Brian Peacock wrote:Seth wrote:It's not propaganda to cite facts, which is what the article does and what I do when discussing the catastrophic consequences of an EMP attack.
It wasn't propaganda when Kennedy spoke to the nation about the threat of nuclear missiles in Cuba.
Flip-flopping and goal-post shifting much? Shouldn't you really make your mind up: Jingoistic scare mongering is just the kind of propaganda tool we could with more of, but it's not propaganda because it's true?
Nope.
pro·pa·gan·da
noun \ˌprä-pə-ˈgan-də, ˌprō-\
: ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.
Seth wrote:Brian Peacock wrote:[...] Jingoistic fear mongering is a propaganda tool intended to elicit a common fear or dread of 'the other'.
Unfortunately, that's often what it takes to get most of the brain-dead proletariat to quit 'bating and watching Rehabilitation long enough to get them to prepare for anything at all.
It seems you are among those who always work to find a way explain their own fearfulness by arguing that it represents the only 'rational' metric by which to assess circumstances and justify action.
Fear is, as you say, an evolved response, but it's also a stress response, and the thing with prolonged stress is that the stressed come to think of it as the normal state of affairs and their reactions as the only normal and reasonable response. It's also much more comforting to maintian the narrative that there really is something waiting for us in the woodshed than just admit to others that our imagination got the better of us and we just hava an irrational fear of the dark. The point here is that just because we have an evolved capacity for fearfulness does not mean that feeling frightened is a rational response to the circumstances or a legitimising justifier for engendering fear and dread in others.
Unless it is. It's perfectly rational to fear a disaster that has catastrophic consequences. It's also perfectly rational to tell people that there is a catastrophic disaster threat, and what the nature of that threat is, so that they can make rational decisions about how to prepare for such an event. FEMA has been doing exactly that for decades. It's just as rational to describe both the consequences and proposed actions to mitigate the harm.
But I guess if that's your state of mind it's probably best that you take to your bunker with the dried rationals, boxes of ammon and a short-wave radio, if only to protect your neighbours from your own self-justifying fearful and aggressive impulses. Don't forget now, your neighbours could be planning to steal your crops and rustle your livestock, gas you in your sleep or poison your water supply, conspire with the banks to rob you of all your worldly goods, or murder your nearest and dearest. These are just the kind of 'facts' you can cite whenever you feel the need to justify your evolved capacity for fright as the most natural, reasonable, rational responses possible. And if that makes life unpleasant and difficult for everyone around you then just remind them that that's a good thing - it's their fear of you that keeps them in check.
Yes, they could be. Or, they could be oblivious to the threat and, should the threat occur, they would be unprepared to survive the aftermath and might respond as you suggest out of panic and fear. Knowledge and preparation however serve to mitigate and reduce panic and fear, which improves not only individual response to a crisis, but societal response as well. The axiom of emergency management is "in a crisis you will respond as you have been trained to respond." The corollary is "if you don't train, in a crisis, you will do nothing." Worse, in an extended crisis where you have not take the time to consider and train, you will eventually either sit down and die or become feral in a desperate attempt to survive using your most basic instincts.
Therefore, it is neither jingoistic nor propagandistic to point out the threat, point out the consequences of the threat occurring and providing information on proper planning, preparation and response to the threat. This applies to any sort of threat.
For example, I live one block away from a railroad track, just past the apex of a curve on a downhill run. The track typically runs 10 to 15 trains per day in either direction. Mostly they are coal trains, but regular freight runs on the line as well. Last year a freight train containing a car filled with hydrochloric acid sprang a leak and (fortunately) spewed a small stream of acid along the track for miles. The leak was detected as it passed within a block of my house and the car was disconnected and parked on a siding a little more than a mile outside of town while emergency responders figured out how to plug the leak and then empty the car.
In this case, the worst damage was a very slight but detectible acid odor in the air for about three day downwind of the car. It was not hazardous at that distance. However, under slightly different circumstances, had that train derailed on the curve, or the car had catastrophically failed as it passed through town, many thousands of lives would have been lost because outside of the emergency services in town, I'm probably one of the only people who has both the necessary education, knowledge and equipment available at a moment's notice to protect myself and my family. Before my fiancee left, I kept chemical suits and gas masks for each member of the family at close hand and I taught them how to don them.
Why do I do this? Well, back in the 70s I was attending college in Florida and working part-time as a sound engineer for a band. We traveled from Daytona Beach to Pensacola one weekend for a gig. Everything went fine on the trip, but when I arrived at the hotel and turned on the TV, I was deluged with a horrific story about a train derailment on the tracks that run just north of the interstate we used. At least 14 cars drove into what appeared to be fog on the highway at night, and none of them made it out because the fog was actually chlorine gas from three ruptured tank cars. When I looked at the timing of the derailment and gas cloud, I figured out that I missed driving into that cloud of gas myself by less than ten minutes.
Is keeping gas masks handy when living next to a railroad track an unreasonable response based on an irrational fear?
Nope. Not one little bit. If, that is, one wishes to take modest precautions against what is a fairly common occurrence. The investment of a few hundred dollars for masks and filters, and a few hours once a month or so practicing is a very small price to pay in return for the ability to survive and escape such a disaster.
Is an EMP strike less likely than a rail-car leak? Of course. But the point is that the consequences are not localized or easily escaped, they would be widespread and would affect everyone and everything. Having a plan for an EMP strike is merely an adjunct to proper preparation for any sort of disaster. FEMA recommends that every person and family have a disaster plan and that they be prepared to go it alone for a minimum of 72 hours by putting together a disaster kit that provides for the essentials like food, water, medication, lighting, etc.
Adding EMP preparation to that plan can be simple or complex. Simple involves properly packaging the emergency radio receiver that you should have anyway, along with some cheap walkie-talkies and any other essential electronic equipment you might deem necessary in a properly sealed metal case to prevent the EMP surge from destroying them.
In my case, because I'm a HAM, my preparations are more complex and include preparing a truck-portable EMP-proof communications pod built from a surplus military electrical equipment shelter that was specifically designed to provide EMP protection that can also act as a survival shelter, which can be either mounted on a pickup truck (if one can be found that operates) or placed in the cargo area of my Hummer, which itself is EMP-resistant. All the radios are kept sealed in redundant EMP-proof metal cases as an additional safety measure.
So, I have created not only a portable survival shelter (in case I can't get to the bunker), but I have preserved a vital communications link that will significantly improve recovery after any sort of disaster, from a blizzard to a nuclear attack, as a service to my community.
By being educated and prepared, I change my status in a disaster from that of a dependent refugee to an active member of the emergency services needed to cope with and recover from any sort of disaster. And it's all on my dime, not the taxpayer's dime.
I don't consider any of those preparations or training to be detrimental to myself, my family or my community. I consider it to be no more and no less than good citizenship.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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