How the republicans exploit HYSTERIA to divide & conquer America

[mopaul]

http://www.iwanami.co.jp/jpworld/text/politicsofhysteria01.html

The Inhuman Other

Murray Levin's anatomy of political hysteria in America provides, I think, some useful clues to understanding the causes and structure of these escalations from fact to frenzy. Levin suggests that political hysteria is not simply a product of the media alone. Rather, public, interest groups, media and politicians become drawn into a complex reciprocal relationship as the level of hysteria rises and the narrative spirals ever further outward from the initial "usable facts". Typically, the story is first taken up by activists or interest groups who see themselves as representing both particular moral causes and a broader national interest (though in the case of US "Iraq hysteria" national politicians also played a direct role in promoting panic). Once it becomes clear that the issue strikes a receptive chord with the public, a widening range of groups become involved, and begin to add their voices to the chorus of public statements. The media realize that the story helps their sales, and intensified media reporting interacts with the public statements of activists. Interest groups and media form relationships with each other: "each agency builds on the definition of the situation created by other agencies and thereby participates in the transformation by which the definition of the situation becomes fact". (p. 179). As public emotion rises, the government responds with ever more strident statements on the issue. This growing government role, in turn, makes it justifiable, indeed necessary, for the media to treat the story as headline news. And so the spiral continues.

..........hysteria is one of the republican's most powerful weapons. hysteria over terrorism, hysteria over the ten commandments, hysteria over flag burning, etc., anything that can be politically exploited with hysteria, will be.


hysteria over Clinton's affair, over Martha Stewart, over social security, same sex unions, steroids, and of course the number one subject of the day.

hysteria is the dominant emotion working on us all.

keep your cool

[NVMojo]

1. May Karl Rove really face his maker on the lies he's dealt in the USA

[classof56]

3. I go along with that! Wish I could be there to watch the moment...

n/t

[coloradodem2005]

2. Now the Republicans are using a Def Leppard album to divide America?

:P

[ananda]

4. limbic brain overkill

Yeah, so much fear and anxiety is bound to push many people into limbic brain overkill, practically becoming reptiles: fight or flight.. only all the time.

That's why this country is so insane right now. Hardly anyone in power is doing any real thinking whatsoever, and their followers are riding on terror and using religion to try to put on the brakes of a rollercoaster gone out of control, fueled by fear.

Sue

[enough]

5. You wanna see hysteria?

Rev. Rob Schenck (left) and Rev. Ed Martin (foreground) knelt to pray outside the Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., as a judge ordered the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube

[mopaul]

6. ...

....

[mopaul]

7. .......

........

[Swamp Rat]

8. I'm cool

:smoke:

[mopaul]

9. all hail reptilicus maximus

the king of the lizard people

[Swamp Rat]

10. Watch it! You'll make it mad!

[mopaul]

12. man you trippin'

send me some o' that stuff

[Swamp Rat]

11. Watch it! You'll make it mad!