Reminder: Our online Zoom conference on open borders continues this evening, Monday, October 28, with Benjamin Powell, director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University and professor of economics at Texas Tech University’s Rawls College of Business. 7 p.m.-8 p.m. Eastern Time. Register here.
Reminder: I’ll be speaking at the JFK Lancer conference and also at the CAPA conference, which are being held on November 22-24 in Dallas. There is also an excellent third JFK conference on the same weekend sponsored by the JFK Historical Group. All three of them are fantastic JFK-assassination-related conferences. I highly recommend registering for all three and then picking and choosing which sessions you would like to attend at all three conferences. The registration prices are moderate and it’s a great way to support three great conferences. I will have some of my JFK books at my presentations to autograph and sell at a discounted price. I hope to see you all there!
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In a national-security state, fear is the coin of the realm. The United States is no exception. In order to justify its continued existence and its ever-growing power and tax-funded largess, the U.S. national-security establishment — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — must keep the American people afraid, tense, agitated, and nervous. That necessarily means presenting us with a constant array of official “enemies,” “adversaries,” “competitors,” or “opponents” who are coming to get us.
The Cold War racket was a perfect demonstration of this phenomenon. For 44 years, Americans were inculcated with the mindset that the Reds were coming to get us, especially the Russian Reds. As the title of a popular Cold War movie put it, “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!” Most every American citizen was made to be deathly afraid of the Russians.
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But the Russian Reds were not the only ones who were supposedly coming to get us. There was also the Chinese Reds, the North Korean Reds, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong Reds, the Cuban Reds, the Nicaraguan Reds, the Guatemalan Reds, the Iranian Reds, the Chilean Reds, and other Reds.
There were also the internal Reds who were already here. The civil-rights Reds, including Martin Luther King, the Reds in the Army, the Reds in Congress, and the Reds in Hollywood, including Dalton Trumbo. Some even suggested that President Eisenhower was a Red.
Let’s face it — the Reds were everywhere, even under our beds. And they were all coming to get us.
And then suddenly and unexpectedly, the Cold War ended in 1989. Those dastardly Russians! How dare them to put an end to the fear racket that had proven so lucrative to the U.S. national-security establishment and its ever-growing army of “defense” contractors.
No problem. Just come up with a new official enemy who is coming to get us. For the next 11 years, the daily mantra became “Saddam! Saddam! Saddam!” Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, who was billed as the “new Hitler,” and who, Ironically, had been a loyal U.S. partner during the 1980s, was now coming to get us. Through the power of indoctrination and propaganda, Americans were made to transfer their fear of the Reds to their fear of Saddam Hussein. Saddam was now coming to get us — and with his supposed weapons of mass destruction.
At the same time, knowing that people in the Middle East would ultimately retaliate, the U.S. national-security state went on a massive killing spree in the Middle East, not only with its war on Iraq but also with its deadly system of economic sanctions against the Iraqi people, which were killing multitudes of children.
The predictable retaliation came in the form of terrorist attacks, such as the bombing of the USS Cole, the bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa, the killings of CIA officials in Virginia, and others. And then the big ones came — the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The U.S. national-security state was off to the races again, with fear of the terrorists and the Muslims replacing fear of the Reds and Saddam. The terrorists are coming! Buy your gas masks! The Muslims are coming! Get your community ready for Sharia law!
Oh, let’s not forget those unarmed illegal immigrants who are invading America and coming to get us. Also, don’t forget those drug dealers and drug cartels brought into existence by the U.S. decades-old drug war. They’re coming to get us too — with their drugs.
Ah, but don’t forget those pesky Russians. After the U.S. national-security establishment moved its NATO forces ever-closer to Russia’s borders, it turned out that the Russians are coming to get us again. As soon as they conquer Ukraine to prevent it from joining the old Cold War dinosaur NATO, their all-powerful army will be moving on Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and England and then crossing the Atlantic to conquer South America, Central America, Canada, and then the United States. The dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, the withdrawal of Russian troops from Eastern Europe, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union was all a conspiratorial ruse designed to get us to disarm. The Russians Are Coming! … Again! … along with the Chinese Reds, the Cuban Reds, the North Korean Reds, and maybe even the North Vietnamese and Vietcong Reds.
But the fact is that no one is coming to get us. And no one ever was. Not the Reds. Not the Russians. Not the Chinese. Not the Cubans. Not Saddam. Not the terrorists. Not the Muslims. And no, not the Russians again. No one!
It has always been one great big national-security state racket — or a series of rackets intended to keep the national-security establishment and its vast and ever-growing army of “defense” contractors in high cotton.
There is not one entity in the world today that has the money, military, transport ships, airplanes, supplies, supply lines, or even the interest in crossing either the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans to invade and conquer the United States. And, no, the illegals and the drug dealers are not coming to get us either.
The “coming-to-get-us” rackets have always been founded on baseless and irrational fear inculcated in the American people through indoctrination and propaganda. The more fearful Americans have become, the more susceptible they have become to more fear-mongering indoctrination and propaganda. Today, it is safe to say that while Americans live under the most powerful government in history, they are also among the most frightened people in the world. That’s not a coincidence. The bigger and more powerful the government, the smaller and more frightened the citizenry.
*****
Reminder: Our online Zoom conference on open borders continues this evening, Monday, October 28, with Benjamin Powell, director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University and professor of economics at Texas Tech University’s Rawls College of Business. 7 p.m.-8 p.m. Eastern Time. Register here.
Reminder: I’ll be speaking at the JFK Lancer conference and also at the CAPA conference, which are being held on November 22-24 in Dallas. There is also an excellent third JFK conference on the same weekend sponsored by the JFK Historical Group. All three of them are fantastic JFK-assassination-related conferences. I highly recommend registering for all three and then picking and choosing which sessions you would like to attend at all three conferences. The registration prices are moderate and it’s a great way to support three great conferences. I will have some of my JFK books at my presentations to autograph and sell at a discounted price. I hope to see you all there!