December 01, 2006 (2): The Fear Factor Compounds

The impact of the "imams on a plane" story is still being felt. Reuters began a story with a Washington byline this morning as follows:

When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly.

The story then went on to describe a depressing sample of callers who reinforced Klein's suggestion in any number of vindictive ways. After an hour of this, Klein let the cat out of the bag:

At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of "the threat in our midst" would alleviate the public's fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America.

"I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL (http://www.wmal.com/), which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland

"For me to suggest to tattoo marks on people's bodies, have them wear armbands, put a crescent moon on their driver's license on their passport or birth certificate is disgusting. It's beyond disgusting.

"Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous."

As far as I am concerned, responsibility for this culture of fear lies primarily, if not entirely, with our Federal Government, particularly in the Executive Branch, which has probably done more than any previous administration to achieve results through fear. Any number of analysts have discussed the extent to which this administration was planning its moves according to the Nazi playbook, but that kind of analysis tends to be too abstract for the general public. Klein had the guts to move from the abstract to the concrete, but it remains to be seen whether or not his demonstration will have any impact.