Dennis talks about fear in America
From a speech given on March 18, 2004, in Juneau, Alaska:
I think that fear is a real factor in our politics today. I think the administration is beating the drums of fear. I think they have gained more control by promoting fear with these color-coded threat systems. It's like an Orwellian weather report. Think about it. What does it mean that today, it's orange?
Really, I wonder, what does it mean? We are being asked to accept now, and follow this. We're being asked to accept this as a convention of our lives. And after a while, you know, that's just part of our life. Why? We need to go back through this and ask some questions.
Yes, there's fear. The Patriot Act was passed out of fear. The Department of Homeland Security was passed out of fear. The war in Iraq was sanctioned out of fear. A four hundred and twenty-one billion dollar Pentagon budget was totally fear driven. We spend more than the rest of the world put together on the military.
Fear driven. Putting weapons in space. Fear driven. Putting up a missile shield. Fear driven. Building new nuclear weapons. Fear driven. Meanwhile, we separate ourselves with these policies from the rest of humanity and thereby bring to ourselves that which we fear - by the very actions which we claim are being executed in the name of meeting the fear.
Does anyone think we're safer because we bombed Iraq? Please. Really, think about that, who are the geniuses who came up with this one? There seems to be a - I don't know if it's a lack of sophistication, or just an addiction to war - on the part of leaders, who will use fear as a political commodity. If you scare the American people, you may get enough people to freeze.
All of us know what fear is. You may not have fear of 9/11 because of the distance from it, but all of us are familiar with fear of one kind or another. Fear has a paralyzing power. Fear has the ability to get anyone to do something that is adverse to your own interests. We've all had this happen. Fear has this chance to freeze us, to choke.
People who use fear to stay in power are not worthy of a democratic society. And this administration is using fear.
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