I think the conundrum is quite larger than 'us' - if by that you meant US. Any Person in the world, ID-able as a member of the Group-to-Get Today is (almost) as vulnerable. (To be Gotten by a member of *any* anonymous Predator-group, formed around any cockamamie raison d'etre whatsoever). So here's my updated survival screed:

Techno, the proliferation of cheap, devastating materiel (Which nation is #1 seller of such, to the world?) means: not very much money is required. Communications means: not very hard to keep in touch - somehow.

I don't think that the scale of this Pandora's Box has remotely sunk-in, generally. Most will buffer the above, believing that this guy was taking Huge risks in his MO = 'so it's an aberration'. {Whew}

20/20 proves to us: how FEW-$ were required for merely the first large-aim event... Small events? How could you possibly imagine 1% of the infinite possibilities?

As I think I suggested not long after 9/11: this is about The Open Society and It's Enemies. Popper's or any of several successor tomes to build on his catchphrase - will do for a starter, about "what that might mean".

The present Admin (and a lot of Muricans? - but How Many Muricans believe so?) imagines that essentially: We Can turn the US into a large bivouac area with perimeter defenses designed to er Keep Us Safe! = and still.. retain a recognizable facsimile of (all those illusions each one of us cherishes in different detail). ie

A (Still) 'Open Society' [??]

The present Admin also imagines that: our traditional means of ensuring our hegemony in the control of- massive use-of all the world's resources: Can be maintained next, by the same old means - (normally merely the threat of, but lately) the Use of overwhelming techno- Force.

Military deaths of 'our boys' (any Others are devalued by orders of magnitude) in our regular estimation) -- is deemed politically unacceptable. Hence: trillions next for Even More Fancy techno- "weapons at a distance", the latest version of B-52s over primitive Vietnam: at 30,000 feet "distance from the human results".

Isn't THIS ~ where we are today, as regards any "strategic thought" about the impending future events? That is a nascent level of awareness IMhO. It had better not be (or for long) - the level of contemplation we stop at, as these new spending authorizations lock us further and further into:

Mindless-automatic violent stimulus/response to each new event
Village Idiot 'diplomacy' emphasizing Our Might and willingness to use it.
Village Idiot trashing of treaties unilaterally and with no sense made whatsoever - in the juvenile 'reasons' (if any!) advanced.
Village Idiot spawned false dichotomies like, You're With Us Or Against Us; War on Evil [!!!] Etc. Etc..
Inane quips from the V.I. of the ilk, Got any blacks here? and the precious ... Oooh! Oooh! He Spoke French!

WTF do any of us know re Next? But if we panic and merely intensify the Ashcroftian anti-Constitutional approach at home, and the Star Wars Will Fix It mentality abroad, during the *next* emergency:

It will be time for a careful and well-administered movement for Impeachment, finally for Real cause: the imperiling of the entire planet by a bunch of light-thinkers and Big Talkers, headed by a now confirmed V.I.

And BTW: as for me - I don't particularly *care* whether the Emergency Replacements for the present crop of Enron-style trained, Bible-thumper speaking Yahoos call theyselves..

A) Repos
B) Demos
C) Something like.. "The

Let's Let Everyone Survive Without Making a Fascist-Theocracy Here OR A Radioactive Rubble Over There (And Likely Here, Too)

Party."

The world may have been our Oyster pre-9/11 - but the many grains of sand we have been sticking in that Oyster since, have raised the irritation of the entire Oyster to some New level, about which we have no experience. Yet.



Cheers,

Ashton

PS - obviously another thread, another time - about the many (next needed Mightily!) more sane, *debated*, discussed, revised and finally implemented: really intelligent ideas for facing this potentially world-breaking set of developments. What shall we barter of our hegemony: for the sake of All people alive? It ain't never going to be the usual Answer: Nothing at all.