Picking up from Part I. Meanwhile, the superiors were starting to take an interest in Dynamo, in an inquiry on his (or her) identity that together with a recommendation from the Bureau’s newly formed Foreign Influence Task Force that Dynamo ought to be terminated as a source, because he’d associated with known Russian purveyors of disinformation; this struck the whistleblower as especially weird, since Dynamo had been so important in exposing Russian disinformation, which he could hardly have done without the association.
You’re very kind. What I mean is, the overtaking of one organizational premise for civilization (nations; peoples; militaries; treaties) by another (trans-National syndicates; technological power centers; élite coteries of oligarchs). Pynchon got here first.
And Giuliani is in some sense the same as Prigozhin? And Trump as well? Or the FBI whistleblower is handicapped by adhesion to older forms?
I'm not against it, it's just not related to the very simple journalistic job I was trying to do, which was just fixing this ineptly told story. I didn't have any grand overarching point to muse about. I just wanted readers to realize the whistleblower's story is an important corroboration to material facts we've been interested in for the last five years. And scoop Marcy, who hasn't seen the story yet.
I feel terrible because I always screw up in the same way (“Always Crashing in the Same Car” as Bowie put it). Of course your point is great and mine is merely adjacent — how the new order exhibited by the criminal patterns you describe eludes scrutiny because the press and the public is stuck in outmoded heuristics of power relationships.
(and you’re not the only one with edibles any more)
Ha. No, I was just editing somebody else's reporting. Josh's point is great and I want at some point to talk about it. I especially like the way he treats weak state periods when non-state actors achieve dominance as a historically recurring feature instead of a one-directional evolution, with receipts from Renaissance Europe.
I could see Trump and Prigozhin as birds of a feather. They were part of the State in way even Musk is not, and both came at the State in the most direct way possible, Prigozhin with an experienced military and Trump with a mob and some cracked lawyers, but the State took notice of both. As a great political philosopher said, you come at the king you best not miss. They both found out why. But they aren't extra-state players the way Musk is, though Prigozhin probably was the billionaire Trump claims to be. It is (or should be) a huge story, a view of the shadowy corruption everyone assumed was there but couldn't prove.
Really interesting post from Josh, everyone should read it.
Damn. Guess I hafta ride back over to Oleg's place and piss thru the gate AGAIN...
This rumination from Josh today (which I suspect you've already seen) muses along similar — albeit more abstracted — lines:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-rise-of-the-global-oligarchs
I wouldn't have thought of making a connection at all! But I see there is one.
You’re very kind. What I mean is, the overtaking of one organizational premise for civilization (nations; peoples; militaries; treaties) by another (trans-National syndicates; technological power centers; élite coteries of oligarchs). Pynchon got here first.
And Giuliani is in some sense the same as Prigozhin? And Trump as well? Or the FBI whistleblower is handicapped by adhesion to older forms?
I'm not against it, it's just not related to the very simple journalistic job I was trying to do, which was just fixing this ineptly told story. I didn't have any grand overarching point to muse about. I just wanted readers to realize the whistleblower's story is an important corroboration to material facts we've been interested in for the last five years. And scoop Marcy, who hasn't seen the story yet.
I feel terrible because I always screw up in the same way (“Always Crashing in the Same Car” as Bowie put it). Of course your point is great and mine is merely adjacent — how the new order exhibited by the criminal patterns you describe eludes scrutiny because the press and the public is stuck in outmoded heuristics of power relationships.
(and you’re not the only one with edibles any more)
Ha. No, I was just editing somebody else's reporting. Josh's point is great and I want at some point to talk about it. I especially like the way he treats weak state periods when non-state actors achieve dominance as a historically recurring feature instead of a one-directional evolution, with receipts from Renaissance Europe.
I could see Trump and Prigozhin as birds of a feather. They were part of the State in way even Musk is not, and both came at the State in the most direct way possible, Prigozhin with an experienced military and Trump with a mob and some cracked lawyers, but the State took notice of both. As a great political philosopher said, you come at the king you best not miss. They both found out why. But they aren't extra-state players the way Musk is, though Prigozhin probably was the billionaire Trump claims to be. It is (or should be) a huge story, a view of the shadowy corruption everyone assumed was there but couldn't prove.
Really interesting post from Josh, everyone should read it.
It is.
It is starting to look like when Trump came at the Constitution, the State finally said "enough" and started taking him seriously.