i think one aspect of our nascent world conflict is a global totalitarian crackdown. so, this privacy/snowden thing: to whatever extent we ever floated the other way, total info awareness is back, attempting to monitor all the world's communications. think about that for a second. the portrayal of social media these days is interesting; a few years ago it was this liberatory force in the arab spring or the maidan, but now pundits and officials are in a moral panic about it: 'youth' are 'radicalized' 'by social media.' again the generality squashes all actual info. communication itself, social connections, become an amorphous threatening atmosphere or environment of wireless signals. if nothing else, people think someone should control it, because they don't really understand it, or no one can really comprehend it; it could always be a threat. jack up the hysteria enough and we will demand that our own communications be carefully monitored.
then, the anti-immigrant/refugee thing is oh so familiar, and i am telling you that there will be growing internment camps. france might do that right now, which might also require a permanent state of emergency/war. there is liable to be a wave of extreme militarist nationalism coinciding with the us presidential election and featuring an hysterical edge of bigotry, such as is emerging right now among republican governors. if there is one spectacular isis action in the us...
