02.26.21
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The Establishment Tango

As you can see from the date stamp of the above Tweet, it was posted one month after Joe Biden was inaugurated 46th President of the United States. Its author, Ana Navarro-Cardenas, is a life-long Republican, Never Trumper, CNN contributor, and co-host of The View. She, like many other Americans, cannot seem to accept the fact that Donald Trump is no longer this nation’s Chief Executive Officer.

It’s a strange phenomenon, and it certainly isn’t owned by one particular political party or directed at any one former Commander-in-Chief. On his nightly MSNBC show, Keith Olbermann continued to announce the number of days since Bush declared “Mission Accomplished,” weeks and weeks after Bush had left office. Scour enough social media posts, and you’ll find anti-Obama memes just recently shared.

For one reason or another, we seem to find comfort in the enemy we know as opposed to recognizing the dangers of a current administration. Just yesterday, President Biden authorized his first missile strike against Syria, targeting Iranian-backed targets. White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, called it a “proportional military response.”

Funny thing is, here’s her account shortly after President Trump had ordered a similar strike on Syria only months after his swearing into office:

This is the typical Establishment Tango. It’s only reprehensible when it’s the “other side.” How many more dances will it take before the general public comes to realize that it takes two to tango, and that the Democrats and Republicans aren’t willing to allow anyone who is against their agenda to step in.

01.26.21
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Think… Tanks!

In 1998, a think tank called Project for a New American Century sent a letter to then President Clinton, advising him the dangers Saddam Hussein posed, and suggesting that taking unilateral action against the Iraqi leader was the best course of action. Within five years, that advise was taken by Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush.

“Of the 18 people who signed the letter, 10 are now in the Bush administration. As well as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, they include Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; John Bolton, who is undersecretary of state for disarmament; and Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House liaison to the Iraqi opposition. Other signatories include William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, and Richard Perle, chairman of the advisory Defense Science Board.”

The PNAC letter is only one example of when think tank pontification can transform into the active policies of a political administration. In February of 2018 former Deputy National Security Advisor to then VP Biden, Ely Ratner, co-authored the following with Oriana Skylar Mastro:

“The U.S. military sorely needs larger stockpiles of munitions, stronger passive and active defenses at U.S. bases in the region, more sea and airlift to project and disperse forces, more advanced air battle management systems to ensure full awareness of the battle space, and more ships and fifth-generation aircraft forward-deployed and ready to fight in the Asia Pacific. It also needs more research and development, and greater investments in advanced technologies—including artificial intelligence, hypersonic technology, electronic warfare and cyber—all to ensure the U.S. military can access and operate in East Asia, despite China’s local advantages.”

Less than one week later, former Obama Administration advisors, Michele Flournoy and Tony Blinken, announced the formation of WestExec Advisors.

“Through its exclusive partnerships with premier global management consulting firms, WestExec will engage clients across a range of industries and sectors, including the Industrials, Aerospace & Defense, Technology, and Global Advantage practice areas, as well as on Banking, Global Energy and Materials, and Pharmaceuticals. WestExec will also partner with Alphabet’s Jigsaw on supporting next generation national security and technology leaders, and WestExec will complement its capital advisory work through a direct relationship with Pine Island Capital Partners – a newly-founded boutique private investment partnership providing a small group of exceptional investors with strategic, underwritten, and managed equity investment in the middle markets.”

Michèle Flournoy and Tony Blinken Form Global Strategic Advisory Firm with Former Senior National Security Officials

Blinken’s appointment as Secretary of State has been all but assured, while fellow WestExec advisor, Ratner, has been tapped by President Biden to advise the Pentagon about matters on China. On the surface, appointing experts on China to deal with relevant issues appears to make sense. However, WestExec Advisors has openly associated itself with recently founded investment firm, Pine Island Capital Partners (https://pineislandcp.com/).

“Although Pine Island Capital Partners is a generalist firm, given the background of its team, Pine Island Capital Partners spends the majority of its time focused in the aerospace, defense and government services sectors, where Pine Island Capital Partners believes it has extensive connections to industry leaders, unusual access to information, and often unique insights into specific companies, programs and overall market dynamics. Pine Island Capital Partners has made two acquisitions in the past six months: the acquisition of Precinmac, a precision machining business with significant exposure to aerospace and defense end markets, and InVeris Training Solutions (formerly Meggitt Training Systems), a global leader in weapons safety, judgment and tactical training solutions for military and law enforcement customers.”

If there is a lesson to be learned from the 1998 PNAC letter to Clinton, it is that think tanks and the military industrial complex produce results that perpetuate the ever expanding defense budget, while lining the pockets of corporate executives and the companies they run. After four years of President Trump at the helm, his opponents were overjoyed to see a “return to normal” as President Biden has often promised. But the normal his supporters are looking forward to may just be waving goodbye to our soldiers, as they are deployed to yet another foreign land.

04.12.16
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Rituals of Progress

Despite the massive technological advances the human race has made during its brief (from a holistic geological timeframe) existence, we really haven’t changed all that much.  Before the invention of writing we had a long oral tradition of passing on not only information that allowed the species to survive, but also stories about our past, our ancestors, and perhaps even, our future.

We would gather around the camp fire, sharing our experiences, gaining wisdom from our elders, looking towards shamans to explain the ways of the universe, relish in the tales of victorious warriors returning from the fields of battle, and mourn those who did not return.

Eventually our race settled down in villages, then towns, and then the first large city-states of the earliest civilizations.  Instead of hunting and gathering our food, we planted it and fenced it in larger and larger surpluses, giving rise to a population level the world had never before seen.

The stories that were once told around the fire were now immortalized on clay and papyrus.  The elders became kings, shamans became high-priests, and the warriors became the mighty generals who would go off to conquer far off, foreign lands.

As time progressed, distinct cultures began to emerge, unified by the new forms of communication, art, and technology that civilization had created.  The kings, priests, and warriors, imbued and intoxicated with power, sought to maintain these new found powers.  Our ancestors became the gods and goddesses who were to be worshipped.  Rituals were built around their memories, not only to owe them respect, but to solidify the existing values taught by the elites that were passed on from generation to generation.

The first empires would last for thousands of years, dynastic families maintaining control of the masses for generations.  But over time, these empires would survive shorter and shorter periods, as communication technology, and diversification of population allowed for the maintenance of a wider variety of cultures.

Even the great Roman Empire was not bound by a unified, mass communication system, but was instead ruled through military might, and a small group of elite leaders whose central authority lay in Rome and its deified Emperor.

Then came the printing press, 1000 years after the last Roman Emperor was deposed.  The world saw a burgeoning of information, an Age of Enlightenment, where the supposed sovereignty of man was not to be held by kings or priests, but by the individual.

Yet here we sit, at the dawn of the 21st century, and as much as it might appear things have changed, we must ask ourselves if we have truly come as far as we believe.  First we traded the camp fire for the radio, then the television, and now, the Internet.  Yet we still gather around it, eager to hear updated stories that our ancestors once listened to.  The kings of old have been replaced by the elite corporacrats who dominate our political system.  The shaman is the televangelist, just begging for your hard earned dollar so he can send a check to Heaven.  Our warriors are now represented by a military-industrial complex, whose entire existence relies on the never-ending need for war and conflict.

Yes, we have come along way, only to remain almost exactly where we started.  The actors in our rituals have changed costumes over time, but as the audience, we remain in awestruck fascination at a social mechanism that perpetuates itself not out of necessity, but out of apathy.  And as we continue to develop this new Digital Global Culture we must ask ourselves, are the stories of the past enough to move us forward, or is it finally time to extinguish the camp fire, and instead look towards the light that burns bright inside each and every one of us.

 

References

 

  • Berelson, B. (2004).  What ‘Missing the Newspaper’ Means. In J. Peters and P. Simonson (Eds.).  Mass

Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts 1919-1968.  Oxford, UK:

Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (Originally published 1949)

 

  • Breed, Warren. (2004).  Mass Communication and Socio-cultural Integration. In J. Peters and P. Simonson (Eds.).  Mass

Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts 1919-1968.  Oxford, UK:

Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (Originally published 1958)

 

  • Sarnoff, D. (2004).  Consensus and Mass Communication. In J. Peters and P. Simonson (Eds.).  Mass

Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts 1919-1968.  Oxford, UK:

Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (Originally published 1950)

 

  • Wirth, L. (2004).  Consensus and Mass Communication. In J. Peters and P. Simonson (Eds.).  Mass

Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts 1919-1968.  Oxford, UK:

Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (Originally published 1948)