Culture of the National Security State - Deepa Kumar on "Reality Asserts Itself" with TRNN/Paul Jay

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Culture of the National Security State - Deepa Kumar on Reality Asserts Itself

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 -

Bio

Deepa Kumar is an Associate Professor of Media Studies and Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University.

Her work is driven by an active engagement with the key issues that characterize our era--neoliberalism and imperialism. Her first book, Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization and the UPS Strike (University of Illinois Press, 2007), is about the power of collective struggle in effectively challenging the priorities of neoliberalism.

If neoliberal globalization characterizes the economic logic of our age, the "war on terror" has come to define its political logic. Kumar began her research into the politics of empire shortly after the tumultuous events of 9/11.

Her second book titled Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire (Haymarket Books, 2012), looks at how the "Muslim enemy" has historically been mobilized to suit the goals of empire.
Transcript
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: Well, you mentioned a show that you grew up with--being a communist for the FBI. And essentially what I'm looking at is the birth of the national--.

JAY: Just quick, that was in the last segment, so if you didn't watch the last segment, you should.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--?