Thanks for the video John. The last authentic voice in the Presidency. I'm proud to have called him my boss for a year and a mentor for many more. I too am gravely disappointed.
On Sun, Aug 30, 2020 at 2:15 PM Jon Zingale <[email protected]> wrote: > Glen, > > I suppose it isn't really fapping <https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/> if > one shows good brinkmanship :) The troubles our political institutions > met during the 2016 election, via weaponized social media technologies, > no doubt point to a serious vulnerability in our democratic process, and > no doubt one that is being studied by more resourceful and intelligent > people than I. IMO, the field was prepared long before the seeds of chaos > and distrust were sown. > > Over the entirety of my life, and with the complicit consent of our (mostly > boomer) citizens, a devious narrative took hold that the American people > were not intelligent enough or capable enough to reason about the events > of their world, much less govern themselves. This perspective is too often > parroted as an axiom in political conversations, where one might say, > "Yeah, but do you really think that Joe Smoe on the street can...". This > cultural self-shaming strikes me as having a three-fold purpose: > > 1. to lull the participants of a democratic republic into sitting back, taking > a load off, and letting someone else drive for a while. The responsibility > of governing oneself is hard work and *you deserve a break **today*. > > 2. to invoke nation-wide Stockholm syndrome where individuals come to believe > that since some abstract daddy or expert is better equipped to think > about politics, it's better to leave the thinking to those abstractions > (Chomsky's > commissar argument <https://chomsky.info/dissent02/>). > > 3. to cultivate better consumers. > > Unfortunately, a democracy cannot function this way but it seemed to be Ok > for a short time. The *career guys *functionally operated as *daddy *and > we could cheer them on from the comfort of our television sets. In effect, > politics became a spectator sport. > > As far as I can tell, this wave of disenfranchisement found purchase in a > crucial transition period from Carter's administration into Regan's. > Hippie-cum-yuppies, > in the face of the enduring hardships of the era: cold war, peak-oil, > failure in Vietnam, the rise of international terrorism, crisis of > confidence <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IlRVy7oZ58>, etc... did what > any raised on superhero and GI Joe comic-book loving American would do, > they took the blue pill > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill>. Regan offered > America a return to the *good times*, cultures of protest withered away, > and soma was had by all. > > Abroad, neoliberalism (à la Regan, Thatcher, and Ayn Rand-loving Alan > Greenspan) > became the dominating strategy for the west over developing nations. > Leadership wrt democratic ideals and stewardship of our own republic was > ceded to objectivists <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism> > believing in the cake of their own success bias. Meanwhile, at home, the > public was weened from nutrient-rich information sources[!] and > transitioned toward propaganda-driven rhetorical forms, emulating the > successes of advertising culture, and through this shift, our sound-byte > culture was quickened. > > What makes the actions to delegitimize our trusted institutions so insidious > is that the critique isn't wrong. For a brief period in the '90s and > leading up to the WTO/IMF protests in Seattle, political unrest was > beginning to wake from its nearly two-decade-long slumber. Discontents > (realizing the vanishing prospects for their own creation of wealth, > imminent environmental collapse, and the wholesale exploitation of > developing nations) formed grassroots movements to confront the > irresponsibility > of Regan-era *good time* thinking. Well, at least until the unfortunate > events of 9-11 epiphenomenologically nipped all movement in the bud, and > ushered in an *era of terror*, and like a good family, the public banned > together to support the suspension of even the most basic of civil > liberties. > > When you say, "As I understand it, the attack was a successful use of *active > measures*. The objective was to find *extant* rifts in US society and > exploit them. This resulted in a sophisticated data science-driven attack > on platforms via technology like Facebook", I sympathize and can only > feel grave disappointment that this is the legacy we inherited. Fixing > things, as far as I can tell, will require investment in the capability > of the American people and the disruption of a program to produce good > consumers. Short of that, I don't know what the next steps will need to > be, but I suspect those steps will involve a good therapist. > > Jon > > [!] Paralleled almost symbolically by world-wide and aggressive campaigns > to > market substitute breastmilk > <https://www.projectcensored.org/5-the-bottle-baby-scandal-milking-the-3rd-world-for-all-its-worth/> > . > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > -- Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D. Center for Emergent Diplomacy emergentdiplomacy.org Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA mobile: (303) 859-5609 skype: merle.lelfkoff2 twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
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