Paul I am picking up here from the last thread you responded to.
1. I think maybe having a must read list of:
The philosophy of war for the millennial mind.
- eastern vs western
- ancient to modern
- a consensus driven multi perspective narrative of America today in the world
- we live in a neoliberal world wether we like it or not that has allowed the wealthy to operate in ways that it makes it difficult to distinguish from how organized crime does. The effects are corrosive and the perverse incentives are too many to count.
2. A understanding and commitment to democracy and the important role of well regulated capitalism.
- start by paying and sourcing federal level institutions not out sourcing everything (ie. McGonigal, Woolsey, and Flynn are a few of too many examples of what happens when people are easy to buy).
- instead of out sourcing work I think mil-civ collaborations of bottom up innovation currently being spearheaded by innovation cells
3. I will struggle with the partisanship issue, but I would like to think it mostly stems from the existential threat MAGA presents to the US and western liberal democracies. Both political parties are captured thanks to neoliberalism IMO - both parties are guilty here. I see Biden as a slight but imperfect departure from this. What happens in the Midwest is going to dictate a lot of what happens in America domestically.
4. People need to understand the importance of the diffusion of power through checks and balances, because power/money corrupt most except for a few exceptions. I wonder often about would have occurred if FDR hadn’t died if he would have let go of power. Consolidating power is also dangerous to the individual holding said power - it removes them from reality, induces paranoia, and makes transitions of power extremely dangerous.
Thanks for the good reading suggestions, Rogelio. All interesting suggestions and of which topics, I have long pursued. When I develop reading lists for students, trainees etc. I do so based on what they need for specific purposes, most often, regarding a manner in which they can productively add to theirs and my purpose.
My purpose on Substack is to bring truth regarding national security threats to readers. This has some overlap with your implied interests. What is your purpose regarding the reading you've suggested?
Professionally, I have had to read some remarkable research and history, but that reading has always been dedicated to what I needed for not only mission purposes, but the research that sustained my intended objectives. Academic debate wasn't my focus, nor is it today. My mission with TAT is to build resilience into the principles of our fellow citizens, domestic and global alike. Truth that everyone can understand is a key building block of this mission. This is where my focus lies.
When you talk about America’s narrative the first things that come to mind are the rule of law, democracy, anti-tyranny, and how revolutionary the constitution was, especially for that era.
As I understand it, the founding fathers’ drew heavily from Roman/Greek philosophy and their concepts behind the relationship between citizen and state. They were also mindful of the power religion and god-anointed royalty and how both can be vessels for tyranny.
Tyranny, again as I understand it, is embodied by the individual or individuals who are above the laws of common men. To me it is the aversion to tyranny that really drives the value of rule of law and this combination is as American as apple pie.
That is America’s most appealing narrative that sells well as an export, yet greed often makes us look like hypocrites internationally. Leon Black and chicta bananas is a contemporary and evolving example.
Economic tyranny (or its more PC term globalization) stirs all sorts of resentment at home and abroad, yet it has pulled more people out of poverty and has made the world interconnected to the point that makes State driven warfare much less lucrative. It has also turned corporations and wealthy individuals into tyrannical (above the law) entities that possess near god like powers that threaten democratic governments in the name of commerce and progress.
You can’t get a resilient society where there is no trust in the rule of law. America has adopted an very un-American cynicism presented as a practically that is snuffing out our never ending pursuit of exceptionalism.
National identity is composed of countless layers, just like human beings. You cannot isolate one or two factors and understand that narrative. It's not that there is no trust in government, there is diminished trust due to intentional efforts by foreign adversaries like Russia and the oligarchical financing of political hitmen, such as the MAGA dominated GOP. This still exists.
The coals of our national trust of government are easily hot enough to rekindle the flame of American democracy. This is an inherent strain of our resilience. I do enjoy good and intelligent conversation but are you trying to teach a class here that we don't know the name of, because I am fully unaware of what you're trying to get at.
This is not a criticism but an honest question.
You have some interesting examples here Rogelio, but to what purpose. What is the one sentence objective you are trying to convey with this conversation?
I am providing my personal responses to your articles from my perspective, as someone who is educated in psychology/medicine and has been trying to make sense of covid disinformation.
Perhaps I am not the target audience. I stumbled into this world (your field of expertise) on accident trying to make sense of the covid madness which seem to either have strong parallels with what you do or is the source of where disinformation originates from.
I still don't understand Rogelio. You've been commenting on a variety of my articles but I don't understand your point relative to those articles. Could you please help us better understand? These are all important topics for readers to consider but your comments, well-informed as they are, do not point towards any point or cause. The topics are for all target audiences and impact all of them as well. The point of TAT is truth towards solutions. What solutions are you trying to advocate for?
Everyone is complicated every person is like a book, yet what binds people together is usually singular.
Injustice is a binder of people.
Why did people throw away 15+ years of active duty by refusing to take the COVID vaccine?
Why did people who did multiple combat deployments and who would take a bullet for me, not trust me, a doctor wearing the same uniform to provide them with unbiased truth?
Smart people even a few doctors did the same.
The commonality was having suffered some kind of injustice with in the medical field, either personally or through a close individual. But, how does that extrapolate to them not trusting their own doctors, whose sole mission is medical readiness and to keep them alive?
I alone can’t fix big pharma, health insurance, or dwindling budgets for healthcare or what ever else was the root cause of the injustices suffered by those who no longer trust “the medical establishment.”
How do we turn this around? Fixing systemic injustices that occur across multiple different fields because of perverse incentives to place money over people/country.
How do we do that? Holding people accountable is only half the battle. Without changing the incentivizes we are left with a handful of people working against a system, while simultaneously trying to keep it together.
Hope that makes sense. Or at least provides clarity from where I am coming from.
Paul I am picking up here from the last thread you responded to.
1. I think maybe having a must read list of:
The philosophy of war for the millennial mind.
- eastern vs western
- ancient to modern
- a consensus driven multi perspective narrative of America today in the world
- we live in a neoliberal world wether we like it or not that has allowed the wealthy to operate in ways that it makes it difficult to distinguish from how organized crime does. The effects are corrosive and the perverse incentives are too many to count.
2. A understanding and commitment to democracy and the important role of well regulated capitalism.
- start by paying and sourcing federal level institutions not out sourcing everything (ie. McGonigal, Woolsey, and Flynn are a few of too many examples of what happens when people are easy to buy).
- instead of out sourcing work I think mil-civ collaborations of bottom up innovation currently being spearheaded by innovation cells
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/leveraging-soldiers-innovation-need-army-product-development-cell/
3. I will struggle with the partisanship issue, but I would like to think it mostly stems from the existential threat MAGA presents to the US and western liberal democracies. Both political parties are captured thanks to neoliberalism IMO - both parties are guilty here. I see Biden as a slight but imperfect departure from this. What happens in the Midwest is going to dictate a lot of what happens in America domestically.
4. People need to understand the importance of the diffusion of power through checks and balances, because power/money corrupt most except for a few exceptions. I wonder often about would have occurred if FDR hadn’t died if he would have let go of power. Consolidating power is also dangerous to the individual holding said power - it removes them from reality, induces paranoia, and makes transitions of power extremely dangerous.
Thanks for the good reading suggestions, Rogelio. All interesting suggestions and of which topics, I have long pursued. When I develop reading lists for students, trainees etc. I do so based on what they need for specific purposes, most often, regarding a manner in which they can productively add to theirs and my purpose.
My purpose on Substack is to bring truth regarding national security threats to readers. This has some overlap with your implied interests. What is your purpose regarding the reading you've suggested?
Professionally, I have had to read some remarkable research and history, but that reading has always been dedicated to what I needed for not only mission purposes, but the research that sustained my intended objectives. Academic debate wasn't my focus, nor is it today. My mission with TAT is to build resilience into the principles of our fellow citizens, domestic and global alike. Truth that everyone can understand is a key building block of this mission. This is where my focus lies.
When you talk about America’s narrative the first things that come to mind are the rule of law, democracy, anti-tyranny, and how revolutionary the constitution was, especially for that era.
As I understand it, the founding fathers’ drew heavily from Roman/Greek philosophy and their concepts behind the relationship between citizen and state. They were also mindful of the power religion and god-anointed royalty and how both can be vessels for tyranny.
Tyranny, again as I understand it, is embodied by the individual or individuals who are above the laws of common men. To me it is the aversion to tyranny that really drives the value of rule of law and this combination is as American as apple pie.
That is America’s most appealing narrative that sells well as an export, yet greed often makes us look like hypocrites internationally. Leon Black and chicta bananas is a contemporary and evolving example.
Economic tyranny (or its more PC term globalization) stirs all sorts of resentment at home and abroad, yet it has pulled more people out of poverty and has made the world interconnected to the point that makes State driven warfare much less lucrative. It has also turned corporations and wealthy individuals into tyrannical (above the law) entities that possess near god like powers that threaten democratic governments in the name of commerce and progress.
You can’t get a resilient society where there is no trust in the rule of law. America has adopted an very un-American cynicism presented as a practically that is snuffing out our never ending pursuit of exceptionalism.
National identity is composed of countless layers, just like human beings. You cannot isolate one or two factors and understand that narrative. It's not that there is no trust in government, there is diminished trust due to intentional efforts by foreign adversaries like Russia and the oligarchical financing of political hitmen, such as the MAGA dominated GOP. This still exists.
The coals of our national trust of government are easily hot enough to rekindle the flame of American democracy. This is an inherent strain of our resilience. I do enjoy good and intelligent conversation but are you trying to teach a class here that we don't know the name of, because I am fully unaware of what you're trying to get at.
This is not a criticism but an honest question.
You have some interesting examples here Rogelio, but to what purpose. What is the one sentence objective you are trying to convey with this conversation?
I am providing my personal responses to your articles from my perspective, as someone who is educated in psychology/medicine and has been trying to make sense of covid disinformation.
Perhaps I am not the target audience. I stumbled into this world (your field of expertise) on accident trying to make sense of the covid madness which seem to either have strong parallels with what you do or is the source of where disinformation originates from.
I still don't understand Rogelio. You've been commenting on a variety of my articles but I don't understand your point relative to those articles. Could you please help us better understand? These are all important topics for readers to consider but your comments, well-informed as they are, do not point towards any point or cause. The topics are for all target audiences and impact all of them as well. The point of TAT is truth towards solutions. What solutions are you trying to advocate for?
Everyone is complicated every person is like a book, yet what binds people together is usually singular.
Injustice is a binder of people.
Why did people throw away 15+ years of active duty by refusing to take the COVID vaccine?
Why did people who did multiple combat deployments and who would take a bullet for me, not trust me, a doctor wearing the same uniform to provide them with unbiased truth?
Smart people even a few doctors did the same.
The commonality was having suffered some kind of injustice with in the medical field, either personally or through a close individual. But, how does that extrapolate to them not trusting their own doctors, whose sole mission is medical readiness and to keep them alive?
I alone can’t fix big pharma, health insurance, or dwindling budgets for healthcare or what ever else was the root cause of the injustices suffered by those who no longer trust “the medical establishment.”
How do we turn this around? Fixing systemic injustices that occur across multiple different fields because of perverse incentives to place money over people/country.
How do we do that? Holding people accountable is only half the battle. Without changing the incentivizes we are left with a handful of people working against a system, while simultaneously trying to keep it together.
Hope that makes sense. Or at least provides clarity from where I am coming from.