Fear as a Political Tool

 At the end of the First World War, AKA "The War to End All Wars", there was a huge backlash throughout the world Especially in Europe in Germany and Italy.

Japan was already on it's Imperial Expansonism so I do not consider them a Backlash or Reaction. Their course was already set.

In Italy there was a fear, based in some reality, that the nation was not really going to get any of the benefits of being on the "winning" side of the war. And the economy was already hurting and showing no signs of improving.

In Germany they were taking the entire blame for WW1. Everybody knew that every single European power shared the blame for that war and the "winning" side made Germany shoulder all of it. And they Militarily and Financially crippled Germany for the forseeable future.

France began a period of political instability, changes in Government on a regular and ongoing basis, and fear based holding onto everything that had not worked in the past that was hidden by the fact that they had "won" the war.

Great Britain tried to go back to the old Imperial days without really ackowledging the extent in which this war had damaged them. Hubris at it's finest.

The US went into Partying like crazy and Isolationist to the extreme really not wanting the rest of the world to intrude at all.

And Fear as a Political Tool began showing up in many different ways.

In the USA, the so called "Land of the Free", we had the Red Scare. And during that time the United States Government passed The Espionage Act, The Sedition Act, which made it illegal to use "disloyal, profane, or scurrilous, or abusive language about the United States Government, Flag, or Armed Forces", and also The Immigration Act, which was used to prosocute and deport pretty much anyone that they wanted. And polititions were jumping all over this to gin up terror over the Labor Movement and to suprress it with these tools.

In Italy Benito Mussilini began his run for political office with the Fascist Party. He use rabble rousing fear and his hordes of Blackshirts to to terrorize political apponants, and became Prime Minister in 1922. Italy did not have free elections again until after WW2.

In Germany a unknown veteran began reshaping the German Workers Party in the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party. AKA the Nazis. He used rabble rousing fear, economic and racial, to gather more and more power to himself. In 1933 he became Chancellor. Germany had no free elections again until after WW2.

In the lead up to the war Germany kept using the fear of war to get France and Britain to back down, or appease, Germany in her terratorial demands. It was an effective tactic. Until it was no longer.

And the United States stuck it's head very firmly in the sand. It went totally Isolationist and really tried hard to forget that the rest of the world existed. And Nationalism, not Patriotism, Nationalism, and there is a huge difference, reared it's ugly head.

One of the ways that this country indicated it's sickness was the radio broadcasts of Father Charles Coughlin. In a country of about 120 million people he had an estimated 30 million listeners to his program at any one time. He was rabidly anti semetic and espoused many of the same type of programs as Hitler and the Nazis in Germany.

Ironically he was also a supporter of Labor Unions, the Minimum Wage as a Living Wage, and curtailing Corporate Power. More can be learned about him here: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin)

So most of these things were hidden by the outbreak of WW2. They did persist despite the thorough debunking of these ideas during and after WW2.

And after the war the "newest" fear was COMMUNISM. That fear resulted in the totally illigal persecution of Americans by the House Un-American Activities Committee. It was not until the person who was railroading people, Joseph McCarthy, got to big for his britches and started going after some really powerful people that he was shut down.

That same fear got us involved in the Civil War in Vietnam, which we never should have been involved in. The Government was scared because Ho Chi Min claimed to be Communist. What they missed was that he was a Nationalist, Anti Colonialist, who hated and feared China and Russia. That if we had supported his declaring Independence from France at the end of WW2 and allowed a single Government of a United Vietnam, which a member of the OSS who was in Vietnam for a long while with them suggested, then we would have quickly developed the stable and profiable relationship with them that we have today. And we would not have the scar of the Vietnam War on the American phychy.

And then we have Cuba. The US was a colonial power propping up the Regime of Fulgencio Batista. He had overthrown the previous Government in a coup and had the backing of, among others, the US Mafia chieftans. He provided a safe haven for gambling and money laundering among other things. Castro chose Communism as an antidote to the US backed regime that was looting his country. If we had allowed the cuban people their say instead of trying to thwart it then it is possible that our relations with all of Central and South America could have been better.

Then we have the Middle East.

Big One was the 1953 American and British overthrow of an elected Iranian Government to keep the Shah on the throne. The people of Iran did not want the Shah. They wanted the Government they had elected. The Shah had to be brutal to hold onto his power and was seen as an American puppet. Which he was. The big fear was that the elected Government of Mohammad Mosaddegh would Nationalize the Oil Industry, which he did want to do to take it out of the hands of American and British Oligarchs, and become Communist.

People of the Middle East still remember this event as if it was yesterday. They also remember all of the nasty regimes that we have backed so that we can continue to mainline oil.

Because the fear of today is Resources. That there are not enough and that we need to grab all that we can in order to be ok.

There has been and continues to be a strong current of fear and distrust of intelligence in this country. Throughout our History we have been afraid. Whether of the Native population, our African cousins whom we held in the most abject Slavery and then repression by Law and Custom, to any "Foriegners" whether based on where from to religion to race.

And any intellectual arguments as to why this is ridiculous has been dismissed wholesale and belittled.

And throughout our history, from Colonial times on through to today there have been very powerful and well financed interests who have perpetuated these strains.

It has always been here. From 1619 in Jamestown on. And it got a huge boost in the 1680's and 90's when the Planter class in Virginia began to see that the White Lower classes were beginning to see that they had more in common with the Black Slaves than with the White Planters. So they took an already existing though not really nasty racism that existed and gave it steroids and weaponized it and gave us that particularily virulent strain of racism that we have in this country to this day.

And then there is, of course, the dehumanization of the Native population by colonial exploiters. AKA, our forefathers. We could not admit their Humanity and still commit Genocide against them So we made them not Human and kept wholesale killing them.

In Religion anyone who was Not a WASP, White Anglo Saxon Protestent, or at could look like one, was not quite human either.

And on and on. We have always been divided by things and powerful wealthy forces have kept pushingfor us to stay that way.

And it is always Fear that is the weaponization. The Fear that we won't get ours if we let you get yours. The Fear that if we give you equal rights then somehow we will have less rights. The Fear that if youare alowed equality then you will treat us the way that we treated you. And on and on and on...

All Fear based thinking that is pushed by rich and powerful people to divide us.

And ever since Ronald Reagan and his band of criminals got in it has gotten real bad. Because they were very clever. First they promoted this Australian propagandist to be ramrodded through the citezenship process to get around only American citezens to own a network, and he created Fox Networks, the propaganda arm of right wing hate. And then they repealed the fairness doctrine which allowed lieing unchecked on the broadcast networks. Fox "News" was born and Rush Limbough got on the radio.

And since then they have had many clones pushing the same hate filled crap. For the last 30+ years there has been radio and tv dedicated to spreading hate and dividing America. And it has, for the most part, gone completely unchallenged.

And here we are today. We have one political party that is no longer interested in Governing. I do not believe that it has the institutional ability anymore. All it can do obstruct and destroy. And it is well supported by the institutions in radio and tv which have been supporting it and a lot of places on the internet.

They are truly the American Nazi Party in everything but name. The only thing they have left in their tank is Fear and Hate and Blame. That is it.

And the rest of us. Just trying to get through the day in a world that is made increasingly hostile by the other party that sees anyone who is not in total lockstep with them as an enemy to be destroyed.

We are at a divide in this nation. And how we go in the next few years will tell whether we live or die. It has gotten that bad. If we do not utterly destroy the Nazis in the next and all following elections, and get rid of the talk radio and Fox "News" voices, along with all the supporting webspots, if we do not drive that thinking back to the fringe where they belong again, then I do not see our Nation, our Society, surviving.

It really is that desperate. They know it. They have been at war with the rest of us for a long time. It is time we stopped trying to have a civilized conversation. We are way beyond that.