What are we so afraid of?

What are we so afraid of?

by digby

Marcy Wheeler wrote a great piece over at Salon discussing the contrast between our leaders decrying violence at home while escalating violence overseas in the past couple of weeks. As she adroitly observes, America is overwhelmed by fear:

Because fear incited by provocative videos posted online likely explains why Americans ignored the resurgence of violence in Iraq until a few Americans were killed (and ignore the frequent beheadings carried out by our allies the Saudis). “As long as ISIS is beheading Americans there’s no way the president can stand up and say that Syria isn’t our problem,” Drew reported a source asserting.

And whatever else you think of Darren Wilson’s testimony – which conflicted in some ways with what he reportedly said immediately after the shooting — he used the language of fear and dehumanization to justify the killing. The big black teenager he shot, Mike Brown, was like “Hulk Hogan,” Wilson said. “It looks like a demon,” Wilson described Brown’s face. Brown “made like a grunting” before Wilson fired the fatal shots. “[T]he only other option I thought I had was my gun,” Wilson explained to the grand jury to explain why he started shooting Brown. As for 12-year-old Rice, he and his toy gun elicited a response from a caller for this reason: He was “scaring the s___ out of people.”

I think this is right. Americans are obsessed with the boogeyman, soiling our trousers in fear that someone who doesn't look like us is going to kill us in our beds. What is it, exactly, that so many of us are so afraid of? We're the richest, most powerful country in the world. Is it that we know somewhere deep down that we have not been as benevolent as we like to think?

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