No More Clinton, No More Bush...
Bush. Clinton. Clinton. Bush. Bush. C'mon, what is this, a hereditary dynasty? That's 20 years, TWENTY years, 1989 through 2009 where two families dominated american politics. What does this say? What meaning can we deduce from it all?
I have no idea, but I will say this. I have a general sense it is very much for the best that this alternating familial hand off of American power will not continue.
Americans are weird birds, no doubt about it. All the while espousing the most egalitarian, democratic ideals, Americans seem to desire at the most visceral level some kind of monarchy, a dictatorial, iron-fisted presence in DC. The same people who vocally support free speech, but seek to silence speech with which they do not agree. The same people who believe in the fourth amendment, and yet are willing to toss it away at the slightest provocation. The same people who believe we're all equal, and are more than willing to rush in and try to find a legal avenue to prevent some people from merely getting married.
I've been an American all my life, and I don't pretend for a moment to understand the mixed motivations of these people. Some of them seem so twisted, so invested in hatred and bigotry, they seem like people I don't even know. And yet, another day, they are us. How to understand, how to integrate?
But here's what I know. The downward trajectory for American society has been in play for decades. The whole IT/technology marketplace has concealed some serious systemic flaws, but underneath it all the US was plunging ahead on an utterly unsustainable path.
And it was only making it worse that the same set of DC Insiders continued to control the levers of power. It's going to be dramatically better, and better for all of us, to have new blood in power in DC. And please. Shall we never, ever again allow just two families to take ultimate control. It's what the worst dictatorships do, and it always fails, for all the same reasons, over and over again....
...and Everybody Gets a Share
I'm pretty sure this is not a good sign.More and more non - governmental, non - sovereign entities are fielding political, diplomatic and yes, even military organizations. They have no allegiance to any nation, they operate across international borders, and their funding sources can be quite diverse, indeed, can be the most effective of criminal organizations, not to mention governments either sympathetic to the ideological causes they espouse, or more sinister, paying tribute to avoid becoming a target.
Now, sure, guerrilla armies and political militias are nothing new. But now we're getting into a new creature altogether - less shadowy, more capable, well funded with complex political and propaganda operations. It's a combination of post-colonial, post-modern politics, ethnic identity movements, terror as a political tool, globalization, the internet, satellite communications, air travel - indeed, it's as if every advance of the last fifty years has been designed specifically to contribute to this trend.
When a small, well-funded transnational organization was able to launch a devastating attack against the United States on September 11th, 2001, a new era began. Military threats that could neither be deterred nor retaliated against militarily. Somewhat parallel to global climate change, it is the law of unintended consequences writ large, with every possibility to change the world on a massive scale.
Here you have the next logical step. The US has decided, at least over the last ten or so years, to be an imperial power. But in a prosperous society, without conscription, you cannot put enough men under arms to support an empire, no matter how efficient and lethal your combined arms forces might be. The solution? Again, private armies.
So now, the next step in the trend. Blackwater, one of America's private mercenary armies, is now purchasing fighter planes. A private corporation, right here in America, will now have ground attack/close air support capability. The chilling question that hangs over this entire endeavor is
Why? Under what circumstances can you imagine Blackwater requiring strike aircraft? Border operations? Riot control?
Bear in mind, that entirely unlike American military and police forces, these people have sworn no oath to the nation, it's constitution, it's people. They are merely a corporation, beholden only to the contract, and always available to the highest bidder.
To try to imagine the world of 20 years from now, or 50, is nearly impossible, for we are seeing so many unsustainable paths that lead to dystopian horrors of global proportions, so many interwoven dynamics that cannot be controlled, outcomes that could never be predicted. Climate change, economic collapse, food, water and energy shortages, religious fundamentalism, atomic weapons, desperate, sick displaced people challenging the safe and greedy for a chance at a future for their children.
Indeed, we have crossed so many Rubicons by now it's hard to judge the significance of any one event. But it's at least possible that a historian in some future world will look back at the day that Blackwater decided they could buy an air force and say "at that point, that civilization was finished"....
Is this stupid beautiful or WHAT?
Crazy. I gotta say, the train has a LOT to recommend it.
Labels: flapdoodle
Crazy Train - A Retrospective
Thought I'd share a few quick pictures from the Flapdoodle so far.
Leaving San Jose
En Route - Operational on the Coast Starlight, Northbound into who knows what
Arriving in Portland, the Accommodations were a little nicer than I'm used to
Oh. And guess who was on the train
Yep. That's him. I think he shot Conductor Andy in the face.
Labels: flapdoodle
Operational Intellignce
OK. I've done the initial recon. Couple of things leap out.
First. Y'gotta pay attention. There's a bogus, decoy Ringlers on Burnside. Too small and too hoity, not to mention toity to be our destination. Just sayin...
Second. There's some open tables in the front, and some more all the way in the back. The rest are booths or pool tables. Whoever gets there first needs to secure those back tables.
Kinda QED...
mikey
Labels: flapdoodle
Bush. Clinton. Clinton. Bush. Bush. C'mon, what is this, a hereditary dynasty? That's 20 years, TWENTY years, 1989 through 2009 where two families dominated american politics. What does this say? What meaning can we deduce from it all?
