Terror and Me - We Go Together

Fear was the defining feature of the New School of Propoganda, first developed in the early 21st century.

[This is what I hope future historians write.] Lately, it seems to me that nearly all of this country's news media trade primarily in fear.

If it's not one's local television or print news with "breaking stories" on Graham Crackers That Kill, or alarming headlines such as "Suicide - How To Tell if Your Teen is Next" or "Robbery on The Rise - Are You Truly Protected?", it's fear paraded on a global basis with a story about the next 4 persons in rural Turkey to have succumbed to avian flu, or my own personal favorite, the topic most likely to sell newspapers and keep Americans glued to their television sets in the most abject positions of fear - The Global War on Terror, or GWOT, as it's often abbreviated all over the Internets.

I usually look at that acronym and immediately think "G-Wot? What? Wha-oh, yeah, right, that one." Sometimes if I'm merely scanning a blog post or article, my eye will read it as BLOT, which I'll admit is due to my habit of speed reading.

Call it what you like, but one cannot deny the power of the shivery fingers of Terror, Global War On. It's craptacular! It's ginormous! It has extremeosity! Ooh baby, this story sizzles and sells!

Take note: at any given time, usually during a temporary lull of the scary, when it's entirely possible that our citizenry may have forgotten, if only for a nanosecond, to cringe in fear that pesky evil foreigners/outsiders may be penetrating our metaphorical private parts with their dastardly weaponry, there is some kind of turbulence created by this administration and broadcast loudly enough to insure our attention is turned away from the Man Behind the Curtain and the strings he may be pulling back to what's on center stage, illuminated by the very foofy color-coded terror alert system [I defy any regular person to not only know which color refers to which level but how we go from level to level and, more importantly, why we should care].

Every day it seems the stakes get ratcheted up - every single lame justification, arrogant maneuver, or naked attempt at usurpation of power that has been perpetuated by the current administration gets somehow deflected by, blamed on, or given important and improved justification by our new compatriot, the good old GWOT.

GWOT is dependable - it's got legs. It ain't going away anytime soon; most particularly because it's not a war between nations, but a war between ideologies, global hegemony, and ownership of dwindling natural resources.

It has, as simply as early melodramas, a moustachioed swarthy villain conveniently shrouded in black lashing a helpless blonde damsel with a very nice figure to the train tracks, chortling with glee as the onrushing train makes its way towards her, twirling his moustache in anticipation. Who doesn't love the suspense? Will our stalwart blonde find a way to escape her bonds before the train dismembers her? Will her eventual triumph spell the complete and utter downfall of sheer evil? Stay tuned!

All of which makes these times interesting as well as chock full of the chewy goodness of manufactured fear which is, of course, the multi-colored sprinkles on our ordinary portion of plain vanilla Fear: we haven't misplaced our garden variety fears in any of this exertion - we still have the old standards - fear of losing our livelihoods, fear of death and/or dying alone, fear of abandonment, fear of creepy crawly things - now we have fear layered in fear with a side order of fear.

Fearsome, right?

I certainly can't speak for all citizens, or even a healthy minority - but honestly, it takes most of my energy to cope with my fear of small spaces, let alone anything more existential.

Since September 11th, 2001, my life hasn't changed quite as I should believe, if I was actually foolish enough to believe what I've been told.

I still get up every weekday to go to work, riding to and from my office on the very same subway system I did before; I still stop by the corner deli to buy my beer, bread, milk & eggs; I still have evenings with friends & family, and still travel by air to vacation in exotic destinations; I still have to find a way to get my drycleaning out of hock.

Living my life now exactly as I always have, without making any kind of modifications other than those imposed on me by the perceived fears of my largely pantywaist government, I'd like to think I've kept my fears commensurate with my reality.

So I ruin some future student's thesis [exit stage left, laughing and twirling extravagant moustache].