Aspen Institute Email Newsletter:
Most analysis of U.S. counterterrorism policies has failed to examine the effects on global civil society, according to Nancy Billica of the University of Colorado. In a paper from last year cited in the recent Collateral Damage: How The War on Terror Hurts Charities, Foundations and the People They Serve (pdf), Billica reports that the rhetoric and tools of post-9/11 U.S. policies are being adopted elsewhere, especially by governments as diverse as Egypt, Venezuela, Uganda, China and the Philippines. She summarizes anecdotes about international rights infringements, specifically efforts to put "civil society out of business" under the pretext of domestic security concerns. The word "terrorist" is being used broadly to describe anyone in opposition to a government, she writes in Philanthropy, Counterterrorism and Global Civil Society Activism (pdf). She writes that a more thorough and systematic review is needed on the effects of counterterrorism policies on global civil society and on its activists. One consequence of the post-9/11 policy record is that philanthropy has been pushed to match the objectives of government rather than those of civil society, which Billica classifies as a serious - though indirect - encroachment of government power.
See also Lester Salamon, Stephanie Geller, and Susan Lorentz's new essay, Nonprofit Advocacy: A Force for Democracy, on the under-funding in the US of advocacy.
How you solve a problem depends on how you define it. One can get into the circular argument about whether government as a criminal enterprise causes totalitarianism, or the reverse, but the fact of the matter is that they are symbiotic. Allowing too much power to accrue in too few hands results in crime, and allowing crime to go unpunished results in unaccountable power.
Homeland Security, national security, and the GWOT all concentrate power and funding without even a semblance of oversight or accountability. So naturally they are criminal enterprises used to punish political opponents and to line the pockets of friends.
In its present form, this criminal enterprise is not mere pilfering, it is wholesale larceny that is depriving us of the ability to live. As such, the situation is not one of negotiation, but rather of warfare. Advocacy as a response is ineffective, inadequate and inappropriate.
Posted by: Jay Taber | October 22, 2008 at 11:36 AM
Yes, but would Obama agree? I get the impression that your rhetoric of confrontation and conflict would be demoted by him to "20th century strategies that have been superseded by harmonious 21st century win/win strategies. Hope in America. New Dawn. Change!" As do you, I see this as abject surrender to forces he cannot control. He may know what is going on but will not name it. The government he seeks to lead may have become a criminal enterprise in large part, but his goal at this point is to be in charge of it. To actually change it would put many in jail, from the highest levels on down. No one is talking in those terms. And those who do talk of government as criminal may have their phones tapped and be characterized as dissidents, terrorists, etc. You know this Jay, me too. C.A. Fitts does too, but the position is lonely, isolated and exposed. Funders for it are scarce indeed. Funders for Obama are many.
Posted by: Phil | October 22, 2008 at 09:23 PM
Some philanthropists are backing those who are not afraid to fight for real change. We just need a few more.
Posted by: Jay Taber | October 23, 2008 at 12:38 PM
Excellent. Those who do back real change might want to consider their own plans for living and leaving a legacy. Might be an angle to explore, Jay. Planning for systemic impact on society without shortchanging their personal goals.
Posted by: phil | October 23, 2008 at 02:00 PM