From: Paul Zarembka (zarembka@BUFFALO.EDU)
Date: Mon Mar 27 2006 - 08:10:38 EST
--On Monday, March 27, 2006 8:01 AM -0500 Jerry Levy <Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM> wrote: > ... Mass fear didn't > just happen, it was created by the state and other bourgeois social > institutions. Indeed, one could claim that while new communication > technologies make an expansion of knowledge among the working > class possible, some of those same technologies have become a new > medium for deception and the creation or reproduction of irrational > fears. What happened post 9-11 was an example of manipulation > of popular opinion through the creation of mass fear and hysteria. Jerry, There is a material base for 'mass fear' in Palestine and Iraq, e.g., but do we in America really live lives of 'mass fear' of violence against ourselves? (I'm not speaking of 'mass fear' of unemployment.) We are not Chile of 1973+, or Indonesia of the 1960s or Japan of 1944-45 or Burundi of a decade ago. 'Mass fear' is not a very useful concept (yet?) of the overwhelming lives of most Americans and we need to know how privileged they are (9-11 notwithstanding) relative to other parts of the world and relative to history. I hope you understanding correctly what I am trying to convey. Paul *********************************************************************** RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science ******************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
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