coming home
November 27, 2018 3:52 PM Subscribe
After LRAD devices were used against protestors of police killings in Ferguson, MO, after the Pentagon-developed Active Denial System was proposed for an American prison, after "counterterrorism tactics" were used against the Standing Rock anti-pipeline protests (previously), and after tear gas (CS or CN, cf: LoAC) was fired across the U.S. - Mexico border, remember Michel Foucault:
This was Not The World Order We Wanted, but it's the one we're getting, in a ferocious Race to the Bottom
Matt Christman, Chapo Trap House, Episode 133:
Climate change 'will create world's biggest refugee crisis' - which has already started in low-lying islands and drought-stricken regions around the world, as high as 1 billion refugees by 2050. The current "refugee crisis" in Europe has driven the rise of fascism, or perhaps "illiberal democracy," in Europe and in the West: Italy, Hungary, Poland, and more.
“The Liberal Order Is the Incubator for Authoritarianism”: A Conversation with Pankaj Mishra. See also How colonial violence came home: the ugly truth of the first world war: previously
The Ethnic Cleansing Industrial Complex operating Our Concentration Camps as The Trump Administration Is Militarizing the Whole Planet
What The Left Must Fight Against
that while colonization, with its techniques and its political and juridical weapons, obviously transported European models to other continents, it also had a considerable boomerang effect on the mechanisms of power in the West,- "As our planet urbanizes more rapidly than ever before, an insidious set of boomerang effects, linking security doctrine in cities in the global North with those in the South, are permeating state tactics of control of everyday urban life."
This was Not The World Order We Wanted, but it's the one we're getting, in a ferocious Race to the Bottom
Matt Christman, Chapo Trap House, Episode 133:
They have nothing in terms of an argument or a coherent worldview or a useful praxis, but what they do have is: they are speaking on behalf of a hegemonic liberalism that is going to get us all fucking killed. ... I agree don't talk to them, but because their distraction from the real fucking problem: fascism arises from the collapse of institutional legitimacy of liberal institutions. That's how was got fucking Trump, that's how we're gonna get what's comin' next after him that's gonna be even worse. Because, if you think there's not gonna be more ecological and economic catastrophes in the future that liberalism is wholly unsuited to fucking deal with, and that failure is not going to lead to fascism filling that fucking hole, you got another thing coming.Why Catastrophic Climate Change is Probably Inevitable Now - "But I want to tell you the sad, strange, terrible story of how we got here. Call it a lament for a planet, if you like. You see, not so long ago, we — the world — were optimistic that climate change could be managed, in at least some way. The worst impacts probably avoided, forestalled, escaped — if we worked together as a world. But now we are not so sure at all. Why is that? What happened? Fascism happened — at precisely the wrong moment. That shredded all our plans. But fascism happened because capitalism failed — failed for the world, but succeeded wildly for capitalists."
And that's who these guys are, these guys who marched in Charlottesville. These are the people who are aware of the unspoken premise of the sort of zombie neoliberalism we're living in. Which is that we're at a point where there is going to be ecological catastrophe, and it's going to either require mass redistribution of the ill-gotten gains of the first world, or genocide.
And these are the first people who've basically said "Well, if that's the choice, I choose genocide." And they're getting everybody else ready, intellectually and emotionally, for when that really happens. Why they're not really people, when we're putting all this money into fucking walls and drones and bombs and guns to keep them away so that we can watch them die with clear consciences, it's gonna be because we've been loaded with the ideology that these guys are now starting to express publicly.
On the other side of them you have people who are saying, in full fucking voice, 'No, we have the resources to save everybody to give everybody a fucking decent and worthwhile existence, and that is what we want.' And that is the fucking real difference between these two. You can tell that to the next asshole who tells you that they're actually two sides of the same coin.
Climate change 'will create world's biggest refugee crisis' - which has already started in low-lying islands and drought-stricken regions around the world, as high as 1 billion refugees by 2050. The current "refugee crisis" in Europe has driven the rise of fascism, or perhaps "illiberal democracy," in Europe and in the West: Italy, Hungary, Poland, and more.
“The Liberal Order Is the Incubator for Authoritarianism”: A Conversation with Pankaj Mishra. See also How colonial violence came home: the ugly truth of the first world war: previously
The Ethnic Cleansing Industrial Complex operating Our Concentration Camps as The Trump Administration Is Militarizing the Whole Planet
What The Left Must Fight Against
You can see how Carlson’s book is a strange mixture, then. We get the usual Fox News grousing about political correctness and campus activists, a lot of perfectly sensible observations about neoliberalism, and then outright white nationalist talking points about ethnic demographic change and the loss of a European majority. It’s a toxic brew. But it’s not at all an anomalous one, and it represents a tendency that the left needs to work very hard to fight against.This is The Business Tucker Carlson Has Chosen [ed: Don't Be A Sucker]. FYI, let's Responding To An Extremely Common Question About Immigration - "So “Well, governments should serve their people and enforce the law” is a very simple way of brushing off an extremely complex moral problem. To what extent should you enforce the law when hardly anybody actually wants it strictly enforced? How do you come up with a practical and humane approach? If the existing laws can’t be justified, don’t we need to make sure that they are changed? What happens when one government serving its people allows another group of people to suffer in preventable ways? There will be disagreement about the answers to the questions, but the Trump/Carlson approach doesn’t actually deal with them. It’s both ignorant and callous, and anyone who holds it should think deeply about whether they really want their country to behave according to an idea that we would find reprehensible in any individual."
As Carlos Maza of Vox has pointed out, white supremacists like Tucker Carlson more than they like any other Fox News commentator. The Daily Stormer has called him “literally our greatest ally,” Richard Spencer has spoken positively of him, David Duke has said “God bless Tucker Carlson.” This is because Carlson differs from other conservatives: Many praise immigration and the American “melting pot,” and reserve their criticism for illegal immigrants. Carlson is different: He’s not just concerned with unlawful entry. He’s also concerned with, as we see in his book, “demographic” change. The loss of a European “ethnic majority.” Most conservatives are not openly pro-white. Carlson, on the other hand, dares to talk about how cities “look different” now—the changes are changes of color and culture. Carlson’s “ethnic majority” is pretty much exactly what Richard Spencer says. Spencer believes that European American culture is the glue that holds the country together, that we need a white ethnostate, and that changes in ethnicity, religion, and language are bad and will destroy the country. Carlson’s talking points are about half an inch away from this. Again, just to emphasize, he is clear in the book that “ethnicity” is a component of the change he finds destructive.
We should also look to China for what the future of US authoritarianism might hold, imo...heartwarming post :)
Uighur Crackdown
Surveillance State
More surveillance (WaPo Youtube link)
posted by nikoniko at 4:44 PM on November 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
Uighur Crackdown
Surveillance State
More surveillance (WaPo Youtube link)
posted by nikoniko at 4:44 PM on November 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
It’s like climate change, the crisis isn’t coming, it’s not about to happen, it’s not on the horizon.
It’s here.
posted by The Whelk at 5:31 PM on November 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
It’s here.
posted by The Whelk at 5:31 PM on November 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
Previously, September, 11 years ago:
This comes closer to being a total response than those weapons (Tear gas, rubber bullets, etc).posted by cashman at 6:09 PM on November 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
When someone shoots tear gas at you, you know who did it, and chances are that not only do you know why, but that you willingly put yourself in a situation that was likely to lead to it happening.
Tear gas can't always get shot off at random in the business district during the workday, since there's no way to target it. And mobilizing a large squad of riot cops to use tear gas or rubber/plastic bullets is time and resource intensive and, for those still concerned about such things, a bit heavy in terms of optics. In theory, the people deploying these things can also be reasoned with, or, at the very least, their behaviour can be occasionally tempered by a fear for their own safety.
This, however, is a push-button solution, potentially remote, easy to deploy both logistically and emotionally, and, most frighteningly, doesn't necessarily involve any causal relation in the victim's mind.
It can conceivably be used to make people feel that punishment comes from the built environment itself, from the omnipresent atmosphere of authority, from the totality of their surroundings.
Fucking terrifying indeed.
posted by regicide is good for you at 1:41 PM on September 20, 2007
Ever wonder if somewhere out there is a world of intelligent beings living in peace and harmony?
posted by notreally at 6:14 PM on November 27, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by notreally at 6:14 PM on November 27, 2018 [3 favorites]
Will work my way through the links, but the general emphasis of the political and environmental points expresses my own meandering train of thought over the last several days, so thanks for the timely references.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 7:54 PM on November 27, 2018
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 7:54 PM on November 27, 2018
with some critics referring to it as a “sound cannon.”
I don't understand why anyone, critic or not, would refer to it as an "LRAD device" (Long Range Acoustic Device device?) when the perfectly good phrase "sound cannon" is available. Not only is it shorter, it immediately conveys approximately the right idea, while LRAD could mean anything from a wireless microphone to an Alphorn.
posted by sfenders at 6:52 AM on November 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
I don't understand why anyone, critic or not, would refer to it as an "LRAD device" (Long Range Acoustic Device device?) when the perfectly good phrase "sound cannon" is available. Not only is it shorter, it immediately conveys approximately the right idea, while LRAD could mean anything from a wireless microphone to an Alphorn.
posted by sfenders at 6:52 AM on November 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
These are the people who are aware of the unspoken premise of the sort of zombie neoliberalism we're living in. Which is that we're at a point where there is going to be ecological catastrophe, and it's going to either require mass redistribution of the ill-gotten gains of the first world, or genocide. And these are the first people who've basically said "Well, if that's the choice, I choose genocide."
That explanation was chilling and cut to the bone of the issue. While our "opposition" party (Dems) is trying to reach across the aisle to a radicalized right, they in turn are fantasizing about the camps, the drone strikes, and all-out warfare against desperate, hopeless, poor people who've never not had a boot on their necks. I feel like no one on the liberal side is seeing how quickly and clearly we are going to move into a Children of Men-type world of massive refugee camps under barbed wire, wastelands of bombed-out ruins in equatorial zones, escalating mechanized horror to churn through billions for the benefit of a few 1st-World liferafters. And all the machinery for this will be constructed with the consent of our elected liberal representatives, who have already let themselves be bullied down from opposing imperialism, police brutality, militarization of domestic law enforcement, war crimes, and state-sponsored child abuse.
I forget which later episode of Chapo this came up in, but I thought the corollary to what Matt describes here is the observation (and I forget who made it. I've always had trouble telling their voices apart (aside from Amber)) that this world today's American Neo-Fascists are willing to kill for is just mediocre chain-restaurants, enormous cars, gated communities of atomized McMansions. The American Way of Life that they tell us we must defend at all costs means nothing more than consequence-free consumption of overpriced, low-quality suburban shit with no aesthetic or redeeming value whatever. I mean yes, this vision of the 50s, but with P.F. Chang's and HD TV, is deeply informed by the values of reactionary Boomers, but this cult has plenty of younger converts as we can see by the composition of the Alt-Right. Way too many people right now are willing to believe that as long as they and their immediate families can continue to live in this simulacra of stability and prosperity, no price will be too high to extract from the world, and no one with any power appears to be paying attention to how many people are preparing themselves to burn the rest of us to keep themselves warm.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 7:28 AM on November 28, 2018 [8 favorites]
That explanation was chilling and cut to the bone of the issue. While our "opposition" party (Dems) is trying to reach across the aisle to a radicalized right, they in turn are fantasizing about the camps, the drone strikes, and all-out warfare against desperate, hopeless, poor people who've never not had a boot on their necks. I feel like no one on the liberal side is seeing how quickly and clearly we are going to move into a Children of Men-type world of massive refugee camps under barbed wire, wastelands of bombed-out ruins in equatorial zones, escalating mechanized horror to churn through billions for the benefit of a few 1st-World liferafters. And all the machinery for this will be constructed with the consent of our elected liberal representatives, who have already let themselves be bullied down from opposing imperialism, police brutality, militarization of domestic law enforcement, war crimes, and state-sponsored child abuse.
I forget which later episode of Chapo this came up in, but I thought the corollary to what Matt describes here is the observation (and I forget who made it. I've always had trouble telling their voices apart (aside from Amber)) that this world today's American Neo-Fascists are willing to kill for is just mediocre chain-restaurants, enormous cars, gated communities of atomized McMansions. The American Way of Life that they tell us we must defend at all costs means nothing more than consequence-free consumption of overpriced, low-quality suburban shit with no aesthetic or redeeming value whatever. I mean yes, this vision of the 50s, but with P.F. Chang's and HD TV, is deeply informed by the values of reactionary Boomers, but this cult has plenty of younger converts as we can see by the composition of the Alt-Right. Way too many people right now are willing to believe that as long as they and their immediate families can continue to live in this simulacra of stability and prosperity, no price will be too high to extract from the world, and no one with any power appears to be paying attention to how many people are preparing themselves to burn the rest of us to keep themselves warm.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 7:28 AM on November 28, 2018 [8 favorites]
I don't understand why anyone, critic or not, would refer to it as an "LRAD device" (Long Range Acoustic Device device?) when the perfectly good phrase "sound cannon" is available.
Presumably because, with the number of taser-equipped police officers who have killed someone after mixing up their stun gun and their regular gun, they do not want to chance the police accidentally firing a regular cannon at protesters.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:43 AM on November 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Presumably because, with the number of taser-equipped police officers who have killed someone after mixing up their stun gun and their regular gun, they do not want to chance the police accidentally firing a regular cannon at protesters.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:43 AM on November 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
The future is gated communities surrounded by refugee camps.
posted by The Whelk at 7:45 AM on November 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 7:45 AM on November 28, 2018 [9 favorites]
The future is gated communities surrounded by refugee camps.
Imagine a Sperry Topsider stamping on a human face--forever.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:02 AM on November 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
Imagine a Sperry Topsider stamping on a human face--forever.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:02 AM on November 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
The works here that address domestic "pacification" forces, using techniques and equipment honed in colonial wars reminded me that in this past election, Floridians voted to create an "Office of Counterterrorism" as a separate branch of the state police force, despite the fact that FDLE already has a counterterrorism office. This was a constitutional amendment, so it cannot be dissolved unless by another amendment. The usual constitutional revision process only happens every 20 years. The main reason this change was proposed?
Author Trevor Aaronson, a New Times alum who has written extensively about the way terrorism investigations are conducted, says the analysts who work in Florida's anti-terrorism Fusion Center often have minimal experience and aren't required to have significant military or intelligence training. Most of the job entails processing so-called "suspicious activity reports" passed along by local law enforcement agencies. "They're meant to be this analytical department that looks at suspicious activity reports, and these reports can be really stupid, like a Muslim walking through a parking lot," Aaronson says.
So clearly, we need people with military experience to scrutinize every brown person who's just trying to get somewhere. It's not hard to imagine what kinds of things will get redefined as "terrorism" in order to justify the use of yet another militarized policing arm of the surveillance state, especially with that dumbfuck fash DeSantis around.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:44 AM on November 28, 2018
Author Trevor Aaronson, a New Times alum who has written extensively about the way terrorism investigations are conducted, says the analysts who work in Florida's anti-terrorism Fusion Center often have minimal experience and aren't required to have significant military or intelligence training. Most of the job entails processing so-called "suspicious activity reports" passed along by local law enforcement agencies. "They're meant to be this analytical department that looks at suspicious activity reports, and these reports can be really stupid, like a Muslim walking through a parking lot," Aaronson says.
So clearly, we need people with military experience to scrutinize every brown person who's just trying to get somewhere. It's not hard to imagine what kinds of things will get redefined as "terrorism" in order to justify the use of yet another militarized policing arm of the surveillance state, especially with that dumbfuck fash DeSantis around.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:44 AM on November 28, 2018
if you were gonna read a condensed version, it would be
"mechanisms of power"
"boomerang effects"
"world order"
"catastrophic climate change"
"incubator for authoritarianism"
"what the left must fight against"
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:43 AM on November 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
"mechanisms of power"
"boomerang effects"
"world order"
"catastrophic climate change"
"incubator for authoritarianism"
"what the left must fight against"
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:43 AM on November 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Keeping Them Out, Killing Them Off
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:16 PM on November 28, 2018
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:16 PM on November 28, 2018
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posted by schadenfrau at 4:23 PM on November 27, 2018 [4 favorites]