Our Perception of Threats and How We Ultimately Prioritize Them

With another tragically successful attack by religious extremists in Paris we are again presented with how one type of threat can get emphasized to the near exclusion of others. In America alone, within a few days before and after, have there been deaths that, taken in total by event category, are equally as tragic. And by event categories we can include extreme weather. general traffic fatalities, gun violence of one form or another, preventable diseases (due to life style choices), as well as criminal negligence involved with the creation, and/or delivery, of essential items we work with, and around, in daily life (to name just a few).

What's interesting for me in all of this is how easily we can accept one type of threat as just a part of life, and yet become so worked up over another; irrespective of whether one or the other is either more likely, or kills more people overall, in a given time period. It illustrates how capricious our seeing something to be fearful of can be; as well as how easily manipulated that perception can be.

Objectively, for instance, one ought to be absolutely terrified of anything to do with automobiles of any type (talk about a terror weapon). Despite the fact that significant strides have been made in making autos safer, and people more aware of driving safely, we still kill thousands every year. We accept this, however, because we enjoy the freedom of mobility that our roads and autos provide us.

We also enjoy another freedom that isn't quite so tangible. This is the freedom to do, or say, as we please, within the limits of law and civil propriety. History has taught us that too much power in the state to monitor what its citizens do, or say, can have absolutely horrible consequences. Not only because it can create a passively fearful populace, but because change, whether it be prompted on the spur of outright injustice, or merely because of the arrogant indifference of the needs of the many by the power of the few, cannot occur without the governed feeling they can express and act in defiance of that power.

Conservatives often talk, in glowing terms and resonant imagery, no less, of how true patriots are willing to make ultimate sacrifices for the cause of freedom. This gets more than a little blurred, however, when they talk about the security of the state from outsiders, or the security of state secrets. To say that there is ample reason for these to have significant priority is not the same thing as saying that the governed should not always demand that their application be done with great care, and restraint. And most importantly, they should never circle the wagons reflexively when they are questioned on the how and why of these applications.

The bottom line here is that his will necessarily put us at risk. A free society, with the free flow of information so that the governed can make truly informed decisions, necessitates that those who govern keep as little as possible secret, and that they not lie directly to us other than for absolutely dire circumstances. Doing that, though, makes governing quite difficult, as should be obvious. And people may well die because of it. Not only that, but the leadership may well be blamed for it, whether deserved or not. But that too is part of the sacrifice that all of us ought to be prepared to accept if we truly want a free society.

And as far as our enemies are concerned we should be quite clear on one salient point. Reacting out of fear to what they do to us is to give them not only a victory, however small, but to cede to them the initiative in the greater struggle, which is in maintaining the better way of life. Fearfully surrender the freedoms which are essential to that and all you will accomplish is to make our society more like theirs.

Being safe is not only an illusion, it has become another product to be sold on now. As I have said before, living a full, and connected life, is anything but safe. You are going to die. Accept that. One way or another, at some time or another, you are going to die. The only real question is how well you will have lived until that moment. If we lived every moment as if it might be our last there wouldn't be anything anyone could do to us to take our collective freedoms away. Just being who we ought to be is, ultimately, our greatest weapon.

Paris Attacks: Here's What Keeps Intelligence Officials Up at Night

Wars of Vengeance are Self Perpetuating

I have to agree with Phyllis Bennis when it comes to what to do about ISIS. This NBCnew.com piece has her view contrasted with 3 other international affairs experts; characterized as

1. The Slow squeeze: Michael Eisenstadt.
2. More Troops: Michael Leiter.
3. Arm the Kurds: David Phillips.
4. Stop Shooting: Phyllis Bennis.

Ms Bennis states:

"Phyllis Bennis, the director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, just wrote a book about ISIS. It's called "Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror." In it, Bennis presses for an approach that hasn't been given much consideration since Friday's attacks in Paris.

It begins with the Hippocratic oath that physicians take before they start treating people: Do no harm.

Bennis agrees with Obama that the United States should not send troops. But she said the military campaign — air strikes included — is a complete failure, and actually hurts diplomatic and humanitarian efforts.

"This is a war of vengeance. And wars of vengeance never work," Bennis said in an interview. "Our leaders are supposed to look beyond that. But nobody is even questioning the idea of the air strikes. The only debate is over ground strikes."

She would like to see Obama, French President Francoise Hollande and other coalition leaders embark immediately on negotiations for a cease-fire. From there, she'd like to see a complete military withdrawal, a blockade of arms into Syria, a huge new influx of humanitarian aid, and a redoubling of efforts to block ISIS' fundraising sources, notably the sale of oil.

After Paris, "There needs to be answers, and people are understandably insistent that there be a response," she said. "But it's never true that the only option is war."


I would only add that the problem of a vengeance fueled war is only compounded when so much of what we do, regardless of how many troops are employed, or which proxy is supported more robustly, is done via drone. As in Drone intelligence, as well as direct drone strike.

What this does is create a tremendous influx of surveillance data that, no matter how good the optics are, comes down to guilt by association. Some times this is quite appropriate. Some times it is not, and the probabilities between the two vary wildly. You then add in the inevitable collateral damage, whether your intel is accurate or not, and you have an ever increasing population of those who would be likely to desire revenge. And in the case of religious zealots such vengeance becomes jihad far too easily.

Then, of course, you must consider why the middle east is important to us in the first place, or why permanent war would have advocates with interests beyond those of basic national security. And in this do we come to the various profit centers involved. Oil. Arms. Shipping lanes. The list could no doubt be continued.

National security is important. Having the ability to protect ourselves is important. The problem we have now is that political leaders want to serve a variety of interests without incurring fallout at the pols so they engage in conflicts without declaring war. Declaring actual war would involve complete mobilization, and involvement of the entire country, and not the exhaustion of the few, incredibly selfless, volunteers who sacrifice for us now. Such total commitments are also quite expensive in terms of money and so also require comprehensive fiscal sacrifice, but this is exactly what those who benefit from the previously mentioned profit centers are loath to have to do.

The bottom line for me here is as it always has been. In a cost based society; one where value is placed almost entirely on the counters involved with net gain, and the power inherent in having more counters than the other guy, not only does the process of prioritizing critical needs for our society suffer, the way we address those needs suffers as well. How can it be otherwise when livelyhoods depend on one thing or another being continued, no matter how destructive, or at cross purposes, they might be. Throw in greed, and its idolization, for good measure, any you have a formula for self destruction like no other.

As I have said many times before, it is all interconnected. Without fundamental, fully integrated, social-economic change, we will continue down the path of contradictions, and disarray, that having disconnected interest groups working at cross purposes entails. The effort based organizational model that I have outlined is one approach to addressing this needed change. It may not be the right answer in its current form, but it is at least a place to start from on what that fundamental change ought to be.

Paris Attacks Prompt Renewed Calls for Tougher ISIS Strategy

A Place for Someone to Sleep, or Die, with Dignity

This article in Time ought to shame us all. Not only because the franchise in America most likely don't follow the humanitarian example demonstrated in Hong Kong, but because we do so little here, as well as for the rest of the world, about chronic homelessness. And make no mistake, as the oceans rise; as income gaps become more pronounced, and inclusive, the number of homeless will increase ever more rapidly.

Affordable housing, living wages, and other such initiatives are important responses in the near term, but long term they are unlikely to meet the need. The problem is business as usual itself, and the fact that a cost based economy values only the counters that net the holders of same at the bottom line. An effort based economy would value each and every participant because the number, and quality of participants, would be critical on how everything a city state needed would be built or maintained.

I can only hope that each and every one of you out there will begin to seriously consider the need for fundamental change in how we maintain civil society.

Meet the ‘McRefugees’ Living and Dying in Hong Kong’s 24-Hour McDonald’s

A new View of the Horrible Possibilities of Nuclear War

This Foreign Policy piece on a possible new, Russian nuclear weapon, ought to make any sane person quite worried. Such dirty weapons aren't new, of course, but the fact that a major power is back to considering their construction certainly is.

We haven't been openly considering anything like this, but we have been talking about a new round of atomic weapons development. A move that has put the nuclear disarmament on a back burner that may not even be lit anymore.

Not only should we be denouncing Putin for even thinking of considering a dirty weapon, we should also be revitalizing nuclear arms reduction talks. But that is made even more difficult when you have decided to adopt a permanent war economy on an ever escalating anti-terrorism crusade.

It's all connected, unfortunately, and made worse by the fact that so much money stands to be made by conducting our affairs as "business as usual."

Putin’s Doomsday Machine

Pay for Privilege Privitization

One of the problems of "Pay for Privilege" is that the money involved attracts exactly the kind of business people you work to step over on your way to the top. You aren't very good at handling your children, even if you had the time, which, given the rising cost of privilege, you don't, so you hand them over to another climber and are surprised at how crazy things can get.

Wow.

Interestingly enough, however, is that you still feel that this quite OK when it comes to for profit, privatization of prisons, schools for the rest of us, or any other government program, when a buck can be made by cutting as many corners as possible. The crazy that happens there, of course, doesn't have to concern you.

The Story and Nightmare Emails Behind One Elite Silver Lake Preschool's Turmoil

The Whole Business of Selling us on one of these Goons is Pathological

If you can ignore, for the moment, just how ridiculous Trump comes across in accusing Carson of being pathological (the pot calling the kettle something indicative of them both being a crock of shit), think instead upon the multiple pathologies of a system that makes money out of every kind of absurdity, and an absurdity our of every aspect of what should be seriously considered social interaction.

Everything we are and do gets turned inside out as it becomes, commodity, profit center, sales pitch, and the bill of goods those of us who don't have huge piles of counters end up having to pay for. And we pay for it not only with our few counters, but with the fact that most of what passes as a benefit in return is simply distraction; distruction that runs the gamut of painful, entertaining, destructive, addictive, and illusory. Anything but healthy, informative and connecting.

The bottom line business here, of course, is that, no matter how much everything else goes to shit, a few will increase their accumulation of counters because that is power in a system that values little else.

We are, perhaps, still voting for a few bones, of one type or another, that might get tossed to us. The occasional sop that makes the lip service seem credible. But as sure as those have become fewer and fewer in the light of so many critical issues that go a begging, you can be sure that, eventually, even those will be a thing of the past. Assuming, of course, that the planet allows us to live here any longer.

Donald Trump Goes Off On Ben Carson's 'Pathological Temper'

Another Must See Documentary

This one is titled "Hot Water" and documents just how much of a problem radio actively contaminated water is. Another problem that won't go away simply because it costs too much to do anything about.

What ought to be scary here, beside the obvious health risks, is the fact that we're poised on the verge of another nuclear arms race.

HOT WATER Trailer (Documentary - 2015)