»
Discussion
»
The Alley
»
Bureaucrats and Barbarians
| The Alley |
|
Bureaucrats and Barbarians |
|
|
Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia 
|
Bureaucrats and Barbarians© by Night Hawke 2001 Four escaped convicts, each weighing over 200 pounds and ostensibly burly powerful men, commandeer a citizen's car and take off across the desert in their escape. Thousands of law enforcement officials are deployed to find the felons across multiple states tying up precious resources of manpower and equipment while managing to expend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. While making good their escape a wasp enters the stolen vehicle and the four burly men begin flailing about attempting to avoid being stung and kill the wasp. The driver, being particularly afraid of the malevolent insect, takes both hands off the wheel waving his hands about his head in protection which causes the car to veer off the road, hit the ditch, roll over, and kill all four occupants. The wasp, never having stung one of them flies away unscathed. This is the premise for Eric Frank Russell's 1957 sci-fi work 'Wasp' in which he points out that it only takes four men to upset the apple cart of a huge population's government. And that a mere tiny wasp with a simple brain weighing less than half an ounce can destroy a sophisticated automobile weighing over a ton and kill four men with advanced brains weighing a collective half-ton. The hero of Russell's book, James Mowry, is trained to conduct psychological warfare through acts of terrorism and is sent to the enemy home planet in disguise where he does just that. As a solitary soldier behind enemy lines he manages to convince the overpowering foe of Earth that he is in fact a large (and native) force of dissidents. While the alien government swats at Mowry -- the Earth forces are able to use this distraction to overcome the seemingly superior threat. Although the book was regarded highly among sci-fi circles it never received the critical acclaim of Orwell's 1984. Ultimately optimistic that the human race will overcome evil even in the face of overwhelming odds Russell's barbaric 'Wasp' is a stark contrast to the pessimism of Orwell's ubiquitously invoked bureauphobic epistle. Russell may, however, have proven to be more prophetic than his countryman was. Of course, evil, is in the eye of the beholder. Now we flail against the wasp. Ashcroft burgeons a new security act called Patriot to secure the safety of the homeland, decrying his lack of electronic eavesdropping capability as the culprit for the 9-11 attacks. He sends out more than 4000 shock troops, er, FBI agents, in search of 19 terrorists. Former CIA chief Jim Woolsey decries the Clinton administration's reform of his department shifting from 'human' intelligence to reliance on electronic eavesdropping as the culprit of the 9-11 attacks. The President says we're going to track down and bring those responsible to justice. The secretary of defense says that will be hard. The President says go about life as normal. Ashcroft says be on high alert. Congress appropriates billions to fight off the threat. We drop smart bombs on tents. The terrorists buy air-line tickets and stamps. We back another politically questionable band of rebels. We suspect we don't know whom to suspect. The flag waves. People eat chocolate and party like it's 1999. The casualties mount at home as we flail; while our super powered nineteen-year-old soldiers fight in relative safety (but those casualties will come too). Our new war, though, is here at home. This is where the casualties mount. This is where we are vulnerable. Regardless of the endless punditisms of our inability to fight in Afghanistan against the Taleban or Al Quada -- we can win there. It's here that we have the challenge. The bureaucratic response to the barbarians has us passing legislative gas and searching for nail-clippers in luggage. We discuss the auspices of being barbaric, such as torturing detainees, and suggest it may even be legal if the information gleaned from it is used to investigate instead of prosecute. And even though the framers of the Constitution never intended it to be a suicide pact the recent measures passed in clear violation of our fourth amendment rights really only serve to grant more Federal power over the law abiding. We've now transformed the FBI from a criminal investigation unit into a crime prevention monolith. Can't we see the folly in that? The ironic thing is the party that has traditionally been against 'big government' has done it. Let's see how effective this technique will be. How will we measure results now? By how they capture terrorists? Or how they prevent acts of terrorism? Since prevention is the goal success will be measured in how many attempted terrorist threats are thwarted. So, then, every other week or so, the FBI director announces; 'Be on high alert.' Nothing happens. He claims success. Does this sound familiar? To truly fight the barbarians we will have to become barbarians, without being barbaric. How do we do that? Certainly not by the present means proposed -- such as the new Bureaucracy to fight terrorism called 'Homeland Defense' to be headed by Tom Ridge. In true bureaucratic form the President himself will head the formation of this new agency to guide it through it's inception meetings. If the framers of this new agency are smart -- they will hearken back to a model from yesteryear. A model in synergizing barbarism with civility was when we needed to tame the Wild West. We combated the outlaw rogues that roamed the prairies by recruiting outlaw rogues and called them U.S. Marshals; empowering them to go out and nab the other rogues. All the while we were able to keep control over the rogue marshals by virtue of the fact that they acted under the direction of judges (not prosecutors) and were not highly organized. They could move fast, break the law in getting the bad guy, and we could turn the other way and ignore it because they were getting results. If they got too abusive -- because the individual Marshals themselves were.. well.. Individual for the most part -- we could pull them off the street fairly easily if necessary. We don't need more bureaucracy to fight barbarians. We need barbarians. We need wasps. And fly swatters. |
||
| © Copyright 2001 Local Rebel - All Rights Reserved | |||
|
Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
quote: The car was destroyed and the men killed not by a wasp, but by their own irrational panic. While fear can be useful in moderation, it is usually disastrous in excess. In that, it is much like cynicism.  |
||
|
RSWells Member Elite
since 2001-06-17
Posts 2533 |
This is a voice in need of hearing. I had a poem written the night after the Sept. 11th attacks and hadn't the nerve to post it. It was of our soon to be diminished rights. As this attack on the feeble tent dwellers lingers on more will come to see the folly of the overbearing legislation now being rushed through by elected officials who don't even open their own mail. Soon we'll be searched at will and causeless, phone conversations and mail read. Lists (again) will swell and money better spent will be siphoned off to the military and police forces who merge daily. The fear factor will be kept high despite the fact that only a small handful have been affected by anthrax, a non contageous byproduct being foisted on us by some wacko within and touted by the media and a government who won't have us asking why. Why 20,000 will die of influenza this winter, why we haven't kicked terrorist butt by now, why is Daddy handing over his gun, why can't our children aspire to live better than their parents for the first time in American history? |
||
|
Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Thanks Richard.. this will be published tomorrow sometime -- so it will get heard -- or seen anyhow... As far as the police and military merging -- there's good news on that front in Rumsfelds invocation of posse comitatis when it was suggested he place troops on commercial air flights for security reasons -- and I'm happy to see the National Guard patroling our nuclear power plants (but in the back of my mind I still remember FOIA documentation showed Reno had requested Delta Force participation in the Branch Davidian incident -- the books still call for a 2 year prison sentence for anyone that violates the posse comitatis statute) As to this generations prospects for economic success --- I think there's time to turn it around but you may like to read this /pip/Forum6/HTML/000685.html if you didn't catch it last month. Ron, Yeah I totally agree it was irrational fear -- but I wanted to write this as close to Russell as I could (given though I haven't read it since 1976 and no longer have a copy) and it was necessary to credit the wasp with the damage to set up his hero. And yep, I'm a cynic, but -- as you've probably noticed -- not so afraid of Big Brother that I've shut up (or ever will) lol... So did you find this bout of cynicism dangerous or useful? |
||
|
doreen peri Member Elite
since 1999-05-25
Posts 3812Virginia |
"People eat chocolate and party like it's 1999." i love that!! hey, i love the whole darn thing.... you are one FINE writer & acute thinker  and this is one heckuva creative analysis which should be published in more places than just your website...(the comments, wonderful, too!) |
||
|
Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
thank you fair pote dancer... and tis not published at my site but at the-hold.com |
||
|
|
⇧ top of page ⇧ |
|
| All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format. | ||
