Another week another scandal. The United States runs itself like a corporation out of control at times. It’s nice to believe this country has it all together but apparently that’s not even close to what reality is behind closed doors. Does the National Security Agency really know what is going on? Well if they did why couldn’t they have stopped the wall street fiasco of 2008? If the NSA were actually intercepting and reading all those emails between the gigantic financial institutions that have a stranglehold on the world economy they would have clearly smelled a rat in the works of the derivatives market. They would have been able to help all those “muppets” who were bankrupted and set out to dry when Lehman Brothers went belly up.  Maybe they knew and decided not to say anything!

So who are the smartest guys in the room? Are the smartest ones just observers who watch as the financial world spins out of control? Maybe they have a piece of the action and have been bought out, you know the saying, everybody has a price. What can all this information possibly be worth? Apparently the world economy that’s all. Or maybe they kind of knew but just didn’t want to be definitive about anything and let the proverbial cat out of the bag! Playing dumb to let someone else take the hit. Maybe this was the plan to redistribute the wealth after all! It stands to reason that if an intelligence agency is actually intelligent wouldn’t they be able to not only stop terrorist activity but also to decrease crime in every sector? Wouldn’t the banks who now launder money for the drug lords now be held accountable for their misdeeds? How about the banks that let elderly people be bilked out of their retirement funds by telemarketers? Suddenly wouldn’t the potential murderer become suspect by their google searches, emails, insurance purchases etc.? Should we call the NSA and ask them? Does Facebook know more than the NSA?

Corporate spying is nothing new. Carly Fiorina of Hewlett Packard was spying on her people back a decade ago. Never mind that the fall guy was Patricia Dunn. That must be the way to do it perhaps. Have some one else take the hit when the skullduggery is exposed. In other words just spy for your own teams self interests and well being and if something else turns up either ignore it or if you just can’t ignore it have a fall guy be the whistle blower to step forward and expose the sordid truth! We often complain about bribery and corruption in other less well developed industrial countries but here in the United States  we call it democracy.

Sadly none of this is really new. It seems now that the increasingly popular “Game of Thrones” series on HBO, based on the book Fire & Ice by George R. R. Martin, is surprisingly relevant to the worlds’ current state of affairs. It is all represented, the corruption, the horrendous scandals, the strife and war. Of course there is also the value of information gathered by whatever means necessary be it prostitution, torture or even murder. Yes indeed art is again a reflection of reality. These are interesting times for the kingdom. Tune in to see the fate of Edward Snowden and the Game of Phones!

“My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it either.” — Christopher Hitchens

“I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn’t ever have to rely on the press for my information.” — Christopher Hitchens

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween