"In post 9-11, we can't afford NOT to react"

[bigtree]

That was a statement of an 'security adviser' on MSNBC in response to a question of whether folks in Boston overreacted.

I think that type of thinking is an invitation to a police-state existence with everyone snitching on their neighbors. It's bad enough as it is with all the snooping and assaults on our civil liberties and rights continuing with impunity. I think if we give in to Bush's notion of a "long war" on terror against faceless "enemies" and "extermists" everywhere, and begin to see bombs everywhere, we'll never stand down from his perpetual state of 'war' where our own escalating aggression is its own justifying fuel, attracting even more retaliatory violence.

We need to measure and guard our fears to avoid giving aid and comfort to the the administration warmongers who will use our paranoia to justify their self-appointed roles as 'protectors' and 'deciders'.


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[uppityperson]

1. Once it started hitting news, Seattle police called Boston to tell them we had them too

and what they were.

[kenny blankenship]

2. Yes yes. 9-11 changed everything!

It made everyone stupid, for starters...

[ShortnFiery]

19. No it made us AMERICANS paranoid, the rest of the world has been

dealing with this for decades with attentive resolve vice angst.

We're so arrogant that we want "the world to stop spinning" because, according to Americans, Terrorism was CREATED on 9/11. No wonder the world both loathes and fears our leaders when we are so damn easily manipulated.

Duct tape anyone? :(

[tridim]

3. Sure.. React, but don't overreact

If this is really how people feel then we might as well just let America die it's predetermined death (let terra win) and start over from scratch. This fear crap has been getting worse every year since 2001, we're not healing at all.

[Richard Steele]

4. Every empty can MIGHT be a grenade, every vehicle on the road MIGHT be a suicide bomber.

But they AIN'T. And only a lunatic thinks we need to behave
as though they are.

[HoneyBee]

7. Exactly.

[KittyWampus]

8. what about electronics strapped to a bridge?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. What about it?

"To us, they're so obviously not suspicious," said King County sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart. "They're not suspicious devices or packages. We don't consider them dangerous."

[bigtree]

14. did folks flying planes into buildings make you worry about electronics on bridges?

Where does that fear originate? It comes from a WH fear campaign, or, at the very least, from the atmosphere created by their swaggering militarism. Either way, some of us obviously do fear. The reaction's the rub.

Me? A lit up cartoon on a bridge just looks like a lit up cartoon on a bridge. Loose wires on a building or a bridge? Must be thousands of examples out there. I'm not thinking they're bombs. I don't feel a bit irresponsible in that.

I think the statement that we MUST react is a slippery slope that leads to where Bush wants us: afraid and willing to do anything to assuage those fears.

[Richard Steele]

18. Electronics which clearly pose no threat to anyone. What about them?

[Greyhound]

5. The only thing that changed Sept 11th 2001, was the NYC skyline.

We've been attacked numerous times before, and the difference in 2001 was the utter in competence of the boobs squatting in the Whitehouse. Oh, and like the other person said, apparently we got real stoopid.

[SecularMotion]

6. 9-11 is NOT a excuse to react

without thinking first.

[walldude]

10. Welcome to DU.. and you got it right

That's exactly what they did and look where it got them. I stood up for the cops and others yesterday but after getting a look at the so-called "devices" today I take it all back. What a bunch or morons.

[newyawker99]

26. Hi SecularMotion!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[SecularMotion]

27. Thanks Again newyawker

:hi:

[stillcool]

11. I don't get what people are flipping out over...

but then again I don't watch CNN.

The ordeal began around 8 a.m. when an MBTA worker spotted one of the devices affixed to an Interstate 93 ramp near Sullivan Square in Charlestown, forcing the shutdown of the northbound side of the Interstate and tying up traffic for hours. The State Police bomb squad blew the object apart with a water cannon at about 10 a.m. Then, in quick sequence just after noon, reports of similarly suspicious devices flooded police lines, sending anti terrorism forces to over a dozen locations in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/02/01/froth_fear_and_fury/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+City%2FRegion+News

Is there something in appropriate about the way the Boston Police reacted?

[americanstranger]

12. Chris Bowers at MyDD gets it.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/2/1/152730/0396

f people in Boston are pissed, they should be pissed at their incompetent public officials. There were ten other cities that didn't react in this manner to the exact same marketing campaign, just like there were other countries that didn't react to a major terrorist attack by idiotic invading a country that had nothing to do with it. If progressive in Massachusetts want to defend their public officials over this incident in the same way that wingnuts have long defended Bush over Iraq, that is their business. However, in doing so, they are contributed to the culture of fear that has recently governmental justification of a wide range of extreme, anti-democratic measures. Maybe next Massachusettes should suspend habeous corpus, institute a statewide Patriot Act, and invade Rhode Island because of 9/11.

Oh and Taylor Marsh makes a lot of sense, too:

http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=25107

The American people also play a part in this farce, which has reduced our police and first responders to quick draw forces who aren't allowed to reflect and make judgments about whether every package left unattended is another 9/11 waiting to detonate. The cable news shows don't help either. Up with the video they go, putting Boston in the headlights, so that everyone in authority in Massachusetts immediately has to decide if they want to be judged as soft on terrorism if something goes wrong. The new governor, Deval Patrick, no doubt erred on the side of caution and who can blame him or Boston's finest? Still, you've got to wonder what the hell our leaders are really doing, because a high school student could make these types of judgments.

No offense to Seattle intended (AS notes - Seattle PD had the Moononite signs, to - they just took them down.).

Under Junior, everything is a terror threat. Act on it. Worry if you're wrong later.

That's fine right up until the moment that you start talking about billing TIME Warner for a marketing stunt that had the entire city of Boston, Massachusetts running scared of a neon sign, because the leaders charged with protecting the city were scared to make a mistake.

---

Indeed.

- as

[stillcool]

13. No he doesn't get it...

The ordeal began around 8 a.m. when an MBTA worker spotted one of the devices affixed to an Interstate 93 ramp near Sullivan Square in Charlestown, forcing the shutdown of the northbound side of the Interstate and tying up traffic for hours. The State Police bomb squad blew the object apart with a water cannon at about 10 a.m. Then, in quick sequence just after noon, reports of similarly suspicious devices flooded police lines, sending anti terrorism forces to over a dozen locations in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/02/01/froth_fear_and_fury/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+City%2FRegion+News

I live North of Boston...and if the above should happen again I hope and expect the Boston Police Department to react the very same way. CNN/Time-Warner/Turner-Broadcasting...or whoever made those phone calls are criminals.

[americanstranger]

15. Okay, compare Seattle's reaction.

They sent a city worker out and took the damn thing down.

Cost a lot less than immobilizing an entire city, no?

- as

[stillcool]

17. Excuse me? How many phone calls?

How many areas reporting suspicious devices? How many other unrelated bomb threats that day? Let me know, then we can talk...

[uppityperson]

23. how many calls initially in Boston? How many "flooded" after the media

over reaction happened?

[HoneyBee]

20. You WANT your police to invoke needless fear??

heh... ok, then.

I will state what I did in another thread in reply to you...

First.... "flooded" is an unqualified and relative "measure".

They could and should have responded to the calls using an ounceof common sense rather than invoking panic.

But, what the fuck, invoking panic is all the rage these days. All the cool cities are doing it...

[stillcool]

21. And I won't bother with n/t

[HoneyBee]

22. Of course. You're clearly so much better than me. n/t

[stillcool]

24. at least I read..

and don't take at face value what's on the teevee.

[HoneyBee]

25. Ouch, Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn

[JHB]

16. People like that ned to be slapped in the face...

...after all: "We can't afford NOT to react" to their mindless, knee-jerk horseshit.

[geniph]

28. TEN other cities had the devices. ONLY Boston flipped out.

Everyone else looked at them, figured out what they were, and either ignored them or removed them.

BFD.

[nam78_two]

29. People actually living with terror as an everyday part of their lives

like..oh..I don't know..Iraqis would find our constant drum-beat of "we are being attacked...we are being attacked" and self-pity ludicrous not to say annoying...

:eyes:...