Consent and Consumption of Spectacle Power and Violence

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn L. Rothe ◽  
Victoria E. Collins

This article focuses on the facilitation, consent and consumption of state violence, as an aspect of the state’s hegemonic control in the current stage of neoliberal capitalism. We suggest that the commoditized symbols of state violence are a part of everyday life for millions within the United States and are embedded within ideologies of nationalism–national security, supported and reinforced through consumerism. The consumption (figuratively and literally) within the confines of neoliberalism is disconnected from the actual course of state violence, facilitating their own pacification while giving consent to hegemonic control. In this sense, the population’s consumption becomes more than pacification and consent, but rather an active constituent in the production and reproduction of state violence: making it the accepted and banal violence of the spectacle.

Author(s):  
Jennifer Patico

This chapter introduces the argument of the book: that tensions in the way middle-class parents treat children’s food reflect the influence of an underlying ethic that is linked with neoliberal capitalism and that shapes social inequality in the United States. Several literatures and subthemes are introduced, including the politics of parenting in the United States; middle-class aesthetics and anxieties, particularly as these relate to parenting and food; and theories of neoliberalism and its impacts on selfhood and everyday life. In addition, this chapter describes the research setting of the book: “Hometown,” a K–8 charter school and the urban, gentrifying area of Atlanta in which it is located. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of the ethnographic methods used to collect materials for this book, including reflexive discussion of the ethnographer’s positioning.


Author(s):  
Attarid Awadh Abdulhameed

Ukrainia Remains of huge importance to Russian Strategy because of its Strategic importance. For being a privileged Postion in new Eurasia, without its existence there would be no logical resons for eastward Expansion by European Powers.  As well as in Connection with the progress of Ukrainian is no less important for the USA (VSD, NDI, CIA, or pentagon) and the European Union with all organs, and this is announced by John Kerry. There has always ben Russian Fear and Fear of any move by NATO or USA in the area that it poses a threat to  Russians national Security and its independent role and in funence  on its forces especially the Navy Forces. There for, the Crisis manyement was not Zero sum game, there are gains and offset losses, but Russia does not accept this and want a Zero Sun game because the USA. And European exteance is a Foot hold in Regin Which Russian sees as a threat to its national security and want to monopolize control in the strategic Qirim.


1989 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-31
Author(s):  
Will C. Van Den Hoonaard

This paper addresses the need for a Bahá’í encyclopedia and describes the nature, organization, and editing of the multi-volume Bahá’í encyclopedic dictionary project endorsed in 1984 by the United States Bahá’í community. The encyclopedia will serve both Bahá’í and non-Bahá’í researchers arid scholars, the general reader; and university and public libraries. This paper considers the significance of the encyclopedia in terms of other Bahá’í encyclopedic works and in terms of the current stage in the development of the Bahá’í community. However desirable such a project may be, a number of dilemmas accompany its undertaking. These dilemmas relate to the present status of Bahá’í scholarship, the embryonic nature of primary sources, the high standard of scholarship exemplified by the works of Shoghi Effendi, and the relative newness of the Bahá’í religion. The prospects of the encyclopedic undertaking are expected to generate considerable scholarship and to provide intellectual vigor to issues raised by Bahá’ís and their critics.


Author(s):  
María Cristina García

In response to the terrorist attacks of 1993 and 2001, the Clinton and Bush administrations restructured the immigration bureaucracy, placed it within the new Department of Homeland Security, and tried to convey to Americans a greater sense of safety. Refugees, especially those from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, suffered the consequences of the new national security state policies, and found it increasingly difficult to find refuge in the United States. In the post-9/11 era, refugee advocates became even more important to the admission of refugees, reminding Americans of their humanitarian obligations, especially to those refugees who came from areas of the world where US foreign policy had played a role in displacing populations.


Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig

What kind of nuclear strategy and posture does the United States need to defend itself and its allies? According to conventional wisdom, the answer to this question is straightforward: the United States needs the ability to absorb an enemy nuclear attack and respond with a devastating nuclear counterattack. These arguments are logical and persuasive, but, when compared to the empirical record, they raise an important puzzle. Empirically, we see that the United States has consistently maintained a nuclear posture that is much more robust than a mere second-strike capability. How do we make sense of this contradiction? Scholarly deterrence theory, including Robert Jervis’s seminal book, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy, argues that the explanation is simple—policymakers are wrong. This book takes a different approach. Rather than dismiss it as illogical, it explains the logic of American nuclear strategy. It argues that military nuclear advantages above and beyond a secure, second-strike capability can contribute to a state’s national security goals. This is primarily because nuclear advantages reduce a state’s expected cost of nuclear war, increasing its resolve, providing it with coercive bargaining leverage, and enhancing nuclear deterrence. This book provides the first theoretical explanation for why military nuclear advantages translate into geopolitical advantages. In so doing, it resolves one of the most intractable puzzles in international security studies. The book also explains why, in a world of growing dangers, the United States must possess, as President Donald J. Trump declared, a nuclear arsenal “at the top of the pack.”


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda J. Bilmes

AbstractThe United States has traditionally defined national security in the context of military threats and addressed them through military spending. This article considers whether the United States will rethink this mindset following the disruption of the Covid19 pandemic, during which a non-military actor has inflicted widespread harm. The author argues that the US will not redefine national security explicitly due to the importance of the military in the US economy and the bipartisan trend toward growing the military budget since 2001. However, the pandemic has opened the floodgates with respect to federal spending. This shift will enable the next administration to allocate greater resources to non-military threats such as climate change and emerging diseases, even as it continues to increase defense spending to address traditionally defined military threats such as hypersonics and cyberterrorism.


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