With mid term elections only two months away, what do you think of the odds that we'll start getting more orange and/or red security alerts soon? It happened just prior to the last presidential election and as soon as the elections were over so were the alerts! It follows what psychologists call the Terror Management Theory. Check out this article on the American Psychological Association's web site on how it may have helped to sway the last election in Bush's favor.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan05/mortality.html

I think the odds are 50-50.

It depends on which mode the administration propaganda group is in:
a) We're in danger and need their tough leadership, or
b) We're so much safer with the current leadership.

Please note that either way they're selling fear. It's either fear of the enemy or fear of having a reason to fear the enemy.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, they've sold both of these opposite positions to the American public in about equal doses based on polls showing whether people are at the time more likely to be shepherded by feeling safe or feeling threatened.

http://www.harpers.org/StabbedInTheBack.html

Sometime ago I was talking football around here somewhere and I mentioned Chris Collingsworth comment about how we now welcomed American Soldiers from Iraq and how different that was from the way we treated those returning from Vietnam. I discussed it as a Great American Right Wing myth that has now entered folklore and has affected the American Psyche. It reinforces Americanism while attacking those they may oppose the righteousness of our goals (and suggests that the Americans who opposed the Vietnam conflict were somehow treasoness. I think that idea contributes to what was observed in the Article posted by Zap and I recently read this article that makes perfect sense to me both historically and psychologically (the American psyche that is).

I don't recall any of my "hippie" peers spitting on returning Viet Nam Vets. To the contrary, most of the guys coming back from Nam who I knew hung out with the "hippies",partied with us and thought that things were just as screwed up as the rest of us dirty, rotten, pinko, commie, hippie punks did. Most of them were against the war, too. I always wondered what part of America that whole spitting deal was happening in. It wasn't in my little piece! If anything, the kids I was hanging out with felt an empathy with the guys coming back home.

The news today is that Bush & Company are trying to gain "renewed support" for the war in Iraq. Bush is claiming that fighting in Iraq is saving us from fighting in the streets of America. From his own mouth:

"The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq..."

John Mueller, professor of political science and national security at Ohio State U said about Bush's recent push for supporting the war, "It's his strongest suit, and terrifying people over terror can win votes for him and his party. The standard thing in an election is to focus on your strongest suit."

But last night on PBS's NOW, Eric Boehlert (at least I think that's who it was), a writer, commented that the public isn't buying the Bush Iraq doctrine anymore and that the administration is now desperate to gain support for its dirty little war.

Good to see yer typin', again PS.

it could be i was in a strange age group at the time, but i remember a couple of instances when a friend of mine would have this older brother that i'd never see and of whom they wouldn't speak except maybe in brief hushed tones...and so, when and with whom i thought i could get some understanding from i would ask about this (you know how kids are sometimes) and the stories were similar in that they'd gone off to viet-nam and have changed and no one likes to talk about it...very dark and mysterious answers (and i don't mean in a good way).

money is horribly misspent...priorities are screwed up

just considering since 9/11 it seems the country is driving itself completely crazy.

what are all these forms and all these questions? i don't understand the connection as stated. what should i believe?

and yet, even at some of the standard check in points, under a professional armour, some of the faces become familiar and some friendly...

for some reason this quote has come to mind...

“If we are to teach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children; and if they grow up in their natural innocence, we won't have to struggle; we won't have to pass fruitless, idle resolutions, but we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which, consciously or unconsciously, the whole world is hungering.”


-- Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi 11/19/31

for what it's worth.......

War, any war, changes people and usually not for the better. My father served as an ambulance driver in World War I (not a misprint. He married my much younger mother when he was quite middle aged). I recall him talking about it only twice. Once was about some "funny" things that happened (a guy slipping on the clay soil and falling into a very long and full latrine trench and driving in a French town at night without headlights and mistaking two large parallel plate glass windows on opposite walls of a building for a drive through....well, that's what it was after he drove through 'em. But that was the only stuff he ever talked about. If anyone ever prodded him about the war he's clam right up and get a really vacant, far away look for awhile.

A guy who I knew was a medic in Nam. He owned a store next to one that I worked at and had the TV on during the first Iraq war when King George I was in office. He had CNN on. They were interviewing the first group of kids (Yeah, they were kids. Aren't they almost always?) whose armored vehicle was attacked by Iraqi troops. The kid who they were interviewing had this vacant, far away look. My friend said, "See that kid? He's f**ked up for the rest of his life now!" My friend still has nightmares about Nam.

This is only part of the real and terrible legacy Bush and his ilk are leaving. Not some exaggerated myth about hippies spitting on returning troops, but a real legacy of the dead in flag draped coffins that they won't show, about broken families, broken bodies and broken minds on both sides of this war.

please don't think i've missed the weight of all you've said because i haven't...but that there was funny.


i'm always glad to see psb too.

Some of the old vets hate the hippies cuz they got spit on them. It happened to Mikes cousins hubby so he therefore doesn't like hippies. One of my brother-in-laws (Mikes sisters hubby) is an old dude in his 70's & he doesn't like hippies either. Cuz in front of some bar there in Columbus the hippie didn't like it that he was for Nam & tried to start a fight with him. Hippies who joined the National Guard to get outta name got treated like crap by the army Sargeants cuz they didn't like it cuz they were hippies who joined cuz the Army were after their butts & they didn't waan go to Nam. That's what happened to my cousin. Back then if you were a hippie & not in school Uncle Sam was after ya back then. Thankfully none of my cousin had to go to Nam cuz most of them were in school back then & that one cousin joined the Guard...

Not at all, Agnes. It was pretty funny. Even my Dad chuckled when he told me about it and that was fifty plus years after it happened.

Here's a new recording from Pete Seeger: soundbyte

kurt...

Thanks for that, Kurt. And thank you, Pete! It should be blaring (no pun intended there) out of every friggin' speaker in the country! A#1 on my jukebox!

my computer doesn't have certain capabilities, so i wasn't able to listen...it's not due to lack of interest that i haven't!

but i went to the site homepage just to see if i could get something that way...no, but scrolling down below pete's pic i recognized swami beyondananda (i read a book of his once and thought it was ridiculous funny) and scrolling down more i noticed hayley mills! oh how i love her!! i'd seen her in a movie years ago..."gypsy girl" i decided then on the spot i loved her. i wish i could find that movie on CD or VHS even

but anyway...small world

[quote="agnes"] scrolling down more i noticed hayley mills! oh how i love her!! i'd seen her in a movie years ago..."gypsy girl" i decided then on the spot i loved her. quote]

I had the hots for her when I was a little kid and saw her in the original "The Parent Trap" movie. My first movie star crush! Holy crap! I am getting old! Oops! Gettin' off topic, again! What else is new?

just really quick

zap, i hope you can manage to see "gypsy girl" you will love it! i saw it on A&E in the 90s (B&W filmed in mid 60s in london i think) and haven't been able to find it since!

as for your getting old, i knew a guy who lived to be 106, drove around for decades in a 1940s desoto (sp?) introduced me to my first spinach pie. (arnie still reigns for introducing me to best spinach knish!)

anyway, you get the picture!

carry on

Heck, Agnes, I ain't that old. Just a little over half way there! And just so we're not too far off topic, anybody notice how "Dubya" has been talking up more about "evil doers" and terrorists. Yep! It's mid-term election time!