fear

[Guest guest]

View from the U.S.: Fear in America

>by Keith Gottschalk

June 8, 2005

In many parts of the world people wonder: why are Americans taking

so much of what the Bush administration is doing lying down?

 

First, of course, not everyone is. But when allegations of election

fraud in Ukraine cause hundreds of thousands of people to take to

the streets, there's a perception among many that Americans, who

wouldn't do that, have lost their revolutionary spirit.

 

Certainly some people did take to the streets during and after the

2000 election fiasco although not in those numbers. After the last

election, while many protested, they did so online and not in any

position where they would be subject to public scrutiny.

 

It would be incorrect to say that fear stalks America. But fear

permeates the American psyche, largely because the government and

its allies in the media have done a systematic job of injecting fear

into the lifeblood of the population.

 

When we talk about the fear that paralyzes political activity in the

U.S., we're talking about several different kinds of fear.

 

First, is the fear of public disapproval. This is a powerful social

controlling mechanism in a culture where being seen as " out of the

mainstream " is a fate worse that being locked out of your house

naked on a Sunday morning.

 

Being out of the mainstream, if judged so by the media, your circle

of friends or more ominously, by your employer, means that you are

most likely out of bounds of even the Democratic Party and their

policies of progressivism with a corporate face.

 

And there's also the realization, if the Diebold voting machines can

be believed, that just over 50 per cent of the American people voted

for George Bush. And they're getting a little tired of tolerating

those who disagree with them.

 

A local mainline Protestant minister last week was mulling over

whether he should lend his name to an anti-war letter to the editor

of the local newspaper.

 

He said to me: " Keith, there are people in my congregation who

believe George W. Bush was sent by God to lead this nation. "

 

Why be a dead hero?

 

The second level of fear flows naturally from the first. In our

American parlance, the First Amendment has become, for all intents

and purposes, a right to freedom of speech inside one's smoking

room, at home, alone.

 

Americans believe that the employer's rights are just this side of

given by God and if one's public opinions on politics or the war in

Iraq become an " embarrassment " to a member of the managerial class,

most people believe that the employer has the God-given right to

send the offender to that most American of rhetorical gulags, the

unemployment line.

 

The third fear operates on a more subtle level of social

consciousness and became manifest after 9-11. Just ask Barry

Reingold, 61, of San Francisco.

 

Reingold was discussing the fallout from 9-11 in a Bay area gym in

October 2001. According to the ACLU of Northern California, Reingold

said that what happened September 11 was horrific; however, he

added, " Bush is a bigger asshole than bin Laden will ever be because

he bombs people all over the world for oil profits. "

 

The argument escalated and one of the health club patrons threw the

trump card down: " Aren't you an American? " he was asked.

 

There was a time when it would have stopped there. But it didn't.

Someone privy to the conversation called the FBI who paid Mr.

Reingold a little visit a few days later.

 

" We've heard, " they told him " that you've been discussing President

Bush, oil, Osama bin Laden " and other political matters. Barry was

dumbfounded. " A lot of people have, " he pointed out, and as far as

he knew that was still allowed. " You do, of course, have freedom of

speech, " one of the agents reassured him. " Thank you for reminding

me, " Barry replied. " This discussion is over. "

 

Even though nothing came of the remark, the encounter had an effect

on Reingold.

 

" For a little while I was a little more careful, " Reingold told the

ACLU of Northern California. " I sound out people before opening up. "

But after awhile, the old activism returned and now, " if anything, I

try to talk to more people, " he said. But Reingold knows others

would be cowed by a visit from federal agents or even by hearing

about such a visit. " They might say, 'I agree with you,' but they

wouldn't say it too loudly. "

 

Such things could get back to your employer, after all.

 

If that mechanism of fear control fails there is the fourth level of

fear in American life — direct physical intimidation.

 

It may be as overt as the brutality of the Seattle and Miami police

during their respective World Trade Organization demonstrations,

brutality that received wide media attention, couched in terms

of " this rabble got what was coming to them for blocking traffic. "

 

I can still remember the pictures of police firing high velocity

tennis balls point blank at seated protesters and tear-gassed

mothers running with their children from tear gas. I bet many other

people remember that as well. And it had the intended effect.

 

But even peaceful protest is not exempt from this most primitive of

fears.

 

A friend of mine is a theologian, peace activist, and professor of

religious studies at a local religiously affiliated college. The

last time President Bush came to our community just before the

November election for a campaign speech, my friend and two of her

other friends, decided to make a low-key protest.

 

Prior to the President's speech, the streets and general areas

around the arena where he spoke were cordoned off with a forest of

Jersey barricades, semi-tractor trailers and police checkpoints. My

friend and her compatriots felt that this was a methodology of

generating fear in the local population — fear of violent attack in

America's heartland that would play well with Bush's core

electorate.

 

They decided, on this chilly October day, to simply cross one Jersey

barricade, peacefully, as a silent testimony against this fear

that's become so pervasive.

 

The local police cordially arrested the women and my friend

described the officers as polite and businesslike. The women, of

course, did not resist in any way.

 

They were transported to the local jail where they were all strip-

searched. We'll leave the details of how that was done to your

imagination. My friend really didn't want to talk about it.

 

Now ask yourself how many women you know, honest, earnest activists,

who would be willing to undergo such a ritual humiliation for a

public protest that was barely noted in the local paper?

 

And as a result of the small article that did appear, these women

were subject to letters to the editor describing them as unpatriotic

and stupid, the most vitriolic of letters coming from a young woman

in high school.

 

How many could overcome that fear?

 

As you've noticed, I've not used my friend's name. She reached what

I would call her ultimate level of controlling fear the day Cardinal

Joseph Ratzinger was made Pope Benedict XVI.

 

I called her, knowing her as a big fan of liberation theologian

Leonardo Boff, who was silenced by the new pope.

 

But as distraught as she was, as a single woman, she needed to keep

her job. So for the first time, to me, she had no comment.

 

And I would not disclose her name here for the same reason.

 

The way things are going here in the U.S., and with what she had

already gone through, I have to respect her fear.

 

Keith Gottschalk writes for a daily publication in the Midwest U.S.

and was formerly a radio talk show host in Illinois. He frequents

babble as the Américain Égalitaire.

http://www.rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=39808

 

 

Those who control the past, control the future; Those who control the future,

control the present; Those who control the present, control the past.^