“Media exists to manage feelings” [about Israel]

Remind me again, who hates our freedom? Ah, yes. The media.

They hate it so much that they can't even tolerate our freedom to express ourselves and to direct our own emotions. We must feel the way they want us to feel.

Affective Encryption Analysis [measures] the way in which “feeling-trends” develop over time. It then forecasts the likely behavioral outcomes.

Using Affective Encryption Analysis, media psychologist, Dr. James N. Herndon, [led] an investigation to predict long-term “feeling-trends” concerning the economy . . . [using] population samples in both the US and Germany[.]

“Our results showed far greater feelings of dread about the economic future than we currently find in mainstream survey research,” stated Dr. Herndon.

You don't need encryption analysis to tell you that - just two eyes and a brain.

“In fact, almost 70 percent of our sample expressed a precipitously declining sense of economic stability. This was especially strong among the lower-middle-class,” he added.

Duh!

Here's where it gets interesting. According to Herndon, these pesky little pessimists with 'a bad feeling about the economy' inexplicably project their negative emotions about their economic woes on to Israel.

'Scapegoating Israel'

“What we did not expect was a widespread association of economic problems with support for Israel. This belief appears to be growing exponentially in both the US and in Germany,” he said.

Of course, it couldn't possibly be because Israel collects billions of dollars annually in US AID while middle-class and poor Americans get the shaft - Nah! They're just envious little buggers - filled with irrational hate for their fellow peace-loving Zionists.

“We currently have worryingly low rates of savings and capital investment, combined with systemic unemployment and an ever-increasing spiral of debt and inflation,” said Dr. Herndon.

“If current trends are left unchecked, we believe that by late 2007, a feeling of economic desperation will begin to overtake large sectors of the lower-middle-class in the US, as well as the welfare-dependent classes in Germany,” he warned.

“Our results strongly suggest that this will provide the emotional trigger for the scapegoating of Jews, toward whom feelings in our sample were unexpectedly negative, and often violent.”

So, it's not the widespread economic desperation that bothers him - just how it will affect Jews - specifically in Israel.

“The bottom line is that increasing numbers of persons at the economic margins believe that their economic interests are being ignored in favor of a foreign power, namely, Israel. Feelings about Jews and Israel are also associated with strife and insecurity, not peace and prosperity,” he explained.

And so he predicts . . .

[A] violent reaction

A surprising forecast was that anti-Semitic behavior will predominate among nominally Christian, and not Muslim, groups.

“Unlike more ideologically-oriented Muslim groups, post-World War Two westerners in the so-called first-world are more driven by economic comfort and security. When their economic underpinnings are jeopardized, we can expect a violent reaction. And violence is rarely rational.”

“We believe that unrest will begin in the US Southwest. And in Germany, in areas of former East Germany. As with most emotionally-driven mob behavior, it will spread. Containing it will be difficult.”

But, never fear! He has a plan.

Dr. Herndon emphasized the need to be proactive.

Oh? Proactive as in '100,000 Whiners for War Crimes' or proactive as in plain old 'War Crimes', sans whining?

“Media exists to manage feelings. Our results strongly suggest that Jewish and Israeli organizations, in particular, are in the process of rapidly losing control of their PR initiatives. Opinion leaders in both the US and Europe must not stand-by passively as these trends develop.”

“I would characterize the anecdotal results of our research as frankly horrifying. A new strategy to diffuse these growing perceptions is clearly in order. This is one time where we cannot afford for history to repeat itself,” he concluded.

No - we can't.

Let's roll.