Propaganda of fear is old news

"Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. Indeed it is a part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war."

Last week's anti-Bush rant from MoveOn.org? Another "Refuse to be afraid" mantra from Montag? Naah - it's Gen. Douglas MacArthur, quoted by Garet Garrett in 1952 and again in Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggins' Empire of Debt. After musing that I could read two or more books at once the other week, I've been nibbling away at Bonner-Wiggins while feasting on Hugo nominees.

It's a little daunting to discover that the US of A's current disastrous path has its roots in decisions made before I was born. In fact, they seem to go back to Wilson's quest to make the world safe for democracy - or perhaps Lincoln's decision to force the Confederacy back into the Union - or perhaps the decision to replace the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution. Whenever the dream of liberty went awry, the bottom line is that it happened long ago, and every step of the way free men and women were sounding the alarm.

I'm enjoying this little foray into the roots of our current crisis, although it's hard to escape the impending feeling of dread. The more one learns about the fear mongers, though, the easier it is to spot their handiwork and the more amusing their heavyhanded efforts become. If we could only get enough people laughing at the mentality of "terrorists-avian flu-caffeine-alcohol-tobacco-firearms-ozone-global warming-inflation-and the New York Yankees are coming to kill us all," perhaps we could instill some healthy skepticism into people and empower them to take control of their lives. I almost wrote "empower them to take BACK control of their lives," but the more I learn about this whole mess, the more I think we've been trained almost since birth to surrender control of our lives to those who "know better."

Empire of Debt is becoming one of the essential books that freedom-loving folks need to absorb along the path to understanding the fix we're in - and, hopefully, how to fix it, or at least how to survive the mess.