I read the posture of Obama's administration regarding quick transition as imposture: a cynical public relations gesture alone. It looks better to be ostensibly defied by the despot Mubarak than openly to support him. I wonder whether the administration has not been privately assuring Mubarak of its desire to preserve the status quo; after all, so many wealthy interests stand to profit even more from it, and the administration's consistent track record with regard to wealthy interests speaks for itself.
"I am afraid that the US National Security State . . . may be gradually making social activism harder and harder, with all the totalitarian implications of that change."
I'd assert that the whole point of the national security state is precisely to suppress any social activism. It sees its greatest threats in those it purports to "keep safe."
The so-called teabaggers' slogans about big government and property, inconsistent with so much of their actual politics, make most sense when understood as a tribal code; they seem to be largely whites who are terrified that the non-whites might be horning in. If their problem really was with "big government," as Professor Cole suggests, it would be outrageous to them that their federal tax dollars have underwritten the murder of a U.S. citizen, and they would never welcome--let alone demand--federal intervention when it suits the tribal agenda, as they do. As for the fact that they were completely off the radar until Dick Armey and others launched them after Obama was elected, and their collective animosity toward certain social/racial groups: hardly a coincidence.
I read the posture of Obama's administration regarding quick transition as imposture: a cynical public relations gesture alone. It looks better to be ostensibly defied by the despot Mubarak than openly to support him. I wonder whether the administration has not been privately assuring Mubarak of its desire to preserve the status quo; after all, so many wealthy interests stand to profit even more from it, and the administration's consistent track record with regard to wealthy interests speaks for itself.
"I am afraid that the US National Security State . . . may be gradually making social activism harder and harder, with all the totalitarian implications of that change."
I'd assert that the whole point of the national security state is precisely to suppress any social activism. It sees its greatest threats in those it purports to "keep safe."
The so-called teabaggers' slogans about big government and property, inconsistent with so much of their actual politics, make most sense when understood as a tribal code; they seem to be largely whites who are terrified that the non-whites might be horning in. If their problem really was with "big government," as Professor Cole suggests, it would be outrageous to them that their federal tax dollars have underwritten the murder of a U.S. citizen, and they would never welcome--let alone demand--federal intervention when it suits the tribal agenda, as they do. As for the fact that they were completely off the radar until Dick Armey and others launched them after Obama was elected, and their collective animosity toward certain social/racial groups: hardly a coincidence.
Some data here:
http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/racepolitics.html