-- NRO Editor-in-Chief Rich Lowry now writes for Politico.
-- On his internet site, Mark Steyn remarks in passing that he and National Review have parted ways.
-- Regular NRO commentators now feature:
- Jonah Goldberg, selling his books and his appearances, not funny nor insightful
- Stanley Kurtz, repeating his view for 123rd time that President Obama is more radical than people realize
- Ramesh Ponnuru, telling everyone just how smart he is while demonstrating his out-of-touch foreigness
- David French, Catholic lawyer who is Catholic about effects of legal rulings on Church (Catholic)
- Kathryn Lopez, embarrassing Pope groupie and, btw, is Catholic
-- The Republican Party and mainstream converatism are, at best, intellectually and politically bankrupt, and, more likely, actively engaged in favor of the current progressive-globalist order in exchange for official approval and acknowledgement.
-- Avoid both at all costs.
-- On his internet site, Mark Steyn remarks in passing that he and National Review have parted ways.
-- Regular NRO commentators now feature:
- Jonah Goldberg, selling his books and his appearances, not funny nor insightful
- Stanley Kurtz, repeating his view for 123rd time that President Obama is more radical than people realize
- Ramesh Ponnuru, telling everyone just how smart he is while demonstrating his out-of-touch foreigness
- David French, Catholic lawyer who is Catholic about effects of legal rulings on Church (Catholic)
- Kathryn Lopez, embarrassing Pope groupie and, btw, is Catholic
-- The Republican Party and mainstream converatism are, at best, intellectually and politically bankrupt, and, more likely, actively engaged in favor of the current progressive-globalist order in exchange for official approval and acknowledgement.
-- Avoid both at all costs.
Exhibit A.
ReplyDeleteThey're all corrupt. And there's not a damn thing we can do about it, short of armed revolt.
ReplyDeleteNot that I'm calling for armed revolt. Just to be clear.
DeleteJust for you ... my opinion of what is coming next.
DeleteH/T: Moonbattery
Ari, sadly I have to disagree. The capability to suppress any kind of civil unrest - to dissipate it even before it starts - is actively being researched.
Delete"Project Minerva". Research geared to understand social unrest in other countries is easily repurposed to prevent unrest at home - just as easily as last year's model MRAP get's recycled from Iraq to some rural sherif...
Who are the influential people within a social network? There are some surprising answers to this question - it's an active pursuit of many companies engaged in marketing via social media. I've spoken with the CTO's of several of these companies. It's fascinating stuff. I can only imagine how much further along the CIA and the NSA is with this science.
I think that these capabilities to shape social response are actively being deployed now and evolving very quickly; the deep state has many allies.
the deep state has many allies.
DeleteSuch as FB, twitter, and snapshot. What a goldmine! Opinions can be quietly and subtly reshaped by interfering with the feed. Family connections and friendships can be identified and stored for future use. Even your credit/debit card purchases are monitored and tracked.
I read an article in our state Board of Nursing magazine suggesting that if all nurses were microchipped, the Board would have an easier time weeding out the bad apples. It's part of the game plan.Little nudges, a hint here and there, for the purpose of conditioning future responses.
It's scary. Probably more scary than I know.
There are some of us, more than many think, who will never succumb, and always resist.
DeleteTjhere is nothing I enter on any media that I do not consider who may be reading and watching when I do so. I have been part of the beast. When I say anything provocative, it is a challenge. I will be waiting.
Deletelr, exactly.
DeleteI have heard some inside dish on FB in particular; the bias against conservative organizations is intentional and systemic. What I've heard is that FB privacy rules are enforced only against the right; the left orgs can violate the rules and FB looks the other way. It is definitely scarier than you know. FB wants certain things from the government; if it gets them the FB is more than happy to return the favor.
Even if you never utter a single political pronouncement on FB, the data scientists there will (with high probability) know who you are going to vote for. Maybe even before you do. Just by looking at who you know, who you respond to, things you like, etc.
Ari - note that in 1984, there were at least two who resisted - Winston and Julia. How did that work out for them?
It's not O'Brien who is the darkest character in 1984, it is the kindly Mr. Charrington. There are many Mr. Charringtons out there. Most are even turning a modest profit on their business models. They aren't even collecting name or are part of the deep state - they are just the the honey pots who, wittingly or unwittingly, attract the thought criminals and rent them a room to conduct their social, uh, intercourse...
Just think of the data mining that goes on around infowars.com. Or Breitbart, for that matter.
And if you never connect with anyone, and simply wait alone, well, they're happy to let you wait. And wait. And wait. You're no threat to them that way.
Recall their aim is to eliminate the threat of civil unrest. Anyone you connect with has a (digital) Mr. Carrington in the middle. And yes, there are networks which are truly dark - they stand out by how dark they are. All the better to know where to deploy the humint assets.
The middle class will disappear, and the American Dream with it. Not with a bang, but a whimper.
The biggest recent threat of mass protest was in 2011. If the Occupy movement could have avoided getting bogged down in the grievance industrial complex and stuck to a "one demand" philosophy (which their early leader - that Canuck who runs AdBusters - advocated for), they would have been more formidable. And if the Tea Party (which took its name from Rick Santelli's memorable rant on CNBC, which genuinely surprised his producers, the traders on the floor, and himself) had recognized that the Occupy movement's "one demand" was essentially their own - that the bankers who benefitted from the bailouts be held accountable - then that would have become very interesting.
DeleteBut rather than fire Santelli and make a martyr of him, CNBC recognized he was a ratings magnate and monetized him - thus neutering him. The grievance industry operates on the right too, and insiders took over that movement. (Dick Armey? Outsider? Really, guys?)
The energetic and well scrubbed young people who assisted in the administration of the Portland Occupy camp - likely paid for by the likes of a Soros sponsored NGO - were instrumental in organizing that camp. As a camp for homeless crazies. It was all Kabuki. The political organizers were soon swamped. They left way before the police cleaned up the dregs. All the same, there were some scary moments for the establishment, and they had to bend over backwards far more than they had anticipated - for every person sleeping at the camp there were a good 20 or 30 sympathizers in the population, and when they marched in force through Portland (as they did a few times) there were many thousands in the streets, and were beyond what the police could contain - or were willing to contain.
Both mainstream and social media was very effective in presenting both the Tea Party and the Occupiers as people the other side could never ever do business with. I saw things differently. Maybe I was hallucinating. Certainly by the time things came to a head in the fall, the "smelly hippy" label stuck pretty well to the Occupiers.
And that, my friends, was as close as we got to popular insurrection in the recent past - driven by the outrage of a trillion dollars in public money propping up a financial system which held nobody accountable, and continued paying out millions to its insiders. And the powers that be - who are both the patrons of and dependents of that Wall St system - diffused that outrage very, very effectively. Real popular revolutions are always alliances of unlikely bedfellows - preventing them from hooking up is the most important step in maintaining the status quo.
I recall prior attempts to intern and re-educate by the US government, courtesy of Robert " BlowTorch Bob" Komer and LBJ. That didn't work out so well either and that was reality not a book with Winston & Julia.
DeleteThe progressive left always has had tough guy concepts, but must recruit others to execute them...they do not have to courage to fight the battle themselves. A pussy with an MRAP is still a pussy. And an MRAP is hardly invulnerable. Every time our government thinks it has developed an impenetrable machine, some raggedy little guys come along and blow the shit out of them one after the other.
If what you predict continues, it will not be pleasant or easy. We'll see who still is standing at the end.
Ari, if what you predict happens, I will give you then next two chess moves:
Delete1) as the footage of official police/DHS/et al MRAPs getting blown up by homegrown insurgents goes viral on the web (and broadcast by Russia Today and Al Jazeera and AFP and Xinhua), the US will lose control of the bond market. US ten year Treasury yields will reach 10 percent or so. Worldwide financial chaos ensues as virtually every security on planet earth is priced off the US Ten Year Treasury.
2) The Treasury will announce capital controls and in cooperation with US chartered financial institutions, all private financial securities will be subject to a kind of "margin call" - the Treasury bonds will be backed not only by the full faith and credit of the United States, but by the all the private liquid financial assets of her citizens (including pensioners, 401K holders and IRA holders). Note no actual funds will be expropriated - a lien will be put on them; they will be callable "if needed". And your withdrawals will be strictly limited.
3) At that point the Treasury market will instantly heal - yields will go back under 4 percent or so - not as low as before, but low enough.
But virtually everyone in this country with any assets at all will be "all in" on the side of the government, which will have now have unlimited funding.
(That last move is something I've thought through recently. I figured an armed insurgency could disrupt the bond market in this country and that might be enough to bring things crashing down; lately I've realized the Treasury wouldn't go down so easily and that the controls over US accounts is so thorough that the "Treasury backing lien" could happen over night. The beauty of it is that it would never be needed: simply the existence of it would be enough to fix the Treasury market and restore funding to the US Government.)
At that point the risk of a genuine cascade - a popular revolt - becomes remote, and the civil war becomes dirty, personal, and likely stalemated. No funding could flow, and this is key (note e.g. that ISIS is a full fledged economy in its own right; it doesn't need "funding" anymore. But much momentum and many assets (like oil wells, pipelines and refineries) have to be captured for this to happen.
Again, to echo lady red - I don't advocate any of this - I'm just war gaming it out; I don't see any way the US Government "falls" or is pressed to make radical reforms by any kind of movement at all; peaceful or otherwise. In particular popular support could be drained very quickly from violent insurrection, and without popular support those revolutionaries would find things very difficult very quickly.
Lewy...I think your "next two chess moves" are very probable, and the natural consequence, justified consequences, of what may occur if my guess is correct...and I am v-e-r-y sure it is unless this government of ours, a party-less mass of institutionalized bureaucrats that have done their best to emasculate the flag ranks. Like in almost every other potential uprising these idiots always forget "the colonels." Without the commanders who actually go to the field, who actually retain touch with their men, today usually topping out at Lieutenant Colonel (Battalion Commanders), the dilettantes do not have the guts for the fight they start by repression and oppression and internment.
DeleteLike you and Lady Red, I DO NOT WANT THIS to happen. I DO want simple common sense to prevail. However what I see today indicates otherwise....our federal police now babysitters who move masses of interned aliens across state lines and inters them on military bases? When we are asked to believe that all of these "unaccompanied" children are "Guatemalans" who somehow trek all the way across Mexico to Texas? Funny how I live in two immigrant communities, Arab and Mexican...and until last month both were about 90% Arab or Mexican...now we suddenly have hordes of Guatemalans?
I repeat, I DO NOT WANT VIOLENCE to occur. I want us to regain our collective common sense. Do you REALLY think the common man, cares about the financial markets? Once a "crash" begins that he'll be rational? He's been thoroughly trained that the markets are run by rich right wingers, even though the left draws the bulk of its support from the same people...someone whose household made $100 Million plus last year & publicly asserts she's "broke" or "not very well off". Only a bureaucrat can believe the joe sixpack public believes that and doesn't
question it.
You said: ... without popular support those revolutionaries would find things very difficult very quickly.
Jules Roy noted something similar to that theory from Hanoi in 1952 or 53. =He also noted in 1953 or 54, again from Hanoi, that (paraphrasing...I don't speak French) that: "When we must barricade against children then we are done for..."
Roy was more of a leftist,...discouraged theoretical communist...actually, with military experience. Bernard Fall was more a rightist, but said similar things in his first major war work..."Street Without Joy."
Yes, we really have been there done this before. It may be our undoing due to hubris of the senior (SES+) bureaucrats.
I neglected to add why I still have hope. Within our government of political aparatchiks there still remains the regular Civil Service grades...the people who actually deliver the services to the public. I was one of them, in DOD, in a senior GS graded management position. Guys and women like me still gave a damn and still do...it is one reason I am still actively consulting with those who are same to this day. And within our military there are still "The Colonels"...that last rank level where contact with the men is frequent and necessary, especially at the Lieutenant Colonel level (battalion commander). I was an NCO in uniform and a "division Chief" as a DOD civilian...and I know there are more people who resist idiocy than favor it in the civil service grades.
DeleteFor my part I fought the senior idiots 3 times, and I won every time...and was only discovered/identified the last time....you can always win if you challenge lawbreakers, and you do not have to go to any newspaper or network. Go the a hand that holds a hammer and they will give you what you need.
Damn! I also neglected to add that even within the senior SES+ levels there still are a few good people. As political appointees (no matter how much lipstick is put on the pig, they are appointees....that Lois Lerner could not be fired was a lie...she was an at will employee).
DeleteIN short, I think there is hope that the current structure can be pulled down from the inside. A common mistake dictatorships make is they forget "the colonels."
Re your penultimate comment, I was glad to read that because my feelings have been so pessimistic that at this point I try not to think about it.
DeleteAri, where have "the Colonels" been at the Justice Dept? At the IRS? At DHS? At ICE?
DeleteI don't see evidence of internal resistance. I see evidence of true believers, through and through.
DOD/Military is still different, but there is a war on within those ranks too... the neo-statists haven't won the field there yet but give it another generation.
What about the NSA? Where are the Colonels there? They might be there, subtly holding out when requests for "tasking" come in for US citizens for blatant political reasons... but what about the whole "parallel construction" of evidence chains used by the DOJ? Aren't the roads to totalitarian control already paved, just maybe waiting for the lanes to be painted?
Can elected officials - our ostensible representatives in this Republic - even control this apparatus any more even if they wanted to?
If ever they did. No authentic conservative can win office any more. No authentic progressive can; either. They are weeded out by the neo-statists just as ruthlessly. The vocabulary of the authentic is learned carefully: to be poached and co-opted as necessary. But primary loyalty of the ruling class is to the ruling class.
Sorry, flo. I'm not an optimist here. It's not just the US; it's Europe, much of Asia, Russia, the rest of the English speaking countries (which are all in on the NSA style surveillance, see "five eyes"...)...
E.g. Greece has been systematically destroyed by a combination of the EU technocrats and its own political class. They've been reduced to penury and dependence; there is no freedom in that country using any definition of "freedom" we'd identify. There was a reasonable expectation that they'd flip the bird at the EU, exit the Euro, take the pain for a while and rebuild on their own. Where was the revolution? There have been protests, even violent ones, but the electorate was ultimately cowed and there was no revolution, only exodus and diaspora. Greece is the model in the EU.
Meanwhile the "feeds" deliver us ever more agit prop and 2 min hate... redirecting ire from the people back at (other groups of) people... here, and all over the world where the "feeds" are delivered...
Lewy...the "colonels" are all military. Pushed hard enough they will react. The other agencies, especially the abomination DHS, Bush 43's worst implementation ever, bar none, but not a one of the DHS policy makers will stand up under pressure. Not one.
DeleteDHS and the others you've mentioned are all aparatchiks. I've worked directly with elements of DHS and will swear not a single one of them have the face to face guts of a mouse...less, as a mouse will fight when cornered. FEMA, part of DHS, is the outfit that got water to many stricken by Hurricane Sandy a week after the local bodegas had restocked their shelves with water. Before DHS...we were on site 48 hours before storm land fall and had water available within an hour of the outer wall passing. These "new leaders" are gutless wonders.
So concern yourself with the colonels and the mice.
Ari, if incompetence and cowardice within the ranks of the apparatchiks will save our freedom, well, I hope you're right.
DeleteMeanwhile I have to confess that my own natural political inclinations run more Federalist/Hamiltonian than Republican/Jeffersonian. At least they did up until around 2006, when I noticed that nobody in the government seemed to know what the f**k they were doing. Yeah, sadly it took me that long. I own it.
My inner Hamiltonian is worried not that the "deep state" is supremely competent, but that it is incompetent - at everything except preserving itself, by stirring up internal strife, dividing and diffusing opposition, and deflecting blame.
Hopefully the "deep state" has some Colonels left who know what they're doing.
You know, Gaddafi was a Colonel, too... ;)
Exhibit B
DeleteLewy....you probably have no idea just how familiar I am with the contents of your "Exhibit B"...it is beyond intimate. In fact it had something to do with why I retired early, to protect a valuable subordinate. FOIA is never the way to go for government insiders who want to correct malfeasance. Neither is any press or media outlet. Not what I did, however when you buck the SES+ tides you will eventually be worn down. At times you cannot fail to expose yourself...circumstances of place and time will identify you...as they did me on my 3rd go round. I still won. And they still call me as recently as today for consultation, which I agree to so long as they do not use my name in any correspondence....or any report, where I give them permission to substitute their name(s) if necessary to quote it chapter and verse.
DeleteYour Exhibit B actually indicates that those Colonels and those mice are still there and still resisting.
YVT,
A Head Mouse
Lewy ... look up "Bunny Greenhouse" and go to her Wiki page...which has been thoroughly expunged over time to reflect nearly nothing. However, open and read the "references" cited by that page ... they contain the story of Mrs. Greenhouse and others. By means I will not divulge I saw copies of Mrs Greenhouse's hand written annotations on the margins of the first contracts she challenged before the whole thing blew up outside of the Pentagon. The annotations that she refused to remove, were the beginning of her travails. I supported he then and I support her now.
DeleteAri, I did take a look at all the references.
DeleteAbsent your input I really wouldn't know what to think.
Here's the way I look at these things:
Assume for a moment that Halliburton/KBR/et al deals were done fair and square, or more or less close enough for government work (sic). At least in historic proportion. If you want to run a war without graft, best just give up and be a pacifist.
(I'm given to understand that the resupply of Patton's Army was massively corrupt; WWII's equivalent of the frobbits made off with a disproportionate amount of stuff intended for front line troops. Where did the black market in WWII get its goods, anyway?)
Anyway - let's assume that the Iraq deals were even above board and basically sound - would there be "whistleblowers" coming forward?
Of course. Misfits with overweening moral vanity and a fetish for the "letter of the law" exist in every hierarchy. Work gets done despite them, not because of them. (In every decision meeting in every tech company, there is a point where the lawyers are thrown out of the room and business decisions are made. This is because essentially every business decision is against some law or other).
Now let's assume that the Iraq war deals were especially and exceptionally egregious in their political and financial graft. What would it look like?
Exactly the same. Ranks of whistleblowers testifying to congress and written up by the media.
So what does the existence of whistleblowers tell me? Precisely nothing. Other than the bias of the reporter.
(See, this is why Snowden was special. He took so many docs with him it's not a he said / she said thing any more; his evidence is undeniable. Those that came before him, like Binney, just had their testimony.)
When I read the words "letter of the law" in the Bunny Greenhouse story on WaPo, I cringed. I'd have to wonder about her.
On the other hand, just because Mother Jones says Halliburton is evil and corrupt doesn't make it wrong - Halliburton may well be.
So again, it's one of those things that life has taught me is less knowable than I might like, and peoples "opinions" are more reflective of their biases than of the facts.
That said, if you say she was in the right, then that weighs heavily in my mind.
Certainly the amount of smoke coming from the Iraq "rebuilding" fiasco - given the Bush administrations demonstrated incompetence and administering that state once it was occupied - speaks to some level of fire...
Lewy....sigh, where to begin?
Delete1. Snowden was nothing, trust me on that, or not...an embarrassment yes, but materially zip. But if you can, tell me one thing that has materially changed since he published a bunch of documents that were already old when he got them? If you think you have one, how do you know it is true? Same applies to Bradley manning.
2. We are purportedly a Republic, a nation of laws enacted by our elected representatives. Laws, regulations and rule can be "bent" but not broken if we are to remain standing. Lawyers are for "bending" things, not breaking them per se. A federal civil servants and executives we are bound by the law, period, with exceptions only as justified by analysis, as provided in the laws. We are stewards of the money of the taxpayers...it is NOT our money as federal folks, it is YOUR money. As we approach a nationhood of lawlessness...e.g., no laws, just edicts, we risk everything. And some of us will not stand by idly if some ninja clad clerk rolls up in an MRAP to demand whatever without due process.
3. Frequently in private sector, and legally, always in government, the "best value" is to be used to determine a contract award. "Best value" includes availability of the product or service, redundancy in supply, and ability to deliver. Reasonable time constraints are applicable for renewals based upon re-bidding. I have approved emergency purchases to not the lowest bidder for a product, based upon delivery capability alone, the higher price product was the best value because the lower priced bids had no means to deliver in 24 hours or even 72 hours, the requirements in such emergency cases. Bunny Greenhouse would have accepted a year contract term, when I had no choice but to demand 24 hours. Is it any clearer now? Difference was I didn't have to front off Rumsfeld and Cheney, she did...I merely had to respond to a "protest" on the bid price for a product that was undeliverable in the time required. Rumsfeld wasn't about to sign the contract, I doubt he even had a warrant to do so, but he was quire ready to demand a subordinate do it? That is chickenshit leadership...asking to be done what you would not do yourself.
>contined
>continuation
Delete4. The Bunny Greenhouse episode began when she was "commanded" to sign off on a no-bid contract for fuel delivery in Iraq for 5 years. 5 years oversteps the "emergency" boundaries defined, by law, in 48 CFR The Federal Acquisition Regulation.Emergency acquisitions, of which I have approved several in my time, each time with a J & A to support the "rush." The objection initially made, and annotated in the margins of the original documents, was that 5 years @ no-bid was not justified based upon an emergency that could not yet be known at all...e.g., we had not yet invaded Iraq. A requirement for initial support might be justified for one year, may be two at the outside, while RFP's & RFQ's were put out for the 3rd thru 5th years. In short, there was no analysis made to determine if fuel delivery would only be available from one source firm, coincidently a firm tied directly to the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense, both Nixon West Wingers who never left DC in reality. Those are the men she stood up to....daunting I'd say to lesser persons, and it had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with race from her perspective until she was treated like a servant. She refused to remove her annotations and sign a clean copy of the contract...which was her legal right to do as the main fiduciary officer for the Corps of Engineers. As a federal fiduciary any errors you make "follow you home" in terms of persona liability, both financial and criminal.
5. Why was the Corps of Engineers buying fuel for 5 years out in Iraq when normally, Defense Energy Support Command, part of the Defense Logistics Agency, handles fuels of all kinds, for all military applications...even the Corps of Engineers must utilize them, by law, for any delivery quantiles per location per year that exceed 84,000 gallons for mobile or marine equipment, and 10,000 gallons per year for stationary plants at posts, camps and stations." So pray tell, why was USACE dragged in to this fuel issue? Perhaps because they knew DESC would not do the no-bid 5 year thing either? Bet on it.
6. Yes, I say she was in the right. Mrs Greenhouse could be difficult, but never tried to ambush you with nonsense and she knew the laws regulating contracting (the spending of YOUR money). She "bent" as far as she could in two ways: first, by even entertaining a contract outside of her lane...e.g., the province of DESC...and two, willing to allow a crony no-bid contract as a best value if within 1 year's limitation.
Footnote: In my 3 personal episodes it was always a matter of stopping law breaking by federal entities. Always. That was my job, to obey and carry out the laws as written by Congress....both in uniform and later as a DOD Fed. Would anyone want it to be any other way? I never went to the press, I just effected the saving of millions otherwise set to be wasted. If something needs to be done and the law appears to block it, if justified, go to Congress and amend the law.
Oh, wait...that doesn't work anymore.
Can I have my old job back, I left millions on the table I could have helped disappear...
Nope, I wouldn't even if I could. It. Is. Not. My. Money.
Final note: The federal government is not a tech company where the money being spent is the company's money. It is YOUR money and a fetish with the letter of the law is what you should expect in every federal instance...and in most of them there are provisions for exigent circumstances, as I have said. Your.our problems with the federal government is not a fetish for law it is moral inertia.
DeleteYour.our was supposed to be Your/Our...I blame gremlins.
DeleteMan oh man...this conversation can go on forever...and that might be a good thing. IMO anyway.
DeleteNo where have I tried to imply Haliburton/KBR are evil per se, because frankly, they frequently are the "best value" provider...just that they were the crony of the moment at the time the issues arose. However, human nature is what it is and when you opt for a prolonged no bid contract using taxpayer money the temptation is huge to grab what you can...it is the capitalist way and I support that. I don't suffer fools however, and neither did Mrs Greenhouse.
I know I've mentioned the inflated paper shredder before here at some time...how it cost $179 direct from DLA in Philadelphia, 48 hour delivery if necessary, but around $1290 from the "theater" designated office equipment contractor in Kuwait....another exception to the settle procurement laws. No reason for it....but you'd pay hell if you violated the ad hoc "rule" .... at times we are our own worst enemy in war. Maybe we don't take it seriously enough which might explain our poor results lately?
Ari, thanks for the explanation of Bunny's reasoning. It definitely sounds reasonable.
DeleteThe analogy with the tech firm is a little closer than you think - it's not the executive's money either, it's the shareholder's money. Always. Or it's the VC's money. Or Angel investor's money. In some cases, my money!
Thing is, like citizens, shareholders don't want laws broken - and they also like to get stuff done. And as Matt alludes to below, sometimes those goals are at odds. Especially when, as today, you can indict a ham sandwich for sitting in the fridge.
As for Snowden, how he changed the discussion is self evident - the discussion is now changed, period. The NSA has acknowledged some stuff and the tech companies have acknowledged some stuff.
Snowden also stole stuff which is directly harmful to the US and its legitimate interests. I don't think much of this has come out; I'd like to think he has it as an insurance policy against turning up dead or disappearing. Or he could be a straight up traitor. I don't know.
Wikileaks is a little different - Richard Fernandez ("Wretchard") brought up the idea that disinfo could have been leaked through Wikileaks, and likely was. Assange has no plausible claim to the an American patriot and doesn't pretend to be; he wears his America hatred on his sleeve for all to see.
I think the NSA was out of everyone's control; it had lost the plot completely.
Of course I think the Jedi were out of control too, had forgotten that their mission was to protect the Republic and not protect the Jedi themselves, and that Anakin had good reason to kill Master Windu, save Palpatine and fight Obi-Wan. But that's just me. (Pitty about the younglings though. That should have been Anakin's clue right there...)
Thinking through the Halliburton contract again... how did they even know this thing was going to stretch on for five years? If Rumsfeld and Cheney were telling their pals at Halliburton to grab five years worth of business... didn't they know that if the US Military were still in active combat five years later (which they were, doing the "surge") that the Iraq war would have been recognized as a disaster and the Republican party would suffer generational damage, especially with respect to the office of the President?
DeleteWere they planning on a fiasco?
Honestly the reason I supported the war was because I had no idea how badly that crew would manage to screw up the occupation. Not the war (which was brief, and brilliant) but the occupation (which couldn't have been more poorly run if they'd tried...)
Lewy said...
DeleteThe analogy with the tech firm is a little closer than you think - it's not the executive's money either, it's the shareholder's money.
Yeah, I thought of that after I posted. It is very similar.
...how did they even know this thing was going to stretch on for five years?
Bingo! You got it!
It was a cluster f**k, the first guys from my unit arrived there (Iraq) with nothing, and no place to go...they depended upon the Brits in Al Faw and Basara. Hence my affection for these guys, Brits from Al Faw. I sent a full set of custom darts and a dart board for their beer tent, the "Oasis" in appreciation.
And, if your are still out there, God bless the Royal Dragoon Guards, "Lucky Pierre," Toe Head, Mofoe, and the Munganator. You cannot know how much you influenced the world. But you did.
DeleteHeh. I know there were quite a few Brit officers in Basra but I have a story about one.
DeleteWhen I was commenting on The Command Post during the first couple years of the war, a regular commenter "Texas Gal" struck up a romance with a British soldier who went by the handle "Ubiq".
You could tell they were flirting with each other. At one point I thought about telling them to "get a room" but I didn't want to spoil whatever they had going by calling them out. I think at one point they did meet f2f; don't know what became of it.
Sadly the Command Post archives are so bit-rotted that there is no going back to find out...
For some of us, there is no going back, period. The Brit video is the best we can muster. And it is the best of us, all of us,. who were there and who served. We're but glitches in the road. All of us. Let me salute "Ubiq" here and now, in case he survived, and especially if he did not.
DeleteHaving worked for a company that did various types of government bids, it is amazing how many clauses are in bids that have little, if anything, to do with the subject at hand. I remember one bid (for a university in New York, IIRC) that had a good fifty pages indicating that no-one in anyway related to the company had ever even looked at South Africa on a map. An exaggeration, of course, but it was literally a good fifty pages of relatively meaningless drivel regarding Apartheid. When you put crap like that into a bid, then you have to expect that you have to pay someone to go through and be sure a company is in compliance. (My company, and several other competitors ended up saying "screw it" on that one bid -- which I don't think amounted to $200.00 -- yes, two hundred -- dollars. Fifty pages of clauses for a $200.00 bid).
ReplyDeleteIs there money grabbing going on? I am sure of it. But is also costs money to jump through hoops as well.
Good God, the melancholy of this thread spoils me. Let us all be better than this.
ReplyDeleteNever mind I am the killer you dreamed of in your nightmares. I am. Period.