In Wake of Boston Bombing

Ominous Display of Police-State Powers

The bombing that killed three spectators at the Boston Marathon—an eight-year-old child, a young restaurant manager and a university student from China—and wounded more than 260 others was naturally viewed with abhorrence by people in the U.S. and internationally, with many contributing funds for surviving victims of this criminal act of indiscriminate terror. And just as naturally, this country’s capitalist rulers seized the opportunity to further their offensive against the rights of the population. Amid a tide of “national unity” patriotism and slogans proclaiming “Boston strong,” the government in essence declared that when the “terror” threat is invoked, police-state measures like the lockdown of Boston are the “new normal,” and people had better accept that. Portrayed as heroes in Boston were the same cops whose job is to maintain capitalist “order” through organized violence against workers and minorities.

From the first reports of the bombing, the capitalist media did their best to whip up a climate of racist hysteria. Based on no evidence, CNN falsely reported that a “dark-skinned male” had been arrested for the bombing. Every black man in America knows what that can mean. The New York Post reported that the prime suspect was a Saudi man, who turned out to be one of those injured in the blast. Then the Post fingered two innocent men, one of them a Moroccan, by plastering their photos on its front page.

Giving the anti-Muslim scare a more “respectable” gloss, the New York Times (April 20) quoted an “expert” who evoked the “divided loyalties” of Americans who turn to jihad. The question, he said, is “are you American first or are you Muslim first?” The not-so-subtle message is that Muslim Americans represent a potential fifth column, a disloyal and dangerous “enemy within.” To deal with such elements, the state has at its disposal a vastly increased arsenal of repressive powers put in place as part of the imperialists’ “war on terror.”

In a virtual state of martial law, the entire Boston metropolitan area was placed under lockdown for a full day. The Massachusetts governor’s order that all residents remain at home with their doors locked was unprecedented for a major American city. Residents watched as hundreds of National Guardsmen in full battle gear and SWAT teams backed up by military helicopters and armored personnel carriers sealed off streets and carried out house-to-house searches. All to track down the wounded, unarmed, 19-year-old suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who could not show his face in public after the massive media exposure. (read on)