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The Degrading Effects of Terrorism Fears
I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but David Brooks actually had an excellent column in yesterday's New York Times that makes several insightful and important points. Brooks documents how "childish, contemptuous and hysterical" the national reaction has been to this latest terrorist episode, egged on -- as usual -- by the always-hysterical American media. The citizenry has been trained to expect that our Powerful Daddies and Mommies in government will -- in that most cringe-inducing, child-like formulation -- Keep Us Safe. Whenever the Government fails to do so, the reaction -- just as we saw this week -- is an ugly combination of petulant, adolescent rage and increasingly unhinged cries that More Be Done to ensure that nothing bad in the world ever happens. Demands that genuinely inept government officials be held accountable are necessary and wise, but demands that political leaders ensure that we can live in womb-like Absolute Safety are delusional and destructive. Yet this is what the citizenry screams out every time something threatening happens: please, take more of our privacy away; monitor more of our communications; ban more of us from flying; engage in rituals to create the illusion of Strength; imprison more people without charges; take more and more control and power so you can Keep Us Safe.
This is what inevitably happens to a citizenry that is fed a steady diet of fear and terror for years. It regresses into pure childhood. The 5-year-old laying awake in bed, frightened by monsters in the closet, who then crawls into his parents' bed to feel Protected and Safe, is the same as a citizenry planted in front of the television, petrified by endless imagery of scary Muslim monsters, who then collectively crawl to Government and demand that they take more power and control in order to keep them Protected and Safe. A citizenry drowning in fear and fixated on Safety to the exclusion of other competing values can only be degraded and depraved. John Adams, in his 1776 Thoughts on Government, put it this way:
Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.
As Adams noted, political leaders possess an inherent interest in maximizing fear levels, as that is what maximizes their power. For a variety of reasons, nobody aids this process more than our establishment media, motivated by their own interests in ratcheting up fear and Terrorism melodrama as high as possible. The result is a citizenry far more terrorized by our own institutions than foreign Terrorists could ever dream of achieving on their own. For that reason, a risk that is completely dwarfed by numerous others -- the risk of death from Islamic Terrorism -- dominates our discourse, paralyzes us with fear, leads us to destroy our economic security and eradicate countless lives in more and more foreign wars, and causes us to beg and plead and demand that our political leaders invade more of our privacy, seize more of our freedom, and radically alter the system of government we were supposed to have. The one thing we don't do is ask whether we ourselves are doing anything to fuel this problem and whether we should stop doing it. As Adams said: fear "renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable."
What makes all of this most ironic is that the American Founding was predicated on exactly the opposite mindset. The Constitution is grounded in the premise that there are other values and priorities more important than mere Safety. Even though they knew that doing so would help murderers and other dangerous and vile criminals evade capture, the Framers banned the Government from searching homes without probable cause, prohibited compelled self-incrimination, double jeopardy and convictions based on hearsay, and outlawed cruel and unusual punishment. That's because certain values -- privacy, due process, limiting the potential for abuse of government power -- were more important than mere survival and safety. A central calculation of the Constitution was that we insist upon privacy, liberty and restraints on government power even when doing so means we live with less safety and a heightened risk of danger and death. And, of course, the Revolutionary War against the then-greatest empire on earth was waged by people who risked their lives and their fortunes in pursuit of liberty, precisely because there are other values that outweigh mere survival and safety.
These are the calculations that are now virtually impossible to find in our political discourse. It is fear, and only fear, that predominates. No other competing values are recognized. We have Chris Matthews running around shrieking that he's scared of kung-fu-wielding Terrorists. Michael Chertoff is demanding that we stop listening to "privacy ideologues" -- i.e., that there should be no limits on Government's power to invade and monitor and scrutinize. Republican leaders have spent the decade preaching that only Government-provided Safety, not the Constitution, matters. All in response to this week's single failed terrorist attack, there are -- as always -- hysterical calls that we start more wars, initiate racial profiling, imprison innocent people indefinitely, and torture even more indiscriminately. These are the by-products of the weakness and panic and paralyzing fear that Americans have been fed in the name of Terrorism, continuously for a full decade now.
Ever since I began writing in late 2005 about this fear-addicted dynamic, the point on which Brooks focused yesterday is the one I've thought most important. What matters most about this blinding fear of Terrorism is not the specific policies that are implemented as a result. Policies can always be changed. What matters most is the radical transformation of the national character of the United States. Reducing the citizenry to a frightened puddle of passivity, hysteria and a child-like expectation of Absolute Safety is irrevocable and far more consequential than any specific new laws. Fear is always the enabling force of authoritarianism: the desire to vest unlimited power in political authority in exchange for promises of protection. This is what I wrote about that back in early 2006 in How Would a Patriot Act?:
The president's embrace of radical theories of presidential power threatens to change the system of government we have. But worse still, his administration's relentless, never-ending attempts to keep the nation in a state of fear can also change the kind of nation we are.
This isn't exactly new: many of America's most serious historical transgressions -- the internment of Japanese-Americans, McCarthyite witch hunts, World War I censorship laws, the Alien and Sedition Act -- have been the result of fear-driven, over-reaction to extrenal threats, not under-reaction. Fear is a degrading toxin, and there's no doubt that it has been the primary fuel over the last decade. As the events of the last week demonstrate, it continues to spread rapidly, and it produces exactly the kind of citizenry about which John Adams long ago warned.
148 Comments so far
Show AllTo put this into perspective, one has a much greater chance of dying from a dog bite than from a terrorist attack. Perhaps we should declare a war on dogs--but PETA wouldn't like that.
The response to the Detroit incident should have been a shrug.
Henri de Montherlant pointed out once that soldiers in World War I would much rather risk dying from sniper fire than to take a roundabout route to the latrine. We should test his observation by offering security-free airline flights--no lines, no indignities, no teenagers with assault rifles--and see how many people choose this alternative. I certainly would.
"The response to the Detroit incident should have been a shrug."
Definitely not. The response should've been like the following and like a post I made at CD over the past week, saying that this recent threat of an airline bombing is very suspect, to say the least.
"The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure: Negligence or Conspiracy?"
by Bill Van Auken, wsws.org, Dec 31, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16738
EXCERPT:
Among the facts now known are the following:
• Abdulmutallab’s father, a prominent retired banker and ex-government minister, had visited the US Embassy in Abuja more than a month before the attempted bombing to warn CIA officials that his son had become involved with Al Qaeda elements in Yemen. He provided them with information with which the young man could have been located, and he followed up his visit with at least two phone calls.
• For at least four months, US intelligence had information from Yemen that Al Qaeda operatives there were preparing “a Nigerian” for a terrorist attack.
• The information from Yemen was further substantiated by the National Security Agency’s interception of communications discussing preparations for an impending attack and the use of the “Nigerian.”
Moreover, Abdulmutallab’s $2,800 ticket was paid for with cash, apparently at the last minute, and he made the transatlantic trip having checked no luggage, carrying only a backpack.
Then there is the story told by a passenger on the plane, Kurt Haskell, a Michigan lawyer, who claims that he saw Abdulmutallab approach the airline ticket counter in Amsterdam accompanied by a well-dressed South Asian man, who told the Northwest ticket agent that the young Nigerian needed to fly without a passport.
“He’s from Sudan, we do this all the time,” the older man told the agent, Haskell recounted. He said that the agent then directed them to the office of the airline’s local manager.
Normally, any one of these things would have triggered intense scrutiny before Abdulmutallab was allowed to board the plane.
Once again, as in the wake of September 11, 2001, the government and the media are peddling the explanation that all of these extraordinary lapses were the product of mere negligence or a “failure to connect the dots.”
Eight years after 9/11, with all of the still unanswered questions surrounding the attacks that were used to justify an explosion of American militarism, the attempt to gloss over an event that nearly cost the lives of 300 people with this hackneyed metaphor does not hold water.
The general outlines of the Northwest bombing attempt and the 9/11 attacks are startlingly similar. One might even say that what is involved is a modus operandi. In both cases, those alleged to have carried out the actions had been the subject of US intelligence investigations and surveillance and had been allowed to enter the country and board flights under conditions that would normally have set off multiple security alarms.
Both then and now, the government and the media expect the public to accept that all that was involved was mistakes. But why should anyone assume that the failure to act on the extensive intelligence leading to Abdulmutallab involved merely “innocent” mistakes—and not something far more sinister?
END OF EXCERPT
Yet another example of government bungling or something worse. I have great respect for the role of utter stupidity being far more likely than some Grand Conspiracy at work. I don't think our administration is quite as clever as many suppose. Or as evil. Just incompetent.
Gary
Here's another important article.
"Obama Administration Prepares Public Opinion for Attack on Yemen"
by Patrick Martin, wsws.org, Dec 31, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16737
EXCERPT:
Five days after the unsuccessful attempt by a Nigerian student to set off a bomb aboard a Detroit-bound passenger jet, US military and intelligence officials are said to be preparing expanded military action against targets in Yemen, ....
...
The report comes after a series of statements by top administration officials, including Obama himself, pledging that “all elements of US power” will be used in response to the failed attack on Northwest Flight 253. The White House has been under heavy fire from its Republican opponents over the evident security failure, and a military action would serve to divert public attention from the ongoing revelations of how the CIA and other US agencies ignored warnings about the impending attack.
...
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration was discussing nearly tripling its military and counterterrorism aid to Yemen in the coming year. US aid jumped from $4.6 million in 2006 to $67 million this year, and would rise to as much as $190 million in 2010, according to “a senior military official.”
...
The Los Angeles Times cited a Yemeni terrorism expert as the source of an estimate that Al Qaeda has “as many as 2,000 militants and sympathizers exploiting the country’s economic and political chaos to create a base for jihad at the edge of the Persian Gulf.” This is ten times more than other media estimates of the number of such militants in Yemen, and 20 times the number of Al Qaeda forces said by US officials to be in Afghanistan now.
The Times report is part of an effort by the US media to portray Yemen as a lawless hotbed of terrorism and a major threat to the United States, in order to justify in advance an American attack, or even a full-scale invasion.
It was followed by an even more apocalyptic comment by “terrorism expert” Steven Emerson, interviewed Wednesday morning on CBS’ “Early Show.” He said that while the Pakistan-Afghanistan border was still “number one” for terrorist activity, the area surrounding the Gulf of Aden, including Yemen and Somalia, was “fast coming up the ladder.”
...
The clear goal of such far-fetched claims is to create a pogrom atmosphere directed against all young American Muslims, particularly those of Arab or East African origin.
These comments were made one day after press reports of an alleged abortive attempt by a Somali man equipped with explosive powder and a syringe to board a passenger jet in Mogadishu, the capital city. This is the same modus operandi as that of the Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, aboard Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day. The Somali was arrested by African peacekeeping troops on November 13 and never succeeded in getting on the plane.
...
Once again, as in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, American imperialism is preparing a military bloodbath in an impoverished country, using a terrorist attack—in this case a failed attempt—as the pretext. According to reports by the UN and Yemeni government statistics, some 35 percent of the adult population of the country is unemployed. Yemen is the poorest of the Arab countries, has exhausted its very limited oil export capacity, and now faces severe water shortages.
But Yemen possesses, like Afghanistan and Iraq, a highly strategic geographic location, adjacent to Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, and the Red Sea, controlling access to the Suez Canal. Yemen also borders on the Gulf of Aden, the shipping route for much of the oil leaving the Persian Gulf.
US military forces are already deployed across the strait of Bab el Mandeb in Djibouti, the former French Somaliland, which remains a virtual French colony. Djibouti hosts thousands of French and US troops who could quickly move into Yemen if so ordered by Paris and Washington. A large US and NATO war fleet patrols shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden and south along the Indian Ocean coast of Somalia.
END OF EXCERPT
U.S. "intell." knew months beforehand about the man who's alleged to have been planning to bomb the airliner to Detroit Dec. 25th and how he got to board is [awfully] suspect; as both aspects are well explained in the article by Bill van Auken that linked in my post prior to this one.
The U.S. is on the "leadership" project of global dominance, which is economically based, very much including natural energy resources. Economic dominance requires geopolitics and military dominance, and flooding us with propaganda of deception. But it requires control over the Middle East and the rest of Asia, as much of it as the U.S. "elites" can gain control over, as well as Africa; and it includes working to contain Russia and China. It also involves Iran.
Patrick Martin provides additional media quotes and more from the words of Steven Emerson, which are no good words and need to be understood as not being meant to lead us down any good paths.
It's global, world war; waged by the USA and its allies, the willing and the coerced, but mainly the U.S. and NATO.
Glenn Greenwald should do as a reader says in a post further below and get on with the next step in his reporting and analysis. He should move to the nitty-gritty and dirty details. Not doing this is to be lacking important substance. If we want to alert people about bs propaganda, then we shouldn't only tell them that what they're reading or hearing is bs propaganda, we should also explain why, informing them of the nitty-gritty and dirty details that are otherwise kept from them.
More from SNAFUBARack, the Bush Shadow wimp!
My conclusion from reading GG's article:
Wussies 'R US
How interesting that a writer as perceptive as Mr Greenwald refuses to take the step from the oligarchy capitalizing on Americans' fear to extend their wealth and power over the populace to creating it by orchestrating the events that generate it.
If we all took that small step it would indeed be a giant leap for mankind.
"The one thing we don't do is ask whether we ourselves are doing anything to fuel this problem and whether we should stop doing it." -- Greenwald
What does "the step" look, sound, smell, taste, and feel like? What is it's texture and how does it balance with gravity? Please, what are the specifics of with whom, where, and when?
GeneralCommentator
A well stated and perceptive observation.
"The true dissenter is every human being at those moments of his [or her] life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself."-Archibald MacLeish
Surely the step is to stop being afraid.
"The citizen who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures."
--Junius
Who is this fearful "we" that Greenwald is describing? Not me Kimosabe. All I see is a media that sells this fear right alongside other completely un-newsworthy nonsense of the Tiger Woods sort.
Thank you. Well said. However, I believe in your last paragraph you left out yet another possibility: the event was manufactured by covert operatives to produce the desired effect of providing a rationale for the expansion of imperialist operations.
This possibility is obviously difficult for even progressive people to contemplate. It's easier for most people to cling to some watered-down version of officially sanctioned thinking, because to deviate to the degree that the reality requires is to step into the scary rabbit hole of shadow governments and covert operations. It's much easier to hurl invective and ridicule at the "conspiracy theorists" than it is to examine with a sober eye the real sinister nature of modern Empire.
Overall agree, but you forget some aspects about these wars. You say, "Actually, the wars are NOT really caused by fear of death from Islamic Terrorism. Rather, the wars are caused by US imperialism's drive to seize control of oil resources & strategic pipeline routes", and this is a "little" lacking.
These wars also include trying to contain Russia and China, for the U.S. to become the globally dominant power, economically and, therefore, geopolitically and militarily; in Asia, which includes the Middle East, as well as Africa, and we also have U.S. militarisation in South or Latin American countries, certainly Colombia and Honduras, anyway. The U.S. "elites" driving these wars might not be aiming for outright conquest, but if they're not, or they can't achieve this, then they will aim to dominate through destablising regions and keeping them very destabilised, Prof. Peter Dale Scott has said in an article at www.globalresearch.ca and which I agree with, for outright conquest is not likely possible, while global dominance nevertheless is the objective aimed for, one bloody way or another bloody way, bloody and destructive, that is.
Natural resources and economics are the apparently main bases everywhere, but there's nevertheless more than the energy pipelines.
Yes a chicken or the egg comes first question because...
War = More Terrorism
Point well taken, generalcommentator, except for the fact that Greenwald has such a positive effect thus far on so many people that perhaps he thinks it best for now to play his cards close to the chest. On a few other occasions, such as when commenting on the FBI's farcical indictment of the suicided (murdered?) Bruce Ivins, Greenwald has hinted at just such orchestration as you mention, so I don't think he's too far away from it on this issue. That is, I don't think he has "embraced his inner coward," as CD censors clearly did by deleting so many posts on the comments thread to the Ted Rall article on 9/11. I think he is biding his time and unwilling, at least for now, to touch the latest "third rail" in American political discourse.
To take that step is indeed fraught with peril and would likely serve to cloud over all of his future works. Like Naomi Klein who has faced the same criticism as Glenn Greenwald we need him too much to take that risk at this moment.
As we have witnessed here on CD over the last few days opinions on 9/11 are written in stone so until we have some new information debating whether 9/11 was an inside job or not is pointless
ps
No matter how vile and/or uncomfortable the speech censorship is alway worse
Mad Loon: very interesting reason you give for not expecting Greenwald to take that "next step" and touch the "third rail" of public discourse in America: the kind of step that gets you labelled as a "Truther" just as soon as you dare suggest that the ruling oligarchy is "orchestrating" the incidents that terrorize us. Aren't you invoking a FEAR of your own as a reason not to pursue the truth: that by so doing we would "lose" precious allies like Greenwald and Klein? Not that they would be assassinated (probably)or arrested as terrorist sympathizers (probably) but that they would lose "street cred" with gatekeepers of the permissible and impermissible in critical thought like Alexander Cockburn over at Counter Punch who denounces "Truthers" as he once denounced any consideration of conspiracy in the JFK assassination. Frankly I wouldn't want Cockburn to define the third rail of untouchable thought any more than I'd want Limbaugh to define it as anything approaching "socialized medicine." I'll look forward actually to that day, as another poster suggested, when right-on Glenn Greenwald takes that "next step" and helps make life a little easier for folks whose thought touches the third rail of government "orchestration" of terrorist incidents. Then he too may join the ranks of those intrepid voyagers who go where no man (relatively few men or women) have gone before. Happy voyage, Glenn of the future and you already-Truthers on that rail.
You're probably right on the fear part. However fear isn't always irrational. Those of us who have nothing to lose are still capable of speaking the truth on this issue for now and I hope that someday those with something to lose would do so but my point is that now is not that time.
As we are all aware the sheeple aren't ready to accept the truth yet and there are a great many issues to deal with in the mean time.
I guess in the end what I am trying to say is lets focus on the battles that we can win.
Mad Loon,fair enough I guess, but what do you have in mind as a "battle we can win?" (Except to win only when there is so much compromise in what is won that it doesn't even seem like winning). Plus it seems a short jump from there back to: later we can support a candidate for office who will help us get what we want, for now we have to support one that the fund-raisers and the corporate media say are the only ones who can "win." (And hope that these lesser evil people will eventually do some good.)
Your right of course
I guess I'm just feeling more than a little discouraged at the moment.
Like alot of people I'm struggling to find viable solutions to the grave issues that we face today and deeply frustrated that so many have chosen to blindfold themselves so as not to see the madness all around them.
Don't fret. Glenn Greenwald could go the extra step or steps at no risk to his life or family. And if we're not ready to take any reputational risks, then we don't merit liberty, the right to vote, etcetera.
Mike Corbeil: thanks for your comment and
Mad Loon: I second Mike's "don't fret" admonition. You and I are not "opinion leaders" (not I at least) but Greenwald is, and I think we do look to him to and the other precious few like him to take those essential "next steps" toward renunciation of the kind of political "leadership" which leads us nowhere but down the toilet.
These "Powerful Daddies and Mommies" the American people have accepted into their lives (in order to "protect" them) have a bad case of Münchausen by proxy syndrome.
That's a great way of putting it. They really are sick people.
So, it's now been recognized that some people are sick, and a label has been given to the sickness. Now, how does one deal with a sick person?
Well, first the sick person would need healthcare -- that covered mental illness. :-)
Sorry, not covered under the new Congressional plan. :)
(sigh) will we ever get over 9/11?
Everything changed on 911 and that is exactly what it was designed to do.
And our ship of state's course will not be corrected until this whole, wide world understands the truth of the events of 9/11.
The truth is being covered-up and the whole world knows it.
So true.
Only because we allowed it.
I was over it about a week after it happened. Time to get a grip people, and MOVE ON! The only 'terror network' that worries me is the one emanating from D.C. and Wall St.
They don't "hate us for our 'way of life' ", what they hate is US imperial policy.
guess not. in one day the people of the u.s. became the world champions of victimhood. no one, nowhere had ever been so terribly injured.
oh and we also became the world's biggest cry babies.
and scaredy cats
The most frightened children are those abused by those parents to whom they crawl for safety.
But at least my parents were not Michael Chertoff,
who abetted the dispossession of so many
in New Orleans.
How is it that one can be afraid yet unafraid
to listen to Michael Chertoff?
.
From a book whose title I have forgotten: "Every man is the enemy of his own country" - or at least vice versa.
Was the John Adams who warned against fear the same John Adams who signed the Alien and Sedition Act?
The same. One must necessarily conclude that Adams had his good days, and then he had his bad days.
· Yr Obd't Servant
An EXCELLENT point, GeneralCommentator.
Nonetheless, Glenn hit the nail on the head, again.
A new analysis from Harvard University, using H1N1 deaths in the U.S. in the spring and projecting likely outcomes for this fall, suggests that the swine flu “pandemic” has been oversold.
You think? Duh. Of course it was oversold. The celebrities weren't knocking each other out or up as much as usual so airtime had to be filled with SOMETHING and H1N1 was tailor-made. Now its a fool using explosive underpants to feed the Beast. (Great show-- so it was cancelled -- too close to the truth.)
Gary
While Glen Greenwald again does a very good clarification, there is a significant aspect he could have highlighted.
The seemingly religious belief in security through capitalistic consumption. This is how the corporations have taken over the government and why the "government" is trying to consume the world. There will NEVER be enough to satiate this Need for security as long as there is money to be made through fearmongering.
Reverend Billy and the "Church of STOP SHOPPING" are on the right track.
what I don't understand is that those who are most vocal about increasing the government's involvement with our "safety" are the same that rail against "big government" when it comes to business. Isn't this a bit hypocritical?
www.mindwafers.com
This is a question that I have been posing for a number of years. They do not want "big government" yet choose governments which seek to control them and to remove their individual rights.
In Canada, Harper is our fearmonger, using the same tactics as the Bush regime did and yet those who most strongly advocate for small government and less interference in their lives are the same ones who consistently vote for this authoritarian politician and his zombie MPs (members of Parliament). It is Harper (and his opaque system of governance) who is increasingly dictating how we will conduct our lives including shutting down our democratic system (he prorogued parliament for the third time in 4 years a couple of days ago).
However, the increased "security" that the TSA is promoting within the US is affecting other countries' ability to control their own security laws and may in fact affect our privacy laws (in Canada). Here is a link from CBC to what is being demanded of us and if you read some of the readers' comments, the most of them do not want their rights abrogated because of US fear and paranoia. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/01/01/airlines-passenger-privacy001.html#socialcomments
Sioux Rose
A VOICE: I think it's a Yin/Yang thing. They want "big goverment" so long as it's dressed up in militarism and the illusion of getting protection. You know, in the form of a lot of BANG for one's bucks. They don't seem to mind if large corporations get a hand or handout, either. But those programs designed to actually help people, you know like the unfortunates who are ill, aging, or perhaps psychologically off-kilter. Goddess forbid any of those get help! The government is not seen as a nanny state when it's helping GM or MONSANTO or BLACKWATER; but once those Acorn "types" want the tinest cut of the pie, how those who have been taught to hate sharing, been programmed to exalt "dog eat dog" take offense. It is very difficult to speak honestly of human nature or human behavior when it's been conditioned to follow such self-defeating models for so long.
>>You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.
>>Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea. And he said to the other mice, "Look fellows, why do we keep on electing a government made up of cats? Why don't we elect a government made up of mice?" "Oh," they said, "he's a Bolshevik. Lock him up!"
>>So they put him in jail.
From Mouseland (Tommy Douglas)
Sioux, I cannot but agree with you. I do know that my field studies seeking solidarity economy conclude that those who have built solid networks of real or fictive kin have a better sense of who receive the benefits of gov't and who do not. They know they have been "criminalized" for being poor or attempting to help the low income recipients, while those who have power go freely without prosecution regardless the devastation they produce. These persons also are very aware that they have been effectively disenfranchised due to their economic status.
On the positive, they do not follow authoritarian figures.
Change is in the air.
no it isn't. they don't want gov't to regulate business in general - authentic small businesses on a human scale is not the problem. they want gov't to regulate absurdly large "too big to fail" monster monopolies that steal from and kill citizens with impunity through horrible dangerous work conditions, faulty products, deceptive advertising, environmental pollution, resource depletion, and worst of all now, corruption of our form of gov't by out of control lobbying and outright purchase of politicians who then do their will at the expense of constituents. although it is probably too late to actually do anything about this - the effective melding of our former democracy with corporate interests is already pretty much complete - it WAS a good idea - it would have been a good idea to try to stave this off via regulations - and that is completely different that what is suggested in this article - but then you knew that already did you not?
The issue is that the government isn't involved in American safety. Just the opposite in fact. VIrtually everything they do in the name of safety in fact makes America and the rest of the world less safe,
Deregulation of rules around workplace,environmental and food safety not to mention all the people they have killed, maimed and tortured have all made the world a much more dangerous place
- political leaders possess an inherent interest in maximizing fear levels -
'the Reichstag fire made it easy for Nazi propaganda to cause a widespread scare'
'Heroes' need enemies to overcome - when there are no enemies, they are invented.
The bigger the enemy, the bigger the Hero obviously is for defeating them.
'How Reagan won the Cold War' (Fred Kaplan)
'We loved him because he saved us from the alien invaders' (The Hitler We Loved and Why --- Eric Thomson).
------
What is again ignored is the legislative mechanism that allows any political (or military) leader, would-be hero,
to drag the United States of Amnesia military into country after country in an insane and DAFT effort to prevent future terrorism forever and ever, amen.
This insanity will continue as long as the mechanism exists for war-mongers to use.
Public Law 107-40 is Public Enemy #1.
Common in all of this is a virtually co-dependent relinquishing/usurpation dynamic of legitimate voice. I wonder about this being a deeper aspect of the principle of 'freedom of expression'.
Interwoven with the belief in security is the notion of the "expert" - another form of 'parental' exercise.
The 2007 article by Katherine Eban about the American Psychological Association (a "trade group") and the eventual public dissent within the ranks is intersting to revisit as emblematic of the dynamic.
http://katherineeban.com/article.php?id=52