Our Police State, 9-11-2010 to 9-12-2010 (part 5)

[Continued from Our Police State, 9-11-2010 to 9-12-2010 (part 4). sch 3/26/23.] 

I only see us becoming more and more scared. What does not frighten Americans? We have been managed by fear for so long that I doubt we can ever change. Just for the record, I will go with Gore Vidal and trace this fearfulness back to the rise of the national security state. Who would pardon Eugene V. Debs as did Warren G. Harding? Not Obama. He would be seen as soft on crime.

No one wants to admit to playing the politics of dehumanization. Russ Pulliam wrote an editorial in The Indianapolis Star, using the illogic of op/ed writers bent on overhyping a valid problem with dubious morality. Pulliam connected human trafficking with pornography. Human trafficking is caused by many factors, economic inequalities being the most obvious and the last we Americans want to address. The symptoms get treated, but never the causes. Solutions that smash like the Hulk rather than cutting with a scalpel do more to calm the fearful.

Fear rules Americans. We did not need al-Qaeda to scare us - we have been scaring ourselves for decades. Compared to the IRA, the Islamic terrorists got lucky but are otherwise inept. We have been defined, refined and redefined by a variety of demographics until we are not only stereotypes but stereotypes proven by statistics. We hunt out the others, those who endanger us. Poor Henry David Thoreau would never find any peace down by the pond in these days, when any non-conformity will be known.

We know how e are sliced and diced by statistics, by demography. Conformity provides safety. Mediocrity keeps away those who would lynch the non-conformist. The riot police cannot contain the crowd, coming with torches to police those different from the majority.

Yes, I see things only getting worse. If I survive prison, I want a quiet life, and I do not think the future will be peaceful. I have been too quiet until now - I did not want to affront any potential clients - and only if these notes see the light of day can I say I made any attempt at atoning for my silence. Still, my sober thoughts tell me I am too little, too late, for being a help to anyone. Power will not let itself be endangered. Once more from Measure for Measure:

ISABELLA

    Could great men thunder
    As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
    For every pelting, petty officer
    Would use his heaven for thunder;
    Nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,
    Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
    Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
    Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,
    Drest in a little brief authority,
    Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
    His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
    Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
    As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
    Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Thunder frightens for all its imposture as real power. 

I cannot see the people rejecting simplistic solutions for complex problems. The majority rejects thinking for the quick, pleasant realization of its desires. Even when people should know the simple solution only prolongs, if not deepens, the problem. 

sch

[Continued in Our Police State, 9-11-2010 to 9-12-2010 (part 6). sch 3/26/23.]