http://www.hlswatch.com/2007/08/20/if-i-were-president/ News and analysis of critical issues in homeland security today. Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:29:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 http://www.hlswatch.com/2007/08/20/if-i-were-president/#comment-76324 William R. Cumming Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:51:37 +0000 http://www.hlswatch.com/2007/08/20/if-i-were-president/#comment-76324 David Walker and GAO have been doing a real service to the country on their discourse on long-range issues. With respect to both parties, Republicans and Democrats both have current plans only to waste more money on meaningless contracts and contracter (to each their own) and avoid hard thinking. Secularism is under challenge in the West and little real thinking is being done on combatting any religious group that refuses to renounce violence. Probably means a system of political beliefs not a true religion. Now that militarism rules, and democracy is challenged by both a military-industrial-academic triangle supporting both a National Security State and a Homeland Security State, fundamental democracy and even our representative republic may not have a chance. Since 9/11 simple minded non-sollutions have prevailed but have we for example paid for training and cultural knowledge relating to Arabic, Yiddish, Farsi, Hebrew, Urdu, Pastu, etc. etc. How much have the Arabic Studies majors in colleges and universities expanded. Or that is right, the non-profit colleges and universities now far outnumbered by the for-profit universities really don't see that as their problem. Highly recommend a book called "Justinian's Flea" recent authored by William Simon to see how a society responded to a surprise knockout blow (the plague) in the 6th Century C.E. Basically it didn't and history moved on. The evidence is starting to arrive from the post-9/11 activity and most of it was wasted motion. GAO is doing very very important work but probably will be punished like all profits by budget and staff cuts. With the brains of the Executive Branch lobotomized by the succession of Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush it is a wonder that any organization exists that concerns itself with real long term issues. Just as the OTA died (Office of Technology Assessment) perhaps we will soon be talking of GAO in the past tense. David Walker and GAO have been doing a real service to the country on their discourse on long-range issues. With respect to both parties, Republicans and Democrats both have current plans only to waste more money on meaningless contracts and contracter (to each their own) and avoid hard thinking. Secularism is under challenge in the West and little real thinking is being done on combatting any religious group that refuses to renounce violence. Probably means a system of political beliefs not a true religion. Now that militarism rules, and democracy is challenged by both a military-industrial-academic triangle supporting both a National Security State and a Homeland Security State, fundamental democracy and even our representative republic may not have a chance. Since 9/11 simple minded non-sollutions have prevailed but have we for example paid for training and cultural knowledge relating to Arabic, Yiddish, Farsi, Hebrew, Urdu, Pastu, etc. etc. How much have the Arabic Studies majors in colleges and universities expanded. Or that is right, the non-profit colleges and universities now far outnumbered by the for-profit universities really don’t see that as their problem. Highly recommend a book called “Justinian’s Flea” recent authored by William Simon to see how a society responded to a surprise knockout blow (the plague) in the 6th Century C.E. Basically it didn’t and history moved on. The evidence is starting to arrive from the post-9/11 activity and most of it was wasted motion. GAO is doing very very important work but probably will be punished like all profits by budget and staff cuts. With the brains of the Executive Branch lobotomized by the succession of Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush it is a wonder that any organization exists that concerns itself with real long term issues. Just as the OTA died (Office of Technology Assessment) perhaps we will soon be talking of GAO in the past tense.

]]> http://www.hlswatch.com/2007/08/20/if-i-were-president/#comment-76315 Homeland Security Watch Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:42:24 +0000 http://www.hlswatch.com/2007/08/20/if-i-were-president/#comment-76315 [...] included a post here highlighting a number of critical questions posed by the GAO in a wide ranging study of national [...] […] included a post here highlighting a number of critical questions posed by the GAO in a wide ranging study of national […]

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