Has Bush Administration Become A Victim Of It’s Own Fear Factory?

 

By Allan P. Duncan

November 23, 2003

 

opednews.com

 

W is acting more like the cowardly preppy who used his fathers influence to avoid the Vietnam War than the Top Gun fighter pilot he pretended to be aboard the Lincoln. In fact, he seems to be reverting to the same fear paralyzed little boy we saw sitting on a tiny chair in a classroom while he fogged out during a story about a goat while 3,000 of our citizens were being murdered on 9-11.

Two pieces in today’s New York Times jumped out at me as I scanned news sources in cyberspace. Scaring Up Votes by Maureen Dowd

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/opinion/23DOWD.html

 

 and The Way We Were by Thomas L. Friedman.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/opinion/23FRIE.html

In Dowd’s column she writes about the first Bush campaign commercial to hit TV which was apparently produced to create more fear among the American public than already exists.

 

In Friedman’s column he points out that Colin Powell, who was supposed to receive a prestigious award in London, did not come to the ceremony because of security fears even though Prince Charles attended the same affair with only one bodyguard.

 

For being the leaders of the biggest and baddest nation on the planet our Commander-In-Chief and his closest advisors seem to have become victims of the same fear they’ve been propagating for over two years now.

 

When was the last time you remember actually seeing Bush speaking to a crowd that wasn’t specifically chosen and controlled within an airport hanger at a military base or at a friendly Republican think tank? I mean the guy actually backed out of speaking before the British Parliament, the governing body of our closest ally, because of the fear that he might be heckled.

 

Something must have changed within the President’s mindset since the day he strode across the deck of that aircraft carrier in his flight suit and arrogantly proclaimed “Mission Accomplished”. W is acting more like the cowardly preppy who used his fathers influence to avoid the Vietnam War than the Top Gun fighter pilot he pretended to be aboard the Lincoln. In fact, he seems to be reverting to the same fear paralyzed little boy we saw sitting on a tiny chair in a classroom while he fogged out during a story about a goat while 3,000 of our citizens were being murdered on 9-11.

 

Over the past few weeks I’ve read reports from the UN that tell us that Al Qaeda is ready to strike with chemical or biological weapons. I also read where Al Qaeda might have planned to infiltrate anti-war protests in London and strike from there (didn’t happen). Yesterday I read where the FBI is now investigating anti-war groups and suggesting that police departments contact counterterrorism officials with new info about planned demonstrations. Two days ago Tommy Franks came out and said that the next major attack might cause our Constitution to be suspended and force the US to adopt a military form of government.

 

After wading through a four foot stack of 9-11 and intelligence books, I finally got around to reading Michael Moore’s Dude, Where’s My Country? this week. As he did in his Academy Award winning documentary, Bowling For Columbine, Moore talks extensively about how our society is influenced and controlled by the peddling of fear.

 

Between the writings of Moore, Dowd and Friedman, I wondered to myself this morning why we were so influenced by this garbage since almost none of it ever pans out anyway?

 

I then went back to my spiritual and philosophical roots and remembered a quote that I myself came up with about 20 years ago when I started studying Zen and Tibetan Buddhism.

 

“Anxiety is a fear of something that doesn’t exist in the Now. Since Now is all there is…everything else is simply an illusion”

 

The philosophy that inspired this quote didn’t come easy for me. I had spent most of the first 30 years of my life fraught with anxiety and needed a way to experience peace of mind.

 

Through a lot of meditation and introspection, I realized that when I had been in situations where I was totally in the Now, I did not experience fear. I’m talking specifically about experiences when I was a cop.

 

In 1975, while a member of an elite tactical unit, I was involved in two shootouts in which people were killed. In one of them, two cops were killed and another one paralyzed. The cop who was paralyzed eventually died too from complications.

 

I’m sure that everyone knows about the basic human instinct of “fight or flight’. In these two experiences my mettle was tested to the max and I chose to fight.

 

I distinctly remember time slowing down and all of my senses becoming heightened. Although bullets were flying all around I focused on my units goal to take out the sniper and prevent more deaths. During those moments I remember having no fear.

 

I found that when we confront our greatest fears head on in the moment, that fear dissolves and real courage comes to the fore. I believe that during these times when fear is being pumped at us continually, that we must individually examine this information and determine if this is a real threat to us in the Now. If it isn’t, then we must let it go since it is only an illusion and not a reality.

 

One of Bush’s major messages after 9-11 was that Americans must not be intimidated by terrorism and that we must get on with our normal lives otherwise the terrorists will have won. It seems to me that most Americans are doing fine with this but the Bush Administration hasn’t heeded their own message.

 

We must not fall into the trap that the fear mongers have fallen into themselves. If we do, then we lose control of our own minds and become the puppets of these same fear mongers.

 

Peace…

 Allan Duncan is a Social Worker who lives in New Hope, PA.  This article is copyright by Allan Duncan  ADuncan282@aol.com originally published by opednews.com Permission is granted to forward this or to place it on a website as long as the article is included intact, including this statement