Duct Tape: Bomb Shelter of the 21st Century

What are we in now? Terror-level fuchsia? I preferred the defcon levels myself.. like defcon 4, that sounds good and scary. These color charts are for little kids. Perhaps that should be an indication of what your government considers you capable of. Is there an equivalency chart for terror-alert colors to defcon levels? Let me know.

Remember bomb shelters? Popular Science showed you how to build them. The government told you you were going to die without one. It was all the Soviet Union’s fault, what with their constant saber-rattling and slavering desire to take over the world (which they never even got around to starting before dissappearing without a whimper. Weird, huh?) I think that’s called projection in psychiatric circles.

Even the government’s idea of protection is smaller and cheaper in the 21st century. It used to be a hole in the ground, with food, water and room for your whole family. Some people dedicated all their free time to building them. Now it’s a roll of silver tape and a few sheets of plastic.

Kurt Nimmo lets loose with the indignation all Americans should have for being treated so badly and given so little credit in Let’s Call Bush on His Bogus Terror Threats at Counterpunch.

“…I’m not buying sheets of plastic and rolls of duct tape. I’m not watching CNN or Fox News or tuning in my portable radio to the emergency station. I won’t hide in the closet or lock myself in the bathroom and tape plastic sheets over the door. I refuse to cringe in fear and hope Tom Ridge, John Ashcroft, and Dubya will save me from the monsters they created (or, rather, the monsters the CIA created).”

Since he wrote this article, I’ve seen some articles quietly debating whether the US should step down from high alert; if it’s safe enough; if the storm has passed. There have even been quotes from Tom Ridge to the effect that he didn’t expect this kind of a reaction; it was just a regular warning to watch out, sort of a look both ways before crossing the road thing. He didn’t mean for people to rush to stores and buy out the bottled water supply for the East Coast.

What did they expect when announcements to the effect of “[a]lthough we cannot give you specifics on the terrorist threat, you need to prepare, you need to be in a state of paranoid readiness, you need to hate and fear the people we say you need to hate and fear” come down the pike?

Now that nothing happened, Ridge feels safe in chastising us for having overreacted. Classic ‘cover-your-ass’ behavior. Did anything happen? Oh yeah, the peace marches, well, those are a threat to the security of the administration’s hold on the White House, but not a threat to America. In fact, those are a sign of healthy thinking, for once. Good thing we were in orange alert so NYC, the staunchest supporter of the administration, could clamp down on its marchers.

Orange alert may end soon on the SFGate mentions that Ridge gave several interviews in which he “also acknowledged doubts about the accuracy” of the information on which he is basing his portents of doom. “One of the problems associated with the intelligence community is you don’t always have easy access to the sources of information you are acting on.” What the hell does that mean? Is that even English? Is Shrub teaching him how to contradict himself in 20 words or less? Taken literally, he’s saying that he doesn’t have access to the information he’s acting on. Huh? Then how is he acting on it? Is this code for “the information doesn’t actually exist outside of Cheney’s fevered imagination?”

It gets even better. He goes on to say that, based on the stellar accuracy so far, “there will come a time when we’re able to do … [apply] differing threat levels for different cities or parts of the country”. So since the system has no precision or accuracy and is based on information he can’t obtain, why not just claim different levels and just have a rainbow chart which just looks like the weather diagram in the back of USA Today?

Kurt continues “Now don’t get me wrong. I think there’s a good chance there will be some kind of “terrorist” attack in the near future. … Bush needs a terrorist attack, so there will be one.” It’s already been attempted or did you already forget “the anthrax scare that followed on the heels of 911?” Despite shouts from every hilltop by the administration that it was a strain of Saddam’s (all the while carefully avoiding the detail that it was one the US sold to him), it turns out it’s not and it’s a home-grown variety. Investigation over. No more inquiry in that direction, thanks very much.

So is that what we have to fear? Scare tactics by the government to keep us afraid enough not to argue against a war no one wants? Internal attacks to keep up the pretense that external ones could come any day — we’ve only had the one so far, which I know was bad, but constant fear for how long? We were kept afraid of the communists coming to get us from the day World War II ended until the fall of the Soviet Union. The communist threat only materialized once it was instigated and still, count the number of countries chewed up and spit out by the communist machine.

The next time someone tells you that China is the next big enemy, ask them “Why do we need a next big enemy?” Ask them, “Whose purposes are served by constant war?” Ask them “Is this the way America should be?”