Fear-The Winners and Losers Part III
Christ Cleansing the Temple, by Carl Heinrich Bloch, 1875
Almost without exception greed is the root of all our evils world wide. I told my hubby that I could write many blogs under one title-“Greed” and simply number them 1-100 to differentiate between them. After the economy began it’s decline in 2005 a young friend of mine, an avid church going guy told me there were people in his church he would have, in the past entrusted with his first born. He announced to me those same people were stealing him blind. He was amazed at their not paying him and lying to him as if they were the only ones that had lost in the economic downturn. Welcome to the world of greed.
Right now as I write I know there are candidates for President of the United States out there making people in this country fearful. They are stopping at nothing to instill fear over ISIS “coming here” and for their own political gain. Never mind that the Boston attackers were born here. Marco Rubio, a second generation refugee and first generation American contends that “Paris could happen here.” Well no shit, we were the first in the west to be inflicted by not one, but two World Trade Center bombings. Then there was Ft. Hood and let’s not forget to mention Oklahoma City and Tim McVey, David Karesh, Jim Jones, Newtown, Aurora…this stuff has been going on for quite some time and not inflicted by Syrians or even ISIS. What is new here are candidates profiting from the fear.
The whole thing worries me too, the thought of blowing up in a plane or being shot in a department store gives one some pause for sure and as George Bush so famously said…”that is what they want”. They want us to fear, to disrupt our lives to slow commerce…I am talking about the extremists, ISIS that is. What the politicians want is for you to fear as well. Fear is big business for them. Some of them hope you fear so much that you will vote for them. They have mentioned time and again that any of “the other” politicians will not keep you safe as if this has never happened before in this country. Attacks on our homeland, embassies and installations abroad have happened under the watch of every modern President. So chalk that up to pure BS.
A leader does not go out of their way to upset their countrymen with fear, at least the way I see it anyway. Bush could have done that, he did not. He asked us to be vigilant and mindful because fear would cost us in economic paralysis. Fear after 9-11 and the damn banks run a muck nearly ruined all our lives, why would I want to repeat that? Why would I want a leader who manufactured fear? ISIS, Assad, Hitler and Stalin all ruled by fear and we condemn that. Why pray tell are we buying into the exact same thing from our politicians?
Trump crossed a line when it comes to decency long ago when he cat called a female moderator from Fox news saying he thought she was on the rag and somehow that has morphed into herding up Mexicans and locking up Muslims. Tracking them (as if we don’t already do that with radical suspects) and making them wear badges like the Jews of the Holocaust. People are really listening to this guy and others that spew fear? One senator wants to see us herd them into camps like we locked up the Japanese Americans during World War II even as many of their family members were fighting in it for the US!. So maybe we can put Guantanamo Bay to use after all.
This is warped political grandstanding. They are doing this kind of thing for greedy reasons. Not many politicians have your back and none of them would ever be able to follow through on anything that they are putting out there like the border fence for instance. The politicians who could handle the job of President are being pushed down to the kiddie table, by the bombastic and shrill noise of a few illegitimate knuckleheads.
The media should be held accountable for this fear mongering as well. They have talked only of ISIS and how dangerous they are for nights on end and have given free advertising not only to the idiot politicians like Trump and Carson, but also to ISIS. The media makes huge money on this kind of thing…all 6 of the media companies. By the way we do have much more to fear by the consolidation of large companies than any terrorist could bring, but that is another blog post.
What they need to be talking about is just the opposite if we are to combat future terrorist attacks…there is a real opportunity here to obtain intelligence and to demonstrate at least to some of the mid-eastern people that we really are the stewards of opportunity and really are OK. To show we aren’t the monsters ISIS says we are. Many Muslim leaders have said lately that they are going to make a bigger effort to help curb the radicalism, but those kids watch TV and hear these ridiculous comments. Many of the Republican leaders here are starting to speak out about the lost opportunities, but no where near enough of them. You know my husband’s family, being European were Catholic, and his great-grandfather called the priest to come give last rights to a family member who was dying. The priest refused because it was inconvenient for him to travel to the rural location…that family has only stepped in a church for burials or funerals since. The Church lost three generations of pious Catholics.
Jesus went after the money changers and threw their tables over, spilling coins in the temple. Why in a country of primarily Christians are we giving our attention to the blasphemous wannabes. Why are we giving our attention to the greedy if indeed we are following the word of Christ? Fear and greed go hand in hand and the winners are ISIS, the politicians and the media. We will be the losers because broadcasting all the hate and fear will indeed backfire.
Meantime, for better or worse I am going to get on a plane and hope for the best, and I will be both vigilant and courteous when it comes to my fellow passengers. I will be looking out the window at our great land of opportunity thinking about how we are the losers in putting our trust in the greedy. It has never worked out before.
