FEAR and SMEAR Exposing Fear, Misinformation, and FUD in Politics, Business & the Internet

Citizen_of_Earth left an amazing and important comment on ThinkProgress this morning in response to a ridiculous article by Family Security Matters claiming that “multiculturalism exposes the U.S to terrorism“. It’s one that everyone should read, so I’m posting the comment here:

The Fear Lobby has been around since recorded history, however only in the past sixty years or so, with the advent of mass media then recently with instant communications, has it become an extremely efficient instrument to sway opinion.

Taking a quick look in the past, we find it has been used very effectively over the ages. One of the better-known Fear Lobbies was in ancient Rome. Fear of a new religious group resulted in mass persecution by the Roman authorities. Centuries later, this same religious group created a fear lobby of its own by investigating heretics and witches. Their immigrant descendants to the new world had their own witches to burn. In addition, they created a Fear Lobby against the indigenous people of their new land. In the process, they almost eradicated whole cultures of civilized people while portraying them as savages. Later, when some wanted to uphold the doctrine of equality and freedom for all, others used a Fear Lobby to keep their fellow humans in bondage. The result was a war of brother against brother that cost millions of lives.

During the twentieth century, using the new technology of mass communications, National Socialists, fascist and militarist, tried to rid the world of “sub-humans”, people they deemed to be inferior, causing an estimated twenty million deaths. Then we find a Fear Lobby led by the infamous Senator Joe McCarthy in the early 1950’s, whose objective was to root out communist. This resulted in the ruining of many lives before a courageous journalist denounced it. Then along came a Fear Lobby against more communist, this time in a place called Viet Nam, and caused the deaths of 50,000 young Americans before it was decided there was really nothing to fear and a negotiated peace was reached.

With instant communications, someone can now propagate any myth faster and easier than ever before. When the myth is told often enough, it becomes an accepted fact. When it becomes an accepted fact, it is then a simple matter to tell people what needs to be done. The Fear Lobby need not be highly organized, just consistent in message.

History has proven that people who live in fear are all too willing to surrender their fundamental human and civil rights. When you can get people to surrender their rights, you can gain more power and have a larger role in their lives. People who surrender their rights become very willing to surrender the rights of others. This is why the Fear Lobby is a threat to every citizen of the country.

The Fear Lobby wins when citizens accept the myths without challenging them and looking for the facts. It wins when citizens become too apathetic to look for the truth. When fear wins, everyone loses.

John F. Kennedy said, “A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” Let us become a nation that is not afraid of the truth, let’s tell the Fear Lobby, we are smart enough to make our own decisions.