Keeping the fear level high

Do not let me scare you:
Has the current administration used ploys and calculated methods to maintain a high level of anxiety in the American public? The answer is "Yes." An artificially induced climate of fear has prevailed far longer than was rational both before and after the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Tactics: A calculated method is used to distract us from power grabs, missteps and failures. The outcomes hurt Americans, endanger our centuries long system of checks and balances and put people more at risk because of irrational approaches. And the often successful and insidious effort to keep us anxious and off track is still going on. Look at Republican tactics over time:

• The repeated ploy: "Liberals want to destroy the Christian institution of the American family. Liberals are weak on defense cannot be trusted to lead in a time of war." The agenda is to incorporate a radical Right Wing agenda that is attempting to impose a state of war and socially conservative values upon all elements of society. The outcome is the so-called "war on terror" and a soon to be an ultraconservative majority on the Supreme Court.
• The repeated ploy: "The war in Iraq is an emergency/secret/unusual situation. It should not be included in the regular budget because we may need more money along the way. And we can't really tell you what it is all to be spent for because of national security." The agenda is to have an incalculable, open ended, unlimited and unaccountable Pentagon budget. The outcome has been the largest deficit in history.
• The repeated ploy: "We haven't been able to catch Osama bin Laden; we just missed him." The agenda has been to continue the so-called "war on terror" in Iraq, because it is easier to fight a conventional war than improve our broken intelligence system. The outcome has been a huge increase in the number of radical jihadis kidnapping, maiming and killing Americans.
• The related ploys: "Social Security will not be there when it is your turn." The actual agenda was to privatize Social Security and destroy the original program. A related ploy (health savings accounts) will be proposed in the upcoming State of the Union speech, to distract the public from the fears engendered by our broken health care system. The outcome has been that most people under the age of 50 are fearful that they will never collect a dime of Social Security.
• The recently revealed ploy: "Terrorists want to kill Americans. We must eavesdrop on American conversations with people outside the United States because the terrorists are about to attack again." The agenda is to maintain a vast domestic spying program capable of gathering any kind of information on any targeted U.S. citizen. The outcome is a very deep erosion of basic civil liberties and constitutional freedoms guaranteed to every citizen.

The truth will set you free: Each ploy contains elements of truth to make it more plausable. But always at the core it is, in one way or another, a lie. There is an old country saying that describes it best. "Putting lipstick on a pig doesn't make the pig look or smell any better. It is still a pig." A recent example of this is the (probably Rovian) Reframe of terms: "domestic spying" = "terrorist surveillance."
Tags: war on terror Republicans Bush administration government security politics
My "creative" post today at Southwest Blogger is about the color yellow.