Boston madness
Feb. 2nd, 2007 01:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonI was thinking of writing something about the utter B.S. coming out of Boston about the "marketing ploy gone awry" to which some paranoid local officials completely overreacted, and here someone wrote pretty much exactly what I wanted to say, eloquently and clearly. Go read this, you'll be glad you did.
And here is my further comment. Police and bomb squads, no blame there, far from it, they have damn tough jobs to do. Not so much for those farther up the food chain, whose sole contribution to the situation has been to whip up paranoia and get some air time about how serious this situation was. Some local officials no doubt are genuinely concerned for public safety -- me, I'd say way over the edge paranoid. Others are, consciously or unconsciously, eating up the opportunity to puff themselves up into self-important Official Defenders Of All That Is Good And Holy Without Which We Would All Be Utterly F*cked (and by the way, lick my boots while you're down there, son), rather than the minor-cog career bureaucrats which any objective analysis would clearly indicate is the actual case. These are the same ones who will be utterly unable to back down from Defcon 5 and admit any overreaction, much less apologize for going way over the line. Because, after all, whatever was done was "necessary for our own protection." That sad, pathetic excuse has been one of the most harmful and misused across human history, perhaps rivalling even "but I was drunk," "God/Satan told me to do it" and the related, "I was only following orders."
Yes, as always, there are bad people in the world, and people who disagree with us, and who are willing to use violence when given the chance. But no, we are not at war. Really, we aren't, other than the usual, constant war between living in love and delight and living in a state of constant fear and paranoia. The world has not suddenly become a terrible, fearful place where we are daily saved from complete descent into utter chaos (nee: "godless Communism" in another era) but by the grace of God and being protected from everything, including ourselves, by an army of self-important, intrusive, freedom-hating little bureaucrats. No, we do not need to be controlled and protected right out of our freedoms, we really do not need to "destroy the village in order to save it," as the famous Vietnam-era rationalization went. The world is very much as it was on September 10th, and if our eyes have been opened, it is not so much to any great change in the reality of the world around us. Our eyes, rather, should be opened to the reality, much closer to home, that there are people amongst us who will take full advantage of any disruption to tell us how much we need them to protect us, and in the name of that protection, take away as much power and freedom as we will let them steal away from us. The battle for freedom is not in Iraq. The battle for freedom will be won or lost right here at home.
Same story, different episode. Nothing to see here, move along. Go to sleep America, and remember that You Are Free! Thank you Bill Hicks. Gods know we need you now.
And here is my further comment. Police and bomb squads, no blame there, far from it, they have damn tough jobs to do. Not so much for those farther up the food chain, whose sole contribution to the situation has been to whip up paranoia and get some air time about how serious this situation was. Some local officials no doubt are genuinely concerned for public safety -- me, I'd say way over the edge paranoid. Others are, consciously or unconsciously, eating up the opportunity to puff themselves up into self-important Official Defenders Of All That Is Good And Holy Without Which We Would All Be Utterly F*cked (and by the way, lick my boots while you're down there, son), rather than the minor-cog career bureaucrats which any objective analysis would clearly indicate is the actual case. These are the same ones who will be utterly unable to back down from Defcon 5 and admit any overreaction, much less apologize for going way over the line. Because, after all, whatever was done was "necessary for our own protection." That sad, pathetic excuse has been one of the most harmful and misused across human history, perhaps rivalling even "but I was drunk," "God/Satan told me to do it" and the related, "I was only following orders."
Yes, as always, there are bad people in the world, and people who disagree with us, and who are willing to use violence when given the chance. But no, we are not at war. Really, we aren't, other than the usual, constant war between living in love and delight and living in a state of constant fear and paranoia. The world has not suddenly become a terrible, fearful place where we are daily saved from complete descent into utter chaos (nee: "godless Communism" in another era) but by the grace of God and being protected from everything, including ourselves, by an army of self-important, intrusive, freedom-hating little bureaucrats. No, we do not need to be controlled and protected right out of our freedoms, we really do not need to "destroy the village in order to save it," as the famous Vietnam-era rationalization went. The world is very much as it was on September 10th, and if our eyes have been opened, it is not so much to any great change in the reality of the world around us. Our eyes, rather, should be opened to the reality, much closer to home, that there are people amongst us who will take full advantage of any disruption to tell us how much we need them to protect us, and in the name of that protection, take away as much power and freedom as we will let them steal away from us. The battle for freedom is not in Iraq. The battle for freedom will be won or lost right here at home.
Same story, different episode. Nothing to see here, move along. Go to sleep America, and remember that You Are Free! Thank you Bill Hicks. Gods know we need you now.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-02 10:50 pm (UTC)Anyway...
no subject
Date: 2007-02-03 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-03 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-03 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-03 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-03 08:34 pm (UTC)Make more sense now?
off to get ready for Krewe du Vieux, seeya!
no subject
Date: 2007-02-03 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-03 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-03 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-03 09:05 pm (UTC)1. The things that look like bombs:
a. Bombs
b. Rental vans full of Fertilizer and Diesel in the loading zone.
c. Flashlights in a Starbuck's restroom
2. Things that are not bombs:
a. Litebrights
b. people wearing burqas
c. Latin American Immigrants
This should clear up a lot of the confusion. The Starbucks reference was from an incident in San Francisco.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/12/BAGIOGM4JG1.DTL&hw=starbucks+bomb&sn=001&sc=1000
no subject
Date: 2007-02-03 09:15 pm (UTC)