tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post4343488698998122318..comments2024-03-28T06:22:23.961-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Walking a Tightrope on torture...David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-6374483517330747272009-05-08T16:04:00.000-07:002009-05-08T16:04:00.000-07:00Set up an "Enchanced Interrogation Demonstration I...Set up an "Enchanced Interrogation Demonstration Institute", with experienced government torturers, just for those who deny that the US has been using torture.<br /><br />Waterboarding isn't torture? Come get semi-drowned and put your lungs where your mouth is. Long term sleep deprivation is OK? Come on in. <br /><br />Too chicken to show up? Your name will be kept on a web listing of "lying cowards" until you do, and eventually published in all major newspapers.<br /><br />Of course, they're already saying "It's OK to torture" - but if anyone says "No, torture is un-American", they quickly hide behind "Well, but this isn't *really* torture". <br /><br />This would let their challenger say - "Yeah? Then how come your name is still on the Lying Cowards list?"TwinBeamnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44928603781323226052009-05-08T14:31:00.000-07:002009-05-08T14:31:00.000-07:00I have no specific reason to doubt Daggett on the ...I have no specific reason to doubt Daggett on the matter. The things he lists there are appalling.Rob Perkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15618647194288598056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-83893948367984818542009-05-08T13:20:00.000-07:002009-05-08T13:20:00.000-07:00William_Shatner said...I honestly don't know WHO a...<B>William_Shatner said...</B><I>I honestly don't know WHO are the "Puppet Masters."</I>Look for a bald man in a smoking jacket with a white fuzzy cat?JuhnDonnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06795417373366495092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-8471092128405332442009-05-08T11:57:00.000-07:002009-05-08T11:57:00.000-07:00Besides BushCo business conglomerate Carlysle Grou...Besides BushCo business conglomerate Carlysle Group and the UAE, if I have a candidate for "Puppet Master" it's <A HREF="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/how-goldman-sachs-took-over-the-world-873869.html" REL="nofollow">Goldman Sachs.</A> This is a very interesting read about the revolving door between their old boy financial network and our government's (and other country's) financial oversight.Fake_William_Shatnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09027049743048836086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28361504111458226472009-05-07T22:03:00.000-07:002009-05-07T22:03:00.000-07:00I've heard that nine days sleep deprivation can re...I've heard that nine days sleep deprivation can result in long-term brain damage.<br /><br />Still, after listing the litany of 'techniques' (and noting that one major political party is now almost unanimously in favour of torture), Daggett concludes the same as Brin: that prosecuting would be seen as partisan and be counter-productive.<br /><br />opotooc: a word not found in the army field manual.Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10249590595649976042009-05-07T20:40:00.000-07:002009-05-07T20:40:00.000-07:00You guys want a fact-filled blog about the whole t...You guys want a fact-filled blog about the whole torture thing?<br /><br />http://daggatt.blogspot.com/2009/04/torture-debate.html<br /><br />I am isolated...and Russ is smart and so are you guys.<br /><br />Still, I'm right.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-76427264228384184542009-05-07T13:49:00.000-07:002009-05-07T13:49:00.000-07:00Brin said...
Expose multi-billion$ thievery and yo...Brin said...<br /><I>Expose multi-billion$ thievery and you steer populism onto paths that Fox simply can no longer control or spin. Expose fat cats stealing FROM the troops and you propel the ongoing re-registration of military men and women as democrats. </I>>> Well, we've BEEN doing that. Every dang progressive blog has been doing that for at least 8 years.<br /><br />Maybe we are starting to see the cracks.<br /><br />But really, nothing happened after it was revealed that Haliburton didn't pay taxes but re-signs its employees out of a post office box in the Caymans. It overcharges cost plus.<br /><br />Nothing much happened after the pattern was shown where someone giving Bush's campaign $250,000 got an ambassadorship or won the right to set up a new stock market for Iraq. It was a meritocracy.<br /><br />DEMOCRACY IS NOT ON THE MENU<br /><br />>> Anonymous, your description of "THEM" is kind of describing about every other high paid executive in the country. Sure we can back-track who paid BushCo to get what. You can get the list on K-Street. You'd also be going after 2000 of the wealthiest and most powerful Americans. What we NEED is an actionable list of people to make miserable -- preferably a dozen or so, that are the easiest to pick off from the herd.<br /><br /><A HREF="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124121908115478693.html" REL="nofollow">Here is the problem;</A>Democrat Jane Harman is corrupt. She was one of the people saying; "Impeachment was off the table" in concerns to Bush. She traded getting two AIPAC agents off of a conspiracy charge for being chairman of some intelligence board. Likely, she'd be doing favors for AIPAC forever. The only thing keeping her from such largess, is that a bigger pig at the trough got their first. He is sold out to somebody, maybe AIPAC so they don't need her, or maybe someone else.<br /><br />The only fights are for which piggy gets the most -- not for "principles." Principles are things for us fools out here....<br /><br />THEN, we have the Wall Street Journal using the only example of espionage, of Sandy Berger putting secret documents in his pants. They were classified documents concerning Clinton's assessments of his performance. But it's just more partisanship, and it's WSJ missing the story.<br /><br />Jane isn't the exception -- she is the rule. The ONLY reason people didn't want to prosecute Bush, is because he had something on them, had a something they wanted, or they just can't stand the idea that any of the elite are subject to the rule of law. They will compete in the club, but not fight in front of the servants.<br /><br />I've seen people in worse trouble for traffic tickets. Bloggo from Chicago got in trouble for helping out a Union -- NOT for attempting to sell the Senate sea--I'm sure the wiretap started after he stopped the Union busting at Republic Windows and Doors. The corporatists on both sides have decided that they cannot <br /><br />>>HEADLINE: <B>Protesters disrupt Senate health care hearing</B>What they don't say was that these were an organized group of healthcare professionals, wanting<br /><br /><I>Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has said that a so-called single-payer system - one that's run by the government - <B>is not on the table.</B> Many liberals favor that approach but Baucus and others say it's not practical or politically feasible.</I> He actually laughed at the protestors and said; "We need more police!" Yes, how dare actual citizens interrupt your negotiations with lobbyists and fat cats getting rich on your rigged system. Only healthy people need apply for healthcare -- what a great concept.<br /><br />Yes, You have to eat what is being served, option A or option B because someone else owns your representative. Justice in America is only to be meted out to the peons. It does not apply to the rulers. The table scraps of symbolic punishments meted out to the Bernie Maddoffs who ripped off the wrong people.<br /><br />ALL YOU CAN GET IS THE UNDERLINGS. The BEST we can do is get the Ollie North's and the Alberto Gonzales's -- we cannot get the Hank Paulsons of the world. Not until we defang the puppet masters by cutting the strings.<br /><br />As in all successful underdogs in asymmetrical warfare, David did not beat Goliath by going after his strengths. <A HREF="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all" REL="nofollow">Here is an absolutely brilliant article about how to Win being unconventional.</A> Lawrence of Arabia attacked everywhere BUT, where the enemy was concentrated.<br /><br />I'm not saying JUST torture should be prosecuted. But if we want single-payer health care reform -- we CANNOT get it by saying pretty please in the Senate or at the HMO's doorstep.<br /><br />We have to cut off the supply route.<br /><br />My priorities are: fix the justice system, try to make lobbying illegal and get elections funded by taxpayers, go after the cronies and the enforcers.<br /><br />If it doesn't PAY to be a Harriet Myers or a judge Bybee, then you've gotten rid of some of the tools of oppression. These people should be sued for every transgression, in every area. It should be a thousand cuts.<br /><br />If we can't get the courts back, or try people for espionage, treason, torture -- the stuff that has no defense -- then we really have ZERO POWER. You are being given a bone, and something to chew on. It was lots of fun talking about the guy in the airport bathroom -- but THAT is something for us to play with, to think we have control. A pacifier for housebroken dogs.<br /><br />The BIG targets to me, should be politicians who tell us what is off the table. THOSE are enablers.<br /><br />Also, the New Yorker has better writing than the WSJ. There, I said it.<br /><br />>> But seriously, if real justice isn't forthcoming, it may be time to just be disruptive. Protesting is too dangerous, and not a viable option for someone who wants to keep a job. If the Media likes your issue, you get multiplied by ten, if they don't like it, your protest numbers are divided. Maybe slowly and surely, things are turning around -- but it just seems like the same old con job until some new disaster comes around to distract us.Fake_William_Shatnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09027049743048836086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-59096327384254941762009-05-07T12:34:00.000-07:002009-05-07T12:34:00.000-07:00WS,
">> I am seriously at a loss to ev...WS,<br /><br /><I>">> I am seriously at a loss to even know HOW or WHO you would go after to Follow the Money to the Puppet Masters. I promised to talk science -- but that is a question that boggles my mind far more than the nature of Gravity and Gluons. If you are the genius who can finally answer that in a way I can understand -- then bless you."</I>I think I know how to point us in the right direction. We just have to look at who benefits from these activities, who gets rich while 99% of the rest of us get poorer, and who funds the politicians, PACs, and think-tanks (an oxymoron if there ever was one) that day-in day-out screech culture war and divert attention while furthering the ability of the pillagers to well - pillage.<br /><br />Now, I'm no conspiracy theorist. I don't necessarily think that any of these people get up in the morning and say, "How can I roll back the enlightenment and incrimentally enslave my fellow humans today?" There may be a few that think that way, but most of the bad actors simply go about persuing naked self-interest at all cost... well so long as they don't bear the cost anyway. I don't think <I>most</I> of these people break the law with malice aforethought or intentionally create economic schemes that crush whole sectors of the economy. They do these things because they can, because to do otherwise would be inconvenient. These actions are justified when they do them anyway. They simply are smarter and wiser than everyone else and should be able to do as they please, for our own good, and don't ask too many questions. Their own wealth and power are all the justification they feel they need. In many ways they share the aspects of sociopaths or extreme narcissits who either are completely incapable of independently judging their own actions from the perspective of others or truly believe that whatever is good for them must also be good for <I>everyone</I>. From the top schemers to the corrupt politicians and functionaries narrow self-interest rules the day.<br /><br />Follow that self-interest from the guys writing memos and breaking the laws at the low levels to make their bosses happy and just keep going up. Why write those memos, who is the immediate boss you make happy by doing so? Who interests are served when votes to eviscerate the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments are passed by wide margins? And then who is that keeps the campaign coffers flush in reward for such activities and who reaps the most economic rewards when such votes pass?<br /><br />I don't discount deliberate and planned malice entirely, I'm sure there are characters who are truly malignant - more than just Dick Cheney, aka the Cancer that Just Keeps Growing on You. It just seems that narrowly selfish, short-sighted, and arrogantly persued self interest better explain the vast majority of the corruption and law breaking than does the concept of a secretive cabal of "evil-doers" pulling all the strings from the top.<br /><br />As you can see, I'm more apt to believe that the whole artifice of scheming and cheating, cronyism and criminality are basically naturally created webs of corruption that arise out of simple human greed organically, but which are happily manipulated by a few spiders who position themselves to pluck the strings <I>just so</I> to get almost anything they could want. But either way, pulling the strings from the edges and seeing where they go is the best way to unravel the whole construction and catch a few spiders. [Insert wicked grin here.] The only way to supress such webs is to create laws and regulations designed to prevent them and vigorously enforce those laws. A good house cleaning never hurt either.<br /><br />As you can see, I'm a big fan of analogies... drives the wife bonkers some times.<br /><br />- Rich<br /><br />P.S. Don't want to wear out my welcome, so I think that with this comment I'll retire on this point for this thread. If I pontificate again, it will be on one of the other topics.<br /><br />P.P.S. David, I really am tickled at your previous compliment. I don't think anyone took my response as snark, but you never can be sure when folks aren't familiar with your style or when you tend to resort to snark and sarcasm. But, truly as a long-time fan and admirer who's been prompted many times by your work to look at assumptions from a different angle or re-examine long held positions it's a real compliment. Thanks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16465572636033216492009-05-07T11:33:00.000-07:002009-05-07T11:33:00.000-07:00"Expose multi-billion$ thievery and you steer popu...<I>"Expose multi-billion$ thievery and you steer populism onto paths that Fox simply can no longer control or spin. Expose fat cats stealing FROM the troops and you propel the ongoing re-registration of military men and women as democrats."</I>On that we are in 100% agreement. Speaking as a veteran this point is one that has really stuck in my craw and which has been so hard to pull sustained attention to even among my friends who are veterans or still actively serving... maybe because the major media outlets are mostly owned by companies that profit immensely from such activity or, at the very least, are in complicit partnership with those companies that do.<br /><br />These particular "fat cats" are indeed excellent co-targets because they are so completely un-pitiable. (Is that even a word?) Attacks against them have the added benefit of granting very real cover from culture war by <I>truly</I> supporting the troops against the individuals who would enrich themselves at their expense.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67998584744803894952009-05-07T11:13:00.000-07:002009-05-07T11:13:00.000-07:00Eloquent and well-written and often on-target, Ric...Eloquent and well-written and often on-target, Rich.<br /><br />And you are right that "you don't get it" can be a cop-out. Nevertheless, I haven't time for long exegeses, right now and so must simply reiterate. <br /><br />Expose multi-billion$ thievery and you steer populism onto paths that Fox simply can no longer control or spin. Expose fat cats stealing FROM the troops and you propel the ongoing re-registration of military men and women as democrats. <br /><br />Expose enough of this ##$@! and Jeb will get a real earful on his "listening tour" and fleefor the glades.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15281469836046772832009-05-07T09:39:00.000-07:002009-05-07T09:39:00.000-07:00I honestly don't know WHO are the "Puppet...I honestly don't know WHO are the "Puppet Masters."<br /><br />If we "follow the money" -- which money? The Paulson/Bernanke fiasco that deals with over a Quadrillion on the Derivatives market? Or some other of the 101 Bank scandals and offshore accounts.<br /><br />If we went after AIG -- we'd have to also say; "goodbye" to China's purchasing of our debt, because they are a major backer. A lot of the TARP is political convenience.<br /><br />Do we help Saudi Arabia by selling them weapons, or do they help military contractors by buying them?<br /><br />How far can we "push a string" to the Svengali?<br /><br />When I talk about the Bush Crime Family, I'm talking about major players in IMPLEMENTING the Puppet Masters desires. Without them, the Masters have less teeth. <br /><br />If we knew who the heck Al Capone was, then sure -- follow the money. But it's more convoluted and changing hands on countries far more than any simple bootlegger's corruption.<br /><br />You are talking major banks, countries, exchanges, offshore accounts, military countries, allies and supposed enemies. <br /><br />If you go after the torture, then you get a handful of lawyers and cronies for Bush. You squeeze them. Then you go after the people who gave them orders. We don't include China, Super-Mega-Bucks-Corp, or national security -- because nobody has a good argument outside of a comic book for that.<br /><br />>> I mean, you MIGHT say it was Rothschilds or Illuminati or the Berger-meister-whatever group pulling strings. But you can't get there from here.<br /><br />The Bush family, has gone beyond simple enablers to major players. They've been running the bank, weapons dealers, and political scams for decades that have put America in the forefront of exporting terrorism and destroying Democracies--not just in Latin America but in the USA. China and Russia don't call us out, because they are all in the same game. You nailed it a few months ago when you talked about "Castle Building." The kings don't hate each other, they are having a friendly game of chess. They only fear their peons ultimately. I suppose this changed with Napoleon upsetting the friendly rivalries -- but that's another conversation.<br /><br />I'd say that Russia, is likely NOT controlled by the same groups. But how to be sure? Is China and the UAE taking over America with AIPAC compromising everyone else -- or are they just doing to us the wet-work that we are doing in their countries and ultimately leads to some Multinational conspiracy that is about power and profit and goes beyond countries?<br /><br />>> I am seriously at a loss to even know HOW or WHO you would go after to Follow the Money to the Puppet Masters. I promised to talk science -- but that is a question that boggles my mind far more than the nature of Gravity and Gluons. If you are the genius who can finally answer that in a way I can understand -- then bless you.<br /><br />With the torture, there are maybe at most a hundred conspirators, most of them cronies. With the finance, well that's a lot bigger bite to chew and I'd think Universal Healthcare and Education in America could happen before that, and World Peace thrown in on top.Fake_William_Shatnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09027049743048836086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-48804887347759316712009-05-07T07:33:00.000-07:002009-05-07T07:33:00.000-07:00Brief addendum to last night's post...
The goal o...Brief addendum to last night's post...<br /><br />The goal of removing these crooks has to supercede nearly everything else. Any amount of political capital spent will be worth it to cleanse ourselves of these people. Every other goal we may have in terms of a liberal, progressive, enlightenment agenda - whatever you choose to call it - will only be further by aggressively persuing a course of action that exposes and removes this cancer from our society.<br /><br />These enemies of the enlightenment are the ones blocking every effort at truly pragmatic long-term approaches on the economy, education, science, etc. Getting rid of them in favor of real public servants may automatically advance all of our other goals. The only area of concern that I would personally place on equal footing or slightly ahead would be the environment with respect to global warming. Just as advancing all those other causes won't amount to squat if we continue to live in a system where a few elites get to pillage the rest of society, removing those folks and feeling triumphant in the return of a truly enlightenment republic won't be worth a hill of beans if we allow the environment to get so bad it threatens hundreds of millions of lives worldwide. But even on this topic, I think the best <I>short-term</I> goal for advancing that cause will be getting rid of the stooges and going after the anti-enlightenment elites.<br /><br />I'm not saying give ground anywhere else. We should just consider being content with holding our ground everwhere else, for now, while we attack and exploit this salient which the enemy has created in his arrogance.<br /><br />- RichAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88398154237825324992009-05-07T01:05:00.000-07:002009-05-07T01:05:00.000-07:00David,
As a long-time fan of your fiction and adm...David,<br /><br />As a long-time fan of your fiction and admirer of your non-fiction, a heavily book-marked copy of <I>The Transparent Society</I> sits on my living room bookshelf, I’m legitimately tickled that you found my post “passionately eloquent”. But, in a bit of CITOKATE, I gotta tell you that the “get it” line comes across as a cop-out. It’s an easily tossed-off rebuttal that fails to address any of the points I made or opinions I expressed. I could just as easily say, “I find that people either ‘get’ what I am talking about, in aggressively attacking culture war as an artifact and weapon of a larger problem that is ruining the country… or they don’t get it. While David was [insert compliment here], he simply does not ‘get it’.” I offer just as much rational criticism of any point you made or failed to make by slightly adjusting the wording.<br /><br />I think that you and I are in very close agreement here. We even, as Cliff pointed out, seem to agree on the cause of the problem - the enemy as it were. Where we differ is that you argue that we should strive to avoid accusations of culture war so to more effectively combat the enemy and I argue that this is <I>exactly</I> what the enemy wants you to do. By trying to go around culture war, a flank I think you will find is without end, you fight the battle on the enemy’s terms. Not to go all Sun Tzu on you, but you have to ask yourself <I>why</I> your enemy <B> wants</B> you to fight in a certain way, or in a specific place and at a specific time. You can bet that when your foe picks the terrain and also finds a way to get you to allow him to pick the allowed weapons and dictate the allowable tactics that it will not be because it isn’t to his advantage or more specifically to your disadvantage.<br /><br /><I> “...which is to end the foul betrayal known as Culture War. The trumped-up pitting of region vs region, rural vs urban, red vs blue, know-nothings vs science, the future assailed by a mythologized past, and the reflex measuring of all matters against an insanely simplistic “left-right axis” that no longer even maps onto any sane definitions of “liberal” or “conservative,” anymore.” </I> <I> </I>As I stated earlier, I do not believe this to be the problem. The problem is the people who foment culture war as a deliberate strategy to de-legitimize criticism and accountability. By driving debate to extremes and by dividing the answer to every question into binary format they ensure that any argument can be lumped to one extreme side or the other. It doesn’t even matter which political party we are talking about here; for many democrats there are two answers to every question “our” answer and “their” (or the wrong) answer. Republicans pull the same stunt. Nuance and grey areas are automatically disallowed, and as you have often found result in one side calling your argument unhinged on Monday and the other side saying you must be a nutcase on Tuesday for the same argument. As an individual who has largely identified with “liberal” causes the truth to this has only been underscored by the last few months when many democrats suddenly were quite accepting of actions and rationales from “their” President which they flatly rejected from the previous one and suddenly actions that republicans found wholly justified by “their” President are downright treason from the current one. This is not the <I>effect</I> of culture war, it is the <I>purpose</I> of culture war.<br /><br />This difference is somewhat analogous to the differing views on terrorism. There are those (by I mean most of our gov’t officials, military officers, and political elites) who focus on combating terrorism itself as “the enemy”, hence the ridiculously named “Global War on Terror”. When it is no such thing. Terrorism is a tactic. Tactics can’t be “the enemy”. Try as you might to combat a tactic you will never win. Sure counter-tactics and mitigation might make any particular tactic less deadly, but you can’t drop a bomb on a tactic. You can’t put an embargo on a tactic and starve it out. Nor can you invade a tactic’s capital and force it to surrender. Focusing on the tactic fights the battle by the enemy’s rules, it allows him to dictate the terms and always keep you reacting rather than acting. The way to combat such an enemy is to <I>not</I> fight on his terms. To identify those things which provide your enemy the ability to employ his chosen tactics.<br /><br /><I>“Obama is trying to rebuild the confidence of a US Civil Service, including our defense and intelligence agencies, who were deliberately savaged during the Bush years. Having those people continue to think of themselves as Bush Era victims is extremely valuable. No single step is more needed, but it would be rocked back by such a campaign.” </I>Here I see the strategic opportunity to achieve two goals at once. Continue to drive a wedge between those dedicated public servants and the miscreant criminals and get their co-workers who helped the miscreants out as well. Public servants who refused to go along and who fought silently against the criminals in the last administration AND among their co-workers will feel all the more vindicated… and we get a <I>more</I> professional corps of public… erm professionals.<br /><br /><I>“Attacking right now on the torture front would fall into a trap, allowing Fox & friends to portray it as a “liberal witch hunt” at the very moment when the base of the crazy right is crumbling, with millions of sincere, conservative Americans starting to drift away.” </I>This is the attitude I believe the culture war is intended to foster, by polarizing every opinion, question, or action no matter how legitimate and to ensure that accountability is left in the dust. The best way to combat the tactic is to use the opportunity granted us to attack past the tactic to those who employ it.<br /><br />The beauty of culture war is that the enemy has grown extremely confident and proud of their tactic. They know their tactic can’t ever be out flanked, because they are easily able to turn <I>anything</I> into partisan sounding bits and pieces they can term dangerous and lunatic and hack away with relative safety. Like so many things, their greatest strength has become their greatest weakness. Because they have grown overly confident, lazy, and complacent and allowed their best tactic to become their <B>only</B> tactic! They have opened themselves up to a direct frontal assault – a charge right past their bluster and into their center. Their lazy overconfidence has resulted in them believing that they can commit multiple serious and brazenly open betrayals of the public trust and their sworn oaths to protect and defend the Constitution and to uphold the laws of the land. This makes them extremely vulnerable to both public opinion and prosecution. Now we just have to have the guts to mount up and charge in there, right at their center (I swear no pun was intended as I originally wrote that.) and expose that weakness for all to see. By being bold we might actually have a chance to not just keep them on the defensive, but to literally crush them.<br /><br />Systematic prosecution of the most obvious and blatant criminals of both political parties paves the way ultimately to the “puppet masters”. By stripping away the layers of protection the “true” enemy demands from loyal peons in government we can get at the oligarchs who threaten our great experiment in enlightenment. I don’t think we can skip that part any more than we can avoid the hue and cry of culture war. To get at the big bad guys we gotta take out (through prosecution of criminal wrongdoing) our elected and appointed officials who are in their pockets and who refuse to take any action against them. Replace those toadies with true servants of the public and make sure that all our elected and appointed officials are equally and justifiably afraid of the repercussions of betraying the public trust and see how long the oligarchs’ ability to pillage lasts.<br /><br />They have given us this chance. Perhaps the best chance to crush these monsters we’ve seen in a generation or may yet see for another generation or two. “Our” side, the side of the enlightenment, transparency, and accountability needs to exploit the opening they have given us in their arrogance. We have the chance to take the initiative from them and dictate the time and place of battle, and the weapons with which we will fight them. The time and place are now and the weapons are the Constitution of the United States and the Laws created by those Congresses derived from its authority and passed by them by assent of the sovereign citizens of our nation.<br /><br />Finally, <I>“What I deeply resent is accusations that I am tepid or less eager than others to win this fight. I have waged this fight as hard as anybody you can find. I will not be berated by people eager to burn the puppets, when I am after the puppet masters.”</I>Man I know you have been out front on this stuff for a long time. And credit where it is due! Frankly, reading you over the years has helped me formulate a lot of my own thinking on these matters. Don’t mistake an honest criticism of your proposed tactics for a personal attack. We’ve got the same goals. I just think focusing on culture war to be a mistake, one that our enemy has repeatedly shown they prefer we make. And the desire to outflank culture war, though noble, is ultimately an impossible goal to achieve. <br /><br />I think the only way to assault the oligarchs is to exploit the opportunity arrogance and overconfidence have given us thereby opening up that flank to rollback the army of peons protecting them. This has the added benefit of cleansing the majority of the culture warriors from the scene and marginalizing the rest. Kind of hard to make a case, even a false one, for yourself and your parties when they are exposed as a lot of crooks and liars. Going straight for the oligarchs while leaving their henchman in place has little chance of success, since it is those henchmen who foment culture war and whom we rely on as the agents to attack the big fish. It’s the henchmen, the loyal “elected” peons in our government who <I>prevent us from going after the oligarchs in the first place!</I> So, let’s start to peel them away!<br /><br />- RichAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55835475888037173162009-05-06T21:48:00.000-07:002009-05-06T21:48:00.000-07:00"But as I think about it, it may be easier to get ..."But as I think about it, it may be easier to get these guys by following the financial crimes. Al Capone was put away on tax violations, after all."<br /><br />Exactly. No one will defend such men as "crucified for doing their duty." <br /><br />Also, anyone who thinks Bush/Cheney were the real puppet masters is naive. Follow the money.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-42656602828839469512009-05-06T20:23:00.000-07:002009-05-06T20:23:00.000-07:00Tony Fisk: I'm confident that Brin isn't sanitizin...Tony Fisk: I'm confident that Brin isn't sanitizing the blog comments. He obviously allows dissenting viewpoints, and this particular anonymous has definitely earned his wrath.<br /><br />But yeah, it would be nice to see some more flexibility on viewing comments from blogger. I've seen some commenting systems that use a scoring system, and any comment that gets too many negative votes gets blanked.<br /><br />But of course, DB has expressed frustration with Blogger before.<br /><br />ovitu - ceremonial bow practiced by an alien, avian raceCliffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04198405937534052637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-9135417873831710042009-05-06T19:08:00.000-07:002009-05-06T19:08:00.000-07:00@Shatner:
You'll have to ask Lebkowsky that.
@ Cl...@Shatner:<br />You'll have to ask Lebkowsky that.<br /><br />@ Cliff:<br />Because he was not interested in (just) going after the puppets, anonymous started accusing David of siding with the oligarchs, and calling for a boycott on his books. It was a bit foam flecked, and I don't blame David for 'executing administrative privileges'.<br /><br />Still, your puzzlement highlights a problem with troll-slaying in general: were they trolls or were they just an 'inconvenient opinion'? Is the blogger censoring or sanitizing the content? After the fact, one can only gauge this from other comments (in this case, it was definitely the former)<br /><br />To sidestep this issue, it would be a nice blog feature to be able to suppress comments that were considered undesirable but not outright untenable. Readers could then choose to skip the tag to the offending item, or expand it to satisfy their curiosity.<br /><br /><br />molbete: <br />+ This comment was suppressed by a blog adminstrator. Click to viewTony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77206078942947585692009-05-06T17:58:00.000-07:002009-05-06T17:58:00.000-07:00Anonymous truly does go way over the top.
.
Was i...<I>Anonymous truly does go way over the top.</I> <br />.<br />Was it really that bad? And that's not rhetorical - I didn't check in on this blog while the post was up.<br /><br />And I am leaning towards Rich's POV on this one - Culture War is a symptom, rather than the cause. Although Rich and David Brin both seem to acknowledge that oligarchs are the source of the problem.<br /><br /><I>I will not be berated by people eager to burn the puppets, when I am after the puppet masters.</I> <br />.<br />Is this the problem? Do you think that me and Jester and Shatner are pushing for Obama to squander all his political capital going after the low men on the totem pole?<br /><br />I want to see the puppetmasters get punished as well - all the guys clear at the top that set the torture regime in motion. <br />And I think Shatner pointed it out - we're really talking about the same group of people here. Cheney and Cato and Halliburton and AEI and the Saudis - the moneyed elites. <br /><br />But as I think about it, it may be easier to get these guys by following the financial crimes. Al Capone was put away on tax violations, after all.Cliffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04198405937534052637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2160436850255111662009-05-06T15:51:00.000-07:002009-05-06T15:51:00.000-07:00David,
I recognize you as a champion of the Cause...David,<br /><br />I recognize you as a champion of the Cause. The cause is mounting a counterattack in the assault on reason. We all want to get the PuppetMasters.<br /><br />>>OK, that's just my way of looking at it. <br /><br />I'm only ever going to argue tactics with you. Seeing as how the PuppetMasters just crawl under a rock and then come back with new tactics. I look at Jeb Bush's "Listening Tour" and the hutzpah that people can go from committing the crime to acting like it was 50 years ago. They seem to be bypassing the 10 year dormant phase that Newt Gingrich wasted time with. I was actually arguing FOR looking at other ways to go after the Puppet Masters along similar lines as you just two days before I went on a 180. It was just a review of how many times these same people have done the same thing.<br /><br /><A HREF="http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/article992277.ece" REL="nofollow">Silverado's Michael Wise jumps from parking garage.</A> One thing I've learned about human psychology; people who commit suicide tend to be self-critical and shy or know too much about the puppet masters, like the D.C. Madam.<br /><br />If you go after banking, it's a big target, lots of money, and they burn the economy and blame you for it. <br /><br />Maybe it's going to take attacking all the soft points. But the Bush family seems to have time on its hands to make mischief.<br /><br />>> Regardless of anything we do or say here, the changes are happening in the culture, and the only thing we may influence is the "consciousness of society" via the watercooler. Does a Million people saying; "Move on" or saying "WE must prosecute war crimes" make a difference? When it's usually down to someone like <A HREF="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/06/fed-inspector-general-kno_n_197934.html" REL="nofollow">this lady in a position of oversight."</A>It's like a giant game of wack-a-mole, going after the know-nothings and crooks employed by the Svengali.<br /><br />Anon's arguments were mostly lucid, but the rage misdirected. It's kind of like a Convict in prison coming out after 8 years; sure, he might be a good man for some lady, but you don't want to be the FIRST lady. That's a bit too much pent-up demand to take all at once. Embrace the emotion, and redirect the passion. Preferably with a professional who can ride a horse for ten days straight.<br /><br />Not only has the rural Middle class been suckered -- but so have you... into blogging like crazy the past few days. But heck, this site is no fun without someone riding herd on the cats. I always appreciate it, and admire people who can form cogent arguments -- even if I have to be the 4th Grader asking Condi Rice the embarrassing questions. Give that kid a press pass!<br /><br />>> Tomorrow I will go on a diet of pure science.Fake_William_Shatnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09027049743048836086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-83453090247691206762009-05-06T14:29:00.000-07:002009-05-06T14:29:00.000-07:00I find that people either "get" what I am talking ...I find that people either "get" what I am talking about, in aggressively attacking culture war as a mental illness that is ruining the country... or they don't get it. While Rich was passionately eloquent, he simply does not get it.<br /><br />We are in Civil War Part III. It will end (and so will the Republican Party) when rural middle class whites realize they have been had. All the elements are there. We just need to put a few dozen outrageous thieves into prison and the simmering populist resentment can be retargeted at the Oligarchic caste, terrifying them into backing off from their attempted class-putsch.<br /><br />What I deeply resent is accusations that I am tepid or less eager than others to win this fight. I have waged this fight as hard as anybody you can find. I will not be berated by people eager to burn the puppets, when I am after the puppet masters.<br /><br />But I'll not bother trying further.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-54808456486876374572009-05-06T14:15:00.000-07:002009-05-06T14:15:00.000-07:00I recently read "Earth," and now I've come across ...I recently read "Earth," and now I've come across Peter Ward's new book, "The Medea Hypothesis."<br /><br />David -- Any thoughts on life being its own worst enemy?<br /><br />http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8855.htmllcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87243726878819240412009-05-06T13:03:00.000-07:002009-05-06T13:03:00.000-07:00Regarding some Drama here recently, this might be ...Regarding some Drama here recently, this might be of interest:<br /><br />http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/prison-awaiting-hostile-bloggers/<br /><br /><I>The proposal by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Los Angeles, would never pass First Amendment muster, unless the U.S. Constitution was altered without us knowing. So Sanchez, and the 14 other lawmakers who signed on to the proposal, are grandstanding to show the public they care about children and are opposed to cyberbullying.<br />The meaasure, H.R. 1966, is labeled the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act. It’s designed to target the behavior that led to last year’s suicide of the 13-year-old Meier.<br /></I>>> OK, we can't MAKE the world be a nice place. This to me is a band aid that is a law that will only be abused. If kids are getting bullied on the web, the parents need to step in and get them to step away from the computer.<br /><br />Normal harassment laws should be able to take care of the Cyber equivalent. Something like; following a specific individual on the web, to defame them in more than one venue should be considered stalking, and the stalker can be barred from accessing any and all forums and venues of the "stalkee."<br /><br />I prefer adapting with a few tweaks existing law, rather than trying to treat electronic communications as something separate. <br /><br />The other problem with "cyber bullying" rather than calling it defamation or harassment, is that it Bullying is a physical act. The Hyperbole that allows the RIAA to treat music pirates as if they were real pirates, or cyber bullies like the ones who take your lunch money, doesn't help the victims or the web. A company or someone of power could easily use the law as a club against legitimate criticism or the courts could get bogged down in frivolous cases.<br /><br />MOST rudeness on the web needs to be dealt with by a quick banishment. For the most part, it is a Democratic competition of ideas, and having to bring lawyers into it will just ruin the experience -- it would also be used as a club by powerful entities that wish to curb free speech.<br /><br />>> AS regards to such a law needing to re-write the Constitution -- well the Patriot Act already did that without so much as ratification by the states. That whole entire piece of drivel should be thrown into the dustbin of history.Fake_William_Shatnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09027049743048836086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-37180915943058427162009-05-06T12:01:00.000-07:002009-05-06T12:01:00.000-07:00William Shatner said... I also used the identity o...<B>William Shatner said...</B> <I>I also used the identity of "Big Giant Head" on an email address...</I>Best bit of sit com TV was when BGH (William 'effing Shatner) arrived in Ohio and talked about his flight with Dick (John Lithgow). Turns out they'd both had a similar experience flying. Really cool dual meta references there.JuhnDonnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06795417373366495092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39896523787140996612009-05-06T12:00:00.000-07:002009-05-06T12:00:00.000-07:00>> I just listened to an account of a United...>> I just listened to an account of a United Arab Emirates wealthy businessman who got a two hour tour of one of the US "enhanced interrogation technique" centers.<br /><br />HE got to torture about 25 people. There is a 45 minute tape on the web, with the worst bits removed. Reading the transcript of using electricity to the reproductive organs, hearing the man beg as he rolled over him in an SUV a few times,... it goes on.<br /><br />If you've injured yourself by seeing some torture movie like "Hostel" -- then you will get what appears to be the gist; SOME of the torture going on, maybe with the renditioned prisoners, maybe even the ones in US custody, was for thrills. Either as a reward or for money.<br /><br />>> That's only a peek at what was done in our name.<br />I find it hard to let this go.<br /><br />We let the Bush family go with the Silverado Savings and Loans, and the investigations stopped when it made connections with BCCI -- a United Arab Emirates bank. It's worth doing a google search on that. That was part of the larger S&L Crisis --which was not addressed and led us to the even bigger ticket item we have today.<br /><br />So some of these banks got almost no tax, writing off expenses for subsidiaries that had post office addresses in the Cayman Islands. Banksters paid almost nothing to borrow money from the fed. Paid almost nothing to people with deposits, charged Usurious fees on credit cards and were able to leverage deposits over ten times. <br /><br />Almost ANY fool could make a fortune that way. Where did the money go? If they didn't lose it all Gambling in derivatives, then we have another fraud.<br /><br />>> I'm really sick of putting a band aid on the corruption and moving on. These are the same groups of people over and over again.<br /><br />These Wall Street crooks tried and failed to depose FDR, by trying to convince General Smedley Butler to raise an army. And FDR was too busy dealing with an economy and two wars, to try them for treason.<br /><br />Now we are dealing with their descendants, and it's hard for me not to think the banking crisis was the same thing -- only threatening financial meltdown in order to run things rather than using an army.<br /><br />>> I suspect, however, that Obama MAY have some sense. And that his moves to cut off tax cheats putting PO Boxes offshore, is only the start of this. Cuting off the flow of blood before he cuts out the cancer.Fake_William_Shatnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09027049743048836086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31611418953372081012009-05-06T11:42:00.000-07:002009-05-06T11:42:00.000-07:00David Brin said...
Folks, in bemoaning his marvelo...<I>David Brin said...<br />Folks, in bemoaning his marvelous lost blog-rant, Shat was referring to where Jack Black sings about The best Song in the World (not the actual song but a Tribute - a song about how great the greatest song was! If only we got to hear it.)<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t2I2bfAy3Y </I>>> You see, that's why I put up with you folks,... getting these obscure references!<br /><br />I was whining with Allegory -- a noble and well tested pursuit of Writers throughout history, who had to keep their heads with Kings and Editors alike! I'm probably going to ruin my Concise record today....<br /><br />>> Anonymous truly does go way over the top. He is "displacing" his anger towards Torture, on another person, as if this father figure (as played by Brin) who appears to have some power (a blog) is responsible. Folks, this is a life lesson: the true problem with going out to take revenge, is not that you must dig two graves -- but that the person lying in that other grave is usually going to be an innocent bystander because enraged revenge seekers are not the people who do homework and earn a good living, such that they feel so dang cranky in the first place. If I could get that quote shorter, it might catch on.<br /><br />Anyone visiting Brin's site is leaving both an IP address when accessing the server and has a backtrack through blogger.com. If you make a threat -- that means that all the information the blog host has on you becomes available, if you don't make threats, then you MIGHT have a little privacy in that regard. David Brin, the author, has not had a major movie deal yet that puts him in the celebrity category, so Defamation still applies--the Universe is not a meritocracy or fair, otherwise Michael Crichton would be running this Blog, and I'd be throwing food at the screen -- I doubt he'd get the Jack Black references either. I don't think that Anon's boycott presents a clear and present danger, Dr. Brin, so I'm pretty sure this has all the impact of Bill O'Reilly's threats to boycott France -- it resulted in a 50% increase in trade over the two years he waged it.<br /><br />You can save some money by using a company called "KnowX.com" which is a joint venture between Information America and that competitor to Lexus/Nexus. Anyway, it's what Lawyers spend thousands of dollars on yearly, to dig up any and all public records, court docs (made public), licenses, and references in press and published articles of a person. I should know, I used to work there and they used to use my logo I designed (way better than what they are using now *sigh*). It's a tip that can make you a Private Eye on the cheap. Now, it won't get you those Social Security numbers that the Private Eye's can, but they are doing something quasi illegal for that -- which is they have a medical or police contact or are buying it from some collector of SS #'s.<br /><br />We tested it out on a few politicians. Seems that Newt Gingrich had his house and other stuff in his wife's name, and a boat registered at a lake in Georgia -- which must have hurt deeply when he traded her in for that other lady. Not sure if he's traded in the other woman #3 or not yet. What day of the week is it? <br /><br />Though I need more street cred, don't mess with me either -- I grew up in a comfortable middle class house -- I don't know the meaning of the word "fear."<br /><br /><br /><I>Oh, Shat? He's no quaker. He's an ahole and every political wing has them. The left has spurted forth its own oligarchs a-plenty, Hitler and Stalin killed more hope than all the right wing demons combined, and both called themselves "socialists."</I>I think the spectrum of human thought needs more than two dimensions. The "LEFT" that I'm thinking of, likes fairness, puppy dogs, Tariffs, and long walks on beaches clear of litter. Totalitarian, absolutists, fricking crazy -- those words come to mind for me when I think of Stalin -- otherwise he was frog-marching puppy-dogs on beaches and taxing them, which makes no sense at all....<br /><br />I was saying he was a Quaker as in; "true believer." These people have been the bulwark pushing the peace movements. Like it or not, reasonable people don't push some bureaucrat in office who is getting about $1.4 Million from the Banksters to make oversight go away. Likely, our letters and phone calls don't matter either. It's big bucks or tea-baggers.<br /><br />>> <B>Give Anonymous the benefit of the doubt.</B> I think his "boycott" idea was rhetorical. <br /><br />>>> <I>Shat, for having been left out of the new Star Trek flick?</I>When I acquired the nom de plume of Shatner, for a low, low price, I didn't realize it would be abbreviated in such a way. I understand that Star Trek wanted to go in a new direction --- like having nothing to do with Gene Roddenberry's ideas of a better human race and just make an action flick "called" Star Trek. So it's just as well that all those other hacks got face time, as they'd be doing commercials if they had my star power. I will go see this movie, with a bag of ripe tomatoes -- for fun.<br /><br />I also used the identity of "Big Giant Head" on an email address. My clients don't get the reference to the TV Show "Third Rock from the Sun" -- they think I'm bragging about something and giggle. I'm kind of stuck with that address and you'd think I'd be a bit more thoughtful about such choices.<br /><br /><br />>> @ Tony Fisk;<br />What do you mean by Environmental Sustainability?<br />I've got a lot of ideas for a working society. When I was trying to write a book back in college, I wrote of a group of scientists based on Mars and the Moon who break off from earth after political squabbles ask them to conduct espionage on each other. I wrote of the economy they used, with no taxes but three forms of currency based upon micropayments and what I called "merit links" which was kind of like Hypertext and Wikipedia on the web, based on a micropayment system for transparent copyright and patent compensation (pre-dating, of course, all these things in the real world). The whole society was based upon sustainability of resources because going back to earth was perilous. The story got bogged down, because I was spending as much time inventing how people ate, and moved around, as I was moving the plot. I still think my idea for suspended animation would work today -- which uses high pressures (about 100 atmospheres) in a mixture of water, graphite, organic antifreeze and petroleum jelly, to freeze people without ice damage. The thawing out, requires restricting Oxygen and keeping the pressure up until AFTER the body is warmed. There is a new technique discovered that allows people who have drowned to be "brought back" many hours later. What they found is that the sudden Oxygen influx is what causes cell death,.. <A HREF="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08%2F12%2F02%2F2313252&from=rss" REL="nofollow">check it out.</A> I think heart doctors have known about this for over a decade, but oxygen deprivation wasn't a standard practice due to the worry about lawsuits. A lot of what we think of as "death" is "meat" that goes into a anabolic state (without oxygen). It's really hard to tell when things are dead -- there is brain death and decay, other than that, the cells in a raw steak, or a person who just "died" of heart attack are still viable.<br /><br />-- do you see why I can't finish anything? It always leads to something else.<br /><br /><br /><br />>>I think I need to make an index of my replies...Fake_William_Shatnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09027049743048836086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-32082463123099379862009-05-06T11:26:00.000-07:002009-05-06T11:26:00.000-07:00Oh, I'm not saying I'm anonymous, quite th...Oh, I'm not saying I'm anonymous, quite the opposite in fact. I am all over the net for an easy look up. In other words, nothing to hide here. I just use Gilmoure as I've been using it in one form or another, since the late 70's, when I got in to D&D and Tolkien.JuhnDonnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06795417373366495092noreply@blogger.com