A Nation in Fear

Last fall Paulson went to Congress with this tale of impending doom that had the people in the room leaving, literally, ashen faced in fear. A bill had to be passed within days, he said, or our nation would face a financial crisis that would make 1929 look like a proverbial walk in the park. Most of Congress, including the Democratic leadership, bought his story in its entirety and made preparations to pass the bill that Paulson presented to them and told them was the only possible solution.

To their credit, a few members of that body asked questions and even had the temerity to offer alternative solutions. Paulson treated them like naughty children and told them their solutions would not work. The maverick members managed to get some conditions imposed on the largess that Paulson was insisting upon and the bill, hugely unpopular with American citizenry, passed.

Then it turned out that everything Paulson had been saying was wrong. Things went bad, but not in the manner and not to the depth that Paulson predicted, and not for the reasons that he had given. The money was not spent the way he insisted was essential, in fact it got spent the way that the maverick members of Congress had suggested and which Paulson had told them would not work. Whether Paulson was pulling a huge con game, or whether he simply didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about, whether he has been the stupidest or the most dishonest Treasury Secretary in recent history, may never be known. In all honesty, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is this.

Congress, with a gun held to its head, passed a bad bill which has harmed rather than helped this nation. They blindly reacted to fear. We’ve been here before, and it led us to a disasterous war in Iraq.

First it was mushroom clouds. Then it was financial meltdown 1929 style. Now it is millions of jobs and a sacrosanct industry disappearing overnight. The mushroom clouds turned out to be false fear. The financial meltdown turned out to be a false fear. We have yet to find out about the millions of jobs disappearing in the aftermath of an auto industry meltdown.

Congress failed to pass this bill, but for the wrong reasons. It bought the fear lock, stock and barrel. The Democratic leadership did everything possible to pass this bill, because it was in thrall to the fear this time, just as it has been in the past. “The auto industry will collapse and this nation cannot survive without it.”

“But,” you claim, “it isn’t just the government. Everybody is saying it.”

At first it was only Bush and Company hyperventilating about the mushroom clouds, and then every news medium and pundit was screaming Iraqi Armageddon. At first only Paulson had the vapors about financial meltdown and the American people were inundating their representatives with advise against any bailout. Then media and pundits took up the hue and cry and in a matter of days, “everybody” was screaming about approaching financial doom. It has always been, at first, just the government advertising the fear. But always, always, fear spreads like wildfire.

The Bush Administration should go down in history as having fundamentally changed the character of a nation. From the nation that won World War II, we have become the world’s most fearful nation. No other nation in the world has news media whose headlines as consistently scream fear and disaster as ours. No nation has a legislative leadership whose decisions are as consistently motivated by reaction to fear. No nation has a public whose requirement of its leaders is first and foremost to “keep us safe” from threats, mostly nonexistent.

Our national anthem ends with the phrase, “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Our freedom is being eroded, and bravery is now essentially limited to less than one percent of our men and women, those who serve in the military. Beyond them I think this country is notable only for its cowardice.

We have become a nation of cravens, cowering in our foxholes, bleating at our leaders liberties be damned, just bail us out of our problems and keep us safe.