On Fear, Lizard Brains, and 1984

[Briar]

On Fear, Lizard Brains, and 1984
by Arianna Huffington


I spent much of yesterday having people try to scare the hell out of me. In the morning it was President Bush. At night it was Big Brother. At times, it wasn't easy telling them apart. Let me explain:
My very scary day was jump-started by the president's chilling tale of how my hometown had narrowly escaped a 9/11-like attack, with hijacked planes being flown into a downtown Los Angeles skyscraper. I know, I know: the story is old news, a four year-old plot that we were already told about years ago, which, in fact, some experts believe never got off the al-Qaeda drawing board -- and which Holden picks apart. But the president sure made it sound really, really frightening.

Then, at night, I saw a preview performance of a brilliant new production of George Orwell's 1984 -- adapted by Michael Gene Sullivan and directed by Tim Robbins -- and was struck by the ways that Big Brother uses fear and perpetual war to keep the citizens of Oceania under control. And, especially, how that fear effectively blots out memory.

"His memory," writes Orwell of his rebellious hero, "was not satisfactorily under control." Memory "satisfactorily under control" is a perfect description of the mindset that allows Bush and Cheney to repeatedly lie to the American people and get away with it. Thanks to the constant fear-mongering. Again and again. ('Last throes'? who remembers anything about 'last throes'?)

Orwell also shows how a frightened people will look to the strongest and most confident to save and protect them. As Goldstein says in the play: "Even the humblest, most industrious citizen is expected to be an ignorant fanatic, whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and triumph, regardless of his own suffering. In other words, the mentality appropriate to a state of war. And being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival."

...
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0211-26.htm

[ixion]

1. "keep shining a light on this cynical strategy"

that's what we need to do, for sure.

No Fear.

There is nothing to fear, and be very wary of those who claim otherwise.

[rodeodance]

2. we need to have educated citizens (and not educated by educator-in

chief)!!!!