If I wanted to worsen the lives of agoraphobics, or people who are even at risk of agoraphobia, I'd imitate George Bush. I'd talk about the terrible, dangerous world we live in. I'd intensify the panic by setting up a danger alert system. I'd raise alarms that the danger alert system was in red-alert mode, or orange alert.
Some people would respond to these "stimuli" at a clinical level. Some would respond at a non-clinical level. The non-clinical responders might not stay at home, but they might see the world differently. They might look for ways to frame the world, ways offerred on TV, like from FOX news, that would, at a subclinical level, turn them into fearful, angry people.
Now, a new study, replicating earlier research, has found:
...whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity. This rigidity and discomfort with ambiguity predisposes people to the kinds of thinking and physiological reactions that panic attack sufferers manifest. It makes sense that these are the same people who would suffer most from fear, from anticipatory anxiety, as a reaction to the trauma of the 9/11 WTC attack, and that their initial, real trauma would be aggravated and intensified by the constant drumbeat of fear-inducing threats, warnings and bluster of Bush, Cheney and their surrogates.
This national syndrome-- Bush-induced terrorism panic / fear disorder-- may not be as easy to treat or heal as even severe cases of agoraphobia. With agoraphobia, you can gradually expose the "patient" to reality. Our national media are so pathologically impaired, perpetuating the myth of terrorism danger that Bush and his allies promulgate, that it may not be possible to get the afflicted to actually see what is real. Bush, Cheney and the right wingers in congress do all they can to keep the drums of fear beating, the smoke and mirrors obstructing concrete views of reality. But like sunlight breaking through clouds, even the most aggressive media spin, echo chamber and propaganda campaigns can't hold back the truth.
Gradually, the terrorism war lie, the lies that questioning Bush, questioning the war is unpatriotic and endangering the US are false are becoming more apparent. The polls show it.
The treatment for more refractory cases of agoraphobia is to build skills that give patients confidence that they can handle the things they fear, and to get them to face their fears, very gradually going out, into the world, exposing themselves to that which they fear.
The treatment for the 30 some percent of the population who still believe Saddam was involved in 9/11, that we are at great danger of terrorist attack, is to get them to open their eyes and see that the solution is not to blindly support a war that was a paleolithic brain reaction to anger, fear and a lot of bad information. We have to pound away at shedding more light. We have to make the liars, like Ken Mehlman, who tells his mailing list,
Democrat leaders' talk of censure and impeachment isn't about the law or the President doing anything wrong. It's about the fact that Democrat leaders don't want America to fight the War on Terror with every tool in our arsenal.Mehlman wants to keep the fear going, keep the idea of a war going. There is no war. There never was a war. But, just as agoraphobics anticipate that they will go totally out of control, the right wing tries to produce the same kind of fear of a horrible situation. This is the sickest form of marketing. Imagine if a pizza delivery company advertised, "It's dangerous out there. Stay home and we'll deliver." That would be reprehensible. The right wing's use of fear to push the buttons of the vulnerable and susceptible brittle brains of the grown-ups who used to whine as kids is equally reprehensible. They won't stop. But we can work to make their strategies less effective.
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