{"id":13437,"date":"2025-05-23T20:00:43","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T00:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=13437"},"modified":"2025-05-23T20:00:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T00:00:43","slug":"prophetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=13437","title":{"rendered":"Prophetic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Was I being prophetic?<\/p>\n

Before he became known for his support for conspiracy theories, including birtherism, accusations concerning George Soros, or climate change skepticism, Lou Dobbs was a respected CNN financial news anchor, known for his daily show, Moneyline.<\/p>\n

In late 2002, Dobbs asked viewers for their opinion concerning the name of the new, about-to-be-established Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n

I wrote to the show in response, although I never received a reply. Here’s what I had to say:<\/p>\n

From: \"Viktor T. Toth\" <vttoth@go-away.<\/span>vttoth.com>\r\nTo: <moneyline@cnn.com>\r\nSubject: Naming the Department of Homeland Security\r\nDate: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 03:50:05 -0400\r\nMessage-ID: <03e501ce6507$f7a846a0$e6f8d3e0$@vttoth.com>\r\nMIME-Version: 1.0\r\nContent-Type: text\/plain;\r\ncharset=\"iso-8859-1\"\r\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\r\nX-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 14.0\r\nThread-Index: AQFMd4u4HjxK217e2sZcPfYto6R+JQ==\r\nX-OlkEid: 41640A693654140EFCFE274493B534253EDD2699\r\n\r\nDear Lou:\r\n\r\nYou asked... so here is what I think.\r\n\r\nWhat a Homeland Security Department should be called depends on whether\r\nyou're referring to the role it should play, or the role it'll likely play\r\n(I fear) in American society. To the former, I have no suggestions,\r\nbecause I don't think there's room for a Homeland Security Department in\r\nAmerica in the first place. To the latter: well, you don't have to invent\r\nanything new. Plenty of names can be borrowed from history. How about\r\nGeheime Staatspolizei? Or do you prefer the more multicultural Ministry of\r\nthe Interior? Committee of State Security perhaps, better known by its\r\nominous three-letter Russian acronym? Or going further back in history,\r\nwould Comit\u00e9 de Suret\u00e9 Public be more appropriate?\r\n\r\nWhatever the new Department will be called, I fear that one day its name\r\nwill be listed on the pages of history books along with all these other\r\nvenerable institutions designed by their esteemed founders to protect the\r\nhelpless public from itself.\r\n\r\nAre my fears unfounded? I don't even live in your country, yet I have\r\nsecond thoughts about sending this e-mail to you. Having grown up behind\r\nthe Iron Curtain, my very genes tell me that it is a bad idea to stick my\r\nneck out like this: lay low, enjoy the good life, and don't bring\r\nattention to yourself, that's what my Communism-bred genes are screaming\r\nright now. But this is the Land of the Free, right? So I should suffer no\r\nharm for speaking my mind, and my fears regarding the new Department are\r\njust the silly ideas of a crazed immigrant Canadian... right? Right???\r\n\r\nViktor Toth\r\nOttawa ON\u00a0 CANADA<\/pre>\n
As I am reading about ICE detentions, weaponizations of the Justice Department or the FBI, voluntary self-censorship by news organizations, vindictive presidential actions against Harvard, intimidation of judges and a whole host of other shenanigans taking place in the United States today, I wonder if I actually underestimated the dangers back then, a little less than 23 years ago.<\/p>\n<\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Was I being prophetic? Before he became known for his support for conspiracy theories, including birtherism, accusations concerning George Soros, or climate change skepticism, Lou Dobbs was a respected CNN financial news anchor, known for his daily show, Moneyline. In late 2002, Dobbs asked viewers for their opinion concerning the name of the new, about-to-be-established […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13437"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13444,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13437\/revisions\/13444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}