The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare

Host: The subway hummed beneath the city — a long, mechanical heartbeat echoing through concrete tunnels and fluorescent shadows. Posters peeled from the walls, old campaigns about law and order, public safety, and national pride. Each slogan sounded more like a warning than a promise.

The train pulled into the station, doors hissing open. A few late-night travelers stepped off — a nurse, a man with tired eyes, a teenager clutching a backpack like armor. The air smelled faintly of iron, dust, and paranoia.

Jack and Jeeny stood by the tiled wall, their reflections fractured in the glass of a flickering vending machine. Jeeny’s eyes scanned a headline on a discarded newspaper: “Immigrant crime wave — city officials demand action.” She sighed.

Jeeny: “Noam Chomsky once said, ‘The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.’”

Jack: grimly “He wasn’t wrong. Fear’s the cleanest fuel for power. It burns fast, burns hot, and leaves nothing behind but obedience.”

Jeeny: “And illusion. Because fear doesn’t make people safe — it just makes them easier to manage.”

Host: The train screeched and vanished down the tunnel, leaving a ghostly silence. The lights overhead buzzed, trembling like anxious thoughts.

Jack: “That’s the genius of it — if you can’t unite people through hope, you unite them through hatred. Make them afraid of the poor, the foreign, the different. Tell them their enemy is human.”

Jeeny: “And while they’re too busy hating each other, no one notices who’s actually pulling the strings.”

Jack: “Exactly. Divide, distract, dominate.”

Host: The sound of a street preacher rose faintly from the stairwell above — words echoing off stone: “The end is near! The signs are here!” The same melody of fear Chomsky had described decades ago.

Jeeny: “You know what’s sad? It’s not even new. Every empire, every government, every generation learns the same trick. Control the narrative. Turn insecurity into ideology.”

Jack: “Because it works. It’s efficient. You don’t need chains when people volunteer for their cages.”

Host: She leaned against the cold tile wall, her voice low, thoughtful, but steady with fire.

Jeeny: “And the fear is always tailored to the time. Once it was witches. Then communists. Now it’s immigrants, minorities, the poor. Tomorrow it’ll be someone else. The faces change — the formula doesn’t.”

Jack: bitterly “Fear sells. Always has. It’s the original business model.”

Jeeny: “And it’s bipartisan, universal, timeless. You don’t even need evidence — just repetition. Repeat a lie often enough, and fear will make it feel like truth.”

Host: The subway tunnel vibrated faintly, as if the city itself were listening, uneasy in its foundations.

Jack: “You ever wonder why freedom always feels fragile? Why democracies collapse from the inside?”

Jeeny: “Because people stop thinking. They start reacting. Fear hijacks the mind — it short-circuits reason. Once you’re afraid, you’ll trade anything for comfort. Even your conscience.”

Jack: “That’s the heart of Chomsky’s warning — not just about governments, but about us. The people. We keep choosing safety over truth.”

Jeeny: “And safety’s just the prettiest word for control.”

Host: A gust of wind swept through the platform — the ghost of the departing train — carrying dust and a torn flyer that read: “Protect Our Neighborhoods.” The irony hung heavy in the air.

Jack: “You know, it’s easy to judge from the outside. But fear’s addictive. It gives meaning. People like having an enemy — it keeps life simple.”

Jeeny: “Simple, but small. It shrinks the world until all you see is threat. And once you live inside that shrunken world long enough, you mistake it for reality.”

Jack: “So how do you stop it?”

Jeeny: “You can’t stop fear. But you can question it. You can ask: Who benefits if I’m afraid? That’s where freedom begins.”

Host: The next train approached, its lights slicing through the dark — a temporary sunrise in an artificial world. Jeeny watched it come, her reflection merging with the glass as if she too were split between motion and stillness.

Jack: “You sound like Chomsky himself. Always pulling at the curtain.”

Jeeny: smiling softly “Maybe because the curtain’s the only real thing left.”

Host: The train roared past them, wind whipping her hair across her face. When it stopped, the doors opened again — but neither moved. The rush of air carried whispers from the passengers — fragments of daily exhaustion.

Jack: “You know what I find terrifying? How fast fear adapts. Today it’s immigrants. Tomorrow it’s algorithms. The mechanism never dies — it just updates its language.”

Jeeny: “Because fear doesn’t care about the truth. It only needs an audience.”

Jack: “And we keep buying tickets.”

Host: The doors closed, the train vanished again, swallowed by the dark. Above them, the speaker crackled with static — a public service announcement about “suspicious activity.” The irony was almost unbearable.

Jeeny: “You see? They tell you to fear each other so you forget to fear the ones watching.”

Jack: “Paranoia as patriotism.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The more divided the public becomes, the stronger the illusion of unity under authority. Fear unites, but only under control.”

Host: The station lights dimmed for a moment. The silence deepened. Somewhere far away, a siren wailed, rising and falling like the sound of history repeating itself.

Jack: “You think we’ll ever learn?”

Jeeny: “Maybe when we realize the enemy isn’t out there.”

Jack: “Then where?”

Jeeny: “In the place where fear becomes habit — and truth becomes optional.”

Host: Jack looked down the tunnel — long, black, endless. The tracks gleamed faintly, twin veins running into the city’s heart.

Jack: “You know, Chomsky never really offered hope. Just awareness. Like a mirror you can’t unsee.”

Jeeny: “Maybe awareness is hope. Because you can’t be controlled if you understand the method.”

Host: The lights flickered back to full brightness, harsh but honest. Jeeny adjusted her coat, and they began to walk toward the exit — the world above waiting with all its noise and narratives.

Jack: quietly “You know what’s tragic?”

Jeeny: “What?”

Jack: “That fear feels more human than compassion. It’s easier to spark.”

Jeeny: softly “That’s why compassion’s the braver act. Fear’s reflex. Love’s rebellion.”

Host: They climbed the stairs, emerging into the city’s electric night — advertisements glowing, sirens distant, headlines screaming — a thousand small acts of manipulation disguised as information.

And as they stepped onto the wet pavement, Chomsky’s words followed like a whisper from the underground — not warning, but revelation:

That the easiest way to enslave the free
is not with chains,
but with stories —
and that the oldest weapon of all
is fear disguised as truth.