Attacking Bush's only weapon: Fear (Must Read!)

Great article-exposes repubs for the bedwetters they are.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#113646831083371214
by Glenn Greenwald
Among those who now recognize that the Bush Administration has not just deliberately and repeatedly broken the law, but is literally claiming that George Bush has the “wartime” power to continue to break the law, there is a growing impatience to move to the next step – to take action to ensure that there are serious consequences from Bush’s brazen law-breaking. But in order for that to happen, Bush opponents must finally overcome the one weapon which has protected George Bush again and again: fear. Fear of terrorism is what the Administration has successfully inflamed and exploited for four years in order to justify its most extreme and even illegal actions undertaken in the name of fighting terrorism.
snip
Several weeks ago, Digby wrote a widely-discussed post describing how Bush followers are driven by their all-consuming and pitifully child-like fears of terrorists, leading them to consent to any measures taken by George Bush as long as he promises to save them. And this weekend, Kos wrote a similar post, in which he contrasted the classic and previously defining American bravery of Patrick Henry with the frightened Bush followers who beg the Government to restrict their liberties in exchange for saving them from the terrorists.

If the blogospheric reaction of Bush supporters is any indication, this argument is as politically potent as it is self-evidently true. Kos’s post provoked shrieking seizures among the tough-guy, blindly loyal Bush followers -- the ones who revealingly give themselves play name like Rocket and Captain and who never tire of touting their own toughness. In response to Kos’s post, they squealed and they yelled and they called him all kinds of names – they did everything but refute the argument.
And notably, in their anger, there was none of that smug bravado or all-too-familiar attacks on the courage of Bush opponents, because with this plainly accurate depiction, they stand revealed as being driven by nothing other than limitless, irrational fear. They are scared and they want to continue to implant their extreme fear into our national policies and onto our national character.

There is no more important goal than exposing and undermining the cowardly and exaggerated fear which lies at the core of the Bush agenda. If, as has been the case, we are bullied into starting from the tacit premise that Islamic terrorism is a unique and unprecedented evil which threatens our very existence -- rather than one of many challenges which we must calmly face and overcome -- then it is a foregone conclusion that whoever advocates the most extreme “anti-terrorist” measures, no matter how excessive and regardless of whether they comport with legal niceties, will prevail.

FDR said what we have to fear is fear itself. W says the only thing I have for you is fear.

hide behind big guns.

You beat me to this quote. It's become my mantra since the Bush admin began reacting to 9/11.
I wonder what a real leader would have done in these times.

Recommended, by the way.

country is "The Culture of Fear" by Barry Glassner. One of the examples I remember best is the idea the crime has risen by 50%. One of the ladies in my small town apartment building was forever crying about the windows and doors on the first floor being left open - even in the summer. Our town had one murder in 20 years and when another happened she kept saying that crime was rampant. She had heard that it had risen by 50%!

you watched, the more you believed crime was increasing. Actually studies show crime rapidly dropping over the last 30 years.

From http://www.stopviolence.com/cj-knowledge.htm

"The mass media plays a substantial role in blowing crime fear out of proportion. TV crime coverage is one of the biggest reasons that people who live in neighborhoods with virtually zero street crime report that crime is a number one concern.

* Between 1992 and 1993, major network evening news coverage of homicide tripled, even though the homicide rate went down.
* In 1980 there were no major network "true crime" television shows. Now there is such a show almost every night. (America's Most Wanted, Top Cops, American Detective, Unsolved Mysteries, etc.).

When local news wants an easy story, it goes to the local police station and finds out what happened that day. When national news wants to excite viewers, it scours the nation for the day's most titillating crime, and broadcasts it everywhere. The result is a popular sense that rare and extreme crimes happen around every corner.

Psychological and public opinion research shows that heavy viewers of television feel that their own lives are under siege. Heavy viewers exhibit exaggerated fears of victimization and a perception that people cannot be trusted; they are more likely to buy anti-crime devices such as locks and guns, and more likely to support punitive crime policies. (Gerbner, Carlson, NCJC)."

especially Bush administrations, due to pulling the rug out from under poor and desperate people, but come on. It's gone up around 10%, I believe, not 50%. Poor lady must be quaking.

these people are so consumed by their fear of a small group of psycohpaths that they are willing to give up everything but their guns to help the guvmint protect them from the terrists.

We had a huge family argument about this at Christmas. It was me and my Catholic Democrat Grandpa vs. my Fundie aunt, dad, and wicked stepmother. I was raised by fundie "christians" and i can say i believed in their political positions for a while, until i moved out of the house and exposed myself to other ideas and cultures. I have to admit, the basic RW Xtian ideology is easy to understand and easy to follow. Being in this sector of society feels like being wrapped in a warm blanket, and it IS extremely addictive. As they say, ignorance is bliss, and they are absolutely correct.

All my fundie family had to say about stuff like the Iraq War, outsourcing, Bush's wiretaps, etc is "It's in God's hands, now". I told them that it's that kind of apathetic attitude that allowed poeple like Hitler to come to power. I said that saying that was an absolute cop out to not taking responsibility for your duties as an citizen of this country.

...basic RW Xtian ideology is easy to understand and easy to follow. Being in this sector of society feels like being wrapped in a warm blanket, and it IS extremely addictive. As they say, ignorance is bliss, and they are absolutely correct.

This is one of the most accurate and succint explanations of fascist "conservatism" I've read.

has allowed them to turn over their freedom to another group of psychos.

And that's probably why 9/11 and the anthrax happened at all: to make the villains look like heroes to the rescue.

Even if Bush the lesser, Cheney, and the rest of the fearmongers were correct that we face a serious threat, the idea that former governor Bush is goin to, or is trying to, protect anyone is hilarious. Bush #2(as in shit) has no interest in protecting Americans. His agenda remains what it has been from the beginning - to further empower and enrich his family and the rest of the super-wealth elite. Everything else is and has been secondary at best.

Our secret weapons include Jon S. and now big Dave. Witness gallows humor.
We need to create more and more pictures, cartoons, clips, etc. of the political and ethical pratfalls this fascist junta is constantly creating.
Each person has his weakness and the common weakness of this bunch is that they can't stand to be disbelieved. It makes them furious.
Another Abram Jackoff, dressed up in a mafia monkey suit, with Chris Hairball mentally masturbating over the crazy collar on his overcoat would help a lot.

Here it is. Link below is to an MP3 (warning 6.3 MB) Right click link and "Save as..."

FDR - First Inaugural Address

Scaredy-cat, cry-baby cowards willing to toss over 200 years of Democracy in the toilet because they are petrified of the big bad terrorist boogey-man in the closet.

If terrorists attack, some of us will die. Personally, I'd rather die with my liberties than without them. It has become obvious that most Republicans would prefer to cower in fear and pee in their pants than live free.

It's hunting criminals.

Organized gangs of criminals don't wage war on a country like the US. They can't. They don't have the resources to do anything more than isolated acts of violence.

We can accept the possibility that a terrorist attack will come the way we accept that we may have an accident driving to work.

Or we can act like Republicans and run around flailing our arms in the air yelling terrr, terrr, oooooh boogie boogie, be afraid, be very afraid.

What we are doing and need to do regarding terrorists is intelligence and police activities.

It is not a war. Calling it a war is propaganda. Every time I hear "war on terror" in a conversation, I'm going to say there is no army invading New Jersey, Texas, California or anywhere else in the US.

Armed thugs are killing innocent people to call attention to their causes. They should simply be treated like any other gang of criminals.

It is not a war. No other country is attacking us."

Bush and the Neo-Cons pretending that this a war is the first step towards the police state.

speech the other day that illustrates this point. Whoever made it used just one Bush speech and they cut out all the "fear" related words and it was SO powerful. I wish I could find it online, you'd have to hear it, but the words were something like: "fear, terrorists, afraid, kill,
great harm, grief, anger, fear, war, dark threat, violence" (I took that out of only ONE PARAGRAPH of a real Bush speech.)But this recording was so obvious in what they were trying to do: make us afraid. It is intentional and, unfortunately, it works on quite a few people.

Without a doubt, the primary tactic of the Bushies in achieving their foreign policy objectives and increasing the power of the president is to manipulate the public through fear. Without the perception that Republicsns -- and this administration in particular -- are strong on national defense, they would not have had such electoral success the last 4 years. They conjured up images of mushroom clouds to sell the war in Iraq, and who can forget store shelves emptied of duct tape and plastic sheeting to seal the family home against Saddam's imminent biochemical attacks. Parents feared for themselves and their children.

However, I don't think the right-wing blogger types are driven primarily by fear. Most single adult males aren't consumed by the fear that they personally will be victims of a terrorist attack. Rather, the wingnuts are more consumed by the belligerence that arises from jingoism, partisan politics, and ignorance. They eagerly swallow talking points like this recent Cheny excerpt:
In other words, those who would "cut and run" are the cowards who are turning their back on an unavoidable struggle of good vs evil. Wingnuts frequently make analogies with the Cold War and WW2 when arguing the imperative of "victory" in Iraq and any other country that poses a threat. This kind of rhetoric feeds their macho patriotic self-image and their sense of righteousness. It is ammunition for the partisan political warfare the public engages in while those in power rake in the profits and implement their corporate imperialist agenda while spending someone else's blood and treasure.

Even with the growing opposition to their policy in Iraq, they have largely succeeded in framing that conflict in their terms. The basic storyline goes: even if the initial invasion was a mistake, it is now vital to our national security to prevent the terrorists from prevailing in Iraq. We are fighting for democracy against Islamofascism and terror. We will stay in Iraq only as long as it takes for the fledging democracy to defend itself.

The problem with that storyline is that the foreign terrorists are a tiny minority in Iraq attracted to wage jihad there by the US military presence that continues to feed the insurgency. This storyline also ignores the PNAC agenda of military dominance that preceded 9/11, the neocon loyalty to Israel, the geostrategic importance of this oil-rich region, and the fact that those who misled us into this war have no intention of ever abandoning the "enduring" bases they're building in Iraq.

Public opinion may have turned temporarily against them, but the public in general is still ignorant of the real storyline at work here and can be manipulated again when the next attack occurs. And there are plenty of wingnuts who have swallowed that storyline so deeply that they form a ready-made base for advocating the NEXT invasion. The "war on terror" will last generations, we are told. As long as the public remains ignorant that this is war is being generated to subjugate us and the Iraqis, we are heading deeper into the perpetual war that Orwell envisioned.

Big Brother is already listening (and tapping your phone).

PNAC agenda has done/is continuing to do to our country, our Constitution, this Republic, and its citizenry who oppose their actions and policies, especially those who would voice dissent. :(

is much more dangerous than any external threat.

Total Surveillance
http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2005/12/albrecht.h ...

Couple this insidious technology with purposely erroneous background checks

Who is checking the background checkers?
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1128/p13s02-wmgn.html

They've offshored, outsourced, and privatized TIA. Now all they have to do is fire you for being 'of the wrong political party' and put false information in your background data...and voila ! You've just created the most insidious terror project in the US ever.

TIA is now in the Bahamas being run by Global Information Group Ltd., a company run by Ben H. Bell, III. Mr Bell's company utilizes ChoicePoint and other databases, already shown to be both unsecure but also inaccurate in many cases.

BTW, if Wal-Mart can sell you a pair of boxer shorts with an RFID tagged to it, why can't the DOD tag kidney dialysis equipment/products destined for the Hindu Kush (shhhh, where OBL hangs out) and track HIM ? Looks to me like that kind of tracking our govt. doesn't do, but tracking YOUR whereabouts is much more lucrative in the military/industrial complex's point of view.

Hint: They're making their money on volume, not quantity ! A little capitalist humor there...Didn't get it ? Think harder.

Also, ineffectiveness and incompetence are the new tools of the Bush war on terror, in case you didn't get the memo:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=50015&mesg_id=57722

Who called for a person or group to rule with omnipotent power. He called this the Leviathan. The Leviathan could do no wrong as he was above any law. In return for being ruled by this form of government, the people had to agree to give up all personal rights. The Leviathan then made a new set of rules that persisted until there was a new Leviathan. Sound familiar?
Bad part is, I do not recall giving up ANY of my rights!