The Boy Who Cried Wolf

[cal04]

David Brooks, the high-minded conservative pundit, dismissed the Dubai Ports controversy as an instance of political hysteria that will soon pass. He was commenting on PBS, and I thought I heard a little quaver in his voice when he said this was no big deal. Brooks consulted "the experts," and they assured him there's no national security risk in a foreign company owned by Middle East Muslims--actually, by an Arab government--managing six major American ports. Cool down, people. This is how the world works in the age of globalization. Of course, he is correct. But what a killjoy. This is a fun flap, the kind that brings us together. Republicans and Democrats are frothing in unison, instead of polarizing incivilities. Together, they are all thumping righteously on the poor President.

I expect he will fold or at least retreat tactically by ordering further investigation. The issue is indeed trivial. But Bush cannot escape the basic contradiction, because this dilemma is fundamental to his presidency. A conservative blaming hysteria is hysterical, when you think about it, and a bit late. Hysteria launched Bush's invasion of Iraq. It created that monstrosity called Homeland Security and pumped up defense spending by more than 40 percent. Hysteria has been used to realign US foreign policy for permanent imperial war-making, whenever and wherever we find something frightening afoot in the world. Hysteria will justify the "long war" now fondly embraced by Field Marshal Rumsfeld. It has also slaughtered a number of Democrats who were not sufficiently hysterical. It saved George Bush's butt in 2004.


Bush was the principal author, along with his straight-shooting Vice President, and now he is hoisted by his own fear-mongering propaganda. The basic hysteria was invented from risks of terrorism, enlarged ridiculously by the President's open-ended claim that we are endangered everywhere and anywhere (he decides where). Anyone who resists that proposition is a coward or, worse, a subversive. We are enticed to believe we are fighting a new cold war. But are we? People are entitled to ask. Bush picked at their emotional wounds after 9/11 and encouraged them to imagine endless versions of even-larger danger. What if someone shipped a nuke into New York Harbor? Or poured anthrax in the drinking water? OK, a lot of Americans got scared, even people who ought to know better. So why is the fearmonger-in-chief being so casual about this Dubai business?


Because at some level of consciousness even George Bush knows the inflated fears are bogus. So do a lot of the politicians merrily throwing spears at him. He taught them how to play this game, invented the tactics and reorganized political competition as a demagogic dance of hysterical absurdities, endless opportunities to waste public money. Very few dare to challenge the mindset. Thousands have died for it.

more
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/greider

[cal04]

1. Fearmongering

FEARMONGERING....William Greider writes that George Bush has used war and terror as a partisan cudgel for the past five years, and the culture of fear he's nurtured so cynically has been the cornerstone of his political success:

So why is the fearmonger-in-chief being so casual about this Dubai business? Because at some level of consciousness even George Bush knows the inflated fears are bogus. So do a lot of the politicians merrily throwing spears at him. He taught them how to play this game, invented the tactics and reorganized political competition as a demagogic dance of hysterical absurdities, endless opportunities to waste public money. Very few dare to challenge the mindset.

....It would be nice to imagine this ridiculous episode will prompt reconsideration, cool down exploitative jingoism and provoke a more rational discussion of the multiplying absurdities. I doubt it. At least it will be satisfying to see Bush toasted irrationally, since he lit the match.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008287.php

[Spoonerian]

2. This particular case of the Democrats trying to out-fearmonger

the Republicans has me in a really foul mood.

It highlights the terrifying fact that if today's liberals should ever regain power, the hell-ification of planet earth will continue uninterrupted.

Those who control the utopian state from behind the scenes are dependent upon politicians and the masses believing in certain superstitions. One of these utopian myths is the idea that the soldiers of the omnipotent state can look up the asses of every single human being passing through one of their Berlin Walls.

Its nice to see at least one peep of intellectually honest liberal self-examination from Grieder, but ever increasing populist militarism is coming down the pipe and I don't give a shit whether its Pat Buchanan or Hillary who awards the next contract to Bechtel for the next generation of shoot-to-kill checkpoints on the Mexican border.

I'm no more fooled when Democrats seem to oppose war, mass-maiming and murder than I am when Pat Buchanan seems to do the same.

When John Kerry complained in the debates that only 5% of the cargo was being inspected, it all became clear to me: I said to myself, "He actually believes that he can look in the trunk of every car crossing at the Tijuana border and find anthrax stuck up the ass of the pissed off last remaining member of some Iraqi family who were incinerated by Kerry's 40,000 extra soldiers."

There's no hope. Universal belief in utopian superstition wasn't ended by the Age of Reason a couple of hundred years ago. Sure, a few people gave up believing in the miracles of Moses and Jesus, and a few liberals started to question the ability of the authoritarian state to perform miracles. But reason never really overcame either of these superstitions significantly--maybe significant enough to allow some scientific progress, but it looks like the only effect of that little quirk may be a hastening of a real apocalypse.

Our best chance may be that Bush or Hillary pushes the button and some kind of chain reaction begins wiping out enough of humanity so that evolution and civilization suddenly have to re-start from square one. What's more likely to happen however is that the slow construction of a hellish prison-planet will continue un-abated with nearly complete agreement from the left, right, and Alex Jones too.