Excellent insightful conversation between decorated naval pilot veteran Ken Harbaugh Ken Harbaugh - Wikipedia
and retired CIA agent “Alex Finley” Alex Finley: The CIA Officer Who Traded Secrets for Satire
discuassing how USA is targeted, both through media and key targeted vulnderable individuals (MICE = money, ideology, coercion, ego).
Fascinating and also relevant to how social media has become such a nightmare for economic and political theory from the pre digital age.
david fb
An interesting video. I guess the only comment I would make at this point that isn’t political is this…
What is happening today is a massive failure of human intelligence. Not the Hamas attack on Israel. Not the paralysis of the US House. Not the inability to make a correct strategic decision (supporting Ukraine against Russia and – as one author put it – accomplishing the entire NATO mission with one percent of our defense budget) then stick with it…
Any analysis that predominately focuses on how “others” are dividing “us” and making us vulnerable to chaos and facism is ignoring the fact that all of the ingredients required for this stew from hell are entirely home grown. And this isn’t just restricted to the United States. The same pattern is occuring in many modern industrial societies.
All of these circumstances share common traits:
In some sense, modern technology like social media, the Internet, YouTube and discussion boards have nothing to do with this dynamic. Rachel Maddow has a book coming out October 17 called Prequel that explains how the United States faced a domestic fascist movement leading up to World War II. This movement featured famous Americans and involved groups called “silver shirts” that were organizing to provide local “muscle” to an eventual leadership which actually planned attacks on members of the US Congress – plans that were identified by the FBI a few days before the target date, resulted in trials, only to have the process die when the judge hearing the case died of a heart attack and the DOJ decided not to re-try the case.
Ultimately, ignorance is THE ultimate lever for moving the world. Unfortunately, it’s also the easiest lever to use but only works in the wrong direction – every time.
WTH
I got five minutes into it, just long enough for the witness to respond to the Congressperson with words to the effect he does not take Beijing’s propaganda seriously.
Co-opting people with anything from bribes to a honey trap, like a certain PP tape, is as old as the hills. Mix with today’s “Shiny values” that the ends justify any means, and you get eager tools spreading any FUD that they think will advance their agenda. This has been demonstrated most prominently by Fox Noise, whose “opinion” programs have spewed utter nonsense, without accountability, for decades.
Steve
WTH, thnx for the superb post.
Steve, yeap, same old same old.
As we (at last) now have some knowledgable and eloquent people speaking plain truths, it drives me crazy to still hear talk that is stunningly, utterly spineless, speechless, and almost senile from persons of knowledge and experience who do support the Republic. See for instance Bill Kristol and Fred Kagan speak intelligently (I recommend the video although it is now a little tardy and elementary) and to the point, and then suddenly go wobbly as to who what when
start at about 42:00 where they are discussing arming Ukraine and budgetary accounting.
Anyone responding or just reading this thread and this my post, please keep to the no politics rule and avoid axes descending or worse still trolls drooling: the subject is observations on the effects of current modes of media, and decadent politics, on discourse. If we cannot keep discourse straight we cannot safely invest.
david fb
But it is not the Z’s or Millennials whose education is shoddy. It is the boomers mostly. I get we all as boomers seem to be pointing our fingers at the Z’s and Millennials but their education is better than ours and they are not being $uckered in at the same rate as we are.
The college graduation rates have climbed since our day.
Remember we are the Me Generation. What could go wrong? We loved that title or were dumb enough to be told we loved that title. Altruism was wrong. Greed was right. We ate it all up.
How do we today get money for public education? We can not tell the boomers paying taxes that their kids are better educated. We hear instead these kids have lousy educations. Send more money!
Why can’t we be honest? Well thanks to RR we have misinformation as the norm. Then we have spin. Then we have state secrets. Finally, we have a shot on 5th Avenue.
Politics makes for strange bedfellows.
The good news is that America never engaged in dirty tricks like the Russians do day and night.
The Captain
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No Way! Way?
I don’t think that is the main issue. Governments all have agencies that engage in dirty tricks. The question is what is the motivation behind the tricks? Is it meant to destabilize the world/region to reduce individual freedom and usually to seize control, or is meant to stabilize the world/region and increase individual freedom? Obviously the tricks don’t always work out as intended, but the intention is very important when discussing these things.
The intention is self interest. Not just in politics, tobacco, food, medical drugs…
The Captain
Y’all forgot the sarcasm tags on that one.
As someone pointed out, decades ago, we never hear about the CIA’s really successful ops. There is still question about USian involvement in the coup in Chile in 73, including all the economic problems that generated unrest prior to the coup.
We know about US involvement in the coup in Iran in 56, that unhorsed the democratically elected government, and installed the Shah.
Steve
I heard a story from a Cuban that Allende was killed by his Cuban bodyguard when he was about to surrender. Cuban dirty tricks?
The Captain
Curiously,
About seven-in-ten Americans ages 65 and older express a favorable view of Ukraine – more than any other age group.
The official line we have always been fed is he committed suicide. I give that as much credit as all the Putin critics who "accidentally’ fall out of a window.
Steve
Goofy that is interesting
The share of Republicans saying the U.S. should focus on problems at home rather than paying attention to issues overseas has increased 6 percentage points since last year (71% now, 65% then).
My comment is kind of ironic if no money is put forth to focus on problems at home. That is why my comments were more generalized. I did not mention Ukraine.
The implicit takeaway from the decades long screeds against foreign aid is that the money would benefit USians instead of foreigners. Except we know how that works. Any money available would be targeted to benefit the “JCs”, not the general population. So, “cutting off foreign aid” is another con.
Steve
A corrollary question should be:
How close to fighting on the combat front line do you and your children want to be?
The answer will likely be “War in the US” and NOT “A non-US war”.