I'm sorry to do Hitch twice in a row, but I got to thinking about this week, and how I've heard it repeatedly said NSA officials answers were much like what we got on the war. Those statements are always premised on some idea the answers we had were wrong. In wartime, how this cloud of propaganda survives is a much more interesting, important, and immediate question to me than what (I knew) the NSA's doing, because if everybody's living a lie, talking about it is pointless. And this is getting pretty pointless.
With Hitch, working forward from the start of this madness, you could peel away each non-scandal like an onion - each underlying non-scandal (Iraq!) as the basis for the next - until we get to this week, when the character of some Americans has been revealed to still be French. A small, corrupt people, imagining themselves great warriors for attacking their protectors (In France, they had TWO strikes this week! Hurt the country, changed nothing. Felt good.) That's us now.
Any fool can see, now, these cowards are using one hand as a cup.
They're pushovers, and delusional, but it's one that's as strong as the enemy's:
Let's hope they cancel each other out...
Let's hope they cancel each other out...
It would have been really, really great if Hitch had managed to toss in a bit about the U.S. (not just W, after all, he was only the president) was acting upon intell that they got from allies in regards to Iraq and that it was widely accepted by everyone that Saddam was a threat (which he was; there should be no equivocation about that), and how said allies acted after the U.S. went in (which is, like the behavior of Snowden, telling), how they acted along with certain people and groups within the U.S. itself. The statements by David Kelley are interesting (and not the ones ginned up by the BBC; his actual statements to the select committee.
ReplyDeleteMaybe people shouldn't be jokey jokey about W's "with us or against us" comment -- it was a far more subtle and truthful statement than many realize; that America and her president were unfairly smeared and betrayed. At least, that's something I've been kicking around in my pea brain for a while.
PW
As for the NSA: tempest in a teapot; the only scandalous things are (and I repeat myself): 1) such an obviously unreliable person as Mr. Wolfking Amazingfox (or whatever he called himself) should have access to sensitive info or their systems (this goes for Bradley Manning too); 2) that some very confused (I'm trying to be diplomatic here) Americans can be convinced that said Mr. Wolfie Foxy is some sort of freaking hero and patriot (for "blowing the whistle", he really didn't, on what amounts to a big ol' nothingburger of a story, as we've had some pretty good spy tech for quite sometime anyway, thus this should not be big news)....which really may be, in light of our current situation and a certain election, the big tell on what's wrong with US/us.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've seen the little bastard isn't even that good a mole for the other team (not that he might not have things he's not talking about).
PW
Sorry, had to rant: been arguing on with friends who are falling for the "he's a bloomin 'ero he is" (yes, I snorted at that) as well as grovelling in paranoia as to how to escape the NSA...I told them that they would need to fake their death then go live in the woods on berries and sticks, wear leaves or go naked, shunning any human interaction for the rest of their lives...and even then they'd probably be picked up on the radar (and would have for quite some time now; this isn't new stuff) looks like I'm going to lose some more friends...yes, I did exclaim "I can't believe you're falling for this"...perhaps that's my bad...probably shouldn't surprise me.