The History of Police Militarization in the US

Charles Shaw 1 December 2011

On Monday, November 28, 2011, students at UC-Davis occupied Dutton Hall, the University's financial center, and held an all-day teach-in. openDemocracy's Charles Shaw was one of the featured speakers. Here is his talk, "The History of Police Militarization in the US."

9/11 and the destruction of the shared understanding of antisemitism

Antony Lerman 14 September 2011
The links between the Israeli far right and Islamophobic groups in Europe follow a certain inexorable logic of the post 9/11 world. These alliances, encapsulated as well as encouraged by the redefinition of the "new antisemitism", make it very hard for Israel to overcome the monomaniacal war spirit of 9/11

Speechless in the face of massacre

Todd Gitlin 13 September 2011
The inability of America's leaders to summon a statement for the Ground Zero ceremony that points the way forward for the nation tells us about another kind of defeat, of the US as a collectivity.

Fear and loathing. What 9/11 has to do with the economic crisis

Tony Curzon Price 12 September 2011
The mentality created by the War on Terror created the demand for a sense of security which translated, in the US and the UK, into excessive investment in homes - the ultimate "place of safety" in the Anglo-Saxon mindset. The War on Terror gave us the economic crisis also.

How America lost the war of ideas

Roger Hardy 12 September 2011
In the decade since 9/11, the United States has failed to win Muslim hearts and minds. Two administrations, beginning from very different starting-points, have been unable to produce a coherent strategy for the ‘war of ideas’.

‘I am an American’ - filming the fear of difference: a book review

Rosemary Bechler 12 September 2011

Ten years after 9/11 and counting, Cynthia Weber’s project in ‘filming the fear of difference’ is more than ever relevant to our debates.

Pearl divers still needed, 10 years after 9/11

Jim Sleeper 11 September 2011
America still needs to re-discover itself as a Republic rather than a police force with a profit center and the powerless of the world have yet to prove conclusively that they have understood that there is no redemption in terrorism

The two 9/11s: Chile and the United States

Patricio Navia 11 September 2011
The coup of 1973 and the attacks of 2001 were very different in character. But the contrast in the responses of Chile and America to their respective national traumas is instructive, says Patricio Navia.

9/11, and the hijacked decade

Vicken Cheterian 11 September 2011
The al-Qaida strategy of attacking the United States created its own form of blowback. But the triumph of militarisation after 9/11 exacted a deeper cost on the world, says Vicken Cheterian.

9/11: more security, less secure

Cas Mudde 10 September 2011
The world has been changed by the securitisation of everyday life and the Islamisation of security. The accompanying threat-complex has shifted American sensibilities, says Cas Mudde. 

The path from 9/11

Jane Kinninmont 10 September 2011
A focus on the violence of an Arab and Muslim minority skewed western policy for a decade. The great events of 2011 are a chance to think afresh, says Jane Kinninmont, whose life was altered by witnessing the 9/11 attacks.

After 9/11: a wasteland of buried reason

Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh 10 September 2011
America’s excessive reaction to the 9/11 attacks was the prelude to a decade of damage and injustice on a vast scale. An understanding of what went wrong is essential to progress in the next ten years, says Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh.

9/11: a perfect pretext, a terrible legacy

Mariano Aguirre 10 September 2011
The tragedy of 11 September 2001 was used by authoritarian forces in the United States as a political opportunity. The ensuing damage to liberty, legality and democracy has been deep, says Mariano Aguirre

After 9/11: three dimensions of change

Volker Perthes 9 September 2011
The attacks of 11 September 2001 did not, after all, transform the world. But they did propel the United States into a unilateral and regime-change moment - and pose a more enduring challenge both to American and European conceptions of security and stability, says Volker Perthes.

America after 9/11: the wrong target

Rein Müllerson 9 September 2011
A flawed response to terrorism on its soil brought the United States low. The lessons are also for the rest of the world to learn, says Rein Müllerson.

This week's editor

Heather McRobie


Niki Seth-Smith is a freelance journalist and co-editor of OurKingdom.

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