TERRORIST ALERTS: Crying Wolf?
The Independent Institute
Orange
is the color currently in fashion in the nation’s capital and its main
financial center. The U.S. government has once again raised the terror
alert level from yellow to orange—this time in Washington, D.C. and New
York City—based on information obtained from the arrest of a computer
engineer in Pakistan several weeks ago. Yet by frequently changing its
colors, the government has cried wolf too many times.
New
Yorkers and Washingtonians are justifiably skeptical and nonchalant
about the heightened warning level. Although urging Americans to “keep
shopping” during all prior orange alerts, the government has never told
us how to behave differently at various “threat” levels. The rhetoric
by Tom Ridge, the nation’s Secretary of Homeland Security, and other
anonymous U.S. officials would have us believe that the current threat
level is very severe. Yet, they didn’t change the alert system to red,
its highest color, probably because people would be too frightened to
leave their homes for the shopping mall.
Come to
think of it, since the inception of the alert system, the government
has toggled the levels only between yellow and orange. We’ve never seen
blue or green either.
(more)
Peace Is Not On-Message
AlterNet.org
The
great majority of Democratic voters ardently oppose the war, yet the
party has made what appears to be a tactical decision to hide its faith
. . .
The strong and wrong position won out in the Democratic Party when its
voters chose Kerry over Howard Dean in the Iowa caucuses and the New
Hampshire primary. An antiwar party rallied around a prowar candidate.
The result has been one of the most peculiar political atmospheres
within a party in recent memory. The Democrats are united but have
concealed the cause that unites them. The party champions free speech
that it does not practice. As a Dennis Kucinich delegate at the
convention said to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, “Peace” is
“off-message.” A haze of vagueness and generality hangs over party
pronouncements. In his convention speech, President Carter, who is on
record opposing the war, spoke against “pre-emptive war” but did not
specify which pre-emptive war he had in mind. Al Gore, who has been
wonderfully eloquent in his opposition to the war, was tame for the
occasion. “Regardless of your opinion at the beginning of this war,” he
said, “isn't it now abundantly obvious that the way this war has been
managed by the Administration has gotten us into very serious trouble?”
(more)
Blog For Iowa 
While stumbling around the net I happened on this. “This Administration may thing that homeland security is about changing the alert from yellow to orange. Their wrong; the colors of safety are firefighter red, EMT white and police officer blue.” This allows me to rant about the term 9/11. I tend to corkscrew into the ceiling over that term. The attack was made on September 11. Being the convaluted thinking person I am 911 is a term of aid and hope. It has become a lexion, everyone knows that is where you turn when you need help. A lot of my friends from the service are cops and firefighers, one is a EMT Captain on the Boston Fire Dept. To use 9/11 instead of September 11 is a disservice to a bunch of stand up citizens. We dont say 12/7.
mark
Carlisle, Iowa
proudtobeaburdenonsociety
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