Stop The Spirit of Zossen 2.0

Such a cornucopia of riches this week. Liz Cheney’s low budget web ad? When we saw our old friends David Rivkin and Lee Casey (they used to write everything as a threesome) organize conservative lawyers in opposition, we knew ‘it’s so on.’ Adding Starr was a nice touch.

Ex-Congressman Massa’s extemporaneous absurdities probably speak more truthfully about the disintegrating American political class. His informationally bulimic style was too much even for the double X chromosome chattering industry. And how often is it we get treated to their slack jawed silence?

Absent a truly galvanic development in the health care debate [sic], doubt we will write about it much more. It became a USA Network (Character’s Matter!) remake of a Peruvian satire of a Fellini movie. Sure, we get juggling midgets and sobbing clowns mumbling about. Then the screaming between takes ‘What’s my motivation?’ To watch one more Administrative stooge blankly recite ‘The President’s Plan’ [sic] will reduce health insurance premiums for the majority of Americans’ is simply to watch the mirror image of Fox News’s pro-wrestling contrived narratives.

The whole world sees it. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Israelis, before slipping the shiv into Biden’s back, didn’t mutter ‘We got your reconciliation right here.’

Tweet This Post

Dr Leo Strauss Acolytes In Aktion, Comedy

We’re talking with old friends from the Movement’s glory days (1970s through Reagan I) to gauge reaction to the Tea Party fringe, RNC irrelevancy and Obama’s well-publicized troubles. These are the kind of friends who together at CPAC we watched a certain congressman who ran for president denouncing the Panama Canal Treaty work the YAFF CPAC party suite. With slurred speech he’d disappear from the suite for 35 minutes at a time with a wide eyed, gushing patriot. She was so eager to halt Soviet subversion of Baskin Robbins. For policy work, of course.

These are Values Movement types, closer to Uncle Pat (but uncomfortable with his obviousness) than the Warlord’s Christian Socialism. Today’s Movement schism is well known. We all saw briefly a public glimpse. Paladins such as the lugubrious Bill Bennett went after Beck post-CPAC. Much more knife fighting continues behind the curtain. Our unscientific sampling includes both long time political operatives and money. They are convinced Obama is on track for re-election in 2012. The health care summit and Rick Perry’s win and talk of secession are factors. But other reasons resign them to 8 years of Obama.

A conservative intellectual put it this way. Think Carter 1980 as preview for 2012. 19% interest rates, hostages in Iran, cardigan sweaters, malaise, Billy Carter and the Sovs crawling all over Afghanistan. The American people still did not abandon him like the Warlord in 2007-08. RWR from the Right had to use ‘aww shucks’ and ‘there you go again’ geniality to defuse serious reservations. Similarly, Obama’s in trouble. He likely could lose the Congress. His blessing. By triangulating against his Left [sic] and ‘Tea Party-esque Congress, Obama can do a Clinton. Micro initiatives like school uniforms and a Rahm punt or two. Picture Obama on stage with a Tea Party-Anger candidate. Obama wins hands down. No one sees a Republican with RWR’s ability to be both Movement radical and re-assuring.

Do these old time Movement veterans we talk with prefer an Obama win than endure the Tea Party mentality ascendant? Here’s our take: remember the old Jack Benny joke, ‘I’m thinking, I’m thinking’.

Tweet This Post

Dr Leo Strauss General Aktion

Ah, what a decade can do.

We are battered daily with dire warnings of a ‘cyber apocalypse’, Chicoms hacking Google and others, government (and more importantly, government contractor) networks pillaged and Kim Kardashian’s latest tweet foiled by sinister, nefarious forces. And naturally, the tech and information security industries stand by to do their patriotic duty, saving the American way of glide towards poverty life. For billions, yes. But they will throw in a year’s free subscription to the anti-virus.

We used to represent most these of these companies at DoD, the White House, what later became DHS, DoJ/FBI, etc. How nostalgic to see the same songbook, updated with the latest 2010 patches. The threat mongering technical advice given to Congress and across the Executive Branch only seems more dull compared to the 2002-2003 Runup because the marketers government services units haven’t come up with a compelling mushroom cloud Power Point. The self-interest and ‘fixing the case’ around the sales opportunity are not dissimilar.

Kudos then to veteran (and rotating) industry/government appointee Howard Schmidt, the Boy King’s Cyber Security Czar, as he throws cold water on all those clacking keyboards. Schmidt declares ‘there is no cyber war.’ And so were dashed hopes for bonuses in government sales business units across the board – at least for a few tweets. He’s right, of course. Schmidt’s tamp down is a rare restraint on the self-interested threat mongering of an industry that often escapes critical notice.

Externally, the challenges to the U.S. critical infrastructure are vastly more real and complex than when Dick Clarke had Schmidt’s job. Clarke’s brief turn as a Bush critic aside, he was about as whacked as Cheney back in the late 1990s, manically insisting we faced an *imminent* digital meltdown (Google was just getting started, cool webpages had jerky animated GIFs, and everyone was on dial-up). Wearing his gun as always for pure theater, like Cheney later, Clarke became fixated on a problem that just happened to be his bureaucratic raison d’etre. He also liked the gig. When Clinton promoted him to Counter Terrorism Czar, Clarke later resigned under Cher Condi and asked for his old digital catastrophe portfolio.

Back then, the embryonic, nascent information security industry was happy to help carry Clarke’s water. Major cpoints of contention remained, however, including mechanisms for ‘information sharing’ about network intrusions with the government. First, industry retained up to that point the now largely dissipated libertarian technological ethos. Second, competitive pressures were and are real – a leak could affect share price, etc. Privately, many people involved respected Clarke’s White House perch but thought he was a bit of a loon. (One of our old friends worked for Clarke as a White House Fellow and idiosyncratic is not an understatement).

One can’t be too harsh on Clarke specifically. Digital doom was in vogue everywhere. Y2K, planes falling out of the sky, dogs and cats lying down together, mass hysteria. Remember everyone went to their ‘command bunkers’ for that one? We were with a bunch of 100% Kool Aiders at the time, the kind that bought sleeping bags to the office News Year Eve to be ready to take command (or issue a press release) when The End came. We were kicked out of the Tribe for betting 0 significant incidents would happen. We had such a healthy chuckle the next morning seeing all the sheepish faces.

Today digital doom again is vogue. The U.S. military is actively developing doctrine for battle space dominance in cyberspace. It’s a huge institutional sea change from when the first netcentric warfare test beds were forward deployed for Operation Iraqi Adventure. Unlike Clarke’s time, the geo-strategic threat is tangible and the potential for substantial damage real. One disservice Clarke performed is that many remember his crying wolf.

Who can blame them? Industry and SES appointees are calling for Manhattan Project-level spending to preserve critical infrastructure protection. It’s a realizable industry gold rush. Industry sees the money thrown at Wall Street with no accountability. Tech appropriations still are less polarizing than other industrial sectors – and this Administration enjoys enveloping itself in the aura of digital savvy. Sure, total screw ups like Trilogy at FBI or NMCI will get some hearings. And Poindexter’s TIA got about 2 weeks of coverage before molting into a new guise.

Schmidt has an almost impossible job shepherding cats across so many departmental silos. And he has little real authority over the services or Community. Which is to say we will almost assuredly overspend here anyway. Still, nice to see Schmidt turn the volume down in public. He needs to do it more often and more assertively, although it’s not his comfort zone. He’s had the job before and we doubt he will make much difference this time, either. It’s not him – pick any of the others on the short list, Vint Cerf, etc. It’s a thankless job.

Still, Howard gets an attaboy. Keep trying.

Tweet This Post

Dr Leo Strauss General Aktion

The littoral closes more rapidly for an enfeebled amphibian. Meanwhile, hard liners move rapidly into ascendancy in Beijing, while the best we have are retreating moderates urging the majority ‘don’t coun’t these guys out yet, we can use them for a while.’ Perhaps Obama can dragoon all the various Chicom players to a White House law school seminar Summit and bore them into stupefied bewilderment.

Tweet This Post

Dr Leo Strauss General Aktion

We’re going to take a 5 day sabbatical to read and the like (Andrew Sullivan gave us the idea earlier on his blog). We’ll continue to check comments. Should something truly compelling break out we won’t be far away.

Tweet This Post

Dr Leo Strauss General Aktion

‘Heh’ (as someone used to blog, circa 2004).

Read more…

Tweet This Post

Dr Leo Strauss Acolytes In Aktion, Election 2012 Badminton, Bringing A Spork To A Hot LZ, Death Panels, Health Care

Tweet This Post

Dr Leo Strauss administrativia

Andrew Bacevich is glad Europe has gone soft and wobbly. It’s unfortunate that his criticism is limited to NATO ISAF’s sporadic support for American war making in Afghanistan. Bacevich, author of several penetrating works on debilitating American imperial militarism, starts off promisingly enough:

This pacification of Europe is quite likely to prove irreversible. Yet even if reigniting an affinity for war among the people of, say, Germany and France were possible, why would any sane person even try? Why not allow Europeans to busy themselves with their never-ending European unification project? It keeps them out of mischief.

Washington, however, finds it difficult to accept this extraordinary gift — purchased in part through the sacrifices of U.S. soldiers — of a Europe that has laid down its arms. Instead, successive U.S. administrations have pushed, prodded, cajoled, and browbeaten European democracies to shoulder a heavier share of responsibility for maintaining world order and enforcing liberal norms.

Yet Bacevich closes his routine with a shaky dismount. He lacks the courage of his other work. He now cops out and says NATO should simply focus on containing the Russians. It’s a disappointing flop back to the already outdated status quo. Bacevich does urge Europeans take over NATO. But that eviscerates the whole point of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization. We agree that the U.S. should not pursue Madaleine Not-So-Bright and Cheney-Wolfowtiz et. al.’s ill-conceived policies committing the U.S. to go to war for Krakow or the Kura River in Georgia. At least with Ukrainian democratic rejection of ‘orange’, we’re spared holding Cleveland hostage to the fate of Kharkov.

Contra Bacevich, NATO served its purpose and is done. If he is right that Europe (Old and Old-But-Now-New) can afford to defend itself against Russian potential encroachment (we think he is) then the entire Brussels apparat should go. A European-led NATO with subordinate American outsized military resources and entanglements is a contradiction in political, historical and viable organizational terms. Let’s not forget: reckless American policies dragged NATO and thus Europe into the old Soviet ‘Near Abroad’, Georgia, etc. which in turn galvanized reactionary Putinism. It’s time to end NATO as a staging ground for ‘hair brained [American] schemes’ (a nod to Kosygin and Brezhnev) such as dubiously functional and overly provocative telephone poles in the ground BMD interceptors, etc.

Meanwhile, Bob Gates is peeved. NATO is not behaving. Brussels needs the U.S. to [begin SNL Arnold parody] ‘help pump, you, up!’ [/end Carvey's brief funny window]. Gates’ unusually blunt criticism of NATO comes on eve of the first revision of NATO’s ’strategic concept’ since 1999. This update, the Bush-Cheney-Obama continuum hopes, will enshrine U.S. desires to transform NATO into a Rumsfeldian ‘expeditionary’ entity. And guess what? Madeleine You-Know-Who is helping shape the draft.

For the intrepid ‘indispensible nation’ expeditionary types, Afghanistan and NATO ISAF are crushing disappointments. As you likely know, McChrystal bashes NATO ISAF only slightly less than the Taliban. Saturday’s collapse of the Dutch government over Afghan troop deployment understandably spooks all of them. They know. Dominos will fall this time. What’s most glaring? How dare NATO fold now on the cusp of Great Things. Brussels hasn’t even seen yet the OSD/CENTCOM Powerpoint slides about Yemen. And then the other cool swamp draining tourist projects. It’s more than inconvenient that NATO lets public opinion and democracy dictate outcomes.

“The demilitarization of Europe – where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it – has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st,” he [Gates] told an audience filled with uniformed military officers from many of NATO’s 28 member countries.

The danger, he added, is that potential future adversaries may view NATO as a paper tiger.

Note two aspects to that last sentence. First, who are ‘future adversaries’? And second, ‘may view’? To Bob Gates, thank you for being the sane adult during the Bush regime’s twilight. You are also unique and deserve gratitude for your tireless advocacy that diplomacy is more cost effective than kinetic solutions in all but the most extreme cases. You created by decisive persistence policy space for the State Department and argue relentlessly for increased diplomatic resources. And God bless you for love of Texas A&M and your interaction with students.

The Cold War ended in 1991. NATO is a relic of that now ancient conflict. The power dynamic among all the players, including the Russians, has changed. NATO deserves a respectful and decent retirement, if not burial. NATO is not and should not be a re-purposed vehicle for American force projection across the Eurasian land mass. Nor is NATO – per Bacevich – the mechanism for a European-led defense against marginal Russian military encroachment capabilities. Andrea Angela [thanks, Joseph] Merkel in Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy are already on record that a formal European Union military structure be created. That is both the logical and politically inevitable path, not a tricked out NATO. Americans need not and should not be on auto speed dial to die for the Vistula or some Chechnyan tribal dispute – even with a European in command.

The European people already see a post-NATO, post-American-led-war tomorrow. There was a time when Andrew Bacevich might have seen this, too.

Tweet This Post

Dr Leo Strauss Foreign Policy, defense

How odd to see the Movement Establishment fragment so. Some dig in for their Stand against the tea bagger sans culottes. Just a year ago *they* were Jacobins. Now they are bewildered, revealed wearing Versailles finery, muttering about the divine right of Original Direct Mailers. Others want to throw down their handkerchiefs and join the ‘rabble’ (at the front, naturally).

CPAC 2010 — to switch revolutionary references — also reminds one of Stalin’s victory against his internal opposition 1924-1937. Recall he maneuvered first against Trotsky from the right and then against Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin from the left. How? Stalin was an organization man. He knew he had to destroy the Old Bolshevik Guard who controlled the Party. They remembered Lenin and more importantly knew the truth about Stalin and his marginal achievements before, during and after 1917. One of Stalin’s weapons? Open Party membership flood gates to the vast masses. He overwhelmed and diluted the Old Bolsheviks until they were nothing. And the new Party owed Stalin personally everything.

We know the analogy is a caricature. The Movement Establishment’s not there yet. And more importantly, there is no single malevolent will orchestrating events. The sua sponte dilution still wreaks havoc. Some ‘Left’ [sic] and progressive blogs noticed the unusually large youth contingent. It’s true. It’s also more than twenty somethings on a ‘most excellent’ road trip. This wave of new cohorts destabilized CPAC’s club psychology and sensibilities. We’ve attended CPAC on and off since Reagan’s early years. The Movement Establishment is rocked on its heels. Values wedge entrepreneurs suffered unheard of irrelevance and the indignity of an openly gay presence. The Movement Establishment’s gagged silence provoked bitter recriminations among many CPAC old timers. Only one obscure figure really ranted, and then unwisely before a Ron Paul audience. (Talk about not knowing his demographic).

Paul’s ‘f u’ straw poll win underscores the Movement Establishment’s dismay. CPAC hijacked from within. They may not quite feel Zinoviev and Kamenev’s bewilderment at their expulsion from the CPSU. After all, it’s still their institutions the party crashers want to join. But the uncertainty is real. Even as some like Newt try to ride the tiger for all it’s worth others want to put the rabble in their place.

Some conservatives we know point to the pre-CPAC ‘Mount Vernon’ kumbaya manifesto, seeking to paper over differences in the anti-Obama factions. The scrap of paper/html code refers in part to a more sane, rational conservatism. This, we are told, shows conservatives can be content to participate in liberal democratic pluralism. It’s doomed.

Upon reflection we think our earlier seemingly flippant comparison of the tea partiers to punk rock does apply. A Movement dedicated to nihilism and social destruction find themselves as out of touch, self-indulgent, insufficiently radical or nihilist. They are now, to quote Dr. Evil, ‘the Diet Coke of nihilsm.’ Spitting indeed. Amid all his incoherence, that was Beck’s clarion call. If the tea partiers are to be more than punk’s flash in the pan they will need that single will (or collectively single) to put their dilution to practical political effect.

Some famous Movement figures say to us quietly they wait for their own Thermidor. Even as they hedge bets and praise the new era. A time for ‘reaction’ to tamp down, er . . . Reaction. It’s a 360 degree firefight. All still despise the James Bakers, the GHWB’s ‘we have mortgages, not ideologies’ RINOs (and one supposes Carly’s FCINOs). If history is any guide, their Thermidor is still a ways off. Radicalism must overreach its climax. CPAC 2010 suggests we’re not even close. And who in the Movement Establishment has the spine to act in any event?

The Democrats deservedly face a political nightmare of their own making. Their problems are so much more pervasive and systemic than the Movement schism (so far). Americans are being treated to the spectacle of two disintegrating political forces grasping for power. But there is one difference. One of them is totally energized, consciously craving power for an admittedly incoherent, eliminationist, zero-sum Manichean agenda. The other? They’re playing badminton waiting for a third party referee.

‘How’s that bi-partisanshipy thing working out for ya, Mr. President?’

Tweet This Post

Dr Leo Strauss Acolytes In Aktion, Acolytes In Media, Culture, Election 2012, Pop Culture CPAC, Libertarians, NKVD, Republicans, Sans Culottes, Stalin, Tea Party, The Movement, Thermidor

What a difference a year makes.

Last CPAC, the colony had no queen. The Movement soldier ants wandered around the Shoreham hallways witless, or sat in the main foyer flashing their Mac Book Pros at each other, looking for ways to die. Confusion and fear reigned. They still thought of themselves as ‘Movement’ but most by now had worked in the White House, for leadership on the Hill or been appointed to SES perk slots. Still, after McCain’s crash, these former campaign veterans sought each other at the Shoreham and vigorously shook hands. Some even hugged. A lot like old soldiers remembering those harrowing minutes on Omaha.

Meanwhile, wealthy plutocrats dined on overpriced average food in the lobby restaurant. They had cheque books at the ready for anyone who could convincingly launch immediate political suicide bombers. The plutocrats asked blunt questions. Was the canon fodder pipeline real? Were the political bombs ready? And they looked for any sign of flinch, of conscience about sending 20 somethings out to die politically with no reward (Carrie Prejean didn’t happen until later in June, so no one thought of that paradise for the departed). Finally, and most importantly, what was the profit margin per attack?

Now in 2010, the colony still doesn’t have a queen. But Obama’s inexcusably weak presidency has galvanized undeservedly the Movement. Instead of a queen, the Movement offers a conch – the conch of experience. It rallies the old soldiers and waived as a talisman to cow their own insurgency. The Movement Establishment rightly has been exposed as just another D.C. nomenklatura, rich and bloated. ‘Rich and bloated’, with a new jingle and website graphics, is peddled to the febrile tea partiers as magic ‘Experience’. So far, it is not catching on. Instead, the tea party influence at CPAC outside the now very dated old school scheduled events has the potential to wash like purifying acid over the rotten edifice.

The feeling is London, 1976. Both for what is and its potential denouement. Recall how 1976 began. British kids suddenly walking down the street with t-shirts declaring ‘I Hate Pink Floyd’ ignited a mass social movement based on angry rejection. They would smash down the out of touch, self indulgent sellouts and reclaim youth culture. Back to basics. Jonathan RIchman and his two chord classic ‘Roadrunner’. From them, the Ramones and the NY Dolls, London punk emerged to kick to the curb dinosaurs like The Rolling Stones and Zepplin. You know the story re Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned et al. And they did take over for a while, mostly in London. Americans remained skeptical. Like our politics, we then as now prefer both to be processed and manufactured.

Punk failed, of course. And there’s the analogy. Without anything to offer beyond rejection, they lost their audience after 3 years. Labels and corporations jumped at the opening and packaged New Wave and more marketable, malleable product to sell. If you lived through the 80s you saw the wreckage. One famous rock figure who just played a major sporting event, speaking of punk, could just as well be talking to Grover Norquist. ‘Punk scared all of us alot at first, but if one just stood there and took it, the abuse and the spitting, one survived.’

Movement figures have no where else to go. They must endure the spittle. And wave that shiny magic conch ‘Experience’. They infected, rode then depleted the Republican Party parasite for power and personal wealth. They left the parasite party, country and government in tatters. As with all institutions their ideology infects. The Republican Party is a non-existent player in these conversations for a reason, beyond Michael Steele.

Perhaps the tea partiers will learn from history and side step her trap. So far, they seem to enjoy merely singing ‘Smash It Up.’ One hopes Grover has a lot of kleenex.

Who said Obama didn’t create anything his first year?

Tweet This Post

Dr Leo Strauss Acolytes In Aktion, Culture, Pop Culture