m-cause

People in our culture today are incredibly anxious.

Below I’ve listed some disturbing stats from the Anxiety Disorder Association of America to illustrate my point.

• Anxiety disorders affect 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older (18.1% of U.S. population–the #1 mental illness).

• Anxiety disorders cost the U.S. more than $42 billion a year, almost one-third of the country’s $148 billion total mental health bill

Though most people in the west no longer struggle for basic items like food & shelter…there are still worries about security & safety (the lowest level on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) in a post-9/11 world.

And, very often, politicians are willing to play on the base fears of their people in order to advance their own agendas.

Admittedly, however, I was surprised to see Switzerland’s biggest party taking a page from the playbook of the fictitious WMD fear campaign when they rolled out an ad depicting a woman in a black burqa standing against a Swiss flag with several black minarets resembling missiles sticking out of it.  The ad asked voters to ban the building of minarets in Switzerland.

I was especially surprised to see this ad in on my way to work in Geneva –the home of the European U.N. and a beacon for tolerance at all levels in a post-politically correct world.

The ads appeared to work…57% of voters and 22 out of the 26 Swiss cantons voted in favor of the ban though in fairness it seems that the Geneva canton voted against the measure.

I’m not sure how good the advertising agency feels about their work here…clearly this type of fearmongering will give the Islamic radicals even more of a reason to hate the west.

I would love to discuss this more, but it’s getting late.  If you would like to dive deeper into Shock tactics used by governments over the years, check out Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine.

What do you think about all of this?