Why
Are Americans So Fearful?
By Dave Eriqat
16 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Warning: this essay is chock full of politically incorrect musings.
Observing
our relentless march toward war abroad against Iran and looming dictatorship
at home, it’s obvious to me that our “leaders” are
getting away with this agenda because Americans are so fearful. But
why? What are they afraid of? Answering this question is important because
I think this irrational fear is finding an outlet in anger, which is
evident in the police brutality we see domestically and wars we launch
abroad.
When did our slide into emasculating
fear begin? I think it started to become palpable in the early 1980s,
following the economically beleaguered 1970s, which closed with the
sobering Iranian hostage crisis. Reagan’s “Morning in America”
slogan was so successful during the transition from the 1970s to the
1980s because Americans, having experienced their first protracted taste
of society-wide fear, longed for a safe haven, even if it was just an
empty campaign slogan. Without being judgmental, merely making an observation,
fear ratcheted up during the Reagan years (Sting’s song “Russians”
is emblematic of the anxiety felt during the 1980s) and both Bush presidencies,
but seemed to be suspended during the Clinton years. In fact, people
seemed quite optimistic during the Clinton years, although it’s
not clear why people were optimistic then, or if their optimism was
real or just Prozac-induced. Recalling the widespread and irrational
fear surrounding the overblown Y2K computer problem, I think perhaps
people were just as fearful then as now, but their fear was tempered
by the illusion of prosperity that prevailed during the latter 1990s.
What might be some possible
explanations for our national epidemic of fear?
Financial Insecurity
Financial security has declined sharply in the last three decades, thanks
to globalization and the shift away from high paying, secure manufacturing
jobs to lower paying, tenuous service jobs. In the last three decades
we’ve experienced several powerful financial shocks: double digit
inflation as we exited the 1970s and entered the 1980s, severe recessions
in the early 1980s and early 1990s, and bursting stock market and housing
bubbles in the 2000s. These shocks left people feeling vulnerable and
bewildered about how to protect their wealth and safeguard their future.
During the 1980s Americans
felt economically threatened by the ascendancy of Japan; today they
feel the same threat from China’s ascendancy. But why should Americans
feel economically threatened by another country’s progress? Because
by the 1980s Americans were no longer in control of their career destinies.
By the 1980s much of the American labor market was controlled by multinational
corporations that had no qualms about shipping formerly American jobs
to other countries. In the 1980s the destination for these jobs was
Japan; today it’s China. In earlier times, many Americans were
self-employed or worked for small, local businesses and had a great
deal more control over their destinies.
Perhaps the way to counter
fear about financial security is for people to return to the earlier
model when they were in control of their lives. Doing this will necessitate
a drastic change in most of our lifestyles, in particular, to a much
lower cost of living. Yet this is possible if people are willing to
move back to depopulated rural areas, take labor intensive jobs in local
agriculture and manufacturing, and grow food on their own property.
Even if such people lack financial security in terms of dollars and
cents, having an inexpensive roof over their heads, home grown food
to eat, and a supportive network of family and friends will go a long
way toward fostering a sense of real security. I have spent considerable
time browsing the Internet looking at rural property for sale. Many
houses, including enough land to grow a vegetable garden, can be purchased
in rural areas for one or two year’s worth of rent in an urban
area. My house is such a house. Reducing one’s cost of living
in this manner doesn’t mean a reduction in one’s standard
of living. In fact, the opposite is true: our quality of life will improve,
and I can say that from personal experience. Of course, people who have
been brainwashed by corporate advertising will be incredulous that one’s
quality of life can improve by moving to the “sticks” and
eschewing materialism.
Deification of Greed
The deification of greed (“Greed is good,” from the 1980s
movie “Wall Street”) has made those who are not “successful”
feel inadequate. Such people fear becoming social outcasts by “missing
out” on the latest investment boom, whether it be in stocks or
houses; or because they don’t drive the fanciest, most powerful
car; or because they don’t wear the hippest clothes; or because
they aren’t festooned with all the trendiest technological gadgets.
The fear of looking like a “failure” in a material sense,
which is all that seems to matter anymore, drives people to acquire
those phony emblems of success using debt, which then causes financial
insecurity, which fuels fear.
Although I appear to be talking
more about materialism here than greed, materialism is the principal
vehicle for satisfying greed. Grotesque displays of greed are not scorned
today, but are lauded, aspired to. However, most of us are too poor
to participate in ostentatious displays of greed, such as building a
50,000 square foot house or buying a 200 foot yacht, so we are relegated
to mimicking the rich by stretching to acquire the materialistic trappings
of “success” that we can afford, or pretend we can afford.
People need to relearn to
be themselves. Don’t worry about what other people think of you.
Don’t succumb to peer pressure to acquire the latest and greatest
doodad, unless you truly desire it and can afford it. Personal success
or failure should be defined by each individual. I’m not rich,
but I feel my life has been more or less successful. I know who I am
and I like who I am. And I don’t need to use material things to
reinforce my self esteem. I’ve never been embarrassed to drive
a wreck of a car, and I’ve owned many such cars. I’m not
embarrassed to wear shabby clothes or go unshaven if I’m more
comfortable that way. If people are too shallow to accept me for who
I am rather than what I possess, then I probably don’t want to
be acquainted with them anyway.
Government and Media
The government and the media have, with seeming relish, sought to instill
fear in Americans. The government does so to compel citizens to relinquish
their rights, contrary to the prescient advice of Benjamin Franklin.
The media enjoys instilling fear to raise their ratings (“If it
bleeds, it leads”).
Of course, in a fascist system
such as the United States has become, where the government and the corporate-owned
media have developed a symbiotic relationship, it’s no longer
surprising that the two speak with one tongue.
Virtually no field has been
left un-sown with seeds of fear: terrorism, domestic and foreign; “other”
races; unsafe food; diseases; unsafe children’s toys; chemicals;
pollutants; drugs; guns; crime; religions; cults; identity theft; sex;
and now climate change.
The government stokes these
fears using “official” mechanisms, such as feel-good legislation
that doesn’t really accomplish anything other than to heighten
public awareness of, and anxiety about a potential danger; by parading
manufactured villains before the public; or with cute devices such as
color coded terrorism threat scales, or maps showing the residence locations
of “sex offenders.”
The media feeds fear with
TV shows such as “24,” “Cops,” “America’s
Most Wanted,” and that “news” program, the name of
which escapes me, that seeks to entrap sexual predators, stoking fear
while turning sick perversion into titillating entertainment.
While there are genuine potential
dangers in some of these areas – NEWS FLASH: life is risky –
the likelihood of any American being directly affected by one of these
threats is grossly overblown by the government and the media. Yet it
seems that Americans feel vulnerable to all of these threats, all the
time! What a way to live.
I don’t know if the
dumbing down of Americans is the result of a sinister conspiracy, of
our ever declining educational standards, of apathy and intellectual
laziness on the part of Americans, or of Americans simply working harder
and harder to stay in place so that they don’t have any time or
energy left to become engaged, so they rely on partisan sound bites
for their information. Whatever the reason for Americans’ lack
of insight about the real threats posed by these fertile fields of fear,
it is that lack of insight that makes Americans vulnerable to manipulation
by the government and the media.
What is especially sad is
that Americans have been brainwashed into always believing their government,
and more importantly, that questioning their government is unpatriotic.
I don’t believe in patriotism, at least as it’s presented
today, as blind allegiance to the government. Blind faith such as that
deprives one of the opportunity to use their intellect to weigh the
facts and draw their own conclusions. There are times when I will stand
behind my government, and times when I will not. In any case, the government
is not the nation, so it’s improper to equate allegiance to the
government with patriotism, which is what the government has done for
self-serving reasons.
Individual Americans should
ask themselves what harm they’ve suffered recently and how does
the frequency of the harm they’ve actually suffered correlate
with the degree of threat hyped by the government and the media. I think
people will discover that real life is far less dangerous than the propaganda
would have us believe. We should make an extra effort to study the things
that we fear. The best antidote to fear is knowledge. Knowing the reality
of the dangers we face will inoculate us against manipulation of our
fears. We must also study the causes of the threats we face. We must
have the intellectual courage to honestly assess whether our behavior
is increasing or decreasing particular dangers, such as the threat of
terrorism.
We should also take everything
the agenda-driven media reports with a big grain of salt. Aside from
the obvious profit motives that taint its reporting, the mainstream
media has allowed itself to become the propaganda mouthpiece of the
government. Instead of passively absorbing the soothing, brainwashing
emanations of the TV, we should make the effort to seek out, research,
and cross check the news for ourselves. The Internet makes this quite
easy, at least for now. The powers that be are clearly trying to reign
in the freedom that the Internet offers today. That’s what this
whole “net neutrality” debate is about.
Immigration
Immigration has been a chronic cause of fear in America. According to
some people the U.S. is apparently being flooded with Mexican immigrants
who are bypassing the orderly legal immigration process – which
is tacitly endorsed by the government and corporations, by the way –
and supposedly taking jobs away from Americans. Whether Mexicans are
actually taking jobs from Americans or not, the mere possibility of
an American losing his or her job to an immigrant evokes fear. And of
course, we innately xenophobic human beings are initially fearful of
any people we perceive as “different.”
It seems that the most recent
immigrants to America are always convenient scapegoats for any problems
of the day. Today the scapegoat group is Mexican immigrants. In the
1970s and 1980s it was Vietnamese and Cuban immigrants. Before that
it was Italian and Irish immigrants. Before that it was Chinese immigrants.
This list of persecuted immigrant groups is merely illustrative, but
by no means exhaustive.
When America was thriving
economically there was plenty of wealth to go around, so after a time
Americans grudgingly accepted each new group of immigrants. During the
waves of immigration that began in the 1970s, however, it seems though
the animosity toward immigrants has grown more intense, probably because
our standard of living has been declining at the same time. More people
sharing a shrinking pie does not make people happy.
Why should immigrants be
a cause of fear? Is it because they are “different” from
us? If so, then perhaps the way to quell fear is to get to know these
immigrants. I’ve had occasion recently to talk with Mexican immigrants
and have had no problem getting along with them or seeing them as little
different from me. In fact, I’ve found them to be more open and
friendly than many Americans. As always, fear of the unknown can be
overcome by knowing.
Are illegal Mexican immigrants
today really taking jobs from Americans? If so, then it’s probably
occurring mostly in occupations that are controlled by corporations,
such as in the service sector and large scale agriculture. Despite official
condemnation of illegal immigration, illegal immigrants help keep the
economic engine of corporate America humming. They are officially condemned,
but unofficially welcomed. One solution is for Americans to create jobs
for themselves that cannot be taken away. That is, become self-employed.
Of course, even this is not a perfect solution if one’s chosen
trade is also popular with illegal immigrants, such as construction
or landscaping. Unfortunately, illegal immigrants are often willing
to work for less money than Americans, but the main reason they can
afford to do so is that they have a lower cost of living. The lesson,
then, is that if Americans want to compete directly with illegal immigrants,
they have to reduce their cost of living too. The alternative is to
select a trade that’s not popular with illegal immigrants, or
for which they are not qualified because they lack the necessary education
or language skills. Attempting to stop the flow of illegal immigrants
is probably futile, unless we repeal corporate-backed treaties such
as NAFTA, which has severely harmed Mexico’s economy, or the new
SPP, so it would be better to find a way to cope with illegal immigration.
Urbanization
Urbanization has undermined self-efficacy and made people overly dependent
on others and too little dependent on themselves. I grew up as an urbanite,
and I still love urban life. Yet a few years ago I moved to rural Kentucky,
which I also love. One of the first things I discovered is that out
here one has to be self-sufficient. One cannot simply open up the phone
book and choose from a plethora of services for hire. So I’ve
reluctantly become a roofer, electrician, landscaper, tree trimmer,
exterminator, house framer, carpenter, floorer, plasterer, blind installer,
plumber, painter, appliance installer, household mover, auto mechanic,
bicycle mechanic, farmer, and furniture repairer. Many of my neighbors,
including some who are pretty old, are equally self-sufficient. When
I lived in cities I used to farm out all of these tasks. Now it’s
easier to do them myself than try to find someone else to do them. While
I don’t particularly enjoy many of these activities, I do appreciate
the renewed feeling of self confidence that I’ve acquired as a
result. During a phone conversation just the other day, my cousin told
me that I sound more confident than I did before I moved to Kentucky.
By contrast, living in an
urban environment, one becomes dependent on a good job to pay for the
high cost of living; public transit and taxis to get around; police
for protection; people available for hire to perform any kind of service;
stores and restaurants and entertainment venues (I’ve returned
to reading books for entertainment and enlightenment); a saturation
of infrastructure, including high speed Internet access outside of one’s
house and dependable mobile communications (my mobile phone doesn’t
work on my property, so a few weeks ago when my land line went out I
had to drive a mile to get close to a mobile phone tower to call the
telephone company). I’ve grown accustomed to living without all
these things that urbanites take for granted. It took some getting used
to, but in the end, it’s really not much of a loss at all.
The high population density
associated with urbanization also increases the likelihood of our being
afflicted by frightening diseases or victimized by crime or terrorism.
It’s one thing to read about the crime rate or a horrific disease
in a far off city. It’s downright frightening to read about crimes
or diseases in your own city, where perhaps you spend a lot of time
in public places.
For the better part of a
century there has been a migration from rural America to urban and then
suburban locales. I believe a reversal of that trend, a re-population
of rural America, would do much to restore our self-confidence and reduce
our fearfulness. And where I live, I have no fear whatsoever of crime,
disease, or terrorism.
Environmental Desecration
and Destruction
Environmental desecration and destruction, real or imagined, has long
been a source of fear for Americans. Surprisingly, the vast majority
of Americans – perhaps 80% – favor protecting the environment,
which probably explains why they seem easily threatened by environmental
problems. In the 1970s the grave concern was pollution (recall the anti-littering
TV commercials featuring the teary-eyed native American). Today it’s
the scarier and more nebulous concept of climate change.
I am an environmentalist
at heart. I do everything I can to minimize my impact on the environment,
to leave as small a footprint as possible. Nevertheless, I don’t
buy into the anthropogenic climate change hysteria, and I have nothing
to gain by rejecting this mantra. First of all, the earth’s climate
has been changing for 4.5 billion years. It would be astonishing if
our climate were not changing today. We know the earth has undergone
radical climate changes in the past, without human cause. We also know
that the earth regularly cycles between climate episodes, such as ice
ages and warm periods, dating back to before humans even existed. It’s
amusing to recall that back in the 1970s there was a hysteria about
global cooling that was to occur with the onset of an overdue ice age.
Today it’s global warming – oops, sorry, climate change.
Even if humans are somehow responsible for today’s climate changes,
it’s the result of nearly two centuries of industrial activity.
It stands to reason that it will take two more centuries to reverse
the damage we’ve caused, during which time we will have to cease
all industrial activity.
Governments around the world,
and most recently the U.S. government, have discovered that people can
be terrified by predictions of environmental devastation, and that this
terror can be channeled into convincing people to give up their rights
in order to avert this coming environmental apocalypse. Countless acts
of legislation are being formulated around the world to exploit and
fuel this fear of environmental devastation in order to tax and control
people.
Why fear something that we
cannot control? As I said, even if we are responsible for climate change,
we will effect no evident improvement to the climate within our lifetimes.
The best we can do is seek to minimize our individual impact on the
environment and hope for the best. If we are not responsible for climate
change, then there is also little we can do, except what I’ve
already advised. So why be afraid? Why not instead recognize that humans
are marvelously adaptable and trust that we will find a way to cope
with whatever climate changes occur? For instance, where I live I would
be quite happy with warmer winters and an extended crop growing season.
I’m not making light of climate change. I realize that such changes
bring negative consequences as well as positive ones. I’m simply
pointing out that if the climate is going to change, we might as well
find a way to work with it instead of cowering with irrational fear.
Unwholesome Food
Unwholesome food probably plays a role in elevating Americans’
anxiety. When people lived in rural areas they ate wholesome, farm-fresh
foods and drank well water. Now they eat fast food garbage oozing from
the unsanitary orifices of food factories and drink water contaminated
with chlorine and fluoride and god knows what else. It seems to me that
this unhealthful diet has to affect peoples’ mood, behavior, and
thinking ability. In addition to any physiological effects unwholesome
food might have, thanks to the globalization of agriculture people are
more anxious than ever about what’s in their food and where it
came from.
Unfortunately, our declining
standard of living, combined with misguided government subsidies to
corporate agribusinesses have together pushed people away from wholesome
foods toward this garbage we call food. Because more people in a household
have to work longer hours, they are forced to eat highly processed,
chemical-laden, microwaveable food or fast food. And because government
subsidies encourage the production of junk food instead of wholesome
food, junk food is cheaper.
Were people to move back
to rural areas and eat fresh produce from their own yards or nearby
farms, drink purer water, and eat home cooked meals, they’d probably
be healthier, happier, less stressed, and have one less thing to fear:
their food.
Modern Medicine
Modern medicine in America seems paradoxical to me. On the one hand,
treatment of disease is far more profitable than prevention, so the
former is emphasized and the latter is shunned. On the other hand, the
medical system seems to encourage people to be afraid of so many things,
so long as it can sell prophylactic medicines to “prevent”
whatever it is that people are supposed to be afraid of. So the medical
system simultaneously avoids preventing genuine, serious diseases while
selling medicines to prevent dubious diseases, such as “restless
leg syndrome.”
Why do people take so many
medications today? It seems it’s out of fear of being afflicted
by some disease or suffering the slightest discomfort. When I was a
kid, hardly anybody took medications, at least chronically. Today it
seems like many people, at least older people, are taking two or three
medications, and some are taking quite a lot more. Some people are taking
so many medications that some of their medications are to counteract
the effect of others! Has the human species evolved so much in my lifetime
that it can no longer survive without medicines? Are we living better,
longer, because of those medicines?
Then there’s the explosion
of antibacterial products: dish soaps, hand sanitizers, and household
cleaning products. I recently read that there are more bacteria inside
the human body than cells! And we’re worried about a little bacteria
on our hands? It’s been my observation that the human mind and
body thrive when exercised, and I believe that includes the immune system.
It’s my hypothesis that mild exposure to pathogens exercises the
body’s immune system, making it stronger. So at best, antibacterial
products are probably counterproductive, if they even work at all. To
me, the thing that stands out is the fear people have of exposure to
a little bacteria, a fear promulgated by TV commercials.
Or look at flu vaccines.
I recall with amusement the panic that ensued a couple of years ago
when there was an insufficient supply of flu vaccine, and how people
resorted to unscrupulous tactics to secure for themselves a shot of
flu vaccine, as if it were a matter of life and death. It struck me
at the time that people seemed more afraid of not getting a shot of
flu vaccine than of getting the flu! Is a flu vaccine any more effective
than just avoiding situations that might expose one to the flu and washing
one’s hands regularly? Is there any need to panic just because
one cannot obtain a shot of flu vaccine? Of course, the media loves
to hype such shortages and drive people to panic, fearing they won’t
get their lifesaving dose of flu vaccine. It’s a wonder that the
human species managed to survive all these millennia without all these
medications.
Or how about the emotional
roller coaster of dietary recommendations from the “experts.”
It seems as if every food has at one time or another been demonized
and lauded. It seems that virtually everything causes cancer. Instead
of allowing ourselves be terrorized by these scare tactics, maybe we
should stop listening to these so-called experts and just use our own
common sense and eat what we like in sensible proportions.
The human body is remarkably
capable of taking care of itself. It can repair injuries and neutralize
pathogens. Sometimes it needs a little assistance, but most of the time
all the body needs is proper nutrition, exercise, and rest, three things
that seem to be in short supply in modern America. If we take good care
of ourselves we needn’t be so fearful of disease.
Political Correctness
Political correctness has made Americans afraid of expressing an opinion.
Not only do they fear social ostracism for thinking “differently”
from the herd, but they fear the very real prospect of losing their
jobs. It’s not just radio or TV hosts whose jobs are at risk for
a politically incorrect slip of the tongue. Even a lowly airline employee
who posts revealing photos of herself on the Internet, not involving
her employer in any way, can be fired because her company fears her
behavior may subject the company to charges of condoning politically
incorrect behavior. Even an esteemed ex-President who dares to criticize
Israel in the mildest fashion can be subjected to vicious attacks because
it’s politically incorrect to criticize Israel.
What’s worse than embracing
the notion of political correctness is our zero tolerance approach to
dealing with offenders. Nobody is allowed to redress a mistake anymore.
One mistake and the public ghoulishly bellows, “Off with his head.”
People are prone to making mistakes, and unless they are given a chance
to redress their mistakes and learn from them, they will probably just
keep making the same mistakes. Instead of giving people a chance to
use their mistakes to become better and wiser, punishing them will probably
just reinforce their objectionable beliefs or at least make them bitter.
It seems to me everybody
should be allowed to express their opinion, no matter how offensive
it is. People hearing an objectionable opinion have three choices: they
can stop listening, they can challenge the opinion, or they can make
a mental note to apply more critical thinking to opinions that person
expresses in the future. When people make a habit of expressing offensive
or demonstrably wrong opinions, other people will eventually dismiss
such people as nuts and their opinions will carry no weight (Ann Coulter
comes to mind). There is a fourth choice too: punishing a person for
expressing an “incorrect” opinion. That seems to be the
option we as a society have zealously embraced.
Why are people so afraid
of letting others express a divergent opinion? Surely if a popular belief
is sound it can withstand being questioned and debated. If a belief
is not sound then it should be debated, refuted, and abandoned. Maybe
it’s like homosexuality. People seem to believe that gay and straight
are on opposite sides of a sharp dividing line and that a single homosexual
act tosses a straight person to the other side of that line. (I wonder,
does a single heterosexual act make one straight again?) That’s
why insecure straight men get so uptight about homoeroticism. They know
that a single “transgression” will brand them “gay.”
Similarly, I think people are afraid of having even one of their beliefs
shown to be wrong, as if harboring a single demonstrably wrong belief
makes all of their beliefs wrong. Maybe people are too insecure to accept
that they can be wrong about some things while being right about others.
So political correctness becomes a personal defense mechanism. If people
just adopt the officially sanctioned beliefs they cannot be criticized
and their beliefs cannot be challenged – political correctness
sees to that. Since their beliefs cannot be challenged, their beliefs
cannot be shown to be wrong, and the person’s mental temple remains
unperturbed. It might also be that acknowledging upsetting truths will
demand action, and people are basically lazy. For example, if Americans
believed – and cared – that Israel was committing genocide
against the Palestinians, paid for by the U.S., they might feel compelled
to act, to demand a change in U.S. policy. Since today’s political
correctness forbids criticism of Israel on any grounds, people are free
to ignore what’s going on in Israel and console themselves that
Israel is simply protecting its right to exist.
Surprisingly, universities,
which once seemed to be sanctuaries of free thought are now prisons
of thought conformity. Many of our politically correct notions seem
to emanate from universities today. Why should that be? Judging from
the uniformity of thought evident at many different universities, I
think that government and perhaps corporate domination of universities
is somehow responsible. Not only are many universities operated by state
governments, but most universities, public and private, receive lucrative
funding from the federal government. These two facts place the government
in a prime position to dictate to the universities what constitutes
acceptable thought. Although some politically correct thoughts, such
as affirmative action, are openly codified, the government need not
explicitly dictate all such thoughts. Politically correct thoughts can
be nurtured, and politically incorrect thoughts extinguished through
example. A professor seeking research funds for government approved
realms of thought will get funding; a professor seeking funds for realms
of thought the government disapproves of will not.
Eventually the administrators
at the university get the message about what kind of thought is acceptable
and what is not, and then they become the enforcers. Political correctness
flows down from the administrators, to the professors, and suffuses
throughout the student body. Students, interested in finding jobs after
graduation, understand that they have to conform in order to get a job
– implicitly a corporate or government job – so they suspend
their “deviant” views, temporarily. But when people get
in the habit of temporarily suspending their own beliefs, eventually
it becomes ingrained. Behavior becomes Pavlovian. Witness the reaction
of that Florida university student body to the tasering of one of their
own – they applauded. Why” Because the student asked politically
incorrect questions about the 2004 election, a topic that still demands
vigorous investigation.
It’s not just universities
that impose political correctness on their students. Elementary schools
initiate the inculcation of political correctness and are actually even
more oppressive. “Zero tolerance” is the favorite phrase
in public schools anymore. I’ve read several stories about children
as young as five years old being punished for drawing a gun in art class.
Guns, of course, are one of the most politically incorrect symbols today.
Is not “zero tolerance” the antithesis of civilization,
which should instead promote tolerance? Aren’t Islamic countries,
which Americans are so afraid of these days, infamous for their “zero
tolerance” policies? It’s politically incorrect to practice
zero tolerance toward gays in Iran, but acceptable to practice zero
tolerance toward gun-drawing kindergarteners in America.
A specific example of political
correctness run amok is California’s new law that imposes a fine
of $100 for smoking in a car containing minors. It is not clear who
gets fined if a non-driver is smoking. What if the only minor in the
car is the one doing the smoking? What if the smoker opens a window
to exhaust the smoke? That state is also exploring banning smoking in
apartment complexes. It has banned smoking within 25 feet of a playground,
and virtually all indoor, and many outdoor public places. What’s
next? Banning smoking in one’s allegedly owned house when children
are present? I’ll be surprised if this isn’t the next law
to be passed. Why not ban smoking in one’s backyard when children
are present? I don’t smoke, but this is getting ridiculous. Smokers
must feel like they are under assault. You know, if I don’t want
to be around smokers I just move away or politely ask them to refrain
from smoking. The last time I picked up a hitchhiker I let him smoke
in my car. I just had him crack his window and the smoke went right
out without bothering me. There used to be a time when people were allowed
to employ courtesy. Smokers are not even given the chance anymore to
be courteous and smoke when and where they won’t bother anyone.
They are simply crushed like a cigarette butt under the tyranny of laws
imposed by the “moral” majority. Were I a smoker, I would
be fearful of what anti-smoking law the majority was going to pass next.
(Isn’t it interesting how the state is persecuting smokers –
though not the corporations that manufacture cigarettes – yet
it looks the other way concerning the diesel exhaust spewing from trucks.
We mustn’t impose an undue burden on the poor corporate trucking
industry.)
To many people smoking is
a vile habit, so they feel no regret about the plight of smokers. But
where does this kind of politically correct thinking stop? Many states
require people to wear seatbelts in cars and helmets on motorcycles.
New York city has barred people from eating a particular kind of fat.
Many counties where I live are “dry,” meaning one cannot
buy alcohol there, although consumption of alcohol acquired elsewhere
is permitted. In Britain they’re talking about monitoring kids’
health and penalizing the parents if the kids are deemed “unhealthy.”
The logical extension of such thinking is to monitor everyone’s
health and punish anyone deemed by the government to be “unhealthy.”
Do we want such a policy here? Wouldn’t such a policy cause tremendous
anxiety in the population? I mean, in addition to all one’s other
worries, under such a regimen people would also have to worry about
conforming to capricious state guidelines regarding the most personal
of matters: one’s health.
And what of McMansions and
SUVs? I have neither, but I don’t begrudge others the right to
have them. After all, the owners of such hated symbols are paying for
them. They are paying higher prices to buy them, higher taxes to the
government, and higher fuel costs (and fuel taxes) to run them. But,
of course, it’s politically incorrect to defend such symbols.
Of all the causes of fear
in America, political correctness is perhaps the most difficult to counter,
if only because violating the rules of political correctness carries
potentially serious consequences, such as the loss of a job. While it’s
relatively easy for an individual to break the shackles that reign in
his or her opinions, how does one force everyone else who hears those
opinions to consider them thoughtfully and not dismiss them as politically
incorrect? We cannot force others to open their minds. The best we can
do is open our own minds and try to set an example for others. We spend
far too much time worrying about what others are doing, and not enough
time examining our own lives to ensure that we live up to the standards
we would impose on others.
Sensitive topics can be broached
diplomatically. One doesn’t have to bluntly state an opinion as
it it’s a fact, closed to discussion. One can instead offer an
opinion and invite discussion. I have done this with people where I
live, gently challenging some of their views. Instead of being offended,
some of these people have described me as a “breath of fresh air.”
Government Brutality
Government brutality has long been employed in despotic countries to
instill fear in the subject population; today it’s being used
for that purpose here. The nationwide unleashing of police brutality
and the unjustifiable, reflexive arrest of peaceful protesters almost
seems coordinated from on high, as if it’s some kind of massive
psychological operation intended to terrorize Americans into submitting
to their government. Such a scheme would dovetail with all the recently
passed laws and presidential executive orders apparently crafted to
impose a police state in America with the throw of a switch.
One might assume that the
government would seek to conceal its ugly activities regarding the torture
of “enemy combatants,” the rendition of victims to foreign
countries to be tortured, and the denial of constitutionally protected
rights to American citizens. Yet exposure of these tactics instills
fear in the American public. Slowly, Americans are starting to realize,
even if only deep within the recesses of their subconscious, that they
are not safe from their government. If the government wants to lock
up any one of us and throw away the key, it can do so. If that doesn’t
inspire fear in us, then we must be comatose. The English had their
Tower of London; America has Guantanamo. Both are symbols of government
power intended to fill the hearts of citizens with terror.
Observing the participation
of the mercenary corps known as Blackwater in both Iraq and New Orleans,
I believe that it is being exercised for future deployment here in America.
Besides training the members of Blackwater in effective tactics and
to be insensitive to the people they oppress, the government is fine
tuning its tactics for deploying these mercenaries. When the police
state here becomes overt, Blackwater may well become a new instrument
for instilling fear in the American public. Currently such fears are
only hypothetical and are harbored by a small minority of the population
who recognize the potential dangers in utilizing such forces, which
are free of any accountability.
A significant percentage
of Americans now believe 9/11 was an “inside job.” For the
first three years following 9/11 I accepted the official account. But
following the publication of the 9/11 Commission Report I started to
get suspicious. Not only was the report itself wanting, but one day
it suddenly dawned on me how similar the events before, during, and
after 9/11 were to those of the Oklahoma City bombing, which I had long
ago concluded was perpetrated by the U.S. government for similar motivations,
namely, to pass Clinton’s repressive legislation. The more I investigated
9/11, the more fishy the official story smelled. Today I am 99% convinced
that the U.S. government was deeply involved in perpetrating 9/11, and
I’m not alone. Many ordinary Americans and many highly educated
experts in various fields of study harbor similar suspicions. All we
mere citizens have to work with in the cases of Oklahoma City and 9/11
is circumstantial evidence because the government, in the name of “national
security,” conceals from us all the physical evidence, but in
both cases there are mountains of circumstantial evidence of government
involvement. Frankly, the London and Madrid subway bombings smell of
government involvement too.
There’s also no doubt
that the war in Iraq was desired before 9/11. There’s increasing
evidence that the Patriot Act was written before 9/11. And now there’s
new evidence that warrantless spying on Americans began before 9/11.
What the sought for war in Iraq and the Patriot Act needed to become
reality was a justification, a “New Pearl Harbor,” which
9/11 conveniently provided.
What effect do such momentous
conclusions have on one’s psyche? It should scare the hell out
of most people to acknowledge that their own government could commit
such horrific acts in order to justify repressive legislation at home
and unjustified wars abroad. It has certainly had that effect on me.
The significant numbers of Americans who believe the government was
involved in 9/11 probably cope with that belief in different ways, including
simply avoiding thinking about it. Nevertheless, the fears are still
there, gnawing away in the back of one’s mind. People have pointed
out that governments sometimes use shock treatment to pummel their subjects
into submission. Well, 9/11 was one doozie of a shock. About the only
thing that could surpass it in shock value would be a nuclear detonation
in an American city ...
Some government brutality
is psychological rather than physical. For instance, “airport
security” is primarily intended to inculcate Americans to being
corralled, herded, and humiliated by the government. How many “terrorists”
has tightened airport security intercepted in the last six years? None.
How many Americans have been terrorized, humiliated, and inconvenienced
by tightened airport security in the last six years? Millions.
The various “watch
lists” are tools for terrorizing Americans. I’ve read several
comments recently by ordinary Americans who are genuinely fearful of
being put on these watch lists. I admit, that I’m afraid of being
put on these lists myself, and I fear essays like this one will expedite
my inclusion on such lists. I’ve lost track of how many loyal
Americans, including active duty military soldiers and officers, who
have found themselves on these lists. Clearly, any list of potential
terrorists that includes large numbers of loyal Americans, such as the
government’s own soldiers, cannot be all that effective. So why
do these lists exist? Because they give the government the power to
deprive Americans of the freedom to travel. And, shrouded in secrecy,
such lists are convenient tools for punishing Americans who criticize
the government. These lists are nothing but tools of psychological brutality.
Another kind of psychological
brutality is the government’s recruiting of us citizens to tattle
on each other. I read an article recently about a child being interrogated
by his doctor to inform on his parents’ lifestyle! Driving down
the freeway in urban areas one sees signs reading, “Report drunk
drivers.” In airports and subways one hears, “Report suspicious
activity.” We have volunteer citizen patrols now that wander through
our neighborhoods looking for suspicious activity. What qualifies as
suspicious rather than simply nonconforming activity? I guess that’s
up to the citizens doing the patrolling to decide. If you piss off you
neighbor today you might yourself being reported to the “authorities.”
Must we now fear our neighbors and our own children? It would seem so.
This is so “1984.”
Voter disenfranchisement
is another form of psychological brutality. Depriving people of the
opportunity to vote increases their sense of helplessness. Some disenfranchisement
techniques deliberately instill the fear of arrest in would-be voters
should they attempt to exercise their right to vote.
In between physical and psychological
brutality is economic brutality. Asset forfeiture, which started out
targeting the mafia, has undergone steady mission creep, and now gobbles
up the assets of drug dealers, drug users, people who hire prostitutes
(and even people who decline the uninvited services of undercover cops
posing as prostitutes), drunk drivers, terrorists, and law-abiding citizens
carrying any amount of cash the government deems “excessive.”
The government has an incentive to confiscate peoples’ assets
as well because it gets to keep the cash proceeds from auctioning those
assets. The government circumvents the Constitution by absurdly charging
one’s assets, rather than the individual, with a crime. Assets
are not guaranteed due process by the Constitution, although I still
cannot see how asset forfeiture gets around the Fifth Amendment of the
Constitution. No doubt, the fear of having one’s assets confiscated
instills fear in many Americans.
Similar to asset forfeiture
are new executive orders “blocking” people’s property,
whatever that Orwellian phrase means. In the last five years president
Bush has issued fourteen executive orders “blocking” peoples’
property for various reasons. These orders mean that, among other things,
one’s bank accounts are frozen. Imagine trying to survive in our
modern society without access to your money. Most peoples’ lives
in America would be quickly ruined if they could not access their money.
In addition, these “blocking” orders extend to associates
of “blocked” people, and then to associates of associates,
and so on. Assuming the six degrees of separation theory is correct,
a mere six iterations of this blocking process could “block”
the property of all Americans.
One of the things that’s
wrong with our whole system of government and business is that it lauds
competition. Competition may be fine for genetic traits or animals,
but humans, by virtue of their intellect, should be more sophisticated
than that. It seems that the people best equipped to compete against
other people are those without the burden of a conscience. In fact,
the more of a sociopath one is, the higher they are likely to rise in
government or business. That’s because decent people will not
engage in the sort of behavior that sociopaths will, which gives the
latter the advantage.
Ultimately, it seems that
one has to essentially become a criminal to reach the top tiers of government
or business. It’s no surprise, then, that a thuggish, criminal
mentality trickles down through the ranks to the foot soldiers at the
bottom, such as our increasingly brutal police. Making matters worse,
the Army is issuing increasing numbers of “moral waivers”
in order to admit genuine criminals into its ranks.
Perhaps one way to improve
the caliber of people serving in the government is to replace voluntary
service with mandatory service. Like we do with jury duty, we could
issue people a summons to be a senator, congressman, or policeman for
a single term of service. (I deliberately avoided proposing the application
of this concept to soldiers – i.e. conscription – because
I oppose maintaining a standing army.) Once a person served in a particular
position, they could never do so again. Such an approach would recruit
a much more representative cross section of society into government,
and since they would serve only a single term, there would be a constant
flow of fresh and contemporary ideas into government. This, I believe,
was the original intent behind the House of Representatives. People
might object to such a scheme on the grounds that the people serving
would be amateurs. Not only do I view that as a plus, but how much worse
a job could amateurs do than the ossified politicians who are entrenched
in the government today? At the very least, this new approach would
greatly reduce the number of authoritarian sociopaths in government.
The “Injustice
System”
The “Injustice System” is, unfortunately, the best term
for the legal system we have in America today. Or as I like to say,
“Justice goes to the highest bidder.” Both criminal and
civil law have become farcical, miscarriages of justice.
It’s routine now for
prosecutors in criminal cases to pile on as many questionable charges
as possible in order to elicit a guilty plea from a defendant and bypass
a trial altogether. For example, if someone robs a bank today they are
likely to face at least three charges, each with their own prison time:
bank robbery, using a gun during the commission of a crime, and fleeing
the scene of a crime. For good measure they might also be charged with
possessing an unregistered firearm or carrying a concealed firearm.
And if they had a buddy along, then they might also be charged with
conspiracy. And if the two conspirators planned their crime via e-mail,
they might also be charged with wire fraud or some such thing. As a
result of all this charge stacking and plea bargaining, very few criminal
cases go to trial anymore. But just because the process results in the
incarceration of the criminal, is it a just process? Is it justice for
the prosecutor to pile on charges and threaten maximum retribution if
the defendant opts for a Constitutionally protected jury trial, just
to elicit a guilty plea?
Until recently, the justice
system punished people for what they did, not what they thought. Modern
hate crime laws punish people for what they think. Is the hurt felt
by the victim of a crime dependent on what the perpetrator thinks? And
how can the thoughts of the perpetrator be ascertained reliably enough
– i.e. “beyond a reasonable doubt” – to qualify
as justice? Hate crime laws simply create more reasons for people to
be fearful. It’s not enough anymore to fear merely being a victim
of crime. No, now we have to fear being singled out to become a crime
victim because we are gay, black, foreign, or whatever.
The logical extension of
hate crime laws that punish people for what they think is laws that
punish people for what they intend to do. Has anybody seen the movie
“Minority Report”? That is today’s reality! Many individuals
have been arrested in America because they intended to travel overseas
to have sex with children. These people are arrested in a completely
different country from where the crime is supposed to occur sometime
in the future! Senator Larry Craig was arrested because he supposedly
intended to arrange for sex in a public restroom. As I understand it,
the Senator spoke no words and didn’t touch or even see his would-be
partner until he was arrested. He certainly was not engaged in an act
of public sex, which is generally illegal. What if the Senator had simply
left the restroom? Or what if the would-be child molester changed his
mind on the way to Thailand and upon arriving engaged in nothing more
criminal than visiting tourist attractions? In these cases, no crimes
would have occurred. Yet the would-be perpetrators were preemptively
arrested anyway. How can any “justice” system punish people
for crimes they have not yet committed?
Then there’s the war
on drugs. Half of the more than two million people in prison in America
– more prisoners than in any other nation on Earth – are
there for drug offenses, in many cases mere possession of drugs for
personal use. What is the justification? That these users are harming
themselves? If so, then we need to make cigarettes, alcohol, and fast
food illegal immediately. And how much harm does the incarceration inflict
compared to the drug use? And why should some drugs be banned, when
other, more damaging drugs are legal? I’m speaking, of course,
of cigarettes and alcohol, which cause more harm and kill more people
than all other drugs combined. Could it be that the corporations that
manufacture alcohol and cigarettes are politically well connected? Is
a system that gives preferential treatment to politically connected
corporations really a system of “justice”? Or is it a system
of “Justice goes to the highest bidder”?
And what of our wonderful
death penalty? Between corrupt cops and prosecutors, incompetent public
defenders, and apathetic judges, there’s no question that innocent
people have been executed, and in the most cruel and degrading manner.
The recent Duke non-rape case is a perfect example of this corruption
in action. The depth of malfeasance that the police and the prosecutor
were willing to stoop to in that case was simply astounding. Had the
defendants been too poor to afford competent attorneys, they almost
certainly would have been convicted and the prosecutor would still be
in office. Unfortunately, many, many poor defendants have not been so
lucky and have been wrongfully convicted and even executed. It’s
not uncommon today for the government to resist examining DNA evidence,
a tool it championed, if it might exonerate someone who’s already
been convicted, even if that person is sitting on death row awaiting
execution. This is justice?
The civil “justice”
system is equally perverted. Today one can be sued for any reason, no
matter how frivolous. In fact, it’s routine now for opportunistic
people seeking to exploit a mishap to sue everybody even remotely connected
with a case, hoping to get a big settlement from whichever defendant
– it doesn’t matter which – has the deepest pockets.
Just recently I read about a police officer who is suing the grandparents
of a child who nearly drowned in a backyard swimming pool. The reason?
The officer, performing her duties by responding to an emergency, slipped
on a wet floor and broke her knee. Hello?! Isn’t there an implied
risk associated with being a police officer? Doesn’t the city
have insurance for on the job injuries? Obviously, this officer is exploiting
the justice system to indulge in a little opportunism, at the expense
of a family that has already suffered a horrendous loss, as the child
is brain damaged as a result of the mishap. Sadly, the officer will
probably prevail.
It pained me to ask some
local boys not to skateboard off my elevated front porch out of my fear
of legal liability. When I was a kid I did stuff like that all the time.
Christ, I could have sued the pants off lots of people back then for
all the injuries I suffered on their property. If only I had known ...
Lost in the myriad letters
of the law is the notion of “justice.” People can try all
they want to “do the right thing,” to have good intentions.
It doesn’t matter. All it takes is for a clever lawyer to be able
to show that they violated some letter of the law and they are screwed.
Of course, considering how many laws are on the books, it’s pretty
easy to find anyone in violation of some law these days. Purportedly,
the IRS used to boast that it could convict anyone of tax evasion, thanks
to the complex and contradictory tax code.
And what about the Christian
notion of forgiveness? I thought America was a Christian nation, and
that Christians are supposed to forgive even people who deliberately
commit wrongs. Yet our “justice” system refuses to forgive
even people who are merely declared negligent, even if unwittingly.
Why does America pick and choose which Christian principles it’s
going to abide by?
Then there’s eminent
domain. Once reserved as a tool for improving the common good, it has
now metastasized into a tool for corporations to acquire valuable real
estate on the cheap. Not surprisingly, these corporations just happen
to be politically well connected. Once again, “Justice goes to
the highest bidder.”
I think all Americans understand,
deep in their hearts, that unless one has a lot of money, the justice
system is simply not going to serve them, whether as a plaintiff or
a defendant. If that’s not proof of the system’s inherent
injustice, I don’t know what is.
How can people not feel fear
when their “justice” system is so capricious and so corrupted
by money?
The ultimate injustice is
when the government tells us that ignorance of the law is not an excuse
for violating the law. It’s the best excuse! Nobody in the government
is familiar with one-tenth of the laws on the books, so how can mere
citizens be expected to be aware of all the laws?
I think all laws need to
have a sunset clause so that they expire ten years after being enacted.
In fact, that would be an excellent constitutional amendment. If a law
is worthwhile, it will be easily renewed by the legislature. The effort
involved in having to renew laws will ensure that very few laws, other
than the most essential ones, will remain on the books. Such a whittling
down of the laws, as well as the government power that ensues from enforcing
the laws, will make America a much freer place.
We should seek to serve on
a jury and judge both the defendant and the law. I admit that I have
assiduously avoided jury duty my whole life because I’ve almost
always been self employed and jury duty would have severely impacted
my income. The last time I opted out of jury duty it was because it
was scheduled right in the middle of my previously planned two month
trip out of town. But now that I have such a low cost of living and
can better afford to take time off work, I think I will serve on a jury
if I’m asked again. Although most people, myself included, dread
jury duty, it’s about the only place where a mere citizen can
have any influence on the “injustice system.”
Religion
Religion in America has become increasingly partisan, absolutist, and
public. Not only has religion in America crossed the line separating
church and state by involving itself in politics, but the government
is now attempting to employ religion for its own purposes. Recently
it was disclosed that the Department of Homeland Security was quietly
working to recruit religious leaders to help the government control
citizens in the event martial law is imposed here. And the military
is riddled with proselytizers promoting religion within its ranks, as
well as influencing America’s agendas in other lands.
Religion, particularly Christianity,
has long used fear to control people. In the old days, the church instilled
fear in people by telling them they would go to hell. Nowadays people
don’t really believe in heaven and hell, so the church has resorted
to making people fearful of other religions, particularly Islam. The
church also tries to convince its members that their religion is under
assault from all sides by people hostile to religion. The irony is that
religious freedom has flourished in the United States because of the
separation of church and state. Look at countries where there is an
official state religion. They don’t have anywhere near the religious
freedom we have here. So fears that religion is under assault are simply
unsupported by reality. The reason religious people succumb to the fear
mongering that their religion is under assault is that the government
has largely resisted endorsing their particular religion. It is true
that Christians comprise the majority of religious people here. And
it is true that the government has mostly resisted adopting Christianity
as a governing principle for everyone else. That is hardly persecution.
Nevertheless, the fear of persecution persists.
Religion has also been active
in promoting fears about homosexuality and abortion, even though these,
like religion itself, ought to be personal matters that are nobody else’s
business.
In a supposedly free country
like the United States, people should be free to practice whatever religion
they wish, or none at all. And that includes not having their government
impose religious beliefs on them under the guise of public policy. Ironically,
some atheists – I’m an atheist – are so zealous in
their desire to purge religion from society that they behave like religious
fanatics. Atheism becomes, in effect, their religion. I find such people
nonconstructive and intolerant.
Religious people need to
recognize how much religion has flourished in this country and reject
the notion that religion is under assault. It is not. Atheists must
grant religious people the right to their own beliefs. We must recognize
that other people are really no different from us. Do American Christians
wake up each morning with a burning desire to conquer Islamic countries
just because they practice a different religion? If not, then why do
they believe that Islamic people have a single-minded desire to impose
Islam on them? In all likelihood, people in Islamic countries wake up
each morning, go to work, come home and have dinner with their families,
worry about their children, worry about putting food on the table, and
worry about paying the bills, just like their American counterparts.
Conclusion
I’ve cited a lengthy list of explanations for why Americans might
be fearful. Some emanate from the government, some from corporations,
and some from “society.” But what are governments, corporations,
and society? They are us. And the reason they have become sources of
fear is that we who serve in governments, corporations, and society
are losing our humanity.
We’re forgetting what
it means to be human, to have empathy, compassion, to care. We’re
elevating money and power above life. We’re neglecting to see
and appreciate the beauty of our world and its life forms. We’re
no longer seeing each other as human, but as “the other,”
a threat. We’re focusing on our differences rather than our more
numerous similarities. Human beings living in a society that has lost
its humanity cannot possibly feel truly secure.
Attacking another country,
such as Iran, which has done us no harm, ought to be unconscionable.
Yet it is openly discussed by the leading presidential candidates and
is apparently acceptable to a majority of Americans. We cavalierly discuss
the unjustified murder of men, women, and children – ordinary
people who are just like ourselves. How would we like having a 30,000
pound bomb fall in the middle of our neighborhood while our children
are playing outside? This is what we’re talking about visiting
upon Iran. Why are so few Americans horrified by this prospect? What
kind of people can be so cold hearted as to not be moved by such a prospect?
It’s up to each of
us individuals to look for ways to restore our dwindling humanity. Look
for opportunities to improve our society. For example, twice in the
past week I’ve gone over to my neighbor’s house to help
him with his computer. I really don’t enjoy helping people with
their computers, but I did so because I like my neighbor and I recognize
that helping him will strengthen the social fabric of our little community.
Although I did not help him with the expectation of getting anything
in return, in fact, I do get something in return: a more pleasant community
in which to live.
It’s understandable
that Americans, more harried than ever by their day to day struggle
to survive, feel overwhelmed by their finances, by immigration, by environmental
degradation, by the threat of terrorism. When one is overwhelmed with
a particular emotion – depression, sadness, fear – it’s
difficult to sit down and analyze why one is feeling that emotion, particularly
if one is short on time. However, it’s extremely useful to do
just that, to enumerate all the reasons why one feels depressed, sad,
or fearful. Often times, this exercise will reveal that just a single
factor is mostly responsible for the emotion one is feeling. At the
very least, enumerating the causes of one’s emotion allows one
to articulate, compartmentalize, examine, and constructively mitigate
each cause.
Some of the factors I cited
above frighten me, in particular, ever more oppressive government power.
Just knowing what, specifically, frightens me is actually soothing,
even if there’s little I can do to mitigate that fear. I don’t
feel an inarticulable, debilitating fear; I know exactly what frightens
me.
I realize that all Americans
aren’t afraid of all the things I cited above, but I’ll
bet all Americans are afraid of at least one of them. If we fail to
analyze our fears and determine what, specifically, we are afraid of,
then a generalized fear lurks in the back of our minds, unarticulated,
and easily channeled for nefarious purposes. Clearly a significant percentage
of Americans fall into this category, enough to lend support to the
government’s efforts to exploit that fear. Americans are a thousand
times as likely to die in a car crash (that happened just a month ago
to someone I knew) as in a terrorist attack. Americans’ misplaced
fear is simply irrational, perhaps the result of atrophied critical
thinking skills, our dumbed down educational system, or our agenda-driven
corporate-government media.
I suggested a number of times
above that people would be better off living in rural communities than
suburban or urban communities. Aside from improving our mental and physical
well being, moving to a rural community has practical advantages, namely,
a much lower cost of living. Young people living in expensive urban
areas have few prospects for getting ahead. But rural areas are ripe
with opportunity for enterprising young people with creative ideas and
abundant energy.
There was a time when it
made sense for Americans to migrate from rural areas to industrialized
urban centers. Today, in light of our deindustrialization and declining
standard of living, a reverse migration is appropriate, all the more
so since peak oil will eventually render the current urban-suburban
model unsustainable.
Copyright 2007 by Dave Eriqat
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