Lessons Taken From the Tears of the Mighty

 A Warning About Any Expectation of "Equanimity"

Some time back MeanMesa contributor, Cameron, has already delivered his own strikingly sincere, teen age version of an impassioned adolescent Philippic concerning "equanimity."  During this, he very reasonably counseled that Short Current Essays, now that its internet visitorship has grown so robust, should "step away" from the old red meat ad homonyms of its earlier, less mature editorial appetites.

However, for this post that well intentioned "warning" is to be joyfully disregarded.  This baby is going right back to the old habit of those rancid, straight red meat, ad homonym epithets which populated this blog during the outrageous years of the Bush W. autocracy.

The Tragi-Comedy: Mitch McConnell

A Senatorial Incident of "Voluntary Self-Dissolution"

In terms of the now infamous MeanMesa ad homonym, let's begin with this.

That insipid creature with the bulbous smirk lurking behind those ridiculous "Koch bottle" glasses is a fraud.  Granted, there are any number of existential "alternate possibilities" which might leech up from the swamp gas to mitigate such a claim, but they are awkwardly unlikely ones.

 Nonetheless, MeanMesa -- always famously overly generous when it comes to criticising such miscreants -- probably might yet owe the high borne ideal of "equanimity" at least some token, modest effort.  Still, the old crow's fit of paralyzing terror at the prospect of facing a vivacious movie star, Ashley Judd, in a Kentucky Senate race reveals a previously unseen "garden of fears" apparently constantly plaguing the old Southerner.

We see evidence of this in McConnell's reaction -- he felt profoundly threatened with the prospect of a Senate race with Judd.  

McConnell's frenzied "marching orders" to his 1950's political machine were to eviscerate the potential rival, even before she became a candidate -- starting with a fizzy mix of ad homonyms straight from back woods Kentucky, McCarthy's Communist menace and a drawling sermon on the danger of a Hollywood Delilah.

In the end, Judd decided not to challenge Kentucky's incumbent Senator, but even the threat [Judd's public approval was a mere four points below McConnell's in pre-nomination polling] initiated a flood tide of campaign checks from the billionaires who created the Senator in the first place.  The "pregnant question," however, remains.

How could such a leading bulwark of the mindless unanimity of the zombie-like Senate Republicans have been so frightened? 

The Senate Minority Leader never appeared to be vulnerable in his own constituency. His bombastic demeanor in the Senate was hardly the performance of man plagued with any "constituent caution" whatsoever.  The insinuation was that Kentucky amounted to a homogeneous blob where midnight would find every voter in the parking lot of the American Legion beer hall swilled full to the gunwales with rot gut suds and hours of FOX News from the "lectrik radjeo" blaring behind the bar.

So where did this highly visible lack of confidence originate?  The panic reaction caught the media quite by surprise.

MeanMesa, earlier in this post, called the Senator a fraud.  There are many other derogatory terms which could be added, but settling on just this one, the blog is duty bound, right here, to "put up or shut up."

Let's examine a few of the most pretentious contradictions between the image Senator Mitch McConnell presents in the Senate Chamber or on the national media and the quaking old fool who over reacted so viciously and vehemently at even the slightest hint of an election challenge by an opponent who had never run in an election before.

Seven Unlikely Ways McConnell Might NOT Be a Fraud

The Senator's Defense at Trial - we have to give the man a chance.

Employing the greatest effort possible, the Senator's erratic behavior might be explained away if there were some sort of -- admittedly unlikely -- "additional factor."  Exactly what "unlikely possibility" would be required to rehabilitate the old Senator's reputation from MeanMesa's "fraud" status?

Let's look a few.

Unlikely Possibility No. 1: ...that Senator McConnell's Kentucky constituency is wildly in favor of the total paralysis of the government through blind, unilateral obstruction including the savage cuts to federal spending inside the state.

Senators are, ostensibly, elected to speak for a state's interest in the Congress.  This can certainly include representing fundamental positions held by a majority of the state's citizens.  One would presume that, subsequent to being elected,  such a representative Senator would present those positions, propose legislation advantageous to those positions and oppose legislation which might contradict those positions.

However, reviewing Mitch's recent behavior in the Senate, we see a Minority Leader who seems to have never heard of Kentucky.  If there is an actual ideology manifest in Mitch's comments, it is the remote "think tank" ideology of the billionaires who own the Republican Party, not the position of a majority of Kentuckians.

A quick look at Mitch's political page (link here) reveals his understanding of the responsibilities as Senator from Kentucky.  Notably, it shows the void of sponsored legislative initiatives but emphasizes the services his office might provide for the well connected.

Casework

As your United States Senator, I am committed to helping the people of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. One of my main responsibilities is to assist Kentuckians with issues or problems they have with any federal government agency. If you have not been successful resolving your case, I have a trained staff that stands ready to assist you in working with the federal bureaucracy.

Provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974 require me to have your written permission before making an inquiry on your behalf. Therefore, please download and print the privacy release form and mail it to me, along with a clear and concise letter explaining the nature of your problem. 

In this letter, please be sure to include any relevant claim number from the agency involved in your case. In addition, please include any supporting documents or correspondence that may further explain the situation. Please send the completed form, your signed letter, and any supplemental information to the following address:

Senator Mitch McConnell
601 West Broadway, Suite 630
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Phone: (502) 582-6304
Fax: (502) 582-5326

If you are in need of immediate assistance or would like to speak to one of my Constituent Service Representatives, please feel free to call my Louisville office.

---

Privacy Act Release Form - pdf (19.7 KBs)

State Government Issues

As your United States Senator, I have no authority to intervene in matters involving a state agency. Some of these matters include food stamps, Medicaid, child support payments, and insurance regulation. If you have a problem involving a state agency, you should contact the Office of the Governor of Kentucky at (502) 564-2611. Also, you may contact your state senator or state representative for assistance. Please go to www.lrc.ky.gov or call (502) 564-8100 to locate your state elected officials. You may also go to www.Kentucky.gov to find information on any state government agency.

Legal Matters

I also do not have jurisdiction in matters pertaining to civil or criminal cases.  This includes family court matters such as child custody, child support, and divorce issues.   Also, I cannot give legal advice or intervene in legal disputes, whether in civil court or criminal court.  If you need legal assistance, please call the Kentucky Bar Association at (502) 564-3795.

McConnell's home state has suffered through the ravages of the the looting by the cronies in the Bush W. autocracy.  Mitch, himself, oversaw and supported the Senatorial "work" which looted his home state, already one with a stubbornly truncated economy and heavily reliant on federal spending.

Unlikely Possibility No. 2: ...that Senator McConnell himself is either an ideological purist of an unknown type,  driven by deeply rooted principles of corporate fascism or is simply another mindless, dancing puppet of the oligarchs who own the Republican Party.

If either of these possibilities were the case with Senator McConnell, we would have seen him proposing legislation -- either directly or via his Senatorial minions -- to serve these "masters."  However, the Senator only mysteriously blocks legislation.  In MeanMesa's most generous estimation, there is not really any particular sign of ideological continuity in the Senator's obstruction, making it much more likely that the old cracker simply receives instructions over the phone, following orders on the Senate floor later.

It is also apparent that Mitch has an "information crisis" which might now be characterized as the now infamous "Romney FOX fog."  We have to assume that he is quite aware that his Senate antics elicit neither a "positive" nor a "negative" response among Kentucky voters -- nationally famous for being direly "information challenged."  

Romney's "information crisis" materialized very embarrassingly on election night, perhaps shaking the confidence of some Republicans with respect to the Party's quality of handlers.  Yet, here we have McConnell acting, for all intents and purposes, as if there is a massive majority of voters following his vacuous political maneuvering in lock step.

There might possibly be a small group of wealthy Kentucky resident politicos who are as reactionary as their oligarchic role models, but certainly not enough to count as a dependable election base.

Unlikely Possibility No. 3 [and 4...]: ...that Senator McConnell didn't really mean it when he groaned out his now famous quip "Our first legislative priority is to make Barack Obama a one term President."

"Obama phobia" has been thoroughly discussed already, but with the case of the "un-interpretable"  Senator McConnell, we encounter a host for the racist outlook with the Congressional power to destroy everything in his path -- including all manner of vitally needed economic recovery legislation.  Federal programs with that "vitally needed" rating certainly extend to relief for Mitch's recession torn home state, too.

The question is extremely straightforward.  Did Kentucky voters stream to the polls with a single interest point in McConnell's last election?  Was the primary voter issue to make Obama a one term President?

Was Kentucky doing so well that there wasn't any other Congressional priority which could top this one on the minds of voters?

The 4th unlikely possibility is actually a joke -- a little something to break the melancholic tedium of falsehoods and frauds.

Unlikely Possibility No. 4: ...that "Unlikely Possibility No. 3" has careened into the post 2012 reality to become "Our first legislative priority is to make Barack Obama a three term President."

While humorous, this 4th unlikely possibility actually represents something of a challenge to our democracy.  The map of the 2012 election results shows a drastically dwindling share among the ranks of Americans voters still willing to cast a ballot for a Republican candidate.

The "red states" are now isolated to the sore losers of the Civil War and the fly over ranches of the deep central portion of the country.  The number of "self-identified Republicans" has continued to plummet even after the election.  The Party, acting officially, is still mired in the Biblical fundamentals of loving job creators, hating gays, loving guns, hating Mexicans, loving ridiculous corporate tax loop holes, hating college students, loving war, hating women, loving Israel, hating Arabs and operating the country's money crazed media as if it were a "wholly owned subsidiary" -- which, of course, it is.

Although Mitch McConnell's Party might, at some point, wake up, it also may continue its "self destruct" cycle.  MeanMesa, as of now, is profoundly uncertain which would be worse.

Unlikely Possibility No. 5: ...that Senator McConnell has amassed an immense personal wealth by performing as such a good servant in the defense of the oligarchs' "sacred tax loop holes," and is now so rich that he no longer particularly cares if he's ever re-elected again.

The most recent reports suggest that Mitch, after 36 years of government employment, has actually not amassed what would be considered great wealth.  The part of his record which the public can access estimates that the perennial Senator from Kentucky is worth a paltry $25 to $30 million.

Among the Republican Party's owners, the oligarchs who issue the orders that McConnell and the others so dutifully obey, $30 million would probably not be enough to finance one of their venom drenched, corporate Super Pacs for a full week.

Unlikely Possibility No. 6: ...that Senator McConnell has either the ambition, the distant expectation or the credentials of becoming a "leader" for the Republican Party.

Although the GOP, essentially devoid of any particularly attractive leadership possibilities, might someday chose Mitch for a run at the Presidency, the reality of the process doesn't bode well for any potential candidate.  The owners of the Republican Party don't like leaders who might even possibly ever act like leaders.  Instead, they have shown an embarrassing infatuation with "place holder" candidates they can trust to "follow orders" once ensconced in the Oval Office.

Oligarchs don't like real leaders because they think that everyone is like they are.

A quick review of recent Republican Presidential candidates -- Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney -- explains this point.  Unattractive, unnotable, unpopular, under achievers and largely incompetent ideologues bubbling up through the scum which now covers the "choice pool" of strangely acquiescent "inheritance billionaires" who have been genetically provided with sufficient wealth to be deemed "blessed," but who have an almost sterile void of individual initiative about anything beyond the latest scheme to divert even more cash into the pockets of the oligarchs calling the shots.

No where among them was a soul with even the slightest murmur of energetic effort to capture the hearts and hopes of the country which the same Republicans had just finished plunging to a morass of fear and hopeless despair.

While Mitch might fit the overall profile, he would almost immediately, faced with the personal requirements of a campaign, reveal -- among other things -- that he was simply not nearly fast enough on his feet.  After Romney, the check books would be wanting someone considerably more fluent than McConnell.

Interestingly, if one were to interrupt the relentless lament of a modern conservative while he parrots about the hopelessness of it all, with the simple question of "So, who would you like as President?" the most likely answer would be an utterly unelectable choice such as Ron Paul or Paul Ryan.  

The GOP has no leaders.  In fact, the GOP has no policy, no platform and no candidate -- only a litany of carefully manipulated complaints from its well trained base.  There are, indeed, hands of the wheel, directing the thing, but these are the hands of the unseen oligarchs.

Unlikely Possibility No. 7: ...that the Senator has secretly funnelled massive amounts of pork into Kentucky.

Some pork actually gets spread among constituencies, but an alarming amount winds up almost exclusively in the pockets of the well connected.  In the cases where it gets "spread around," perhaps for bridges to the property of individual developers, school repairs performed by "favorite" contractors or as subsidy to "no bid" projects which still help the public interest, local economies actually benefit.

Naturally, the corruption seriously lessens the efficiency of such expenditures, but at least some part of the purchased results provide a benefit for a wider public.  Enough of these "inefficient" pork barrel subsidy projects can, conceivably, begin to prop up a state economy if they continue long enough.

Yet, the economy of the State of Kentucky is anything but "propped up."

This has been the "business model" of the Southern states since reconstruction. Even though the palatial plantations and their insipid, racist plutocrats are long gone, the shadow class society with rigidly enforced, unavoidably stark wealth concentration proves disgustingly durable.  Mitch is a lifelong benefactor -- and political parasite -- of this.  His base in Kentucky will continue to elect him to desperately sustain even a distant echo of this old "ante bellum" dream regardless of how bad it gets for the "little people" there.

When Sabotage Becomes Treason

We know that this list of possible explanations for McConnell's erratic character could endlessly increase, but you get the idea.

This "fraud" business is a federal picture of a state issue, too.  When it comes to diverting social resources into the illicit gain of a small elite, the dysfunction  is unilateral and pervasive.  While specific outrages can be grudgingly accepted, Kentucky is saturated with a myriad of them. We must understand the traditional classicism of the place to understand the nature of Mitch's electoral base.

The poor in Kentucky are subject to a "social fraud."  All sorts of opportunities and advantages commonly taken for granted elsewhere in the union as features of living in a modern society -- things such as quality education, functional civil works like water, sewer, regulations protecting the health of citizens, an operational economy which serves more than the elite, a rational justice system and others -- fall prey when resources are relentlessly directed to the oligarch class.

If the Senator's motivations were driven by any of these remotely comprehensible, yet still quite despicable, ulterior motives we could explain his anti-democracy appetites while, of course, still not respecting them. However, the Senator's arcane Congressional behavior seems to elude any mundane definition.

How could such a consistently destructive megalomania have survived the "representational correction" we had all previously assumed to be an inevitable part of the democratic system?  He can't actually have a constituency of uninterested, uninformed, masochistic Kentuckians, and there doesn't seem to be any particular ideological foundation for his ascent and maintenance of power.

Yet, here he is, violently sabotaging every effort the nation makes to recover from the damage previously inflicted under his watch.  He is a relic from past times when a politician was expected to be -- and accepted as -- a caricature with a cartoon existence.  For a while such a creature might be expected to survive strictly as an unnoticed parasite, but the system was supposed to correct such anomalies, given time.

Mitch McConnell might be nothing more than an innocent, mysterious abnormality with respect to his incomprehensible motivation, but also, he may even be a myth, an ideological doppelganger, standing in the place of an actual politician, answering only to an incomprehensible, impossible, invisible class of puppet masters.

In either case, he is hardly a Senator.

History's Test: Modern Education

A Quick Visit to the Enterprise

Not the air craft carrier, the space ship

Indulge MeanMesa for a paragraph or two.  We can benefit from a short visit to over view a few scenes from an episode of Star Trek, in this case, from the "New Generation" series.

While Captain Picard and half a dozen children are in the turbo lift, something happens to the ship.  The Captain is injured and disabled, and the turbo lift is stuck between decks.  The children, little boys and girls attending school aboard the Enterprise in the story, are all around ten years old.

After a few minutes of dramatic acting, it is clear that the Captain is hurt too badly to solve the problem.  He asks the children if they have any ideas which might help.  A ten year old boy in the group offers [roughly] the following:

"We can reverse the polarity on the turbo's main drive coil by withdrawing the power feed injector and re-routing the main drive circuit bus.  Then we can divert the low voltage lines from the turbo cabin's passenger control bank, and feed it into the retractor mechanism to free up the lift and restore the turbo function."

[By "roughly" MeanMesa quickly admits to not having the precise script.  However, that is not the point to be made, here.]

Can we get there from here? (image source)

 We can enlarge our perspective to include an even greater body of technology at work in a day to day process.  Although the sets for an episode of Star Trek is usually contained within the ship,  Of course, there are other ships just as complex technologically as the Enterprise, but there are also farms and factories.  

In fact, according to the script, there are worlds -- many worlds.  The government behind the Enterprise isn't called the Federation of Planets for nothing.

Every tiny glimpse of such a civilization, regardless of where one might be standing at the moment, would reveal sophisticated, complicated, complex technology everywhere, performing every imaginable sort of work.  Of course, there would be computers, but connected to those computers would be a dizzying array of other equipment.

A "federation" of 23rd Century planets filled with people would require a great deal of work just to keep going, and, if the vision of Star Trek is an even somewhat reasonable estimate of future conditions, more than an elite few would need to be able to operate, program and repair all that machinery -- many more than an elite few.

More than an elite few would also be required to continue designing and creating even more sophisticated machinery as things went along -- again, many more than an elite few.

In fact, for the worlds of Star Trek's "Federation of Planets" to work, hundreds of millions or billions of people would need to be "educated" in a way quite beyond what we might think of when we said that word in 2013.  Those millions of people operating, and perhaps more importantly, understanding those billions of machines would not have found the ten year old's suggestion at all remarkable.

Technological Illiteracy

With not too much a "stretch of imagination," we arrive at a rather unsettling conclusion.

The processes of "education" being employed today could not possibly "educate" the millions or billions of Federation citizens to the level required for the civilization to function.  Our modern system would fail in two important aspects.

First, although it might be conceivable to educate a student to the far advanced level required for expertise in a number of very narrow areas of technology, but for that student to be functionally "acquainted" with a wide set of technological applications would be out of the question.

Second, the time required for a student to become thoroughly "educated" in even a few narrow fields of technology -- either fundamentals or applications -- in the current scheme amounts to decades.  The cost of such an education continually expands as the course work becomes more and more advanced, and the curriculum becomes more and more exclusive the higher the student advances.  There is neither time nor resource for broadening expertise with "out of specialty" course work.

We can easily think of these issues at the university or graduate levels, but we will also have to start thinking of the same issues at high school, junior high and elementary school levels.

Anticipating a future similar to the one we can glimpse in Star Trek episodes, we have a very bad feeling that we're really not meeting the challenge at any level.  Further, that "challenge," while it may be the case today, will not be judged in the future on any metric devised by educators or politicians.  Instead, we would watch a gradually increasing series of technological disasters as society enviously embraced the advantages of advancing technology but failed to produce citizens capable of operating it.

New Mexico, home for MeanMesa and Short Current Essays, is a contemporary example of this.  Jealous of the modern processes in other, more educated states, New Mexico has rushed precariously into the duplication of these technologically advanced societies without a population of workers with the fundamental literacy required to actually provide the staff to run them.

The examples are heart breaking, but quite immediate.

Convicted murderers are released from prison after mistakes running State record keeping software.  New Mexico drivers with a dozen DWI arrests continue to have prosecutions dismissed from a failure to schedule testimony by arresting officers.  Failure to collect property tax -- for years and after all kinds of property development -- is routinely "discovered" amid the chaos of records in an assessor's office. 

Technical manufacturing businesses that promised "local hire" percentages in incentive contracts find themselves unable to fill positions with "local labor."  Still, UNM, the State's premier university, already suffering a precariously doubtful academic standing, mindlessly divert millions from teaching resources to the athletic department.

The high school graduation rate for Albuquerque is in the 55% range.

This list of examples could be increased to an alarming length.

Perhaps most discouraging of all, this social catastrophe is comfortably accepted as a calamity without remedy.  Not only is there no promising plan to remedy it, there is no particular interest, either.

Interestingly, there is essentially no denial that our world is advancing to an exponential adoption of new technology. It will be neither a sudden discovery nor an entirely unexpected development when we find ourselves mortally reliant on the technology while unable to direct or operate its function.

The two propositions contradict each other -- they are paradoxical.  It is a paradox demanding constant service -- even among those ostensibly "wise enough" to know better.

Education Required to "Operate the Human Race"

While we have been discussing technological literacy,that is, the knowledge require to operate a civilization based on advanced technology, there is another side to what is required.  The information or wisdom of this "other side" has everything to do with furthering our collective experience as humans.

Without this, the technology itself will destroy our future -- and, probably, us, too.  We've come close enough to this in the recent past.  Thankfully, during that last episode -- nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction -- the mass of populations constituent to the folks with their fingers on the button had an understanding of this other kind of literacy adequate to dissuade their leaders.

The technological capacity to construct intercontinental ballistic missiles was, in that past encounter, balanced by knowledge originating in the likes of humanities, poetry and philosophy.

We face the consequences of a similar illiteracy today.  The voices currently defining the nature of "necessary" economy, "necessary" conditions and standards of living and other awkward contemporary "necessities" validate their models with highly technological justifications and priorities.

This headlong rush to "necessary" economic and social "efficiency" is countered by the voices placing greater value on "operating the species."  This natural inclination to demand a balance between the sides contemplating our path forward is the fundamental basis of the modern conflict.

Having said all that, it would be easy to argue that our problems derive primarily from education, that is, that education, somehow, would mitigate the conflict.

Not the kind of education we are conducting currently.

Public school or torture chamber? (image)

Disabuse yourself from any imaginary image of modern education you may have -- especially if it one which implies a process which will -- autonomously -- gradually correct itself.  The current process measures its own success in ways disturbingly similar to the disastrously artificial metric directing its efforts classrooms.

In fact, contemporary education will not only not solve this dispute, it is a primary contributor to it.  By this, MeanMesa is referring to both kinds of education -- the technical and the humane. In a social culture which MeanMesa has frequently described as one of "intellectual tyranny" the humane has, unnoticed, slipped into the role of "secondary model."

It is not.

The Paradigm of Stupidity

The ten year old in the turbo with Captain Picard didn't concentrate his studies on turbo lift mechanics.  We can assume that all manner of things are taught in the Enterprise's class rooms, yet, there he was -- quite well equipped to propose a mechanical "fix" to a situation which would have paralyzed Princeton's physics department for a decade.

To validate the title for this section, we'll need to take a hard, cold look at the education paradigm we've gradually created.  Just as is the case with very many "modern" things, we see a "free form" dinosaur creeping toward an unknown goal, moving with the inevitable inertia inevitably enjoyed by anything obsessively seeking validation from hundreds of years of questionable past performance, a crushing void of imagination and a statutory annual domestic budget of billions of dollars.

In the larger picture it has been the consistent intention of humans to value the accumulated knowledge and experience of the species and to feel absolutely compelled to share that history generously with the young.  While there may have been many incentives to expand the human understanding of just about everything, one principal motivation has been precisely this almost organic impulse to guarantee that future humans know continuously more than previous humans.

The necessary acceptance of the profound responsibility of educating the young has atrophied amid competing priorities.  The old species-wide determination to be creatures with a perpetually improving grasp on all things, all knowledge, all thought and all possibilities has ebbed, a victim of shifting values which seem committed to permanently obliterating the historic passion.

Now, we find this "chicken arriving home to roost."  The educated elite have dutifully provided the technological advances we've craved, but that craving has clearly overshadowed human "species fundamentals" with alluring trinkets.  Although now obscured in the mad rush toward even more technology, both the technical and the humane have been consumed by the allure of voracious, intermediate applications.

The "arriving chicken" may be most visible in our growing inability to balance our infatuating new toys with more mature "duties" incumbent on our basic natures, but those other areas of humane interests have accompanied that descent.  The population of humans participating in such necessary creative efforts has declined to reveal an increasingly minuscule elite class with the background fundamentals, creativity and resources to create.

The great remainder of humanity is relegated to consuming -- and occasionally, fighting over -- what has been created.

Education has been transformed in a predictable way by the collateral transformation of the basic values which have driven it historically.  The success of the process of education has been coarsely married to a new, competitive metric as if all those interested in the task were interested only in preparing consumers capable of utilizing the constant arrival of the "latest creations."

The education industry has succeeded in crushing the innovative spark with which humans have accomplished so much in our past.  The industry has also refined, groomed and mastered its new credentials of self-judgement, effectively promoting the new idea that no one else can correctly evaluate the "great success" of the "modern technique."

Considering the results, it is a well educated version of the ancient adage concerning the Emperor's new clothes.

MeanMesa will return to this topic in a future post.  It is high time for a frank discussion not on the nature of education, but rather, on the nature of knowledge.  Specifically, we can no longer avoid the physical difference in a person before and after he has learned something.  If just a few nagging technological issues can be resolved, there will be a free offering, too!

Grozny, Boston, Putin and the Tsarnaev Brothers -- Plus More

Making Unfair Demands on the US Commercial Media

Gee Whiz.  We listened to all that stuff, but we're still not satisfied.

Once the smoke had cleared on Boylston Street, the American commercial media, no doubt "just following orders," immediately began its predictable fear mongering.  Just as predictably, the "usual suspects" started with their 19th Century jingoism.  Senator McCain, already always quite grumpy anyway and still smouldering from his election fiasco, joined in chorus with the loud mouthed "Southern Belle," Lindsay Graham, to demand military action and the "same day" Guantanamo water boarding of the surviving teenager.

The "news" coverage began a few test runs with the Chechnya connection to see if it had the fear provoking potential of becoming a more frequently inserted "news item."  Since most Americans had no idea what "Chechnya" was, the scheme was apparently shelved in favor of some other more tested topics which might prove more direct, threatening, and therefore, commercially promising -- MeanMesa is certain that the networks' list of "more tested fear topics" contained terrifying alternatives such as Syria, Iran or even, possibly, Benghazi although that last one would require something to replace the ashes after its initial incendiaries fizzled. 

Encountering this media train wreck, MeanMesa has bravely shouldered the task of trying to make some sort of sense from the tattered remnants of the "big boys'" sketchy reportage. Perhaps most importantly, someone needs to fill in a few of the blanks about what made up the motivation for those bombings.

The most difficult part of this post, it turns out, will be collecting all these frayed ends of scattered histories, geopolitics and purposely obscured facts into something glitzy or, at least, coherent, so MeanMesa will simply "spread the manure" and just leave the rest up to you.

What's Going On In Chechnya?

A MeanMesa Geographical and Historical Overview

In the larger picture, the bombs immediately began to wreak massive emotional damage.  MeanMesa was especially saddened with the death of eight year old Martin Richard.  While it's pointless to lament one murder as more or less grave than another, the explosions expanded very low to the ground, and, standing near by, this little boy didn't have a chance. 

There is no way to aggregate the value of what futures were snuffed out in the violent moment.  However, aside from the grisly injuries we must also take a very cold look at the psychological impact of the event.  After all, beyond the wrenching misery in the Boston ICU's, terrorism is all about the psychology of those quiet moments twenty four hours later in a hundred million bedrooms.

These terrorists wanted to enter the consciousness of everyone who might see what they had done.  It's a terribly inefficient communication model where the "important" details about conditions in Chechnya are almost completely suffocated by the fear and anger rising up from the outrage.  Whatever that "message" might have been, it is relegated to the status of table scraps amid the other responses.

A public poll in the United States a few months ago asked respondents to locate the country of Iraq on a large map of the world showing national boundaries but not the names of the corresponding countries.  Just under 40% of those asked could locate Iraq.  MeanMesa has to wonder what percentage could have located Chechnya?

More disturbingly, MeanMesa might also wonder what percentage would have responded that the answer was simply unnecessary information.

Americans, living up to their now world-wide reputation of having essentially no memory beyond 90 seconds, rushed to GOOGLE for a map.  If that flickering curiosity led them any deeper into the story because it was a "fear generator" by design -- in this case, both by the design of the Boston brothers and the design of the media executives intent upon squeezing every last gasp and shudder of Stoic American horror from their "reporting" -- those stalwart "investigators" were rewarded with a bloody litany of Chechnyan terror throughout Russia.

Probing just a little deeper reveals equally appalling stories of Russian terror in Chechnya during efforts to suppress the rebellion there.

Chechnya - the red dot at left. (map source: WIKI)

To keep things in perspective, we can take a quick look at a map of Russia to understand that relative size of the players in this central Asian chess game.

During the days of the old Soviet Union, regional rebellions were rare.  All across the vast nation, Russians of all sorts had the cultural memory of what transpired in Hungary when, as a Soviet "satellite," that country attempted independence in 1956.

The violence between Chechnyans and Russians has been both brutal and relentless.  During the late 90's a series of lethal apartment bombings were attributed to the rebels, but a sizeable percentage of Russians lay the blame with the Secret Police seeking public opinion which could justify military action against the state.

In October 2002, 40–50 Chechen rebels seized a Moscow theater and took about 900 civilians hostage. The crisis ended with a large death toll mostly due to an unknown aerosol pumped throughout the building by Russian special forces to incapacitate the people inside. In September 2004, separatist rebels occupied a school in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia, demanding recognition of the independence of Chechnya and a Russian withdrawal. 1,100 people (including 777 children) were taken hostage. The attack lasted three days, resulting in the deaths of over 331 people, including 186 children. (Read the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnya)

Further, when we discuss the regional history of Chechnya, the small state's neighbors must also be included.  Roughly the same ambition for independence prevails all through these small Muslim states. Each one has its own account of Soviet or, later, Russian Federation brutality.  Looking at a regional map presents the names of a number of other little known [to the geographically illiterate US] countries which have, in their turn, briefly been in US headlines.

Chechnya - the Neighborhood (map source)

You can see North Ossetia on the map just to the north of Georgia across the border.  South Ossetia is, theoretically, currently within the national borders of Georgia, but the majority of Ossetians consider themselves to be Russians, or, at least, Ossetians -- just not Georgians.

This partition was arranged during the Stalinist days in a routine "divide and control" boundary drawing session in the Central Committee's Politburo.  At the time, Georgia was in the Soviet Union, so the division didn't really begin to bother the Ossetians until the old USSR disbanded, releasing Georgia from "satellite status" to "independence."

During the 2008 Presidential campaign the McCain campaign manager met with the then President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili.  A short time later, the State of Georgia initiated an unlikely military campaign to "dislodge" the Russian influence in South Ossetia.

Of course, the military action was a disaster, but the factors which created such arrogant confidence in the mind of President Saakashvilli remain essentially a "secret" in the US.  After an extremely short, semi-visible "blip" in corporate network reporting, the story immediately vaporized from the US domestic media.

Saakasvilli launched a lesser but equally disastrous military adventure in Eastern Georgia to "liberate" South Adygea. MeanMesa suspects that the Georgian President had received "promises" which would have been "kept" once the lunatic, McCain, had won the election and been installed in the Oval Office. The reach of American war mongers such as Senator McCain is impressive.  The Senator's cruelly adolescent disregard for human suffering is sickening.

All this is posted here to provide a bit of background for the rage in the minds of the Tsarnaev brothers.  It is quite reasonable for Americans to be confounded by the seemingly tenuous thread between events in these nations in the Caucuses, the motivation of these domestic terrorists and their ultimate attack in the City of Boston.  While MeanMesa can not propose specific connections, understanding the atmosphere and regional background of the Chechnya, Ossetia, Georgia and Dagestan may shed a little light on the issue.

Local Super Powers: Russia and Turkey

In 2013 the "conspiracy theories" associated with all of this have become something akin to the ancient flood which raced through the Black Sea -- and the Bible.  At first blush we find Vladimir Putin firmly in charge of the new Russian Federation.  Vladimir is an old OGPU schemer with an almost unearthly political and geopolitical competence -- a cynical one quite beyond anything remotely comparable among the "leadership" on our US domestic scene.

Crushing the Chechnyan "nuisance" was a task which drew out both Vladimir's notable pragmatism and his casual brutality.  In fact that "crushing" was so brutal as to even demoralize Russian brigades sent to execute the orders.  Demoralizing a Russian army -- especially one that is winning -- is no easy task.  These brigades were already performing "popular work" with respect to the Russian population after all the "in country" Chechnyan terrorism.

Make no miscalculation here.  Putin has built a durable oligarchy inside the Russian Federation and protected it by gradually introducing slightly improving conditions of life for the Russian Federation's middle and lower class populations, exhausted after decades of Soviet bumbling. The man hates most Muslims and loves most dictators [Syria's al Assad, for example].  He personally appointed Kremlin "managers" for any of the Federation's dissatisfied "member states" in the Chechnyan-Ossetian-Dagestani region foolish enough to attempt a democratic election.

While he was pulverizing the rebellions in the area during the 1990's, the Western powers complained loudly but, as usual, did very little [with only the later exception of when McCain tried to use Caucasus blood as a "talking point" for his Presidential campaign] -- conceivably some part of the foundation of Tsarnaev brother's angst.  The Russian Federation at the time was awash with petroleum cash, mostly flowing effortlessly into the pockets of the newly minted Russian oligarchs. This time around, however, the Federation is ankle deep in intractable foreign policy exposure.

Chechnyans cheering Russian pull out (image)

Although Putin would very much have preferred to finish "flattening" the upstarts, his other "leg" remains mired in Syria's revolution and the increasingly bellicose Iranians.  The latest conspiracy estimate fits in right here. 

Russian "image" concerns" could be well served by a growing popular US hostility toward the Chechnyan rebels.  If Chechnyan terrorists alienate the US popular opinion, demonizing the Caucasus uprising, Putin would be free to complete the neutralization of his perennial "nuisance."

Materializing this particular conspiracy, Vladimir Putin would find the tattered domestic remnant of the US Fourth Estate -- along with its derelict, low information audience -- a conveniently malleable utensil for managing US public opinion, and the Tsarnaev brothers a tool with, shall we say, a "perfect fit."

While a little atmospheric on the surface, this theory focuses on the question of why the Russians did nothing to interview the elder Tsarnaev brother while he was spending months being radicalized in Dagestan after earlier being granted asylum to the US based on evidence that his life [and his brother's] would have been in danger had they remained there.

Again, this post is intended to provide just a little background which might assist visitors in understanding the cultural/historical "platform" of what the Tsarnaev brother might have encountered during his Russian visit.  

Since we are already "flitting" around the region looking for clues, we should probably expand our "circle of inquiry" just a little more while we're at it.

Armenian genocide (image source)

Returning to the map [lower] we see the countries to the south of this region.  In particular, two of these have their own history of brutal colonial reprisals.  The historic conflicts between Turkey and Armenia still leave both populations with a raw cultural memory.

Perhaps visitors here have heard, at one time or another, the phrase "starving Armenians."   Although this may have been no more than "one of those things" a mother might have used to characterized a hungry family headed for he dinner table, it has a chillingly cruel historical source from the Turkish genocide of the first years of the 1900's.  [Read the history here. ] 

The Turks, to their credit, have begun a sort of "Middle Eastern reconciliation"  effort with Armenia.  Recently, although still quite provocative in Turkish society, history texts have begun to at least recognize this genocide while the respective governments have also begun to do what was expedient in efforts to extinguish the hatred.

Turkey has come to realize that settling such matters with both Armenia and the Turkish Kurds in the east of the country are tasks which, although difficult, are important to efforts for re-framing the country into a more acceptable, more modern image.  Turkey's membership in NATO and possibly also in the European Union have increased the interest in this.

The Tsarnaev Brothers

In Chechnya or Dagestan young men like the Tsarnaevs have experienced the relentless violence within the last decades, but there is more beyond even that.  When a child is surrounded by adults who still scathe in the fear, anger and hatred that their parents, in turn, were immersed with and whose parents, before those, were immersed with -- and so on -- the motivation for Boston begins to emerge.

The post doesn't dare offer the specific reason the brothers finally slipped into their rampage, but -- sometimes -- the deeper story begins to "flesh out" such questions in a general way.  If we insist upon a complete explanation shoe horned into a nicely packaged, easily expressed answer for the "low hanging fruit crowd" of low interest, low information media consumers, we will, most likely, wind up with the hodge podge we are seeing right now.

Americans have been told that a "mysterious someone" may have radicalized the brothers along with their mother.  Americans were presented with the possibility that the brothers "self-radicalized."

Such propositions may seem to be quite reasonable -- digestible, and perhaps even somewhat factual -- enough, but the far less constructive element of that explanation's incompleteness shows up when such an "explanation" implies that the starting point for the "radicalization" was two typical American boys.  The Tsarnaevs didn't start there.

They also didn't end there.

The Economics of Bombing Boston

Spring planting is done, and MeanMesa's garden is covered with brave little vegetable sprouts!  Now there's time for another visit to Short Current Essays. 

The Cost and Value of Terrorism

and a few other issues

If the three sinister pressure cookers with removable handles detailed in the reporting on the bombing were purchased at a thrift store, one could anticipate a check out total of around $30.  The "Super Blaster" high end, black powder Roman candles [buy one, get one free - 3 lbs. of black powder in each package!] added $200 -- plus, of course, the bus fare for the trip to the "year round fireworks convenience center."  The "high tech" fusing, detonator and triggering assemblies from the local electrical surplus shop looked like items worth around $20 worth for components including the solder and flux.

Coming up with "household shrapnel" usually entails no more than a quick search of the kitchen "junk drawer" or a trip to the basement.  Presumably, the brothers already had the back packs.

The home made IED "grenades" look suspiciously like combinations of "left overs" from the pressure cooker projects.  None of the net work coverage has really "spilled the beans" on where all the guns and bullets were acquired, but we can be confident that, as the last drops of "breaking news" blood slowly seep away from the "career opportunity" media event, the government intelligence crews will pony up just a few more, last, breath taking, "late breaking" revelations concerning the grim details.

In this country where half the front yard lemonade stands have semi-automatic pistols tucked away under the iced pitcher sitting on the box, those "revelations" about the guns will, most likely, not be particularly much more enlightening or "revelatory" than a hangover might be at noon tomorrow.

Balancing the Books

Roughly totalling the purchases necessary to pull off the Boston Bombings, we could arrive at some figure around $1,000 -- probably less, depending on where and how the guns were acquired.  As we estimate the cost of responding to the Tsarnaev brothers' bombing, a very different picture emerges.

The governments involved -- the City of Boston, the State of Massachusetts and the Federal Government in Washington D.C. -- showed up quickly, ready to write a very, very large number of over time pay checks, starting right away.  As the story unfolded, local police departments were added to that payroll.  The surviving suspect was captured in Watertown, a community a few miles west of the city.

The Feds didn't stop with just contributing the "on the ground" forces, either.  The CIA, it turns out, had already been talking to the Russians after the older Tsarnaev caught their attention during his visit to Dagestan.  Because this was an "in country" matter, some or all of those CIA folders were forwarded to the FBI.

Minutes after the Boylston Street explosions, hundreds of off duty law enforcement were back on the "ot" clock.  Warehouses full of police equipment emptied in minutes.  The security presence at the scene was immense.  Within the first hour that presence rapidly expanded to a larger and larger radius around the Marathon site.  State Police were arriving to bolster the force which had been routinely assigned to cover the race.

The count of police and FBI investigators sifting through the thousands of photos and video was mushrooming as citizens responded to pleas from the Mayor and Governor.

The point here is not about the emotion, fear or terror.  The point to be made here is about the cost -- about the money, about the general funds tapped to fund the effort.

Boston

Within minutes after the smoke from the explosions wafted off into the Boston sky, the price for the response, considered in whole, was easily topping several million dollars per hour.  Over the next week, that total cost would reach to around a billion dollars -- more or less -- depending on what all was included in the tally.  MeanMesa suspects that even that monumental price tag may be deceptively low.

In terms of economics, the terrorist brothers had transformed a $1,000 investment for an episode of terror into $1,000,000,000 worth of terror response.  Fortunately, at least for our peace of mind as tax payers, the powers that be do not account such totals primarily because there is no established chart of accounts which could accept all that data.

For the reasons previously cited MeanMesa can hardly expect to offer a definitive, highly accurate accounting, but we can pretty sensibly select a few of the biggest items to lay down for a start.   Hopefully, visitors will agree that even a "shot in the dark" is preferable to "no shot at all."

Gravity of Threat/Damage

US Domestic - Civilians      $5 Mn

US Domestic Damage        $1 Mn

Interruption of Commerce $3 Mn

Material Damage Total      $8 Mn

Scope of Response

Boston Bombing          $1,000 Mn

[$1 Bn]

The spectrum of possibilities for terrorist schemes is simply too broad for an accountant's normal "cookie cutter" approach to accommodate the task of sizing up the cost of the response.  Further, the full continuum of possible responses is so vast that there doesn't seem to be any set of rules for estimating such a cost beforehand, either. From lack of such data we find ourselves forced to forgo the logical process of deciding whether or not the cost of a potential response plan is "worth it."

Of course it's hardly a decision based on a business plan.  Generally, it cannot even be a decision based on the idea that all -- or even enough -- of the facts are known, either.   Will the threat be ended by the response or will more threat be revealed as the first process unfolds?  We've had some experience, but not nearly enough to comfortably anticipate additional, undisclosed conspirators or strategies which may not exist or patterns which may not be in place.

At various times we have responded in fairly cost effective ways, but in other instances we have blown away even a vestige of sensibility like fall leaves in an October wind. The recent examples of these varied responses -- especially the bad ones -- don't paint a pretty picture.

Post Explosion Psychological Economics

We've had some experience with this part of the equation.  The scope of the response is naturally measured by the scope of the damage from terror or threat, but that is only the beginning of the calculation.  Even in the dwindling tatters of a representative government, the public response is also a factor.

In fact, the psychology of the public response is -- or can be -- just as material a parameter as the scope of the material damage.  When the public is frightened or hopeless, politics will drive the scope of the response to higher and higher levels of investment regardless of a more rational appraisal of simply considering "what it's worth."

We can look at a few recent examples.  While in each case a multitude of "additional considerations" may immediately present themselves, we want to focus on the highly simplified, limited parameters of:

the gravity of the material threat
the severity of the perceived threat
the scope of the response

Those "additional considerations" tend to include quite a collection of emotional reactions to terror or threats of terror.  After an event such as 9/11 or Boston, these can crowd into our thought model as understandable, yet not particularly constructive, adjustments to fundamental values we might have held with cooler minds.

Vietnam War

The actual, material threat used to justify the disaster in South East Asia was, believe it or not, primarily no more than another rehearsal of the well tested "domino theory" popular during those times. It quite comfortably founded upon carefully presented ideology and mind numbing fact manipulation [which suffered even more as the conflict progressed] offered up as a grave material threat while still being painted in only the most abstract form.  The American response to that "threat" was, perhaps most importantly, amateurish.  The balance between the actual "gravity of the material threat" and the "scope of response" was neither valued highly nor even well planned.

After a few years of North Vietnamese intransigence there were more than half a million conscripted US troops in the country.  MeanMesa, a real life observer during those decades of constant war, suspects that any number of other approaches might have served US interests just as well at a substantially lower cost in both blood and treasure.

The psychology of the war effort there was a quite "out of focus" mix of cultural memories of the WWII and Korean conflicts along with Cold War propaganda.  It went on for around twenty years at a cost of 60,000 dead Americans, 200,000 with casualty injuries and at an average cost of $1,000,000 per minute [1970's value dollars].

The "whether it was worth it" question remained one starkly based on the already tenuous logic of "domino theory."  That kind of explanation rapidly wore out both its usefulness and its welcome.  The price? Each North Vietnamese casualty cost around $70,000.

The Vietnam War is noted here to fill in the measurement of both the "scope of response" question and to provide a glimpse of past forms of justification.

Afghanistan

Now, the longest war in the history of the United States, this one was initiated immediately after 9/11.  The US population was thoroughly terrified by the attacks in New York and Washington -- a terror further embellished by the dramatically fearful response of the current government.

The next unfortunate side to unroll was the replacement of al Qaeda by the Taliban in the "enemy" slot.  The early military moves against al Qaeda and specifically against Bin Laden were very poorly handled, perhaps on purpose.  The "scope of response" was left to expand uncontrollably after that.  The mission, originally to deny al Qaeda an Afghan "safe haven," gradually shifted to "fighting anybody who would fight back" and finally into "they can't throw us out" no matter how hard they try.


Afghanistan was also the "first time tried" for massive contracted services for the military.  Touted as cost savings and as a necessity with the limited personnel of a volunteer military, the contract costs sky rocketed while services were steadily degraded.  Oligarchs had always loved war profiteering, but this was the first time that the process had been allowed to move from domestic factories to also encompass the cash flow previously found only on the battlefield.

Estimated final cost of the Afghanistan military adventure could easily exceed $2.5 Tn [$2,500,000,000,000].  Comparing that cost with the expense of incurring the initial damage on 9/11 is discouraging. Comparing this figure with even a coarse estimate of the monetary damage of 9/11 -- the ostensible justification for the response -- is more discouraging. 

Pentagon 9/11(image source)

The value of the World Trade Centers, generously, might amount to $3 Bn.  The damage done to the Pentagon perhaps amounted to another billion -- especially with repairs performed by the Pentagon's favorite contractors with the necessary "security clearances" and conventiently tight lips.


The four jet liners full of passengers who became "liability suits" could possibly add another $3 Bn.  The remainder of the cost which can be attributed to the Afghan War derives from money we spent in our response to this damage.

Gravity of Threat/Damage

Trade Centers                $3 Bn

Pentagon                       $1 Bn

Airplanes and liability     $3 Bn

Material Damage Total   $7 Bn

Scope of Response

Afghan War              $2,500 Bn

[$2.5 Tn]

Iraq

Having seen the public discomfort with both the war's painful longevity, its uncomfortable inefficiency, its obvious "mission creep" and its "exit policy" failure in Afghanistan, the "threat" for invading Iraq received significantly more attention and preparation. In hindsight, this may well have been the most scandalous feature of the historic disaster.

The fabrication of the "gravity of the material threat" was clearly overdone, most likely as a misjudgement of the credulity of the American public.  The voters were more or less manageable while being relentlessly plied with jingoistic maxims such as "They hate our freedom" or "Cut and run or stay the course," but fairly rapidly the "product" of that media investment was transformed from its intended role as a "manipulation asset" into a "suspicion debit." 

Oligarchs at work (image source)

By year eight or nine of the thing, the cash rushing into the "scope of response" continued at full bore while the public acceptance of the "gravity of the material threat" uncontrollably subsided, further aggravated by the Republican Economic Collapse of 2008.  While VP Dick Cheney's Halliburton, desperately failing at the war's onset, was now logging historically high profits from $35 Bn of "no bid, emergency" contracts, the endless war itself had become a public opinion tooth ache.

The same dilemmas which were plaguing the "cost benefit" cycle analysis of the Afghan War quickly visited the adventure in Iraq.  The cost steadily expanded to around $4 Tn.  The little accounting table in the discussion of the Afghan War could not be duplicated for the Iraq War because there were no justifying, initial, "grave material damages or threats."  This left the thing stranded without material validation, a void at first clumsily filled with propaganda, but one which later became a void so "perfect" that the resulting public opinion vacuum could no longer be filled with anything.

Gravity of Threat/Damage

Damage from Exported Terror  $0 Bn

US Domestic Terror                  $0 Bn

US Domestic Civilian Damage   $0 Bn

Material Damage Total             $0 Bn

Scope of Response

Iraq War                            $4,000 Bn

[$4.0 Tn]

By the way, the fact that Iraq sits on the fifth largest proven reserve of sweet crude on the planet does NOT constitute a "grave material threat."

Facing Facts

The Wahabist billionaires in Saudi Arabia who picked up the tab for the nineteen hijackers to come to the US for a year or more before 9/11 probably spent a maximum of around $4 Mn for living expenses, travel, pilot school and the rest.  However, the al Qaeda's lead guy on the project, bin Laden, had also made some remarkably perceptive assumptions of his own.

These "assumptions" -- viewed in the cost basis approach of this post -- are not particularly similar to the hyperbolic versions with which we are familiar.  In fact, becoming "acquainted" with these "assumptions" turns out to be, actually, rather painful.

Yet, these are the essential foundations of both 9/11 and Boston.

First, bin Laden anticipated that the tragically effeminate US President, already on record expressing his rehabilitative fantasy of being a "war time" President, would instantly "take the bait" after the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.  Further, well known for a catastrophic lack of imagination, bin Laden also correctly anticipated that Bush W. would pursue his "revenge" in the most expensive, least effective military plan possible.

The Saudi mastermind was well aware of the salivating war profiteers surrounding the President as well as also correctly anticipating their suffocating influence on the White House.

All of this unfolded to make Afghanistan not only possible but inevitable. However there was more in bin Laden's mind.

Once the Afghan War's financial "bull had wrecked the first China shop," all restraint  vaporized.  The invasion of Iraq might have been triggered by Sadam's intelligence service's assassination attempt on Bush Sr., but its real foundation rested with the quite predictable behavior pattern of oligarchs.

That would be the quite "predictable behavior pattern" of oligarchs who smell blood available for the taking.  Once past that "garden's gate," all bets were off.

As the White House took out the check book to pay for Afghanistan, the oligarchs also eagerly "took the bait," but for them the "bait" was the prospect of the untold fortunes to be extracted from owning the Iraqi oil fields.  All of this was in bin Laden's basic plan.

The "painful" part of all this emerges from the fact that Americans had elected all the incompetent and exploitative stooges required to be present to complete bin Laden's "materials list."

This discussion is relevant here because one of bin Laden's main ambitions was to sucker the United States into a "spending spree" which would serve to cripple its economy for years to come.  That worked.  We simply don't know if a similar ambition was among the "dreams of damage" which coaxed the Tsarnaev brothers into their terrorism, but it may as well have been.

The United States is, frankly, horrible with respect to designing appropriate "scopes of response."  Somewhere, the same day that Boston exploded, American military forces killed and wounded far more than the casualties on Boylston Street.  Somewhere, the same grief and anger of Boston were also duplicated, possibly to a lesser degree due to the frequency of such events, but still quite materially.

Believe MeanMesa on this one.  That "materiality" will be waiting for us.  That day to day materiality of grief and anger has become a formidable, durable glacier of materiality of grief and anger with new additions every day.

As for the nation, we should probably do what we can to mature past the "hair on fire" screaming which validates "restoring security at any price."  Internationally, other places which have experienced Boston style terrorism frequently have developed their own, effective, affordable "scope of response" in a way which should definitely "catch our eye."

As a final note, we are watching President Barack Obama utilizing his notable rationality as plans for "the scope of response" to events in Syria are being developed.  We are also watching people like Senator McCain reveal their predictable jingoist penchant for war making and suspect torturing.

MeanMesa's compliments to the President.