Wiener-SS-chnitzle

[Steelhead]

Daniel Bump observes that since Norbert Wiener--like the fatuous Madeliene
Albright--is of european Jewish stock (although this was quite unknown to
him during his formative years) he could not *possibly* harbor any Nazi-ish
inclinations.

To which I suggest the following, in light of Norb's essay on Nukes:

A. Wiener is obsessed with order and the phallic power of the State (Wiener
the Facist);

B. Wiener maintains fanatical notions about the transcendent potential of
technology in the tutored hands of scientists and bureaucrats (Wiener the
Technocrat);

C. Wiener displays an abnormal aversion to "moral anarchy" and sloth, even
suggesting that in his Nuclear-powered Utopia the slothful would be exiled
from the community of workers (Wiener the Eliminationist).

Seems Nazi-like to me. But don't worry, Norbert is in good company. There
are plenty of American Nazis with similar reputations of democratic purity
in some halls of academia, the corridors of Georgetown and Yale, in
particular: Herman Kahn, Henry Kissinger, Edward Teller, and the Blond
Ghost himself, Theodore Shackley. To name but a random quartet.

Speaking of Herman Kahn, I came across this spectacular passage in On
Thermonuclear War and my sphincter seized at the thought that the man was
an intimate adviser to the Kennedy Klan: "Objective studies indicate that
even though the amount of human tragedy would be greatly increased in the
post-nuclear war world, the increase would not preclude normal and happy
lives for the majority of survivors and their descendents."

That "objective" sez it all, doesn't it?

Steelhead