When I was a sophomore in college way back in 1999, I shared my dormroom with a very nice Chicano guy who arrived in Ohio from L.A. as a slightly out of shape trombone major. Within a few months he decided to double major in trombone and political science and started working out almost every day. Over that same time, he traded about 30 pounds of fat for lean muscle and went from wanting to play music somewhere to wanting to serve his country as an officer in the Marines. Over lunch we'd talk about a wide range of topics, many around the major political issues of the day. At one of the most leftist colleges in the country, Julian had been mocked many times by student's locally popular opinions on current events and he expressed sincere frustration during our conversations.
Knowing (and liking) him as I did, I really wanted to find a common ground between Julian and everyone else, and so did he. He wasn't some meathead warmonger. He was a very moral, thoughtful and dedicated guy who was choosing an honorable path for his life. He was like a lot of the best people who decide to join the armed forces. There had to be another way of looking at the issue. As someone interested in international aid and development I saw huge opportunities in exploiting the military's training management abilities, not to mention their pocketbook in looking at non-military but activist projects for the biggest defense spender in the world. This idea was in much better harmony with those times than today. We weren't immersed in a full-scale war, and we'd become embroiled in the Balkans on such a cooperative mission. Compared to now, America looked like a benevolent big brother to the world. Why couldn't the military dig latrines and build schools? They are idealistic, organized, know how to get things done, and have the full faith and credit of the American taxpayer.
Julian was sworn in as an officer in the Marine Corps under the nearest American flag to our college graduation ceremony, and that was the last I ever saw or heard from him. It was less than two years later that we were invading Iraq, another year later and the message changed from Weapons of Mass Destruction to the more contemporary democratic nationbuilding line we've been hearing ever since. It turned out that the Pentagon had the same aid and development idea all along; they just didn't think it was as good a sell as chemical munitions.
Despite intermittently good intentions, none of this worked. Everyone knows the story. In our arrogance, we never secured the place properly or took any number of basic facts into account, like keeping track of who's sunni, who's shia and why it matters. We went from benevolent big brother to old, lost alcoholic caught in the wrong part of town and looking for a payphone to call mom.
We never really got around to completing the big civics projects we had in mind. Baghdad is in a perpetual state of brown-out, the water's still not safe to drink, and all those contractors with offshore accounts sure aren't getting paid with Iraqi oil money.
Putting aside the completely destructive variety of insurgent that one could actually brand a terrorist, we've also got competition when it comes to digging latrines. Many groups funded by allies, friends and enemies all competing to do a better job than us to get the lights on and the kids off to school. Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army is a destructive force-- outside of its Shi'ite land holdings. Inside, they provide food, security, schooling and livelihoods to their constituents.
Al Sadr would be nobody if he neglected this. He'd be in charge of a group of isolated guerrillas whose existence depended on funding from the outside and a willingness to die for the cause. He'd end up like al Qaeda's man in Iraq, al Zarqawi; dead because he'd be a clean target. Instead, Al Sadr's group has been branded even more dangerous than Al Qaeda by the Pentagon. We can't do anything about him, and he's proving far more effective at doing our job in Iraq.
As things go from bad to worse in Iraq, Julian's been on my mind more and more. He believed more than anyone else I knew in the power of the US to intervene in the world for good. I still think we can change the world. I think this is a fundamental belief for many Americans. We can and should intervene, but how?
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Chris, 1977-2006
Chris was the big brother of one of my wife's best friends from when she lived out in Portland, Oregon in the late nineties. I remember him as present and close in the life of his little sister Kirsten as they both tried to figure their lives out working odd jobs and sharing group houses in their early twenties. We've got pictures of Chris giving Kirsten a piggy back ride up Mount Hood on one of their days off. They were both from Fairbanks, Alaska and far from home; they were unusually close for brothers and sisters. Chris worked at bike shops, enjoyed skiing, being outside, and spending time among a group of very close friends. Myself being an outsider to a group of people who spent much of their free time together, I remember Chris as a calm and welcoming presence. He was always good for conversation, always bringing me into the fold, making me feel like more than someone's boyfriend visiting on his spring break. I have spotty memories of goofing off to music in his basement, and going to pick blackberries on the Sandy River during the summer I came to live with my wife to be. He was one of a short list of people I hardly knew but felt very fond of.
My wife-to-be moved back east and Chris stayed in Portland while Kirsten moved down to San Francisco to pursue a degree in graphic art. Between getting married and spending less time out west, I hadn't heard much about either of them as the years passed. It was a shock to hear that he passed away in his sleep in mid-September. When someone dies suddenly at age 29, the first thoughts are drugs or suicide. But Chris was the victim of something else-- the maddening, confusing and expensive reality that young people working by the hour so often face when confronted with a health problem. Chris died because he was part of the working uninsured.
From snippets of phone conversations that my wife had with her friends out in San Francisco, I learned that Chris had gone through a bad patch of depression; so bad that he sought help out of pocket instead of just trying to tough it out. He was prescribed medication, but it wasn't long before he began having seizures. Chris stopped taking the pills, but the seizures continued. His girlfriend had to take him to the emergency room at least three times over a period of a few months. One morning he had another bad seizure that landed him in the ER again, but he was discharged a few hours later, and went home to take it easy. His girlfriend called the next morning, but there was no answer. Chris had another episode that night and suffocated alone in his bed.
As I get older I can look back at the photos we have from that time and I see now that I have two categories of friends-- the salaried and the waged. One has comprehensive health benefits, goes to have check-ups, and if there is an emergency, gets admitted into the hospital for a full work-up. The other category sweats through a case of the flu, avoids getting stitches if possible, and doesn't try to think about what would happen if they got in a car accident, or if they really got sick. They are betting that their youth will get them through the years where they don't have benefits. Given the same situation that Chris found himself, one category goes to get a CT scan and finds out what's wrong, and the other bounces in and out of the emergency room until one day it's too late. It was certainly a wake-up call for me-- a fundamental divide across the very people I know and care for.
On a road trip a few years ago, I was chatting with a father and son from Oklahoma over a few beers at a casino in Reno. I told them what I did for a living in my usual soundbite saying, "We try to get more health care to more people for cheaper". The father sighed and said, "You're a liberal then. You know, if it's a hot day and all the kids are playing outside, is it the government's responsibility to give all the kids popsicles?" The only thing I could think to say was, "Health care isn't popsicles." And it isn't.
Chris shouldn't have died. He shouldn't have been hastily discharged from the hospital after such a history of seizures, and he wouldn't have been if he was insured. He should have been able to afford a doctor's visit and any referrals to specialists, if they were needed. At an average of $3300 an ER visit, it is a fallacy to think that getting help up front would cost more in any long-run sense. It is also morally unforgivable that we allow the people who fit us for a pair of shoes, make us sandwiches, or sell us a bike to live at their own risk. Any argument against this is draws from an essentially selfish ethos. The uninsured isn't some abstract problem, it lives and dies among us all. Our health care system shouldn't be predicated on some lecture on personal responsibility; these are our friends we're talking about, our brothers and sisters. It's just plain cheaper and it saves lives to cover every last person out there. This isn't about popsicles. This isn't some developing country, this is America. Let's find a way. We can and should prevent these needless deaths.
My wife-to-be moved back east and Chris stayed in Portland while Kirsten moved down to San Francisco to pursue a degree in graphic art. Between getting married and spending less time out west, I hadn't heard much about either of them as the years passed. It was a shock to hear that he passed away in his sleep in mid-September. When someone dies suddenly at age 29, the first thoughts are drugs or suicide. But Chris was the victim of something else-- the maddening, confusing and expensive reality that young people working by the hour so often face when confronted with a health problem. Chris died because he was part of the working uninsured.
From snippets of phone conversations that my wife had with her friends out in San Francisco, I learned that Chris had gone through a bad patch of depression; so bad that he sought help out of pocket instead of just trying to tough it out. He was prescribed medication, but it wasn't long before he began having seizures. Chris stopped taking the pills, but the seizures continued. His girlfriend had to take him to the emergency room at least three times over a period of a few months. One morning he had another bad seizure that landed him in the ER again, but he was discharged a few hours later, and went home to take it easy. His girlfriend called the next morning, but there was no answer. Chris had another episode that night and suffocated alone in his bed.
As I get older I can look back at the photos we have from that time and I see now that I have two categories of friends-- the salaried and the waged. One has comprehensive health benefits, goes to have check-ups, and if there is an emergency, gets admitted into the hospital for a full work-up. The other category sweats through a case of the flu, avoids getting stitches if possible, and doesn't try to think about what would happen if they got in a car accident, or if they really got sick. They are betting that their youth will get them through the years where they don't have benefits. Given the same situation that Chris found himself, one category goes to get a CT scan and finds out what's wrong, and the other bounces in and out of the emergency room until one day it's too late. It was certainly a wake-up call for me-- a fundamental divide across the very people I know and care for.
On a road trip a few years ago, I was chatting with a father and son from Oklahoma over a few beers at a casino in Reno. I told them what I did for a living in my usual soundbite saying, "We try to get more health care to more people for cheaper". The father sighed and said, "You're a liberal then. You know, if it's a hot day and all the kids are playing outside, is it the government's responsibility to give all the kids popsicles?" The only thing I could think to say was, "Health care isn't popsicles." And it isn't.
Chris shouldn't have died. He shouldn't have been hastily discharged from the hospital after such a history of seizures, and he wouldn't have been if he was insured. He should have been able to afford a doctor's visit and any referrals to specialists, if they were needed. At an average of $3300 an ER visit, it is a fallacy to think that getting help up front would cost more in any long-run sense. It is also morally unforgivable that we allow the people who fit us for a pair of shoes, make us sandwiches, or sell us a bike to live at their own risk. Any argument against this is draws from an essentially selfish ethos. The uninsured isn't some abstract problem, it lives and dies among us all. Our health care system shouldn't be predicated on some lecture on personal responsibility; these are our friends we're talking about, our brothers and sisters. It's just plain cheaper and it saves lives to cover every last person out there. This isn't about popsicles. This isn't some developing country, this is America. Let's find a way. We can and should prevent these needless deaths.
Monday, November 20, 2006
A Few Thoughts on the Election, &cetera
A few years ago I was at a happy hour with a few coworkers in DC. One girl brought along her boyfriend who came from his job across town at the Justice Department. I asked him what he did over there, and it turned out he was working in John Ashcroft's office as some kind of legal underling.
Here was a guest from a parallel universe, drinking Miller Light right across the table from me. I wanted to learn more about the kind of people who would willingly show up every day to such a work situation, so I drilled him with questions. The basic gist of those questions was: "what's it like to work for John Ashcroft?" his boiled down answer was, "it's really something to work for someone who has such principles, who sticks to his convictions."
Being really open minded at the time, I mulled this over. There was something to say for a person who has principles. Reasonably, I may not agree with someone else, but having a belief system that consistently guides their actions is intriguing. There is something that could be learned from this.
A few weeks later I was having lunch with my dad. I retold the story to him, remarking on how this whole idea of sticking to principles had gotten me thinking. My dad's characteristically terse answer was,
"yeah, well his principles suck."
In the weeks and months that followed, my thinking underwent a 180 degree paradigm shift. I was trying to make an internal peace with my political enemies through some kind of sportsmanlike respect. This was the mindset of a loser. Such thinking was a distraction from the real moral reasons of why we choose sides in society.
John Ashcroft principles did suck and probably still do.
I'll go further. Conservatism sucks. After these elections, there is much talk about how if only the Republicans had stayed truly conservative, they would have retained the permanent majority they'd planned out. Well, the permanent majority sucks. Who wants that? It sounds like a phrase Mao would use, or the power players in Mexico's PRI... Hell, the Duma and Politburo back in the USSR were run by "permanent majorities." Weren't we fighting against that not long ago?
But I digress. Conservatism sucks because they have galvanized themselves with economic principles that sound good on paper, but are really about stacking the rules in favor of the exorbitantly wealthy. It sucks because they draw from a form of religious fundamentalism that believes (though quietly) that anyone who is not exactly like them is going to burn in hell. It sucks because it offers peace and justification to the mindset of the selfish. It sucks because of the archaic and disproven approaches it offers for social policy in every arena from law enforcement to labor. It sucks because of the mean-spirited, arrogant and self-centered thinking at the center of all of the complex beliefs of the theoretical conservative society.
And history proves that conservatism sucks. In any long term sense, conservatives always lose. Think of the great conservative causes of old. Jim Crow laws, ownership and voting rights exclusively for white men, civic marraige, and really any threat that industry and progress posed on their genteel, isolated lives. With enough hindsight, conservatives will always be looked back on as the barbaric old-timers who wish for the days when they could lord over others with impunity, when high morality and poverty conspired to make everything stay the same for generations, where technological and social advancement could proceed at a snail's pace for fear of retribution or a lack of protection against failure. Even today, its diehards are almost all the same old white men they have always been. They don't care about you. Look at places where conservatives dominate, like Afghanistan, Iran, or Mississippi.
The Republicans lost because they were too conservative. It was nothing else. People don't want what they were trying to offer, and were sick of the rabid push-button moralizing employed to distract them from this basic truth. Politicians drifted away from their original mission set out by Newt Gingrich and others precisely because, one by one, their ideas were simply not politically feasible. Those ideas were not politically feasible because people didn't want them, because they mistakened a set of principles for a set of policy solutions. People want a balanced budget more than tax cuts. People believe there is value to the services that government provides, and that their elected officials' mission should be to enhance and expand that value, not to dismantle these cornerstones of civilization for the sake of some preindustrial beliefs from the nobility about freedom. People want rational approaches to our social problems, not kitchen table psychology or bully demagoguery.
Here are some examples: Health care an issue? People just need to pay more out of pocket and the market will sort it out. Crime? Just hire Marriott to build more prisons and tighten up on law enforcement. Poverty? Let them eat cake. Jobs? Market. Education? Market, oh, and more standardized tests. Terrorism? Kill 'em all, forget the constitution.
They were wrong. It's time to govern and get on with things. Forget American conservatism as we've known it. It's an allergic reaction to change, not change itself.
Burrrp. That feels better.
Anyone got an Alka Seltzer?
Here was a guest from a parallel universe, drinking Miller Light right across the table from me. I wanted to learn more about the kind of people who would willingly show up every day to such a work situation, so I drilled him with questions. The basic gist of those questions was: "what's it like to work for John Ashcroft?" his boiled down answer was, "it's really something to work for someone who has such principles, who sticks to his convictions."
Being really open minded at the time, I mulled this over. There was something to say for a person who has principles. Reasonably, I may not agree with someone else, but having a belief system that consistently guides their actions is intriguing. There is something that could be learned from this.
A few weeks later I was having lunch with my dad. I retold the story to him, remarking on how this whole idea of sticking to principles had gotten me thinking. My dad's characteristically terse answer was,
"yeah, well his principles suck."
In the weeks and months that followed, my thinking underwent a 180 degree paradigm shift. I was trying to make an internal peace with my political enemies through some kind of sportsmanlike respect. This was the mindset of a loser. Such thinking was a distraction from the real moral reasons of why we choose sides in society.
John Ashcroft principles did suck and probably still do.
I'll go further. Conservatism sucks. After these elections, there is much talk about how if only the Republicans had stayed truly conservative, they would have retained the permanent majority they'd planned out. Well, the permanent majority sucks. Who wants that? It sounds like a phrase Mao would use, or the power players in Mexico's PRI... Hell, the Duma and Politburo back in the USSR were run by "permanent majorities." Weren't we fighting against that not long ago?
But I digress. Conservatism sucks because they have galvanized themselves with economic principles that sound good on paper, but are really about stacking the rules in favor of the exorbitantly wealthy. It sucks because they draw from a form of religious fundamentalism that believes (though quietly) that anyone who is not exactly like them is going to burn in hell. It sucks because it offers peace and justification to the mindset of the selfish. It sucks because of the archaic and disproven approaches it offers for social policy in every arena from law enforcement to labor. It sucks because of the mean-spirited, arrogant and self-centered thinking at the center of all of the complex beliefs of the theoretical conservative society.
And history proves that conservatism sucks. In any long term sense, conservatives always lose. Think of the great conservative causes of old. Jim Crow laws, ownership and voting rights exclusively for white men, civic marraige, and really any threat that industry and progress posed on their genteel, isolated lives. With enough hindsight, conservatives will always be looked back on as the barbaric old-timers who wish for the days when they could lord over others with impunity, when high morality and poverty conspired to make everything stay the same for generations, where technological and social advancement could proceed at a snail's pace for fear of retribution or a lack of protection against failure. Even today, its diehards are almost all the same old white men they have always been. They don't care about you. Look at places where conservatives dominate, like Afghanistan, Iran, or Mississippi.
The Republicans lost because they were too conservative. It was nothing else. People don't want what they were trying to offer, and were sick of the rabid push-button moralizing employed to distract them from this basic truth. Politicians drifted away from their original mission set out by Newt Gingrich and others precisely because, one by one, their ideas were simply not politically feasible. Those ideas were not politically feasible because people didn't want them, because they mistakened a set of principles for a set of policy solutions. People want a balanced budget more than tax cuts. People believe there is value to the services that government provides, and that their elected officials' mission should be to enhance and expand that value, not to dismantle these cornerstones of civilization for the sake of some preindustrial beliefs from the nobility about freedom. People want rational approaches to our social problems, not kitchen table psychology or bully demagoguery.
Here are some examples: Health care an issue? People just need to pay more out of pocket and the market will sort it out. Crime? Just hire Marriott to build more prisons and tighten up on law enforcement. Poverty? Let them eat cake. Jobs? Market. Education? Market, oh, and more standardized tests. Terrorism? Kill 'em all, forget the constitution.
They were wrong. It's time to govern and get on with things. Forget American conservatism as we've known it. It's an allergic reaction to change, not change itself.
Burrrp. That feels better.
Anyone got an Alka Seltzer?
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
My Love-Hate Relationship with Emory
As a guilty pleasure I've always been a sucker for things like News of the Weird and university police blotters. When no one's looking, I'll set aside the mourning for our nation's social problems and salivate over a good episode of COPS on CourtTV. Having a look at someone else's problems is entertaining, even a bit therapeutic.
Occasionally, the problems of a community can take a strange turn, like the arrest of an affluent housewife on prostitution charges, or a car full of Eagle Scouts busted for trying to score a sackful of something bad at one of the drive-by drug stores scattered across America's ghettos. University blotters routinely run stories of the kid who got hypothermia while running across campus naked on acid, or the dormroom that was searched because of bad smells wafting out, only to discover a menagerie of miserable iguanas, boas, hamsters and guinea pigs.
For a conoisseur of this sort of information, these edgy tidbits are entirely absent from the Emory University student paper, the Wheel. Unlike their unoriginal and uninspired (though well-written) columns on world events, or the vapid (though descriptive) articles on the hardships of "hooking up" on campus, this is not the editor's fault. The ugly truth is that there is no edge at this school. The Emory police blotter has the usual thefts of expensive laptops, the weekly occurance of some 19 year old kid who gets woken up by campus cops passed out on a picnic bench, or the guy who got a ticket for driving in an area off-limits to private vehicles, and that's it.
For me, the impact of this problem is negligible. I am a graduate student, safely isolated most of the time on the far end of campus, surrounded by a cohort of like-minded (though diverse) public health students. But I love the Emory School of Public Health, and am thankful for the opportunities that the university as a whole has granted me. I believe that a lot of new, positive energy to our nation's university research and theoretical base can come from its expansion, but I am afraid they're missing something crucial: interesting kids.
Here is an actual entry from the Emory blotter:
A 19-year-old female student reported property damage on Oct. 19 at 11:30 a.m. She was attending an event at the corner of Asbury Rd. and Dickie Dr. An Emory First Responder unit was parked on the street, and when it drove away it rolled over a $1,700 Burberry bag. Inside the bag was a $60 Chanel eyeglass case and a $2 Arizona iced tea. Damage to the bag included black tire marks. The student incurred a small injury trying to remove the broken iced tea bottle from the bag.
Emory is a school with at three towering cranes on its horizon, a series of five- ten- and twenty-year plans, and one of the biggest endowments out there. Its schools of medicine and the sciences, business and law are all at the top of their game. The undergraduate program offers a number of exciting opportunities and tracks beyond the standard liberal arts model, such as pre-nursing, public health, pre-law, and an undergraduate business school. The facilities are world-class; walking across campus for the first time, I was amazed at the overall beauty of the place. Emory recently recruited Salman Rushdie to a 5-year appointment, and is going through the motions of transforming itself from a very good school to a top-ten Harvard-Princeton-Yale institution. But I think there's something they're missing in all of this.
Go to Harvard, Columbia or Cornell, and you'll see students who look like they have something to say, something to contribute. You'll see kids with some identity beyond the AP classes they took, their golf game, or the soccer team the made. You'll see kids in black-rimmed glasses, kids who look like they're in a rock band, or like they have some identity beyond cold preppy superiority, or the desperately polished dancing bear act many performed to get into a good college, and through imprinting, cannot stop now to save their life.
Go to one of the Ivys and you'll see big scarry lesbians, militant African American kids with dreads and dark sunglasses, waify artists, mad scientists and tortured intellectuals. These categories are almostly entirely missing at Emory. Even though kids from all of these schools come from the same background (myself included, though there wasn't a snowball's chance in Georgia of them taking me out of high school)-- the overeducated and extremely affluent, it seems like Emory made the play only for the ones who wear baseball caps and polo shirts (male of female).
Emory undergrads care more about money and are more likely to flaunt it than their peers. Regardless of whether the average Emory parent can afford it over the average Cornell parent, their kids are more likely to be given the keys to a new BMW SUV with Connecticut tags, and to slam the door with confidence as they pull up to their dorm, strutting in new designer jeans. These kids need to be exposed to others, to be called out on their boring tastes, or else they'll grow up to be as shallow and conformist as their clothes and cars profess. Emory needs some edginess before it will ever generate anything remotely close to the intellectual energy of its older, more distinguished competitors.
As part of their ambitious planning process, Emory's administration needs to think a little less about money and a little more about culture, or they'll never break the top ten.
Occasionally, the problems of a community can take a strange turn, like the arrest of an affluent housewife on prostitution charges, or a car full of Eagle Scouts busted for trying to score a sackful of something bad at one of the drive-by drug stores scattered across America's ghettos. University blotters routinely run stories of the kid who got hypothermia while running across campus naked on acid, or the dormroom that was searched because of bad smells wafting out, only to discover a menagerie of miserable iguanas, boas, hamsters and guinea pigs.
For a conoisseur of this sort of information, these edgy tidbits are entirely absent from the Emory University student paper, the Wheel. Unlike their unoriginal and uninspired (though well-written) columns on world events, or the vapid (though descriptive) articles on the hardships of "hooking up" on campus, this is not the editor's fault. The ugly truth is that there is no edge at this school. The Emory police blotter has the usual thefts of expensive laptops, the weekly occurance of some 19 year old kid who gets woken up by campus cops passed out on a picnic bench, or the guy who got a ticket for driving in an area off-limits to private vehicles, and that's it.
For me, the impact of this problem is negligible. I am a graduate student, safely isolated most of the time on the far end of campus, surrounded by a cohort of like-minded (though diverse) public health students. But I love the Emory School of Public Health, and am thankful for the opportunities that the university as a whole has granted me. I believe that a lot of new, positive energy to our nation's university research and theoretical base can come from its expansion, but I am afraid they're missing something crucial: interesting kids.
Here is an actual entry from the Emory blotter:
A 19-year-old female student reported property damage on Oct. 19 at 11:30 a.m. She was attending an event at the corner of Asbury Rd. and Dickie Dr. An Emory First Responder unit was parked on the street, and when it drove away it rolled over a $1,700 Burberry bag. Inside the bag was a $60 Chanel eyeglass case and a $2 Arizona iced tea. Damage to the bag included black tire marks. The student incurred a small injury trying to remove the broken iced tea bottle from the bag.
Emory is a school with at three towering cranes on its horizon, a series of five- ten- and twenty-year plans, and one of the biggest endowments out there. Its schools of medicine and the sciences, business and law are all at the top of their game. The undergraduate program offers a number of exciting opportunities and tracks beyond the standard liberal arts model, such as pre-nursing, public health, pre-law, and an undergraduate business school. The facilities are world-class; walking across campus for the first time, I was amazed at the overall beauty of the place. Emory recently recruited Salman Rushdie to a 5-year appointment, and is going through the motions of transforming itself from a very good school to a top-ten Harvard-Princeton-Yale institution. But I think there's something they're missing in all of this.
Go to Harvard, Columbia or Cornell, and you'll see students who look like they have something to say, something to contribute. You'll see kids with some identity beyond the AP classes they took, their golf game, or the soccer team the made. You'll see kids in black-rimmed glasses, kids who look like they're in a rock band, or like they have some identity beyond cold preppy superiority, or the desperately polished dancing bear act many performed to get into a good college, and through imprinting, cannot stop now to save their life.
Go to one of the Ivys and you'll see big scarry lesbians, militant African American kids with dreads and dark sunglasses, waify artists, mad scientists and tortured intellectuals. These categories are almostly entirely missing at Emory. Even though kids from all of these schools come from the same background (myself included, though there wasn't a snowball's chance in Georgia of them taking me out of high school)-- the overeducated and extremely affluent, it seems like Emory made the play only for the ones who wear baseball caps and polo shirts (male of female).
Emory undergrads care more about money and are more likely to flaunt it than their peers. Regardless of whether the average Emory parent can afford it over the average Cornell parent, their kids are more likely to be given the keys to a new BMW SUV with Connecticut tags, and to slam the door with confidence as they pull up to their dorm, strutting in new designer jeans. These kids need to be exposed to others, to be called out on their boring tastes, or else they'll grow up to be as shallow and conformist as their clothes and cars profess. Emory needs some edginess before it will ever generate anything remotely close to the intellectual energy of its older, more distinguished competitors.
As part of their ambitious planning process, Emory's administration needs to think a little less about money and a little more about culture, or they'll never break the top ten.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Political Economy: Why We Need Labor
Warning: this blog entry contains graphic marxist terminology and occasional analysis. It may be unsuitable for some readers. (I am not a commie)
As elections are just around the corner, the Big Two parties have honed their messages to razor-thin quality, targeting individual voters through mailings, internet blitzkriegs, carefully scriped tv ads, phone calls, door-to-door visits, and even the occasional baby-kissing publicity moment. Candidates know their constituents as a well-defined dataset-- people have become datapoints on a marketing presentation.
We have become inputs. A candidate needs a certain number of inputs to show up at a certain time and approve of them through a formal process we call voting. This is the purpose of these organizations we call political parties, campaigns, and third-party groups who are endowed with certain rights of persuasion depending on their tax status.
Like so many things these days, at the end of a long process of organizing people and resources to produce something (e.g., oil, the George Allen vote, Charmin toilet paper), the ultimate wildcard is whether people show up to buy. Anyone who produces anything can do a million and one things to control their supply, and to let people know about it. In a direct sense, they can do nothing to control demand, save telling people the right way about what they have to offer, and why it is necessary to their lives. The most successful products are the ones that people believe are irrreplaceable. The 2004 Republican efforts to convince voters that they were the only answer to terrorism is a prime example.
But when we go home to our families, for a few fleeting hours each night, a few days a week, we are people, not consumers, not labor inputs for production. As voters, we have a duty to rise above this nonsense and vote on those terms, and not on the terms of the owners and their salesmen.
It is unfair to pick on the Republicans, though it is wickedly easy. Democrats are no less guilty of the shameless sales pitch. My fear is that these campaign promises could actually lead to bad, and damaging policies. Let's look at the minimum wage.
First of all, the ethos behind what I am writing is that of the worker, not of the owner. I want to see people better paid, with the benefits they deserve, and the overall quality of life that the richest nation in the world could afford, if we put our minds to it. This is the liberal world view-- everyone deserves a decent life. Here's why the minimum wage is merely a pittance. Democrats need to go further than throwing this bone, or we need to demand more.
1. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2004, "520,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15, the prevailing Federal minimum wage, and another 1.5 million were reported earning wages below the minimum. Together, these 2.0 million workers with wages at or below the minimum made up 2.7 percent of all hourly-paid workers. " A minimum wage increase up to, say, $7.50 an hour would do nothing for the masses of people earning 8-10 dollars an hour who still don't have enough money to get by.
2. The minimum wage may cause inflation, especially if it's tied to the index of inflation. Put simply, as people have more money, it's worth less. This effect may be minimal, especially when considering the overall money in the economy, the massive floods of investment when interest rates drop accounts for orders of magnetude more money than the lowest bounds of labor payments. Nevertheless, if people start showing up at the grocery store with more dollars in their pockets, prices will go up. It's inevitable and unfortunate, especially for people at the bottom who are much more sensitive to a 1 percent price increase than people who have savings and investments.
3. The immigration debate may be about a lot of things-- cultural issues, language issues, but most fundamentally and least discussed it its impact on labor. Evidence shows that increases in immigrants has some effect on wages at the bottom, but the overall benefits to the economy outweigh this effect on a macro scale. OK, fine. But Republican reluctance to move on their constituent's gut insticts to purge our town and defend our borders is simply about the demand for cheap labor. Until we regulate employment through some sort of "right to work" ID, we'll never have control on the wages that people are paid, nor will we prevent illegal immigrants from seeking the supply of gray-market cash waiting for them in every city and town in this country. We need to put the pressure on employers to hire legally. If they all have to, then this eliminates the "well the other guy's doing it so I have to " argument, and may lead to our being able to allocate resources more fairly at the bottom.
4. The evidence does not show that minimum wage increases reduce the number of new hires. There is demand for labor-- and like politics, they can't directly control that demand. Owners need labor, the same way they need oil-fired energy, steel, eggs and flour, and everything else. OPEC ensures that the market isn't really deciding the price per barrel. If it gets more expensive, prices adjust, and we get over it. We change if we need to. Labor is the only thing that we reasonably expect to be allocated on an open, free market, except for people at the bottom of the scale. Everything else has cartels, associations, price guarantees and industry standards that ensure that the owners of that product make a profit. People at the bottom are expected to just get by and show up every day. Let them demand it more.
If the situation is to change, labor needs to organize, just like everything else has. It needs structure, legitimacy, and yes, regulation. There is no product out there without an association backing it up. What about Walmart employees? I'm not talking about unions, but I am talking about collective bargaining. We cannot remain atomized, individual inputs. We are a labor pool, just like an oil field.
Here's an idea: Labor Cartels.
How about going back to guilds-- associations of wage workers. The associations could provide training in basic computer skills, customer service, GED's, even basic math and writing where necessary. It could have strict rules about punctuality at the job sites, drug tests, continuing education, all of which would feed into a pay scale. This would improve America's work force for the owners and everyone else.
They could collectively buy health insurance, so their risks are spread across thousands, instead of a small business or a handful of individuals; like the sickness funds that supply insurance in Germany, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. The associations could also pool workers for unemployment, even worker's comp and liability insurance. This would also take these ever-growing burden off the shoulders of employers.
The associations could negotiate a going rate for their members, who would presumably be better employees, reducing turnover rates, and other major drags on labor costs. They could even organize child care and social services, negotiate with banks for small loans guaranteed on the worker's pay, and high-interest savings accounts or other investments. If it worked well, management might even contribute to their operating costs, even pay the association directly, who would in turn pay the workers.
It could be funded through private initiatives along with government grants, and depending on how ambitious it was with its offerings, might not even be that expensive.
It could be a movement from the bottom up, representing the interests of these muted millions. They could provide a much needed social network, and a series of positive incentives over a series of handouts. Such a group would be far more empowering than a dollar two more an hour. It would give people a ladder up, something to belong to, a chance to receive more than the bare minimum society is willing to offer.
Forget about what politics offers around election day.
People need to demand more.
They just need a way how.
As elections are just around the corner, the Big Two parties have honed their messages to razor-thin quality, targeting individual voters through mailings, internet blitzkriegs, carefully scriped tv ads, phone calls, door-to-door visits, and even the occasional baby-kissing publicity moment. Candidates know their constituents as a well-defined dataset-- people have become datapoints on a marketing presentation.
We have become inputs. A candidate needs a certain number of inputs to show up at a certain time and approve of them through a formal process we call voting. This is the purpose of these organizations we call political parties, campaigns, and third-party groups who are endowed with certain rights of persuasion depending on their tax status.
Like so many things these days, at the end of a long process of organizing people and resources to produce something (e.g., oil, the George Allen vote, Charmin toilet paper), the ultimate wildcard is whether people show up to buy. Anyone who produces anything can do a million and one things to control their supply, and to let people know about it. In a direct sense, they can do nothing to control demand, save telling people the right way about what they have to offer, and why it is necessary to their lives. The most successful products are the ones that people believe are irrreplaceable. The 2004 Republican efforts to convince voters that they were the only answer to terrorism is a prime example.
But when we go home to our families, for a few fleeting hours each night, a few days a week, we are people, not consumers, not labor inputs for production. As voters, we have a duty to rise above this nonsense and vote on those terms, and not on the terms of the owners and their salesmen.
It is unfair to pick on the Republicans, though it is wickedly easy. Democrats are no less guilty of the shameless sales pitch. My fear is that these campaign promises could actually lead to bad, and damaging policies. Let's look at the minimum wage.
First of all, the ethos behind what I am writing is that of the worker, not of the owner. I want to see people better paid, with the benefits they deserve, and the overall quality of life that the richest nation in the world could afford, if we put our minds to it. This is the liberal world view-- everyone deserves a decent life. Here's why the minimum wage is merely a pittance. Democrats need to go further than throwing this bone, or we need to demand more.
1. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2004, "520,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15, the prevailing Federal minimum wage, and another 1.5 million were reported earning wages below the minimum. Together, these 2.0 million workers with wages at or below the minimum made up 2.7 percent of all hourly-paid workers. " A minimum wage increase up to, say, $7.50 an hour would do nothing for the masses of people earning 8-10 dollars an hour who still don't have enough money to get by.
2. The minimum wage may cause inflation, especially if it's tied to the index of inflation. Put simply, as people have more money, it's worth less. This effect may be minimal, especially when considering the overall money in the economy, the massive floods of investment when interest rates drop accounts for orders of magnetude more money than the lowest bounds of labor payments. Nevertheless, if people start showing up at the grocery store with more dollars in their pockets, prices will go up. It's inevitable and unfortunate, especially for people at the bottom who are much more sensitive to a 1 percent price increase than people who have savings and investments.
3. The immigration debate may be about a lot of things-- cultural issues, language issues, but most fundamentally and least discussed it its impact on labor. Evidence shows that increases in immigrants has some effect on wages at the bottom, but the overall benefits to the economy outweigh this effect on a macro scale. OK, fine. But Republican reluctance to move on their constituent's gut insticts to purge our town and defend our borders is simply about the demand for cheap labor. Until we regulate employment through some sort of "right to work" ID, we'll never have control on the wages that people are paid, nor will we prevent illegal immigrants from seeking the supply of gray-market cash waiting for them in every city and town in this country. We need to put the pressure on employers to hire legally. If they all have to, then this eliminates the "well the other guy's doing it so I have to " argument, and may lead to our being able to allocate resources more fairly at the bottom.
4. The evidence does not show that minimum wage increases reduce the number of new hires. There is demand for labor-- and like politics, they can't directly control that demand. Owners need labor, the same way they need oil-fired energy, steel, eggs and flour, and everything else. OPEC ensures that the market isn't really deciding the price per barrel. If it gets more expensive, prices adjust, and we get over it. We change if we need to. Labor is the only thing that we reasonably expect to be allocated on an open, free market, except for people at the bottom of the scale. Everything else has cartels, associations, price guarantees and industry standards that ensure that the owners of that product make a profit. People at the bottom are expected to just get by and show up every day. Let them demand it more.
If the situation is to change, labor needs to organize, just like everything else has. It needs structure, legitimacy, and yes, regulation. There is no product out there without an association backing it up. What about Walmart employees? I'm not talking about unions, but I am talking about collective bargaining. We cannot remain atomized, individual inputs. We are a labor pool, just like an oil field.
Here's an idea: Labor Cartels.
How about going back to guilds-- associations of wage workers. The associations could provide training in basic computer skills, customer service, GED's, even basic math and writing where necessary. It could have strict rules about punctuality at the job sites, drug tests, continuing education, all of which would feed into a pay scale. This would improve America's work force for the owners and everyone else.
They could collectively buy health insurance, so their risks are spread across thousands, instead of a small business or a handful of individuals; like the sickness funds that supply insurance in Germany, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. The associations could also pool workers for unemployment, even worker's comp and liability insurance. This would also take these ever-growing burden off the shoulders of employers.
The associations could negotiate a going rate for their members, who would presumably be better employees, reducing turnover rates, and other major drags on labor costs. They could even organize child care and social services, negotiate with banks for small loans guaranteed on the worker's pay, and high-interest savings accounts or other investments. If it worked well, management might even contribute to their operating costs, even pay the association directly, who would in turn pay the workers.
It could be funded through private initiatives along with government grants, and depending on how ambitious it was with its offerings, might not even be that expensive.
It could be a movement from the bottom up, representing the interests of these muted millions. They could provide a much needed social network, and a series of positive incentives over a series of handouts. Such a group would be far more empowering than a dollar two more an hour. It would give people a ladder up, something to belong to, a chance to receive more than the bare minimum society is willing to offer.
Forget about what politics offers around election day.
People need to demand more.
They just need a way how.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Clean my House, Fight my Wars
In today's Washington Post, there's an opinion piece by Max Boot and Michael O'Hanlon entitled, A Military Path to Citizenship. The article argues that we should recruit 50,000 willing foreigners for three years, about 10 percent of our immigration quota, directly into the armed forces for a 4-year tour of duty that would lead to legal status and ultimately American citizenship.
Max Boot is one of the intellectual architects of the neoconservative push into the Pentagon, making the case for an American empire in an article in the Weekly Standard as early as October of 2001. When things started going sour with his vision of a domino effect of democratic, western-leaning nations across the region, he did as any intellectual would do, blame the people who had to make the real plans, as seen here. For Boot, there's never enough military involvement. Killing terrorists is always better than making friends, and wherever possible, contract out the job to mercenaries who are above (or below) the constraints laid out in such meaningless pieces of parchment as the constitution or the Geneva Conventions. If things get worse, it's because someone's messing up the tactics on his brilliant strategy, never because he was wrong. Boot's line of reasoning contains all the elements for the classic setup of tragic folly, but this is a theatre of war.
The notion of actively recruiting immigrants to fight our wars is repulsive to me, but to Boot and O'Hanlon, it is one of the keys to the growth of empire. It's no different than foreign heroes of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, or the janissaries, gladiators and foreign conscripts of history. Maybe there is no historical difference. Maybe the morality of it can be justified; after all, these immigrant soldiers are willing to put their lives in danger for a chance at access to the richness and freedom we enjoy here at home. But look at the history. Empire expansion always leads to total, catestrophic collapse of massive territories that the empire accretes. The Romans were ultimately overrun by the people of the north, many of whom they had elevated to high levels in their own militaries, many were even citizens of Rome. The Ottoman collapse had little to do with their conscription of janisaries largely from southeastern Europe, but it could be argued that their expansion and collapse was an early precursor to the problems we now face in the Middle East.
America should not be an empire. It should be a Godfather. Imagine the influence we could weild with just 1 percent of the current defense budget if we directed it towards foreign aid, develpment, health and education programs. There's a saying in Washington, "a billion dollars here, a billion there... pretty soon you're talking about real money." Our total budget for national defense for fiscal year 2006 is $447,398,000,000. Our budget for all forms of non-military foreign aid in 2004 was roughly $27,000,000,000. That's a ratio of about 16 military dollars to every 1 dollar of money for development. And these guys want more and more. What's one percent of that 447 billion dollars add up to? Not a whole lot. What do we spend on aid as a percentage of our GDP? About 2/10ths of a percent.
Consider what a million dollars (one one thousandth of a billion dollars) could do to improve water and sanitation, bring electricity, to pay teachers. One million dollars a year could give full scholarships to Harvard for roughly 25 promising foreigners. What if we granted them citizenship? People will not be content to live under a military empire. They would love to live under a benevolent king who asks little in return except not to blow oneself up. Hamas and other Islamic militant groups already provide these services, except for the catch of sacrificing oneself for the infidel. Do we honestly think people would choose to fight our infidels over theirs? Maybe, but consider the moral dimension. We'd lose whatever high ground we've managed to retain.
Did it ever occur to Max Boot that people choose to blow themselves up when there aren't many other options? Blowing up their friends, families, neighborhoods and nations will certainly do much to further limit those options. Does he think that these individuals would (or should) choose to fight on our side? I fail to see how increasing our military presence worldwide will somehow make their lives better, somehow make those bored, angry adolescents less likely to choose Al Qaeda over Algebra. Both are local inventions after all.
Let's return to the idea of recruiting foreigners to do our bidding in our foreign conquests. How can it be a better idea to kill people than to offer them assistance? Aside from foreign conquest being an inferior product (pound for pound, dollar for dollar) than foreign aid and support, imagine the cold calculating mind of someone who thinks empire can just be bought from the lowest bidder. Is this someone with a positive vision of where the world could be in 50 years, or is this the mindset of someone who's already got the bomb shelter dug in his back yard?
Then there are the more basic, gutteral criticisms. Is it right for us to sit in our living rooms and have the sacrifices of someone else's children be displayed on TV? Can we be real judges of what is a just war if we make no sacrifices of our own, if we defer the costs of war to Chinese loans, and the maiming and murder of strangers? I think not.
If we're going to expand the military, involve ourselves further in the conquest of others, then it should be our boys and girls who serve. It should be our elected officials who muster up the courage to reinstitute the draft, scarry as that may be, and it should be their children on the front lines along with everyone else's. War is not free.
Max Boot is one of the intellectual architects of the neoconservative push into the Pentagon, making the case for an American empire in an article in the Weekly Standard as early as October of 2001. When things started going sour with his vision of a domino effect of democratic, western-leaning nations across the region, he did as any intellectual would do, blame the people who had to make the real plans, as seen here. For Boot, there's never enough military involvement. Killing terrorists is always better than making friends, and wherever possible, contract out the job to mercenaries who are above (or below) the constraints laid out in such meaningless pieces of parchment as the constitution or the Geneva Conventions. If things get worse, it's because someone's messing up the tactics on his brilliant strategy, never because he was wrong. Boot's line of reasoning contains all the elements for the classic setup of tragic folly, but this is a theatre of war.
The notion of actively recruiting immigrants to fight our wars is repulsive to me, but to Boot and O'Hanlon, it is one of the keys to the growth of empire. It's no different than foreign heroes of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, or the janissaries, gladiators and foreign conscripts of history. Maybe there is no historical difference. Maybe the morality of it can be justified; after all, these immigrant soldiers are willing to put their lives in danger for a chance at access to the richness and freedom we enjoy here at home. But look at the history. Empire expansion always leads to total, catestrophic collapse of massive territories that the empire accretes. The Romans were ultimately overrun by the people of the north, many of whom they had elevated to high levels in their own militaries, many were even citizens of Rome. The Ottoman collapse had little to do with their conscription of janisaries largely from southeastern Europe, but it could be argued that their expansion and collapse was an early precursor to the problems we now face in the Middle East.
America should not be an empire. It should be a Godfather. Imagine the influence we could weild with just 1 percent of the current defense budget if we directed it towards foreign aid, develpment, health and education programs. There's a saying in Washington, "a billion dollars here, a billion there... pretty soon you're talking about real money." Our total budget for national defense for fiscal year 2006 is $447,398,000,000. Our budget for all forms of non-military foreign aid in 2004 was roughly $27,000,000,000. That's a ratio of about 16 military dollars to every 1 dollar of money for development. And these guys want more and more. What's one percent of that 447 billion dollars add up to? Not a whole lot. What do we spend on aid as a percentage of our GDP? About 2/10ths of a percent.
Consider what a million dollars (one one thousandth of a billion dollars) could do to improve water and sanitation, bring electricity, to pay teachers. One million dollars a year could give full scholarships to Harvard for roughly 25 promising foreigners. What if we granted them citizenship? People will not be content to live under a military empire. They would love to live under a benevolent king who asks little in return except not to blow oneself up. Hamas and other Islamic militant groups already provide these services, except for the catch of sacrificing oneself for the infidel. Do we honestly think people would choose to fight our infidels over theirs? Maybe, but consider the moral dimension. We'd lose whatever high ground we've managed to retain.
Did it ever occur to Max Boot that people choose to blow themselves up when there aren't many other options? Blowing up their friends, families, neighborhoods and nations will certainly do much to further limit those options. Does he think that these individuals would (or should) choose to fight on our side? I fail to see how increasing our military presence worldwide will somehow make their lives better, somehow make those bored, angry adolescents less likely to choose Al Qaeda over Algebra. Both are local inventions after all.
Let's return to the idea of recruiting foreigners to do our bidding in our foreign conquests. How can it be a better idea to kill people than to offer them assistance? Aside from foreign conquest being an inferior product (pound for pound, dollar for dollar) than foreign aid and support, imagine the cold calculating mind of someone who thinks empire can just be bought from the lowest bidder. Is this someone with a positive vision of where the world could be in 50 years, or is this the mindset of someone who's already got the bomb shelter dug in his back yard?
Then there are the more basic, gutteral criticisms. Is it right for us to sit in our living rooms and have the sacrifices of someone else's children be displayed on TV? Can we be real judges of what is a just war if we make no sacrifices of our own, if we defer the costs of war to Chinese loans, and the maiming and murder of strangers? I think not.
If we're going to expand the military, involve ourselves further in the conquest of others, then it should be our boys and girls who serve. It should be our elected officials who muster up the courage to reinstitute the draft, scarry as that may be, and it should be their children on the front lines along with everyone else's. War is not free.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Ideology is for Demagogues
Really for as long as I can remember, I've been hearing that Democrats have no real ideas on what to do with the country while Republicans are stacked to the brim with unassailable beliefs on how this country should be governed. Here's my perspective on these beliefs.
Christian conservatives in power have some vision of a mommy, a daddy, two to seven aryan, (non-in-vitro) children, three SUVs in the driveway, and big box stores stretching to the horizon. Politicians who fall into this category take orders from the people who will bring them votes; those people claim to be taking orders from the Almighty Himself. Legislation follows that supports this vision, and where necessary, the visions of others with money, influence, and a total disregard for anything else. They like the Bible (King James, Protestant, please), those weird fuzzy channels that show bible cartoons and preachers, and the persistant radio broadcasts of preachers telling them what to do on a twenty-four hour loop.
Fiscal conservatives in power have a vision of bustling free markets, liberated from the yokes of taxation and regulation. They see business figuring out all of our nation's problems themselves, where social problems are meerly a matter of a lack of market saturation. Make the poor profitable and they can become customers too. If someone can't make it in this country then there is something basically wrong with them... their failure is competition weeding out the inferior products. This is really a vision of anarchy. The mantra of these believers is simple: they are not my problem, and therefore they should not be anyone else's either. They like Ayn Rand a lot, and ignore Hayek and Locke's mentionings of social responsibility in favor of the writings that support their belief in the market as the center of morality.
Libertarian conservatives share a lot of the beliefs of fiscal conservatives, but they rarely seek or achieve power since the center of their beliefs is a lack of involvment in government affairs, and a relative isolation from everyone not adjoining their acreage. They like leather and log cabins, like the idea of being off the grid and killing their own meat. When it comes to cities and other crowded areas, their emotions run from disdain to paranoia to a simple fear. These people are unlikely to have much consideration for others who may require some infrastructure to be productive; those people who have benefitted greatly from investment up front in health, education, sewers and electricity; the same people and resources that propelled our economy orders of magnetude ahead through the industrial revolution through today, and into the future. Libertarians have an 18th century vision of land and self-sufficiency... fine, even noble for an individual, not so good for a society. Personally, they are my most favorite conservative, though I'm glad they have the space to leave others alone, and to be left alone.
So you've heard my opinions of the Big Three Conservative Ideological Buckets (B3CIB). These opinions are a rough conglomeration of conversations I've had, books I've read, and TV I've watched. That's all. You're aware of the near-universal belief that Democrats (and liberals in general) lack any vision or direction. Well I say this is not a bad thing. The problem with the B3CIB that it's always someone is telling everyone else what to think. This is the essence of ideology. Evangelical Christians believe that anyone who hasn't taken Jesus Christ as their savior is going to hell. Fiscal conservatives see the choices out there as freedom or socialism. Libertarians get caught up in lengthy debates on what is the bare minimum role of the state. Ideological demagoguery comes in all flavors. Liberals must be careful to avoid it like the plague. Marx said that anyone who didn't believe they were being exploted in his terms was a victim of "false consciousness". This is equally (if not more) insulting to the power of individual reason. The end mission of all these beliefs is the complete control over all aspects of our lives. What about us? What about what you and I think?
Here's an alternative way of viewing things. Politics can be about our representatives thoroughly researching the top priorities of our nation and the pressing issues of their constituents. Then they can seek out past examples of solutions to those problems, propose some new ideas based on careful thought, and move ahead with legislation that seeks to address the issues that we care about. I thought this was how it was supposed to work. Since when did we need an ideology to guide this process? Political parties used to be about organizing people and resources to get things done. What changed?
Ideologies propose simple solutions to problems.
If only we could overthrow the owners of the means of production.
If only we could legislate according to our narrow beliefs on how God wants us to live.
If only we could just be left alone to fend for ourselves in the wilderness, or in the marketplace.
... then everything would be great. This sounds like a strategy for controlling people, rather than asking what they think. It's trading personal empowerment for a little faith.
It's not at all bad for our representatives in government to be pragmatists, to have a little humility and respect for the diverse beliefs of the people they serve. I won't vote for anyone who's made up their mind before hearing all the facts. I hope Democrats come up with a good legislative agenda. I hope they're big enough not to get mired down in investigations of the Bush adminstration (pick one and stick with it). I hope they show America that they're better than the guys who came before them.
I really hope they win the House and the Senate this November.
We don't need more competing ideologies out there. We need solutions to our problems. That's why we have a government.
Christian conservatives in power have some vision of a mommy, a daddy, two to seven aryan, (non-in-vitro) children, three SUVs in the driveway, and big box stores stretching to the horizon. Politicians who fall into this category take orders from the people who will bring them votes; those people claim to be taking orders from the Almighty Himself. Legislation follows that supports this vision, and where necessary, the visions of others with money, influence, and a total disregard for anything else. They like the Bible (King James, Protestant, please), those weird fuzzy channels that show bible cartoons and preachers, and the persistant radio broadcasts of preachers telling them what to do on a twenty-four hour loop.
Fiscal conservatives in power have a vision of bustling free markets, liberated from the yokes of taxation and regulation. They see business figuring out all of our nation's problems themselves, where social problems are meerly a matter of a lack of market saturation. Make the poor profitable and they can become customers too. If someone can't make it in this country then there is something basically wrong with them... their failure is competition weeding out the inferior products. This is really a vision of anarchy. The mantra of these believers is simple: they are not my problem, and therefore they should not be anyone else's either. They like Ayn Rand a lot, and ignore Hayek and Locke's mentionings of social responsibility in favor of the writings that support their belief in the market as the center of morality.
Libertarian conservatives share a lot of the beliefs of fiscal conservatives, but they rarely seek or achieve power since the center of their beliefs is a lack of involvment in government affairs, and a relative isolation from everyone not adjoining their acreage. They like leather and log cabins, like the idea of being off the grid and killing their own meat. When it comes to cities and other crowded areas, their emotions run from disdain to paranoia to a simple fear. These people are unlikely to have much consideration for others who may require some infrastructure to be productive; those people who have benefitted greatly from investment up front in health, education, sewers and electricity; the same people and resources that propelled our economy orders of magnetude ahead through the industrial revolution through today, and into the future. Libertarians have an 18th century vision of land and self-sufficiency... fine, even noble for an individual, not so good for a society. Personally, they are my most favorite conservative, though I'm glad they have the space to leave others alone, and to be left alone.
So you've heard my opinions of the Big Three Conservative Ideological Buckets (B3CIB). These opinions are a rough conglomeration of conversations I've had, books I've read, and TV I've watched. That's all. You're aware of the near-universal belief that Democrats (and liberals in general) lack any vision or direction. Well I say this is not a bad thing. The problem with the B3CIB that it's always someone is telling everyone else what to think. This is the essence of ideology. Evangelical Christians believe that anyone who hasn't taken Jesus Christ as their savior is going to hell. Fiscal conservatives see the choices out there as freedom or socialism. Libertarians get caught up in lengthy debates on what is the bare minimum role of the state. Ideological demagoguery comes in all flavors. Liberals must be careful to avoid it like the plague. Marx said that anyone who didn't believe they were being exploted in his terms was a victim of "false consciousness". This is equally (if not more) insulting to the power of individual reason. The end mission of all these beliefs is the complete control over all aspects of our lives. What about us? What about what you and I think?
Here's an alternative way of viewing things. Politics can be about our representatives thoroughly researching the top priorities of our nation and the pressing issues of their constituents. Then they can seek out past examples of solutions to those problems, propose some new ideas based on careful thought, and move ahead with legislation that seeks to address the issues that we care about. I thought this was how it was supposed to work. Since when did we need an ideology to guide this process? Political parties used to be about organizing people and resources to get things done. What changed?
Ideologies propose simple solutions to problems.
If only we could overthrow the owners of the means of production.
If only we could legislate according to our narrow beliefs on how God wants us to live.
If only we could just be left alone to fend for ourselves in the wilderness, or in the marketplace.
... then everything would be great. This sounds like a strategy for controlling people, rather than asking what they think. It's trading personal empowerment for a little faith.
It's not at all bad for our representatives in government to be pragmatists, to have a little humility and respect for the diverse beliefs of the people they serve. I won't vote for anyone who's made up their mind before hearing all the facts. I hope Democrats come up with a good legislative agenda. I hope they're big enough not to get mired down in investigations of the Bush adminstration (pick one and stick with it). I hope they show America that they're better than the guys who came before them.
I really hope they win the House and the Senate this November.
We don't need more competing ideologies out there. We need solutions to our problems. That's why we have a government.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Smash TV: Reality Politicking
If there's one thing we've learned in recent years about the American collective unconscious is that people here are not much for fiction. What's more, they can't stand fiction if there are any holes in the plot, or if what's going on seems inplausible. On TV, sitcoms are being replaced by dramas, and what we used to call "game shows" are increasingly being labeled as "reality tv", as if either of these formats aren't extensively controlled by the fat Jewish guys with infinity pools that look out over the Malibu shore, but somehow are never mentioned on E!. Maybe I should eat more and consider California job offers.
The inner workings of reality are so carefully veiled because suspension of disbelief is absolutely essential to their success. No one wants to know about the conference room discussions that determine when there'll be a "challenge", and whether that challenge should subtly take advantage of one team's weaknesses. In some ways, the dramas are more "real" than those shows because the writers are earnestly trying to convey a vivid and genuine world to their audiences. More often than not, the characters of dramas are more compelling than the more shallow struggles we see on reality TV. After all, drama actors want to do more than just be on TV.
Why are politicians still trying to turn out sitcoms? People crave a does of realism from their idols. They root for people who have overcome weaknesses, they respect a little circumspection from people they want to trust with their emotions, or their tax dollars. Everywhere I go, where there is a real match between Rs and Ds, if I turn on the TV, barbs are being traded back and forth with ominous narration, and newsprint on a black background... or some guy is sitting on a shady picnic bench with his wife and identical hound telling me just how much he loves his (state, county, city, precinct, prefecture or oblast), and how hard he fights to send child molesters to Guantanamo bay. What the hell is this?
Why don't they show these guys with real people, in real (though edited) moments at speeches, meetings, or in the grocery store? They could at least make it look real. Is the truth so bad it can't even be airbrushed a little? If people crave reality so much, they'll really go for the "real" leader. The first politician takes the risks to at least look unscriped is guaranteed a 5 point uptick in the polls (+/- 6%). Do these guys do real things? Do they ever have moments of genuine concern or is this just about the money? I know the county commissioners, coroners and sheriffs are real. What about congressmen and governors? One thing is that the bar is higher for politicians than it is for actors or reality TV stars. The dollars in play are in fact ours to begin with. The issues in the balance really matter.
The real successful TV politician will transcend the wet-t-shirt contests and make a closing argument more powerful than Sam Waterston on Law and Order, more heartfelt than any tender moment of love in a time of hardship found on Lost, or 6 Feet Under. They'll then have to go a step forward and be real advocates for the people, real citizens and civic leaders. As they used to say on my favorite gameshow format video game Smash TV...
Good Luck... youulll need it!
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Bring (9/10ths of) 'em Home Now
The old doctor's adage of "first, do no harm" is difficult to apply in warfare. In fact, the express purpose of warfare is to do harm. The purpose of warfare is to kill, maim or otherwise incapacitate the subject into submission. Continuing awkwardly with this metaphor, the doctors of war are at best, oncologists; mastering excisions, chemotherapy (though outlawed), amputations, and in the most extreme cases, radiation therapy. They may be expert at determining the types of cancers ravaging their hosts, but cannot deal with the long-term causes of such ailments, let alone the baroque patterns of causation associated with other, more insideous long-term conditions.
US involvement in Iraq is a good example of the doctor of war applying his scalpels to a chronically ailing patient who ought to be treated through more indirect interventions. Our doctors saw the Saddam regime as a tumorous growth whose vessels and corpuscles directed a nation's energies towards its center, for its own evil ends. They envisioned a textbook procedure, short recovery under close observation and the patient returning to its formerly vivacious self; cooperative to our interests, contributing to the global community once again. If this analogy were to be applied to real people, capable of real litigation, these quacks would be sued for malpractice, banned from medicine, and exiled from their guild.
Iraq, and the broader war that this endeavor is purported to belong to, is the product of chronic illnesses. It's old news that much of the Arab-Turkic-Persian world has been left behind by the enormous progress of the rest of the world. We've observed political and social traditions ranging from the early renaissance era as seen in places like Qatar, Morocco, Jordan, even Palestine and Iran, to late bronze age, as witnessed in Afghanistan, Western Pakistan, Eastern Turkey, and certain parts of the Sahara. This isn't a cancer, it's a way of life. And here's where the metaphor falls apart. Unlike a patient, nation-states have an indefinite life span and an infinite capacity for structural change. They don't really die; they just get more mangled and ornery with each pass of the blade. Unlike most medical situations, the patient has not requested the doctor's services, and may actively oppose the treatment protocols.
Here's how this looks on the ground. In Iraq, the principle of "first, do no harm" was ignored or rationalized away by the principle of "you gotta break some eggs to make an omelet". The doctors of war, in their belief that their medical knowledge surpasses the wisdom of the leity (even their own colleagues) move arrogantly forward, clamping arteries, removing organs, and casually injecting poisons. The patient is getting fed up, the anesthesia is wearing off, and pretty soon, things will get worse.
It seems to me that our fundamental course of treatment should be changed now. We should not police or patrol the streets of Baghdad, or the expanses of Anbar province. For the lives and money in play, we could buy a lot more success out of fortifying our green zone bunkers, sending heavily armored Arabic-speaking spooks out into the slums of Sadr City, or the tents of the deserts, and brokering deals with hard cash. We should stand behind a multinational push towards incremental democratic insititions in Iraq, economic and social development, and the careful cultivation of allies who understand that our interests are not to occupy as we claim, and who owe us big for whatever "local advantages" we grant them. This is not corrupt. This is doing business in a place with thick, sticky social webs.
We have no business standing between the affairs of this or that warlord. They will resolve their disputes better if we get out of the way, and if we stack the chips in favor of the more sensible players. People will continue to die for some time, but I would guess that the rate will remain steady, and over time, will decrease as territory is carved out, and winners and losers are allowed to shake out, all the while with our finger on the scales. Our children have no business placing their bodies in the crossfire of these disputes. This is a complex task for strategic professionals, not some 19th century battlefield hackjob, where weary generals will eventually discuss surrender over tea. The mid east does not function on raw power, as we are accustomed. This is a crazy game of negotiation, connections and unspoken rules, not some redneck romp into the desert. It may be that we are way over our heads no matter what we do, but nine tenths of our troops could come home in months if we decided to think this way. This isn't cut-and-run, this is wise up and play smart.
On the other side of the coin, Iran understands that getting involved militarily in the affairs of one of their neighbors would be a disaster. Iran has millions of Arabic-speaking citizens, and Iraq has millions of Farsi-speaking ones. To think that Iran hasn't passed hundreds of operatives off as Farsi-speaking pilgrims coming to see the holy sites like Qom is ludocrous. Iran is placing money and influence in the hands of the players they are betting on to win. For every family that is killed in a US airstrike, every teenage gunman we have to take down simply because we were there, Iran makes 10 new friends. The same logic applies to Sunni religious and Baathist sympathizers. When faced with cunning mullahs and imams, sheiks and lieutenants, there is nothing noble about doing something patently stupid. We need to start playing more of this game, and much less of this clumsy policing punctuated by inevitable war atrocities committed by our men and women. This is unbelieveably foolish.
The worse it gets, the more likely the doctors of war will push for radiation therapy. We really need a second opinion, stat.
US involvement in Iraq is a good example of the doctor of war applying his scalpels to a chronically ailing patient who ought to be treated through more indirect interventions. Our doctors saw the Saddam regime as a tumorous growth whose vessels and corpuscles directed a nation's energies towards its center, for its own evil ends. They envisioned a textbook procedure, short recovery under close observation and the patient returning to its formerly vivacious self; cooperative to our interests, contributing to the global community once again. If this analogy were to be applied to real people, capable of real litigation, these quacks would be sued for malpractice, banned from medicine, and exiled from their guild.
Iraq, and the broader war that this endeavor is purported to belong to, is the product of chronic illnesses. It's old news that much of the Arab-Turkic-Persian world has been left behind by the enormous progress of the rest of the world. We've observed political and social traditions ranging from the early renaissance era as seen in places like Qatar, Morocco, Jordan, even Palestine and Iran, to late bronze age, as witnessed in Afghanistan, Western Pakistan, Eastern Turkey, and certain parts of the Sahara. This isn't a cancer, it's a way of life. And here's where the metaphor falls apart. Unlike a patient, nation-states have an indefinite life span and an infinite capacity for structural change. They don't really die; they just get more mangled and ornery with each pass of the blade. Unlike most medical situations, the patient has not requested the doctor's services, and may actively oppose the treatment protocols.
Here's how this looks on the ground. In Iraq, the principle of "first, do no harm" was ignored or rationalized away by the principle of "you gotta break some eggs to make an omelet". The doctors of war, in their belief that their medical knowledge surpasses the wisdom of the leity (even their own colleagues) move arrogantly forward, clamping arteries, removing organs, and casually injecting poisons. The patient is getting fed up, the anesthesia is wearing off, and pretty soon, things will get worse.
It seems to me that our fundamental course of treatment should be changed now. We should not police or patrol the streets of Baghdad, or the expanses of Anbar province. For the lives and money in play, we could buy a lot more success out of fortifying our green zone bunkers, sending heavily armored Arabic-speaking spooks out into the slums of Sadr City, or the tents of the deserts, and brokering deals with hard cash. We should stand behind a multinational push towards incremental democratic insititions in Iraq, economic and social development, and the careful cultivation of allies who understand that our interests are not to occupy as we claim, and who owe us big for whatever "local advantages" we grant them. This is not corrupt. This is doing business in a place with thick, sticky social webs.
We have no business standing between the affairs of this or that warlord. They will resolve their disputes better if we get out of the way, and if we stack the chips in favor of the more sensible players. People will continue to die for some time, but I would guess that the rate will remain steady, and over time, will decrease as territory is carved out, and winners and losers are allowed to shake out, all the while with our finger on the scales. Our children have no business placing their bodies in the crossfire of these disputes. This is a complex task for strategic professionals, not some 19th century battlefield hackjob, where weary generals will eventually discuss surrender over tea. The mid east does not function on raw power, as we are accustomed. This is a crazy game of negotiation, connections and unspoken rules, not some redneck romp into the desert. It may be that we are way over our heads no matter what we do, but nine tenths of our troops could come home in months if we decided to think this way. This isn't cut-and-run, this is wise up and play smart.
On the other side of the coin, Iran understands that getting involved militarily in the affairs of one of their neighbors would be a disaster. Iran has millions of Arabic-speaking citizens, and Iraq has millions of Farsi-speaking ones. To think that Iran hasn't passed hundreds of operatives off as Farsi-speaking pilgrims coming to see the holy sites like Qom is ludocrous. Iran is placing money and influence in the hands of the players they are betting on to win. For every family that is killed in a US airstrike, every teenage gunman we have to take down simply because we were there, Iran makes 10 new friends. The same logic applies to Sunni religious and Baathist sympathizers. When faced with cunning mullahs and imams, sheiks and lieutenants, there is nothing noble about doing something patently stupid. We need to start playing more of this game, and much less of this clumsy policing punctuated by inevitable war atrocities committed by our men and women. This is unbelieveably foolish.
The worse it gets, the more likely the doctors of war will push for radiation therapy. We really need a second opinion, stat.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
The War on (Insert Enemy Here)
I've always had a problem with the notion of a "War on Terrorism". It's not necessarily that there isn't an enemy who is hellbent on causing death and mayhem on this country and its allies. It's not that terrorism doesn't pose a clear and present danger to our livlihoods either. It's the more about my willingness to support a war against a tactic, not an ideology, nation, race, class, gender, alien species, or other traditional manifestations of what we go to war against: an enemy.
What do those traditional categories have in common that "terrorism" does not? Classes, races, nations and all the others are all definite nouns who claim definite people as their constituents. When it comes to people, terrorists are, at best "those who terrorize". It is a noun, but it is one borne of action... a close cousin to verbs. On the other hand, you have to "be" a fascist in order to be a fascist. Fascists do things like marching around, policing, obsessing over things like flags and getting hung out to dry on meathooks. In the English language, there is no way to fascist-ize someone. Fascism must be put into action. Terrorism is an action, even in a language where someone who "eats shoots and leaves" could be a cowboy or a panda depending on where you put a comma.
If I were reading this (and not writing it), I'd have already asked "who cares?" and stopped reading a paragraph ago. Here's why it matters.
For almost five years, we've been putting thousands of lives and billions of dollars towards a war on a tactic. When all this first began, I immediately asked, "who are they, and what are their demands?" The answer, "terrorists who are hellbent on our destruction" has never been satisfying. I was hoping rabid vegetarians, anti-globalization people, a militia group led by Ted Nugent, or some country would pipe up and say loud and clear,
"We are X and we want Y or else we'll Z!"
The problem is that terrorists could be anyone, and they could demand anything. Only the act itself is defined, not the who or why. How can you fight a war against the letter Z? We'd better call Sesame Street.
It is my firm belief that much of the confusion surrounding this war pivots around this fact. We have people locked up indefinitely in Guantanamo bay and who knows where else all because they are somehow tied up in the use of a tactic. We've gone into wars in regions that seem to have a preference for such tactics, and have repeatedly killed and maimed anyone who was remotely in the vicinity of individuals who prefer such tactics, claiming any justification with a nice ring (weapons, democracy, stability...) This is the strategic equivalent of killing the patient to cure the disease, all while severely pissing off their family and friends.
If anything, these acts have served to accrete a more solid enemy body from the nebulous cloud of hatred and neglect that is somewhat mysteriously responsible for a few real and repeatable atrocities. Maybe the point in a "war on terrorism" was to create a definite target for our smart bombs and special forces, to induce demand for expensive but relatively painless interventions where cheaper ones requiring some of our own sacrifice were more appropriate.
It is clear now just how opaque this problem really is. Al Qaeda was never an organization that had real, definite members. There is no Al Qaeda uniform, no motto. (Al-Qaeda: the war against the Decide-ah?) At least the Taliban, Hizbullah, Baathists and Wahhabists are political parties or ideologies. Anyone who wants to be a member of Al Qaeda simply fires a gun in the right direction, or blows themselves up in the right crowds. Al Qaeda membership, if there is such a thing, certainly has a high turnover rate.
Republican talking points have recently driven home the concept of Islamic Fascists in hope that this would gel as a more concrete threat to potential voters. The past 5 years have taught us that fomenting a war on a tactic and not something more tangible, can cost much of the ideological coherence that takes decades to assemble. For those who grasp at nouns and adjectives, November looms as a growing portent; threatening the foundations of a towering empire of the fearful and selfish, seemingly impermeable for so long, cloistered in their gated communities.
Where there were once old white men with property, there are now neo-cons, paleo-cons, crunchy-cons and ex-cons. Usually the providence of leftist quibbles over Lenin and Trotsky, ideology has multiplied unbounded in the virgin pastures of the heartland, AM radio and certain cable networks. Housewives today will lecture you about whether we should have abandoned Kissinger's realist foreign policy mindset for the more idealistic model at present.
We have witnessed the frustrating power of a war without a noun, and have fought back with dictionaries-full of objects and subjects. Many have attempted to rally themselves around labels in response to this terrifying lack of an ethos. Are you decisive or a waffler? Do you stand with our president or against him? Will we "cut and run" or stand tough? Many have sought refuge in the protective shadow of a new thesaurus of buzzwords growing ever-thicker at a maddening clip, but these problems of description continue to confound while cities burn.
Curiously, this is absent on the left. A year ago, this lack of nouns was seen as a handicap. Today, it looks like a real asset. It would be wise not to even try. Democrats today are unconstrained by noble stands against tyranny, unhindered by valiant efforts against oppression. As the opposition, they can clearly shout from the backbenches, "put up or shut up". Pundits continue with shouts of "with us or against us" slogans and people are asking more and more, with whom? against whom? The people we're fighting in Iraq seem to change weekly, but are somehow all called "terrorists". The guys offering solutions through a calculated, rational process will win this time. People are exhasuted from shouting.
Despite half a decade of warfare, we are still confronting real, complex, problems without names. We round up 20 jihadists here, stop a bomb there, but our enemies are just plain tough to identify. Getting some traction in this muddy fight requires digging deep and looking for purchase in the minds of people far away, with ideas far different from our own. More and more people agree that there is no clear target as some have proclaimed. This war is not between nations, religions or other traditional labels. It is the product of a social phenomenon unseen in the past.
There are no Hitlers, Churchills or Chamberlains enmeshed in mortal combat, no Antietams, Battles of the Bulge or Cold Wars raging here.
This is something new and different. We need new and different leaders to fight this war.
What do those traditional categories have in common that "terrorism" does not? Classes, races, nations and all the others are all definite nouns who claim definite people as their constituents. When it comes to people, terrorists are, at best "those who terrorize". It is a noun, but it is one borne of action... a close cousin to verbs. On the other hand, you have to "be" a fascist in order to be a fascist. Fascists do things like marching around, policing, obsessing over things like flags and getting hung out to dry on meathooks. In the English language, there is no way to fascist-ize someone. Fascism must be put into action. Terrorism is an action, even in a language where someone who "eats shoots and leaves" could be a cowboy or a panda depending on where you put a comma.
If I were reading this (and not writing it), I'd have already asked "who cares?" and stopped reading a paragraph ago. Here's why it matters.
For almost five years, we've been putting thousands of lives and billions of dollars towards a war on a tactic. When all this first began, I immediately asked, "who are they, and what are their demands?" The answer, "terrorists who are hellbent on our destruction" has never been satisfying. I was hoping rabid vegetarians, anti-globalization people, a militia group led by Ted Nugent, or some country would pipe up and say loud and clear,
"We are X and we want Y or else we'll Z!"
The problem is that terrorists could be anyone, and they could demand anything. Only the act itself is defined, not the who or why. How can you fight a war against the letter Z? We'd better call Sesame Street.
It is my firm belief that much of the confusion surrounding this war pivots around this fact. We have people locked up indefinitely in Guantanamo bay and who knows where else all because they are somehow tied up in the use of a tactic. We've gone into wars in regions that seem to have a preference for such tactics, and have repeatedly killed and maimed anyone who was remotely in the vicinity of individuals who prefer such tactics, claiming any justification with a nice ring (weapons, democracy, stability...) This is the strategic equivalent of killing the patient to cure the disease, all while severely pissing off their family and friends.
If anything, these acts have served to accrete a more solid enemy body from the nebulous cloud of hatred and neglect that is somewhat mysteriously responsible for a few real and repeatable atrocities. Maybe the point in a "war on terrorism" was to create a definite target for our smart bombs and special forces, to induce demand for expensive but relatively painless interventions where cheaper ones requiring some of our own sacrifice were more appropriate.
It is clear now just how opaque this problem really is. Al Qaeda was never an organization that had real, definite members. There is no Al Qaeda uniform, no motto. (Al-Qaeda: the war against the Decide-ah?) At least the Taliban, Hizbullah, Baathists and Wahhabists are political parties or ideologies. Anyone who wants to be a member of Al Qaeda simply fires a gun in the right direction, or blows themselves up in the right crowds. Al Qaeda membership, if there is such a thing, certainly has a high turnover rate.
Republican talking points have recently driven home the concept of Islamic Fascists in hope that this would gel as a more concrete threat to potential voters. The past 5 years have taught us that fomenting a war on a tactic and not something more tangible, can cost much of the ideological coherence that takes decades to assemble. For those who grasp at nouns and adjectives, November looms as a growing portent; threatening the foundations of a towering empire of the fearful and selfish, seemingly impermeable for so long, cloistered in their gated communities.
Where there were once old white men with property, there are now neo-cons, paleo-cons, crunchy-cons and ex-cons. Usually the providence of leftist quibbles over Lenin and Trotsky, ideology has multiplied unbounded in the virgin pastures of the heartland, AM radio and certain cable networks. Housewives today will lecture you about whether we should have abandoned Kissinger's realist foreign policy mindset for the more idealistic model at present.
We have witnessed the frustrating power of a war without a noun, and have fought back with dictionaries-full of objects and subjects. Many have attempted to rally themselves around labels in response to this terrifying lack of an ethos. Are you decisive or a waffler? Do you stand with our president or against him? Will we "cut and run" or stand tough? Many have sought refuge in the protective shadow of a new thesaurus of buzzwords growing ever-thicker at a maddening clip, but these problems of description continue to confound while cities burn.
Curiously, this is absent on the left. A year ago, this lack of nouns was seen as a handicap. Today, it looks like a real asset. It would be wise not to even try. Democrats today are unconstrained by noble stands against tyranny, unhindered by valiant efforts against oppression. As the opposition, they can clearly shout from the backbenches, "put up or shut up". Pundits continue with shouts of "with us or against us" slogans and people are asking more and more, with whom? against whom? The people we're fighting in Iraq seem to change weekly, but are somehow all called "terrorists". The guys offering solutions through a calculated, rational process will win this time. People are exhasuted from shouting.
Despite half a decade of warfare, we are still confronting real, complex, problems without names. We round up 20 jihadists here, stop a bomb there, but our enemies are just plain tough to identify. Getting some traction in this muddy fight requires digging deep and looking for purchase in the minds of people far away, with ideas far different from our own. More and more people agree that there is no clear target as some have proclaimed. This war is not between nations, religions or other traditional labels. It is the product of a social phenomenon unseen in the past.
There are no Hitlers, Churchills or Chamberlains enmeshed in mortal combat, no Antietams, Battles of the Bulge or Cold Wars raging here.
This is something new and different. We need new and different leaders to fight this war.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
She doesn't need your defense
Like a lot of bloggers, I have a habit of skimming about 5 newspaper headlines, 10 magazines, and a score of op-eds before actually getting anything done at work. And here I am now, typing away at my own stab at witty commentary as the clock on the corner of my screen edges towards 11:40 am.
Never mind that. I look at the New Republic website just about every day, and just about every day I am disappointed by the milquetoast, self-effacing nattering about what's wrong with Democrats, why Republicans have their act together, and why, when it comes to our chances in the upcoming elections (or any forseeable one anywhere) we should be as expectant of disappointment as the average French existentialist writer would have been in Gaullist Paris circa 1967. And these weenies write this as the president has become so desperate for friends that, instead of the usual solitary brush cutting and mountain biking accidents, he's actually reading Camus on his 5th vacation this year to his Crawford ranch. You want French Fries with that, Mr. Pres?
This stuff is so good, you can't even make it up. Yet, the New Republic, in its ever-earnest attempt at fairminded consideration of all the facts, points-of-view and utterly safe contrarian opinions has gone just a little too far this time. It's proven to be the ultimate existentialist publication-- lacking in any ideological heading on the compass, deferring any emotional grounding in a point of view for some greater meaning of being; to be both nothing and everything.
Hey TNR people: in politics, unlike certain literary interpretations of the meaning of life, this everything-and-nothing strategy is just plain nothing.
In a magazine representing a center-leftist point of view, I find an article titled, "A defense of Ann Coulter" where the author relates her own experience working on an assembly line in some "deep red" state. In bonding with the endearing yet provincial conservatives, she comes to some realization about the emotional necessity of someone who, though she rails rabidly and distastefully against her own points of view without mercy, is in fact filling an understandable and necessary role. My interpretation: The author makes the case that someone who spends her time defending Joe McCarthy when she isn't being crass is somehow performing a public service.
Well pardon my French, but what kind of merde de toro is this?
How can a magazine that claims to have a political point of view come to the rescue of someone who repeatedly and vociferously calls them traitors, cowards, and dare I say? Liberals. (thunder clap, horses winney here) She doesn't need your chivalry, and is not interested in being sportsmanlike. Let the National Review and the Weekly Standard waste column-inches on her, if they'll even go near it. Chances are, they're too busy making real stands on issues through lean, poignant analysis of the day's events. That's what partisan journalism is good for. It makes me ashamed that I'm now guilty of the same kind of criticism of Democratic institutions and the overrespect for our enemies' points of view, but there is something wrong-- if not with the message, then with the weak delivery. Let's try and recover here...
TNR: If you don't like her, ignore her. She likes getting a rise out of you almost as much as she likes it when you come to her defense. You're fitting snuggly into the tired old yarn of the sad woman with the black eye who tells you she deserved it, or the kid who gets pummeled by bullies and believes he had it coming. Justice will prevail only when your attitude changes. You can't change theirs by being nice.
The old, unwise shotgun marriage between Republicans and Democrats has been through counseling, taken separate vacations, and had their affairs on the side. The kids are out of the house and now it's time to call it quits. Time to be partisan, guys. Time not just to demand half, but to take the bastards for all they are worth. Get on with it, lick your wounds, hire the best attack dog lawyer daytime TV commercials have to offer, and make your case.
Many people who are worried about where America and the world is going are counting on you. Make a stand for once in your life, you ivy league know-it-all weenies.
And now for a personal message:
Franklin Foer, editor-in-chief of TNR, this is for you. When we were kids back in DC 20+ years ago we used to hang out in the alley behind our houses, remember? It was us, the scrawny Jewish brainiacs. And it was them, the weird pasty redneck kids (Chippie, Robbie...) Remember how they would chase us up and down that alley? Envision a 2x4 with a rusty nail in it, gripped firmly in your clammy hands. See the twins close in you, patiently circling their prey. Channel some of that rage now, please! There's a war on.
Looking over the comments on TNR's site in response to this article, there's a mix of thoughtful arguments for or against the writer's point of view, intermingling with a sizeable number of "I'm cancelling my subscription" type-comments. Frankie, if I were actually a subscriber, I'd post this message on TNR's site, and cancel it myself.
For crying out loud, you're the editor-in-chief of a major political weekly... the biggest, gnarliest 2x4 a guy like you or me could ever hope to have.
Take a swing, Frankie. People are pissed.
Never mind that. I look at the New Republic website just about every day, and just about every day I am disappointed by the milquetoast, self-effacing nattering about what's wrong with Democrats, why Republicans have their act together, and why, when it comes to our chances in the upcoming elections (or any forseeable one anywhere) we should be as expectant of disappointment as the average French existentialist writer would have been in Gaullist Paris circa 1967. And these weenies write this as the president has become so desperate for friends that, instead of the usual solitary brush cutting and mountain biking accidents, he's actually reading Camus on his 5th vacation this year to his Crawford ranch. You want French Fries with that, Mr. Pres?
This stuff is so good, you can't even make it up. Yet, the New Republic, in its ever-earnest attempt at fairminded consideration of all the facts, points-of-view and utterly safe contrarian opinions has gone just a little too far this time. It's proven to be the ultimate existentialist publication-- lacking in any ideological heading on the compass, deferring any emotional grounding in a point of view for some greater meaning of being; to be both nothing and everything.
Hey TNR people: in politics, unlike certain literary interpretations of the meaning of life, this everything-and-nothing strategy is just plain nothing.
In a magazine representing a center-leftist point of view, I find an article titled, "A defense of Ann Coulter" where the author relates her own experience working on an assembly line in some "deep red" state. In bonding with the endearing yet provincial conservatives, she comes to some realization about the emotional necessity of someone who, though she rails rabidly and distastefully against her own points of view without mercy, is in fact filling an understandable and necessary role. My interpretation: The author makes the case that someone who spends her time defending Joe McCarthy when she isn't being crass is somehow performing a public service.
Well pardon my French, but what kind of merde de toro is this?
How can a magazine that claims to have a political point of view come to the rescue of someone who repeatedly and vociferously calls them traitors, cowards, and dare I say? Liberals. (thunder clap, horses winney here) She doesn't need your chivalry, and is not interested in being sportsmanlike. Let the National Review and the Weekly Standard waste column-inches on her, if they'll even go near it. Chances are, they're too busy making real stands on issues through lean, poignant analysis of the day's events. That's what partisan journalism is good for. It makes me ashamed that I'm now guilty of the same kind of criticism of Democratic institutions and the overrespect for our enemies' points of view, but there is something wrong-- if not with the message, then with the weak delivery. Let's try and recover here...
TNR: If you don't like her, ignore her. She likes getting a rise out of you almost as much as she likes it when you come to her defense. You're fitting snuggly into the tired old yarn of the sad woman with the black eye who tells you she deserved it, or the kid who gets pummeled by bullies and believes he had it coming. Justice will prevail only when your attitude changes. You can't change theirs by being nice.
The old, unwise shotgun marriage between Republicans and Democrats has been through counseling, taken separate vacations, and had their affairs on the side. The kids are out of the house and now it's time to call it quits. Time to be partisan, guys. Time not just to demand half, but to take the bastards for all they are worth. Get on with it, lick your wounds, hire the best attack dog lawyer daytime TV commercials have to offer, and make your case.
Many people who are worried about where America and the world is going are counting on you. Make a stand for once in your life, you ivy league know-it-all weenies.
And now for a personal message:
Franklin Foer, editor-in-chief of TNR, this is for you. When we were kids back in DC 20+ years ago we used to hang out in the alley behind our houses, remember? It was us, the scrawny Jewish brainiacs. And it was them, the weird pasty redneck kids (Chippie, Robbie...) Remember how they would chase us up and down that alley? Envision a 2x4 with a rusty nail in it, gripped firmly in your clammy hands. See the twins close in you, patiently circling their prey. Channel some of that rage now, please! There's a war on.
Looking over the comments on TNR's site in response to this article, there's a mix of thoughtful arguments for or against the writer's point of view, intermingling with a sizeable number of "I'm cancelling my subscription" type-comments. Frankie, if I were actually a subscriber, I'd post this message on TNR's site, and cancel it myself.
For crying out loud, you're the editor-in-chief of a major political weekly... the biggest, gnarliest 2x4 a guy like you or me could ever hope to have.
Take a swing, Frankie. People are pissed.
Friday, August 11, 2006
This Month in Boy's Life: Recipe for Liquid Warfare
When we were teenagers, the Anarchist Cookbook was the coveted Holy Scripture of Mischief. Its hundred-odd pages of plain ASCII text floated around pre-internet bulletin boards, and ended up in backpacks next to Spanish textbooks, bologna sandwiches and nunchucks (sp?). The cookbook posessed sacred knowledge, from the mundane "how to scam a Coke machine into giving up all its quarters", to the divine "how to melt an engine block with iron filings and tin foil". It contained the recipe that Tim McVeigh used on the federal building in Oklahoma City during my junior year.
I was never BBS-savvy, nor did I take mischief as seriously as some, but I always recognized that the Cookbook represented all that was powerful about knowledge to a certain demographic. It was the key to bucking the "system" that felt so repressive, back before drinking and smoking were legal for us, before they stopped carding us for rated R movies, before girls gave us the time of day; when parents, teachers, and even strangers seemed to have so much sway on what we did.
For greasy kids in trench coats, even having a copy was enough to feel influential when in fact their powers were limited to the infinite but imaginary reality of their favorite role playing game. The Cookbook, strangely enough, had no advice on girls. Tells you a thing or two about its authors.
Nowadays, even writing about it has probably got my blog flagged on some NSA list. Talk about strangers having sway. It's enough to make you feel like a kid again. Just for the record, NSA: I'm not a terrorist.
This liquid-explosives-on-airliners affair remined me instantly of those greasy kids. The comicbook style of evil with which Al Qaeda continues to shock and amaze the world could only come from a kindred soul to those boys.
Look at the damage:
BOTH towers of the World Trade Center are destroyed, along with part of the Pentagon by running in to them with hijacked commerical jets. Thousands killed.
Trains are simultaneously targeted during rush hours in Madrid and London. Hundreds killed.
Plots are foiled for detonating dirty bombs, blowing up the Brooklyn Bridge, and assassinating our leaders.
The Shoe Bomber, Richard Reid ensured that we'd have to go through security barefoot for the foreseeable future. Congratulations, Dick! Imagine all the athletes' foot and plantar warts chalked up as petty collateral damage to his explosive Reeboks.
More trains in Bombay. Hundreds more killed.
And now, the 24-odd conspirators being rounded up in London have ensured that carry-on luggage contain only dry items, that flying be even less enjoyable than it was. Here's a plot to blow up at least 10 transatlantic flights full of everyday people using mysterious cocktails of mouthwash and Aqua Velva with IPod detonators.
Whether they pull it off or not, the question I've been asking since 2001 is just plain, "why?"
Hamas and Hizbulah are far more understandable than this. Side with them or not, they have a specific enemy, specific demands, and specific grievances. They are men with wives and kids, fighting on a real battle front.
Compared to those groups, Al Qaeda seems like the undirected, self-destructive anger of a very sullen, disturbed fifteen year-old. They'll stop at nothing just to be noticed, to be important, even at a terrible price. It's a completely self-absorbed mindset to the end, terminating in oblivion over the Atlantic, or into the side of a building.
The boyish fantasy of 72 virgins sitting on a cloud waiting for them on the Other Side shows unequivocally just how desparately these guys need a girlfriend.
The Cookbook of Forbidden Knowledge continues to float through the ether. As long as the trenchcoat set stays fifteen and virginal, they'll crave these ludocrous capers as personal justice for the unnamed wrongs of the world.
To torture a metaphor, our grizzled, manly leaders don't know what to do when the neighbor's lanky kid throws a tantrum and sets fire to our lawn. Having always been part of the cool crowd, always been winners; they just can't relate. All they can do is throw punches or put the kid in a full nelson. But the kid just doesn't listen. His parents are never home, and when they are, they either don't care, or they're afraid of the kid themselves. What can be done?
I was never BBS-savvy, nor did I take mischief as seriously as some, but I always recognized that the Cookbook represented all that was powerful about knowledge to a certain demographic. It was the key to bucking the "system" that felt so repressive, back before drinking and smoking were legal for us, before they stopped carding us for rated R movies, before girls gave us the time of day; when parents, teachers, and even strangers seemed to have so much sway on what we did.
For greasy kids in trench coats, even having a copy was enough to feel influential when in fact their powers were limited to the infinite but imaginary reality of their favorite role playing game. The Cookbook, strangely enough, had no advice on girls. Tells you a thing or two about its authors.
Nowadays, even writing about it has probably got my blog flagged on some NSA list. Talk about strangers having sway. It's enough to make you feel like a kid again. Just for the record, NSA: I'm not a terrorist.
This liquid-explosives-on-airliners affair remined me instantly of those greasy kids. The comicbook style of evil with which Al Qaeda continues to shock and amaze the world could only come from a kindred soul to those boys.
Look at the damage:
BOTH towers of the World Trade Center are destroyed, along with part of the Pentagon by running in to them with hijacked commerical jets. Thousands killed.
Trains are simultaneously targeted during rush hours in Madrid and London. Hundreds killed.
Plots are foiled for detonating dirty bombs, blowing up the Brooklyn Bridge, and assassinating our leaders.
The Shoe Bomber, Richard Reid ensured that we'd have to go through security barefoot for the foreseeable future. Congratulations, Dick! Imagine all the athletes' foot and plantar warts chalked up as petty collateral damage to his explosive Reeboks.
More trains in Bombay. Hundreds more killed.
And now, the 24-odd conspirators being rounded up in London have ensured that carry-on luggage contain only dry items, that flying be even less enjoyable than it was. Here's a plot to blow up at least 10 transatlantic flights full of everyday people using mysterious cocktails of mouthwash and Aqua Velva with IPod detonators.
Whether they pull it off or not, the question I've been asking since 2001 is just plain, "why?"
Hamas and Hizbulah are far more understandable than this. Side with them or not, they have a specific enemy, specific demands, and specific grievances. They are men with wives and kids, fighting on a real battle front.
Compared to those groups, Al Qaeda seems like the undirected, self-destructive anger of a very sullen, disturbed fifteen year-old. They'll stop at nothing just to be noticed, to be important, even at a terrible price. It's a completely self-absorbed mindset to the end, terminating in oblivion over the Atlantic, or into the side of a building.
The boyish fantasy of 72 virgins sitting on a cloud waiting for them on the Other Side shows unequivocally just how desparately these guys need a girlfriend.
The Cookbook of Forbidden Knowledge continues to float through the ether. As long as the trenchcoat set stays fifteen and virginal, they'll crave these ludocrous capers as personal justice for the unnamed wrongs of the world.
To torture a metaphor, our grizzled, manly leaders don't know what to do when the neighbor's lanky kid throws a tantrum and sets fire to our lawn. Having always been part of the cool crowd, always been winners; they just can't relate. All they can do is throw punches or put the kid in a full nelson. But the kid just doesn't listen. His parents are never home, and when they are, they either don't care, or they're afraid of the kid themselves. What can be done?
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Three Essential Strategies
The Arab-Israeli conflict has taught me that there are three essential ways to do battle.
First, be nice. Being nice worked fairly well at certain points in this seemingly interminable situation. It worked well with Egypt in 1979 (though not so well for Sadat). Egypt was returned the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for a long-lasting "cold peace." It worked well with Jordan, whose leaders and civil society are perhaps some of the most moderate and well-meaning in the region. It seemed to be working for a few years after the Oslo Accords, but with enough bad-faith actions on both sides, nice gave way to other, more powerful emotions.
With some exceptions, nice didn't work terribly well in Israel's dealings with Palestinians. Yassir Arafat was hardly ever serious about cutting a real deal with Israel. He rejected a pretty generous offer by Ehud Barak in the late 90s, and never really did anything to rein in Hamas beyond where it fit internal necessities of keeping his own Fatah folk busy and receiving money exclusively from his pockets. Revolutionaries are good at shaking things up, but almost never make good leaders during the boring discussions on how things are actually going to work. I prefer former generals. They are a rule-abiding, honorable and pragmatic bunch.
Second, be ruthless and uncompromising. Prior to any situation where being nice was a possibility, this option was very successful in 1, establishing a Jewish State through a series of terrorist acts and full-scale military operations, 2, repelling three heavily armed nations in '67, and 3, repelling them again in '73. Oh, and occupying all that land with religious and nationalistic zealots was a good way to seal the deal.
It didn't work very well with Lebanon or Syria, who are still bitter over a protracted occupation by Israeli forces, and their indirect responsibility for massacres in Beirut in the early eighties. The occupation of the Golan Heights is also a sore subject, though perhaps a strategic necessity since, being a "heights", it is the ideal place to lob shells into the Israeli heartland it overlooks.
Third, ignore the other side and act on your own. This is the latest answer to Arab-Israeli conflict. Strategy Three is the exclusive province of Israeli strategy, since the other side either already has "nice" deals with them, or has felt the wrath of "ruthless and uncompromising," got nothing for it, and is now hesitant to open up a new battlefront. When nice and mean don't work so well, disengagement is a sensible option. As an elected official, nobody gets to call you "too nice" or "too mean", and as a strategy, it allows its follower to seek its own objectives without the trouble of negotiation, or its clearly horrific alternatives.
If the disengaging party's terms are unacceptable, there is only one thing that the opponent can do in response to Strategy Three. Force their adversary to engage. Abduct their soldiers on patrol and demand negotiations for prisoner swaps, land, whatever. Instigate armed conflict by launching Qazzam rockets from Gaza and Lebanon. At any cost, do not let them ignore you, do not let them build a wall around their subdivisions on seized land in the West Bank. Don't let them cut their own deal.
Analysis. While Hamas and Hisbullah made overtures towards Strategy One (being nice), abducting soldiers, and launching missiles onto enemy cities is textbook Strategy Two (being mean). Of course, this is because Strategy One is useless against Strategy Three (plug ears and go la la la la la). We've seen in the past week how this response to Israeli disengagement has led to Israel's own reversion to Strategy Two. Israel is on the verge of a military intervention on its northern and southern borders on a scale unseen for at least 20 years. They've already run an airstrike on Beirut's airport. This is a really, really bad situation. It's likely to get worse before it gets better.
Strategy One is the weakest and most difficult of the three. In some situations, i.e, with ruthless, uncompromising opponents it is impossble. It is also the only one that is cooperative in nature, and is therefore the only strategy that will allow all sides to come to mutually agreed terms. In today's world, Strategy One is no easier to achieve, but far more appealing than the ever more threatening Strategy Two. Strategy Two could put us all in the ground next to the dinosaurs.
Strategy Two is really all or nothing. Someone will win, and someone will lose. The loser is either exterminated, brainwashed, permanantly repressed, or grudgingly accepts defeat until a later time when they can exact revenge. Most of the time, victory by strategy two is at best bittersweet.
Strategy Three means that one side takes all, screw the other side. Again, someone will win, someone will lose, but the loser does not suffer the total defeat seen in #2. Victory is more a state of mind than a real condition.
Despite its appeal, Israel is seeing the limits to Strategy Three. By building walls and doing little to foster a real negotiating partner in the Palestinian Authority, Israel has strengthened the hand of the mean, uncompromising elements of their opponent at the cost waning numbers of those interested in negotiation. America has been an accomplice, allowing Israel to dictate in no uncertain terms the final status of the Israel-Palestine border while hardly doing anything for the Palestinian Authority. Enabling these elements to prosper by supporting this passive strategy is a maliciously negligent act. Strategy Three does not take the opponent seriously. It makes the opinions of radicals look more reasonable, and justifies the further use of force.
Seeing events unfold as they have, it looks increasingly unlikely that the Palestinian conflict will be settled through disengagement. Like any conflict, they will need to fight it out or talk it out. The lesson of the day: Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. Prediction for tomorrow: look for more of the same.
First, be nice. Being nice worked fairly well at certain points in this seemingly interminable situation. It worked well with Egypt in 1979 (though not so well for Sadat). Egypt was returned the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for a long-lasting "cold peace." It worked well with Jordan, whose leaders and civil society are perhaps some of the most moderate and well-meaning in the region. It seemed to be working for a few years after the Oslo Accords, but with enough bad-faith actions on both sides, nice gave way to other, more powerful emotions.
With some exceptions, nice didn't work terribly well in Israel's dealings with Palestinians. Yassir Arafat was hardly ever serious about cutting a real deal with Israel. He rejected a pretty generous offer by Ehud Barak in the late 90s, and never really did anything to rein in Hamas beyond where it fit internal necessities of keeping his own Fatah folk busy and receiving money exclusively from his pockets. Revolutionaries are good at shaking things up, but almost never make good leaders during the boring discussions on how things are actually going to work. I prefer former generals. They are a rule-abiding, honorable and pragmatic bunch.
Second, be ruthless and uncompromising. Prior to any situation where being nice was a possibility, this option was very successful in 1, establishing a Jewish State through a series of terrorist acts and full-scale military operations, 2, repelling three heavily armed nations in '67, and 3, repelling them again in '73. Oh, and occupying all that land with religious and nationalistic zealots was a good way to seal the deal.
It didn't work very well with Lebanon or Syria, who are still bitter over a protracted occupation by Israeli forces, and their indirect responsibility for massacres in Beirut in the early eighties. The occupation of the Golan Heights is also a sore subject, though perhaps a strategic necessity since, being a "heights", it is the ideal place to lob shells into the Israeli heartland it overlooks.
Third, ignore the other side and act on your own. This is the latest answer to Arab-Israeli conflict. Strategy Three is the exclusive province of Israeli strategy, since the other side either already has "nice" deals with them, or has felt the wrath of "ruthless and uncompromising," got nothing for it, and is now hesitant to open up a new battlefront. When nice and mean don't work so well, disengagement is a sensible option. As an elected official, nobody gets to call you "too nice" or "too mean", and as a strategy, it allows its follower to seek its own objectives without the trouble of negotiation, or its clearly horrific alternatives.
If the disengaging party's terms are unacceptable, there is only one thing that the opponent can do in response to Strategy Three. Force their adversary to engage. Abduct their soldiers on patrol and demand negotiations for prisoner swaps, land, whatever. Instigate armed conflict by launching Qazzam rockets from Gaza and Lebanon. At any cost, do not let them ignore you, do not let them build a wall around their subdivisions on seized land in the West Bank. Don't let them cut their own deal.
Analysis. While Hamas and Hisbullah made overtures towards Strategy One (being nice), abducting soldiers, and launching missiles onto enemy cities is textbook Strategy Two (being mean). Of course, this is because Strategy One is useless against Strategy Three (plug ears and go la la la la la). We've seen in the past week how this response to Israeli disengagement has led to Israel's own reversion to Strategy Two. Israel is on the verge of a military intervention on its northern and southern borders on a scale unseen for at least 20 years. They've already run an airstrike on Beirut's airport. This is a really, really bad situation. It's likely to get worse before it gets better.
Strategy One is the weakest and most difficult of the three. In some situations, i.e, with ruthless, uncompromising opponents it is impossble. It is also the only one that is cooperative in nature, and is therefore the only strategy that will allow all sides to come to mutually agreed terms. In today's world, Strategy One is no easier to achieve, but far more appealing than the ever more threatening Strategy Two. Strategy Two could put us all in the ground next to the dinosaurs.
Strategy Two is really all or nothing. Someone will win, and someone will lose. The loser is either exterminated, brainwashed, permanantly repressed, or grudgingly accepts defeat until a later time when they can exact revenge. Most of the time, victory by strategy two is at best bittersweet.
Strategy Three means that one side takes all, screw the other side. Again, someone will win, someone will lose, but the loser does not suffer the total defeat seen in #2. Victory is more a state of mind than a real condition.
Despite its appeal, Israel is seeing the limits to Strategy Three. By building walls and doing little to foster a real negotiating partner in the Palestinian Authority, Israel has strengthened the hand of the mean, uncompromising elements of their opponent at the cost waning numbers of those interested in negotiation. America has been an accomplice, allowing Israel to dictate in no uncertain terms the final status of the Israel-Palestine border while hardly doing anything for the Palestinian Authority. Enabling these elements to prosper by supporting this passive strategy is a maliciously negligent act. Strategy Three does not take the opponent seriously. It makes the opinions of radicals look more reasonable, and justifies the further use of force.
Seeing events unfold as they have, it looks increasingly unlikely that the Palestinian conflict will be settled through disengagement. Like any conflict, they will need to fight it out or talk it out. The lesson of the day: Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. Prediction for tomorrow: look for more of the same.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
The Football Fatwa
Since the World Cup kicked off last week, I've noticed a strange uptick in right-wing railing against the world's sport.
The Weekly Standard has a piece about soccer as nihilist and amoral by its very nature. Cannon and Lessner write, "DESPITE HEROIC EFFORTS of soccer moms, suburban liberals, and World Cup hype, soccer will never catch on as a big time sport in America. No game in which actually scoring goals is of such little importance could possibly occupy the attention of average Americans. Our country has yet to succumb to the nihilism, existentialism, and anomie that have overtaken Europe."
John Tierney of the New York Times writes, "Maybe the rest of the world loves soccer because they haven't been given better alternatives". I don't pay for Times Select, so that's as far as I can go with that.
But this goes back at least 20 years. In 1986, former (NFL) football player, US representative and Vice Presidential candidate Jack Kemp famously declared, "I think it is important for all those young out there, who someday hope to play real football, where you throw it and kick it and run with it and put it in your hands, a distinction should be made that football is democratic, capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist sport."
What gives? In 1986, I played soccer in the Stoddert Soccer League of Washington, DC, along with every other eight-year-old I knew, and many I didn't. We didn't really care what we were playing. I doubt that the sport informed our epistemological outlook on anything. I'd wager that few, if any, ever became socialists, nihilists, jihadists or some other as-yet uncategorized threat. A great many of us became capitalists. Today, we're doctors, lawyers, drug dealers, lobbyists, wage slaves, and any number of money-driven professions.
I'm sure that if tetherball took off in the 80s, these same guys would have said that it's too much like the commie maypole; its one-on-one nature too similar to descriptions of Marxist class struggle. Tennis and ping-pong would surely follow. We should never have let Forest Gump go to China. That's where all the trouble began.
It's OK not to like soccer. In red-blooded capitalist language, it's a consumer preference. It's OK to be mystified by why the rest of the world is so in to the game, and why America's temperment ranges from lukewarm interest of "elitist coastal liberals" to the outright hostility allegedly found elsewhere.
Why can't we just let the world have their game? At the risk of reification, this is part of a larger mindset. But then, I'm using their logic, succumbing to the same fearful way of thinking.
I say, score one for American exceptionalism and call it a game.
That's all it is.
The Weekly Standard has a piece about soccer as nihilist and amoral by its very nature. Cannon and Lessner write, "DESPITE HEROIC EFFORTS of soccer moms, suburban liberals, and World Cup hype, soccer will never catch on as a big time sport in America. No game in which actually scoring goals is of such little importance could possibly occupy the attention of average Americans. Our country has yet to succumb to the nihilism, existentialism, and anomie that have overtaken Europe."
John Tierney of the New York Times writes, "Maybe the rest of the world loves soccer because they haven't been given better alternatives". I don't pay for Times Select, so that's as far as I can go with that.
But this goes back at least 20 years. In 1986, former (NFL) football player, US representative and Vice Presidential candidate Jack Kemp famously declared, "I think it is important for all those young out there, who someday hope to play real football, where you throw it and kick it and run with it and put it in your hands, a distinction should be made that football is democratic, capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist sport."
What gives? In 1986, I played soccer in the Stoddert Soccer League of Washington, DC, along with every other eight-year-old I knew, and many I didn't. We didn't really care what we were playing. I doubt that the sport informed our epistemological outlook on anything. I'd wager that few, if any, ever became socialists, nihilists, jihadists or some other as-yet uncategorized threat. A great many of us became capitalists. Today, we're doctors, lawyers, drug dealers, lobbyists, wage slaves, and any number of money-driven professions.
I'm sure that if tetherball took off in the 80s, these same guys would have said that it's too much like the commie maypole; its one-on-one nature too similar to descriptions of Marxist class struggle. Tennis and ping-pong would surely follow. We should never have let Forest Gump go to China. That's where all the trouble began.
It's OK not to like soccer. In red-blooded capitalist language, it's a consumer preference. It's OK to be mystified by why the rest of the world is so in to the game, and why America's temperment ranges from lukewarm interest of "elitist coastal liberals" to the outright hostility allegedly found elsewhere.
Why can't we just let the world have their game? At the risk of reification, this is part of a larger mindset. But then, I'm using their logic, succumbing to the same fearful way of thinking.
I say, score one for American exceptionalism and call it a game.
That's all it is.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Why Angelina Jolie Gets on my Nerves
Humanitarian aid is a complicated, heartbreaking and frustrating vocation. Since the second world war, nations have recognized the strategic and moral value of providing development assistance to other, less fortunate regions of the world. The Marshall Plan, Peace Corps, and the US Agency for International Development have added to the mix of war and trade policy that were once the sole means of foreign intervention. And this is only part of America's efforts towards providing humanitarian aid. Almost all members of the political spectrum have found an organization or cause whose aim is to alleviate suffering on foreign shores, from evangelical missions to the most secular-humanist AIDS coalitions.
It is simply unacceptable that in this day and age, people should continue to live in the misery and squalor that defined much of human history. With the growing prosperity that our economic and political systems have generated, development has gained a clear mandate from all but the most narrowly individualistic thinkers.
It is bitterly ironic, then, when narrow, individualistic thinkers attempt to control the discourse on humanitarian aid as if no one before them has given up their lives and livlihoods for these causes, or as if nothing is being done for the starving masses of Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. The mission of Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie to save the world smacks of self-aggrandizement in a way that is as ugly as anyone who uses the hardship of others for personal gain.
Looking over the transcript from Angelina Jolie's interview with Anderson Cooper, what was noticably absent was:
1. the name of a humanitarian group that is currently involved in handling refugees and internally displaced persons in Africa or elsewhere, aside from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, who can't even decide who is a refugee and who is not.
2. the activities or experiences of anyone beyond herself or her entourage.
Read this (emphasis added):
COOPER: Part of the problem that a lot of people watching this tonight, watching this on television, watching these stories, after a while, it becomes this blur of sort of endless suffering in Africa. And I think there's a lot of hopelessness. People sort of throw up their hands and say, well, look, I gave -- there's only so much you can do.
JOLIE: Yes.
COOPER: And it seems endless. Do you -- how do you fight that? How do you...
JOLIE: Well, I think to acknowledge that and say, yes, it is another -- we understand that. But the borders were drawn in Africa not that long ago. These people are tribal people. We have -- we colonized them. We have -- there's a lot of changes that's happened, even just between the blacks and whites so recently. There's a lot we need to -- to understand and be tolerant of, and help them to -- they have just recently learned to govern themselves. But there are also pockets where they're really trying to pull themselves together. And we need to be there to really support them at that time, to help them to understand how better to govern. It really is a work in progress. It's not just going to happen overnight.
COOPER: You're very modest. But you're -- you're not just talking the talk. You're walking the walk. I have read that you give a third of your income to refugees and other causes. Is that true?
Wow, does that sound modest to you?
...and read this:
JOLIE: It was one of my first lessons in Washington. It was like, oh, a bill. I'm pushing for a bill.(LAUGHTER)
JOLIE: The bill passed. Success. And then somebody said, and now the funding. And I thought, and now the funding? I thought was that was the whole...
COOPER: And it's still not funded.
JOLIE: But you realize that, no, that that's -- you know, first, they -- they make it a priority to do it. And then -- and I -- I don't -- I don't -- you know, there are a lot of people that are going to come together. And I will spend more time in Washington, try to raise this funding, and hope that the funding doesn't come from somewhere else.
Wow, does this sound like someone who understands the processes behind getting real programs planned, enacted , and executed? For that matter, does this sound like someone who would be willing to let someone else take a little credit in exchange for getting things done?
Listen, the UNHCR is necessary, and it does good. Jolie and Pitt's donation of $300,000 to a Namibian hospital does good. Bringing attention to some of the easily ignorable horrors out there is good. It's all good, and it beats the pants off of the moral negligence that people like Paris Hilton exemplify. But it takes the same simpleminded self-centeredness to create a sense that all the world needs is Angelina Jolie. It all started to get better when Jolie decided that there are problems, when she got the money together, and when she gave it to other good people. All it takes is her to go to Senegal, Namibia, or Cambodia and bare witness to the suffering, to talk about it, and then everything will be fine.
It is not her actions that are repugnant to me-- it's the overwhelming sense that this person sees herself as the messiah-- the source of all goodness and wisdom come to save us all from our lives as unwashed, unenlightened wretches.
Commandment 1: You shall have no other divas before me.
Movie stars can and should give money to charity. They can and should advocate for the causes that are important to them. In my opinion, to have that level of money and influence, and do nothing is as wrong as keeping a bucket of water for oneself while a neighbor is on fire. Nevertheless, movie stars should also have the humility to recognize that problems related to absolute poverty require complex, often boring solutions best left to complex, boring people.
Throwing around a lot of money in corrupt, lawless places can be hazardous to all parties concerned. The best intentions can lead to the further entrenchment of petty thieves and thugs that are endemic in many underdeveloped regions of the world, not to mention here. Doing it right takes a lot of careful planning. Movie stars should do what their natural talents lend themselves to: being a pretty face and a powerful voice.
Brad and Angelina should use their production company to make movies. Those movies can contain messages about the things they care about. I can think of a thousand plots related to humanitarian crises that would be riveting, inspiring, and thought-provoking. They should continue to tour the world bringing attention to its plights.
Advocates for causes are rarely the architects of the ideas they promote. They are strong personalities that bring attention to important matters. Most important, it's not about them. It's about the message.
It is simply unacceptable that in this day and age, people should continue to live in the misery and squalor that defined much of human history. With the growing prosperity that our economic and political systems have generated, development has gained a clear mandate from all but the most narrowly individualistic thinkers.
It is bitterly ironic, then, when narrow, individualistic thinkers attempt to control the discourse on humanitarian aid as if no one before them has given up their lives and livlihoods for these causes, or as if nothing is being done for the starving masses of Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. The mission of Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie to save the world smacks of self-aggrandizement in a way that is as ugly as anyone who uses the hardship of others for personal gain.
Looking over the transcript from Angelina Jolie's interview with Anderson Cooper, what was noticably absent was:
1. the name of a humanitarian group that is currently involved in handling refugees and internally displaced persons in Africa or elsewhere, aside from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, who can't even decide who is a refugee and who is not.
2. the activities or experiences of anyone beyond herself or her entourage.
Read this (emphasis added):
COOPER: Part of the problem that a lot of people watching this tonight, watching this on television, watching these stories, after a while, it becomes this blur of sort of endless suffering in Africa. And I think there's a lot of hopelessness. People sort of throw up their hands and say, well, look, I gave -- there's only so much you can do.
JOLIE: Yes.
COOPER: And it seems endless. Do you -- how do you fight that? How do you...
JOLIE: Well, I think to acknowledge that and say, yes, it is another -- we understand that. But the borders were drawn in Africa not that long ago. These people are tribal people. We have -- we colonized them. We have -- there's a lot of changes that's happened, even just between the blacks and whites so recently. There's a lot we need to -- to understand and be tolerant of, and help them to -- they have just recently learned to govern themselves. But there are also pockets where they're really trying to pull themselves together. And we need to be there to really support them at that time, to help them to understand how better to govern. It really is a work in progress. It's not just going to happen overnight.
COOPER: You're very modest. But you're -- you're not just talking the talk. You're walking the walk. I have read that you give a third of your income to refugees and other causes. Is that true?
Wow, does that sound modest to you?
...and read this:
JOLIE: It was one of my first lessons in Washington. It was like, oh, a bill. I'm pushing for a bill.(LAUGHTER)
JOLIE: The bill passed. Success. And then somebody said, and now the funding. And I thought, and now the funding? I thought was that was the whole...
COOPER: And it's still not funded.
JOLIE: But you realize that, no, that that's -- you know, first, they -- they make it a priority to do it. And then -- and I -- I don't -- I don't -- you know, there are a lot of people that are going to come together. And I will spend more time in Washington, try to raise this funding, and hope that the funding doesn't come from somewhere else.
Wow, does this sound like someone who understands the processes behind getting real programs planned, enacted , and executed? For that matter, does this sound like someone who would be willing to let someone else take a little credit in exchange for getting things done?
Listen, the UNHCR is necessary, and it does good. Jolie and Pitt's donation of $300,000 to a Namibian hospital does good. Bringing attention to some of the easily ignorable horrors out there is good. It's all good, and it beats the pants off of the moral negligence that people like Paris Hilton exemplify. But it takes the same simpleminded self-centeredness to create a sense that all the world needs is Angelina Jolie. It all started to get better when Jolie decided that there are problems, when she got the money together, and when she gave it to other good people. All it takes is her to go to Senegal, Namibia, or Cambodia and bare witness to the suffering, to talk about it, and then everything will be fine.
It is not her actions that are repugnant to me-- it's the overwhelming sense that this person sees herself as the messiah-- the source of all goodness and wisdom come to save us all from our lives as unwashed, unenlightened wretches.
Commandment 1: You shall have no other divas before me.
Movie stars can and should give money to charity. They can and should advocate for the causes that are important to them. In my opinion, to have that level of money and influence, and do nothing is as wrong as keeping a bucket of water for oneself while a neighbor is on fire. Nevertheless, movie stars should also have the humility to recognize that problems related to absolute poverty require complex, often boring solutions best left to complex, boring people.
Throwing around a lot of money in corrupt, lawless places can be hazardous to all parties concerned. The best intentions can lead to the further entrenchment of petty thieves and thugs that are endemic in many underdeveloped regions of the world, not to mention here. Doing it right takes a lot of careful planning. Movie stars should do what their natural talents lend themselves to: being a pretty face and a powerful voice.
Brad and Angelina should use their production company to make movies. Those movies can contain messages about the things they care about. I can think of a thousand plots related to humanitarian crises that would be riveting, inspiring, and thought-provoking. They should continue to tour the world bringing attention to its plights.
Advocates for causes are rarely the architects of the ideas they promote. They are strong personalities that bring attention to important matters. Most important, it's not about them. It's about the message.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Is Paranoia Funny?
Yesterday evening, my wife and I went to the Tabernacle in downtown Atlanta to see the stage reincarnation of Dave Chappelle. Being a DC local kid done good, we'd followed his career since before his first HBO comedy special in 2000. Seeing him in DC in 2003 at the Lincoln Theater was a blast. In tense times in a tense city, Dave Chappelle was on stage for over an hour; making light of Bin Laden, Iraq, and easing into gentle prods on the recent DC Sniper incident, which until recently had a plurality of the audience bobbing and weaving at supermarket parking lots and gas stations, just in case. He was at the top of his career, recently signed on to a multi-million dollar contract with Comedy Central, often compared to Richard Pryor. He was the next greatest thing. His routine hit the audience like a large-predator tranquilizer dart full of Ecstasy. People of all ages left the Lincoln Theater energized, liberated from fear, and ready to laugh at those all too commonplace, cringing moments of edgy, exhausting wariness that had taken over the collective unconscious of Washingtonians during those days.
The vibe going into the show last night had certain echoes of that uneasiness I'd noticed in 2003. We waited in line for the doors to open for about a half hour in the Code Orange Atlanta Summer Afternoon sun, listening to three girls from the exurbs chatting, snapping gum and blowing smoke. They were terrified of the city, and in a mixed crowd made the somewhat racist comments that everyone is familiar with.
"I just don't know how people can live in Atlanta. I'd always be worried about getting shot or mugged or something."
"I mean at a country show everyone's friendly and says hi to each other. At a rock show you might get kicked in the head. At a rap show, you'll get shot. Or someone'll smoke your weed and then take everything from you... your watch, your money, whatever they can get"
It was one of those conversations that colonizes your consciousness with one stupid remark, and then soon takes everything over, so that any attempt at independent conversation is quickly eliminated. We were a captive audience, along with everyone else in line.
The line was a mixture of yuppies, buppies, greasy kids (some thuggish, some druggish), and the mass of bovine suburbans who come downtown only on special occasions. This combination of people is rare, and makes everyone a little uncomfortable-- reminding us that strangers might like the same things for different reasons.
Once we got in and got seated, the opening act was a local comic who had a funny 15 minute set about getting high and doing yard work. Mos Def was on for about a half hour where he did a few new tracks, a Pharcyde cover, and mixed in some old funk and R&B to make it fun and relaxed. Some cracker yelled out, "where's Dave?" in the middle of it, having no clue who Mos Def was.
Dave Chappelle came on, and came out swinging. He had a bit about getting in to a fight with a meth addict who took on Dave and 7 of his friends after asking him, "what time is it, nigger?" Eventually, his friend and the meth head went for drinks. The humor took cues from lewd heckles, and Dave came back with new material, segues, and witty retorts with the lyrical magic that is reserved for the rarest, most cunning and emotionally intelligent performers out there.
Then clouds moved overhead, and thunderclaps foretold fire and brimstone. Dave started talking about his abrupt mid-season exit from the Comedy Central show, his trip to Africa, the rumors and allegations of drug abuse, mental breakdown, and everything else that was published about this, and ultimately, "the game". The game is based on human nature. The game wants to control all of us. The game won't allow a black man to succeed. The game the game the game. His hour-long routine ended with a 15-minute allegory about the pimp, Iceberg Slim, and how he retained the services of his Bottom Bitch by fooling her into believing she'd murdered a john. Iceberg played the game, and got his way with one of his whores. The metaphor could not have been more clear.
The show ended without a break in those ominous clouds. Unlike the most damning sermons, no sweet redemption was had at the end. There was no moment of contrition, no thought of "well, at least I have my loyal audience". The show was funny, but in the end I think everyone but the most dense of the crowd left a little dumbstruck, a little angered at the ways of the world, a little more hateful towards everyone else around them.
People filed out quietly into the warm evening, trying to digest what had been said. We made it to the parking deck and got into the stopped procession of traffic on the down ramp. Some guy from the suburbs in a Lexus roared up in a narrow opening, trying to cut in front of us. We edged foreword. No dice. I felt my face flush. Katie and I exchanged epithets about the couple and their back seat passenger. The other woman rolled down her window and said "He's not going anywhere. It's my car." Katie replied, "You can get in behind us." we all simmered in our juices for the next ten minutes. Looking backward, we saw the couple get into a shouting match with those same girls who had been in line with us earlier. I leaned out the car window and directed the girls to move forward, blocking the guy further. They did it, and the car after them, and the one after them. The Lexus ended up about 10 cars back from us. They played the game and lost.
Having slept on it, I'm really saddened that such a gifted performer should allow himself to be so broken, so sensitive to the ways that the Celebrity Apparatus had treated him. We were his captive audience, his shrink to get all of those feelings off his chest. His new material (when funny) was much more ribald and cynical than before-- more reminiscent of Eddie Murphy than his previous work. He had obviously been eaten alive by the pernicious, parasitic hordes of agents, lawyers, contracts, assistants, communications specialists, publicists, and others who live in the shadows behind all persons public.
The old Dave would have made light of this as he had done to the Sniper(s), Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein. The old Dave would have left his audience inspired to thumb their noses at Hollywood idiots, made a stab at Ryan Seacrest, the lawyers and producers he'd worked with, whoever. He would have laughed at himself a little too. Dave Chappelle's new message was anti-establishment just as before, but with the destructive message of the anarchist, and not the inspiring agitator.
I really hope he gets back on track. Dave Chappelle has the rare gift of being able to inspire a little constructive subversion, something severely lacking in today's climate. He's one of the greatest personalities of our generation. We need you, Dave.
The vibe going into the show last night had certain echoes of that uneasiness I'd noticed in 2003. We waited in line for the doors to open for about a half hour in the Code Orange Atlanta Summer Afternoon sun, listening to three girls from the exurbs chatting, snapping gum and blowing smoke. They were terrified of the city, and in a mixed crowd made the somewhat racist comments that everyone is familiar with.
"I just don't know how people can live in Atlanta. I'd always be worried about getting shot or mugged or something."
"I mean at a country show everyone's friendly and says hi to each other. At a rock show you might get kicked in the head. At a rap show, you'll get shot. Or someone'll smoke your weed and then take everything from you... your watch, your money, whatever they can get"
It was one of those conversations that colonizes your consciousness with one stupid remark, and then soon takes everything over, so that any attempt at independent conversation is quickly eliminated. We were a captive audience, along with everyone else in line.
The line was a mixture of yuppies, buppies, greasy kids (some thuggish, some druggish), and the mass of bovine suburbans who come downtown only on special occasions. This combination of people is rare, and makes everyone a little uncomfortable-- reminding us that strangers might like the same things for different reasons.
Once we got in and got seated, the opening act was a local comic who had a funny 15 minute set about getting high and doing yard work. Mos Def was on for about a half hour where he did a few new tracks, a Pharcyde cover, and mixed in some old funk and R&B to make it fun and relaxed. Some cracker yelled out, "where's Dave?" in the middle of it, having no clue who Mos Def was.
Dave Chappelle came on, and came out swinging. He had a bit about getting in to a fight with a meth addict who took on Dave and 7 of his friends after asking him, "what time is it, nigger?" Eventually, his friend and the meth head went for drinks. The humor took cues from lewd heckles, and Dave came back with new material, segues, and witty retorts with the lyrical magic that is reserved for the rarest, most cunning and emotionally intelligent performers out there.
Then clouds moved overhead, and thunderclaps foretold fire and brimstone. Dave started talking about his abrupt mid-season exit from the Comedy Central show, his trip to Africa, the rumors and allegations of drug abuse, mental breakdown, and everything else that was published about this, and ultimately, "the game". The game is based on human nature. The game wants to control all of us. The game won't allow a black man to succeed. The game the game the game. His hour-long routine ended with a 15-minute allegory about the pimp, Iceberg Slim, and how he retained the services of his Bottom Bitch by fooling her into believing she'd murdered a john. Iceberg played the game, and got his way with one of his whores. The metaphor could not have been more clear.
The show ended without a break in those ominous clouds. Unlike the most damning sermons, no sweet redemption was had at the end. There was no moment of contrition, no thought of "well, at least I have my loyal audience". The show was funny, but in the end I think everyone but the most dense of the crowd left a little dumbstruck, a little angered at the ways of the world, a little more hateful towards everyone else around them.
People filed out quietly into the warm evening, trying to digest what had been said. We made it to the parking deck and got into the stopped procession of traffic on the down ramp. Some guy from the suburbs in a Lexus roared up in a narrow opening, trying to cut in front of us. We edged foreword. No dice. I felt my face flush. Katie and I exchanged epithets about the couple and their back seat passenger. The other woman rolled down her window and said "He's not going anywhere. It's my car." Katie replied, "You can get in behind us." we all simmered in our juices for the next ten minutes. Looking backward, we saw the couple get into a shouting match with those same girls who had been in line with us earlier. I leaned out the car window and directed the girls to move forward, blocking the guy further. They did it, and the car after them, and the one after them. The Lexus ended up about 10 cars back from us. They played the game and lost.
Having slept on it, I'm really saddened that such a gifted performer should allow himself to be so broken, so sensitive to the ways that the Celebrity Apparatus had treated him. We were his captive audience, his shrink to get all of those feelings off his chest. His new material (when funny) was much more ribald and cynical than before-- more reminiscent of Eddie Murphy than his previous work. He had obviously been eaten alive by the pernicious, parasitic hordes of agents, lawyers, contracts, assistants, communications specialists, publicists, and others who live in the shadows behind all persons public.
The old Dave would have made light of this as he had done to the Sniper(s), Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein. The old Dave would have left his audience inspired to thumb their noses at Hollywood idiots, made a stab at Ryan Seacrest, the lawyers and producers he'd worked with, whoever. He would have laughed at himself a little too. Dave Chappelle's new message was anti-establishment just as before, but with the destructive message of the anarchist, and not the inspiring agitator.
I really hope he gets back on track. Dave Chappelle has the rare gift of being able to inspire a little constructive subversion, something severely lacking in today's climate. He's one of the greatest personalities of our generation. We need you, Dave.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Afganistan, Iraq... Somalia?
Today's New York Times front page shows a picture of the recently killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi as the necessary proof that he is dead, and not in some other way silenced by US interventions. In war, people need proof of progress-- or at least that all is not lost. During the siege of Stalingrad, the city's inhabitants burned furniture and ate sawdust to stay alive over long, unsupplied Russian winter. Surrounded by brigades of Nazi forces, the city's loudspeakers continued to broadcast music, news, propaganda, and eventually just the lonely sound of a metronome. This alone remained proof that the city had not been overrun, that there was still someone in charge of something somewhere. The death of al Zarqawi is better than the Soviet metronome, but it says little for the people in Iraq and elsewhere who are still in the grips of their own long winter.
Iraq's war of attrition is the fruit of forced regime change. As far as I can tell, if regime change is what you want, there are two basic ways of getting it. First, there is the brute force "send-in-the-Marines" approach that we have come to know and love since the invasion of Afghanistan almost five years ago and the somewhat more recent and involved invasion and occupation of Iraq. Second, there is the sneaky "spooks-fund-the-less-bad-guys" approach that, according to the other international article on today's NYT front page, has led to a disaster in Somalia.
Neither of these approaches do anything to eliminate the prospects of guys like al Zarqawi, nor, beyond a short-lived moral victory, have they ever led to long-term stability of nations, let alone the long-term liberty of their people. At best, unilateral wars for regime change have a track record of producing Macchiavellian principalities where fear keeps the local journalism dull and the trains running on time until the prince dies and his idiot son takes over. Meanwhile, covert CIA-type interventions have given us such successes as the Latin American Dirty Wars, the Iran-Contra Affairs, Iran's current leadership in the first place, continued paramilitary chaos across much of sub-saharan Africa, and countless other simmering quagmires, havens for terrorists, "People's Democratic Republics of Carjackistan" and others. Yesterday's freedom fighters are tomorrow's Taliban.
By funding anti-islamist warlords in Somalia, we have added to this list of successes. We have created a brand-new and relatively unexploited petrie dish for new al Zarqawis to grow and multiply unchecked by any legitmate force.
It is more than likely that the world-renowned security apparatus that our intelligence agencies helped Iran set up in the 60s and 70s is now has its own sneaky spooks on the ground in all of these hotspots, and elsewhere. Without any facts, could you imagine any country with geopolitical aspirations (and real influence) not pursuing their interests in their occupied or weakened neighbor? As a hunch, there will be a great many books written about this in a generation's time.
Seeing what's going on today, and if I were born yesterday, I'd be a big fan of the CIA intervention. Sending 10 experts into a country to foment a revolution in our favor sounds a lot better than 100,000 20 year old kids trying to keep the peace where they don't speak the language, and where the heat, dust, scorpions and snipers will sap the strength of anyone. The problem is that the CIA intervention never seems to work. Compound the spooks' track record with the expertise of the competition, and it looks like a really, really bad idea.
My sense is that intelligence organizations should stick to the fact-gathering, analysis, and consulting roles, while avoiding the active, decisive strategic planning and execution phase of war. They are intellectuals, and like most intellectuals are tough to manageand even harder to be used effectively. CIA intelligence should be more integrated with the decision-making bodies of the armed forces over at the Pentagon. They are essentially the anthropologists of the defense world-- full of cultural knowledge, but struggling to put it to use. War is, among other nightmares, a logistical one.
Our government can't wage wars while every bureaucratic feifdom involved is trying to score originality points. A little harmony between these two warring Bureaus of Combat would do us (and the world) some good. Our military interventions are in need of a major makeover by some flamboyantly gay, optimistic management consultants. Carson, anyone? Olive drab is so out this year. Try this linen suit with these aviator sunglasses.
I know that al Zarqawi was caught by way of a mishmash of US, Iraqi, Jordanian intelligence coupled with military know-how, but this seems like the exception, rather than the rule. We can't put a $25 million bounty on every Tom, Dick, and Hussein with a jones for jihad-- then again, maybe that would be cheaper thatn the roughly $1Billion/day going rate of occupation that we're currently paying.
Peace has a price to be sure... but we're being ripped off.
Even better than this morbid choice between Marines or Paramilitary deathsquads overthrowing governments would be avoiding these situations in the first place. Past successful purchases of peace took place when a large bloc of nations have come under one ideology to conquer whatever it is they don't like. Think of getting kids in high school to behave a certain way. Where bullying fails, relentless, constant peer pressure works.
Instead of continuing to pursue the brute force solution to regime change, there needs to be some agreement from middle-eastern countries on what Iraq should look like, some agreement from religious leaders on what the role of Islam should be vis-a-vis the state. Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Morocco, and others seem to make it work. All of these parties could help to reintegrate Iraq into the region, and into the exisiting networks of cultural and economic exchange that keep people happy and productive.
Instead of continuing to send spooks to do a local's job, we need to study and promote institutions that create positive leaders, while discouraging those that produce sociopaths. Job training, university grants, outlets for speech, and even the right kind of religion are good places to look. For every al Zarqawi there needs to be an alternative, freedom-loving cult of personality in place; not some shill for US oil interests, some starry-eyed revolutionary, or someone too into the lessons they learned on tough love at the School of the Americas.
The metronome continues to click, but little more. We need a few Muslim Mandelas, Giza Ghandis, Euphrates Yushenkos and Tigris Tutus. They are the only true counterinsurgency.
Iraq's war of attrition is the fruit of forced regime change. As far as I can tell, if regime change is what you want, there are two basic ways of getting it. First, there is the brute force "send-in-the-Marines" approach that we have come to know and love since the invasion of Afghanistan almost five years ago and the somewhat more recent and involved invasion and occupation of Iraq. Second, there is the sneaky "spooks-fund-the-less-bad-guys" approach that, according to the other international article on today's NYT front page, has led to a disaster in Somalia.
Neither of these approaches do anything to eliminate the prospects of guys like al Zarqawi, nor, beyond a short-lived moral victory, have they ever led to long-term stability of nations, let alone the long-term liberty of their people. At best, unilateral wars for regime change have a track record of producing Macchiavellian principalities where fear keeps the local journalism dull and the trains running on time until the prince dies and his idiot son takes over. Meanwhile, covert CIA-type interventions have given us such successes as the Latin American Dirty Wars, the Iran-Contra Affairs, Iran's current leadership in the first place, continued paramilitary chaos across much of sub-saharan Africa, and countless other simmering quagmires, havens for terrorists, "People's Democratic Republics of Carjackistan" and others. Yesterday's freedom fighters are tomorrow's Taliban.
By funding anti-islamist warlords in Somalia, we have added to this list of successes. We have created a brand-new and relatively unexploited petrie dish for new al Zarqawis to grow and multiply unchecked by any legitmate force.
It is more than likely that the world-renowned security apparatus that our intelligence agencies helped Iran set up in the 60s and 70s is now has its own sneaky spooks on the ground in all of these hotspots, and elsewhere. Without any facts, could you imagine any country with geopolitical aspirations (and real influence) not pursuing their interests in their occupied or weakened neighbor? As a hunch, there will be a great many books written about this in a generation's time.
Seeing what's going on today, and if I were born yesterday, I'd be a big fan of the CIA intervention. Sending 10 experts into a country to foment a revolution in our favor sounds a lot better than 100,000 20 year old kids trying to keep the peace where they don't speak the language, and where the heat, dust, scorpions and snipers will sap the strength of anyone. The problem is that the CIA intervention never seems to work. Compound the spooks' track record with the expertise of the competition, and it looks like a really, really bad idea.
My sense is that intelligence organizations should stick to the fact-gathering, analysis, and consulting roles, while avoiding the active, decisive strategic planning and execution phase of war. They are intellectuals, and like most intellectuals are tough to manageand even harder to be used effectively. CIA intelligence should be more integrated with the decision-making bodies of the armed forces over at the Pentagon. They are essentially the anthropologists of the defense world-- full of cultural knowledge, but struggling to put it to use. War is, among other nightmares, a logistical one.
Our government can't wage wars while every bureaucratic feifdom involved is trying to score originality points. A little harmony between these two warring Bureaus of Combat would do us (and the world) some good. Our military interventions are in need of a major makeover by some flamboyantly gay, optimistic management consultants. Carson, anyone? Olive drab is so out this year. Try this linen suit with these aviator sunglasses.
I know that al Zarqawi was caught by way of a mishmash of US, Iraqi, Jordanian intelligence coupled with military know-how, but this seems like the exception, rather than the rule. We can't put a $25 million bounty on every Tom, Dick, and Hussein with a jones for jihad-- then again, maybe that would be cheaper thatn the roughly $1Billion/day going rate of occupation that we're currently paying.
Peace has a price to be sure... but we're being ripped off.
Even better than this morbid choice between Marines or Paramilitary deathsquads overthrowing governments would be avoiding these situations in the first place. Past successful purchases of peace took place when a large bloc of nations have come under one ideology to conquer whatever it is they don't like. Think of getting kids in high school to behave a certain way. Where bullying fails, relentless, constant peer pressure works.
Instead of continuing to pursue the brute force solution to regime change, there needs to be some agreement from middle-eastern countries on what Iraq should look like, some agreement from religious leaders on what the role of Islam should be vis-a-vis the state. Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Morocco, and others seem to make it work. All of these parties could help to reintegrate Iraq into the region, and into the exisiting networks of cultural and economic exchange that keep people happy and productive.
Instead of continuing to send spooks to do a local's job, we need to study and promote institutions that create positive leaders, while discouraging those that produce sociopaths. Job training, university grants, outlets for speech, and even the right kind of religion are good places to look. For every al Zarqawi there needs to be an alternative, freedom-loving cult of personality in place; not some shill for US oil interests, some starry-eyed revolutionary, or someone too into the lessons they learned on tough love at the School of the Americas.
The metronome continues to click, but little more. We need a few Muslim Mandelas, Giza Ghandis, Euphrates Yushenkos and Tigris Tutus. They are the only true counterinsurgency.
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