Label Definition: FUD

FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a sales or marketing strategy of disseminating negative (and vague) information on a competitor's product. The term originated to describe disinformation tactics in the computer hardware industry and has since been used more broadly. FUD is a manifestation of the appeal to fear. (Wikipedia)

This term has been around a long time, but not since September 11, 2001, has the United States been gripped by it at almost every level of society from the most basic (we are all going to be blown up in our beds if we do not catch the bad guys!) to the most ridiculous (Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and they are selling them to grandmothers in Iowa - that was the pitch to invade Iraq wasn't?).

President George W. Bush, who will go down as the worst President the United States has ever seen, uses FUD on a daily basis to distract and obfusticate the illegal actions his administration continues to execute. Whether it is in speeches he makes or are made on his behalf, never before has there been so much, sprinkled before so many and consumed with such zeal as there is right now.

Remember, the only thing you have to fear, is fear itself. Way back, Frank Herbert wrote this about fear in the book Dune:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.