Fear of the Walking Dead: The American Police State Takes Aim

Rutherford Institute ^ | 10-26-15 | John W. Whitehead

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The zombie narrative, popularized by the hit television series The Walking Dead, in which a small group of Americans attempt to survive in a zombie-ridden, post-apocalyptic world where they’re not only fighting off flesh-eating ghouls but cannibalistic humans, plays to our fears and paranoia.

Yet as journalist Syreeta McFadden points out, while dystopian stories used to reflect our anxieties, now they reflect our reality, mirroring how we as a nation view the world around us, how we as citizens view each other, and most of all how our government views us.

Fear the Walking Dead—AMC’s new spinoff of its popular Walking Dead series—drives this point home by dialing back the clock to when the zombie outbreak first appears and setting viewers down in the midst of societal unrest not unlike our own experiences of the past year (“a bunch of weird incidents, police protests, riots, and … rapid social entropy”). Then, as Forbes reports, “the military showed up and we fast-forwarded into an ad hoc police state with no glimpse at what was happening in the world around our main cast of hapless survivors.”

Forbes found Fear’s quick shift into a police state to be far-fetched, but anyone who has been paying attention in recent years knows that the groundwork has already been laid for the government—i.e., the military—to intervene and lock down the nation in the event of a national disaster.

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"Here’s the curious thing, however: while zombies may be the personification of our darkest fears, they embody the government’s paranoia about the citizenry as potential threats that need to be monitored, tracked, surveilled, sequestered, deterred, vanquished and rendered impotent.

Why else would the government feel the need to monitor our communications, track our movements, criminalize our every action, treat us like suspects, and strip us of any means of defense while equipping its own personnel with an amazing arsenal of weapons?"

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

Syreeta McFadden is fairly naive if she doesn’t understand that the Statists, their armed enforcers (the police state) and the entertainment industry are all working together to lead us toward a dystopian reality.

They destroy the culture and then the spirit and then any hope of getting back to better days...

...one episode at a time.

[kaehurowing]

The Zombie Apocalypse has already hit Hawaii:

http://pjmedia.com/blog/homeless-in-hawaii-governor-declares-state-of-emergency/

Homeless in Hawaii: Governor Declares State of Emergency

“If you’re thinking about ditching your 9-to-5 life in one of the Continental 48, or Alaska, in favor of the tropical paradise that is Hawaii, think again. . . . The situation is so bad, with more than 4,900 people wandering the streets of Hawaii every day and night, that Gov. David Ige (D) declared a state of emergency on Oct. 16.”

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Of course, Hawaii suffered a major zombie outbreak in the 19th century:

http://www.fvza.org/topthree.html

“At the beginning of the 1890s, Hawaii found itself in a tug of war between native islanders who wanted the islands to remain independent, and powerful sugar growers who wanted to join the United States. Queen Lili’uokalani ascended to the throne in 1891 and promptly enacted a series of measures designed to weaken the influence of the sugar growers. However, her mind was soon occupied by different matters: in August of 1892, a zombic plague—which began among Chinese laborers in the sugarcane fields of Oahu—had spread to Honolulu. Wave after wave of zombies came staggering out of the jungle, forcing desperate islanders to board outrigger canoes and flee to neighboring islands.

Despite her fear of losing independence, the queen had no choice but to ask the United States for help. A detachment of FVZA troops arrived in the fall and quickly wrested control of the city from the zombies. But the surrounding countryside proved more difficult to clear, so more FVZA agents were called in. The sugar growers took advantage of the chaos and panic by launching a coup, and the queen was deposed in January of 1893.

Hawaii was eventually annexed by the United States in 1898, but they did not become the 50th star on the American flag until August 21, 1959. There has long been suspicion that the sugar growers let the plague go in order to destabilize the queen, a notion strengthened by the fact that the top growers left Hawaii shortly after the outbreak began. Whatever the case may be, Hawaii’s 1892 zombism outbreak killed just under 2000 people, making it the third-worst in U.S. history.”

[Pontiac]

As idyllic as the Hawaiian Islands are thought to be, the problem of homelessness in the state is not a new phenomenon. Nor has it ever been pretty.

A homeless encampment made up of tents and thrown-together cardboard shelters made out of boxes that became known as “Obamaville” covered 50 acres of Honolulu in 2010.

Obamaville was a blight. Nobody liked it, except those who called it home and built their houses out of whatever they could find blowing down the streets. But people in a nearby community got even more upset when the Obamavillians spilled into their neighborhood.

I can't think of a more appropriate name for homeless encampment.

But considering that Hawaii is a Liberal Democrat strong hold I am surprised that the people in the nearby communities are not more welcoming of the homeless in to their midst. After all Liberals are supposed to be all caring and tolerant of the more unfortunate members of society.

[Jack Hammer]

TWD and FTWD have always been best appreciated as allegories.

There’s a GREAT DEAL of truth to them.