I will not allow the conditioning of fear to continue

[Jeanette in FL]

Every generation in America’s history has been conditioned to be fearful of either a certain race or imminent attack or threat.

It started as simple conversation about the distance my grand daughter’s school bus stop was. It is less than 2 tenths of a mile. But of course in this day and age, we take her to the stop and wait until she is safely picked up, because you just never know.

That got me thinking, I used to walk to school from the age of 6. Not knowing the actual distance, I looked it up. It was just about one mile along a wide canal.

That triggered a repressed memory. My family was living in Florida at the time, during the 1960’s. The state would have regular nuclear drills. The sirens would go off and if we were close enough to our homes, we were instructed to run as fast as we could to get there. If we were closer to the school, we should run there to take shelter. If neither option was viable, we were advised to duck down, with our heads between our legs and our heads covered with our arms.

Those drills were practiced in our schools at regular intervals. The alarms would go off and we would crouch under our desks or if we were in the hallway or lunch room we were told to go to the walls and assume the position.

As an adult, I now realize that those measures would have been useless in a nuclear attack.

But “the Russians were coming”.

During WW2, my mother tells the story, that as a young girl, they would have to shut off all lights at night and close the drapes and shades so that no light could be seen from the outside. All street lights were off. And wait.

After all, the Japanese or the Germans were coming.

Now, it’s the Arabs that are coming. The “Islamo-fascist”. They are going to blow up our planes. Or maybe it’s the bridges. Maybe it’s the tunnels. We don’t know how, but they are going to kill us. Lots of us. As many as possible. Any day now. They might use cell phones. Or hair gel. Maybe, a suitcase nuke. Who knows?

Be afraid, be very afraid.

No I won’t. I will not allow the conditioning of fear to continue. I will work as hard as I can to stop these “Globalist” from pursuing their “New World Order”. I will work hard to stop them from invading other countries in order to steal other countries resources. I will educate my neighbors, friends and family on the PNAC group and their doctrines. I will teach about the atrocities that our government has done in our good name.

People everywhere want the exact same things as we do. They want to be able to raise a family, feed their family and educate their children.

All of them, the Russians, the Japanese, the Germans and the Arabs.

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer."

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

(Bene Gesserit litany against fear; "Dune" by Frank Herbert)

[converted_democrat]

2. K&R-Great post.. n/t

[LaurenG]

3. This is an excellent reminder

fear tactics appear to be losing their punch, at least with me. I just sent a family member to the UK yesterday in spite of the fact they won't let her bring water to drink on such a long flight(I think the bigger treat was dehydration).

The hell with being afraid, I really am tired of it.

[The2ndWheel]

4. You do know you're conditioning others to fear, right?

"I will work as hard as I can to stop these “Globalist” from pursuing their “New World Order”. I will work hard to stop them from invading other countries in order to steal other countries resources. I will educate my neighbors, friends and family on the PNAC group and their doctrines. I will teach about the atrocities that our government has done in our good name."

You say educate, but you're really saying condition. Condition others to be fearful of PNAC and empire, so that they will work hard to stop them/it. And that's fine, just don't pretend that you're not going to allow the conditioning of fear to continue when you're doing it yourself. We all use fear. It's a very powerful emotion. Fear of PNAC, fear of empire, fear of old age, fear of injury, fear of this and that. It's used everyday, and used very successfully.

[Igel]

5. Thank you.

I've been trying to write a rant for a week now, but it's far to much of a rant.

There are fear-mongers on both sides; but each side is convinced that their vision of imminent death and disaster is justified. Whether economic collapse, fascist brownshirts kicking down their doors if they vote for the wrong party on election day this fall; or hordes of Islamofascists taking over downtown Wichita.

[leveymg]

7. Recognizing reality and being afraid are different from being conditioned

by the Bush Administration, or corporate mass media, or PNAC to have an irrational fear and hatred of Muslims, Arabs and Persians.

There are realistic fears and then there is propaganda. I believe the OP is entitled to the former, denounces the latter, and recognizes the difference.

How about you?

[The2ndWheel]

9. There is a difference

But what I read was playing on the fear of PNAC, the Bush adminsitration, the corporate mass media, etc. You won't let fear control you, except that you'll use fear to stop the people who keep telling you to live in fear.

[Jeanette in FL]

11. I think there is a big difference

Educating people on what is going on and who is controlling the information and the events is quite different putting fear into a 6 year old by having them practice to stay "safe" from a nuclear attack.

Education is a key in being freed by fear.

I have no fear of PNAC, but I think that they need to be exposed for who they are and what they are trying to accomplish and how they are going to do it.

[leveymg]

6. FDR taught: "There is nothing to fear but fear itself." W's message:

"There is nothing but fear. Fear me most of all."

[leftupnorth]

8. to quote a saying by another DUer

When we are ruled by fear, the terrorists WIN!

[young_at_heart]

10. I believe this strategy was created by Cheney and Rove long ago

They've read all the books about fear immobilizing the masses and set up a long term plan.

[dipsydoodle]

12. The USA used the Nazi's as their teachers

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

[AlCzervik]

13. good post.

btw i don't live in fear, maybe it's because of a shitty childhood or the fact that i now live in california, home of earthquakes and wildfires and other things i have no control over.

[sweetheart]

14. That conditioning of avoiding fear

From childhood, "fear" is to invoke the survival impulse, that you will not survive if you
cannot get the attention of your mother, that you will not survive if you are abandoned,
and this survival impulse hardens us in to our egos, looking out for number 1, without any
consciousness of a greater society, as we're too busy just trying to survive... and for free,
by introducing fear, the pukes erode all civil society by undermining its individuals to be weak
and collapse in to their animal instincts for survival and feral dog eat dog willingness to
accept brutality and to deliver it, to be abused and abuser.

And by this world of fear, we are a nation of abusers, repeating over and over the abuse on the innocent,
so they know the fear like we did, whipp the fear of god in those kids so they cower like their daddys did.
And who does this whipping?

Fear does not work when one does not answer the base impulse to follow it. If you feel deeply and
totally all the fear right now, the incompleteness, the failures, the loss, but not like an animal,
not running away, apparent fear offers a golden gift.

Anger is based on fear, universally, fear of loss, and giving angry men gorillas the microphone,
and then not having the maturity to listen "through" fear, to turn the presence of this social no-go
area in to an area of awakening. The worst that will happen in life is that you will die and
lose everything, and this will already happen, fact.

So then the only way to be controlled by fear is to run away from it constantly like a lemming. There
is nothing to fear but fear itself. If ghosts are mirages, we only know it if we don't run away,
acting like mature persons, and not craven children. Is our new world one where nobody ever grows up?

As a young child, duck and cover was a fun game, where everybody stopped and did something totally different,
and it only became about fear when i felt the fear of the teacher when she explained why the drill was necessary,
and then duck and cover became a form a child terrorism, a sick nationwide child abuse perpetrated without
apology by a society of abusers and terrorists, a society that exports war and bully force to represss
democracy and women wherever on earth, to take us to fear and war, where it survies on its cultural edge,
counting on the second law of social thermodynamics to take us down to hell.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Just one pint to this

the Japanese were indeed coming... (yes they used air balloons to drop bombs on the western seaboard, and they did no damage, mostly)

The Germans were indeed coming, (as many of their subs did patrol the Caribbean and got as close as NYC, where they could see CLEARLY the sky line) Also the Gernan subs were using the back light to pick off our shiipping, which was confirmed by ULTRA decoding...

The Japanese did indeed attack the US, and at Pearl Harbor there is this great monument called the Arizona Memorial.

Up to Operation Torch (invasion of North Africa) American Intelligence could NOT guarantee the Germans were not coming and it is known in specialist circles that the Germans were indeed planning to bomb New York City and in fact were developing several ways of doing this... and came so close that they actually had a practice run. the Heinkel turned back when it saw New York in the distance.

That is the critical difference, during WW II, especially during the early years of the war... there was a clear and present danger of actual invasion. Oh and the Japaneses did INVADE US territory... the fact that mostly the birds and the American unit ordered to go dislodge them cared, does not mean it did not happen (Aleutian chain) Oh and this is also mostly forgotten by most Americans, for Americans do NOT know history.

The cold war WAS a real war, though mostly fought by proxy. And yes we did indeed come this close to shooting them nukes three times, the Cuban Missile Crisis is the best known, but alerts were actually higher on October of '73 and we almost went to war accidentally... yep the russians had a major failure in radar systems, and we COULD have gone to war in the 1980s.

The fear was used to keep the will to fight for 50 years of cold war, but it was a real war.

Now what is going on today is a comedy of errors. Truly the best way to fight terror is through police work, not duck tape and plastic. But the difference is that there was a REAL THREAT to the US in WW II. It did not last throughout the war, but it existed. During the Cold War we were afraid of the Ruskies as much as they were afraid of us... fear was mutual and it was a struggle between two empires, a real struggle. Today... well we ran out of an enemy and this country needs enemies in order to remain unified, so it seems... so we needed a new one. Or at least a group in the population (conservatives) need this enemy... otherwise the US will become the insular country that traditionally it has been.

[Jeanette in FL]

16. I know that these things happened

My point was that the irrational fear that is thrust upon a nation's people who are powerless to do anything about it. We should expect that our gov't will always protect the people.

Having 6, 7, 8 year olds, cowering under a desk to protect themselves against a nuclear attack, which will not protect them is fear ingrained.

Having families during WW2, shutting off all the lights, does not protect them from being attacked, it only serves to have fear ingrained.

Having people throw away their water bottles, shampoo, hair gel does not protect us from the evil islamo-fascist, it only serves to have fear ingrained.

When I was 6 years old, my father was teaching me Russian every night when he came home from work, so that if the Russians did invade, I could serve as an interpreter and be saved. Now that is sick. Every day of my young life I was told that the Russians were coming for me. I finally got to the point that I didn't believe that every Russian woman was raising their child to kill Americans. And I don't believe it now.

[EstimatedProphet]

17. Exactly!

Don't let them scare you, because that's how they win!