simulacra, precautionary principle, projection and imagination

also, the connection between chaos theory and pomo

politicians presenting visions of complex multi-national terrorist organizations with ample resources as a serious threat to american democracy and instilling fear in the public stems from them not having anything to offer us, anything to stand for. so they create this perceived threat as a basis for their actions, for their existence.
the precautionary principle says that if there is an idea of a threat, but no actual evidence for it, you must take action to prevent the possibility of it. meaning that your guiding principles for action are based on nothing. an idea. a perception of society.
this i believe is linked with:
people having increased outlets for self promotion and identity creation means that they concentrate on creating this presentation of themselves to society, and people make judgements based on this public persona that has been so carefully constructed, and that has many outlets of formation, such as facebook, blogs, etc. anyways, this self is wholly monitored, yet these venues substantially contribute to people's perceptions of others.
this is an updated (hardly) version of baudrillard's simulation and simulacra, the idea that we have replaced all of reality with symbols and signes, which i used to take as a reduction- such as entire institutions being reduced to a swoosh- and having all its implications within that sign.
but now i interpret it as a trick of shadows- that there is no basis in reality besides one that we construct, which becomes what we perceive as reality and base our actions on- so it actually gains importance, but has no foundation besides a wholly created one.
which at the same time give us a LOT of freedom. it means that we can create any kind of illusion and if we promote it as truth enough, it will set off a chain of reactions.
if art used to be the creation of illusion, and what we do in life is now a creation of illusion, what purpose does art serve?