Monday, October 15, 2007
The Ostrich Papers: "What if Clinton had..." (Part III)
Our topic is how we might embark on this coming campaign year, and save America. Indeed, save western civilization. Is our aim merely to squeak a narrow win in 2008 -- trusting the neocons not to pull another sneaky trick, like on 2000 or 2004? Is that really a safe bet?
Or shall Democrats and moderates be the smart ones, this time? By taking the fight deep into their territory. Tearing apart Karl Rove’s Big Tent Coalition and stealing their most important and (somewhat) admirable members --
-- those obstinate but mostly decent “Dole-Goldwater Republicans” -- like that sweet but obstinate uncle of yours -- who stay glued to Fox News, in order to avoid lifting their heads out of the sand. In order NOT to face what their beloved conservatism has become -- hijacked, mutated, and steered toward treason by a bona fide criminal gang.
These folk must be the target! Because, each “ostrich” who wakens will get angry -- just like most members of the U.S. military officer corps. And one angry “decent conservative” is sure to waken others.
Yes, it may mean having to negotiate with these ostriches. Offer some compromises that would suit Robert Dole... though never Rush Limbaugh. Still, a small price for sending fanatics and thieves into the wilderness, instead of leaving them in charge of a major political party! It could end “culture war” once and for all, and save the next presidency.
So let’s go back to laying down a long list of thought experiments for you to insist that your ostrich try on for size.
.
* WOULD YOU HAVE PROTESTED, IF THE DEMOCRATS...
...systematically dismantled dozens of independent scientific panels, including all of those charged with advising Congress? Then stocked the remaining panels with second-rate shills who are despised, all across the scientific community? http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/10/dr_president.php
...allowed major special interests to write the administration’s energy and other policies?
... spent 13 years blocking energy research that might have helped America wean its addiction to foreign oil?
...first denied the existence of a looming threat to our climate, then pressured government and independent scientists to censor their reports, then claimed “the jury is still out and we need more research”...
...while slashing research budgets ...
...and then, finally, after years of delay, when the proof-of-danger was too blatant to ignore any longer, suppose they blithely did a complete and dizzying 180 reversal, suddenly calling human-generated climate change “a dire international crisis”?
What if they did all that and then, abruptly, claimed “We NEVER denied that humans are causing global warming!”
Wouldn’t that affect a whole movement’s credibility? Shouldn’t it? (That is, if the guys who did all that happened to be democrats.)
.
* WOULD IT REDUCE DEMOCRATS’ CREDIBILITY IF THEY...
...praised and supported and encouraged Saddam Hussein for decades? Then fought to eject him from Kuwait, only to prop him back up and protect him, yet again? Then, after leaving him to brutalize Iraqis for 12 more years, finally decided to go after him -- in the stupidest way possible?
...praised and supported and encouraged Osama bin Laden? Armed and helped him gain power in Afghanistan. Then, finally decided to go after him, declaring “We’ll never rest till he is brought to justice!” (Only... somehow never succeeded?)
Whatever the solution to Iraq and the Middle East may be, one thing is certain. Any bozos who did things like that don’t deserve to prescribe anything! Democrat or Republican, they would have no credibility. No right to preach or “decide.” None at all.
.
* WHAT IF A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT HAD...
...encouraged us to be far more afraid of vague “terrorists” than we were ever afraid of a monstrous communist empire, bristling with tens of thousands of hair-trigger nuclear weapons?
... vastly increased government secrecy, to levels never seen before, not even when we were in a life/death struggle against the Soviet KGB? (Would you have wondered if the president was doing it in order to hide misdeeds? (You bet you would have! That is, if it were a democrat.)
...engaged in illegal wiretapping schemes, spying on American citizens and interfering with their rights?
... appointed roughly a hundred US attorneys who were openly partisan Democrats, then fired a few of them for not going after Republicans harshly enough? (Would you wonder about the remaining ones, who weren’t fired? Worrying what kind of a country you are living in, when a majority of US attorneys are acceptable to such a partisan regime?)
Would you have put up with such abuse, if it were done by Bill Clinton? (Who, in fact, appointed dozens of Republicans as US Attorneys and was widely known for promoting professionals within the Civil Service, instead of party hacks.)
No you would not have! So, why have you parroted Fox News excuses for George Bush, when he actually did all of these things?
.
* WHAT IF BILL CLINTON HAD...
...taken every bill passed by the Newt Gingrich Congress and signed it, while scribbling in the margins that “this bill means only what I say it means”?
Would that have raised your hackles, denouncing him as “undermining the Constitution and grabbing power?”
(Okay, then. But Clinton didn’t do that. Bush has. Any denunciations?)
.
WHAT IF THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION...
...delivered 8 years of relative peace, fiscal responsibility (with more surpluses and buying-down of debt than the rest of US history, combined), and delivered good management (according to JD Powers and other neutral auditing agencies), while reducing federal paperwork and non defense manpower?
..kept US forces at high readiness and high morale by closely heeding the advice of professional officers, while getting taxpayers their money’s worth by fiercely enforcing lawful oversight and competitive contracting rules? And, when a time came to apply military force, did so in strict accordance with the Powell Doctrine, accompanying overwhelming surgical force with skillful diplomacy, achieving all goals quickly, with low civilian casualties and zero loss of American lives?
...oversaw the greatest surge of wealth -- among ALL social classes -- in history, including the formation of more new small businesses than ever? With vastly better performance of the stock market and every other economic indicator?
...despite fervid, paranoid and totally unproved accusations, kept reducing government secrecy? (Hardly the behavior of people with a lot to hide.)
...put 100,000 extra police officers directly onto America’s streets while setting in place procedures to ensure their professionalism? Then oversaw the steepest drop in crime in American history? Along with decreases in abortion and divorce?
...left office (for the first time in US history) with not a single administration official going to jail for malfeasance in the performance of his or her office? In fact -- despite fevered accusations - without a single administration official being convicted or even indicted for malfeasance in the performance of his or her office? This despite several billion dollars spent by the opposition, in search of some kind of “smoking gun”?
What if US world popularity skyrocketed to unprecedented levels, during that time, with all but China, Russia, France and a few Muslim states agreeing tacitly to a US-led “unipolar” world?
Judging entirely according to these “conservative” standards, would you have put up with such goings on, if they were perpetrated by Bill Clinton...?
Oops... trick question. In fact, all of these things DID happen under Clinton. Yet you were fuming for all of those 8 years. On the other hand, every single one of these things has been diametrically reversed by the Bushites, while you and Fox make excuses.
How can that be? Is it possible that you mean something different by “patriotism” and “conservatism” than we thought you meant? It is starting to look that way.
Continue to Part IV
Saturday, October 13, 2007
The Ostrich Papers: "What if Clinton had..." (Part II)
We're discussing how not only to eke victory over the Bushites, in 08, but to decisively repudiate the neocons' treasonous “culture war.” To do this, we must not over-rely upon plummeting GOP popularity. After all:
1) Something may happen to firm the GOP base. Another (convenient) terror attack. War with Iran. The nomination of Hillary Clinton. (Look, I like her. I'll campaign hard if she’s the nominee. But can you imagine anything more sure to bring out ten million extra Republican voters, through sleet or hail?)
2) The GOP is already re-positioning, preparing to blame everything on Bush and “Beltway Washington insiders...” giving GOP voters a way to vote for more neocon thieves, backed by the same interests, while telling themselves they're throwing bums out!
3) Democrats may let Karl Rove frame the debate, yet again, as a matter of “left versus right”... leaving moderate and “decent” conservatives no option but to hold their noses and “vote right” -- as a matter of simple self- identity.
We must prepare against these failure modes.
But how?
The best way to do it is by going for the throat. Go AFTER the Dole Goldwater Republicans, hammer and tongs! That beloved, sweet but troglodytic uncle of yours, for example, who gets his memes reinforced on Fox. Make him choose between the GOP and America!
Because that’s what it comes down to.
And now, back to providing ammo for that effort... more ostrich hypocrisy skewers.
.
* DO YOU FIGURE YOU’D HAVE NOTICED IF BILL CLINTON...
...sent our National Guard units into endless deployments, wrecking families, demolishing our reserves, and leaving our states and cities defenseless, in case of natural disaster. Or in case of a future terror attack?
...allowed a great American city to be destroyed through staggering bureaucratic negligence, despite plenty of warnings about hurricane danger? Then allowed graft and corruption to siphon off billions, in the aftermath?
...allowed U.S. air travel to decline into a morass of filthy, overcrowded airports, overbearing security and deteriorating service, while the rich escape to charters and corporate jets?
...allowed our nation’s infrastructure, bridges, highways etc to deteriorate at the fastest rate in history?
...oversaw the worst spiral into national debt the world has ever seen, reversing 1990s surpluses into record-breaking deficits?
(Self-check: When did you switch priorities? Loading your grandchildren with debt, while protecting Rupert Murdoch from taxes? Even when our nation is at war, in a “fight for survival”?
(Is it possible you were TAUGHT to make this weird reversal of conservative values? By the same aristocrats who control your radio and TV? By the very same men who directly benefit?)
.
* WOULD YOU CRITICIZE YOUR “COMMANDER IN CHIEF” IF IT WERE BILL CLINTON WHO...
...supervised and directly oversaw the steepest decline in U.S. military readiness since the War of 1812? With the Army and Marines running out of troops and equipment, unable to meet quotas, despite steeply lowering standards and offering signup bonuses in excess of $20,000 all the way up to $150,000?
...brought us to the point where only two Army brigades are currently trained, equipped and prepared to fight off a national land force? And those two are in Korea? (Hint: that’s fewer ready brigades than Belgium or Mexico have.)
...fired, transferred, punished, or forced into retirement hundreds of US military officers, for refusing to parrot a party line or for not helping twist our armed forces into a political tool?
...appointed to top positions at the FBI, Justice Department, CIA, Defense and Homeland Security men and women without experience in those fields, whose sole attribute was partisan loyalty and a willingness to bully civil servants, harassing professionals into toeing the line?
(Self-check: If a Democrat did a smidgen of this, would you have looked the other way?
(Or would you have made a fuss if Clinton harassed even one US officer? So, what do you say to that face in the mirror? That fellow who let a Republican administration do all this, and much more, without uttering a word of protest?)
.
* WOULD YOU HAVE LAUGHED ALOUD -- OR CRIED -- IF BILL CLINTON...
...declared that he was the one and only “decider,” in what had previously been a vast and sophisticated democracy?
...declared repeatedly that a president can refuse to answer to any kind of accountability or oversight by Congress?
...promised (as a candidate) never to commit troops without a timetable, an exit strategy, adequate financing, or clear goals? Achievable war aims that directly help our nation, enough to outweigh our soldiers’ sacrifice? What if Clinton had promised all that... then did the opposite?
...declared “Mission Accomplished” when an endless, Vietnam-style quagmire had only just begun?
... initiated intimate and unwanted body contact with a female foreign leader? On camera?
...drove away all of our allies and made the United States more unpopular around the world than at any time in our history?
(Yes, the neocon attitude is “#*@! what the world thinks!” But, in that case, wouldn’t traditional conservative isolationism make more sense than trying to “lead” a world that hates us?)
(In fact, Clinton’s Balkans War was brief, fierce, effective and perfect, quickly achieving all major goals at low expense, while preserving readiness and costing zero -- exactly zero -- American lives. While US popularity soared, even among Muslims and troop moral hit new records. Beat that.)
Next time... even more (what-if) crimes of “Bill Clinton!”
1) Something may happen to firm the GOP base. Another (convenient) terror attack. War with Iran. The nomination of Hillary Clinton. (Look, I like her. I'll campaign hard if she’s the nominee. But can you imagine anything more sure to bring out ten million extra Republican voters, through sleet or hail?)
2) The GOP is already re-positioning, preparing to blame everything on Bush and “Beltway Washington insiders...” giving GOP voters a way to vote for more neocon thieves, backed by the same interests, while telling themselves they're throwing bums out!
3) Democrats may let Karl Rove frame the debate, yet again, as a matter of “left versus right”... leaving moderate and “decent” conservatives no option but to hold their noses and “vote right” -- as a matter of simple self- identity.
We must prepare against these failure modes.
But how?
The best way to do it is by going for the throat. Go AFTER the Dole Goldwater Republicans, hammer and tongs! That beloved, sweet but troglodytic uncle of yours, for example, who gets his memes reinforced on Fox. Make him choose between the GOP and America!
Because that’s what it comes down to.
And now, back to providing ammo for that effort... more ostrich hypocrisy skewers.
.
* DO YOU FIGURE YOU’D HAVE NOTICED IF BILL CLINTON...
...sent our National Guard units into endless deployments, wrecking families, demolishing our reserves, and leaving our states and cities defenseless, in case of natural disaster. Or in case of a future terror attack?
...allowed a great American city to be destroyed through staggering bureaucratic negligence, despite plenty of warnings about hurricane danger? Then allowed graft and corruption to siphon off billions, in the aftermath?
...allowed U.S. air travel to decline into a morass of filthy, overcrowded airports, overbearing security and deteriorating service, while the rich escape to charters and corporate jets?
...allowed our nation’s infrastructure, bridges, highways etc to deteriorate at the fastest rate in history?
...oversaw the worst spiral into national debt the world has ever seen, reversing 1990s surpluses into record-breaking deficits?
(Self-check: When did you switch priorities? Loading your grandchildren with debt, while protecting Rupert Murdoch from taxes? Even when our nation is at war, in a “fight for survival”?
(Is it possible you were TAUGHT to make this weird reversal of conservative values? By the same aristocrats who control your radio and TV? By the very same men who directly benefit?)
.
* WOULD YOU CRITICIZE YOUR “COMMANDER IN CHIEF” IF IT WERE BILL CLINTON WHO...
...supervised and directly oversaw the steepest decline in U.S. military readiness since the War of 1812? With the Army and Marines running out of troops and equipment, unable to meet quotas, despite steeply lowering standards and offering signup bonuses in excess of $20,000 all the way up to $150,000?
...brought us to the point where only two Army brigades are currently trained, equipped and prepared to fight off a national land force? And those two are in Korea? (Hint: that’s fewer ready brigades than Belgium or Mexico have.)
...fired, transferred, punished, or forced into retirement hundreds of US military officers, for refusing to parrot a party line or for not helping twist our armed forces into a political tool?
...appointed to top positions at the FBI, Justice Department, CIA, Defense and Homeland Security men and women without experience in those fields, whose sole attribute was partisan loyalty and a willingness to bully civil servants, harassing professionals into toeing the line?
(Self-check: If a Democrat did a smidgen of this, would you have looked the other way?
(Or would you have made a fuss if Clinton harassed even one US officer? So, what do you say to that face in the mirror? That fellow who let a Republican administration do all this, and much more, without uttering a word of protest?)
.
* WOULD YOU HAVE LAUGHED ALOUD -- OR CRIED -- IF BILL CLINTON...
...declared that he was the one and only “decider,” in what had previously been a vast and sophisticated democracy?
...declared repeatedly that a president can refuse to answer to any kind of accountability or oversight by Congress?
...promised (as a candidate) never to commit troops without a timetable, an exit strategy, adequate financing, or clear goals? Achievable war aims that directly help our nation, enough to outweigh our soldiers’ sacrifice? What if Clinton had promised all that... then did the opposite?
...declared “Mission Accomplished” when an endless, Vietnam-style quagmire had only just begun?
... initiated intimate and unwanted body contact with a female foreign leader? On camera?
...drove away all of our allies and made the United States more unpopular around the world than at any time in our history?
(Yes, the neocon attitude is “#*@! what the world thinks!” But, in that case, wouldn’t traditional conservative isolationism make more sense than trying to “lead” a world that hates us?)
(In fact, Clinton’s Balkans War was brief, fierce, effective and perfect, quickly achieving all major goals at low expense, while preserving readiness and costing zero -- exactly zero -- American lives. While US popularity soared, even among Muslims and troop moral hit new records. Beat that.)
Next time... even more (what-if) crimes of “Bill Clinton!”
Friday, October 12, 2007
OSTRICH HUNTING: The Bill Clinton Gambit
If Democrats simply want to win the next election, they may play it safe. Keep riding the GOP’s self-made spiral of unpopularity, hoping that nothing dramatic will happen to mobilize the Republican base. Keep it about “left vs right.” Chip away at the middle-fringe of Karl Rove’s coalition. That seems to be the game plan.
If - on the other hand - our aim is to save America and our civilization, then we have to be more ambitious. Any Democratic presidency in 2009 will almost worthless, if it stays mired in endless “culture war.”
The only way to solve that is to completely repudiate neoconservatism. This monstrous, mutant version of conservatism should not be left in charge of one of America’s major parties, licking its wounds and preparing for a comeback in 2012.
For America’s sake, the next election has to be a blow-out.
.
* OSTRICH AMMO: Hypocrisy is the Zinger
Top priority must go to shattering Rove’s Big Tent Coalition - by rousing twenty million “Ostrich Republicans.” Like your mostly-decent uncle, who stays glued to Fox News, desperately seeking reassurance that his side has not gone insane. Burying his head in denial, trying not to think about what conservatism has become.
If each of us managed to shake-awake just one or two “ostriches” - to realize their movement has been hijacked by a fanatics and thieves - their anger against the neocons might sear Rove’s Red Alliance down to ashes, ensuring that the next version of conservatism (and there will be one) may be more like Bob Dole and less Joseph Goebbels.
But how does one rouse a stubborn ostrich? As I discuss elsewhere, they are psychologically well-armored and Fox provides rationalizations to mask every individual Bushite travesty. Hence, you’ll need persistence, plus willingness to empathize! Instead of screaming at a strawman image, show your ostriches that you understand their better values - prudence, independence, honesty, fiscal responsibility, real patriotism - and then show forcefully how the neocon/Bush cabal has betrayed them all.
It also helps to shake up their perspective! Make them take a fresh angle. So here’s an approach. Try asking ”What happened to the moral outrage that you once fulminated towards Bill Clinton?”
And then start going down a very long list of thought experiments.
.
*WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE SAID IF CLINTON HAD....
... sent twelve billion dollars of taxpayer money into a war zone -- as a raw cash, unsupervised slush fund -- and then somehow managed to lose nine billions of it...
(HOW do you “lose” 270 tons of one hundred dollar bills? That’s ninety million $100 bills, or the average monthly mortgage payments of TEN million Americans.)...
...including almost a billion dollars that were “misplaced” by the side of an Iraqi road?
Would you have let Bill Clinton get away with something like that, without a single head rolling, or even a decent explanation?
Self-check: Remember how mad you were over “Whitewater corruption,” amounting to (at most) $80,000? In contrast, are you even curious why George Bush won’t even try to account for TEN THOUSAND times as much?
.
* HOW WOULD YOU HAVE REACTED IF BILL CLINTON....
...made US taxpayers subsidize a huge, private, mercenary army, controlled by one of his closest liberal-democrat supporters?
...then signed documents making those mercenaries immune from any law, American or foreign?
...then let those mercenaries exonerate themselves from cold-blooded murder, by ghost-writing a “report” under US diplomatic letterhead?
...while also privatizing many more secret groups to perform intelligence-gathering, interrogation, kidnapping and international “operations” without even a figleaf of supervision by the CIA?
...then ruined the effectiveness of one of the best of those groups, by leaking its methods, simply to make a minor political point?
Would you have shrugged all that off, if Bill Clinton had done such things? You, who relished ornate conspiracy theories over the suicide of poor Vince Foster -- how would you have reacted if the Clintons used your taxes to create vast private armies led by fanatic democrats?
You would have let that slide? As “necessary,” just because Commander-in-Chief Clinton said so? Really?
Now substitue “Bush” for “Clinton” and tell us the same.
WOULD IT HAVE ANGERED YOU IF BILL CLINTON...
...canceled the rules requiring that government contracts be awarded by competitive bidding -- (it’s called capitalism) -- and instead granted multibillion dollar sweetheart deals directly to Clinton family friends, free of supervision or auditing? http://tinyurl.com/ysmv96
...used the words “emergency” and “top secret” to conceal those crooked deals?
...hid the fact that each private contractor costs five to ten times as much as a soldier or civil servant, while doing astonishingly shoddy work?
...then appointed “inspectors” to many cabinet departments and Iraq reconstruction agencies, who have no professional qualifications other than longtime political loyalty to Bill Clinton?
(Meanwhile, our troops go without. And regular Iraqis starve.)
...then managed to lose, waste or “misplace” more Iraqi oil each and every day than the UN “Oil For Food Program” did in its entire history? If Clinton had done these things, would you have ignored and excused it all, the way you have for Bush?
.
* Yes, this is confrontational stuff!
Indeed, it would be a mistake to simply print this out and shove it under an ostrich's nose. They won't read. They'll go ostrich on you!
The most effective approach? Sitting him or her down and reading it to them aloud! Be fair. Listen to replies and defenses. Don’t sneer. Be willing to learn!
But don’t let go. The most persuasive thing about this list is its relentless length! Every rationalization will look thinner and thinner, as you lay down one crime after another.
.
... Onward to Part II.
(* Added links welcome along with comments.)
If - on the other hand - our aim is to save America and our civilization, then we have to be more ambitious. Any Democratic presidency in 2009 will almost worthless, if it stays mired in endless “culture war.”
The only way to solve that is to completely repudiate neoconservatism. This monstrous, mutant version of conservatism should not be left in charge of one of America’s major parties, licking its wounds and preparing for a comeback in 2012.
For America’s sake, the next election has to be a blow-out.
.
* OSTRICH AMMO: Hypocrisy is the Zinger
Top priority must go to shattering Rove’s Big Tent Coalition - by rousing twenty million “Ostrich Republicans.” Like your mostly-decent uncle, who stays glued to Fox News, desperately seeking reassurance that his side has not gone insane. Burying his head in denial, trying not to think about what conservatism has become.
If each of us managed to shake-awake just one or two “ostriches” - to realize their movement has been hijacked by a fanatics and thieves - their anger against the neocons might sear Rove’s Red Alliance down to ashes, ensuring that the next version of conservatism (and there will be one) may be more like Bob Dole and less Joseph Goebbels.
But how does one rouse a stubborn ostrich? As I discuss elsewhere, they are psychologically well-armored and Fox provides rationalizations to mask every individual Bushite travesty. Hence, you’ll need persistence, plus willingness to empathize! Instead of screaming at a strawman image, show your ostriches that you understand their better values - prudence, independence, honesty, fiscal responsibility, real patriotism - and then show forcefully how the neocon/Bush cabal has betrayed them all.
It also helps to shake up their perspective! Make them take a fresh angle. So here’s an approach. Try asking ”What happened to the moral outrage that you once fulminated towards Bill Clinton?”
And then start going down a very long list of thought experiments.
.
*WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE SAID IF CLINTON HAD....
... sent twelve billion dollars of taxpayer money into a war zone -- as a raw cash, unsupervised slush fund -- and then somehow managed to lose nine billions of it...
(HOW do you “lose” 270 tons of one hundred dollar bills? That’s ninety million $100 bills, or the average monthly mortgage payments of TEN million Americans.)...
...including almost a billion dollars that were “misplaced” by the side of an Iraqi road?
Would you have let Bill Clinton get away with something like that, without a single head rolling, or even a decent explanation?
Self-check: Remember how mad you were over “Whitewater corruption,” amounting to (at most) $80,000? In contrast, are you even curious why George Bush won’t even try to account for TEN THOUSAND times as much?
.
* HOW WOULD YOU HAVE REACTED IF BILL CLINTON....
...made US taxpayers subsidize a huge, private, mercenary army, controlled by one of his closest liberal-democrat supporters?
...then signed documents making those mercenaries immune from any law, American or foreign?
...then let those mercenaries exonerate themselves from cold-blooded murder, by ghost-writing a “report” under US diplomatic letterhead?
...while also privatizing many more secret groups to perform intelligence-gathering, interrogation, kidnapping and international “operations” without even a figleaf of supervision by the CIA?
...then ruined the effectiveness of one of the best of those groups, by leaking its methods, simply to make a minor political point?
Would you have shrugged all that off, if Bill Clinton had done such things? You, who relished ornate conspiracy theories over the suicide of poor Vince Foster -- how would you have reacted if the Clintons used your taxes to create vast private armies led by fanatic democrats?
You would have let that slide? As “necessary,” just because Commander-in-Chief Clinton said so? Really?
Now substitue “Bush” for “Clinton” and tell us the same.
WOULD IT HAVE ANGERED YOU IF BILL CLINTON...
...canceled the rules requiring that government contracts be awarded by competitive bidding -- (it’s called capitalism) -- and instead granted multibillion dollar sweetheart deals directly to Clinton family friends, free of supervision or auditing? http://tinyurl.com/ysmv96
...used the words “emergency” and “top secret” to conceal those crooked deals?
...hid the fact that each private contractor costs five to ten times as much as a soldier or civil servant, while doing astonishingly shoddy work?
...then appointed “inspectors” to many cabinet departments and Iraq reconstruction agencies, who have no professional qualifications other than longtime political loyalty to Bill Clinton?
(Meanwhile, our troops go without. And regular Iraqis starve.)
...then managed to lose, waste or “misplace” more Iraqi oil each and every day than the UN “Oil For Food Program” did in its entire history? If Clinton had done these things, would you have ignored and excused it all, the way you have for Bush?
.
* Yes, this is confrontational stuff!
Indeed, it would be a mistake to simply print this out and shove it under an ostrich's nose. They won't read. They'll go ostrich on you!
The most effective approach? Sitting him or her down and reading it to them aloud! Be fair. Listen to replies and defenses. Don’t sneer. Be willing to learn!
But don’t let go. The most persuasive thing about this list is its relentless length! Every rationalization will look thinner and thinner, as you lay down one crime after another.
.
... Onward to Part II.
(* Added links welcome along with comments.)
A Long "Ostrich" Post coming --
I will be posting, a bit later, a long compilation for the "Ostrich Papers" for folks to ponder over the weekend.
As promised, this one tries to compile a comprehensive set of wake-up accusations that are parsed in a particular way, meant to pillory decent-but-obstinate Republicans, by demanding "What would you have done or said if Bill Clinton and the Democrats had..." And then fill in the blanks.
What I could use from volunteers would be:
1) Anything I missed? Suggestions welcome.
2) Links that substantiate some of the items that currently aren't.
3) Suggestions where else this piece might go.
I currently plan to Kos-serialize it, even though I have been disappointed by the reader numbers over there.
It seems a worthy effort. Alas, it seem clear that very few people - and fewer democratic leaders - feel, as I do, that the key to all this is moderate and decent Republicans.
To me, it seems inescapable. Every "ostrich" who comes over will come over MAD! And he or she will infect other Dole-Goldwater types with the same anger toward the gang that has hijacked their party. Moreover, some will be people of influence, possibly rich persons or civil servants or officers capable of blowing whistles. They would legitimize any moderate democrat president and help to de-legitimize neocon fanaticism. Helping to end culture war.
And, as a bonus, aggressively seeking out these people would go right to one wing of Karl Rove's base, forcing the gang to spend time and energy defending it, making peace offerings to Dole-types that are sure to anger OTHER parts of their base.
Can anybody else see the win-win in this strategy? Or else show me how it's wrong?
As promised, this one tries to compile a comprehensive set of wake-up accusations that are parsed in a particular way, meant to pillory decent-but-obstinate Republicans, by demanding "What would you have done or said if Bill Clinton and the Democrats had..." And then fill in the blanks.
What I could use from volunteers would be:
1) Anything I missed? Suggestions welcome.
2) Links that substantiate some of the items that currently aren't.
3) Suggestions where else this piece might go.
I currently plan to Kos-serialize it, even though I have been disappointed by the reader numbers over there.
It seems a worthy effort. Alas, it seem clear that very few people - and fewer democratic leaders - feel, as I do, that the key to all this is moderate and decent Republicans.
To me, it seems inescapable. Every "ostrich" who comes over will come over MAD! And he or she will infect other Dole-Goldwater types with the same anger toward the gang that has hijacked their party. Moreover, some will be people of influence, possibly rich persons or civil servants or officers capable of blowing whistles. They would legitimize any moderate democrat president and help to de-legitimize neocon fanaticism. Helping to end culture war.
And, as a bonus, aggressively seeking out these people would go right to one wing of Karl Rove's base, forcing the gang to spend time and energy defending it, making peace offerings to Dole-types that are sure to anger OTHER parts of their base.
Can anybody else see the win-win in this strategy? Or else show me how it's wrong?
Monday, October 08, 2007
The GOP vs. the U.S. Military: Part Seven - Privatization
Looking back across earlier portions of this series, we can see these dismal trends continuing in real time. For example, see a detailed look at the effort to transform the US military into a force for radical christianity.
And yet, is it possible that -- after shouting into silence for years -- I can see hope at last? Signs of quiet back-pressure from the grownups of the U.S. Officer Corps have been evident ever since the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld and his replacement by the new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. Now, with the departure of “Rumsfeld’s Parrot” -- Gen. Peter Pace -- from the office of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it appears that the top tier of at least one department may be back in the hands of professionals and adults. (Read an excellent article about this.)
Will this be anywhere near enough? Alas, not when the President might still, at any moment, dash off an order hurling a gung-ho US Air Force -- and those Naval attack squadrons that cannot resist by working-to-rule -- into a rash and lobotomized series of pinprick provocations against Iran.
To prevent this... and stop this administration’s relentless, top-down treason in all its forms... another set of professionals must stand up and do their part. The FBI. The men and women of the intelligence services. Civil servants in every department. It is time for them to decide whose side they are on. Invoking long dormant protocols (or innovating new ones) for what to do when the nation’s immune systems have been infected and taken over by a virulent disease at the very top.
The social and political equivalent of AIDS.
Only now... back to our series on what has been done to our military by the Bush Administration and by a transformed and mutated GOP.
Privatization: Only the Best for Contractors, and the Worst for our Troops
So far, this series has examined many ways that the Bush administration (and allies) betrayed the U.S. military -- especially the Army and Marines -- as part of a larger War Against Professionalism. (See Part Three: Destroying Military Readiness).
Along this desolate journey, we have crossed a landscape of eviscerated national reputation, allies driven off, enemies emboldened and - worst of all - service men and women treated like expendable pieces in a game, played by overcompensating, macho little boys. And it gets worse.
But WHY quash, destroy or demoralize all government professionals? Especially stripping our defenses and crippling the military?. Why would Team Bush do such things?
The short answer is -- accountability. Or rather, avoidance thereof. The one trait that is common among government scientists, the civil service, the intelligence and law enforcement communities, and the U.S. Officer Corps is that these large pools of highly skilled and dedicated people have been trained to see. They are the ones who might puzzle together patterns, reveal corruption, or refuse to allow unconstitutional usurpations of undue power. If your aim were to seize permanent power in the United States -- or simply to stay out of jail, after robbing the U.S. blind -- it would make perfect sense to concentrate on paralyzing the professionals. And to hide it all in clouds of secrecy.
I am not the only one tracking this overall trend. With a far better soapbox than I, syndicated columnist Paul Krugman has also been on target. He had this to say, a few weeks ago (9/28/07) in the New York Times:
“Sometimes it seems that the only way to make sense of the Bush administration is to imagine that it’s a vast experiment concocted by mad political scientists who want to see what happens if a nation systematically ignores everything we’ve learned over the past few centuries about how to make a modern government work. Thus, the administration has abandoned the principle of a professional, nonpolitical civil service, stuffing agencies from FEMA to the Justice Department with unqualified cronies.”
Unqualified... but also obedient, dogmatic and willing to bully the civil servants under them, distracting, or re-assigning or cauterizing the careers of those who -- in the course of their duties -- happen to look in forbidden directions.
But (again) why?
Advice from the Watergate era still has resonance. Follow the money. Last time, for example, we saw how President Bush has invoked a “national state of emergency,” for six years, with the principal effect that it lets him bypass normal, competitive bidding rules in the areas of Defense and Homeland Security. Emergency contracts have been granted to companies that are blatant Bush-Cheney consorts, with little or no subsequent supervision or oversight.
Let there be no mistake. The left has been proved just plain wrong in its reflex explanation, that the Iraq War “was about oil.” The real profit has come from those non-competitive contracts. From the war itself.
* The very, very, very worst examples.... that we know of
One recent book that exposes the seamy side of privatization (though dipping now and then into polemical excess) is Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War, by Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman.
I thought about writing my own summary, but the one on Amazon suffices: “In this shocking exposé, two government fraud experts reveal how private contractors have put the lives of countless American soldiers on the line while damaging our strategic interests and our image abroad. From the shameful war profiteering of companies like Halliburton/KBR to the sinister influence that corporate lobbyists have on American foreign policy, to the use of “emergency” declarations to evade normal contracting procedures, Dina Rasor and Robert H. Bauman paint a disturbing picture. Here they give the inside story on troops forced to subsist on little food and contaminated water, on officers afraid to lodge complaints because of Halliburton's political clout, on millions of dollars in contractors' bogus claims that are funded by American taxpayers, and privatized services that cost ten to thirty times as much as they did, when performed better by civil servants. Drawing on exclusive sources within government and the military, the authors show how greed and insider deals have conspired to undermine our fighting forces and threaten the security of our country.”
Phew. And you’ll find even more searing poignancy in some of the Amazon reader reviews! Take this excerpt:
“When I entered Baghdad in April 2003 and initially occupied Saddam's bombed out Ramadan palace to setup the new government, I was their as a civilian contractor. I was thrilled! I made more pay in 4 months as a contractor than in 4 years as a soldier. Months later, when I was called to service by my unit, I didn't respond to serve my country as a soldier because I was already in Baghdad. The army can't admit that's a problem, so they transferred me into the inactive reserves so I could stay in the war and make oodles of money. Again, I was thrilled! I stayed in Iraq and made so much money doing a job as good as a soldier with incompatible equipment impossible to interact with the army needs for 40x the military pay, that I bought a new house in Florida every other month. We didn't accomplish a damn thing as contractors. In fact, we broke more stuff than we brought and lost the rest but who cares? I wasn't responsible for it? The corporation was. Hell, I still have a bullet proof vest my corporation bought for me while soldiers were going into battle w/o body armor. I had the best! “
One powerful point in the book is how inefficient most Bush “privatizations” have been, especially in Iraq. The mythology, tenaciously clung-to by conservatives of all stripes, and not just neocons, has always been that corporate entities are universally more efficient that government ones. Study after study has shown that the real life facts are far more complicated, and often diametrically opposite to this article of faith. But when it comes to the privatization efforts of the Bush Administration, this hoary cliche is exposed as an utter travesty.
Bush’s own General Accounting Office (GAO) has declared -- that contractor-run services in Iraq average four to ten times as costly as the same services, when performed by soldiers or civil servants.
(A side note to ponder at leisure: whenever Democrats have de-regulated an industry -- e.g. banking, trucking, telecommunications, airlines, and the Internet -- the central effect was to increase competition. In fact, nearly all major DE-regulations during our lifetime have been promulgated by Democratic administrations, the exact opposite to popular conception.
(In contrast Whenever Republicans deregulate, it somehow always results in reduced competition, inefficiency and a subsequent, economy-rocking scandal. Clear examples include the Savings and Loan and cable industry “reforms”of the 1980s, supervised by George H. W. Bush, and Energy Industry “reforms” passed under George W. Bush. But none of these hold a candle against the half a trillion dollars that has gone into non-competitive, cost-plus Iraq War contracts, granted to Bush family friends.)
Meanwhile, on September 26, 2007, the GAO released a report revealing that the DOD and the VA are taking no better care of the wounded troops now than they were when the Washington Post broke the story about Walter Reed hospital, two years ago. MRAP armored (mine resistant) replacements for the humvee are tragically late, in the latest case of undersupplying the troops. And Iraqi civilians fume because delivery of basic services -- such as electricity and clean water and trash pickup, aren’t any better, after mountains of cash poured into infrastructure projects that get nothing done, making many yearn for well-ordered times before 2003.
And... oh... there was that missing billion dollars. In cash. That Bush officials simply “lost” in Iraq. By the side of a road. No heads rolled over that.
Can one even compare this to the so-called scandals under Bill Clinton? The difference in scale so boggles the mind that it may explain why Republicans could feel outrage at “Whitewater”, then simply blink in dull incomprehension over Neocon-era thievery. After all, you can imagine what you, personally, would do with $80,000. But a billion? In lost cash? The mind reels. It turns away.
* Even Worse -- Getting the Taxpayers to Subsidize the Creation of Private Armies for the Rich.
Of course, none of this more than touches upon the darkest aspect of the trend, described in Jeremy Scahill’s Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
“Based in the wilderness of North Carolina, it is the fastest-growing private army on the planet with forces capable of carrying out regime change throughout the world. Blackwater protects the top US officials in Iraq and yet we know almost nothing about the firm's quasi-military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and inside the US. Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy Seal named Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy conservative family that bankrolls far-right-wing causes.”
I have been fuming over Blackwater Security Services, ever since this burgeoning mercenary enforcement company sent private troops to intimidate local cops and to illegally patrol public bridges, during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, violently preventing poor folks in New Orleans from crossing into rich enclaves, even when their only goal was to pass through, seeking safety and transportation on the other side. *
While this trend is frightening in at least a dozen ways that go far beyond the topic of this series. Our primary focus remains mainly on how privatization of force has affected the military.
Consider this: even extreme libertarians, like Ayn Rand, have always conceded that governments should retain “a monopoly on the use of coercion and force.” Yes, many rabid libertarians despise the modern state and rail against excessive bureaucracy. They wish the military would simply guard our borders. Courts should simply enforce contracts and punish bullies who use coercion privately. Indeed, within those ideal limits, libertarians hold with the social compact that founded America -- that private force is a dangerous vestige of the days of mercenary condottieri and rule by feudal lords.
Oh, it is easy to see where Blackwater fits into the grand scheme. Members of the US Officer Corps who seem pliable can be offered lucrative retirement jobs in a new force that does not answer to any of our accountable institutions, nor any of the rigorous procedures that have become core elements of character in our professional - and national - armed services.
As for why neocons are pushing this trend, as part of their larger-scale putsch, well, there is a long tradition. Caesar turned Roman legions into personal ones. The SA and SS could perform actions that the German Wehrmacht found unpalatable. And these predecessors, too, would up servicing the mighty while paid out of public coffers.
Still, one question especially bugs me. Put aside the Secret Masters of this program and the mercenaries themselves, and the fanatics. What about the old fashioned conservatives who still make up the bulk of the Republican Party? Have they no sense of imagination or shame? Do they ever, ever pause and ask themselves “what would I have done, if Bill Clinton had tried to pull even one percent of this stuff?”
Hypocrites who raged over Whitewater, but see nothing to worry about in Blackwater, have simply chosen sides for visceral reasons and will let their minds see nothing disturbing.
Above all, the “side” they have chosen is not us. America. Civilization. It is a partisan movement that’s been taken over by monsters.
==Continue to Part 8
or return to Part 1 of this series
And yet, is it possible that -- after shouting into silence for years -- I can see hope at last? Signs of quiet back-pressure from the grownups of the U.S. Officer Corps have been evident ever since the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld and his replacement by the new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. Now, with the departure of “Rumsfeld’s Parrot” -- Gen. Peter Pace -- from the office of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it appears that the top tier of at least one department may be back in the hands of professionals and adults. (Read an excellent article about this.)
Will this be anywhere near enough? Alas, not when the President might still, at any moment, dash off an order hurling a gung-ho US Air Force -- and those Naval attack squadrons that cannot resist by working-to-rule -- into a rash and lobotomized series of pinprick provocations against Iran.
To prevent this... and stop this administration’s relentless, top-down treason in all its forms... another set of professionals must stand up and do their part. The FBI. The men and women of the intelligence services. Civil servants in every department. It is time for them to decide whose side they are on. Invoking long dormant protocols (or innovating new ones) for what to do when the nation’s immune systems have been infected and taken over by a virulent disease at the very top.
The social and political equivalent of AIDS.
Only now... back to our series on what has been done to our military by the Bush Administration and by a transformed and mutated GOP.
Privatization: Only the Best for Contractors, and the Worst for our Troops
So far, this series has examined many ways that the Bush administration (and allies) betrayed the U.S. military -- especially the Army and Marines -- as part of a larger War Against Professionalism. (See Part Three: Destroying Military Readiness).
Along this desolate journey, we have crossed a landscape of eviscerated national reputation, allies driven off, enemies emboldened and - worst of all - service men and women treated like expendable pieces in a game, played by overcompensating, macho little boys. And it gets worse.
But WHY quash, destroy or demoralize all government professionals? Especially stripping our defenses and crippling the military?. Why would Team Bush do such things?
The short answer is -- accountability. Or rather, avoidance thereof. The one trait that is common among government scientists, the civil service, the intelligence and law enforcement communities, and the U.S. Officer Corps is that these large pools of highly skilled and dedicated people have been trained to see. They are the ones who might puzzle together patterns, reveal corruption, or refuse to allow unconstitutional usurpations of undue power. If your aim were to seize permanent power in the United States -- or simply to stay out of jail, after robbing the U.S. blind -- it would make perfect sense to concentrate on paralyzing the professionals. And to hide it all in clouds of secrecy.
I am not the only one tracking this overall trend. With a far better soapbox than I, syndicated columnist Paul Krugman has also been on target. He had this to say, a few weeks ago (9/28/07) in the New York Times:
“Sometimes it seems that the only way to make sense of the Bush administration is to imagine that it’s a vast experiment concocted by mad political scientists who want to see what happens if a nation systematically ignores everything we’ve learned over the past few centuries about how to make a modern government work. Thus, the administration has abandoned the principle of a professional, nonpolitical civil service, stuffing agencies from FEMA to the Justice Department with unqualified cronies.”
Unqualified... but also obedient, dogmatic and willing to bully the civil servants under them, distracting, or re-assigning or cauterizing the careers of those who -- in the course of their duties -- happen to look in forbidden directions.
But (again) why?
Advice from the Watergate era still has resonance. Follow the money. Last time, for example, we saw how President Bush has invoked a “national state of emergency,” for six years, with the principal effect that it lets him bypass normal, competitive bidding rules in the areas of Defense and Homeland Security. Emergency contracts have been granted to companies that are blatant Bush-Cheney consorts, with little or no subsequent supervision or oversight.
Let there be no mistake. The left has been proved just plain wrong in its reflex explanation, that the Iraq War “was about oil.” The real profit has come from those non-competitive contracts. From the war itself.
* The very, very, very worst examples.... that we know of
One recent book that exposes the seamy side of privatization (though dipping now and then into polemical excess) is Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War, by Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman.
I thought about writing my own summary, but the one on Amazon suffices: “In this shocking exposé, two government fraud experts reveal how private contractors have put the lives of countless American soldiers on the line while damaging our strategic interests and our image abroad. From the shameful war profiteering of companies like Halliburton/KBR to the sinister influence that corporate lobbyists have on American foreign policy, to the use of “emergency” declarations to evade normal contracting procedures, Dina Rasor and Robert H. Bauman paint a disturbing picture. Here they give the inside story on troops forced to subsist on little food and contaminated water, on officers afraid to lodge complaints because of Halliburton's political clout, on millions of dollars in contractors' bogus claims that are funded by American taxpayers, and privatized services that cost ten to thirty times as much as they did, when performed better by civil servants. Drawing on exclusive sources within government and the military, the authors show how greed and insider deals have conspired to undermine our fighting forces and threaten the security of our country.”
Phew. And you’ll find even more searing poignancy in some of the Amazon reader reviews! Take this excerpt:
“When I entered Baghdad in April 2003 and initially occupied Saddam's bombed out Ramadan palace to setup the new government, I was their as a civilian contractor. I was thrilled! I made more pay in 4 months as a contractor than in 4 years as a soldier. Months later, when I was called to service by my unit, I didn't respond to serve my country as a soldier because I was already in Baghdad. The army can't admit that's a problem, so they transferred me into the inactive reserves so I could stay in the war and make oodles of money. Again, I was thrilled! I stayed in Iraq and made so much money doing a job as good as a soldier with incompatible equipment impossible to interact with the army needs for 40x the military pay, that I bought a new house in Florida every other month. We didn't accomplish a damn thing as contractors. In fact, we broke more stuff than we brought and lost the rest but who cares? I wasn't responsible for it? The corporation was. Hell, I still have a bullet proof vest my corporation bought for me while soldiers were going into battle w/o body armor. I had the best! “
One powerful point in the book is how inefficient most Bush “privatizations” have been, especially in Iraq. The mythology, tenaciously clung-to by conservatives of all stripes, and not just neocons, has always been that corporate entities are universally more efficient that government ones. Study after study has shown that the real life facts are far more complicated, and often diametrically opposite to this article of faith. But when it comes to the privatization efforts of the Bush Administration, this hoary cliche is exposed as an utter travesty.
Bush’s own General Accounting Office (GAO) has declared -- that contractor-run services in Iraq average four to ten times as costly as the same services, when performed by soldiers or civil servants.
(A side note to ponder at leisure: whenever Democrats have de-regulated an industry -- e.g. banking, trucking, telecommunications, airlines, and the Internet -- the central effect was to increase competition. In fact, nearly all major DE-regulations during our lifetime have been promulgated by Democratic administrations, the exact opposite to popular conception.
(In contrast Whenever Republicans deregulate, it somehow always results in reduced competition, inefficiency and a subsequent, economy-rocking scandal. Clear examples include the Savings and Loan and cable industry “reforms”of the 1980s, supervised by George H. W. Bush, and Energy Industry “reforms” passed under George W. Bush. But none of these hold a candle against the half a trillion dollars that has gone into non-competitive, cost-plus Iraq War contracts, granted to Bush family friends.)
Meanwhile, on September 26, 2007, the GAO released a report revealing that the DOD and the VA are taking no better care of the wounded troops now than they were when the Washington Post broke the story about Walter Reed hospital, two years ago. MRAP armored (mine resistant) replacements for the humvee are tragically late, in the latest case of undersupplying the troops. And Iraqi civilians fume because delivery of basic services -- such as electricity and clean water and trash pickup, aren’t any better, after mountains of cash poured into infrastructure projects that get nothing done, making many yearn for well-ordered times before 2003.
And... oh... there was that missing billion dollars. In cash. That Bush officials simply “lost” in Iraq. By the side of a road. No heads rolled over that.
Can one even compare this to the so-called scandals under Bill Clinton? The difference in scale so boggles the mind that it may explain why Republicans could feel outrage at “Whitewater”, then simply blink in dull incomprehension over Neocon-era thievery. After all, you can imagine what you, personally, would do with $80,000. But a billion? In lost cash? The mind reels. It turns away.
* Even Worse -- Getting the Taxpayers to Subsidize the Creation of Private Armies for the Rich.
Of course, none of this more than touches upon the darkest aspect of the trend, described in Jeremy Scahill’s Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
“Based in the wilderness of North Carolina, it is the fastest-growing private army on the planet with forces capable of carrying out regime change throughout the world. Blackwater protects the top US officials in Iraq and yet we know almost nothing about the firm's quasi-military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and inside the US. Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy Seal named Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy conservative family that bankrolls far-right-wing causes.”
I have been fuming over Blackwater Security Services, ever since this burgeoning mercenary enforcement company sent private troops to intimidate local cops and to illegally patrol public bridges, during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, violently preventing poor folks in New Orleans from crossing into rich enclaves, even when their only goal was to pass through, seeking safety and transportation on the other side. *
While this trend is frightening in at least a dozen ways that go far beyond the topic of this series. Our primary focus remains mainly on how privatization of force has affected the military.
Consider this: even extreme libertarians, like Ayn Rand, have always conceded that governments should retain “a monopoly on the use of coercion and force.” Yes, many rabid libertarians despise the modern state and rail against excessive bureaucracy. They wish the military would simply guard our borders. Courts should simply enforce contracts and punish bullies who use coercion privately. Indeed, within those ideal limits, libertarians hold with the social compact that founded America -- that private force is a dangerous vestige of the days of mercenary condottieri and rule by feudal lords.
Oh, it is easy to see where Blackwater fits into the grand scheme. Members of the US Officer Corps who seem pliable can be offered lucrative retirement jobs in a new force that does not answer to any of our accountable institutions, nor any of the rigorous procedures that have become core elements of character in our professional - and national - armed services.
As for why neocons are pushing this trend, as part of their larger-scale putsch, well, there is a long tradition. Caesar turned Roman legions into personal ones. The SA and SS could perform actions that the German Wehrmacht found unpalatable. And these predecessors, too, would up servicing the mighty while paid out of public coffers.
Still, one question especially bugs me. Put aside the Secret Masters of this program and the mercenaries themselves, and the fanatics. What about the old fashioned conservatives who still make up the bulk of the Republican Party? Have they no sense of imagination or shame? Do they ever, ever pause and ask themselves “what would I have done, if Bill Clinton had tried to pull even one percent of this stuff?”
Hypocrites who raged over Whitewater, but see nothing to worry about in Blackwater, have simply chosen sides for visceral reasons and will let their minds see nothing disturbing.
Above all, the “side” they have chosen is not us. America. Civilization. It is a partisan movement that’s been taken over by monsters.
==Continue to Part 8
or return to Part 1 of this series
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Catching Up on Non-Political Marvels
Amid my extended polemic about the War Against Professionalism -- and the ongoing demolition of the U.S. the military -- I have allowed too many other fine things to accumulate. But it is important to keep reminding ourselves why this civilization is so worth saving. Giving examples, rather than a vague, amorphous totem word like “freedom.” Indeed, it gives the terrorists (both Al Qaeda and the neocons) too much of a victory if we let ourselves get to distracted or obsessed and neglect the Scientific Age for too long.
So here goes! (Note: for lack of time, I will simply leave the URLs in place. Inactive. Sorry, but if an article interests you enough, you know what to do.)
Take a civics literacy test: http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx
The Library Thing site lets you catalog your books online and help rate them! Over nineteen million books on members' bookshelves.
Radio Tales of the Strange & Fantastic now offers a great collection of radio SF classics! “We bring you stories of the supernatural and the supernormaldramatizing the fantasies and the mysteries of the unknown.”
PERSPECTIVES! The Globalist always has interesting, brief perspectives, this time with short essays on the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, on the beauty and waste of water (soon to be as precious as oil), Russian oligarchs, and two contrasting groups of freedom fighters -- lawyers in Pakistan and monks in Burma. http://theglobalist.com/
Followup: If liberalism needs to cure itself of any filthy vices (and it does, especially if it wants enough power to clean up after the neocon criminal gang), then number three on the priority list has got to be shrugging off a kneejerk-lefty addiction to “anti globalization” as a reflex mantra. “Anti-secretive/corporatist-plutocrat/monopolist-exploiters?” Okay. I can live with that. But global trade in goods, labor and ideas has uplifted more people than all the goody-rhetoric ever spilled. Local tyrants are almost always worse than global ones, and people in the developing world say so, relentlessly with their feet, their voices and their lives. Our job? to help them overcome BOTH kinds of bullies, through the very same method that worked (or used to work) over here. Something called Law.
(Andy other proposed items for a list of “filthy liberal vices”? Like the reflex to oppose nuclear power? Or to screech about “betraying the base”? Right now, ANY bad habit that might help get deep-red Republicans to overcome their plunging morale and vote, has to go at the top of the list.)
------
SUCCESSFUL PREDICTIONS KEEP ACCRUING! Anyone care to post this on Technolvelgy or my prediction Wikis?
(http://www.necsi.org/community/wiki/index.php/ICCS06/David_Brin and http://earthbydavidbrin.pbwiki.com/ )
Tackling a dilemma right out of a science fiction novel, the state Senate passed legislation Thursday that would bar employers from requiring workers to have identification devices implanted under their skin. State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) proposed the measure after at least one company began marketing radio frequency identification devices for use in humans. The devices, as small as a grain of rice, can be used by employers to identify workers. A scanner passing over a body part implanted with one can instantly identify the person.
Alas, they don’t name the novel! (Hint: it’s SUNDIVER.)
---And another hit!---
Ezra Ekman wrote: “However, your extraordinary literary skills were not the reason for my writing this message to you. Your talent for clairvoyance is. In The Uplift War, you envisioned the concept of a network of vegetation through which chemical messages could be sent. Ah, if only we lived on an alien world... but wait! It has recently been discovered that a certain species of clovers can do that very thing! And not merely in an inert fashion; they also do so as a method for warning their neighbors of an eminent enemy attack, such as from caterpillars or other predators:
A creationist might argue that it makes perfect sense. An evolutionist could say that it was bound to happen eventually. In either case, you sir, are a genius of foresight.”
Again, would anyone be interested in posting these things?
While we’re at it with predictions, I finally remembered the title of the SF novel that came closest to predicting the cellphone-PDA-camera-personal-aide that we seem to be heading for.
The Joymaker is a fictional device invented by for the novel AGE OF THE PUSSYFOOT, first published in 1965 by Frederik Pohl. It bears a remarkable resemblance to devices in common use in the years following the start of the 21st century. The remote-access computer transponder called the "joymaker" is your most valuable single possession in your new life. If you can imagine a combination of telephone, credit card, alarm clock, pocket bar, reference library, and full-time secretary, you will have sketched some of the functions provided by your joymaker.
The Joymaker was conceived by Pohl in the 1960s after he saw one of the earliest computer systems. These allowed multiple users spread over a wide area, connected by good quality telephone or data lines, to simultaneously use one or more large (for the time) computers for a variety of purposes.
In its basic form, the Joymaker is a remote time-sharing terminal which uses radio communications instead of wire lines, and interacts with its user via voice rather than a keyboard and text output. It is small and light enough to be worn or carried, resembling in some cases a small . It can also dispense various medications, stimulants etc. from reservoirs within it.
----- Speaking of Predictivity (did I coin that word just now?) ----
bet2 give is a real-money prediction market where you grow your account with investments in smart predictions about the future, then give your winnings away to non-profit organizations of your choice. Topics cover sports, finance, politics, the war on terror, Iraq, and various current events in between.
Because participants cannot profit financially or materially from their successful bets - all the money won or lost eventually goes to non-profit organizations - bet2give is obviously not a "gambling" venue. (A problem that has stymied development of markets that open up prediction development to monetized incentives. States legitimately worried about creating incentives for betters to alter events deliberately, (r.g. sports games or political events) in order to win wagers.)
This allows people to treat their forecasts with the competitive zeal of a market, motivated by a desire to win. But without direct gred as a possible motive to cheat.
----More on the fight for transparency & robust citizenship! ---
Check out the smallest high-resolution, real time digital camcorder ever produced. The camera can record up to 33 hours of video at 15 frames per second via its internal pinhole camera. Hide it inside a pack of gum, and no one will never know you're secretly recording them.
Speaking of which, here from W. David Stephenson (The other “Mr. Defense Transparency”) are "21st-century disaster tips you WON'T hear from officials" on YouTube (http://tinyurl.com/35yc6r). They concern creative use of the personal communication devices, from cameraphones to WiFi laptops, that we all carry daily, AND will use in a disaster, whether or not officials want us to.
One top suggestion -- using "Twitter" instead of voice calls in an emergency to let family and friends know we're ok. During an emergency, most people automatically dial number after number to either let people know they're ok or to try to find loved ones who may be missing. You don't get through, because so many others are doing the same thing, AND the call volume crashes the cell networks. A lose-lose situation.
By contrast, if you sign up now for Twitter and get family and friends to do the same, all you need to do in a crisis is send a Twitter message (140 characters is the limit), and you'll get the message to them (text messages take almost no bandwidth, route around network disruptions).
Says David Stephenson: Searching for someone in a disaster? There’s a cool Red Cross Twitter tool: instead of the normal procedure of dialing on your cell (40404) and sending your message, once you dialed 40404, type follow safeandwell. You’ll get instructions on how to register with the Red Crosse unified Safe and Well database of missing and found people. I don’t know of another emergency communication system that’s as efficient and streamlined!
1) watch the video
2) sign up for Twitter
3) use your own Linkedin and personal networks to pass this message on. You’ll be demonstrating the power of social networks and playing an important role in removing a major obstacle to disaster communications.
Another great suggestion. Have a look at Stephenson’s brief video clips, then drop by http://www.cuwireless.net/ to find out more about creating your own, ad hoc WiFi network that would operate completely off the internet! Crude, but workable (I hear) in an emergency, when the internet is down in your locale. Of course, this kind of capability should have been mandated for every single cell phone sold in the United States, allowing text messaging to take place peer-to-peer, even if the cell towers fail. (Funny thing is, the telcos could still bill for these messages! They don’t even have a commercial reason to oppose it.)
If any of you care to experiment with any of these techniques and report back, that’d be terrific.
----- And a mass of miscellanea!-----
In May the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its fourth report, warning that global warming would increase the number of extreme weather events and cause more natural disasters, which will hit the poor hardest. Hundreds have died and thousands have lost their livelihoods in floods since the start of the year in China, South Asia, Mozambique, Sudan and Uruguay, while the period from May to July was the wettest in England and Wales since records began in 1766. Two heat waves in southeastern Europe in June and July broke previous records, with temperatures in Bulgaria hitting 113 Fahrenheit on July 23.
An essential commodity has become scarcer and pricier in recent months. Traders are paying record prices for wheat on world markets, thanks in part to shortages caused by a mix of drought and flooding. As a result of the supply squeeze, global inventories of wheat — which makes up one-fifth of the world's food intake — are expected to fall to their lowest level in 26 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Eating less meat could help slow global warming by reducing the number of livestock and thereby decreasing the amount of methane flatulence from the animals, according to an article in the medical journal, Lancet. Gases from animals destined for dinner plates account for nearly a quarter of all emissions worldwide.
A second race for the moon would be under way, with a full roster of 21st-century global powers, including China and India, are competing. One reason for much of the interest appears to be plans to mine helium-3 - purportedly an ideal fuel for fusion reactors but almost unavailable on Earth - from the moon's surface.
Solar power has long been the Mercedes-Benz of the renewable energy industry: sleek, quiet, low-maintenance. Yet like a Mercedes, solar energy is universally adored but prohibitively expensive for most people. However a few dozen companies say advances in technology will let them halve the price of solar-panel installations in as little as three years. By 2014, solar-system prices will be competitive with conventional electricity when energy savings are figured in. And that's without government incentives.
Geothermal heating—using the warmth of the Earth's interior to heat water—is an old idea. Hydrothermal cooling is a novel approach that uses cold water from lakes and oceans to run air-conditioning systems. Toronto sits next to a very large supply of cold water, in the form of Lake Ontario and has been pioneering the idea that instead of using electricity to power air conditioning, a useful supply of cold can be directly extracted from the environment. The article does not discuss how the return of heated water is impacting the ecosystem of the lake.
At six miles up in the air, the jet-stream winds are stronger and blow more consistently than ground-level winds and carry up to a hundred times more energy. So just as oil companies are drilling deeper and in more remote locations in search of new reserves, pioneer wind-power engineers are looking higher in the sky for new sources of energy. To tap that energy, they are trying to invent a whole new technology for harvesting wind: electricity generators that fly.
In a patent application, an Austin-based startup called EEStor promised "technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline. EEStor's secret ingredient is a material sandwiched between thousands of wafer-thin metal sheets, like a series of foil-and-paper gum wrappers stacked on top of each other. Charged particles stick to the metal sheets and move quickly across EEStor's proprietary material. The result is an ultracapacitor, a battery-like device that stores and releases energy quickly.
Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran's nuclear weapons program are doomed to fail. Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated program of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran.
The deserts of the Rann of Kutch, which melt into the arid Banni grasslands in India hold many unexplained mysteries apart from the varied species of birds. Spread across 3,846 sq km, this grassland is witness to a strange light phenomenon on any dark night. The light, which is as bright as a mercury lamp changes its color to blue and sometimes red. It is like a moving ball of fire, which sometime stops or moves as fast as an arrow. Strangely, although this phenomenon has been observed for centuries, no one has been able to come up with a suitable explanation.
There is an explosion of interest in the study of Prediction Markets but until now any research has been published in a diverse range of periodicals and websites. For the first time the Journal of Prediction Markets provides focussed publication forum for scholarly research articles in this burgeoning field.
An orbiting spacecraft has found evidence of what look like seven caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano. The Mars Odyssey spacecraft has sent back images of very dark, nearly circular features that appear to be openings to underground spaces. (Weird looking! Almost artificial... cue Twilight Zone music!)
Finally... a few political previews.
I'd like to follow up on an earlier idea that might make very good ostrich ammo. Compiling an extensive list of direct challenges in the form of: "What would you have said if Bill Clinton had..."
Examples:
"What would you have said if Bill Clinton had managed to "lose" a billion dollars in cash, by the side of an Iraqi road?"
"What would you have said if Bill Clinton had arranged for the US taxpayer to subsidize the creation of a private army that is answerable only to one of his closest political supporters?"
Of course, your typical ostrich has a genius-level ability to shrug off things done by Bush & co. But in fact, there is a tricky alternative approach to all this... a stunt that might get past ostrich callouses... simply by first parsing it all as a gotcha page. One that starts out by listing purported Clinton era crimes.
"Those sanctimonious liberals! We need to remind them that Bill Clinton "lost" a billion dollars of our money in cash by the side of a road in Bosnia!"
And then, once the ostriches are livid, do a flip and global word swap. "Clinton did none of these. But Bush did."
Well, it's an idea.
So here goes! (Note: for lack of time, I will simply leave the URLs in place. Inactive. Sorry, but if an article interests you enough, you know what to do.)
Take a civics literacy test: http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx
The Library Thing site lets you catalog your books online and help rate them! Over nineteen million books on members' bookshelves.
Radio Tales of the Strange & Fantastic now offers a great collection of radio SF classics! “We bring you stories of the supernatural and the supernormaldramatizing the fantasies and the mysteries of the unknown.”
PERSPECTIVES! The Globalist always has interesting, brief perspectives, this time with short essays on the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, on the beauty and waste of water (soon to be as precious as oil), Russian oligarchs, and two contrasting groups of freedom fighters -- lawyers in Pakistan and monks in Burma. http://theglobalist.com/
Followup: If liberalism needs to cure itself of any filthy vices (and it does, especially if it wants enough power to clean up after the neocon criminal gang), then number three on the priority list has got to be shrugging off a kneejerk-lefty addiction to “anti globalization” as a reflex mantra. “Anti-secretive/corporatist-plutocrat/monopolist-exploiters?” Okay. I can live with that. But global trade in goods, labor and ideas has uplifted more people than all the goody-rhetoric ever spilled. Local tyrants are almost always worse than global ones, and people in the developing world say so, relentlessly with their feet, their voices and their lives. Our job? to help them overcome BOTH kinds of bullies, through the very same method that worked (or used to work) over here. Something called Law.
(Andy other proposed items for a list of “filthy liberal vices”? Like the reflex to oppose nuclear power? Or to screech about “betraying the base”? Right now, ANY bad habit that might help get deep-red Republicans to overcome their plunging morale and vote, has to go at the top of the list.)
------
SUCCESSFUL PREDICTIONS KEEP ACCRUING! Anyone care to post this on Technolvelgy or my prediction Wikis?
(http://www.necsi.org/community/wiki/index.php/ICCS06/David_Brin and http://earthbydavidbrin.pbwiki.com/ )
Tackling a dilemma right out of a science fiction novel, the state Senate passed legislation Thursday that would bar employers from requiring workers to have identification devices implanted under their skin. State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) proposed the measure after at least one company began marketing radio frequency identification devices for use in humans. The devices, as small as a grain of rice, can be used by employers to identify workers. A scanner passing over a body part implanted with one can instantly identify the person.
Alas, they don’t name the novel! (Hint: it’s SUNDIVER.)
---And another hit!---
Ezra Ekman wrote: “However, your extraordinary literary skills were not the reason for my writing this message to you. Your talent for clairvoyance is. In The Uplift War, you envisioned the concept of a network of vegetation through which chemical messages could be sent. Ah, if only we lived on an alien world... but wait! It has recently been discovered that a certain species of clovers can do that very thing! And not merely in an inert fashion; they also do so as a method for warning their neighbors of an eminent enemy attack, such as from caterpillars or other predators:
A creationist might argue that it makes perfect sense. An evolutionist could say that it was bound to happen eventually. In either case, you sir, are a genius of foresight.”
Again, would anyone be interested in posting these things?
While we’re at it with predictions, I finally remembered the title of the SF novel that came closest to predicting the cellphone-PDA-camera-personal-aide that we seem to be heading for.
The Joymaker is a fictional device invented by for the novel AGE OF THE PUSSYFOOT, first published in 1965 by Frederik Pohl. It bears a remarkable resemblance to devices in common use in the years following the start of the 21st century. The remote-access computer transponder called the "joymaker" is your most valuable single possession in your new life. If you can imagine a combination of telephone, credit card, alarm clock, pocket bar, reference library, and full-time secretary, you will have sketched some of the functions provided by your joymaker.
The Joymaker was conceived by Pohl in the 1960s after he saw one of the earliest computer systems. These allowed multiple users spread over a wide area, connected by good quality telephone or data lines, to simultaneously use one or more large (for the time) computers for a variety of purposes.
In its basic form, the Joymaker is a remote time-sharing terminal which uses radio communications instead of wire lines, and interacts with its user via voice rather than a keyboard and text output. It is small and light enough to be worn or carried, resembling in some cases a small . It can also dispense various medications, stimulants etc. from reservoirs within it.
----- Speaking of Predictivity (did I coin that word just now?) ----
bet2 give is a real-money prediction market where you grow your account with investments in smart predictions about the future, then give your winnings away to non-profit organizations of your choice. Topics cover sports, finance, politics, the war on terror, Iraq, and various current events in between.
Because participants cannot profit financially or materially from their successful bets - all the money won or lost eventually goes to non-profit organizations - bet2give is obviously not a "gambling" venue. (A problem that has stymied development of markets that open up prediction development to monetized incentives. States legitimately worried about creating incentives for betters to alter events deliberately, (r.g. sports games or political events) in order to win wagers.)
This allows people to treat their forecasts with the competitive zeal of a market, motivated by a desire to win. But without direct gred as a possible motive to cheat.
----More on the fight for transparency & robust citizenship! ---
Check out the smallest high-resolution, real time digital camcorder ever produced. The camera can record up to 33 hours of video at 15 frames per second via its internal pinhole camera. Hide it inside a pack of gum, and no one will never know you're secretly recording them.
Speaking of which, here from W. David Stephenson (The other “Mr. Defense Transparency”) are "21st-century disaster tips you WON'T hear from officials" on YouTube (http://tinyurl.com/35yc6r). They concern creative use of the personal communication devices, from cameraphones to WiFi laptops, that we all carry daily, AND will use in a disaster, whether or not officials want us to.
One top suggestion -- using "Twitter" instead of voice calls in an emergency to let family and friends know we're ok. During an emergency, most people automatically dial number after number to either let people know they're ok or to try to find loved ones who may be missing. You don't get through, because so many others are doing the same thing, AND the call volume crashes the cell networks. A lose-lose situation.
By contrast, if you sign up now for Twitter and get family and friends to do the same, all you need to do in a crisis is send a Twitter message (140 characters is the limit), and you'll get the message to them (text messages take almost no bandwidth, route around network disruptions).
Says David Stephenson: Searching for someone in a disaster? There’s a cool Red Cross Twitter tool: instead of the normal procedure of dialing on your cell (40404) and sending your message, once you dialed 40404, type follow safeandwell. You’ll get instructions on how to register with the Red Crosse unified Safe and Well database of missing and found people. I don’t know of another emergency communication system that’s as efficient and streamlined!
1) watch the video
2) sign up for Twitter
3) use your own Linkedin and personal networks to pass this message on. You’ll be demonstrating the power of social networks and playing an important role in removing a major obstacle to disaster communications.
Another great suggestion. Have a look at Stephenson’s brief video clips, then drop by http://www.cuwireless.net/ to find out more about creating your own, ad hoc WiFi network that would operate completely off the internet! Crude, but workable (I hear) in an emergency, when the internet is down in your locale. Of course, this kind of capability should have been mandated for every single cell phone sold in the United States, allowing text messaging to take place peer-to-peer, even if the cell towers fail. (Funny thing is, the telcos could still bill for these messages! They don’t even have a commercial reason to oppose it.)
If any of you care to experiment with any of these techniques and report back, that’d be terrific.
----- And a mass of miscellanea!-----
In May the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its fourth report, warning that global warming would increase the number of extreme weather events and cause more natural disasters, which will hit the poor hardest. Hundreds have died and thousands have lost their livelihoods in floods since the start of the year in China, South Asia, Mozambique, Sudan and Uruguay, while the period from May to July was the wettest in England and Wales since records began in 1766. Two heat waves in southeastern Europe in June and July broke previous records, with temperatures in Bulgaria hitting 113 Fahrenheit on July 23.
An essential commodity has become scarcer and pricier in recent months. Traders are paying record prices for wheat on world markets, thanks in part to shortages caused by a mix of drought and flooding. As a result of the supply squeeze, global inventories of wheat — which makes up one-fifth of the world's food intake — are expected to fall to their lowest level in 26 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Eating less meat could help slow global warming by reducing the number of livestock and thereby decreasing the amount of methane flatulence from the animals, according to an article in the medical journal, Lancet. Gases from animals destined for dinner plates account for nearly a quarter of all emissions worldwide.
A second race for the moon would be under way, with a full roster of 21st-century global powers, including China and India, are competing. One reason for much of the interest appears to be plans to mine helium-3 - purportedly an ideal fuel for fusion reactors but almost unavailable on Earth - from the moon's surface.
Solar power has long been the Mercedes-Benz of the renewable energy industry: sleek, quiet, low-maintenance. Yet like a Mercedes, solar energy is universally adored but prohibitively expensive for most people. However a few dozen companies say advances in technology will let them halve the price of solar-panel installations in as little as three years. By 2014, solar-system prices will be competitive with conventional electricity when energy savings are figured in. And that's without government incentives.
Geothermal heating—using the warmth of the Earth's interior to heat water—is an old idea. Hydrothermal cooling is a novel approach that uses cold water from lakes and oceans to run air-conditioning systems. Toronto sits next to a very large supply of cold water, in the form of Lake Ontario and has been pioneering the idea that instead of using electricity to power air conditioning, a useful supply of cold can be directly extracted from the environment. The article does not discuss how the return of heated water is impacting the ecosystem of the lake.
At six miles up in the air, the jet-stream winds are stronger and blow more consistently than ground-level winds and carry up to a hundred times more energy. So just as oil companies are drilling deeper and in more remote locations in search of new reserves, pioneer wind-power engineers are looking higher in the sky for new sources of energy. To tap that energy, they are trying to invent a whole new technology for harvesting wind: electricity generators that fly.
In a patent application, an Austin-based startup called EEStor promised "technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline. EEStor's secret ingredient is a material sandwiched between thousands of wafer-thin metal sheets, like a series of foil-and-paper gum wrappers stacked on top of each other. Charged particles stick to the metal sheets and move quickly across EEStor's proprietary material. The result is an ultracapacitor, a battery-like device that stores and releases energy quickly.
Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran's nuclear weapons program are doomed to fail. Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated program of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran.
The deserts of the Rann of Kutch, which melt into the arid Banni grasslands in India hold many unexplained mysteries apart from the varied species of birds. Spread across 3,846 sq km, this grassland is witness to a strange light phenomenon on any dark night. The light, which is as bright as a mercury lamp changes its color to blue and sometimes red. It is like a moving ball of fire, which sometime stops or moves as fast as an arrow. Strangely, although this phenomenon has been observed for centuries, no one has been able to come up with a suitable explanation.
There is an explosion of interest in the study of Prediction Markets but until now any research has been published in a diverse range of periodicals and websites. For the first time the Journal of Prediction Markets provides focussed publication forum for scholarly research articles in this burgeoning field.
An orbiting spacecraft has found evidence of what look like seven caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano. The Mars Odyssey spacecraft has sent back images of very dark, nearly circular features that appear to be openings to underground spaces. (Weird looking! Almost artificial... cue Twilight Zone music!)
Finally... a few political previews.
I'd like to follow up on an earlier idea that might make very good ostrich ammo. Compiling an extensive list of direct challenges in the form of: "What would you have said if Bill Clinton had..."
Examples:
"What would you have said if Bill Clinton had managed to "lose" a billion dollars in cash, by the side of an Iraqi road?"
"What would you have said if Bill Clinton had arranged for the US taxpayer to subsidize the creation of a private army that is answerable only to one of his closest political supporters?"
Of course, your typical ostrich has a genius-level ability to shrug off things done by Bush & co. But in fact, there is a tricky alternative approach to all this... a stunt that might get past ostrich callouses... simply by first parsing it all as a gotcha page. One that starts out by listing purported Clinton era crimes.
"Those sanctimonious liberals! We need to remind them that Bill Clinton "lost" a billion dollars of our money in cash by the side of a road in Bosnia!"
And then, once the ostriches are livid, do a flip and global word swap. "Clinton did none of these. But Bush did."
Well, it's an idea.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
REBUILDING EVERYTHING! A proposed reality show.
Over at the Lifeboat Foundation, where we contemplate dour and dire scenarios about the collapse of civilization, there's been an interesting sub-topic: knowledge caching, or how we might preserve the software of human civilization, even if we blow it really big, sometime.
Well, it was time to turn the political lamp off for a bit and throw out there something cool, sci-fi-ish and fun. So, would you folks like to see the pitch I prepared, years ago, for a reality/tech TV show called REBUILDING EVERYTHING?
(BTW, it is still WGA registered and copyrighted!)
Alas, my pitches for this were no more successful than my brief but fun stint as a TV star in THE ARCHITECHS. What ever happened to guts and imagination?
====
A reality TV pitch... by David Brin...
"REBUILDING EVERYTHING"...
Imagine a "reality" TV show with a more elevated aim and loads of attractive content for the mind... but also heaps of tension and drama.
Picture "Survivor" meets "The 1900 House" meets "Junkyard Wars"... then throw in lots of fascinating Discovery Channel riffs... along with a dash of "The Flintstones". Then add a sensation that viewers are actually learning something of value, becoming a little more capable and knowing about their own culture.
In the ultimate challenge, competitive teams race each other, starting from scratch to rebuild civilization!
Participants begin almost naked, except for a handheld web-communicator device -- a top-end, broadband web accessory -- that lets them consult with "the gods"... in other words with experts anywhere in the world. Editors will splice these capsule "how to" lessons with contestants' fumbling efforts to follow the advice.
Instead of just surviving, they must chip flint, make spears and arrows and traps, stitch clothing from hides (no animals will be killed directly by the show). Once the Stone Age has been conquered, the contestants move on to re-invent pottery, weaving and agriculture -- then mining and smithing copper ore, then bronze, iron and so on. Any next step must be taken by using technologies achieved at the previous level.
Once they succeed at a task, it is assumed that their “civilization” (their team) has that technology from then on. They will be provided any tools they require from that level, in order to attempt the next. (A ready supply of primitive tools can be found, easily available, from many amateur groups online. And more support groups may be spawned by the show itself.)
Upon mastering, say, five era-appropriate technologies, each team may be confronted with some tough challenge. For example, after forging bronze swords and armor, they may have to fight off a symbolic enemy from Homeric times... (or at least prove that they could). Or maybe build a Trojan Horse! Bridge a stream. Bring water to the village. Anything that is both dramatic and focused on the era in question.
Nor will culture be neglected! Each tribe will be encouraged to create their own distinctive arts, music, fables, so that viewer identification can get woven even tighter. In fact, a village may arise as they progress, showing how far 'civilization' has come along. (See note, below, about the possible availability of scads of free crafts and labor. As the village progresses from Neolithic upward, the resulting "town" might make a great exhibit/attraction.)
Needless to say, the scenario is open-ended. Promise of even tougher challenges may help keep people glued. Can the teams (and producers!) manage to make this premise work all the way to the electric light and motor? (And somehow keep up drama amid the tech-challenges?) How about building a working steam boat, then piloting it upstream? Or constructing a real working car, from nature's own raw materials! (Time frames may be telescoped as we progress.)
This part captures some of the feel of TLC's popular show JUNKYARD WARS. Only in our case, they start from raw ore!
The dramatic/competitive scenario; as I picture it, nobody is "voted off" the teams. Rather, each week's winning tribe is allowed to recruit more members as they go along, perhaps from eager show-watchers who send in tapes of their skills. (A more pleasant and positive arrangement.) Or else they can "steal" members from other teams. The growing tribe will need MORE capability and cooperation as time passes, not less! Also, this gives viewers an ongoing hope/fantasy - that next week THEY will be chosen to join one of the tribes.
As teams grow, tension may arise from trade, as they need to barter or buy things from each other, filling in skills they never conquered. Perhaps simulated conflict? After a successful 1st season, might international teams bring in multicultural flavor, showing various “solutions” with an Asian or African tilt? (They might participate remotely with collaborating production teams in, say, China, paying their own way.)
An ideal sponsor might be one of the mobile wireless technology companies those positioning themselves for the next big thing, like that 'tablet for communicating with the gods." Participants would of course use their brand of access, and every look-up/advice session would be a incredibly vivid and convincing product placement. Other advertisers who might like this show include tool makers, folks selling encyclopedias and How-To book series, etc.
Of course, civilization has a whole load of stuff that people might like to see the contestants "rebuild". Moreover the fantasy is a constructive one that many decent people can identify with. Picture our charismatic host, at the beginning of each episode, promising that "1,000 copies of this show will be buried at strategic locations around the world, just in case our descendants ever need to REBUILD EVERYTHING!"
On a cerebral level, consider the benefits of showing people how a complex civilization is held together not only by a myriad present-day skills, but also via connections made by the clever and hardworking ancestors who got us here. It will show that at least some of us (the show's viewers) might be able to rebuild, if they ever had to, from scratch.
In several ways this show will be about the best in us. That may appeal to countless folks who would like to see how we made it this far.
===== =====
Addenum notes: Methods for keeping costs down might include having private amateur clubs provide many of the materials, perhaps building portions of the villages. They might even stage the event on their own time, expense and schedule, with cameras present more as news coverage than as producers. This, in turn, might keep liability issues down.
Who would want to watch? Wide demographics! DIY types who enjoy "this old house", armchair historians, and teachers looking for things to show in classrooms.
Well, it was time to turn the political lamp off for a bit and throw out there something cool, sci-fi-ish and fun. So, would you folks like to see the pitch I prepared, years ago, for a reality/tech TV show called REBUILDING EVERYTHING?(BTW, it is still WGA registered and copyrighted!)
Alas, my pitches for this were no more successful than my brief but fun stint as a TV star in THE ARCHITECHS. What ever happened to guts and imagination?
====
A reality TV pitch... by David Brin...
"REBUILDING EVERYTHING"...
Picture "Survivor" meets "The 1900 House" meets "Junkyard Wars"... then throw in lots of fascinating Discovery Channel riffs... along with a dash of "The Flintstones". Then add a sensation that viewers are actually learning something of value, becoming a little more capable and knowing about their own culture.
In the ultimate challenge, competitive teams race each other, starting from scratch to rebuild civilization!
Participants begin almost naked, except for a handheld web-communicator device -- a top-end, broadband web accessory -- that lets them consult with "the gods"... in other words with experts anywhere in the world. Editors will splice these capsule "how to" lessons with contestants' fumbling efforts to follow the advice.
Once they succeed at a task, it is assumed that their “civilization” (their team) has that technology from then on. They will be provided any tools they require from that level, in order to attempt the next. (A ready supply of primitive tools can be found, easily available, from many amateur groups online. And more support groups may be spawned by the show itself.)
Upon mastering, say, five era-appropriate technologies, each team may be confronted with some tough challenge. For example, after forging bronze swords and armor, they may have to fight off a symbolic enemy from Homeric times... (or at least prove that they could). Or maybe build a Trojan Horse! Bridge a stream. Bring water to the village. Anything that is both dramatic and focused on the era in question.
Needless to say, the scenario is open-ended. Promise of even tougher challenges may help keep people glued. Can the teams (and producers!) manage to make this premise work all the way to the electric light and motor? (And somehow keep up drama amid the tech-challenges?) How about building a working steam boat, then piloting it upstream? Or constructing a real working car, from nature's own raw materials! (Time frames may be telescoped as we progress.)
This part captures some of the feel of TLC's popular show JUNKYARD WARS. Only in our case, they start from raw ore! The dramatic/competitive scenario; as I picture it, nobody is "voted off" the teams. Rather, each week's winning tribe is allowed to recruit more members as they go along, perhaps from eager show-watchers who send in tapes of their skills. (A more pleasant and positive arrangement.) Or else they can "steal" members from other teams. The growing tribe will need MORE capability and cooperation as time passes, not less! Also, this gives viewers an ongoing hope/fantasy - that next week THEY will be chosen to join one of the tribes.
As teams grow, tension may arise from trade, as they need to barter or buy things from each other, filling in skills they never conquered. Perhaps simulated conflict? After a successful 1st season, might international teams bring in multicultural flavor, showing various “solutions” with an Asian or African tilt? (They might participate remotely with collaborating production teams in, say, China, paying their own way.)
An ideal sponsor might be one of the mobile wireless technology companies those positioning themselves for the next big thing, like that 'tablet for communicating with the gods." Participants would of course use their brand of access, and every look-up/advice session would be a incredibly vivid and convincing product placement. Other advertisers who might like this show include tool makers, folks selling encyclopedias and How-To book series, etc.
On a cerebral level, consider the benefits of showing people how a complex civilization is held together not only by a myriad present-day skills, but also via connections made by the clever and hardworking ancestors who got us here. It will show that at least some of us (the show's viewers) might be able to rebuild, if they ever had to, from scratch.
In several ways this show will be about the best in us. That may appeal to countless folks who would like to see how we made it this far.
===== =====
Addenum notes: Methods for keeping costs down might include having private amateur clubs provide many of the materials, perhaps building portions of the villages. They might even stage the event on their own time, expense and schedule, with cameras present more as news coverage than as producers. This, in turn, might keep liability issues down.
Who would want to watch? Wide demographics! DIY types who enjoy "this old house", armchair historians, and teachers looking for things to show in classrooms.
-----David
Brin
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
The War on Terror: 9/11, 9/12 and the "stupid" decade
Been getting interesting nibbles on the issue of the War on the Military. But let me pause for a moment to be timely.
In his September 30 column “9/11 Is Over,” Thomas Friedman, one of the brightest but also most erratic and infuriating of pundits, said: “9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.
“It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day and now I don’t. Yes, in the wake of 9/11, we need new precautions, new barriers. But we also need our old habits and sense of openness. For me, the candidate of 9/12 is the one who will not only understand who our enemies are, but who we are.”
Friedman is cogent. It is an excellent article and I urge anyone and everyone to read it.
Alas, though wise, it strays by focusing on evidence-for-stupidity that amounts to relative minutiae, like a decline in the number of tourists who are choosing America as a destination. Yes, that is telling; our declining popularity translates directly into declining influence, wealth and power to influence change. Still, tourism?
Even when Friedman speaks of our decaying infrastructure, deprived of investment in favor of futile “nation-building” in a faraway desert, I am less than fully moved. Because all of these things are second order effects, compared to the main show.
Indeed, I have been saying pretty much everything that you’ll find in Friedman’s piece, for three or four years. Back when he was among those hooked by the Iraq War fever, I declared that --
“We (Americans) won the Terror War the very day that it began. Our victory It happened the moment supposedly-decadent Bostonians and New Yorkers, aboard flight UA 93, did what enemies of our civilization always find surprising -- they stood up.
“In their spontaneous eruption of grit, mental agility and sheer moral competence, those passengers showed what their ancestors did, after Lexington and Concord, after Fort Sumter, after Pearl Harbor -- that attempts to terrify or intimidate our people would face a steep, uphill journey, resisted by average citizens at every turn.
“Disproof-of-decadence is a test and a trial that each generation of Americans must pass. This time in fact, compared to other generations, we took care of the chore with remarkable efficiency and got off super-cheap.”
Of course it was a bit of a polemical reach to say “the war started and ended on the same day.” I suppose one might extend its duration a bit, to include the Retaliation. The overwhelmingly competent, fierce and surgically professional way that our armed forces, diplomatic corps and intelligence services collaborated with allies to topple the enemy Taliban regime -- in Afghanistan -- using operational plans mostly worked out during the Clinton Administration. (Do the math. Bush had little chance to meddle with an off-the-shelf scenario, only just enough time to say “go!”) Certainly that display of the Powell Doctrine in action was enough to cause any likely foe to blanch and think twice about sponsoring terror against us, ever again. That is, if we had stopped there, declaring victory.
Indeed, at that point, both the Iranians and the Saudis began offering frantic olive branches! Both were turned down, for diametrically opposite reasons.
Compare that situation to the way our military’s precious aura of invincibility has been frittered away since, a daunting reputation, now transformed into an image of floundering futility. And that is only the surface of the demolition of our armed forces.
So, other than claiming that I was three years ahead of Friedman (on the other hand, he reaches three orders of magnitude as many people), what else can I complain about?
1) Has Thomas Friedman pondered in whose interest it has been, for us to spend the first part of the 21st Century “stupid?” The old Watergate phrase “follow the money” leads -- at minimum -- to use of the word “emergency” to over-rule defense and homeland security contracting procedures, leading to billions flowing to Bush family friends. (The liberal obsession with oil as a reason has amounted to monomaniacal tunnel vision.)
At maximum, following the trail of who has benefited leads to a certain group of people -- also Bush family friends -- who were the only civilians allowed to fly through American skies, on 9/12, while the rest of us were kept on the ground.
2) “Stupid” has many levels. Friedman seems to be pointing at something societal - a pervasive, cultural, turning-away from the assertive confidence that used to characterize America. Is this why the lesson of flight UA 93 has been so thoroughly downplayed?
Indeed, that event wasn’t the only sign of powerful vibrance on that day. The behavior of citizens, in New York and Washington DC, was also superb. Indeed, the only actions that worked, on that day. Elaine Scarry of the Boston Globe, pointed this out. I have repeatedly called it the “Day of the Citizen.”
In effect, New Yorkers stood atop the rubble, turned to face east, and snapped: “Is that the best you got?”
No, Friedman needs to take a closer look at his thesis -- (which seems, at the surface, to be a lot like Jimmy Carter’s whine about “malaise..”)
For one thing, on a cultural level, this mood of trepidation has never overwhelmed the parts of this nation that -- ironically -- remain in the cross hairs of any future terror attack. So-called “Blue America, which consists in large part of the cities that will inevitably bear the brunt, next time. Citizens in those cities have demanded -- and not timidly -- to be allowed to get back to business and back to the 21st Century, despite the danger!
No. The drumbeat of fear -- justifying a permanent state of emergency -- has risen primarily from portions of the country and the population who seem the least at-risk. Is that odd? Just one more weird aspect of “culture war.”
3) If, on the other hand, “stupid” is all about the management of a skilled civilization, then why have Thomas Friedman and his fellow pundits paid so little attention to the Bushites’ central obsession? To their relentless War Against Professionalism?
Subsuming the GOP War on Science and the oppression of the military officer corps, it also covers the campaign of intimidation and distraction that has kept the civil service, the law enforcement community, the FBI and intelligence community from doing their jobs -- uncovering corruption and shining light, the great disinfectant.
4) Friedman asks: “If Disney World can remain an open, welcoming place, with increased but invisible security, why can’t America?”
The answer? For a problem to be fixed, it must be in the interests of those who are in power to fix it. Ideally, that should mean the people. But let’s not kid ourselves. Things have changed. A combination of gerrymandering and Diebold have rendered the vote relatively ineffective. But there is worse.
The restoration of the American class system has accelerated to a point where (just to offer one stinging example) the rich no longer fly first class. Hence, they do not share even a mild version of our pain, at the crowded, awful airports. The new lords avoid frisking and probing, simply bytaking a limo ride to the charter or business jet terminals. (A majority of “first class” passengers are now regular folks, bleeding off frequent flyer miles -- hence the steep decline in first class service, which has thereupon helped fuel the trend, driving the rich elsewhere.)
This is just one example of how a deteriorating situation will force moderate people like me -- who hated communism and believe in free enterprise -- to recall something important from history. That Adam Smith was the first “liberal” and he hated, above all, market-warping shenanigans by “cronies of the king.”
American liberalism is not currently as radical as Fox News commentators paint it to be. But if this goes on, it is sure to rediscover its roots. And the middle class will rediscover theirs.
In his September 30 column “9/11 Is Over,” Thomas Friedman, one of the brightest but also most erratic and infuriating of pundits, said: “9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.
“It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day and now I don’t. Yes, in the wake of 9/11, we need new precautions, new barriers. But we also need our old habits and sense of openness. For me, the candidate of 9/12 is the one who will not only understand who our enemies are, but who we are.”
Friedman is cogent. It is an excellent article and I urge anyone and everyone to read it.
Alas, though wise, it strays by focusing on evidence-for-stupidity that amounts to relative minutiae, like a decline in the number of tourists who are choosing America as a destination. Yes, that is telling; our declining popularity translates directly into declining influence, wealth and power to influence change. Still, tourism?
Even when Friedman speaks of our decaying infrastructure, deprived of investment in favor of futile “nation-building” in a faraway desert, I am less than fully moved. Because all of these things are second order effects, compared to the main show.
Indeed, I have been saying pretty much everything that you’ll find in Friedman’s piece, for three or four years. Back when he was among those hooked by the Iraq War fever, I declared that --
“We (Americans) won the Terror War the very day that it began. Our victory It happened the moment supposedly-decadent Bostonians and New Yorkers, aboard flight UA 93, did what enemies of our civilization always find surprising -- they stood up.
“In their spontaneous eruption of grit, mental agility and sheer moral competence, those passengers showed what their ancestors did, after Lexington and Concord, after Fort Sumter, after Pearl Harbor -- that attempts to terrify or intimidate our people would face a steep, uphill journey, resisted by average citizens at every turn.
“Disproof-of-decadence is a test and a trial that each generation of Americans must pass. This time in fact, compared to other generations, we took care of the chore with remarkable efficiency and got off super-cheap.”
Of course it was a bit of a polemical reach to say “the war started and ended on the same day.” I suppose one might extend its duration a bit, to include the Retaliation. The overwhelmingly competent, fierce and surgically professional way that our armed forces, diplomatic corps and intelligence services collaborated with allies to topple the enemy Taliban regime -- in Afghanistan -- using operational plans mostly worked out during the Clinton Administration. (Do the math. Bush had little chance to meddle with an off-the-shelf scenario, only just enough time to say “go!”) Certainly that display of the Powell Doctrine in action was enough to cause any likely foe to blanch and think twice about sponsoring terror against us, ever again. That is, if we had stopped there, declaring victory.
Indeed, at that point, both the Iranians and the Saudis began offering frantic olive branches! Both were turned down, for diametrically opposite reasons.
Compare that situation to the way our military’s precious aura of invincibility has been frittered away since, a daunting reputation, now transformed into an image of floundering futility. And that is only the surface of the demolition of our armed forces.
So, other than claiming that I was three years ahead of Friedman (on the other hand, he reaches three orders of magnitude as many people), what else can I complain about?
1) Has Thomas Friedman pondered in whose interest it has been, for us to spend the first part of the 21st Century “stupid?” The old Watergate phrase “follow the money” leads -- at minimum -- to use of the word “emergency” to over-rule defense and homeland security contracting procedures, leading to billions flowing to Bush family friends. (The liberal obsession with oil as a reason has amounted to monomaniacal tunnel vision.)
At maximum, following the trail of who has benefited leads to a certain group of people -- also Bush family friends -- who were the only civilians allowed to fly through American skies, on 9/12, while the rest of us were kept on the ground.
2) “Stupid” has many levels. Friedman seems to be pointing at something societal - a pervasive, cultural, turning-away from the assertive confidence that used to characterize America. Is this why the lesson of flight UA 93 has been so thoroughly downplayed?
Indeed, that event wasn’t the only sign of powerful vibrance on that day. The behavior of citizens, in New York and Washington DC, was also superb. Indeed, the only actions that worked, on that day. Elaine Scarry of the Boston Globe, pointed this out. I have repeatedly called it the “Day of the Citizen.”
In effect, New Yorkers stood atop the rubble, turned to face east, and snapped: “Is that the best you got?”
No, Friedman needs to take a closer look at his thesis -- (which seems, at the surface, to be a lot like Jimmy Carter’s whine about “malaise..”)
For one thing, on a cultural level, this mood of trepidation has never overwhelmed the parts of this nation that -- ironically -- remain in the cross hairs of any future terror attack. So-called “Blue America, which consists in large part of the cities that will inevitably bear the brunt, next time. Citizens in those cities have demanded -- and not timidly -- to be allowed to get back to business and back to the 21st Century, despite the danger!
No. The drumbeat of fear -- justifying a permanent state of emergency -- has risen primarily from portions of the country and the population who seem the least at-risk. Is that odd? Just one more weird aspect of “culture war.”
3) If, on the other hand, “stupid” is all about the management of a skilled civilization, then why have Thomas Friedman and his fellow pundits paid so little attention to the Bushites’ central obsession? To their relentless War Against Professionalism?
Subsuming the GOP War on Science and the oppression of the military officer corps, it also covers the campaign of intimidation and distraction that has kept the civil service, the law enforcement community, the FBI and intelligence community from doing their jobs -- uncovering corruption and shining light, the great disinfectant.
4) Friedman asks: “If Disney World can remain an open, welcoming place, with increased but invisible security, why can’t America?”
The answer? For a problem to be fixed, it must be in the interests of those who are in power to fix it. Ideally, that should mean the people. But let’s not kid ourselves. Things have changed. A combination of gerrymandering and Diebold have rendered the vote relatively ineffective. But there is worse.
The restoration of the American class system has accelerated to a point where (just to offer one stinging example) the rich no longer fly first class. Hence, they do not share even a mild version of our pain, at the crowded, awful airports. The new lords avoid frisking and probing, simply bytaking a limo ride to the charter or business jet terminals. (A majority of “first class” passengers are now regular folks, bleeding off frequent flyer miles -- hence the steep decline in first class service, which has thereupon helped fuel the trend, driving the rich elsewhere.)
This is just one example of how a deteriorating situation will force moderate people like me -- who hated communism and believe in free enterprise -- to recall something important from history. That Adam Smith was the first “liberal” and he hated, above all, market-warping shenanigans by “cronies of the king.”
American liberalism is not currently as radical as Fox News commentators paint it to be. But if this goes on, it is sure to rediscover its roots. And the middle class will rediscover theirs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)