General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLiving in constant fear as a Nation
As a very new poster here on DU, one of the first forums that caught my attention has been the Latest Breaking News section. Its eye-catching placement and topical discussions made it the "go to" place for me to read, reply to posts and even start a few new threads of my own. It's a lot of fun and I have been enjoying participating there greatly.
The thing is I started to notice how many posts were war and conflict oriented. Yes, of course I realize that IS what much of our media dishes out as breaking news and its natural and right that people will want to comment on these issues. But, man, it started to seem to me that a disproportionate amount of the news in the general media is just designed to stoke fear, war monger and drive, well, what seems to be an over-the-top level of militaristic propaganda.
We hear it all the time, we need to beef up our military, enlarge the army, build more ships. Global terrorists, a militarily resurgent Russia and Chinese air bases on man-made islands are all coming to get us. So we must prepare, take more money away from social programs, buy more weapons.
I started to spend more and more of my posting time saying no, things aren't that bad, no, the world isn't really going up in flames, no, the Russkies are not out to destroy NATO despite what Marco Rubio said. lol Sorry, Marco Rubio makes me laugh, back to my point...
And how unprepared are we in actuality to warrant this barrage of fear mongering by our media outlets?
Well, we only spend as much money on defense as the next NINE nations in the world combined. This is why I personally don't buy into all the fear mongering and constant war hype:
"The U.S. outpaces all other nations in military expenditures. World military spending totaled more than $1.7 trillion in 2013. The U.S. accounted for 37 percent of the total.
U.S. military expenditures are roughly the size of the next nine largest military budgets around the world, combined.
U.S. military spending dwarfs the budget of the #2 country China. For every dollar China spends on its military, the U.S. pends $3.60."
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/us-military-spending-vs-world/
Well, I don't expect that this post will stop the media from fanning fears. lol Or even that people here on DU will pay into the media hype a little less. But maybe the level of advocacy for more arms, more military actions will lessen just slightly while we discuss the news of the day here.
Thanks for reading this, it was cathartic for me to post it. lol
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)Can it really be just a spurious correlation that among the nine nations you list there, we are also the nation with the highest handgun insecurity?
Captain Stern
(2,197 posts)Lots of good info there.
Personally, I'm not scared of other countries. I don't think there is any reason to be.
I don't think that the amount of money that we spend on our military has anything at all to do with keeping us safe, and it hasn't in a long time. The only way we could really justify our amount of military spending, in the name of safety, would be if every other country in the world (including our allies) got together like in a Batman super-villain team-up, and attacked us. We spend that money so some corporations can make money while keeping other corporations safe in other countries.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)The fear should be of the daily shootings and weekly mass murders....but, idiot America, this is you brain on Mass Media and Fox.
Without the constant manufacture of fear how could they control you?
Without fear, how could the massive military and security apparatus ever be funded?
Without fear, how could the gun factories kept running 24 hour production shifts to resupply the 300 million guns already sold?
Without fear, how could the politicians control you and make you vote for idiots just like you?
Without fear, what would America have to fear??
Without fear, who would be able to say they are there to protect you, give us more money?
Without fear, there would be only one political party, not two, to choose from.
Without fear of fear America would be just another unexceptional nation.
DefenseLawyer
(11,101 posts)tabasco
(22,974 posts)The American public is largely BRAINWASHED.
uawchild
(2,208 posts)My friends readily see the Fox News information/propaganda bubble for what it is and shake their heads at it viewers trapped inside but can't quite yet get it that CNN, the New York Times, Reuters, the BBC, well, almost every corporate news source you can name are just slightly larger manipulative bubbles.
There is virtually no mainstream media offering truly an independent prospective and, sadly, even "indie" internet outlets are being permeated by the same trolls and floggers.
tabasco
(22,974 posts)and I am met with resistance, even here on DU.
Orwell was a prophet.
CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)Look at all the major industries in the USA that wouldn't exist , without it. It is so entrenched in the culture, in the daily struggle to live that most people can never get past putting the fear for their own life, completely beyond rational thought and the good of the 'community'.
.
LittleGirl
(8,261 posts)as a pacifist, I approve this message.
deckchairdanny
(34 posts)that war is the Achilles Heel of the United States. The MIC is literally taking money away from we the people. The daily suicide rate of US military personnel is 22 per day since 2001. That is a total of 104,000 deaths since that time. War over lies and deception is literally killing us. Then we have all the constant propaganda that is watering down US respect globally. This is what happens when empires start to crumble. War is used to prop up the economy.
cpompilo
(323 posts)even with the Google.
hunter
(38,264 posts)U.S. mass media news, especially television, is overwhelmingly manipulative in favor of the giant corporations, which are all together as monolithic, but much more sophisticated in their methods, than the old Soviet Union was.
cpompilo
(323 posts)secondwind
(16,903 posts)Human101948
(3,457 posts)We must dominate the globe and contain our potential rivals! We must outspend them ten to one to ensure that they can't fight back while protecting the corporations that are the people of the USA!
If we have to starve and go homeless who cares as long as we stomp them into submission!
Dustlawyer
(10,493 posts)Campaign donations have the highest rate of return and the real kicker is, we go along because of the fear they stoked and because of the "American Exceptionalism" that we have to prove how big and bad we are! We cannot come close to auditing, or even slowing the Pentagons budget.
This is another area where Publicly Funded Elections will save us huge amounts of money! Feel the Bern!
LWolf
(46,179 posts)what I see as the American addiction to fear, but I do understand that it serves a very useful function for tptb.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
jomin41
(559 posts)well as to people. Since the U.S. found itself "King of the world" after WW2, it has become drunk with power. Now it has hollowed out it's economy and still actually spends much more than the graphic displays. It's probably at least twice that 600 billion figure, when you include CIA, NSA, DEA, FBI, HS and "black budget" items.
JayhawkSD
(3,163 posts)Yes, the "mic" is real, Eisenhower was correct in all respects, and the "national security" and "defense" establishments are scandalous. But the fear mongering has a larger and far more serious purpose. It is a distraction. It keeps the public from seeing what the governing class is doing. It prevents us from noticing just how unresponsive to the population government has become.
It keeps us from noticing, for instance, that Congress passed a law regarding bankruptcy that is entirely favorable to bankers and lending institutions and which entirely shafts the borrowers, and leads us to reelect the legislators who passed it because they are screaming at us about the dangers that we face and how badly we need them in office so that they can protect us.