Fear Factor: How the Republics Have Ruined Our Nation

This weekend I have been talking with a friend of mine who lives in the Washington, DC area. And we have, no doubt, all heard about the massive snow storm that has blanketed the area with around three feet of snow. She relayed a story about trying to go to her local grocery store to pick up a few things on Thursday night, and was astonished to find she wasn’t able to even find a parking space in the lot, with countless cars circling like vultures. But after parking on the street and upon entering the store, THE SHELVES WERE ALMOST BARE! People were in an absolute PANIC. They were rushing out with one or two full shopping carts, not bothering to assess whether or not this was really necessary, or thinking about leaving anything for others. Nerves were frayed and people were beside themselves wondering “whatever will we do?”

I blame the Republic Party.

Thanks to Bush and Cheney, we now live in a constant state of fear in this country. Ever since 9/11, we have all been spoon-fed a constant diet of fear, Fear and more FEAR! And the result is a nation coming unhinged over simple things like snow storms in winter!

After 9/11, we were never allowed to relax. Just when things would seem to calm down, the Bush/Cheney Junta would ramp the fear up again by raising the Terror Alert and that would send people into a panic again. Not only would they use terrorism to control the masses, they began to create many tools guaranteed to instill fear on demand. And it has continued, unabated, for the past nine years.

There was the fear associated with immigrants that the Republic Party ramped up to a fever pitch and is still continuing to this day, thanks to lunatics like Tom Tancredo, who just yesterday showed us his absolute hatred of anyone outside of White America, even going so far as to call for new “Literacy Tests” in order to vote. He is seriously asking America to go back to Jim Crow voter suppression tactics in order to assure only white Americans are allowed to vote in elections. The attack is also on both legal immigrants and undocumented workers crossing the border to work. People like Tancredo and Lou Dobbs couldn’t wait to scare white America with the threat of brown and black people! And some people bought into it.

There was the fear over the H1N1 virus that ramped up last fall, making people believe that there would be a pandemic that could kill us all! What has happened? Well, it’s been shown that hundreds of times more people have died from the regular seasonal flu than from H1N1 this flu season. But Americans sure were scared there for a while!

Even OLD fears have seen a re-birth. Who knew, after more than twenty years after the break-up of the Soviet Union, we’d find ourselves bombarded with fearmongering rhetoric about our “Socialist President,” shown as both Hitler AND Stalin, as if it were honestly a reality. There are no limits. There is nothing too outrageous. And, yet, some people are eating it up like the fat man at the buffet! Yum, yum!

Be afraid! Be very afraid!

Meanwhile, the very things that should scare us to death are overlooked. Our rights being stripped from us through Draconian measures like the PATRIOT ACT have become commonplace, until now most people aren’t surprised when the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, stated this past week that the CIA has the right to put out Mafia-style hits on American citizens living overseas — if they are believed to be involved with “terrorist organizations.” Who needs to bother with burdensome trials? We’ll just kill them!

And so it goes…

So, people in Washington, DC panic at the thought of a week of bad snow storms.

Not surprising when we have been taught to live in a fear-based culture that requires Americans to freak out on command.

One more repulsive legacy of the Bush Junta. And the Lab Rats living in this country have become conditioned very well.

But that’s just My Three Cents…