A few thoughts on the meaning of the word "terrorist." Don't read this if you are afraid to lose respect for your government -- consider yourself warned.

In the past on this page I have questioned our definition of terrorist. The number of "innocent" civilians who died in our bombing of Afghanistan may more than triple the number of "innocent" civilians who died in the attacks of September 11, 2001 for which our attacks were retaliation. I put "innocent" in quotes because it seems to me that the people of the world's financial markets, which serve largely to preserve the inequal distribution of the world's resources, could, in some twisted way, be considered legitimate targets of the disenfranchised and underprivileged.

My point is that in the past I have compared the average militant Moslem to the average American soldier and have concluded that the main difference is the increased willingness of the "terrorist" to die him[her]self. And I thought we held the willingness to die for a noble cause as a great value. Now before you chauvinistically challenge the nobility of their cause, do your best to strip yourself of your own self-righteousness and just imagine that God prefers Moselms to Christians OR Jews. While he may not have 70 virgins waiting for those who willingly die in jihad against infidel Christians, he might be more kindly intentioned to them than to the Americans who murder from 20,000 feet.

But now, let me suggest a different definition of terrorist. A terrorist is someone who seeks to change the opinion of a large group of people by instilling fear -- terror. This danger was clearly recognized by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said (and I believe this comes from his speech right after 12-7-'41) that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. He was saying that we should not allow the Japanese attack to control our thinking and our response. He was countering the attempts of this ferocious nation to terrorize us. [And it is interesting that these warriors also used suicide attackers.]

This definition clearly fits the militant Islamic movements that have dominated the news for the last few months. Palestinians seek to mold Jewish public opinion through their suicide bombings. That is working, by the way, but I don't think it's doing what the Palestinians want. Every funeral hardens Jewish public opinion against the Palestinians. Every body bag fuels Israeli thirst for revenge. This makes me believe that the suicide bombers are not the strategy of thoughtful Palestinians who really want to resolve the issues that arose from the 1948 UN action creating Israel.

It seems to me that someone outside of Palestine who has very different goals from the Palestinian people is taking advantage of the frustration of Palestinian youth to serve their own goals. Someone apparently stands to gain much from an all-out war in Palestine; and they seem to want the United States to take part. I'll let you decide who might gain from such a bloody conflict (I'm sure you'll agree that a battle in that part of the world would be bloody indeed).

Which leads me to the part you MUST NOT read if you hope to finish with any respect at all for your government:

Someone has been using the fear that struck the collective soul of our nation on September 11, 2001, to further their own political ends. ("Someone," in this case, is plural.) Someone has publicized multiple threats since then, someone has portrayed an open-ended conflict with "global terror," and someone has overstated the threat posed by a "dirty" bomb.

Someone is rubbing our faces in our vulnerabilities with the lame excuse that by finding out where our intelligence system failed we can "fix" the problem. {The "problem" is that we are a free country and we have been vulnerable in direct proportion to our freedom since 1776.) Someone has raised the spectre of nearly every enemy we have faced over the last 50 years.

In these actions, those who govern us are in league with Osama bin Laden. Everything that serves to preserve the terror in our hearts maintains the effect he tried to have on us. And politicians from both major parties have had a hand in keeping our fears alive -- all for their own political gain.

Two years after the most bitterly contested presidential race in memory, control of the lawmaking bodies of the United States hangs in the balance. Traditionally, the party that controls the White House loses seats in off-year elections. This is particularly true after a change in party at the White Hosue (witness the 1994 elections). But nobody's trusting to tradition -- particularly if tradition is against them. While both sides have cynically used our fears for political advantage, the Republicans are the most vulnerable this fall. So it should be no surprise that they've resorted to such terrorism. (Remember, terrorism of the sort practiced by bin Laden and the Palestinians is the tool of the desperate who have little or nothing to lose.)

Toward what ends has the Bush administration used its brand of terrorism? For a government so acutely focused on secrecy, this adminstration is completely transparent here. Every political change made since September, 2001 has been toward "law and order," police-state, business before the common man, America before everybody else, ultra right-wing approaches to governing. That incumbent who lost the 2000 race for Senator from Missouri to a dead man has been at the forefront of this unprecedented raid on our liberties.

I fully expect that if Bush and his cronies aren't stopped, the very fact that I authored this article will be used against me in the future. When liberty dies, those who dare to point out the emperor's nudity are branded as the cause rather than the start of a solution. But I refuse to have my thinking manipulated by someone else's attempts to frighten me. If speaking out like this becomes treason then I will suffer the penalty for treason -- proudly.

With both major parties engaged in terrorism, for whom shall we vote in 2002? For the anarchists who would throw away all protections in the name of freedom? For the socialists who have no clue how to run an industrialized society? For someone else with very narrow political goals? Come to think of it, the 2002 ballot is beginning to look pretty ghastly.

Maybe we need an effective "none of the above" option. Let's force five or ten re-votes by continually choosing "none of the above." When the monied interests in our country have exhausted their resources supporting their brain-dead puppets we might find someone on the ballot who will govern sensibly!