What? You didn’t know that Beck’s “Exposed: The Perfect Day” was a multi-part series? Come on, it had to be, you just can’t spread the sort of fear and paranoia it takes to be effective in one 30 minute time slot — read on…….

Imagine this: it’s the morning of September 11, 2001. The 19 hijackers split up into four groups just as they did, except this time they don’t board four jetliners bound for California. Instead, each group travels to a different part of the country-perhaps small towns in Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado and California. They each enter an elementary school or junior high school and they simultaneously begin a murderous rampage just as Islamic fundamentalists did in Beslan on September 1, 2004 (a massacre that ended with 330 dead, including at least 170 children).

Or, imagine that instead of schools the groups strap themselves with explosives and take over four movie theaters, as they did in Moscow in October, 2002 (a siege that ended with 129 civilians murdered). Or what if it were four tourist locations around the country?

Although far from the enormity of the 9/11 attacks, these attacks would certainly be “spectacular” in their own right. Tourism would come to a stand still, the airline industry would suffer, the stock markets would tank and the economical and emotional damage could be far greater than we suffered in 2001.

Would parents really send their children to school in the days and weeks following an attack (whether or not it even occurred in their town), not knowing where and when the next one might occur? What would happen to employment as at least one parent stays home with the children for weeks or months?

Thanks largely to the Bush administration, we are much better off today than we were on September 10, 2001 — but until our political leadership unites, we will never defeat the enemy we face. Unfortunately, as our politicians battle and bicker in Washington, Al Qaeda and radical Islam continues its mission.

It’s only a matter of time until victory is achieved. The real question is, by whom?

That’s a whole lot of fear based speculation in a few short paragraphs isn’t it? And of course we have the inevitable tie to September 11, 2001; a day that is, unfortunately, becoming more, and more, meaningless, to more and more people, as a result of presidential candidates, and people like Glenn Beck, using it for fear based propaganda campaigns, and political or financial gain.

Anyone can speculate on some sort of horror or another being perpetrated upon themselves, their family, their loved ones, their community, their nation, or their society, and Beck does Chicken Little proud in that respect - but you have to ask (if you’re a reasonable, thinking, person anyway) if he is really, as he says, simply trying to inform and educate the public at large so they can be prepared if the unimaginable (that he helps people imagine in very graphic terms), [b] looking for ratings, [c] pushing an anti-Muslim agenda, or [d] pushing a political party line.

The bunker is going to go with [b] and [c], tied strongly to [d].

The agenda is simple, get ratings by ramping up the fear of a shadowy bogeyman of a different religion and pushing the party line. It’s a popular line because, IMO, it allows a great many, quite possibly the majority, of the American people to justify what is being done to them, and others, by their government as some how necessary - when everybody hates you, and wants to kill you, and your children, it’s easy to be an uncaring prick isn’t it?

I wonder what criteria Beck is using to justify his Thanks largely to the Bush administration, we are much better off today than we were on September 10, 2001 statement? And if America is safer what have they lost in making themselves so - and, more importantly, was it really worth it?

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Is It Just Me?, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Big Dog’s Weblog, The Populist, Webloggin, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, Jo’s Cafe, The World According to Carl, and The Pink Flamingo, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.