Fear in America

Alternet is running a series, entitled "Fear in America", which will look into the role that fear has played and is playing in this country. The first in the series discusses social panics. It talks about nine panics, all of which occurred in the 20th century. I wonder why they didn't go back to the early days of America when there were witches in Salem. Anyway, here is the list. How many do you remember?

1. Reds Under the Bed and Communist Hysteria

This was the first one I can remember. Senator Joe McCarthy was all over the news, but was eventually toppled by Joseph Welch, a lawyer from Boston.

2. AIDS Panic and Misinformation

This may be the most recent one I recall. Gays, whether or not they had AIDS, were stigmatized.

3. Satanic Ritual Abuse

This harked back to the Salem trials. The McMartin Preschool trial in California was the top story, but I can recall at least one trial in Massachusetts.

4. Superpredators

I don't remember this. Supposedly, groups of teenagers were in a rage of violent crimes, especially killing young kids.

5. The Marriage Crunch

This seems a stretch to me. Although it happened it the '80s, it was basically an article in Newsweek that supposedly excised many unmarried women as it claimed that their chances of getting married were quite slim.

6. Recovered Memory Syndrome

This phenomenon of the late 20th century led to the creation of the False Memory Foundation, which is still in business. There was a wave of people in psychotherapy suddenly recovering memories of nasty things that had been done to them as children. How widespread this panic was is questionable in my mind.

7. Crack Babies

The term was fairly widespread in the early '90s. The idea here was the children of those using crack would grow up to be very nasty people. But, like many supposedly scientific studies, the idea was based on a very small sample of 23 babies.

8. Various Disease Pandemics

Remember Mad Cow Disease? Ebola?

9. Heavy Metal, Dungeons & Dragons, Satanism and Suicide

How much fear was generated in the nation by heavy metal music, etc. is questionable.

I don't think this series is off to a good start.