Go Back to the B3 Home Page
Complaints, compliments, arguments? Email me.
[<< "9/11 families throw down."] [Archive Index] [>>"Sorenson plays 'What if...'"]
02/18/2004 Archived Entry: "Mark Morford = Genius"
Mark Morford = Genius
This is why I think Morford is one of the most gifted op-ed guys working today.
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. Shhh.
Fear has served the GOP beautifully. It won them the election and let them launch two full-blown wars and has pumped billions into the coffers of crony corporations and there is no reason to stop now.
Fear is bombing Afghanistan, right now. Fear is why we are decimating Iraq. A massive murderous budget-busting U.N.-hating war on a nonthreatening nation would have been unspeakable and intolerable had the GOP not deliberately engaged in truly world-class fearmongering beforehand, all about leveraging the sadness of 9/11 and tying it to nonexistent WMDs and biotoxins and nukes and scary bearded foreigners who are all hell bent on slaughtering American babies with rusty machetes.
Basic truism of politics, worldwide: Get the populace scared enough, and you can get away with anything. Fear yanks away your basic civil liberties, your intuition, your sense of dignity and humane behavior.
Replies: 2 people speak up
The beauty of the system is that if we don’t buy into their fear, we are left to cope with a different, more realistic fear. The fear that America has jumped its tracks, and is now a toxic juggernaut of a freight train, tumbling end over end through our neighborhoods picking up speed as it goes, destroying everything in its path, wiping out even the memory that this used to be America, and that we used to stand for something other than simple fear and greed. Fear is not a political tool, fear is the sick feeling I get in my stomach every time I turn on my television, fear is what makes me watch what I say on my telephone, or in mixed company. Fear is a man in a black suit, with sunglasses and an earpiece, who drags you into some dark room without a lawyer, never to be seen again. Be afraid, be very afraid, but not of whom they tell you to be afraid of, fear the fear mongers for they are the true terrorists
Posted by justin @ 02/18/2004 12:04 PM NY
Being an American and living half my life in the States and the other half in Canada permits a unique perspective on how unarguably the strongest country in the world has insulated itself in a zenophobic security blanket. The government preaches the benign nature of cultural and economic imperialism to the world with one hand and yet tells its people that the brown people of the world are to be feared as radicals. Yes, we Americans are the peace-loving, big brother benefactors to the world and what do we get in returns for our benevolence? Angry Arabs that we have done nothing to (except rule through third-party despots and military juntas for the past 60 years). Those religous zealots are jealous of of our enlightened peace-loving nature and want nothing more than to destroy us.
And while we're at it look at those pitiful German, French, and Canadians. Those spineless wimps, what do they know about friendship and loyalty. What right do they have for questioning American hedgemony. O.K., so they were the first ones by our side the day after 9/11. If they were really our friends, they would help us make over the world in our image with no questions asked. The nerve of them- What do they know about the new world order. We have told them- If you are not with us, you are against us. Screw 'em. We have told and shown the Arabs and now we tell the rest of the world, Don't fuck with us. You exist only by our own good graces. World opinion means nothing to a country that takes what it wants and leaves only beggars and orphans in its wake.
The more fearful our government makes us, the more agressive and dangerous our foreign policy becomes and the more the world needs fear us. We all know that fear is the ultimate WMD.
Posted by Kevin A. @ 02/18/2004 01:11 PM NY
