The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself

Terror, according to the dictionary, is defined as extreme fear, dread,
alarm, or panic.  Terrorism is defined as the systemic use of terror
as a means of coercion. And a terrorist is a person who uses or
advocates terrorism; a person who frightens other.  Tell me are
you frightened?  Then the terrorists have succeeded.

America has collectively hid under its bed covers since September
11, 2001, and it is time we came out into the sunshine again.  On
that fateful day 2763 persons were killed; they were from 78
different countries.  It was the first attack on American soil since
Pearl Harbor it changed us a nation, but instead of making us
resolute it made us fearful.  The president, then George W. Bush,
said something that he was widely ridiculed for.  I didn't understand
it myself when I first heard it, it made me angry, but now I would
like to echo it, loudly and clearly.  President Bush said, Go shopping!

The man who holds the presidency now has a different idea for
America.  He would like to keep us in fear, dread, alarm, and panic.
Fear of people who don't look or speak like us, dread that our jobs
are leaving the country and are going to foreign lands, alarm that
thousands of thieves, murderers, and drug addicts are storming
our borders, and panic that if we do not isolate ourselves, we are
all doomed.    Hmmm...

We, as a nation are becoming more and more insular and isolated
and it is becoming so at an earlier and earlier age.  Parents who fear
sending their precious progeny out into the world filled with unknown
dangers lurking around every corner, now either home-school or
enroll them in one of the many internet schools available.  Thus,
insuring their child will never learn to assimilate into society.  They
will never benefit from the feeling of belonging to something
greater than themselves; to a school, a city, a state, a nation a world.

There are things that bind us together, to insure the common good,
and to fight the common enemy.  We cannot relate to another
without going outside of ourselves.  You may have 756 Facebook
'friends', but if you cannot call up three people to join you for lunch,
to look across the table from you, and share sustenance and the other
most basic need, human contact, you are truly lost. And we are lost
as a country.

What is driving this isolation?  Fear!  Newly hatched chicks are
contained in a small area with heat, food and water, usually until
they are fledged.  That small space must be a circle because those
chicks will panic at nothing and run amok, and if the container
were to have corners, they would crush one another to death in
the corners.  Have we become like those chickens, afraid of the
smallest hint of danger?  Fearful of going out of our safety
container, we think twice about going to the theatre, the mall, our
places of worship for god's sake.  The last refuge of peace and
tranquility has become; bring your gun to church, armed guards,
and metal detectors.  I'm glad I am no longer filled with that
need, for to see what has become of worshiping would surely
break my spirit and my heart.

Instead of reaching out across the oceans to connect with others
who share our humanity we use these oceans as barriers, but they
can easily be breached as September 11th proved.  Instead of
experiencing the new and different by touch and smell and
taste, we sit in our self-contained world and view life through
virtual reality glasses. Fly to a foreign land?  No way!  It would
mean leaving the safety of our self-built refuge.  It would mean
mingling with people who don't speak like us, think like us, who
dress differently, eat strange food, and yet in their own way they
are the same as us.

In 1933, president Franklin Roosevelt gave a speech at his
inauguration, he talked about facing a situation that was
different than what we face today, but his words can be
applied just the same:

         ...this great nation will endure, will revive and
         prosper, So first of all, let me assert my firm
         belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear
         itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror
         which paralyzes the needed efforts to convert
         retreat into advance.

If we let fear rule our lives, those people who took down the
World Trade Center, and those home-grown ideologues have
won without firing another shot.  So shut down that computer,
close your Amazon account, turn off the TV, open your front
door and walk outside.  Living in fear is not living!
Go Shopping!

                                  I'm just sayin'.