Mark Poster Quotes

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

When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear--kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor-with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it

Politicisation of terrorism for narrow gains is not good for society in general and the country in particular.

President Obama has been attacking relentlessly. In 2008 he said that if you're out of fresh ideas you use stale tactics against your opponent - you try and make your opponent unacceptable and that's what he is trying to do.

In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.

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.

I think Trump uses social media as a way to get to people's lowest common denominator. He uses it to incite fear. He talks about simplistic ideas.

In a sense, terrorism blossomed in the advent of television. Television promotes terrorism in religion and in politics.

Any government that supports, protects or harbours terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.

The scenarios of biological or chemical warfare painted in detail by the American media during the months after September 11 only betray the inability of the government to determine the magnitude of the danger.

One of the regime's most important tactics is the creation of a third force in the country.

I have become an adjective. There is something called a Rovian-style of campaigning and it's meant as an insult. One columnist said it consists mainly of throwing mud until it sticks. One prominent blogger described the elements of a textbook Rovian race as fear-based, smear-based and anything goes.

With attention deficit democracy, I am trying to wake up people to how the combination of mass ignorance, fear mongering by the government, and lying politicians is putting our entire system of government to a death spiral.

I'm trying to fight the terrorism that's actually causing the other forms of terrorism. You know, the root cause of terrorism is the stuff that the U.S. government allows to happen, and the foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists. And it's easy for us because it's just some oil.

All these stories are grist to the mill of the government because they build up a very useful war psychosis.

The Saudi [Arabian] error has been the illusion that it can control and shape the political evolution of radical movements by financing them.

Divide and conquer. Get your adversaries fighting among themselves

The media can be a megaphone for terrorists to communicate their message. The media should put things in perspective and context and not instinctively do what the terrorists want the media to do.

I do not subscribe to the 'Trump is crazy like a fox' thing. I think that's being too generous.

Stoking fears of a potential shutdown is a strong motivational tool to get members on board with legislation that they don't want to support. Both parties are guilty of this.

I've been interested in terrorism from the very beginning. My first novel is about that, too, and I think one reason I've been so interested in terrorism is because I have a deep interest - one of my deepest interests - in image culture and how it works. And terrorism is an epiphenomenon of image culture.

Fear is hugely contagious. Used skillfully by politicians looking to manipulate voters, it can become toxic and capable of infecting more than just a few.

The degree to which the people of America are being dumbed down on purpose every day is striking. And all for the express purpose of maintaining in power a political party [the Democrats] which seeks a permanent underclass and as many dependent people on government as possible. As many uninformed, misinformed, know-nothings as they can get.

The idea that fear can manipulate people and you can use fear in the media to get what you want is happening right now. I think it has a lot of relevance between 2017 and 70's.