Chapter 3 The Return

As to be expected following the basic trajectory of an Imperial Boomerang (Césaire 1950, Arendt 1951, Foucault 1976), the repressive technique (thermal fogging) developed by an imperialist country (USA) to control colonial territories (Vietnam) was brought home by the imperialist nation to use on its own people (Graham 2013).

Indeed, it took just three years from initial deployment in Vietnam on October 8 1965 to first application in the United States to gas Black racial justice protesters in Miami, Florida on August 8th, 1968 during the Liberty City Riots (Tschenschlok 1995, Lorentze 2018).

In alignment with the general “Imperial Circuit of Tear Gas” (Schrader 2019) between the US and Vietnam, the return of the fogger was aided significantly by the weapons industry, militarization of US police forces, transition of veterans to law enforcement upon returning home, and substantial propaganda in specialized and generalized outlets.