Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (1)

Anyone who has taken a look at the posts in this tiny, insignificant outpost of the digi-sphere may have noticed posts tagged with 'FUD'. Allow me to explain.

Aside from my semi-regular brain dumps here, the real intention of this space is to accumulate notes. Those notes, when sufficiently accumulated, will be compiled in a 'text' of some sort. Its ultimate form is, as yet, undetermined.

See what I'm saying? There's an insane, possibly futile mission here, a larger project. It's not as ambitious as, say, wiping the Liberal Party of Canada from the political landscape in latter day re-creation of the Punic Wars. But it does have its own humble scope. I'm just figuring it out as I go.

So the intention is to have these bigger themes - kind of chapter heads - and little subsets therein. For instance, 'RGB', 'ABC' and 'Mother, Virgin, Whore (MVW, for short)' are chapter heads. The fact that secret-ish, shadowy organizations like CIA, KGB and NSA have nice, little, three-initial names is a subset of 'ABC'.

'Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt' - or FUD - is one of those bigger themes.

FUD is used in both marketing and politics. And especially when the two come together. For the marketer, it could be as simple as the suggestion that the wrong toothpaste can lead to diminished social status. For the politician, it's usually grimmer: "Vote for my opponent and the terrorists will win." The purpose of its employ is always to keep your citizens - or consumers - on their heels such that every purchase or voting decision is filtered through a cloud of FUD.

Come Monday, when our pro-rogued parliament returns, the FUD will come fast and thick. It's already out there in the form of puerile radio ads brought to you by your friendly government. And in the wake of 'Regime Change' down south, those on the losing end have re-fueled their own FUD machine and sallied forth.

So, here at TTCIT, FUD is part of the Magic Number Way of Seeing the World®. And , as Bill O'Reilly might say in his vaguely menacing, McCarth-ese "We'll be watching".