FDL have had a couple of unlurker psots the last couple of days which led to some interesting conversation (i rarely get time to hang out in comments anywhere) - but if there was anything that you wanted to know but were afraid to ask - take an hour or two to scan through the first one and the second one - lots of commenty goodness & lots of insidery stuff revealed - and some delicious humour thrown in for free.
the bloggy thing is very inside-football a lot of the time - if anyone ever asks me for the blog address i usually say 'nah - it'd never make any sense to you' - there's a constant tension/tradeoff between writing for an existing audience, and trying to accomodate newbies. i dont make much of an effort for newbies- although i do make some concessions. i used to call Blinky, Blinky, but nowadays i'll often throw in a 'PreznitBlinky' to help orientate the newcomers. (heck, miguel even told his mum that he didnt know why i called him Blinky.)
other changes i've made? ummm - i used to call scotty 'ari2', and i used to call dan senor 'Ari3' - and nowadays i try to say 'the egadministration' rather than just 'egadmin' - and i used to call Blinky 'the InappropriateSniggerer' - and i'm sure i've made a whole lot of other changes for you ungrateful sods that you dont appreciate. i even tried to improve my grammar and capitalization at someone's request (yuo should have seen how bad it was before!) (i havent been able to fix my vowel dyslexia - sorry abuot that. im not sure why that happens)
in any case, taking FDL's lead - if you have any questions or requests or suggestions or pleas for me - nows your chance. similarly, OldSchool asked Damien a question the other day - if any of you have any questions for any of the regular commenters - feel free to ask now (although i can't promise they'll answer).
it's nearly impossible to get a thread going here - mostly becuase i dont have any readers - but also becuase i dont have many commenters. i dont think that having 20 posts per day helps on the front much either - and i often promote comments to the front page and hijack the threads anyway.
chat amongst yourselves.
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4 comments:
I'm always curious about people's "Big Picture" views...ie...what do all these stories add up to at the end of the day? What is the agenda? What is all this corruption really all about?
thnx noise. it's a great question. what do you think?
i've always said that the best way to think of these guys is as a criminal outlaw regime. i think thats "the big picture". we had some really good discussion about this on the site a few months ago. as damien said at the time 'the politics is just cover.'
that's what the corruption is all about - mullah. as larisa said in the interview, think of it as competing mafia families - i dont think she was just being glib. sibel said the same - something like 'the loyalty is to the money.'
to quote woodstein 'follow the money' - what sometimes gets lost in that statement is that humans are greedy. that's the basic principle. as damien suggests - everything else is simply a cover story for that basic maxim.
sibel points to arms and drug trafficking - why? cos thats where the money is. there's no more ideology in one side than the other - it's all about the moollah.
also, look at what larisa said about cookie companies and 'all roads lead to iran' - there's no ideology involved - its about 'illegal stuff in the golden triangle' - what could that be? - and ostensibly legal stuff - but the purpose is "control" of those resources - the supply, and the distribution channels.
as i've said a thousand times - 'oil' might also also be a reason - but it has nothing to do with 'securing a strategic resource' - oil is only relevant for the same reasons that heroin and defense contracts are relevant.
my background is in gambling and corporate strategy - both of which are purely money oriented - but more than that, particularly on a race-course, you learn how to head-fake. most of the time you want to hide your true intentions, and at the same time, read other people's intentions (even as they may be trying to hide their intentions).
'democracy' is the greatest head-fake of all
anyone else care to weigh in?
Thanks for the response.
I'm still confused on motive. I keep thinking about Straussian/survival of the fittest/social darwinism concepts. The ends being raw power and desire to dominate. Part of that would entail enriching themselves however they see fit...ie..."Rules are for suckers and people who buy into that conscience stuff."
AFAIK the motive is making money - for themselves - dealing in the stuff that sibel talks about.
the straussian stuff is nonsense - at least when it is portrayed in ideological/wisdom terms. (although the straussian stuff is legitimate to the extent that they cloak their activities in "Freedom" and Democracy - rather than telling the world what they're really up to)
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