I’m “Afraid” They Do
I was just looking over some old posts, and stumbled across this from 2004:
But it is a classic political weapon, used down the ages. Make the people afraid, and then tell them you are the one who can save them. … Fear is not only a weapon, it is perhaps the most powerful weapon that can be used in politics.
I was referring to the “terror alerts” that the Bush administration regularly issued throughout the election in order to push up Dubya’s numbers in the polls and to deflate Kerry whenever he was due for a bump. Strange that all of those alerts turned out not leading to anything. And we all remember how, after Bush won the election, we rarely saw any terror alerts again.
I mean, that couldn’t have been a trick, now could it have? Oh, of course not–conservatives would never think of using some scare tactic purely to make people vote for them?
It’s not as if there was a huge scare about some sort of terror mosque being built near Ground Zero that was all over the news last year but then we never heard about it again once the election was over.
No, conservatives never use fear tactics. Just like they never use violent imagery or suggest gun violence is a way to handle political disputes.
The last terror alert issued by the Bush administration was October, 2004.
In the current era, when you put two and two together, it is always self evident damnation of republicans.
The broader mega message is that the Republicans will terrorize and impose sufferance upon the public if they don’t vote for them.
There’s a parable in there, from the movie “The Truman Show”.
That is, someone who has assumed an unhealthy power position, that of controling or attempting to control, others will not give it up without threatening to bring down the most heinous violence upon them.
In the Truman show, Jim Carrey’s character, Truman, has been controlled by the director, who has provided a benevolent paternalism. Truman attempts to shake off the shackles for the sake of freedom.
The director inflicts extreme, life threatening violence upon Truman by pushing some buttons and throwing a powerful storm upon him while Truman is “at sea” in a small sail boat in order to keep his power up position – this is similar to Hitler’s scorched earth policy he attempted to inflict on the Germans when his power was waning (wife beaters seem to follow a similar dynamic).
Truman perseveres.
At the last minute, when all that’s left for Truman to succeed is to open a door and take a step outside, the director tries to plead and reason with Truman, pointing out how he’s taken care of him since he was a small boy and the outside world is a scary place where negative things can happen. Truman in understated triumph, waives goodbye.
I’ve always had the notion that there is good love and there is bad love: good love is empowering; bad love is controlling.
I think if you ask any women who has escaped an abusive husband that they would agree. Dr. M.Scott Peck M.D. in “People of the Lie” made the point that the essence of evil is controlling.
Movement Conservative Republicans have been ascendant since Reagan. Their antics, seem to me, to follow in rough parallel to the director’s actions in Truman in attempting to maintain their power up position on American society. Up next: their pleading with the victims (America) for the right to stay in ascendancy. Hopefully we’ll just waive them goodbye, turn our backs on them, and move on.
We already see some of this pleading tact with Conservatives commenting favorably on Obama’s speech in Tucson. It appears that they have realized, and they always act in lock step, that they’ve about come to the limits on the terrorizing meme.