comment #1

Mgmax says ...

Sorry, I think this is simply wrong. The history of the United States is that we make bad decisions when we're willfully oblivious and complacent and naively trusting. When we make the mistake of believing in our fellow man. Then the crisis strikes and after fumbling for a bit, we get our shit together and handle things extremely well, not to mention decisively.

"Never underestimate American blundering. I was with them when they blundered into Berlin." --Captain Renault

comment #2

gruver1 says ...

So we're either fearful (and therefore voting for Clinton or McCain) or willfully oblivious and complacent and naively trusting (and therefore voting for Obama). What a maximum-security prison, what a garrison state you live in! To fundamentally see life as a series of threats, potholes, pitfalls and land mines....God!

comment #3

Mgmax says ...

It always amazes me to hear liberals denounce the supposed "fearfulness" of the right on national security. As if they weren't peddling fear of every other aspect of life-- Granny, you might actually have to pay for your own prescriptions! Dad, you might actually have to keep your skills up and even consider switching jobs as the marketplace changes! You who borrowed to buy a house way beyond your means, you might actually lose it because you were foolish! Oh nooooo, big government protect me! The Democrats are peddling fear all day long, except when it comes to the crazies who actually want to kill us, not just make us pay a bigger co-pay.

The point is, simply, that some degree of fear is the right response to many situations, and hardly becomes the crippling thing you suggest. I strongly advise fearing walking into traffic, ingesting as many drugs as Heath Ledger, taking your retirement money to the nearest Indian casino, etc. One is hardly consumed by fear to be prudent about such things because one rightly fears the consequences.

In any case, Power's comment seems so vague as to be nearly meaningless, but to the extent it has meaning, let's apply it to the aftermath of 9/11, since that's what it is in reference to, presumably. So we should have not feared the possibility of another attack after a four-pronged blow against major US targets? We should not have retaliated against the Taliban? We should not have taken action to shut down terrorist's sources of funds? Or is she suggesting we should not have feared casualties to the degree we did, and have put more American troops on the ground, no matter the cost in American lives? Just what is it that fear is supposed to have made us get wrong-- then?

comment #4

Stephe96 says ...

[Comment deleted due to poster being in denial about global-warming.]

comment #5

Hash says ...

[Comment deleted due to poster being a right-wing asshole.]

comment #6

travis b says ...

wow. so, all of you are saying that we need to be afraid on a regular basis? How about openly cautious and aware, but hopeful? Isn't that what our grandparents did in World War II? Didn't our leaders then state that "the only thing to fear was fear itself?" There's optimism in that statement and it holds true today. Be aware, work to make it okay, but don't succumb to fear. For fear paralyzes. And when you're paralyzed, you allow others to take the wheel in directions you may not want to go.

And per Mgmax's example, I don't fear crossing the street. I'm aware of the traffic, the danger, but fear? No. Fear is for children, who need their hands held when crossing the street.

If you are so okay with this fear, then I hate to break it to you, the terrorists have won. But, that's not the America I live in. Nor is it the one that I was brought up to believe in. If "fear" were the status quo then the many progressions made in this country over the years would never have happened and this country would've folded long ago.

Awareness and fear are two different things. If you can't distinguish the two, then i feel sorry for you and perhaps you deserve the America that your precious "right" has turned this country into.

comment #7

gruver1 says ...

Wells to travis b: Well said.

comment #8

Nate West says ...

Mgmax: "The point is, simply, that some degree of fear is the right response to many situations, and hardly becomes the crippling thing you suggest."

You have this much correct: Fear is a "response." Fear isn't thinking. The pathway from fear to action based upon fear is often unmediated by rational thought. Indeed, the political exploitation of fear actually discourages thought. That's what Samantha Power is saying.

The "3 AM Phone Call" is, in its most basic form, Pavlov's bell. The idea is to invoke a basic fear (i.e., a threat to one's kids) in the bluntest fashion imaginable and then pair that emotion with your opponent, or the suggestion of your opponent.

Thus, one is not "crippled" by fear; rather, you are manipulated by it. It's the democracy that's crippled.

comment #9

D.Z. says ...

Mg: "When we make the mistake of believing in our fellow man. Then the crisis strikes and after fumbling for a bit, we get our shit together and handle things extremely well, not to mention decisively."

Then why are you surprised that the Dems are winning this year?

"Granny, you might actually have to pay for your own prescriptions!"

That wouldn't be so bad, if the pharmaceutical companies charge the same prices they do for medicine here that they do in Canada and Mexico.

"Dad, you might actually have to keep your skills up and even consider switching jobs as the marketplace changes!"

So an adult who's between 55-70 years of age should be forced to go back to school because their company would rather pay someone from India less money for the same work?

"You who borrowed to buy a house way beyond your means, you might actually lose it because you were foolish!"

I guess being lied to about being able to afford it, and being sold by someone who knew they couldn't afford it, is their fault, too.

"The Democrats are peddling fear all day long, except when it comes to the crazies who actually want to kill us, "

Probably because the Dems actually go after those said crazies, and don't ignore warnings about them threatening to attack our national landmarks...

"We should not have retaliated against the Taliban?"

Probably not the way we did it, anyway.

"We should not have taken action to shut down terrorist's sources of funds?"

We didn't take action, because Saudi Arabia still does business with us.

"Or is she suggesting we should not have feared casualties to the degree we did, and have put more American troops on the ground, no matter the cost in American lives?"

It'd help the other troops being rotated against their contracts and their will.

comment #10

Mgmax says ...

Now we're down to parsing words; what you describe as the supposed alternative, "openly cautious and aware, but hopeful," is basically the "fear" I describe, either of them a prudent caution and understanding of possibly dire consequences which is, nonetheless, manageable by adults. (But I admire the high horse it allowed you to climb up on, to the Sousa music of phrases like "That's not the America I live in.")

Still, there's a big difference between the idea that "3 am phone call" is rather crude, or not as good an argument for Mrs. Clinton as she seems to think, and the idea others seem to be suggesting here that it's completely unrealistic. Again, it's funny that the very folks who made such hay out of Bush reading My Pet Goat and sitting there shell-shocked for a few minutes now suggest that the idea that the president might face real crises and need to be prepared for them is only for hysterics and paranoiacs to consider.

comment #11

Geoff says ...

I'm just going to second Wells' response and say nice post travis b.

comment #12

LYT says ...

Just what is it that fear is supposed to have made us get wrong

Bush's re-election.

I can name numerous "moderates" and "sensible liberals" who in 2004 said, basically, "I disagree with George Bush on almost everything, but John Kerry just doesn't get that WE'RE AT WAR!"

comment #13

Marty Melville says ...

"What a maximum-security prison, what a garrison state you live in! To fundamentally see life as a series of threats, potholes, pitfalls and land mines....God!"

Agreed, but it's hard not to succumb to this mind-set after living through the last eight years of threats, potholes and pitfalls (and we live in the garrison state of Bush/Cheney's dreams only if we so choose).

I don't think BushCo invented fearmongering... the seeds were sown in the last twenty years when plastic soda pop bottles came with offical warnings that there was, when you snapped the top, a dangerous possibility that the top could explode off the top and cause some kind of unspeakable "injury".

If I'd read that kind of warning while sitting on a sidewalk stoop and reading a comic book back in 1963, I'd be twice as neurotic as I am now.

And now H. Clinton is playing her own fear card, aligning herself with McCain in a really repulsive attempt to saddle up with the 19% who think Iraq was a really swell idea.

I'll think of Hillary next time I open a plastic bottle.

comment #14

LFF says ...

"Fear causes hesitation. Hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true."

comment #15

Todd says ...

The following link is to an article that represents what I've been trying to communicate all along about Obama being the wrong candidate for the Democrats.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/03/08/ST2008030800051.html

comment #16

Rob says ...

Sorry, is that quote meant to explain why Power publicly called Clinton a "monster," forcing the Obama campaign to sever ties with her?

comment #17

Mgmax says ...

I don't think BushCo invented fearmongering... the seeds were sown in the last twenty years when plastic soda pop bottles came with offical warnings that there was, when you snapped the top, a dangerous possibility that the top could explode off the top and cause some kind of unspeakable "injury".

Marty, you're so close and yet so far... still blaming Bush when all this contempt for fear is leftwing projection, recognizing that a half-century of fearing apples and cyclamates and secondhand smoke and global warming and cancer caused by whatever a trial lawyer tells them caused it has turned them into cringing clients of the nanny state whose ultimate fear is taking personal responsibility for anything... a world in which someone like D.Z. doesn't think the government should deal with al-Qaeda so long as Washington Mutual stalks the earth, tempting people who make $22,000 a year to buy million dollar homes... I say reject all this fearmongering, call on your government to only protect you from the things it genuinely takes a government to protect you from, like foreign attack, and otherwise, keep it out of your lives as much as you can.

That's the America I'd like to live in. Not the daycare state in which every sharp edge has taxpayer funded soft corners and every need is looked after. It takes a village to take your last remaining freedoms away in the name of protection.

"The kind of government that is strong enough to give you everything you need is also strong enough to take away everything that you have." --Ronald Reagan

comment #18

Josh Massey says ...

Please tell me those "comment deleted" posts up there are a joke, and not actually deleted comments.

comment #19

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Massey: No joke. Part of the reason is that I just lose it at times and find I just can't stand the idea of giving a forum to a certain person's idiotic and/or profoundly irritating rants. This site will not wink and nod at global-warming deniers...period. If you object, too bad. The other guy was irritating me more and more and I finally just snapped. This being my house, I reserve and, trust me, will continue to exercise the right to take the occasional boorish, clueless or inebriated guest by the arm and show him the door. Show me the piece of paper that I signed that said "the signer hereby agrees to listen to, consider and occasionally respond to whatever head-in-the-sand, right-wing wingnut views are incessantly stated on HE from here to eternity." Where is that piece of paper? Wells to Rob: Power didn't call "publicly" call Hillary Clinton a monster -- she described her thusly (a complete accurate assertion) in an off-the-record aside with a Scottish journalist who felt that the on-the-record terms that were established at the beginning of the interview took precedence. Ask any political journalist and they'll tell you that politicians and their spokespersons have two faces and two ways of talking -- the relaxed, informal, off-the-record face that will occasionally joke and trash-talk about colleagues and rivals, and the carefully composed public face that says what they need to say in a publicly attributable and correct way. Don't kid yourself -- everybody trash talks if there's trust in the room. Power obviously made a mistake in briefly trusting that her Scottish interviewer would agree to a quick time-out, off-the-record segue, and she paid the price for this.

comment #20

George Prager says ...

[Comment deleted so poster can finally get around to thinking about getting their own blog.]

Posted by: Mgmax at March 7, 2008 08:00 AM

comment #21

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Max,

Where is Bush's "personal responsibility" for fucking up our entire nation over the past 8 years?

"I say reject all this fearmongering, call on your government to only protect you from the things it genuinely takes a government to protect you from, like foreign attack,"

Like 9/11? Glad to see that even by your own (batshit) standards, this administration has been a complete failure.

comment #22

Howlingman says ...

The sad truth is that fear is a fantastic motivator when you want to get the public to follow you. It's why political campaigns in this day and age are all about why you should fear the other guy (or gal), rather than offering a compelling reason why you should vote for the one pushing an agenda based on fear.

Jeff, have you seen this:

http://www.shootingwar.com/

A creepy piece of agitprop, authored when McCain was considered an also-ran.

comment #23

Mgmax says ...

Wow, he fucked up the entire nation?

You mean, there's not a single functioning highway? The water system doesn't work? The heads fell off Mount Rushmore? My cable is out?

Okay, it's unfair to make fun of your hyperbole. So yes, I grant you that there are many signs of failure one can point to. Getting bogged down by the brutal Afghan winter, Qusay Hussein seizing power in Iraq and gassing our troops in Basra, the post-9/11 recession with its double-digit inflation and unemployment rates, the dirty bomb attack on Seattle in 2003, the release of ricin in the Beverly Center in 2005, the election of leftist heads of state in France and Germany with marked anti-American platforms, yes, all these are signs of what a failure Bush's term has been.

George: what would be the fun of that? People wouldn't come and throw me softballs which, when batted, leave them apoplectic that their unexamined presumptions have been challenged...

comment #24

Josh Massey says ...

The continued insistence of climate change proponents not to debate, but to move to silence dissent through demagoguery and, well, deletion, only strengthens my conviction that it is interchangeably a hoax, a false religion, and a gullible man's dogma. A stronger belief system would be able to withstand the doubt of others.

comment #25

christian says ...

Jeff, if you're not afraid, please stop deleting these posts. You've been on a tear lately and It doesn't look good coming from a liberal. People here have said far far worse.

And Mgmax, speaking of fear, remember this bon mot?

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States,"

- Dick Cheney

Coming from the administration on guard during 9/11!

comment #26

George Prager says ...

I don't know what climate change has to do with Samantha Power. I think Wells just doesn't like Stephe96.

I still think you're wasting some good stuff that should have a more permanent home, Mgmax.

comment #27

Mgmax says ...

I'm definitely not voting for Cheney this time!

comment #28

christian says ...

But ya did twice before right?

comment #29

Mgmax says ...

No, to the extent one votes for the VP at all, I only voted for Cheney once. As I've noted before, I gave money to both McCain and Gore to stop Bush... and watched in dismay as Gore bungled three supposedly easy debates with Bush... and I suppose I began to stop misunderestimating him then.

comment #30

D.Z. says ...

Todd: "If Obama becomes the Democratic nominee but cannot win support from working-class whites and Hispanics, they argue, then Democrats will not retake the White House in November."

If they're hurting as I know they will be by then, McCan't doesn't have a chance.

"Right now, Barack is not connecting with the children of the Reagan Democrats..."

Don't worry. They don't vote, anyway.

"If you're a Barack Obama, you're going to have to figure out how to reach out to white, middle-aged men."

Tell them they won't have social security if McCain wins.

'"A lot of the states he's winning are states that we're not going to win in November," said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), a Clinton supporter.'

If you mean "we" as in your candidate, then I agree.

Mgmax: "still blaming Bush when all this contempt for fear is leftwing projection, recognizing that a half-century of fearing apples and cyclamates and secondhand smoke and global warming and cancer caused by whatever a trial lawyer tells them caused it has turned them into cringing clients of the nanny state whose ultimate fear is taking personal responsibility for anything..."

Speaking of not taking personal responsibility, what has Bush done for New Orleans lately?

"a world in which someone like D.Z. doesn't think the government should deal with al-Qaeda so long as Washington Mutual stalks the earth, tempting people who make $22,000 a year to buy million dollar homes..."

If Al Qaeda doesn't have anything to blow up, then they've already won.

"I say reject all this fearmongering, call on your government to only protect you from the things it genuinely takes a government to protect you from, like foreign attack,"

We tried with Bush, and the towers still fell.

"Not the daycare state in which every sharp edge has taxpayer funded soft corners and every need is looked after."

"MORE ghettoes, not more opportunities!"

'"The kind of government that is strong enough to give you everything you need is also strong enough to take away everything that you have." --Ronald Reagan'

That's appropriate, considering his anti-environment record.

"You mean, there's not a single functioning highway?"

No, but they're falling apart...

"The water system doesn't work?"

It doesn't in New Orleans or Iraq...Plus we'll be out of it here in the Southwest in the near future...

"Getting bogged down by the brutal Afghan winter,"

No, just the new civil war that our generals expect NATO to fight in our place...

"the post-9/11 recession with its double-digit inflation and unemployment rates,"

Give it a few more months.

"the dirty bomb attack on Seattle in 2003,"

The mining cave-in and those school shootings were just as bad as a dirty bomb.

"the release of ricin in the Beverly Center in 2005,"

How about selling our ports to the Arab Emirates?

"the election of leftist heads of state in France and Germany with marked anti-American platforms,"

They may be more conservative, but they still ain't bail us out of our war.

Josh: "The continued insistence of climate change proponents not to debate, but to move to silence dissent through demagoguery and, well, deletion, only strengthens my conviction that it is interchangeably a hoax, a false religion, and a gullible man's dogma."

It's neither, actually. Proponents just prefer something valid from the opposition, not something which amounts to pseudo-science. [Previous examples of pseudo science include Creationism and the sun revolving around the earth.]