Imagine G.W. Bush and Nancy Grace Fu*king [View All]

[madmusic]

What do you see?

http://www.jc2m.co.uk/Issue1/Altheide.pdf">Notes Towards A Politics Of Fear (PDF, and excellent!)

David L. Altheide
Arizona State University

"A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign
revolutions alike without fear." Franklin D. Roosevelt

“People react to fear, not love—they don’t teach that in Sunday School,
but it’s true.” Richard Nixon

“Al Qaeda is to terror what the Mafia is to crime.” George W. Bush

I wish to chart the conceptual terrain of crime, terrorism, and victim by examining the
connection between the mass media and the politics of fear, or decision-makers’
promotion and use of audience beliefs and assumptions about danger, risk and fear in
order to achieve certain goals....

snip

The politics of fear promotes
attacking a target (for example, crime), terrorism, anticipates further victimisation,
curtails civil liberties, and stifles dissent as being non-responsive to citizen needs or
even “unpatriotic.” The Homeland Security Office advised the American people to
buy duct tape and plastic sheeting as a barrier to terrorism. This advisory had little to
do with “chemical protection” and much to do with the politics of fear.