purchase price back. He didn’t want it, and I did. So..there’s that.
Well, I won’t bother listing everything I have to do, but it’s a SHITLOAD. Thing is though..I enjoy it. Beats sitting on my ass watching the TV. So..there you have it.
And btw, I’ve grown tired of commenting on the state of things. Nothing changes. That’s why I’ve simply adapted to my new attitude of row row row your boat. 🙂 Fuck em.
Ok..nuff bla bla. Thanks for asking teri! Oh..one other thing. YOUR comments are outstanding. Keep it up.
07/5/15 6:54 AM | Comment Link
teri said...
15Pitch,
I don’t much comment anywhere any more, either. Now and then here at Peter’s blog, but that’s it. Because, I figure, why bother?
Glad to hear you are okay physically! That’s a great thing.
Now, why didn’t the propane company that cracked the conduit have to participate in fixing the damage? Wait, don’t tell me – it’s because they didn’t install it, they just wrecked it. And they wouldn’t have wrecked it if it had been installed at the right depth in the first place. Ok, so never mind.
Old bumper sticker: Life is shit and then you die. Sometimes that makes me laugh. Other times, not so much….
Best,
Teri
07/5/15 8:10 AM | Comment Link
Chuck Nasmith said...
16Regarding comments on Bernie S. being “Democratic Socialist” buy a T.P.P., etc. , Killery supporter and,”D” corporate puppet “McCorpsKill”, Bernie says “I am”. She and Hill are deers in the headlights, and I have seen the photos! Go Girls! Have a nice day, and night! In Hell if there is one, The People United, Will never Be ……………….This is not Team Sport,or Lesser Evil. This is it. (Disclaimer…I hope!) Enjoy!
07/6/15 1:51 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
17Chuck- How did Bernie escape the Vietnam draft? Was he one of the Clarence Thomas types who find people to protect him (the nuns). Was he registered for the draft? I still think he’ll steer his supporters to Clinton with some bullshit about the party being more important etc.
07/6/15 8:21 AM | Comment Link
FBI, DHS Now Zero for 40 at Predicting Terror Attacks | Ghosts of Tom Joad - Peter Van Buren said...
18[…] the July 4th weekend alive? No ISIS attacks? I drank 78 Red Bulls to stay alert and maintain constant vigilance in my backyard, after fearing ISIS chatter was singling me out for retribution. I lived to write […]
07/9/15 7:56 AM | Comment Link