Edward R. Murrow Quotes

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

We shouldn’t use fear for political purposes—scaring people to death so that they will vote for you or scaring people to date so that we can create a terror-industrial complex.

I'm not for one second condoning the actions of terrorists at all, but I do think there's a kind of terrorism that the media carries out on its own citizens, certainly in this country - and it's fear.

Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens and real diseases are useful material.

There are an awful lot of people making lots of money promoting fear. Their hot microphones have flamethrowers.

The game of politics is to make you afraid so that you don’t think.

“[T]he manufactured image of the domestic Communist, cultivated and propagated by [J. Edgar] Hoover, the Catholic Church, the American Legion, and political opportunists, made of Communists something less than full humans, full citizens, fully rights-endowed …

By exploiting envy and fear, politicians can portray themselves as the saviors and protectors of the public — doing and saying whatever is necessary to gain the support needed to remain in power.

Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions, and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue.

Sometimes the point isn't to make people believe a lie - it's to make people fear the liar.

The fear tactic is a tactic that's used by people who want to maintain control, and it's very effective.

The ... irrational fear of communism is being deliberately used in many quarters to blind us to our real problems.

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

Part of the reason that the government's fear mongering is succeeding is because so many people are so ignorant, that it is easier for government to frighten people in submission.

As long as enough people can be frightened, then all people can be ruled. That is how it works in a democratic system and mass fear becomes the ticket to destroy rights across the board.

When the news wants to tell you something is important, they put dramatic theme music behind it. They scare you into watching the story.

You see in times of crisis that extremist forces, populist forces, have a better ground to oversimplify things and to manipulate feelings. Feelings of fear.

Joe McCarthy and his Senate hearings were like witch-hunts.

When I was growing up, it was 'Communists'. Now it's 'Terrorists'. So you always have to have somebody to fight and be afraid of, so the war machine can build more bombs, guns, and bullets and everything.

There had to be a hysteria and a fear sent through America in order to get increased war budgets.

Fear and its accompanying emotional reactions have become part of the public mindset. Such reactions, while often legitimate, are also being exploited with increasing frequency for political ends.

People are dumb, People are dumb, Promise ‘em peace and kingdom come. / People are dopes, People are dopes, Play on their peeves, play on their hopes. / Make ‘em feel mad, Make ‘em feel mad, Everything’s lousy, everything’s bad. / Make ‘em afraid, Make ‘em afraid, Show ‘em they’re dupes, tricked and betrayed. / Then if they bite, Then if they bite, You will have fools to fight your fight.

Since men must always assign a cause to all their misfortunes, the generally blame them on the evil intent of their rulers; … As always there are now many who fish in troubled waters, filling the minds of the commonality with the notion that things will go from bad to worse unless they appoint a head over them.

The real damage from terrorist attacks doesn't come from the explosion. The real damage is done after the explosion, by the victims, who repeatedly and determinedly attack themselves, giving over reason in favor of terror... Terrorism is about magnifying one mediagenic act of violence into one hundred billion acts of terrorized authoritarian idiocy.

I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who do fear him.