Duck and Cover

14-day fallout shelter

Lest we should see where we are
lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good,
--Age of Anxiety, W. H. Auden

Civil defense film:
Be sure to include tranquilizers to ease
the strain and monotony of life in a fallout shelter.
A bottle of 100 should be sufficient for a family of four.
Tranquilizers are not a narcotic,
and are not habit-forming
--The Atomic Cafe (1982)

Ranger Question of the Day (RQOD):
Why don't we try OBL in absentia?
A fair trial is still possible
since he is one we have not tortured him.
We could then kill him in accordance with law.
__________________

What's going on with supposed legitimate media outlets -- especially liberal ones -- feeding into the terrorist fear?

This summer it was the cover of Time magazine, "What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan" (7.29.10), featuring Aisha, whose nose and ears had been cut off by her husband. The message was: The U.S. Army must not leave Afghanistan and Iraq, lest we, too, be complicit in women's defacing.

Now the front page of the New York Times tells us ten days before Christmas, “We have to get past the mental block that says [nuclear attack] too terrible to think about,” according to W. Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (U.S. Rethinks strategy for the Unthinkable). And we know what a stellar record FEMA has (how are those Katrina Houses going?)

This pronouncement is disingenuous on so many levels. First, as the owners of the world's largest nuclear arsenal, we know as well as anyone that a nuclear strike is easily "thinkable". Second, framing the concern in such an epic way curries fear and dread. What is the purpose of maintaining this level of anxiety? Is it to deflect attention from Congressional tax deals, economic fiascoes and phony wars?

This is brazen peddling of free-floating and unrealistic anxiety, a less-than-subtle argument for the continuation of wars which endanger our security far more than they protect it. Are we so out of touch with reality that the front page of the NYT goads us into ramped up levels of unreasoned fear? And we wonder why there is so much drug use in the U.S.

If we are so afraid of nuclear attacks on our cities, why is the U.S. sitting on 4,500+ nuclear weapons aimed at foreign targets, to include cities? Why is it alright for us, but not for them?

BTW -- have a happy New Year, but stay out of Times Square during the holidays; I read it in the NYT so it must be true.

--Lisa and Jim