"Attacking Bush's ONLY Weapon: FEAR!" (A Must read from Greenwald)

[KoKo]

by Glenn Greenwald

Among those who now recognize that the Bush Administration has not just deliberately and repeatedly broken the law, but is literally claiming that George Bush has the “wartime” power to continue to break the law, there is a growing impatience to move to the next step – to take action to ensure that there are serious consequences from Bush’s brazen law-breaking. But in order for that to happen, Bush opponents must finally overcome the one weapon which has protected George Bush again and again: fear. Fear of terrorism is what the Administration has successfully inflamed and exploited for four years in order to justify its most extreme and even illegal actions undertaken in the name of fighting terrorism.

-snip-

The Bush Administration has been trying for four years to reduce this country to a collective version of that affliction. And it is hard to imagine what a nation which is fueled by such fear can accomplish. Hysteria and paranoia have never been the American national character, but along with the founding principles of our Republic, the Bush Administration has been attempting to change that, too.

The Administration has managed to get away with the Orwellian depiction of fear as being the hallmark of courage, and conversely, depicting a rational and calm approach as being a mark of cowardice. They were aided in this effort by a terrified national media and a national political elite who live in Washington, DC and New York and were so petrified of further attacks that they were easily whipped into a state of passive, uncritical compliance in exchange for promises of protection. But we are far away from the emotional shock of September 11, and the power of that Fear weapon is breaking down.

In order to persuade the population that George Bush must not be allowed to claim the powers of a King, literally including the power to break the law, Bush opponents must attack that fear as the by-product of weakness and cowardice which it is. A strong nation does not give up its freedoms or sacrifice its national character in the name of fear and panic. But that is what George Bush has spent the last four years urging the country to do, and it is what he is counting on -- it is the only chance he has -- for having this NSA law-breaking scandal join the litany of other scandals which have meekly and inconsequentially faded away in a cloud of manufactured fear.

Much more of this interesting read with comments by the Wingers who freaked out when Bush's Fear Mongering is exposed by Greenwald, Digby and Kos at.......

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

[longship]

1. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself (audio)

I posted this on another thread on this article.

We all need to start channeling FDR's first inaugural address. For those unfamiliar with it, here's an audio file for you to listen to.

FDR's First Inaugural Address - 4 Mar 1933
(Dial-up warning: Link is to a 27 minute, 6.3 Mbyte MP3 file. Right click and "Save as..." to save.)

[daleanime]

2. You hit the nail right on the head...

keep it up.

[KoKo]

3. Good weekend read..