Paranoia is patriotic

Well it happened, GWB and his merry gang of hooligans have gone to war. It happened in spite of the millions of people protesting around the world, and polls indicating the majority of Americans wanted UN support for any military action. Never mind, GWB knows what’s best for us and he’s ready to take on all the hate of the world because that just makes it easier to keep the war machine rolling on. Expect Iran and North Korea to be next and what a bloody mess that will be, that is if some well meaning folks don’t manage to take out the tyrant apparent first (the one in the White House that is).

So I’m watching the TV coverage to find out what’s going on in San Francisco this evening and it occurs to me that watching American TV news is intended to be a visceral experience. They really don’t want you to think while you watch the news; you should just feel the news and let the hormones your body will secrete take over with a gut reaction – most often fear. They are telling the viewers that it is dangerous in the city tonight, don’t come here, keep your children away, and that the police can’t protect us from terrorists tonight (you know, the ones with box cutters and shoe bombs) because they are too busy zip tying all the protestors and carting them off to the East Bay because the jails are all full.

So conteract the fucked up state of the world I decided self-administer some shopping therapy. Yes folks, today I ordered a T-shirt from whitehouse.org (not to be confused with the .gov or .com sites by the same name. It has a picture of the shrub apparent GWB, and says, “Be afraid! Because PARANOIA is PATRIOTIC”. I’m going to enjoy wearing it because most of the people who will be orshould be pissed off at me wearing it are not smart enough to see the irony that its exactly the message our wonderful visceral media is pumping into them 24-7.