Thursday, October 31, 2024

The Politics of Fear: Laying the Groundwork for Fascism, American-Style

We're being fed a constant diet of fear: fear of terrorists, fear of illegal immigrants, fear of people who are too religious, fear of people who are not religious enough, fear of extremists, fear of conformists, fear of the government, fear of those who fear the government, fear of those on the Right, fear of those on the Left... The list goes on and on.

This language of fear has given rise to a politics of fear whose only aim is to distract and divide us.

Fear remains the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government.

Fear and paranoia have become hallmarks of the modern American experience, impacting how we as a nation view the world around us, how we as citizens view each other, and most of all how our government views us.

As history makes clear, fear and government paranoia lead to fascist, totalitarian regimes.

"It's incorrect to call fascism either right wing or left wing. It is both and neither fascism does not seek to overthrow institutions like commercial establishments, family, religious centers, and civic traditions. It seeks to control them it preserves most of what people hold dear but promises to improve economic, social, and cultural life through unifying their operations under government control."

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, fear has been a critical tool in past fascistic regimes, and it has become the driving force behind the American police state. 

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_politics_of_fear_laying_the_groundwork_for_fascism_american_style

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