FEAR AND LOATHING

Totalitarian America: where fear can lead to

One of the major, if not the major, driving forces behind American international behaviour is fear. The United States is afraid of the world, of anything foreign or different. It does not understand that which is different, does not even try to understand otherness.

The US is fast becoming a totalitarian, militaristic society, increasingly intolerant of different economic and political systems. Washington’s policy of pursuing the elusive goal of absolute national security is in fact making both America and the world more and more unstable and dangerous.
The American President George W Bush states: "We want total victory in Iraq; we will get total victory." "You are either with us or against us."
This approach makes any opponent a total opponent, foe and enemy. But it signifies also a self-inflicted predicament and dilemma.
Self-righteousness and bigotry form the psychological basis of the American attitude. Solutions are to be absolute, evil has to be eradicated totally. America has no trust in anybody, not in international agreements, norms, rules, arrangements, nor in international law.
The US attitude is:
* Listen, obey and follow and the future will be of peace, harmony, freedom, democracy, prosperity and happiness forever.
* If you don’t follow we have to force you, show you the way, put you on the right track and bring you the happiness you are unable to provide for yourselves.
The American way of thinking, its basic convictions and ideology are the greatest threat to the freedom, the diversity, the dignity and the self-esteem of people worldwide. This attitude has put the United States on an authoritarian path that may lead to a totalitarian, fascistic paradigm.

Guantanamo Bay highlights American despotism, ruthlessness, cruelty and profound contempt for anything that Western civilisation supposedly stands for. The most frightening thing about all this is that there is almost no opposition in the United States, no public outcry, no large popular groups venting their concerns.