Nothing to Fear But Fear
At his First Inaugural on March 4, 1933, newly elected US president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, surrounded by the economic wreckage of the Great Depression, addressed the deep pessimism of America that stood in the way of recovery when he intoned: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
I wonder if you have considered how "fear" has assumed a major role in politicians' advocacy of American public policy since that terrible day of September 11, 2001?
A columnist, Ross Gittins, writing about anti-terrorism for the Australian digital news service, The Age, addressed what he calls "The fear game, our latest sensation."
He makes the point that "We are more likely to die on the road than be killed by a terrorist act." He wrote: "It's well known to psychologists that humans have a tendency to overestimate small risks while underestimating big risks. The risk of being killed in a terrorist attack is very much lower than the risk of being killed on the road. Yet after the attacks of September 2001 in America, many people switched from traveling by air to traveling by road, presuming it to be safer." According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the odds of an American dying in a terrorist attack are about one in 88,000.
One important point that has been neglected in all the talk about terrorism is an obvious one: many groups have an interest in exaggerating the threat of terrorism. Governments and politicians recognize the natural tendency is to unite against an external threat, and for them this has made anti-terrorism a windfall gain. As Gittins, says, "most politicians haven't resisted the temptation to play up the threat rather than calm us down."
American politicians, from the President on down, are managed by experts who focus on public perceptions, They need to use the media to manage those perceptions, and so they are more concerned to be seen responding to the public's media incited worries than to fix the problem. This explains in part how the PATRIOT Act, an overt assault on Constitutional liberties, was rammed through the US Congress only weeks after 9-11. Only later did we learn how devastating this law was to our freedoms. Even now the Act's extension and expansion is justified by a supposed need to give police and security agencies the powers they say are needed to protect us. (Did you ever hear of a policeman or FBI agent who said he needed less power?)
So the politicians use fear to pass bad laws, the police and FBI use fear to justify bigger budgets and more powers, and the commercial news media that loves to sell its claptrap with fear, aids and abets these phony fears. More government, more police, more TV and newspaper coverage. Indeed, there is now in American what might be called an Anti-Terrorism Establishment, typified by the 9-11 Commission, that is willing to sacrifice the US Constitution, our rights and liberties and certainly, our privacy.
Today, December 7th, is the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that drew America into World War II. There we had a clear enemy, and yet our politicians unnecessarily sacrificed the freedom of Americans, including those of Japanese descent, who were rounded up and interned without due cause. It seems that America never learns from history, and we will again live to regret that ignorance of the past.
That's the way it looks from here.
BOB BAUMAN, Editor
The Sovereign Society Offshore A-Letter
I wonder if you have considered how "fear" has assumed a major role in politicians' advocacy of American public policy since that terrible day of September 11, 2001?
A columnist, Ross Gittins, writing about anti-terrorism for the Australian digital news service, The Age, addressed what he calls "The fear game, our latest sensation."
He makes the point that "We are more likely to die on the road than be killed by a terrorist act." He wrote: "It's well known to psychologists that humans have a tendency to overestimate small risks while underestimating big risks. The risk of being killed in a terrorist attack is very much lower than the risk of being killed on the road. Yet after the attacks of September 2001 in America, many people switched from traveling by air to traveling by road, presuming it to be safer." According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the odds of an American dying in a terrorist attack are about one in 88,000.
One important point that has been neglected in all the talk about terrorism is an obvious one: many groups have an interest in exaggerating the threat of terrorism. Governments and politicians recognize the natural tendency is to unite against an external threat, and for them this has made anti-terrorism a windfall gain. As Gittins, says, "most politicians haven't resisted the temptation to play up the threat rather than calm us down."
American politicians, from the President on down, are managed by experts who focus on public perceptions, They need to use the media to manage those perceptions, and so they are more concerned to be seen responding to the public's media incited worries than to fix the problem. This explains in part how the PATRIOT Act, an overt assault on Constitutional liberties, was rammed through the US Congress only weeks after 9-11. Only later did we learn how devastating this law was to our freedoms. Even now the Act's extension and expansion is justified by a supposed need to give police and security agencies the powers they say are needed to protect us. (Did you ever hear of a policeman or FBI agent who said he needed less power?)
So the politicians use fear to pass bad laws, the police and FBI use fear to justify bigger budgets and more powers, and the commercial news media that loves to sell its claptrap with fear, aids and abets these phony fears. More government, more police, more TV and newspaper coverage. Indeed, there is now in American what might be called an Anti-Terrorism Establishment, typified by the 9-11 Commission, that is willing to sacrifice the US Constitution, our rights and liberties and certainly, our privacy.
Today, December 7th, is the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that drew America into World War II. There we had a clear enemy, and yet our politicians unnecessarily sacrificed the freedom of Americans, including those of Japanese descent, who were rounded up and interned without due cause. It seems that America never learns from history, and we will again live to regret that ignorance of the past.
That's the way it looks from here.
BOB BAUMAN, Editor
The Sovereign Society Offshore A-Letter
posted by Jim at 4:19 PM
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