where we’re the most important and need to be destabilized
I’m far from US-centric, but the US is the most powerful nation in the world right now.
We wrecked our own soft power with the Iraq War and Snowden leaks.
The first Iraq war increased our soft power, the second war pissed all that away, and more, as did the debacle in Afghanistan. On the other hand, the Snowden leaks were largely ignored by most of the world except a few people interested in secure communications and the surveillance state. But no nation-state would be alienated by those revelations, since they all do it.
As for cops, their continuing militarization also has to do with some other Bush-era brain-farts like bringing in the Israelis to train Homeland Security and local cops. It’s a miracle we haven’t had more 12-year-olds on the casualty lists after that. Colonialist occupiers sure as shit aren’t the best people to teach policing by consent. And without community buy-in, cops behave very much like hostile occupying forces.
I’m far from US-centric, but the US is the most powerful nation in the world right now.
The first Iraq war increased our soft power, the second war pissed all that away, and more, as did the debacle in Afghanistan. On the other hand, the Snowden leaks were largely ignored by most of the world except a few people interested in secure communications and the surveillance state. But no nation-state would be alienated by those revelations, since they all do it.
As for cops, their continuing militarization also has to do with some other Bush-era brain-farts like bringing in the Israelis to train Homeland Security and local cops. It’s a miracle we haven’t had more 12-year-olds on the casualty lists after that. Colonialist occupiers sure as shit aren’t the best people to teach policing by consent. And without community buy-in, cops behave very much like hostile occupying forces.