Goodness, what a weekend has arrived! Spring gave us a quick embrace of warmth this week. The trees have transitioned from sparse black branches to brilliant green leaves. She also retains a sense of humor and reeled back the temperatures for the weekend to remind us of her power.

It was another of those weeks. There were events from the past that swirled around the capabilities of the future. We mentioned the ultra-sound shared by one of the group that captured it. It was emotional, being a prospective grandchild, but what was more startling was the commentary that surrounded it. Like: “Do you want to know now?”

You know exactly what she was referring to, and obviously unchanged from the moment the cells began to divide. It was a useful benchmark in current discussion. There is even part of it in the talk about the Big Leak in classified material. A lot of coins will be spread around on that matter, but might be missing some pennies of common sense.

Chelsea Manning came up in that context, since the drama of the moment includes elements of all the current lunacy. We had to struggle about how to characterize the Manning story, whether to bother with “preferred pronouns” as if we agreed with the premise on which the absurd contention is based.

That naturally leads to how Chelsea decided to release classified material to which “they” had access on a Defense communications network. Some of us worked on The Joint Worldwide Communications System (JWICS), which was an innovation in how the Defense Department shares information. We called it “Jay-Wicks.” It was both a program and a capability to share important policy-impacting intelligence. That was a very limited audience but an important one. It sits upon an information structure that starts with unclassified material that could reflect Defense sensitive information on material and movement. Atop that layer is a “SECRET” layer of information intended to protect military movement, readiness and capability. Atop that band of information lies the JayWicks world.

NIPRNET, SIPRNET, JWICS. Voila! A multi-tiered, multi-controlled flexible network!

The current disaster is said to have been instigated by a young tech specialist who managed JWICS-capable gear. He was not an analyst, but a technician in the maintenance of the communications system in which the information was carried. Or at least that is the story of the moment. There may be much more, like a system penetration. There could be others involved in a larger and more significant effort shared by Persian, Chinese and Russian actors. They appear to be hybrid government-criminal in management, closely integrated.

As usual, We do not know if this is part of the story intended to make us more or less concerned, or whether the information selected for the leak was collated to support or derail anything specific in progress or simply to undermine the whole system.

What’s next? The breach story is already following existing narrative streams. The Tennessee School Shooting is a recent example. It was inconvenient to a narrative of genocidal oppression of course. Coverage of the murder of children was quickly altered to one in which the oppressed murderer was added to the column of victims. Reaction to that version was again replaced in just two news cycles with an uplifting story about racial oppression imposed on bullhorn-shouting members in the State legislature.

We have no partisan interest in the matter, of course. The amalgamation of media and government outside the old three branches we knew has given us a fourth.There are new protocols for dealing with it. What we are following is the information war. That focus is on “what information is being disseminated” and how it is “intended to be perceived.” To enable something else. We appear to be at one of those social moments where some aspects of change have assumed such levels of absurdity that common sense will make it recede.

But of course it is already here. We saw a report this morning about a growing behavioral trend for self-identified women. At least about those who are convicted of jail-able, sometimes violent offenses. If deep introspection revealed they were actually just born in the wrong body, they may request and are being granted permission for incarceration in facilities formerly restricted to biological women.

Some of the offenses committed by the self-identified convicts include murder, assault and rape. We are unaware how this deliberate undermining of basic safety for biological females can be justified. To have that sort of information as a prop in one of the more important election cycles in American history is sort of…well…like…

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com