Kevin O'Malley <[email protected]> wrote: It's my understanding that people in high demand in the media get paid for > their appearances. And they go on lecture tours, where the lecture fees > paid to them can run into 6 figures per lecture. That's how famous you > could become. >
That sounds like fun! But I have nothing good to say about anyone in the establishment, so I doubt they will want to hear from me. You can go on Fox News and attack the New York Times, or vice versa, but if you blame both of them, neither will host you. History shows that people say they want the unvarnished truth, and they say they like to see the establishment brought down and fools suffer their comeuppance, but that is not true. Sen. William Smith uncovered the facts about the Titanic disaster and reformed passenger safety. His was attacked by the industry and press, and to be ridiculed and marginalized in nearly every book on the subject. Young British officers showed that the commanders of World War I squandered millions of lives with frontal attacks. They were vilified and forgotten, while the generals who ordered the attacks were promoted to the aristocracy. Gen. Billy Mitchell showed that airplanes can sink ships. He was court martialed for insubordination. An NRC field engineer repeatedly warned that Three Mile Island was vulnerable and that a stuck valve might trigger a catastrophe, because that nearly happened on two occasions. His superiors in the agency finally ordered him to shut up and stop filing reports. The valve stuck a third time, the reactor core melted . . . and he was fired while his superiors were promoted and given cash awards. No one was ever held to account for the fact that Iraq had no WMDs. Colin Powell wrote that he blames himself but I don't think he or anyone else lost status or was demoted, in a book titled "It Worked For Me," about "leadership advice." I gather the title and theme are not intended to be an ironic joke. "'A failure will always be attached to me and my U.N. presentation,' Powell writes in *It Worked For Me*, a book that provides leadership advice. 'I am mad mostly at myself for not having smelled the problem. My instincts failed me.'" The people who caused the 2008 market crash were rewarded with billions of dollars in profits and the biggest taxpayer bailout in history. (Fortunately, they paid most of the money back.) The banks are bigger than ever. Some of the people who warned against it were ignored and then blamed. - Jed
