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i dont think aq has existed from quite some time as a coherent organization. but it would be bad for business were too big a deal made of that. the blurring out of aq into islam in general--with plausible deniablity at every point, the the speciality of ultra-reactionary assholes like daniel pipes--who was previously, if memory serves, saying very similar things about the soviet union. the national security state requires an Enemy in order to maintain itself as a patronage system---that sounds anthropomorphic, doesn't it? didn't mean it quite, but the point is clear.
it's strange that the vast "anti-terrorism" surveillance apparatus did nothing to stop breivik, isn't it? perhaps the problem now is the same as it's always been---no system can stop what it isn't looking for. except maybe by chance. but chance isn't a system element. chance is on the order of a counter-factual--say breivik had blown himself up.
i think there's a real problem brewing with the neo-fascist right both in europe and the united states. i have no idea how it will play out, but it seems to me clear. somehow fascism has been normalized--or at least made a viable alternative--in places where it is named as such. in the united states, where it isn't, it's been integrated into mainstream conservatism. again. this is **not** to say that all conservatives are neo-fascist. but some on the far right are. american style. the old rugged cross and waving flags, mainstreet u.s.a. fascism.
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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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