THE FUTURE

Things have changed

It’s important to recognize how much the scene has changed in the
past 30 years as a result of the popular movements that organized in
a loose and chaotic way around such issues as civil rights, peace,
feminism, the environment and other issues of human concern.
Take the Kennedy and Reagan administrations, which were
similar in a number of ways in their basic policies and commitments.
When Kennedy launched a huge international terrorist campaign
against Cuba after his invasion failed, and then escalated the
murderous state terror in South Vietnam to outright aggression,
there was no detectable protest.
It wasn’t until hundreds of thousands of American troops were
deployed and all of Indochina was under devastating attack, with
hundreds of thousands slaughtered, that protest became more than
marginally significant. In contrast, as soon as the Reagan
administration hinted that they intended to intervene directly in
Central America, spontaneous protest erupted at a scale sufficient
to compel the state terrorists to turn to other means.
Leaders may crow about the end of the “Vietnam syndrome,” but
they know better. A National Security Policy Review of the Bush
administration, leaked at the moment of the ground attack in the
Gulf, noted that, “In cases where the US confronts much weaker
enemies”—the only ones that the true statesman will agree to fight
—“our challenge will be not simply to defeat them, but to defeat
them decisively and rapidly.” Any other outcome would be
“embarrassing” and might “undercut political support,” understood
to be very thin.
By now, classical intervention is not even considered an option.
The means are limited to clandestine terror, kept secret from the
domestic population, or “decisive and rapid” demolition of “much
weaker enemies”—after huge propaganda campaigns depicting them
as monsters of indescribable power.
Much the same is true across the board. Take 1992. If the
Columbus quincentenary had been in 1962, it would have been a