Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. Even though there are many more which I can’t include. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
This article is 10 days old, but I haven’t seen it anywhere else, and it needs to be known. Especially for you science types.
Alabama Republican Rep. Rogers DESTROYED Key Hurricane Monitoring Satellite
Let me be clear that Congressman Rogers did not go out and shoot this satellite up with an AK-47, although, as an Alabama Republican, he probably has several. And the destruction didn’t just happen ten days ago; it was a result of the 2016 budget. It has hit – not the news, but the professional journals – recently because of the use of Weather satellites in tracking our recent rash of hurricanes. We were able to do that pretty well, but next year may be another story.
The Air Force has maintained a series of weather satellites with microwave imaging since the 1960’s. It was called the F-series. Currently in orbit are the F-16, the F-17, and the F-18. There was an F-19, but it malfunctioned. The F-20 had been built but had not been launched – they had built multiples at the same tome to save money on building (although saving money on beuilding translates into spending money on storage, it was considered a good trade-off. So, there it was – it had cost $518 million to build and millions more to store – when the F-19, as I said, malfunctioned.
Congressman Rogers was the chairnman of the House Armed Services strategic services subcommittee when, in 2015, the Air Force asked for $20 million to launch the F-20 in, say, 2018 (the three that are currently orbiting have some overlap, which is why our Harvey and Irma predictions were as good as they were.) But the F-19 had malfunctioned. (It had also been keeping track of the losses in sea ice, of course, and Congressman Rogers didn’t like that at all.) So Congressman Rogers declared that “Congress has lost confidence in the Air Force’s ability to run” its legacy program.
“We could have saved the Air Force and the Congress a lot of aggravation if we put a half of a billion dollars in a parking lot and just burned it,” he said. …
Instead, he said, the money set aside for DMSP could have been spent on other national security priorities, but now the satellite is “going in the trash. I presume it’s going to be made into razor blades.”
Ha ha ha. A real comedian.
But that’s why “FishOutofWater” titled this story “Alabama Republican Rep. Rogers DESTROYED Key Hurricane Monitoring Satellite,” and, even though Rogers didn’t physically lay a hand on it, I think the title is fair. What do you think, Tisiphone?
Moving to a little bit newer government issue, things are happening within the CIA which may give us a taste of what the country would look like if enough Dominionists get into power.
According to an investigation by Foreign Policy into changes in the intelligence community under President Donald Trump, the CIA has set aside plans to diversify and has become more white and more Christian under new director Mike Pompeo.
Noting the Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, is a self-professed evangelical, the report states that the new director once claimed, Islamist terrorists will “continue to press against us until we make sure that we pray and stand and fight and make sure that we know that Jesus Christ is our savior is truly the only solution for our world.”
Barf.
In my not-so-humble opinion, REAL Christians don’t want to exercise temporal authority, and certainly not to impose their beliefs on others. Real Christians know that forced conversopn is no conversion at all. “A man convinced against his will/Is of the same opinion still.” (attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Dale Carnegie – so, probably actually an old proverb)
A spokesperson for the CIA defended the move, saying, “Director Pompeo is a man of faith. The idea that he should not practice his faith because he is Director of CIA is absurd.”
Well, not so asburd if by “practicing his faith” he is violating the Constitution – which apparently he is doing on a daily basis.
According to Michael Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, he is being flooded with complaints about the creeping evangelical Christianity that is beginning to pervade the intelligence agency.
Weinstein notes that insiders are afraid to speak up, stating, “They don’t typically file formal complaints within the government. But certain things are making them especially uncomfortable, such as officials signing off with the phrase ‘have a blessed day.’ That’s something “straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Yes, The Handmaid’s Tale is about a lot more than sex slavery.
It’s not as though theocracy were anything new in the world. It has been around since forever. Surely, Alecto, it’s time to put a stop to it?
The Furies and I will be back.
Cross posted to Care2 here.
7 Responses to “Everyday Erinyes #92”
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Tisiphone: Was Congressman Rogers one of the few that went out to shoot at the hurricane (Irma) in Florida? That would be more up his alley, he sounds like a very spiteful person in doing this, at the expense of lives lost during these hurricanes, and those that develop later on, in the coming years.
Alecto: The mission of the CIA is: “Preempt threats and further US national security objectives by collecting intelligence that matters, producing objective all-source analysis, conducting effective covert action as directed by the President, and safeguarding the secrets that help keep our Nation safe.” Ethos: “Service, Integrity, Excellence, Courage, Teamwork, Stewardship.” What if a person is an atheist/agnostic, or is of a different religion than Pompeo? Nothing in the Mission or Ethos statement(s) says anything about being ‘blessed’, that I can see. Personally…I’d be more worried about the agents feeling uncomfortable in a working environment, than grabbing a prayer or two with my coffee..just sayin’.
Furies, you’ve got your work cut out for you, good luck!
Thank you, Joanne, for post.
Tisiphone: Could you please explain how one Republican nincompoop, who doesn’t like satellites to watch the ice cap melting, let alone report on it so that everyone can see they are melting at an accelerating rate contrary to GOP-belief, can stop a billion dollar project dead in its track because one satellite malfunctioned while three clones did an excellent job? How can one GOPer throw away half a billion dollars and at the same time put the life of millions at risk, just because…he can? Words fail me
Alecto: Let me get this straight: the “C” in CIA stands for “Christian, i.e. white talibangelist” now, does it? Barf isn’t strong enough for “…the CIA has set aside plans to diversify and has become more white and more Christian under new director Mike Pompeo.” That is very, very scary indeed. We had a word for that in 1930s Europe: fascist.
Tisiphone: Let me add to that Europe already spends a lot more money analyzing storms than the US. That’s probably why the European prediction of Irma’s path was spot on, while the US prediction was off by 150 miles.
Alecto: Authentic Christians coexist. While it might seem nice to have to have government enforce my beliefs, that’s only step 1. In step 2, government would insist on changing my beliefs. That’s why the founding fathers gave us the establishment clause.
Great finds, JD.
Glad I didn’t steal a parade. Last week was so rough on me as well as others that I was just too exhausted to do personal tragedy stories, even though I had some.
I hope you’re feeling better now.
Tisiphone — Malfunctioned? It is Congress Critter (emphasis on Critter) Rogers who malfunctioned, not the F-19. The F-19 may have had a problem but nowhere as severe as Rogers or the other anti science, anti climate change Republicans. The Republicans are a waste of money, not the science that helps to predict storms in all their complexity.
Alecto — “A spokesperson for the CIA defended the move, saying, “Director Pompeo is a man of faith. The idea that he should not practice his faith because he is Director of CIA is absurd.”” — Being a person of faith is fine but it comes with a caveat . . . it is your faith not mine, so keep it to yourself. From what I can read, nobody is saying he cannot practice his faith. It is how he practices his faith.
“In my not-so-humble opinion, REAL Christians don’t want to exercise temporal authority, and certainly not to impose their beliefs on others.” — Matthew 22:21 says: “They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”” You are so correct JD, and Jesus bears that out.
It seems to me that a diverse workforce — people of all skin tones, religious beliefs, languages, skills etc — make a stronger team. Pompeo, Republican that he is, does not get it. I think it is time for Alecto to give him an education.
The F-19 really did malfunction. You can see from the chart that it was sent up – but it wasn’t up for very long (about two years), certainly not compared to the F-16, the F-17, and the F-18. But that was no reason to assume or decide that the F-20 was a POS. Murphy’s Law notwithstanding, my experience has been that in a large group of items (other than Republicans), if one is notably defective, it is the only one. I agree with you that Rogers’ brain malfunctions.