John has done his post so well that there is no need for me to add a thing to it. He speaks with such clarity, such intelligence, such calm good sense, that there is no improvement. I am quoting the following contrast between the reactions to actual events during WWII and the reaction to threats today, because it speaks to me so strongly. Read it and go visit John.
FDR: Oh, I'm sorry, was wiping out our entire Pacific fleet supposed to intimidate us? We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and right now we're coming to kick your ass with brand new destroyers riveted by waitresses. How's that going to feel?
CHURCHILL: Yeah, you keep bombing us. We'll be in the pub, flipping you off. I'm slapping Rolls-Royce engines into untested flying coffins to knock you out of the skies, and then I'm sending angry Welshmen to burn your country from the Rhine to the Polish border.
US. NOW: BE AFRAID!! Oh God, the Brown Bad people could strike any moment! They could strike ... NOW!! AHHHH. Okay, how about .. NOW!! AAGAGAHAHAHHAG! Quick, do whatever we tell you, and believe whatever we tell you, or YOU WILL BE KILLED BY BROWN PEOPLE!! PUT DOWN THAT SIPPY CUP!!
6 comments:
Ahhhh.... look out for the SIPPY CUP!
Amen to that I remember December 7, 1941 and all of WW2. My three brothers were drafted and they came home safely thank heavens. I remember that our government did NOT continuously try to scare the us. Far from it. We were encouraged by FDR and Churchill to remain brave and dedicated to winning the war and we did.
I was shocked after 9/11 when Dubya told us to go shopping! I couldn't believe it. That was the perfect moment to enlist the entire country in learning to live without foreign oil, in finding ways to genuinely deal with this threat. We were all ready. We were all willing. We were all waiting to be told what was needed so that we could chip in and do it.
I was born a few months after Pearl Harbor and my parents traded their meat rations for milk to feed me. Everyone with a little land grew a victory garden, and those without grew something in a pot on the fire escape. People walked and rode bicycles to save tires for doctors and the war effort. People today would be as willing to do what is needed. But, what is needed is to spend like crazy and be afraid enough to vote for the folks who disregarded the warnings before 9/11 and who recently tried to gut funds from the development of liquid explosive detection equipment.
John Kerry yesterday referred to the Bush administration's pandering to fear!fear!fear! as "the lowest common denominator of government."
Actually, here's the correct Kerry quote: "I'm not going to stand for those scare tactics, that's exactly what the Republicans have been doing for the last years. They avoid a real discussion by throwing out a slogan and they scare people....
It's a disgrace that people are playing to the lowest common denominator of American politics, which is fear."
Fear IS the lowest common denominator, but Bush and Crew know how to use it to factor the country into small enough pieces to guarantee a win. I'm always reminded of the Wizard of Oz, though, shouting "Ignore that man behind the curtain!" when I keep hearing from the current administration how scared we should be.
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