America - Land of the Fear, Home of the Dismay

Having just been back in the states for a couple weeks, I still can't get over how much of a country and culture of fear the U.S. has become since 2001. Watching only one evening of prime time network TV gave me two hours of [okay, adequately produced psuedo-melodrama] evil Al Quaeda plots showing us how terrible brown people are ready to kill us RIGHT NOW!!! IN OUR HOMES!!! and THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO!!! and another hour of YOUR CHILDREN!!! being abducted and killed [and probably abused] by that seemingly normal guy who LIVES RIGHT NEXT DOOR!!!

And don't even get me started on the that half hour of concentrated despair, anxiety and depression that is network television news. When I was in Virginia working my security gig, and CNN was constantly running in the background, their fear mongering paranoia was at least occassionally offset, given that there is not enough news to fill a 24hr news network , by meaningless filler absurdity that took the edge of off the intelligence insulting "news".

No wonder at a full 10% percent of folks are poppin' antidepressants like candy. And the figures keep on risin'...

Be afraid America.

Somebody wants you to be.

Kung Fu Monkey: "Wait, Aren't You Scared?":

"Maybe it's just, I cast my eyes back on the last century ...

FDR: Oh, I'm sorry, was wiping out our entire Pacific fleet supposed to intimidate us? We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and right now we're coming to kick your ass with brand new destroyers riveted by waitresses. How's that going to feel?

CHURCHILL: Yeah, you keep bombing us. We'll be in the pub, flipping you off. I'm slapping Rolls-Royce engines into untested flying coffins to knock you out of the skies, and then I'm sending angry Welshmen to burn your country from the Rhine to the Polish border.

US. NOW: BE AFRAID!! Oh God, the Brown Bad people could strike any moment! They could strike ... NOW!! AHHHH. Okay, how about .. NOW!! AAGAGAHAHAHHAG! Quick, do whatever we tell you, and believe whatever we tell you, or YOU WILL BE KILLED BY BROWN PEOPLE!! PUT DOWN THAT SIPPY CUP!!

... and I'm just a little tired of being on the wrong side of that historical arc."