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August 21, 2007

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Chris Corrigan

And Lewis' daughter married one of Brian Mulroney's sons a couple of years ago, so, yeah. The Security and Prosperity Partnership appears to be driven by blue blood, even if some of it does dissent from time to time.

Phil

Interesting. At least Lewis is helping us understand how his world works.

O Lucky Man

Interesting, too, what Valentine (the author/poet/interviewee) says about Angleton representing "...the literary sensibility the CIA once had, where finding secrets was like teasing the meaning out of a poem."

Sledgehammer's Pies

I took the titles of Lewis' books, fed them into an internets text scrambler, and out came this:

Bush 30 of Lights Notes for Influence Lapham's Criminal of at on Satires Barbarians Kings to America Democracy! Empire Class Waiting Democracy Bay Hotel Camera Gag Pretensions Folly and Fortune's Rules of the Rule Money Child Mammon America the The Administration in the Theater Agony War for Imperial Masquerade of The Wish.

Are we getting closer to the truth? Or does it need more teasing?

Un Autre Singe

How about using a dare, instead of teasing ?

Phil

When we deny we have a ruling class we are unable to ask the obvious questions:

1. who is in that class?
2. do they know one another by name?
3. how to they network?
4. how is one admitted or excluded?
5. what empires or zones of empire are ruled?
6. how is rule exerted? by delegated authority, board membership, education, propaganda, media, entertaintment, medicalization of anomie and dissent, role of the prison, role of religion, etc? Use of Terror as bogeyman?
7. what role for or against the interests of the ruling class is played by art, literature, satire, philanthropy, carnival, etc?

Since America does not have a ruling class we are spared such questions.

Sledgehammer's Pies

To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.

WESley says some good stuff on this. Same song, different verse:

This seems to be added as at apology for God's providence, notwithstanding all the contrary events and confusions which are in the world. He hath made (or doth make or do, by his providence in the government of the world) every thing (which he doth either immediately, or by the ministry of men, or other creatures) beautiful (convenient, so that, all things considered, it could not have been done better) in its time or station, (when it was most fit to be done). Many events seem to mens shallow judgments, to be very irregular and unbecoming, as when wicked men prosper, and good men are oppressed; but when men shall throughly understand God's works, and the whole frame and contexture of them, and see the end of them, they will say, all things were done wisely. He hath set - It is true, God hath put the world into mens hearts, or made them capable of observing all the dispensations of God in the world; but this is to be understood with a limitation, because there are some more mysterious works of God, which no man can fully, understand, because he cannot search them out from the beginning to the end.
O Lucky Man

Good suggestion, Monsieur Singe.

Lewis: I dare you to point out one thing you've said publicly that you wish you could take back.

A softball, right? Next.

O Lucky Man

Re #7, I guess. When I related to my sister the thrust of what I'd read I felt two things:

exhilirated at the chance to communicate it and curious as to how it would come out my mouth

giddy at the sheer absurdity of having tried to address "the enormity" at all

I started laughing and in loving earnest said there's a guy with a blog called "you live your life as if it's real". I think he's got it right and probably will for the foreseeable future.

She smiled, seemed relieved and said, good, that's what I've *been* doing!

In my opinion, and paradoxically, the conversation was entirely inaccessible to "them", and undeniable (to us) by "them". Therefore, for a few moments, we managed to be "free". Oui?

O Lucky Man

Re #6:

To answer your question about the connections between the CIA and the media and new media – I’d say they’re tighter than ever. It has to do with the centralization of wealth and influence. News organizations used to be a lot of independent owners of news outlets. There’s now less and less of that.

It goes hand in hand with the consolidation of capital in the United States. The media’s in the hands of fewer and fewer people, and those people are closer and closer to the imperial interests of the United States abroad. Their interests are now more in tune with the interests of the CIA. And they’re more likely to skew, without even being agents of the CIA.

So you don’t have to rely on the old boy system anymore; accommodating the CIA is built into the system because of the consolidation of capital.

Phil

I noted that passage too, OLM, and considered citing it. Capital is consolidated in fewer hands, and increasingly there are not enough Dumpsters to go around for the rest of us, what with the housing bubble bursting and all.

Un Autre Singe

Here's the keys to my house ...

I dare you to sell it for more than you'd get if we could sit down and renegotiate a fixed rate of interest, between the two of us, that keeps the mortgage payments the same for the next twenty years.

Phil

You couldn't afford the closing costs.

Un Autre Singe

Fees are THE sunrise industry for America, non ?

No wonder everything's being privatized .. annuity cash flows from fees.

Phil

Ever see the picture of two farmers fighting over a cow? One pulls the head, the other pulls the tail. And the lawyer sits on the stool milking the cow.

Saluk

Sledge: thoughts out of season are usually available at a markdown; they tend to sell in thin volumes.

Sledgehammer's Pies

In my bargain noble bookstore there is a section called Good Books that is very hard to leave once entered. Some people say amazing but I think willing grace.

Phil

The best books are often found in the Dumpster.

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