13 October 2011 committee >consensus > mob

http://news.yahoo.com/does-occupy-wall-street-leaders-does-205700459.html

“Does 'Occupy Wall Street' have leaders? Does it need any?

As politicians and the media scramble to identify 'Occupy Wall Street' leaders, members of the protest movement are not playing along. But do they really need any? There are pros and cons to leaderless movements…”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/alleged-assassination-plot-serves-as-a-warning-about-tehran/2011/10/12/gIQAgFkDgL_story.html

Editorial Board Opinion

Alleged assassination plot serves as a warning about Tehran

By Editorial, Published: October 12

“THE OBAMA administration’s charge that senior Iranian officials plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington was greeted with a considerable amount of skepticism in some quarters of Washington and the Middle East. Iran, argued some pundits, was unlikely to have undertaken such a brazen attack; it had little to gain by killing the ambassador; and, anyway, its clandestine operations were known to be far more skillful than the seemingly bumbling attempt to contract the assassination to a Mexican drug cartel…”

            “…The alleged plot against the ambassador may reflect a splintering of the Iranian regime that allows radical factions to act more autonomously. It could be a reaction to the stress caused by biting economic sanctions and apparent covert operations by the West or Israel that have killed Iranian nuclear scientists and disabled centrifuges. Whatever the cause, the scheme’s discovery should serve as a warning of the escalating threat posed by Iran — and the need to act more forcefully against it…”

Cassi Creek:

          These are the things that glare at me most loudly from the monitor’s rendition of a newspaper this morning.

          I understand the principle of decision by consensus.  It works well if the situation is a Friends’ meeting worrying about whether or not to send a note of concern to a local government agency.  When you allow it to become the modus operandi of a larger group dealing with matters of political and social significance, it demonstrates the largest flaw in a true democratic means of rule and operation.  Most of the time, there is no consensus and nothing is accomplished.  Leadership is essential to a major political change.  The inability to focus on a single purpose continues to hamstring the Democratic Party and the American new and improved new new left.  Look at the signs on display in the Occupy Wall St. campsite.  Every cause imaginable is there, from the very necessary regulation of our financial system to prevent yet another group of Wall Street robbers from administering the final blow to our global economy in an attempt to ratchet up their bonuses for next year; to the idiocy of PETA as advanced by anorexic trustafarians.  The concept that the PETA group is as important as the financial reform group is simply mind-blowing.  And it is central to the Democrats’ problems today. 

          Pick a cause, voice it, and make it happen. 

          The teavangelists have no problem.  They line up behind one bit of tyranny, drive the nails in, and move en masse to the next.  Anyone daring to alter that path is simply purged.  They may hate Lenin and Trotsky, but they certainly have no problem emulating their forcefulness, sense of purpose, and ruthlessness.  Without that type of leadership, the grandnephews of Victoria would still sit the throne in Petrograd and Moscow would be just another icebound city in Russia. 

          Political movements have leaders.  Mobs have none.  Consensus?  We’ll get back to you on that matter as soon as the 99% have each had their say. 

          Iran has plotted what would be an act of war by a foreign nation if it had been carried out as planned.  I have no idea which of their theocratic rulers hatched this plan.  Obviously, they thought it to be viable. 

          During the Iranian hostage crisis, one of my friends was assigned to the targeting desk in the ICBM wing at Offut AFB.  He once mentioned the number of missiles and warheads that were aimed at Teheran.  The number was small compared to what we had aimed at Russian targets.  But, if those birds had flown, the former Teheran would still be glowing greenly and Farsi would be a dead language. 

          Iran’s rulers, deluded in their theocratic mania to force all the world into their brand of 7^th century existence, believe that they can challenge the U.S. on a nuclear battlefield.  They may be trying to provoke us into firing the first nuclear shot so that they can respond in kind. 

          I have to wonder if they have somehow obtained viable weapons from other nations; Pakistan and N. Korea come to mind.  If we are prodded into using tactical nuclear weapons in response to attacks on our soil by Iran, then they may feel the court of world opinion will applaud their detonation of nukes smuggled into this nation.  They can’t hit us with a missile-borne bomb.  They can smuggle bombs in and would have no compunction in killing our citizens in order to arrange for a few new martyrs. 

          We need to stay on top of this and be ready to display any and all evidence of such   plans to the world.  If necessary we can smash their nuclear production sites, but doing so will involve much collateral damage.  We need to make it plain to our citizens and to Iran’s rulers that we will respond with full force and intent to quickly eliminate the nation of Iran as suitable for habitation.  Fully important, we need to keep all idiotic preachers from using this to stir up anti-Islamic sentiment.  “Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima” should not be heard in any sermon calling for new crusades.