Reply #22: Yes, it is tiring to always be waiting for Nature to correct

[ladjf]

inefficiencies. In the "long view" the policies of the Bush administration cannot succeed. However, we may all have died of old age before the natural laws kick it. So, the question is what could be done by reasonable people to facilitate the natural fall of the current regime?

Throughout the history of life on Earth, species have succeeded or failed based on their responses to the context in which they lived.
There are no weak, strong, good or bad, simple those that have thrived or died out depending on how they matched up with the challenges.

Bearing that concept in mind, it is my opinion that among the myriads of related contextual elements, it is the basic fear factor that may be dominating the political scene. For historical reasons, people are subject to fanatical fear. For years, political and religious leaders have honed their skills in fanning the flames of those natural tendencies. In short, the American people have been driven the the brink of desperation, capped off the the 9-11 attacks, followed by the relentless barrage of disingenuous followups by the administration, particularly with the cooperation of their subsidiary corporations, the media.

The outcome of such a situation if panic is that people who normally would have thought things out rationally, are now operating at the most basic level of psychic response, an involuntary, "knee jerk" reaction. The higher parts of the brain are being bypassed.

If there is any hope to lead out of this quagmire of unnecessary nightmare of fear, it would be to try to reach people with information about real dangers. At the individual level, the odds of any of us being physically harmed by terrorist attacks are extremely low. If three planes were hijacked daily and one flew on the airlines daily, the odds would be around 1-6000 of being killed that day. ( I calculated that based on public records of how many people flew on airlines daily in the US.)

The ironic thing is that Bush and his boys have raved up the fear of terrorist attacks, talking about how they are making "amurica" more secure. Meanwhile, they have done everything possible to make America more dangerous. They have motivated our enemies to fear and despise us. The real danger to this country on a massive basis is that a Nation or group of Nations decide to attack us for whatever reason. Such an attack could be carried out, killing millions, not thousands and there would be nothing we could do about it.

In the long run, the only defense against this kind of scenario happening is to create a global political climate that would make it disadvantageous for any Nation to attack us. That might sound like hot air, and it might not even be possible. But, some chance for success is better than none.

There are over a dozen countries that have nuclear weapons and the number is growing. If we couldn't intercept three airliners, flying around the New England countryside for almost an hour, how are we going to stop a dozen simultaneously deck lanced , nuclear cruise missiles, fired from ten miles off shore from any point of our thousands of miles of coastline? From 10 or 20 miles out, the missiles would be on target in minutes. New York, Washington, Boston, Miami, Los Angeles, New Orleans,Seattle all gone at once. Everybody dead in all of those cities. Further, the land within hundreds of miles would be uninhabitable for 200,000 years.

Folks, it's time to stop play pitty-patty with the religious right wing, the group that is allowing the lunacy of the Republican administration to remain in power. The religionist must be recognized for what they are, psychopathic criminals, with apocalyptic visions of our future. They are bonifide nut cases and they are calling the shots for planet Earth. They are the tools of the corporate fascist, the real power brokers who are actually deciding what is going to happen.