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let me make it very very simple for you:
there are threats--there are always threats--but the cateogry "terrorist" will let you understand nothing, explain nothing, anticipate nothing, prevent nothing.
"terrorism" is not about describing the world, analyzing political or social problems, or anything of the sort: it is an empty signifier whose primary function is to give people in the states--right now primarily those on the far right--something to be afraid of.
maybe read "the main in the glass booth" sometime and you'll find a remarkably similar argument for the importance of structuring fear in legitimating other, equally questionable types of government.
the notion of "terrorism" seperates actions from any possible political motive. by doing that, the category make analysis impossible. if analysis is impossible--because the cateogry is so vague and stupid at the same time--then anticipation is impossible. from this it follows that coherence is also impossible--i am sure that folk who work in fashioning responses to particular groups which engage in particular actions are only vaguely oriented by the category "terrorist"--so it seems a category that floats from public consumption and is about structuring anxiety--and that is about maintaining support for this administration--it is not about the world.
there is no "them".
there is no single "terrorist mentality"
if you want to understand how and why the states might find itself threatened, you cannot avoid the tedium of doing actual research, looking at concrete situations, looking at history as it plays into these situations,..you would look at particular agents engaged in particular tactical situations...if the problems really is "islamic fundamentalist" groups, then it makes some sense to actually research the question of these groups, who they are, where they are, why they mobilize, what they mobilize to achieve, and maybe from there work out how and why a larger-scale action might be mounted, if it is. thing is that this research is quite easy to carry out--it is just a question of doing basic searches and some work. the intellectual and political laziness of conservatives on this is really amazing to me.
from this thread and other such--the right has nothing to say, but they say it over and over, as if by refusing to acknowledge problems they will go away.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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