Michael Hastings, A Sad And Terrible Loss

Incredibly sad news. Rolling Stone and BuzzFeed journalist Michael Hastings, only 33, died in a car accident in Los Angeles yesterday.  Michael was funny, fearless, and acerbic to anyone sucking up to power -- a model for what a real journalist should be.  This exchange, from his Buzz Feed obituary, sums up a lot of what he was about:  "'Why do you bother to ask questions you've already decided you know the answers to?' [Hillary Clinton aide Philippe] Reines asked.  'Why don't you give answers that aren't bullshit for a change?' Hastings replied."  When his editor warned him this exchange would make him look like an asshole, Michael responded, "Everyone knows I’m an asshole. The point is that they’re assholes."

One of the best things about being a writer is that every now and then, you learn someone you admire from afar is a fan of your books.  This was the case with Michael.  Another terrific journalist -- Barrett Brown, now being persecuted by the US government -- knew of our mutual admiration and put us in touch.  After that introduction, Michael and I exchanged maybe a half dozen emails and had as many phone conversations.  I feel fortunate to have known him, however slightly.  Professionally, he was fierce and focused.  In person, he was thoughtful, generous, and hilarious.  He had a keen nose for and visceral hatred of bullshit, so as you can imagine we bonded over several conversations about the publishing industry.  I loved his book "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan."  When I told him there were passages as good as James Ellroy, he laughed and told me he had been reading Ellroy while writing it.  Occupational hazard.

Michael was best known for his Rolling Stone article The Runaway General, which led to the resignation for insubordination of Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal.  The Operators is, among other things, the story behind that story, detailing the angst Michael felt about reporting something so momentous about a group of people he admired and who had treated him seductively well.  He was attacked afterward by numerous "journalists" for whom integrity and courage like Michael's are threatening and incomprehensible.  Nothing makes a sell-out more uncomfortable than to be faced with someone who refuses to be bought.

I hate to think of what was ahead for this fine person, the professional and the personal, and that will now never be.  His death is a loss to journalism and to everyone who loves truth.  I didn't realize how good it was to know Michael was out there in the world, doing great work, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.  I woke up sad this morning, feeling the world is not as good a place today as it was yesterday.  I'll miss him.

Intel Is Not Used To Shape Policy, But To Justify It

The primary purpose of intelligence -- accurate or distorted, real or fake -- isn't to shape policy.  It is to *justify* policy.  The way politicians use intelligence -- what they leak, what they suppress, what they demand collected and how they insist it be understood -- is almost entirely driven by their desire to justify policies upon which they have already decided.  Remember that, as we increasingly intervene in Syria.

Memo To Authoritarians: The "Oath" is to the Constitution, Not to Secrecy

It's been interesting to read pundits like David Brooks of the New York Times and Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo prattling about how whistleblower Edward Snowden violated his "oath" of secrecy.  I was in the CIA, and I can tell you there was no secrecy "oath," just a contract.  The oath was to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

I find the misnomer revealing.  I don't think Brooks, Marshall, and the many others like them are misusing the word "oath" in a deliberate attempt to mislead.  My guess instead is that their deference to government secrecy is so strong that they reflexively equate a contract to maintain secrecy -- a nondisclosure agreement, really -- with something as strong as, say, a sworn oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.  You know, like one the president takes.

In fact, I'd go further.  That these pundits aren't even discussing the real oath CIA and other government employees take -- the one to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic -- suggests they don't believe such oaths are important enough to bother mentioning.  Now, admittedly oaths to protect and defend the Constitution are all very pre-9/11, but shouldn't an intelligent and honest pundit at least offer a nod of the head toward the fact that someone like Edward Snowden might have felt faced with two competing obligations -- his secrecy contract, on the one hand, and his sworn oath to protect and defend the Constitution, on the other?

Of course, if deference to governmental secrecy prerogatives trumps all other values, then there's no trade-off even to mention.

And look, even if you think that "oath" and "contract" are interchangeable terms (in which case you'd have to explain why Brooks, Marshall et al consistently use the former regarding secrecy while eschewing the latter, and why the drafters of the Constitution did the same with regard to oaths of office), you still have to explain why various pundits are so intent on referring to only one of the "oaths" while ignoring the other.

Here's another way of looking at it.  Say you're the employee of an intelligence agency.  You've signed a contract to maintain secrecy and also sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.  And you become aware of a secret program that you believe violates the Constitution you have sworn to protect and defend.  Reasonable people can argue about how you might best redress that violation, but reasonable people can't deny, whether explicitly or implicitly, that you are faced with a dilemma and that, if you have a conscience, you should and hopefully will grapple with how to resolve it.

Here's a terrific piece from Daniel Ellsberg, the previous generation's heroic whistleblower, on why in revealing the scale of the NSA's secret spying on millions of innocent Americans, Snowden has done America such a noble service.

Maybe you'll disagree.  That's fine; there are competing interests in all cases of whistle blowing, and reasonable people might balance those interests in different ways.  But arguing as though a contractual obligation to maintain secrecy trumps all other values, including actual sworn oaths to protect and defend the Constitution, just makes you look like an authoritarian.  As well as a fool.

Interview With A Brain Scientist, And More

Updated Below

Three quick items:

1.  Brain scientist (really!) and novelist Livia Blackburne and I had a fun discussion about the extent to which radically low-priced sales are a useful tool for selling digital books, why some readers freak out about lesbian short stories, and whether buyers of 99-cent novels are more apt to leave bad reviews.

2.  The second edition of Violence: A Writer's Guide is now available.  As I said in the blurb I was proud to offer, the book is an amazing resource and written by a man who really knows his stuff.  The beginning to the intro says it all:

"My name is Rory Miller, but I've been called 'Sarge' in a jail, 'sensei' in a dojo and 'abu Orion' in Baghdad.  Rory is fine. 

"I don't write fiction.  I do write fight scenes.  I have written some of the most realistic fight scenes ever… because they have to stand up in court.  Conflict is the core of drama and much of my adult life has centered around conflict.  The good side is that I know a lot about real violence.  One of the many downsides is that I know enough that most fiction is infuriating to read…"

The book is incredibly informative, eye-opening, and at times hilarious.  For under six bucks, you can learn all about what this guy has paid for in blood and broken bones.  I guarantee you this is a bargain you don't want to miss.

3.  The Guardian has revealed that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans daily (glad to see that the New York Times is following up -- more interesting details here).  I posted a link on Twitter and Facebook along with a comment that "This must be okay because it's Obama."  Obviously I meant the comment as a dark joke.  Incredibly, many people are finding ways to at least partly agree with it.  Within the average mind, the battle between principle and partisanship seems barely even a struggle.

UPDATE:  A Facebook reader assures me regarding the NSA program, "If you are doing the right thing and minding your own business you have nothing to hide."  I know I'm being naive, but I can't stop being amazed when Americans blithely spout statements like this one, which would be perfectly at home in the North Korean Politburo or in 1984.  As I said in response:

"It's not a question of having something or nothing to hide.  If you were at a dinner party and someone took out a dictaphone and said he just wanted to record the conversation so he could listen to it later, what sort of impact do you think this would have on people's behavior?  Now, what sort of impact do you think there will be on the creativity, spontaneity, amount of dissent, and other aspects of the free flow of information that are critical to the healthy functioning of a free society if people have reason to believe the government is monitoring everything?

"If the framers had wanted the government to have a free rein surveilling the populace because 'if you are doing the right thing and minding your own business you have nothing to hide,' we wouldn't have or need a Fourth Amendment.  But we do -- unless you would prefer to abolish it."

Democrats Make Defiant Gesture... Scary!

This morning I came across a New York Times article about Obama's impending appointment of Susan Rice as his National Security Advisor.  The Times claims that this is "a defiant gesture to Republicans who harshly criticized Ms. Rice for presenting an erroneous account of the deadly attacks on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya."

What's the message?  That Democrats are strong -- after all, they're defying Republicans!

What's the metamessage?  That Democrats are weak -- after all, in any relationship, only the weak party is in a position to defy.  Children can defy their parents, for example.  But would it be coherent -- can you even imagine -- a situation where parents could be described as "defying" their children?  If you did hear about such a thing, you'd immediately and instinctively recognize that the power balance in that family is radically out of sync.

Now, in all communications, which matters more -- the message, or the metamessage?  You already know the answer from common sense and everyday experience.  The message is always eclipsed by the metamessage.

(By the way, for novelists, this understanding is critical for writing good dialogue.  The greater the gap between the message and the metamessage -- the text and the subtext, the words and the meaning -- the more engaging the dialogue.  For more, I recommend Robert McKee's Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting.)

What's interesting is that the Times is commonly understood to be a liberal media outlet.  To the extent this is true (in fact, I don't think right/left is the most productive prism for understanding the way America's media works -- establishment/insurgent, or corporate-owned/independent, provides a more accurate and useful framework), here we have the spectacle of a liberal-leaning media outlet presumably believing they're portraying the Democrats as tough, while implicitly revealing they believe (correctly, in my view) that Democrats are in fact weak compared to Republicans.

I find this kind of messaging, and Democratic cluelessness about it, fascinating.  If you want to learn more, here's my short book on the subject:  The Ass is a Poor Receptacle for the Head: Why Democrats Suck at Communication, and How They Could Improve.

All My Books, Only 99 Cents, Only Three Days

To celebrate a great partnership, Thomas & Mercer and I are coordinating a limited-time sale of all my titles. For three days only, every one of my stories except The Detachment—self-published, T&M-published, novels, short works, fiction and non fiction—is on sale for only 99 cents. Only in the Kindle Store, and only from today through Sunday (May 24, 25, and 26). Been thinking about acquiring the entire Rain backlist in digital? This is your chance to do it for less than a buck a book. Get 'em while you can!

Click on the covers below to buy—and here's more information on all the books, including the new covers and titles.

Barry
  

Jeremy Scahill's "Dirty Wars"

Last week, I had the honor of hosting a Commonwealth Club discussion with premier investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill in which Jeremy discussed his new book, "Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield."  You can listen to an audio of the one-hour talk here, and see some photos from the event here.

It's a Commonwealth Club tradition to ask participants at the end of a talk to name a 60-second idea for changing the world.  Jeremy's, I thought, was profound:  American kids should be assigned essays in which they would research and report on the lives of innocent people killed in America's drone wars.  The president personally eulogized the three people killed in the Boston bombing, yet we almost never hear the stories or see the faces of the innocent lives our wars cut short (well, in fairness, according to the Obama administration, it's not possible for someone killed by an American drone to be innocent).  Imagine how different the world might be if we were to deny ourselves the luxury of that ignorance.

I don't blurb many books (here's why) but I was honored to blurb Dirty Wars.  Here's what I said:

"Dirty Wars is the most thorough and authoritative history I've read yet of the causes and consequences of America's post 9/11 conflation of war and national security. I know of no other journalist who could have written it:  For over a decade, Scahill has visited the war zones, overt and covert; interviewed the soldiers, spooks, jihadists, and victims; and seen with his own eyes the fruits of America's bipartisan war fever. He risked his life many times over to write this book, and the result is a masterpiece of insight, journalism, and true patriotism."

You can learn more about the book -- and about the accompanying film, which opens on June 7 -- at the Dirty Wars website.