That leaves the public with a spy story in a world waiting for the journalists to get into what I’m going to call “Political Spychology” — the massive, multinational industry devoted to capturing, listening, sniffing, stealing, interpreting signal for military as well as industrial purposes.

Syria – Ain’t No Iraq | BackChannels

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Coined!

I believe the general public — and not merely the generally paranoid — have for a long time had a good sense about the world’s secret worlds, and that whether involving business (intelligence) or government (intelligence).  With an American cuckoo and two peacocks in, out, or avoiding dock, as it were, and publications like Spies for Hire, the dawning realization that our “military-industrial complex” includes a $52 billion annual spook bill may take some time developing weight.

Talk about “cloud computing”!

Involved are competitive urges — to “get the goods” on an adversary, alley, customer, or supplier (perhaps) — within an era of decaying or reorganizing cultural, political, and social boundaries.  The Ayatollah’s nuclear program, for example, may present an “existential threat” to mine, grant me that, in Israel, but the problem is with the Ayatollah’s power and ambitions bound up with nuclear weapons technology and not my hip Iranian friends on Facebook — or, for that matter, perhaps, here and reading, thinking, reconsidering, formulating, imagining, defining, bonding, separating, all in new ways.

New poetry.

Updated poetics.

The questions outside the box may not be too far from where they are inside the box: who’s looking at what with what expectations?

One of my correspondents wrote to me this morning, “I contend that with the NSA capabilities the Believers will drill more deeply into the bedrock of their faith for unbreakable codes.”

So they may.

Not too long ago, the same person had me scouring the Internet for radioactive clay disks (a Believer would understand).

Whaddayaknow . . . .

But that was then.

I had to add “rock” to find the above memory serving analog.

Today’s environment has been affected by Fukushima Daiichi and, indeed, clay-related solutions may be involved in solving that disaster and show up tops today on similar searches — and then trust the National Security Agency (or Booz Allen and Hamilton — who knows?) to do similar things a billion times faster.

String theory.

And there are so many “strings” extant!

And some, I hope,  get the alphasoup metonymic overlay and tonal jumble just about right.

“Political Spychology” — has a nice ring to it.

Put it use.

Your way.

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China’s had a bad case of patent contempt goin’ on, but I think it has so far avoided Enormous Public Presence as regards its spy program, but both the U.S. and Russia have had their curious and free enough among journalists (not to mention again the little birds that fly off their own electromagnetic disks) — and more to come, Polonium notwithstanding, I’m sure.  For those interested in the shadows built and cast by Big Governments, I recommend reading both Spies for Hire and The New Nobility.

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