Is the Great Boston Mooninite Scare a watershed moment? A wakeup call to America, showing, through

humor, what a humorless, afraid of our own shadow, nation of Henny-Pennys this country has become?

I'm starting to think that it is.

Some people don't want to believe it. But I think they'll wake up and smell the coffee.

I certainly hope it is.

Bush and the press have spent the past six year building a fear box for the American public to live in and warp their view of reality to support their own agendas.

But people are the ones who choose to live there - or you can choose not to.

I, for one, choose not to.

but for some deeper reasons.

There's a weird dissonance in some of the thinking here on DU, and in the progressive/liberal arena in general.

On the one hand...

One of the arguments I put forth in the anti-Iraq-invasion book I wrote in the summer of 2002, an argument that anyone with a functioning brain was making at the time, and is making now, is that our occupation of Iraq is manufacturing terrorists. "The greatest recruiting poster in history for al Qaeda" is a line I've written a thousand times, a line I have read times beyond count. So have you, I'm quite sure, because it is accurate and sensible.

A ten year old girl in Baghdad gets blown sideways out of her kitchen by a bomb, a mother gets blasted in an air-raid in Falluja, a father has menstrual blood smeared on his face in a cement cage in Abu Ghraib by leering US troops looking to humiliate his faith, a son gets dropped by a US sniper in Baquaba...and the families of those slain people are going to pick up a gun and volunteer so they can die to kill. That's the Iraq civil war in brief, augmented by thirty years of US-sponsored sectarian oppression. The "foreign fighters" and "Iranian agents" we hear about are a dot compared to the simple power of revenge, despair and woe we have unleashed.

This idea that we are creating terrorists by killing civilians in Iraq is pretty much axiomatic by now, proven in blood by the bombings in London, perpetrated by people seeking their pound of flesh from a member of the "Coalition of the Willing" that perpetrated the invasion and occupation. We're creating that which this "War on Terra" ostensibly seeks to destroy, and London was the first instance where our creations left the nest.

But on the other hand...

We all have great sport on DU dogging the astonishingly ham-fisted fear-tactics deployed by the keepers of the color chart in DC. Deservedly so. You know the litany by heart:

The Brooklyn Bridge is going to be bombed, the Statue of Liberty is going to be bombed, dirty bombs and exploding shoes, your hair gel is a threat to this airplane, line up, shut up, watch what you say, break out the plastic sheeting and duct tape, the proof might be a mushroom cloud, uranium from Niger, mobile bioweapons labs, Powell is an honorable man, fight them there so we don't have to fight them here, but oh yeah, please go shopping...

When DU started, it was meant pretty much to be an organizing spot to counteract the outrageous Bush v. Gore decision that started this whole mess. After 9/11, however, it became so much more (for me, anyway). It became a sanity-preserver, and a gold-plated bullshit detector. We watched the country fall into a years-long swoon, a protective crouch, we watched the manipulations and the lies and the terror-warnings blasted out to change the political subject.

We held each other together, day after day, and at least in this small space, we made sure that everyone on DU knew that Oceania has not always been at war with Eurasia. Seeing through lies is power, and though we were surrounded by lying media and crooked leaders, though we felt powerless, we were strengthened by our ability to cut through the fog.

Thus, the dissonance...

We argue, on the one hand, that the Iraq occupation is manufacturing terrorists, and that this process is a dire threat to our national security.

But at the same time, the cynicism that has been ground into us makes us slap aside and catcall pretty much any and all "terror warnings" that come down the pike.

We are absolutely right about the former, and absolutely right about the latter. But these two things cannot exist together.

The terrorists we're manufacturing aren't going to the beach, or going camping at the local KOA. If we believe that Iraq is creating terrorists, that means they are out there somewhere. That means, in the long view, that sooner or later those terrorists we have manufactured will get themselves here. That means, wretchedly, one of these days, a terror warning isn't going to be fear-mongering crap. It's nice to win debates against pro-war nitwits with the former argument, and it is empowering to strive past the fear-shround with the latter argument...but the two won't stay in separate corners forever.

In 2002, a reporter asked the governor of New Jersey what "Red Alert," a new thing for us, would actually look like on the streets and in the towns of America. The governor replied succinctly: it means you stay in your home, you don't go outside, and if you do, you'll be considered an enemy combatant. The simple phrase for what the governor described is "martial law."

On top of all the other reasons I was against the invasion, this was the most important. If we invade, I argued, we will plant ice and harvest wind. The fact that it hasn't happened yet is remarkable (and is a testament to the tactical minds involved, who are patient enough to let us wreck our standing in the world all by ourselves, who haven't attacked again because they want no sympathy to rise again for us), but it won't last.

We are alternerately terrified and relieved. We like to be scared and heroes vulnerable and tough. Methedrine and Ambien and we are cool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0TnqUlB4Gg

Then look at what the media is trying to railroad here. These two ad guy twits are in the minor leagues compared to real media manipulation and real WMD fears. All the while the spectre of an unnecessary attack on Iran loom...

SHAME ON THE M$M. AGAIN.

Made fools of everyone.

people will forget about it in a few weeks.

but it could not avoid the quad lazer.

:rofl:

Without it, we wouldn't be coerced into demanding "leaders" to protect us.

just seeking clairification :-)

and then have the nerd to get pissy when the "criminals" don't take their questions seriously.

It looks more like a Lite Brite toy than any bomb I've ever heard of or seen pictured.

But then we're living in a world where kindergarteners can be suspended from school for playing cops and robbers and holding their hands in a position with the thumb up, the index finger pointing straight out, the other three fingers curled under, and saying "Bang, bang!"

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

(On Edit apparently people who have found these in the various cities of the marketing campaign are ebaying them for good cash now. If they weren't going for hundreds and even thousands, I'd want to buy one.)

terrorists really will kill some more americans.

what's at the heart of this hoax is how we have let the bush admin fight our collective war.

our battle against chaotic insanity.

if the hoax makes us all stop and think about ths battle -- then good.

but americans are funny lot -- made up of pat robertsons and wayne lapierres and molly ivins and gore vidals.

we shall see.