June 07, 2011 journal, fear is the biggest American product for home and for exporting to other nations. Fear is marketed by the foreign owned filthy news media for a deadly war agenda to favor the false State of Israel. Fear is easily manufactured and exported for a country as powerful as the United States and it brings in billions in slush money from the U.S. Treasury to people like Dick Cheney and his evil gang. When the people try to vote away this great destruction they find out that the chains are stronger and run deeper than the face of whoever is president going back to 1913 when Congress gave away all of our currency to foreign hostile power, to a central world conglomerate "bank" pit of Zionism. Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch: "Here, then, is one of the strange, if less explored, phenomena of our post-9*1*1 American age: in only one area of life are Americans officially considered 100% scared, and so 100% in need of protection, and that's when it comes to terrorism. For an E. coli strain that could pose serious dangers, were it to arrive here, there is no uproar. No screaming headlines highlight special demands that more money be poured into food safety; no instant plans have been rushed into place to review meat and vegetable security procedures; no one has been urging that a Global War on Food-Borne Illnesses be launched. In fact, at this moment, six strains of E. coli that do cause illness in this country remain unregulated. Department of Agriculture proposals to deal with them are 'stalled' at the Office of Management and Budget. Meanwhile, the super-toxic E. coli strain that appeared in Europe remains officially unregulated here. On the other hand, send any goofus America-bound on a plane with any kind of idiotic device, and the politicians, the media, and the public promptly act as if - and it's you I'm addressing, Chicken Little - the sky were falling or civilization itself were at risk." read! 100 Percent Scared: How the National Security Complex Grows on Terrorism Fears by: Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch-Here's a scenario to chill you to the bone: Without warning, the network -- a set of terrorist super cells -- struck in northern Germany and Germans began to fall by the hundreds, then thousands. As panic spread, hospitals were overwhelmed with the severely wounded. More than 20 of the victims died. No one doubted that it was al-Qaeda, but where the terrorists had come from was unknown. Initially, German officials accused Spain of harboring them (and the Spanish economy promptly took a hit); then, confusingly, they retracted the charge. Alerts went off across Europe as fears spread. Russia closed its borders to the European Union, which its outraged leaders denounced as a "disproportionate" response. Even a small number of Americans visiting Germany ended up hospitalized. In Washington, there was panic, though no evidence existed that the terrorists were specifically targeting Americans or that any of them had slipped into this country. Still, at a hastily called news conference, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano raised the new terror alert system for the first time from its always "elevated" status to "imminent" (that is, " a credible, specific, and impending threat"). Soon after, a Pentagon spokesman announced that the U.S. military had been placed on high alert across Europe. Commentators on Fox News, quoting unnamed FBI sources, began warning that this might be the start of the "next 9*1" -and that the Obama administration was unprepared for it. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, in a rare public appearance at the American Enterprise Institute, denounced the president for "heedlessly putting this country at risk from the terrorists." In Congress, members of both parties rallied behind calls for hundreds of millions of dollars of supplementary emergency funding for the Department of Homeland Security to strengthen airport safety. ("In such difficult economic times," said House Speaker John Boehner, "Congress will have to find cuts from non-military discretionary spending at least equal to these necessary supplementary funds.") Finally, as the noise in the media echo chamber grew, President Obama called a prime-time news conference and addressed the rising sense of hysteria in Washington and the country, saying: "Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies will stop at nothing in their efforts to kill Americans. And we are determined not only to thwart those plans, but to disrupt, dismantle and defeat their networks once and for all." He then ordered a full review of U.S. security and intelligence capabilities and promised a series of "concrete steps to protect the American people: new screening and security for all flights, domestic and international;... more air marshals on flights; and deepening cooperation with international partners." Terrorism Tops Shark Attacks The first part of this scenario is, of course, a "terrorist" version of the still ongoing E. coli outbreak in Germany -- the discovery of an all-new antibiotic-resistant "super toxic variant" of the bacteria that has caused death and panic in Europe. Although al-Qaeda and E. coli do sound a bit alike, German officials initially (and evidently incorrectly) accused Spanish cucumbers, not terrorists in Spain or German bean sprouts, of causing the crisis. And the "disproportionate" Russian response was not to close its borders to the European Union, but to ban E.U. vegetables until the source of the outbreak is discovered. Above all, the American over-reaction was pure fiction. In fact, scientists here have been urging calm and mid-level government officials have been issuing statements of reassurance on the safety of the country's food supply system. No one attacked the government for inaction; Cheney did not excoriate the president, nor did Napolitano raise the terror alert level, and Obama's statement, quoted above, was given on January 5, 2010, in the panicky wake of the "underwear bomber's" failed attempt to blow a hole in a Christmas day plane headed from Amsterdam to Detroit. Ironically, non-super-toxic versions of E. coli now cause almost as much damage yearly in the U.S. as the recent super-toxic strain has in Europe. A child recently died in an outbreak in Tennessee. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have estimated that earlier in the decade about 60 Americans died annually from E. coli infections and ensuing complications, and another 2,000 were hospitalized. More recently, the figure for E. coli deaths has dropped to about 20 a year. For food-borne disease more generally, the CDC estimates that 48 million (or one of every six) Americans get sick yearly, 128,000 are hospitalized, and about 3,000 die. By comparison, in the near decade since 9one1, while hundreds of Americans died from E. coli, and at least 30,000 from food-borne illnesses generally, only a handful of Americans, perhaps less than 20, have died from anything that might be considered a terror attack in this country, even if you include the assassination attempt against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the Piper Cherokee PA-28 that a disgruntled software engineer flew into a building containing an IRS office in Austin, Texas, killing himself and an IRS manager. ("Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well" went his final note.) Stay informed with free Truthout updates delivered straight to your email inbox. Click here to sign up. In other words, in terms of damage since 9one1, terror attacks have ranked above shark attacks but below just about anything else that could possibly be dangerous to Americans, including car crashes which have racked up between 33,800 and 43,500 deaths a year since 2001. While E. coli deaths have dropped in recent years, no one expects them to get to zero, nor have the steps been taken that might bring us closer to the 100% safety mark. As Gardiner Harris of the New York Times wrote recently, "A law passed by Congress last year gave the Food and Drug Administration new powers to mandate that companies undertake preventive measures to reduce the likelihood of such outbreaks, and the law called for increased inspections to ensure compliance. The agency requested additional financing to implement the new law, including hiring more inspectors next year. Republicans in the House have instead proposed cutting the agency's budget." Doctrines from One to 100 Here, then, is one of the strange, if less explored, phenomena of our post-9one1 American age: in only one area of life are Americans officially considered 100% scared, and so 100% in need of protection, and that's when it comes to terrorism. For an E. coli strain that could pose serious dangers, were it to arrive here, there is no uproar. No screaming headlines highlight special demands that more money be poured into food safety; no instant plans have been rushed into place to review meat and vegetable security procedures; no one has been urging that a Global War on Food-Borne Illnesses be launched. In fact, at this moment, six strains of E. coli that do cause illness in this country remain unregulated. Department of Agriculture proposals to deal with them are "stalled" at the Office of Management and Budget. Meanwhile, the super-toxic E. coli strain that appeared in Europe remains officially unregulated here. On the other hand, send any goofus America-bound on a plane with any kind of idiotic device, and the politicians, the media, and the public promptly act as if -- and it's you I'm addressing, Chicken Little -- the sky were falling or civilization itself were at risk. This might be of only moderate interest, if it weren't for the U.S. national security state. Having lost its communist super-enemy in 1991, it now lives, breathes, and grows on its self-proclaimed responsibility to protect Americans 100% of the time, 100% of the way, from any imaginable terror threat. The National Security Complex has, in fact, grown fat by relentlessly pursuing the promise of making the country totally secure from terrorism, even as life grows ever less secure for so many Americans when it comes to jobs, homes, finances, and other crucial matters. It is on this pledge of protection that the Complex has managed to extort the tidal flow of funds that have allowed it to bloat to monumental proportions, end up with a yearly national security budget of more than $1.2 trillion, find itself encased in a cocoon of self-protective secrecy, and be 100% assured that its officials will never be brought to justice for any potential crimes they may commit in their "war" on terrorism. Right now, even in the worst of economic times, the Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, and the sprawling labyrinth of competing bureaucracies that likes to call itself the U.S. Intelligence Community are all still expanding. And around them have grown up, or grown ever stronger, various complexes (à la "military-industrial complex") with their associated lobbyists, allied former politicians, and retired national security state officials, as well as retired generals and admirals, in an atmosphere that, since 2001, can only be described as boomtown-like, the modern equivalent of a gold rush. Think of it this way: in the days after 9double1, Vice President Cheney proposed a new formula for American war policy. Its essence was this: even a 1% chance of an attack on the United States, especially involving weapons of mass destruction, must be dealt with as if it were a certainty. Journalist Ron Suskind dubbed it "the one percent doctrine." It may have been the rashest formula for "preventive" or "aggressive" war offered in the modern era and, along with the drumbeat of bogus information that Cheney and crew dished out about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it was the basis for the Bush administration's disastrous attempt to occupy that country and build a Pax Americana in the Greater Middle East. There was, it turns out, a "homeland" equivalent, never quite formulated or given a name, but remarkably successful nonetheless at feeding an increasingly all-encompassing domestic war state. Call it the 100% doctrine (for total safety from terrorism). While the 1% version never quite caught on, the 100% doctrine has already become part of the American credo. Thanks to it, the National Security Complex of 2011 is a self-reinforcing, self-perpetuating mechanism. Any potential act of terrorism simply feeds the system, creating new opportunities to add yet more layers to one bureaucracy or another, or to promote new programs of surveillance, control, and war-making -- and the technology that goes with them. Every minor deviation from terror safety, even involving plots that failed dismally or never had the slightest chance of success, is but an excuse for further funding. Meanwhile, the Complex continually "mans up" (or drones up) and, from Pakistan to Yemen, launches attacks officially meant to put terrorists out of action, but that have the effect of creating them in the process. In other words, consider it a terrorist-creating machine that needs -- what else? -- repeated evidence of or signs of terrorism to survive and thrive. Though few here seem to notice, none of this bears much relationship to actual American security. But if the National Security Complex doesn't make you secure, its 100% doctrine is by no means a failure. On the basis of ensuring your security from terror, it has managed to make itself secure from bad times, the dangers of downsizing, job loss, most forms of accountability, or prosecution for acts that once would have been considered crimes. In fact, terrorism is anything but the greatest of our problems or threats, which means that acquiescing to a state dedicated to expansion on the principle of keeping you safe from terror is like making a bargain with the devil. So suck it up. Nothing is secure. No one is safe. Now, eat your sprouts. [Note: For a canny analysis of how the National Security Complex's embrace of the 100% doctrine has enhanced its powers, check out David Bromwich's "Obama, Bush, and the Patriot Act"; special thanks for research help on this piece goes to that invaluable former TomDispatch intern Erica Hellerstein; and as for Christopher Holmes, this site's eye-in-the-sky copyeditor, he holds TomDispatch mail down by keeping mistakes readers would otherwise write in about to a miraculous minimum.] To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book is The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's (Haymarket Books). You can catch him discussing war American-style and that book in a Timothy MacBain TomCast video by clicking here. Four Arrows-I continue to be mystified and mortified that so many clear thinking writers, friends, critical thinkers, etc., can write such on-target analyses about our "post-9/11" insanity while calmly accepting the lunacy of the official story that started it all, thus, contributing to its continuation and to, I suppose, the opportunity to continue to write such articles. I will continue to honor Tom Engelhardt's work, Amy Goodman's, Thom Hartmann's, Noam Chomskys, etc., and yet continued to regard their decision to avoid like the plague any serious study of the facts surrounding 9/11 that contradict all the assumptions "we progressives" let pass with deep frustration and disappointment. cymaticster-Thank you for what you have said. You are 100% right on. I have been searching for a way to say what you said. We need to deal with the first lie before we can change all the other lies it gave birth to. A true patriot-Agreed. The neocons have gotten away with 9one1 because too many people cannot wrap their brains around the fact that some humans can be so evil. And don't forget: Oswald acted alone, as well. Bill Travis-I wish we could find a way to make peace and freedom more profitable than war and repression. If we did, the war profiteers and fear merchants would quickly go out of business and disappear. Dartigen-It is more profitable, but it's a long-term profitable. These guys don't have the level of patience or foresight required to make a long-term profit, they just want their money right this instant and they don't care about the consequences. There's a word for people who don't care about consequences. Andrea-We have met the enemy and he is us. Ed-This is so sad. Englehart apparently knows nothing about what has been happening in agriculture and how the e.coli is being used by the corporations to try to take even tighter control over food. He doesn't realize that the Food Modernization and Safety Act was backed by the same bankers who took apart the economy and took their spoils and invested in ... starvation. http://www.independent.co.uk/o... It is the Enron scheme being played out with food - create shortages and reap much, much more profit. And FMSA gives them the means to do that, all they have to do is declare "contamination!" or "bioterrorism!" with no proof needed and they can shut down delivery of food to any city in the US. All they have to do is get an animal disease outbreak declared and the bill includes DOD and DHS to move into a region and begin slaughtering millions of animals - whether they are sick or not. Look at the UK's two outbreaks (happening during Bush) in which they killed 10 million animals over Foot and Mouth disease, caused - oops - by a germ lab leaks. Look at Korea where 70,000 military just killed over 2 million cattle and hogs because of FMD, burying them alive. But wait, FMD is harmless to people, meat from animals sick from FMD is harmless to people, animals sick from FMD recover. So what is going on? The multinationals, using FMD and new corporate rules on animal disease, did a bang up job of breaking the back of the livestock industry in both places and it can declare "animal disease!" whenever it wants. FMSA, a Rockefeller, Gates, IMF, World Bank, USAID, Sysco, Tides bill http://www.opednews.com/articl... now includes just such military threat over our animals here. Terrorism, yes, but home grown, or German grown (the heart of the pharmaceutical industry is there. Remember them? See the part on Codex. http://www4.dr-rath-foundation... They were 1/2 funded by the Rockefellers during WWII, the Rockefellers who invented genetic engineering and eugenics and are interested in control over every living thing on earth. http://www.rense.com/general7/... Mr. Englehart has not noticed how important diseases are to the corporations and how inventive they have become with them. The phony pandemic that made billions? The pandemic laws http://salem-news.com/articles... the drug companies and Bush put into place using the anthrax scare that came out of Ft. Detrick?) A bacteria could not have popped up suddenly, resistant suddenly to 8 classes of antibiotics and with a couple of special features built in unless it had been genetically engineered. But it is very useful for creating fear that can be used to crush organic farmers raising vegetables, getting more power over food through draconian laws they have planned since just after WWII when Bayer executive planned Codex. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... Just as contaminated peanuts that killed people were very convenient for introducing 7 massive food safety bills - pre-loaded with co-sponsors and designed by Monsanto long before the deaths. Just as the Patriot Act was written before 9/11 and the pandemic bills before the anthrax scare or any pandemic. http://www.salem-news.com/arti... Terror is their game. Bush set it up and Engelhart doesn't understand. while it can be achieved by sinking boats or attacking harbors or sending planes into towers and delivers big prizes, diseases are just as potent and provide more deniability. Doesn't he know what they've been working on for years? Bioweapons and the Security state http://www.globalresearch.ca/i... Or what they have been willing to do to government have been doing to our own people? http://www.guardian.co.uk/poli... Engelhart needs to take a look at the hoaxes and who is profiting. http://salem-news.com/articles... He needs to read William Engdahl on pandemics, how fake they are, how much Bush's cronies have profited, and how corrupt the whole "science" thing is. Engelhart cares but he should spend time with people working on the globalization of food, like Vandana Shiva, to understand what is really going on with diseases, disease "scares" and the link to GMOs. He should read "Unholy Mess." vhttp://www.whale.to/m/fm52.ht... S. Wolf Britain-The state is the biggest terrorist threat, especially by that level of growth that you speak of; so why don't you just come right out and say this, and "call a spade a spade"? Because it would "step on toes" and/or make you a target of the DHS? Yep, no doubt, but that doesn't obviate the duty and the need to FULLY tell it like it is, no matter the consequences! No, instead, you beat around the "Bush" when the people parish for lack of knowledge; and because of that lack of knowledge, lack of belief; of the fact that the state is the biggest terrorist threat, and that this is the enemy they need to stand up against, in order to take their republic, and their freedoms and liberties at the expense of so-called "security", back, not the so-called "terrorist threats to security", most of which are engineered by the terrorist state, the U.S. government and "al-CIA-duh(!)", itself. So, enough of the "liberal" acquiescence to the full truth about the terrorist state, and thereby acquiescence to the terrorist state itself, which you only partly, & inadequately, disparage! We ALL better totally face the corporate-fascist level of the threat, or we doom all of us to national and global enslavement and mass-murder of far more innocents in increasingly-horrific numbers! We in the U.S. now live in a Nazi-Germany-like, East-German-like, and/or USSR-like "national security state" that is of proportions FAR WORSE. In fact, it is the hugest conglomerate of ever-increasing domestic and international control in the entire history of the world, making ALL OF US less and less safe at the hands of "our own" government. Do you not think that such behooves us to completely stand up against it or we are all screwed, and that such means we need to TOTALLY tell it like it is about the level of the STATE THREAT, particularly when the state is also increasingly making it look like those who do nothing but non-violently fulfill their DUTY(IES) to stand up against this gargantuan threat are supposedly "terrorists"?! Therefore, God help us if we don't, both stand up against it and completely tell it like it is about how monstrously-huge that threat IS!! There is no time left to beat around the bush!! The modern-day "Redcoat" tyrants, the corporate-fascists and their national security state, are at the gates threatening the very lives, and the True Liberty(ies) and Freedom(s), of each and every one of us!! DANGER, DANGER, people!! Man the true, and complete, defenses NOW, or die in abject and total terror as slaves!! What is your choice?! Decide now!! There is no more time to waste whatsoever!! Then all of you stand up against all of this madness, with all of your hearts', minds' and souls', unless you want to doom all of us to the foregoing!! Do you truly and fully hear me?! That is TRULY how dire and grave the situation is; and, if you think ANY of this is an "exaggeration" and/or "hyperbole", you are insane, and part and parcel of the mass-insanity whether you realize it or not!! God literally help us all to fulfill our duty(ies) to completely stand up against all of the mass-insanity that is getting worse and worse with each passing day!! There is no other truly and fully correct and sane choice!! For, if we don't, we're ALL fracked!! Don't you "get" that yet?! I sure hope and pray so!! skybird-The reason America refuses to give up her reliance on the military is because America's primal image of herself was forged in the Revolutionary War and then tempered by a long string of 19th and 20th century military victories. Remember the glory of WW2? Without doubt, America and her big bombs are inextricably linked. Then we fell on our faces in Korea and Vietnam. Doubt entered our souls like a canker. Today, jumping from one war to another, we have pulverized Iraq and now poor Afghanistan is in our sights. We're like an aging fighter with a chip on his shoulder; rigid, confused, we're willing to destroy people and their ancient homelands in order to "protect our freedom." It's largely a big show intended to distract us from our own self-doubt. Callously ignoring the economic suffering of millions of our own, we will proudly continue to salute the Stars and Stripes on the way to becoming a failed nation. We will keep singing hymns of praise to "the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air" even as we fall down, and down, and down again on aging knees. One, I have never been afraid of terrorist attacks. Nuclear war, yes. Being picked up by our loving governmental fascist security forces, yes. Terrorists are not interested in me or John Q. Public. They want their hands on the oligarchs and their servants. Can't say I blame them. The terrorism being dealt out by western powers is abominable. (Mossad) And it's so nice to see so many posts here by others who believe that our government lied out their collective behinds on what really happened on 9 double one. We know the Bush administration was looking for any excuse to go to war to support raising US control in the middle east. They were warned about attempted attacks by plane. They knew that the American public would never get behind an all out invasion of another nation without something to drive them to it. And what is the safest way to get people whipped into a frenzy? Scare them. A foreign terrorist attack of epic proportions was the perfect way to get the peoples of America behind invasions. History is rife with it. US history is rife with it. 9/1*1 was ideal for the neocon warhawks and chickenhawks. There is too much wrong with the picture they painted. The oligarchs lost the Soviet Union as the big bad guy to fear and they needed another one. They took some poor schlubs fighting a loosing battle, dressed them up, packaged them up and sold them to us as a credible threat to us. Unfortunately too many people bought the product. Fascism is marching across our land. Taking a greater hold day by day. The great American experiment is dying. Dying from within. Internal enemies. Domestic terrorism. From the oligarchs and their servants. henst123-And our wars to "defeat terror" drain our economy and go unreported by the press. Never in our history have there been so many white spaces where news reports should be. Our Peace Prize President is permitted to continue his disastrous policies by repeating mean-ingless platitudes. The half wit Gates was shedding tears over the fallen the other day, without a shred of evidence of "success" in his bloody endeavors. No questions asked of poor old Gates as he slips into blubbering senility. No questions asked of our prisoner of Wall Street President as he slips in the polls. Good riddance to them. truth2power-The National Security Complex is a racket. Gus-Agree with Ed and Four Arrows. 9one1 truth is not just about seeing the reality of 9one1 but about accepting that the government would attack its own people because they had big corporate plans already ready for what could flow from there afterwards. The patriotism part was playing to conservatives to push through the Patriot Act and DHS. Then the O--ma part has been about "health" and "safety"-what liberals will do anything or. He began with pandemics (got military on the ground for it and activated FEMA camps and removed all restrictions on vaccines) and with food safety. And for anyone who believes it is about making food safe, they haven't read the FMSA. It is terrifying - martial law, shutting off food to any place, slaughter of normal animals (the USDA has been funding GE-animals). Total control of food - even gardens - long prison sentences for paperwork errors, turning control over to the WTO and international agreements, warrantless entry, no due process, surveillance, etc. etc. The left needs to understand that food is much more valuable than money and their aim is control of all food in the world. They are already attacking in real ways - armed FBI attacking organic coops, chemtrails raining down pesticides, aluminum nanoparticles, spores, bacteria, etc., rigging markets and breaking out cattle industry (they already have turned poultry and hog farmers into massive concentration camps of animals), breaking down local food systems, and FMSA gives them much more power to finish off our access to real food. E.coli is a weapon and they are very into bioweapons. Given the full fascist power the pandemic laws would give them and the gullibility of the left when it comes to "diseases" and vaccines (watch what one of the leading scientists in the world has to say about them). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... one would anticipate they'll create some dread disease, go after people with mandated vaccines to "save them" and when huge numbers die, blame it on the disease. That's why the left has to pay close attention to "food" and "health," two areas we have been patsies in, both of which include genetically engineered dangers." (remember that nine double one was a false flag attack) Rocker319-Mr. Engelhardt is bang on. The weapons and technology pimps scare me the most. They're like tobacco companies and money lenders, except far worse. Legal, but "Jesus would be overturning their oak boardroom tables in rage". Speed47633-This article adds support to what I have been saying since 9/12. We cannot surrender our rights and freedoms as Americans because of the occasional act of lunacy. A few days after the 9*one*1 attacks I was talking with a group of my colleagues at the elementary school where I taught and was expressing the opinion that we had no justification for launching an attack on Afghanistan. One colleague said, and was echoed by the others in the room, "Well we have to attack somebody!" Even so soon after the attacks the National Security State had convinced most of the public that attacking someone would make us safer. Insane. David Herman-The way we perceive threats relates our familiarity with them. Humans have always been threatened by disease and injury, but these have become so established into our consciousness that we don't fear them as much on a day-to-day basis, even though they technically represent the highest risk. The threat posed by cars & other high-speed transportation has also ingrained itself as a part of everyday life, so that we no longer need to calculate the risks & rewards involved. Terrorism represented a new threat which, however rare, Americans had never previously needed to psychologically evaluate. Bicknell Eubanks-I have been saying for years that I have a greater chance of being run over by an 18 wheeler while I am sound asleep in my bed than of being killed or even slightly injured by a terrorist. But nobody will listen to me. I am glad that Tom Engel-hardt agrees with me. Terrorists never have and never will cause me to lose sleep. Come on people let's show the world that we truly are courageous. guest-I can hardly wait for the Security Storm Troopers and the TSA to come to my humble fields to pat down my onions and carrots, and frisk my potatoes. Wild-thing. That is because terrorism is an intelligence agents welfare program but actually biological terrorism isn't out of the question so passing food safety law and the cutting back on regulators isn't exactly wise... nor is putting short or intermediate range missiles in eastern Europe in a kind reverse Cuban missile crisis... but it could also be good for reviving cold war intelligence jobs on top of terrorist... we seem to want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory if it was any sort of victory as we keep on spending more and more for offense disguised as defense... Geria-It only shows that the mass "mind" is a dumb mind without a sense of proportion or realistic expectation. People who think "public opinion" has any value need to pay attention. Public opinion is more like public ignorance. St-Pete-Excellent point made in this article... conservatives feed on fear, and fear feeds them quite literally... big budgets, aranoia, cuts in citizens' rights. More and more people are leery of this institutionalized fear- and see it for what it is... just another schtick or business for the conservative "big man" establishment. Conservatives would do well to insure the homeland is secure for them and their friends by making sure US citizens are better cared for at home. And progressives should seize on opportunities to connect conservatives and the GOP to what increasingly looks like a mostly phony, but very expensive game using fear. Gene-It was liberal fear that was so easily targeted by corporate media's stories of contaminated food and pushed through the food safety bill, a Patriot Act that puts the US food supply in the hands of Monsanto. It is liberal doctors and researchers and liberals themselves who still "believe in" vaccines, not noticing 1) the Supreme Court removed all liability from the manufacturers, 2) the FDA has a new rule letting the manufacturers change or insert any ingredient with the approval of only one employee at the FDA http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vacci... not noticing the manufacturers are (thank you, Ed, for the link) the same companies that funded Hitler, started WWII, ran the camps, killed millions (including killing people with vaccines) and whose scientists the Bushes brought over here. We need to look at ourselves and see how ridiculously fearful we and our families have been about food that might make us sick (jumping at every corporate media story and then walking right into the trap of begging for more government power to "protect" us through laws that turn all food over to the corporations) and of sickness (lining our children up to be injured like we are told to do, oddly not suspicious of government we distrust in so many other areas and not doing the research - not even noticing that the head of vaccines at Merck admitted they caused the AIDS epidemic with their HEP vaccine and that all their vaccines are loaded with multiple cancers and viruses http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... and that Kissinger is involved with vaccines http://www.thepetitionsite.com... and okay with mandatory vaccines as though it's okay for government to force anything into anyone's body "for their own good." As though the informed consent of the Nuremberg Code - developed to protect us from what the Nazi's did with vaccines and other experiments - can be overturned when it is exactly the same companies that murdered millions involved now. StPete-Excellent point made in this article... Conservatives feed on fear, and fear feeds them literally... big budgets, paranoia, cuts in citizens' rights. More and more people are leery of this institutionalized fear- and see it for what it is. Progressives should seize on opportunities to connect conservatives and the GOP to what increasingly looks like mostly phony, but very expensive fear. Scooter-The terrorists won the "War on Terror" a long time ago. They got us to spend trillions, start a couple wars, and be generally paranoid. Couldn't ask for much more. Debra-The general public's fear does not follow bipartisan lines. The national PROTECTION state has been in place for quite some time now, and SECURITY is a logical outgrowth of it. A great part of our COLLECTIVE fear stems from the realization that bureaucracy in all areas of our daily lives has become so immense that individual accountability and responsibility have vanished into thin air. (that's the truth if ever heard) The absence of individual accountability and responsibility is what makes it possible for well intentioned men and women to make disastrous, liberticide decisions while mouthing the mantra "security" while remaining totally cut off from the way their decisions translate into our daily lives. I have this theory... if we managed to undo the INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURAL STATE, we would take the first step towards undoing where massive INDUSTRIALIZATION has brought us. (Only God can reverse it now.) We need to abandon industrialization at this point in order to find.. SANITY again. And one more point... the animals are no more robotized machines than WE are. Until we start treating them with more respect, we will continue to... SH-T IN OUR OWN NEST. Time to wake up and jettison the Enlightenment blueprint for success. It is dragging us down... Cordleycoit-What we have are total incompetents in-charge of security and most Americans recognize the joke called Homeland Security. Every flood hurricane forest fire is an end of the world phenomenon, a chance to boondoggle and pose for the photo op. Meanwhile the perverts in the airport get to do their thing enhanced by a Congress of prostitutes liars and fools tools of the corporate coup that runs this country. texasaggie-"Though few here seem to notice, none of this bears much relationship to actual American security." Hasn't that been the general republican game plan all along? You make a big noise about something, like the debt, and then propose measures that have nothing to do with the subject at hand but which actually is aimed at something entirely different, like enriching the already obscenely rich. Ryan's proposal is Exhibit A for that. dankyogurt-The war on terror is the new rise of fascism, enjoy the ride."