Imagine if North Korea decided to boost its economy by renting out nuclear deterrent, “Dictators: keep the US away with Credible Deterrent(tm) warheads! (first strike capability not included)” – with Iran, Nicaragua, and Taiwan being their first customers.
From Etienne De La Boetie:
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.
Everywhere I look, I see signs that the US has swung the steering wheel hard to the right, and is bumping and swerving into a deep, dark, forest. One with a big sign that reads “Danger, Keep Out” but has “MAGA” written on it in blood-red spraypaint.
You can be sure as water’s wet – if someone doesn’t tell cops “don’t intrude on people” (You know, like the constitution tried to…) they’re going to explore the grey zones around the people’s rights. And by “grey zones” that means “areas where they can pretend not to understand” or “it looks grey to me.”
Reporting “truth” is a trickier problem than we might think. [stderr] Our interpretations are subtly, or unsubtly, adjusted by the reporters’ selection of words.
Warning: War, Death, Sam Harris
Here’s the part that horrifies me: when I hear “wedding party hit by air-strike” I assume that it’s notable because it’s a wedding party, and that what we’re seeing is just probability in action.
Echoes of Roméo Dallaire’s nightmares rumbled in my subconscious for years after I read his book Shake Hands With The Devil, [wc] about the Rwanda genocide. While the carnage began, Dallaire was the commander on the scene with the only professional military force; he was repeatedly ordered to steer clear of getting involved while the UN and diplomats and presidents flapped their hands on television. It was then, Dallaire reminds us, that the entire international community started using elaborate vocabulary in order to avoid uttering the word “genocide.”
This is a useful chart, if you find yourself discussing migrant arrests.
In The Year of The Pig one of the striking moments, which I focused on, [stderr] is when several of the people promoting the US’ involvement in Vietnam used the same construction for their arguments; it was clear that they were tapped into a common source – presumably what are now called “talking points memos” produced by government agencies in order to get out a consistent “message” to the public.
I believe in “the deep state” but it’s not quite what people think it is: the deep state is the combined momentum of several out-of-control government agencies; their political inertia and self-interest make their actions appear to be a behind the scenes government, but it’s mostly a desire to protect their importance and budget.