I figure with all the doom and gloom, maybe I should bring you a story that elevates your opinion of humans a little bit.
Stderr
All the unbuffered error messages
I figure with all the doom and gloom, maybe I should bring you a story that elevates your opinion of humans a little bit.
Normally, I do not get involved in conspiracist thinking. I guess I have a pretty basic world view: it’s round, there were dinosaurs, evolution is real, aliens are not anal probing trailer park drunks, Oswald shot Kennedy, etc.
There are a few things I find fascinating about the current war. First and foremost, it’s a war of attrition and apparently that never occurred to the pentagon command structure. One of the things that Europe learned pretty thoroughly before the Franco-Prussian War, is that an experienced command structure that knows how to communicate and plan is essential. Or so we would think.
I feel as if all the point of progressivism has just served to use it as a target. Every place where there has been an attempt to move forward, it turns out that the forces of moving back are more motivated, more powerful, and they play dirty.
Apparently the Iranians managed to tag an F-35.
It’s a scary moment, when you realize that nationalism is a pack of lies, like religion and being a sports fan. For me, it was slow-dawning but got a strong boost when I was in the army (1983-9, basic and reserve) the wastage and stupidity began to sink in on me and I was reading a lot of the history of other countries. It’s hard not to read stuff like The Best and The Brightest [worldcat] and start to realize that the author is not just pointing out that the emperor’s new clothes show a lot of skin, but so do all of his wise senior advisors. So, how did such a bunch of idiots accomplish this? Then, you realize that behind every Bonaparte is a Talleyrand. Behind every Trump is a Miller. And they create the sweet-smelling bullshit we are all fed as we grow up. What really did it for me was reading Howard Zinn’s A People’s History, [worldcat] which – my offer still stands – I will give anyone a copy of if they ask for it politely.
Reading Zinn caused me to shift my interest in history a few points to the side of where it had been focused straight on military history, and I began re-reading my favorite military histories and thinking about the political context. And/or wondering how it was pitched at the time.
I have wargamed war in the gulf a few times. And, as you know, I’m a fan of Millennium Challenge 2000. [stderr]
Its official name is “Perimetr” but many Soviet-era nuclear control officers called it “The Dead Hand.” David Hoffman’s book with that title won him a Pulitzer prize. Now you can imagine President Trump tweeting away over how Harper Lee should give him hers. And, now, you should stop – it’s horrifying. [openlibrary] [Read more…]
My whole life I have felt there is a fascinating line between Nietzsche and Hume. Wow, that is profound, Marcus: “Some philosophers disagree.”
In various discussions about “what do we do with Venezuela?” we should not ignore that the people asking the question are representatives of a military superpower who took it upon itself to intervene in Venezuelan politics.