(Can the writer help me decide) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

(Can the writer help me decide) - Essay Example In â€Å"Bad Weather: Planetary Crisis,† Masco (2010) studies the development of and competition between two kinds of planetary crises- the nuclear war and climate change. The security state is linked to the concept of the planetary crisis because, on the one hand, it uses the latter when it advances the former’s development and growth in reach and control; on the other hand, it disregards the latter if it contradicts or hinders its ends. Ironically, another important link is that the security state, in its desire to control planetary crises, is only creating more of them, which can potentially lead to new planetary crises with long-term negative impacts on living things and the biosphere. The security state exploits the planetary crisis for its own gains and disregards it if it hinders its overarching goal of a â€Å"U.S.-centric world† (Masco 2014: 1). The security state uses the planetary crisis if it can be a platform for greater control over and outside its national boundaries. Masco (2014) explains that the first kinds of planetary crises that were of interest to the security state were usually threats to national security, such as the Cold War and national and global terrorists. He argues that the state uses these threats to magnify imagined horrific futures, in order to generate fear and terror that could justify what Cheney (2001) called as the â€Å"new normalcy† (qtd. in Masco 2014: 8). This new normalcy refers to the public’s acceptance of the state’s ever increasing incursions on civil rights and freedoms. These are changes that have â€Å"institutional, technological, and affective levels, reordering domestic politics and geo politics in a startlingly economical gesture† (Masco 2014: 8). They include scientific studies that expand military technology, covert operations that collect intelligence about national and other