A Self-licking Lollipop ...

[Michael Grove]

... a process, department, institution, or other thing that offers very few benefits and exists primarily to justify or perpetuate its own existence.

'Challenging and accessible, this book opens up new political questions as it describes the new ways in which life has become more comprehensively securitised.'

Professor Michael Dillon, Politics and International Relations, Lancaster University


The contemporary political imagination and social landscape are saturated by THE IDEA of security and thoughts of insecurity. This saturation has been accompanied by the emergence of a minor industry generating ideas about how to define and redefine security, how to defend and improve it, how to widen and deepen it, how to civilise and democratise it. In this book Mark Neocleous takes an entirely different approach and offers the first fully fledged critique of security. Challenging the common assumption that treats security as an unquestionable good, Neocleous explores the ways in which security has been deployed towards a vision of social order in which state power and liberal subjectivity have been inscribed into human experience. Treating security as a political technology of liberal order-building, engaging with the work of a wide range of thinkers, and ranging provocatively across a range of subject areas - security studies and international political economy; history, law and political theory; international relations and historical sociology - Neocleous explores the ways in which individuals, classes and the state have been shaped and ordered according to a logic of security. In so doing, he uncovers the violence which underlies the politics of security, the ideological circuit between security and emergency powers, and the security fetishism dominating modern politics.

Key features: * Makes original use of diverse historical materials concerning the question of security * Provides a distinctive account of theoretical debates about security within the tradition of social and political theory * Gives a genuinely inter-disciplinary account of security, moving between political thought, history, sociology, and law * Is the first fully-fledged critique of security.

WE NEED TO CHANGE THE SYSTEMS THROUGH WHICH WE ORGANISE POWER • and THAT CHANGE HAS TO COME FROM WITHIN EACH of US • WE NEED TO CHANGE

                                                                                 Russell Brand

 

ONLY when the last tree has died

and the last river been poisoned

and the last fish been caught will

WE REALISE that ...

WE CANNOT EAT MONEY

LET US [BE]gin THE PROCESS of OPENING THE DOOR

.

[Michael Grove]

  BALANCE and HARMONY must [BE] restored IN ALL THINGS

     

"Whether you feel that your soul is pleased by the conception or contemplation of harmonies or that your mind is stimulated by the aspect of magnificent problems or whether you are content to have fun in trying to observe and depict the jolly things you see, the vistas of possiblity are limited only by the shortness of life. Every day you may make progress; every day you may be fruitful, yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."

 

                                                        Winston Churchill  •   Painting as a Pastime

[Michael Grove]

LET US not forget why we fight - the reasons which "IKE" so succinctly detailed - and his WARNING of TRUTH that ...
 

"THE total influence - economic, political even spirtual - is felt in every city, every State house, every office of Federal Government.

That - WE recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. OUR toil, resources & livelihood are all involved so is the very structure of society. In the councils of goverment, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.  

 

We should take nothing for granted. ONLY an alert and knowledgable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."

ALL of which exemplify Eisenhower's strong guiding principles. Principles of responsibility which may best be summarised, by his most telling and prescient of ALL statements, that ...

"Buying weapons takes FOOD from the
HUNGRY and SHELTER from the HOMELESS"

S/L@LoLipOP