The United States has experienced the biggest
political upheaval in its recent history: the transformation of a
burgeoning welfare state into a rapidly expanding, highly intrusive and
deeply entrenched police state, linked to the most developed
technological innovations.
The ‘Great Transformation’ occurred exclusively from
above, organized by the upper echelons of the civil and military
bureaucracy under the direction of the Executive and his National
Security Council. The ‘Great Transformation’ was not a single event but a
process of the accumulation of powers, via executive fiats, supported
and approved by compliant Congressional leaders. At no time in the
recent and distant past has this nation witnessed the growth of such
repressive powers and the proliferation of so many policing agencies
engaged in so many areas of life over such a prolonged period of time (a
time of virtually no internal mass dissent). Never has the executive
branch of government secured so many powers to detain, interrogate,
kidnap and assassinate its own citizens without judicial restraint.
Police state dominance is evident in the enormous
growth of the domestic security and military budget, the vast
recruitment of security and military personnel, the accumulation of
authoritarian powers curtailing individual and collective freedoms and
the permeation of national cultural and civic life with the almost
religious glorification of the agents and agencies of militarism and the
police state as evidenced at mass sporting and entertainment events.
The drying up of resources for public welfare and
services is a direct result of the dynamic growth of the police state
apparatus and military empire. This could only take place through a
sustained direct attack against the welfare state – in particular
against public funding for programs and agencies promoting the health,
education, pensions, income and housing for the middle and working
class.
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