KEEP FEAR ALIVE!

TV satirist Stephen Colbert proposed to counter the Glenn Beck rally with one of his own: "Keep Fear Alive!"

University of Iowa researchers are among many who have mounted neuro-biological studies to identify the most powerful human emotions. In the running -- love, lust, anger, and fear. It's entirely possible we could have reached the same conclusion without the cost and effort. At one time it was called common-sense.

This sense provides a compelling argument that fear is not only the most immediately powerful emotion, but that it usually has the most enduring consequences. People react to love, lust and anger; but fear is the primitive experience which not only commands reaction, it demands action. Action easily used and channeled by others.

History is pockmarked with examples. The ancient Greek city-states found fear of Persia the one thing that could unite them....Spartacus and his slave revolt generated enough fear that Rome sent out its best legions...the medieval church found fear the fuel for inquisitions and witch burnings...Hitler and the Nazis mastered the force of fear to mesmerize 60 million civilized Germans into a primal pack of race warriors.

The irony of history is how great empires inevitably grow to fear the loss of their greatness. Like celebrities who struggle to get to the top, then teeter up their clutched by the fear of someone taking it all away from them. It is what happens to great empires whose populations are led to believe this will go on forever. Then awake one terrible morning to realize others hunger for what they have. And now they are coming for it...!

If the American Empire find itself in the gun-sights of others, it is the natural sequence of power. Power not only corrupts, it seduces. Others want it too. And at our expense. Now is the time when this empire is tested to see if it is more enduring than past ones. Does fear -- of any one or thing that seems different than what we are accustomed to -- does fear consume us into paroxysms of retaliations? Or does fear re-kindle that initial passion to overcome our worst fears with our best achievements?

The world waits. We wait. Is there a leader with the answer? Are we part of the answer? There's not a lot of time.