Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
As erudite and informed as I pretend to be, the fact is that there is much that is important that I either miss, or fail to see any significance in. The death of investigative reporter Michael Hastings showed me that because my first reaction to the news flash was “who is Michael Hastings?” Reading further into the story I discovered that he was the reporter who brought down General William McChrystal and that he was considered to be one of America’s premier investigative journalists. As I read that original story, the thought occurred to me that possibly Hastings’s death in an auto “accident” was not simply a case of reckless driving, but I initially dismissed that as merely the operation of my cynical mindset. Nevertheless, the thought nagged at the back of my consciousness and then I saw a story on http://whowhatwhy.com/ , my favorite investigative website, run by the renowned Russ Baker. The stories title: “The Michael Hastings Wreck-Video Evidence Offers a few Clues” http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/07/14/the-michael-hastings-wreck-video-evidence-offers-a-few-clues/
For my own benefit and perhaps yours, I’ve done a little research into who Michael Hastings was and what he did that deserves attention. I explore the possibility that his death was no accident. I admit that I have no proof beyond speculation. Hopefully I can give you enough information to make your own judgments. In a world where American Presidents openly arrogate to themselves the right to kill people deemed enemies of the United States, all things suddenly become possible. When the basic right of habeas corpus can be denied to American citizens, based upon unproven allegations of their being threats to this country, isn’t it possible for those with the power to detain and to eliminate individuals, to make decisions as to someone’s existence doing harm to this country? Finally, doesn’t this unconstitutional expansion of powers give individuals with government connections the leeway to take revenge on those who expose them? While I’m not privy to knowledge of the actions of those in power and can claim no inside information, I certainly can speculate based on the experience of my lifetime. This then is my speculation about the death and life of Michael Hastings in the context of current life in these United States.
At about 4:30am a man driving a Mercedes swerved off of the straight as an arrow North Highland Avenue, in Los Angeles and into a Palm Tree. It is known that the man was driving at a high rate of speed. That man was:
“Michael Mahon Hastings (January 28, 1980 – June 18, 2013) an American journalist, author, contributing editor to Rolling Stone, and reporter for BuzzFeed.[4] He was raised in New York, Canada, and Vermont, and attended New York University. Hastings rose to prominence with his coverage of the Iraq War for Newsweek in the 2000s. After his fiancee, Andrea Parhamovich, was killed when her car was ambushed in Iraq, Hastings wrote his first book, I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story (2008), a memoir about his relationship with Parhamovich and the violent insurgency that took her life.”
“He received the George Polk Award for “The Runaway General” (2010), a Rolling Stone profile of General Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO‘s International Security Assistance Force in the Afghanistan war. The article documented the widespread contempt for civilian officials in the US government by the general and his staff and resulted in McChrystal’s resignation. Hastings followed up with The Operators (2012), a detailed book account of his month-long stay with McChrystal in Europe and Afghanistan.
Hastings became a vocal critic of the surveillance state during the investigation of reporters by the US Department of Justice in 2013, referring to the restrictions on the freedom of the press by the Obama administration as a “war” on journalism.[5] His last story, “Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans”, was published by BuzzFeed on June 7.[6] Hastings died in a fiery high-speed automobile crash on June 18, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.[7]” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_%28journalist%29
It is of course possible that Michael Hastings death was an accident and that he was merely driving too fast on the wrong road. The WhoWhatWhy article linked above looks into the accident and I think fairly concludes that foul play was possible, but certainly not proven. We do know from Hastings’s friends that in the days before his death he felt he was being harassed our government:
“Earlier the previous day, Hastings indicated that he believed he was being investigated by the FBI. In an email to colleagues, which was copied to and released by Hastings’ friend, Army Staff Sergeant Joe Biggs,[45] Hastings said that he was “onto a big story”, that he needed to “go off the radar”, and that the FBI might interview them.[46][47] WikiLeaks announced that Hastings had also contacted one of its lawyers a few hours prior to the crash,[48] and the LA Times reported that he was preparing new reports on the CIA at the time of his demise.[49] The FBI released a statement denying that Hastings was being investigated.[44]
Hastings was eulogized by co-workers at Buzzfeed,[50] media figures such as Christopher Hayes[51] and Rachel Maddow[52] and others.[53]
According to Biggs, Hastings’ remains were cremated and returned to Vermont. Biggs stated that his family did not want Hastings to be cremated. Los Angeles medical examiner and police authorities indicated that it took two days to identify Hastings because he had been burned beyond recognition, and that the cause of death was undetermined, pending the results of an autopsy and toxicology tests.[54]” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_(journalist
We probably will never know what CIA stories Michael Hastings was working on before he died in that auto crash, or if indeed the FBI was investigating him, but given all that we have learned and are beginning to learn about the excessive use of government powers both by civilian and military intelligence, is it possible that Hastings was deemed a “threat” to our country and eliminated? Were I not a young adult in the 60’s I might have banished that type of idea with dismissive disdain. However, as I have written before, the assassinations of the 60’s and the murders at Kent State, have taught me to not be dismissive of the possibilities of conspiratorial actions by some with present or past connections to government. http://jonathanturley.org/2012/03/17/a-real-history-of-the-last-sixty-two-years/ and: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/10/27/murder-at-kent-state/
Hastings’ article that led to the McChrystal dismissal is a detailed and nuanced story of a tough, Spartan-like General: “McChrystal is reported to run 7 to 8 miles daily, eat one meal per day, and sleep four hours a night.” The General and his hand-picked staff had disdain for civilian leadership and basically he was given carte blanche by the President, who the General felt he had cowed in their meetings together. If you read it, as linked below, it seems a fair appraisal of the man and those men who he surrounded himself with.
“Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked “uncomfortable and intimidated” by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn’t go much better. “It was a 10-minute photo op,” says an adviser to McChrystal. “Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. Here’s the guy who’s going to run his fucking war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The Boss [McChrystal] was pretty disappointed.” This was a statement from one of McChrystal’s aides.
“As McChrystal leaned on Obama to ramp up the war, he did it with the same fearlessness he used to track down terrorists in Iraq: Figure out how your enemy operates, be faster and more ruthless than everybody else, then take the fuckers out. After arriving in Afghanistan last June, the general conducted his own policy review, ordered up by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The now-infamous report was leaked to the press, and its conclusion was dire: If we didn’t send another 40,000 troops – swelling the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan by nearly half – we were in danger of “mission failure.” The White House was furious. McChrystal, they felt, was trying to bully Obama, opening him up to charges of being weak on national security unless he did what the general wanted. It was Obama versus the Pentagon, and the Pentagon was determined to kick the president’s ass.” This was Michael Hastings’s interpretation based on his access to General McChrystal and his team.
Below was Hastings assessment of the staff and culture that McChrystal surrounded himself with as taken from an evening in Paris:
“The general’s staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs. There’s a former head of British Special Forces, two Navy Seals, an Afghan Special Forces commando, a lawyer, two fighter pilots and at least two dozen combat veterans and counterinsurgency experts. They jokingly refer to themselves as Team America, taking the name from the South Park-esque sendup of military cluelessness, and they pride themselves on their can-do attitude and their disdain for authority. After arriving in Kabul last summer, Team America set about changing the culture of the International Security Assistance Force, as the NATO-led mission is known. (U.S. soldiers had taken to deriding ISAF as short for “I Suck at Fighting” or “In Sandals and Flip-Flops.”) McChrystal banned alcohol on base, kicked out Burger King and other symbols of American excess, expanded the morning briefing to include thousands of officers and refashioned the command center into a Situational Awareness Room, a free-flowing information hub modeled after Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s offices in New York. He also set a manic pace for his staff, becoming legendary for sleeping four hours a night, running seven miles each morning, and eating one meal a day. (In the month I spend around the general, I witness him eating only once.) It’s a kind of superhuman narrative that has built up around him, a staple in almost every media profile, as if the ability to go without sleep and food translates into the possibility of a man single-handedly winning the war.
By midnight at Kitty O’Shea’s, much of Team America is completely shitfaced. Two officers do an Irish jig mixed with steps from a traditional Afghan wedding dance, while McChrystal’s top advisers lock arms and sing a slurred song of their own invention. “Afghanistan!” they bellow. “Afghanistan!” They call it their Afghanistan song.
McChrystal steps away from the circle, observing his team. “All these men,” he tells me. “I’d die for them. And they’d die for me.” http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-runaway-general-20100622
Those three quotations can give you a feeling for why Michael Hastings article in Rolling Stone was explosive enough to lead to the end of Stanley McChrystal’s military career. Hastings was an excellent writer and whether you agree with his conclusions or not the full Rolling Stone article will give you a flavor of his competence as a journalist and I suggest to reading it in its entirety.
I’ve written much on what I call the “Corporate/Military/Intelligence/Complex” (CMIC) as I see it. http://jonathanturley.org/2013/07/12/who-do-you-trust-us-or-your-lying-eyes/#more-66997 One of its’ features is that there is an interrelationship between those in the Military and Intelligence fields with those corporations who receive funding for providing supplies for them. I see this interrelationship as rather incestuous and harmful to our country, since the permeability between these entities can and often does leads to corruption of all parties. In General McChrystal’s case one can see that his Army Retirement has certainly not ended his career:
“In 2010, after leaving the Army, McChrystal joined Yale University as a Jackson Institute for Global Affairs senior fellow. He teaches a course entitled “Leadership,” a graduate-level seminar with some spots reserved for undergraduates. The course received 250 applications for 20 spots in 2011 and is being taught for a third time in 2013.[69][70][71]
In November 2010, JetBlue Airways announced that McChrystal would join its board of directors.[72] On February 16, 2011, Navistar International announced that McChrystal would join its board of directors.[73] He is also Chairman of the Board of Siemens Government Systems, and is on the strategic advisory board of Knowledge International, a licensed arms dealer whose parent company is EAI, a business “very close” to the United Arab Emirates government.[74]
McChrystal co-founded and is a partner at the McChrystal Group LLC, an Alexandria, Virginia-based consulting firm.[75][76]
In 2011, McChrystal advocated instituting a national service program in the United States. McChrystal stated, “‘Service member’ should not apply only to those in uniform, but to us all … America is falling short in endeavors that occur far away from any battlefield: education, science, politics, the environment, and cultivating leadership, among others. Without a sustained focus on these foundations of our society, America’s long-term security and prosperity are at risk.”[77][78]
McChrystal’s memoir, My Share of the Task, published by Portfolio of the Penguin Group, was released on January 7, 2013.[79] The autobiography had been scheduled to be released in November 2012, but was delayed due to security clearance approvals required from the Department of Defense. Portfolio publishers stated, “We have decided to delay the publication date of General McChrystal’s book, My Share of the Task, as the book continues to undergo a security review by the Department of Defense … General McChrystal has spent 22 months working closely with military officials to make sure he follows all the rules for writing about the armed forces, including special operations.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_A._McChrystal This is a case of Old (General) Soldiers not only not dying but certainly not fading away. In fact one can detect a political future in the making.
Based on what I presented above let me present a hypothetical, which is only buttressed by my background as a psychotherapist, life experience and love of history. I have little doubt that the General and his cronies believe themselves to be good men and patriots all. They view the world from a perspective that arrogates to themselves knowledge not available to those who have never “walked in their shoes”. While capable of nuanced judgment, it is a judgment nevertheless informed by their world perspective and self-concept of being heroic individuals. Among his men the General is no doubt looked at as the Alpha. As he was quoted in saying: “McChrystal steps away from the circle, observing his team.”All these men,” he tells me. “I’d die for them. And they’d die for me.” I believe the General is stating the truth. So then hypothetically, how would he and/or his men view Hastings’s article that led to the General’s retirement? They believed that the General had the insight to bring the war to a successful conclusion. They believed that our President and his vice President didn’t have a clue as to how to successfully prosecute this war. They therefore then believed that those who opposed the General and his plans were acting against the best interests of the United States, possibly skirting treason. Finally though, Hastings’s was a person who they opened up to and allowed to sit in on their inner circle. They trusted him to produce an article that would highlight the greatness and successes of Stanly McChrystal, after all how could he not after spending so much time with them? Hastings’s article and McChrystal’s ouster probably infuriated them all and raised an angry reaction in men who were described by Hastings as:
“The general’s staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs. There’s a former head of British Special Forces, two Navy Seals, an Afghan Special Forces commando, a lawyer, two fighter pilots and at least two dozen combat veterans and counterinsurgency experts. They jokingly refer to themselves as Team America, taking the name from the South Park-esque sendup of military cluelessness, and they pride themselves on their can-do attitude and their disdain for authority.”
Am I being unfair in speculating that perhaps the death of this Journalist, three years after this article, may well have been payback? Who knows, not I, but my senses tell me that there are at least two scenario’s whereby Michael Hastings death may be no accident. One could be the government itself, or certain parts of it related to the CMIC and another could be those able to take revenge on someone who in their opinion “brought a good man down to the detriment of our country”. I doubt that the public will ever know the truth if the death was not accidental and really that is not my point in writing this. What I’m trying to bring out is that beyond the unconstitutional behavior of our government in the name of “National Security”, which escalated after 9/11, a situation which in itself is terrible, is the heightened speculation and concomitant loss of faith in our government which follows in its wake. We are supposed to be a nation that exists under the rule of law and guided by our Constitution. How can we maintain faith in these institutions if we suspect that those in government or in the Corporate/Military/Intelligence Complex are able to act outside the law with impunity? What do you think?
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
Other links about Hastings death and the suspicions about it:
http://www.infowars.com/friend-michael-hastings-marked-for-death/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/hastings-panicked-email-fbi-death-article-1.1380539
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-09/elusive-details-michael-hastings-death
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/21/email-sent-by-michael-hastings-hours-before-his…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/death-of-rolling-stone-muckracker-the-michael-hastings-wreck-…
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/18/19027717-journalist-michael-hastings-dies-at-33..
http://www.sandiego6.com/story/details-of-reporter-hastings-death-remain-elusive-20130708
justatreacher,
I order you not to be depressed!
The nation is already in a depression dont’cha know.
Argue the Facts!
Argue the law!
If that fails pound the damn table!
For everything else there’s always double malt scotch or beer, your choice! 🙂
Mike, I concede. The “definite possibilities” overwhelm. Plus you and Oky are on the same page. I guess that means more Infowars and prisonplanet. That depresses me. As Charlie says:it’s time for a Prestone..
@Oky1, yes that is funny! and I suppose if all 6k of these blowhards were to blow mr. hastings or any journalist as you propose that it would have come to the same outcome after all….
**6000 billionaires are the very type the go around blowing journalist**
Hey now, that’s an honest typo & funny. 🙂
Mike S/Michael Beaton,
** I have neither their talent, nor their stamina and so like the blind men and the elephant I pick a particular body part to focus on each week, with the full understanding that I am not fully describing the whole animal..**
Here’s where I started from, from the article & I’ll show you where I went.
**
How can we maintain faith in these institutions if we suspect that those in government or in the Corporate/Military/Intelligence Complex are able to act outside the law with impunity? What do you think?
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger **
** Preamble to the Bill of Rights
“Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.
The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution expressed a desire in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution. **
Read more: http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/preamble-bill-of-rights.html#ixzz2ZowRNpAs
Notice you used almost the exact language in the PoBoR’s.
The Preamble is a key piece of the intent to meet the objective of the Declaration of Independence & to fulfill the rest of the USC.
“We the People”
That’s not what we have now & that’s the problem that I believe you article ask the question of why, what’s wrong & how do we get back on track.
I believe we fix the problem by going back to the blueprint for meeting our common objective.
I think these are clean numbers, 6000 billionaire type own 94% of all the assets of the USA/world. ie; Wallst/London banks/insurance.
Those 6000 own our DC polecats now & those 6000 billionaires are the very type the go around blowing journalist, poisoning the vaccines/water, etc….
Under color of Law, those billionaires Wallst/London type assets have been deemed “Critical Infrastructure” , not Hasting, not You or Me & that’s why we have lawlessness today in the US.
Anyway I understand some of you have your own image of what the outline of the comments should look & that’s good.
“Here’s where I started from……”
Oky1,
We are on the same page.
@traveling limey
Thank you… not sure how the multiple posting happened! I didn’t intend to do that! Sometimes the normal way the system accepts a post doesn’t happen. In this case I didn’t see the post at all and figured it just got dropped.
Apologies for that…It holds no meaning beside operator error. If the dups can be deleted that would be fine by me.
@Mike Spindell
I appreciate that. You are essentially reiterating the point that we, the commentariat in this blog, are going to reply/respond as they will. Fair enough.
As for rules, I did not mean to be advocating for a formal rule set against which there would be counted violations. Rather I was advocating for some self awareness on the part of the participants to consider the replies in terms of the article or related issues.
That said, I do think there is a place for deleting the most irrelevant pieces such as have been exampled by GodFather and others. Those hardly attempt to make a rational sentence much less a point. But, again, I have been schooled. So I let it go.
How in the world do we hop from Hastings to Prescott Bush? There is a case to be made of course, but it is a large point, somewhat elusive and would require the skill and scope to assemble that you allude to in your reply. Anything less is just full of logical fallacies and/or disassociated assertions. Possibly true, but essentially unfounded and thus…to my original point not advancing knowledge but dispersing it and displacing any focused points that might otherwise have been made.
What I find interesting is that by such diversions the original point being proffered is fully lost. For example, this post that you wrote, which I quite enjoyed, and appreciated as you could see by my first post in reply above. Here you took the effort to make a case, document it with examples, questions, and suppositions to make a coherent foundation to eventually as these questions:
All that work you did to make THIS example meaningful, instructive and then pose these sharp questions is lost in the welter of others “me too” or “yeah but what about….” posts/ideas.
This looses the power of the original question(s) and in the end nothing meaningful has been said or learned.
As far as I recall there was no real attempt to grapple with your questions. And thus we did not reap the full benefit of your efforts. It’s like setting a table full of food and then everyone eating chips.
That is the casualty I see from the lack of self-controlled focus – as opposed to imposed rules.
I see the hook coming…so I’ll stop there. Hopefully this bit adds some value to the conversation….
Thanks
Michael
“All that work you did to make THIS example meaningful, instructive and then pose these sharp questions is lost in the welter of others “me too” or “yeah but what about….” posts/ideas.
This looses the power of the original question(s) and in the end nothing meaningful has been said or learned.”
Michael B.,
I would be untruthful if I didn’t admit that it sometimes frustrates me, but I can only construct what I think is the best I’m capable of producing and hope that some catch my drift. I stated above and I’ll reiterate that Michael Hastings tragic death was used by me as a springboard to explore the larger question of how the country has become inured to extra-constitutional government action.
Actually though I am rather pleased by the reaction to this piece, my reaction though to this weekend’s guest blogging disappointed me in this respect. Mark Esposito produced what I think is his best work in his guest blog opening up the weekend and that says a lot given his erudition. It was also a guest blog that is so appropriate to the legal system and to the topics of interest here. Mark’s blog garnered far less response then mine and yet his is a far superior piece of work. For those who haven’t read it yet it is here: http://jonathanturley.org/2013/07/20/american-juries-seekers-of-truth-or-mere-consensus-part-i/ .
Clarification,
I’m not saying it’s slander to speculate on AJ’s/infowars motives.
A Jones is very sharp, that’s a fact.
But notice he says that coal fired power plants only put out harmless CO2.
He’s lying & he knows it, but he’s playing to his audience. Lots of people work or invest in coal, oil, NG….
Coal first tears up the land, pollutes the water with things like mercury & arsenic.
And out of their smoke stacks also comes SO2, & again mercury, arsenic.
Sometimes we have to make choices, but we should at least be honest & attempt to balance what we need against the risk.
Also that Climate Change stuff is a scam. It’s a known fact wallst is pushing that to create a huge new market for trading CO2 contracts.
How about we just take as much pollution out of our activities as we can & forget about a new big taxes so wallst can pollute even more?
So if people wish to attack Jones I’d suggest the try to do so with facts as slander normally only hurts those that are putting it out.
Mike Spindell 1, July 22, 2013 at 10:33 am
…
Government, Religions, Political Partisans, Corporations, the Military and the Intelligence Services use the Media to create fear. This fear can take many forms, but its ultimate result for so many of us humans is to allow us to be herded like cattle into violence, hatred and ultimately existential paralysis. The difference between me and someone like Alex Jones is that what I say is done not to terrify people about the world around them while making a handsome profit.
…
=============================
Indeed.
But let’s think about the concurrent prong of that exercise.
The bait for avoiding the fear is used at the same time by the more sophisticate propagandists.
The “way out of the fear” technique if you will.
The human fear of death is used to advantage by Alex Jones in his climate change denialism.
The more sophisticated and connected elements who use the fear of death syndrome use a concurrent tactic of superheroes as a form of salvation from the fear of death (On The Glut of Superhero Movies).
There has been a surge of those movies with a specific purpose.
As you say there is some herding calculation going on behind the scenes.
Hastings was not deterred very much by all of that.
🙂
“One certainty that exposes him as a high percent tool is that he is a climate change denier.”
Dredd,
Good point. When is someone who claims to be a rebel, not really a rebel but a tool? When they act like one.
Mike Spindell 1, July 21, 2013 at 7:48 pm
… I’m merely saying that I have severe doubts about Alex Joneses integrity.
===============================
One certainty that exposes him as a high percent tool is that he is a climate change denier.
To rationalize that denialism requires removal of a lot of cognitive ability.
Which usually flows from some illicit relationship to Oil-Qaeda.
And it also tells us that the epigovernment generates a lot of conspiracy data with which to build “conspiracy theories” so as to dilute the legitimate data paths leading to the real conspiracies.
“Mike S,
JP Morgan had a hand in building the Nazis.
They are currently receiving part of 85 billion a month in taxpayer backed welfare.”
Oky1,
We agree on much and disagree on much, but your contributions are always welcome. I do disagree with what I think is your point on many of your comments and that could be summarized as “how can you focus on this alone when there are so much more pressing issues to deal with?” What I think you miss is this. I’m quite aware of the JP Morgan Nazi connection as I am with the Prescott Bush/Dulles Brothers connection. If you look at my entire body of work here you might notice it all dovetails into one coherent whole. The problem is that a blog is at best 1,800 to 3,200 words and so of necessity must focus on a few issues that make up the whole of the problems of this country and this world. Had I the competence, stamina and cohesive thought of people like Joseph Campbell, William Gibbon, or Will and Ariel Durant I might come up with a series of tomes fully elucidating what’s going on as I see it. I have neither their talent, nor their stamina and so like the blind men and the elephant I pick a particular body part to focus on each week, with the full understanding that I am not fully describing the whole animal..
http://rt.com/usa/carter-comment-nsa-snowden-261/
Michael,
I just follow the luminaries. Can’t help but be a little disappointed when their light shines but dully.
My biggest hard-to-confess secret? Life can never be unjust, only unfathomable. Makes it a tad easier to move past the dullness.
Enjoyed your piece.
Very good post, Michael Beaton. I’ll say Amen to that, but not to your posting it three successive times!
I am not one who usually buys into conspiracy theories. What gave me pause was that they found the engine of the vehicle 100 yards away.
I have seen many an accident in my travels up and down I-95 and the Florida Turnpike. Anyone ever see an engine ejected like that? This wasn’t a Yugo – this was a Mercedes. Seems to me they are built a little better than to have the engine eject like that.
Michael Beaton,
Thanks for your reasoned response, but I feel I should plea the “I see nothing” Sgt Schultz defense & blame everything on Mike S.
**Am I being unfair in speculating that perhaps the death of this Journalist, three years after this article, may well have been payback? Who knows, not I, but my senses tell me that there are at least two scenario’s whereby Michael Hastings death may be no accident. One could be the government itself, or certain parts of it related to the CMIC and another could be those able to take revenge on someone who in their opinion “brought a good man down to the detriment of our country”. I doubt that the public will ever know the truth if the death was not accidental and really that is not my point in writing this. What I’m trying to bring out is that beyond the unconstitutional behavior of our government in the name of “National Security”, which escalated after 9/11, a situation which in itself is terrible, is the heightened speculation and concomitant loss of faith in our government which follows in its wake. We are supposed to be a nation that exists under the rule of law and guided by our Constitution. How can we maintain faith in these institutions if we suspect that those in government or in the Corporate/Military/Intelligence Complex are able to act outside the law with impunity? What do you think?
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger **
(Sgt Schultz below)
“I see nothing” Sgt Schultz defense & blame everything on Mike S.”
I don’t get no respect. 🙂
RE: Oky1 1, July 22, 2013 at 11:43 am
Oky1 : thanks for the reply. I realize now that this board is not going to be able to keep any sort of focus on any given point… So I have put my 2pence in the ring and will let it lie.
But since you raise again some version of the conversation I had with GeneH earlier about the general principle of this board being free speech, and then others who made the comment that “that’s what scroll bars are for” as a way to say skip what you don’t like…. I’ll simply reply that free speech can, and obviously does, too often lead to irrelevant speech. Free and unconstrained.
What else to call the completely disassociated postings from GodFather, as as well as the less hyperbolically disassociated ones?
And the damage that is done to discourse is just that…. There is none. Or none that can get thru the piled high bullshit.
So even in this thread the post begins with a fair conversation about the event of Michael Hastings death and its suspicious circumstances; concludes with some v.good reflections and questions. From there the commetariat on this blog sometimes spin into an array of non sequiturs that make it impossible to actually carry a thought from one post to another.
So it is. It is the way this board is organized. And so I, at least, have offered my bits, and have been voted down and educated as to how things are. This is also a form of democracy.
But, since you opened the door I’ll say one last time : the original blog posts often seem to me to serve an important journalistic and educational function. And JT is a good mind who has a good way of offering the various points and to adroitly contextualize the story. So all that is good and reason to stay in the game.
And sometimes the comments actually stay on point long enough to solicit a good idea or two… But, in my experience, it hasn’t been able to last for very long. So the conversation doesn’t get a chance to build. Like trying to build a fire but not stacking the firewood pieces next to each other. Not much happens after all.
A thread or two, and then off we go into some odd irrelevancy. How in the heck do we get into the swirl of vaccines when talking about the implications of Hastings’ death?!
The point maybe worthy of its own post and examination. But why does every conversation about anything have to end up in these dead end eddies?
You say it is due to ‘running with the point according to our “own perceptions”. Fair enough. That much is obvious.
It was my wan hope that a board hosted by JT and visited by other luminaries that we would get some actual illumination on the matters at hand.
One last point and then out: It is my underlying premise that bad thinking, and consequent bad choices leading to v.bad outcomes is the underlying cause for the various troubles we find ourselves in as a country: socially, constitutionally, internationally, in every way. All very well documented here on the JT blog. It is only better, deeper, more systemic, more meaningful thinking that can lead to meaningful action that can (might?) solve/resolve these troubles and problems. Again, something I had high hopes for on first encountering this board.
To find that any point/story/event/post, no matter how important or salient or sharp can be dulled by any diversion into any other idea or point related or not, and then have the thread essentially spin out in essentially dogmatic rants of one sort of another; All because, as you say “we run with it according to our own perceptions” is, to me disappointing.
Oh well. That is the way it is, and it doesn’t matter any more. I got it.
However, I’ll leave the rant with this rant and accusation : that while there is value in being able to speak your mind, to boldly go where one has always and only ever gone before, is of course important and a foundational stone of freedom and liberty. But I question whether treating every post/thought as an opportunity to segue into ones standard shibboleths just because it is what is on ones mind, irrespective of any actual relationship to the underlying topic serves the Public Square. While certainly “free” it does not necessarily serve the purpose of inquiry and advancing knowledge and insight. Much less any sort of focus that might lead to meaningful action.
I know. I know. People are gathered here and encouraged to take the conversation where ever they want, as you have so well said. And so it is.
It just means that it isnt something else : a place to actually engage with smart people in a focused way, to stay on point, and learn something new.
Not that it cant happen. It has from time to time. Of course. I don’t mean to make my charges in the same “primary colors” that I am reacting against in other places.
Wisdom is to take things as they are and not try and change them. It is wisdom therefore to recognize what this part of the public square is and revel in that. And that is what I hope to do going forward.
Thanks
Michael
RE: Oky1 1, July 22, 2013 at 11:43 am
Oky1 : thanks for the reply. I realize now that this board is not going to be able to keep any sort of focus on any given point… So I have put my 2pence in the ring and will let it lie.
But since you raise again some version of the conversation I had with GeneH earlier about the general principle of this board being free speech, and then others who made the comment that “that’s what scroll bars are for” as a way to say skip what you don’t like…. I’ll simply reply that free speech can, and obviously does, too often lead to irrelevant speech. Free and unconstrained.
What else to call the completely disassociated postings from GodFather, as as well as the less hyperbolically disassociated ones?
And the damage that is done to discourse is just that…. There is none. Or none that can get thru the piled high bullshit.
So even in this thread the post begins with a fair conversation about the event of Michael Hastings death and its suspicious circumstances; concludes with some v.good reflections and questions. From there the commetariat on this blog sometimes spin into an array of non sequiturs that make it impossible to actually carry a thought from one post to another.
So it is. It is the way this board is organized. And so I, at least, have offered my bits, and have been voted down and educated as to how things are. This is also a form of democracy.
But, since you opened the door I’ll say one last time : the original blog posts often seem to me to serve an important journalistic and educational function. And JT is a good mind who has a good way of offering the various points and to adroitly contextualize the story. So all that is good and reason to stay in the game.
And sometimes the comments actually stay on point long enough to solicit a good idea or two… But, in my experience, it hasn’t been able to last for very long. So the conversation doesn’t get a chance to build. Like trying to build a fire but not stacking the firewood pieces next to each other. Not much happens after all.
A thread or two, and then off we go into some odd irrelevancy. How in the heck do we get into the swirl of vaccines when talking about the implications of Hastings’ death?!
The point maybe worthy of its own post and examination. But why does every conversation about anything have to end up in these dead end eddies?
You say it is due to ‘running with the point according to our “own perceptions”. Fair enough. That much is obvious.
It was my wan hope that a board hosted by JT and visited by other luminaries that we would get some actual illumination on the matters at hand.
One last point and then out: It is my underlying premise that bad thinking, and consequent bad choices leading to v.bad outcomes is the underlying cause for the various troubles we find ourselves in as a country: socially, constitutionally, internationally, in every way. All very well documented here on the JT blog. It is only better, deeper, more systemic, more meaningful thinking that can lead to meaningful action that can (might?) solve/resolve these troubles and problems. Again, something I had high hopes for on first encountering this board.
To find that any point/story/event/post, no matter how important or salient or sharp can be dulled by any diversion into any other idea or point related or not, and then have the thread essentially spin out in essentially dogmatic rants of one sort of another; All because, as you say “we run with it according to our own perceptions” is, to me disappointing.
Oh well. That is the way it is, and it doesn’t matter any more. I got it.
However, I’ll leave the rant with this rant and accusation : that while there is value in being able to speak your mind, to boldly go where one has always and only ever gone before, is of course important and a foundational stone of freedom and liberty. But I question whether treating every post/thought as an opportunity to segue into ones standard shibboleths just because it is what is on ones mind, irrespective of any actual relationship to the underlying topic serves the Public Square. While certainly “free” it does not necessarily serve the purpose of inquiry and advancing knowledge and insight. Much less any sort of focus that might lead to meaningful action.
I know. I know. People are gathered here and encouraged to take the conversation where ever they want, as you have so well said. And so it is.
It just means that it isnt something else : a place to actually engage with smart people in a focused way, to stay on point, and learn something new.
Not that it cant happen. It has from time to time. Of course. I don’t mean to make my charges in the same “primary colors” that I am reacting against in other places.
Wisdom is to take things as they are and not try and change them. It is wisdom therefore to recognize what this part of the public square is and revel in that. And that is what I hope to do going forward.
Thanks
Michael.