Election Time Is America’s FEAR-A-PALOOZA

Crime is down in America. Despite this fact, a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law just found that Americans are terrified of crime. 
70% of Americans believe that they are in danger of being killed by “ISIS” – which they think is trying to take over America. International Terrorism is a chimera; a fantasy drilled into the consciousness of Americans by politicians who use this demonstrably false threat to hold power. The BBC documentary THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES charts this fraud in great detail. It works and now the HOME OF THE BRAVE is quaking in its boots. Even though home-grown followers of a reputed Prince of Peace have been bombing and shooting up Planned Parenthood centers, nebulous “foreigners” are feared to the marrow.

Even though more toddlers have killed Americans than terrorists have, the fear of foreign terrorists is pervasive and forms the basis of the Republican political campaign.

Listening to the hysterical shrieking of the conservative fear-mongering horde, one would never know that you are more likely to be crushed to death by your furniture, than killed by terrorists.

People deliberately spreading fear… THEY are the real terrorists. The only people terrorizing you now are these power-hungry politicians.

There is a candidate on the Democratic side who also talks the neocon bull about the need for America to lead the world in  “the global fight to exterminate Islamic State” which presents NO threat to us here. Mrs. Clinton even calls for a NO FLY ZONE even though ISIS has no air force. Or a single airplane.

When trying to persuade people to vote for her, as they ignore the many serious complaints about her, Mrs. Clinton’s supporters always whip out yet another fear: They say we MUST have her in office to save the Supreme Court.  So even though they admit that she cannot be trusted in other ways, and she talks like a conservative, and is sponsored by Wall Street (which shovels money at her) they somehow trust her to make progressive SCOTUS choices. Why? And said from he court, what are we to expect from her choices to run The Fed? The Commerce Department? The FDA? The Treasury Department? The SEC? The Education Department? Will she secure the separation of church and state? When it comes to the mythical man in the sky, Mrs. Clinton is as much a bible thumper as any other conservative, claiming that this amalgam of Bronze Age fairy-tales made her the person she is. Religious pandering always accompanies fear mongering with conservatives and Mrs. Clinton is no exception.

Back to earthly matters: Will Clinton protect Social Security from Wall Street privatizing? Will she prosecute the rapacious banksters who crashed the economy of the world? Yes, you say? Why should we think so? This would be biting the hand that feeds her, and feeds her husband, and feeds her daughter, and feeds her much touted grandchild – whose father is a hedge-fund huckster from a family of Republican politicians.

And when all else fails, the Clinton wing raises the fear of back-alley abortions – claiming she and she alone will save Roe v. Wade.  See my previous post in this blog in which I show why that is balderdash. This is more fear… It is all some people have to offer. Some. Not all…

So clearly, we cannot lay the far-mongering rap exclusively on the Republicans. It infects conservatives no matter which party they sign on with. One thing is certain: I will never support any candidate who inspires and exploits fear. THAT is terrorism: “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims” (New Oxford American Dictionary). And deliberately scaring the crap out of people is intimidation. Doing so for political gains is TERRORISM. No, it is not swarthy, Muslim, foreign terrorism but terrorism it is.

Using fear is, of course, nothing new. The whole phony “Cold War” worked wonders in the fear department. I hear from people to this day who believe that “commies” are trying to take over America – which was another totally phony fear. The USSR was never a threat to America. Again, see THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES to learn how Ronald Reagan whipped this fear up to a post-McCarthy fever pitch even though the CIA told him it was baloney. The CIA. Hardly a bastion liberal pinkos… For a look at fear in the early 20th Century I recommend the reissue of a 1919 classic called UNMASKING FEAR.

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This valuable study of mass hysteria and rampant fear first appeared in 1919, long before mass media – which today is the most virulent and relentless purveyor of fear. But the lessons apply. And I consider them are well-worth learning from. IF, of course, people can learn. I have my doubts – especially when I see people running for their lives from… nothing at all. When their furniture is a bigger threat…

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