The Anthrax Panic (was: Re: [OSLIST] Fighting Open Space Organizations)

[Artur F. Silva]

At 03:43 17-10-2001, J. Paul Everett wrote:

>Another viewpoint I received today.  Our media could all calm down, too.  Paul
>
>  Geov Parrish
>  WorkingForChange
>  10.15.01
>
>
>  Terror news
>  American media is doing the terrorists' work for them
>
>  Over this past weekend, my country went crazy.
>
>  Americans have always been a little bit crazy, of course, at least in the
>  eyes of the rest of the world. But reports of new anthrax exposures in Reno,
>  New York, and Florida have been the signal for a media feeding and
>  speculation frenzy -- and that, in turn, is coloring a lot of usually
>  complacent people various shades of hysterical.

I am afraid that the question is more vast, Paul. One can say that: "In this
last few days the world went crazy". And "in the Occidental world, media is
doing the terrorists work for them".

The foolish reaction from media and people to the Anthrax problem,
is *attacking* in the all world, with very similar patterns, even if Anthrax
has not been used in some of the affected countries. This foolish is not an
American exclusive.

And that includes the media (mainly) but also the authorities. The day before
yesterday one street in central Lisbon was closed during many hours because,
during the reparation of a car, it was discovered a "white powder" in the
front lights.
(drugs probably - but we still don't know). Militaries with funny masks -
never sawn
in Portugal - occupied the road, invited people from the all quarter out of
their
offices and houses, with full media coverage. The authorities have created
the terror. And the media transmitted it everywhere.

Please note that Portugal is a small and insignificant country that is out of
the war, except for an American Base in the Acores Islands. There is no
reason why Portugal should be a target for Al Qaeda.

The same day a "suspect letter" was given to the police by an old lady in the
South. These two events were covered largely in the evening News on Monday.
Tuesday morning one of the major newspapers had a frightening title and
photo (of the strange militaries in the referred operation in Lisbon)
occupying
all the first page

Then it happened what one could expect. Yesterday the authorities received
hundreds of calls from many places referring to suspect envelopes!! If seems
that some maniacs have profited to send letters with flour without remittent
address to some others they dislike. Or that terrorists are attacking with
flour,
which seems to be a very effective way indeed - only I don't believe terrorists
attacking in Portugal.

The same pattern of events occurred yesterday in all Europe and Israel.
Post offices are discussing the materials and people they will need to
discover potential danger letters; people are advised on how to handle
these materials - even if anthrax was not - as far as I know - discovered
elsewhere than in USA.

To maintain the terror and eventually paralyze the occident it seams
that it is enough one or two letters with anthrax and one thousand
with flour will follow from insane people. The media, the authorities and
our social organization will do the rest of the work of spreading fear
for the terrorists. An even some sane citizens (among the more than
50% that don't vote in any election)s have at least one politician they
would like to send a letter...with flour...

I think that even if Al Qaeda was destroyed today, they have already gained
the war: they have proved that we are our own enemies. With the war
paranoia, if there is no enemy, the media will invent one, so that they can
talk about it and have a profit and the militaries will discover some enemies
to bomb - they will feel useful and the weapon producers will thank them.

I repeat: a profound paradigm shift is what would be needed. We would need
to review each and every assumption of occidental life - each and every
assumption
in the life's of each one of us. But I don't think this can happen on time and
we will destroy ourselves.

Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are not even the detonator - they have both been the
creation of the USA in the first place, to fight the enemies of the time...
And
more and more of discontent people is receiving every day new ideas on how
they can paralyze the life of the occident.

Artur

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu,
Visit:

http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html