Fighting the National Security State

Invoking the jurisdictional authority of indigenous nations, while supported by international law, is nevertheless viewed by secret federal agencies as a threat to the national security state. Denying corporations and militaries access to indigenous territories, in order to protect their resources and cultures from annihilation, is tantamount in the minds of federal intelligence bureaucracies to rebellion. Indeed, rebelling against the parameters of the national security state is considered by the corporate hegemony that controls the federal government of the USA to be nothing short of treason.

If Americans lived in a democracy, the dynamics of dissent and discussion would be vastly different than they are, but freedom of expression in the United States no longer exists. That was made crystal clear when the FBI conducted preemptive arrests of young veterans and peace activists preceding the 2008 National Democratic and Republican Conventions.

Most of those arrested for planning to protest U.S. imperialism were identified by intercepted e-mail, phone wiretaps, and undercover agents whose job it is to criminalize dissent. In this situation, effective pro-democracy organizing has to take seriously the threat from national security agencies.

The world indigenous peoples’ movement is nothing if not an active opponent of national security states. These states, which have long declared war on indigenous peoples  for their resources, take their lead from Washington in opposing indigenous sovereignty and undermining indigenous freedom.

It would be a mistake, of course, to refrain from organizing against the criminal depravity of corrupt federal governments playing the national security card. We simply need to be circumspect in how we go about it.