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Fear is a powerful emotion that is easily exploited by politicians.

German Nazi Party member Joseph Goebbels, who became Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister in 1933, giving him power over all German radio, press, and cinema output, knew very well how to create fear leading to compliance among a large population.

Goebbels stated, and I slightly paraphrase, “it is easy to shape the opinions of the masses. All a leader must do is to create an enemy, tell the people that they are in danger of being attacked, and state that you are the one who will protect them. The public will willingly give up their freedoms for what they perceive as safety.”

Goebbels had an opinion of the United States that he expressed in an essay in the newspaper Das Reich on 9 August 1942. Some of his comments seem as if they were made only yesterday.
I quote “We would not say anything if the U.S.A. were aware of its intellectual and moral defects and was trying to grow up. But it is too much when it behaves in an impudent manner toward a part of the earth with a few thousands years of glorious history behind it, attempting to teach it moral and intellectual lessons, whether out of innocence or a complete lack of genuine culture and learning. We can forgive the mistakes of youth, but this degree of arrogance gets on one’s nerves.”

The New Culture of Fear

Fear – “Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.” – Bertrand Russell

Fear – “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”-H.P. Lovecraft

Fear – “Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.” – Dorothy Thompson

Fear is a powerful emotion. It is hard wired into every human being as a defense mechanism. Early man when confronted with a head to head encounter with a huge hungry animal experienced a healthy fear that immediately injected large qualities of adrenalin into his system to assist in a hasty flight.

Or if flight was not possible the adrenalin rush increased his ability to fight if he must. Of course, fighting a large hungry animal is probably a bad idea that will ruin ones day. But at times that’s life. You don’t have a choice. You must fight when you would rather flee. You must be courageous and stand up to your fear and foe.

Everyone has a fear of some sort. Fear of the dark. Fear of heights. Fear of water that’s deeper then you are tall. Fear of snakes. Fear of fire. Fear of death. Fear of strangers, especially if they are a different color than yourself or of a different culture. And for some poor souls a fear of living their lives to the fullest. Safety first. Take no chances. Stay put. Don’t venture out.

Deviation From the Mean, Part Three

The focus of this blog is to examine, ideas, events, and personal development issues that are outside of our normal everyday experience. Or at least that should be outside of our daily experience given a logical rational world. Thus the title of the blog, Deviation From the Mean. I am most interested in events and ideas that are extraordinary deviations from normal and how they develop, not everyday happenings.

We can begin to appreciate as we grow older and occasionally wiser that given certain conditions, events and ideas that should be extraordinary, rare, and rejected by the general population can become the norm and not considered a deviation at all. I am especially interested in events and ideas that have somehow become common place and accepted by the public that in my opinion should be way off somewhere at the end of the bell curve, at least several deviations removed from normalcy.

How does this shift in the norm happen?

Why can intelligent humans be made to believe in almost anything if the idea is promoted by a person in authority who has the bully pulpit and access to news media? An example of this is President Bush’s use of the President’s good office to promote a war that was a bad idea from the get go and that has now indeed gone from bad to worse.

Am I dreaming? A bad dream at that.

Over the past few days military planners at the Pentagon, top ranking military brass, and senior administration officials have been discussing the implementation of late stage Vietnam policies as a possible solution to the disaster in Iraq.

Excuse me, but didn’t we lose the Vietnam War? Of course, officially we declared victory and withdrew but most historians, except for those employed by the government, would question the validity of the declaration of victory.

Have the military planners forgotten the dramatic scenes of the final American days in Vietnam? They should be forced to review the TV film footage of American helicopters evacuating the last groups of panicked Americans and even more panicked Vietnamese officials, embassy workers, and special friends from the American Embassy rooftop in Saigon. For me these scenes were horribly painful.

As a Vietnam veteran I couldn’t hold back the tears as I watched on TV the deteriorating conditions and the America withdrawal reaching the full blown panic stage. While I strongly disagree with America policy in Iraq I still wish there were an honorable way out. I don’t want to witness in Iraq another Vietnam like exit. But as in Vietnam I fear that there are no good options.

I left Vietnam in 1968. The passage of time has not and never will erase memories of Vietnam or those images. Victory indeed. A declaration of victory in Iraq will be just as hollow.

No doubt it is exciting to see money coming in from your internet business. That is, as long as the income is greater than your expenses. With PPC advertising campaigns becoming in many cases quite expensive, as the cost of keywords are bid up, using low cost viral marketing techniques is an excellent way to efficiently market products. That is if you know how and have a quality product to promote.

You may ask what is viral marketing anyhow? And why can it be so effective when the right product is promoted?

The term “Viral” is used to describe the use of marketing methods that once underway tend to multiply and spread themselves very quickly; like an infectious virus of the unwanted kind, say the flu. You know how quickly that can spread, right?

The secret to effective viral marketing is to create a product that has great perceived value and then give it away for free or at very low cost. Those who receive the product are only too happy to recommend it to their friends and Internet associates, who in turn recommend it to their friends, who pass it along to their friends. On the Internet this process can repeat itself extremely quickly with an ever more powerful exponential effect as the number of folks making recommendations rapidity increases.

Once again it is that time of year. The Christmas, Hanukkah, and year end holidays are rapidity approaching and it’s time for Seasons greetings and to make merry.

Unfortunately, for many adults the time for “making merry” brings on symptoms of depression which can ruin the holidays or even worst. In a few conditions become so severe that suicide seems to be the only way out. This degree of severe depression is roughly fours times as common in males as females.

Depression can be a dangerous medical condition and needs to be treated. If you are feeling a bit down from time to time, that is normal. Most people have up days with a few down days mixed in along the way. Most of us are equipped to cope with the body’s bio rhythmic cycles and lifes occassional frustrations.

But if your down days persist you need to do something about it and fast. Even if you are nowhere near thinking seriously of doing yourself in, excessive bouts of depression can destroy relationships, ruin careers, lead to bad habits like taking illegal drugs, consuming too much alcohol, sleeping your life away, and generally causing life to be unpleasant to live. And as wonderful as life can be that is a real bummer.

If you are feeling down there is a website that I can recommend that has a lot of information about the causes, symptoms, and treatments for depression.