zenpundit.com

Kind of a part “theory”, part “futurism” post as my introduction to CTLab readers:

Visualcy and the Human Terrain

As a result of public education, the rise of mass-media and commercial advertising, Western nations and Japan, some earlier but all by mid-20th century, became relatively homogenized in the processing of information as well as having a dominant vital “consensus” on cultural and political values with postwar Japan probably being the most extreme example. The range between elite and mass opinion naturally narrowed as more citizens shared similar outlooks and the same sources of information, as did the avenues for acceptable dissent. A characteristic of modern society examined at length by thinkers as diverse as Ortega y Gasset, Edward Bernays, Marshall McLuhan and Alvin Toffler.

….Interestingly enough, despite complaints by American conservatives regarding the political bias of news outlets like al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, these organizations are packaging news in the familiar “Pulitzerian frame” in which mass media have been structuring information for over a century. Effectively, habituating their audience to a Western style (if not content) of thinking and information processing, with all of the advantages and shortcomings in terms of speed and superficiality that we associate with television news broadcasting. This phenomena, along with streaming internet video content like Youtube and – very, very, soon, mass-based Web 2.0 video social networks – will overlay the aforementioned complexity in regard to the range of education and literacy.

Read the whole thing here.

Skilluminati featured a SSI PDF on drugged out paramilitary fighters by Paul Rexton Kan:

“ DRUG INTOXICATED IRREGULAR FIGHTERS: COMPLICATIONS, DANGERS, AND RESPONSES“

From SS Einsatzgruppen to Bosnian Serb paramilitaries to Indonesian brush gangs, intoxicants have frequently been given to erode irregular fighters’ moral constraints and facilitate atrocities.

Much thanks to Eddie Beaver and Lexington Green who separately but nearly simultaneously sent me links this morning to a very fine e-zine, Democracy Journal.org. What caught their eye were the following articles by some familiar names:

“Pentagon 2.0” by Colonel T.X. Hammes

The author of the critically acclaimed The Sling and the Stone reviews the latest book by another premier military theorist, John Arquilla’s Worst Enemy and finds it wanting.

“Return of the Jihadi” by Andrew Exum a.k.a. “Abu Muqawama”

Exum methodically analyzes the implications of “when Omar comes marching home” and offers sensible solutions I would describe as “Interagency COIN Jointness”.

Parenthetical aside: One side effect of the GWOT/Iraq War/Afghanistan, I think we shall see in the coming decade, is to have created a generation of future policy makers and statesmen like we have not seen since WWII.

A big thank you to blogfriend Pundita for sending Rezko Watch readers my way!

Generally, local poltics are not my primary interest but for Rezko Watch readers outside of Illinois who are interested in the background of Chicago’s unique brand of politics, they might want to check out the following sources:

American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley – His Battle for Chicago and the Nation by Adam Cohen, Elizabeth Taylor

An excellent, highly detailed, social and political history both of the city of Chicago as well as the rise to power of the first, legendary, Mayor Daley, and his iron fisted rule over the Democratic Machine. The Shakman Decrees have changed he rules of the game  in the city of Chicago but the current Mayor, Richard M. Daley has adapted and is, in some ways, even more powerful than his larger than life father.

Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago by Mike Royko

This book is a shorter but far more colorful and grittier read. Penned by the late Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko, it is filled with a cast of infamous Chicago characters such as Ed Kelly, Tony Accardo, Paddy Bauler, Cardinal Cody, William Dawson, John D’ Arco, Tom Keane, Charlie Swibel, Benjamin Adamowski and Saul Alinsky. Incidentally, Mayor Daley reportedly hated Royko for writing this book.

Chicago: City on the Make: 50th Anniversary Edition, Newly Annotated by Nelson Algren

One of Chicago’s great writers, as well as a friend of Royko’s, Algren painted a bitter picture of the Machine at the zenith of it’s power and corruption.

For contemporary coverage of the underworld of Chicago politics, I recommend former City Hall beat reporter turned columnist for The Chicago Tribune, John Kass. Kass is well versed in the current array of ward heelers, mobbed-up businessmen, buffoonish aldermen, ex-gangster disciples, crooked cops, shadowy fixers and Outfit soldiers under the latest Federal investigations (it’s a lot to keep track of).

” Chicago ain’t ready for reform!”  – Alderman Paddy Bauler, 1955.

Dr. Chet Richards at DNI had this post on Mexico:

A fourth generation war near you

…..An alternative is that what we’re going to face might better be described as a fourth generation, non-trinitarian conflict and not classical insurgency because it doesn’t appear that the goals of the groups employing terrorism and guerrilla warfare tactics involve replacing the government of either Mexico or the United States (see Bill Lind’s latest, below, for a discussion of this point).

So it is armed conflict, and if it isn’t insurgency, is it war? This is an important question because, as the current president claims and as the candidate from his party agrees, in war, a president has extraordinary powers.

While such powers have proven useful when the country faces the military forces of another country, they also allow the president to undertake activities that would be counterproductive if used against a guerrilla-type opponent, where the outcome depends primarily on moral elements – that is, on our ability to attract allies, maintain our own determination, and dry up the guerrillas’ bases of support.

The post elicited the following comment from Global Guerilla theorist, John Robb:

You are exactly right Chet, will this counter-insurgency stuff work against an open source enemy with billion dollar funding?

The narco-cartel killers, especially the Zetas, resemble the tiny, highly professional, 1GW armies of the 17th and 18th centuries. Very few in number relative to the population as a whole that they generally ignore ( or run roughshod over) while they engage the other, numerically small, professionals ( Mexican police and Army). Perhaps the appropriate strategic counter is analgous to the French Revolution’s response to invasion by monarchical 1GW armies – a levee en masse in the form of an ideologically turbocharged popular militia. This was one of the ideas being toyed with in the 1920’s by the German officers of the Reichswehr under von Seeckt, that had it’s last, twisted, gasp as Ernst Rohm’s vision of a 4 million man SA National Militia, a possibility extinguished in the Night of the Long Knives. Even the stealthy Zetas would have trouble operating in a city where the police and Army were backed by, say, 40,000 armed militiamen who were part of a national network. A loyalist paramilitary on steroids.

However, any such hypothetical popular militia will have to come from a social movement as the Mexican state no longer commands enough political legitimacy to recruit such a force to it’s side – even if it had the courage to grasp that kind of wolf by the ears.