Methinks the future's gonna be tricky business

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One of the things that spooks me about this whole anti-terrorism thing is the likely witch hunt that gonna come from it.

We can hardly deny, considering the 9/11 incident that something has gotta be done and turning the collective national cheek ain't gonna solve anything I don't think. And it seems quite likely to me that things are gonna get worse before they get better, both in terms of increased terrorist activity, in frequency and variety, and the government response to it.

Are we going to be forced into a bunker mentality? Are we gonna become like Israel, with armed soldiers on every street corner? Is it gonna be a return to the McCarthy era? I dunno and I'm concerned.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 2001

Answers

I fear the same things you do, John. I also wonder what people will do if this drags on a long time (a matter of years) as I am afraid it might. I do not think this gung-ho patriotism can last that long.

I'm glad you addressed this, because among my acquaintances I am the only one who feels this. I have been called unpatriotic and worse for saying I do not feel that carpet-bombing Afghanistan is a good thing. I do not like the idea that so many people are willing to give up their rights in order to feel "safe." I do not like to think of living in a country where there are soldiers and checkpoints to "protect us."

-- Anonymous, October 07, 2001


I don't think we've got enough soldiers to station one on every corner, probably not even in every major city, much less little backwater podunks like mine (maybe the locals can take turns standing out on the corner...oh I can see that..."Here, hold my gun. I have to pick up the kids from soccer--")(that's an attempt at levity)

I don't see an end to this any time soon, when you consider the tradition of the assassin culture. We have been very lucky here in the US to have had as few incidents as we have had. I listen a lot to what people are saying -- about how this is the fault of whoever, because they said it was just a matter of time until we were attacked on our own soil (conveniently overlooking previous bombing of the WTC -- just what did they think that was? Or Oklahoma City, despite that being a domestic terrorist. And there were one or two incidents during WWII that were hushed up until recent years.).

I have also heard a lot of clamour against national identity cards. I don't actually know what good they would do, but then, perhaps I don't have a broad enough imagination for misuse (I am usually amazed at the way people get around doing the right and moral thing in general). France has then, England has them, Germany has them,(or so I am told) and so far they don't seem to be subsumed -- what they do have is a recent history of dealing with more terrorist attacks than we have. I think it's too bad that no one has talked to anyone in those countries about how it's helping or not.

Some years ago, I was trying to fly out of Heathrow for home, and there was quite a line of people waiting to get through security. They were going over everyone and their luggage with a fine tooth comb (they were even looking into lipstick tubes). One person I was travelling with was becoming somewhat impatient about the whole proceedure. The other person and myself were more relaxed about it (we weren't late), but my friend did wonder aloud what was taking so long (we were used to slovenly American checkpoints -- you know, the ones where they're eating pizza on the job?). An English businessman behind us pointed out that we were coming up onto the first anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing and that they were checking VERY carefully so that we weren't the annual commemorative fireworks.

Having been given THAT to chew on, my friend (the calmer one) remarked "Well. It certainly beats the heck out of going BOOM." My other friend settled down after that.

I have twice heard it reported on the BBC (but not any US sources -- can anyone verify?) that a quarter of the people killed in the WTC were muslims. I wonder, if this is true, WHY this isn't being reported here. I would think (perhaps I am naive) that it might defuse some of the smoldering resentment to the muslim community in general if they were talking about it. But I don't know if it's true or not either.

At the same time, we are in a kind of odd limbo state. The 9/11 events were not covered in anything written into the Constitution, or even particularly into our usual protocols as to how to cover this situation. Traditionally, in times of war, our government has clamped down on the press -- and I have been rather concerned myself that "Loose lips sink ships" and wish that a lot of the people who are yapping everything they know or could possibly think of aren't being more circumspect about now -- altho THAT genie is probably so far out of the bottle it is unfunny.

I was reflecting on what Alister Cook had to say about just this sort of thing in his monthly 'Letter from America', and how Americans have had the luxury (my interpretation) of quite unlimited freedom, that europe hasn't had since WWII, because of our distance from things like terrorist attacks. And how as far back as the Civil War, habeus corpus was suspended for the duration. He was reporting of a friend of his who is a professor of American history mentioning that his take was that public sentiment turned against the government during the Viet Nam War because of the uncensored journalism.

Was uncensored journalism good? Bad? It depends on your viewpoint and how you view end results. I think that it is going to play a MAJOR role what we will see happening with Afghanistan, the middle east in general, and terrorist attacks in the future, for good or ill.

I sure hope we don't return to a McCarthy mentality. But given the attention span of Americans and how soon they conveniently forget unpleasant details of their own history...well....



-- Anonymous, October 07, 2001


Good to hear from you John. Thanks everyone for talking about this. Well , Yes! One can easily see how People in general will willingly submit to a drastic decrease in freedom , in the name of protection. First they will want to take away all the guns, they will want to encode us with numbers, they are controlling our emotions, our feelings , our thoughts. One of the most important things right now for me is to really look at myself, accepting my feelings but not letting them be the boss. I have to look at every moment and think, what am I soppose to be doing now? I am working on my health, I think that it is impotant for us to get healthy, get ready, be prepared.We are cutting out the junk food that we have became addicted to, and substituting fresh fruit and vegetables, we are doing a cleasning on ourselves with herbs , and teas. Not everyone dies from small pox outbreaks, I have read that about 30 pecent survive. If we have to go through something like this I want my familys immune systems up to par. We are storing water, food, wood, medicine.

Well, if it comes to getting encoded in some way, I'm out of here. I could not ever take that . Not being raised as a Christian and having heard about the mark of the beast. It really looks like the time that the bible talks of where no man will be able to buy or sell without the mark is coming.

Well I'm not gonna take it, so you might find me hiding out in the woods , over a fire, eating rabbit and nettles. Cause I would soppose that you would lose your home if you couldn't buy or sell.

Everyone says ,"why would it be so bad to be coded with the chip. If you weren't doing anything wrong, and it would make it so much easier to catch criminals and people doing bad things."

Well it would be great if every time a little child got abducted that it could be immediately found! BUT , BUT !, What if they decide that I am a criminal, perhaps because of the way I think, or I looked at them wrong, or I grow basil or something. THen they could tell you how you had to be.

But, I do also think that there is going to be a lot of people who won't take the mark and a barter system will evolve amoung them.

Sometimes I feel so excited that I get shivers when I think ,OH my Gosh ,we are here! WE are living the Great purification, the end days, the great tribulation. We are experiancing a death, and a rebirth. It Is the End of the World as we Knew it! NOw we are going through the painfull time of birth, we are in the 7th trimester, when the pains are hard and long. But my golly, take deep breaths, and hold on. Labor pains are intense, but the outcome is well worth it, and soon the pains of labor are forgotton.!

JOhn, It's the End of the World as We Know It, but the next line in that song is, But your be fine, but your be fine.

I hope that the song is right!

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001


Trendle, you grow BASIL?!?! How . . . how . . . well, GREEN! That's it for you! You're out of here!

Everyone else who grows basil, step forward and turn in your forum password! No growers of that pernicious plant allowed here! OUT! OUT!

Oh, wait, didn't I grow basil this year? Well, yeah, I guess I did -- but I didn't eat it! [Or smoke it for that matter!] Those excuses aren't good enough either! That's it! I'm kicking myself out of here and closing the forum! Basil growers go forth and repent!

{There! I have shown you all how truly weird and silly I can be -- and frequently am. Do not adjust your dial, we are returning you to your regularly scheduled forum!}

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001


Joy...Can you REALLY smoke basil? Is it legal??

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001


I smoke my thai basil all the time. It happens to be terrific when rubbed on pork before you put it in the smoker. ;)

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

All I have this year is acorns. Do you think I can smoke em?

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001

We're killing pigs this weekend, maybe I'll try the basil thing with them! Hey...Aunty Em. We have tons of oak trees here and they're "shedding" acorns like crazy! My poor bald-headed hubby has to cover his head when he walks down the driveway to his garage every day. Really funny when he forgets :-)!!

John...I'll be out in the woods with Tren eating rabbit and nettles (??) if they start that encoding s...!

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001


Hm, I don't think you can toke on basil, but you can on Russian sage, I tried it once, its suppose to make you euphoric, didn't take me anywhere. But then maybe I am already there!

Earthmama,bring the acorns and we can have rabbit, nettles and acorn bread. you still haven't found something to do with those acorns? Well , you can eat them, they taste sort of like chestnuts. They have alot of tannins in them tho. the Indians used to leave them in bags in the creeks for days to get rid of it , you can do this in a kettle on your stove. Shell the acorns and boil them in water for two hours, changing the water when it becomes tea colored. Do this several times. The acorn meat will turn real dark brown and lose bitterness. After this , you can then roast them in a slow oven like you would chestnuts. Then you can do different things with them , you can grind them and use like nuts in recipes or in your granola.

You can make acorn meal if you grind the raw acorns and then mix with a little boiling water, then press out thorough cheesecloth or jelly bag. Gotta do this several times to get the bitterness out, then spread in shallow glass pans in the sun or the low oven, dry, it will kind of stick together and you will have to keep breaking it apart and maybe grind again. After this is dry you can store in glass jars for a long time. You can use the acorn meal half and half with white flour to make breads and muffins or whatever.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2001


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