From Fearless to Fear-wracked in one generation

[SoCalDem]

As a nation, we seem to have made a U-turn somewhere in time. I think it started with Viet Nam. That was the pivotal point in time where we were publicly humiliated. Everyone on the planet with a TV has seen the video of us departing viet nam..

We lost our standing, and never have gotten it back..

Actually it may have started before Viet Nam if you look at the youth of America who came of age during the sixties. We may have been the first generation to actually challenge authority as a group, and get right in their face...on tv, where everyone could see it.

I think that fear is a "trickle-down" phenomenon. Our leaders were fearful...but I think they were fearful of looking bad. They over-reacted and it's been spiraling out of control ever since.

It may also explain the irrational anger that so many right-wingers seems to be consumed by.

If you look back to WWII, I don;t think that many Americans were consumed by fear. They feared for the personal safety of their men who were fighting, but I don;t think that most people truly feared being attacked by Nazis in their grocery stores or their schools.

Globalization was supposed to convey an international understanding of people, but under the watchful eyes of our corporate masters and our irrationaly religious lunatic politicians, we have been overtaken by an unshakeable fear of anyone "not American".


The aura of fearfulness has crept into every nook and cranny of our daily lives. Our ever-present media is little more than a conveyor belt for the "daily fright".

Nice-looking, cheerful people on tv tell us daily, about how our cars will kill us, our food will kill us, our water will kill us, people we don't know will kill our children...people we DO know might kill us or our children.

We are afraid to spend our money because we fear being poor in our old age, we are afraid to invest our money because the robber-barons are always figuring out ways to steal it..

We are afraid to buy a house, to sell a house...

We are afraid to let our kids out of our sights..

We are afraid to fly...

Is it any wonder that our international stature is lessened?

Why would the rest of the world continue to look up to a nation full of scaredy cats?

[acmejack]

1. These folks are so fear stricken they have surrendered their good sense!

They refuse to admit they are cowards but that is the problem. ordinarily brave men & women have been reduced to a state of fear and are willing to surrender all their rights to feel safe. They would rather have that heavily armed trooper on every corner, a trench coated operative examining their papers every other hour, searching their knapsack at each subway stop. This they sigh is the price of stopping those deardful terrorists who are determined to kill us because they hate us for our freedom.
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

[raccoon]

2. The so-called media are so tiresome with their eternal fear

mongering.

How many times do you hear teasers for your local news?
"Are you in danger from such-and-such? Details at six."

FDR, we need you now!