Let’s not be too surprised at the overreactions of the police agencies. They are merely the puppets of the power brokers, the bankers, and the corporate villains. And these latter are not known for their measured responses.
It is their paranoia, for example, that has us all going through invasive strip-searches and subject to voyeuristic technologies run by high school dropouts with badges. And all this because one (1! As in, A Single Person) among the millions who fly every year, tried (and spectacularly failed) to detonate his underwear on a plane. I am tempted to believe that it’s all a massive fear scam perpetuated on the American people in order to direct tax money toward the companies that manufacture the naked photo machines, and train the airport gropers. But I don't think there's that kind of conspiracy here. Rather, I think that these insular career politeaucrats (bless their little, black hearts) and their puppets who are sworn to “serve and protect” truly believe that there is a monster under "our" (that is, America's) beds and in our closets.
Now the monster is in the Occupations. It is disguised as singing, chanting, and righteous anger at systems of deception, rapacity, and destruction. I don’t think our politeaucrats could tell you what the monster really is, what it looks like, what it might do, or even what makes it a monster. They only know that it has an 11 o’clock curfew, and shouldn't be allowed to set up a tent.
My friend, Ed Norris, commented that this amounted to a conspiracy theory. I admit that I am not clear enough in the above, but I don't have any conspiracies in mind. The consistency of the corporate and politeaucrat responses are due the result of shared ideology and paranoia. I don't believe that particular individuals or groups ever sat at the same table to develop yet another plan to defraud the general public out of its funds, and out of whatever sense of security it might have had. In fact, I suspect that most of the people - say, in the Dept. of Homeland Security - truly believe that ordinary passengers are potential terrorists. "It could be anybody. We must do whatever we can to keep our planes safe." A psychoanalytic critique of this wholly unjustified fear might reveal displacement: The power brokers know in some sense that there is deep loathing for them, and an abiding desire to disrupt the corporate-political machinery, but they are displacing it onto a script about anti-nationalistic terrorism. And in so doing, they deftly align themselves with the general public. The unspoken (maybe unrealized?) "They're angry; Even our citizens know we're screwing them" is translated into "They're angry; They hate our way of life."
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