Perpetual State of Fear
How can you control a population, if you don’t give them something to fear? Not to worry, though–those in Washington DC are nothing if not creative. We now have a new government-mandated fear. This time the enemy won’t let us down: it won’t take down the walls. It will be nebulous, and undefeatable, made more so by our own actions. We, the last of the generation of ‘duck and cover’ can now rest safely at night knowing that our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, will know fear. Every damn day of their lives.
You see, it is to our government’s advantage to have us be afraid. When we’re afraid, we don’t look around us and see how 43 million Americans still have no health care coverage; the middle class is dwindling while the ranks of the poor are increasing; there are jobs, but too many at wages that can barely cover subsistence living. You can get a happy meal for less than a gallon of gas now, and buying both feeds the same corporate machine which is raking in record profits at a time when our country is teetering on the edge of a major climate and economic shift.
When we, the people, are afraid, we’re so easy to manipulate. People concerned about cost of living? Just parade a few gays around, mention the sanctity of marriage. If that doesn’t work, show an Arab.
The Politics of Cowardice...
Osama bin Laden must be howling with laughter. He's a man with no armies to command or weapons to brandish, except for the most powerful weapon of all: fear. More Americans drown in bathtubs every year than are killed by terrorists -- and indeed we've now reached the point where bin Laden doesn't actually have to kill anyone to achieve his goal of promoting military conflict between the Islamic and Western worlds.
How can you control a population, if you don’t give them something to fear? Not to worry, though–those in Washington DC are nothing if not creative. We now have a new government-mandated fear. This time the enemy won’t let us down: it won’t take down the walls. It will be nebulous, and undefeatable, made more so by our own actions. We, the last of the generation of ‘duck and cover’ can now rest safely at night knowing that our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, will know fear. Every damn day of their lives.
You see, it is to our government’s advantage to have us be afraid. When we’re afraid, we don’t look around us and see how 43 million Americans still have no health care coverage; the middle class is dwindling while the ranks of the poor are increasing; there are jobs, but too many at wages that can barely cover subsistence living. You can get a happy meal for less than a gallon of gas now, and buying both feeds the same corporate machine which is raking in record profits at a time when our country is teetering on the edge of a major climate and economic shift.
When we, the people, are afraid, we’re so easy to manipulate. People concerned about cost of living? Just parade a few gays around, mention the sanctity of marriage. If that doesn’t work, show an Arab.
The Politics of Cowardice...
Osama bin Laden must be howling with laughter. He's a man with no armies to command or weapons to brandish, except for the most powerful weapon of all: fear. More Americans drown in bathtubs every year than are killed by terrorists -- and indeed we've now reached the point where bin Laden doesn't actually have to kill anyone to achieve his goal of promoting military conflict between the Islamic and Western worlds.
posted by Soldatensender at 9:25 AM
2 Comments:
Bush has been playing the fear card for five years now.
Nothing new. It's effective.
You might find this article interesting:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0817/p03s03-uspo.html
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