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first off, i find it bizarre that the assumption that consolidating intelligence gathering functions is a rational response to 9/11 is simply accepted a priori. i dont see any possible linkage between this and any alternate reality in which the trade center/pentagon attacks could have been prevented. it seems to me mostly a therapeutic bone thrown to the families of those who died, and a rather cynical one at that. does anyone seriously believe that a more centralized intel gathering system would have made it more possible to be proactive about an attack that no-one was looking for? maybe one reason politicos have balked at implementing the idea is that the idea itself makes no sense, except in the abstract, and even that as a palliative.
second, the edito appears to be a typical rightwing hit piece and nothing more. its basic argument is a variant of the bush-cheney stump speech theme that the democrats are "weak on security" and that therefore neofascism wrapped up in republican fear-mongering is the only viable response to security concerns. i see nothing of any interest or importance in it.
but what i find *really* odd is that the thread was started by dk, who in most threads is among the first to outline paranoid responses to real or imagined encroachments on absolute autonomy as far-right libertarians understand the term.
so dk: why would you find a consolidation of intel gathering functions within the state, which in general you process as the Man (and that's about as far as it goes), to be desirable?
the premise seems to run counter to everything about your politics.
what would make you think that such a centralized intel gathering machinery would not expose people like yourself to much tighter, much more co-ordinated surveillance, for example?
this makes no sense to me.
please explain.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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