Morewell than Orwell: Paramilitarization in the U.S. Post-9/11

Abstract: Adopting the concept of “legitimation crisis” as formulated by Jürgen Habermas (1975), this paper examines how the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011-2012 — short-lived in popular media, but still alive — has challenged the core logic of the American administrative state and, by extension, signals increasingly prevalent and tectonic challenges to the organization and management of late capitalism in a post-9/11 world. This paper will examine, in particular, the extensive coordination of police reaction to key Occupy protest events, and how this reaction—militarized police response tactics—was in place as early as 1999 to quash any popular resistance keyed to the Iraq War or world trade policies favored by U.S. trade officials.