And the Liberal Party in Canada and the Labour Party in the UK... the incumbent party of virtually any country participating in the war on terrorism.

All of these parties NOW 'sell' the nightmare scenario and all of the fine work they have been doing to fight the problem. They rely (correctly, in my opinion) on their voters not being anxious at all the change political parties in times of "war". The party leaders make sure to call it a "war" at every opportunity simply because of that fact.

Ruling parties USED TO have to sell the voters on all of the good things they could do for the people. All that stuff is now out the window in favour of selling us "security".

Of course I agree that terrorism needs uprooting and I am glad to see it happening. But I do find the sole emphasis on the problem to be intellectually dishonest, serving incumbents' personal agendas far more than "the people". While the "war" is fought we can watch corporations grow much more power, people work far harder for less money, people lose benefits and hard earned pensions, the environment handed to corporations, etc.

In other words, politicians are using the "war" to keep the people at bay while corporations continue to reap huge benefits because of the war temprament that the politicians so carefully groom.


>So, in essence, the terrorist bombings in Eqypt, London, Lebanon, and Iraq serve to support the Republican Party?
>
>
>>SNIP
>>>
>>>I feel just as safe as I did before 9/11. It's all attitude and how you choose to live your life. I am more likely to be killed driving to or from work on our freeways than I am by a terrorist strike. You can choose to be cynical, unsafe, and hole-up in your house. If you do, then you are virtually dead anyway. As for the 1 person, you are grossly under-exagerating. I am assuming you are referring to Saddam. You do not count any of the other high ranking terrorists captured or killed? Saddam's now 2 very dead sons? etc...
>>
>>I think you have the exactly right approach, Mark.
>>
>>There is a big problem, though.
>>Our politicians (U.S., U.K., most of Europe, here and beyond) have found that making FEAR the central issue of everything they do pays huge benefits in terms of re-election, wild spending (for their cronies), burying other important issues and generally keeping themselves in the spotlight.
>>
>>They've turned "every life is invaluable" into an art form to justify wider powers and extravagant spending. More importantly, if the subject starts to shift to real useful things for "the people" they get the media to blow some small event way out of proportion to divert the focus back to "security".
>>
>>Instead of exploiting issues that worked towards delivering "the dream" to the people, they are now promoting a nightmare that they want everyone to understand they are on top of and will do everything in their power to keep at bay.
>>
>>I think the people are being severely short-changed. Any "nightmare scenario" would affect less than .00001 of the people yet we are all repeatedly told that each of our lives is at serious risk.