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News :: Miscellaneous |
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The Only Thing We Have To Sell Is Fear Itself |
Current rating: 0 |
by Will Doig
Email: scofflaw99 (nospam) aol.com (unverified!) |
20 Oct 2001
Modified: 21 Oct 2001 |
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The parameters of the War Against Terrorism have been broadened again. To be "with us," you must be with free trade as well. And you must do this to show the terrorists that their "attack on commerce has failed." |
The other morning, as I was walking to work through Dupont Circle, I passed by a small pile of white powder on the sidewalk. It had been covered over with a big piece of plastic, which was taped down on all sides to prevent the substance from being touched until the proper authorities could come and identify it. About twenty feet away were the concerned citizens who had covered it, huddled together and staring at this little two inch mound, looking as though they thought it might suddenly come to life and wreak havoc through the city.
Welcome to the new Fear Culture. Make yourself comfortable, we'll be here awhile.
Here in America, years ago, we started becoming very, very afraid. Not of terrorists, necessarily. Fear of terrorism was never very profitable (although, as the pharmaceutical companies that make Cipro can tell you, anti-terrorism is the latest boom market). But fear has always been a great catalyst to get people buying a variety of things -- air purifiers to make your living room germ-free, home security systems to keep the bad people at bay, tank-like cars with airbags that deploy from every possible angle. And illness? You can purchase a pill for diseases you didn't even know you had – didn’t know, that is, until TV told you you had them.
Network news has spearheaded the fear commodification effort. In "Health Reports" spattered with handpicked expert opinions, we’re told that one in three women suffers from calcium deficiency. This could lead to osteoporosis later in life, the expert ominously warns us. The report ends, commercials come on, and look! An advertisement for Tums, a product that alleviates indigestion and just happens to contain a calcium supplement! That’s good marketing.
The vast number of companies using 9-11 to sell products tells volumes about our society. After a very short pause filled with shock and disorientation, the government and the media immediately began demanding we continue to drive the country upward and onward. Every car company urges us to help keep America moving. Every brokerage insists we continue to invest. The President himself implores us not to stop and reflect, but to go to the mall and keep shopping.
If there were any doubts about the precious economy being America’s only soul, they’ve certainly been dispelled by now. What this tragedy has revealed more clearly than ever is that Consumption is all that America has left. Two hundred years ago, this country was founded upon ideals about freedom and justice. It declared war on an empire because it felt democracy was being squelched. This idea seems almost quaint today. Today we go to war to protect economic interests. We die for oil, and for the industries that manufacture weapons. We die for the sake of keeping the consumption game going.
Six days after the attacks, New York’s stock markets reopened. Workers with neckties and briefcases stepped over bodies to get to the trading floor and resume business. Less than a month after the attacks, Oliver Stone announced desires to make Osama bin Laden The Movie. The machine had swung back into gear, and received much praise for its unstoppable resilience.
It’s understandably necessary that things must get moving again. Stagnation would only mean more unemployment, as businesses losing money tried to cut costs by firing workers. But perhaps part of the reason why nothing changes in America – why we continue to keep doing things that lead to tragedies like this – is because we don’t ever stop to reflect on the larger picture. Afraid of letting the machine slow down, we jump back on and pedal furiously to get it running again, seeing only what’s directly in front of us. Rather than pause to consider the fact that our economic policies keep Afghans impoverished, we rush to rev up the wheels of the market and get things moving again. Rather than stop think about why the attacks happened, Hollywood makes a movie about them.
Exactly one month ago today, in an address to a joint session of Congress, Bush declared 9-11 an attack on democracy, and on freedoms laid in out in the Bill of Rights.
"Americans are asking, why do they hate us?" he said. "They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble."
And then yesterday, at the CEO Summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Shanghai, China, President Bush said the following:
"By attacking two symbols of global financial markets, the terrorists attacked the world and free trade. By their actions, they have divorced themselves from the elements that define civilizations themselves."
Somehow, in the past month, this attack on democracy and freedom became an attack on free trade and economic policy. Suddenly, we find our president saying that the thousands that died did so in the name of preserving global markets. Suddenly this isn’t about democracy. It’s about keeping the cash flow streaming.
When he told that room full of corporate executives that economics are "the elements that define civilizations," he said more than he probably realized. Democracy, freedom and justice may have, at one time, been said to define our society. At the very least, they were the ideals we aspired to. Today, by our own leader’s words, we now know that financial affairs are the new ideals. Wealth – not freedom – is the paradigm we yearn for. Our society has become one in which a protest (free speech and assembly) is groaned about by the general public if it disrupts the commute to work. People are more willing than ever to sacrifice constitutional freedoms if it will mean more financial prosperity. The first amendment is becoming a necessary evil, something reluctantly tolerated rather than praised.
The parameters of the War Against Terrorism have been broadened again. To be "with us," you must be with free trade as well. And you must do this to show the terrorists that their "attack on commerce has failed."
Chevrolet will continue to use a nation’s trauma to sell cars. Merrill Lynch will tell us it’s our patriotic duty to invest. And President Bush will cash in on the crisis as well, using fear to boost a free market economic agenda. He should not be chastised for articulating the fact that money is what now defines our society. He’s only stating the truth, and you can’t kill the messenger. But a country that bases its worth on full wallets looks pretty empty to me.
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See also:
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=76534&group=webcast
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A comment by Ralph Waldo Emerson |
by John Wason
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Oct 2001
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This seems like as appropriate a place as any to interject
something written by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1839. While the
truth of what he says is certainly not in dispute (by me,
anyway), I leave it to you to decide whether the more
things change, the more they remain the same.
"A question which well deserves examination now is the
Dangers of Commerce. This invasion of Nature by Trade
with its Money, its Credit, its Steam, its Railroad,
threatens to upset the balance of man, and establish a
new, universal Monarchy more tyrannical than Babylon or
Rome. Very faint and few are the poets or men of God.
Those who remain are so antagonistic to this tyranny that
they appear mad or morbid, and are treated as such.
Sensible of this extreme unfitness they suspect themselves.
And all of us apologize when we ought not, and congratulate
ourselves when we ought not." |
