Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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When a state turns its military inwards, it raises all sorts of questions about the function of that state and who is considered a threat. It's worth remembering that less than a decade after the American Revolutionary War threw off occupying British forces and the exploitation of the crown, the very richest parts of Massachusetts society activated their own militia and raised funds for their own private forces to suppress the poorest parts of that society. Poor farmers and war veterans who were being heavily taxed to pay off the war debts of the rich. Fast forward to West Virginia in the 1920s and you've got federal troops being used to back up coal company owners against organizing workers, Black and white, fighting for their rights. In the seventies, you have students killed at Kent State and Jackson State for protesting a war that was killing their brothers and sisters. So what is the state for, and what is the nature of the threat? We're always told the federal forces are being used to keep us safe, but more often than not, they're being used to dodge answering that question, to avoid having that debate. Answering questions is not what troops are trained to do. They're much better at suppressing dissent, but none of it is good for our democracy. And those questions will have to be answered at some point.