I am not Anonymous - but they have a point.

Our message is simple: Do not lie to the people and you won't have to worry about your lies being exposed. Do not make corrupt deals and you won't have to worry about your corruption being laid bare. Do not break the rules and you won't have to worry about getting in trouble for it."

It goes on to warn, "do not make the mistake of challenging Anonymous. Do not make the mistake of believing you can behead a headless snake. If you slice off one head of Hydra, ten more heads will grow in its place. If you cut down one Anon, ten more will join us purely out of anger at your trampling of dissent."

Read more: http://techland.time.com/2011/06/10/anonymous-warns-nato-this-is-not-your-world/#ixzz1Q1ysqLeN

This is the response of Anonomous to NATO's public musing of how to respond to this widespread network of electronic civil disobedience, which they are trying to represent as "cyber warfare."

The fact that their first response is to publicly muse (quoted below) as to who to shoot does not inspire me with confidence for the future of civilization; at least, not within the framework of the current order of things.

We are dealing with the consequences of a collision between the presumption of an entrenched and increasingly paranoid world leadership and the increasing ability for people worldwide to compare notes and perspectives, share data and network around them. Moreover, the same technology makes large concentrations of power less and less valuable, while being revealed as being less and less effective.

Consider the brutal lesson of Iraq; the great logistical, financial and military concentration of  power against a people who's conventional military was destroyed in days. Turned out that relying on a conventional military as a deterrence against US might was a waste of time. The humble roadside bomb has achieved more against the US than all of the Republican Guards.

This illustrates the problem we all face - the problems we face are ones that cannot be addressed by the institutions we have, and the institutions we have see any attempt to come up with better solutions as direct threats to their power. Now, history has shown what happens time and time again. The status quo, entrenched against an inarguable shift in the circumstances it was founded upon can never win. But it can play for a disasterous outcome, in which everyone loses.

The world is littered with the enigmatic ruins of civilizations in which what little we know is exactly that; faced with change enforced by inarguable circumstances, they chose to argue instead of doing anything useful.

Please consider that Anon has really done nothing more than embarrass governments with their own secrets and rather ineptly concealed crimes of commission and indifference. They have produced documentaries of the sausage-making that is realpolitic and what passes for rational allocation of increasingly scarce world resources. 

Now, I would bet money that many within the various hactivist collectives thought that a few little examples would in fact nudge the world's leadership onto a more rational path. But instead, we get this from NATO (same source)

NATO's report, issued last month, warned about the rising tide of politically-motivated cyberattacks, singling out Anonymous as the most sophisticated and high-profile of the known hacktivist groups:

"Today, the ad hoc international group of hackers and activists is said to have thousands of operatives and has no set rules or membership. It remains to be seen how much time Anonymous has for pursuing such paths. The longer these attacks persist the more likely countermeasures will be developed, implemented, the groups will be infiltrated and perpetrators persecuted," the report read, also asking, "Can one invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty after a cyber attack? And what response mechanisms should the Alliance employ against the attacker? Should the retaliation be limited to cyber means only, or should conventional military strikes also be considered?"

Read more: http://techland.time.com/2011/06/10/anonymous-warns-nato-this-is-not-your-world/#ixzz1Q1sMPh2e

Boy, talk about bringing a gun to a knife fight. And if you think that's a silly reversal, that the gun will always win... you don't know enough about fighting with knives in the dark.

The only truly deadly ammunition Anon has is the truth, and their weapons upgrades come from Authoritarian responses to the truth, which is starting to convince the thoughtful, intelligent and wired people in the world that the people they work for in the trade of routing, storing and securing data really cannot handle the truth. 

They are in the position of not merely suspecting, but knowing for a fact that the people they report to are less qualified to make important decisions about the future of the world than they are themselves.

Now, all of this is as predictable as the night following the day and rocks rolling downhill. But NATO's reaction is stunningly out of touch. Oh, I'm not at all surprised that someone came up with a military response as an option - obviously, it's a military alliance. It should have been considered in order to be dismissed as a completely nonviable option.  But saying that out loud in public? It shows a complete failure to grasp what military force can possibly achieve.

Suggesting a co-ordinated world war against the ULTIMATE in diffuse targets, a transnational movement of largely independent activists armed with a technology they understand better than our "decision makers" demonstrates catastrophic cognitive failure. Or at least, it demonstrates the totally wishful hope that you, the reader, will remain wishfully complacent long enough for the decision-makers themselves to cash out.

The (rather short) article concludes:

Quite when Anonymous started modeling itself after fictional terrorist organizations is unclear, but the message is just the opposite: NATO is on warning. How they'll respond to this—if they'll respond—remains to be seen, but I doubt that I'm the only person hoping that any response will be far more measured than bringing up conventional military strikes again.

Measured? How about "rational" and "relevant?"

Ok, please folks, don't presume that this is written from any particular political viewpoint or bias. I'm going to leave that to you. Politics and ideology must work from a grounding in reality. You have to deal with "how things are" in order to get to where you can usefully dispute how you wish things to proceed.

Now, I cannot possibly overstate this. Anon is right. The fact that Anon, Wikileaks and LulzSec exist at all, much less scored as many obviously easy "victories" is an illustration of a new reality; the flipside to the erosion of individual rights and the spread of the national-security survaillance state.

Who shall guard the guardians?

Let me point out the painfully obvious.  Where, folks, do you think these leaks come from? Where, people, do you think the expertise was developed? How, dear people, do you think they knew your security was woefully inadequate? Perhaps, most importantly, why do you think they take such serious risks? Just for "Lulz?"

Anonomous hides - obviously - within it's targets. In all probablity, it knows how to evade security because it helped develop the protocols.

But worse, dear people, you have a lot of very, very intelligent people who are annoyed that they are forced to labor in the buggy-whip factories when it's time to make automobiles. 

Yes, this is about DRM, and Intellectual Property, and trans-nationalism. It's about the recognition that while there will be a New World Order, it will actually be entirely new, not all that orderly, and will not be a planetary nation-state, much less the theocratic feudalism that the Bachmans and Bin-Ladins of the world fantasize about. I can't even truly imagine what it will be, much less expect that it will suit my own fancies of how things ought to be - but I do know something must change.

Most people would probably put up with a religious theocracy if it were an otherwise fair, rational, sane and stable place, where people were mostly left alone if they didn't' rock the boat. But in return they would expect a degree of personal security for themselves and their children that people like Michelle Bachmann dismiss as outright parasitism, a communistic expectation of "entitlements" on the order of, you know, not starving alone in the dark.

You can't really dismiss the majority of the population as being "disposable assets" and "useless mouths" without some significant number of them deciding that that rationale may as well apply to you - and thinking that exiting this mortal coil with a loud bang as close to you as possible is as painless a death as they can ever hope to expect, should they loyally depend on you for continued leadership.

You see, this is not really about politics. It's about reality. It's about the fact that the people in charge of the world seem to be unable to grasp it, or are politically unable to come to grips with it.

ALL governments and societies exist because we consent to be governed, to participate and contribute. If we are forbidden our part, if our rights are denied for arbitrary reasons, if our security and dignity as persons are dismissed as unimportant, that consent will be increasingly conditional, even as the respect for the forces of law and order are eroded by the increasingly violent and intrusive flailings of our leaders.

There are a number of very real threats facing us; Climate Change, peak oil, a looming global shortage of water are three, just off the top of my head. Anyone who cares to know about these issues can study them and they can further compare what is known with the policies put in place to deal with these issues by those who are entrusted with the duty to plan ahead and prepare for matters of common concern. To say the match between data and policy created in reaction to data is "a loose fit" would be something of an understatement.

We really do not have the luxury of time - for that time has been squandered by those loudly shouting that reality is all some conspiracy intended to make them change their way of life.

Well, the change is necessary. And it is inevitable. Those who do change have a future, those who don't will join the Anasazi and the Aztecs and their works will one day be mentioned in the same breath with the fabled gardens of Babylon. Why?

Because "reality is what happens whether you believe in it or not." That phrase, coming P.K. Dick - someone known for dabbling in altered perceptions and belief structures - bears a good deal of freight. Standing in the way of that train of thought leads to pretty much the same thing as standing in the way of an actual train.

If you call a general agreement among people qualified to have an opinion that climate change a conspiracy, you are dangerously stupid, on the order of  "stupid enough to play Russian roulette with a semiautomatic pistol."   If you are out there calling on people to pray for rain - as the Governor of Texas did recently - rather than doing anything at all useful in terms of leadership, legislation or allocation of disaster relief funds - you deserve to be on the short list for inclusion in that great volume,  "Footnotes in History."

If you think the answer to peak oil is to drill for more oil - you really don't grasp the concept. And you can't be permitted to fuck up things you don't understand. Because we are all on this one planet. There is no escape for most of us. So those of us in a position to see the inevitable really have little choice in the matter.

Let me underline this, folks. The leaks come from within. They come from people who have access to the data, understand the data, tried to communicate the importance of the data to the organizations they were loyal to - only to be shushed or crushed.

That has been happening, not just for a few weeks or a few years, but for literally decades. 

But you see, it used to be possible to actually shut people up. It used to be possible to contain and manage the rate of leakage. It used to be possible to control communications.

But do you really think that the emergent powers are all that interested in supporting an obviously dysfunctional social order? The people you absolutely must trust to empower and enforce your vision of how you would wish the future to unfold are professionally and personally incapable of believing the bullshit.

They work at DARPA, and CERN; they are data analysts for the RCMP. They are the cryptographers at NSA, they are the hackers the Chinese and Indian governments are sure they have subverted, and they are the media figures the CIA thinks fondly are under their control. And they all talk to each other.

It used to be "we know where you live" was enough. But no longer - for the risk of actual detection is lower than it ever was, while the sheer volume of data that can be trafficked makes it worth the risk. Bradly Manning was ...um... not exactly a sterling example of competent trade-craft. And yet, even he managed to get the data out. Keeping him in a supermax isn't going to shut that barn door.

The IT managers you need to keep your websites up, the  social media consultants you rely on for your image management, the data security specialists and the political advisers, The ones who have to know your agendas and secrets so they can keep them hidden - They have to want to do that.  

It's hard to want to do that when you say things in public that show that you are either crazy, or pretending to be in order to be elected. 

They are the ones who deal with the numbers you need to make your decisions, and they know what the spreadsheets say, what the raw data means and they are increasingly able to speak to one another and make sure that proprietary, secure data that proves that you are full of shit gets into the right hands, without them losing their ability to continue leaking crucial data.

I fully expect the response to Anonymous to be something utterly idiotic, along the lines of Stalin shooting any general competant enough to lead a successful coup against him, while Hitler was on his doorstep.

We have already seen signs of this sort of nonsense in France, (the "civil internet" idea, where nobody is permitted to speak the obvious about the offensive idiocy of their leaders.) We've seen how utterly ineffective attempts to restrict the flow of information are, even in totally authoritarian regimes.

Consider just how much data can be compressed onto ONE tiny SD card. Consider the fact that truly robust encryption techniques are widely available. Consider that the people you most worry about know these things by heart. 

Again, I am not speaking politics here. I'm not speaking to the moraltity or ethics of Anon. I'm sure the membership has as many opportunists and idiots as any other group. But this is one of those points in history when you either get it or you don't. There came a time when it became obvious that Constantinople would fall - and that was clear long before it actually did. The smart people left. And they started leaving a generation before the fall.

There will be no NeoConservative New World Order, because it's got as much relevance to the future of humanity as Hadrian's Wall.  The current way of doing things doesn't work; it merely gets in the way of those able and willing to do something that's useful. Increasingly, manipulation and subversion are needful tactics for individuals to master worldwide, so why on earth should they respect any government or transnational interest group that must be bribed or simply avoided?

The real problem with NATO's response is the failure to understand the great truth of humanity. As a species, interested on a very visceral level in our personal and species survival, we demand of our "top ten percent" just one simple, basic decision:

"Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way."

A Decade Late and a Nutcracking Short

It seems that, at long last, Democrats are growing spines:

Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) on Wednesday delivered a fervent and stinging rebuke to former Vice President Dick Cheney's recent attack on President Obama after the failed Christmas bombing.

"I am sick and tired of the former vice president of the United States taking shots not only at this administration, for problems he was largely and personally responsible for, but by an extension at those of us who served in the military and bring that experience," Massa said on MSNBC's The Ed Show.

"This man suffers from a horrible case of political Tourette's [syndrome], and it's about time that we stand up and kick right back because I'm sick and tired of him kicking us in our shins," Massa said.

Cheney's forceful critique of Obama quickly garnered significant media attention, and several journalists accused the story's author Mike Allen of failing to fact-check Cheney's seemingly curious claims.

"We need to grow a spine and stand up and show America exactly who did what," Massa said, pointing to Cheney's role in the events leading to the Christmas day attempt and the fact that the Bush administration took several days longer than Obama to address the 2001 shoe-bomber incident.

"It was Dick Cheney personally responsible for the release of the masterminds of the Christmas airline terror plot," he said, accusing the former vice president of shifting his culpability to Democrats.

"It makes no difference what we do, this man suffers from political diarrhea of the mouth, and unless we stand up and call it as it is he's going to keep on getting away with it," Massa said.

Reasonable people gave up on the Republican Agenda producing anything even slightly resembling anything it predicted somewhere in 2004. I was certain before the election, which after the whole Texas redistricting fiasco, was clearly going to be a sham at best.

I'd come to the particularly depressing conclusion that the Republicans (The ones with access to power, at least) were, by and large, resigned to being lousy little cheating bastards because in their hearts they knew they could not win on the merits of their philosophy or on the coat-tails of a successful Presidency.

Hell, the time from 2000 to 2004 pretty much proved to anyone with a functional reading level and the ability to run a basic spreadsheet that "Conservatism" as presented to Republican voters and Republicanism as it had been performed upon us all were completely different things, not merely a difference between apples and oranges, but between Bananas and Batshit.

But until now, Democratic elective officials seemed too timid to mention the obvious out loud, and tried to treat their disloyal opposition as if they were sane, competent and honest representatives, capable of contributing a valid and honest balance to the sorts of passionate debates that should - indeed must - shape politics.

Well, I think we know how well that's worked out. And if youda ast me, I coulda tolja. Frankly, I'm moderately and pleasantly surprised that the really freakin' crazy wing of the rethuglicans have not managed to stage an outright coup. And it seems to me that it's increasingly obvious that the sort of people who would be very much in favor of crushing opposition are already well-represented within the various "public safety" organizations.

I returned to Canada just before Obama's election because I did not care to risk what I thought to be a very ugly possibility. This was my thinking in August, 2007:  Quagmire was the plan all along.

So let us look back at the net effects of this administration. The first thing it did, of course, was to squander a budget surplus and start to build the most massive debt in US history, debt that is held in part in the Middle East and in part in China, due to our massive trade imbalances. Laws were passed that gave tax breaks to large corporations moving offshore - taking HUGE tax revenues with them, while monetary and credit policies were pursued that encouraged the middle class to take on unsustainable levels of personal debt. Then, the mousetrap was sprung - completely unconscionable revisions in the Bankruptcy act.

Meanwhile, the War On Terror was declared, and many steps were taken - almost none of them having any effect on actual terrorism, save to increase the potential for it, while obvious precautions, such as securing ports, rail transport and airline baggage screening were dismissed in favor of purely cosmetic harassment that had the effect of ensuring that the American people became used to being arbitrarily questioned and inconvenienced by barely competent officials of the state, often in conspicuous violation of both the Constitution and personal dignity.

The Patriot act - along with widespread, clandestine and illegal activities, such as arbitrary arrest, suspension of habius corpus and of course the quite deliberate specter of torture as one possible fate for Administration critics became part of the national consciousness, with most of us still believing that, fearful and potentially disastrous as these policies were, the idea was to combat terrorism.

But in hindsight, it's clear that our national policies have taken what was a potential threat - one worth attention and concern, but by no means something to panic about - and turned it into a world-wide emergency situation. The only conclusion I can come to reasonably is that US policy has the direct and probably intentional effect of creating conditions where terrorism will flourish, both abroad and domestically.

How will domestic terror arise as a widespread thing? Well, the first acts will likely be "black operations." But Bush's domestic policies and what appears to be a calculated campaign of focused contempt for the sensibilities and needs of the vast majority of the citizenry can be reliably expected to result in an incident here and there, at least if the pump is primed by an example or two that is suitably publicized.

And what that permits is the imposition of martial law, the suspension of elections and the Constitution itself - "for the duration of the emergency."

It is very difficult to impose a dictatorship on a wealthy, secure nation - which is what we were when President Clinton handed off the Presidency to the Shrub. Now we are a debtor nation, both personally and nationally, with such levels of debts that many of us are effectively slaves to giant corporations that are no longer headquartered in the US, making them far less accountable to US law.

What we are seeing is the engineered collapse of the US economy - and far more critically, it's position of moral and social influence over the world's population.

But I am distinctly concerned that this agenda is one that is broadly advantageous to people of power and influence within and without the Government to a degree that it pushes politics aside. To be blunt - I think it's a pretty obvious agenda by now, that the Democrats are not idiots and that they are, in essence, furthering it by offering token and ineffective resistance.

President Obama may be able to forestall this - or he just might be better at swiping and fulfilling the Republican agenda than Clinton was. I found that, as much as I did hope and pray that Obama is as good a man as he seems, I also know what getting to where he is at this time in history implies about the substance within the seeming. So, while a change back to decent and competent government is required and I have hope that will happen... the bulk of US history and my studies of human nature suggested to me that betting my personal pink butt on that outcome would be unwise, when I had a perfectly good Canadian citizenship going to waste.

For the last year, I've been resisting the impulse to disclose how little moved I would be if the US dissolved into the spasms of civil war that some seem so determined to bring about. But aside from the naked odds against such a damn-fool enterprise, there's another dimension to the equasion y'all are forgetting. I doubt very much that the world will be willing to allow y'all to sort it out between yourselves.

However, they would be rather happy to intervene. Altruistically, of course. To minimize human suffering.

Hell, we here in Canada would be happy to secure Alaska for you. Come to think of it, we'd pretty much have to. All that coastline, all that oil, bunch of crazy people who need a federal reality-check?  Not something you leave lying around unattended. Tends to attract flies. White man's burden, y'know.

And good luck on getting it back, once the Alaskan people meet the RCMP and our Medical Services Plan.

But if you really must - well, go for it. Let the United States of America perish and be replaced by whatever smaller republics and client states may remain, with the help of entirely too willing foreign powers.

We all remember how well that whole Balkans thing worked out, don't we? We DO so hope to have an opportunity to do a better job. Practice, you know... Just a little more practice.

Pardon me, I need to go flight-prep my black helicopter.



Money quote from LGF article cited above:

If I still had any allegiance to the GOP, I’d probably be upset. But at this point, the only emotion I have left is amusement. This is where the conservative movement has been heading ever since Barack Obama was elected, and now they’re finally arriving at the black helicopter landing pad.

Quotes just don't come any more apt than this one. But a high five to the utter fucking surreality of Rachel Maddow being mentioned approvingly on Little Green Footballs. I'm sure this stuns the hell out of everyone involved.

Taken together with the John Birch Society becoming part of the "establishment" GOP - surely the End Times Must Be Upon Us.

Of course, as I always say, "Ah, but what precisely is about to End? All that God-bothering and you still seem to think it's a Bad Thing."

Glenn Greenwald brings the Cranky.

Glenn Greenwald is suffering the effects of a very severe moral wedgie. Like many, and I include myself, he suffers from deep, impotent outrage toward the moral failure of the Obama Administration; it's abandonment of it's clear, legal duty to prosecute war crimes committed under the aegis of the Bushistas.

He waxes sarcastic and wroth, no doubt in part due to the fact that he is being studiously ignored by those who have the manifest duty to act.

"Criminals"?  "Prosecutions"?  "Obliged to open a case"?  "Violations of human rights"?  Just because they maintained a few secret prisons in violation of domestic and international law?  What kind of crazy, purist, Far Leftist utopians are running that place?  They need a heavy dose of pragmatism so they can understand all the reasons why so-called "crimes" like this can be overlooked -- just blissfully forgotten like a bad dream.  Even worse, with intemperate and shrill language of the type they're throwing around, it's seems clear that the Lithuanian press is sorely in need of some David Broders, Fred Hiatts, and David Ignatiuses to explain to them that subjecting law-breaking political officials to "investigations" and "prosecutions" is quite disruptive and unpleasant when those crimes involve matters other than consensual sex between adults.
Even more alarming, this "rule of law" and "human rights" fetish seems to be spreading: "In neighboring Poland, prosecutors in the capital of Warsaw have opened a criminal probe into reports that the CIA operated a prison for al-Qaeda suspects near a former military air base."  Last month, an Italian court convicted 22 CIA agents of the so-called "crime" of kidnapping someone off their street and sending him to Egypt to be tortured.  And the British High Court this week released its written Opinion -- over the objections of British and American officials -- ordering the release of details of Binyam Mohamed's torture at the hands of U.S. agents.

Thankfully, the U.S. remains a bastion of pragmatic sanity in this rising sea of accountability extremism.

Glenn, here's the thing. Things are worse than you suspect. You see, Lithuania is not acting idealistically, or in accordance with law through some triumph of principle over pragmatism. The rule of law is the most stunningly pragmatic concept ever developed by mankind. It precludes all sorts of problems. It's civilization's way of saying "RTFM" to the offensively and dangerously stupid. Those who will not read and abide by the manual are invited to explore the diversions provided by The Impartial Bug-Zapper of the Law.

The rule of law is preferable to the law of man because it insulates leaders from the need to make impossible political calculations between right action and personal survival. But certain sorts of men (it's almost always men) much prefer to be in personal charge and to be able to act with impunity.

People like George Bush, Don Rumsfeld and espectially Dark Lord Cheney are exemplars of this sort of man. They are sociopaths and worse, entirely indifferent to the consequences others suffer for their ambitions. And when they are permitted to flourish, they corrupt everything they touch, to the point that even the most honest and pure will be required to use corrupt and incompetent men to serve at his will.

Now Obama comes from Chicago. He may be a good man, but I doubt that "pure" or "idealistic" are words we should apply to him.

But he has a severe problem. If he prosecutes the Bushistas - as international law and Constitution alike agree is is his duty, to kick the matters raised into a Court in order to determine the outcome as matters of fact and law - there is a significant possibility that he will be faced with some sort of military/institutional revolt.

That is to say, Glenn - you are justly outraged. So am I. But since I wish to live in a society in which the Rule of Law has not been suborned, I returned to Canada. As a dual citizen, I had the right to choose - and strongly felt a substantial duty to make such a choice.

If you wish to live in such a society as a natural-born citizen, realize that it currently does not exist and has NOT existed for a substantial period of time. Not in MY lifetime, Sir.  Consider that advancements in civil rights during the last fifty years  have often come at the cost of cracked skulls inflicted by the supposed agents of the theoretical rule of law. Law that only protects some, in accordance to their utility to the State, is not law at all.


Glenn, here's the thing. It's a very depressing insight, but as near as I can tell, you can either choose to move to a country where the rule of law exists, or you can choose to fight for it's re-imposition upon at least some of territories of the former United States.  

I observe the current situation is increasingly intolerable, both for large numbers of US citizens and the world in general. Either the US behaves as befits a member of the community of civilized nations, or it will be chastised in increasingly firm and embarrassing ways until it reforms itself or collapses under the weight of it's cognitive dissonances.

President Obama may well be cast in the role of overseeing the dissolution of the United States as we have known it. But whether he is to be seen in hindsight as the caretaker of the process of dissolution in as peaceful a way as possible - the Gorbechev role - or as the exemplar of a renewed vision and a newly vital nation is still largely up to him and, of course, the strings he can haul upon and the people he can call on. People... well, people such as YOU, Glen. Do not ask what your country can do for you, Glenn. What the fuck are you gonna do for your country?

For myself, I could not continue to live within the boundaries of a nation that would not apply it's own laws to itself, one that will abandon it's fundamental principles when slightly startled. And in fact, is all  9/11 was, on the scale of events that happen within the US every single year. I came to the conclusion that the US didn't lose it's brains that day - it simply and collectively dropped the pretense of being a civilized nation of laws even unto itself.

So Al-Queda won without need to even try firing one more shot. After all, what need? Your own C-Street Taliban was more than happy to continue the fight on their behalf, seeking every single social outcome BinLadin would.

But Glenn, you are starting to become shrill - and it's a sure sign that you risk your health continuing in this vein. Granted, the path that those in power OUGHT to follow, under the terms of concience and law, is clear.

It's equally clear that there are those in power that will oppose that to the last ditch. That will commit acts of violence to prevent it happening. That will sabotage it in every way possible. And yet, you think law will prevail? 

Someone has to enforce the law. That implies the willingness to step up and do it. If those charged with that task refuse, they must not merely be nobly and peacefully protested. They must be replaced by those who will - and they must be made to understand that it is not a negotiable choice. By peaceful means, by political pressure, by force of public outrage if possible - but the continuing abuses of power must end and those who have abused it held to account, that this is not a matter of political will or calculation.

Unless it becomes quite clear that the danger to the administration from the left is just as grave as the danger from the right, and by "danger" I mean a very literal potential danger, there will be no progress. It's not about Left and right, it is about Lawful and Unlawful, a choice between the Rule of Law and the rule of unworthy, corrupt, unaccountable sociopaths. Such people will not simply admit defeat. The only "dirty bomb plot" EVER proven to be greatly advanced past the wishful thinking stage was by a Nazi-identified Maine Millionaire.

And it was apparently aimed at the Obama Inaguaral.

It's not cynical to say that might makes right - for no right has ever been established in the face of superior might. So progressives should start thinking as to whether their convictions carry with them the courage to fight, at need. For that need may well come, and weak Reids will not serve you well.

Look at the numbers. Given courage and determination, Glenn - which side has more Divisions? Assembled into serried and courageous ranks, with rotund tummies sucked in, by the numbers sir, by the logistics, sir, by the accounts of who has the ports, the people and the expertise, who wins, if they have the will?

Obama still seems to think this is a question that has a political resolution - but he is opposed by those who will not abide by the results of an honest political process - should it actually occur despite their best efforts.

Therefore, the left (and by "Left", I mean "not batshit crazy") needs to comprehend that this is not a debate.  It is a choice between competing powers and competing visions - and one side is stupid, crazy, dangerous, and a lot smaller. They are quite aware that if they are to gain power over you, it must be through confusion and terror, by threats and by the use of examples of extreme violence.

That is to say, Dick Cheney and his ilk, these people are terrorists, traitors and worse. They must be dealt with as such. Indeed, they will leave you no choice but to deal with them, now, tomorrow, next year. And that is not at all a matter of debate. The only question is, will they prevail over you before being dealt with by the rest of the world?  

Debates occur between peers. Persons deserving of equal respect. People of sound moral and mental character. People willing to admit fact, reason and a decent consideration of the feelings and ambitions of all parties in the public square. This is not the case, nor has it been the case for at least a decade. Nor has the situation been particularly changed by an apparent change in power. Power, sir, must be used and used well in order to have meaning.

Take compromise off the table. One does not compromise with those who's most fundamental belief is that you deserve death, or worse.

Stop pretending that they don't really mean that, or that they have a higher nature to appeal to. Their choice is as stark as that they would impose. They may submit to a reconstituted, civilized national culture, and live, or they may choose to dash themselves against the reality they reject. The process may be unpleasant - exactly how unpleasant depends in part on how long those who know what must happen resist an unpleasant chore. But the outcome is not even slightly in doubt.

The rest of the world would be perfectly happy to see the United States disintigrate into a collection of smaller, competing states. It would simplify matters enormously, since the US is certainly no longer seen as a stablizing power, much less a force for good or even an economic engine. Nobody is interested particularly in helping the US save face - and certainly not at the expense of their vital trade relations or their own ideals.

Glenn, what are you going to do about it? I think we both know how much reasonable speech has achieved. It's now time to apply pressure. Start thinking of yourself as the leader of a First Amendment Militia - for if the first is not applied hard, true and well, the exercise of the Second may well be required.

First Amendment Militia by webcarve
Canada Above the Fray Rondel by EhCanada

Monday T-Shirt Rescue and Linkfest.

I've been doing internet chores all day, one of which was to get started on fixing my Zazzle stores. They've been improved, you see. And you know what that means... a lot of work. So I figured I'd try to get started on turning a pile of designs into some sort of coherent organized form.

And of course, I found some old designs I rather liked. Most of these have been used in blog posts over the last several years, but some haven't, and some are topical again.

I'm interspersing with stories I thought worth a thought, with an eye toward there be some vague relationship...

Spafford 2.0 Template by webcarve
Many t-shirt designs available at zazzle

On Being Hated In a Nation of Assholes

by: David Sirota

I'll put it bluntly: We are becoming a nation of haters - a nation, really, of assholes, or at least dominated by assholes. And sure, maybe we've always been that way - but what's different is that it's become almost impossible to pretend otherwise. There's no more delusions, no more fantasies. Despising one another and ignoring the substance of issues has become the defining mark of Americanness in the 21st century - and that's a tragedy.

Human Genome XX T-Shirt by webcarve
View other Geek T-Shirts

Great Minds Think by webcarve
Browse Graphictruth T-Shirts

HL Mencken on Religion by webcarve
Create custom t-shirts with zazzle

Get off my lawn! T-Shirt by webcarve
View other My friends T-Shirts

And that kind of sums up my view of the general mood out there in the blogosphere today, what with tea party louts and screaming health care opponents. It's all rather depressing, and the biggest reason I take time to make shirts is to take the edge off.

Astroturfing Zazzle - Graphic evidence of Faux Populism

The Sum Of Their Fears by graphictruth

As you may gather from reading this, my post took a sharp turn midway through, when I went looking for graphics to illustrate what I was going to say. I'll let it stand as it is, because I think the deadly serious effort being made to make this all seem Like A Very Serious Grassroot Movement and not a last ditch hail-mary attempt to keep the US from returning to relatively civilized, Centrist politics is worth noting in both contexts.

It's difficult to address this issue at all without quoting Jon Stewart. Or better yet, embedding a clip. There's simply no way to satirize these people. They go right over the top all by themselves.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Nationwide Tax Protests
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

(In Canada, go here)

The fun starts at about 2:50 if you are pressed for moments.

It's terribly easy to simply dismiss the Teabaggers as an inherently ridiculous movement with a transparently naked appeal to nativist prejudices and suspicions of brown people and "freethinkers."

I am particularly struck by the frequent quotation of "No Taxation Without Representation." Was there not an election? Are there not democratically elected representatives from every state in Washington - with the temporary exception of Minnesota? Or does it only count when there is a "democratically elected" Republican?

To suggest that a person is not represented in Washington simply because their fellow citizens preferred a slightly less reactionary representative betrays a sad ignorance of civics and the philosophy of government. No politician, of any stripe, can afford to neglect their constituents - whatever their preferred party. There are limits, however. Few politicians are foolish enough to pander to outright sedition, unless they see no other path to power. Sadly, there are always a few with an ambition to become the biggest frog in a smaller pond. Politics is the art of the possible, within the bounds of the Constitutionally permissible.

Now, Texas may well claim they have a conditional escape clause, and they may well be legally correct - but the Secessionist movement is not limited to Texas, and many advocates are not shy about speech that amounts to sedition.

That's gonna leave a stain Square button. by webcarve

Now, others are pointing out the very obvious financial and special interest backing of the Teaparty Movement, for instance by underlining how much coverage Fox News is giving it at the expense of, oh, immigration, same sex marriage and white slavery. One might think there is some agenda behind this movement.

Well, I'm not an accountant; I'm a visual thinker and an artist. As I was looking at "Tea Party" designs on Zazzle, it struck me how very many stunningly professional images were showing up, in such a co-ordinated way, and how very similar they were.


create & buy custom products at Zazzle

As if, perhaps, there was money being spent on creating these images for people to upload. It's not out of the realm of possibility for one or two stores to show up with remarkable designs - but so many at once smacks of not terribly subtle co-ordination, and the thematic and graphic similarity seems to suggest that perhaps one or two graphic design houses are involved.

This is happening over at Cafepress and likely all the others; professional political activists using these services to create the impression that the "teabaggers" are a genuine, widespread populist movement, when in fact it's clearly a very well funded propaganda effort.

Now, this is a bit above my pay-grade; I could use some A-List blogger help on the matter. Meanwhile, another lonely Zazzler sums it up for me with this shirt:

"Tea Party? I bet you were one of those idiots ordering 'Freedom Fries,' too!"

Ripped from a conversation I overheard on the bus to work.

Tea & Potatoes T-Shirt by Eavesdropper

When Government Becomes Alarmed By The People

No "Rush" Whining! by webcarve
Create a custom sticker Using www.zazzle.com

Glenn Greenwald: The Ultimate Reaping of What One Sows: Right-Wing Edition:

It's certainly true that federal police efforts directed at domestic political movements -- even ones with a history of inspiring violence in both the distant and recent past -- require real vigilance and oversight, and it's also true that the DHS description of these groups seems excessively broad with the potential for mischief. But the political faction screeching about the dangers of the DHS is the same one that spent the last eight years vastly expanding the domestic Surveillance State and federal police powers in every area. DHS -- and the still-creepy phrase "homeland security" -- became George Bush's calling card. The Republicans won the 2002 election by demonizing those who opposed its creation. All of the enabling legislation underlying this Surveillance State -- from the Patriot Act to the Military Commissions Act, from the various FISA "reforms" to massive increases in domestic "counter-Terrorism" programs -- are the spawns of the very right-wing movement that today is petrified that this is all being directed at them.

When you cheer on a Surveillance State, you have no grounds to complain when it turns its eyes on you. If you create a massive and wildly empowered domestic surveillance apparatus, it's going to monitor and investigate domestic political activity. That's its nature.

See, here's where all that talk about "ethics in government" that neocons ignored and dismissed as being the speech of cowardly weaklings comes back to haunt them - exactly as I and many other people said, many times. I'd create links, but jeez, the very idea makes me tired. Search this blog and Google. Or you can just take my word for it. LOTS of people said that permitting these things to stand was a really dumb idea.

Well, could be worse. Hillary coulda won. Oh, wait, she figures rather prominently in the Cabinet, doesn't she?

Power corrupts. Etc. This is why it's a very good idea to sharply limit the power of government to interfere with individual people.

But having said that, there's another thing to be observed here. Greenwald observes in passing, without commenting - but I'm nowhere near so polite. I will observe - and then I will be blunt.

Greenwald cites a New York Times article from 2005 describing the sort of people that were being watched by the FBI, using the questionable powers granted by the Patriot Act.

F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.'s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.

But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The documents, provided to The New York Times over the past week, came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more than a year, the A.C.L.U. has been seeking access to information in F.B.I. files on about 150 protest and social groups that it says may have been improperly monitored.

The F.B.I. had previously turned over a small number of documents on antiwar groups, showing the agency's interest in investigating possible anarchist or violent links in connection with antiwar protests and demonstrations in advance of the 2004 political conventions. And earlier this month, the A.C.L.U.'s Colorado chapter released similar documents involving, among other things, people protesting logging practices at a lumber industry gathering in 2002.

The latest batch of documents, parts of which the A.C.L.U. plans to release publicly on Tuesday, totals more than 2,300 pages and centers on references in internal files to a handful of groups, including PETA, the environmental group Greenpeace and the Catholic Workers group, which promotes antipoverty efforts and social causes.

"It's clear that this administration has engaged every possible agency, from the Pentagon to N.S.A. to the F.B.I., to engage in spying on Americans," said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

"You look at these documents," Ms. Beeson said, "and you think, wow, we have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you see in F.B.I. files that they're talking about a group like the Catholic Workers league as having a communist ideology."

Hm. Just off the top of my head, these people don't sound all that dangerous - except, of course, to major Republican corporate sponsors. On the other claw, DHS is (finally) concerned (pdf) about the obvious fruits of radicalizing "the base" for eight years.

Historically, domestic rightwing extremists have feared, predicted, and
anticipated a cataclysmic economic collapse in the United States. Prominent
antigovernment conspiracy theorists have incorporated aspects of an impending
economic collapse to intensify fear and paranoia among like-minded individuals and to
attract recruits during times of economic uncertainty. Conspiracy theories involving
declarations of martial law, impending civil strife or racial conflict, suspension of the
U.S. Constitution, and the creation of citizen detention camps often incorporate aspects of
a failed economy. Antigovernment conspiracy theories and “end times” prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons.These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement.

That, and the growing "successionist movement," a matter of arguable concern for any government, regardless of your opinion on the matter. Considering that there has already been one civil war fought on similar ideological grounds and that it's being promoted again by similar idiots.

I happen to approve of a stricter interpretation of the US Tenth Amendment, in theory. In practice, though, I see it as being an issue being brought to the fore by power-mongering pipsqueaks who cannot abide calling a black man "Mr. President," or sending "tribute" to a government that values non-white, non-churchgoing, non-conservative citizens as much, or perhaps a teense more than them.

Photo: The Washington Independent

Scenes From the Real America

How about another excerpt from Rightwing Extremism:Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (PDF)

(U//FOUO) Lone Wolves and Small Terrorist Cells
(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States. Informationfrom law enforcement and nongovernmental organizations indicates lone wolves and small terrorist cells have shown intent—and, in some cases, the capability—to commit violent acts.
— (U//LES) DHS/I&A has concluded that white supremacist lone wolves pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy—separate from any formalized group—which hampers warning efforts.
— (U//FOUO) Similarly, recent state and municipal law enforcement reporting has warned of the dangers of rightwing extremists embracing the tactics of “leaderless resistance” and of lone wolves carrying out acts of violence.
— (U//FOUO) Arrests in the past several years of radical militia members in Alabama, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania on firearms, explosives, and other related violations indicates the emergence of small, well-armed extremist groups in some rural areas.

Boy. And they get paid to write such blinding glimpses of the obvious? With such wide-ranging powers and insights, this mild and obvious set of observations is the product of the best and brightest paranoids available?

All this "intel" could have been cribbed from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Let us also observe that it's perfectly reasonable for sane people to be concerned about the sorts of people that the SPLC has been tracking for decades. Sane people can actually be concerned about flaming nutbars while still supporting the rights of gun owners, the Bill of Rights and the principles of individual liberty and personal responsibility. It's not at all evidence of "persecution" to be concerned about people like Tim McVeigh or the Christian Identity people who get all exercised about Race Wars and Religious Cleanings.

Quite aside from the motivations of ideology, people who take the Second Amendment to empower them to mix large batches of ANFO or stockpile large quantities of ammunition without regard to proper storage and handling doctrines. are a matter of legitimate concern for any person within several miles.

Oh, and let us remember, that "sovereignty" does not mean that each and every state would then be free to oppress and persecute whatever sort of people it disapproves of, or legislate whatever consensus morality it's elected officials happen to hold. The 9th and 10th Amendments of the Constitution of the United States is not about the sovereignty of mobs - it's about the inalienable rights of of free individuals. Even the queer black geeky over-edumacated atheist ones.

Never bring crap to a fact fight.

Un-American : Columbia Journalism Review: "In the weeks following the election, the debate over the issue of media bias, and of whether the press was overly kind to Barack Obama, has continued to swirl. Much less attention has been paid to another, more troubling aspect of the coverage, and that’s the relentless and malevolent campaign that the right-wing media waged against the Democratic candidate. Few people who did not regularly tune in to the vast, churning combine of bellowing radio hosts, yapping bloggers, obnoxious Web sites, malicious columnists, and the slashingly partisan Fox News have any idea of just how vile and venomous were the attacks leveled at Obama. Day after day, week after week, these outlets worked determinedly to discredit and degrade Obama, accusing him of being a Muslim, a Marxist, a radical, a revolutionary, a socialist, a communist, a thug, a mobster, a racist, an agent of voter fraud, a black-power advocate, a madrasah graduate, an anti-Semite, an enemy of Israel, an associate of terrorists—even the Antichrist. Supplemented by a flood of viral e-mails, slanderous robocalls, and Internet-based smear campaigns, these media outlets worked to stoke firestorms of manufactured rage against Obama and the Democrats in what was perhaps the most concerted campaign of vilification ever directed at an American politician."

I leave the refutations of stupidity to others, for the most part. I simply hit the next key or change the channel when hatred and stupidity engage in my presence. My freedom to stop listening is as fundamental as the right to free speech.

However, it is worth thinking on the stupefaction of media and vox populi for just a few moments; who benefits from this shitstorm of stupidity and pays the Pundocracy Of Poo.

They are all Terribly Serious and Rather Well Paid, unlike the other side of the blogosphere, who oft make do with ramen noodles and hot dog casseroles. Why is that?

Well, I think Glenn Greenwald (one of our proud exceptions) may have an answer. It goes to Quo Bono. The hatemongers manage to take up huge amounts of bandwidth and energy away from dealing with real issues of critical importance that sane people really SHOULD be pissed off about. Incandescently so. To stave off that fate, Rush is worth every dollar he gets - from a certain point of view.

Aside from the distraction, it makes reasonable sounding people seem - reasonable. Glenn reminds us that this is far from being a safe assumption.

These endless lectures from sober, rational pundits about the relative quantitative insignificance of the AIG bonuses are condescending straw men. Nobody thinks that $165 million in bonuses for the people who destroyed AIG is what has caused the financial crisis. Nobody thinks that recouping those bonuses or having prevented them in the first place would solve or even mitigate systemic collapse. The amounts are miniscule in the context of the broader economic issues. Everyone is aware of that; nobody needs to have that pointed out. As Armando astutely observed, the attempt now to dismiss the anger over the AIG bonuses as the by-product of simple-minded ignorance and/or ideological rigidity (class warfare! crass populism!) is quite similar to how anti-war arguments were stigmatized before the attack on Iraq : ignore the screeching pacifists and let the sober Experts make the decisions, for they know best.

The AIG scandal is significant and has resonated so powerfully because it is a microscope that enables the public to see what and who has wreaked the destruction that threatens their security and future and, most important of all, to realize that these practices haven't ended and the perpetrators haven't been punished. The opposite is true: those who caused the crisis continue to exert control over what happens and continue to have huge amounts of public money transferred in order to enrich them.

Eliot Spitzer is absolutely right that, even at AIG, there are far larger scandals than the bonuses, such as the undiscounted compensation of AIG's counter-parties such as Goldman Sachs (and just by the way: it is indescribably symbolic that Spitzer has been punished and disgraced for his acts of consensual adult sex while the targets of his prescient Wall St. investigations, who basically destroyed the world economy, remain protected and empowered). But the bonus scandal is illustrative of why the crisis happened, who caused it to happen, and the ongoing political dominance of the perpetrators. It is, as Robert Reich put it, "a nightmarish metaphor for the Obama Administration's problems administering the bailout of Wall Street."

The financial crisis has merely unmasked the corruption and rot in our establishment institutions that are staggering in magnitude and reach. Just as the Iraq War was not the by-product of wrongdoing by a few stray bad political and media actors but instead was reflective of our broken institutions generally, the financial crisis is a fundamental indictment on the way the country functions and of its ruling class. What would be unhealthy is if there weren't substantial amounts of public rage in the face of these revelations.

It's politically impossible for the Obama administration to force any substantial revision of the way things are without the impetus of public outrage - whatever they may secretly wish to do or avoid doing. This is the sort of situation in which the reforms that are currently possible are clearly insufficient. It is not a time for "politics as usual," for in fact, the system has been so suborned and the dialogue so cheapened that nothing less that visceral fear will improve matters.

So, it's time to fan those flames in the right direction. And remember, folks; the average US citizen will muddle through. The people who have most to fear are those who built their success on lies, fear, manipulation, greed and violence.

It's time to get down to it, Chicago Style. If they fling crap, intended to discredit someone or some good idea, fling back ten sharp facts that proves the poo-flinger is a lying scumbag in the pay of even worse people.

If they try to start a sex scandal regarding a liberal - investigate ten conservatives and publish the results. And I'm not meaning that "The DNCC should do this."

I say unto you, the DNCC is the LAST group likely to do this. Ok, maybe the second last.

No, YOU should do this. It's amazing what electronic research tools - your computer and telephone - can reveal. Particularly if you collaborate via social media.

There is no fatter target in all the world than a known and famous liar, for they lie about everything. And once the lies start to unravel, well, it becomes quite the public entertainment, the perfect yarn to braid a line sturdy enough to hang a target out to dry.

Don't bother with rush, though. Look at where the money comes from. Don't go after Fox's spokesmuffins - go after the executives. Don't go after the people the people paid to lie, go after those who pay for lies.

Same principle for politicians. For instance - Jim Gibbons, Nevada Governor. I'm sure it would be fun to look into who sponsored this useful idiot. In Nevada, there are only two guesses - Mining and Gambling.

Oh, and by the by, it's not like it's an even playing field. In many ways, our financial overlords have a significant home court disadvantage. Here's a chunk from "The idiots who rule America."

Andrew Lahde, the Santa Monica, Calif., hedge fund manager who made an 870 percent gain last year by betting on the subprime mortgage collapse, has abruptly shut down his fund, citing the risk of trading with faltering banks. In his farewell letter to his investors he excoriated the elites who run our investment houses, banks and government.

“The low-hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking,” he said of our oligarchic class. “These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.”

“On the issue of the U.S. Government, I would like to make a modest proposal,” he went on. “First, I point out the obvious flaws, whereby legislation was repeatedly brought forth to Congress over the past eight years, which would have [reined] in the predatory lending practices of now mostly defunct institutions. These institutions regularly filled the coffers of both parties in return for voting down all of this legislation designed to protect the common citizen. This is an outrage, yet no one seems to know or care about it. Since Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith passed, I would argue that there has been a dearth of worthy philosophers in this country, at least ones focused on improving government.”

There are two important things to realize that are revealed in that last, insightful citation. First, the very wealthy are not smarter than the general run by any stretch of the imagination. Nor are they wiser. Worst of all, they are blinded by their circumstances, their exclusive circles, their exclusionary behaviors. If All The People That Matter believe the same things, surely those things must be true, no?

No. And if you wish an historical reference to where that sort of willful ignorance can lead, well, stuty a bit about the beginnings of the French Revolution, or the Bolshevik Revolution or, indeed, consider the genesis of the United States itself.

In each case, various oligarchs used the machenery of government to squeeze citizens until there was nothing left to gain - and nothing much at all for those being squeezed to lose. This is the sort of situation we are facing now in the US in particular. Further, if such a large economic domino is to fall - we all fall with it. So each of us need to look at our own leaders and decide what pressure may be brought to compel them to stick their heads out of the window, to gauge the mood of the mob.

John Ralston Saul, quoted in the truthdig article cited above, says something about what I believe to be the core issue that we are not actually seeing, nor discussing.

“I’ve talked to several Supreme Court justices, several times in several countries,” Saul told me, “and I say, look, in your rulings, can you differentiate easily in cases between the social contract and the commercial contract, and to which the answer is, we can no longer differentiate. And that lies at the heart of the problem. You don’t have the concept of the other, and of obligation of the individual leading to individualism. You can’t have that if the whole legal system has slipped over the last, really, 50 years, increasingly, to a confusion between the social contract and the commercial contract. Because they are two completely different things. The social contract is about the public good, responsible individualism, imagining the other. The commercial contract is a commercial contract. They’re not supposed to be confused. They don’t actually fit together. The commercial contract only works properly when the social contract works in a democracy.”

Saul has a bleak vision as to what will happen if this is not dealt with, if government is not separated from commerce - and, as I often emphasise myself, religion. Collapse or revolt, and with little hope of replacing it with something sensible and workable - unless we become the solution ourselves. Saul points out that the current crop of people in government simply do not have the perspective, background or capablity to see the problem.

So, here's the solution. You. Get involved. Take the civil service exam. Become a sentator's aide and adviser - whether they like it or not.

Show up. Chicago style.