Monday, April 03, 2006

The Culture of Fear - 2

Back here I was commenting on how the GOP in the United States is spinning damn near everything in sight into something to be "afraid of".

Yesterday, events occurred in a Toronto Tim Horton's that reinforce my assertion.

It's not the event itself, but the reaction that was interesting. Suddenly, anything "odd" at a Tim Horton's became a dire emergency.

This is interesting not because it happened, but _where_ it happened. Canada cannot help but receive the backwash of what comes out of US media. The vast bulk of television programming comes out of US networks, and there are a lot of people I know who get their news primarily off of either Fox or CNN.

The result? One nutcase with a can of gasoline and a match turns into a "terrorist conspiracy" within minutes, perhaps an hour. Fascinating, really - something that gives some insight into just how effectively the GOP has managed to instill a sense of irrational fear in the culture - even across international borders.

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