"Frameshop: The Physics of 'Safety'"

Jeffrey Feldman:

This year on 9/11, President Bush made the odd statement that five years after the attacks "we are safer, but we are not yet safe," and that as a result of 9/11, Americans seek a "safer" world.

Bush is claiming, in other words, that invasion and occupation of Iraq is his strategy to keep us 'safe'--to create a condition that he calls 'safety.'

But what is this 'safety' of his, anyway? What is President Bush's view? Should we even be talking about 'safety'? What is the alternative?

While there is some question as to whether or not we should view our foreign policy in terms of war or police action, President Bush is framing the debate in terms of a much more general premise: safety.

To reframe the debate, Progressives must shift the logic from the Physics of Safety to the logic of Security as a Program.