Enron-type coverups do not typically exist
Most coverups don't really involve people grabbing reams of documents and forcing them down shredders (although the Iran-Contra case comes to mind). Instead they often involve deceiving their participants as to the necessity as to continuing the coverup and the ongoing actions. Let's call this a JFK-style coverup. The most noteworthy JFK-style coverup would be the LAPD police cadet scandal. (perhaps the Hollywood sex scandals would be better, but I suppose in retrospect there is no good reason to lock a door from your desk) http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-cadets-thefts-timeline-2017... (excerpts for maximal understanding) ”When you look back, you can say, ‘Well, how come no one noticed that?’” said Frank. “We have a lot of young-looking officers. … There’s so many officers that are looking like that, we’re at that stage where it’s not that odd until after the fact.” ... Cain’s attorney, Bill Seki, has denied his client had any knowledge of the thefts. Seki has repeatedly accused the LAPD of using Cain as a “scapegoat” and contends other officers were aware that the vehicles had been taken. “They’re still trying to throw it at him, the easy target, protecting others that would have been aware of it,” he said. ---- Basically he is pointing out the disingenuity of it all. I believe the ACLU too has been disingenuous, and so has Black Lives Matter. They support increased numbers of prosecutions of police brutality cases, and yet so many times these cases yield not guilty verdicts. Even in the case where a police officer shot a man because he smelled like weed (nevermind that burnt weed is not that different a smell from industrial chemicals). I just wonder how this could happen. It is such a mystery. All these millions. Going no where. Can't figure it out. Such a mystery. Insurmountable. Really curious. Don't get it. Beyond me.
On 12/03/2017 10:03 AM, Ryan Carboni wrote:
Most coverups don't really involve people grabbing reams of documents and forcing them down shredders (although the Iran-Contra case comes to mind). Instead they often involve deceiving their participants as to the necessity as to continuing the coverup and the ongoing actions. Let's call this a JFK-style coverup.
[...]
I just wonder how this could happen. It is such a mystery.
All these millions.
Going no where.
Can't figure it out.
Such a mystery.
Insurmountable.
Really curious.
Don't get it.
Beyond me.
I view systemic corruption and malfeasance as an organic process analogous to the evolution of ecosystems adapted to local physical conditions. As individual organisms pursue their immediate self interest, some adaptations are more profitable than others. In organic evolution, whatever forms and behaviors combine to produce the most grandchildren win out, while those that produce the least die out. In human social organization, adaptive behaviors create mind-sets and "cultures" on much the same basis: The forms and behaviors that produce the most power for the participating individuals win out, while those that produce the least die out. Across institutions where thousands of individuals participate in activities that transfer and apply money and power, the personal benefits of breaking rules and subverting the organization's nominal mission will always reward those who excel at deception, theft and violence - and especially those who develop strategies for cooperating with others to apply these winning strategies at the expense of "outsiders". The rest is history. Quite literally so because history is fossilized propaganda, written by the winners in a given generation's perverse incentives contest. Solutions? My suggestion is to limit "sovereign" States to the smallest attainable size, because popular self-governance DOES NOT SCALE. The larger the organization, the more hiding places and the more irresistible the incentives for bad faith actors. Any system of government that grows too large and complex for an "ordinary citizen" to see and understand what it is doing in useful detail, is a government that will be taken over and operated by bad faith actors, working for their own advantage at everyone else's expense. In this context, the good and bad news are one and the same: My preferred forms of government are coming, and no human agency can prevent that. Because by century's end the collapse of the world's industrial economies and a significant human population crash will leave today's giant State institutions bankrupt, powerless and irrelevant. :o/
participants (2)
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Ryan Carboni -
Steve Kinney