Spin and the Militarized Police State

Dear George,

A word of warning: What follows is sensitive material that should be classified as top secret. Were it to fall into the wrong hands, our National Security would be seriously compromised. Either burn or swallow this letter as soon as you finish it.

Surely, this is the age of the spinmeisters. Never in history has spin played such a crucial role in maintaining social stability and order.

The Corporatist State floats on a pool of noxious bullshit. Statesmanship is nothing more than the running of an elaborate scam. Almost every word that issues forth from a leaders mouth is an anonym that, in reality, denotes its polar opposite.

The need for spin is illustrated by one writer who said:

It has been a cornerstone of U.S. policy since the Second World War that the U.S. must control the energy resources of the Middle East. Not because we need them here at home—the U.S. obtains the bulk of the oil used domestically from the Western hemisphere—but because control of energy gives the U.S. a strangle-hold on our corporations’ major economic competitors, the European Union and northeast Asia (Japan, China and South Korea).

Now, I ask you, what corporation is worth the life of a single individual. How many of our troops would be willing to die for the corporate bottom line? This is why our national security policy must be concealed beneath layers of rhetoric that speak of threat, freedom, threat, liberty, threat, democracy, threat, American Way, threat and consumerism.

As long as the Corporate State was able to maintain the illusion of a debt-driven prosperity, spin could wear a velvet glove. But now that this illusion is shattering, the gloves gotta come off. Yes, George, a well-placed police baton against the head of a dissident is spin.

And we are seeing the future of at the Republican National Convention. As another writer puts it:

There’s something coming down in Minneapolis-St. Paul that looks very menacing—real “Can’t Happen Here” fascist, Gestapo tactics that look [like] they are coordinated from on high—with FBI and Homeland Security participation.

As the economy tanks, the screws must tighten.

The wave of the future is little more than the backwash of the past, and the past towards which we are climbing is that golden age when society consisted of two classes: the filthy rich and the filthy poor. And the poor will only come to love their impoverishment when confronted by a militarized police state.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones