Are We Reaching A Tipping Point?

Something has gone terribly wrong in this country. I had such high hopes with the new administration coming in and I feel we are so far gone down this dangerous garden path that there may be no coming back.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh drove a rental truck filled with fertilizer up to the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City and managed to kill 168 people. Although the initial reports after the explosion indicated Muslim terrorists, in the end it turned out to be the work of a white American veteran. It was treated as the horrible crime that it was. He was arrested, tried and executed.

On September 11, 2001, 19 men (mostly of Saudi citizenship) hijacked four airplanes and drove those planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - 2,992 people died that day (including the hijackers). Unlike Mr. McVeigh who used explosives - the hijackers on 9/11 smuggled absolutely nothing aboard the airliners. They were "armed" with box cutters which were considered acceptable items to have in your carry on luggage.

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down over Lockerbie, Scotland, by a bomb placed in the cargo hold of the plane, probably in a suitcase. Two hundred seventy people died.

Since September 11th we have had two ineffectual attempts at bringing down aircraft. One by a guy trying to light his shoes on fire in front of other passengers and the Christmas Day underwear "bomber" who set himself on fire.

Yet we are still involved in two wars as a result of these acts, wars that have left more Americans dead than were killed in all the criminal acts listed above. Thousands more Muslim citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan are dead. Our "Change We Can Believe In" president is now looking at Yemen - oh that's right, I forgot about the USS Cole attack by speed boat that killed 17 sailors-Yemen has been fingered by the "alleged" bomber. No one talks any more about the Indian suit who placed him on the plane without a passport, declaring him to be a Sudanese refugee.

The insane performance art we call "airport security" will now include full body scans. That's right, those high school graduate TSA employees will get to see what you look like beneath your knickers all in the name of alleged security.

To what end?

How many remember what the 1980's were like under Ronald Reagan? This would be during the years when the former Soviet Union was the evil empire and thousands of nuclear war heads were pointed in both directions - oh, wait, I think most of them still are. I used to have post apocalyptic nightmares. The fear kept the Military Industrial Complex very, very busy though and many people made lots of money while we all kept looking over our shoulder for the Red Menace.

Sadly though that all went away as the weight of failed Communism was brought crashing down along with the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. What's a Military Industrial Complex to do?

I've used the joke about the guy looking for his keys under the street lamp even though he dropped them 1/2 a block away because the light is better before. Well, George W. Bush decided the light was better in Iraq after 9/11 - plus Saddam was sitting on all this oil... Besides, the Saudi Americans were the Bushs' friends...er I mean America's friends. All the talk about what's-his-name...oh, yeah, Osama Bin Laden...he was busy running around in Afghanistan, so we gradually just forgot about him over time.

A rental truck, some fertilizer, box cutters, an unattended suitcase...

How is any of what has been implemented in the name of security really protecting us? Or is it all just about redecorating the Cold War for a whole new era? Instead of bomb shelters and duck and cover drills, we have full body scans at the airport. We are apparently willing to swallow any and all cock and bull stories from this evil government of ours because they have succeeded in making us afraid...and the Military Industrial Complex purrs along. Did I happen to mention that contractors have become a very lucrative sub-category of the MIC?

Can anyone explain to me how if the threat is so real from the legion of foaming at the mouth Islamists that hate this country so much (for the life of me I can't understand why...) we have no real method for examining the vast numbers of shipping containers deposited in our port cities and distributed throughout the country...except, of course, that we haven't been attacked in that manner.

Millions of American drive through the tunnels in and out of NYC, under the Chesapeake Bay, BART runs its trains under San Francisco Bay...security? minimal if at all, but, oh yeah, we haven't been attacked in that manner.

Well, we have such intense security guarding our rapidly aging nuclear power plants...or, wait, nope - guess we don't. Then again, we haven't been attacked in that manner.

In fact, think of all the buses, trains, crowded football stadiums, baseball games, think of the huge crowds at most airports trying to get through security...where are all the attacks? Why the f*ck are we so willing to hand over our personal liberty to a government that clearly doesn't give a rat's ass about the little people? When did we turn into such mindless cattle?

I have sat back and watched as our government handed over hundreds of millions of dollars to banks "too big to fail" who have yet to start loaning money again to the little people. Those same banks turned around and handed out yet another batch of big fat bonus checks to the criminals who raped us all in the first place.

We are about to watch the passage of a health care "reform" bill that is really just a big hand out to the insurance companies. All the empty promises that we swallowed during the campaign have come to naught. You can be damn sure that the spin and celebration following the big signature will be over the top.

What was Mandy Patinkin's line from that song from Evita? "As soon as the smoke from the funeral clears, we're all going to see...how...she did nothing for years."

So we watch as more and more of our paychecks are taken for poorer and poorer health coverage - while more and more of us lose the little coverage we have. Yet the money for endless "War on Terror" never seems to be in short supply.

Today fighter jets escorted a plane that reportedly had a problem with a passenger. What exactly do you think the fighter jets were there for? Think about it...for the safety and security of the passengers? Try again... Remember there are those who don't buy the propaganda story about the fourth plane over Pennsylvania...will we ever know if fighter jets didn't intervene?

Oh, yeah, and the TSA arrested a poor guy from Bakersfield and shut down an airport for two hours over some honey - this was his destination by the way...he was arriving with the honey. Good thing it really wasn't that TNT variety of honey that explodes during the last hour of flight when you can no longer move about the cabin...what a joke...what a sad, sad joke.

And the Military Industrial Complex rolls merrily along...and Wall Street is happy...and the likes of Dick Cheney and the company formerly known as Blackwater are happy...and George Bush and Company laugh all the way to the bank.