Scaremongering

So now I'm on a roll, and I have to write about a TV programme I found myself watching last night. It was after the Simpsons, the telly was still on and I was painting my toenails. The host of the show, a Dr somebody (I'm pretty sure the Dr was a spuriously gained title) was busily engaged in putting the fear of God into a incredulous audience who should have known better. Not literally the fear of God, as in, I wasn't watching a televangelist, but this guy was talking about all the terrorist threats out there against ordinary, hard working, God fearing Americans.

Anthrax is the biggest scare, he told us, in hyperbolic tones. Easy to manufacture, easy to drop. Wipes out whole cities. The US military are vaccinated against anthrax, but the general population needs to be too. Forget the recession, this is a matter of the highest urgency.

Then he brought on the rats. Two of them, big brown ones in a cage. The audience shuddered. "Bubonic plague!" he pronounced dramatically. "Wiped out half the population of Europe in the 17th century! It's us next!" It's the government's fault, of course - they are putting sufficient time or money into developing a vaccine. And on it went.

Now, this was prime time TV. I actually couldn't believe that they would schedule this kind of stuff to appear at all, let alone then. It was pure scaremongering, delivered by an opportunistic presenter to an audience who were lapping it up and should have been at home. If I were a terrorist contemplating an attack and watching that programme I would have been tempted to drop a load of anthrax on the studio. I'll probably get taken out for saying it, but there we go. The Land of the Free, right?