America is surrounded by enemies. Overseas there are Insurgents, Freedom Fighters, Rebels, an Axis of Evil and a dozen other threats to American interests. Closer to their white picket fences and apple pie are Home Grown and Self Radicalized Terrorists.

These demonized nebulous threats are being used to strip away years of progress - from rights and protections granted by the Constitution through to the simple expectation of being able to travel without running the gauntlet of mall cop security theater. They are being use to justify wholesale spying on the American people and politicians and citizens of other sovereign - in some cases “friendly” - nations.

The question people should be stepping back and asking is how this happened. They need to do what they can to stop it, but it helps to understand why America has all these threats leveled against it.

Externally the threats have come from American interference - CIA training rebels and freedom fighters who promised to help further America’s interests in a region (who then resented American interference and use the same techniques against their former allies) or outright agression in the name of “bringing democracy” or a blustering self justified search for weapons of mass destruction. In many cases those seemingly altruistic actions have been driven by commercial interests or to secure resources. Why doesn’t America bring the same effort to bear in mineral poor parts of Africa as it does “liberating” oil rich Middle Eastern territories.

Then we have the home grown terrorists. Some of those are simply disturbed individuals, but many are driven to the point of desperation in a country which simply doesn’t care. They feel deserted, betrayed or abandoned by a system which should have supported them - again, the race for the almighty dollar is dismantling the education system, making healthcare less accessible than in some third world countries and reminding us all that the origin of the world privilege was “private law” where money talks and big corporations and the rich very rarely pay for their actions.

Of course with the current climate of fear and the media slavering over every opportunity to monetize the collective paranoia anyone can be labelled a terrorist - a protester in the Texas legislature who just wants to be heard; a whistleblower who exposes criminal abuses of power or negligence; a person who just wants some fair recompense from a bank that illegally foreclosed on them with no restitution required.

The upshot of this is a that America is isolating itself. Companies and countries are thinking twice about doing business or associating with America. Americans are not welcome. And this seems to fit in with the other policies which are coming to the fore in a country determined to deliver on the blueprints laid out in the Handmaiden’s Tale and Idiocracy.