When riding a New York City subway, you have about the same likelihood of
hearing a foreign language as you do hearing someone bashing the President. You
might see the random "Impeach Bush" button as well as other merriments
pasted, scribbled, splattered and posted on public transportation.
In fact, you could make a decent living setting up shop in Union Square
selling anti-Bush merchandise. And even though you’ll have some hefty
competition, there will be no shortage of buyers.
Its no secret, New York is a liberal city. I’ve grown accustomed, though not
indifferent, to people assuming my political beliefs are the same as theirs, and
in most cases I’m met with a mix of shock, disgust, horror, anger and fear when
they learn I’m not in complete and unwavering agreement.
Hey, that’s all good. It comes with the territory. But, lately I’ve been a
bit confused. You see, in the past few years, many conversations I’ve had on the
topic of homeland security have included phrases like "fabricated
threat" and "no real terror". Some have gone as far as to say
that it is all just a way of instilling fear into the public to strip us of our
civil rights and invade our privacy; to read our emails and listen in on our
phone calls.
So you would expect after it was announced last week that New York’s terror funding
would be cut, New Yorkers wouldn’t care. I mean, it’s an imaginary threat
anyway, conjured up by the evil Bush administration. Hmm, not so.
I guess some people need to hedge their bets. Even the casual observers of
public sentiment would have noticed the outrage over the funding cuts.
Newspapers were filled with articles demanding answers. A postcard campaign
began where residents were encouraged to send pictures of familiar New York
landmarks to DHS Secretary, Michael Chertoff, to remind him of the targets
terrorists salivate over.
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) was quoted in the Daily
News saying the funding is mismanaged. "It is true that many of them
look upon this as a pork barrel, and they wanted their share, even though they
don’t have their share of the risk"
This, the same risk, just over 3 months ago Rangel doubted
even existed. "We just take for granted that there is an Islamic terror
movement because we do have some fanatic people who come from Islamic
countries."
So, as some of my fellow New Yorkers like to repeat the words of Michael
Moore, "There is no terrorist threat in this country. This is a lie.
This is the biggest lie we’ve been told." They would also like to take out
an insurance policy… you know, just in case.
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