[Marxism] Arrests in Plan to Kill Obama and Black Schoolchildren

[Sean Andrews]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 10:16 AM, Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com> wrote:

> There was something bizarre about this plot. The two youths were
> supposedly going to be "dressed in white tuxedos and top hats — blasting
> guns from the windows of a speeding vehicle aimed at Obama", according
> to the AP. This was the second "assassination plot" against Obama that
> has sounded implausible. Last time it involved 3 meth addicts who seemed
> barely capable of crossing a street, let alone bumping off a politician
> guarded by Secret Servicemen.

I'm glad they won't be able to carry it out, but I don't think we
should be too quick to gratify this kind of policing with any sort of
acknowlegement.  It seems like the trend towards pre-crime kinds of
interventions is increasing far more than it used to be.  Perhaps it
is because there can be so much more government surveillance via
digital (and other newly legal) means. I guess I don't understand the
way the law works here.  If someone has an idea about something like
this, but they have no material means to carry it out, isn't it sort
of like prosecuting someone for some sort of fantasy?  By no means
intending to gratify the subject of that fantasy, I still question
what this kind of law enforcement is doing.  Just like "war on terror"
cases where similar "three Muslim youths" might be found to be
planning some event--but again, have nothing but a highly speculative,
implausible plan and no material means to carry it out; or "sex
offender" cases (like the one in the first chapter of Laura Kipnis'
_Bound and Gagged_ where FBI agents got a guy to meet them under the
auspices of making a sex/snuff video of a kid or the _To catch a
Predator_ series on NBC) where nothing has really been played out.
There is a fantasy and there are people on the other end supporting
that fantasy in fantastic ways. Or, IIRC, a case a few months ago
where someone was caught meeting with someone who was supposed to be
meeting with someone selling nuclear material. etc. etc.  It all
sounds more and more like something from a Phillip K. Dick novel.

the first question is what kind of crime is this?  sometimes it seems
that it is prosecuted as the real thing because the defendant believed
it was the real thing--but this leaves out the hyperreal reciprocation
of the entrappers, who work hard to make the artiface more "real" than
the reality would ever likely be, absent any of the elements of
reality that might signal consequences or incite superego/moral
conscious.  I guess I wonder how this can be ethical under the law.

second, especially in cases like the one above, I understand the
problem (in terms of costs) of having to follow someone around until
they actually do something; and I see the ideological benefit of
prosecuting someone who has done so little--it increases the
resilience of the idea that the state is out there and they will catch
you, i.e. what might be called the ideological value of the repressive
state apparatus.  But isn't buying into this as a legitimate use of
the state, as a qualified success in terms of law enforcement--even if
I generally agree that I'd rather people like this not be able to go
on killing sprees--simply giving legitimacy to the very apparatus that
is meant to tamp down on any kind of insurrection, even that which
might be justified by a general ethical norm?  IN a way it is ironic
that it would since, as Louis points out above, these are probably
some of the most bumbling, idiotic criminals around: if they got away
with their plot it would make law enforcement look very, very bad; but
catching them should really not contribute much at all to lending
legitimacy to its abilities.  Sort of like going to war against
Afghanistan or Iraq: the US could certainly win the military battle
quite efficiently (show of force, etc.)  Of course the peace is a
different story--and likely depends on just the kind of legitimacy I'm
talking about above, hence the Taliban is evidently doing more to
enforce basic law than the US is able.

Than again, maybe they catch people like this all the time: it's just
getting headlines because it is such a fantastic and newsworthy set of
imaginative fools.

s