Political scandals and more

So, the U.S. midterms proved that the republic isn't dead yet, and has some gumption still. The most important elections many have been at the state level, where voters may have seized  back enough power to end many electoral cheats, like gerrymandering. Not in deep red states, of course, where citizens are fine with every kind of cheating. But democrats are realizing what Obama has preached -- that it's best to reform where possible, then let it dawn on every sane, reasonable and patriotic American that these are all Republican crimes.

It mustn't stop there. Over a few weeks, I’ll be offering my own proposals for how the transformed U.S. House of Representatives might act in important and effective ways, even without bills passing in the Senate or surviving presidential vetoes. 

One such endeavor – holding investigative hearings – is the talk of the nation. The prospect apparently has Donald Trump so depressed that he may go back to his one, reliable drug high, sanctimony rallies! (Why wouldn’t he? The taxpayer carries much of the expense.)


== Do this one the instant you are all sworn in ==

What is the number one priority I urge upon the new House of Representatives? 

Repeal the 2001 War Powers Resolution.

Passed in the panicky aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, separate resolutions in the House and Senate effectively abrogated the Congressional power over declaring war, giving the presidency carte blanche -- without even a time limit -- to order troops and attacks anywhere he chooses. 

By a simple majority in the House alone, that blank check can be canceled, with a coda stating clearly that Congress retains its Constitutional authority over declared and undeclared war. 

Moreover, given current circumstances in a dizzy-unstable White House, it would be irresponsible not to do this the very first day the new Congress opens session.


== States rights means letting some of them act sane ==

There are a number of hot-button topics on which states and the federal government don’t see eye to eye. Immigration, climate change, marijuana legalization, and health insurance are just a few. It’s no wonder that a July 2018 Gallup poll found that a record-high 77% of Americans believe the nation is divided. Even more shocking… a June 2018 Rasmussen poll showed 31% of Americans think a civil war will break out in the United States within the next five years.  

Given that Washington has been taken by dark forces, many states want more autonomy from the federal government. 

Now still just at the rumor stage, but: “Behind the scenes, 13 states are pushing through laws designed to undermine the federal government’s monopoly on issuing money…  Before President Lincoln banned the practice in 1863, states had issued more than 8,000 different types of money.  "The new currency would be digital, blockchain-based and grounded upon municipal bonds that offer real collateral. In other words, more secure than federal greenbacks."

== Killing one more advantage of the West ==

Elsewhere I pointed at one thing that helped the west to win the Cold War. Our adversaries had the advantages of a closed society, hampering information-gathering by our operatives, while theirs could roam the West openly. KGB spycraft was (and remains) often better than ours; we’ve learned the hard way how skilled they are. 

(I believe blackmail is the top method currently being used to suborn many of our leaders. There are dozens of reasons.)

One thing equalized intelligence gathering across the Cold War. Defectors. Frequently, we’d get spontaneous offers from highly placed adversary factotums, who supplied sudden waves of revelation, helping us survive. 

In return all we had to do was provide three things 
(1) safety, 
(2) decent prospects, and 
(3) the moral high ground.

Look at that list and see how all three have been targeted by Vladimir Putin’s New KGB, now in service not to an idealistic-if-mad socialism, but to a mafia oligarchy coated with a veneer of rabid-nationalism. 

Above all, VP wants it known that defectors to the west will be hunted down. The thuggish “we don’t care if you know we're doing it” blatancy of recent assassinations has been deliberate. 

“We will find you!” is the message.  

As for the moral high ground?  Well, Putin has one well-placed agent who is demolishing U.S. stature, almost single handed.

== Political scandals and more ==

Crum, has anyone tabulated sex scandals of politicians by political party? 

Start with divorce rates, that should be easy to do just from Wikipedia entries. Divorce used to be anathema among conservatives. Now, my back-of-the-envelope tracking suggests the rate is at least double among GOP politicians than Democratic ones. And an infinitely larger (literally) ratio between GOP vs DP presidents or presidential nominees. If this can be shown, it might sway some (alas, not most) “values voters.”

(Ah, irony. The party that once thought gambling to be immoral now is owned by casino moguls, and shrugs off signs of gambling addiction in its supreme court nominee. And there are many other reversals.)

Okay, to be fair let's now throw in regular, adult-consensual infidelity and things briefly seem a bit more even… certainly Bill Clinton was no role model, nor was Eliot Spitzer, or Mark Sanford, Gary Hart etc… though I’ll still bet on a GOP edge, since that much-higher divorce rate probably had cause. 

Indeed, a modifying factor ought to be whether the wife stays with him for a decade or more afterwards – isn’t she the best judge of redemption, after all? 

Further along the scale is kinky weirdostuff like Anthony Weiner -- obviously kinda sick  -- but that arguably didn’t damage anyone. Dems are probably competitive there! But hey, which party gets rid of its non-harmful weirdos?  Maybe too eagerly and stupidly, as in the case of Al Franken.

But where thing gets overwhelming is at the far end of the spectrum – the noxious, horrible pervert-predator end. There, the Grand Old Party appears to have a near monopoly, from Dennis Friend-to-Boys Hastert, a boy-buggerer who they made top Republican and Speaker of the House, whose “Hastert Rule” deliberately destroyed negotiation as an American political process, to Roy Moore and – well, you all know recent examples.

Only now –the very same day‼ -- there’s this fine fellow…  

… and this one. Yipe! I’ve never seen anything like it. (To be clear, this one is not about sexual deviancy, that we know of. But… criminy. I mean click on this political ad!) Where is Ronan Farrow when we need him? He could get an assistant to tabulate this in a day and a half.

== Beware of the worst clichés ==

Check out Peter Singer’s upcoming book  LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media -- how social media has changed politics and war.

From Evonomics, another proved case where oligarchic assertions are diametrically opposite to true: “They Go Together: Freedom, Prosperity, and Big Government.” 

Demonstrablly and absolutely provably. Countries with larger government sectors tend to have more personal freedom. 

Yes, it is a religious principle among our rightist and libertarian friends that “government” civil servants are the proper and only target for their Suspicion of Authority reflexes. But in fact, Adam Smith – who is studied and admired more at the liberal Evonomics site than anywhere else – recommended civil servants and regulatory laws to even the playing field that was always – always – spoiled in the past by feudal lords and other cheating oligarchs.  It is no accident that the Greatest Generation of Americans set up many regs and services… and as a direct result, flat-fair-open entrepreneurial capitalism became more healthy than at any time in the history of our species.

== Finally, be wary of "splitters and our own loonies ==

You think the Putin-Fox-mafia war against the Western Enlightenment only aims to rile up the anti-fact mad-right? Intel-analyses show that at least 20% of Moscow originating troll incitements are aimed at sparking dogmatic rage on the left, and that is sure to rise now. 

A good share of the "splitter" memes surging across the web, pouring hate at "DLC sellouts" and "Republican-lite Clinton-moderates" is coming from Kremlin basements. THINK before you give in to these sanctimony highs. Are we the pragmatic, fact-loving reformers? Or what?

The aim of all this is to get us to repeat the mistakes of 93-94 and 2009-2010, when two years of frenzied concentration on healthcare led to 14 years and then 8 years in the wilderness, helpless to do anything about the mad-treasonous GOP's central agenda: cheating. The only way they could hold onto power. 

Think. What are the "moderates" asking for? For example, in Nancy Pelosi's top priority bill, HR1? To ignore health care and immigration reform and all that? Or simply to stop the cheating, first! The voter-suppression, the gerrymandering and dirty tricks and secret PAC money and incredible open war against every fact profession. If we get rid of those, won't it be easier for you to then move on to your other priorities? Seriously!

Which makes sense? Use our current big coalition to fight the Kremlin-Fox war against fact and reason from destroying U.S. democracy? Or immediately split the coalition, drive millions back into the GOP and repeat the utter failures of 1993-4 and 2009-10? Kremlin trolls want that! Again, at least 20% of the unattributed memes that you see, demanding leftist purity, come right out of a Moscow basement.

Look, I want many of the things you want! I want expanded Medicare moving toward single payer! I want DACA kids fully and swiftly citizened. I want consumer protections etc. But reform comes first! Because if we end the cheating the mad-right will collapse. End the gerrymandering and secret-money PACs and take measures to restore American respect for the fact-professions and actual facts! If we deliver that, then you will get many of the things you want via a forgotten thing called "politics."

Don’t let yourself be bullied by such loons. Adult calm and willingness to negotiate only exists in one party, now. Don’t let it be wrecked here, too. Which leads us to: The Perfect Rant about PC. 

Pray for his health (I mean it.) And justifying the unjustifiable.

One of the greatest of all films - "Network" - was prophetic in so many ways. So why is the "Howard Beale Scenario" scaring me to death, right now, praying for the health of a president I detest? 

First, Network gave Baby Boomers our generational anthem, when a raving Beale urged everyone to scream: "I'm as mad as hell!" And, as spoiled, sanctimony junkies, boy have we boomers shot-up the drug high of rage, bringing the U.S. to the verge of ruin. (Our calmer/nicer/smarter kids will be better off without us!) But there is another lesson from Howard Beale..

...in the way that he meets his end, when his deranged mania no longer serves the purposes of oligarchic masters, who realize he'll be more useful to them as a martyr.

Now ponder last week's by-election in Ohio - a nail-biter in what should be a safely-red district. As Trump's toddler rants get ever-more unhinged, he's solidifying a jibbering-loony confederate base that grows more fanatical as it shrinks, while driving away a growing trickle of residually sane "ostrich" conservatives.

Yes, the GOP has perfected (with foreign help) dozens of cheats and some we'll only discover in November. Still, a big enough Blue Wave could result in a Congress that actually represents sanity, issuing real subpoenas and holding real hearings... and that could be death to the Putin/Murdoch/oligarchy's putsch. (State assemblies are more important! Find a candidate in a swing district to help.)

If a living Donald Trump is a Beale-like hemorrhage/liability to oligarchs like Murdoch-Mercer-Putin, envision instead a martyr, idolized by millions who are enraged at the sight of liberals stupidly celebrating in the streets. A rage only just barely restrained by the sainted one's newly-annointed successor, a smooth-voiced President Mike Pence, whose soft words lure back those wavering ostriches just in time to stave off republican extinction.

Elsewhere I've urged "don't impeach!" because a President Pence will smoothly and efficiently-relentlessly seek to implement the prophesied end-times that he openly avows to praying-for. (There are things much worse than a toddler-narcissist, fools! Are you listening, Mr. Colbert?)

Anyway, impeachment isn't the only way to deliver us into the hands of dominionist fanatics.

No, no. God bless the United States Secret Service! Along with 99% of the rest of the so-called "Deep State," hundreds of thousands of dedicated men and women professionals in the fact-using community, who do their jobs with skill, every day. Keep ol' Two Scoops alive! Even as you navigate a minefield, working to obey your oaths to keep us all alive.

As for the rest of you, wise up! Stop playing checkers while Vlad and Rupert are cheating at chess. You have three months, but that means starting now, finding some way to help. You are made of no lesser stuff than the heroes of Antietam, Gettysburg and Normandy. So stand up and prove it.

And here's a long, tall drink to the continued health of the President (alack) of the United States.


== All of this HAS to be a simulation, right? ==

A few years ago I pointed out that for 400 years, it seemed that each century in the West had a ‘theme,’ and that theme only manifested during its second decade. The “French Century” lasted till 1815 to be replaced by the fizzing optimistic British era, which crashed in 1918 at the end of the first world war…. commencing what I call the Concave Century, which seemed bound for hell, hitting its nadir in 1941, before rising into the greatest era of peace and progress the world ever saw.

Are we seeing the next theme transformation? See where I lay all of this out. (The magazine editors insisted I make it precisely about 2014.)

Or is this more a parallel to 1990 and the fall of the Soviet Union? Putin blames that collapse on a western agent at the very top of the USSR, he names as Gorbachev. Is he now using the exact same method to bring down the West?

Name one western strength that won the Cold War, that the enemy agent in the White House is not dismantling, with meticulous care. 

(Ah, have you see anyone else compare Donald Trump to Mikhail Gorbachev? My guess is that Putin views Donald Trump has Gorbachev's reciprocal. And his revenge.)

Worth following: this appraisal of why today’s Europe is America’s greatest creation. And subsidizing their defense has been the best deal any pax power could ever have achieved. And breaking up our alliances must be the number one goal of anyone aiming to bring us down.  Follow these points in tweet form, by a reputable scholar of the modern era. 

“The Marshall Plan Taught Lessons Trump Refuses to Learn.”

== Diplomacy by Twitter ==

It just pours in. Can he let us rest for ONE day? Two Scoops declared that his tweets are "official statements of the presidency." Did anyone warn him that would lead to this court ruling - that blocking followers is unconstitutional? He's fired everyone with an IQ over forty.

What the Idiocracy calls “diplomacy.”  Seriously.  This is lunacy. Show this to your mad uncle. This timeshare sales pitch is how Donald Trump "prepared" while pushing away briefing books and advisors.

Your uncle will answer that "gut" matters more than knowledge or brains.  You'll answer. "What happens when knowledge and brains finally get fed up and fight back?"  Uncle will say "Bring it on, brain-boy!"

Here's the key: Your aunt is listening, from the next room. She's the one who matters... who can tip the scales.

"I have the absolute right to PARDON myself..." tweeted Trump. "...it means he could announce pardons for sale at $10 million. If indicted for taking bribes, he could just pardon himself. It is doubtful that James Madison had that in mind, but courts have never ruled on this." - from Electoral-Vote.com.

  
== Russia ==

"Putin must wonder what else America knows about Russia." Don't worry Vlad, Two Scoops will tell you... then listen to your code words and fresh orders.  Putting that aside, there is something I spoke about at a certain agency, two months ago. 

During the Cold War, the KGB always had huge advantages, e.g. our open society where their agents could roam at will. So, how did we compensate?

Defections. Suddenly, someone would ask for help bringing over his family, and in a shot, they'd be spilling everything, before assuming a new identity in safe, rich America. Defections were always an ace card in our hand...

...which is why Putin's guys are sparing no effort to eliminate that failure mode. Dig this caarefully. You encourage defections by offering safety, good prospects (it can include cash), and the moral high ground. Three essential ingredients.

Look at how the Kremlin and its stooges have been systematically erasing all three. Have you kept count of the number of defectors lately murdered in the West? And what our moral "leadership" in the world is like, especially after grabbing and tormenting thousands of kids? Do you think any of it is coincidental?

Oh, about that creative open society? That was our biggest advantage. And notice how the Kremlin/Saudi/Murdoch/Koch-supported confederacy is now waging open war on every profession that either uses facts or can be called creative.  Coincidental?

Every strength that won us the Cold War is being systematically and unambiguously dismantled.  And the idiocracy - egged on by Fox shills - calls it all a gooood thing!

Good doggies.

== Unforgiven ==

Oh, oh, must we choose between monsters? I stand by naming George F. Will the "Worst American." Because he knowingly - with brilliant skill and foresight - helped to pilot the American right away from pragmatic respect for facts and enterprise and probity, pushing the tiller to veer down hellscapes of rationalization, confederate dogmatism and madness. Mr. Will knew it would all come to this... and now he has regrets? 

Donald Trump is an unsapient, reflexive-toddler tool wielded by conniving enemies of everything the American Experiment has stood for. Everything that Mr. Will describes in this article is true! And hence, I know that the title of Mr. Will's article is autobiographical. We see you, too, sir. We can see which vile enemy of the republic chose treason long ago, with open, canny eyes.

== Enough for now ==

Again, confront your mad uncle with this: Russia will try again this fall. Congress doesn't seem to care. It won't change his lunacy... but your aunt is listening from the next room.

When will even one democratic pol get that polemic is an art? Try saying the obvious!

 "Many of the very same men who Republicans loathed with volcanic paranoia, back when they wore hammer and sickle pins are now suddenly okay guys, now that they wear orthodox crosses."

 Do you recall Christopher Walken's last words in BLAST FROM THE PAST? 

"You mean one day the Politburo guys suddenly threw up their hands and shouted 'we surrender'?"

"Yeah dad, that's about it."

Walken shakes his head and sighs:

 "Got to hand it to them." 

What a maneuver. What an incredible judo move.

The Past Shines Light on the Future

Here are perspectives I've stored up for weeks... some of them pretty important! (And the political lamp is lit.)

An absolute must-read, in the October 15 New York Times Sunday Book Review, “Cold Warrior,’ in which Henry Kissinger praises Robert Beisner’s tome, “Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War,” agreeing that President Truman’s Secretary of State was probably the best Secretary in U.S. history.

“In this maelstrom, Acheson dealt with the five principal tasks of any secretary of state: the identification of the challenge; the development of a strategy to deal with it; organizing and motivating the bureaucracy in the State Department and in other agencies; persuading the American public; and conducting American diplomacy toward other countries. These tasks require the closest collaboration between the president and the secretary of state; secretaries of state who seek to base their influence on the prerogatives of the office invariably become marginalized. Presidents cannot be constrained by administrative flowcharts; for a secretary of state to be effective, he or she has to get into the president’s head, so to speak. This is why Acheson made it a point to see Truman almost every day they were in town together and why their friendship was so crucial to the achievements of the Truman years.”

Mind you, I happen to believe that Acheson’s predecessor, George Marshall, might have been named Man of the Century with tremendous justice. But Acheson - more specialized - was even better at that specific job. I am glad Kissinger has the guts and high standards to know it.

-------

See Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google, interview George Soros in a very interesting podcast, discussing his book The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror. A controversial figure but one who believes passionately in open societies, who played a huge role in ensuring that the nations of the former Warsaw Pact would transform into democratic Western members of NATO and the EU, rather than slipping into retro-czarist personality cults.

Especially telling. Like me, he believes that there IS a legitimate role for assertive democracy-spreading and intervention to idealistically eliminate tyrants like Saddam. But doing it STUPIDLY - in ways that undermine your own strengths and freedom and economy and leadership role in the world? He is also (like me) deeply critical of calling this current crisis a “war”... a metaphor that deeply cripples our agility and flexibility and credibility in the world.

Above all, he speaks for the advantages of an open society, in which we (enlightenment civilization) hold all the advantages. As the author of The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? I can be expected to agree.


----
Another must -read. The 'war on terror' that ruined Rome. Excerpt: In the autumn of 68 B.C. the world's only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome's port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.

The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But an event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.

Consider the parallels. The perpetrators of this spectacular assault were not in the pay of any foreign power: No nation would have dared to attack Rome so provocatively. Like Al Qaeda, these pirates were loosely organized, but able to spread a disproportionate amount of fear among citizens who had believed themselves immune from attack. Over the preceding centuries, the Constitution of ancient Rome had developed an intricate series of checks and balances intended to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a single individual. Ordinary citizens were accustomed to a remarkable degree of liberty: the cry of "Civis Romanus sum" - "I am a Roman citizen" - was a guarantee of safety throughout the world.

But such was the panic that ensued after Ostia that the people were willing to compromise these rights. The greatest soldier in Rome, the 38-year- old Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (better known to posterity as Pompey the Great) arranged for a lieutenant of his, the tribune Aulus Gabinius, to rise in the Roman Forum and propose an astonishing new law, the Lex Gabinia. "Pompey was to be given not only the supreme naval command but what amounted in fact to an absolute authority and uncontrolled power over everyone," the Greek historian Plutarch wrote. Pompey eventually received almost the entire contents of the Roman Treasury to pay for his "war on terror," which included building a fleet of 500 ships and raising an army of 120,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. Such an accumulation of power was unprecedented.

Once Pompey put to sea, it took less than three months to sweep the pirates from the entire Mediterranean. Even allowing for Pompey's genius as a military strategist, the suspicion arises that if the pirates could be defeated so swiftly, they could hardly have been such a grievous threat in the first place. But it was too late to raise such questions. By the oldest trick in the political book - the whipping up of a panic, in which any dissenting voice could be dismissed as "soft" or even "traitorous" - powers had been ceded by the people that would never be returned. Pompey stayed in the Middle East for six years, establishing puppet regimes throughout the region, and turning himself into the richest man in the empire.

Wow... I did not know of this.

My own bit of obscure historical erudition is to compare the mad neocons like Nitze and Wolfowitz and Perle to Alcibiades, the reckless Athenian polemic who, taking advantage of the death of Pericles, persuaded Athens to squander its prestige and power and wealth on a ridiculous, utopian attempt at so-called “nation building” in far off Sicily. But this lesson of Ostia is even more relevant.

Especially now that the mad Straussians are no longer heeded or needed by the ones truly in charge. Poor fellows. Starting to wake up to how you’ve been used? Like Alcibiades, you have used democracy to pave the way for tyrants.

--------
Have you a little more patience? Here’s another gem from Russ Daggatt:

“It really takes amazing focus and systematic determination for a president to be wrong about everything. I mean, what are the odds of pulling it off, even if you tried? This is how you might go about it: Start with an incurious, arrogant ideologue. Centralize all policy making with the smallest possible group of people, selected entirely on the basis of loyalty, and then shield them behind the greatest possible degree of secrecy. Limit your sources of information to those who strongly agree with you and tolerate no dissent whatsoever. Interject as much fear as possible to give the more primitive regions of the brain an advantage over the higher regions. Make every decision a Manichean choice between us and them, right and wrong, good and evil, black and white with no shades of grey. Admit no mistakes ever. And believe that a Divine Being has chosen you to execute His will.”

Well, well. Russ states the dilemma well. Alas, he still refuses to take this chain of reasoning to its logical conclusion. But some of you know the scenario (worthy of a thriller novel!) that I can only halfway make myself disbelieve. Because he is right. It is simply impossible to do this much harm to a mighty nation, and have that effect be inadvertent. Purely a result of ideology, and indignant/secretive stupidity.

1) The list of harms is devastating. for example:

* utter demolition of US reputation (for reliability, sense and judgement) among our allies.

* utter demolition of US reputation (respect for our effectiveness and competence) among our potential foes.

* utter demolition of the reputation of the US Congress.

* utter demolition of American popularity and world Acquiescence to US leadership.

* utter demolition of US military readiness, down to levels not seen since Pearl Harbor. In a post-9/11 world, we are not even prepared with enough rested and equipped active duty personnel to deal with ONE medium scale “surprise contingency.” (These people criticized Clinton because we were “only” ready to deal with one and a half MAJOR contingencies at that time. A comparison raised by absolutely no one at any level.)

* utter demolition of our fiscal condition, turning vast surpluses into generation-breaking debt.

* utter demolition of our social cohesion as a united nation (via relentless culture war.)

The list goes on and on, but...

2) This simply could not have taken place simply as a matter of incompetence. Not even if you throw in ruthless, kleptocratic venality (through crony contracts, for example). That explanation fails because, three layers down from the political appointees, there exists a vast sea of civilian and military civil servants. The most amazing collection of human competence that has ever been assembled!

I never cease to be amazed by how little attention is paid to this level, the vastly knowledgeable and professional US Officer Corps and the collected experts and diplomats and scientists and other skilled workers who fill the vast federal pyramid. For they are key! Under normal circumstances, they would be able to keep things going, at least at a competent-simmering level, even in the face of dingbat idiocy from above!

That is, if it were merely dingbat idiocy!

Oh, but is ANYBODY looking into the possibility that it isn't? We have paid professional paranoids whose JOB it is to look into such possibilities.

I wonder if they are.

The Strategic/Tactical Use of Openness

Andrew said...This thread isn't political enough.

All right then… the political lamp is lit!

He also said: "The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter."

Rob further said: “Still and all, two things come to mind: it still freaks me out, unless something like David's contrarian idea of making all the records completely public were to take hold, and even then it still changes the landscape of privacy quite a lot.”

Actually, that oversimplifies. I do not call for all personal records to be public. Even in the radically open society after the Helvetian War, portrayed by my novel EARTH, secrecy is still possible... though you must cache your secrets in some legal way that BOTH protects them and still allows them to be subject to due process. Moreover, the government – too – can do this.

Indeed, in the case of government, considerable latitude should be given to those public protectors who claim to have a need to operate in cryptic ways. I have consulted for the CIA and believe me, I do NOT want them to instantly drop their pants and go naked before enemies of the West! I want them to win tactical battles, and it is the tactical battles that require secrecy most.

Still, the situation is very different over the span of strategic time... years and decades. Over those spans, it is important to recognize the big picture. That our CIVILIZATION prospers - and its opponents tend to shrivel - the more open the world and its varied competitive battlefields become. The more open is the competition, the more it becomes a matter for the accountability arenas - markets, science, democracy... that create beneficial synergies out of competition, instead of reciprocal destruction. Further, the more open the playing field, the more standing individuals have, contributing their billions of eyes to a network that can detect errors and criminality, helping the professionals to do their jobs.

All through the Cold War, the Soviet Union operated under a “logical-sounding” premise. ”If we keep a 99% CLOSED society, and the Americans keep a 99% OPEN society, then we will know 199 points of information and the Americans will know 101 points… and we’ll win!" Throughout all that time, they got more information about our defense from issues of AVIATION WEEK than we got about theirs, through all of our spies in the USSR. And yet, did they win? (Indeed, this is a prime example of the human tendency for self-hypnosis and delusion, based on repeating logical-sounding mantras over and over again… today part of the insanity of the right.)

WHY did we win – (and overwhelmingly) – this competition, despite the purported advantages of closed-control? Of course we credit open markets, for their creative fecundity, producing so many innovations that our rivals were overwhelmed. They simply could not copy them fast enough. But worth noting: it is not the corporations that make these markets. Nor the CEO aristocracy. Rather, it is openness itself. If you have it, something like creative markets will happen, no matter how the structure is set up.

Evidence? In 1945, at the end of WWII, the United States was ten years ahead of the Soviet Union in atomic technology and maybe just a couple in electronics. Spies helped the USSR close that ten year nuclear weapons gap, so we clamped down, classifying that entire field under tight wraps of security. Meanwhile, the field of electronics was left open. Forty years later? Our lead in electronics and cybernetics had grown spectacularly, into a gap of many generations that could never be crossed. Meanwhile, in the area of bombs, everybody agreed that the Soviets were essentially even with us. Conclusion? Any field in which we foster creativity through openness is one that will utilize our civilization’s strengths. Fields that we shut down, by short-term thinking and reflex, will play to the strengths of our opponents.

(And mind you, it was cold warrior Edward Teller who pushed this point, demanding utter opennes NOT as a good-goody stance, but in order to crush communism, decisively!)

Getting back to my core point: a SECULAR TREND toward a more generally open world should be our grand goal, even if it has irksome effects in the short term.

Indeed, it is no paradox to envision the CIA using cryptic tactical methodologies toward the aim of fostering secular openness trends! It is no paradox… but it does require agile, nonlinear thinking. It takes the intelligence to realize that our civilization is not about the convenience of its leaders.

No, I’ll go farther. That secular openness trend is the very thing that such officers should realize they are loyal to! It is more fundamentally a trait of “freedom” and “America” than any word or flag, or even any particular land mass.

Sticking my neck out, it is just this secular trend that has (I believe) driven most of the anti-modernist forces crazy. They are frantic, right now, across all standard borders of ideology. It is why the Iranian president recently sent a letter to President Bush, pleading that Bush take in the “big picture” and see a wider perspective. Asking him to realize that they are both allies, inherently the same. Co-belligerents against a secular-scientific and “liberal democratic” (his very words) civilization.

It would be a mistake to shrug off this letter (the way the press has) as a bit of other-culture looniness to scratch our heads over and then dismiss with a chuckle. I am deeply impressed with the Iranian’s ability to step back and see things from a wider angle than mere Shiite Islam, but rather, as a matter of deep social and psychological agendas. He does represent the same fundamental personality, the same fear of an open future, that has dominated American power in the 21st Century.

This is important because a crisis is coming. The forces of traditional authority span every spectrum of religion and culture and politics (e.g. left-to-right). What they all share is a reflex, a 4,000 year habit of preferring unidirectional vision and evasion of accountability. They will not go gently into the coming good light.

Is it truly coming? In EARTH (1989) I forecast a worldwide "Secrecy War" in the 2010s, almost an visceral and spontaneous uprising (like those fed-up Union soldiers who stood up, against orders, during the Battle of Missionary Ridge). Retaliation by an increasingly well-educated and outraged world population. A drive to cleanse the shadows wherein parasites have always prevailed.

At one level or another, this will have to happen. Not only to end corruption and make markets truly (at last) the cornucopian problem solving machines we are told they ought to be... but also, above all, so that errors in fields like nanotech and biotech et. al. are detected and discussed, openly, before they can become world-killers.

But again, let me reiterate. I am not a “nakedness radical”. What is scary about the NSA stonewalling of Justice Dept investigators is NOT that the NSA acted to preserve operational secrecy. It is that they did so in a way that in effect rejects the very notion of accountability ever applying to them and their secrets.

There is a potential middle ground. A compromise position, that could preserve their operational secrets while ensuring accountability. It is inherent in my longstanding proposal to create the office of Inspector General of the United States (IGUS) who could bridge the two worlds, by creating a corps of trusted observers who can watch the watchers for us.

But it is in the nature of human beings that we rationalize. And it is in the nature of the paid professional protective caste that they will tell themselves that they are trustworthy. That they do not require watching.

Alas, though they are our beloved protectors, they WILL forget (if we let them) that they are also our servants.

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Anonymous said...More political fuel. There is an excellent post over on Professor Balkin's blog about the risk profile of the Bush presidency going forward. The conclusion is that Bush has every incentive to make bigger gambles irregardless of who controls Congress after this coming election. I hold out hope, though, that the average person is smart enough for such a policy to backfire.

One more reason I have said repeatedly - THE top priority for all modernists (e.g. liberals, democrats, libertarians and Goldwater Conservatives) MUST be to reach out to the abused members of the Officer Corps and the Intelligence Community and the Protector Caste. Only they are positioned to detect and thwart such ploys.

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Erik, the child labor stats are amazing to me, yet credible. The people of Latin America have decided to awaken. According to my 1987 meme war theory, they had to choose whether to spiral down into macho frenzy, or rise up and become modern people, shrugging off the chains of dogma and class interest. The BIG emphasis on providing free education down there is evidence of the latter...

...But I’ll only really believe it when Spanish language SCIENCE FICTION takes off in a big way!

(BTW Steve, that’s simply wrong. Yes, in the past child labor sometimes was the 1st step up the ladder, especially seasonal farm labor. Still, that transition is all-too easy for aristocratic elites to stymie, as they have repeatedly in every culture OTHER than the most recent ones, consigning the children of child-laborers to be child-laborers, as well. A decent modern state must break such cycles! It must ensure that these children leap over that phase and devour education. There is no better role for a state. (And it is perfectly compatible with free-market capitalism.) We cannot afford to wait. Nor is waiting prudent, in an era when angry young men can become technologically super-empowered. This is a leap that must be accomplished in one more generation, or we all may die for having failed.)

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Other political matters:

More from Russ Daggatt: “Read about the latest Christian right war on contraception. You really MUST read it. The logic seems pretty simple. Contraception results in fewer unwanted pregnancies and fewer abortions. This should be something that brings together all parties -- pro-life and right-to-choose. But a growing contingent among the moralists who increasingly are dictating the affairs of our country oppose contraception because, they believe, it makes pre-marital sex "consequence-free." Even within marriage, it diverts sex from its holy objective to the mere pursuit of pleasure. No sex before marriage, and thereafter only for procreation.

“The Bush administration is spending $200 million a year for "abstinence only" programs in our schools. The little hard data available suggests these programs are not only ineffective, they are counterproductive. The don't prevent sex. They just prevent acknowledging the possibility of sex and preparing for it ahead of time. Internationally, the Bush administration is diverting money allocated to HIV/AIDS prevention into abstinence only programs -- away from other priorities that actually save lives.“
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07contraception.html

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Re possible democratic strategies... like many, I find it clear that the Dems are having trouble formulating a response to Iraq that does not sound like a plaint that Saddam should have been left in power.

Effective points being made:
* incompetence
* civilian meddling/ignoring professional advice
* corruption (!)
* WMD lies

Potentially effective points NOT being made:

1. We were not greeted with "kisses and flowers" (Rummy's words). Why? We WOULD have been so greeted if we had liberated the Shiites when we promised to... in 1991! But instead of continuing 12 more hours to Basra, THESE SAME MORONS consigned the Iraqi people to 12 more years of hell. At Bush Sr's call, those people rose up against Saddam, having been promised that "We're on our way!" That betrayal - one of the worst stains on American honor in a century - was one reason why I WANTED to go get Saddam.

1a. But I wanted it done competently, surgically, honestly.

1b. THESE morons are the very last people who should lecture to ANYBODY about Saddam! Having coddled him in the 80s, then having let him take them by surprise in Kuwait… and thereupon having decided to lift him back up, brushing him off and propping him back up in 91, committing the heinous Shame of Ninety-One… they have no right. And we should all say so.

2. I just said " competently, surgically, honestly..." You mean like in Afghanistan? Exactly! Only these morons don't deserve any credit for Afgh. Bush and Rummy only had time (after 9/11) to say "go!" to a war plan that was already on the books! A war plan devised and okay'd by... wait for it.. Welsley Clark, Gen. Shinseki and Bill Clinton.

Proof of this is that the Taliban assassinated Massoud, head of the Northern Alliance, days before 9/11. They knew all about the War Plan in place and that it would rely upon the Uzbeks, Tajiks etc led by Massoud.

Indeed, there is reason to believe that THE main goal of 9/11 was not simply to harm us but to draw us into a "land war of attrition in Asia." Remember this is EXACTLY how bin Laden achieved his greatest glory, bringing down a Soviet Behemoth Empire, humbling it in Afghanistan...

...only to his shock, our agile war plan and stunning professionalism and diplomatic skill with allies resulted in him and his friends having their asses kicked! Not since Alexander has an imperium entered the Kush without regretting it, amid howls of pain. Yet, Pax Americana surprised OBL, and did it well.

Only then... out of the blue... WE DECIDE TO GIVE HIM EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTED... an utterly incompetent "land war of attrition in Asia." What were the odds? How likely is it, that a great nation would reverse every military doctrine that had just won miraculous victories, in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and suddenly turn around to repeat every error of Vietnam? If a sci fi author had written it, the readers would have snorted in disdain! It could never happen!

But it did. And, even more amazingly, the administration’s critics won’t even point this out.

Yes, this is a little complicated to express to voters. But impossible? I doubt it.

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Oh! The Buffet is served! Yes, the April edition of Armageddon Buffet is online and ready for your consumption. Not ENTIRELY the same as my take on things, but entertaining as all get out.