May 22, 2002
Konrad Switters

The New York Times recently reported in an article titled Despite a Year of Upheavals, Economic Optimism Is High, that "In a survey by the University of Michigan, half of those polled said that they believe that the next five years will bring continuous good times. [1]" This in spite of reports of a virtual certainty of further terrorist attacks in the United States within that same time period. In a spasm of paranoia FBI Director, Robert Mueller predicted there would be, "'another terrorist attack' in the United States," adding that, 'We will not be able to stop it.' The FBI director also called it 'inevitable' that the United States would one day see pedestrian suicide bombers. [2]"

This blind economic optimism can only be a result of wishful thinking. To ignore so consciously the global political conflict in which the United States has embroiled itself, to have forgotten so thoroughly the pain of September 11 [even under the guise of getting back to normal so that the terrorist don't "win"], and to have total amnesia regarding the simplicity by which a biological agent could be distributed through a system as seemingly benign as the United States Postal Service, reveals a condition of staggering denial on the part of the American public. To think that the current "consumer confidence" is a sign of strength and a virtuosity, and not a sign of a mass cultural psychosis, is a symptom of the blind and valueless utopian capitalist culture that currently masquerades as "democracy" in America.

When Americans realize that no amount of cash infusion into the military budget will keep them safe from random acts of terrorism, perhaps they will demand that their tax dollars also be diverted into more constructive forms of international diplomacy. Terrorism is a group's [Al Qaeda's] response to perceived grievances [capricious, licentious, or otherwise] against an entity [the United States] which they have no means or desire to confront on its own terms. In resorting to terrorism, this group has concluded that it is not feasible, nor are they interested in negotiating along traditional avenues.

Therefore any military response on behalf of the United States will be nothing more than a bandaid on a much larger problem; since it is precisely this heavy-handed democracy-subversive hegemony that the terrorist and their sympathizers among the Arab world are reacting to [and quite effectively one might add - the government's telling American citizens about the inevitability of another attack is confirmation of terrorism's success; and directly inapposite to their previous suggestion to go back to "normal" life]. But this is not to say that the military response is the wrong response, just that the military response cannot be the only reply; enough money might eventually stop terrorism, but only if the military conducts a genocide of terrorist culture [deemed to be predominantly Arab at the present time]. The military response must only be used as an initial "defense," to shore up to the emaciated foundations of a culture which has been fed so long on a diet of economic self-aggrandizement. After the necessary military response America must construct and develop a much broader political and social offensive.

It is here that the American public's real optimism must be engaged. In the coming months and years, as new acts of terrorism lure the United States deeper into a military conflict that will begin to resemble an act of genocide on Arab culture, American lives will depend on their developing a new means of understanding and perceiving themselves in the broader context of the planet Earth. True peace will never be possible if Americans can not find a way to see beyond the stock quotes in the Wall Street Journal, to truly engage and empathize with the world of people that is affected immeasurably through their country's baneful manipulation of the economic web that is referred to as the global economy.

Works Cited:

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/21/business/21ECON.html

[2] http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/20/gen.war.on.terror/index.html