Our fear levels are like plates, kept spinning by taps of fear at the edges

We have seen entertainers balancing spinning plates, sometimes on their index fingers, sometimes on sticks.

The way these performers get them to keep their balance (once they begin to wobble) is to gently flick alongside the edge of the plate to maintain the angular momentum and keep the plates going.

Seems to me that this is a good metaphor for how the flicks of fear (carefully and continuously administered by FOX and hysterical Republicans) ensure that our fear levels high and keep a critical mass of Americans disproportionately afraid of shadows, of things much, much less dangerous than they appear. A good example of this was the Terror Alerts of the W Bush administration, with even Homeland Security head, Tom Ridge, saying later that even he couldn't understand why the levels were raised at times. (Hint -- they were raised right after the 2004 Democratic primaries were completed and Kerry was getting an expected primary bounce. Well raising the Terror Warning -- for unknown reasons -- sure dissipated that bounce for Kerry.)

The merchants of fear are not concerned about actual threats. For example, it is now estimated by the CDC that 520,000 Americans dies each year from smoking and I see no Republican leaders at all worried about this ongoing danger or the danger of global warming, etc.

Instead of focusing on these other clear and present dangers, warmongers are always ready to give us flick, flick, flicks of fear to make sure we maintain our fear and panic and to make us ever so manipulable.