[Koran-Digital] James F. Tracy: FRAMEWORK FOR SUPPRESSING INFORMATION: Public Opinion in America's 21st Century Police State

THE FRAMEWORK FOR SUPPRESSING INFORMATION: Public Opinion in America's

21st Century Police State



By Prof. James F. Tracy



Global Research, May 20, 2012



URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30947



The police state's framework for suppressing information and opinion

arguably threatens all forms of independent thought and appears poised

to intensify as the "war on terror" continues. As the recent emergence

of US plans for indoctrination in reeducation camps reveals, Western

governments' actual enemy is the capacity for a people to exercise

critical thought en route to intervening in and altering

political-economic processes.



Public opinion—defined by 19th century English political thinker William

MacKinnon as "that sentiment on any given subject which is entertained

by the best informed, most intelligent, and most moral persons in

the community"—is fundamentally at odds with police state prerogatives

also exemplified in recent US Department of Homeland Security documents.



The technocratic mindset of agencies such as the DHS and Federal Bureau

of Investigation that oversee federal, state, and local policing

procedures seeks to short-circuit and quell dissent by identifying

transgressive thought that deviates from an assumed normalcy, then

interlinking it with perceived threats or violent actions against the

state. In a grand governmental exercise of Freudian-style projection,

the DHS's usage of inflammatory terms such as "terrorist" and

"extremist" are routinely utilized to emphasize the nature and degree of

various activist groups' alleged deviant ideologies. This practice

proceeds in light of the fact that most every "terrorist" act within the

US since 9/11 has been carefully guided by the FBI or, as was the case

with the initial "underwear bomber, Western intelligence agencies likely

working in concert.



A November 2011 DHS document, "Domestic Terrorism and Homegrown Violent

Extremism Lexicon", is the agency's recent codification of terms

intended to instruct and aid government officials in recognizing

"threats of terrorism against the United States by facilitating a common

understanding of the terms and conditions that describe terrorist

threats to the United States [sic]."



Then, in a fashion that will be familiar to those who understand the

tactics of groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, an untenable

array of activist pursuits spanning the political spectrum—"Anarchist

Extremists", "Animal Rights Extremists", "Anti-Abortion Extremists",

"Environmental Rights Extremists"—are libelously lobbed together and

defined alongside designations including "Racist Skinhead Extremists",

"Homegrown Violent Extremist", "Radicalization", and "Terrorism".



As with the phalanx of totalitarian-like legislation such as the PATRIOT

Acts that potentially pit the militarized security state against the US

population, through intentional ambiguity Homeland Security's

definitions of "terrorism" and "radicalization" come perilously close to

classifying critical thought and expression of almost any sort as terrorism.



"Terrorism" is defined as "any act that is dangerous to human life,

critical infrastructure, or key resources ... and appears to be intended

to intimidate or coerce a civilian population to influence the policy of

a government by intimidation or coercion [sic]" (author's emphasis).

Under such a definition social protest—speech protected under the

First Amendment—is impermissible. After all, any effective protest seeks

through various ways to effectively petition authorities for a redress

of grievances.



The curious term "radicalization" will be of special interest to

academics and journalists capable of engaging with and examining

controversial issues and concerns that their students or readers may

become passionate enough to weigh in on in some consequential way.

According to DHS, a person is "radicalized" through indoctrination "from

a non-violent belief system to a belief system that includes the

willingness to actively advocate, facilitate, or use violence as a

method to effect societal or political change."



Alongside DHS's vague definition of terrorism and the broader

prerogatives of police state ideology and practice, "violence" may be

conceived in a number of ways, such as a person with of a certain racial

demarcation peacefully sitting in the front of a segregated bus, or a

concerned citizen occupying the lobby of a zombie bank.



In reality the actual target of such policing metrics is the small

percentage of the population that have somehow escaped the enforced

process of "de-radicalization"—those who, in other words, still possess

the capacity to think and act critically on meaningful political matters.



Indeed, it is not beyond reason to point out that America is one serious

terrorist attack or mass civil disturbance away from the implementation

of policies to seriously limit or curtail the traffic of ideas, made all

the more easy for authorities through the internet's centralized

configuration. Society will then be left with the corporate media and

their custom inability (or refusal) to honestly examine and publicize

the corrupt nature and practices of the national security state.



With alternative media outlets providing a broad spectrum of analyses

and perspectives the tiny demarcation between critical thinking and

terrorism outlined in the government's missives is understandable. Minds

not fully regulated and that risk awakening (radicalization) through an

intellectual epiphany triggered by a professor, journalist, or author

prone to encouraging thought crimes may become "radicalized" and

carry out "terrorist" activities. They may, for example, recognize and

critique the "war on terror" as an extravagant and monstrous deception.



Moreover, individuals capable of possessing, articulating, and acting

upon meaningful ideas and information—of exercising an informed and

self-determined opinion in furtherance of their shared security and

welfare—have no need for a police state to "protect" them, which in all

likelihood is why critical thought and public opinion are the New

World Order's greatest enemies.



James F. Tracy is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Florida

Atlantic University.









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