The U.S. Government Is Using Fear to Consolidate Power and It’s Working

[marmar]

via truthdig:


Rather than diminish the fear that inspires humans to act in irrational violent ways, philosophy professor Peter Ludlow writes that so-called democracies are using it as a weapon to “control the rabble.” Events such as 9/11 and other terrorist acts have been framed and used constantly as a justification of an ever-growing surveillance state that is backed by our political leaders. After a distressing, must-read litany of the many ways in which American citizens have forfeited their liberties out of fear, Ludlow offers some hope. “Yet ultimately we are not powerless,” he writes. “We can resist the impulse to be afraid.”

The New York Times:

...let there be no mistake about the consolidation of power in the form of the new surveillance state. Recent revelations by Edward Snowden have shown an unprecedented program of surveillance both worldwide and on the American population. Even Erik Prince, the founder of the private military contractor Blackwater Worldwide thinks the security state has gone too far:

America is way too quick to trade freedom for the illusion of security. Whether it’s allowing the N.S.A. to go way too far in what it intercepts of our personal data, to our government monitoring of everything domestically and spending way more than we should. I don’t know if I want to live in a country where lone wolf and random terror attacks are impossible ‘cause that country would look more like North Korea than America.

The widespread outrage over the new surveillance state has been great enough that President Obama announced on Friday that he would scale back some of its programs, but he remained strident in his overall support for aggressive surveillance.

The interesting thing about the security measures that are taken today is that they provide, as Prince puts it, the “illusion of security”; another way to put it is that they provide “security theater.” Or perhaps it is actually a theater of fear. .......................(more)

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The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/the_us_government_is_using_fear_to_consolidate_power_and_its_working_2014

[marmar]

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[WillyT]

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