It's the little ways...
Jul. 11th, 2007 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkan...that this administration shocks and awes that really get to me. Like Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff's recent announcement (having, of course, nothing to do with Bush's historically low approval ratings, or the recent "defections" of several Republicans worried about their upcoming reelection campaigns, or rising U.S. and Iraqi casualty tolls in Iraq, or the fact that the Iraqi government has met none of its 18 benchmarks, or that Gonzales once again lied, this time about abuses of the Patriot Act, or...)
You know what, let me try this again:
Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff recently astounded me with his announcement that he feels the U.S. is likely to suffer another terror attack this summer. Does he know this because of intelligence he's received, either legally or perhaps through the recently uncovered abuses of the Patriot Act? Has he received any threats from a known terrorist cell? Was a plot uncovered?
No, he knows because he has a "gut feeling." A "gut feeling" that has nothing to do with any evidence (let alone reality), but everything to do with the litany of scandals I've enumerated above. And if you think I'm straying into tin hat territory here, check out how Yahoo!News has decided to cover Chertoff's announcement:
That's right: "Officials worry of summer terror attack." Not "Chertoff creates bogus terror scare." Not even "Chertoff worries of summer terror attack"--they don't even attribute the worries to a particular individual. So if you're the type of person who doesn't really follow the news (most Americans are) but does have a borderline email addiction (most Americans do), this is all you're going to see.
And the damage is done--terrorism and 9/11 are now at the front of your consciousness displacing all those pesky moral problems that plague the Bush administration, and you're back to that unquestioning willingness to accept the illegal measures (from loss of civil liberties to torture to preemptive invasions of uninvolved nations) Bush posits as being necessary to defend us from a non-existant menace. Their work here is done.
The "actual" terrorists don't even need to lift a finger anymore. Bush and his cronies are happy to do the leg work for them. Osama must be laughing in his cave.
That will be all.
You know what, let me try this again:
Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff recently astounded me with his announcement that he feels the U.S. is likely to suffer another terror attack this summer. Does he know this because of intelligence he's received, either legally or perhaps through the recently uncovered abuses of the Patriot Act? Has he received any threats from a known terrorist cell? Was a plot uncovered?
No, he knows because he has a "gut feeling." A "gut feeling" that has nothing to do with any evidence (let alone reality), but everything to do with the litany of scandals I've enumerated above. And if you think I'm straying into tin hat territory here, check out how Yahoo!News has decided to cover Chertoff's announcement:
That's right: "Officials worry of summer terror attack." Not "Chertoff creates bogus terror scare." Not even "Chertoff worries of summer terror attack"--they don't even attribute the worries to a particular individual. So if you're the type of person who doesn't really follow the news (most Americans are) but does have a borderline email addiction (most Americans do), this is all you're going to see.
And the damage is done--terrorism and 9/11 are now at the front of your consciousness displacing all those pesky moral problems that plague the Bush administration, and you're back to that unquestioning willingness to accept the illegal measures (from loss of civil liberties to torture to preemptive invasions of uninvolved nations) Bush posits as being necessary to defend us from a non-existant menace. Their work here is done.
The "actual" terrorists don't even need to lift a finger anymore. Bush and his cronies are happy to do the leg work for them. Osama must be laughing in his cave.
That will be all.