I got a feeling this statement, part of a newly published book, will end up in the Western Civ course at all colleges in about another twentyfive or so years when examining the history of our time and current divergent but thoughtful opinions ..... assuming that there are some colleges then. Maybe by then society will know if his bleak view of the struggle between individual freedom and the course of the growing security state will have resolved itself without WWIII.
We now have the largest unchallenged military machine in the history of the world, and it is backed by a political system that is increasingly willing to authorise any use of force in response to practically any justification. In today’s context that justification is terrorism, but not necessarily because our leaders are particularly concerned about terrorism in itself or because they think it is an existential threat to society. They recognise that even if we had a 9/11 attack every year, we would still be losing more people to car accidents and heart disease, and we don’t see the same expenditure of resources to respond to those more significant threats.
What it really comes down to is the reality that we have a political class that feels it must inoculate itself against allegations of weakness. Our politicians are more fearful of the politics of terrorism – of the charge that they do not take terrorism seriously – than they are of the crime itself.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016 ... stleblower