Fear will be our undoing

FDR's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" is one of those quotes we learn about in school and don't understand until many, many years later. When he said it, the Depression was wreaking its havoc and WW2 was on the horizon. There was, to be sure, lots of reasons why lots of Americans were afraid. And, the same is true today.

Terrorism, be it domestic (the preferred American variety) or foreign (what the rest of the world gets), has but one goal: instilling terror in those in some way close to the victims. For the most part it works, and the knee-jerk reaction to anything that terrorizes us is to fight back. Against what? We don't always know. But when we're "thinking" with our spinal columns, it doesn't really matter. Better a bigger bunch of bodies lying around than to do "nothing", whereby not reacting in a knee-jerk manner is probably the best thing you can do. And here, the emphasis is on "do". Having the presence of mind, willingness, and courage to not simply lash out in fear is an act, an action, worth applauding.

Problems are never, and have never been, solved by violence. It doesn't matter what the problem is. Problems aren't, and never will be, resolved, by blindly reacting aggressively. Frustration (and a feeling of powerlessness) is poor counsel for smart decisions. Don't get me wrong, I know just how easy it is do simply strike back; I know how much we'd like to just "put an end to it all". But, truth be told, that's not how things work, and it is long past time that we grow up and recognize that all the approaches we have tried thus far have not produced the results that most of us want. It is time most of us realize, though, that the results that "we" want are not necessarily the results that others -- in particular, others with more influence with decision-makers -- may want.

Terrorists live from terror. The more afraid we are, the more effectively they've "done their job". If we all don't immediately react with abject fear, we've got a huge, well-paid, and submissive media industry which will do what it can to keep us shaking in our shoes. And, there are untold numbers of large and small corporations who start rubbing their hands in glee, for nothing sells weapons like fear. Yes, the first question we always have to ask ourselves in "cui bono" (Who benefits?) And, the fact that the question shows up in Latin (a language spoken by the world's last great empire, two millennia ago) should tell you how long "we, the people" have been having to put up with this.

Power lives off fear. It is really that simple. The more you're afraid, the more power others have. We really need to start asking ourselves just how much we need to be living in fear. We need to ask ourselves whether our willingness to submit, to kow-tow, to defer to the "wisdom" of others is really worth the benefits we supposedly gain.

When you're afraid, you can't think clearly. When you're afraid, you're more than willing to compromise. When you're afraid, you can be too easily led and misled. And all the blustering, bravado, macho, military, fire-power, talk will -- I can assure you, and history proves me right -- remain just that, talk. Why? Because you can't bomb an idea out of existence. Ideas ... and their evil spawn ideologies ... can only be countered by sounder, stronger, more substantial ideas. Resorting to force, pure and simple, merely "proves" that you have no ideas left.

Yes, fear will be our undoing, if we continue to be afraid, but what we should be more afraid of than random terror itself is the calculated terror we are fed day in and day out from those who allegedly want to protect us.