Our friends from Staten Island arrived weekend before last for a short visit. We had a good time, I wish they could have stayed longer, but they had a complete flightmare on the way out. They spent 13 hours in LaGuardia Airport eight of which were spent in planes whose takeoffs were cancelled or postponed. They ended up flying into O'Hare and driving up from Chicago. AirTran and Delta - you SUCKED.

The youngest started his junior year today, my daughter goes back to school this weekend, and the young man on the following Tuesday. It's going to be sad around the house again with the twins away.

My Major Project paper has taken all summer.... to write the PROPOSAL. Yes, the proposal has gone through EIGHT iterations just with my academic advisor - now (assuming it is accepted) it has to go to my area specialist. Sigh. Well, it's the last paper, I guess I just write it and get it done. I don't want it to drift into next semester, but it can if it has to. I don't want that, but my last paper didn't wrap until three months after I turned it in, and this paper's proposal has taken ten weeks, if my area specialist takes ten weeks then my paper may not be well underway until November. We'll see. I think it should work out okay.

I haven't been sailing as much as I'd like this summer, but I didn't sail as little as I feared, so it's been okay. There are still some more opportunities this year.

The big news - did I mention it already? - is that I joined the cast of Vilification Tennis over the summer, a comedy group that presents competitive "Yo Mama" jokes. I got to perform at the Renaissance Festival for my friends from Staten Island and it was a blast. Honestly it feels really good to be back on stage - for whatever reason - after something like thirty years? I mean, yeah, I'm "on stage" half the time in my life (performing as Bob, the Reliable Employee) but it's fun to just get up there and make people laugh.

Yes, I know this is rambly. So sue me.

The young man was good enough to organize my music directories over the summer, which makes it really pleasant to sit at home and listen to music. I paid him for his work, but it was well worth it. It was a job I really wanted done.

I did a lot of chores last weekend (instead of doing homework), including picking grapes with Gennie, and cleaning the whole refrigerator (including emptying it and tipping it on its face and vacuuming underneath). This latter was driven by the water leaking from beneath the fridge which as ruined the flooring underneath it. Fortunately we have some leftover flooring from the kitchen project, so we just have to get someone in to do the work.

And don't get me started on household repairs and money issues. Let's just say paying off the credit cards is taking longer than I'd like, and we need about four major projects (garage, two bathrooms, new basement room, patio) to be done. We got an estimate, and the total was around $35K for all this, not that any of them are happening anytime soon.

So that's the latest update: school, work, sailing, performing, household stuff, etc. I haven't been bored in years and I'm not going to be anytime soon.

It's been a busy, eventful summer, let's see if I can sum up.

I'm working on my final paper for college. I was chagrined when my advisor sent me a "sample proposal" and the person who wrote it proposed writing a ten page paper. I've been writing 25 page papers. Still, even those papers have been a bit short to encompass what I'm trying to say within those 25 pages, so I suppose it's just as well.

Irritatingly, my academic reviewer asked for last semester's paper ten days sooner than I wanted to submit it - he wanted it on June 1st. So I hustled my butt and turned out the paper by then, giving him ten days to review it before the end of the semester. A couple days ago he wrote and said he was done - mid July! AND he asked for a revision in mid June, well after the semester end. Now, yes, I was TOTALLY behind schedule in getting my part done, but six weeks to review a paper? Ah well, as long as I get the grade I don't care...

Meanwhile of course this has set me back in THIS semester's paper - so it's late July and I'm only just working on the PROPOSAL for this paper. Ah well - at least this one being late won't delay my NEXT paper... because I don't have one! Whoo hoo!

The whole family is in the house again this summer. The twins will be 20 years old shortly, so every extra summer with them home - before they get jobs and girlfriends and apartments - feels like a bonus. I just hate that I'm working so much we don't get to spend as much time together and having fun as I would prefer. Story of my life though, ain't it?

We've been trying to pay down the credit cards, so with the exception of Convergence we don't have any big summer plans. Our friends Jeannie and Carol may come visit from Staten Island in late August, and if they do then I'll take a week off of work and we'll have some fun.

I'm in the middle of trying to coordinate a shared photographic and writing studio with some friends and acquaintances and even strangers. I hope we can work something out that suits everybody. The next couple weeks will see.

We're getting the credit cards paid down. They took a big hit after the 2008 economic collapse and my subsequent 18 months of severe underemployment. But we should be down to a single large credit card by the end of this month, and then we can get that sucker killed, and then we can start actually SAVING money. This has all been possible because yesterday was the anniversary of my present contract. Three more months and this will be my longest contract ever (also lowest-hourly-rate, but the stress is low and the environment is good and it's close to home, so I'll take it!)

Hopefully by this time next year I'll be out of college and out of debt.

Also I joined a comedy troupe (what? Burying the lede again Bob!) It's all part of a desire to move in a more creative direction in my life after 35 years spent in a cubicle farm. Vilification Tennis is a group that performs competitive "Yo' Mama" jokes... There was a whole competition and everything and it was a great time. I should blog about that individually... but I have a show in two days and I need to practice!!

Tomorrow my sister and brother and Theresa and I are heading to a fondue dinner at the Lowell Inn in Stillwater, courtesy of my Aunt Kathryn. She is dying of cancer, and wanted us to have some fun on her account. Hopefully a year from now she'll be pain-free and with us.

Okay, so that's a quick update, sorry to be so brief but now I have to get back to work if I want to keep my contract...

The first thing I did was pose a mind-experiment. “If there are different faiths, and some are closer to the truth than others, then the faiths that are closest to the truth would tend to have more successful followers, since their prayers would be answered more often and more successfully. They would be healthier and live longer.”

And there WAS one faith that met this criteria. For thousands of years the human population and lifespan was pretty stable, and then all of a sudden BOTH shot upwards. The difference? The discovery and implementation of the scientific method. Okay, so science isn’t a faith or a religion, but clearly it otherwise met my criteria by being “closer to the truth.” People who followed scientific method lived longer, and healthier lives. If you don't believe me, drink this glass of swamp water, but pray over it first rather than boiling it.

The other method I used Occam’s Razor, that suggests that the simpler of two possible answers is more likely true. Well there are two arguments:

“Where did everything come from?” -> “God” -> “Where did God come from?” -> “Nobody knows.”

and

“Where did everything come from?” -> “Nobody knows.”

Occam’s Razor clearly indicates the latter is more likely to be true.

At which point I realized that I was an atheist. The answer that made the most sense to me was that there are no deities, and that studying the world objectively is the best way to live in it.

Later I developed moral arguments as well. One which I find most compelling is “Supposing a god exists, just because he’s a god doesn’t make the creation of suffering and death morally right. An immortal, omniscient creature is not justified in torturing, terrifying, and killing other creatures, even if it creates them.”

And

“If god is outside the Universe then he cannot interact with the Universe by definition, and so god is moot. If god can interact with the Universe then god is part of the Universe, and therefore is not god by definition, just a Really Big Creature.”

But these came later.

Now, these are the answers that work for ME. Other people have other answers, and that's fine, as long as their answers don't infringe upon my ability to live my life the way my beliefs guide me. That's why I'm a Unitarian-Universalist and have been for over twenty years.

That person at your door could be the organ donor who saves your life.

And just because you didn't thoroughly think through, and now deny, the moral implications of what you were doing with that plastic jar does not free you from those implications. For most of us abandoned by our progenitors a couple of decades have passed before we can search for them, during which time advances in genetic medicine that could not have been conceived of have taken place.

Indiscriminate distribution of your semen is never a good idea, whether conducted under the influence of alcohol in a darkened room or under the false sense of moral sanction in a brightly-lit clinic for pay. Just because you turn your back on the reality of what you are doing does not free you of the consequences. You can be as arrogant about it as you like, but if you don't want to run the risk of meeting your offspring in 20 years, keep your fly zipped and get a real job.

"I really don't see any moral responsibility based on genetics"

If you examine the topic of genetics in medical diagnosis and treatment, you may learn the moral responsibility. People who lack access to their genetic relatives and genetic history are at significantly higher medical risk in the event that a genetic illness requires diagnosis, or organ, tissue, or blood donations. And this risk is extended to their children, particularly in the case that two such people marry. Why should the children of adoptees or sperm donors be placed at higher medical risk? Who does it serve?

"They also took into consideration the kind of lives they would have had if they weren't adopted."

Yes, standard adoption-agency propaganda, sadly racist and imperialistic, assuming as it does that it is always best to grow up as an American adoptee than under any "lesser" circumstances. It's important to recognize that closed-records adoptions serve the adoption industry, which is woefully devoid of oversight. Where the safety and well-being of children are concerned, transparency and openness should be of paramount importance, yet the adoption industry presses to maintain secrecy. Why is that? Their standard answer is to protect birthparents from "shame," but honestly that story is getting rather threadbare. Adoption agencies ought not be blindly trusted: corruption - from lies and coercion to outright baby-stealing - is a very real problem, both domestically and abroad.

"Both were abandoned and effectively untraceable"

This propaganda is the default story in Asian countries. In the West the default story is that "records were destroyed in a fire." The fact is that most of these persons could be reunited with some effort, and few were actually abandoned on the steps of the police station or hospital, as they have been told. Very few hospitals - certainly many fewer than adoptees frequently report - suffer such fires in their records rooms.

I should probably have already mentioned this, but I am one of the founders of "Bastard Nation" http://bastards.org/ One of the more outspoken adoptees-rights organizations in America, and we hold a very firm line on adoptees' rights. Some of our more radical members (not me) even hold that adoption should not exist at all, but that children should be placed as closely to their native family - with relatives - as possible. I am not so extreme, but their point is that where the well-being of children is concerned, adoption is frequently an "easy out" that is easily corrupted.

I urge you to reconsider some of the standard tropes that you have heard about adoption and adoptees. Why is it not considered okay, for example, for adoptees to search for their birth parents, but it's okay for them to be reunited on Oprah or other shows? Why should adults be sheltered from the consequences of their behavior indefinitely, even if it places multiple generations of their offspring at greater medical risk? How can an adult citizen be held to a contract made by other people, before they were born? And why should the government or a private agency be allowed to deny an adult citizen the right to contact any other adult citizen of this country, or to access their own birth certificate?

In other words, some folks are Democrats because they are liberal people who think they are part of a liberal party, and some are Democrats because they like being Democrats - presumably as opposed to being Republicans or independent. It is these folks who cannot conscience their betrayal by Obama and the Party because they have invested their identities in that Party: and often the more liberal they consider themselves, the more desperate they are to deny the truth.

When as in this case the Democratic party reveals that it is simply one head of the single American ruling party ironically labelled "the Two-Party system," then principled progressives can (if they ever bought into the bogus Democrat/Liberal conflation) feel heartily betrayed. On the other hand for us older or simply more cynical principled progressives Obama's disappointing performance in defense of Constitutional rights and the Rule of Law simply confirms what we already knew: that America is plutocratic authoritarian police-state. (More at http://albatross.org/journal/archives/002311.html )

Even I, as bitterly cynical as I am, have managed to be slightly disappointed in Obama's complete abrogation of what his educational background (to say nothing of class background) ought to have taught him about the duties of the office. But Obama is a compromiser/insider, and the times call desperately for an iconoclastic reformer and leader, so of course Obama will fail to meet the demands of the age.

Additionally, of course, you’re running smack into the growing sense of American Authoritarianism – the belief that power trumps the Rule of Law. That the President can simply order an American citizen killed, and no substantive protest to this action is apparent, is a clear sign that many Americans have embraced authoritarianism – as if authoritarian propaganda like ‘Cops’ and ‘America’s Most Wanted’ weren’t a clear enough sign of this years ago.

Congratulations on being blackballed. No, I'm serious - they don't bother to do that with insignificant and voiceless persons. You are sufficiently talented to be dangerous. If you are not doing so already, study the lives of your comrades-in-chains - if you are not heartened by the stories of eventual recognition and redemption by history, at least search for tactical means of overcoming this adversity. Publish in other countries; establish a nom-de-plume; do something innovative with the internet. You're on the right side of history, and as long as you hold fast to your principles and manage to find some way to pay the bills (that latter not simple) you will eventually win through.

In art and labor (as Joe Bageant used to say).

Plutocratic authoritarians are highly tribal because they sense that the vast inequities of privilege and wealth are inherently unstable. People not from the plutocratic tribe could easily take a notion to raise taxes, outlaw certain wealth-concentrating practices, or simply use the bully pulpit to raise popular awareness of the vast economic injustice in this country. So for many reasons these authoritarians cannot accept Obama's legitimacy to rule in the place of a safe plutocratic authoritarian from their tribe.

Like so many in the political class - a class halfway between the working class and the plutocrats - Obama attempts to appease both parties, but the authoritarians most of all. The plutocratic class exists outside the law, ignores international borders and considers itself on the one hand insulated from the real world of the working class, and on the other hand very vulnerable and insecure. The political class has always attempted to become members of the plutocracy: some are successful, others are not, but that's the game. Obama is attempting in one generation to vault from his working class background right through the political class and on up into the plutocratic ruling class that truly runs everything. It's not surprising that this is seen as presumptuous or even hubristic (particularly to those to the manner born) but Obama has so far demonstrated every sign of being fully capable of this rare but not unheard-of feat.

So Obama isn't playing the kind of game we might be suspecting him of playing. Obama is already a two-term president, and we all know it. Barring some astonishing revelation Obama will be re-elected in 2012. He's already looking PAST that. He's already looking past 2016. Obama is positioning himself for a tremendously long post-presidency as one of the world's aristocrats.

Obama doesn't actually have to do much for the working class any more. He's already secured himself from any extrapolitical troubles by his thorough and persistent appeasement of the plutocrats - they don't accept him in the tribe, but he's made it very very clear that he is not a threat. All he has to do is throw the public a couple of bones on safe social issues at the right times to keep the Democratic party happy with him, prevent the complete collapse of the economy, avoid annoying the military-industrial establishment by threatening any cutbacks, and he's assured a largely smooth ride for the rest of his presidency.

And then Obama can really start exercising some power.

The story is that the Doctor Who writers may wish to simply IGNORE the "12 regenerations" limit (as they have ALREADY ignored the depiction in a Tom Baker episode of several prior incarnations of The Doctor before William Hartnell's original) since the current Matt Smith incarnation is #11. I was disappointed in this idea (after the jump).

1) When Amy Pond rebuilt the Universe and restored the Doctor, she did not know about the regeneration limit, therefore it does not exist

2) With every Time Lord dead, the remaining Time Lord is invested with all of their unused regenerations

3) After the 12th Doctor dies a Doctor from a parallel universe shows up.

4) The Doctor is cloned. Clone has 12 more Regenerations.

5) The 12th Doctor perishes, and David Tennant from the "Rose" universe shows up. Somewhat like #3, except that Billie Piper's reappearance makes everyone scream.

6) The TARDIS produces an AI hologram Doctor who keeps soldiering on despite being unable to physically interact with anything. At some point the TARDIS is struck by lightning/reverses the polarity of the nutrino flux/inverts the spectra of time energy, and the Doctor becomes solid, and the TARDIS becomes a hologram.

7) In an episode called "Gone Fission," The Doctor eats one of his companions and using the additional mass splits off a new Doctor.

8) The Doctor's Daughter returns, fake eyelashes glued firmly in place, and takes up the mantle of Doctorhood.

9) The Daleks realize that the only force that has generated advancements in Dalek technology and civilization is the Doctor, and a thousand years after he dies they build a cybernetic one to harass them into progress.

10) The Doctor points out that there are different TYPES of regeneration, such as the kind Romana employed while trying on different looks with the Fourth Doctor, and that while he has only 12 of ONE type, he has DOZENS of the other types.

There. That was off the top of my head. And while a few may suck, none of them suck as badly as just deciding to ignore the premise entirely.

Moffat, phone me babe. I got yer back.

For the global ruling class, nations are impediments to their corporations. These people have no national or regional loyalty - they fly where the entertainment is, they invest where the taxes are lowest, they employ where the labor is cheapest and quietest, and they store their money in the most secret places, without regard to nationality.

For these people, nations are meaningless, but money is real. So what is the biggest deregulation possible? What is the biggest tax break possible? The collapse of the United States.

If the United States went the way of the Soviet Union, all sorts of costs would disappear. Anybody could shear off a mountaintop for coal or drill for oil in ANWR or Yellowstone or Central Park. The minimum wage and the 40 hour work week would disappear, as would child labor laws, OSHA safety requirements, even prohibitions against indentured servitude and slavery.

If you don't think this hasn't occurred to them, think again. What is happening now is an acceleration of what has been happening for over 30 years: America is being liquidated. The global ruling class is extracting as much capital as it can out of this country as fast as it can. That's why billions and trillions are being handed to Wall Street and shipped overseas and vacuumed up as profits.

As soon as that resource dries up - as soon as our Social Security funds are poured into Wall Street investment firms and then drained from those firms into the personal bank accounts of the global ruling class, then they will wrap up America like a cancelled sitcom. Alaska, California, Texas, the Northeast, the Midwest, all will become separate nations, and the Confederacy will recongeal from its constituent states. And then these smaller, more easily corrupted federations, dictatorships, democracies and monarchies will be set one against the other to produce the cheapest labor, the most beautiful escorts and the most desperate mercenaries.

The global ruling class has had twenty years to analyze the fall of the Soviet Union and figure out how to do that better, and more profitably. And as soon as they've squeezed every last dollar out of the United States, they'll try their plan.

Despite "doing everything right" as far as taxes go - because honestly the tax code and the IRS scare the you-know-what outta me - I've failed a sales tax audit, I've paid hundreds if not thousands in various penalties, and once my father was audited based on MY teenage tax returns, because we had the same name (and despite different SSNs).

And while I have to listen to the f@&*ing Republicans piss and moan about "federal funding of abortions*," (which is all bull5#!% because the Hyde Amendment has prohibited such funding since the 1970's) I have to give more than a quarter of my tax money to support "federal funding of killing people overseas for the sake of the oil companies," and if I DON'T pay this money, I can just go right to jail.

There is no way to reform our current tax system, it needs to be scrapped. As much as I recognize that a flat tax is regressive, it would be LESS regressive than the completely upside-down tax system we have now. The tax system as it is currently implemented is simply a means to oppress the working class. And it's so FRIGGIN' complex, that it serves as a de-facto justification for the government imprisoning ANYONE. Since nobody can tell when you're doing it right, you're always doing it wrong: you can be sent to jail on the government's whim.

I'm not stupid - I'm paying my taxes, and I'll keep paying them. No tax protester here. But it doesn't mean it's just, and it doesn't mean I have to like it.

*I should also like to point out that the Republicans controlled the entire government for six years under the Bush administration. During that time they could have de-funded Planned Parenthood, eliminated Acorn, and outlawed abortion...but they didn't. And none of their dog-whistle reactionary anti-abortion supporters ever calls them on that. The Republicans have no interest in ending abortion, because doing so would lose them that knee-jerk crowd who will throw fifty bucks at any Republican candidate who rails against a woman's right to control her own body. So maybe anti-abortion folks might want to consider who is worse: someone who supports Choice, or someone who only SAYS they support overturning Roe v. Wade as a means to fleece you.

As with "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," it reinforces the authoritarian mythos. Regular people are helpless, and must be rescued by the powerful. 'Undercover Boss' also reiterates the Jesus myth, in which the CEO descends from on high, and returns to heaven, bestowing blessings upon his followers.

Neither address the systemic issues they seek to alleviate with gifts and benefits. EH:HE people get a new house, UB people get vacations and stuff. Nobody asks why it is that hardworking people live in poverty, or why the most important volunteers in a community live in crumbling houses.

The overall message is very authoritarian and disempowering - appeal for clemency to the wealthy and powerful.

Instead, we repeatedly get the story of people living helpless, isolated lives, with no mention of government support, until along comes the hero CEO, the hero corporation (Sears, in the case of EH:HE) that bestows largesse upon the needy.

The message is that government can't help you, you can't help you, the only people who can help you are the wealthy and the powerful corporations. It's feudalism all over again - peasants, kneel before your king and plead his mercy - and as much as you might not like government under democracy, you'll like it a lot less under King Trump I.

This is my problem with these corporate-propaganda shows. They're produced by corporations for corporations - EH:HE is clearly a very long and very expensive Sears commercial - and they reiterate that point of view. Meawhile we're all earning less and paying more taxes. Why are more things taxed than 50 years ago? Because the wealthy and corporations (such as GE which owns NBC), who hold the vast majority of our national wealth, do not pay taxes. So the government squeezes even harder on the workers.

Yes our current government is screwed up - both in good portion due to corporate corruption, and in good portion due to overbureaucratization (and a bureaucracy is no better than a corporatocracy IMO). That doesn't mean government can never work, and since we are doomed to have governments we had better come up with a way to have a good one.

When government is corrupt and overbureaucratized as it is presently you need to clean up your government. But that's not the same as pretending you can have no government at all - "no man is an island," and all that. If one accepts there needs to be some form of government, then that government needs to be effective and just.If there were no government, some corrupt agency would rush to fill the power vacuum.

These shows suggest exactly that: corporations and the wealthy AS government, filling in that power vacuum. Again, 21st century feudalism or "fascism" as some like to call it.

I try to avoid using the term "fascism" although I think it's accurate. But it's a loaded term, overused by folks trying to dodge Godwin's Law. I prefer "21st century feudalism," because it is also accurate, and points out that this whole thing is part of a dynamic going back almost a thousand years, to the First Baron's War and earlier, still unresolved today. Some folks want rule by the wealthy and powerful (and these include not merely the wealthy and powerful) and others want democracy or at least populism. The promotion of ignorance and censored education in America over the past 30 years is part of a long-term deliberate effort to thwart democracy in favor of 21st century feudalism, recognizing that democracy requires an educated population. When labor law and history are not taught, when 21st century kings have labor murals removed from public buildings, when the concept of "the Commons" and "The Common Good" are not taught, then you have a citizenry primed for the notion of feudalism and the return of rule by King.

Seriously, tho, I'm sure I'm overthinking this and turning harmless entertainment into some dreadful conspiracy. I'll go take some deep breaths.

One of the problems this article suggests but does not make entirely clear is that we're using the wrong words to describe things.

What we call "conservative" is NOT conservative at all - modern "conservatives" are actually radical authoritarians, promoting a feudalistic worldview where the corporation is the kingdom and the CEO is the king.

What we call "liberal" - in this case, NPR - is not "liberal." In fact NPR is actually a conservative organization, as is any mainstream independent media organization. Real journalists do not exist to change the State, but to describe the State: it is the truth of their descriptions that can prove a motivator for others to change the State. The term "liberal" means, to the Right, "non-authoritarians," or "anyone outside the tribe of authoritarians."

In an authoritarian worldview, ONLY those inside the tribe have the right to power. That's why Obama is so heatedly opposed - not because of his race or his heritage, those are vulnerabilities authoritarians exploit in their attacks. The Right HATES Obama because he became president without being identified as part of the authoritarian tribe, and so his AUTHORITY to be president must be attacked, undermined, and rejected. Hence the absurd attacks upon his birthplace, as if his parents somehow knew Obama would someday be president... and worked to cover up his background?

For the rest of us, what we call "liberals" are actually conservative populists. Liberals are presently working to conserve such things as the Fourth Amendment, habeas corpus, the right to organize unions, etc.

Part of the reason describing these things accurately is important is in identifying allies. There ARE conservative populist Republicans, and there are radical authoritarian Democrats. We need to know who is who, and we need to be able to describe things accurately, if we wish to be able to work together towards solutions.

For example, the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are not "wars." There is no enemy state to defeat, and no victory conditions to meet. They are "occupations." "Wars" have to be won or lost, and can justify all sorts of measures to achieve victory, including the suspension of civil rights. "Occupations" don't need to be won, you merely end them when the time is appropriate. We need to call these occupations what they are in order to justify ending them as soon as possible, without having to meet impossible victory conditions.

If we want to be able to fix the problems in this nation, we need to be able to describe ourselves, our problems, and our goals by their accurate names.

It’s important to recognize that the forces feeding Scott Walker and Fox News are INTERNATIONAL forces, who care NOTHING about America. While Murdoch and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal are obviously foreigners, even the native Koch brothers evidently prioritize their corporate well-being over any interest in the Common Good of America.

That’s because these people represent corporatism, where those at the top hold absolute power, and those underneath are workers. Or in older but no less applicable terms, those at the top are Kings, those underneath are serfs. Call it corporatism, fascism, or authoritarianism, the real phenomenon is simply FEUDALISM. It’s the same mindset of centralized power and control that ruled mankind for centuries, and despite the Magna Carta and the French Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, it has never quite gone away.

What the media errantly calls “conservatives” are actually radical feudalists, like the Kochs or Murdoch. For them, national boundaries do not apply, their corporations sprawl across many nations, and they only use the differences between national laws and taxes to game all systems of taxation and subsidies in their favor.

And these foreign radicals don’t care about America. For the Kochs or Murdoch, the Soviet-style collapse of the United States would simply represent the ultimate tax break, and the ultimate deregulation. If our federal government were gone they would be free to end the 40 hour work week, reinstate child labor, even bring back slavery (to say nothing of drilling in ANWR and mountaintop removal). And don’t think they aren’t considering it.

Meanwhile, what the media calls “liberals” are actually conservative populists: citizens fighting to retain basic rights, from the right to choose to the 4th Amendment and habeas corpus. The modern battle isn’t “conservatives” vs. “liberals,” it’s foreign radical authoritarians versus conservative American populists. And the stakes are nothing less than the United States themselves, because as soon as these radicals have drained America of every last drop of wealth, they’ll start working – or working harder – to have the nation scrapped and broken up into smaller nations that are much, much easier to exploit. Murdoch and the Kochs frankly look to the breakup of the Soviet Union and think only, “I bet I could do that even more profitably here.”

So the question is, can representative democracy (populism) survive the corrupting power of feudalism (authoritarianism)? And how long are we going to accept this foreign assault on our country before we fight back?

------

Another contributing component to this mess is the fact that authoritarianism in America is waxing very strong right now. What we call "Republicans" or "Conservatives" are actually radical authoritarians trying to impose contemporary feudalism, also known as corportaism or fascism. What we call "Democrats" or "Liberals" are actually conservative populists, trying to preserve things like habeas corpus, the Fourth Amendment or the right to organize unions. The cultural battle is progressives vs. authoritarians.

Well authoritarians believe their ends justify their means. So as we see in this HBGary example, and with the Wisconsin Governor, and the sting that brought down Acorn, the authoritarians can and will do ANYTHING, without fear of reprisal or prosecution. AND should one of their operatives manage to get prosecuted, despite being insulated from such things by the mechanics of the authoritarian state, should one of them get prosecuted anyway they are simply abandoned (if too small a fish) or welcomed back and forgiven (if a big fish).

In an authoritarian worldview it is fine for members of the authoritarian tribe to take any steps, regardless of legality. But it is NOT fine for the powerless, the average person, to break ANY laws. If you lack authority, or power, you are not free.

Anonymous, whatever else you think of them, represent populism. Likewise Wikileaks. This is why they are so reviled, and their prosecution is so important to authoritarians.

But despite their corrupt incompetence (HBGary, Governor Walker) the law doesn't apply to authoritarians: because they have power, they are above the law.

And THAT'S why the security industry is facing a crisis. First, because when the Rule of Law collapses as it has in this country (Dick Cheney's obstruction of justice following shooting his friend, the failure to prosecute or even investigate anyone following the 2008 Wall Street collapse), the whole culture itself is a short way from collapse. Because Law requires Justice, and presently we don't HAVE justice.

This isn't to say that there was ever a perfect day when Law and Justice ruled absolutely, but in the cycles of such things we are certainly at a nadir.

When Law and Justice fail, then the apparatus of security ("cyber" or not) is SO easily corrupted into a tool of oppression.

The security industry is at a crisis because in an injust, authoritarian age, only the ethics of individual practitioners stand between justice and corruption. As an industry, we are only as reputable as the average of our practitioners. And nothing insulates us as security practitioners from suffering the consequences of taking an ethical stance.

Hopefully America will survive this powerful down-cycle of Justice, and up-cycle of authoritariansm. But until that changes our industry will be very vulnerable to the corrupting influences of authoritarian abuse. And the average practitioner will be forced to choose, again and again, between keeping their job and doing what their corrupt client demands.

Here's the thing to be aware of about the information security industry: we are on the sharpest bleeding edge of business. I don't mean that in an OH WOW AREN'T WE COOL sort of way, but in a "What the hell does Gutenburg think he's doing with that fucked-up thing in his workshop?" kind of way. Computers in the workplace, and the Internet itself, are so new, nobody really actually knows what we're doing with them yet.

Business changes very slowly. We've spent the last thirty years basically figuring out what to do with Microsoft Office. I mean, I'm presently working with an organization that still routinely faxes documents from one end of the building to another as part of a business process they've followed since the 1980's.

Business is SO slow to change that business still considers IT an expense, and largely ignores the value of its information assets and its data processing.

That's going to change. My friend in the field Ben Tomhave and I have been saying for more than ten years that IT is not a cost center, it's a profit center, and still few businesses have really restructured themselves in a way that recognizes that fact.

Going further up the business ladder, we see that ignorance of the real value of IT is still firmly entrenched whenever the CISO reports to anyone but the Board or the CFO. In an "IT is a cost center" business structure the job of IT is always going to be "keep the lights on." Every time security (whether represented by a CISO or a mere "security guy") is structured to report to the COO, CIO, or Director of IT, security will be doomed to a frustrating, ineffective existence.

And across the whole scope of business, that's what security does - it reports to IT. And THAT'S because IT itself is, in business terms, brand spanking new and unknown. Business STILL hasn't really figured out what it's doing with computers and networks. Security will have to wait until business has figured out what it's doing with computers before the follow on question, "Now that we know what we're doing with IT, how do we do IT the right way?" can even be asked. And "Doing IT the right way" is what information security actually IS. It's optimized information technology where the only rights anyone possess are the exact rights necessary to do their job and no more.

And that? That time is years, DECADES away. MBA's graduating from college right NOW do not properly understand the role of IT in business, and until emerging MBA's understand that their data center is a profit center, they won't be able to start the long climb up to the Board, where the decision to have the CISO report to the Board can be made, understood, and appreciated. And until THAT happens, security will remain the bastard stepchild, sequestered behind the conflict-of-interest position of having to report to the CIO who is just trying to keep the whole place running, with no thought of the business beyond making sure services are available.

So for the next couple of generations, infosec is going to have a long, slow slog that will frustrate a lot of people. But a century from now? Smooth as silk. Infosec's role in business will be understood and integrated into how business does business.

Something to look forward to, ain't it??