The Sum of Our Fears (The Nation)

[marmar]

The Sum of Our Fears
Christopher Hayes


If you were to draw a single conclusion from the past six years, it might very well be this: Fear does not bring out the best in the United States of America.

A paranoid empire is not a pretty sight. When there's always an imaginary ticking bomb somewhere the perverse ethics of urgency kick in: pre-emptive war, occupation, torture. And having witnessed these depravities, it's not surprising that "fear" has gotten something of a bad rap, particularly in the progressive circles in which I tend to run. We long for the time when FDR asked us to reject the emotion: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." But that's not really true. The problem isn't so much fear per se, though it can be debilitating to the health of a democracy. It's fear of the wrong things.

There are threats out there, to the nation and its citizens; and if those threats are real, relatively likely and preventable, then it seems prudent to do something about it. The problem is that so much of our fear has been misdirected over the last six years, to disastrous effect.

We launched a massively expensive and deadly war to counter weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist, while simultaneously underfunding the existing programs to decommission the stockpiles of nuclear fuel that have now spread through the former Soviet republics in largely unguarded facilities. All kinds of paranoid delusions have proliferated in the age of terror--like the day Boston ground to a halt because of a few infantile light-boxes--while deadly but mundane threats like the flu go about their grim work of killing thousands of Americans with almost no notice.
...(snip)...

Consider for a moment what risks and threats that money could have been spent on: It could have offset the economic disruptions that might ensue from a move toward Kyoto-style reductions in carbon emissions. It could have paid to decommission every single bit of unused nuclear fuel in the world, provided health insurance for the uninsured or simply given every American access to a flu shot in order to prevent some of the 20,000 deaths every year due to the virus. But then, it's hard to win an election (or sweeps week) waging a war on phlegm. .......

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/hayes