![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/bshite.jpg\")
As
\n the debacles mount and desperation begins to spread in the administration,
\n the Dowbrigade is growing increasingly nervous
\n over the lengths to which the Bush junta is willing to go to perpetuate
\n their endangered vision of the the future of this country. After a brief
\n triumphant idyll following the November elections, the state of the nation
\n and the all-important public image of the administration have deteriorated
\n far faster than even the gloom-meisters of the left could have predicted.<\/p>\n
The American people are growing rapidly weary of the
\n spirit-sapping shooting gallery to which we are subjecting our best and
\n bravest young men and women. The US military exists and is trained to
\n attack and obliterate America’s enemies, not to subjugate and police
\n a hostile and resentful foreign population. To force them to do so, as
\n a tool to prevail in a family feud and protect the interests of the energy
\n industry, is a crass, treasonous perfidy, and a grave disservice to the
\n millions of Americans who have served their country in honorable wars
\n over the last 240 years. This is especially true at a time when
\n we have numerous true enemies, stated and stateless, plotting to destroy
\n us and our way of life. In a sick and deadly symmetry, many of these
\n enemies are safely ensconced within countries which are nominally our
\n allies.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, at home the searing, instinctual patriotism
\n which broke out from sea to shining sea after 9\/11 is showing signs of
\n fraying, fading, and falling into disrepute. Americans, so recently shocked
\n into unfocused rage and ready for sacrifice, have lost the thread and
\n slipped back to somnambulance, more emotionally invested in the latest
\n missing person case or celebrity trial than the survival of our way of
\n life.<\/p>\n
This has made increasingly difficult the profound transformation
\n of American society planned and put into motion by the neo-con cabal
\n which has taken over the executive branch. Their bold initiatives
\n to exert control over public and private education, privatize social
\n security and other social net programs, keep track of where we go, what
\n we buy,
\n what
\n we
\n read, who we communicate with and what we publish, to outlaw gay marriage
\n and abortion, and to install Christian fundamentalism as the national
\n religion of the United States is starting to stutter and stall as more
\n and more Americans are reminded of the values that made this country
\n great; private prerogative, rugged individualism, personal freedom, separation
\n of church and state, and government non-intervention in the private
\n lives of its citizens.<\/p>\n
What must George Bush be thinking as he watches his
\n grand schemes unravel? Is he looking for a master stroke, a game-saving
\n play, a trick to turn the tide of history? Unfortunately, the only thing
\n we can imagine which could quickly alter each of these situation in
\n his favor would be another catastrophic terrorist strike within the American
\n homeland.<\/p>\n
Another terrorist strike would instantly divert national
\n media attention away from Iraq and back onto the battle at home. Especially
\n if it was some kind of slow-developing threat, more like the anthrax
\n attacks than the WTC, it would grip the country round the clock and from
\n Alaska
\n to Key West. Although it would not in fact do so, it would in the public
\n mind make a connection between the terrorists and the Bush war in the
\n Middle East. The administration would spin it as proof that we are in
\n a life and death struggle with an international terrorist network, the
\n same people who are attacking our soldiers in Iraq.<\/p>\n
At home, the fear-fueled panic that our cherished and
\n privileged life style is in danger will again awaken blind patriotism
\n and support for the President. People will be scared, insecure and react
\n with anger and aggression against anyone in a turban.<\/p>\n
As a result, the Bush program will go forward, with
\n a vengeance. Patriot Act II will make the first version look like a regulation
\n against loitering
\n at the mall. The administration will be able to move against its real
\n enemies; domestic defenders of outdated concepts like privacy and governmental
\n transparency. Due to its penetration by agents of the enemy, the government
\n will be forced to regulate and police the blogosphere.<\/p>\n
How long will the administration be able to wait for
\n the next terrorist attack? Given the proven perfidy and absolute conviction
\n of the righteousness of their plan and their right to impose it on the
\n rest of us, is it such a stretch to imagine that some dark conspiracy
\n within a cabal behind a curtain has had percolating, for years now, a
\n desperate contingency to produce an untraceable but attributable attack
\n on America at a crucial moment, for the good of the country?<\/p>\n
We firmly believe that somewhere in a basement room
\n or an out-of -the-way storage space, there are dastardly, perhaps unwitting
\n agents of the powers that be, waiting for a whispered word from a friend
\n of a friend of an aide to some sub-secretary in some obscure branch of
\n the swelling security apparatus, that the time has come to save America
\n from herself. The darker things look for the Bush war abroad, the more
\n nervous we should be about a catastrophic breach of security here at
\n home.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the debacles mount and desperation begins to spread in the administration, the Dowbrigade is growing increasingly nervous over the lengths to which the Bush junta is willing to go to perpetuate their endangered vision of the the future of … Continue reading