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99th_Monkey

(19,326 posts)
Mon Sep 29, 2014, 04:29 PM Sep 2014

Terrorism Serves the State

Terrorism Serves the State
Monday, 29 September 2014 11:39
By Brian Martin, Truthout | News Analysis

The continual attention to terrorism serves to justify state power. Meanwhile, alternative approaches are marginalized. In the media, it is almost impossible to escape the unending stories about the threat from terrorism. Whether it is the threat from homegrown terrorists, the danger of a new terrorist movement such as Islamic State or the need to eradicate terrorist plots, there seems no let-up in the alarm.

For those who lived through the Cold War, there was a plausible danger: nuclear war, which could have killed hundreds of millions of people and laid waste to cities and the environment. After the end of the Cold War, this existential threat faded from public consciousness, and many people expected a "peace dividend," namely a reorientation of spending from military spending to spending for human needs. But there was little dividend, as most governments maintained military budgets while they looked for a new rationale.

Terrorism provides an ideal pretext for maintaining a massive security apparatus spying on citizens and allied governments as well as enemies. Terrorism, unlike nuclear arsenals, provides no serious threat to the survival of either populations or governments. Terrorism can be said to be a government-generated moral panic, with the threat hyped beyond its objective seriousness.

The biggest dangers to human life from weapons are from governments themselves. One need only think of genocides in Guatemala, Rwanda and ex-Yugoslavia, the pre-2003 blockade of Iraq leading to a million deaths, not to mention millions killed in central African wars, while the western media drums up fear about shoe-bombers on civilian aircraft and airport announcements endlessly repeat warnings about unaccompanied baggage.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/26462-terrorism-serves-the-state
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Terrorism Serves the State (Original Post) 99th_Monkey Sep 2014 OP
...and the State serves the Military Contractors n/t leftstreet Sep 2014 #1
Ike and JFK both tried to warn us 99th_Monkey Sep 2014 #3
..."unending stories..." CJCRANE Sep 2014 #2

CJCRANE

(18,184 posts)
2. ..."unending stories..."
Mon Sep 29, 2014, 04:39 PM
Sep 2014

They are stories, albeit some of the characters are real, created with our own tax money to terrify us.

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