Posted on 10/24/2001 9:44:01 AM PDT by bassmaner
After the horrifying sneak attack of 9/11 and the continuing anthrax scares, I am certain that our government is doing the right thing in going after OBL and his Taliban henchmen. Their words and their deeds are just crying for us to wipe them off the face of the earth, consign them to history's dustbin, or whatever similar fate we can conjure up. I am 99.9999% certain that GWB is handling the job well and doing the right thing for our nation. I hope he continues and carries the message to all the state sponsors of terrorism as well. But there are some things that are troubling me.
Before anyone starts flaming, this is not going to be a "blame America" screed. Au contraire. Through our tradition of liberty, we've always helped raise the level of civilization in places where we've injected our influence. The doubts that I have about the current war policy stem from this question: Considering the abuses and the lies heaped on American citizens in recent years by their federal government (IRS abuses, Waco, etc.), and the federal power grabs that were attempted long before 9/11 (Know Your Customer, Carnivore, and others), can we really, truly believe BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT that the tin-foil hat crowd is totally off base with their wacko conspiracy theories?
I've heard such types talk about the "Masonic brotherhood" which seeks to gain world domination by imposing the "new world order". I've read theories about how the CFR, Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderbergers are behind a vast scheme to impose the one-world socialist vision of the Illuminati at the expense of traditional American freedoms (What better way to eliminate liberty than to use the exigency of war?). In the past I've always taken such nonsense with a grain of salt. And my current reaction is "Why would any such conspiracy risk killing thousands of innocent people just to advance its agenda? Couldn't it be done in a more subtle way?"
But still, I'm troubled. How, for instance, were we able to pin the 9/11 attacks on bin Laden so quickly while claiming that his al-Qaeda organization is based on compartmentalized "cells" without a direct chain-of-command? Why is the evidence we have on him and al-Qaeda under seal? Why does the title of the new cabinet level organization (Office of Homeland Security) seem troubling? Am I wrong to be asking these questions? Could the tin-foil hat wackos be on to something? Is everything we're hearing from the media and the government true? Don't get me wrong: I support the government's actions in its fullfillment of its Constitutional duty to "provide for the common defense". I just hope I'm not being lied to - I don't want this to be a country that's has given up its birthright of liberty to advance some evil, conspiratorial agenda. That's not the America I want to live in.
Simple.
Hey! You promised/threatened to move in next door to me! And...the house is for sale, too.
P.S. I happen to be particularly fond of cheese.
The US Feds have been caught in lie after lie after lie. I have no rational reason to believe anything they say.
When considering other themes, it seems there are too many to choose from. Oil, Islam, Palestine, economic decline… to list a few.
I prefer to wait and watch.
-- Bruce Springsteen
Well, I'll just think about it tomorrow, because, after all, tomorrow is another day!
... and we all know from the Guild's thread, today is No Whining Wednesday!
Baba Rum Raisin
There's not really enough to make me a believer.
What I do believe, however, is that our government, and our elected officials have not always been acting with OUR best interests in mind. I believe that our government and our elected officals has caused great harm to citizens, communities, the nation and freedom. I also believe that SOP for decades has been to lie and cover-up and lie some more "for the good of the country".
I find it entirely possible that there is an underlying agenda in the current world events, and the agenda is power and money. Both are derived from the oil and poppies in the middle east. The Bush family and the Cheney family are both heavily invested in the region, both families stand to gain a great deal if the middle east can be controlled and exploited.??? ????????
What's downright nuts is thinking they specifically arranged for 19 foriegners to hijack planes and drive them into buildings - just so the leglislators & burrowcraps could submit some bills and change policies.
Perhaps some such group or groups have funneled money into the terr networks for their own purposes. Much to their chagrin at this time I'm sure. The terrs are obviously not at anyones beck and call. Guys like Yossef Bodansky and many others have just done too good a job tracking and chronicaling their efforts over too long a time. The terr goals are strictly Islamist and THAT ain't good for business no matter how you look at it.
Many conspiracy buffs postulate a group aiming at bringing about world chrisis out of which could be fashioned a NWO under someone or something's central control. Well the Islamists would never be brought under any central control and they are presently OUT of control and the US is the only force on earth with a chance to bring them under control.
The end product of future events looking more and more like WWIII can only bring about the opposite of what any hidden NWO group could wish to transpire. Either we end up with a solid uni-lateral world with a super nationalistic reborn America undeniably in charge .... or we end up with a world gone mad with mass serial murderer Islamists running loose upon the globe. Neither being good for NWO conspirator types.
No the truly scary earth shattering hidden possibility in all this is that China may try to tip the balance in favor of the islamist terrs knowing they can simply nuke them into oblivion later, leaving THEM as the unchallenged leader of the world.
That has to be the most ignorant statement I have ever read. Why don't you please show us how the Cheney's and the Bush family are "heavily invested in the region" and just what do they have to gain?
Official explanations seem to run a course. First there are the tinfoilers. Then small market discussions of the 'explanation' on NewsMax, or FreeRepublic. Then after awhile 'legitimate' outlets may trifle with it, like Rush, the History Channel, or Fox News. The whole idea is graduallism, and confusion of the issue with alternative explanations.
Afterwhile we just sigh and think the CIA probably did smoke Kennedy, but that was years ago and will we ever know for sure? Most 'official explainations' are forgotten at the small market discussion stage. We dont hear much about Ron Brown, Vince Foster, Flight 800, boys on the tracks, Mena, bloodgate, Diana, or John John, anymore. Waco and OKC seem to stick, both have seen big market discussion from time to time. WTC will stick too, although there is a new element of intimidation in the air.
Aside from controlled, belated discussion we will not see any justice for the perps or the victims of these crimes till the next life. I doubt we will be surprised when we get the real explaination--there.
LOL!!.. wait...
did you hear that?
Would it not occur to you that the globalist vermin who want to bring us down ARE a Saddam Hussein or an Osama bin Laden?
Both are well-funded leaders of world-class megalomaniacical organizations (one a nation, one a movement) who have the motivation and resources to do what they've done WITHOUT additional help or persuasion. Why look to an unproven next-level cabal when these guys are provably entirely capable of doing what they're accused of?
The question is not whether I'm paranoid, it's whether I'm paranoid enough.
The truly paraniod are rarely conned.
Doesn't matter if I'm paranoid - they're still after me.
I sincerely believe people talk about me. Mine would be a pretty meaningless existance if they didn't.
Why are some people terrified of "black helicopters" and don't even notice that they are being monitored almost constantly by the whole network of obvious surveilance cameras, credit cards, ATMs, EZpass, company ID/access cards, magazine subscriptions, SSNs, taxes, fees, video rentals, Internet firewall recording, 'cookies', ... ?
Paranoia: the belief that someone cares.
Paranoia is the belief in a hidden order behind the visible.
When everyone is out to get you, paranoia is only good thinking.
"Paranoia is knowing all the facts."
- Woody Allen
"Paranoia is just another word for longevity."
- Laurell K. Hamilton, The Laughing Corpse
"Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness."
"Paranoia is reality seen on a finer scale."
- Philo Gant, Strange Days
"The issue is not whether you are paranoid, the issue is whether you are paranoid enough."
- Max, Strange Days
"Why are you so paranoid, Mulder?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's because I find it hard to trust anybody."
- Scully & Mulder, The X-Files, "Ascension"
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're
always afraid. You step out
of line, the man come and
take you away.
"I don't agonize over decisions as much these days. The criteria of what's important to me is clear. The insecurity that you feel, and the paranoia that you feel, have been around for a long time -- you know it's a liar because it's been lying to you all along -- every time you start something new. You get used to it, and you sort of go, 'Oh, you're showing up again, well f*** you.'"
- John Cusack
Freedom is just a hallucination created by a pathological lack of paranoia.
Paranoia doesn't mean the whole world really isn't out to get you.
If you ever wanted to know what a person with acute paranoia looks like, just keep watching.
I have the power to channel my imagination into ever-soaring levels of suspicion and paranoia.
Paranoia is heightened awareness.
Paranoia is a social disease--you get it from screwing other people.
"Paranoia is the delusion that your enemies are organized."
- Arthur D. Hlavaty.
"This is the Nineties, Bubba, and there is no such thing as Paranoia. It's all true."
- Hunter S Thompson
"There are two kinds of paranoia: Total, and insufficient. I am both, because if you think you are sufficiently paranoid, you're not."
- Guildenstern, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
"The truly paranoid are clever enough to not *act* paranoid."
- Q, Star Trek: The Next Generation
"When everyone _is_ out to get to you, being paranoid isn't going to help."
- Q, Star Trek: The Next Generation
"When did you get so paranoid?"
"When they started plotting against me."
- The Paper
"Paranoia is only the leading edge of the discovery that everything in the world is connected."
- `The Illuminatus Trilogy'
When you've been through everything I have, paranoia is merely a precaution!
Paranoia is not the belief that everybody's out to get you -- they are.
Paranoia is the belief that everybody's conspiring to get you.
The greater the concentration of power, the greater the paranoia it generates about its need to destroy everything outside itself.
I love this job. Nothing like paranoia and neurosis. Who needs a Coke habit? I've got journalism!!
There's something inherently American about paranoia. Given the increasing scarcity of rational things to fear in 20th century American society, we dream up theories whose inevitable result is the chaotic disruption of our comfortable, orderly life-usually with dastardly consequences. I think we get a perverse thrill that comes from it.
"Mulder, are you suggesting that we somehow create our own quirky focal points of paranoia, as a result of the lack of things that are worth fearing in our day-to-day lives? That we're not whole as beings without something to worry about, something to keep our eye on?"
"That's my point exactly, Scully. What if, in a society characterized by a Goldilocks economy, we can't find anything to worry about? What if we somehow go looking for things to fear, things that will destroy this economy, things that will reach every corner of government, every enterprise, every man, woman, and child?"
- X-Files
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