The U.S. Needs "Enemies"

[unhappycamper]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-U-S-Needs-Enemies-by-Dave-Lefcourt-America_Democracy_Enemy_Fear-140120-22.html



The U.S. Needs "Enemies"
OpEdNews Op Eds 1/20/2014 at 15:52:36
By Dave Lefcourt

Here is a supposition to consider regarding the U.S. We need "enemies".

~snip~

Consider; without "enemies" the U.S. could not justify its bloated defense expenditures, the deployment of over a thousand military bases worldwide, its outsized naval presence all over the world, its surveillance practices targeting everyone in that world, its hegemony and disregard for other countries sovereignty ALL presented as in defense of this country.

And it makes no difference whether the "enemy" poses a real existential threat as did the Soviet Union during the cold war or now the fabricated threat of terrorists and terrorism that replaced Soviet Communism after 9/11. Though the USSR ceased to exist in 1991, the time between its demise and 9/11 can best be described as a lull, an interim period where the next "enemy" had yet to be invented.

But invented it was with Bush announcing his global war on terror; a never ending "enemy" and with it never ending war.

[Scuba]

1. War on a state of mind. The perfect vehicle to perpetuate MIC profits.

[bemildred]

2. All governments need appropriately sized problems.

Fear is the glue which binds states together, or tears them apart.

But fake boogey men, fake problems, are much more convenient as they pose no real threat, and you control them.

This is where we are. If you look round, you will see that we have lots of real problems which are not being addressed, or are being addressed in a token way, and lots of fake threats, or better yet highly exaggerated threats, like drugs and terrorism, that are sucking down half our GDP or thereabouts.

People who try to scare you are trying to manipulate you, and are not your friends.

Edit: And I forgot crime, the fear of crime, that is also highly exaggerated and very useful, esp. blue collar crime. Over the course of your life you will probably lose far more to white collar crime and fraud than from blue collar criminals or street crime.

But lately our crime rates have been coming down, largely because of social reforms from the 60s and 70s, and I've been wondering what our LEO organizations are going to do?

And advertising loves fear.