Our Man in Moscow. What If?

For the past few months, we have been subjected to daily news accounts of secret government spying as revealed by a 29 year-old, high school dropout who was given the highest security clearance to view America’s computer spy network. This so-called “leaker” has been considered by many to be a bitter and angry traitor to his country. The leaks provided us with insight into the breath and depth of America’s spy capability, including our gaining access to all phone and internet transmissions at home and abroad. The NSA, our master spy agency, was even able to access the phones of several heads of state.

Some of us, especially those who feel that our nation should be cut down to size and not continue to tower in influence over the entire world, feel the revelations indicate outrageous violation of the fourth amendment because someone told us so. How dare the NSA have access to information that could prevent another terrorist attack. Whatever happened to the notion of a level playing field? Aren’t we at too great an advantage over terrorists?

The young “spy” announced to the world that it was he who leaked this embarrassing information and immediately left for China, probably not because it is so nearby. He then, after not being welcome there, left for another not nearby country, Russia. He has been there for a few months treated very well by what many consider America’s arch enemy. He has even been offered a job there. But winter is coming and Russia gets terribly cold. It now appears that the young leaker wants to come home and requests forgiveness without maximum prison time - life with no chance of parole.

But what if none of this were true?

What if, in the tradition of all great spy fiction, this is all a brilliant scheme?

What if America, and NSA in particular, wanted to neutralize China’s massive computer spy system? It is believed to have tapped into our largest corporations and stolen industrial secrets that would allow them to make products almost as good as ours. Could that be why the young leaker went there first? Was China wise to the plan? Is that why they deported him so quickly?

Russia also has a massive computer spy system. NSA wants to disrupt it. Could it be that our alleged spy is actually our man in Moscow? Could this be a brilliant plot to win Russia’s confidence by disclosing embarrassing but trivial spy information about NSA and making our young computer geek look like America’s public enemy number one? Could Russia be fooled into thinking that the enemy of their enemy is their friend?

But there’s more.

What if the administration had even loftier goals?

As most of us are painfully aware, we have been without a budget for four years now. The Republican-led House has put forth moronic, partisan schemes that they called budgets. These budgets would have enlarged our military beyond its current bloat; lowered taxes to the rich, so they can be even richer; and cut programs to help the poor, so that the poor can be even poorer. And they wanted to end the Affordable Care Act to help the uninsured end their lives of suffering sooner. What’s not to like?

The Democrats want the rich to pay higher taxes and would love to dramatically cut our spending for defense, which amounts to about one trillion dollars a year or half of the actual General Fund of $2 trillion. Theses costs include staffing our more than 700 foreign military bases in friendly countries throughout the world and our spy network which was dramatically enlarged after 9/11.

But how could they do it?

The Republican-led House would never allow us to spend less on defense. They want it increased. They believe we must have enough troops to fight two wars at the same time.

Our allies might be willing and ready to let us withdraw of troops from their sovereign land, but can’t ask - their people might object to losing free security. 

What if the White House, desperate to cut our defense costs, used this noble spy to inform our allies that we have been spying on them? The leaders probably knew and didn’t care. But they could act outraged in public and demand that we reduce our surveillance and insist that we quit our bases in their country.

The administration would then be “forced” to close at least 700 bases saving $100 billion a year, and to reduce our expenditures for spying much of which is a waste of time and money much more than being a privacy issue.

Could our young ex-pat, actually be our bravest and most inventive master spy? Could he really be an MIT-trained genius who can quickly destroy Russia’s computer spy capability while also enjoying free room and board in one of Russia’s many luxurious residences (think YMCA or Motel Six)?

And will he ever be able to come in out of the cold, like a John Le Carre character? With Russia and perhaps China on its knees, spy wise, will we credit this so maligned young hero his just desserts, or will he trapped in not-so-sunny Russia for the rest of his days?

How will this story end? What if it never does?

Those Who Know Should Say and Those Who Say Should Know!

This column has at times challenged well-respected phrases and sentiments. It turns out that we are not all created equal and that the Founding Fathers knew it all along. We can not be told to love everyone as we love ourselves and be expected to comply, but we can treat each person and event as an end in themselves as well as a means to an end. In one column I examined the great line from the mystics: “Those who know do not say and those who speak do not know.”

It was supposed to mean that if someone tells you they know how the universe works, it means that they do not know because it is unknowable. And if someone is enlightened and really knows, he would not say because it can not be put into words. Many students of Eastern wisdom would nod wisely in agreement with what seems to be clear. But is it?

I asked who said that those who know don’t say. Why did they say if they knew that you couldn’t know and say? It was like saying “I am a liar.” If you are a liar, I shouldn’t believe what you say. You say you are a liar so I don’t believe you. But that means that I think that you are not a liar in which case what you are saying is true which is that you are a liar.

If this saying of knowing but not saying were acted upon, we would have no columns like this one. People would not do research or write non-fiction books and mystics would all be silenced. This idea of having those who know not say, is what has happened to the Republican party. There are very few among them who know and they don’t speak for fear of not getting re-elected.

But as usual, my take is just the opposite of this bit of mystical “wisdom.” I feel strongly that those who know must say and those who say should be sure they know. I also don’t believe that the mysteries of the universe cannot be known or expressed. I have worked on these issues for more than half a century and am gratified to have finally found the answers. They are fairly simple, straightforward and expressible. Readers of this column have probably come across my metaphysical theory in columns like “Something for Nothing,” “Punctuation in the Grammar of Life” and “Why Do Bad Things Happen.” If you haven’t read them or can’t remember what they said, you are welcome to find them in the online edition or on my blog.

So who knows and what should they say.

The new Pope, Francis, is now saying what Catholic clergy should have been saying and realizing for years. The religion is not about birth control, abortion and gay unions. He could go further and admit to the faithful that the faith is also not about a virgin birth on Christmas morn.  It is not about turning water into wine and giving rise to such widespread alcoholism among the flock for two millennia. It is not about the Jews killing the Savior as is re-enacted every Easter at churches all over the world. As the new il Papa has said, Catholicism, Christianity as a whole, is about treating each other with kindness and compassion and realizing that whatever good fortune we have is by the grace of the Creator. Even our faith itself is by His grace. It is to cooperate rather than compete and to help the less fortunate rather than looking down on them.

And I think that it is even more than that.

I think that Christ, who was both a man and G-d, symbolized the fact that we are also both finite and infinite, both mortal and divine. This idea was also in Greek mythology as well as Hindu beliefs. We have now seen it in modern science. We now know of fractals as being infinite iterations of form within every finite object. So every finite object is infinite and the infinite is within the finite - the kingdom of heaven is within. And each of us is both finite and infinite - body and soul.

I think that the holy trinity, which started as the holy duality, is also very meaningful. The holy duality was G-d, the father and Christ, the son. This, I think, means the infinite and the finite or the subject and the object or consciousness and the object of consciousness. When it became the holy trinity, hundreds of years later, I think it symbolized the basic grammar of life - the subject, object and verb. G-d is the subject (the infinite consciousness), the Son or the finite world is the object and all that happens between the two, is the verb - the holy Spirit.
Surely, most Catholic theologians know all this but they don’t say. They focus instead on senseless beliefs and empty traditions and then wonder why their followers have so little understanding of the spiritual message and act so contrary to it.

Why don’t they say what they know? Do they think that we won’t understand?

Where are the Muslim religious leaders? Surely they know that Islam, like any major religion, believes in peace and human kindness. They must understand that if there is a paradise awaiting us after we die, it is not accessed by committing suicide while killing innocent people. They must know that there are no 72 virgins awaiting each man who destroys his life in order to hurt others. They must know that we probably won’t have human forms and won’t be into sex and that the whole idea is idiotic. Don’t Mullahs know that killing, hating, screaming, abusing women, lying and stealing are activities that go against all human decency and are beneath any religion? Then why don’t they speak? They know that women need not be subjugated and forced to cover themselves head to toe if Muslim men could learn to restrain their animal instincts, the very reason for religion to begin with. They know that their G-d never said, “Abuse your women and cover them so that you are the only one who does.”

Why don’t they say that their male worshippers must stop abusing women and stop killing themselves and others? Are they afraid their worshippers will not understand and grow even more violent?

And where are our politicians, our elected representatives?

Just recently Republicans closed government and threatened our debt limit in order to try to stop the Affordable Care Act from going into effect. It was their 42nd attempt. The cost of the first 41 was more than $50 million. The cost of the most recent failed attempt has cost the nation billions. The Speaker of the House, who knew that the blackmail would never succeed and made no sense, did not say so. After saying that he would never let the government shutdown but just wanted the President to talk with him, he would not allow a clean continuing resolution bill to be voted on in the House even though he knew it would succeed. Why did he say what he knew was not true? Why does he do this time and again when stating his position? If he knows, he should say.

Why didn’t he say what he knew? Was he afraid of losing his Speakership more than he was of hurting his own country and people needlessly?

House Republicans have decried the ongoing annual budget deficits. Surely, some know that they started in 2001 when the Republicans took the White House. They know that much of the cause of the deficits was tax cuts for the rich coupled with the cost of two unnecessary wars. Instead of saying what they must know, that the remedy then would be to get out of both wars, as our President is trying to do, and fix the tax code so that the most fortunate among us pay their fair share while we expand the tax base to include more than just half of all households. Instead, the Republicans say they want to solve the deficit problem by increasing military spending, further reducing taxes for the rich and cutting spending for Medicare and Social Security, neither of which has caused the deficits.

If they know all this, why don’t they say? Could it be fear of not getting re-elected or of not being liked by colleagues who either do not know or will not speak?

Where are our economists? How many predicted the crash of 2008? How many warned about the real estate bubble and easy financing? How many have joined together to say that the big banks should be broken up to be structured as they were until the mid 1990s, when banking restrictions were repealed? How many have formed a massive majority of knowers to tell Conservatives that they are wrong to want to dramatically cut the budget while our country is trying to recover from a massive recession? Why don’t they say that we would be a lot better off today were it not for conservative intercession? Why don’t the knowledgeable economists tell us the easy ways we can prolong Social Security and Medicare? Why don’t they get together and develop a simple and fair tax code? If I did it, surely they can.

Why don’t economists who know say? Could it be that they work for organizations that might have a bias against full disclosure?

And, of course, why does the mass media not say what it knows? Why do their journalists always report the worst case scenario rather than the most likely? Why do they use headlines and previews that exaggerate the true story? Why do a few news organizations actually create stories to further their political agenda, casting all appearances of integrity to the wind?

We saw it recently in our manufactured fiscal crises when the mainstream media piled us with draconian predictions knowing full well they would never come to pass: Social Security payments might cease and our military won’t get paid, no one will invest in our country, we will fall back into recession which could destroy the world economy and Santa might forget about Christmas.

Recently in the well-publicized death of a teenager, the media provided the wrong pictures of the victim and the shooter making the victim look like an innocent 14 year-old and the shooter like a big, fat, Mexican drug dealer, when in actuality, the victim was several years older than he appeared in the picture and was much larger than the rather small shooter. The media neglected for months to show the pictures of the shooter taken immediately after the event by police. The pictures showed the shooter had a bloody, broken nose and the back of his head was covered in blood. The media knew from the start that this vicious murder was actually a case of self defense.  A jury ruled it self-defense after the media seemed to be trying its best for months to convict the shooter.

Why do professionals in the media who know the truth, say it? Could it be that negative and sensational sells and the public is used to superficial coverage? Is it because they know how much we all enjoy gossip, especially when it is negative?

If you know, please say.