Hooked on fear

Hooked on Fear

War against Political Addiction

[12-17-02]

Prof. David C. Wood of Vanderbilt University, speaking at an act of witness against war in Iraq on December 10, analyzed the administration in Washington as helplessly addicted - addicted to the easy exploitation of fear as a tool for expanding their control and their wealth, while obscuring their own exploitative misdeeds. Only citizen action, he says, can help them find a cure.
Remarks by Prof. David C. Wood, chair of the Philosophy Department, Vanderbilt University, at the act of witness against war in Iraq, December 10, 2002

There are people out there who need our help - desperately need our help. They have broken into the political candy store, and they cannot stop eating. I am speaking of the current occupants of the White House, all but one unelected businessmen and/or ideologues. As for the one who was elected . . .

Why do they need our help? They need our help because they have discovered a terrible truth, and they cannot stop feasting on the consequences. The terrible truth, one that Machiavelli discovered, that Joseph Goebels re-discovered, is that if you can keep a nation in fear they will bow down before you as their leader, if you can construct a plausible enemy and declare war, the people will rush to put on uniforms and fight. The economy may be in free fall, but if you puff enough smoke into the beehive, the worker bees will turn sleepy and not notice you are stealing the honey.

Why do those who are helping themselves need our help? Because having discovered this terrible truth, this secret set of buttons which, when pushed, make the engines of democracy work backwards as a structure of manipulation, they cannot stop pushing these buttons. A previous administration declared a War on Drugs.

These machiavellian mandarins are our latest drug addicts, addicted to the rhetoric of national security, military build-ups, hugely increased 'defense' spending, the war on terrorism, on the 'axis of evil', on Saddam the Antichrist, etc. They are addicted because, unable to believe their luck, they discover that when they press these buttons, they sweep away effective opposition from democrats, they can curb civil rights, launch the most arrogant and dangerous national security policy in living memory, and license state-sponsored violence on the part of its allies (such as Australia, Israel). They are addicted to the power to turn back hard-won social programs, to enact repressive legislation (Total Awareness Initiative), to realign the Supreme Court etc. etc. If Saddam had not existed, if would have been necessary to invent him.

These people need our help if they are not to get completely hooked on the drip drip drip of the power that comes through the inculcation of fear. How can we help them, and in helping them, help ourselves? I have an immediate suggestion - tell all your friends to go see Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, an exploration of the culture of fear in America.

Perhaps the horror of 9/11 was not just those who died on that day, but the ancient alarm bells it triggered. I suspect that deep down there is a nagging fear in most of us that one day the world will wake up and want to take back some of our stuff - that one day we will be forced to share our toys with the dispossessed. Perhaps too, whites fear cosmic restitution for the heritage of slavery that, in the face of black poverty and under-achievement in the heart of America, still accuses us.

There is a solution to these problems. It is to pledge ourselves to the cause of peace, and the cause of social justice for all Americans, and to a new role for America in the wider world - that we use our unprecedented wealth and power to promote not just our own interests, but the interests of the disadvantaged and dispossessed around the world.

In that way we can project an America to be genuinely proud of. Al Qaeda will wither on the vine, terrorists will look for other work, and we can slowly exorcise from our troubled psyche the specter of the enemy who will come in the night. Then perhaps we can all begin to enjoy the real fruits of peace. And the more we do this, the more we can help the good people in the White House candy store break the habits to which they are addicted. One day - they will press the fear button, the security button, the secrecy button, and nothing will happen. The next day's Doonesbury cartoon will feature a frantic internal phone call on Pennsylvania Avenue: "What's the problem Karl?" "The problem Sir, Mr. President, is that the people don't believe us any more." That is a day to work for.