It is (according to the past history) a natural path for the empire to gradually become a police state because of dissent (which the state, naturally, labels as "terrorism"). This progresses until internal

While it is easy to understand why the feeble-minded gather around the official story (and flag-waving politicians) when they feel threatened by dark & hairy foreigners, it should be obvious that such grouping is

Every one of us, without exception, is born into a society that is given, just as the fauna and flora of our environment are given. Society and its institutions are, to the individual who enters it, as much naturalistic phenomena as is the weather itself. There is, therefore, no natural sanctity in the State any more than there is in the weather. We may bow down before it, just as our ancestors bowed before the sun and moon, but it is only because something in us unregenerate finds satisfaction in such an attitude, not because there is anything inherently reverential in the institution worshiped. Once the State has begun to function, and a large class finds its interest and its expression of power in maintaining the State, this ruling class may compel obedience from any uninterested minority. The State thus becomes an instrument by which the power of the whole herd is wielded for the benefit of a class. The rulers soon learn to capitalize the reverence which the State produc! es in the majority, and turn it into a general resistance toward a lessening of their privileges. The sanctity of the State becomes identified with the sanctity of the ruling class, and the latter are permitted to remain in power under the impression that in obeying and serving them, we are obeying and serving society, the nation, the great collectivity of all of us. . . . -- RANDOLPH BOURNE, 1918 At 02:50 AM 9/26/2001 +0000, Anonymous User wrote: pressure builds up to the point of disintegration. Nothing new here, except that US managed to do in 60 years what took others centuries. the main long-term consequence of "terrorism", and that the state is the principal profiteer.