Sunday, December 05, 2004
Now, THINK, Men -- THINK
Hmmm. Let me think. You were, lessee, what's that title again -- a Cabinet member!? What the fuck did you do for three and a half years, play The Sims in an attempt to understand what life as a human might be like?Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said in a speech Friday announcing his coming departure from the Bush Cabinet that he worries "every single night" about a possible terror attack on the food supply.
Despite dramatic increases in inspections of food imports, only "a very minute amount" of food is tested at ports and airports, Thompson said.
"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do," Thompson said. "We are importing a lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with that."
Asked to respond to Thompson's comments, Bush neither criticized them nor implied that the food supply is safer than Thompson asserted.
So you have this dread fear that you, personally, can conceivably do something about. You fret about it. You toss and turn, moaning under your sweaty sheets. And then you high-tail it out of town... but not before detailing to the international press (where, presumably, terrorists can read about it) what you perceive as a major vulnerability in our frickin' food supply.
Bright lad.
And then President Chimpy McWhistleAss says nothing. Doesn't criticize you, doesn't agree with you, doesn't disagree with you. I can only assume he was re-reading The Pet Goat, going for comprehension this time rather than speed.
Let's be very, very clear about this. A resigning Cabinet Secretary admits that he is terrified of an attack to an area that he's done nothing to secure. The President, by not forcefully denying it or pointing out that it might not be Thompson's province or saying "Tommy's had the vapours lately, pay him no mind" or doing anything... is effectively confirming that we've got this big-ass chink in our armor.
Do any of these people think through anything they say or do? Do they really think "cause and effect" doesn't work anymore because they're in power? Jayzus, I've seen better political and security strategy from twelve-year-old D&D players. Much better, come to think of it.
Politicians, especially Repubs, are fond of justifying their actions by saying "9/11 changed everything". Well, that's turned out not quite to be the case. But one thing certainly did change after 9/11.
American "leadership" got fuckin' stupid.
The conspiracy theorist in the back of my addled brain keeps piping up after hearing his speach thinking "Didn't certain folks in the government warn the powers-that-be about extremists possibly crashing airplanes into buildings"? Is this foreshadowing to a future attack in mid-winter or early spring on US crops? (Hmmm...wonder if I could sell that story to PrisonPlanet...).
Or is this one of the government's way of trying to spur on the economy--driving everyone to stock up on food in the face of a terrorist attack? Anyone who's seen the price of produce that typically comes from Florida this time of year has already seen what can happen when a natural disaster wipes out crops.
And isn't the FDA involved with monitoring food shipments? Or am I really THAT naive to think that the Customs does this all on their own?
So it's not quite as bad as it may seem.
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