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KoKo

(84,711 posts)
Tue Oct 21, 2014, 03:26 PM Oct 2014

TRNN: "The Culture Politics of the National Security State" -Dr. Deepa Kumar w/Paul Jay (5/5)

Last edited Tue Oct 21, 2014, 09:12 PM - Edit history (1)

Culture of the National Security State - Deepa Kumar on Reality Asserts Itself (5/5)
Published on Oct 18, 2014 Part 5 of 5. The rest at:

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12542

Dr. Kumar tells Paul Jay that a culture of fear and obedience has developed so we give consent to Cold War policies, to hot wars, to the complete militarization of society. A national security state.

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:





PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome back to Reality Asserts Itself. I'm Paul Jay. This is The Real News Network. And we're continuing our discussion with Deepa Kumar, who joins us now in studio. Deepa is an associate professor of media studies at Rutgers University, also serves as an officer in the union there. She's written many books. One of the most recent is Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, but coming soon is Constructing the Terrorist Threat: The Cultural Politics of the National Security State.

Thanks for joining us.DEEPA KUMAR, ASSOC. PROF. MEDIA STUDIES AND MIDEAST STUDIES, RUTGERS UNIV.: Thank you for having me.

JAY: So what is that, the cultural politics of the national security state?

KUMAR: Yes. So if you look at--I'm looking at the Cold War period, the post-Second World War period, and the emergence and the birth of the national security state after the National Security Act of 1947, which creates the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then the NSA in '52, and so on. And there is a wholesale militarization of American society. Every aspect of American life, social, intellectual, political, and so on, it gets militarized in this way. And the question is: how does that become acceptable? And culture is very important in terms of understanding how that happens. And so you have these security rituals, right, the Civil [Defense] department drills, the kind of "duck and cover". Bert the Turtle teaches a whole generation--.

JAY: I did that as a kid.

KUMAR: Did you? Okay.

JAY: Oh yeah. I had to go hide under my desk. Yeah.

KUMAR: Right. And, of course, you think about what is the point of a ritual like that. If a nuclear bomb goes off near your school, a desk isn't going to protect you.

JAY: No? They told me it would. I was once on a plane with a guy, and he told me--he's in uniform, and I said what's your job? He says, I go around to military bases training people what to do in the case of a nuclear war. And I said, really? What you do? He says, well, I tell them they have to squat. They find wall. You have to squat behind it, put your hand over your eyes, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.

KUMAR: Yes.

JAY: They never told us that in school, though.

KUMAR: But the whole point of a security ritual is to cultivate fear and obedience. So you give your consent to Cold War policies, to hot wars, to the complete militarization of society. And so I want to look at those sorts of drills, the various shows, the propaganda work overseas as well as domestically, but build it up to the present, because after 9/11 you see a strengthening of the national security state. And if we had "duck and cover" back then, we have see something, say something, which is the idea that you've got to be suspicious of anyone and anything, and you see and you text. That's the new ritual. And it again cultivates a sort of obedience to the national security state and all the draconian things that are being done--surveillance, drone strikes, you know, all the rest of it--which otherwise would be unacceptable if it weren't for these various cultural practices that make it so. And that's how to think of Homeland as well, which is--

.JAY: The TV show

.KUMAR: Absolutely. I mean, you think about the first season, and Carrie has conducted this illegal surveillance operation of Brody. She even has a camera in his bathroom, right? And all that is justified because eventually--and spoiler alert--we discover by the end of the first season that he is a terrorist. So yay! And that's really the work that this show is doing is justifying the practices of the national security state.JAY: It's like 24. And, in fact, some of the same people that make Homeland made 24,--

KUMAR: Exact same people.JAY: --which was to show that torture actually does elicit useful information, even though so far all the evidence is it does not.

KUMAR: Yes. But there's a difference between the two shows, though, because if 24 was about a more Bush kind of shoot 'em up and torture 'em kind of style, this is a much more sophisticated show in that it relies on intelligent people, like the head of the CIA, Saul Berenson, who because of his cultural knowledge of the Middle East, because he follows football in Iran and so on, is able to piece together various clues. And he is in some ways a reflection of the so-called smarter war that Obama is launching. And really that's what Obama does is he--

JAY: Smart power.


TRANSCRIPT CONTINUES AT:

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12542
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TRNN: "The Culture Politics of the National Security State" -Dr. Deepa Kumar w/Paul Jay (5/5) (Original Post) KoKo Oct 2014 OP
Kick for the "Duck & Cover Generation" to reveal to Generations After............ KoKo Oct 2014 #1

KoKo

(84,711 posts)
1. Kick for the "Duck & Cover Generation" to reveal to Generations After............
Wed Oct 22, 2014, 08:48 PM
Oct 2014

What we Learned since we were Kids and how we can pass along info that WE Did Not Have...for Your Future.

If you can listen and walk through it.....and, think further about it.. Because when We Are Gone....YOU Will be The Ones to Take Up the Torch we LEFT for you... The Choice is Yours...

We can only keep giving you "Lessons of the History that We Went Through".....With our High Hopes for YOU to work it out.



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