Sharon's right: You should see this Keith Olberman special comment on the recent Republican bin Laden ad. Here's the merest glipse of Keth's comments, from the transcript:
The key to terror, the key to terrorism, is not the act—but the fear of the act.The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. That's why the Republicans are in the fear business.
That is why bin Laden and his deputies and his imitators are forever putting together videotaped statements and releasing virtual infomercials with dire threats and heart-stopping warnings.
But why is the Republican Party imitating them?
Bin Laden puts out what amounts to a commercial of fear; The Republicans put out what is unmistakable as a commercial of fear.
The Republicans are paying to have the messages of bin Laden and the others broadcast into your home.
Only the Republicans have a bigger bank roll.
Rob
1 comment:
To me, that is the current world of politics, national and local. There is less and less true dialogue and heated debate than there is fear mongering and personal debasement. In one local election here the only position one candidate took was to claim that the other candidate let pedophiles go unpunished, threatening the safety of our children.
And so it goes...And so the fear batters us like a Noreaster, one wave of mind-numbing terror and horror after the next. The problem being, as you know, that fear like that does NOT motivate to action. It befuddles and paralyzes.
We are not safer in this country. We are more afraid, but not safer.
There's a great new book that just came out about this sort of Viral Fear by J. Acosta called THE NEXT OSAMA (www.jodere.com). It follows 4 main characters as they fall into the Major Media Slipstream and tumble not only out of control but into each other.
It's a great read.
But it begs the question: what do we do about this? Fear is useful if we not only have something real to do, but if we have leadership to guide us to do it.
When people are afraid they desperately need leadership, authority, a trusted guide. Otherwise, unless we have that authority internalized (as do survivalists and many stress-hardy combatants), we stand paralyzed.
Ever watch someone watch Television? That's the state of America. Now, that's scary!
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