Unquestionably, a certain amount of fear is required for basic survival. Otherwise we would be doing things like taunting stingrays. However, purposely inducing fear and panic for political gain is not only unethical but dangerous. Make no mistake, fear is in fact being manufactured and peddled to anybody who will listen. The right wing-media and party leaders have been exploiting cultural resentments with fear to win elections. And, frankly, it works reasonably well. Let's explore a brief history of the Republican's use of fear for political gain.
Reagan can take much of the credit for the current Republican use of fear in politics. In 1964, Reagan gave the famous “A Time for Choosing” speech (more commonly known as “The Speech”) at the RNC for Goldwater's presidential nomination. Subsequently, this speech was the catalyst in Reagan's political career. During the speech Reagan used “code” language to take jabs at groups and stir up fears in people. He subtly raised points about black welfare recipients to appeal to (racist) people who believed that was where most of their tax dollars were going. He reaffirmed their fears and played into this stereotype. Reagan also used this opportunity to begin the “smaller government” rhetoric we're familiar with to this day. He convinced the growing Republican base that government programs were inherently wasteful by giving misleading statistics like: “Federal employees number 2.5 million, and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation's work force is employed by the government.” This particular statistic was misleading because in 1964 the majority of federal employees worked in the postal service or the defense department. Furthermore, the majority of state and local employees were school teachers, policemen, or firemen (Krugman 2007). Reagan also used Communism as leverage in the new Republican fear movement. Granted, a nuclear armed Soviet Union was nothing to sneeze at. It was still just a play designed to inflict fear of Communist interests coming to America and taking away our things.
However, let us not forget Nixon's contributions to the “campaign of fear” in the 1968 election. As Nixon himself so eloquently put it, “people react to fear, not love.” He played on the fear of the increasing crime rates (between 1957 and 1970 the crime rate more than tripled) and the expanding hippy population. Nixon's catch phrase “law and order” rallied support to the conservative movement. Nixon blamed “liberal permissiveness” as the cause for the increasing crime rate, radical demonstrations, and antiwar protests of the era. Smear tactics, however, were nothing new to politics. But mainstream fear tactics were. Consequently, the Republicans saw an opportunity to build their base through fear. Unfortunately, for the new conservative movement, Watergate would set them back a bit, but not for long. After Carter's term, Reagan would reclaim conservative ground with the full force of his fear mongering agenda and win the 1981 election by a landslide. Nevertheless, it was truly the mid to late 60s where the “campaign of fear” really began to take form.
In recent days, the Socialism card has been being dealt by Republican Party leaders and right-wing media to stir up fear in the unenlightened. Sadly, most of the protesting Republicans that are lashing out against socialism do not fully understand what it even is. Simply put, socialism is when the government controls the means of production and distribution. There is relatively no evidence for a current socialist agenda coming from the Obama administration. This rising fear of socialism is being produced by news commentators like Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News crew. A recent argument by Glenn Beck was the rise of socialism due to the fact that our government put a cap on CEO bonuses in some of the recently bailed out companies. The cap was clearly a populist move. Furthermore, when AIG bonuses were not capped a populist outrage cried out. It's obvious that taxpayers do not want their money going to the greedy corporate executives who helped create our current financial crisis. It's not socialism. Moreover, the redistribution of wealth to the poor is grossly over exaggerated by conservative proponents. Currently, the government takes approximately one out of every seven dollars citizens earn and redistributes it to someone else. That statistic does seem pretty significant. However, only about one-sixth of that is directed towards the poor. In other words, about 17 cents out of every 7 dollars actually goes to the poor. The other five-sixths of the redistributions go to well organized groups like businesses, labor union interests, the elderly, and various subsidies. Moreover, the people receiving these redistributions often have incomes well above the average person (Gwartney 2008). But I don't see how this redistribution of wealth is moving us toward socialism. It's not doing anything to destroy the class structure or an attempt for government to control the means of production and distribution. It's just more pandering to lobbyists and other special interest groups. What's more capitalist than that? There are, however, a great deal of arguments within the "redistribution of wealth." But, as far as I can tell, socialism doesn't really apply. This whole socialist agenda that the Republicans are trying to pin on the Democrats is a complete farce that is designed to instill fear into all who will listen.
What about terrorism? Ultimately, Bin Laden accomplished his goal of bankrupting America. Our fear of radical Muslims gave the Bush administration the power it needed to drag us into a war with Iraq without provocation. They convinced us that Iraq was our main problem even after they couldn't make a connection between Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein (shockingly, a great deal of the nation still is under the impression that Iraq actually had something to do with 911). The alleged “weapons of mass destruction” were found to be nothing more than a trumped up intelligence report orchestrated by Cheney himself. The administration continually pinned our fears against us and got legislation like the Bush Doctrine and USA Patriot Act passed. They used our fear to strip our constitutional rights and dictate our foreign policies. Our country was waist deep in Iraq before the general public figured out that we invaded wrong people. Once the initial panic attack for most of the country was over, who were the ones still living in fear? Just about anybody who watched Fox News religiously, namely conservatives. Fox News glorified the war in Iraq as our mission from God and condemned all who opposed it as unpatriotic. But let's face facts, radical Islam has no state or formal army. They're a pack of wild strays and barely warrant a response much beyond total annihilation. Our country should not have been dragged into Iraq and down into the gutter over this. We, as a nation, let 911 cloud our judgment. We demanded retribution and all we got was the shaft (and a big bill). Bush used our fears to pursue his own oil-ladened agenda. To top things off, in one of the final interviews Bush did as president, Larry King asked him whether U.S. Forces ever came close to capturing Bin Laden. Bush replied, “I don't know -- I can't answer that. I really don't know. I'm not trying to hide anything." And I believe him. I bet he really had no clue. It just goes to show where his priorities really were. They weren't anywhere near 911 retribution.
The right-wing media gets much of the credit for distributing the propaganda in the “campaign of fear.” By right-wing media, I mean the news commentators that spread grossly biased views and misinformation. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are at the top of the mainstream right-wing media. Lately, many people who have been watching Fox News really believe the world is coming to an end. In fact, just last week Fox News released an article titled Five Ways the World Can End. The possible scenarios, according to them, are: massive asteroid impact, massive volcanic eruptions, nuclear war, a black hole, or the expanding sun. Under the nuclear war scenario the article states:
“The odds of total nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia seem remote now, and no other nations currently have the thousands of warheads it would take for such a doomsday scenario to occur. But there's always a chance of a full-scale nuclear exchange between future superpowers.”
The article is pleasantly reminding us of all the loose nukes from the Soviet Union which are now, more or less, in the hands of Russia. A country we've had shaky relations with. Interestingly, the article mentioned that global warming would not be a “doomsday scenario.” Evidently black holes are more dangerous than greenhouse gases tearing holes in the ozone.
Beyond blatant end of the world scenarios, Fox News also breeds contempt for the Democrat Party. Show me somebody who watches Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, or Sean Hannity regularly that doesn't think Obama is a radical Islamic, terrorist, or socialist. Your search would be in vain. The fear mongering being displayed by these guys has truly captivated a large portion of the Republican base. What I find even worse is the party leaders are taking their cues from Rush Limbaugh. Nobody stirs up more hate and fear than this guy. That's how far off base this party has become. Even RNC chairman Michael Steele spoke out about Rush, calling him a mere "entertainer" whose show is "incendiary" and "ugly.” But then almost immediately retracted his statement with an apology.
For the past 30 some odd years the Republican Party has been using scare tactics to win elections. From the days of Nixon and Reagan to the recent days of George W. Bush, fear has played a critical role in the manipulation of the Republican base. The media and party leaders have been bombarding the public with a “campaign of fear” designed to keep them docile and submissive. And it's been working. I, however, will not argue against the freedom of speech. It is our constitutional right to say what we like. I can only hope that the people being intimidated by these fear tactics will eventually wake up and pay attention to the events unfolding around them. If we let other people do the thinking for us we'll never progress as a nation (ironically, progressive is an antonym for conservative). None of us should let ourselves be controlled through fear. We are Americans. We freed ourselves from British tyranny and gave birth to a nation. We stood in the face of real Communist threats during two World Wars and a Cold War. We landed on the moon and invented nuclear weapons. How did the Republican Party leaders and right-wing media make so many of us become afraid of our own shadows? How did we collectively lose our cool and let the Bush administration drag us into a war with a country that had nothing to do with 911? The answer is too many of us take information at face value without evaluating it critically. We must learn to question our fears and the motives behind the people trying to perpetuate them. Because if we don't, we really are just a herd of sheeple. I, for one, cannot accept that fate.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,477084,00.html
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