Penn State Symposium Video is Up
Posted: February 27, 2013 Filed under: Nuclear 2 CommentsYou can find it here. You may have to load an updated media player (called “Mediasite”) on your computer. It does make the presentation look good, though. The video is also divided into segments, which makes it easier to find particular panels or presentations. I and Ambassador Butler are on Panel 1. I dont think I’m at my most eloquent here, but I think I do manage to get my points across. I really recommend that you listen to Ambassador Butler’s presentation. I also HIGHLY recommend that you watch both FLynt’s and Hillary’s presentations – Flynt gives the opening address, and Hillary gives the concluding address. I was very imporessed by them, and persuaded of their views.
Arms Control Law 
The requirement to use the Mediasite player is just plain stupid. There isn’t even an indication on how to get it – and I’m pretty sure even if I did it won’t run on my Linux system.
Especially given the line on the first page about using Microsoft SilverLight. Are they serious? NO ONE uses Microsoft SilverLight. It’s a joke.
Have the idiots at Penn State not heard of Flash? Or just providing a download to an AVI file. They are completely excluding everyone with a Mac or Linux system. Did Microsoft give them a few million in free PCs or something?
For an educational institution this is just pathetic.
How to drive more traffic to these videos? House parties?? Maybe we need to draft foreign policy cheerleaders who can hi-kick and look great in minimal clothing.
The speakers were top notch: I’ve heard the Leveretts speak before but still appreciated their expanded and reinforced commentary.
Putting a face to Prof. Joyner’s name gives flavor and personality to understanding the dry intricacies of the law surrounding the Iran issue. I’m working on a transcript of Prof. Joyner’s address — I want to understand the legal distinctions and definitions he spoke about — a graphic would be terrific.
Ambassador Butler is a real asset to the foreign policy community. I hope Penn State appreciates him. I’ve viewed several videos of “public intellectuals” lecturing students at schools of foreign service, i.e. Michael Hayden at University of Michigan, and Larry Sweikart at ???, Michael Mandelbaum at CSIS, and my heart sank for the future of the USA should those students carry out the crabbed analysis of their teachers.
Slightly off topic — help in changing US foreign policy may come from AEI and CATO, of all places. I heard John Allison, formerly president of BB&T bank, now head of CATO, give a talk at Heritage Fdn (another ‘of all places’) that was superb in its analysis of how US government, and especially the Federal Reserve bank, which Allison calls a “government function,” created the banking crisis that was improperly resolved by Dodd-Frank. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/310406-1
Then, Allison teamed up with a fellow former money-man, Peter Wallison to talk about Wallison’s book, “”Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative about the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act”. http://www.booktv.org/Program/14322/Bad+History+Worse+Policy+How+a+False+Narrative+about+the+Financial+Crisis+Led+to+the+DoddFrank+Act.aspx Wallison’s thesis is pretty much spelled out in the title: the banking crisis was misdiagnosed by Congress and “leftist pundits, like Paul Krugman.” The misdiagnosis was deliberate, mythologized, and relentlessly promulgated by complicit media and Congress. Legislation was constructed based on the false/erroneous/mythologized narrative, with the obvious result that the solution, Dodd-Frank, will NOT solve the problem since the real problem was obscured from information given to public.
US history, especially re the Middle East, has been similarly deliberately distorted, mythologized, and the false and self-serving narrative relentlessly promulgated by complicit media, and acted upon by Congress and US foreign policy community, with the outcome we see today: the foreign policy equivalent of financial depression/bankruptcy.
The story of Croesus said it more succinctly: when the Delphic oracle told Croesus he would “destroy a mighty kingdom” if his Lydian army attacked Persia, Croesus misinterpreted the message, attacked Persia, was defeated, and ‘lost a mighty kingdom’ — his own Lydia.
If persons such as Prof. Joyner, Amb. Butler, the Leveretts, and some others, like Andrew Bacevich, could form coalition with bankers (!) from Cato (!) and AEI (!); apply the pattern Allison and Wallison define to the workings of the incestuous US foreign policy elites who are running the US ship of state aground, maybe the ship can be set aright.