I often find Chris Hedges apocalyptic, but without his effort and the effort of those like him, the NDAA would not have been sidelined.
Who at Brock wouldn’t agree with this?
‘The greatest crimes of human history are made possible by the most colorless human beings. They are the careerists. The bureaucrats. The cynics. They do the little chores that make vast, complicated systems of exploitation and death a reality.’
The Greatest Crimes Against Humanity Are Perpetrated by People Just Doing Their Jobs
I agree with this. This fits with what I have been ranting on and on about for the past few weeks. The careerist banker that doesn’t have the balls to stand up for an unacceptable policy is just heading his country down the road to oblivion. First the Nuremberg laws, no work, business or assets for the disfavored minority then the ghetto, then sondereinsaetze and gas chambers.
Eichmann himself claimed that he was just processing the paperwork and following orders.
When I was saying the same thing about IRS agents everyone here at IBS raked me over the coals…
@ Confederate, not everyone. If you will recall, I disagreed, but I wouldn’t characterize my response to you as raking you over the coals. If anything, I was sympathetic with your view to a degree, but I also defended Mr. Mopsick’s participation here at Isaac Brock.
True, Petros. But “everyone” makes the point better than “almost everyone”, besides its just a comment which doesn’t have to rise to the same standards as a post…
True, but then there was, I now recall, a post by UsxCanada, in which he expressed discomfort by the manner in which people responded to you, and this despite the artless manner in which you responded to Mr. Mopsick’s comments. So that makes two of us that didn’t rake you over the coals. 🙂
@ConfH, if you brandish Mr Mopsick with the same brush you do all IRS agents, what does this say about you? The danger in Chris Hedges assertion that there is systemic discrimination and persecution is that he does as they do in claiming so. He’s railing against the machine, in which the people who make up the machine are just cogs, but when one of those cogs acts as a human being, as in Mr Mospsick’s case, you treat him with suspicion and disdain. If you can’t see him as a human being then you are no different than those you claim to despise.
It is pretty common, however, to see the IRS and it’s employee’s as evil. They aparently are the cause of suicide in not a few cases. See: http://righteousinvestor.com/2011/04/19/i-am-victim/
We love Stephen here. I not least of all. Yet I can’t shake from myself his 30 year participation at the IRS. Nevertheless, he is proud of his work there, for he claims that he stopped the IRS in many cases, from abusing their power. If so, I am glad there are still people in the IRS who have humanity. The woman I talked to yesterday on the phone did not seem to be a orc from Mordor, but normal sort of nice person. Still, this is a coin with two sides, and the problem is that governments around the world have become too big, IMH.
I am however quite sick of Douglas Shulman, and hope his replacement will bring some sanity back to the IRS.
Mopsick, as somebody who worked for the IRS may be sympathetic to people that still work there, but nonetheless, Mopsick has decided to think out of the box, understand our worries, gripes and problems, reveal and discuss the injustices and propose changes. We need more folks like him. We also need more journalists in the hall of fame, even if they pass through the hall of shame before seeing the light.
Can’t they see the light?
@Uncle Tell, you think Mr Mopsick done seen the light, lol?
@bubblebustin
If not, I rekon wez gonna have ta slip em sum tabasca sauce 🙂
Or we might just have to force em! 🙂
Petros –
Re: To see the IRS and its employees as evil –
One more time to call attention to that unfinished American epic written by a suicide:
The Pale King – David Foster Wallace
There is amazing stuff in that novel. Including your own favorite IRS agent who died at the desk and wasn’t discovered for days. Including a sociopath IRS female agent who on private time does really nasty shit just for twisted fun. One of the greatest aspects is how uncertain you remain as to what is real and what is fiction. [Warning: you may find yourself wanting to research details to see if they are real … and they might be!]
I don’t have much new wisdom to add to this discussion other than to repeat what I said months ago about my wonderful experience with the IRS which “helped me realize that IRS agents are not all red-tailed devils inside the bureaucracy.” They are human and can “metamorphosize from a “devil from the dungeons of darkness” to a human with compassion for my plight.” And then there was the discovery of the TAS which “restored my faith in one small US bureaucracy, and removed just a smidgen of cynicism I have about government in general.”
No, as Petros says the are not all “orcs from Mordor!”