I logged on to the Department of Homeland Security’s Web site (www.ready.gov) to confirm my supplies checklist.
There are terrorists everywhere, and I could be killed at any second, so I wanted to make sure I had the essentials.
According to the Web site, “The basics of survival: water, food and clean air are essential, but some of the following items may make a time of crisis more comfortable.” Good.
I don’t want to be uncomfortable when I’m being nuked by al-Qaeda.
I could hardly wait to see what I had to run out and buy.
A battery-powered radio, a flashlight and a first aid kit were all must-haves, as well as a whistle to “signal for help.”
Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden don’t stand a chance when 266 million Americans have whistles.
Forget the $400 billion we spend each year on our defense fund – we need whistles.
By establishing a color-coding system for terrorist threats, a list of safety essentials for terrorist attacks, and labeling the impending war as a “showdown,” the government and the media have been feeding the raging fears of Americans.
Why? Because we’re uninformed imbeciles who take media spurts as law.
As Hunter S. Thompson, author of “Kingdom of Fear,” put it, “We live in dangerous times. Our armies are powerful, and we spend billions of dollars a year on new prisons, yet our lives are still ruled by fear. We are like pygmies lost in a maze. We are not at war; we are having a nervous breakdown.”
Americans are ruled by fear, and the thought of war is no help.
Quaking families are hidden behind locks, security systems, guns, and worst of all–whistles.
We’ve gotten past stereotyping Arab-Americans as bomb-wielding al-Qaeda members, and have graduated to profiling everyone as a possible “threat.”
All told, we’re letting terrorists win without even dropping a bomb.
The point of a terrorist attack is not to kill civilians; it is to create widespread panic.
However, as Bruce Mulkey wrote on www.michaelmoore.com, “We must free ourselves from the downward spiral of fear so that we may see our vision for ourselves and our world more clearly.
We must regularly connect with that inner part of ourselves – our heart, our soul, our intuition – that knows.”
My intuition tells me that change starts individually.
One by one, we need to go about our daily lives as normal as possible.
Threats of terrorism should be taken seriously, but we can’t win a war against terrorism if we’re fighting ourselves.
If we wrap our houses in plastic like one Connecticut man did, we’ve already lost.
If we let the government rule our lives by the color orange, we’re goners.
If we let the media control our emotions, we have no chance.
But there’s no stopping us if we’re armed with common sense, confidence and whistles.
Brandon Lausch can be reached at Goskateboarding2000@hotmail.com.
Be the first to comment