On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 4:15 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List < everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> > > > > > > One must question whether the motives were really “to defend our freedom”, > when in fact the de facto result has been a serious erosion of individual > liberty. At the very least that is, an ass backwards approach, and it is > quite easy to imagine a whole slew of rather more sinister motives, which > the de facto actions of Western governments seem to be more in line with. > > -Chris > Agreed. This reminds me of some minor villain figure in Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent", who reasoned something like: Manoeuvring fanatic idiots to blow up some political target is too transparent and no longer effective in funneling more money, power, and weapons into the right hands. If we focus on sowing blanket fear more effectively, then it doesn't even matter which side we're on; everybody gets to legitimize moves towards more security by force. Resources will flow and flood appropriate markets accordingly, and the relevant industries will strengthen their foothold. Therefore, we must steer the idiots to attack seemingly senseless targets to impart a sense that "they can strike anywhere, anytime"; people will get lost in the apparent discourses and causal speculation and we get what we want. The more senseless or confounding the target, the better the distraction. Unfortunately, this fictitious villain from novel published in 1907 is not that far off the mark, if you compare the recent response to say IRA attacks in London. Fanatics, freedom, prisoner's dilemma, and the laws that these sprout... how about hearing more about 900 million people in famine circumstance and watching those numbers for a change? News is crap. PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
