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Items like this give me the willies. Few remember today what Daniel Ellsberg is remembered for. [Editor's note: the previous sentence is lexical nonsense, but it has a nice Yogi Berra feel to it, so we'll keep it intact and start over with a new paragraph.]I think it's accurate to say that most people today don't really understand what Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg did to become famous starting in 1969, but when I read about it as a mature adult it's truly a mind-blower. You don't have to be anyone special to get a Top Secret clearance, you only have to demonstrate a need to know information classified at that level and convince a nice FBI agent that you're not a current or potential traitor, or highly susceptible to bribery or blackmail by one. So it seems reasonable to me that there must be at least some levels above Top. If Ellsberg says there were 10 levels above when he provided orientation for new National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger --- and I don't know of any reason to doubt him --- then maybe now there are 15 or 20.
It's a shibboleth of conventional wisdom, smugly accepted by everyone from Josh Marshall to Glenn Beck, that people who suspect that some national events are shaped by large conspiracies are "conspiracy theorists," and that "conspiracy theorists" are ipso facto lunatics. Therefore, all reasonable adults know that grand covert conspiracies could never take place because that would just be crazy. The conspiracy to conceal the truth about the unwinnable Vietnam War from the public never happened, and neither did the conspiracy to cover up the Watergate burglary. The Warren Commission Report fully explains away compelling visual forensic evidence of a President's murder that we all can see with our own two lying eyes. And all of the questions raised by theologian David Ray Griffin in his densely footnoted 9/11 Contradictions are "spurious" just because some of them are. Good thinking!
Just to avoid being misunderstood, like every other responsible adult I'm aware that the country is full of conspiracy nuts. But just what exactly do we suppose is locked away in those Armageddon-proof safes where the Top+10 files are archived?
Fuck it. I'm heading for The Saturday Night Fish Fry!
In this context...please define "lunatic"? Bonus points for iambic pentameter or haiku.
ReplyDeleteKaiser Wilhelm disguised as The "Mad Corsican" (from an undisclosed bunker on the far side of the moon, quack, quack)
But just what exactly do we suppose is locked away in those Armageddon-proof safes where the Top+10 files are archived?
ReplyDeleteMaybe the unused Anthrax Dick Cheney didn't use in 2001. Or maybe the date for Barack Obama's assassination. Anything is possible from those sociopaths. Anything that isn't too technically complex, that is.
Anon 1: I don't remember the rules of haiku so your definition will have to come in the form of a limerick:
ReplyDeleteA lunatic sat in his chair
As moonbats lay eggs in his hair
As he stared at the wall
He heard big darkies drawl
“Yo mama an old booger bear!”
Anon 2: it's probably best not to use keywords on the internet that might earn you a visit from a friendly, friendly federal agent. But levels above Top might serve to compartmentalize classified information on topics such as exobiology, cold fusion, or Caledonia Mahogany's elbows. I will write more on this topic later this week. I think it's an important thing to contemplate, but that doesn't mean we should think that we're ruled by a cabal of invincible supervillains.
well, I'm thinking that those who rule us aren't necessarily the people in control of this cabinet, or the devious plots stored inside.
ReplyDeleteAs for key words on the internet-- what about "key words" on the air (Fox News or the EIB network), or on the floor of Congress.
Anon 2: re your first point, I absolutely agree. And I have a feeling that the way things work in the shadows has radically changed over the past 60 years, and especially with the advent of heavy-duty globalism and cheap high-speed computing.
ReplyDeleteOn the second point, I think it may make some difference as to who utters the keywords. It's OK when global news corporations and Big Ditto Heads say things because there are truckloads of money to be made. Later they can say they were "only joking."