Monday, December 05, 2005

Bad Intelligence, Human Failures

Not an incredibly interesting review, unless you're into S & M, but it does make one crucial point that I'd like to take up:

In this context, the CIA's current ill repute emanates primarily from directors' failures, in various forms.


This simple statement says, in effect, that humans fail, and fail often. To me, that means putting into place a system of governing that helps humans to not fail where they are most likely to fail. We don't have that right now with the CIA/Prez/Congress triumvirate.

But further, I think many Greens think that all we really need for good government is to put good people in charge. This seems insane to me. Do people really need to be reminded of the 'good people' who were involved with the French Revolution - those same 'good people' going onto truly 'Englightened' practices during the Reign of Terror? Or, perhaps some might remember the Stanford Prison Experiment? Or the Milgram Experiment?

C'mon, folks. Let's get real. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Humans, yes - even Americans, even 'pacifist' Greens, have a significant capacity for evil - especially when acting on the orders of someone in a position of authority.

Nonviolence is still the way to go, but as a party, the Greens have to understand that real threats to our freedom are out there - both from our own government and other governments.

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