The First Viable Single Issue Political Party?
Had a chat with a few people from the other side of the world and remembered some musing I did a while ago: Is Al Gore’s green movement the proto single issue political party?
- Anyone interested in climate change is inherently a member.
- All actions on climate change are inherently the party’s.
- Subgroups (Worldchanging comes to mind) claim allegiance without having to really do so.
Or is it something bigger given the lack of the party’s political participation. The rise of an alternative decentralized, culture neutral, system maybe?
Al Gore’s lack of entering the race (probably because he wasn’t viable) could, in a larger sense, be the mark of something totally decentralized.
Flaming Lind and Boyd
Thanks to Zen for the heads up on this thread titled “Boyd and Lind Rebuttal” over at SWC.
I was going to respond to William Owen but then, after struggling for a minute or two, realized that there wasn’t anything to respond to.
Sidenote: For someone who spends as much time whining about 4GW being marketing-speak for age-old tactics as Owen does, he sure does enjoy rehashing age-old infantry tactics and labeling them “Patrol Based Infantry Doctrine“.
Which he states:
As conceded at the start, PBI is not original. Much of it is already done, and well understood, though not in the context of what is advocated. It is entirely possible that, because of the emphasis given to nonoperational drivers, PBI may have no discernable merit but there may be merit in someone asking, “what is this PBI stuff and how does it work?”
LOL.
BTW: Mark is putting together something called the Boyd Symposium on Osinga’s book. Owen is participating, but there will be better reads.
Terror and Consent
Cover art is in for Philip Bobbitt’s upcoming book titled Terror and Consent: The Battle for the Twenty-first Century. It comes out March 25.
Political Book Map
Valdis Krebs has an interesting interactive political book map that is indicative of the polarization of politics today.
Radioactive Materials Smuggling
The Blotter – Not so much with the nuclear threat, but troubling to some degree:
In a troubling disclosure, the Russian Federal Customs Service has revealed that authorities thwarted more than 850 attempts to smuggle highly radioactive materials in and out of Russia in 2007. Eighty-five percent of these smuggling attempts were going into the country, and 15 percent were going out.