Parenthetically; back in 2008 a book of mine was getting attention in some … odd … quarters, and I got invited to a weekend retreat by some people in US department of defense—a reading crit group for the summer reading list of the deputy sec for defense, at the time, which included "Halting State".
I was really curious and didn't figure they'd get anything damaging/useful from my novel, so I went along. (I'm a writer: it's all grist for the mill.)
One discussion stuck in my head.
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I found myself sharing a table at breakfast on the second day with a couple of admirals. Who turned out to be former fast jet pilots a couple of years older than me, and formidably astute (their career ladder ran on "up or out", filtering for administrative competence: they both had PhDs along the way).
Their topic of breakfast convo after catching up on old friends was: the Department of Homeland Security, it's toxicity, and why it was *vital* to the nation's future that it be abolished.
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@cstross
And they were right. Obama basically ratified the seeds of destruction of the democratic order sown during the Bush years.
@dymaxion Yep. By not rolling back Bush's reign of misrule, he cemented it. And the Overton Window's slide from 2000-2008 was made permanent. (After the original slide rightwards under GHWB and then Clinton, building on Reagan's policies.)
@cstross a lot of us took one look at the name, the stated mission, and went "jesus fucking christ could you possibly be more on the nose?"
When they declared that the USCG was being essentially abolished and the CBP rolled into DHS, the alarm bells were fucking SCREAMING.
See, my neighbor at the time? He was a USCG CBP and a lead *trainer*. And morale in the org just evaporated overnight. The whole damn coast guard.
@cstross In the wake of 9/11 the West in general, and the US in particular, went mad. I think that when the history of the War on Terror comes to be written, not only will we learn a lot of things we won’t like, but actions like invoking Article 5, creating DHS, passing the Patriot Act will be seen as errors. The War on Terror was a generational mistake with generational consequences.
Yes it was a horrible act and a big one $$$ wise but nothing different qualitatively than had been going on for ages in other countries. What made it special was terrorists dared to attack the United States.
@the5thColumnist @cstross I flew home through Heathrow that night, and I remember the little knots of Americans desperately trying to phone home, I get why that turned to rage. OTH, if the post 9/11 rules applied during the civil war in Northern Ireland, the RAF would have been visiting, Boston & New York on a regular basis. I defy anyone to tell me that the World or the US is in a better place after the War on Terror.
@cstross
George W. Bush, MBA created that business so he could hire Republicans who could not find work elsewhere. INS did need reform, but that was prevented by this brilliant move. What business? DHS 💰 💰
One of them opined that if DHS wasn't abolished before the coming presidential election it would be too late for the nation. And that DHS and the attitude it embodied was a danger to democracy.
This, I repeat, was flag rank US military officers shooting the breeze nearly 20 years ago. (They're retired by now so if some gestapo hack goes digging for the attendee list that far back they won't get much.)
PS: I wouldn't accept an invitation like that today.
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@cstross ~20 years ago, I served on the DHS Science and Technology Advisory Committee. (Why? Because I wanted someone who cared about privacy and civil liberties in that slot, and it wasn't the sort of invite I could hand off to someone else.) One evening during dinner, I opined to other committee members that DHS was completely dysfunctional and needed to be split up. They laughed—it had taken me that long to figure it out? (Why yes, I am administratively and bureaucratically challenged…)
As a sign of how different the times were then, we were asked *optionally* to fill out a form with our political party registration, so that the administration could show the media that it wasn't playing partisan politics with the membership. (It was probably a matter of public record in my state, but the Privacy Act of 1974—yes, the US passed one way back when, but it only applied to the government, not the private sector, and one of the motivations for passing it was Nixon's abuses during Watergate—forbade the government from collecting such data without consent.) I declined to answer, but another committee member answered "liberal Democrat", and he was added to the committee—during W's term.
@cstross
It always fascinates me how much more curious, insightful, and astute military officers are as a group when compared to CEOs or politicians, and how often they identify and face hazards, rather than ignore or downplay.
For example, they tend to be very informed and clear-headed on the hazards represented by climate change
@cstross So they were right, though it took a while for that to become clear... did you notice any awareness of DHS being part of bin Laden's plan for America?
@martinvermeer @cstross The soviet union used to like the name. They had three variants that I can remember:
- NKGB, People's Commissariat for State Security
- MGB, Ministry of State Security
- KGB, Committee for State Security
Possibly something you don't want to have in a democracy...
@davecb @martinvermeer @cstross Authoritarians always like to instil fear this way. I expect that's why they renamed it the Department of War.
The last few years have reminded me a lot of the first seasons of Babylon 5. Of course, JMS leaned heavily on Orwell when he wrote it.
@veronica @davecb @martinvermeer @cstross
Babylon 5 was a good introduction to what happens. Hopefully there will be no Scorched Earth at the end of all this.
@martinvermeer No, but I see DHS as a symptom of the massive psychological anaphylactic shock that the USA collectively experienced after 9/11. An allergic reaction to the consequences of a century of diplomatic and military policy FAFO.
@cstross @martinvermeer From my perspective being having dealt with the military a LOT during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, DHS was a kind of natural progression of the whole "total systems dominance" military doctrine.
The US military was kind of desperately trying to recover from the shades of Vietnam and win wars, but felt betrayed at home, so they wanted mechanisms to control that.
They didn't ask whether the wars were just, meriting attempts to control & manipulate the home front.
@cstross Wow. Sobering thought.
