The Wages of Fear©’15 Mumia Abu-Jamal [12/6/15] In the wake of the carnage in Paris, and the subsequent events in San Bernardino, California, a wave of fear has swept through France and the U.S. In America, prominent politicians have been trying to outdo each other in the most outrageous fashion, from attacking the families of suspected ISIS people, to planning for caging Syrian refugees in internment camps. In a matter of days, American minds have echoed the same xenophobic themes that sent over a hundred thousand Japanese – mostly Japanese-Americans, I might add – to US concentration camps – men, women and children back in the 1940s. In the succeeding decades, American presidents have apologized for these injustices, and reparations (albeit of modest amounts) have been paid to survivors. But today, the sons and grandsons of those who clamored for Japanese interments now clamor for Syrian and Arab interments, proving the apologies and reparations were but yesterday’s crocodile tears- empty as salt water. For politicians, exploiting fear is as common as shells along the seashore. They can’t help themselves. After over a decade of failed and pointless war, why is there more (not less) fear? What’s wrong with this picture? The politicians who are selling the toxin of fear for their own selfish ambitions are leading the nation down the yellow-brick road of disaster. No good can come from this. --© M.A. Jamal 2015