Jodie Gummow / AlterNet – 2013-11-22 01:04:21

http://www.alternet.org/activism/watch-new-snowden-inspired-ad-campaign-shows-americas-fear-domestic-terrorism-unfounded

America’s War on Lightning

New Snowden-Inspired Ad Campaign Shows America’s Fear Of Domestic Terrorism Is Unfounded
Jodie Gummow / AlterNet

(November 20, 2013) — A new campaign entitled, ‘War on Irrational Fear ‘ [3], launched by progressive ad agency, Incitement Design [4], aims to show Americans that our ongoing obsession with domestic terrorism is a costly and harmful distraction, which has been greatly exaggerated.

According to its creators, the American media and elected officials talk about terrorism on a daily basis. However, when scrutinized, the actual death toll from terrorism in the United States is surprisingly small with an average of 4.6 American deaths per year from domestic terrorism in the last five years.

The campaign puts a satirical spin on the “war on terror” through fact-based research and web video graphics which, according to Robert Arnow, campaign founder and director at Incitement Design, was inspired by Edward Snowden ‘s NSA mass surveillance revelations:

“Snowden risked his liberty to inform the public about the illegal and immoral spying that was, and still is, being directed against innocent Americans.

But almost no one in the media or government has addressed the elephant in the room: the data shows that domestic terrorism is simply not a big enough threat to justify the enormous sacrifice of public resources and liberty we ‘re making in its name,

The campaign reveals some startling truths [5] about the real costs of the “war on terror.” For example, more Americans have died from drowning in the bath tub (402.6), lightning strikes (36.8), dog attacks (31.2) and playing football (4.6) than from domestic terrorism this year.

Moreover, a survey of terrorism cases in the U.S. since 9/11 shows that more than half the cases were “essentially created or facilitated in a major way by the authorities,” none involved weapons of mass destruction, and in three out of four cases where terrorists reached the point of completing of a bomb, they were incapable of even igniting it.

Arno says it is crucial that facts such as these have been missing from the debate:

“Our federal government portrays terrorists as wily super-villians, while the research shows they are small in number, generally incompetent, and that 9/11 was a historical anomaly,” he said.

Sources:
[3] http://waronirrationalfear.com
[4] http://www.incitementdesign.com/
[5] http://waronirrationalfear.com/facts
[6] http://www.alternet.org/tags/war-fear
[7] http://www.alternet.org/tags/nsa
[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/campaign
[9] http://www.alternet.org/tags/snowden
[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B