Deep Throat Returns:
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Orwellian?
Not Really… 14 November 2002 But what I’m reading in today’s Bird isn’t Orwellian,
not really. There’s an article on the PPOG, you know, the
“Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group.”
Rummy’s pushing to have it controlled by DoD. Proactive
and Pre-emptive. Whenever we suspect a bad guy, it is theoretically
more efficient to just eliminate him. Trials take too long and are unpredictable;
holding folks for months and years without access
to counsel or hearings is expensive. And no, this isn’t like lynchings
in the South, replayed globally. Not
really. There’s something on Senator Warner’s plans
“to review
the 19th century Posse Comitatus law that
restricts the military’s involvement in domestic law enforcement.”
There are two more on this topic, an “Inside the Pentagon” article
on Rumsfeld’s breaking the law by using
the Army
RC-7
in the DoD assistance and
partnering with cops all over the There’s a great article on the new Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) “Information Awareness Office.”
This office is all about us and what we do online and on the phone,
and John Poindexter is at the helm. You remember John, from TV, during
Iran Contra. Mastermind, you
say? That conviction was overturned on appeal, so not really. Today’s Bird gives us the London Guardian interview
with Rummy advisor Richard Perle. Perle said Europeans have no “moral
fibre
” because they are not rabidly frothing at the mouth for immediate
Hmmmmm. Rumsfeld’s Rules contains a quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“The test of a first rate intelligence
is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time,
and still retain the ability to function.”
Fitzgerald died in 1940. When Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948, he put forth a new version of this quote. While the Fitzgerald version is older (like Rumsfeld), the Orwellian version is a lot more relevant. “The power of holding
two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously,
and accepting both of them” is not the sign of first rate intelligence,
but instead it is the book definition of “doublethink.” Doublethink is a “deliberate
reversal of facts” and he writes, “if the
High are to keep their places permanently -- then the prevailing mental
condition must be controlled insanity.” Controlled insanity is, in turn, required to
sustain the ever-desirable “endless war.”
Richard Perle knows this, of course,
and he already has a list of other places we will want to deal with
after we finish I am sure that Rumsfeld
and Perle and the rest of the leadership
team are not interested in Orwell or his definitions.
And who needs controlled insanity when we can have the plain
old normal kind around here! Significantly, today’s Early Bird brings us
news of the latest DARPA invention.
It’s an electronic device that fits into a bugle and plays
taps. All the “bugler”
has to do is put his or her mouth to the bugle and push a hidden button,
“giving the appearance of playing the tune” (but not really). |
