Lockdown 1
Elsewhere, I’ve seen questions as to why DHS and the city of Boston “locked down” a major metropolitan area to search for one fugitive. Not even in the days of Dillinger and open mob warfare was such a step taken for so long a time.
On the one hand, it could have been security theatre, turning out the troops because they can, or life imitating television cop shows, where all arrests seems to be made by SWAT teams any more and no one ever comes quietly.
On the other hand, Pepe Escobar has lots of questions and a theory, and it’s not a pretty one.
I’m not saying I buy his theory, certainly not in toto. In particular, I think that the answers to some of his questions lie more with irresponsible and craven news reporting and the fog of fast-moving events than with official contrivance.
Nevertheless, as someone whose low expectations of human nature often turn out to be too high and who has little faith in those who surveil in the surveillance state, I think his column is worth a look.
April 23, 2013 at 6:16 pm
Well, the expansion, militarization and quick reaction of police forces are the consequence of the war on terror. A couple weeks ago the center of Pasadena was locked down by a joint police FBI SWAT task force that got into a gunfight with gang members. It jammed traffic for an afternoon. And it’s well known that armed police or SWAT teams will open fire unevenly and with poor discipline, believing themselves to be under fire. This happened in the Dorner case just recently when a police force panicked and opened heavy fire on two women riding in a vehicle on their normal newspaper delivery run. The vehicle was riddled and it was probably pure dumb luck they both weren’t killed. Americans are now inured to it, become accepting and quiescent under intolerable behavior and part of that is conditioned, from fear and a dreadful economic state of affairs that has gone on for years with no end in sight.