FEAR ITSELF
'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself' Franklin Delano Roosevelt, inaugural address.
More than a month after the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Congress was closed down by an invisible enemy: fear. So far only one person has been killed by anthrax itself, but fear of anthrax has done untold damage to American society.
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said that the House would adjourn 'We felt that was the most prudent thing to do'. Carried away Hastert described anthrax spores exploding in a "flume" and spreading through air ducts in the offices of Senate leader Tom Daschle. Suggestions that the anthrax was 'weapons-grade' has been disavowed by leading senators. 'A war of nerves is being fought in Washington,' a senior administration official told the New York Times, 'and I fear we're not doing as well as we might be.' One Republican said the House's message to the nation was, 'Let's close everything down and get out of town, pronto,' while Senator Joe Lieberman asked the secretary of health and human services 'Who's in charge?' According to the NY Times 'At day's end, leadership was the clear casualty'.
Anthrax fears not only succeeded in closing Congress where the September 11 attack failed, the whole of US - and even Western - society has been gripped by panic.
New York state governor George Pataki and his staff evacuated his Midtown Manhattan office after staff tested positive for anthrax. The city police commissioner, admitted that it is 'very possible' that police accidentally carried anthrax spores back to their office after recently escorting the governor to ABC and NBC news offices.
Police forces over the US warned that they could not cope. 'This is it, point blank: the infrastructure cannot continue to support this substantive an increase of calls of this nature,' said Theron Bowman, chief of police in Arlington, Tex., a city of 340,000 with a police force of 520. As far as South Dakota, the Argus Leader headlined 'Anthrax Fears Ripple to S.D.'
With NBC News having discovered anthrax 'almost every news organization in New York has had authorities trooping through checking for anthrax,' said William Shine, executive producer for Fox News. At NBC though, results on 850 of the 1,304 people tested were complete and all proved negative.
Panics were not provoked only by anthrax, but by the continuing anxieties of hijackings. 15 miles east of Salt Lake City a passenger was wrestled to the ground after sounding off about the hijackings. Though the Utah Highway Patrol described the incident as an attempted hijacking, Greyhound spokeswoman Jamille Bradfield objected that it was a case of an 'unruly passenger', rather than a hijacker.
Increased anxieties have accelerated the demand for repressive legislation, as well as justifying the injection of government funds to boost the economy. The House passed legislation to fight money laundering and Congressional negotiators reached a deal that could clear the way for the new antiterrorism surveillance and investigatory powers sought by the Bush administration. The director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, Mitchell Daniels, asked Congress to approve $6.4 billion for the military campaign; $6.9 billion for a variety of domestic security needs including preparations to deal with bioterrorism.
Britain passed emergency laws with heavy penalties for anthrax hoaxers, as well as stepping up regulations against migrants and threatening to suspend the country's adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Canadian government introduced the most stringent antiterrorism legislation in the country's history, allowing preventive arrests and broader electronic surveillance, as well as abolishing the 'right to silence'. There are also new restrictions on immigration and border crossing.
European and American governments have used the crisis as an excuse to subsidise their industries, especially air travel and production, suspending their formal commitment to the free market. Congress leaders agreed $6.7 billion for recovery and relief programs in New York and at the Pentagon, having already approved a $15 billion bailout for the airlines. The president is demanding a cap on the liability of property and casualty insurers in future terrorist attacks. As a fallback, the life insurers want Congress to create a commission to determine whether the industry deserves government help.
According to president Bush 'the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, and we will defeat them by expanding and encouraging world trade'. He added 'In order to help me expand world trade, I've asked the Congress to give me what's called trade promotion authority - the ability to seek America's interests around the world.'
-- James Heartfield