How about we build an authoritarian apparatus within the US — be prepared to crack down on citizens, on dissent?
Doesn’t sound very good, does it? Not something politicians can win on easily?
So how do we do it?
We need a way to spend lots of money on the infrastructure that can be used to track, to oppress.
Lots of money on equipment, training, troops. Laws in place for ‘security’.
How do we sell that?
When the president first suggested creating the FBI a century ago, Congress said ‘no’. Are you nuts? Give you a national police force to do your bidding? Ya, that’ll be great for democracy.
The president had to just create it on his own by reassigning staff from existing agencies, until some incident with ‘anarchist terrorism’ let him sell Congress on the need.
It hasn’t turned out that badly, really, with some exceptions, such as certainly trying to get Martin Luther King, Jr. killed (and possibly succeeding).
But here’s a plan for today. We need an issue that will get political and public support under which to build the apparatus.
Not many ‘anarchist terrorists’ anymore that were good for decades. Not much of a ‘communist insurrection threat’ anymore, either.
But Muslim terrorism — that works. 9/11, repeat many times. The purse strings open.
In recent days, I’m seeing stories:
- ICE using anti-terrorism cell-tracking system to catch undocumented worker to deport him
- Anti-terrorism contractors hired for use against Native American pipeline protesters
Those are two examples. But we should keep in mind, when we see politicians hyping, inflating, the ‘terrorist threat’ and spending on ‘anti-terrorism’, that maybe their passion is for other uses.
Funny that at the same time they are working for wealthy interests against their own constituents, and they know it, they’d be interested in ensuring the citizens can’t ‘rise up’ too much.
Something to think about as we hear the ‘terrorism’ drum beaten.
