Update and Ramblings

 Well, a week ago it sounded like we were headed for WWIII, and now the news cycle has shifted and we're back to 'normal'.

Actually, it reminds me of when my Mom was dealing with cancer. How her health fluctuated up and down. 

Sometimes she was in the hospital, sometimes she was home and 'normal'... but despite the cyclical ups and downs the overall trend was down.

This time, we had a sitting President bomb the sovereign territory of another nation - without the usual 'treaties' and agreements that allowed us to take action in the other places we've bombed, without a declaration of war from Congress, without all the usual fakery. And the usual people point this out and complain, and the usual people shrug and move on, and it's hard to say that it actually matters.

Except it's an ocean tide sweeping away another swath of sand from the beach called 'rule of law'. Another hefty bit of erosion ruining it all.

*sigh*

And here I am, still looking for a damn job.

It's frustrating, of course. I am 100% sure that if I got hired as a SOC Analyst (what I'm currently applying for the most) that I could do the job, do it well, and the company that hires me would not regret it. I've been studying regularly, working towards the GCIH and doing rooms in TryHackMe, and I'm pretty confident I can do the job.

I am not, however, confident at all that whoever is hiring will ever look past my resume (with a dearth of actual InfoSec experience. Though, honestly... are ELK stack searches when troubleshooting an application in DevOps truly that much different from a SIEM search? Or building a dashboard in either? I think the basic skills are the same, and it's just a matter of using the right keywords and syntaxes and filtering tools... but whatever.)

It is very frustrating, and depressing, and I after so many applications with either the polite e-mail saying they're proceeding with other candidates or the usual black hole of nothing, I am wondering if I need to change up what I'm doing somehow.

I don't really want to change the type of job I'm applying for, even though I'm sure there are other jobs in IT I might have an easier time getting. Idk, I had put off seriously trying to do any sort of bug bounty hunting because at the end of the day I'm far more interested in tracking an incident through massive log searches (with maybe a bit of malware analysis and/or dfir) than I am with actually hacking into things, but at least if I did the bug bounty hunting I wouldn't have to deal with trying to convince hiring managers that I'm their best candidate.

Though maybe I should pull back and consider an even bigger change. Still, I think I'd face the same sort of problems no matter what I tried. 

I mean, blogging still sometimes comes to mind... I do like thinking and writing about things, and it'd be hella flattering if people were interested enough in hearing my takes to actually pay for it.

But it's not like I have a fanbase to build upon, and trying to build a following would probably mean trying to figure out what people want to hear (which would change things considerably) and would also probably take time to get sustainable (if it ever did).

So yeah, probably about as likely as my deciding to take a vow of poverty and join a convent or something. 

Not Directly About Trump Bombing Iran, Though Perhaps Because of It

One of the questions so many of my non-supporting friends and family struggle with is why people just don't seem to care when Trump breaks every rule, norm, and guideline.

Like - do I really have to explain why Jan 6 (and all Trump's lies about the results of the 2020 election) undermine the Constitution? Is it not obvious? 

But on to a more recent post from one of my social media friends.

To set the context - when people I follow post about politics on social media, I take what they say with different levels of credibility. Some of them seem to just parrot whatever the party line is, and they share overly simplified memes that don't really add anything new to the debate. I think they're more just a marker of group identity than an indication of any real understanding of the issues.

That goes for both left and right, tbh. It's worth noting what arguments are being spread, but a substantive policy discussion these are not.

Then there are the ones who show some level of independent or deeper thought, and if not explicitly independent tend more towards the middle of the political spectrum. I sometimes get new and interesting takes from what they share.

Like - after Jan 6 when I see certain memes, it's probably just the latest partisan campaign. But when someone more in the middle - or worse, more on the liberal side - seems ready to move on from the events of that day, it seems an indicator of general opinion.

A depressing one, really, because it seems less a sign that they are truly okay with what Trump did and more a sign of cognitive dissonance.

Or (as a book about the impact of Gone With the Wind pointed out) it could be that they care more about reconciliation and not rocking the boat. 

Better to just let it go than risk escalating things, I guess? Idk... I don't really see how the system can possibly last once you start letting sitting presidents ignore the Constitution like that.

And yet Jan 6 seemed to fade from collective memory (except for people like me, and I'm sure I alienate some by bringing it up so often. And if it makes people uncomfortable, good.) and we even, as a nation, re-elected the guy who not only failed to uphold the Constitution but practically led an attack on it.

But back to this more recent post, where one of my more moderate follows made a post about people crying wolf, I thought a bit about it.

The post didn't give a lot of context, so I'm not sure what inspired it. It could be all the talk about fascism and tyranny, all the talks about how Trump is a threat to the Constitution.

Except - he truly, honestly, really is. I'm not saying that as some sort of left-wing activist or liberal. I am saying that with all the weight of my political science bachelor's degree and a master's in public affairs.

And no, I'm not saying that because of some out-of-touch white tower academia crap either.

But I found myself thinking about how the arguments against Trump sound to someone who (for whatever reason) doesn't already get it.

It's true that the complaints can sound like hyperbole. 'The sky is falling!' 'Trump wants to be a king!' 

One of my more conservative follows (to his credit, not one that seemed truly happy voting for Trump) made a post back during the election where he commented that with Trump he figured we just had to get through these four years...

And I felt like I would be wasting my breath trying to explain why that was a ridiculously short-sighted and naive viewpoint.

Nobody seems to care.

Or rather, the ones who care already know. 

But it is true that people have been talking about the threat Trump poses for years now. Over a decade even.

Which might be part of the problem? Some of them might be desensitized by now, and once they dismissed the earlier complaints never revisited their judgement with more recent activity.

I think yet another part of the problem though, is that we never truly know when the consequences are going to be felt.

It's like the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back -

Nobody knows exactly when that straw will come. 

Everyone can see the pile of straw building, the weight increasing... but which straw, exactly, will break that back is completely unknown.

If people were to bet on which one it is, some people would place bets well before the camel reaches its carrying capacity, and some will bet much later...

But as long as the straws keep piling on, we all know that we'll reach that breaking point eventually.

This is part of why whenever some world-shaking change happens it's pretty easy to look back and see all the warning signs and the steps leading to that event, but the people living through that time are caught off guard and are completely shocked.

What's one more straw?

People have been predicting a break for ages now and yet life goes on - why would it be any different this time?

So this weekend Trump bombed Iran.

And although many people don't seem to understand this, it's actually a pretty big change.

After all, it is unequivocally an act of war. 

People have become a bit blase about bombings, partly because of all that complicated lawyering people in DC have gone through in order to allow a President to take small-scale military action without needing to go through Congress every time. Whether you agree with them or not, they're the type of thing used to allow us to use a drone strike on an Iranian general back in Trump's first term. 

Said general was in Iraq at the time, and with all our agreements with the Iraqi government at the time was not really considered an attack on Iranian soil, though there was definitely some concern about how Iran would respond.

There's also all the shadow war stuff, where nations highly suspect one another of being behind an attack, but attribution is unclear and it's hard to make a compelling case for going to war.

Trump's recent bombing of Iranian nuclear sites, however?

They have none of these obfuscating details. 

It was a direct attack on another nation's territory, just like Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

Whether you think it was the right move or not, Trump has given Iran a casus belli... and he never got Congress to declare war in the first place.

This is a HUGE change, especially when we consider how long George W. Bush spent getting Congress to declare war on Iraq. 

Remember all those weeks of media coverage? The arguments that Colin Powell made (and that destroyed his credibility for some)? 

Yeah... this attack had none of that.

None.

And as we so often find these days - I have no idea whether this attack truly could kick of WWIII, or if it will somehow fade away and become yet another Trump thing that gets overlooked and ignored.

The final straw, or just one more?

Heck if I know.

No Kings

 Tomorrow I plan to go to a No Kings protest.

I don't know if it will really change anything, yet I can't just sit by and do nothing while that wrecking crew of Trump and his allies continue to destroy this country.

I wanted to talk more about my reasons here... though I feel as though I've layed them out in most of my posts already.

This protest...

There's a lot of fear going around right now. The feeling that things aren't normal, that the protests might escalate and get out of hand and give Trump the excuse to declare martial law and continue to make things even worse.

And yet, what's the alternative? To stay home and let others take the risks? To be one of the free riders that benefits from other people standing up, while taking none of the risks myself? When the more people that step up, the more likely we are to make a difference?

It's a bit like dealing with a domestic abuser - standing up, protesting... these things might make the abuser escalate into more dangerous behavior, but doing nothing just lets them continue their bad behavior without challenge. 

People are afraid, and so I hear and know the advice we've been given. Try to hide your identity. Maybe wear a mask, or bring a burner phone. All of which makes perfect sense when fighting a truly authoritarian government - but are we there yet? 

Protests are part of freedom of speech, the very first right engraved in the Bill of Rights. We should be able to do so without fear of repercussion, and the very fact that people are worried about that shows the danger we're in.

So despite knowing all that, I don't think I'll take such precautions. Not yet, at least. Not before it's proven necessary.

There's more to my thinking, of course. Some of it is tied in with things I've been musing on as I've been searching for my next job.

That fear of instability, the need for a source of income, has definitely taken up quite a bit of my mindspace right now. I've been studying hard to learn about information security. Doing rooms on the tryhackme site, working through some books a kind mentor sent me for the SANS SEC504 course (which could lead to a GCIH certificate).

And yet, when I get back to my roots and think long and hard about where I want to be... at the heart I have always cared most about this country and my definition of it's national security.

And when I look at the world around me, when I read the news and see what's going on in social media, I am angry.

I studied political science, and public affairs. I served in the Army because I believe in this country. Naive and innocent though it may sound, especially the more I learn about our history and the things we've done, I still believe in the potential we have. 

The Constitution.

The Bill of Rights.

A way of living and deciding who we will be based on government by the people, for the people, and of the people.

A path for change that comes from regular elections, legitimately and without the need for revolution or rebellion.

A path that is in danger, by people like Trump who have no respect for any of that. Who feel that elections that they might lose are somehow the problem, rather than the core of what makes America... America.

Part of what I have been struggling with is realizing that so many of my fellow Americans don't understand that.

That they can see and hear the things Trump is doing and just... disregard it. It's not even like they're knowingly looking the other way. It's like a mirror world where black is white and white is black, and they somehow approve and think that Trump is doing good and cheer when he mobilizes the National Guard (against a state governor's wishes!). Like they don't even understand why that's such a bad thing.

I know that this is more about me than people in general. It's like... in a relationship, right? You have who you think your partner is, and the reality of who they are, and when something happens that isn't what you expected it's hard not to feel angry and disappointed. But they haven't truly changed, they are who they are... it's your expectation of who they are that was wrong, and you are now learning something important about the reality you didn't expect.

So you have to update your mental image of who they are.

I had thought all those people waving flags and declaring how much they love this country actually meant it. That they understood how important the Constitution was, and ultimately cared more about the country than any specific party.

This was... probably, again, naive and idealistic. 

Apparently they don't really mean it, and only wave the flag and cheer when it's a politician they support.

I mean... intellectually I kind of knew this. It's natural human bias at work. Tribalism, nationalism, whatever word or term you want to use. They care more about some stupid party than the nation as a whole, though I'm sure in their own minds there's no conflict between the two (and they think supporting said stupid party will help the nation as a whole - even when the party is doing blatantly unconstitutional acts that undermine all our traditions and rules and laws.)

I don't want to despise my fellow Americans so much, so I try to reconcile that ideal with the reality. I know it's not actually black and white, and I'm aware of some of the layers of complexity... but I'm not really there yet.

There's been so much disappointment. The media, which somehow manages to harp on Biden's health issues for weeks and months and yet doesn't clearly lay out the dangers Trump poses. The Supreme Court, Congress, wealthy tech bros and wealthy people in general. All the powers-that-be that enable this... whether actively aiding and abetting or passively hunkering down.

Black is white, and white is black, and who knows where we'll be in another year? In three?

Still, better to speak out and say something now, then be another free rider.

Hypernormalization

 I read an article that captured my current feelings all too well. This strange feeling where the news, social media, and almost everything online shows an ongoing dumpster fire...

And yet my day to day life is pretty bland and normal. And not just that, but (as the article also mentions) -

...the institutions and the people that are in power just are like ignoring it and are pretending like everything is going to go on the way that it has

It is definitely a surreal feeling, especially when everyone seems willing to ignore things that I had previously thought were impossible to ignore.

Like all that classified material that had been found in Trump's bathroom, which was dismissed so carelessly.

The media could harp on Hillary for months, is still harping on Biden's health... and when it comes to something like this, all we hear is crickets.

Which isn't exactly a surprise anymore, since the same thing happened with Jan 6. It only seems to take a couple of days before what should have been a bipartisan and uniting moment of horror at the damage done and support for America (and the Constitution) somehow just got quietly ignored. 

Oh, a fig leaf was given to allow people to pretend that what happened wasn't really all that bad. "Protest that got out of hand" or whatever convenient excuse was made to allow people to pretend that there was nothing different or unusual or somehow threatening the Constitution.

It's that disconnect... that cognitive dissonance...

That I keep struggling with, even as it makes me tired and upset and I try to get a break I keep coming back to it. Like wiggling a loose tooth.

Part of me feels a little silly that I find this so hard to understand. I mean, I've talked before about how I had an entire college level course that discussed how hard it was for people to be logical!!! The fallacies, the pattern-recognition that makes it hard for us to truly think logically, the heuristics...

The emotional anecdotes, which are very powerful.

As they mentioned - you could do all your research on what the best car to buy is, but as soon as someone you know tells you that they had a bad experience with particular make and model? You're probably not going to buy it, no matter how much the research shows that was probably an outlier.

I know this, I've known it for a very long time.

And yet I'm still shocked and surprised. 

I think, looking back, that I thought it would be different when it really mattered. That ofc people would be illogical and swayed by emotions and anecdotes when it comes to something like buying a car, but surely when it comes to something as important as our Constitution and the entire nation... people would do their research? 

I've done it myself, to the point where frankly I don't trust anything on facebook unless I've doublechecked it. Because you get some cute little meme and it conforms to all your biases and prejudices and it just plain sounds true (or fake), but is it really?

It's part of why I looked up tariffs, even though I was pretty sure from my previous economic education that I knew tariffs would end up making prices rise for consumers. It's just that Trump was so unashamedly willing to claim that there was no impact, so I figured I'd at least double check.

Well... that was a bit unusual, because most of the time it's not even worth checking anything he says. It's almost always a lie.

Which gets back to the next frustrating bit - which is that nobody ever seems to call him on that!

Did Mexico ever pay for the wall? The wall that Trump promised to build?

Does anyone even care any more?

It's quite clear that Trump has 'won' by pushing everyone's emotional buttons.

Even worse, it's so ham-handed and obvious that it's hard to believe anyone falls for it!

Illegal aliens eating dogs? Really?!? You really believe that?

I've complained before about how he makes everyone smaller. Uglier. Pettier.

Fearful.

He brings out the worst in people, and it boggles my mind that people support him for it.

And yet...

Institutions and people in power just ignore it, and act like it's just some grand new tactic in typical political games. 

It's like we used to have the Cardinals play the Cubs, and referees would make the call whenever something was questionable.

Now someone is paying off the referees or putting someone from their team in the referee position, and everyone watching the game is just cheering on like normal and ignoring the increasing frequency of moments where someone steals a base and the other team claims they had tagged them out, and instead of replaying the cameras and getting at the truth it just turns into a fight for who can get the referee to make the call that benefits their team the most.

And newspapers write glowing articles about what a great strategy it was, and questions how the other team is going to counter the manipulation of the referees.