It’s another day in the week that George W. Bush has warned us will be a week of peril. Bush has suggested that America is at heightened risk of suffering from a terrorist attack within its borders this week.
Why? George W. Bush suggests that we are all now in danger of a terrorist attack because the House of Representatives is taking a recess of just one week before it considers Bush’s latest bad law, the FISA Amendments Act, which:
A. Allows the government to spy on your emails, your telephone calls and your Internet use without having to give any reason to anybody to prove that the spying is at all related to even a suspected crime.
B. Allows the government to come to your home while you are gone and search through it without having to give any reason to anybody to prove that the search is at all related to even a suspected crime.
C. Gives retroactive immunity telecommunications corporations who helped George W. Bush spy on American citizens in violation of the law.
George W. Bush seriously says that not passing the final conference version of this terrible law makes us vulnerable to a terrorist attack… and not just at some far off time in the future, but this very week.
We are in Day 2 of George W. Bush’s declared Week of Peril. So far, however, there hasn’t been any terrorist attack within the borders of the United States. There hasn’t even been a flag burning, or an Islamofascist potluck and discussion group.
There have been two terrorist attacks this week, however… in Afghanistan, where George W. Bush told us all six years ago that the Taliban and Al Quaida had been defeated. It turns out that Bush’s war in Afghanistan wasn’t really over when everyone thought it was. The Taliban and Al Quaida were not defeated. They were just waiting to make a counter attack, and they’ve been getting stronger and stronger ever since. Over 100 Afghans have been killed in suicide bombings this week so far.
War was promised as a way to defeat terrorists, but it just hasn’t worked. After all these years, American soldiers occupying Afghanistan have not eliminated the terrorists there. Furthermore, freedom hasn’t come to Afghanistan either. Harsh Islamic religious laws are still in force, oppressing the people. Strict security state measures under the puppet government there have not enabled true freedom, and they haven’t brought security either.
Afghanistan ought to be a warning to Americans: The promise of a security state is a false promise. Security states are not really any more secure than free and open democracies.
When George W. Bush tells us that we need to sacrifice the Bill of Rights, by passing laws like the FISA Amendments Act, in order to ensure that terrorists will not attack the United States again, he is promising something he cannot deliver.
The Patriot Act cannot protect the United States from terrorist attacks. The Military Commissions Act cannot protect the United States from terrorist attacks. The FISA Amendments Act cannot protect the United States from terrorist attacks.
On the other hand, we really don’t have much to worry about here in the United States when it comes to terrorist attacks. It’s an obvious truth when you look around, and think back through the 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, and on and on. Life in the United States has historically been very secure, and was before laws like the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and the FISA Amendments Act were ever put into place.
These new laws, which take away our freedoms, do not make us any more secure than we already were. The terrorist threat never was very great. The attacks by Christofascists against Oklahoma City in the 1990s and by Islamofascists against New York City and Washington in this decade were dramatic, but they were not part of any larger trend of terrorist attacks. They were blips – aberrations in a long history of peace and genuine security.
In the past, the United States has been safe because it is free. Why on Earth are the George W. Bush and the Congress intent on passing laws like the FISA Amendments Act, and destroying the freedoms that have served us so well?
It’s been two days now since the Protect America Act expired, and there have been no terrorist attacks… just like there were no terrorist attacks on almost every day in the 230 years of United States history before the Protect America Act was passed.
Oh, but the week is not over. Maybe George W. Bush is right. Maybe there will be a massive terrorist attack against Omaha, Nebraska this afternoon.
Well, there was that man arrested at the airport with two hand grenades… but he was from the U.S. Army. And there was an explosion in Big Spring, Texas today, but that was an accident at an oil refinery.
Was the this the big terrorist attack Bush’s Big Brother spies were sent out to protect us from?
Speaking of accidents in the workplace, has anyone seen how lax OSHA has become on workplace safety standards due to being underfunded, short staffed, and under the thumb of corporate America? i’m glad i don’t work in the Tyler pipe plant in Tyler, Texas that has one of the highest accident/fatality stats but isn’t held accountable by OSHA.
And howsabout those cows. Recalling beef that was tainted two years ago?!?