The 6 Most Over-Hyped Threats to America (And What Should Scare You Instead)
Some say that the government and the media are partners in a vast conspiracy, with a goal of making you so afraid that you'll submit to their every desire. And, well-that sounds about right. Whether it's the threat of a terrorist attack, a shady foreign dictator, or men putting their genitals into other men, the powers that be want to keep you afraid of things you simply shouldn't be afraid of. Here are the six most unwarranted sources of fear the Man uses to keep you dumb"¦ and Himself in power.
#1.
AL QAEDA IN IRAQ
The Hype
The various clowns helming the Bush administration have touted the importance of confronting an Iraqi Al Qaeda group since the run-up to the war (when Al Qaeda had less to do with Iraq than John Goodman does with the Tour de France). The uber-feminine Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC), for example, claimed in a recent press release that US forces are "making great progress in crushing Al Qaeda in Iraq," and that "The defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq should be our No. 1 priority."
Why You Should Blow It Off
Underground newsletter TIME magazine reports that Al Qaeda in Iraq "comprises no more than five percent of the insurgency, according to US intelligence estimates." No wonder things are going so laughably bad-if "Girl Name" Graham is right, our No. 1 priority comprises only five percent of the bad guys. That'd be like the A-Team fighting a group of 20 kidnappers (they always do), but they all just beat the shit out of one dude.
What You Should Actually Be Pissing Your Pants About
Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, Ivan Drago to Al Qaeda in Iraq's Danny LaRusso.
#2.
GAY MARRIAGE
The Hype
If gays are allowed to marry, society will self-destruct Mission Impossible-style, and people will start sodomizing dogs in the street and marrying two orangutans at a clip. In 2006, Bush and his fellow gay marriage foes tried to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, with officials like then-senator Rick Santorum infamously comparing man-on-man relationships to "man-on-child" and "man-on-dog" relationships. Woof.
Why You Should Blow It Off
As of 2005, the Census Bureau estimated the number of significant same-sex relationships (presumably, couples that would want to get married) at around 780,000. With the US population hovering just over 301 million, that would put the number of married gay people at a whopping 0.5 percent of the population if gay marriage was legalized. Why worry about such a small fragment of our citizenry when over 4 percent of us have bought a Nickelback CD? Now that's a serious problem.
What You Should Actually Be Pissing Your Pants About
Judging by the track record of outed child-stroker Mark Foley and outed male prostitute-stroker Ted Haggard, the foes of gay marriage are the ones who are far more likely to try to sodomize your dog.
#3.
KILLER GAS PRICES
The Hype
With the average price of gas at roughly three bucks per gallon, more than half of the US population will be forced into prostitution to pay for their minivan fuel. (And you know some of those people are probably ugly.) The main culprit here is the media-how many reports like this one have you seen that focus on near-suicidal drivers filling up? Lots, that's how many.
Why You Should Blow It Off
Once again, the fat, whiney American consumer has it made compared to the rest of the world. In major cities like London, Paris, Berlin, Oslo and Hong Kong, gas tops six bucks a gallon-twice the cost of gas Stateside. When we bitch and moan about high gas prices, it's roughly the same as bitching about how the Starbucks barista girl forgot to give you soy milk in your mochafrappulattechino. Just be thankful you don't have to pay an arm and a leg for it. Literally.
What You Should Actually Be Pissing Your Pants About
There's plenty of oil-related non-bullshit to be scared about; just don't let the media get you fired up about the price of gas. How about the fact that carbon emissions are about to turn the 677,676-square-mile Greenland Ice Sheet into a giant, extinction-flavored Slurpee?
#4.
IRANIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
The Hype
The face of anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East, this charismatic leader has jumped on the "America eats babies" bandwagon and has teamed with other rogue countries, like Venezuela, to oppose US "imperialism." His outrageous public denials of the Holocaust have prompted strong condemnations from US leaders like Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who rightfully called Ahmadinejad's stance, "ludicrous, outrageous and repugnant."
Why You Should Blow It Off
He's not actually the dude in charge. Getting uppity about this delusional loudmouth is like giving lip to the kid at the register when he won't give you a Liter Cola-the guy you really want to talk to is the manager, and the manager of Iran, so to speak, is Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He (not Ahmadinejad) is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, controls military intelligence and has sole power to declare war. And what about Ahmadinejad's rap-battle tough-talk about developing nuclear weapons? At most, Iran has a couple of RC Cola-quality duds, compared to our 10,000 Coke Classics.
What You Should Actually Be Pissing Your Pants About
The man who approves the "Guardian Council," which, in turn, approves presidential candidates. You guessed it: Grand Ayatollah Ali "Badass Motherfucker" Khamenei.
#5.
VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ
The Hype
With the Castro-esque strongman Hugo Chavez at the helm, and with oil revenues out the ass, Venezuela is poised to become America's biggest headache (except, of course, for the rising cost of Xbox 360 games). Staunchly anti-American, the ruthless leader referred to George W. Bush as "the Devil" in a 2006 speech at the UN General Assembly.
Why You Should Blow It Off
Venezuela's military ranks 36th in the world, behind non-powers like Thailand, Poland and Norway. Plus, the nation's newly minted 100,000-member "Armed Reserve" is little more than a loose militia of coffee farmers with pitchforks, although, if you've ever been pelted with a handful of coffee beans for making unwanted advances at that Starbucks barista, you know it can be pretty painful. So, much like Ahmadinejad, Chavez can go right ahead and blow us. We'll just double our oil order from Algeria, get the ethanol thing straightened out and forget we ever heard of him.
What You Should Actually Be Pissing Your Pants About
North Korea's Kim Jong Il-he's just as adorably mockable, but commands the fourth-largest army in the world.
#6.
BULLSHIT DISEASES LIKE SARS & BIRD FLU
The Hype
In 2004 and 2005, the government and the media made you believe that SARS was about to break into your house and rape you. The St. Petersburg Times , for one, referred to SARS as a "mysterious fever [that] bolted out of south China and spread illness and death across the globe," and the Rolling Stones headlined a SARS benefit show that drew a crowd of nearly a half a million (which is ironically also the combined age of the Stones). More recently, Bird Flu has spurred fears across America, with one CNN reporter claiming that "No act of modern warfare, with the possible exception of a nuclear exchange between major world powers, has the potential to threaten as many lives and cause as much disruption to the global economy as [Bird Flu]." To be fair, this man slept through 9/11 and nobody remembered to tell him about it.
Why You Should Blow It Off
The one major outbreak of SARS resulted in 774 deaths, while the Bird Flu has killed only 191 people worldwide since 2003. The point is, every few years, a new pandemic du jour comes along to scare the ass off of the American public, and turns out to be a flop. The only reason people pay so much attention is because Outbreak is replayed on cable all the time and looks scary as shit, however unlikely it may be. (Not the part where Dustin Hoffman saves America by catching a monkey-that really happens.)
What You Should Actually Be Pissing Your Pants About
How about some good ol' fashioned tuberculosis? In a head-to-head deadly-off, it trumps these new-fish ailments with its 1.6 million annual worldwide fatalities. A Stones concert for TB just doesn't sound very sexy, though.
SOURCES
"In Iraq, Operation Last Chance" (TIME)
"Graham Meets with President Bush to Discuss Iraq" (Lindsey Graham)
"Atlas: Where to Gas Up Around the Globe (Or Take the Bus)" (Wired.com)
"Gas goes up again" (Lake County News-Sun)
"Same Sex Couples and the Population" (The Williams Institute)
"World Fact Book: The United States of America" (Central Intelligence Agency)
"World Military Strength Ranking" (GlobalFirepower.com)
"Cumulative Number of Confirmed Human Cases of Avian Influenza" (World Health Organization)
True. Besides, watching Hugo Chavez's speech is like the best sitcom LOL
ReplyMany of the points made in this article make it seem like it was written in 2012. Times never change.
Reply#3, so true. America pays so much less for gas than the rest of the world (not just the "major foreign cities"), yet you seem to complain about gas prices more than anyone.
ReplyToday in (my part of) Canada, the average cost is $1.30 CAD per litre. After the math*, that means we're paying $4.96 USD per gallon. But south of the border, a half-hour drive away, right now you folks are paying only $3.45. Why the discrepancy?? The real kicker is... We, Canada, are your biggest provider of foreign oil!!!
*(3.8 litres to a gallon, so today we're paying $4.94 CAD per gallon. Today, $1 CAD = $1.00442 USD.... $4.94 CAD = $4.96 USD)
In the UK we pay £1.42 a litre. After conversion, that is $8.57 USD per imperial (US) gallon.
edit: $8.57 USD per US gallon. An imperial gallon is about $10.30
"Not the part where Dustin Hoffman saves America by catching a monkey-that really happens." Baahahahahahaha
Reply#3 is a good point. My German teacher once told our class that gas prices were around $8 over there, yet over here we complain when it's even less than half that. It would probably explain why European countries are generally less obese and are more environmentally friendly. Nobody wants to actually pay the price of gas, so people actually walk or ride bikes to where they need to go. Also, the population density of some European countries are insane and my teacher told me that driving in the cities were nearly impossible.
ReplyOnly the moderately well off can afford to even get a drivers licence, much less a car and gas for it. The cities are crowded because of this. You HAVE to live near public transportation, if you want to get to work, so you can afford your tiny expensive apartment, near public transportation. There is plenty of countryside and open spaces in Europe, but everyone is crammed into the cities, because they really don't have much of a choice.
Also, the class system here is basically entrenched in things like resource availability and locations next to cities. We have a lot of small towns here where it is entirely plausible you won't ever really get very far away from it, you'll never have access to fabulous metropolitan resources like work, internet and central heating in your house, and if you do manage to get away, you might not ever be able to adjust to having to move back. It limits social mobility upwards AND downwards. I bet i'll never own a car, though i really don't want one, love cycling the countryside in Ireland and I get the train 60 miles a day to and from my university.
"What You Should Actually Be Pissing Your Pants About
ReplyNorth Korea's Kim Jong Il-he's just as adorably mockable, but commands the fourth-largest army in the world."
PISSING MY PANTS!
"when Al Qaeda had less to do with Iraq than John Goodman does with the Tour de France".....Good. Glad you're here.
ReplyThe gay marriage thing is like (to quote from Orwell's "Animal Farm")
Reply Hide All See All 3 Replies"All animals are equal but some are more equal than others". Now before you idiots who don't read s**t start attacking me and saying I called gay people animals, I was referring to EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING IN GENERAL. Let's take a look at how Australia and America like to say everyone is equal in their countries, but hetereosexuals are more equal than homosexuals. For heaven's sake people, lots of countries have already allowed gay marriage. Hitler DID NOT come back riding a T-Rex. Let's just allow people to marry each other regardless of their gender and if you have a problem with that, kiss my jiggly white ass.
Zillah's hit the nail on the head with that sentiment.
usa should never have issued marriage license. they should give everyone a civil union. churches should issue marriage license/certificate. states should recognize religious institution decision for dissalosion of marriage as binding to disalusion of civil union. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND
@Thatfugginguy - What if the people who are trying to get married are not christian? State should always be separated from church and it is; which is one of the things that makes US great.
for a while here in the UK we had a very real terrorist threat, and it came from a group of white christians called the IRA, they have a kill rate (if you exclude 9/11) that is even greater than what Al-Ouieda (or however u spell it) against western forces, hell the IRA even took out some members of the f*****g SAS
Reply Hide All See All 10 RepliesMoral of the story being whites do everything better?
As in the Irish republic army?
KukulcanSerpent, the moral of the story is that the IRA got much of their funding from the USA, no outcry about terrorists then.
Er no Perrysam27, as in the Irish REPUBLICAN Army, a group in Northern Ireland and not part of the Irish Rebublic's defence force. The IRA did not stick to military targets, they murdered civilians, including children, in bombings in cities and once even at a service to remember those killed in WWI and WWII. The worst was the Omagh bombing, where a bunch of former IRA members who opposed the peace process (calling themselves the Real IRA) murdered 29 people by giving a false location in the bomb warning, causing police to evacuate people to the place the bomb really was. That's what people in N Ireland, and the rest of the UK, had to put up with for thirty years.
Oh and the Real IRA killed some soldiers at a barracks a couple of years ago, by attacking them when they were at the gate to get a late night pizza delivery. Two died (shot at point blank range as they lay injured) and the others were seriously injured. The reason for the pizza? They were a couple of hours away from flying out to Afghanistan.
IRA 1826 deaths/32 years= 57 per year
Al Qaeda 1400 deaths/16 years= 87.5 per year
(275 per year including that thing you insist on excluding)
Well, you guys weren't exactly being "nice" to us. I don't condone what the IRA did, the bastards blew us up too, but you made it seem like England was entirely innocent.
P.S: I apologise for the late reply.
ABraut the IRA did this all in one country, whereas al queada has spread it around the globe
Nethesis- Only "(if you exclude 9/11)" of course.
Both sides acted like dicks in Northern Ireland and the Unionist paramilitaries were as bad as the IRA, also while most of the British army behaved fairly well we did have scum like the black and tans who quite enjoyed slaughtering unarmed civilians.
Excuse me folks, the IRA was only active because the British army colluded with local Unionists in Derry City (thats in Northern Ireland) to actively jail suspected terrorists (or Catholics, as they're referred to invariably), redraw political voting jurisdictions to ensure unfair majorities to Protestants (gerrymandering), and then violently putting down a peaceful civil rights movement in Derry that was trying to fight said inequalities, in the Bloody Sunday incident. I don't think violence is ever an answer, but you can't fuckin' argue with British army guns pointed at your sons, can you? Ask India, African continent, United States....
Well then maybe England should give back the land it stole to its rightful owners then, eh? Already let go of all the land it held so dearly before yet for some reason just can't let a sovereign nation have all of its land.
I completely agree that the media gets overexcited about disease but what bothers me isn't that they talk about it, they're real threats, SARS has like a 10% lethality rate and avian flu is (thank jebus) slow spreading but much, much more lethal than normal flu. And swine flu managed to kill 17,000 people two years ago and had the potential to be much worse. What bothers me is the WAY it's portrayed, it's always "OMG We're all gonna die bird flu wants your children lock your doors and stockpile armaments the rapture is upon us!!!!!" When it should be more along the lines of "This is real, it is serious, so wash your goddamn hands once in a while you filthy, disgusting mongrels, and we'll all be peachy." BTW it's flu season so a friendly reminder that hand sanitizer does NOT kill viruses and those holiday sweaters make great door handle-turners.
ReplyBird flu is comparitively less lethal even if you get it which is again less likely even if you spend time around people who have it.
'Venezuela's reserve army is mostly armed with pitchforks.' Isn't the U.S reserve unarmed until conflict occurs. If they were always armed, wouldn't that make them regular military? If their reserves are already armed their regular military must supersoldiers.
ReplyThey are armed whenever on duty, no soldier, active or not, goes home with his military weapons. I think he was basically saying that when even on duty the reserves are very poorly armed.
goddamnm right they are! super soldiers, super killing, super awesome, super bitchen, some are even rumored to be bi-winning
This article is annoying and so are the people commenting on it - except for me.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesNo. You're worse.
If your profile picture is anything to go by - I'm pretty sure you're more terrifying then any these.
You're not as bad as Auron1213 says. You are worse. Much worse.
It IS as bad as you think and they ARE out to get you!
Just wanted to mention that one of the reasons we complain about gas prices even though our prices may be better, is that here in american, it is holy for a car to top 50 mpg, while in many other countries, there are many cars that top 100, so when it comes to to miles to the dollar, i cant say for sure who is paying more, but that could be where some of that heat comes from.
ReplyPersonally, I look at the commute distance. In smaller countries (or ones where the population tends to congregate in only big cities), they need to drive less as it is. Here, with how fucktardedly spread out we are, we -need- the damned cars. Many people commute 20-60 miles one way for work, and our public transit just doesn't cut it as an alternative in many areas.
Dear Mr. Bannister, your sophomoric shilling of various causes under the guise of decrying so-called "over-hyped" threats is so moronically dysfunctional (you list TIME magazine as a credible source at least once, I believe) that I can hardly manage to suppress my shock that you had the balls to post this article. I've seen better writing on my used toilet paper, you idiotic jack-off.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesIf you aren't going to get any more specific with your criticisms than "He cites TIME magazine! I mean, COME ON!" please don't bother posting. Believe it or not, a great deal of people do think of TIME as a credible source. You can't just lay that out and sweep your arm grandly as if that invalidates the article.
Get specific or accept being a safely ignorable childish troll.
You troll types with your big words and your... small complicated words.
A troll's greatest weapon is the thesaurus.
This guys numbers are bullshit in some cases.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesIf you aren't going to mention which ones you think are and why, please refrain from commenting.
They all are.
you are bullshit in all cases Auron
good article, but i think you should also have touched on overhyped child abductions. seriously, they gives one case weeks of coverage even though their are thousands of abductions each year.
Reply"How about the fact that carbon emissions are about to turn the 677,676-square-mile Greenland Ice Sheet into a giant, extinction-flavored Slurpee?" soon as i read this, i stopped reading the rest of the article. Screw you, dear writer (aka propagandist). swear they only let people write for cracked who push the idiot agenda of the month.
Reply Hide All See All 8 RepliesYeah, screw those glaciers! everybody knows that global warming is just propaganda supporting those evil glaciers!
I would really love to get into an indepth conversation with some of these militant "RARGH GLOBAL WARMING ISNT REAL RAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!" people and find out where they got all this total, absolute certainty in what they believe about science.
I'm betting it isn't scientific data.
Scientific data states that the temperature has dropped in average for this decade versus the 1980s. I'm betting it IS scientifix data.
That aside, Nee is just stupid. Cut him/her some slack.
What. Huh. Hurr.
I didn't just read this.. I surely didn't.
I am assuming you are not a scientist. I don't have the time to cite a bunch of science journals, but I would like to retort. There are several certainties that are undisputed. One of them being that there have been at least 4 ice ages in the history of the Earth. All of said ice ages came about without an influence of human industrial activity. Ironically, and highly unlikely to be coincidentally, we are just about due for another ice age when looking at the timeline. A second point being the simplistic view proponents of the anthropogenic climate change theory hold. There are endless factors and moving parts in a complex system such as the weather, atmosphere, and climate. By looking to only the burning of fossil fuels, and determining that this is the sole cause of the rising temperature is extremely premature in my eyes. For example, look at what causes our planet to be warm: the sun. The sun is getting hotter and sun spots are becoming increasingly prevalent. My suggestion: stop trying to oversimplify something that isn't the least bit simple. Take the blinders off.
Id really love to get into an in depth conversation with some of these militant
"RARGH WE ARE CAUSING THE WORLD TO EXPLODE RAARGH!!! People and find out where they got this total absolute certainty in what they believe about science.
I'm betting it isn't scientific data.
Seriously though, not only have global temperatures fallen in the past decade, they have not shown any signs of increasing. Some of these climate change scientists have even put up bs data to convince everyone it's still certainly happening. No I'm not making this u, type in climate gate scandal, it's a real not even conspiracy esque thing, these scientist MADE UP the data.
Also consider that the earth is not so unstable that one species putting out CO2 will destroy it, we can survive climate chage if it happens, and so can the rest of the world, "mass extinctions" are recoverable, and so would this be as it would be of a much smaller magnitude.
Then factor in our "solutions" to this issue, wind farms being a prime example, are woefully inefficient and unreliable, as are many other form of alternative energy, tidal is extremely expensive and nuclear, while safe, has a terrible reputation.
Lastly the Greenland ice sheet, oh that piece of trash, the Greenland ice sheet has not shrunk by anywhere near as much as climate change fear mongrels would have you believe, they hav not shrunk much at all, and those nature shots of ice collapsing into the sea? Natural cycles of summer melting before refreezeing. That polar bear trapped on an ice block? Polar bears are very good swimmers believe it or not, it's not implausible that the bear, I don't know, just happened to SWIM there!!!
My god it is annoying to hear you claim we have no scientific data, then scorn us as idiots if we procure some.
nee is correct. turn off msnbc once in awhile
The global temperature did drop after the 80's, because the 80's raped the ozone layer. But since that initial drop after the cut down of CFCs, the temperature has been rising again. The next ice age, if we assume that Earth is on a set time schedule, then we must look at the previous ice ages. On average, one occurs every 150,000 years (there are some periods when it was close to 300,000 years between, and some where it was only about 80,000) The last ice age happened 10,000 years ago. So, going by the average, looking at current rates of temperature increase, we are about 139,000 years ahead of schedule. If going by the lower end, we are, at best, 10,000 years ahead of schedule. So, humanity is having a HUGE impact on global temperatures, rather you want to believe it or not.
Why is it that people get so angry in their denial of global warming? What does embracing a more environmentally conscious society do to harm anyone? How about instead of only worrying about yourselves and the present, you look to trying to make the world a better place for future generations. Even if global warming was a huge scam, taking measures to help it would still have good effects on pollution (which, even if you are a huge science denier, you can still agree is bad for human health.) Does better air quality, and cheaper, more efficient energy really threaten you that much?
Gas is about $1.40 up here.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesPretty awesome having a list of sources, more articles should feature this...
Where you live, bro?
i should buy some off you and you can mail it to me
The article was written in 2007. Has there been a massive drop in the last 4 years? not stirring, just inquiring as a non-american.
Rhys: No, no drop. We're over $4 a gallon now in many places, averaging around $3.75 methinks.
Gas is about $0.02 per litre
up here...
Right now in S. Ontario fuel is about $1.26/litre... that works out to $4.96/US Gallon. We drive the same vehicles as in the US. As we say up here, "suck it up buttercup".
Replyimma break all 3 laws of conversation.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesBush was a pansy.
The pope sucks.
Global warming is real.
Bring on the hate. No doubt there is some to be brought. :)
You forgot the whole holohoax thing.
yeah you're right, except bush flew a fighter plane, your grandma worships the pope, and the SUN warms the planet. SURPRISE!
I'm going to assume you (nee) are joking, since there's no way you could know JetBlack138's grandmother's religion, but just in case you're not: global warming is caused by more of the Sun's heat being trapped by more gas in the atmosphere; no one denies that the Sun is the original source of (most of) the heat.
About nee
on a search for truth, shucking the lies. it's all lies.
What are you searching for again? I'm confused.
Guys, you forget that Global Warming can't be happening. That would mean the world is ending, and that can't happen until Jesus comes. Idiots.
*sarcasm*