Hope versus Fear, by Mike Gold

Mike Gold

ComicMix's award-winning and spectacularly shy editor-in-chief Mike Gold also performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com and on iNetRadio, www.iNetRadio.com (search: Hit Oldies) every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week – check www.getthepointradio.com above for times and on-demand streaming information.

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6 Responses

  1. Martha Thomases says:

    I'd like it best if the phone didn't ring at 3 AM — if we worked to create a world in which there was no longer the danger of such threats. Yes, there will always be crazy people, but we don't have to supply them with weapons.

  2. MARK WHEATLEY says:

    It has been very clear from the start that this administration is frightened of the world. In general I have never seen good achieved from a position of fear. And I think there is a great deal of evidence from the past eight years to support this view.Clinton is now acting from fear. But Obama and McCain are both expressing a more positive view of the world. They both appear confident of the US resources and people. And I think that is what we are all responding to. And it is a good thing we are. But I wonder if we have any hope of seeing Obama and McCain preserving this positive outlook into the actual campaign. I doubt it. But I have hope I'm wrong.

  3. Howard Johnson says:

    Everything you say is true, but here's the problem. The people who need to hear this, the uninformed/undereducation voters, don't seem to care. They take their cues from the 30-second scare ad. Heaven forbid they should be so pro-active as to read a newspaper of a blog that might teach them something. How do we reach these types?

    • Mike Gold says:

      You don't. Talk radio is for pissed-off zombies, and they stack the deck.What you do is you get out the new vote, something at which Obama's been quite successful. Younger voters, particularly women 18 – 35, traditionally have been ignoring the elections. Not so much this year; there's been a real turnaround. The politics of fear doesn't work on 'em; they've got to deal with the future like it or not. They've never had a candidate who inspired hope.

      • Russ Rogers says:

        It's funny that you mention talk radio. I live in Minnesota and am supporting a talk radio host for Senator! Then again, Minnesota is the land that gave this country it's highest ranking elected "Independence Party" candidate, Jesse "The Body" Ventura! Wait a second, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, Arnold "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger, Sonny Bono (he hung out with Scooby Doo), Gopher from the Love Boat, Stuart Smalley, that guy from Law and Order; maybe politics and comic books are more closely related than people imagine! OK, maybe there isn't an Abraxis comic … yet.You are right about the politics of fear. The Bush administration has used the tactic of flag waving/fear mongering, accusing anyone who disagrees with their illegal policies of rendition and torture of being tantamount to treasonous. But I would say that this is also an administration that has used the politics of LIES. Blatant exaggeration and falsehoods were used to justify our invasion of Iraq. Bush has called Democrats the party of "Tax and Spend," when his administration put in one of the LARGEST single social programs since Social Security with the Medicare Drug Benefit (a law written by the Drug Companies themselves that forbids the government from trying to negotiate better drug prices). He has cut social programs, put forth unfunded school measures. All the while committing our nations forces in a wasteful fight that distracts them from bring the ACTUAL 9/11 terrorists to justice.We are spending BILLIONS (maybe TRILLIONS) of extra dollars in Iraq because we have an undersized millitary, so we have to waste money on companies to suppy the Army with food, transportation and SECURITY! Security? Really? We are PAYING firms like Blackwater to GUARD US Army Generals because the US Military can't find the men to do it themselves! The last time I checked, the military were supposed to be IN CHARGE of security. Why are we spending SO many more BILLIONS upon BILLIONS in Iraq? Because A) Bush doesn't have the balls to man-up and say, "Whoops, this was a big mistake!" and get us out of there. Or B) Bush doesn't have the sense to say, "The Army is too understaffed to take care of the commitments that we need in order to keep America safe, so I'm reinstating the DRAFT!"The DRAFT is considered a political "third rail," a subject that can't be touched.The National Guard are NOT trained and were never intended to be on the front lines of foreign wars. Bush has misused the National Guard to avoid re-instating the draft. Mercenaries have been declared illegal by both the UN and the Geneva Convention. But, we didn't bother to sign either of those declarations. But Bush has used sub-contractors and Mercenaries to supplement the US Military NOT in an effort to keep costs down, (or if that is the reason given, it's a LIE) but to avoid reinstating the draft.What sacrifices has Bush asked the American people to make? He asked us to keep the economy moving by spending more. He's asked us to give up our civil liberties and our self-respect by promoting torture, rendition and illegal wire-tapping. If Bush were a man of principles who believed in the wars that he has put us into, he should be willing to ask the people of the US to make the kinds of sacrifices necessary to wage the kind of war we have, both in MONEY and in SERVICE. First, roll back the TAX CUTS that have disproportionately benefited the VERY rich (like the Estate Tax). This won't SOLVE our nations financial woes, but it's a start.Second, if we NEED to be in a war with hundreds of thousands of our nations military stationed overseas, have the BALLS to instate a national draft instead of using Mercenaries, the National Guard and extending and re-extending the tours of duty of current military sevicemen.It's a LIE to say our nation has to be in a WAR, but then ask our nations citizens to pay for that war with TAX CUTS, extra-spending (both personal and governmental) and an ever shrinking volunteer army. We either have to get out of Iraq or find the courage to do what needs to be done to PAY for it by RAISING TAXES and bringing back the DRAFT.

  4. Michael H. Price says:

    This exchange helps to explain why I've found myself drawn back lately to those proto-Marvel giant-monster comics of the mid-century — an attitude of self-possessed hope and a willingness to square off against Fear Its Ownself.For all their incomplete grasp of the Way the World Works and their frequent Commie-buster posturing (a primary motivation of Reed Richards and his Fantastic-Four-to-be), those Atlas-into-Marvel stories deal generally in a fear-defiant form of resourcefulness, with peaceable aspirations. Project the outlandish fantasy to Real World situations, and institutionalized fear can become its own enemy.The original "Fin Fang Foom!" yarn offers a sharp example — never mind the laughable aspect of a talking dragon in Code-approved Jockey Shorts. The stories' newer Marvel Masterworks editions are as valuable in this light of hopeful gumption as for any nostalgic and/or archival imperatives.