On Sinema at the Sinema: October 2021 US Politics thread

If CIA spooks had headaches because of black mold in the torture dungeon showers it wouldn’t be “Havana syndrome.”

And yet the repeated inference made itt is that all CIA spooks are awful, evil liars, so why wouldn't it be entirely possible that they are leveraging very real symptoms of something more benign into a stupidly expensive piece of legislation that only got through and supported by the media because of some "scary evil Russians with ray guns" angle. Which is what I think is happening.

nicole otmfm

Psyching yourself so you OD at the sight of fentanyl doesn’t make Copioid Syndrome real but you still go into shock.

I mean, if the baseline insistence itt is going to always be that it's 100% fabricated, no matter what, there really isn't a point of discussion at all I guess.

the thing is-- this idea about microwave weapons being used against US diplomats and agents was floating around years ago. In fact the NSA studied it in 2012. I think someone in one of these agencies who starts to get sick, for whatever reason, is naturally going to suspect that as a cause

We are years behind on headache technology

The only way to stop a bad guy with headache technology is with a good guy with headache technology.

there really isn't a point of discussion at all I guess.

the legislation being immaterial doesn’t make any sense to me, tbh?

the reason it’s harmful that people have disbelieved my and others’ symptoms isn’t because it’s mean and hurts our feelings, it’s because it forms a systemic barrier to receiving needed care. that barrier in this case has already been legislated away! it doesn’t matter how much you or I believe them, they’ll receive the highest level of care without any charge regardless. this simply isn’t true of 99% of chronic illness sufferers in America.

ftr I have no idea what injuries these ppl did or did not suffer, I don’t think it’s *obviously* anything; I’m just a dumb jerk with no higher clearance than anyone else here. but I really take issue with random civilians staying very skeptical about CIA operatives’ stories being morally conflated with disbelieving everyone with chronic unexplained symptoms

The “syndrome” is inseparable from the weapons claims. If CIA spooks had headaches because of black mold in the torture dungeon showers it wouldn’t be “Havana syndrome.”

And yet there is plenty of reporting on "Havana syndrome" that suggests a number of possible origins, both malicious and innocuous, and doesn't come to any definitive conclusion. Obviously, the weapons claims make it a subject of greater intrigue, but is it not possible to talk about it as a phenomenon without either uncritically accepting those claims or dismissing it altogether?

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.youtube.com%2Fvi%2FUAbAIpZG7II%2F0.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

Sorry, nicole, I read your post twice and don't quite understand it. I'm sorry if you are not receiving medical care for chronic illness. I think everyone should receive medical care.

--ADAM CURTIS VOICEOVER--

Meanwhile, a group of people were immersed in a discussion on U.S. politics. But they weren't talking about politics, they were talking about something called Havana Syndrome

--Brian Eno music--

And yet there is plenty of reporting on "Havana syndrome" that suggests a number of possible origins, both malicious and innocuous, and doesn't come to any definitive conclusion. Obviously, the weapons claims make it a subject of greater intrigue, but is it not possible to talk about it as a phenomenon without either uncritically accepting those claims or dismissing it altogether?

Not really, no. The "Havana syndrome" is pretty clearly defined (see above) by those promoting it and it's about attacks from foreign enemies. The very name refers to spurious claims of weapons attacks on people working in Cuba. Reporting on it "suggesting a number of possible origins" inherently questions the concept of "Havana syndrome" and the money we're throwing at the CIA for it and sanctions against unnamed enemies that are being drawn up in response.

'America's official torturers have headaches, don't know why' isn't a syndrome and isn't the question at hand.

I'm reacting more to Twitter reactions which have been "these people aren't sick, they have hangovers".

After 30 years of campaigning to give government the power to negotiate prescription drug prices, Democrats appear ready to fumble the ball at the goal line. Failure would be akin to the GOP's flubbing repeal of Obamacare after so many promises. https://t.co/F0Ev1GRImc

— Jonathan Weisman (@jonathanweisman) October 21, 2021

We should use Havana Syndrome to get drug cost reform passed, make it a patriotic issue to lower CIA co-pays on migraine drugs.

this is also sinema and manchin's fault. dunno what to do about that. win more seats elsewhere.

I'm reacting more to Twitter reactions which have been "these people aren't sick, they have hangovers".

fwiw, this is exactly what triggered my post yesterday, which I deeply regred.

regret, jesus.

I guess on an individual case-by-case basis it’s fair to say the spectrum of “good”-to-“evil” CIA employees probably tracks with an industry like Big Law, the financial sector, or Political Consulting, but I personally just take issue with the notion that sure, the CIA was admittedly evil in the *past*, but then the Church Committee happened, they looked inward and did some soul-searching, and hey turns out everything’s been on the up and up since Carter.

And I want to be clear that I’m *not* attributing that line of thinking to jic or anyone else here. But the way (especially) cable news, the mainstream media in general, the Dem Party, and garden variety moderate liberals just lap up the bullshit—only to find out years down the road whoops turns out they’re doing the same dirtball bs as always, generally to no virtuous or really even worthwhile ends, is just… fatiguing.

yeah I have Havana Syndrome. Im Havana nother beer lol

— Patrick Halloween (@lunch_enjoyer) August 25, 2021

But what I said in my post upthread was that I do *kind of* think the CIA is being misleading and malicious here, I don't think I've ever defended them as exemplars of honesty and straightforwardness. I think they are parlaying something as benign as sick-building syndrome into getting a shit ton of money out of legislation by conjuring up some evil Russian headache gun storyline because it sure sounds sexier and more attention grabbing than, "hey we need more money to fix our decades old embassy buildings with shitty ventilation and mold problems".

Despite being repeatedly told the opposite over the last 24 hours, I'm comfortable believing that, yes, the CIA has a history of being nefarious and duplicitous (to put it mildly), but that I also believe that some people are indeed suffering legitimate symptoms that are worthy of being considered. What I didn't realize is how this is the profoundly wrong forum for that line of discussion.

xpost to self: jic = jvc, and maybe that post was better suited for the other thread

Not really, no. The "Havana syndrome" is pretty clearly defined (see above) by those promoting it and it's about attacks from foreign enemies. The very name refers to spurious claims of weapons attacks on people working in Cuba. Reporting on it "suggesting a number of possible origins" inherently questions the concept of "Havana syndrome" and the money we're throwing at the CIA for it and sanctions against unnamed enemies that are being drawn up in response.

'America's official torturers have headaches, don't know why' isn't a syndrome and isn't the question at hand.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Thursday, October 21, 2021 2:24 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well, I guess this is a matter of semantics, then. I've been using "Havana Syndrome" to describe the mysterious phenomenon of multiple U.S. diplomats suffering inexplicable illnesses, which was first identified in Havana. Is there a better name for that?

the Spook flu

Maybe "the phenomenon that has been labeled 'Havana Syndrome' by some bad people who are full of shit"?

Ask Alex Jones?

but that I also believe that some people are indeed suffering legitimate symptoms that are worthy of being considered

Don't know who you are, but you're right that we won't agree.

[...]

― jaymc, Thursday, October 21, 2021 11:30 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

uh oh

Tbf, there are lots of people on ILX these days that I don't know, or have no real sense of. (The original .xls joke was like 15 years ago.) Just didn't recognize the screenname.

lol I don’t feel like deadnaming myself (and thus making my 17-year-old drunk posts easily searchable) but I’ve been reading ilx for 20 years and posted some, but I just don’t have poster brain (too many self-edits and superfluous parentheticals to keep it up) so you prob don’t remember me

hope that’s enough for the .xls

xp

It's enough to assure me that you're not the capital-N Nicole who used to post here, whom I briefly thought you might be.

Was wondering about that too.

the xls is twitching!

It’s been a wild few days for this thread.

Can only speak for myself but my own xls was on old format that I didn’t upgrade so I can’t read it anymore

In American political news:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/us/politics/bannon-contempt-jan-6-subpoena.html

He probably won't suffer any consequences for it.

I will also say:

I don't have empathy for CIA agents, cops, prosecutors, DAs, most military servicemembers, or anyone else who has voluntarily joined up to represent US empire. They can get fucked, and so can their sympthatizers afaic.

⭐️

I don't have empathy for CIA agents, cops, prosecutors, DAs, most military servicemembers, or anyone else who has voluntarily joined up to represent US empire. They can get fucked, and so can their sympthatizers afaic.

― I'm a sovereign jizz citizen (the table is the table)

I deal with ROTC students. I have a mild cynical admiration for the men and women who enlisted for a free ride in college who killed no one and had the dumb luck not to get sent to a theatre of war.

They can get fucked

Well, with DADT gone they probably do, thank goodness.

I'm confused that everyone in this thread is attributing Havana Syndrome solely to CIA operatives in the Havana embassy/diplomatic corps. Is the presumption here that everyone in the diplomatic service who is assigned to Havana is a CIA employee rather than a State Dept employee? Or do the news reports specifically state that only CIA employees suffered from this (which would be odd, since that might 'out' them as intelligence agents)? idgi, where is this 'fact' coming from?

Without making moral judgments about how much these individual people affected deserve or don’t what’s happened to them, the most likely *explanation* seems related to the fact that the institutions involved (cia and state) have a record of being incompetent liars.

Is the presumption here that everyone in the diplomatic service who is assigned to Havana is a CIA employee rather than a State Dept employee?

The State Department serves as a primary cover for CIA agents so if you don't want to be presumed to be part of the torture corps you should probably also turn down State jobs. (Not that the State Department is markedly better than the CIA itself.)

"how do we know you're NOT a spook?"

I knew that. Every US embassy in the world has a complement of CIA operatives serving under diplomatic cover. That's a given. But diplomatic service training is not the same as CIA training, nor do the two perform identical functions where they are assigned. My question was, are we assuming there no State Dept diplomats in Havana or are we saying they were they exempt from this syndrome? Or are we just being lazy?

Seems like it would be exhausting to move through life without understanding not-literal speech.

my personal perspective if is that you’re there to serve American business interests and provide cover for CIA agents, you are the moral equivalent of a CIA agent, so I don’t really care about the distinction, at least in terms of how much should I believe their explanation for (or the severity of) their symptoms

if I were trying to make some legal or public procedural point I would certainly make that distinction, but I’m just bitching online while the laundry dries so w/e

Good for Chuck!

Today, I endorse @indiawaltonbflo, the Democratic nominee for Mayor of Buffalo. She's a community leader, nurse, & mother with a clear progressive vision for her hometown.

Dems are at our best when we build a big tent & forge inclusive coalitions to fight for everyday people. pic.twitter.com/Bm5B4lwXoH

— Chuck Schumer (@chuckschumer) October 21, 2021

Was just about to post that on the left wing drift thread. Would not have happened a couple of years ago.