DOOMSDAY MECHANISMS 519
place for the government to put antisocial and dissident elements of society. In the absence of war, these forced-labor battalions would be told they are fighting poverty or cleaning up the planet or bolstering the economy or serving the common good in some other fashion. Every teenager would be required to serve—especially during those years in which young people are most rebellious against authority. Older people, too, would be drafted as a means of working off tax payments and fines. Dissidents would face heavy fines for "hate crimes" and politically incorrect attitudes so, eventually, they would all be in the forced-labor battalions. The report says:
We will examine ... the time-honored use of military institutionsto provide anti-social elements with an acceptable role in the socialstructure.... The current euphemistic cliches—"juvenile delinquency"
and "alienation"—have had their counterparts in every age. In earlierdays these conditions were dealt with directly by the military withoutthe complications of due process, usually through press gangs oroutright enslavement....
Most proposals that address themselves, explicitly or otherwise tothe postwar problem of controlling the socially alienated turn to somevariant of the Peace Corps or the so-called Job Corps for a solutionThe socially disaffected, the economically unprepared, thepsychologically uncomfortable, the hard-core "delinquents," theincorrigible "subversives," and the rest of the unemployable are seenas somehow transformed by the disciplines of a service modeled onmilitary precedent into more or less dedicated social serviceworkers....
Another possible surrogate for the control of potential enemies ofsociety is the rein traduction, in some form consistent with modemtechnology and political processes, of slavery.... It is entirely possiblethat the development of a sophisticated form of slavery may be anabsolute prerequisite for social control in a world at peace. As apractical matter, conversion of the code of military discipline to aeuphemized form of enslavement would entail surprisingly littlerevision; the logical first step would be the adoption of some form of
"universal" military service.
BLOOD GAMES
The report considered ways in which the public could be
preoccupied with non-important activities so that it would not have time to participate in political debate or resistance. Recreation, 1-Ibid., pp. 41-42, 68, 70.
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THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND
trivial game shows, pornography, and situation comedies could play an important role, but blood games were considered to be the most promising of all the options. Blood games are competitive events between individuals or teams that are sufficiently violent in nature to enable the spectators to vicariously work off their frustrations. As a minimum, these events must evoke a passionate team loyalty on the part of the fans and must include the expectation of pain and injury on the part of the players. Even better for their purpose is the spilling of blood and the possibility of death.
The common man has a morbid fascination for violence and blood.
