Mission Creep: When Everything Is Terrorism
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
1. A regime that justifies itself by claiming to protect the populace from a vague but grave danger. The USSR had the specter of returning robber barons; Nazi Germany, the Jews; and current-day US, terrorists.
2. A secret police that collects everyone's metadata and uses it to investigate suspicious activity. (Stasi didn't record everything all the time; they kept files of who communicated with whom, and assigned surveillance assets to the most promising leads.)
3. A heavy-handed, militarized regular police that apprehends nonviolent suspects with overwhelming force.
I could go on, but the combination of these three is more than enough cause for worry.
4. A powerful executive center for decision making, interfering with the established separation of powers.
5. Powerful Media channels controlled by the executive power and the industry in bed with it, leading propaganda and misinformation.
That is exactly what you need to start a more total state.
6) Behaving like a global imperial power, doing whatever it likes (from invading to operations) in sovereign countries.
7) Secret prisons, outside legal process.
11 Always talk and demand for transparency and open society.
Ofc this is not true because they demand only civil sector to be open while at the same time they are closed and even secret (ffs secret laws???). You can't demand open society with one or more parts of that society closed. Let me rephrase this, when facebook/google calls for open society -> they should open their database first, not demanding people to give them more data and lock that data down.
Little bit radical idea, but don't demand something you are not willing to make yourself.
- 1984 - "War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength ,Freedom is Slavery"
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
Here in Brazil, this plan was also implemented, part of it for example was the creation of our no-fault divorce laws with help of TV Soap Operas.
Later, the author of the soap opera that pushed for no-fault divorce (and indeed, it worked, no-fault divorce was made law in the same year as his soap opera) made even a book writing on how he is a communist and how he uses TV to manipulate society toward communist objectives, and even if you point Yuri interview and this guy book, people refuse to believe it, they think that society changed because it was 100% their choice and that the changes were 100% good and whoever say the opposite is crazy.
> he said himself people would not
> believe him anyway
I know that most people will call me a crack-pot
and few will believe me, but hear this: The Moon
Is Made of Cheese!2) My intent was to lodge my dislike of statements such as:
People don't believe X, but it's ok because X said
that no one would believe him/her.
3) It (to me) has similarities to statements like:
<statement 1> is true! <opposing group> might try
to distract you by saying <statement 2>, but don't
believe them because it's all lies!
A useful line of thought: what would it take for you to say that it was?
Im not being clever here, I think that the US is getting like that, but really deep down it doesn't feel like a Nazi Germany (or the like), but it sure is displaying signs of it. So, I'm not even sure what I think, and what the tipping point is where you can say that the US is in that group.
One thing I wonder about is whether its simply presentation? Its is simply that the US has a veil of democracy? Which people can vote, will it ever be seen as a totalitarian state, or stasi like, etc?
One problem I have is that Americans voted for this and previous government and there for must approve of what the USG does. "USA, USA, USA", and all that. Then I wonder if Americans are basically brain washed with this "best country in the world" nonsense, and this "they hate our freedoms" line, which is a contradiction in its self.
Perhaps the US is something new? A democratic fascist state, or something? I mean, the US people have no problem with the likes of Bush threatening countries with bombing back to the stone age to get their own way. No problem with killer flying robots murdering suspects on foreign soil with out permission of that country. No problem with CIA kidnapping and torture for dirty worthless foreigners.
Only when Americans feel the USG is threatening them do they get upset. But frankly, screw non Americans, they are not human or equal. Seems to me Americans enjoy their world power, love licking every one else around, but suddenly, when its them.....
I think what the US is today is very much like bad countries in the past who had disproportionate power and use it to further their own ambition at the expense of every one else. But unlike previous states, the US does it with its own democratic vote that makes it all just fine.
What name you give that, I don't know.
The one single thing that does worry me though is this notion that Americans are some how more valuable, more human, more important that any other people. That different rights apply. To Americans, we are not all human first.
YES I know not ALL Americans think like that. But the democratic results and opinion poles suggest that in the main, most Americans do. I have to say there does seem to be a huge difference between Americans who travel abroad and those who don't. I also include those who spend a lot of time professionally interacting with the rest of the planet too.
The internet has expanded that, just like here, on this site. I see hope here. I see Americans with a far better world view. HN, IMHO, has really helped me with that.
The really amazing thing about it is that everyone in Germany (Jewish or not) just thought it was a lot of hot air, and would blow over.
It's really worth reading some history books.
The part that scares me most is that while things look benign enough (as they do now), anyone in power can manufacture evidence, present it to a secret court and thus efficiently side-line and silence an adversary. For no other reason than not liking your face, for saying the wrong thing, being too good at something, sleeping with the wrong person...
You just disappear. No court, no recourse. Life destroyed.
Many did.
"The United States was another destination for German Jews seeking to leave the country (in the 1930s)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany
"In February 1933 while on a visit to the United States, Einstein decided not to return to Germany due to the rise to power of the Nazis" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
"(in 1938) Interrogation of Anna Freud by the Gestapo finally convinced Freud it was time to leave Austria." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
What would need to happen for you to abandon your job/business, home, extended family and friends and home to move to another country? I don't know what the answer is, but I think in a similar circumstance my first instinct would be to hunker down and wait for things to blow over.
If you're poor and striving, I think these decisions are a bit easier. My grandparents all immigrated to the US from Ireland between 1929-1946. For them, the complete lack of opportunity made it the only decision that made sense.
By some co-incidence, the BBC is talking about this today here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23261289
Spooky23 is probably also right - it seems easier to move if you're at the top (internationally known and/or could walk into a good new job) or at the bottom (nothing much to lose), but harder at the middle class.
Well known Jews could get out at least until the war.
For example, I really liked "Last Night I Dreamed of Peace" about Vietnam war (and since I'm from ex-Soviet country lot of the stuff there really resonates with me) but I'm not sure where to start about WW2.
First, no one really cares that citizens can be targeted or tortured with no trial (in fact, many call for it as in the case of the Boston bomber). This is tragic, but true.
Second, as much as the rest of the world wants to pretend this isn't the case, the same attitudes are equally present in most of the rest of the western world, from the ethnocentrism (which is a much bigger problem pretty much everywhere else) to the militarism and acceptance of big brother (don't even get me started on the Brits who accept a government which literally puts cameras in their homes).
Edit: requested info on home surveillance: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/115736/Sin-bins-for-wors...
What?
The problem with that view is that such a state will never look exactly the same as it did in another country in another time. As long as we're using another country's situation and behavior as a strict metric for what totalitarianism/fascism/etc "actually" is, some serious problems will fly by with too little attention given.
A) A government in possession of excessive repressive measures.
B) A general state of popular anxiety.
C) A highly symbolic crisis.
Historical examples include the infamous Reichstag fire in Nazi Germany [1], as well as the lesser known attempt on Lenin's life in Soviet Russia [2] and the duke of Brunswick's capture of Verdun in Revolutionary France [3]. Each of these crises enabled the respective governments to implement extraordinary measures that violently suppressed civil liberties and political opposition.
Thus I have little doubt that we've escaped a close call after 9/11. A follow-up attack, even of moderate proportions, may have enabled an honest-to-God police state by now. Judging by politicians' reactions to the Boston bombing, that danger is by no means behind us.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire#Political_conseq...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror#History
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Massacres#Reports_of_...
>Authoritarianism is a form of government. Juan Linz, whose 1964 description of authoritarianism is influential,[1] characterized authoritarianism regimes as political systems characterized by four qualities: (1) "limited, not responsible, political pluralism"; that is, constraints on political institutions and groups (such as legislatures, political parties, and interest groups), (2) a basis for legitimacy based on emotion, especially the identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat "easily recognizable societal problems" such as underdevelopment or insurgency; (3) neither "intensive nor extensive political mobilization" and constraints on the mass public (such as repressive tactics against opponents and a prohibition of antiregime activity) and (4) "formally ill-defined" executive power, often shifting or vague.[2]
This is ridiculous. They're criminals, and should be treated as such. This modern security state is ridiculous.
Terrorists simply don't have that kind of destructive capacity. It requires a modern industrial state; they don't have that. And once a modern industrial state is acquired, governing elites are curiously reluctant to sacrifice it on the altar of pure ideology.
So why more money is spent on terrorists than communists is a bit of a mystery to me.
That's because terrorism is used as an excuse to further push the Power of the State.
You declare war on a country, not a tactic, and you have to fight against an enemy who is capable of eventually saying "I surrender".
To me it is fairly simple. The Soviet threat went away, and the big intelligence agencies were left with not a lot to do. So a new enemy was born: Arabs, Muslims and Terror. Perfect scary enemies for pliable populations. I think the "war on drugs" also fills the Soviet void too.
My big worry with all this is that the US and West in general go too far and it genuinely becomes a religious world war. Hard for me, as some one who doesn't do religion, not to see this as christians vs muslims. Bush called it a "crusade" and claimed his god told him what to do, after all. Interesting too that Blair, the UK PM who backed Bush, immediately turned to the cathoilics once he left office, presumably for the forgiveness of his conscience.
Lastly, terrorists are no real threat at all, numbers and money wise. We in the UK had the IRA for decades, and frankly the damage they did, while devastating to individuals, was very low. Interestingly we always resisted the notion that it was a war. We felt that legitimised the IRA.
Note to Amerians: the IRA terror ended by NEGOTIATION. Not a military victory. We could still be fighting them today. Note also that AMERICANS were instrumental and vital in that negotiated peace. So you chaps do know other ways, peaceful ways, intelligent ways.
No matter how noble the intentions, no matter how vociferously the teenage boys swear, swear that their motives are and shall remain unimpeachably pure ... it eventually goes wrong.
I'm what you might think of as an ex-libertarian, not quite so rule-bound as I used to be. But on the topic of continuously fighting the granting of powers and capabilities I think they're right: the historical examples just pile on top of each other. Governments can't resist mission creep. You need to prevent the rot before it starts.
True, but it's not like people or corporations are that much better at resisting it, is it? Show me a big organization, and I will show you a whole lot of fingers in a whole lot of unrelated pies.
However, government is a special case: it reserves to itself a monopoly on violence and the ability to set the rules. Special cases deserve special treatment.
edit: it's a small world, I recognise your username from LP.
Standard Oil literally blew up the competition. Homestead Steel hired the Pinkertons to bash heads (and kill a few). Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Aetna kill indirectly by denying shelter, access to finances, or healthcare coverage.
The Libertardian arguments are getting more than a little tired, and we've heard them repeated a few too many times.
But these case are remarkable because they are rare, not common. And because in all such cases they predate the settlement of an uncontested government monopoly on violence in some geographical area.
I suppose you are mistaking me for a Rothtard, an anarcho-capitalist who believes in a free market in violence. Not so; it's been pretty well shown by now that centralising the social violence function is, on the whole, a better strategy.
But it comes with the downside that you've centralised a lot of power and it needs particular supervision and constraint.
Well, let's refer to your initial claim:
"However, government is a special case: it reserves to itself a monopoly on violence and the ability to set the rules."
Now, either you're tautalogically defining any organization which sets rules and exacts violence in pursuit of its ends as a government (which is a meaningless distinction), or you're making a nonsense argument. Actually, both are nonsense arguments. Note too that I've included a number of other organizations other than state-registered corporations, though I include those.
Yes, historically, companies have acted violently
Sure. Where historically was:
July 6 when Montreal Maine & Atlantic declared total war on the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/15/us-train-lawsuit-i...
April 17, when West Fertilizer Company declared war on West, Texas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explos...
Ongoing corporate war through the 2000s carried out by the Gulf Cartel subsidiary Los Zetas in Neuvo Lardo, Mexico, with death tolls running to the 100s annually: http://www.pro8news.com/news/96625619.html
Ongoing petro-religious corporate warfare in Iraq, with a death toll in the 10s to 100s of thousands: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/15/police-a...
May 15,2 2013, Wells Fargo's war against individuals who were not even its mortgage holders: https://livinglies.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/wells-fargo-wron...
November 25, 2012, war on behalf of American and other clothing manufacturers and retailers against Bangladeshi garment workers: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/25/world/asia/bangladesh-factory-...
December 2-3, 1984, war by Union Carbide against the citizens of Bhopal, India: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
All of these are cases in which violence was used by companies directly or through conscious and deliberate disregard for human safety and consequences in the aim of profit. The use of force to secure control or direct gains.
Or perhaps you'd like to address companies such as Blackwater (now Xe), armed affiliates of oil, gas, mineral, and diamond operations, forestry operators, and others, who transact directly in death and force?
The distinction you're drawing simply doesn't exist.
(That must be someone else, since I never used this nick before this account and don't even know what LP is. The Libertarian Party?)
Governments dying all the time? Like where? You mean in small countries? I'm talking about developed countries here, with big governments in place. They are very unlikely to die any time soon.
As for countries dying, even great powers, consider this:
Do you have any recent example of super-powerful corporation waging war around the world by themselves? Any example of corporation launching WW1 or WW2, or even something remotely big as the Vietnam war, all by themselves ?
It's fairly obvious that no corporation nowadays has the financial means to wage war by themselves. It takes 100 billions to wage war in Iraq. Top tier companies make that much in REVENUE, not even profit. How would you expect them to spend so much? Your point does not make sense.
My problem is that I am arguing a centre line that two schools of thought are misunderstanding. The centralisation of violence in the state serves a useful social function that decentralisation does poorly; but that selfsame centralisation is dangerous and must be closely and jealously guarded.
The first clause of my argument angers certain strains of libertarian and the second clause confuses various kinds of leftists who mistake me for a libertarian.
How exactly?
Read a little history. HE came with a single example, because you ASKED for an example. Read history books on the issue, and you'll find tons of other examples.
From Shell in Nigeria, to United Fruit Company in Latin America, to the big coprs in Hitler's Germany. E.g:
"""Big business developed an increasingly close partnership with the Nazi government as it became increasingly organized. Business leaders supported the government's political and military goals, and in exchange, the government pursued economic policies that maximized the profits of its business allies. Nazi Germany transferred public ownership and public services into the private sector, while other Western capitalist countries strove for increased state ownership of industry."""
There are tons of other examples. Not to mention that the question is quite brain-damaged: corporations don't make war directly, hiring an army and such.
They make them by exercizing political and financial influence. And that is not usually done by a single company: it's done by multiple corporate interests, that pursue their goals in tandem. E.g the so-called "millitary-industrial complex".
>It takes 100 billions to wage war in Iraq. Top tier companies make that much in REVENUE, not even profit. How would you expect them to spend so much? Your point does not make sense.
LOL. They don't spend "so much". That's not how it works. It's like he's explaining that to a ten year old.
Corporations bribe the right persons, create the right conditions, push and influence policy and such, and let the people of a country (or several) fight. That is, what corporations do is diverting governments and politicians, from serving the people, to doing their work for them.
We are coming back to what I said. Governments wage wars, not corporations. Without government involvement corporations are helpless. Government, ultimately, are responsible for military actions and the usage of force.
So, I dont see how my statements were wrong.
You should watch the documentary Hubris : Selling the Iraq War. It's on YouTube for free.
People wage wars. Whether they use governments, corporations, churches, or other vehicles to do so is a matter of convenience and what is available -- all have been used. If you shift more power to governments, governments will more often be the choice. If you shift that power away from governments, other choices will take over.
"Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people." -- Jawaharial Nehru
You have WAY MORE examples of States leading wars than corporations. Even in recent history. Proves my point.
Not really. It proves it only against a bizarro argument that nobody made, that coporations lead wars directly.
Of course states lead wars. Corporations don't have armies and state like powers except in very few historical situations (namely, in the colonial era, like the East-India company example).
It's not about who "leads the war" or "who fights in it". That's not what we mean when we say corporations create wars.
What we mean is that corporate interests (often of more than one corporation), exert power at states to further their interests, including by war, but also by other kinds of malice (dictatorship, lackeys in government, favorable laws, igniting civil tension, etc).
The fact that governments are more able to wage wars does not prove anything about what kind of entity is more likely to start one given that ability.
You live in the Matrix or something?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Creation_of_Fa...
("opposed to class warfare" / unions)
To be fair, the description given of the East India Company works for both the Dutch and British companies.
I mean you said this "Corporations don't make War and enlist people to fight for them."
This is obviously false.
Oh, they very much do. Either through friendly governments or directly, in less developed places.
The Krupps and several other business interests were financing Hitler, for example.
And multinational corporations push dictatorships, civil tension and even full blown wars all the time on smaller countries. There is a reason some are called "banana republics", and it's not because they produce bananas.
As for the number of people killed, you're just arguing about quantity, not anything fundamentally different and less violent about the nature of corporations. Corporations are clearly willing to kill people. If they were bigger and had more resources, like governments, they'd kill more people.
The government of Togo also doesn't kill many people in foreign wars. Its not because they're instrinsically less violent.
I am talking about wars from one country to another country.
Only governments can start international wars by definition.
You know, the wars that kill vast amounts of people ?
International wars tend to be more bloody due to the increased stakes and military power involved.
You will find out the later largely outweighs the first.
Since more people die in international wars, the majority of people who die in wars die in international ones.
Of course, what you don't mention is that outside of wars, there is a relatively tiny amount of violence in most developed countries, as a result of the monopoly on military power.
It's all a matter of frequency. How many international wars have you had recently? What about regional conflicts, like Ethiopian troops fighting Islamists in Somalia? Fact is, you get a lot more small-scale conflict on average than large-scale conflicts.
Besides, I don't understand this argument of corporations being opposed to governments. Private interests in strategic areas have worked hand-in-hand with governments to further their agenda (British Petroleum, United Fruit, Shell) or are the armed hand of the government (Blackwater).
Let's not get too ahistorical here, a lot of what we have today was implemented (if not established) in the freaked-out aftermath of 9-11. Yes, I know, Clinton rendered/tortured, etc. but it wasn't institutionalized through the PATRIOT act and associated mechanisms yet. There were certain people who used, intentionally, the hair-on-fire emotions of the times to expand government powers to the insane degree we are dealing with now.
Yes. Of course it's "always started". That doesn't render my point completely empty, because there is always a before to take as a starting point.
Sure, but he said that because he is an uncorrigable neocon.
He would be totally OK with giving the same "money and power" to big corporations.
There is a necessity for someone to have the men, guns and dogs -- even if they only figurative. But men with guns and dogs are dangerous and so whoever has them needs to be strictly controlled and supervised. The ability to acquire more such men, guns and dogs needs to be resisted as much as possible, because it is very hard to claw back.
No, they can just buy media to influence public opinion or buy politicians and influence policy, and have them send the men with guns.
But I think we mostly agree with that.
Only I don't think the solution is less government (a smaller government is even easier for big corporations to have power on), but more vigilant citizens participating in politics.
Peter Turchin has developed an interesting family of theories about the rise and fall of great powers. He wrote a popular account, War and Peace and War, which I reviewed here:
http://chester.id.au/2012/05/14/review-war-and-peace-and-war...
As a footnote, I found why he used the term 'Asabiya'. It comes from an earlier historian, Ibn al-Khaldun.
What makes you think so? Smaller government has smaller "attack surface", as hackers say.
The irony is that everyone who goes on about a marginal tax increase, social security or some land-use regulations being tyranny, all of those same exact people are the biggest cheerleaders for a less restrained military.
Compare it with having a dozen of committees with everyone in it being mediocre and fearing change, fearing initiative, fearing that something will happen after the downsize.
Committees are good at reacting (one loud incident -> wham you've got new regulations) and bad at acting (runaway project will run forever with nobody having balls to shut it down).
Committees are what happens when you have a legislature.
You don't need committees to make decisions, you may use them to approve people who then make decisions. That's how presidents work.
The smaller the government, the more value you could get per bribe (more power located in individuals) and the easier it would be to do it (smaller governments presumably lack layers of security measures against bribery). In case of extremely small government a big corporation could buy it out entirely.
In larger government there are a lot of competing bodies with vague job descriptions. You can honey them all with varying results. You can oil "layers of security" as well so those rarely help.
Don't confuse big/small government with big/small country. Surely there are banana republics, but I can't imagine you can buy out government of Iceland that easily.
Citation please. I don't believe this to be true based on first hand accounts of people who have been to both of those places.
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/06/29/256726/afghanis...
Well, sure, because we have a government to stop them.
Secondly, as I'm sure you well know, the small-government party line of the Republicans hasn't really meant anything since at least the time of Goldwater. Reagan and Bush Jr. presided over massive expansions of government power and expense, only pulling out "small government" talk in very strategic ways (attacks on PBS, etc).
A rough 95% of our leaders are completely compromised, whether from within or due to outside pressures, in favor of more power both for the state, and the corporations who it really represents. All else is theater.
There is one real issue that we should be putting all our energy into, and that is electoral reform.
I see three possible solutions, any of which would help, but all of which I'd like to see:
- Campaign Finance Reform: there are many potential ways to do this, the most straight-forward being publicly financed elections. This seems expensive, except when you compare it to the "media-electoral complex" we have now. Congress should not have to spend as much time as it does on fundraising, and should not be so motivated to accept kickbacks to PACs.
- Instant Runoff Voting: This would give third parties a chance to actually win by removing the "spoiler effect". It's a richer way to measure what the voters actually want, instead of continually forcing a choice of lesser evils. Anyone who still wants to cast their vote for a single party still can. Meanwhile, the mainstream parties would take third parties as a more serious threat, and focus more on the desires of their base, rather than taking them for granted and spending all their energy on a handful of politically inactive undecideds.
- None of the Above: Allow voters to choose none of the candidates as an option, forcing a new election. This would bring the protest non-voters back to the polls, the people who are so jaded that they believe (with cause) that voting is pointless, and whose opinions are going uncounted.
There are also other ideas like Proportional Representation, but that would represent a massive shift in our political structure, and so is probably not realistic. The above three options could be bolted on to our existing framework on a state-by-state level, or (theoretically) by Constitutional Amendment.
The problem is, both major parties and their donors benefit massively from the current system, and so it would take a huge upswell of public support to force a change. (Media companies would also fight tooth and nail; political advertising is a major source of revenue.) On the other hand, those members of Congress who are not blatantly corrupt don't like having to spend so much time fundraising, so it's not a completely uphill battle once critical mass is reached.
Every government program should have precise mission statement, realistic expectation and measurements. And limited lifespan.
Toddlers Killed More Americans Than Terrorists Did This Year.
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/guns/toddlers-killed-...
Even small local crime, many times police try to escalate it on purpose as much as possible to get more funding.
This is why the TSA and the NSA will never be defunded, they claim they are stopping all the invisible elephants from attacking us and politicians are afraid to say no.
Meanwhile the "security" industry grows to the point where it's too big to fail and the taxpayers have to fund it forever.
1) think of the children
2) think of the movie/music industry jobs
3) think of our national security
4) think of common decency (lenny bruce/george carlin were persecuted for their raunchy comedy for example
5) the sanctity of marriage
and so on.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7343445.stm [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/14/law.humanrights
Also, look at all of the cases of police sending agent provocateurs into protest groups to encourage radical and/or violent behaviour.
http://www.libertariannews.org/2011/08/30/bitcoin-fbi-admits...
yeah, that seems like a reasonable application of the word "terrorist" :P