Fear-mongering
In December 2007, Newsweek featured a cover story about the roots of fear which shed light on just how effectively fear can be used to get people’s attention. According to the article, "the evolutionary primacy of the brain's fear circuitry makes it more powerful than reasoning circuits." In light of such knowledge, Is it any wonder why fear-mongering remains an effective and persuasive tactic to rally public support?
In December 2007, Newsweek featured a cover story about the roots of fear which shed light on just how effectively fear can be used to get people’s attention. According to the article, "the evolutionary primacy of the brain's fear circuitry makes it more powerful than reasoning circuits." In light of such knowledge, Is it any wonder why fear-mongering remains an effective and persuasive tactic to rally public support?
Fear-mongering has worked for centuries as countless leaders have campaigned for positions of power and the public support it takes to preserve such positions. Leaders throughout history have propagated messages and imaged themselves as saviors who will usher in the prosperity, security and peace that their people crave; all the while imaging their political opponents as dangerous alternatives that would undoubtedly ruin the people's way of life.
I personally detest this kind of campaigning and lament that we, the people, still play into this tempting trap largely because we are uninformed, unaware or unwilling to break the cycle.
Recently, I’ve been pretty disgusted lately by the McCain/Palin campaign’s persistent efforts to link Senator Barack Obama with domestic terrorism all the while refusing to challenge the underlying racist and outwardly ethnocentric impulses of some of their own supporters. Such tactics seem to capitalize on human ignorance and, what’s even sadder, is that such tactics seem to work.
The McCain/Palin campaign’s recent push to excite the groundless fears of their supporters reminds me of the popular NBC TV show Heroes' recent introduction of a new villain who has the ability to grow stronger by feeding off of the fear of others; which is precisely what it seems like the presidential candidates of all parties have been doing throughout this election season. But the trend seems to have reached fever pitch with the latest push by the McCain/Palin campaign to brand Obama as a mysterious, shifty figure who has been “palling around with terrorists.”
Living in the “post-9/11” United States of America, there are certain words that reasonable people use sparingly and wisely due to their powerful connotation and emotional weight. The word “terrorist” falls into such a category.
Earlier this week, at a recent rally of Republican supporters, Governor Sarah Palin referred to Barack Obama as “someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” Palin went on to proclaim, “One of [Obama’s] earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers, and according to the New York Times, [Ayers] was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol’.” Palin's words were echoed by a chorus of boos and threatening invectives directed at both Obama and Ayers.
Hold it right there, Sarah. You mean to tell me that this whole time Barack Obama has been an unpatriotic trickster who maintains relationships with terrorists? That is a very serious claim, Mrs. Palin. Surely, one would not cast such a sharp stone unless they had the most credible evidence to substantiate this bold claim. Right?
Checking the facts
Let’s examine the validity of this accusation. According to the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization FactCheck.org, “William Ayers [is] a Chicago professor of education, who in the 1960s was part of a radical antiwar group that set off pipe bombs in lavatories in the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon.” William Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, were leaders of the Weather Underground, an ill fated antiwar group. According to the New York Times, “most of the bombings attributed to the Weathermen were meant to damage only property, but a 1970 pipe bombing in San Francisco attributed to the group killed a police officer and severely hurt another.”
A bombing of any kind is nothing to take lightly and I understand the curiosity of those, like myself, who seek to find out the truth about any possible connection between Mr. Obama and the activities of Mr. Ayers. But let's continue our investigation.
According to the Oct. 5 edition of CNN Fact Check, the claim that Obama is “palling around with terrorists” is false. CNN reports “False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now ‘palling around,’ or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.” This clarification is in line with what FactCheck.org discovered back on April 17, 2008, soon after Sen. Hillary Clinton mentioned a possible connection between Obama and Ayers during a Democratic debate. Clinton said "people died" in some of the 1960s and 1970s bombings by a radical group of which an Obama acquaintance was a member. According to FactCheck.org, “the deaths were of three members of the Weather Underground itself, who died when their own bombs accidentally exploded.”
Factcheck.org goes on to note that nobody died as a result of bombings in which Ayers said he participated as part of the Weather Underground “at the New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, in a men's lavatory in the Capitol building in 1971 and in a women's restroom in the Pentagon in 1972.” The site reports, “The deaths to which Clinton referred were of three Weather Underground members who died when their own ‘bomb factory’ exploded in a Greenwich Village townhouse on March 6, 1970. Ayers was not present. Also, two police officers were murdered in connection with the robbery of a Brinks armored car by Weather Underground members in 1981. That was about a year after Ayers had turned himself in and after all charges against him had been dropped.”Obama responded to Hillary Clinton's accusations last spring by noting that President Bill Clinton “had pardoned or commuted the sentences of two Weather Underground members, who had, unlike Ayers, been convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. Bill Clinton indeed pardoned one and commuted the sentence of another.”
Obama visited Ayer's home in 1995 at the invitation of an Illinois state senator, according to a February 22 story in Politico.com. But Politico concluded, "There’s no evidence their relationship is more than the casual friendship of two men who occupy overlapping Chicago political circles and who served together on the board of a Chicago foundation."
William Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and lives in the same neighborhood as the Obama family. Ayers is an associate of Obama’s who has worked with him on a schools project and on at least two community boards such as The Woods Fund of Chicago, an antipoverty charity. Ayers graciously hosted a “meet-the-candidate” house party for Obama when he first ran for state Senate in 1995 and contributed $200 to Obama's campaign for the Illinois state Senate on March 2, 2001.
I think it’s reasonable for citizens to be informed about and to explore any genuine connection that may exist between Barack Obama and domestic terrorism, but you’d better be sure that there is a definite connection, otherwise, you quickly find yourself advancing false and harmful propaganda that could incite fear and hatred of an individual.
I personally detest this kind of campaigning and lament that we, the people, still play into this tempting trap largely because we are uninformed, unaware or unwilling to break the cycle.
Recently, I’ve been pretty disgusted lately by the McCain/Palin campaign’s persistent efforts to link Senator Barack Obama with domestic terrorism all the while refusing to challenge the underlying racist and outwardly ethnocentric impulses of some of their own supporters. Such tactics seem to capitalize on human ignorance and, what’s even sadder, is that such tactics seem to work.
The McCain/Palin campaign’s recent push to excite the groundless fears of their supporters reminds me of the popular NBC TV show Heroes' recent introduction of a new villain who has the ability to grow stronger by feeding off of the fear of others; which is precisely what it seems like the presidential candidates of all parties have been doing throughout this election season. But the trend seems to have reached fever pitch with the latest push by the McCain/Palin campaign to brand Obama as a mysterious, shifty figure who has been “palling around with terrorists.”
Living in the “post-9/11” United States of America, there are certain words that reasonable people use sparingly and wisely due to their powerful connotation and emotional weight. The word “terrorist” falls into such a category.
Earlier this week, at a recent rally of Republican supporters, Governor Sarah Palin referred to Barack Obama as “someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” Palin went on to proclaim, “One of [Obama’s] earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers, and according to the New York Times, [Ayers] was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol’.” Palin's words were echoed by a chorus of boos and threatening invectives directed at both Obama and Ayers.
Hold it right there, Sarah. You mean to tell me that this whole time Barack Obama has been an unpatriotic trickster who maintains relationships with terrorists? That is a very serious claim, Mrs. Palin. Surely, one would not cast such a sharp stone unless they had the most credible evidence to substantiate this bold claim. Right?
Checking the facts
Let’s examine the validity of this accusation. According to the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization FactCheck.org, “William Ayers [is] a Chicago professor of education, who in the 1960s was part of a radical antiwar group that set off pipe bombs in lavatories in the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon.” William Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, were leaders of the Weather Underground, an ill fated antiwar group. According to the New York Times, “most of the bombings attributed to the Weathermen were meant to damage only property, but a 1970 pipe bombing in San Francisco attributed to the group killed a police officer and severely hurt another.”
A bombing of any kind is nothing to take lightly and I understand the curiosity of those, like myself, who seek to find out the truth about any possible connection between Mr. Obama and the activities of Mr. Ayers. But let's continue our investigation.
According to the Oct. 5 edition of CNN Fact Check, the claim that Obama is “palling around with terrorists” is false. CNN reports “False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now ‘palling around,’ or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.” This clarification is in line with what FactCheck.org discovered back on April 17, 2008, soon after Sen. Hillary Clinton mentioned a possible connection between Obama and Ayers during a Democratic debate. Clinton said "people died" in some of the 1960s and 1970s bombings by a radical group of which an Obama acquaintance was a member. According to FactCheck.org, “the deaths were of three members of the Weather Underground itself, who died when their own bombs accidentally exploded.”
Factcheck.org goes on to note that nobody died as a result of bombings in which Ayers said he participated as part of the Weather Underground “at the New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, in a men's lavatory in the Capitol building in 1971 and in a women's restroom in the Pentagon in 1972.” The site reports, “The deaths to which Clinton referred were of three Weather Underground members who died when their own ‘bomb factory’ exploded in a Greenwich Village townhouse on March 6, 1970. Ayers was not present. Also, two police officers were murdered in connection with the robbery of a Brinks armored car by Weather Underground members in 1981. That was about a year after Ayers had turned himself in and after all charges against him had been dropped.”Obama responded to Hillary Clinton's accusations last spring by noting that President Bill Clinton “had pardoned or commuted the sentences of two Weather Underground members, who had, unlike Ayers, been convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. Bill Clinton indeed pardoned one and commuted the sentence of another.”
Obama visited Ayer's home in 1995 at the invitation of an Illinois state senator, according to a February 22 story in Politico.com. But Politico concluded, "There’s no evidence their relationship is more than the casual friendship of two men who occupy overlapping Chicago political circles and who served together on the board of a Chicago foundation."
William Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and lives in the same neighborhood as the Obama family. Ayers is an associate of Obama’s who has worked with him on a schools project and on at least two community boards such as The Woods Fund of Chicago, an antipoverty charity. Ayers graciously hosted a “meet-the-candidate” house party for Obama when he first ran for state Senate in 1995 and contributed $200 to Obama's campaign for the Illinois state Senate on March 2, 2001.
I think it’s reasonable for citizens to be informed about and to explore any genuine connection that may exist between Barack Obama and domestic terrorism, but you’d better be sure that there is a definite connection, otherwise, you quickly find yourself advancing false and harmful propaganda that could incite fear and hatred of an individual.
In light of the information I’ve seen, it seems a far cry to imply that Barack Obama would approve or endorse any of Weather Underground’s activities or that Ayers himself has even been remotely involved with any such activities over the last 30 years. Neither Obama nor Ayers appear to be a pair of domestic terrorists conspiring ways to usurp the country because there is far more evidence to the contrary.
But, regardless of the facts, McCain and his campaign have aggressively sought to raise skepticism about Obama’s personal character. In the last week, McCain campaign has released a 90-second web advertisement that attempts to link Obama with Ayers that says, “Barack Obama and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Friends. They’ve worked together for years.” According to an October 9 article in the Detroit Free Press, “the ad also claimed that one of the nonprofits on which Obama and Ayers worked was a radical education foundation.” The same article points out that “[t]hat educational foundation was the Annenberg Challenge…funded by the Annenberg Foundation, a charity set up by longtime Republican backer and newspaper publisher Walter Annenberg. Annenberg has since died, but his wife has endorsed McCain this year.” The article also includes the interesting fact that “The city of Chicago gave Ayers its Citizen of the Year award in 1997 for work on the educational project.”
Just when you thought such moves were played out, some McCain supporters have continued to use Obama’s middle name (Hussein) during introductions of McCain and Palin this week in the attempt to invoke negative connotations associating Obama with memories of the defeated Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
But, regardless of the facts, McCain and his campaign have aggressively sought to raise skepticism about Obama’s personal character. In the last week, McCain campaign has released a 90-second web advertisement that attempts to link Obama with Ayers that says, “Barack Obama and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Friends. They’ve worked together for years.” According to an October 9 article in the Detroit Free Press, “the ad also claimed that one of the nonprofits on which Obama and Ayers worked was a radical education foundation.” The same article points out that “[t]hat educational foundation was the Annenberg Challenge…funded by the Annenberg Foundation, a charity set up by longtime Republican backer and newspaper publisher Walter Annenberg. Annenberg has since died, but his wife has endorsed McCain this year.” The article also includes the interesting fact that “The city of Chicago gave Ayers its Citizen of the Year award in 1997 for work on the educational project.”
Just when you thought such moves were played out, some McCain supporters have continued to use Obama’s middle name (Hussein) during introductions of McCain and Palin this week in the attempt to invoke negative connotations associating Obama with memories of the defeated Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
In my opinion, only the ignorant would consider someone's birth name (of which that person had no control over) as a strike against that individual's character. But again, it is one more example of how our instinct fear can overpower our powers to reason.
The cost of fear-mongering
Human history has shown that fear and hatred are cancerous conditions that can blind minds and warp souls. That’s why I find it chilling to watch footage of political rallies where fiercely partisan crowds boo and hurl invectives at the competing party’s candidates and characters. Sadly, it seems that candidates are banking on the notion that their base supporters are too ignorant to research these matters themselves and to discover that many of their candidate's claims are either groundless accusations and carefully packaged lies.
I also wonder why some leaders who profess integrity would dare provoke their crowds with tribalistic “us-and-them” rhetoric instead of counseling the masses to think soberly and rationally during these difficult times. As we all know, these are troubling times for voters and there is a lot of anxiety and worry out there concerning how our lives will be affected by the dynamics of the global economy, our costly involvement in a perpetual war and the next occupants of the White House. But advancing the idea that Barack Obama is a militant, anti-American traitor with a hidden terrorist agenda is a reckless, dangerous and desperate move.
Exploring a legitimate connection between a Presidential candidate and the activities of a domestic terrorist group is one thing, but to demonize an individual by over-exaggerating the facts and provoking fanatical crowds with false information is morally reprehensible. History has shown us that demonization eventually breeds dehumanization; and once you dehumanize someone, there is no limit to the damage that you will inflict and justify in the name of self-righteousness.
I find much to admire about Senator John McCain’s political record, but his approval of reckless tactics like this seems to reflect a frenzied panic that becomes yet another reason why I don’t consider him fit for the job as President of the United States. Maybe capitalizing on fear will make him popular enough to become President; but it is a weak leader who thrives on the ignorance and fear of their people.
The cost of fear-mongering
Human history has shown that fear and hatred are cancerous conditions that can blind minds and warp souls. That’s why I find it chilling to watch footage of political rallies where fiercely partisan crowds boo and hurl invectives at the competing party’s candidates and characters. Sadly, it seems that candidates are banking on the notion that their base supporters are too ignorant to research these matters themselves and to discover that many of their candidate's claims are either groundless accusations and carefully packaged lies.
I also wonder why some leaders who profess integrity would dare provoke their crowds with tribalistic “us-and-them” rhetoric instead of counseling the masses to think soberly and rationally during these difficult times. As we all know, these are troubling times for voters and there is a lot of anxiety and worry out there concerning how our lives will be affected by the dynamics of the global economy, our costly involvement in a perpetual war and the next occupants of the White House. But advancing the idea that Barack Obama is a militant, anti-American traitor with a hidden terrorist agenda is a reckless, dangerous and desperate move.
Exploring a legitimate connection between a Presidential candidate and the activities of a domestic terrorist group is one thing, but to demonize an individual by over-exaggerating the facts and provoking fanatical crowds with false information is morally reprehensible. History has shown us that demonization eventually breeds dehumanization; and once you dehumanize someone, there is no limit to the damage that you will inflict and justify in the name of self-righteousness.
I find much to admire about Senator John McCain’s political record, but his approval of reckless tactics like this seems to reflect a frenzied panic that becomes yet another reason why I don’t consider him fit for the job as President of the United States. Maybe capitalizing on fear will make him popular enough to become President; but it is a weak leader who thrives on the ignorance and fear of their people.
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