I have a friend, Bill, whom I’ve known for almost fifty years. He is — as I’ve told him — a little to the right of Attila the Hun. He likes to send me these right wing screeds every once and a while. He is very seriously religious but convinced that Obama is probably the anti-Christ.
Today he sent me a link to a video from some religious website, showing a bearded old fart in a djellaba talking about how wonderful it would be for someone to smuggle 4 lbs. of anthrax into the US and kill hundreds of thousands. I refuse to publicize it by posting the link here.
I got fed up. I might have insulted Bill. Here’s what I wrote:
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Bill,
I have pierced the veil. My eyes are opened.

This video and the hundreds of others — and the speakers and the fliers and the TV and radio programs and all the other stuff that bombards us daily — have two goals:
1) To make us afraid, so we will
2) Contribute money to the folks who publicize them.

I have woken up (waked up?). I know that there are thousands, maybe millions of people around the world who want us dead.
I don’t care.
I refuse to buy into the fear campaigns promoted by this website and others to make me afraid. These promoters are worse than the terrorists. If there is a God, he will punish these fear mongers more harshly than the pathetic old losers with wet dreams about suitcases of anthrax.

Why? Because the fear mongers are Americans, fer cryin’ out loud. They want to take money out of your pocket by keeping YOU afraid. They have no skills ability or desire to FIX anything… they just want your $$$.

Worse than that, they are aiding and abetting Al Qaeda and the other wet dreaming fantasists. Because the more time and energy we spend on this stupid 16th century cult, the less we have to spend on problems we CAN solve: infrastructure, poverty, inequality, the economy, the environment, to name a few.

Tell your friends to wake up and stop supporting this American Taliban. Remember the words of Sinclair Lewis:

“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

Best,
Francis