“This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in Europe, there's a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it's a shame we don't have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats...the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you'd think we'd be able to understand it, but as a society, the longer you get away from 9/11, the less...the less...”
-former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, 2006
Suggesting that the United States, having voted the Democrats back into Congressional power, could benefit from another terrorist attack.The resound “shock-and-awe” of 21st century United States politics is that of the people of the U.S. in reactive resentment against the arrogance, cruelty, and “evil” nature of the Bush Administrations Executive global misconduct and overall dismantling of the constitutional role of the Presidency. Rumsfeld’s telling remark, which since has only ignited conspiracy theories, reveals a more basic, primordial instinct within the most powerful, elite group that is not generally assumed to be within the psychology of an autonomous “leader of the free world.” But what is undercover, concealed from the herd’s moral perception is the primordial instinct to react fearfully and/or aggressively against any perceived threat, the insurmountable enemies of what we stand for (what is it that we stand for again, and who is “we” anymore?), the communists that will nuke us, or how about the “evil” terrorists that might have some relation to the events of 9/11/2001. the sort of feeling that tinges in the amygdale of after a predator attacks the herd. But morality blinds: it hides what is one dimensional behind two dimensions (or more). There’s something actually historical, perhaps genealogical going on here, an actual division of values between the herd of Western nation and the global elites
