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Greg McDonald wrote: > > ====================================================================== > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > ====================================================================== > > Joaquin Bustelo wrote: > > <And here we get to something quite important, I believe. Which is > that the extreme decadence, amorality, absence of values and narcissism of > U.S. society means by and large it can't produce suitable human material for > this work, because it calls for sacrificing yourself for the greater good. > But under the simplistic aberration of free market ideology that's become > the American state religion, there is no greater good than the self. > > Worse, this outlook has led to a situation where the US military and > intelligence services are themselves extremely vulnerable to penetration, > because as institutions they have become organically incapable of > understanding ideologically-motivated opponents.> > > Even worse, the CIA traditionally recruits, as Steven Pisso puts it: > "nuts, screwballs, crooks, drunks, even the certifiably insane." > Apparently, it provides good cover, or plausible deniability, to > recruit nut jobs for undercover work. (1) American "decadence" (like American "innocence") gets discovered anew every 25 years or so. "Decadence" is essentially an organic metaphor (apples rot), and while it has sometimes been relevant to "traditional" (or tributary) societies ruled by a hereitary class of the "well born," it is quite irrelevant to capitalism. (That's a long long argument, I know, and I'll simply throw it out as something to think about without further defense of it.) (2) Intelligence services, as long as they have existed, have always recruited from the dregs or the crzzy. After all, spying and assassination really are not, and never have been, all that appealing a way to earn one's daily bread or nightly cocktail. In its very short lifetime capitalism has already encountered more disasters and fallen down more holes than half a dozen ancient empires together, and it always gets up smiling. If you don't hit it, it won't fall. Carrol ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
