Sometimes something resonates both side of the pond. This article pretty well sums it up.
Perhaps I am too old and dreamy to think that politics was ever about anything other than fear; that hope is a necessity not a luxury. Surely I know, really, that when you want someone to vote a certain way you have to frighten them into thinking that any alternative is worse. We may not know what we like, but we sure as hell as know what we don’t like.
It's used by both allies and opponents alike
Some choice excerpts
People don’t like being ruled by people from another country, except, of course, if you are actually Scots and are meant to love it
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But the troika are the agents of Project Fear. Though Germany was allowed to grow its way out of recession in 1953, it will not let Greece do this, because it would set “a bad example”.
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It will be yet another victory for largely faceless financial institutions over an elected government.
How many times is our choice in anything dominated by the fear of something else.
The Cold War
The Vietnam War
The Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq
Austerity
How we vote
Who we blame for our countries hypothetical demise.
The list is endless, it goes on and on.
If you vote for them the world as we know it will end
If you don't vote the world as we know it will end
If we don't give money to those that nearly crashed the world economy the world as we know it will end.
Sometimes you start even thinking, alright then let's see what this new world looks like.
You wanna live like an African in a hut? Well having been to rural Africa the idea doesn't scare me as much as it would some.
When someone actually comes up with a positive plan on how to make the world a fairer place they are instantly dismissed as being dreamers at best and dangerous at worst.
It cant work because the world doesn't work that way.
Funny no matter what the idea the fear generated against possibility of that idea ever being carried is always to the benefit the same group of people. We give power to people who scare us on a regular basis. Just look at the message the GOP gives its base, it's a successful strategy for the oh so few. It sucks people into going to other countries and killing people they never knew and who they would probably like if circumstances beyond their control were different. It is completely baffling to me why anyone would want to do such a thing, but it happens every day. It sucks people into wandering into a church and killing people who actually touched them with kindness. It is a kind of mass hysteria.
We dehumanize others by racism, sexism, homophobia,xenophobia and just general bigotry, then some even have the temerity to be surprised at the results and try and hide behind the pretense it was nothing to do with them.
The other classic excuse is if I had known then what my actions would lead to I wouldn't have done it, ya really if you had got over the fear, you might have seen reason.
Once humanity overcomes fear perhaps we will cease dehumanizing and killing each other. Fearing a god has always seemed more important than loving one, it makes it easier to justify the resulting carnage. Generating division by fear over a minor difference has always been easier than unifying by empathy under a major commonality.
Just a thought
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.
Dorothy Thompson