The Politics of Fear - The War for Your Mind

There is a war going on, but not one you think about as a war - I'm not referring to Afghanistan or Iraq or any other hot spot on the planet.

I'm talking about the war for your mind. For your beliefs. For your ignorance.

No, I'm not going to counsel wearing tin foil hats, nor am I hearing voices from my dental fillings. I'm talking about the constant battle that is ongoing through what we call the "Mainstream Media".

The Mainstream Media, or MSM, is actively engaged in what can only be called an information warfare campaign to modify your behaviors, and by extension, your belief structures. Sound paranoid? Let's review a few basic facts.

Most Americans get their news from media corporations through either television or the internet. Both are "visual" mediums, which increases the rapidity and scope of the impact on us - after all, we are visually oriented creatures. These media corporations exist as capitalist entities to make money.

The primary source of income for both television and internet news is advertising. Advertising rates are set based on viewership. Thus, the advertising rates for the Superbowl are astronomical while the advertising rates for my blog are nil.

The way that media networks maintain viewership is to provide engaging content - to do whatever it takes to keep your attention just enough to keep you from turning the channel or clicking a bookmark to another network or web page. To to this, they use every psychological trick in the book - graphic video, the teaser line before the commercial, powerful music and graphics. All is fair in the quest for your attention.

Now here's the great secret. I think it's been known for a long time, but really first reared its impact with Orson Welles' 1938 Halloween broadcast of H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds". He "made" people believe that Martians were actually landing in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, and several small panics ensued. He did this by making his broadcast sound like actual "routine" programming - a radio orchestra being interrupted by news bulletins that gradually escalated into live broadcasts from the scene. Brilliant - it was "Wag the Dog" without the dog - which is the point.

The great secret is that "Fear Sells". All we have to do is make you afraid and you will not change the channel. In fact, if we advertise it up front, we can get you to watch without knowing what you will be afraid of. Think of all the "Very Special Episodes of..." that you've heard advertised. What did that mean? Something bad was going to happen to a main character on a normally comedic show and you were going to share the pain and uncertainty with them. Pain and uncertainty - two roots of fear.

Now think about the central message of most of what you see on what passes for television news today. Pain and uncertainty. Even when something good happens - a peace treaty is signed, rain comes to a drought ravaged region, a baby dolphin is reunited with its mother - the reporters or the anchors will end it with the "It remains to be seen what happens next with the warring parties," or "Forecasters fear that the rain may be too little, too late," or "We have no way of knowing whether baby Flipper's mother will accept him back into the fold - if not, he will surely die." Why do they do this - pain and uncertainty leading to an implied promise that, if we find out anything, we'll update you.

What are the right-wing television and radio talking heads doing with Obama? Pain and uncertainty. Be afraid, be very afraid. In the spirit of fairness, the left-wing television and radio talking heads did the same thing during the Bush administration - what few there were, but they do not have the same traction with the public.

The other day I received, as I'm sure many of us do, a forwarded email of a right wing pundit's column or blog or whatever. Now, I am aware that the person who sent it to me has far different political beliefs than I do, and we playfully throw stuff at each other from time to time. This one was a great example of what I am referring to here - here it is, as sent...

XXXXXXXXX

It's Hillary in 2012, if Obama even makes it that far

By Bryan Fischer

There is virtually unanimous agreement that President Obama is toast. Mort Zuckerman says the air is out of the balloon, and even Der Spiegel is saying that, for German commentators, the hope is gone. In my judgment, Obama is now a lame duck president with 75% of his first (and only) term remaining.

ObamaCare, his signature issue, is dead in the water and Democrats are floating belly up right next to it. Think Corzine, Deeds, Coakley, Dodd, Dorgan, Snyder, Nelson, Lincoln, etc. etc.

If the Democrats do not insist that Obama resign from office ¬ politically unlikely to be sure ¬ they are liable to be dessicated, withered and powerless by 2012. His coattails are just long enough to drag them all under unless they detach themselves immediately if not sooner.

The natives are restless. If I've observed any one thing over time in politics, it's that the only thing that matters to 95% of politicians is getting re-elected. They will sell their soul to anyone who will ensure re-election and abandon any principle and any friend who serves as a drag on their electoral hopes.

The president is now dead weight, an albatross around the neck of every Democrat member of the House and the Senate. They simply cannot afford to be linked to him anymore. He is blindly pursuing policies that the great majority of Americans flatly reject, and yet he soldiers on, oblivious, perhaps through sheer hubris, to the fact that voters aren't buying the swill he is trying to sell as champagne. Congressional Democrats have got to get as far away from him as they can, and they will. Sheer self-interest will dictate separation.

Obama is a disastrous 0-5 on the campaign trail, in his first year after an inauguration attended by unmatched euphoria and expectation. Few in political history, apart from appalling scandal, have fallen so far so fast. He is the Tiger Woods of the political world. He got hosed in Copenhagen, trying the bag the Olympics for Chicago. He got hosed again in Copenhagen, trying to impose economy-destroying carbon caps on the entire world.

And he got hosed in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts when he tried to lend his now vanished charisma to troubled candidates. He's now preparing to make it 0-6 by going to Nevada to prop up the dismal fortunes of the thoroughly unappealing Harry Reid.

Congressional Democrats now can safely ignore their own president, and in fact must do so to preserve any chance of survival. Dick Morris is surely correct when he says that the president will never be able to pass a significant piece of legislation ever again. The American people are watching, they know he cannot be trusted, and they will beat the daylights out of any politician who supports his disastrous agenda.
He has grossly misread the American public, perhaps again because in his insular and self-adulating world he believes he is the smartest person in the room and is sure that his brilliance will inevitably be recognized by the great unwashed. Ain't gonna happen. The American people are a lot smarter than he thinks, maybe even smarter than he is, and surely wiser when it comes to politics. They will never trust him again about anything.

The president is catastrophically weak and naive when it comes to our war against Islamofascism. He is indifferent, desultory, casual, and lacking in seriousness regarding the threat. The American people know this. He waited three days to say anything at all about the Tighty-Whitey Bomber of Christmas Day, his Pentagon whitewashed completely the jihadist attack on Ft. Hood by refusing to use either the word "Islam" or "Muslim" anywhere in its 86-page report, and he nominated a manifestly unqualified man (Erroll Southers) to head the TSA.

If there is another successful Islamic attack on the United States, and a planeload of innocent Americans gets blown up, I believe that will be the last straw for this vain and incompetent president. The American people will hound him out of office. He won't be able to show his face in public because the reaction will be so visceral and angry. He will become as isolated as Dick Nixon became in his last days in office.
He'll crank up the Oval Office thermostat to 72 degrees and hunker down in an effort to ride out the storm.

Hillary Clinton is of course watching, and I have been predicting for months now that she will launch a primary challenge to Obama in 2012. Rush Limbaugh said much the same thing this past week. The campaign of 2012 is her last realistic shot, and she is shrewd enough to see that he is finished as a politician and she'll just be too old in 2016.

Surely the Democrats in the party will see the same thing, and know that if they back Obama in 2012 they will be backing a loser. Believe me, there will be an underground movement among Democrats to plead with Hillary (or somebody) to save what shreds will remain of their party from The One in the next presidential election.

President Obama has no chance at a second term. And eroding chances of completing his first one.

© Bryan Fischer

XXXXXXXXXX

Are you afraid? What is the message? Obama's a loser. As Americans we don't back losers. We like to win. Therefore, you should fear to associate your beliefs with Obama.

My response to my friend was the following:

XXXXXXXXXX

Anytime I hear a commentator use terms like “virtually unanimous” I remember what an old boss of mine told me when I wrote something similar in an analytical piece - “Scott, there are no modifications to unanimous – it is either unanimous or it is not. If it is not, it may be a majority, but it is intellectually dishonest to try to imply something that simply isn’t.” He was one of the smarter guys I worked for over the years – and the best Commander I ever had.

Last time I checked, “Obama-Care” had morphed into “House and Senate Care” – with Obama agreeing only that it was better than doing nothing. It wasn’t “his” plan by the time the Congressional sausage grinders got done with it.

I will agree that Obama has failed – but what he has failed to do is communicate with the people who elect those Congressmen and Senators. Those same people who elected him.

Anytime I hear anyone mention Obama’s “birth status”, I want to puke. The man is President. Every court in the land that this issue has been raised in has rejected it out of hand. But that’s not good enough for politics these days – no, we’ll keep on beating the dead horse because there are still idiots who will believe it and pass it on, whether out of ignorance or out of thinly disguised racial prejudice or undisguised political prejudice.

Think about how far this country has fallen intellectually in the past 40 years. Do you remember, as I do, the Vacuum Tube Testers that used to be in the front of stores like Skaggs or Thrifty Drugs? Where you could pull a tube out of your television or radio at home, bring it in, and plug it in to the tester to see if it worked or not – and if it didn’t, they were right there for you to buy a replacement – that you then could put back into your television by yourself? We can now text 30 words a minute with our thumbs, often while driving, but we can’t change the oil in our own cars because we’ve turned into a nation of idiots – no curiosity, no skills at anything beyond mere existence. How many kids today can tune a carburetor by ear? How many kids can actually make something from nothing to play with? That’s one of the reasons I’m so indulgent with the boys with their Legos – at least they are creating something. I know technology has made vacuum tubes and carburetors obsolete, but it illustrates the point - but what is the modern equivalent? Playing golf under par on the Wii?

I am very suspicious of the motivations for most of these pundits, commentators, etc. Pure and simple, they make their money by counseling “fear” – fear of the evil Democrats, fear of the evil black man, fear of anything “non-Christian”, fear of anything not 100% Republican party – and even then they will turn on each other like sharks if any one of them deviates the slightest degree. Their incomes and livelihoods are based on spreading fear, spreading rumors, walking right up to the line for slander and libel, then hiding behind the very legal system they decry when they are called on their inaccuracies. Their tactics are taken straight from the masters of the game – Goebbels, Stalin, Mao, Castro – repeat a lie often enough and it gains a truth of its own.

Why deal in fear? Manifest the things you fear and you will find things to be afraid of. Why not have faith in our system of government and faith that most of our leaders are doing their best every day to make America better? I’ll give George W. Bush that much credit – I think he was doing what he believed was right, much as I disagreed with the things he did. I can disagree politically, religiously, philosophically, and personally and still respect the individual for who he is, what he attained and how he has dared stand in the arena. Teddy Roosevelt said it best…

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

How many of us can say that we have risked what Obama has risked to pursue what we believe in?

XXXXXXXXXX

I think that many of these commentators, pundits, etc., have forgotten or confused just what the real arena is – they think they are the gladiators out there jeering at Caesar, when in fact, they are mere spectators, often loud ones, but spectators, nonetheless.

As Americans, we can choose to be informed or ignorant - no one makes us pay attention. But apathy is insidious - and ignorance is ripe ground for the practitioners of political or media information warfare.

Next time, we'll talk about how we've failed to apply these similar lessons in Afghanistan. There - a teaser with no fear involved.

Hooah
SLK
FOB Walton, Afghanistan