Brutally Honest Rant - 05/16/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: The OTHER Terrorists
Audio Transcripts
05/16/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Ever since the end of 2001, we have been told that America is in a STATE OF WAR against terrorists! We have been continually conditioned like Pavlovian dogs to ACCEPT this not just as a statement of fact, but as DOGMA! And it is considered dogma because it has been the preemptive statement to justify every single action from the Bush Junior White House since then. EVERYTHING has been done to go after terrorists… bad guys… people determined to bring down civilization as we know it. No matter what the program is, no matter how it impacts our lives, it’s ALL done to stop terrorists!

We were told that terrorists could be anywhere in the world, and that we need to look everywhere we can to find them. Afghanistan was just the tip of the iceberg. They could even still be in THIS country, planning even more acts against us!

Great times… at least for the White House. Remember those days? Everything was perfectly clear. It was all absolutes and zero-sum. It was all black-and-white, right-or-wrong, and you were either with us or against us. There was nothing in between. There was no debate about the subject. There was no gray area. We couldn’t afford gray areas anymore! If you weren’t with us, then you were a terrorist. If you gave help to a terrorist, then you were a terrorist. If you sheltered a terrorist, then you were a terrorist.

And we bought it all, hook, line, and sinker! We agreed to let the government break the rules. We agreed to let the government write new rules that gave them unquestionable access into our lives. And when the much-feared abuses of power did materialize… we weren’t outraged over them. Not in the least! Do you know why? Because it’s all done to go after the terrorists! Bad guys! People who are planning to kill us and destroy our way of life! We can’t let that happen, can we? No, absolutely not!

And when we had those moments when we didn’t live in perpetual FEAR that bad guys were going to destroy us… all of a sudden… yes, you guessed it, there would be some kind of new THREAT materialize! Now it doesn’t happen when we are already living in fear. No, these things seem to wait until just the RIGHT moment to remind us… terrorists… bad guys… out to kill us… out to hurt us… can’t let that happen.

And the TIMING if it all… almost like clockwork! We get too complacent, we start treading away from the First Church of the GOP, then all of a sudden these thing show up! Or we get a new message from the terrorists. Or we get some other kind reminder that the bad guys are out there and are still wanting to hurt us, even now more than ever… because now we’re looking for them, and they don’t want to be found… at least until they decide to carry out their plans to hurt us, at which time of course they want as much attention as they can get.

But a funny thing happened during all of this. While we were busy living in perpetual FEAR of the terrorists and stocking up on duct tape and plastic sheeting… we sorta-kinda let a whole bunch of OTHER terrorists slip on by!

Sure we caught Eric Robert Rudolph… the guy behind the Olympic Park bombing in 1996 and several other bombings. He was on the run for all of these years, but we lucked out and we caught him.

But somehow the T-word never materialized at all during his processing. NOBODY in our federal government was willing to label or describe Eric Robert Rudolph for what he really was. And NOBODY in the media – you know, those liberal bastards that are the bane of neo-con thinking – was willing to say it either. He was a TERRORIST! But we refused to say the word and connect it to him.

Now… WHY is that? I mean, we were sending forces to Iraq to fight and die to bring down Saddam Hussein, and we continually said it was because of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction… and yet here was an ACTUAL TERRORIST who was on the run for several years, who actually committed ACTS OF TERRORISM inside the United States of America, one of which made INTERNATIONAL news! And we REFUSED to call it for what it really was!

And now his words are showing up on websites by the group that he was associated with… the so-called “Army of God”. And everyone is afraid that his words will inspire other acts of violence… but nobody wants to say the dreaded T-word or treat it for what it really is.

Rudolph is in the Supermax prison for the rest of his life. He’s never coming out of there unless it is in a body bag. But he didn’t survive on the run all those years on his own. He had help. And because nobody wants to use the T-word on him, they certainly will not use the T-word on the folks who were helping him, who encouraged his actions, and who are still out there today, even though it goes against our new 21^st century dogma.

And now the Justice Department is trying to get the T-word re-attached to another group of criminals… the members of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front.

You see these were the guys who were attacking meat packing plants, horse corrals, lumber mills, research facilities, auto dealerships, and even one ski resort. In all about 1200 separate incidents of arson are claimed by the ELF and ALF. And the ten people involved with this collective group even ADMIT doing the crimes! BUT they flatly deny that they are TERRORISTS… even though what they did qualify as acts of terrorism.

So you’re probably wondering what the hell is going on, right? We have terrorists who aren’t getting branded as terrorists, and other terrorists who originally weren’t being treated as such but now all of a sudden are getting the label slapped on them. That goes against everything that we’ve been told about terrorism for the past six years, doesn’t it? That violates our whole “terrorists are evil” dogma!

But then again, that’s the whole point. The dogma is a farce.

Eric Robert Rudolph may have committed acts of terrorism, but our government REFUSED to call him a terrorist because he is also a CHRISTIAN, and Christians are not terrorists in the eyes of our government!

This actually goes back to those anthrax attacks. Remember those? Remember what our President said about those who sent anthrax attacks and those who sent phony anthrax attacks? I remember those words quite well. He said if you send anthrax in the mail, then you’re a terrorist. And if you send phony anthrax threats in the mail, then you’re ALSO a terrorist.

Then it came out that one of the people sending a lot of those phony anthrax attacks was a Christian extremist. But somehow he didn’t end up with the “terrorist” tag attached to his crimes.

It was at that point that the whole Republican, neo-con, fear-mongering dogma started to fail. Rudolph gets captured, and he gets away with the exemption that was set up after the phony anthrax attacks. He wasn’t branded a “terrorist”; he was simply a “lone bomber”... just another kook like Ted Kaczynski.

And you’ll notice that it was right around this time that the rhetoric from the White House changed just a little bit. Oh “terrorists” were still a threat, but our government was only concerning itself with a SPECIFIC kind of terrorists: the radical religious extremist terrorists… who also happen to be not Christians. In fact, right around this time the White House was really starting to bristle at how the media was calling this the “War on Terror” and started saying that this was really just a war against “radical religious extremists”. Mind you this was about four years BEFORE they starting calling it a war against “radical Islamic fascism”, as if they even knew what the word “fascism” really meant!

And now the Justice Department wants to expand this listing to include domestic terrorists like the ELF and ALF. So why lump these guys as terrorists and not the people like Eric Robert Rudolph? Because these guys are LIBERAL extremists! Cons and neo-cons like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity have already tried and convinced liberalism itself of treason in their own literary kangaroo courts (aka: their books), so this is just the next logical extension for them.

And this is just the beginning. Other acts of liberal-based extremism will also get treated as acts of terrorism. The animal rights activists who toss paint or urine at people who wear fur, or who break into research facilities to “liberate” animals used for product testing will soon get branded as terrorists.

Let’s get brutally honest here… our government should NOT be playing games with determining who and what falls under acts of terrorism, especially if the White House is throwing the word around as the all-powerful end-all-be-all justification for everything they do! You don’t declare terrorism to be evil, declare a “war” against it, DEMAND absolute zero-sum obedience, outright declare that there is no such thing as a grey area when it comes to terrorism, AND THEN turn around and parse out which acts of terrorism should be counted as such, and then flip-flop over that determination!

Let’s be absolutely clear about this: what Eric Robert Rudolph did was and should have ALWAYS been treated as ACTS OF TERRORIM. PERIOD! He should have been branded as a terrorist the moment he was on the run. He should have been declared a terrorist when he was captured. He should have been incarcerated and processed in the same cells and facilities as any other terrorist in this day and age. He should have been CHARGED with committing acts of terrorism. And he should have been punished AS a terrorist! And the same thing should apply to the ELF, ALF, and any other similar groups whose acts fit the definition of terrorism. They should be charged as terrorists, they should be treated as terrorists, and they should be punished AS terrorists! And this needs to be done from DAY ONE, not after they’ve already been convicted and are on their way to prison.

Even worse is the appearance of discrimination on the basis of religious or political affiliation in this matter! The moment this government decides that only non-Christians or only non-conservatives can commit acts of terrorism in their eyes, then that government loses any credibility and moral high ground it has on the subject. It’s no longer about prosecution… it becomes persecution. And the charge no longer becomes a legitimate offense, but merely an empty excuse to abuse power.

In order for laws to be just, they must be applied equally, regardless of political or religious affiliations. There is nothing more destructive to a free society than an unjust law, no matter the excuse used to maintain it as such.

(Computer – some stuff about fear)
(Fade Music In – “Skylight” by Overseer)

I want you folks to think for a moment about the elements that make up a fanatical terrorist. We’re talking about people who demand rigid obedience to their cause. People who believe that THEIR ends always justify the means, and who aren’t above a little hypocrisy here and there as long as they get what they want.

Now take a good hard look at that definition and look at the mindset of the people who are screaming “with us or against us” and then ask yourselves this question: is there REALLY a difference between the terrorists and the people who are telling us to fear them?

I would really HOPE that there is some difference other than religion, because if the only difference between those two groups is geography and religious beliefs, then the threat from radical Islamic terrorists will be the LEAST of our concerns.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
------------------------------