Obama: "I'm ready to negotiate with you, Iran." Iran: "Fuck you."

[Undertoad]

BREAKING

Iran 'Directed' Washington, D.C., Terror Plot

FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a "significant terrorist act in the United States" tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today.

The officials said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C. Bombings of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were also discussed, according to the U.S. officials.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in an announcement today that the plan was "conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran" by a faction of the government and called it a "flagrant" violation of U.S. and international law.

[TheMercenary]

I hate to say it but we really need these people to be successful in carrying out one of their attacks, obviously the American Public thinks the 9/11 attacks were a one off....

[HungLikeJesus]

And who would that benefit?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus

And who would that benefit?

IMHO, The American Public. But hell, I thought they would have learned that after the last attack apparently not.

It makes me want to shrink further and further into a hole of self protection and tell everyone else to fuck off, you are on your own... my fear is I am not alone.

[glatt]

What are you talking about? What do you want to see from "the American Public" that you aren't seeing?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by glatt

What are you talking about? What do you want to see from "the American Public" that you aren't seeing?

I want people to wake up and realize that the BS protests on Wall Street are meaningless compared to the larger issues of this country. They are a nice liberal touchy-feely distraction, but they do NOT address the larger issues.

When you have ass-holes like Mike Moore showing up and spouting off solidarity with the protestors, or some stupid ass rap star, all of whom make millions of dollars of the Capitalistic system that these idiots are protesting against it puts it all in perspective. Why are they not protesting in front of the Hollywood studios? Why are they not protesting in front of Huffington's house, or Al Gore's house? These mother fuckers all got rich off the same Capitalistic system these idiots are protesting against.

I will gather up some telling video of the solidarity of these fools and let you be the judge.....

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I want people to wake up and realize that the BS protests on Wall Street are meaningless compared to the larger issues of this country. They are a nice liberal touchy-feely distraction, but they do NOT address the larger issues.

You seriously want Americans to die since a few Americans are not focusing on the issues YOU want them to focus on? No offense, but that's fucked up. Very fucked up.

Populations in general will never focus on the most important issues at hand for multiple reasons. One, there will always be disagreements about what the most important issues are. There are multiple issues that can legitimately argued to be the "most important" (income disparity is one of them BTW), but we will never know which one is really the "most important" without hindsight and ability to travel multiple parallel universes.

Two, people are emotional and biased creatures. Populations will always focus on issues that appeal to their biased nature instead of issues that will actually help them most. This is seen throughout history. It is not just Americans, but EVERYONE. Also, our emotions gives us a biased perspective of the world around us, making some issues, ones that appeal to us, seem more (or less) important than they really are by concentrating on certain factors which may or may not be what you think they are.

Remember, a lot of these OWSers are people that are jobless. The most pertinent and emotional issue to them right now is the economy and employment and they are using Wall Street as the lone scapegoat.


Also, a terrorist attack won't do shit to shift American's attention to "important" issues. All a terrorist attack will do is cause a panic and make us spend MORE money on precautions that will make us feel more safe, but actually not do much. Our government should have a better idea of how to protect our country and will do what is necessary whether it has public support or not.

[TheMercenary]

They only protest against the "rich" they don't know or despise, not those that they admire....

[glatt]

Oh, I thought you had a point to make about terrorism.

I skimmed an interesting article the other day. It was basically saying that when we shifted our homeland security resources to preventing terrorism, we shifted them away from inspecting incoming cargo for pests, and in the last decade we have had a handful of pests that could cost a couple different agriculture industries hundreds of millions of dollars.

I skimmed another story that was making the point that drug violence from Mexico was a much bigger potential threat to the US than Muslim terrorists.

So I agree with your statement that the larger issues are being ignored. But it has nothing to do with the Wall Street protesters.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by glatt

Oh, I thought you had a point to make about terrorism.

I skimmed an interesting article the other day. It was basically saying that when we shifted our homeland security resources to preventing terrorism, we shifted them away from inspecting incoming cargo for pests, and in the last decade we have had a handful of pests that could cost a couple different agriculture industries hundreds of millions of dollars.

I skimmed another story that was making the point that drug violence from Mexico was a much bigger potential threat to the US than Muslim terrorists.

So I agree with your statement that the larger issues are being ignored. But it has nothing to do with the Wall Street protesters.

I guess my bottom line is that the whole Wall Street protesters have become a circus side show of the bigger issues of what ails us. And the deeper you look into the protest movement the more comical it becomes.

[BigV]

Fuck unification, ideally. Monocultures are dangerously fragile. They're productive in direct proportion to their narrowness. They're susceptible to catastrophic failure from a single threat. They're rigid (How did that Maginot Line work out? Certainly a well defined unitary defense against an direct threat) You want unification of thought, of action? That's the Borg. Humans don't function well or long that way.

I pass.

[piercehawkeye45]

Unification doesn't have to mean a single train of thought, but more just a strong sense of community.

[Happy Monkey]

The unity after 9/11 wasn't lost, it was squandered.

[ZenGum]

And here is where I think a lot of Americans are making a very bad assessment of the relative importance of things.

Assume the goal is to ensure the life, liberty and (opportunity to pursue) happiness of the US people.

Terrorists have killed ... ten thousand, in total, ever? How many have cigarettes killed? Car crashes?

Meanwhile, multinational corporations have effectively bought control of your government and are manipulating it for their own benefit. They send you to war, pillage your treasury. Your government now routinely spies on you and strip-searches you, and are taking more and more steps towards detention without trial, torture and killing.

I don't know about you guys, but I am FAR more scared of the trend toward corruption of the US government than I ever have been of any terrorist organisation.

Oh I actually came in to say, man, those Iranians are a bunch of dickheads. That is the sort of thing that happens when a group of religious fundamentalists get control of a government.

[Griff]

Our economic situation is a much greater threat to the life, liberty, and property of most Americans than terrorists in Yemen or nutters in tar baby of the day Uganda. Is Presidential power too heady for restraint? After a while it just seems hard to say no.