Fear is the weapon of mass destruction

Fear is the weapon of mass destruction:

"If some of us aren't expressing it, we're at least privately questioning the breakdown in federal and state law and the failure of leading officials to restore accountability to a system designed to represent, at least on the surface, a majority of its people. We're flabbergasted that politicians of Faustian proportion could disrupt our checks and balances as effectively as they do and are just as astounded at the range of criminal activity within our federal, state and local governments. We're even more dismayed at the public's limp reaction to this usurpation of power.

Personally, I don't know which devil to admonish the most: Washington or my own neighbor, for both are guilty for what has happened to our lives, laws and Constitution. We've allowed our leaders unlimited dips into the national well and have done little to pay closer heed to history's lessons. As a result, the rich have gone on to enjoy unthinkable profits while the rest of us have been left behind with fewer benefits, protections and freedoms.

All of this intrusion into our private lives could possibly been avoided had we been on the lookout for two particular elements: first, the laying down of a national consciousness and second, the intrusion of that most troubling emotion: fear. Thoreau, and not Roosevelt, first wrote about the poisonous state of fear without adequately explaining its daunting effect on our lives. I can suggest however, that the less educated and informed a public is the more easily manipulated it becomes. Conversely, while many of us are aware of the psychological unraveling that takes place when education is put on hold and fear raised to its highest level, we should likewise be prepared to take up the battle against fear and its accompaniment: propaganda."