Flutterby™! : State of Fear 2008-10-08 14:50:27.165849+00

State of Fear

2008-10-08 14:50:27.165849+00 by meuon 7 comments

I think Michael Crichton's State of Fear has/had a good message, and it applies to current economic politics as well as global ecology issues. Especially when you see snippets like: this US House C-Span snippet. where apparently martial law in the US was the FUD button being threatened if there was not an immediate bailout. The State of Fear message was: Government/Media rules by keeping that state of fear going.

#Comment Re: made: 2008-10-08 17:45:59.613187+00 by: Mark A. Hershberger

Gosh, I kind of thought the message was "an evil/crazy environmentalist conspiracy is faking all this stuff, you stupid liberals". I will, however, admit that I haven't read anything by Crichton since some remarkably lame Jurassic Park sequel.

I haven't read the Michael Crichton

novel, and I think Congo

was my "I'm never reading anything by this author again" experience because his understanding of technology was so distorted and wrong that it destroyed my ability to enjoy the story. I'm fine with MacGuffins, but don't try to explain them in such a way that they're just silly; give me "the Force", sure, but please don't try to get me to swallow the midichlorians.

The Naomi Wolf interview seems to be unnecessarily alarmist. There are several assertions in there that I can't find any backing for, and that's just the stuff I went searching for. I'm really getting a "Chuck Harter" or "George Noory" conspiracy vibe off of it, with notions of law and legality that I haven't heard since I looked at the "declare yourself a sovereign individual and pay no taxes" literature. I think there are some good points buried in there, but she undermines her points by making silly assertions about things like some sort of changing of the Uniformed Services Oath of Office and such.

If anything, she's participating in the state of fear by fomenting that sense of unease.

#Comment Re: made: 2008-10-08 18:48:21.472399+00 by: Mark A. Hershberger

I'd agree that she is (un?)intentionally participating. I'm really not comfortable with some of the things that our government is doing, but I doubt that Bush is going to try and stop elections.

Yeah, the thing that most people forget, or never learn, about law is that it's only our mass participation in this consensual hallucination that makes it law. Shatter that illusion, and not only are the actions no longer lawful, but the consensual hallucination will punish you.

This is why coups aren't simply a matter of marching troops on the offices of the leaders, but about shoring up military support, making sure that the populace (especially the parents of those soldiers) is behind the leadership change, making sure that the economic system will continue to run through the coup.

If one hasn't done deep thinking about such things it's easy to think that there's a magic sceptre somewhere that, if you can physically take possession, makes you king, but governments really are a reflection of the people and beliefs they serve. That big hallucination we call "legal" has its own inertia, and the breakdown of some of those notions say scary things about the culture we live in, but for that reason it's wrong to lay it back at the feet of one or two people.

"she's participating in the state of fear by fomenting that sense of unease. "
s/participating/profiting/g ;

For those that don't regex: she's profiting from the state of fear by fomenting that sense of unease.

#Comment Re: Succession made: 2008-10-08 20:24:42.305906+00 by: jeff

I'm waiting for the obvious mismanagement of the country to lead to an attempt (legal or illegal) by a state to succede. It's clear to me that we're no longer a country, just a poorly-run global corporation.