Merchants of Fear

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New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No.5 -- January 30, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #100, Feb. 2:

Merchants of Fear

Executive summary

Governments get citizens to act against their interets (e.g., by going to war) by scaring them bleepless. We'll hear a talk by historian Howard Zinn*, quoting Hermann Goering on the subject . . . a "public service" announcement and program warning of the imminent threat of terrorist attacks, which could be launched by anybody (from 2009!) . . . a warning from Postmaster General John E. Potter (2001) on the signs an envelope iin your mailbox could be full of anthrax. Plus a digression on an earlier P.G.'s comic anti-smut crusade.

Notes and Credits

Why the big increase in scary terrorism warnings in late 2009? Is this a prelude to a fake "trigger incident," followed by a war on Syria or Iran? (Or is Venezuela the next on the list?)

Don't miss Postmaster Potter's unintentionally hilarious list of 7 warning signs of an envelope containing anthrax in your mailbox. One is, "It comes from someone you don't know or are not expecting to hear from." And goes downhill from there.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "first floor") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com.

This week's song

• Buffalo Springfield, For What It's Worth

Coming Soon

• February 9 -- The Top Ten
• February 16 -- Not All Christians Are Evil!

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A note on the painting

"Whittling" was painted by (formerly local) artist David Weinholtz and published in our blog entry and newsletter for October 28, 2008--a week before the national election. A few words by me accompanied it:

Let's hope or pray that next year Whittling will require
updating, and the updating will require more than just
painting out the elephant and painting in a donkey.

So much for hoping and praying. What's left?

* Coda:

I just learned--after writing all of the above, and weeks after recording this program--that Howard Zinn died, at age 87, on January 27. For decades, Zinn has been a strong voice advocating democracy, justice, peace, . . . and the importance of learning history. His loss is a hard blow to us who share his values and to the great causes he struggled to advance. R.I.P.