Clarity
Get the facts, follow the money, discover who benefits
Acrylic painting / 36” by 48” / silver frame / $ 699
Fear Itself
In his first inaugural address Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Over the years his statement made me wonder what gives rise to fear itself. As a child I was afraid to put my hand over the side of my bed at night in fear that it would be grabbed by a monster living underneath. I huddled under the covers and stayed there until my father came to the rescue to quiet my tears. When I was in my early twenties I was once more drawn into far fetched fears, only this time they were caused by the cold war. I was convinced that a nuclear bomb was about to land on my young family. Cambridge seemed like the perfect target. When friends talked about building bomb shelters I joined their conversations thinking that we needed one too. How crazy was that? Thank goodness my husband was a more rational person since I was a victim of fear itself.
During World War II the Nazis did a good job of churning up hatred for Jews, Gypsies and Homosexuals. Previously compassionate people acted like animals do when afraid. They will do anything necessary to protect themselves from these perceived demons. And, while they were at it, they plundered Jewish art, damaged shops, took over their apartments, and appropriated their money. In the United States fear helped promote our own scapegoats. Japanese citizens became our villains, giving us an excuse to grab their lands and livelihoods. Incarcerating American citizens in concentration camps was one of the most unconscionable moments in our history. And now, not learning from mistakes of the past, many Americans have bought into an irrational fear and are ready to repeat history, only this time with innocent Muslim targets.
Fear is a powerful motivator that can serve good as well as bad masters. When there is a real threat it can illicit a rational reaction. But when fear is manipulated by politicians and media executives it produces irrational reactions that are not based in fact. For instance, if you are in an Alaskan wilderness area and come across a grizzly bear, you will certainly become frightened. You have good reason to be fearful and your body will react with an adrenalin rush that propels you to rise to the occasion. In this situation you benefit by being afraid. Your ability to react quickly may be your ticket to survival.
When powerful figures running for president use oratory skills to hypnotize a nation into doing something I consider who benefits, saying to myself, “follow the money.” TV stations will get more advertisers by promoting an entertainer-in-chief for president than a commander-in-chief. We often hear that we should build a wall to protect us against illegal immigration from Mexico but how much coverage is there to Pew Research Center’s report that in 2012 net migration fell to Zero. We read about child kidnappings and don’t want our children walking to school or talking to strangers but how often do you discover that only 1 in 10,000 children recorded missing are not recovered, that those abducted are usually taken by family members. Abductions by strangers are very rare and fears aroused by the media are out of proportion to the reality.
In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower discussed what he saw as a great threat to democracy. He warned that a military-industrial complex that unites defense contractors with armed forces will produce ruinous results. “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist,” he said. And then added, “we must learn how to compose differences not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.” As a nation we are stuck with the results of not heeding his concerns. Wars and terrorism have escalated making us fearful once more. So who benefits? Defense contractors, for they make huge profits. As long as wars continue they remain winners eager to fill lucrative contracts for drones, planes and bombs.
Huffington Post mentions 25 companies who benefited from the war in Iraq. We jumped in without evidence because we were led by fearful emotions. Though some call the war a strategic blunder and a monstrous injustice. Others bought into the idea that it was a patriotic mission. But the real beneficiaries were businesses for which war was a lucrative cash-cow. Remember Halliburton? Dick Cheney’s old company received $17.2 billion in war related revenue between 2003-2006 alone. The average taxpayer pays for wars while the war industries make the profits. Follow the money.
How do you get people to go along with a money making machine? It is easy. Insight fear and create scapegoats. Acknowledge hot heads and puff up egos. Claim you are keeping people safe while you use their cash, deplete their resources, and deny their basic rights to health and work.
Ammunition and unmanned aircraft makers are the American’s beneficiaries of the war on ISIS. But you might wonder how ISIS leaders benefit by creating a culture of fear. Why are they killing their own people, demolishing their cities, and sending 19 million refugees from their homeland? According to David Cohen, U.S . Department of the Treasury’s Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, ISIS has amassed an unprecedented amount of wealth, most of which come form local criminal and terrorist activities. They employ middlemen to smuggle cash in carried in suitcases and on trucks and out of the country. This is similar to the way the Rothchild’s were employed by the German court to move funds in the 1760s. And by insisting on absolute adherence to Sharia law they have a way of controlling their own people.
Newsweek reports, “at its heart, the ISIS money machine runs on the fear-and greed- of the millions of people it controls. It manifests itself in a diverse range of financial activities, many of them outsourced via middlemen and driven by hordes of self-interested parties.” Most of the leaders come from criminal, not religious leaders in their society. According to Cohen it is the best-funded terrorist organization” the U.S. has “ever confronted.” Though it calls for 100 percent adherents to Sharia law, behind the rhetoric it acts like the Mafia while it rakes in money. More than 8 billion Muslim believers are horrified by how Islam has been reinterpreted. Leila Hudson, associate professor at the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona calls ISIS, “deviant and pathological.” It is a far cry from the teachings of the Quran.
Where does that leave us? It is time to be level headed, resist a fear that leads nowhere, take time to follow the money trail and don’t allow it to work for the betterment of a few rather than society as a whole.
References:
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/23/net-migration-from-mexico-falls-to-zero-and-perhaps-less/ – Net migration statistics from Pew research Center.
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942244/ikes-warning-of-military-expansion-50-years-later – Eisenhower’s warning of Military Expansion.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/25/iraq-war-profiteers-25-co_n_115004.html – Huffington Post article about who benefits from war.
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/11/14/how-does-isis-fund-its-reign-terror-282607.html- Newsweek article about how ISIS amasses money.
http://fortune.com/2014/09/13/defense-industry-winner-against-isis/ – Fortune magazine article about who wins from the war on ISIS.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/deviant-pathological-what-do-isis-extremists-really-want-n194136 – NBC News story about what ISIS Extremists really want.
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Art work is always for sale. I can be contacted at marilynne@eichingerfineart.com.