Friday, March 14, 2014

Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 29

Political Science
It can be argued that most, or a substantial number of, the major scientific discoveries during recorded human history have been non-intuitive, not obvious, and/or not expected.

Going even further than that, frankly, those major scientific discoveries have been "out of the blue," and in a sense or two they have been a rebellion against the "scientific status quo."

Today, I will argue that the reason for that perplexity is that groups, not individuals, rule the roost.

Further, groups are a sink, a magnet, and a common repository for neurotic cognition.

This is a reality that is increasing and expanding along with what we call our increasing sophistication of civilization, as was pointed out long ago by "The Father of Psychoanalysis":
"If the evolution of civilization has such a far reaching similarity with the development of an individual, and if the same methods are employed in both, would not the diagnosis be justified that many systems of civilization — or epochs of it — possibly even the whole of humanity — have become neurotic under the pressure of the civilizing trends?"
(Etiology of Social Dementia - 10, quoting Sigmund Freud). One myth that tries to jump out of the book "It Can't Happen Here", by Sinclair Lewis, is that "a dictator" must by convention be an individual person.

That, even though the "Here" in the book title is not only a location, it is also a location of a group of people who feel exceptional to the point of believing they are immune from the cultural diseases that have plagued most, if not all, of humanity down through human history.

And, like all of us, they are people who are by design governed by groups that are collectively called "government" (e.g. House, Senate, Administration of the President, state government, county government, city government, The National Council for Behavioral Health, and so on).

Thus, "a dictator" can also be a governing group, a dictating group ("dictate: verb ... to prescribe or lay down authoritatively or peremptorily; command unconditionally" - Dictionary).

It is obvious that the problems in our current civilization are much more likely to emanate from the dynamics of groups rather than from individual people.

Thus, Dr. Sigmund Freud's idea about the psychoanalysis of groups should be seriously considered:
I would not say that such an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to civilized society would be fanciful or doomed to fruitlessness.
...
The diagnosis of collective neuroses, moreover, will be confronted by a special difficulty. In the neurosis of an individual we can use as a starting point the contrast presented to us between the patient and his environment which we assume to be normal. No such background as this would be available for any society similarly affected; it would have to be supplied in some other way. And with regard to any therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most acute analysis of social neuroses, since no one possesses power to compel the community to adopt the therapy? In spite of all these difficulties, we may expect that one day someone will venture upon this research into the pathology of civilized communities.
(Social Dementia Causes Heated Misunderestimations - 3, quoting Freud). What is contemplated is the analysis of a group in the sense of its behavior, its proposed behavior, and its cognition (On The Definition of Sanity).

That is not unheard of, because our constitution is the result of the analysis of the group in England which was composed of a king, vassals, and serfs ... which our forefathers psychoanalyzed as behaviorally impaired (American Feudalism - 6).

They therefore developed a remedy based upon a diagnosis that concentration of power impairs clear thinking (About Toxins Of Power).

So, they then prescribed that remedy, which included the breaking up of government into smaller groups (Administrative, Legislative, and Judicial branches) that each co-governed with the other two.

Their prognosis was that by removing some of the concentration of power, it would also remove some of the bad symptoms called "the corruption of power" (The Constitution Is Quite A Medicine).

What Dr. Freud suggests is that we need to expand upon that theme by applying psychoanalysis to groups of all sorts ... because groups rule the roost.

Others, who were not psychiatrists, have also noticed the tendency of groups of all sizes to go all rogue and mavericky:
One would say that [man] is destined to exterminate himself after having rendered the globe uninhabitable.” - Lamarck

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
(Dredd Blog Quotes Tab). Albert Einstein analyzed group dynamics in mental-medical terms when he called nationalism "the measles of mankind" and when he called American racism the nation's "worst disease" (A. Einstein, A Radical Voice).

Have a good weekend, but keep an eye out for groups that need to be rebelled against.

That is the way of good rebel science sometimes.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass - 3

"Flip flop" on a national scale
In this series we are highlighting various events which are taking place in the media that have to do with a missing ship of state.

Public polls have shown that the people believe that the ship of state is off course because the America we have known seems to have vanished like the Titanic, Air France flight 447, as well as Malaysian Airlines Flight 370:
Let's also remember that empires, just like a smaller ship of state, can disappear from history.

The reason for the demise of the Roman Empire and the Mayan Empire are examples of cases where there are differing opinions about how and why they "went down."

This extends to cases of ocean travel where ships can completely disappear and to air travel like Emelia Earhart becoming lost, or military aircraft squads that disappeared in the fabled "Bermuda Triangle" during WWII (cf. Time).

There are even myths and legends about entire civilizations going down, as depicted by the current movie "Noah" or the fabled continent of Atlantis.

There are differences and similarities with all of these cases, and one of the interesting similarities is The Global Climate System which produces our weather.
(Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass - 2). How many times have people sung the words "they've all gone to look for America" or muttered "this is not the America I remember?"
“Despite the frequency of misguided practices and policies” within particular agencies, like the CIA, in the “national security” area of government, there are often very few whistleblowers. Abuses remain “well-concealed” even though they relate to “gravely wrongful or dangerous policies.”

This is what Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg has previously written. He’s also described how there is an “apparatus of secrecy” in government, which works to conceal from Americans, the Congress, the courts, “policy errors, recklessness, violation of domestic and international law, deception, crimes, corruption in various forms, questionable or disastrous judgment, responsibility for catastrophes,” etc.

The conduct of the CIA over the past four to five years, which has been a response to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s efforts to produce a study on the agency’s post-9/11 rendition, detention and interrogation program, is indicative of an agency working to prevent the public from understanding the full scope of abuses and misconduct committed when it came to a program that involved the torture of terrorism suspects.
(Dissenter, "Secret Government"). Like the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 situation (everyone is wondering where on Earth the plane with 239 people on board is), many of us also wonder where on Earth the pre-surveillance state, the pre-warmongering state, the peaceful America we all remember, want, and like is.

Have you noticed that most media reports have been as helter skelter concerning the question of where America is now, as they have been while covering the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 situation?

The previous post in this series is here.

America, by Simon & Garfunkel:

And we walked off to look for America
...
I've gone to look for America
...
They've all gone to look for America
...
All gone to look for America
...
All gone to look for America


Wednesday, March 12, 2014

The Queens of Stalingrad - 6

Headquarters of The Vassal Spies
Oversight, like elections, is one of the ways of accountability that has fallen by the traditional American wayside.

Yes, fallen like other relics of a once constitutional democracy.

A once constitutional democracy which has financially descended into a plutocracy (The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy).

A once constitutional democracy that has politically descended into a police-surveillance imperialist state through one policy coup after another over the years (American Feudalism - 6, A Tale of Coup Cities - 9).

The Senate committee which is supposed to oversee spy activities was shocked to find they were being spied on too.

They had not flinched when it was only American citizens who were being spied on, but lo and behold when they found out that they, the bosses, too were being spied upon they experienced what the 99% have been experiencing.

According to Rolling Stone, Diane Feinstein, Chair of the oversight committee, made some shocking, out of character for her, statements about the matter:
1. The initial 2009 Intelligence Committee review found that the CIA had misled Congress about its torture program.
...
2. When the Intelligence Committee launched a full-fledged investigation into what Senator Feinstein describes as the "the horrible details of a CIA program that never, never, never should have existed," the CIA unleashed documents as if it were trying to bury needles in a haystack.
...
3. In violation of written agreements about the handling of documents, the CIA secretly removed documents that had originally been provided to investigators, and then lied when its actions were detected, saying the order to take back the documents had come from the Obama administration.
...
4. Included in the document dump was an something called the "Internal Panetta Review" – evidently an in-agency summary of the torture program for then-CIA chief Leon Panetta, that many in the agency did not want the Senate to see.
...
5. The Intelligence Committee's investigation into the "Detention and Interrogation Program of the CIA" does not stop with the Bush White House, and delves deeply into the signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama presidency.
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6. The 6,300-page Senate report is complete. The CIA has read it and disputes "important parts of it." However, many of the disputed claims are, in fact, backed up by the CIA's own Internal Panetta Review.
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7. Distrust is so high between the CIA and the committee that the committee removed an appropriately redacted summary of the Panetta Review from a shared off-site location, and now keeps the document in a Senate safe.
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8. The CIA was so angered by the Senate having its hands on the Panetta Review that it spied on the work of its Senate overseers.
...
9. Director Brennan is stonewalling Senator Feinstein's inquiry into this spying.
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10. Feinstein believes the CIA's actions may not only have broken several laws but violated the Fourth Amendment and the constitution's separation of powers.
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11. Senator Feinstein is battling to have the Intelligence Committee's findings declassified. She believes she has the backing of the White House and that the details will shock America into never again permitting such a torture program.
(Jaw-Dropping Lines From Dianne Feinstein). Criticism directed toward her was not what she is saying is wrong.

Rather, that criticism is about her not caring when it was being done to the 99%, but she does care now when it is being done to her (Ok to spy on Americans, Not Congress).

Thus, according to some who watch closely, the CIA can use the results of her lack of oversight (for years now), to try to drive a wedge between her and others she will now need as allies (Where the Bodies Are Buried).

The policy coup that General Clarke spoke about is sometimes hidden only in plain sight (A Tale of Coup Cities - 2).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.


Tuesday, March 11, 2014

When Dredd Blog Was Young - 2

"A little Dredd with coffee."
"Once upon a time a dreaded youngster wore out the keyboards.

On this date in those ancient times Dredd Blog did multiple posts in one day.

For your perusal they are reposted today so you can see if history is presenting changes in a new world, or whether history is much ado about the same.

Below are the posts on this date in 2009 from that young whipper-snapper Dredd Blog ...

... the little meanie who sends fascists and commies and psychopathic politicians into a rage against the truth ..."


Oil Sheiks 'Borrow' Bail Out Money

Rep. Elijah Cummings of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said on the MSNBC program "1600 Pennsylvania Ave" today that taxpayer TARP money is going to Dubai, UAE.

You know, oil soaked billionaire country, "the projects". Dubai sheiks have built the highest building in the world and are building the largest airport. And on another note, they were the only nation to officially and publicly support the Taliban prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan.

Those are the sheiks who wanted to run US ports a while back. The very ones that enraged Americans, the ones who Cheney's Halliburton moved its headquarters next door to a while back (NY Times, ABC News [ABC News 'lost' the page so I use the Wayback Machine to recover it: ABC News].

I am sure there is no connection (wink, wink). No connection that Halliburton moved from the US to Dubai and then plane loads of cash followed when the Bush II Treasury Secretary approved it.

Never mind that 2 million Americans have lost jobs recently, the sheiks need a little cash to tidy them along.

Here is a link to an article indicating Dubai got billions, and below is an MSNBC video of the "1600 Pennsylvania Ave" program where the matter is discussed.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


Burn Notice - Cheney The Assassin

Well now Hersh has gone and done it and Raw Story is spreading the news. He has said Cheney was maybe assassinating Americans and who knows who else. The Yoo memos said he could use the military within the US despite the posse comitatus law. I doubt that the Dick was pulling the trigger, since he can only hit pals at close range with a shotgun. The new administration will probably not be too concerned as long as he had a bipartisan crew:
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that the military was running an "executive assassination ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
(Raw Story). The military was running it. And they were sure to let the Dick know what they thought he should know. I'll bet they did not tell him much after he shot his buddy in the face then tried to hide it from the press. Huffington Post is covering it too, and they have a link to the prime source.


Get Over It, V?

The movie V for Vendetta is a story about a torture victim, "V", who escaped. During the movie V lives underground while plotting to overthrow the big brother dictatorship that tortured him and those like him. V could have been a Jew at one of the death camps during the time we refer to as the holocaust. Should the Israeli and German officials get over it or should they continue in their prosecution of American citizens accused of being NAZI murderers? A recent thread here pointed out the sensitivity the Catholic Church has, and the insensitivity some Americans who call themselves progressives have. Some of them think free speech is yelling "F*** You" to anything they perceive as ... well ... Veeish. Hey, we all have to think with the brain we have, including Cable Guy. If they think yelling "F*** Israel" is the best way to bring peace to the mid east and that is the best they can do, hey, that is the best they can do.


Freeman Resigns - Foreign Pressures

We wrote about Charles Freeman in a thread a while back. We were upbeat then because we think there needs to be balance in the Palestinian / Israeli scene. That is to say, the past 8 years of the Bush II regime have been decidedly unbalanced. In the interest of mid east peace, before Bush II, the US had traditionally attempted to play the role of an independent broker fair to both sides. No one wants a biased judge. But the Bush II regime was clearly unbalanced in favour of one of the parties. We saw Freeman as a reset and a start toward a new balance. Well, the waters are evidently so poisoned, according to Mr. Freeman, that he could not stay in his post any longer. He had hardly unpacked. Some will say zionists did it. I think it was warsters, i.e. neoCons. But warster zionists, warster palestinians, and warster neoCons all have the same mental and emotional "DNA". Those types all have the same behavioural and cognitive pattern, so the label is less important than the fact they are rabid and do not want peace. At this moment their polarization does not bode well for mid east politics. This development also shows how difficult the job is for the Secretary of State and the ambassadors to that region.


The previous post in this series is here.

"When I was Young", by The Animals


Monday, March 10, 2014

Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass - 2

Boeing 777-200ER of Malaysian Airlines
Sometimes the word "ship" is used to represent "the state" which is another way of saying the government.

Since aircraft are sometimes called flagships, why can't a flagship and its piloting also be used as a metaphor, epitome, or analogy in place of an ocean going vessel to represent "the ship of state?"

We have used the infamous ocean vessel, the Titanic, as a metaphor that illustrates a ship of state (Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass).

Instead of using only the Titanic, today let's use a combination of the Titanic, Air France flight 447 which crashed in 2009, as well as Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

Let's also remember that empires, just like a smaller ship of state, can disappear from history.

The reason for the demise of the Roman Empire and the Mayan Empire are examples of cases where there are differing opinions about how and why they "went down."

This extends to cases of ocean travel where ships can completely disappear and to air travel like Emelia Earhart becoming lost, or military aircraft squads that disappeared in the fabled "Bermuda Triangle" during WWII (cf. Time).

There are even myths and legends about entire civilizations going down, as depicted by the current movie "Noah" or the fabled continent of Atlantis.

There are differences and similarities with all of these cases, and one of the interesting similarities is The Global Climate System which produces our weather.

Another interesting factor of the Titanic and Air France flight 447 disasters involve both having two navigation / control systems, which led to conflict and confusion:
[RE: Titanic]

Two different [steering] systems were in operation at the time, Rudder Orders (used for steam ships) and Tiller Orders (used for sailing ships).

Crucially, Mrs Patten said, the two steering systems were the complete opposite of one another, so a command to turn 'hard a-starboard' meant turn the wheel right under one system and left under the other."

She said when the helmsman, who had been trained in sail, received the direction, he turned the vessel [to the right] towards the iceberg with tragic results. (Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass)

[RE: Air France flight 447]

Unlike the control yokes of a Boeing jetliner, the side sticks on an Airbus are "asynchronous"—that is, they move independently. "If the person in the right seat is pulling back on the joystick, the person in the left seat doesn't feel it," says Dr. David Esser, a professor of aeronautical science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. "Their stick doesn't move just because the other one does, unlike the old-fashioned mechanical systems like you find in small planes, where if you turn one, the [other] one turns the same way." Robert has no idea that, despite their conversation about descending, Bonin has continued to pull back on the side stick.

The men are utterly failing to engage in an important process known as crew resource management, or CRM. They are failing, essentially, to cooperate. It is not clear to either one of them who is responsible for what, and who is doing what. This is a natural result of having two co-pilots flying the plane. "When you have a captain and a first officer in the cockpit, it's clear who's in charge," Nutter explains. "The captain has command authority. He's legally responsible for the safety of the flight. When you put two first officers up front, it changes things. You don't have the sort of traditional discipline imposed on the flight deck when you have a captain." (What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447)
In both cases there was an initial captain's decision to not take weather very seriously, even though both "ships of state" faced serious weather problems, and there were in both cases conflicting command systems operating at the worst possible times.

For example, Air France flight 447 was flying during the beginning of hurricane season, was flying in an area where hurricanes form, and was approaching a major tropical storm area (All the other aircraft that fateful day contacted air traffic control and asked for coordinates so they could fly around and avoid the tropical storm; likewise the captain of the Titanic had been warned by other ships of icebergs in the area, but heedlessly continued on apace).

We are aware of the fate of the Titanic and the Air France flight, but are we aware that these cases reflect on the ship of state of America and the world? (cf. Rogue Storms Sneaking Up On Us?, Rogue Storms Sneaking Up On Us? - 2).

Our nation and civilization are facing serious Climate Change problems that are also catastrophic because we continue to damage The Global Climate System which generates our weather, including serious storms, droughts, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, melting polar ice caps, and rising ocean levels.

Our captains of our ships of state, like those in the case of the Titanic and Air France, are going full stream ahead, straight into the storm of disaster.

Likewise, conflicting steering systems exist within nations and among nations, both at national capitols as well as at the United Nations.

Like the doomed vessels with citizens on board, the danger of national doom is increasing daily.

One example is that one segment of government (one part of the crew) believes in the science of climate change, while another segment of government (another part of the crew) thinks that the climate change data that is telling us we are heading for danger is nothing to worry about because it is a hoax.

Thus, the crew members are wrestling with each other over the controls:
A majority of Senate Democrats on Monday will launch an overnight "talkathon" until approximately 9:00 a.m. Tuesday to draw attention to climate change.

The overnight effort, organized by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, is part of the recently launched Senate Climate Action Task Force headed by Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

In a statement, Boxer said Democrats want to "wake up Congress" to the dangers of climate change.

The marathon session is not technically a filibuster in part because there is no legislation under debate, but overnight sessions are rare and likely to draw media attention to the topic — which is precisely the goal.
...
The Democratic effort is cause for some confusion because these senators are calling for action in a chamber they control but without any specific legislation to offer up for a vote, or any timetable for action this year.
(Dems Overnight Talk on Climate Change). The republicans will not take the demonstration seriously, since they feel that there is no problem, rather there is only a hoax, and so wrestling with each other for control continues unabated.

The fate of our nation, then, and civilization itself, is also a mystery at this time.

As to the other mystery, there is still no confirmation that the Malaysian Flight 370 aircraft wreckage has been located.

It is all the more a mystery, what with no mayday call, no distress signal, no communication about any problems, no debris field yet, and the aircraft disappearing from the face of the Earth with 239 people aboard.

Some reports about stolen passports and other relevant factors bring up the possibility of terrorism.

Which is like Oil-Qaeda terrorists damaging or destroying our climate system and our ship of state with their fossil fuel drug business.

UPDATE (3/13/14): The Malaysian Flight 370 aircraft is still missing. Meanwhile we also still wonder where the ship of state "America" has been taken.

The next post of this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.