WHERE THE HELL WAS HOMELAND SECURITY?

Nearly ten years after 9/11, and ten years of staggering spending on security,  ever expanding powers of government search and surveillance, terror alerts and terror warnings, ever more humiliating and intrusive searches to go on a  plane  (and coming soon searches in buses, malls, and train stations,) … and a terrorist was able to simple walk up to a completely unprotected congresswoman in a crowd and open fire? What the hell is going on here? Where the hell was Homeland Security?

To put it mildly, I have some serious questions about this tragedy, questions every American should be demanding answers too.  This is exactly the sort of terrorist attack our government has been endlessly warning us about for a decade, and the government did exactly nothing to prevent it. There wasn’t even a local cop on hand, let alone the Secret Service or one of Janet Napolitano’s agents. Isn’t preventing terrorist attacks on congressmen and women a high priority? If Homeland security isn’t even trying to protect members of Congress, what the hell have they been doing with all that money for the past decade?

If the USA had any real press, these questions would be a major part of this story. And if the USA had real leadership, Janet Napolitano would have already resigned in disgrace. Hell, in countries with real leadership half a dozen careers would have ended before the good congresswoman’s ambulance even made it to the hospital … and the president would be on live TV taking responsibility for the mind-numbing lapse in security that allowed this to happen. And lastly, if the country had any real Americans, they would be in the streets demanding answers to the questions this appalling crime raises. Sadly, America no longer has a free press, our government is incompetent and corrupt and completely subservient to big business, and the American population has largely been reduced to little more than junk food chewing cows.

I’m rather upset about this shooting, does it show? Mostly because it illustrates what a corrupt farce the whole “Homeland Security” concept is, we have wasted endless sums of money on a problem that can never be completely eliminated, while our country’s infrastructure, schools, and health care systems continue to decay … and in the case of health care, continue to become less available and more expensive to the average American.

For the reader with any imagination, try to imagine if the shooter had been a, gasp, Muslim. We’d be bombing Tehran as I speak and rounding up millions of Muslim Americans. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be quite that bad, maybe, but it would certainly generate a huge and hysterical outcry by the media, the government, and all who stand to profit from our state of permanent war. The shooting wasn’t by a Muslim though, so all we are going to see is political hand wringing and finger pointing. The Dems immediately attacked the right for its “violent rhetoric,” as if their voting record on violence was any different the past few decades. War and violence are the norm for our culture, though we prefer to inflict it on faraway lands.

There was a time when America’s youth embraced peace and nonviolence, and we’ve spent decades since deriding the hippies for their supposed failings. Now America’s youth embrace confrontation and violence as the solution to our nation’s problems, and this type of shooting is the price we pay for it.  And our country has some terrible problems, and in unhappy times more and more people are pushed over the edge. I fear these were the first shots in a period of increasing political violence in the USA.

I hope I’m wrong.

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s not being used for profit, it is central to illustrating the post, and it is arguably an historically  important image. Credit/copyright: James Palka/AP. It’s one of the victims being treated by paramedics in the aftermath of the shooting. God rest the souls of those who died in this tragedy, peace and healing to their friends and families.)