Hamalāt
Not the Shakespeare play, but a tale of two attacks
I was horrified to see this in my inbox last night1:
But I wasn’t totally surprised, because I expected Trump to serve his masters. I just didn’t expect him to take the plunge so soon.
On the plus side, the ‘Dissident Rightists’ in my circle seem to finally have begun giving up on Trump. This is one circle they can’t square. One ten-year Trumpist I know demanded impeachement.
But I fear ex-Trumpists will just cling harder to Jesus, ♥ANCE, Gabbard, Putin (winnin’ the war for four years straight now!), and their favorite social media talking heads - Nick, Tucker, Candace, and the ZAnon crew. They will not become asoteric.
The asoteric do not believe in any messiahs - human, machine, or institutional. No leader, no computer, no church or state.
Their anthem is the Stranglers’ “No More Heroes”.
The soteric American Right needs ‘heroes’. Even if their Great Orange God isn’t their ‘hero’ anymore, they’ll find another. And another and another. They cannot overcome their childhood programming. Even rabid atheists who reject Jesus - a specific ‘savior’ - still accept the ‘need’ for ‘salvation’. Instead of strengthening themselves, these ‘rebels’ remain weak. Passive. Dependent on characters - politicians and other public figures.
Just like the respectable Republicans they look down on. A conservatarian I know is big on The Jordan.
That Jordanite just prayed to God for Godforce (the USSA military) and the ‘liberation’ of the Iranian people.
I’m haunted by how my old neoCON self was uncritically moved in 2002 by a USSA ‘news’ clip purporting to show an Iranian woman on an Iranian street begging in perfect English for Murrica to bomb her country. So many Badthinkers I know would still be moved by that clip. They would never wonder if it had been staged. And the other Badthinkers are rooting for BRICS. What has their beloved holy Russia done for its BFF Iran lately besides offer prettywords?
The Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling the US-Israeli strikes on Iran "a pre-planned and unprovoked act" of aggression and demanded an immediate return to diplomatic talks.
I haven’t bothered to look at Goodthinker reactions to Operation Epic Fury. The comments section of Honolulu Pravda is on fire with 572 comments as of this writing on the Godland-Godforce attack. Presumably 500+ ways to say ME HATE TWUMP and a handful of MAGAs either fist-pumping or rationalizing. I pass.
Meanwhile, an article on a local attack got only 23 comments:
The Social Security numbers belonging to 1,241,020 people were “potentially” exposed during a cyberattack that was initially discovered Aug. 31 by the University of Hawaii Cancer Center’s Epidemiology Division.
For perspective, Hawaii’s population is 1.4 million. So perhaps almost everyone here was a victim!2 And wouldn’t know it until this information became public … six months later!3 Speed is Wacist.
Among the records “possibly exposed” are Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers from state Department of Transportation records collected in 2000 and Honolulu voter registration records from 1998, according to a news release from the university.
“Among” implies there were also other kinds of records that were exposed. What were they?
The Hipsta Pravda article on that attack got just seven comments.
But which attack is more relevant to us in the middle of the Pacific, over eight thousand miles (13,000 km) from Iran?4
Neither Pravda article explains what hackers could do with our data - and why we peasants should care. The two Pravdas cannot be too critical of the government, because they must keep the literate fraction of peasants on the plantation.
The Uni-farce-sity of Hawaii paid the attackers an undisclosed sum (of our money!) in ‘return’ for
a decryption tool to unlock the files and an affirmation that the hackers had destroyed [our!] purloined data.
Honolulu Pravda reassured us that the attackers kept their word:
There was no evidence that any of the information has been published, shared or misused as of Friday.
There was no impact to information held by the UH Cancer Center’s Clinical Trials operations, patient care, or any other divisions of the UH Cancer Center. There was no impact to UH student records.
Whew. Sorry, I can’t keep a straight face.
But I won’t be laughing if hackers use my info to harm me.
Sadly, most are unaware of the cyberattack. Most in Hawaii don’t read either Pravda. And even though almost everyone has a TV, not everyone watches TV ‘news’ or understands English well enough to follow a story about cybersecurity.
Many who are aware will forget the cyberattack and continue to support UH. GO BOWS!
Hawaii is behind the rest of the world. Yay, time zones! And I’m even more behind because I’ve got things to do.
Why would the University of Hawaii Cancer Center’s Epidemiology Division need almost everyone’s info?
I’m assuming the 1.2 million people in the data are all Hawaii residents. If that’s not the case, why would the University of Hawaii Cancer Center’s Epidemiology Division need info on people from out of state?
Odder still, apparently UH informed lawmakers three months after the attack: i.e., around November. Why not us, the victims? Why didn’t lawmakers tell us - their supposed constituents - anything? Obviously because they don’t serve us. What else do they know that they aren’t telling us? I’m not talking about conspiracy theory stuff but mundane yet maddening things like this attack.
Of course Iran will become directly relevant to us if military personnel from here are drawn into the conflict.
To me being saved is a straight forward logical operation. Thing is needed + odds of procuring thing through direct action = need for assistance. People obsessed with being saved have had the math broken somewhere. I suspect the level of moral account fraud they've been trained with matters too. False impossible need (jesus saves from a manufactured terror) plus zero odds of repair by visible means. (Solution only exists in proposed external realm.)
"They would never wonder if it had been staged."
Honestly the scale of that is literally beyond, from my perspective, all imagination. /insert EE here
"Presumably 500+ ways to say ME HATE TWUMP and a handful of MAGAs either fist-pumping or rationalizing. I pass."
It's that all the way down. There's like 9 levels under politics. I spiral down them often when theory of mind demands a calculation. Because to predict the surface it's wise to know the underlore. (Yes I used my own word, which now belongs to a film-maker.)
Underlore: noun
The key fact(s), logical conclusion(s), or missing context(s), which radically change the meaning of a given event or idea.
The profound truths, beneath and more real, than what is superficially apparent.
"The Hipsta Pravda article on that attack got just seven comments."
The journalistic function is a myth. https://innomen.substack.com/p/politics-through-the-lens-of-experiential
"The Uni-farce-sity of Hawaii paid the attackers an undisclosed sum (of our money!) in ‘return’ for "a decryption tool to unlock the files and an affirmation that the hackers had destroyed [our!] purloined data."
The thing that hurts me most about this article is that they paid the hackers. And admit it. That repudiates Everything I was told as a child about how culture works on a level that almost induces tears. Crime was a valid career choice. They should just tell kids that because it's true. You can end up dead or maimed by your job but how's that diffrent from being a fireman or astronaut? Sure you hurt people, but how's that diffrent from police or president?
Like I know the other stuff is worse, but the only thing that produced a physical reaction was that. I expressly made a moral decision thinking I was being good and kind long ago and it strongly seems when I read such things that I made the wrong choice. But that's post hoc. In truth I don't know the actual emotional mechanics at play that caused the multifaceted stab of discomfort and profound sadness.
I think I might be sad for sweet little child me that genuinely only wanted to help. Growth in this broken reality it would appear amounts to punishments for kindness. Math telling you at every turn that selfish individuals do better than altruistic individuals and wondering if altruistic groups even are better off than selfish groups. Parasitism wasps and screw worms seem to be doing fine. How hard do you have to squint to find kindness out there?
"Every person who... chooses the service of God as his life's work has something in common... Many, many times during your life you will look at your reflection in a mirror and ask yourself: am I a fool? I'm not going through a lapse; what I've experienced is closer to awakening." ~From Dusk Till Dawn ~Jacob Fuller
Looks like a smiley :)