Fear and Ignorance

Interesting. A fear sensed by one person is softened by another and comfort given. Yet another person wields the sensed fear as a tool, a cudgel to heighten the fear within the fearful one. Opposite reactions; opposite ministrations.

Some people are like that: caring and comforting. Some people act opposite and for what gain? Power? Manipulation of perception? Why? Why does the latter person misuse the situation?

The school yard bully we understand. It makes him feel superior to someone else; he uses what he thinks is weakness and threatens his mark for discomfort. Fear and trembling is his aim to have some element of control over the other person.

A nasty boss does this, too; only he conjures the prospect of joblessness to force his worker or workers to do more work for an unfair, low wage. Union busting is an example of this. Bosses did it long ago when unions were not very strong; and they wanted them that way, or gone. The bosses feared the unions and their power to disrupt production and profit generation. So they battled them and worked hard to suppress them.

It didn’t work. Unions grew in size, stature, strength and power. The courts helped level the playing field as well and labor law changed in favor of unions. Then the balance of power shifted the other direction and history has been marked by this struggled for over a century. 

Politicians exercised bully power by ramping up fear of the unknown and pushing forward unrealistic visions of horrible results if the fear were realized. Voter behavior was manipulated in this manner. Hitler’s Germany knew this well. All through the era of Nazism fear and propaganda were used to re-engineer the German history.

So too, Russia. Propaganda has always been a political tool in Mother Russia. For some reason it thrived there. To this day it remains a constant feature of the political landscape.

Corporations have often manipulated truth to gain an upper hand in labor dealing and sales to beat competitors. A social conscience grew in the 1930’s and 1940’s as the nation dealt with World War II. After all, if we were to defeat Hitler and his Nazi Party, we had to trust each other and work together. We did and a social awareness of team and ‘other’ grew to important dimensions.

By the end of the 20^th century American values were well charted. Or so we thought. The age of Clinton – Bill Clinton’s Presidency – witnessed a terrible onslaught of political shenanigans and truth twisting to defeat Clinton. It was an unmerciful attack and it lasted well after his term was over. The value of manipulating facts continued in the Bush W era as our nation was ‘talked’ into two wars when only one, limited one was necessary as a response to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden’s presence in Afghanistan. But then we aimed at Iraq and moved the war machine there. This nearly cost us Afghanistan, and some will say it still did. But Iraq was laid low by our military might. The question remains why? And to what end? That nation is still decimated and destroyed. It is still not whole or healthy or able to care for itself. Only a seedbed of hostility and further nuisance internationally will grow from this debacle.

Propaganda. Bullying. Speaking mistruth as truth. Little respect for history or facts.

Sound familiar? Is this not a good description of the trump presidency? Is he not using corporate culture, power structure and bullying to get what he thinks is right? He feels bullied by North Korea so he bullies back?

International relations doesn’t work this way. We are seeing the result. Point and counterpoint may work in a neatly confined game of debate, but it doesn’t work well in threats of war. There is a reason why so many political games played to control North Korea failed. It was not one president or several who failed. No; it was more than that.

For far too long the global community has viewed America as the military controller of distrusted segments of the global map. As long as they let America be the policeman of peace, they didn’t have to do so. They didn’t even pay their fair share of NATO expenses. On that trump is correct. But America is not the be all and end all of the global community. It is not the peace keeper, either.

That role belongs to all nations working together for common goals. America has helped make that work, but it was carrying too large a share of the task.

This view requires all global powers to weigh in on the debates. China needs to contain its friend North Korea. It has allowed it to play poorly in the nuclear weapons game. Now we have a viable threat to all of mankind as a result. If this threat is to be contained, China will have to play the trump card, not Donald trump. Russia, too, has helped arm North Korea; it has also aided and abetted (along with its pal, Iran, the nuclearizing of North Korea.  America didn’t allow it. America didn’t make it happen. Others did.

Now it is for many others to come together and solve the problem. The entire global community benefits from this. So the power and responsibility is in their hands.

The Donald is not correct in his handling of this matter; but he is right that something needs to be done and soon to curb the nasty, childish behavior of North Korea. Their people are starving and in ill health. The ruling class has the money and baubles of privilege. The heavy funding goes to the military for no good reason but to wield power for ego strokes. It is a dangerous game that spells total ruin for all, not just North Korea.

Donald, shut up and get off Twitter. China, you are moving in the right direction; step in and control North Korea for the sake of all of us, most definitely for your own good as well. Ask Russia to play a part; they are part of the problem and need to be a part of the solution.

Now. Can we all just get along?

August 15, 2017