--- In [email protected], "Alex Stanley"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> > Now that you've brought up the subject, there is a
> > series of three documentary films made by the BBC
> > that I *highly* recommend. You can download high-
> > quality MP4 versions of them at:
> >
> > http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
> >
> > This is one of the strongest and most well-made
> > documentaries on the real issues of our time I
> > have ever seen. Its basic thesis is that modern
> > politicians have stopped trying to sell people
> > noble and inspiring dreams, and in fact are in
> > the business of "selling nightmares," of *creating*
> > fear, and of then making empty promises to save
> > the people from the fears that they themselves
> > have created.
>
> How is this any different from how it's always been? To me,
> it sounds no different than making people think that they're
> sinful and destined for eternity in hell and then selling
> them salvation dogma.
I didn't write the documentary, and thus can't answer
for the filmmakers who did, but my answer would be
that what seems to different in the modern paradigm
is that there *IS* no salvation promised, merely
a *temporary* suspension of a fear that never goes
away because the people selling it don't *want* it
to go away.
"Salvation dogma" promises something after one dies;
another variant would be promising suckers enlight-
enment as long as they keep contributing money to
the org that holds the keys to enlightenment. In both
cases there is a positive carrot held out in front
of the donkey.
The "selling nightmares" phenomenon is devoid of such
a positive carrot; it's more along the lines of trying
to get everyone terrified of a nameless evil that
only they (the politicians, the sellers of nightmares)
can "protect" us from, and only temporarily. It never
ends. The danger that they talk about is very much here
and now, not in some afterlife, and it goes on forever.
("The war against terrorism will never end." - G. Bush)
Even though the sellers of nightmares make announce-
ments from time to time to make people feel safer for
a short time, those announcements are *always*
followed up by announcements of the next danger.
In other words, there *IS* no salvation, merely temp-
orary pauses in a general fear that never stops.
That's what the politicians who take advantage of
this new world view are selling. They count on the
fundamentalist religions that are their allies to
sell people the "there's hope after you die" carrot.
While the people are alive, however, these sellers
of nightmares want the people afraid. Their adver-
tising slogan could be, "All fear, all the time."
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