Fear itself

What Are You So Afraid Of?
Sex? Gays? Terrorists? God? In BushCo's fear-drunk world, only one question really matters
(By Mark Morford)

Oh my God but we are one terrified nation.

Fear is in. Fear is the new black. Spritz it on your face and neck, walk around the world all quivering and tremulous, waiting to be crushed by some dark massive throbbing wall of evil at any moment.

Fear is everywhere. Classrooms, water coolers, truck commercials. Fear is our government's raison d'etre, the calling card of the GOP. It will be the prime motivator in this year's presidential election, as Karl Rove will command that Dubya beat the drum of fear loud and hard and nonstop, smirking all the way.

Fear of terrorists fear of gay marriage fear of women and foreigners and the poor and environmentalists and progressives and Janet Jackson and hippies and commies and gul-dang liberals who want to take away your guns and make you think for yourself. We cannot have that.

Vote for us, the GOP will scream, and we will make sure to slaughter all those evil hippie demons, all while keeping your fear at a fever pitch via a never-ending parade of freshly minted evils that threaten your numbed McDonald's-gorged diabetic asthmatic children who can't breathe due to all the air-quality laws we've gouged.

The rest

One of YWA's hallowed thoughtful readers recently wrote discussing this idea - that we are being frightened so we will demand to be protected, no matter what we have to pay for it (monetarily or otherwise). Absolutely that is what's happening. To some extent, I think there are people in the halls of power who believe that we are in such a perilous position that we need whatever it takes to protect us. But, the nasties in the White House know better. They are the ultimate fascist-mafiosi: permit us to curtail your liberties, spy on you and arrest you, hold you without legal representation or recourse, pay us to protect you or else we will permit you to be attacked. Never mind that it is our henchmen, our business partners and our creations who will be doing the attacking.

The extortion of an entire nation.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update 10:00 am:

If the president cannot make the case for his policies without resorting to irrelevant scare tactics then perhaps he should reevaluate those policies.

A policy based on hate is a policy that is completely devoid of thought or reason. Remember what we learned form the Godfather part II, "Never hate your enemy, it affects your judgment".

That's from an article I'm reading on a blog I just discovered. I like this blog. Think I'll put it on my blog links in the sidebar.

The Rant: Riding side-saddle on the sacred cow of political and cultural thought

However (isn't there just always a "however"?), I don't think anyone in the White House aside from perhaps the Oaf of Office actually hates any of these other leaders - they just know that the way to get the American people, who tend to have brain power similar to their beloved Oaf, to go along with whatever policy they want to pursue, is to foment hatred.