The strong do what they can...

Interesting.

This is a "Wordle" word cloud of the Bush Administration's National Security Strategy (NSS) of 2002:The application prepares a graphic measure of the number of times a word is used in a text. It is, then, a graph of the individual word density in the document.

Now, here is the same application product for the Obama Administration's 2010 NSS:I have to echo Robert Farley - I'm intrigued by the prominence of the word "must" in both documents:

"It’s interesting to me that “must” is so big in the tag clouds of both the Bush and Obama NSS." Farley says; “Must” implies a lack of freedom; it’s much different than “may” or “can.” It seems odd that the world’s sole superpower, hegemon, unipolar state etc. thinks strategically in terms of “must” rather than “can”."

Now part of this is, I think, a subset of the U.S. military habit of stating objectives in affirmative terms ("First battalion, Empty-empth Infantry WILL maneuver to secure such-and-such by 0700 21 JUNE 2010", for example).

But another part and, I think, the more substantive part, is the purpose this document and others like it have come to play in the propagandization of and psychological warfare directed towards the U.S. public.

Because of the very condition of our adventures in central and southwest Asia I suspect that the authors of this document intend it to hammer home the cruciality and centrality of military action as a means of enforcing national will and achieving national goals. "Must" is so much less negotiable than "can" or "should". "Must" sends the message that the Evil, Scary Bad People are going to taint our precious bodily fluids now, today, and MUST be defeated even if we have to sacrifice things like civil liberties and diplomatic finesses to do so.

So where I disagree with Farley is in my interpretation of the intent of the word "must". I don't think that "...psychologically, institutionally, and politically the imperative of “must” becomes real for policymakers..." I think that the policymakers know perfectly well that we have other options. But I think that they also know that those options do not have the potential for the optimal result they wish to obtain, regardless of the strong potential for a anti-optimal (that is, not merely less than the outcome that these policymakers wish completely for but a completely antithetical result; blowback, unanticipated outcome, disaster...call it what you wish) result.

They want to convince you, and me, that theirs is the ONLY option, much as BP wants you to believe that the only choice is between continued deepwater drilling using the current means and methods - and accepting the subsequent environmental disasters such as the one we're watching - and complete petroleum depletion and the End of the Industrial Era.

Farley seems to think cynically that the powers-that-be have been captured by their own apocalyptic rhetoric. I'm even more cynical; I think that the thrones and dominations are using these semantic smoke-and-mirrors tricks to continue to supinely ignore their foolery. He thinks that our leaders are fools. I think that our leaders are manipulative bastards who are playing us for fools.

I'm not sure which is truly worse, but I suspect that neither leads to a happy land of sparkle rainbows and fluffy puppies.

Why my Hummer is the problem

This Sunday's Oregonian had a blitheringly obvious article about how the REAL problem isn't "global warming" or "carbon footprint" but the fact that there's just too many goddamn people.Well, duh.

Any naturalist or biologist can tell you that an organism without size or population limits eventually kills itself; it either gets too big or too numerous for the resources that support it. Unpreyed deer graze off the browse and starve. Redwoods rot at the base and topple. Michael Jackson becomes a white woman who sleeps with little boys.

De Toqueville famously said that democracy lasts until the citizenry realizes it can vote itself largesse out of the public purse. I'd add that it then votes for those bobos that tell it that it's decisions are good and wise. Our current candidates are among the great tradition of useful idiots who tell us to play and spend while ignoring the house burning down around us. I confidently predict we will never address this issue until it's gone all Soylent Green on us.And the simple truth is that you and I, with our hair dryers and Ipods are the problem, not the teeming mass of goatherders and farmers in Bihari Province. We're driving our habitat under faster with our Hummer and our semi-detached ranch houses than they have in 10,000 years of burning donkey dung to cook over.

But do you honestly think we'd vote for someone who tromped onstage and announced "You dumb fuckers have helped destroy our own world. You shit where you eat, care only for your own comfort, you hollow out your own economy in pursuit of cheaper plastic knick-knacks at the Wal-Mart, and to do this you have enabled your own rulers to rob, lie and spin you. You have neither willpower nor critical thought and you don't care to use them if you do. Your passion for luxury and ease and your unwillingness to limit your own growth are choking you in the effluvia of your society. If you vote for me I will confront you with your own slothfulness and deceit and force you to make the hard decisions to change them, or collapse like the civilizations that preceded you"?

Me neither.