Finally posting the article I promised a few of you that I'd publish a few days ago. Sorry for the delay, I've been really busy. It's from the Metro and they don't update their website so I can't give you a link. I'm just going to type it out and I apologize for any error that gets by spell check. For you liberals our there, don't let the title throw you off, it's really a liberal article, give it a chance!!

Title: Why I Support a 'War on Terror'

Yes, I support the "War on Terror." No, I'm not declaring public allegiance to the current jihad against an ideology (which is in actuality a war against the terrorist attacks not perpetrated by the United States or its allies/client states). I'm thinking of another meaning entirely for our new favorite word: terror. As defined at Dictionary.com, terror is "an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety" and/or an "intense, overpowering fear."

Don Lutz, author of "The First Ism," has written that such "terror" is "what one feels when being kidnapped or raped." Lutz goes on to list other terrifying examples: "Terror is what poor people worldwide feel when approached by uniformed, armed men; what animals feel in research laboratories; what people feel when their families are faced with starvation; what a child feels when an adult starts to hit; what millions of families feel when they hear planes overhead; what fish feel when hooked in the mouth; what people fell under threat of having loved ones tortured or killed; what forest dwellers feel when the loggers come in and clear-cut; what people feel when they are threatened with invasion; and what animals feel at slaughterhouses."

If you want to wage war against terror, why not find a worthy adversary? No need for shady FBI stings, unconstitutional wire tapping or panic-inducing color-coded warnings that conveniently pop up at the most politically expedient intervals; the variety of terror described by Lutz above is genuine and it's endemic. Perhaps a big step toward ending the use of terror as a tactic would be to alleviate the feeling of terror triggered across the globe by the home of the brave.

It's noteworthy that so many Americans reflexively defend their country's rampant illegalities because they perceive these actions as falling under the seductive justification of "defending our way of life." But, if our way of life is so sacred, so ideal, so worthy of being defended by any means necessary, why are millions of us reeling from "intense, overpowering fear"? If the United States represents a superior form of society, why do we need so many homeless shelters, alcohol and drug rehab centers, rape crisis hotlines, battered women's shelters, prisons, law enforcement agents and soldiers? Why do we experience "intense, overpowering fear" about being made ill by corporate-produced toxins and having no health insurance to deal with such an illness? If America is the zenith of human social order, why does its very name evoke "an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety" for people both here and abroad?

People just love to hear themselves say: "We're fighting to preserve our way of life." The United States constitutes roughly 5 percent of the earth's population but consumes about 25 percent of the earth's resources. Maybe "our way of life" makes us the real terrorists. With the point of no return fading in the rearview mirror (or at least obscured by an SUV), the time is long overdue for all of us to recognize the real enemy is that which inspires terror...as in "an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety" and/or an "intense, overpowering fear."