Don't you know it's gonna be alright?
Be afraid, Americans...be very afraid.
President Bush and his cronies are counting on your fear.
You are afraid because Osama Bin Laden is still out there.
You are afraid because you feel another terrorist threat is looming just over the horizon.
You are afraid because all you want to do is keep your little life, and the little life of your family, and it is easier to be afraid and say nothing than to be brave and stand up for what is right.
I admit that I am afraid. Not of terrorists, because I live in the middle of nowhere, and I doubt crazed suicide bombers are going to come and destroy the local supermarket anytime soon.
I am afraid because it is not easy to say what I feel, because I feel that many do not welcome it.
I am afraid because I want to write about what is going on in this great nation, what is infecting the minds and hears of our people, but I feel that it will not necessarily be a message that is well-received.
How many minds would I change, how many hearts would I turn? People who support what is happening in our country will not be turned by what I have to say, I fear.
We all know and live in fear.
Yet it is this fear that is now running through our nations pulse, pumping up national adrenaline like cocaine.
Osama Bin Laden is the boogey man, and you are the scared child huddling under your covers at night, wailing for your mommy and daddy to come save you.
Isn't it ironic that the people who seem to be the most afraid are those who have almost nothing to fear? These are people like me, that live in small towns and in sparsely populated regions. If they were thinking rationally, if they were really thinking at all, they would realize that living in the middle of Nowhere, Middle America isn't going to make you a likely target for terrorists. Terrorists seek to maximize casualties and fear...so they seek out densely populated areas or targets of some sort of significance...as seen on 9/11/01.
There was great loss of life, and the world noticed, and America stirred from its self-absorbed slumber. There was great anger, and there was initially a sort of unity among the American people.
But there was something else that destroyed all of that unity.
Fear.
People were afraid. People all across the country were living in fear, and living in denial of that fear.
In their fear, Americans let the Patriot Act pass without hardly any comment, with only one congressman even bothering to read it (he voted against it, for your information...tends to happen when you read stuff like this...you find out things you don't like).
Most Americans didn't even stop to question when the president said we were going to invade Iraq. Hey, Iraq must have had ties to 9/11, right?
The president knows best, he will keep us safe.
He must know what he is doing.
We are afraid, and he will protect us.
Even as scandal after scandal arose, and the stench of corruption wafted from Washington, D.C., a great silence hung in the (supposedly liberal) media and the populace in general.
Because of the color-coded threat level, always there on Fox News to remind you to be afraid.
Because of Bin Laden, the demon who is at the root of our fear, and who reappears every now and then to stir it up like a nest of hornets and then go back into his hidey hole.
Yet people don't wonder why Bin Laden is still free and Sadam Hussein is currently being tried in Iraq.
But I wonder why.
I wonder why he is still able to make these tapes and threats, when Bush once said that Bin Laden was 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'
It's easier for Bush, at least, with Bin Laden still out there. The American people are not holding him accountable for his failure to capture the beast, and continued tapes from Bin Laden produce more of the sweet, sweet fear that this administration thrives on.
You are afraid. You just want to keep your little life and the little lives of your family, and it is easier to say nothing and be afraid then to stand up for something.
Even as more and more disturbing reports pour in that should make Americans demand to know exactly what is being done with captured suspected terrorists, little if anything is said. Outsourcing torture? Never heard of it.
Because you are afraid...you don't dare to question it. Hey, they're keeping us safe right? Hey, they're terrorists, right? They deserve what they get, and besides, I'm sure that we wouldn't abuse them. We're America. We would never do that.
We are afraid, and this is how they protect us...and that's all we want is to know we're safe. So as long as we're safe, and the bad things aren't happening to us, then it'll be okay as long as we ignore it and pretend it isn't happening. Or maybe we're glad it's happening, because it's a sign that our government is looking out for US, and who cares about some A-rab that I never heard of anyway?
Scandal? Corruption? It's easy enough to lie, and the lies are easy enough to distribute through the media.
It's easy enough to lie and call the media liberal. But the media is owned by major corporations, and major corporations do very well when republicans are in power. Whose story do you think will be heard?
It's a perfect arrangement, even as a big scandal breaks, all you have to do is flash Bin Laden's scary phantom boogey head, and Americans shriek like little girls and cower and beg Bush to take their rights away.
Wire tapping? Who cares if he has a warrant or not. We can't afford to wait for a warrant. We need to get this information as quickly and efficiently as possible. We can't wait for such things as constitutional rights. The president is trying to protect us, can't you see that? That's what's more important than anything else.
Please protect us, Mr. President...for we are afraid.
It is not a fear most Americans would admit. In fact, most Americans would tell you that do not fear terrorism. They would try to sound tough. They would try to sound bold.
It's a lie, though, because they are afraid. Most are afraid. Those who are not afraid are those that are willing to stand up to the Bush Administration and call them out on what they are doing.
The threat of terrorism is real, but so is the threat of history. Fear is never a healthy national attitude. Fear leads to rage, hate, death, despair.
The first step is to realize that you afraid. Ask yourself...how much would it take?
How much would Bush have to do before you stood up and noticed? How obvious would the corruption have to be before you finally said something? How long would you stand by silently, while rights begin to erode away?
Fear is our greatest enemy, because it turns us against ourself and diminishes our true strength.
So go ahead, America, be afraid. Be as afraid as you want. Tell yourself day in and day out that you are not afraid. Lie to yourself like Bush lies to his countrymen. Be afraid, be angry, be nationalistic and virulent. It's what Osama Bin Laden wants.
President Bush and his cronies are counting on your fear.
You are afraid because Osama Bin Laden is still out there.
You are afraid because you feel another terrorist threat is looming just over the horizon.
You are afraid because all you want to do is keep your little life, and the little life of your family, and it is easier to be afraid and say nothing than to be brave and stand up for what is right.
I admit that I am afraid. Not of terrorists, because I live in the middle of nowhere, and I doubt crazed suicide bombers are going to come and destroy the local supermarket anytime soon.
I am afraid because it is not easy to say what I feel, because I feel that many do not welcome it.
I am afraid because I want to write about what is going on in this great nation, what is infecting the minds and hears of our people, but I feel that it will not necessarily be a message that is well-received.
How many minds would I change, how many hearts would I turn? People who support what is happening in our country will not be turned by what I have to say, I fear.
We all know and live in fear.
Yet it is this fear that is now running through our nations pulse, pumping up national adrenaline like cocaine.
Osama Bin Laden is the boogey man, and you are the scared child huddling under your covers at night, wailing for your mommy and daddy to come save you.
Isn't it ironic that the people who seem to be the most afraid are those who have almost nothing to fear? These are people like me, that live in small towns and in sparsely populated regions. If they were thinking rationally, if they were really thinking at all, they would realize that living in the middle of Nowhere, Middle America isn't going to make you a likely target for terrorists. Terrorists seek to maximize casualties and fear...so they seek out densely populated areas or targets of some sort of significance...as seen on 9/11/01.
There was great loss of life, and the world noticed, and America stirred from its self-absorbed slumber. There was great anger, and there was initially a sort of unity among the American people.
But there was something else that destroyed all of that unity.
Fear.
People were afraid. People all across the country were living in fear, and living in denial of that fear.
In their fear, Americans let the Patriot Act pass without hardly any comment, with only one congressman even bothering to read it (he voted against it, for your information...tends to happen when you read stuff like this...you find out things you don't like).
Most Americans didn't even stop to question when the president said we were going to invade Iraq. Hey, Iraq must have had ties to 9/11, right?
The president knows best, he will keep us safe.
He must know what he is doing.
We are afraid, and he will protect us.
Even as scandal after scandal arose, and the stench of corruption wafted from Washington, D.C., a great silence hung in the (supposedly liberal) media and the populace in general.
Because of the color-coded threat level, always there on Fox News to remind you to be afraid.
Because of Bin Laden, the demon who is at the root of our fear, and who reappears every now and then to stir it up like a nest of hornets and then go back into his hidey hole.
Yet people don't wonder why Bin Laden is still free and Sadam Hussein is currently being tried in Iraq.
But I wonder why.
I wonder why he is still able to make these tapes and threats, when Bush once said that Bin Laden was 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'
It's easier for Bush, at least, with Bin Laden still out there. The American people are not holding him accountable for his failure to capture the beast, and continued tapes from Bin Laden produce more of the sweet, sweet fear that this administration thrives on.
You are afraid. You just want to keep your little life and the little lives of your family, and it is easier to say nothing and be afraid then to stand up for something.
Even as more and more disturbing reports pour in that should make Americans demand to know exactly what is being done with captured suspected terrorists, little if anything is said. Outsourcing torture? Never heard of it.
Because you are afraid...you don't dare to question it. Hey, they're keeping us safe right? Hey, they're terrorists, right? They deserve what they get, and besides, I'm sure that we wouldn't abuse them. We're America. We would never do that.
We are afraid, and this is how they protect us...and that's all we want is to know we're safe. So as long as we're safe, and the bad things aren't happening to us, then it'll be okay as long as we ignore it and pretend it isn't happening. Or maybe we're glad it's happening, because it's a sign that our government is looking out for US, and who cares about some A-rab that I never heard of anyway?
Scandal? Corruption? It's easy enough to lie, and the lies are easy enough to distribute through the media.
It's easy enough to lie and call the media liberal. But the media is owned by major corporations, and major corporations do very well when republicans are in power. Whose story do you think will be heard?
It's a perfect arrangement, even as a big scandal breaks, all you have to do is flash Bin Laden's scary phantom boogey head, and Americans shriek like little girls and cower and beg Bush to take their rights away.
Wire tapping? Who cares if he has a warrant or not. We can't afford to wait for a warrant. We need to get this information as quickly and efficiently as possible. We can't wait for such things as constitutional rights. The president is trying to protect us, can't you see that? That's what's more important than anything else.
Please protect us, Mr. President...for we are afraid.
It is not a fear most Americans would admit. In fact, most Americans would tell you that do not fear terrorism. They would try to sound tough. They would try to sound bold.
It's a lie, though, because they are afraid. Most are afraid. Those who are not afraid are those that are willing to stand up to the Bush Administration and call them out on what they are doing.
The threat of terrorism is real, but so is the threat of history. Fear is never a healthy national attitude. Fear leads to rage, hate, death, despair.
The first step is to realize that you afraid. Ask yourself...how much would it take?
How much would Bush have to do before you stood up and noticed? How obvious would the corruption have to be before you finally said something? How long would you stand by silently, while rights begin to erode away?
Fear is our greatest enemy, because it turns us against ourself and diminishes our true strength.
So go ahead, America, be afraid. Be as afraid as you want. Tell yourself day in and day out that you are not afraid. Lie to yourself like Bush lies to his countrymen. Be afraid, be angry, be nationalistic and virulent. It's what Osama Bin Laden wants.