Filed under: Emergency, Failure, Isaac Asimov, Politics, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society
There’s a sign in the desert that lies to the west
Where you can’t tell the night from the sunrise
And not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Have prevented the fall of the unwise*
Almost prophetic, isn’t it?
The homepage for Communion of Dreams has the following description:
The world I have envisioned in this book is recognizable, in the same way that the 1950’s are recognizable, but with a comparable amount of unpredictable change as between that era and the present. Most authors will avoid writing about the near-term future, because it is easy for a work to become dated. I’m not that smart.
Unpredictable change. Rapid change. Protests in Egypt started just a month ago. Protests in Libya started just a week ago. Then there’s Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. Even China has started to get nervous about controlling discussion of events around the Mediterranean.
If we had Asimov’s psychohistory, perhaps we would have been able to foresee this shift. But even then, I have my doubts. It is one thing to say “people want freedom” and another to not be surprised by what is happening. You can call the internet, Twitter, and mobile phones transformational technologies all you want, but that doesn’t mean you understand *how* the changes they augment will actually play out.
History is full of odd twists and small turns which topple rulers and determine the outcome of wars. Yes, certain forces can come together to create the right environment – to supersaturate the solution, as it were – but then almost any kind of catalyst can precipitate a radical change, and which kind of catalyst makes a difference. I think this is what we are seeing with the sweeping turmoil in the Middle East and Mediterranean – a phase change, as it were, from one reality to another.
This isn’t the first such phase change I have seen. The collapse of the Soviet Union was another. I grew up thinking that it was an implacable enemy, a monolith which would last forever if it didn’t kill us all first. When I traveled behind the Iron Curtain in 1974 I would never have been able to predict that 15 years later the whole thing would just tumble into dust. But then again, no one else did, either.
And that’s the thing. As I work now on the prequel to Communion of Dreams, set just a year in the future (but not our future – a related one near at hand) it is easy to envision other kinds of radical change which would come to create the world of my novel . . . and perhaps our own.
(2/26/11) An addendum: for a further, and much more insightful – not to mention more informed – discussion of the changes in the Middle East, read this article.
Jim Downey
*Alan Parsons, Turn of a Friendly Card.
Filed under: BoingBoing, Civil Rights, Constitution, DARPA, Emergency, Government, Politics, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society, tech
The power to turn off is the power to destroy.*
I’m talking about exactly what we’re seeing in Egypt at present: when the power of the state is threatened, it will resort to almost any means to survive. Specifically, the government of Egypt has shut down the internet, mobile phones, and basically all modern communications in order to better control civil unrest.
And some in our government want the US to have the same power:
On Thursday Jan 27th at 22:34 UTC the Egyptian Government effectively removed Egypt from the internet. Nearly all inbound and outbound connections to the web were shut down. The internet intelligence authority Renesysexplains it here and confirms that “virtually all of Egypt’s Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide.” This has never happened before in the entire history of the internet, with a nation of this size. A block of this scale is completely unheard of, and Senator Joe Lieberman wants to be able to do the same thing in the US.
This isn’t a new move, last year Senators Lieberman and Collins introduced a fairly far-reaching bill that would allow the US Government to shut down civilian access to the internet should a “Cybersecurity Emergency” arise, and keep it offline indefinitely. That version of the bill received some criticism though Lieberman continued to insist it was important. The bill, now referred to as the ‘Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act’ (PCNAA) has been revised a bit and most notably now removes all judicial oversight. This bill is still currently circulating and will be voted on later this year. Lieberman has said it should be a top priority.
Think about that. Do you really want to hand over that kind of power to the government?
Or perhaps I should say: “do you really want to validate that kind of power in advance?” Because I am not naive enough to think that the government wouldn’t just do this in the event of a real emergency (in their opinion). But like with Lincoln suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War, there should be some check on such a decision after the fact – which there may not be with such a provision already in place. Handing someone that kind of power in advance is like handing them a loaded gun – they don’t necessarily have to use it in order for it to be a factor in all decisions which follow. Just the threat to use it is powerful, and shifts the whole dynamic.
Take another look at what is happening in Egypt. We never want to have to get to that point in trying to *reclaim* our civil liberties. Granting the government specific power to shut down the internet in order to ‘save us from a cyber security threat’ is just another in a long line of steps preying upon our fears. Don’t give in. And tell your senator what you think.
Jim Downey
*Marshall‘s actual quote was “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” From McCulloch v. Maryland.
Filed under: ACLU, Civil Rights, Emergency, George Orwell, Government, Politics, Predictions, Privacy, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Terrorism, Travel, YouTube
The Miami-Dade Police Department recently finalized a deal to buy a drone, which is an unmanned plane equipped with cameras. Drones have been used for years in Iraq and Afghanistan in the war against terror.
* * *
MDPD purchased a drone named T-hawk from defense firm Honeywell to assist with the department’s Special Response Team’s operations. The 20-pound drone can fly for 40 minutes, reach heights of 10,500 feet and cruise in the air at 46 miles an hour. “It gives us a good opportunity to have an eye up there. Not a surveilling eye, not a spying eye. Let’s make the distinction. A surveilling eye to help us to do the things we need to do, honestly, to keep people safe,” said Miami-Dade Police Director James Loftus.
This quotation, slightly altered, is inscribed on a plaque in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
(CNN) — If you get arrested in California, better hope there are no incriminating texts or e-mails or sensitive data stored on your phone.
On Monday, the California Supreme Court ruled that police in that state can search the contents of an arrested person’s cell phone.
Citing U.S. Supreme Court precedents, the ruling contends that “The loss of privacy upon arrest extends beyond the arrestee’s body to include ‘personal property … immediately associated with the person of the arrestee’ at the time of arrest.”
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Metro anti-terrorism teams will immediately start random inspections of passengers’ bags and packages to try to protect the rail and bus system from attack, transit officials said Thursday.
Police using explosives-screening equipment and bomb-sniffing dogs will pull aside people carrying bags for the inspections according to a random number, Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn said. The searches might be conducted at one location at a time or at several places simultaneously. If people refuse, they will be barred from entering the rail station or boarding a bus with the item, Taborn said. The inspections will be conducted “indefinitely,” he said.
“You live in a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main. So let me ask you as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind.”
If you’ve ridden the subway in New York City any time in the past few years, you’ve probably seen the signs: “If You See Something, Say Something.”
In Washington, D.C., Metro riders are treated to a recording of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano urging them to report suspicious sights to the proper authorities.
Now, Wal-Mart shoppers across the country will see Napolitano’s message in a video as they stand in the checkout line.
“We are expanding ‘See Something, Say Something’ in a number of venues,” Napolitano tells NPR’s Audie Cornish. “It’s Wal-Mart, it’s Mall of America, it’s different sports and sporting arenas, it’s transit systems. It’s a catchy phrase, but it reminds people that our security is a shared responsibility.”
“All this means that the people of any country have the right, and should have the power by constitutional action, by free unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the character or form of government under which they dwell; that freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we practice — let us practice — what we preach.”
In ancient times, Gorgon was a mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them. In modern times, Gorgon may be one of the military’s most valuable new tools.
* * *
This winter, the Air Force is set to deploy to Afghanistan what it says is a revolutionary airborne surveillance system called Gorgon Stare, which will be able to transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town
“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
Bryce Williams wasn’t expecting to walk through a metal detector or have his bags screened for explosives at the Greyhound bus terminal near downtown Orlando.
But Williams and 689 other passengers went through tougher-than-normal security procedures Thursday as part of a random check coordinated by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.
The idea is to keep off guard terrorists and others who mean harm, thereby improving safety for passengers and workers. There was no specific threat to the bus station on John Young Parkway south of Colonial Drive.
I can’t help but feel that we took a wrong turn somewhere.
Jim Downey
*Of course. Cross posted to dKos.
Filed under: Brave New World, Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society
It’s been a while since I’ve written much of anything about economic conditions; frankly, the whole mess was just too depressing no matter how I looked at it, and I knew (and said) that the end result was going to be that we would wind up transferring more of our wealth to the bastards who caused the economic collapse.
But it is worthwhile to look at what happened and why. And this is perhaps the best examination I’ve found yet of the systemic, structural problems which are behind the latest mess. It’s a somewhat dense and jargon-packed piece on finance, but here’s the money quote:
For the time being, we need to accept the possibility that the financial sector has learned how to game the American (and UK-based) system of state capitalism. It’s no longer obvious that the system is stable at a macro level, and extreme income inequality at the top has been one result of that imbalance. Income inequality is a symptom, however, rather than a cause of the real problem. The root cause of income inequality, viewed in the most general terms, is extreme human ingenuity, albeit of a perverse kind. That is why it is so hard to control.
Another root cause of growing inequality is that the modern world, by so limiting our downside risk, makes extreme risk-taking all too comfortable and easy. More risk-taking will mean more inequality, sooner or later, because winners always emerge from risk-taking. Yet bankers who take bad risks (provided those risks are legal) simply do not end up with bad outcomes in any absolute sense. They still have millions in the bank, lots of human capital and plenty of social status. We’re not going to bring back torture, trial by ordeal or debtors’ prisons, nor should we. Yet the threat of impoverishment and disgrace no longer looms the way it once did, so we no longer can constrain excess financial risk-taking. It’s too soft and cushy a world.
“Too soft and cushy,” indeed. I must admit (and have before) that one of the reasons that I wrote the backstory to Communion of Dreams the way I did was, as Umberto Eco said so well, “I wanted to poison a monk.” A certain part of me thinks that a good round of ‘off with their heads’ would be really healthy for our society overall, though somewhat less so for Wall Street.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Civil Rights, Constitution, Emergency, Predictions, Preparedness, Terrorism, Travel, YouTube
Gah. One of the things I kept seeing/hearing from those who support the TSA security procedures is that if you don’t like the groping or scans, just take a train or bus. When countered with the response that these procedures at the airports could be extended to train and bus stations, it’s common to hear the comment: “Nah, they’d *never* do that.”
Guess again:
Jim Downey
Via We Won’t Fly.
Filed under: Civil Rights, Emergency, Heinlein, movies, Predictions, Robert A. Heinlein, Science Fiction, Survival, Terrorism
By the time the dose of tempus was wearing off I had a picture of the United States in a shape that I had not imagined even when I was in Kansas City – a country undergoing Terror. Friend might shoot friend; wife denounce husband. Rumor of a titan could drum up a mob on any street, with Judge Lynch baying in the van. To rap on a door at night was to invite a blast through the door. Honest folk stayed home; at night the dogs were out.
The fact that most of the rumored discoveries of slugs were baseless made them no less dangerous. It was not exhibitionism which caused many people to prefer outright nudity to the tight and scanty clothing permitted under Schedule Sun Tan; even the skimpiest clothing invited a doubtful second look, a suspicion that might be decided too abruptly. The head-and-spine armor was never worn now; the slugs had faked it and used it almost at once.
That’s from Chapter XXIV of The Puppet Masters, the 1951 classic from Robert A. Heinlein.
It’s been a number of years since I last read the book – I think I read it prior to the release of the movie adaptation in 1994, but not since, so there were parts of the book which I didn’t remember. I had honestly forgotten that the alien invaders had come from Titan, for example – which is funny, since most of Communion of Dreams takes place there. And I forgot that Heinlein sets the book firmly in our current time – the first part of it is in July, 2007.
But what I hadn’t forgotten was the basic story line: alien invasion by quickly-reproducing “slugs” that can attach themselves to the human nervous system and completely control their hosts, using the full knowledge and abilities of those hosts. That made an impression on me when I first read the book in early adolescence. Scared the hell out of me.
What also made an impression was the above bit – the nudity. Hey, I was a hormone-soaked early teen. The idea of society quickly changing such that everyone would run around naked was . . . interesting.
When I re-read the book later (first semester of college at Grinnell – which so happened to be where the first bit of the book is set) and then again in advance of the movie, I just considered this bit to be part of Heinlein’s usual casual sexual tweaking of convention. It was no big deal, but I always just considered him of something of a ‘dirty old man’ who was looking for an excuse to get naked people into his books.
But now . . . well, I have to reconsider. He certainly nailed what people are like when frightened, and how that can have an impact on social mores. Consider my recent post about how willing some folks are to put up with the new security scanners and “enhanced pat downs,” and that’s just because of the *possibility* that these security procedures might make them marginally safer when flying. What if there was a massive threat which could be fought by shedding our clothes? People’d peel, and damned quickly.
So, Heinlein may indeed have just been something of a dirty old man. But he was also something of a prophet.
Jim Downey
Well, I’m back to reading the Orwell Diaries, after just browsing them now and again for the last two years. Why now? Well, what was happening in the world 70 years ago?
Oh, yeah, that.
Specifically, the fall of France. Dunkirk.
Orwell’s diaries have gone from mundane reporting of how many eggs his chickens laid to a preoccupation with the war news, and observations on how few people in the British public seem to be engaged in it yet. It’s funny, from our perspective we think of WWII as “total war” which completely took over the countries involved. But of course that’s not how things actually unfolded – those who were experiencing it saw it within the other aspects and concerns of their lives. It took time for the full scope of the war to become clear, and as always some people understood what was actually happening sooner than others.
Anyway, if you fell away from reading the Orwell Diaries, you might want to pick the habit back up. Interesting stuff.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Emergency, Predictions, Preparedness, Society, Terrorism, Violence
…for ages that if someone *really* wanted to hurt our country, they could do so with a bunch of small-scale bombs at tourist sites and malls around the country. The bombs wouldn’t have to be big, or kill a lot of people – just scare people enough that they stop going to those places unless they really needed to. The economy would collapse in a matter of weeks, given that about 70% of our GDP is generated by consumer sales.
So let’s hope that this isn’t the first such instance:
Car bomb scares Times Square but fails to explode
NEW YORK – Police found an “amateurish” but potentially powerful bomb that apparently began to detonate but did not explode in a smoking sport utility vehicle in Times Square, authorities said Sunday.Thousands of tourists were cleared from the streets for 10 hours after two vendors alerted police to the suspicious vehicle, which contained three propane tanks, fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
So far, reaction to this event seems to be calmer than I would expect. But we’ll see what happens when it’s no longer the weekend and people start using it to try and score political points on one side or the other. Remember, fear sells.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Civil Rights, Emergency, Government, Religion, Society, Terrorism, Violence
. . . what sort of panic and chaos we’d have if there were religious nuts who killed a bunch of people because they were fighting a war of liberation:
Double suicide bombings kill 38 on Moscow subway
MOSCOW – Female suicide bombers blew themselves up Monday in twin attacks on Moscow subway stations packed with rush-hour passengers, killing at least 38 people and wounding more than 60, officials said. The carnage blamed on rebels from the Caucasus region follows the killings of several high-profile Islamic militant leaders there.
The blasts come six years after Islamic separatists from the southern Russian region carried out a pair of deadly Moscow subway strikes and raise concerns that the war has once again come to the capital, amid militants’ warnings of a renewed determination to push their fight.
Gee, I’m glad there’s nothing like that brewing here:
Militia members charged with police-killing plot
WASHINGTON – Nine suspects tied to a Christian militia in the Midwest are charged with conspiring to kill police officers, then attack a funeral in the hopes of killing more law enforcement personnel, federal prosecutors said Monday.
* * *
Once other officers gathered for a slain officer’s funeral, the group planned to detonate homemade bombs at the funeral, killing more, according to newly unsealed court papers.
According to the indictment, the idea of attacking a police funeral was one of numerous scenarios discussed as ways to go after law enforcement officers. Other scenarios included a fake 911 call to lure an officer to his or her death, or an attack on the family of a police officer.
Now, think again what would happen here if self-proclaimed “Islamic separatists” set off a couple bombs and killed a bunch of people. You’d have every Right-wing loon calling for concentration camps and martial law to deal with the threat. But since it was a Christian sect who was planning on killing gubmint agents, what do we get?
[crickets]
Exactly.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to dKos.)
Communion Of Dreams 
