Culture of Fear

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Precepts of The Global Dialog Project | C u l t u r e of F e a r - Enough Already!
DAILY SHOW Excerpt: JON STEWART:President Bush has made it clear his campaign will be different. PRES BUSH video clip: On November the second the people of America will reject the politics of fear, and vote for an agenda of hope. Cut toJON STEWART: Powerful optimistic words only slightly undercut by a speech his vice president gave on the on the very same day in Ohio: Clip of VP CHENEY : The biggest threat we face now as a nation Is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cites With deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us, With a biological agent or a a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind. JON STEWART: Your agenda of hope just made me crap my pants… Claiming courage, not fear Surprise! Kerry's scaring people! Bush is scaring people! Terror-Alert scares people! Iraq scares people! Rove, Cheney, and Rumsfeld always have scared people. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of it. Enough already! Let's quit being scared, and be brave. Have courage! Let's not make our children in the future pay for our fears today - let's face them instead, and be the innovative, insightful, problem-solvers we are at heart. The way to come toward the future is not fearfully, cowed by 19 hijackers or some people we helped put in power in the mountains of Afghanistan. It is with a knowing courage - knowing we must be courageous, but also taking it in stride, seeing it as a challenge. The world is scary, granted - but it has ever been so, and if in our naivete and under the protection of the Superpower umbrella, we were unaware of this, well then we were practically alone in that feeling, because it was frankly delusional. What needed to change with 911 was our belief that we were immune from the disease of agression and fear that so much of the world has been experiencing. It is an extraordinary rarity that the United States has never been occupied, and barely invaded - whereas so many other countries have been routinely raided, invaded, and occupied. The relatively untraumatized state of mind that has resulted for us, has left us out of sync with humanity: The rest of the world mostly chooses diplomacy not because they are wimps, but because their lands still bear the scars of the last invasion. Yes, terrorism - but jeez, it's happening DAILY in other places, and we're not hearing them about it. Weren't you ever in England when all transportation was plastered with signs warning you about the terrorist danger of packages you might stumble on? Or incidents in Ireland, Italy, Germany, not to mention Israel, Turkey, etc.. Perhaps the U.S. is willing to start wars now, to spill blood in the name of democracy, in large part because it is not acknowledged how much blood there is being spilled - and not only blood but tears and sweat and cries and damage, the inner wounds our veterans are taking. Wounds that cut deeply or stab sharply, or perhaps the wound is more a numbness, a blockage of feeling, reality, and self. And we don't need a culture any more numb than ours already is. More than 17,000 people died in alcohol-related car accidents last year. That's almost six times the nmber that died on 911 - but where is the outrage about this, or the founding, or the scare tactics? Besides, I'm sick of this sh|t. You know, being scared is just not fun, dammit. It harshes the vibe, dude, I mean seriously. Let's be realistic, sure, but we can also be creative . Some thinking out of the box is required. We're often using brute force - which in case you hadn't noticed, is not the solution that got Homo sapiens to where it is right now. No, intelligence has been our path, in the broadest sense - the ability to manipulate knowledge, AND the knowledge itself, needed to make decisions. It IS possible to look the truth in the face, and not be scared. But it will be far easier if we do it together. Let's get some perspective here - and call on our courage, not our fear. That way our brains are in a position to make better decisions (as opposed to 'Run! Fight!'); our emotions are useful rather than supporting the deer-in-the-headlights look; and our bodies are not burdened with stress. We owe it to each other to try. WUSCAT?! Stress, optimism, Human Life
### News Why the No-stress rule is a good idea: Deadlines multiply heart attack risk: study Short-term bursts of stress at work seem to have a more harmful effect on the heart than stress that accumulates over 12 months, according to scientists who studied 3,500 people. Last Updated Mon, 13 Dec 2004