Security is a nice word, sort of warm and fuzzy, but in this context it only works for some. Our National Security State is dedicated to the proposition that we should spare no expense of blood or treasure to keep secure the fortunes of a very small percent of the population, an elite which reaps the benefits of the work the rest of us do and the taxes the rest of us pay, an elite which becomes richer and richer as more and more of the "common" people drift downward toward the poverty line.
"Security" in this context means hundreds of billionsÑtrillions evenÑ worth of weaponry ranging from small arms ammunition to missile-mounted nuclear warheads. It means battalions of police officers poised to arrest, beat and otherwise brutalizeÑkill evenÑthose of us who dare to oppose the global domination schemes hatched in the halls of the mighty.
It means preying on the young, the ones with no present and no future, marshaling them with promises of higher (mis)education to serve as cannon-fodder in deadly combat for markets, those magic entities which, they say, determine the fate of our societies, our communities, our households, our very selves.
"Security" means ensuring at any cost a constant supply of resources for the industrial machine which relentlessly churns out trinkets and televisions to frivolize our lives, to distract us from noticing and recognizing the chafing of the yoke placed upon our collective neck.
There is no limit to what our National Security State will do to ensure that the oil for energy, the minerals for metals, the coal, the chemicals, the water, the workers, all are available at the lowest possible cost. That includes every thing from spying to buying national leaders, from suborning governments to slayingÑslaughtering evenÑthose who raise their heads to protest or point down different roads.
But all of that is prelude to the first attack on the soil of this nation in 190 years, an attack using relatively simple means based on a complex, tightly coordinated plan. The people are in shock.
Our leaders, macho to the core, respond with bombing, kicking ass, revenge. They declare "war" on "terrorism," as if terrorism were an entity, a locatable state, a target we can pound to rubble as we have so many places, so many lives, so many futures.
They marshal their propagandists, parade their pundits, dish up for their kept media all the proper images and metaphors to shape the thinking of non-reflective people, to whip up the kind of hysteria that calls for more and more killing, killing of the guilty and of the many, many innocents who die with them. To solidify their control to ensure a sheeplike docility which allows our lives to be disrupted, our young to be taken as sacrifices, they pass new laws restricting the freedoms we take for granted, for which, they say, we must fight and bleed and die for the greater glory of what? God? America? Democracy? No: the free market.
As a youth I went to war in Korea to the accompaniment of scanty protest. But as a more mature adult, I went to war in the streets, along with thousands of others, to bring the Vietnam conflict to an end. That worked, but it took several years to come together and years more to complete the job.
This time I feel that the thousands are in the hundred thousands, many of whom are seasoned veterans of dissent to National Security State policies, from Vietnam to corporate globalization. This time we have a big head start. It's not going to be easy and it's not going to be quick and it's going to involve many casualties at home as the casualties abroad mount up.
But this time I am confident that we can overcome the flag-wavers, the jingoists, the racists, and the militarists by putting our minds to work on making clear to most AmericansÑthe decent ones, anywayÑwhat this so-called war is really about and putting our bodies on the line as we have had to in the past.
I wish us well.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2001
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited