>That's definitely the mindset in this part of the United States
>(Texas), and the public myopia is one of the reasons why I tend to
>think the current "terror threat" is deeply exaggerated and being
>played for politics. And the threats are focused on major events?
>When everyone is expecting it? Doesn't seem to give the same bang
>for the buck if the shock value of total surprise isn't there.
I don't think the warnings do anything but mobilize the redmeat right: that is, people stamped with the "INspected by 43" label ($Baltimore Steve).
The warnings to which they are pointing lately--the ones about AlQ recruiting US citizens and Europeans? That warning was issued 7 weeks ago, in an FBI report. You won't find this on the Internet, though. These are warnings that are circulated to and by the media.
So, yeah, the threat is being played for politics. Al Qaeda did try to attack the last G8 in Genoa. Obviously, they'll want to strike in Atlanta. Although Atlanta locals, from what I've read, are much more pissed off at the protestors. A woman on another list said that her mother and friends would go after the protestors with a shotguns. They've already seen protestors scouting their neighborhood. (We're not talking white middle class Americans, here.)
>I don't think the reaction of the vocal majority in this country
>would allow a terroristic act to affect the elections here as it may
>have done in Spain. If anything, it's more likely that an attack
>would regalvanize the blind followers of the Bush administration and
>perhaps ensnare most fence-sitters under the net of "us against them"
>as they defiantly vote to prove that no "furin'er" is going to tell
>us how to run this country and re-elect Shrub just becuz.
I think it will simply divide the country into a civil war. The opponents of the war will become more mobilized and vocal and the proponents (hole-diggers who see a light at the end of a tunnel) will get more aggressive in their attacks on anyone who disagrees.
With all the other issues dividing people, civil war in this country isn't hard to imagine. Personally, I'd like to herd them all into the red, red left of center in the nation: Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, etc. (Sorry to the Montanan who now lives in OR! I'm just JK!)
--
Kelley
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--The Sopranos