LIfe goes on
Jan. 22nd, 2005 03:05 pmI'm sick, not dead.
Which means I read (if we had more cable I might veg to movies, or perhaps to the History or Discovery channels. About the only thing I wish we had more cable for is the Daily Show. Sad commentary that I want Comedy Central so I can get decent news).
And being me I read current events and politics. My mother says it has been ever thus. At the age of three she says I would sneak into the living room, early of a Saturday morning to watch news programs. Me, I rememeber Super Friends, and Bugs Bunny. Of course I recall liking Bugs Bunny because it had In the News.
Blogs have made this addiction easier (and semi-interactive). A leads to B, links to C and the next thing I know I am reading something wonderful (be it personal, or political, or some mix of both). It took me a while to point to things because one forgets how big the web is, and that no two people will follow the same twisted paths.
Which leads to this dystopic view of things. by Richard Carke Ten Years Later It's about just how vulnerable we are to being atacked; here, in the US. It points out that we have not been able to kill off terrorism (hell, a war on terror is even less winnable than a war on drugs or poverty. Those are measureable. Terror is an emotion, which as a![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pnh said about That Tuesday, can be evoked, with almost trvial ease. How do we eradicate a feeling?)
More to the point the means to make us more terrified than we were when the planes were used as missles are easy, and unstoppable.
Not to be an apologist, because such acts are heinous, but we have done nothing, in the past 4+ years to make them hate us less. We have rather made those who were ambivalent radical (I, for one, am not surprised when I hear that someone we released from Gitmo; because they were not a threat, turns around and gets caught killing Americans in Afghanistan or Iraq. If I'd been subjected to half of what I know them to have been subjected to, well I am not a saint, and if I got the chance to dish out some retribution, I'd probably take it. Sow the wind, and this is what you get).
So hed over to Crooks and Liars, and read the text of this piece in the Atlantic. Ponder that this is the (one can only hope) worst case vision of someone who ought to know, better than any of us, what the situation is.
Then try to prevent it.
post script: I had not finsished the footnotes when I wrote this, and so hadn't seen:
49. Author's note: This scenario is intentionally very bad but not worst-case. (A nuclear or biological attack would be the worst case.) The purpose of this article is to suggest that there are still opportunities to avoid such disasters without sacrificing our liberties, if we act now. Finally, for those who may say that this has given the terrorists recipes and road maps for how to attack us, here's a bit of bad news: the terrorists already know in much greater detail how best to attack us again.
Which means I read (if we had more cable I might veg to movies, or perhaps to the History or Discovery channels. About the only thing I wish we had more cable for is the Daily Show. Sad commentary that I want Comedy Central so I can get decent news).
And being me I read current events and politics. My mother says it has been ever thus. At the age of three she says I would sneak into the living room, early of a Saturday morning to watch news programs. Me, I rememeber Super Friends, and Bugs Bunny. Of course I recall liking Bugs Bunny because it had In the News.
Blogs have made this addiction easier (and semi-interactive). A leads to B, links to C and the next thing I know I am reading something wonderful (be it personal, or political, or some mix of both). It took me a while to point to things because one forgets how big the web is, and that no two people will follow the same twisted paths.
Which leads to this dystopic view of things. by Richard Carke Ten Years Later It's about just how vulnerable we are to being atacked; here, in the US. It points out that we have not been able to kill off terrorism (hell, a war on terror is even less winnable than a war on drugs or poverty. Those are measureable. Terror is an emotion, which as a
pnh said about That Tuesday, can be evoked, with almost trvial ease. How do we eradicate a feeling?)More to the point the means to make us more terrified than we were when the planes were used as missles are easy, and unstoppable.
Not to be an apologist, because such acts are heinous, but we have done nothing, in the past 4+ years to make them hate us less. We have rather made those who were ambivalent radical (I, for one, am not surprised when I hear that someone we released from Gitmo; because they were not a threat, turns around and gets caught killing Americans in Afghanistan or Iraq. If I'd been subjected to half of what I know them to have been subjected to, well I am not a saint, and if I got the chance to dish out some retribution, I'd probably take it. Sow the wind, and this is what you get).
So hed over to Crooks and Liars, and read the text of this piece in the Atlantic. Ponder that this is the (one can only hope) worst case vision of someone who ought to know, better than any of us, what the situation is.
Then try to prevent it.
post script: I had not finsished the footnotes when I wrote this, and so hadn't seen:
49. Author's note: This scenario is intentionally very bad but not worst-case. (A nuclear or biological attack would be the worst case.) The purpose of this article is to suggest that there are still opportunities to avoid such disasters without sacrificing our liberties, if we act now. Finally, for those who may say that this has given the terrorists recipes and road maps for how to attack us, here's a bit of bad news: the terrorists already know in much greater detail how best to attack us again.
