“the only thing we have to fear is … fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance” … Franklin D Roosevelt (1933 Inaugural Address)

Fear is created by propaganda. Fear paralyses. Fear controls the masses.

Fear is the principle weapon of the terrorist. It allows small numbers to make large numbers do what they want them to do. Okay, we all “know” that.

Fear is also a weapon of the state. In the extreme, dictators (like Stalin, Pol Pot, the North Korean Kims) use fear to totally control their minions and their people. But even in benign democracies fear controls our behaviour to some degree: we don’t want to get caught drink driving, or evading tax, do we?

So what’s the role for the media in this?

In some countries, state run media is all important (China, North Korea): it’s a tool for ensuring the message aligns with the state’s desire to control the people. In other countries, restrictions and constraints on the media have much the same effect. (The recent trial of Al Jazeera journalists in Egypt is a recent example: woe betide the journalist who supports opposition to the state.)

In countries like these we know that the media delivers state propaganda, or that reports are sanitised so as not to offend the state. We react to the stories accordingly.

But how do we react where the media is “free”? Like in the US or the UK or Australia.

In Australia, we have radio shock jocks like Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt, and “news”papers like the Australian, that unashamedly peddle opinions dressed up as news. It’s designed to create fear: fear of asylum seekers, fear of trade unions, fear of bikie gangs, fear of lefties … fear of the state.

And fear controls. For who and for what? In these cases it is predominantly for the benefit of right wing governments, because they’re more friendly towards the elites they are, or represent. It’s willful, biased propaganda. Some see through it, many don’t.

But these guys are mere amateurs compared with Fox News in the US.

Yesterday my attention was drawn via RT to a rant on Fox by a presenter called Jeanine Pirro. Ever heard of her? No, neither had I …

It was on Iraq. After referring to Iran as the “devil” and ISIS as “savages”, she offers her solution. “… air strikes … bomb them. Bomb them, keep bombing them, bomb them again, … and again.”

Straight from the Cheney, Rumsfeld, neo-con playbook! … Sure, that’ll work!

That’s serious propaganda. It’s fear mongering in the extreme.

Of course, Mr Murdoch’s Fox “News” has the reputation of being right of centre, but this rant is something else … see for yourself here … (about 5 mins). Note the none too subtle words “justice” and “judge” appearing on the screen throughout.

And there are people that believe this stuff!! … and so they fear those “dreadful people in the middle east”, every last one of them.

And who benefits? … Certainly not Iraqis, nor Syrians … nor in the end, the average American, who lives in a world surrounded by fear, by 300+ million guns, by the TSA, by police and thousands of SWAT teams increasingly armed with military hardware.

Looks like Eisenhower was right when leaving office he warned about

“… a formidable union of defense contractors and the armed forces … we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.“

… but Ike’s warning was not heeded, and we haven’t been on the correct guard.

There’s also an interesting riposte to Pirro from that intriguing celebrity, Russell Brand. Have a look here. Don’t fooled by the long hair, the tattoos and the funny accent: he’s an articulate, deep thinker, tuned in to the young and the underprivileged.

In principle, of course, we should defend Fox’s right to say what they say. But that does place a huge challenge on those that disagree with Fox’s constant violent propaganda. Shouting back, louder, isn’t the answer. The answer must lie in persuading those that decide to put people like Pirro in front of the camera to ponder the wisdom of John F Kennedy:

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

100 years ago today, an act of violence in Sarajevo and the subsequent propaganda, the hubris of the elites, and the failure of diplomacy, plunged Europe and much of the world into tit for tat violence that became World War I. Traces of that legacy are still playing out in Iraq right now …