The following is a letter-to-the-editor dated 10/15/01. It was intended for the New York Daily News's "Voice of the People" column. I checked my submission logbook and found no entry for it, so it never was published. Although it was written a short time after the 9/11 attacks, what it has to say is still timely:
FDR was right when he said: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Fear is a terrorist's stock-in-trade. Its use is a form of weaponry, psychological weaponry which, in a time like this, a time of intense grief and anxiety can breed chaos, suspicion, hate, and irrational thinking. What better way to destabilize a country. We must keep this in mind before scapegoating people because of their ethnic, religious, racial, or political affiliations.
The fear caused by the collapse of the Twin Towers as well as the anthrax attacks are part of that campaign to instill terror and irrationality. Fear of death is at the root of our fear of terrorism. The terrorists know this and use that fear to their advantage.
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