http://c4ss.org/content/5076
Well, it seems Homeland Security and the TSA are classifying the
anti-TSA backlash as a "domestic extremist" movement. A DHS memo from
Janet Napolitano referred to the individuals who tried to "interfere
with" the new airport security regime by objecting to it or opting out,
along with public commentators and organized movements which encouraged
such behavior, as "domestic extremists." She called on the government to
investigate individuals and movements associated with the anti-TSA backlash.
And now MSNBC's Chris Matthews is dismissing the anti-TSA movement as a
bunch of right-wingers. Monday night (Nov. 22) Matthews did a segment on
the new back-scatter body scan machines. One of the guests, Ginger
McCall of the Open Government Project and the Electronic Privacy
Information Center, cited evidence that the machines are ineffective at
detecting low-density materials like the powdered explosive carried by
the Underwear Bomber, and simply create an "illusion of security."
Matthews, outraged, demanded her explanation as to why the government
would deliberately do something that didn't work. McCall responded that
it might have something to do with the fact that a lot of money was
changing hands. When challenged further by the aghast Matthews, she
elaborated that former DHS Secretary Chertoff had ties to the companies
that manufacture the scanner.
This sent Matthews on a rampage for the rest of the segment, sputtering
demands for names and documentation as McCall, attempting to talk in the
face of his machine-gun interruption, tried to explain the concept of a
revolving door between government agencies and private industry.
It's pretty obvious, despite Newt Gingrich's hysterics about Matthews as
some sort of ultra-leftist, that the latter is really just a managerial
centrist. The quickest way to provoke Matthews' ire is to suggest that
privileged interests have some sort of structural influence over the
political system, or that there might be some sort of permanent,
institutionalized relationship between big business and big government.
The kind of "dirty business" that he found so offensive in regard to DHS
is standard practice among "defense" contractors: the manufacturers of
weapons systems colluding with the uniformed services to rig tests and
ensure the large-scale purchase of the systems. Apparently Matthews has
never heard of the Military-Industrial Complex --- either that, or he
regards Eisenhower as a "conspiracy theorist" in the same category as
David Ickes or Lyndon LaRouche.
Tonight (Wednesday) he continued with a segment on the backlash against
the new TSA procedures --- the body scans and "enhanced pat downs" ---
and rather disingenuously suggested it was just an orchestrated movement
by Republicans pandering to the paranoid Right. The Republicans, he
said, were becoming "soft on defense" and "soft on terror."
Odd, that's the first I ever heard that Glen Greenwald was a Republican
--- or that all those folks at Alternet are right-wingers. Jeez, you
think the ACLU's getting money from the Koch brothers?
The same line is being promoted at The Nation ("TSAstroturf
<http://www.thenation.com/article/156647/tsastroturf-washington-lobbyists-and-koch-funded-libertarians-behind-tsa-scandal>,"
Nov. 23): the whole anti-TSA thing is just a bunch of angry white males
with paranoid anti-government views. For every Republican who cares
about civil liberties only when there's a Democrat in the White House,
it seems, there's a liberal who only objects to police statism when it's
done by Republicans. Of course this is the same The Nation which argued
in the '90s that imperialism wasn't so bad when it was being done for
liberal ends in the Balkans, and whose editor (Kritina van den Heuvel)
celebrated the resurgence of faith in government after 9-11. (Odd, by
the way, that someone who equates fear of government to being right-wing
should have such a convergence of views with Samuel Huntington, who
lamented the increased difficulty corporate elites had in governing the
country because of the post-Vietnam/Watergate loss of trust in government.)
These people are being disingenuous in implying that the only political
alternatives are plain, vanilla-flavored managerialist liberalism and
the Right, and that anyone who isn't one must be the other. As far as
I'm concerned, this issue is the dividing line between the genuine Left
and liberal goo-goos.
The opposition to the post-9//11 national security state is not a
right-wing movement. It unites civil libertarians of left and right. The
anti-TSA backlash isn't about right versus left. It's about liberty
versus tyranny.
--
Sean Gabb
Director, The Libertarian Alliance (Carbon Positive since 1979)
sean@libertarian.co.uk <mailto:sean@libertarian.co.uk> Tel: 07956 472 199
Skype Username: seangabb
http://www.libertarian.co.uk
http://www.seangabb.co.uk
http://www.hampdenpress.co.uk
http://www.richardblake.org.uk/
http://libertarianalliance.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/sean.gabb
http://vimeo.com/seangabb
Wikipedia Entry: http://tinyurl.com/23jvoz
Buy these novels by Richard Blake: "Conspiracies of Rome"
<http://tinyurl.com/l8uj8r> ("Fascinating to read, very well written, an
intriguing plot" Derek Jacobi); "Terror of Constantinople"
<http://tinyurl.com/n9ugw3> ("Nasty, fun and educational" The Daily
Telegraph); "Blood of Alexandria" <http://tinyurl.com/356mwdr>. "Sword
of Damascus" will be published in June 2011. Buy them for your own
enjoyment. Buy them as presents for your friends and loved ones.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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