Maybe you’ve seen the TV ad. A red phone rings urgently as a solemn voice intones: “It’s 3 a.m. in the White House. Who do you want to answer the phone?”
Why 3 a.m.? Wasn’t 2 a.m. late or dark or scary enough? And what about that red phone? Do they really have red phones other than in those movies about monocled maniacs plotting world domination? Oh, wait, I get it: Red is the color of blood and fire engines and hellfire and certain demonically addictive M&Ms. All of which we are, to varying degrees, very afraid of.
So it’s fear. Fear, fear, fear. Yes, at 3 a.m. we wouldn’t want someone answering that red phone who might get angry or confrontational and act, God forbid, unilaterally without proper investigation or justification. That would be scary. But I guess we also wouldn’t want some wide-eyed neophyte or overwrought female picking up the receiver, either.
Maybe we should just let it ring until the machine gets it.
Fact is, ads like the 3 a.m. phone call don’t do anything except play to our baser instincts and our willingness to fall back on lazy stereotypes. Whoever it is picking up the phone, the regimen will be basically the same: Experts and advisers will be called in, information will be gathered, meetings will be held and, hopefully, judicious and effective action will be taken.
The fact that the ad makes little sense, however, doesn’t mitigate its capacity to generate fear. But what is there now out there that it makes sense to fear? I mean, besides being overrun by hordes of gay mullah pro-choice jihadists?
Lots of things, like an administration that bravely divulges our shocking addiction to oil while doing almost nothing about it. We’re so far behind the alternative energy curve that the only thing that might give us a good hard shove toward meaningful action is $5-a-gallon gas, coming soon to a station near you.
Equally scary is the “Earth-is-flat” approach to global warming. Even if it doesn’t end up as badly as some predict, shouldn’t we err on the safe side while also husbanding our resources?
Then there’s corporate greed, rampant financial malfeasance and, of course, the stupid consumer who won’t spend enough of the money he doesn’t have on things he doesn’t need to get this economy rolling.
So, while I’m also afraid of those extremist factions that “threaten our way of life,” it occurs to me that mostly the threat to our way of life in America is from, well, our way of life. I’m still stuck driving the V-8 Jeep (my wife drives the little gas miser ) I bought during the heyday of $1-a-gallon gas, though I’ve eliminated unnecessary trips and tend to do a lot of coasting now. What scares me is the Escalades and Navigators that blow by me doing 60. Lifestyle’s BIG in America.
Winston Churchill said “the only thing to fear is fear itself.” Perhaps we should update his maxim to “The only thing to fear is the fear of fear itself.” Given the current political climate — which will only worsen as we approach November — I can only say this: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
