It used to be that everything American reached us ten years later: MacDonald, homeless, consumerism, you name it. Even New Age fads.

Now it's the other way: Same tactics were (and are) used here in Israel before election and/or any internal political crisis.

If the prophesy comes true, you won't be able to say you were not warned or that Goverment was idle.

If it doesn't, then it will show you just how great Goverment is.

It's a win-win tactic. As long as people choose to be gullible, Father Fear will eternally lead us.

I realize that there is an enemy out there who is hostile to America (Al Queda), but even with that, it's clear that there has always been the fear of an enemy that drives politics.

McCarthyism, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Salem witch hunts, Indians, desegregation, gay people, immigrants, etc. They've pretty much always been false enemies, but there has been this overriding fear from people in the moderate to conservative spectrum, that mainstream America is always under attack by something. It's been that way since America's beginning. It's no surprise that this fear drives many political agendas.

Now that there is a real, tangible enemy, it will be interesting to see how this is used to further control the public. Your prophecy will probably come true in ways we can't even imagine yet.

In Boston, for the DNC, the police installed tons of security cameras pointed at the streets and sidewalks and instituted a random bag check on mass transit. You know, for the convention.

Except that now they say they're going to move the cameras to other neighborhoods (because they're all centralized in a small area at the moment) and that they reserve the right to continue the random bag search (which is basically useless for finding terrorists).

Welcome to the new police state.

The timing on the alert is great.

Normally, the "bounce" in popularlity for a candidate grows over the weekend after a convention and peaks on Tuesday.

By announcing the alert on the weekend, they're attempting to reduce the amount of bounce.

Kind of like the last false alert. And the one before that. And the next one.

Karl Rove certainly knows what he's doing.

I don't believe that Rove (or anybody else) is sitting in a back room dreaming up terror alerts to influence poll results, and I consider it just slightly insane to believe such a thing without any evidence at all.

*But* I would be pretty happy if we had a more transparent government. Yeah, it could mean trouble to have our enemies know what we know about them. But it might also help us. The transparency would have an interesting effect, that's for sure. What would a truly informed (instead of spoon-fed) populace do?

We'll never find out, I suspect.

Hal, that was the first thing that struck me, but I wasn't sure enough to include it, and was hoping someone else might point it out. (I don't wanna be the only insane asshole around here!)

It seemed to me that Monday morning would be the first real back-to-business day after the DemCon shut down on Thurs. A weekend to ponder, talk, etc. would allow the momentum to build before everyone hit the job or their places in the Unemployment line (whichever applies) first thing Monday. And the 'news' heads would surely start the day with campaign news.

As it is, what's everybody talking about this morning?

Terrorists. Bush.
Strong. Info. Intelligence.

...Bush... strong... donuts... donuts...


re: Phillip's transparency - actually, I sorta feel the opposite; why announce anything at this point? I mean, really, WHAT'S the purpose of these press conferences?!

Why not contact the building security, local law enforcement, anyone with a Need-To-Know, keep quiet, and batten down the hatches.

Seems to me a smarter approach.

I mean, what are the chances and "increased" vigilance on some average citizen is going to stop a terrorist attack?

And how many 'false alarms' delivered by 'amateur vigilants' contribute to a drop in security, resources, etc?

I consider it naive and maybe delusional not to consider the possibility that it's a fake alert, when you have a high degree of confidence that it has been done before by the same group.

And they've done worse.

Remember that this is the same White House crew that used push-polling to smear John McCain, one of their own, during the primary like this:

Voters in South Carolina report being asked "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"

Hal (#7), I don't have a high degree of confidence that any false warnings have been issued by this or any other administration. The assumption seems to be that if a warning was issued and then the warned-about event didn't happen, the warning was false. There are at least two other possibilities, perhaps more.

Shark (#6), I think that people should be trusted to make up their own minds based on complete information, while the American government -- heck, *all* governments -- do not trust people enough to give them complete information. I could regale you for hours with examples of ways in which the established authorities have failed us while average citizens armed with information saved the day (e.g. Flight 93, the D.C.-area sniper, etc), but in the end it doesn't matter. The government doesn't trust us, and apparently never will, regardless of which party is in power.

I have no confidence in people like Rove, Libby, et al. based on their past behavior.

YOU MEAN I'M NOT ALONE?!

Gawd bless Howard Dean, apparenty the only Dem with the balls to Rage Against the Machine, question the Bullshit, and speak the Truth.

-- Excerpt below --

"I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism," Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and a former rival of Kerry for the Democratic nomination, told Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

"His whole campaign is based on the notion that 'I can keep you safe, therefore at times of difficulty for America stick with me,' and then out comes Tom Ridge," Dean, the former Vermont governor, added, referring to the homeland security secretary. "It's just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there's some of both in it."

-- end of excerpt --

"There's a sucker born every minute."

I'm only concerned about all the ones born 18 or more years ago.

JR, as of today, that would be about 50% of the population.

Surely that's an underestimate...

Question: What if you strike fear and terror in the American public?

That makes you a... what?

Yes, that's right, THAT MAKES YOU A TERRORIST.

Well, here's an interesting update from Rueters, et al. concerning the cynical, manipulative, lying, cheating Orwellian MOTHERFUCKERS in the BUSH Administration.

Turns out that the American public should be afraid of 'terrorists' -- and that some of the terrorists include the President and his lying, facist, Junta, including Tom (aka "Goebbels") Ridge and John (aka "Himmler") Ashcroft.


== excerpt ==

Material Behind New U.S. Alert Is Years Old
Tue Aug 3, 2004 08:35 AM ET
 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Much of the information obtained from al Qaeda that led the United States to raise terror alerts in Washington and New York was at least three years old but a top U.S. official said on Tuesday it remained relevant.

Asked in morning television interviews whether material gathered more than three years ago was out of date, White House homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, said this was not the case.

She said al Qaeda had originally collected information about key financial buildings in the United States in 2000 and 2001 but that this was updated as recently as January of this year.

Last Sunday, the United States raised its terror level to "high" and warned of possible attacks soon, naming the New York Stock Exchange, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund as among potential targets in the New York area and Washington.

== end of excerpt ==

...Last Sunday... ...right after the Democratic Convention -- and right before Monday headline writers could pick up their pens.

What's next in the Bush Reelection Bag of Tricks?

Burning the Reichstag?

Can't wait to see the True Believers spin this one.

Tom Ridge, Aug 1, 2004;

"But we must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror..."

Tom Ridge, Aug 2, 2004;

"We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security. Our job is to identify the threat."

Do tell...


http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_release/press_release_0471.xml

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TERROR_THREATS_INTELLIGENCE?SITE=PAAPA&SECTION=HOME

Yeah, Scribe, the Tom Ridge infomercial bothered me, too.

Tom Ridge: "We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security. Our job is to identify the threat."

Maybe he should just hold up a poster of the entire Bush Cabinet.