zenpundit.com

As a rule, I eschew political news here but I think this one merits an exception.

The big story of the moment for political junkies is the illegal hacking of cell phones allegedly carried out by employees of one of Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloid newspapers. Not just any phones either, the cell phones of British VIPs, political bigwigs, celebrities and perhaps, some 9/11 victims. All of the details have not been revealed, but there are police investigations, one of News Corp’s top employees has been arrested, parliamentary inquiries and demands by Murdochs political enemies there to have the British government “dismantle his empire“.

Rupert Murdoch is not, it must be said, a cuddly public figure. He is a press baron throwback to the era of Joseph Pulitizer and William Randolph Hearst and has a reputation for ruthlessness in business and overweening ambition in politics to gain personal influence for promoting his conservative views. He is a hate figure to Democratic and liberal partisans of the intolerant kind who see political disagreement as evidence of evil and would like FOXnews, one of Murdoch’s most influential and profitable properties, to be suppressed by the FCC (though Murdoch’s right-wing views did not preclude him from trying to cozy up to China’s communist leadership). These folks are naturally celebrating Murdoch’s dilemma and hoping for a collapse – and Murdoch and his son James are in genuine jeopardy, possibly legal, certainly political and commercial.

Much indignant outrage is being heaped on Murdoch’s head now by the enlightened; I have no love for phone hacking and I definitely agree that and violating people’s privacy is a crime that ought to be punished by sending those responsible to prison. I am curious though, how this position is squared morally with the fact that the two liberal news outlets most triumphant about the News Corp scandal, The New York Times and The Guardian, themselves recently were knowing accessories to the much more serious crime of espionage.

Actually calling these papers criminal accessories is not a full picture of their behavior during the Wikileaks document dump; it is more accurate to say that they reaped corporate financial benefit from facilitating espionage, grand theft and treason, for which their editors have not faced any legal consequences. 

Yes, treason. Look up the definition.

Much unlike the nobody Army private and patsy, Bradley Manning, who is likely to face a sentence of life in prison. Good thing for  Manning that he only outed a vast array of US intelligence and diplomatic secrets and exposed ordinary, unimportant, unprotected Afghans and Iraqis to murderous retribution by Islamist degenerates. If Manning had phonehacked a Labor MP or a wealthy, airhead celebrity – you know, really important and beautiful people – the NYT and the Guardian would be calling for a death sentence. It is a most curious scale of values.

Go back and look at which partisan blowhards with columns and bylines and talking head opinion shapers thought Wikileaks was just great and defended Julian Assange and what their opinion is on phonehacking today and see if any – any at all – evidence some consistency. Or awareness of the relative magnitude of each crime – and crime is the right word, neither of these scandals are mere pranks, but one is important to national security and the other, so far, is only interesting.

There’s something amiss here in the way that partisan politics and a seamy, not too subtle, undercurrent of class entitlement have warped the perspective and sense of proportion of some people who are smart enough to know better.

My son discovered this, his first official contribution to ZP:

Not John Boyd this time, but John Robb.

John recently gave me a preview of this idea in a much more specific context:

….Here are some of the economic reforms that turned the horde of Genghis Khan into a steamroller than flattened most of the world’s kingdoms/empires.*  He:

1. Delayed gratification.  He banned the sacking of the enemy’s camp/city until all of the fleeing soldiers, baggage, etc. were rounded up.  This radically increased the loot accumulated and ensured it could be shared among all of the participants (he confliscated the wealth of those men that cheated by looting early).
2. Systematically shared the loot based on contribution and merit.  He disregarded title or status and systematically rewarded loot to everyone in the horde that earned it (the traditional approach was to let a few take it all — sound familiar?).  Of course, that fairness pissed off the nobility since they were used to backroom dealing and hereditary rights.  However, the benefits of this system, were far greater than the costs.  To wit:  He cemented the loyalty of the men and was able to attract thousands to his banner for every noble lost.
3. Protected those that make sacrifices.  For men killed in the campaign, he paid their share of loot to their widows/orphans posthumously.  

*of course, the first unsaid lesson is:  attack the places with the most loot.

Handbook of Research on Strategy Process by Pietro  Mazzola and Franz W. Kellermans (Ed.)

Dr. Chet Richards has contributed to an important new theoretical book on strategic applications to business enterprises. For those newer readers, Chet is an authoritative source on strategy, particularly the theories of Colonel John Boyd and is the former proprietor of the late, great, strategy website DNI. I have learned a great deal over the years from Colonel Richards and heartily recommend his Certain to Win to anyone looking for the strategic edge.

For readers with a corporate credit card or departmental budget ( the book is *really* expensive) and a deep, academic or professional interest in strategic theory and thinking, this book is for you. I may require Inter-Library Loan. 🙂

As Chet describes it:

Deep stuff – very academic – but covers the waterfront of the research (i.e., as distinguished from the speculation) on the process of strategy.  As the co-editors describe it:

While strategy content focuses on the subject of the decision, strategy process focuses on actual decision making and its associated actions.  Strategy process research examines the process underpinning strategy formulation and implementation. … Although aimed primarily at the academic community, many of the contributions speak to a wider audience.

Expensive, but if you’re into this sort of thing, probably indispensable.

Shlok hits it on the head:

The Rise of the Corporate State

In order to preserve the portfolios of bondholders, Michigan is ramrodding this legislation:

The new law would allow emergency managers to terminate labor contracts, strip local ordinances, hold millage elections, dissolve a government with the governor’s approval, and merge school districts.

It would allow managers to remove pension fund trustees or become a sole trustee if a pension fund is less than 80% funded. It allows managers to recommend that a local government file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, but leaves the final decision to the governor.

State legislatures, the bush leagues of American politics, can often be bought up by a special interest for less than one million dollars in campaign contributions. Governors are slightly to moderately more expensive ( a good bit more expensive in large states). A fantastic ROI when it yields control of billions of tax dollars. Better than anything comparable in the private sector except, perhaps, the illegal drug trade.

Acquisition and divestmentment of public debt under what terms by municipalities, counties and local government entities are political decisions. The Republican governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, has whored himself out to the oligarchy to thwart the ability of local, elected, governments from making smart and perfectly legal business decisions – as contracting parties in a bond market – regarding their public debt so that the taxpayers of Michigan can be farmed as long as possible and at the highest rates, for the benefit of the financial oligarchy. No risk for them but serfdom for you.

This is about as anti-democratic, pro-big government,  pro-high taxes and anti-free market as it gets and it is being promoted by a Republican. 

We need a new major political party if liberty and democracy are to have anyone to speak for them.