John Quiggin

@Ikonoclast
The alternatives ‘everything is happening according to a plan’ and ‘everything is happening by accident’ constitute a false dichotomy.

@J-D

“Literal”, of course not – the names are different for a start.

Think Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch, Nurse Nayirah’s incubator babies and so on.

I haven’t yet seen any evidence that the Bergdahl story “was entirely fabricated from beginning to end”, and I’m in no position to assert with certainty to what extent it has been fabricated/embellished/manipulated, if at all.

We also owe our current individual ability to accumulate in large part to the work (of any and all kinds) done by all of those who have gone before us .From those who lived nasty short lives down mines, or died as infants ,to those who won Nobel prizes or changed history on the big stage .As the currently living we all benefit from ,and have a right to, share in that massive collective effort .

At the risk of confusing my point about taxation/redistribution/sharing ;- in a similar but inverted way although a particular man may not be sexist ,or a particular Australian not racist, – all men benefit from the history of sexism, and all Australians (except Aborigines -mostly) benefit from that of racism.

@yuri
You seem to naively assume that the super wealthy wander down to the newsagent at tax time, pick up a form and fill it would at the kitchen table. I can assure you that the CEO of the CBA is extraordinarily grateful that you paint him as such a simple soul. His bank manager, accountant, trust holder, off shore banker and legal team would also like to offer their sincere thanks …

@sunshine

If you like, we also owe our current state to all the animals that have willingly or unwillingly helped us on the way. If one looks back, there was time when, say, slaves weren’t really considered human. As we moved forwards, we’ve gradually incorporated all humans, and now even some animals (dolphins, whales) as not simply things to exploit.

The right, as far as I understand it, would prefer to go back.

@Megan
Pat Tillman was killed while serving as a soldier in Afghanistan and the inaccurate reporting of important details was not deliberately concerted by the government for propaganda purposes.

Jessica Lynch was captured while serving as a soldier in Iraq and the inaccurate reporting of important details was not deliberately concerted by the government for propaganda purposes.

Nayirah’s testimony to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus may have borne as little relationship to the facts as the story concocted in Wag The Dog, and may have been concocted for propaganda purposes; but the evidence does not establish that it was deliberately concerted by government.

You can look at Wag The Dog and see a story about people telling stories that aren’t true and other people believing them because it’s politically convenient; that is something that happens, and happened well before the film was made, so there’s nothing specially prescient about that.

You can also at Wag The Dog and see a story about a government-organised conspiracy to create a false story for propaganda purposes; that isn’t strictly prescient either, as it has happened before: for example, in the case of the Gleiwitz Incident, and Operation Himmler more generally. However, the death of Pat Tillman, the capture of Jessica Lynch, and the capture of Bowe Bergdahl are not examples of such, and it’s not clear that the Kuwaiti incubator stories were either.

@J-D

Your big thing is evidence and precision of language.

the inaccurate reporting of important details was not deliberately concerted by the government for propaganda purposes

What is the evidence upon which you make this boldly unequivocal assertion of fact?

@Megan
Yes, I value evidence, and yes, I value precision. Do you think those are bad things?

A thorough analysis of the Tillman and Lynch cases would take more time, space, and effort than I feel like expending. If your position is that I haven’t presented the evidence to make my case and that there’s no reason why you should take my word for it, you are correct.

On the other hand, those cases don’t parallel the Wag The Dog scenario unless the government arranged Tillman’s death (or arranged to fake it) and/or arranged Lynch’s capture (or arranged to fake it). Is that what you’re saying?

If you are interested in what sort of scenario I might suggest to provide an alternative explanation to deliberate government fakery, I can do that without my full analysis of why that kind of explanation is to be preferred.

Faust 2/44,

It is amazing how people who profit most from access to the business opportunities obtainable from large populations of orderly, well educated, suitably wealthy, mobile, and readily contactable bodies of workers and consumers somehow feel that such access should be available to them for free. Think of the taxes you pay as a progressive market access fee and be gratefull it isn’t Frank Lowey who is setting the rates.

@J-D

I will make an assertion, carrying as much weight as yours.

You are so blindly pro-USA Government (or perhaps a ‘persona management’ bot) that you are incapable of honestly discussing anything that might put the US in a less than glorious light.

Back to the actual facts about which we were talking, though. Wikipedia (usual caveats) says about Tillman and Lynch:

“On July 14, 2008, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a proposed report titled “Misleading Information from the Battlefield: The Tillman and Lynch Episodes”.[36][37] The committee stated that its “investigation was frustrated by a near universal lack of recall” among “senior officials at the White House” and the military. It concluded:

The pervasive lack of recollection and absence of specific information makes it impossible for the Committee to assign responsibility for the misinformation in Specialist Tillman’s and Private Lynch’s cases. It is clear, however, that the Defense Department did not meet its most basic obligations in sharing accurate information with the families and with the American public.

That would be “deliberate government fakery” unless you live in a jar on a shelf in a pro-USA think tank, I would disrespectfully suggest.

Don’t ever dare to pretend to take haughty points of either evidence or language with me ever again after that insulting cop-out.

Slightly off topic, but a couple of quality bits from American News/humor shows that our host might like:

Piketty was on the Colbert Report:

http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/full-episodes/3cuyeg/june-2–2014—thomas-piketty

And the new John Oliver show on Tony Abbott. As a provincial American I had no idea!