The Economics of Fear

A population with little fear is hard to squeeze.
I’m pretty sure most of my readers already understand current Western political power rests entirely upon false fears. The only way to subvert democratic government is to make the people afraid. The only way to keep a sufficient plurality afraid is to wave lots of different fears. It’s not a calculus, but an art. You have to sense the mood of the people and how much fear it takes to herd them along some path.
So here in the US, it’s been things like fears of social disorder, fears of communism, fears of fascism, fears of rampant drug abuse, fears of insufficient drug use, and fears of Islamic terrorism. Currently the ruling powers can be found associated with the Drug War Industry, Defense Industries, Terror Industry, Big Pharma, the growing Cyber Defense Industry, Insurances Industry, etc. Each can be broken down, if you like. The Drug War includes private prisons, private treatment, the vast contracting to support government law enforcement, private investigations, confiscations and resale, etc.
Fear-based markets have an organic end point. At some threshold, the fear drops off and folks no longer buy it. The pretense of democracy requires a constant refreshing of fear with new markets opening through mass propaganda. I’ve written elsewhere my firm conviction: If you were to take into account all the very real probabilities of harm from all other threats in this world, using the insurance industry’s own calculus of real and measurable harm, an American should understand all those things combined do not threaten him so much as his own government. In other words, your biggest problem is the US government itself. In very real terms, if we could get rid of the psychopathic plutocrats and their lackeys, the rest of the world would be pretty easy to face.
Writing stuff like that could, eventually, get me in trouble. However, I’m not in the fear market, neither as buyer, nor seller, nor middleman.
So far as I know, I’ve already been officially labeled a likely terrorist. That is, a federal government agency (US Marshals) have officially told third parties that yours truly is a dangerous cult leader, an expert at hiding refugees from justice, and an armed militia-type guy. I won’t bother to answer that stuff in detail, but it’s all ludicrous. Nor does it matter one bit I was on their side at the time they concluded all this about me. Facts never have prevented prosecution in the past, just delayed it until the facts didn’t matter. The only reason they haven’t grabbed me is the current system requires some sort of evidence, or an action on my part to get their attention. They are pretty busy, after all; current scandals are numerous.
But I’m willing to bet if I tried to buy a flight ticket, I’d be stopped by TSA. This raises the small specter of travel prevention as the TSA cancer spreads to all other forms of public carrier travel. Then there’s the promise they would start doing random roadblocks on our nation’s highways. All of these are ways in which “persons of interest” place themselves in the hands of the oppressors. They don’t have to come after you, just wait until you come to them.
The only limiting factor is whether they are prepared to stuff another body into the system queue for abuse. The private prison system held much hope for them until the economy began to collapse. When the depression first became detectable at the lower levels, the plutocrats let out some contracts to KBR to start building internment camps. That was some years ago. While the controlled opposition has made lots of noise about this, it’s pretty hard to find real facts. This is part of what wiser minds use to differentiate between real sources and hucksters among the alternative Internet news sites. Still, you can find a few reports of finished facilities if you are prepared to work at it. You may be familiar with how search engines are being tweaked these days so users are inundated with junk, so don’t expect to get anything except a thousand repeats of the same falsely labeled photos and regurgitated rumors.
Let me give you some facts. During my most recent military service, I was a Military Policeman. At that time, the task of running an internment camp was ours. My training included that. Setting one up from scratch is pretty easy, because all the standard materials are already stored in huge quantities. These facilities would not be long term as-is, but would do for a few weeks. Part of the game is having several different ones with different configurations in remote areas, but not too far from each other. Each would be serviced by secured means of transportation. Railroads are a favorite. In any given population, those with the propensity to cause trouble to the guards can be identified for different processing, with different tracks based on how big of a problem they present. Most of it involves hustling them between camps to keep them from organizing resistance. Everyone else can be handled with less urgency, eventually sent to some other fate based on whatever it is provoked all this in the first place.
I know how to work the system. I haven’t bought the fear.
More to the point, I don’t care. My life is fully dedicated to something far bigger than myself, far beyond all this. If the path I feel called to walk takes me into the waiting arms of confinement on any terms, that’s where I’ll go. I’m a far bigger threat to the system than the system can comprehend, because I’ll be teaching folks to belong to something the system can’t touch. I suppose there is some sort of truth to the label “dangerous cult leader” in that sense.
Beware reader! I’ll refuse to lead, refuse to take anything from you, and teach you this world does not matter at all.