08.12.13
Internal security threats
Excerpts from a talk by Pulitzer-winner Chris Hedges at Chautauqua:
Through a “bombardment of cultural lies and manipulations,??? it has erased every progressive movement from the face of the country.
The system has also created a “psychosis of permanent war,??? Hedges said.
To maintain control over the population, Hedges argued, the U.S. government has done what all empires have done: brought harsh forms of control from the outside to the inside.
“A night raid by a militarized police force in Oakland — command helicopters, searchlights, command vehicles, police in black, Kevlar vests … automatic weapons — looks no different from a night raid in Fallujah [Iraq],??? he said.
Becoming a part of a social movement is the only way to respond to these issues, he said. There is no time to play the game of politics.
And, there is this…
None of the points are new. I’ve made them here in comment, music and art for the past decade. The serious security threats are not external.
Most now seem to innately grasp this with the exceptions of complete morons. And the villains in the matter, who know exactly how things stand.
Al Qaeda whoopie cushions get little traction outside of the mainstream press these days. There’s a reason for it. There’s a silent disbelief and cognitive disconnect.
And Keith Alexander of the National Security Agency has gone from someone parading around with a story about how the US was being pillaged by Chinese cyberespionage to just another apparatchik in a uniform whose job it is to defend the assertions of government and make claims about the foiling of terror plots, claims no one supports who isn’t paid to.
Think about it, again. Two months ago you couldn’t get away from the news about Chinese cyber-spying allegedly stealing the intellectual treasure, military secrets and future of America.
Uploaded August 2011. Two years old now.
Chuck said,
August 13, 2013 at 9:03 pm
More rent-seeking, it seems:
http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/stat-of-the-day-us-has-enough-empty-houses-to-hold-all-of-britain.html
This, on top of the National Association of Realtors running commercials saying that there’s a shortage of houses for sale.
So what’s the tipping point for political stability? How poor does the great unwashed mass have to be before all Hell breaks loose?
George Smith said,
August 14, 2013 at 10:15 am
We already have a great deal of political instability. The legislative arm of government does not work and the net effect has been to virtually paralyze the country. The President can declare war and issue commands to various departments but that’s about it.
I ran some comment from Barlett and Steele, Pulitzer winners for work on the system of taxation and the great distortions in it, last year:
http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/?p=12637
The germane part:
DONALD BARLETT: The real bottom-line question is, what kind of a society do we want? Do we want a society built on the principle that the only thing that matters is the lowest possible price or a society built on the principle that everyone should have a living wage?
And those are going to be two very different societies. And this goes back again so what we’re talking about. The people up here, they don’t want everyone to have a living wage.
PAUL SOLMAN: So, you actually think we could have an economy in this country in which lots of Americans would simply be not part of the economy at all?
DONALD BARLETT: Irrelevant.
JAMES STEELE: You know, they will have jobs, but these are going to be jobs that don’t pay much.
JAMES STEELE: Maybe things will have to get a lot worse before people realize that there are some things, some positive things that government can do. These things didn’t use to be so partisan in this country. We used to be able to get together and do things for the benefit of everybody. And we hope one of these days we’re back to that. We’re definitely not there now.
That’s pretty glum. What’s it take, actually? Food riots. Paradoxically, the insane Republican Party wants to annihilate the food stamp program, it seems to make them murderously angry.
Hedges put a finger on it. He said something easily notable — there were more protests during the Vietnam War when things were actually much better. Now a lot has changed. The urban police forces have been turned into para-military armies in the urban centers, all courtesy of Homeland Security. And the national security megaplex has been quickly shifting its business model into working on the US civilian population.
We did get a popular protest movement. One was Occupy, which was effectively outlawed by anti-homeless and urban cleanliness ordinances. And the Tea Party, which is white fascist American bigots who get more radical the longer they remain in it.
A lurch to the far right is an historic feature of national politics, not just in America, during really hard times. We have that now and it occurred in 2010. The consequences have been disastrous.
Maybe the Tea Party goons in the House should be encouraged to shut down the government this year. That would bring on a whirlwind.