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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWar-a-go-go indeed! -- Still Scared Stupid in the Age of Terrorism
The motive of Terrorism Inc. is pretty clear: with $4.4 trillion floating around, think tanks, academics, security firms, munitions manufacturers, spyware, and security hardware manufacturers all profit from inflating the terrorist threat.
But it all starts with government. As H. L. Menken said, The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
A frightened public is a malleable public, and a distracted one. Real issues like economic justice, income disparity, equal opportunity, and the growing threat of monopolies can get swept under the bloated shadow of terrorism. So can the fact that our elections have degenerated into a bidding war, where votes and integrity are sold to the highest bidder, and the popular will is routinely ignored. The Military Industrial Complex can maintain its stranglehold on our economy and society.
And of course, as long as were all looking at Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. the two big honking truths -- that the US is not a democracy, but an oligarchy, and capitalism, as currently practiced, is unsustainable can be hidden behind the fog of fear.
Terrorism is typically defined as the use of tactics designed to instill terror, in order to institute political policies that could not be achieved by conventional means.
Makes one wonder who the real terrorists are.
Indeed, we know this strategy of interceding in civil and sectarian strife and fighting wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan (and now Syria if the neocons have their way) has actually created more terrorists. The latest incarnation, ISIS, is, as David Stockman said, the mother of all blowbacks a problem created by our own policies. After all, ISIS includes US trained insurgents using US equipment, motivated by US occupations.
And now Terrorism Inc, led by the neocons you know, the folks who got everything wrong before and after 911 -- are telling us ISIS is an existential threat to our society.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/09/04/still-scared-stupid-age-terrorism
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War-a-go-go indeed! -- Still Scared Stupid in the Age of Terrorism (Original Post)
KoKo
Sep 2014
OP
KoKo
(84,711 posts)1. for the night crowd.......