Republicans issue Orange Alerts at the airports to prevent bottled-water bombs. Democrats pounce on an uninspiring and prefectly predictable National Intelligence Estimate. Yawn!
Sometimes tact is no longer called for, and we have to tell people: If you fall for this crap, you are dumber than a bucket of gravel.
The competing message is that WE (pick one) are the better fighters in the War on Terror. The correct reply is: Terrorism, my ass! Stop all this manly posturing. You look and sound like buffoons. Actually, you are buffoons.
You are in greater danger from automobiles than you are from some (justifiably) pissed off Muslim from halfway around the world, who politicians would have us imagine is restlessly obsessing about packing bombs into the 'burbs. Actually, a war on automobiles makes a lot more sense than war on an amorphous noun.
I want to propose an alternative National Security Strategy. Call this Memorandum #1.
Stop subsidizing the arms industry. Stop all exports of weapons to anyone anywhere. Stop purchasing weapons for the military. They have plenty to last them for years to come, and with this new strategy, they won't need them much longer anyway. Bring all US military personnel back inside the boundaries of the US. End all military aid, direct or indierect, to everyone in the world, beginning with Israel. Stand down the US nuclear arsenal unilaterally.
Decriminalize all drugs; tax alcohol at a rate of 200% and make marijuana cheaply available to anyone who wants it (this will drastically reduce crime at home, because drunks are consistently and often violently obnoxious, and pot-smokers can't be hassled with anything as strenuous as violence).
Take the $400 billion a year now being spent dropping bombs on Arabs and paying Halliburton $70 a plate for very mediocre food, and spend $200 billion a year eradicating hunger through locally-based, organic agriculture. Spend another $100 billion a year to fight malaria and AIDS. Spend the last $100 billion a year making sure that every human being on the planet can get hold of at least 20 gallons a day of clean water every day.
Stop all subsidies (direct and indirect) to all multi-national corporations, as well as to road-building (which is a massive subsidy to automobile and oil companies). This will reduce oil dependence.
Arrest, try, and shoot all Big Agribiz CEOs, all Big Pharma CEOs, all Big Petro-chem CEOs, all Big Energy CEOs, all HMO CEOs, Big Media CEOs, all predatory lending CEOs, all derivatives traders (for trading in something they won't tell us what it is), and anyone who has ever supported lopping the top off of a mountain to get at a seam of coal. Hey, a dose of Jacobinism is good for us now and again.
Okay, if the capital punishment thing is too harsh for you, we can send them to re-education camps in Fallujah. Let the politicians know they could be next.
This will demonstrate good-will to the other nearly 6 billion people on the planet, as well as inhibit the future proliferation of billionaire tapeworms. There will be peace here, and we will be far more secure than we are now.
I know my campaign for whatever won't be very well financed, given how dramaticaly I have walled myself off from the best campaign funders, so this rant will have to do.