Dirty Nuggets : The Virtue of Anger
The Virtue of Anger
[Image: Mr Fish]
Publication date: 2021-10-08
With a sufficient amount of research time behind one, and a bit of luck, the inter-webs sometimes throw up dirty nuggets which with a little more time reveal themselves as gold.
I'd checked my usual sources and learned that the Sullivan/Yang meeting in Zurich had produced at least some effective communication between the USA and China on the Taiwan "crazy". Nice; that might just calm things down a little. Funnily enough, the USA is still trying to do political spectacle (lets have a Summit!) and the Chinese are saying "perhaps you don't understand; if you want our assistance on some things, you need to understand our wider agenda" to which the USA are saying "but, can't we just collaborate on X (climate change) and be contentious adversaries on other topics". This is the junior school debating team against the university version, by which I mean that the junior team don't even understand the terms used.
On a whim, I did a gootube search on Danny Sjursen, limited to the month. Hmmm, what's this "Committee for the Republic" thing? Tor access to their site gives a 406 ("permission denied"). Okay, download the video and see whats up.
The committee was awarding Mathew Hoh, Daniel Davis and Danny Sjursen some award ("Defender of Liberty"). I'd just referenced an article by a Davis in my most recent piece over the Taiwan idiocy. Same Davis? Shit yeah. Oh, he's another ex-combat military anti-war (or anti-stupid-war) advocate. Well, that explains his clear eyed analysis in The Guardian opinion piece.
So, I settled into this 1.5 hour video to see what was to be said. Then, Chas Freeman turns up! He's an ex-USA diplomat that also speaks with historical understanding and reason. There's back and forth between the awardees, with many an interesting comment to make. Then, blow me down, Ray McGovern (from whom I stole the sub-title) shows up. What?! So, non-Tor'ing to the Committee's site to get some background, I discover they've been around since 2003. They're standard non-partisan constitutional advocates. You know, "defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic". Oaths that matter.
It really warms up later in the interview when they get to the "non-kinetic mechanisms" (DoD speak for bribery) and how some one star general cant understand that this is not an effective strategy. Hoh's comment of an USA outpost in Afghanistan as an ATM machine is classic.
There is one other piece by Sjursen in which he speaks of the challenge of his transition to dissent. What he is doing is "pretending" to his high command that they are doing things, when really he's just trying to prevent his soldiers from dying. This reflects perfectly on Episode 8 from Band of Brothers (a far too USA nationalistic cinematic piece that still does provide some useful commentary on WWII) the "Last Patrol". In this episode, the first half is a "rescue" mission that partially goes wrong, though the main objective is achieved. So happy are the higher command that they order another. At this point, the commanding officer explains what is to be done in this night raid, but expresses that he expects all the men to "get a good night's sleep".
Enjoy.
Sources
Veteran Defender of Liberty Award September 30 2021, Committee for the Republic, their youtube channel, 2021-10-02
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