How to Beat Terrorism: Refuse to Be Terrorized

[n2doc]

By Spencer Ackerman September 11, 2011


Ten years ago today, 2,996 people were murdered, unleashing a pair of destructive, mutually reinforcing trends. To prove their relevance, terrorists keep trying to attack the United States at home. And the media and politicians react to it with hysteria, running in fear of getting blamed for a successful attack and perpetuating the gigantic, expensive, counterproductive National Security State. As awful as the snuffing of so many souls on 9/11 was, the second trend has often proved more dangerous than the first.

In case you haven’t noticed, hysteria is what the terrorists want. In fact, it’s the only win a decapitated, weakened al-Qaida can get these days. The only hope that these eschatological conspiracy theorists possess for success lies in compelling the U.S. to spend its way into oblivion and pursue ill-conceived wars. That’s how Osama bin Laden transforms from a cave-dwelling psycho into a world-historical figure — not because of what he was, but because of how we reacted to him.

And that points to the only way out of a trap that’s lasted a decade. It has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with politics. The U.S. has to embrace the reality that terrorism is not anything remotely like the existential threat we make it out to be. We can honor those 2,996 without being permanently haunted by them.

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http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/09/end-911-era/

[drm604]

1. K&R

:kick:

[Broderick]

2. This post scares me

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, n2doc.

[dtexdem]

4. How to beat terrorism: vote the Repukes out of control of the House.

Their terrorism is more difficult when they're in the minority.

[ThomCat]

6. That is not nearly enough.

Merely electing more democrats isn't going to make much difference if we elect blue dogs who pass things like free trade, and wellfare "reform."

Republicans demand those types of policies, and "moderate" democrats deliver them.

It's not really surprising to see the cooperation when you see that they're talking to the same lobbyists. The lobbyists get the republicans to shout and demand and raise a stink, and then get the conservaDems to do the "compromising" to deliver what the Republicans can't.

That's why it has been Democrats that have given us NAFTA and the free trade agreements that destroyed the American economy, and Welfare Reform that created increased permanent structural poverty in the US, and Get-Tough changes in laws that have doubled, and then doubled again the number of people we put in jail in just a few years.

Each of these horrible and drastic changes has cost the nation billions of dollars, and waste the resources of our nation. Each of these situations were pointless, and never should have happened. Each of them were advocated for by Republicans, wanted by republicans. All of these were implemented by Democrats, at the goading and insistence of Republicans, think tanks and lobbyists.

Even with similar sized disasters implemented by republicans, the wars, and feeding the US treasury directly to wall street after wall street crashed our economy, in stead of dismantling the mistakes of the republicans, "moderates" in control of our party embraced these republican disasters and expanded them. The wars have gone on for 10 years now, and we're now fighting 3 of them. And we have feed trillions of dollars into the wall street banks that they have hoarded, and given to themselves as bonuses while the American people are still being defrauded of mortgages and starved of jobs.

The threat of terrorism was uses as the excuse to implement some of this, by both parties. It will never be enough to simply vote straight the line for one party. We have to know who we are voting for, and get good people one those tickets. We need to get principled people in office who will fight for issues, and fight for people, and will fight to expose the type of corruption that has allowed too much of these above issues to happen in our party.

[ZombieHorde]

5. ""That’s how Osama bin Laden transforms..."

"That’s how Osama bin Laden transforms from a cave-dwelling psycho into a world-historical figure — not because of what he was, but because of how we reacted to him."

True, but the same can be said for any famous person, and even some inanimate things, such as money.