Fuck Everyone: A Candid and Fanciful E-mail Exchange

My friend "Paul Sawyer" e-mailed me the following message this morning:

I'm frankly losing my patience with the insane conventional wisdom plaguing our consciousness. Last year, when I was an unabashed Ron Paul supporter (before the whole racist cracker shit came to light), the only guy who seemed to possess anything approaching a grip on reality, at least when it came to the economy, was Paul's economic adviser Peter Schiff. Of course, he was ridiculed, marginalized, and laughed at by pretty much everyone. Which, at the time, was pretty annoying. But now going back and hearing/reading what he said in '06 and and '07, the "chicken little" accusations spewed unthinkingly in his direction is nothing short of infuriating. (Though "infuriating" probably isn't a strong enough word).

Ah, but I'm reminded of an Arthur Schopenhauer quote:

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

In other words, it's not as if this is anything new. So I should probably calm the fuck down.

Anyway, this assemblage of clips is pretty effective in conveying this phenomenon:



Jesus, people are fucking stupid.

I responded:

Fuck everyone, indeed. Because everyone is fucked.

Read these two blog posts:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/the-gagdets-of.html
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/mumbai-terroris.html

And then check out all the recent posts on this blog:

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/

It's only going to get easier and easier to create this kind of chaos. I hope I'm wrong, but I think an attack very much like the one in Mumbai is likely to occur in the US within the next decade. Our entire security bureaucracy is an enormous waste of money. Nothing that the US government has done after 9/11 would help at all in dealing with a situation like this. All it's done is waste trillions of dollars and significantly erode our core civil liberties. Based on what we've seen thus far, there's little reason to hope nation states will start reacting smarter anytime soon. Instead they'll continue to flail and waste money as they become increasing authoritarian. And when they finally collapse? Who the hell knows. But we're probably all fucked.

I then added:

And then there's this:

http://www.theagitator.com/2008/12/01/posse-commitatus-rip/

Jesus.

And this:

And I would also like to point out that this deployment will do virtually nothing to help protect against the kind of attack recently seen in Mumbai.

To which he responded:

Maybe we're just being crazy/paranoid. Imaginations run amok. I sure hope so.
It's not like we're in danger of being rounded up en masse and put in concentration camps or some kind of weird gulag. Other than the docile majority, no one would stand for it. And it's logistically impossible. I mean, where the fuck would they put us? Oh. Right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84

But let's be real here: it's unlikely that the leaders of the American Shadow Government and their hired guns (the CIA) are that evil. They're people, too. With families and dogs and mortgages. It's doubtful they'd seriously consider killing/detaining their own citizens to retain a power-strangle. There's simply no historic precedent for that kind of thinking. Not within our government, anyway. Except maybe this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

Ah, but all this is bullshit. The CIA is answerable to the president (he is, after all, the commander in chief) and must keep Congress afoot of their goings on. And we have a new, and by all accounts constitutionally-friendly sheriff in town in Obama. A Shadow Government is impossible to maintain with citizen-elected oversight in place.

Wait. What's that? The CIA stopped answering to the president and briefing Congress in 2004? Why didn't I read about this at the time? Why isn't this in history books? Well, sheesh, ain't that a bitch?!

"Previously, the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) oversaw the Intelligence Community, serving as the president's principal intelligence advisor, additionally serving as head of the Central Intelligence Agency. The DCI's title now is "Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" (DCIA), serving as head of the CIA.

Currently, the Central Intelligence Agency reports to the Director of National Intelligence. Prior to the establishment of the DNI, the CIA reported to the President, with informational briefings to U.S. Congressional committees. The National Security Advisor is a permanent member of the National Security Council, responsible for briefing the President with pertinent information collected by all U.S. intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration, et cetera; all sixteen Intelligence Community agencies are under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence."

[cribbed from Wikipedia]

Of course, I don't necessarily actually hold all of the views I expressed in that exchange. My friend and I like to play rhetorical games and engage in fierce philosophical jousting, where each of us enjoys playing devil's advocate. But these are all ideas bouncing around in my head and I deemed them worth sharing.