Most of this posting will be political miscellany about desertion rates and the steady (possibly deliberate) destruction of the United States Army -- plus some new material from Russ Daggatt. Still, I do want to lay a seed for pondering, till next time.
In the bestiary of supporters of the neocon madness, it is important to make a distinction
I call an Ostrich any "decent conservative" who retains some basic common sense, courtesy and openness to argument, despite having been led astray by Fox, down a road of step-by-step reversing every principle that Conservatism used to stand for. While prudent restraint swerves into recless adventurism, while devotion to accountability transforms into secrecy and crony dealings, while fiscal responsibility becomes spendthrift profligacy, and dedication to defense readiness has transformed into spasmodic willingness to spend our forces like a gambler at a slot machine... your typical ostrich covers his eyes and ears and recites the mantra "Clinton was worse..." over and over again, desperately trying not to wake up.
These people aren't hopeless! If we each adopted even just one -- like that sweet but troglodytic uncle of yours -- and hammered away relentlessly (using some of the ostrich ammo that I've offered), each victory would be like a spear through the heart of Karl Rove's coalition.
But let's admit it. There is another, far more common type of beast.
I call this other kind "Rabid Lemmings" and the name speaks for itself. Angry, vicious, narrowminded and dogmatic, these are the culture warriors who are hell-bent to stampede off a cliff, and take America with them. Just like the great majority of Confederate troops, who fought and died valorously, gloriously for a thin veneer of aristocratic slave-owners that treated them like dirt, today's lemmings will do anything, believe anything, for the very same criminal gang that is getting super-rich at their expense, not through enterprise or capitalism but the far older process of parisitism.
Alas, there is no point in trying to grab the lapels of a Limbaughite lemming. Unlike the ostriches, who retain dim memories of a genteel and polite conservatism, led by men of reason and principle, like Barry Goldwater and Robert Dole, your lemming actually likes culture war. It gives him a rush (so to speak) to picture a majority of his fellow citizens as purely evil agents of liberal darkness. I am not foolish enough to suggest that we reach out to such people.
On the other hand, I believe that one of the stupidest things that liberals and moderates and decent conservatives can do, is to continue shrugging off the insanity that is spewed at millions of lemmings, in order to keep them stoked-up, in a state of actinic fury.
What? You say that we -- the moderate and openminded majority of Americans -- seem headed for a big win in 2008?
Well, maybe. I wouldn't rule out Rovean cleverness -- or some horrid distraction -- in the meantime. But suppose we are? Will even a victory at the polls, in '08, be worth anything at all, if it isn't overwhelming?
Next time, I'll elaborate on why we need to get far more aggressive. Far more pro-active. Far more determined to accept nothing less than total repudiation of culture war.
.
On to miscellany... some of it disturbing...
Soldiers strained by six years at war are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980, with the number of Army deserters this year showing an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. Figures show a steady increase over the past four years and a 42 percent jump since last year. The increase comes as the Army continues to bear the brunt of the war demands with many soldiers serving repeated, lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military leaders — including Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey — have acknowledged that the Army has been stretched nearly to the breaking point by the combat. Efforts are under way to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps to lessen the burden and give troops more time off between deployments.
In contrast, the Navy - the one service that has most effectively resisted the Bush Administration’s reckless and spendthrift-amateur adventurism -has seen a steady decline in deserters since 2001, going from 3,665 that year to 1,129 in 2007.
Despite the continued increase in Army desertions, an Associated Press examination of Pentagon figures earlier this year showed that the military does little to find those who bolt, and rarely prosecutes the ones they find. Some are allowed to simply return to their units, while most are given less-than-honorable discharges.
And yet, the right keeps foisting upon us inflammatory tirades about “unpatriotic liberals” who won’t vote to make English formally the nation’s sole, official language. For the Patriotism Card to be played, relentlessly, by a gang who has destroyed the US Army, would seem hysterically funny... if any Democrats had the gumption to point this out. More on this in the next political screed.
Meanwhile, Russ Daggatt suggests some “ostrich ammo” in the form of a simple set of questions for your obstinate republican friend or uncle. Asks RD:
1/ Who is "the enemy" in Iraq?
2/ How do we "win" another country's civil war?
3/ What end game to we hope to achieve by arming both the local Sunni militia and the majority Shiite "government"?
4/ The result of arming both (all?) sides in the Iraqi civil war is likely to be: a) pretty b) not pretty
5/ Is this “fighting for a clearcut goal”? Is it even nation building?
Bear these questions in mind while dropping by a cogent article: Iraqis Wasting An Opportunity, U.S. Officers Say. “Senior military commanders here now portray the intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias.”
RD: Whomever "the enemy" in Iraq is at any given time should always be referred to generically as "the terrorists." Then, if "the enemy" later changes, you can still refer to the new "enemy" generically as "the terrorists" without having to amend all previous statements. Note, for example, how the Sunni insurgents were, until recently, simply "the terrorists." Now, however, it can be said of the Sunni insurgents, that we are now arming, that they have "shown great patience" and "they have got to eat." Meanwhile, the Shiite "government" that we installed is now "the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq."
In the end, your typical ostrich cannot describe a cogent view of who our allies are in Iraq (because we have none) or why this exercise in “nation building” is wise (when Republicans used to howl at the very notion.) Nor even what our goals are, anymore. (Who are the “Iraqis” we are asking to “stand up”? The ones in the government who are sure to ally themselves with... Iran?)
What it DOES boil down to is personal trust. “I like and trust the leaders of my political side and if they say this is the right course then those who disagree are fools or traitors.” Recent work in social psychology has shown that this really is a key part of the conservative mind set. It helps to explain how nearly every principle of Goldwater-Dole conservatism has been reversed in recent years, without engendering any rebellion among the ranks of GOP members -- except the furiously angry military officers and civil servants, who have to deal with the real-life mess these policies produce.
Think of all the reversals of conservatism that have been rationalized away, simply because the movement’s leaders (and Fox) have said so. A proclivity for prudence has transformed into recklessness. Insularity has become international adventurism. Pinch-penny fiscal circumspection has become spendthrift budget-busting. Belief in accountability has swerved into passion for secrecy and crony-management. Demure courtesy has switched over to bilious rage, nastiness and a belief that we can “lead the world” by relentlessly insulting every foreigner. Courtesy transforms into shrill wrath. From a belief in States Rights, we now see the movement stand for unprecedented centralization of federal power. The list goes on and on. But (except among the professionals) none of this swerving and swiveling causes any cognitive dissonance in the typical ostrich, because loyalty to one’s social side is the paramount conservative -- and ostrich -- virtue.
Do not get me wrong. As an ornery contrarian, I can criticize in all directions. Both lefties and liberals (two entirely different species) have their own psychological drives, some of them relentlessly self-destructive, as we see so many opponents of the neocons start lining up to march to Karl Rove’s election year drumbeat, like lemmings, yet again. But these character flaws are nothing compared to what’s exhibited by the ostrich millions on the right, who rationalize away the tsunami of evidence that their “side” is being led by bona fide monsters.
Rant mode off. Anyway, I am p[reaching to folk who’ve heard it all before, alas.
MORE POLITICAL MISCELLANY
“Flush with cash, Canada plans to slash taxes.” Reuters, Oct 30. So THAT’s what happened to the real Republican Party; it moved to Canada!
Under the “we’re STILL WAITING” department... remember when Republicans accused Bill Clinton of murdering an Arkansas state trooper to supposedly cover up alleged "evidence" of Clinton's multiple rapes. At one point, the endlessly futile “most investigated in US history.” even centered around Bill Clinton's Christmas card list!
Ah, remember when Stephen Hess called Clinton Admin the “most investigated in US history?” But with what kind of results?
Will there ever come a time when this kind of calumny butts up against the test of reasonableness? After billions of dollars and diverting FBI agents from protecting us, to search for ANY Clinton smoking guns, will any amount of failed investigations finally get those people to apologize?
Be angry. In 2006, a Blackwater SUV collided with a US Army Humvee. Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV.That's US soldiers being assaulted and held at gunpoint by Blackwater. Oh, if this had happened under Clinton!
12 former army captains speak out about the futility of the Iraq intervention and its destructive effects upon the US Army.
Enough. The lesson is clear. Don't get complacent. Stay angry. Think of the celebrations that will explode, around the world, when the Bushites lose power. The litmus between mad neocons and the rest of us is basically this. To them, America's present unpopularity is proof that Bush is right. To the rest of us, it is clear evidence that we are losing any power, influence or right to lead the world.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Science n' The Future
Forbes Magazine recently interviewed a number of futurists, including Stuart Brand, Rudy Rucker, Stephan Wolfram (and me!) on the topic of The Future.Cool and loads of fun, the Dresden Codak online comic strip deals with matters like time travel and singularities.
Cool and part of the solution... the “$100 laptop” project seems to be coming into shape at last, with a robust and adaptable - wifi networked, low power and high-functioning laptop for children in the Developing World. And only off-target on price by a factor of two. It will make you salivate for one yourself. So buy one while buying one for a poor kid, in a special matchup program. "Give One & Get One" for $399.
A building built for voyeurism... Not only will the building’s glass walls allow W residents to see, and be seen by, passers-by on the street below, but Mr. Fletcher and Ms. Lillo have created peekaboo features within each apartment, like a window between the kitchen and the bedroom, and a bathroom that’s a glass cube, allowing residents to expose themselves to their roommates and family members, too. Mr. Transparency quails.From the Transparency Front: a town in the UK that provided access to the CCTV feeds to citizens. “The scheme that gave residents of Shoreditch links to local CCTV cameras through their TV sets had better viewing figures than Channel 4's Big Brother...The Information Commissioner had ordered the homesnoop CCTV be handicapped by low resolution to prevent the watchers from identifying the people they were watching. "You couldn't recognise specifics, but you could see if there was trouble happening or if someone was roaming about. It made people feel safer," said Hatwal. "Not a single resident came back and raised [CCTV] as an issue," he said. "It was the defining thing that made people say, 'Oh yes, I want that', and they wanted to see more detail [in the CCTV images]."
A new kind of lamp/bulb has no electrodes or filaments and may last hundreds of hours, while emitting light at 50% efficiency. (Vs 5% for incandescent or 15% for fluorescent.)
See the new Paul Allen Array which takes the SETI Project to new levels. I am glad!
Speaking of which, renowned space artist Jon Lomberg - a colleague in our discussions over the METI conroversy -- has just established a “Galaxy Garden” in Hawaii, that illustrates many features of the Milky Way on a scale of 83 light years per inch. A flower might represent an entire star-forming nebula. Way cool. Back on Earth.... see an article about using High-Temp plasmas to neutralize toxics.
If there are any lingering doubts as to whether the age of oil is nearing its end, the International Energy Agency has put them to rest and made it clear that only a massive and immediate investment in sustainable energy will prevent a global crisis.
When matter gets swallowed by a black hole, it could fall into another universe contained inside the black hole, or get trapped inside a wormhole-like connection to a second black hole, a new study suggests.
Read Jamais Cascio’s essay about Openness and the Metaverse Singularity. “The people who have embraced the possibility of a singularity should be working at least as hard on making possible a global inclusion of interests as they do on making the singularity itself happen.” What a wise guy.Scientists in Taiwan are reporting new insights into why diets rich in fruits and vegetables reduce the risk of obesity. Their study focuses on healthful natural antioxidant compounds called flavonoids and phenolic acids.
Chalk up another predictive “hit”? Ultra-capacitors promise to store energy far better soon, supplementing or even replacing batteries in many uses.
The world's smallest hard drives have already shrunk to the size of a postage stamp, but nanoscale computing may soon make that achievement look elephantine.
A new startup called YourStreet is bringing hyper-local information to its users by collecting news stories and placing them on its map-based interface, down to the nearest street corner.
Last week's announcement by Shai Agassi, a former SAP executive based in Palo Alto, that he's raised $200 million for Better Place, a company that will try to revolutionize the electric car industry, is the latest sign of this region's growing role in one of the hottest sectors of the automotive industry.
“This evidence for normal mirror neuron activity in autistic children may indicate that mirror system dysfunction in these cases reflects an impairment in identifying with and assigning personal significance to unfamiliar people and things, Oberman suggests. Whether deficits in relating to unfamiliar people that are characteristic of autism are the cause or the result of a dysfunctional mirror neuron system is unclear.” Of course I ponder how this will turn out relating to a longtime interest - the roots of our capacity for empathy, altruism or pragmatic negotiation with others.
What? No politics?
Sometimes we need reminders that civilization is continuing. And that even if a conspiratorial cabal does continue ruining our way of government, it does not have to be allowed to ruin Enlightenment Civilization or our basic way of life.
We can still keep it going, by exploring, by cooperating decently and competing fairly, and by being ourselves.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Capitalism Give Its Impartial Judgement on the Iraq War
I’m mostly reprinting stuff from other folks, for a while. But (picking up the slack) I’m pleased to say Russ Daggatt is back! So here’s a gem from him (plus a small item or two of my own):
RD: The past few days have ones for the record book. Is Bush to be the most intensely disliked president in US history? For the first time in the history of the Gallup Poll, 50% say they "strongly disapprove" of the president. Richard Nixon had reached the previous high, 48%, just before an impeachment inquiry was launched in 1974.
Not just majority disapproval. A majority strongly disapprove.
Yes, we can see some restoration of faith in Abraham Lincoln’s dictum that you cannot foll all of the people, all the time. And yet, ironically, this makes one MORE fearful of how delusionally crazy men may behave, during their last year of power.
MORE FROM RD: When George Bush invaded Iraq and overthrew its secular Baathist government, he ensured a strengthening of Iran's power in the region. And when Bush took the focus off stabilizing Afghanistan and pursuing al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he ensured the resurgence of the Taliban and other Islamist forces that are destabilizing both of those countries. With Iraq and Afghanistan both in chaos, and nuclear-armed Pakistan threatening to join them, what does the Bush crowd want to do for an encore? Open up another front with Iran. At the same time the only stable part of Iraq, the Kurdish north, faces the possibility of a border war with Turkey.
Right-wing warmongers robotically cite Neville Chamberlain and Munich any time someone questions the wisdom of rushing to war. But a better WWII analogy might be Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union. Even a dominant military power can overextend itself. Moreover, Bush has so fueled hatred of the US in the Muslim world (nowhere more so than in Pakistan), and Islamic radicalism generally, that any government in that part of the world that is seen as an ally of ours is imperiled. (see URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/57485)
The legacy of George W. Bush could be regional war in the Middle East drawing in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and possibly even Turkey. Osama bin Laden (still in a secure, undisclosed location -- presumably in Pakistan) could not, in his wildest dreams, have imagined that 19 fanatics with boxcutters could have such an impact -- destabilizing the entire region. Of course, the real heavy lifting came from Bush. (One hornet can't bring down a barn. But it can sting a horse, who kicks down the barn.)
DB: Where I part company with Russ is this: I was fine with the idea of toppling Saddam! So were many people who hoped, at last, to make up for the astrounding Bush Family policy of propping up that monster, for two generations. Only, almost anyone on Earth, with an IQ above that of a slime mold, could have come up with a better plan to oust Saddam than the one that W chose -- to destroy our alliances, our social cohesion, our finances, our moral leadership and freedoms in the process.
Are any ostriches waking up? This from a dissenting republican site: “Realism must replace the utopianism of the neo-con philosphy. There can be no WWII style occupation of ‘conquered lands’ and that concept must be abandoned. No more utopian nation building and attempts at wholesale transformation of societies into 'our own image'; only destruction of the enemy and the immediate substitution of toppled governments with the best replacements available.” (I never thought I’d be delighted to see a return swing toward traditional GOP cynicism! But right wingers make SCARY utopians!)
On the lighter side see two wonderful “Goldwater Republican” women standing up and having fun while shivving the neocons.
Finally, now that Russ Daggatt is back at work, I can continue to fob much of the political work onto him. Like pointing out something that should have been obvious. That human beings are driven by subjective bias -- with opponents of the Iraq War perceiving all the strategic failures, while administration advocates zero in with tunnel-focus upon this or that apparent tactical success. (None of the “benchmarks” set out by the Bush Administration, last spring, are anywhere near fruition. But some Sunni militias in Anbar have been co-opted, huzzah.)
But, with passionate political partisans so biased, is there anyone to look to, who has a cold-eyed, pragmatic approach? Not the harried and oppressed CIA or the up-to-their-necks military.
RD: Let’s try good old-fashioned capitalists. An MIT economics professor came up with a good objective measure – the bond market. As the professor notes, bondholders, “aren’t politically motivated. They don’t have to rationalize their previous statements or justify their votes from years past. All they care about is whether there will be a functioning Iraq in the future such that they will receive their payments.”
[This is similar to the assessment of global warming on the part of insurance and reinsurance companies. Those – apolitical, impersonal – risk markets are speaking emphatically that the risks of global warming are real.]
“First, some background on the Iraqi bonds. After the United States helped Iraq renegotiate its leftover debt from the Saddam Hussein era, the Iraqi government issued about $3 billion of new bonds in January 2006. These dollar denominated bonds pay 2.9 percent twice a year and mature in 2028, paying the face value of $100. To say the least, the market for these bonds is not robust: as of last week, a bond with a face value of $100 was trading at around $60. Professor Greenstone calculated that, from the markets’ standpoint, the implied default risk over the life of the bond was about 80 percent.”
“Of course, it’s worth asking whether bond traders know anything more about Iraq than the pundits do. It’s impossible to say with certainty, but the collective wisdom of financial markets has proved remarkably adept at evaluating events and predicting the future, even the turning points of war.
"During the American Civil War, for example, when Confederate forces lost at Gettysburg , Confederate cotton bonds traded in England dropped by about 14 percent. During World War II, German government bonds fell 7 percent when the Russians started their counterattack at Stalingrad in 1942, and French government bonds rose 16 percent after the Allied invasion at Normandy in 1944. Many such examples of the prescience of financial markets have been documented by economic historians. Comparing the yields on Iraqi bonds from the start of the surge in February to late August, Professor Greenstone calculated that the bondholders implicitly raised the chances of an Iraqi bond default by 40 percent. Over that period, Iraqi bond prices fell about 14 percent — as much as the Confederate cotton bonds fell after the battle of Gettysburg .”
The key point is that this is capitalism speaking. Not kleptocracy, posturing as free enterprise, but the genuine article in the form of open and knowing markets.
Clearly, we should demand that every Republican candidate, who is urging us to “stay the course” in Iraq, should prove his confidence in great outcomes from this bizarre and ill-defined "utopian adventure in nation-building."
Each of these war-boosters now has a golden opportunity to display admirable honesty and committment, simply by putting his money where his mouth is. By staking his entire wealth upon the same bet that he wants us to make, with our nation, with our sons and daughters, and with our good name.
Tell Mitt and Rudy and Fred and all the rest that they can do this (and gain our respect) by investing all they have in Iraqi government bonds.
.
RD: The past few days have ones for the record book. Is Bush to be the most intensely disliked president in US history? For the first time in the history of the Gallup Poll, 50% say they "strongly disapprove" of the president. Richard Nixon had reached the previous high, 48%, just before an impeachment inquiry was launched in 1974.
Not just majority disapproval. A majority strongly disapprove.
Yes, we can see some restoration of faith in Abraham Lincoln’s dictum that you cannot foll all of the people, all the time. And yet, ironically, this makes one MORE fearful of how delusionally crazy men may behave, during their last year of power.
MORE FROM RD: When George Bush invaded Iraq and overthrew its secular Baathist government, he ensured a strengthening of Iran's power in the region. And when Bush took the focus off stabilizing Afghanistan and pursuing al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he ensured the resurgence of the Taliban and other Islamist forces that are destabilizing both of those countries. With Iraq and Afghanistan both in chaos, and nuclear-armed Pakistan threatening to join them, what does the Bush crowd want to do for an encore? Open up another front with Iran. At the same time the only stable part of Iraq, the Kurdish north, faces the possibility of a border war with Turkey.
Right-wing warmongers robotically cite Neville Chamberlain and Munich any time someone questions the wisdom of rushing to war. But a better WWII analogy might be Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union. Even a dominant military power can overextend itself. Moreover, Bush has so fueled hatred of the US in the Muslim world (nowhere more so than in Pakistan), and Islamic radicalism generally, that any government in that part of the world that is seen as an ally of ours is imperiled. (see URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/57485)
The legacy of George W. Bush could be regional war in the Middle East drawing in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and possibly even Turkey. Osama bin Laden (still in a secure, undisclosed location -- presumably in Pakistan) could not, in his wildest dreams, have imagined that 19 fanatics with boxcutters could have such an impact -- destabilizing the entire region. Of course, the real heavy lifting came from Bush. (One hornet can't bring down a barn. But it can sting a horse, who kicks down the barn.)
DB: Where I part company with Russ is this: I was fine with the idea of toppling Saddam! So were many people who hoped, at last, to make up for the astrounding Bush Family policy of propping up that monster, for two generations. Only, almost anyone on Earth, with an IQ above that of a slime mold, could have come up with a better plan to oust Saddam than the one that W chose -- to destroy our alliances, our social cohesion, our finances, our moral leadership and freedoms in the process.
Are any ostriches waking up? This from a dissenting republican site: “Realism must replace the utopianism of the neo-con philosphy. There can be no WWII style occupation of ‘conquered lands’ and that concept must be abandoned. No more utopian nation building and attempts at wholesale transformation of societies into 'our own image'; only destruction of the enemy and the immediate substitution of toppled governments with the best replacements available.” (I never thought I’d be delighted to see a return swing toward traditional GOP cynicism! But right wingers make SCARY utopians!)
On the lighter side see two wonderful “Goldwater Republican” women standing up and having fun while shivving the neocons.
Finally, now that Russ Daggatt is back at work, I can continue to fob much of the political work onto him. Like pointing out something that should have been obvious. That human beings are driven by subjective bias -- with opponents of the Iraq War perceiving all the strategic failures, while administration advocates zero in with tunnel-focus upon this or that apparent tactical success. (None of the “benchmarks” set out by the Bush Administration, last spring, are anywhere near fruition. But some Sunni militias in Anbar have been co-opted, huzzah.)
But, with passionate political partisans so biased, is there anyone to look to, who has a cold-eyed, pragmatic approach? Not the harried and oppressed CIA or the up-to-their-necks military.
RD: Let’s try good old-fashioned capitalists. An MIT economics professor came up with a good objective measure – the bond market. As the professor notes, bondholders, “aren’t politically motivated. They don’t have to rationalize their previous statements or justify their votes from years past. All they care about is whether there will be a functioning Iraq in the future such that they will receive their payments.”
[This is similar to the assessment of global warming on the part of insurance and reinsurance companies. Those – apolitical, impersonal – risk markets are speaking emphatically that the risks of global warming are real.]
“First, some background on the Iraqi bonds. After the United States helped Iraq renegotiate its leftover debt from the Saddam Hussein era, the Iraqi government issued about $3 billion of new bonds in January 2006. These dollar denominated bonds pay 2.9 percent twice a year and mature in 2028, paying the face value of $100. To say the least, the market for these bonds is not robust: as of last week, a bond with a face value of $100 was trading at around $60. Professor Greenstone calculated that, from the markets’ standpoint, the implied default risk over the life of the bond was about 80 percent.”
“Of course, it’s worth asking whether bond traders know anything more about Iraq than the pundits do. It’s impossible to say with certainty, but the collective wisdom of financial markets has proved remarkably adept at evaluating events and predicting the future, even the turning points of war.
"During the American Civil War, for example, when Confederate forces lost at Gettysburg , Confederate cotton bonds traded in England dropped by about 14 percent. During World War II, German government bonds fell 7 percent when the Russians started their counterattack at Stalingrad in 1942, and French government bonds rose 16 percent after the Allied invasion at Normandy in 1944. Many such examples of the prescience of financial markets have been documented by economic historians. Comparing the yields on Iraqi bonds from the start of the surge in February to late August, Professor Greenstone calculated that the bondholders implicitly raised the chances of an Iraqi bond default by 40 percent. Over that period, Iraqi bond prices fell about 14 percent — as much as the Confederate cotton bonds fell after the battle of Gettysburg .”
The key point is that this is capitalism speaking. Not kleptocracy, posturing as free enterprise, but the genuine article in the form of open and knowing markets.
Clearly, we should demand that every Republican candidate, who is urging us to “stay the course” in Iraq, should prove his confidence in great outcomes from this bizarre and ill-defined "utopian adventure in nation-building."
Each of these war-boosters now has a golden opportunity to display admirable honesty and committment, simply by putting his money where his mouth is. By staking his entire wealth upon the same bet that he wants us to make, with our nation, with our sons and daughters, and with our good name.
Tell Mitt and Rudy and Fred and all the rest that they can do this (and gain our respect) by investing all they have in Iraqi government bonds.
.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Techno-misc!
Continuing to post mostly items from the world:
At the sublime end of the YouTube Pehnomenon, have a look at The Hub which is the next phase in my favorite charity - Project Witness and its effort to use transparency to change the world. http://hub.witness.org/ Founder Peter Gabriel calls it “the first online global platform that offers you the tools you need to use media for advocacy - enabling you and millions of others worldwide to use camcorders, cell phones and cameras to upload, share, and discuss your human rights-related footage, as well as organize campaigns to create change.” Participate... or at least spread word.
Of course, there’s also fun stuff at the other end. An absolutely must-see YouTube by some British comedians offering biting insights into the financial scandals.
Almost as entertaining is another YouTube posting, Showing David Brin & Michael Whelan being wished fond farewell at closing ceremenies of Nippon2007, the World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama. Heaps of fun. People were very nice, indeed. My speech at Opening Ceremonies would seem to imply I speak better Japanese than I do!
Case Western Reserve University researchers have bred a line of "mighty mice" (PEPCK-Cmus mice) that have the capability of running five to six kilometers at a speed of 20 meters per minute on a treadmill for up to six hours before stopping."They are metabolically similar to Lance Armstrong biking up the Pyrenees; they utilize mainly fatty acids for energy and produce very little lactic acid.".... These genetically engineered mice also eat 60 percent more than controls, but remain fitter, trimmer and live and breed longer than wild mice in a control group. Some female PEPCK-Cmus mice have had offspring at 2.5 years of age.... Most mice do not reproduce after they are one year old.... PEPCK-Cmus mice are seven times more active in their home cages than controls; in addition, the mice were also markedly more aggressive.
The transgenic mice, which now number nearly 500, were derived from six founder lines that contain a chimeric gene in which a copy of the cDNA for PEPCK-C was linked to the skeletal actin gene promoter, containing the 3'-end of the bovine growth hormone gene. The skeletal actin gene promoter directs expression of PEPCK-C exclusively to skeletal muscle. Various lines of PEPCK-Cmus mice expressed PEPCK-C at different levels, but one very active line of PEPCK-Cmus mice had levels of PEPCK-C activity of 9 units/gram skeletal muscle, compared to only 0.08 units/gram in the muscles of control animals.
This new mouse line also has an increased content of mitochondria and high concentrations of triglycerides in their skeletal muscles, which also contributed to the increased metabolic rate and longevity of the animals. "It is remarkable that the over-expression of a single enzyme involved in a metabolic pathway should result in such a profound alteration in the phenotype of the mouse," Hakimi and Hanson said.
Comment: This is the first animal genetic engineering that I have seen, that seems very likely to tempt rich parents and secretive techies to try on humans soon. And yet, in my trademark response to othjer mice-generated wonders -- like caloric-restriction leading to much greater lifespans -- I have to say that they may merely have found a “switch” that humans have already flicked, in the last million years in order to become the lavishly exaggerated creatures that we are, with three-times longer lifespans (more precisely, three times more heartbeats) and prodigiously expensive brains.
Look, mutations probably flick this mouse switch often, in nature. That is probably WHY it is so easily switched on, in the lab! In times of sudden and lush plenty, a mutant mouse with this trait can dominate all others and breed like md. But, once the prosperity crashes, so will this mouse, who cannot eke along on low calories. And so will all of his offspring who express the gene. BUT, those who express all his other genes (including genes preparatory or helpful to this one) WILL survive and remain hidden in the mouse population... till the next time of super-plenty.
Oh, the “Beyond Belief” conference was interesting, weird, irksome. A couple of Nobelists and Daniel Dennett ranted against God... talk about expressing a sense of privileged invulnerability that is a direct product of lavishly safe circumstances! There were many other talks that seemed less tendentiously and ironically sanctimonious, regarding the (far better) sub-theme of “Enlightenment 2.0: preserving and enhancing the Enlightenment.” I concentrated on that part, emphasizing that this is the moment when enemies of the Enlightenment HAVE TO act, or else see it become a permanent stable condition, perpetuated by super-educated and confident and knowing citizens who live under conditions of permanent and lavish plenty.
MORE:
UK scientists have been granted £2.5 million to invent a nanomachine that can build materials molecule by molecule. Such a robot doesn't -- and may never -- exist, though it has been imagined for over half a century. But this autumn, researchers across the UK are starting work towards it, following the funding of three research projects by the Engineering and physical sciences research council. As a member of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, I will be (with my colleagues) be following this closely.
As a member of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, I help create position papers that peer ahear to the threats and promises of this rapidly advancing technological realm. Now you can read an important new book about the topic Military Nanotechnology: Potential Applications and Preventive Arms Control. See also a review.
Searching for God in the Brain Researchers are unearthing the roots of religious feeling in the neural commotion that accompanies the spiritual epiphanies of nuns, Buddhists and other people of faith.
The FUTURIST’s top ten forecasts for 2008.
While Popular Mechanics lists ten CUTTING EDGE BREAKTHROUGHS (some of these are WAY cool).
A composite plastic that's as strong as steel but lighter and transparent.
Malicious code could be embedded in online video players, according to a report on Internet threats released Tuesday by the Georgia Tech Information Security Center. One worm discovered in November 2006 launches a corrupt Web site without prompting after a user opens a media file in a player.
A new approach to "printing" living cells could make it easier to arrange them into precise structures without harming them.
The Arctic ice cap this summer dwindled to an extent unparalleled in a century or more.
Dusty Winds Bursting Out Of Black Holes May Have Seeded Planets, Life
A futuristic scheme to collect solar energy on satellites and beam it to Earth has gained a large supporter in the US military.
Virtual-worlds platform developer Multiverse Network is set to announce a partnership Tuesday that will allow anyone to create a new online interactive 3D environment with just about any model from Google's online repository of 3D models, its 3D Warehouse, as well as terrain from Google Earth.
Read “AI Meets the Metaverse: Teachable AI Agents Living in Virtual Worlds” by my friend Ben Goertzel “Online virtual worlds have the power to accelerate and catalyze the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI). As AGIs involved in this metaverse become progressively more intelligent from their interaction with the social network of human beings and reach human-level intelligence (the Singularity), they will already be part of the human social network. If we build them right and teach them right, they will greet us with open arms.”
Researchers have developed the world's first working radio system to use a nano-sized detector made of carbon nanotubes that receives radio waves wirelessly and demodulates them into sound signals.
Of course, there’s also fun stuff at the other end. An absolutely must-see YouTube by some British comedians offering biting insights into the financial scandals.
Almost as entertaining is another YouTube posting, Showing David Brin & Michael Whelan being wished fond farewell at closing ceremenies of Nippon2007, the World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama. Heaps of fun. People were very nice, indeed. My speech at Opening Ceremonies would seem to imply I speak better Japanese than I do!
Case Western Reserve University researchers have bred a line of "mighty mice" (PEPCK-Cmus mice) that have the capability of running five to six kilometers at a speed of 20 meters per minute on a treadmill for up to six hours before stopping."They are metabolically similar to Lance Armstrong biking up the Pyrenees; they utilize mainly fatty acids for energy and produce very little lactic acid.".... These genetically engineered mice also eat 60 percent more than controls, but remain fitter, trimmer and live and breed longer than wild mice in a control group. Some female PEPCK-Cmus mice have had offspring at 2.5 years of age.... Most mice do not reproduce after they are one year old.... PEPCK-Cmus mice are seven times more active in their home cages than controls; in addition, the mice were also markedly more aggressive.
The transgenic mice, which now number nearly 500, were derived from six founder lines that contain a chimeric gene in which a copy of the cDNA for PEPCK-C was linked to the skeletal actin gene promoter, containing the 3'-end of the bovine growth hormone gene. The skeletal actin gene promoter directs expression of PEPCK-C exclusively to skeletal muscle. Various lines of PEPCK-Cmus mice expressed PEPCK-C at different levels, but one very active line of PEPCK-Cmus mice had levels of PEPCK-C activity of 9 units/gram skeletal muscle, compared to only 0.08 units/gram in the muscles of control animals.
This new mouse line also has an increased content of mitochondria and high concentrations of triglycerides in their skeletal muscles, which also contributed to the increased metabolic rate and longevity of the animals. "It is remarkable that the over-expression of a single enzyme involved in a metabolic pathway should result in such a profound alteration in the phenotype of the mouse," Hakimi and Hanson said.
Comment: This is the first animal genetic engineering that I have seen, that seems very likely to tempt rich parents and secretive techies to try on humans soon. And yet, in my trademark response to othjer mice-generated wonders -- like caloric-restriction leading to much greater lifespans -- I have to say that they may merely have found a “switch” that humans have already flicked, in the last million years in order to become the lavishly exaggerated creatures that we are, with three-times longer lifespans (more precisely, three times more heartbeats) and prodigiously expensive brains.
Look, mutations probably flick this mouse switch often, in nature. That is probably WHY it is so easily switched on, in the lab! In times of sudden and lush plenty, a mutant mouse with this trait can dominate all others and breed like md. But, once the prosperity crashes, so will this mouse, who cannot eke along on low calories. And so will all of his offspring who express the gene. BUT, those who express all his other genes (including genes preparatory or helpful to this one) WILL survive and remain hidden in the mouse population... till the next time of super-plenty.
Oh, the “Beyond Belief” conference was interesting, weird, irksome. A couple of Nobelists and Daniel Dennett ranted against God... talk about expressing a sense of privileged invulnerability that is a direct product of lavishly safe circumstances! There were many other talks that seemed less tendentiously and ironically sanctimonious, regarding the (far better) sub-theme of “Enlightenment 2.0: preserving and enhancing the Enlightenment.” I concentrated on that part, emphasizing that this is the moment when enemies of the Enlightenment HAVE TO act, or else see it become a permanent stable condition, perpetuated by super-educated and confident and knowing citizens who live under conditions of permanent and lavish plenty.
MORE:
UK scientists have been granted £2.5 million to invent a nanomachine that can build materials molecule by molecule. Such a robot doesn't -- and may never -- exist, though it has been imagined for over half a century. But this autumn, researchers across the UK are starting work towards it, following the funding of three research projects by the Engineering and physical sciences research council. As a member of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, I will be (with my colleagues) be following this closely.
As a member of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, I help create position papers that peer ahear to the threats and promises of this rapidly advancing technological realm. Now you can read an important new book about the topic Military Nanotechnology: Potential Applications and Preventive Arms Control. See also a review.
Searching for God in the Brain Researchers are unearthing the roots of religious feeling in the neural commotion that accompanies the spiritual epiphanies of nuns, Buddhists and other people of faith.
The FUTURIST’s top ten forecasts for 2008.
While Popular Mechanics lists ten CUTTING EDGE BREAKTHROUGHS (some of these are WAY cool).
A composite plastic that's as strong as steel but lighter and transparent.
Malicious code could be embedded in online video players, according to a report on Internet threats released Tuesday by the Georgia Tech Information Security Center. One worm discovered in November 2006 launches a corrupt Web site without prompting after a user opens a media file in a player.
A new approach to "printing" living cells could make it easier to arrange them into precise structures without harming them.
The Arctic ice cap this summer dwindled to an extent unparalleled in a century or more.
Dusty Winds Bursting Out Of Black Holes May Have Seeded Planets, Life
A futuristic scheme to collect solar energy on satellites and beam it to Earth has gained a large supporter in the US military.
Virtual-worlds platform developer Multiverse Network is set to announce a partnership Tuesday that will allow anyone to create a new online interactive 3D environment with just about any model from Google's online repository of 3D models, its 3D Warehouse, as well as terrain from Google Earth.
Read “AI Meets the Metaverse: Teachable AI Agents Living in Virtual Worlds” by my friend Ben Goertzel “Online virtual worlds have the power to accelerate and catalyze the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI). As AGIs involved in this metaverse become progressively more intelligent from their interaction with the social network of human beings and reach human-level intelligence (the Singularity), they will already be part of the human social network. If we build them right and teach them right, they will greet us with open arms.”
Researchers have developed the world's first working radio system to use a nano-sized detector made of carbon nanotubes that receives radio waves wirelessly and demodulates them into sound signals.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Guest List: Traits of Fascism
I haven't time to create anything new here, so I'll continue posting stored-up items. Here's one that is taken from Mark Anderson's Strategic News Service, a thought -provoking generalization that, like most generalizations, badly needs examination in the details.
Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each: (disclosure needed here: I could find no mention of his methodology, but the thoughts are interesting and tie back to Bush suppressing scientific work).
The 14 Characteristics of Fascism Are:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism -
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military -
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism -
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media -
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security -
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined -
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected -
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed -
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts -
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment -
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption -
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections -
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
-- Offered to SNS by David Obert [Hewlett-Packard]
David Brin responds: While this list is thought provoking - and of course chilling in our present context - I believe it is also ahistorical and misleading at several points.
#4. Supremacy of the Military - "Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized."
This one is highly problematic. Not only because it is deeply flawed, historically. But also because it leads us toward a generalized hostility toward the military, which is not only undeserved in our present situation, but deeply unjust and counterproductive.
Sure, the military chiefs were supreme under Franco's version of fascism, but the same cannot be said for several other sub-brands. Under Hitler, a top priority was to keep the regular military class cowed and intimidated. Yes, there was militarism and the military was vastly expanded - and, indeed, the Wehrmacht was highly culpable for a myriad crimes. Nevertheless, the professional officer corps was not in itself supreme. It contributed almost no members to the Nazi inner circle. Hitler strove to build parallel forces answerable only to the Nazi Party.
Stalin's version of fascism took this trend much farther, all the way to a near-total evisceration of the Soviet officer corps, at the very threshold of WWII. This latter example is, in fact, a far closer parallel to what the Bushites have been doing to our American military. (Example: under Bill Clinton, we had thirty brigades ready - with high morale and training - to do their duty in some major surprise conflict. Under George W. Bush, that number has declined to two brigades. Just two.) It is vital to recognize that the United States armed forces -- especially the apolitical and highly intellectual Marshallian U.S. Officer Corps -- have been the neocons foremost victims. They have suffered, in part, because the Bushites know that our nation's professional castes must be squelched, starting with the military.
Moreover, how can demonizing these folks be as helpful as embracing them? Enlisting them as allies, in resisting an attempted fascist putsch? Indeed, anyone paying close attention can see clear signs of a growing, behind-the-scenes resistance, in which quiet back-pressure has been applied by our nation's flag officers. First the forced resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, followed by appointment of a non-Bushite Republican as Sec/Def, Robert Gates. Followed by the new Joint Chiefs Chairman, Admiral Michael Mullen, and Centcom Chief Admiral Fallon. All are clear signs of a military that's squirming out of neocon control. (Fast enough to do real good? That could depend on how much support they get.)
Keep your eyes open. Any time you see the Navy rise in influence, it will be a clear signal that this resistance continues. That elements in the military are pushing back on our behalf.
#9. Corporate Power is Protected - "The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite."
True, but simplistic. Yes, the Junkers and major industrialists installed Hitler as a counter to the Communists. But they were delusional. They thought their privately-owned newspapers could keep him in check, in an era of new media (radio and loudspeakers) in which Hitler was the master-hypnotist. (See point #8.)
Also remember, that the Nazi Party was the National Socialist Party. The aristos were protected, but they also found themselves straitjacketed. (For example, purely Aryan-Nazi labor unions gained partial control over the means of production. A little-known historical quirk. (See point#10.))
As to our present situation, yes, the rise of monopoly and a gilded age support point #9. But there are complexities. Far too little is being made of the rift WITHIN the corporate aristocracy, with the smarter half growing aware how the Golden Goose of Enlightenment American capitalism is being killed before their eyes. Will the smarter and more honest/creative half of the aristocracy actually start taking action, to help the people throw off the dismal/stupid/corrupt half? Stay tuned.
#12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - "Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations."
This, too, oversimplifies. Yes, all these things come true under every fascist regime. But the Bushites face a steep climb before reaching such a plateau. In fact, during the interim, while a diversity of law enforcement agencies are still heavily stocked with skilled and honest professionals, the neocons' problem is quite the opposite... to squelch the effectiveness of law enforcement! The utterly central Bushite need, right now, is to distract and dissuade the professionals who are charged with uncovering crime, because so much outright crime has been perpetrated by the neocons themselves. Hence, should we be surprised that statistics show most crime rates on the rise? Especially drug-related, white collar, consumer fraud and street crime.
Yes, this kind of trend can serve the purpose of provoking citizens to want more police empowerment. But it is a dangerous game and we could organize our thoughts to helping it to backfire.
(A side irony. As I point out in The Ostrich Papers: How it will take all Decent Americans to Restore Decency to America, it is beginning to dawn on many old-style Republicans that nearly all of the basic tenets of old-style conservatism have been systematically reversed by the neocon proto-fascists. Prudence to recklessness. Cynical isolationism to faux-utopian imperialism. Punctilious lawfulness to flagrant illegality. A dedication to accountability has flipped to frantic secrecy and avoidance. Certainly the old GOP dedication to states rights has been trounced, thrashed and buried. That last item, of course, could be viewed as a precursor to the police state described by David Obert and by Lawrence Britt.)
In sum: I do not deny the relevance of the chilling list of Fascist traits offered by Lawrence Britt. But I believe it should be used with subtlety and care. If we are to avoid becoming the USSA (United Security States of America) we have to avoid cliches.
Especially those that might make us shun potential allies in this desperate fight.
The 14 Characteristics of Fascism Are:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism -
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military -
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism -
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media -
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security -
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined -
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected -
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed -
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts -
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment -
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption -
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections -
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
-- Offered to SNS by David Obert [Hewlett-Packard]
David Brin responds: While this list is thought provoking - and of course chilling in our present context - I believe it is also ahistorical and misleading at several points.
#4. Supremacy of the Military - "Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized."
This one is highly problematic. Not only because it is deeply flawed, historically. But also because it leads us toward a generalized hostility toward the military, which is not only undeserved in our present situation, but deeply unjust and counterproductive.
Sure, the military chiefs were supreme under Franco's version of fascism, but the same cannot be said for several other sub-brands. Under Hitler, a top priority was to keep the regular military class cowed and intimidated. Yes, there was militarism and the military was vastly expanded - and, indeed, the Wehrmacht was highly culpable for a myriad crimes. Nevertheless, the professional officer corps was not in itself supreme. It contributed almost no members to the Nazi inner circle. Hitler strove to build parallel forces answerable only to the Nazi Party.
Stalin's version of fascism took this trend much farther, all the way to a near-total evisceration of the Soviet officer corps, at the very threshold of WWII. This latter example is, in fact, a far closer parallel to what the Bushites have been doing to our American military. (Example: under Bill Clinton, we had thirty brigades ready - with high morale and training - to do their duty in some major surprise conflict. Under George W. Bush, that number has declined to two brigades. Just two.) It is vital to recognize that the United States armed forces -- especially the apolitical and highly intellectual Marshallian U.S. Officer Corps -- have been the neocons foremost victims. They have suffered, in part, because the Bushites know that our nation's professional castes must be squelched, starting with the military.
Moreover, how can demonizing these folks be as helpful as embracing them? Enlisting them as allies, in resisting an attempted fascist putsch? Indeed, anyone paying close attention can see clear signs of a growing, behind-the-scenes resistance, in which quiet back-pressure has been applied by our nation's flag officers. First the forced resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, followed by appointment of a non-Bushite Republican as Sec/Def, Robert Gates. Followed by the new Joint Chiefs Chairman, Admiral Michael Mullen, and Centcom Chief Admiral Fallon. All are clear signs of a military that's squirming out of neocon control. (Fast enough to do real good? That could depend on how much support they get.)
Keep your eyes open. Any time you see the Navy rise in influence, it will be a clear signal that this resistance continues. That elements in the military are pushing back on our behalf.
#9. Corporate Power is Protected - "The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite."
True, but simplistic. Yes, the Junkers and major industrialists installed Hitler as a counter to the Communists. But they were delusional. They thought their privately-owned newspapers could keep him in check, in an era of new media (radio and loudspeakers) in which Hitler was the master-hypnotist. (See point #8.)
Also remember, that the Nazi Party was the National Socialist Party. The aristos were protected, but they also found themselves straitjacketed. (For example, purely Aryan-Nazi labor unions gained partial control over the means of production. A little-known historical quirk. (See point#10.))
As to our present situation, yes, the rise of monopoly and a gilded age support point #9. But there are complexities. Far too little is being made of the rift WITHIN the corporate aristocracy, with the smarter half growing aware how the Golden Goose of Enlightenment American capitalism is being killed before their eyes. Will the smarter and more honest/creative half of the aristocracy actually start taking action, to help the people throw off the dismal/stupid/corrupt half? Stay tuned.
#12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - "Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations."
This, too, oversimplifies. Yes, all these things come true under every fascist regime. But the Bushites face a steep climb before reaching such a plateau. In fact, during the interim, while a diversity of law enforcement agencies are still heavily stocked with skilled and honest professionals, the neocons' problem is quite the opposite... to squelch the effectiveness of law enforcement! The utterly central Bushite need, right now, is to distract and dissuade the professionals who are charged with uncovering crime, because so much outright crime has been perpetrated by the neocons themselves. Hence, should we be surprised that statistics show most crime rates on the rise? Especially drug-related, white collar, consumer fraud and street crime.
Yes, this kind of trend can serve the purpose of provoking citizens to want more police empowerment. But it is a dangerous game and we could organize our thoughts to helping it to backfire.
(A side irony. As I point out in The Ostrich Papers: How it will take all Decent Americans to Restore Decency to America, it is beginning to dawn on many old-style Republicans that nearly all of the basic tenets of old-style conservatism have been systematically reversed by the neocon proto-fascists. Prudence to recklessness. Cynical isolationism to faux-utopian imperialism. Punctilious lawfulness to flagrant illegality. A dedication to accountability has flipped to frantic secrecy and avoidance. Certainly the old GOP dedication to states rights has been trounced, thrashed and buried. That last item, of course, could be viewed as a precursor to the police state described by David Obert and by Lawrence Britt.)
In sum: I do not deny the relevance of the chilling list of Fascist traits offered by Lawrence Britt. But I believe it should be used with subtlety and care. If we are to avoid becoming the USSA (United Security States of America) we have to avoid cliches.
Especially those that might make us shun potential allies in this desperate fight.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
A Halloween grab bag of coolstuff
Someone care to report back on Newt Gingrich’s book? I used to have hopes for him to veer our way. I’m not easily drawn back to such foolish thinking... but... one can hope. See: A Contract with the EarthSorry, but it's Halloween and I am getting gremlined. I cannot hot link all of the following. But it's cool stuff.
Oh, today I spent all day at the Salk Institute participating in "Beyond Belief" which had some major lumionary minds there... but turned out to be somewhat of an "atheism fest"... I wound up being the contrarian speaking up for God!
More...
Researchers have developed a low-cost, low-power computer memory that could put terabyte-sized thumb drives in consumers' pockets within a few years.
Peter Thiel Explains How to Invest in the Singularity
The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, by Daniel J. Solove, isn't much concerned with privacy advocates' usual bête noire, the surveillance state. Instead, Solove focuses on a more down-to-earth set of concerns, such as developing practical law for a quasi-voyeuristic-exhibitionist society. (Somone go read it and report back here!)Adobe Systems is developing software that could bring the power of a Hollywood animation studio to the average computer and let users render high-quality graphics in real time.
An extremely simple Turing machine has been proved to be universal.
EEStor claims to have developed a car battery based on capacitors that can be charged quickly and is ready for large-scale production. The patent specifies charge storage that is much higher than anything achieved in an academic lab: 52 kilowatt-hours in a 2,000 cubic inch capacitor array -- more than 10 times the power density of standard cells.
See that fellow who documents every move he makes, in order to stave off “terror” profiling.
The US and UK governments are developing increasingly sophisticated gadgets to keep individuals under surveillance.
DigitalGlobe, provider of imagery for Google Earth, said WorldView I, a new high-resolution satellite to be launched on Tuesday, will produce one-half meter resolution images for commercial use.
There is new hope that we might survive an apocalypse five billion years from now. That is when, scientists say, the Sun will run out of fuel and swell temporarily more than 100 times in diameter into a so-called red giant, swallowing Mercury and Venus. Astronomers are announcing that they have discovered a that seems to have survived the puffing up of its home , suggesting there is some hope that could survive the aging and swelling of the Sun.
Organized crime may have brought in more than $2 trillion in revenue last year, about twice all the military budgets in the worldcombined.
Neural scientists have uncovered evidence of a distinct neurobiology of human intelligence. Their Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT) identifies a brain network related to intelligence, one that primarily involves areas in the frontal and the parietal lobes. T he brain areas related to intelligence are the same areas related to attention and memory and to more complex functions like language. Haier and Jung say this possible integration of cognitive functions suggests that intelligence levels might be based on how efficient the frontal-parietal networks process information.
W hile there are essentially no disparities in general intelligence between the sexes, women have more white matter and men more gray matter related to intelligence test scores, suggesting that no single neuroanatomical structure determines general intelligence and that different types of brain designs can produce equivalent intellectual performance.
A low-carbohydrate/high-fat diet and a high-carbohydrate/low-fat diet both improve weight loss, enhance mood, and speed thinking, a study shows, but the low-carb diet may offer less benefit in terms of the rate of cognitive processing.
NASA researchers have designed and built a new circuit chip that can take the heat of a blast furnace and keep on performing.
McAfee CEO David DeWalt says cyber-crime has become a $105 billion business that now surpasses the value of the illegal drug trade worldwide. Worldwide data losses now represent $40 billion in losses to affected companies and individuals each year.
These people are creating software to make the world's statistical data accessible to the public.
(10/07) As if taken straight from The Transparent Society -- The U.S. Transportation Administration today promised to protect air travelers' privacy as TSA personnel peer through their clothes. The TSA has begun testing a millimeter wave scanner at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport as an alternative to pat-downs performed by security personnel when is deemed appropriate. The technology can see through clothing to detect weapons, explosives, and other objects. The TSA said that energy emitted by millimeter wave technology -- 10,000 times less than a cell phone -- is safe, that the technology is intended to keep passengers safe, and that it will keep the potentially embarrassing images safe.
The new "SuperSpeed" USB spec will provide a 10X boost in transfer rate (from 480-Mbits/s in USB 2.0 to 4.8 Gbits/s in USB 3.0), while dramatically lowering power consumption, with broad deployment by 2010. One example of their speed goals is to transfer a 27GB HD movie to a portable device in 70 seconds. The same thing would take 15 minutes
Brookhaven National Laboratory has overcome a major obstacle for using refractive lenses to focus x-rays. This method will allow the efficient focusing of x-rays down to extremely small spots
A computer program that emulates the human brain falls for the same optical illusions humans do, suggesting that the illusions are a by-product of the way babies learn to filter their complex surroundings. Researchers say this means future robots must be susceptible to the same tricks that humans are in order to see as well.
From Josh Duberman: “Larry Lessig appears on Danish TV to explain his new cause, devoting the next ten years to ending government corruption. Lessig is downright inspirational on the subject, calling on us to set aside our cynical instinct that tells us that money will always control government and use technology to expose corruption and rally citizens to end it.” A riff on transparency, of course.
Tool Cool. Nice to know things will boogy after we’re gone.
What Will China Look Like in 2035? Here's what economists at China's official government think tank predict for the future of the mainland, by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, an international investment banker and senior adviser at Citigroup, is the editor of China's Banking and Financial Markets: The Internal Research Report of the Chinese Government and the author of The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin, China's best-selling book in 2005.
Forget exploding dye or hot pursuits. Tiny GPS devices inside poackets of stolen money are now snaring bank robbers with trivial ease. And letting parents put fine restrictions on where and when their teens can drive. “Like a host of other location technologies in the works, the money-tracking tools can trace their origin to an initially obscure rule, written into the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, which required that new cellphones be able to communicate their location to emergency responders whenever callers dial 911. Some companies planted chips in their phones that communicate directly with G.P.S. satellites. Others use cellular towers to triangulate the signal. With the location systems in place, a number of companies began working on other applications.”
==== ==== ====
"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change" -Max Planc, Nobel physicist
Saturday, October 27, 2007
The GOP vs. the U.S. Military: Part Eight - The Generals Speak
In Parts One through Seven, I laid down a careful case that showed, in one categorical area after another, how the Bush Administration and the entire neoconservative movement have effectively been “waging war against the professionals and of the US government, especially the men and women of the military Officer Corps. A perspective that I have been trying to get people to see, for close to five years, now.
Now, delayed and distracted by other things, I feel I must try to finish off this topic, getting the rest of my stored-up material online, even if it comes across less-polished than some of the other sections.
* The Growing Revolt of the Senior Officer Corps.
I have been tracking for years the blatant fact that this administration is more despised by our senior generals and admirals than any other in living memory, even including the Nixon and Johnson officials who meddled cluelessly, while sending men into a useless attrition quagmire on the continent of Asia, dividing the nation, wasting its treasure and credibility and alliances, demolishing America’s position of leadership for a generation.
Take some recent examples:
Oct. 12— In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top American commander called the Bush administration’s handling of the war incompetent and warned that the United States was “living a nightmare with no end in sight.” In one of his first major public speeches since leaving the Army in late 2006, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez blamed the administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current “surge” strategy as a “desperate” move that will not achieve long-term stability.
“There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”
Or this one: "The (Bush) administration has dumped the entire Middle East problem onto the back of the soldier and the Marine," retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton said in an interview from his Fox Island home. "The 'surge,' a modest success, is counterbalanced by our failure to get out a diplomatic surge. ... I believe this administration is incompetent beyond any dream of the American people. This administration is a one-trick pony: military action, military action, military action." Eaton is a product of the U.S. Military Academy. He is the son of a fellow West Point grad, an Air Force pilot who went missing over Laos 38 years ago. Both of Eaton's sons have followed him into the military, one of them to West Point.
Still, after a 2003-2004 tour of duty in Iraq, he was among the earliest to critique then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the neo-conservative warriors of the Bush Pentagon. "It is not typical of retired generals to go to the media. It is not customary for retired generals to make public displays of criticism toward administration policy. But it is our duty, under oath, to support and defend the Constitution. It is not a matter of duty to support and defend the administration."
Joe Conelly, a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says: Winston Churchill, to whom George W. Bush has likened himself, declared: "It is better to 'Jaw, Jaw!' than 'War, War!' " The iron-willed wartime prime minister was also a driven diplomat. Such, too, has been a talent of America's best military leaders -- coalition building and skill at achieving national objectives without the clash of arms. Gen. George Marshall blocked Soviet domination of Europe, not by blowing up the Red Army's T-34 tanks, but by rebuilding war-ravaged Western and Central European countries with the Marshall Plan. The grandiose-sounding Gen. Douglas MacArthur proved subtle and culturally sensitive in the post-World War II dismantling of Japanese militarism. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/331866_joel17.html
In the mid-1990s, at an air base outside Dayton, Ohio, Gen. Wesley Clark and presidential envoy Richard Holbrooke persuaded an odious Balkan dictator -- Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic -- to sign the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina...
Well, well. It’s good to see SOMEONE raising the Balkans War as a point of comparison, showing the “Powell Doctrine” at its best and most effective, in comparison... in comparison to....
* Turning to the “Petraeus Report”
All right, the following is a few weeks old. But it’s still relevant. For only PART of the Officer Corps is fuming. There are others, in an era when sycophancy is rewarded. (Look into history and tell me when that ever happened, and the nation, at large, benefited.)
The right’s attempt to create a Cult of General Petraeus has been touted by cable news shills and denounced by opponents far more influential than me, from a zillion angles. But let’s go to the heart of it, as an example of the lengths that the Bush Administration will go, in order to maximally achieve their apparent goal -- the destruction of the United States Army.
Ponder this caustic snippet from Russ Daggett: ”Petraeus announced that, "the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met." And based on all that "progress," he said, "we will be able to reduce our forces to the pre-surge level of brigade combat teams by next summer without jeopardizing the security gains that we have fought so hard to achieve." He noted that "pre-surge levels" could be reached "by mid-July 2008." But it would be "premature" to discuss force reductions beyond that.
“In other words, 20 months after the people spoke, in the 2006 elections, US forces would be at the same level they were on election day, with absolutely no commitment to reduce them beyond that level. “But in recent months, senior military leaders -- including Admiral. Michael Mullen, incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- have acknowledged that the surge would have to end by April 2008 in any event because there are no fresh replacements for troops who would be completing their 15 month deployments.
“What a coincidence -- Petraeus is offering a force reduction that has absolutely nothing to do with "conditions on the ground" -- it is just the maximum level that our broken military can withstand. Whereupon the levels will stay that way indefinitely -- i.e., until Bush leaves office. “By portraying that inevitable unwinding of the surge as being a response to military success, Petraeus was engaging in political spin. That's one of the dangers of a general allowing himself to become the frontman for a highly-political White House propaganda campaign. Not everyone in the military is happy to see a general become the chief salesman for the administration's war policies.”
Russ goes on to quote at length from an article: Petraeus Out of Step with Top Brass
”In sharp contrast to the lionization of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting. Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say.
“Fallon's derision toward Petraeus reflected both the CENTCOM commander's personal distaste for Petraeus's style of operating and their fundamental policy differences over Iraq, according to sources. The policy context of Fallon's extraordinarily abrasive treatment of his subordinate was Petraeus's agreement in February to serve as front man for the George W. Bush administration's effort to sell its policy of increasing U.S. troop strength in Iraq to Congress.
“In a highly unusual political role for an officer who had not yet taken command of a war, Petraeus was installed in the office of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, in early February just before the Senate debated Bush's troop increase. According to a report in The Washington Post Feb. 7, senators were then approached on the floor and invited to go McConnell's office to hear Petraeus make the case for the surge policy.
“Fallon was strongly opposed to Petraeus's role as pitch man for the surge policy in Iraq adopted by Bush in December as putting his own interests ahead of a sound military posture in the Middle East and Southwest Asia -- the area for which Fallon's CENTCOM is responsible. The CENTCOM commander believed the United States should be withdrawing troops from Iraq urgently, largely because he saw greater dangers elsewhere in the region. "He is very focused on Pakistan," said a source familiar with Fallon's thinking, "and trying to maintain a difficult status quo with Iran."”
...dang. I mean. Dang. As with the US Attorney firings scandal, people seem to miss the key point in the tussle over the Petraeus report. In that other scandal, the issue should not be the eight US Attorneys who were let go, for not perfectly toeing the line, but rather, the eighty or so who are still out there, doing a “satisfactory job” in Bush’s eyes, by performing politically twisted versions of a task that they swore to do for us impartially and professionally.
Likewise, re the military. I have inveighed about the number of valuable officers who are being transferred or forced out, in relentless Bushite purges. But as Petraeus clearly shows, the real issue is not the good men and women who have been purged, but the roll-over lapdogs who have been promoted in their place, collaborating in the bullying, dismemberment and destruction of a proud and skilled military that -- only half a decade ago -- seemed invincible in the eyes of all the world.
* Long have we asked this question: who is the enemy?
Not Osama, since Bush recently dissolved the very CIA unit assigned to tracking the master terrorist down!
Not our Shiite “friends” or our Sunni “friends”, who sometimes flick, like a switch into opposite roles, in a dizzying whirl of masks and reciprocal blame.
Not potential super-rivals like China or Russia, since no attention is being paid to their recent arms buildups and our own military strength has been torn to bits.
What the Bushites DO seem to care about is redesigning the United States Officer Corps. In stocking political and social fanatics into the service academies, at the bottom, while harrying and chasing out the best and most professional flag-level commanders, replacing them with a coterie of those who are willing to shift their loyalties from the Constitution to the Neocon Agenda. This clear choice of priorities and mission makes clear who the Bushites consider to be the enemy.
It is us.
=======
Return to Part 1 of this series
Now, delayed and distracted by other things, I feel I must try to finish off this topic, getting the rest of my stored-up material online, even if it comes across less-polished than some of the other sections.
* The Growing Revolt of the Senior Officer Corps.
I have been tracking for years the blatant fact that this administration is more despised by our senior generals and admirals than any other in living memory, even including the Nixon and Johnson officials who meddled cluelessly, while sending men into a useless attrition quagmire on the continent of Asia, dividing the nation, wasting its treasure and credibility and alliances, demolishing America’s position of leadership for a generation.
Take some recent examples:
Oct. 12— In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top American commander called the Bush administration’s handling of the war incompetent and warned that the United States was “living a nightmare with no end in sight.” In one of his first major public speeches since leaving the Army in late 2006, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez blamed the administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current “surge” strategy as a “desperate” move that will not achieve long-term stability.
“There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”
Or this one: "The (Bush) administration has dumped the entire Middle East problem onto the back of the soldier and the Marine," retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton said in an interview from his Fox Island home. "The 'surge,' a modest success, is counterbalanced by our failure to get out a diplomatic surge. ... I believe this administration is incompetent beyond any dream of the American people. This administration is a one-trick pony: military action, military action, military action." Eaton is a product of the U.S. Military Academy. He is the son of a fellow West Point grad, an Air Force pilot who went missing over Laos 38 years ago. Both of Eaton's sons have followed him into the military, one of them to West Point.
Still, after a 2003-2004 tour of duty in Iraq, he was among the earliest to critique then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the neo-conservative warriors of the Bush Pentagon. "It is not typical of retired generals to go to the media. It is not customary for retired generals to make public displays of criticism toward administration policy. But it is our duty, under oath, to support and defend the Constitution. It is not a matter of duty to support and defend the administration."
Joe Conelly, a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says: Winston Churchill, to whom George W. Bush has likened himself, declared: "It is better to 'Jaw, Jaw!' than 'War, War!' " The iron-willed wartime prime minister was also a driven diplomat. Such, too, has been a talent of America's best military leaders -- coalition building and skill at achieving national objectives without the clash of arms. Gen. George Marshall blocked Soviet domination of Europe, not by blowing up the Red Army's T-34 tanks, but by rebuilding war-ravaged Western and Central European countries with the Marshall Plan. The grandiose-sounding Gen. Douglas MacArthur proved subtle and culturally sensitive in the post-World War II dismantling of Japanese militarism. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/331866_joel17.html
In the mid-1990s, at an air base outside Dayton, Ohio, Gen. Wesley Clark and presidential envoy Richard Holbrooke persuaded an odious Balkan dictator -- Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic -- to sign the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina...
Well, well. It’s good to see SOMEONE raising the Balkans War as a point of comparison, showing the “Powell Doctrine” at its best and most effective, in comparison... in comparison to....
* Turning to the “Petraeus Report”
All right, the following is a few weeks old. But it’s still relevant. For only PART of the Officer Corps is fuming. There are others, in an era when sycophancy is rewarded. (Look into history and tell me when that ever happened, and the nation, at large, benefited.)
The right’s attempt to create a Cult of General Petraeus has been touted by cable news shills and denounced by opponents far more influential than me, from a zillion angles. But let’s go to the heart of it, as an example of the lengths that the Bush Administration will go, in order to maximally achieve their apparent goal -- the destruction of the United States Army.
Ponder this caustic snippet from Russ Daggett: ”Petraeus announced that, "the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met." And based on all that "progress," he said, "we will be able to reduce our forces to the pre-surge level of brigade combat teams by next summer without jeopardizing the security gains that we have fought so hard to achieve." He noted that "pre-surge levels" could be reached "by mid-July 2008." But it would be "premature" to discuss force reductions beyond that.
“In other words, 20 months after the people spoke, in the 2006 elections, US forces would be at the same level they were on election day, with absolutely no commitment to reduce them beyond that level. “But in recent months, senior military leaders -- including Admiral. Michael Mullen, incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- have acknowledged that the surge would have to end by April 2008 in any event because there are no fresh replacements for troops who would be completing their 15 month deployments.
“What a coincidence -- Petraeus is offering a force reduction that has absolutely nothing to do with "conditions on the ground" -- it is just the maximum level that our broken military can withstand. Whereupon the levels will stay that way indefinitely -- i.e., until Bush leaves office. “By portraying that inevitable unwinding of the surge as being a response to military success, Petraeus was engaging in political spin. That's one of the dangers of a general allowing himself to become the frontman for a highly-political White House propaganda campaign. Not everyone in the military is happy to see a general become the chief salesman for the administration's war policies.”
Russ goes on to quote at length from an article: Petraeus Out of Step with Top Brass
”In sharp contrast to the lionization of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting. Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say.
“Fallon's derision toward Petraeus reflected both the CENTCOM commander's personal distaste for Petraeus's style of operating and their fundamental policy differences over Iraq, according to sources. The policy context of Fallon's extraordinarily abrasive treatment of his subordinate was Petraeus's agreement in February to serve as front man for the George W. Bush administration's effort to sell its policy of increasing U.S. troop strength in Iraq to Congress.
“In a highly unusual political role for an officer who had not yet taken command of a war, Petraeus was installed in the office of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, in early February just before the Senate debated Bush's troop increase. According to a report in The Washington Post Feb. 7, senators were then approached on the floor and invited to go McConnell's office to hear Petraeus make the case for the surge policy.
“Fallon was strongly opposed to Petraeus's role as pitch man for the surge policy in Iraq adopted by Bush in December as putting his own interests ahead of a sound military posture in the Middle East and Southwest Asia -- the area for which Fallon's CENTCOM is responsible. The CENTCOM commander believed the United States should be withdrawing troops from Iraq urgently, largely because he saw greater dangers elsewhere in the region. "He is very focused on Pakistan," said a source familiar with Fallon's thinking, "and trying to maintain a difficult status quo with Iran."”
...dang. I mean. Dang. As with the US Attorney firings scandal, people seem to miss the key point in the tussle over the Petraeus report. In that other scandal, the issue should not be the eight US Attorneys who were let go, for not perfectly toeing the line, but rather, the eighty or so who are still out there, doing a “satisfactory job” in Bush’s eyes, by performing politically twisted versions of a task that they swore to do for us impartially and professionally.
Likewise, re the military. I have inveighed about the number of valuable officers who are being transferred or forced out, in relentless Bushite purges. But as Petraeus clearly shows, the real issue is not the good men and women who have been purged, but the roll-over lapdogs who have been promoted in their place, collaborating in the bullying, dismemberment and destruction of a proud and skilled military that -- only half a decade ago -- seemed invincible in the eyes of all the world.
* Long have we asked this question: who is the enemy?
Not Osama, since Bush recently dissolved the very CIA unit assigned to tracking the master terrorist down!
Not our Shiite “friends” or our Sunni “friends”, who sometimes flick, like a switch into opposite roles, in a dizzying whirl of masks and reciprocal blame.
Not potential super-rivals like China or Russia, since no attention is being paid to their recent arms buildups and our own military strength has been torn to bits.
What the Bushites DO seem to care about is redesigning the United States Officer Corps. In stocking political and social fanatics into the service academies, at the bottom, while harrying and chasing out the best and most professional flag-level commanders, replacing them with a coterie of those who are willing to shift their loyalties from the Constitution to the Neocon Agenda. This clear choice of priorities and mission makes clear who the Bushites consider to be the enemy.
It is us.
=======
Return to Part 1 of this series
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Are Things Improving?
Even with civilization at stake, there's got to be some time set aside for... civilization. So here are some things that ours has been up to, lately.
==ARE THINGS IMPROVING?==
A fascinating tidbit from Benny Peiser's newsletter: Democracy, GDP, and Natural Disasters: The average annual percentage of the global population killed by natural disasters decreased 10-fold from the period 1964 to 1968 compared with the period 2000 through 2004, from 0.01 percent (roughly one killed for every 10,000 people) to 0.001 percent (one in 100,000) respectively. At the same time, the average annual number of recorded disasters increased five-fold between 1964 through 1968 (64 per year) and 2000 through 2004 (332 per year). The events that continue to result in the major number of fatalities are the relatively small percentage of events that occur with large recurrence intervals, such as massive floods, strong earthquakes and direct strikes from intense hurricanes, or events that are unusual in the area in which they occur.
Clearly, the impact of a natural disaster is not simply a function of the natural event itself, but is determined also by society's ability to respond to the disaster. Over the same time period that we observe a decreasing number of disaster deaths, two great global socioeconomic trends of the last half century have also occurred: democratization and economic development. To evaluate the role that democracy and economic development play in reducing the humanitarian impact of natural disasters, we measured 133 countries' natural disaster death tolls against both their average democracy ranking and their average per capita GDP. We excluded only those nations with a population of fewer than 1 million people, or which have experienced five or fewer disasters between 1964 and 2004.
The Role of Democracy: More than 80 percent of the total global disaster deaths from 1964 to 2004 occurred in just 15 countries, including China, Ethiopia, Sudan, Indonesia and Bangladesh, among others. Of these fifteen nations, 73 percent are below the median global GDP and 87 percent are below the median democracy index. The democracy index is the average of the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicator values for voice and accountability, political stability, absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption.
The exceptions to the trend that high GDP correlates with a low death toll after a natural disaster are Iran and Venezuela, both oil-rich countries with significant wealth but low democracy indices. Because the two outliers have high GDP and relatively high death tolls, they suggest that democracy, rather than GDP, may play the more pivotal role in reducing deaths from natural disasters. The strong exponential correlation between democracy and GDP, however, makes it difficult to differentiate the two.
= PROGRESS AND THE NATURE OF REALITY =
Robert Wright gives a terrific talk: Progress is not a Zero-Sum Game: How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict Alas, though we agree on very much, I think Rob underplays the role that old-style human nature plays, in thwarting the new synergies of enlightenment positive sum games. Wright discusses this further in his book: NonZero: The Logic of Human Destiny.
In case you missed this... (how could you?) Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.
Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists described by one expert as "one of the most important developments in the history of science".The parallel universe theory, first proposed in 1950 by the US physicist Hugh Everett, helps explain mysteries of quantum mechanics that have baffled scientists for decades, it is claimed. In Everett's "many worlds" universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits. Given a number of possible alternative outcomes, each one is played out - in its own universe.
According to quantum mechanics, unobserved particles are described by "wave functions" representing a set of multiple "probable" states. When an observer makes a measurement, the particle then settles down into one of these multiple options. The Oxford team, led by Dr David Deutsch, showed mathematically that the bush-like branching structure created by the universe splitting into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes.
”Can explain” That is a far cry from “proves”. It seems that even in science reporting, polemical zing trumps accuracy.
What caused the extinction of mammoths and the decline of Stone Age people about 13,000 years ago remains hotly debated. Overhunting by Paleoindians, climate change and disease lead the list of probable causes. Now a group reports evidence that a comet or low-density object exploded in the upper atmosphere and triggered a devastating swath of destruction that wiped out most of the large animals, their habitat and most humans of that period, ending the Clovis culture. If so, this certainly lets proto Amerindians off the hook... though the timing seems strangely auspicious.
What I find more interesting, even still, is that this is about the time that many changes occurred in the Middle East, like the surge of agricultural villages and use of copper tools and advanced pottery
DUAL REALITY is the concept of maintaining two worlds, one virtual and one real, that reflect, influence, and merge into each other by means of deeply embedded sensor/actuator networks. Both the real and virtual components of a dual reality are complete unto themselves, but are enriched by their mutual interaction. See this site for a tour of the MIT Dual Reality lab and for slides for a talk given at the MIT Media Lab's Spring 2007 Things That Think consortium
Experts say they are "stunned" by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as the UK disappearing in the last week alone. So much ice has melted this summer that the Northwest passage across the top of Canada is fully navigable, and observers say the Northeast passage along Russia's Arctic coast could open later this month. If the increased rate of melting continues, the summertime Arctic could be totally free of ice by 2030.
When Salmonella typhimurium food bugs were flown in special flasks on the shuttle, they were found to alter the way they expressed 167 genes. The bacteria were almost three times as likely to kill infected mice compared with standard samples held on Earth. The study has important implications for astronauts going to the Moon or Mars. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7011828.stm
”We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.” - George Bernard Shaw
==A FLICKER OF THE STINKING “POLITICAL LAMP”==
The collated and collected version of “Ostrich Hunting” is now posted online at:
Ostrich Hunting: The Bill Clinton Gambit Part 1
Ostrich Hunting: The Bill Clinton Gambit Part 2
This is a preliminary version that - per Stefan’s advice - I may show to the guys at Salon. It still needs your help! (See below in comments where I may announce further changes.)
* There are lots of points and facts that could use links to back them up. Yes, many are “common knowledge” but attribution always helps.
* More items? Places where it’s too repetitious, even for me?
Thanks and onward.
==ARE THINGS IMPROVING?==
A fascinating tidbit from Benny Peiser's newsletter: Democracy, GDP, and Natural Disasters: The average annual percentage of the global population killed by natural disasters decreased 10-fold from the period 1964 to 1968 compared with the period 2000 through 2004, from 0.01 percent (roughly one killed for every 10,000 people) to 0.001 percent (one in 100,000) respectively. At the same time, the average annual number of recorded disasters increased five-fold between 1964 through 1968 (64 per year) and 2000 through 2004 (332 per year). The events that continue to result in the major number of fatalities are the relatively small percentage of events that occur with large recurrence intervals, such as massive floods, strong earthquakes and direct strikes from intense hurricanes, or events that are unusual in the area in which they occur.
Clearly, the impact of a natural disaster is not simply a function of the natural event itself, but is determined also by society's ability to respond to the disaster. Over the same time period that we observe a decreasing number of disaster deaths, two great global socioeconomic trends of the last half century have also occurred: democratization and economic development. To evaluate the role that democracy and economic development play in reducing the humanitarian impact of natural disasters, we measured 133 countries' natural disaster death tolls against both their average democracy ranking and their average per capita GDP. We excluded only those nations with a population of fewer than 1 million people, or which have experienced five or fewer disasters between 1964 and 2004.
The Role of Democracy: More than 80 percent of the total global disaster deaths from 1964 to 2004 occurred in just 15 countries, including China, Ethiopia, Sudan, Indonesia and Bangladesh, among others. Of these fifteen nations, 73 percent are below the median global GDP and 87 percent are below the median democracy index. The democracy index is the average of the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicator values for voice and accountability, political stability, absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption.
The exceptions to the trend that high GDP correlates with a low death toll after a natural disaster are Iran and Venezuela, both oil-rich countries with significant wealth but low democracy indices. Because the two outliers have high GDP and relatively high death tolls, they suggest that democracy, rather than GDP, may play the more pivotal role in reducing deaths from natural disasters. The strong exponential correlation between democracy and GDP, however, makes it difficult to differentiate the two.
= PROGRESS AND THE NATURE OF REALITY =
Robert Wright gives a terrific talk: Progress is not a Zero-Sum Game: How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict Alas, though we agree on very much, I think Rob underplays the role that old-style human nature plays, in thwarting the new synergies of enlightenment positive sum games. Wright discusses this further in his book: NonZero: The Logic of Human Destiny.In case you missed this... (how could you?) Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.
Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists described by one expert as "one of the most important developments in the history of science".The parallel universe theory, first proposed in 1950 by the US physicist Hugh Everett, helps explain mysteries of quantum mechanics that have baffled scientists for decades, it is claimed. In Everett's "many worlds" universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits. Given a number of possible alternative outcomes, each one is played out - in its own universe.
According to quantum mechanics, unobserved particles are described by "wave functions" representing a set of multiple "probable" states. When an observer makes a measurement, the particle then settles down into one of these multiple options. The Oxford team, led by Dr David Deutsch, showed mathematically that the bush-like branching structure created by the universe splitting into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes.
What caused the extinction of mammoths and the decline of Stone Age people about 13,000 years ago remains hotly debated. Overhunting by Paleoindians, climate change and disease lead the list of probable causes. Now a group reports evidence that a comet or low-density object exploded in the upper atmosphere and triggered a devastating swath of destruction that wiped out most of the large animals, their habitat and most humans of that period, ending the Clovis culture. If so, this certainly lets proto Amerindians off the hook... though the timing seems strangely auspicious.
What I find more interesting, even still, is that this is about the time that many changes occurred in the Middle East, like the surge of agricultural villages and use of copper tools and advanced pottery
DUAL REALITY is the concept of maintaining two worlds, one virtual and one real, that reflect, influence, and merge into each other by means of deeply embedded sensor/actuator networks. Both the real and virtual components of a dual reality are complete unto themselves, but are enriched by their mutual interaction. See this site for a tour of the MIT Dual Reality lab and for slides for a talk given at the MIT Media Lab's Spring 2007 Things That Think consortium
Experts say they are "stunned" by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as the UK disappearing in the last week alone. So much ice has melted this summer that the Northwest passage across the top of Canada is fully navigable, and observers say the Northeast passage along Russia's Arctic coast could open later this month. If the increased rate of melting continues, the summertime Arctic could be totally free of ice by 2030.
When Salmonella typhimurium food bugs were flown in special flasks on the shuttle, they were found to alter the way they expressed 167 genes. The bacteria were almost three times as likely to kill infected mice compared with standard samples held on Earth. The study has important implications for astronauts going to the Moon or Mars. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7011828.stm
”We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.” - George Bernard Shaw
==A FLICKER OF THE STINKING “POLITICAL LAMP”==
The collated and collected version of “Ostrich Hunting” is now posted online at:
Ostrich Hunting: The Bill Clinton Gambit Part 1
Ostrich Hunting: The Bill Clinton Gambit Part 2
This is a preliminary version that - per Stefan’s advice - I may show to the guys at Salon. It still needs your help! (See below in comments where I may announce further changes.)
* There are lots of points and facts that could use links to back them up. Yes, many are “common knowledge” but attribution always helps.
* More items? Places where it’s too repetitious, even for me?
Thanks and onward.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
The Ostrich Papers: "What if Clinton had..." (Part IV - finale)
Okay, I have worried this bone down to the marrow, in an effort to be comprehensive and offer a useful political tool. Now, let's try to finish up.
By now, you know what to do. Print out parts I, II and III and use them as a long list of hypocrisy skewers to wear down an ostrich. Of course, you’ll have to be persistent, because it may take all of these things, before their state of denial finally erodes far enough for him to start getting mad. Mad over how they have been made a tool. Over how conservatism has been hijacked by monsters.
And, especially, furious at a gang of thieves, for putting him in a position of having to apologize for six years (and more) of obstinate block headedness!
Still, in order to avoid wasting time, be sure and distinguish between five types of Republican! Four kinds are a complete waste of time.
* The owners and thieves themselves, insiders benefiting from the Great Klepto Raid. Or their high-paid shills. I doubt you’ll meet any of these. But they already know what you’d say. Having sold America, they only care about evading accountability.
(Don’t worry, they’ll be taken care of - in the greatest irony of all - by their own children.)
* Fanatics and dogmatists (see below). Not all bad news. Some of the sincere religious are starting to see the light. But you lack the charisma, incantations, or credentials to be their agent of change.
* The narrowminded variety of libertarians, who can see only one threat to markets and freedom - bureaucrats. Ignoring all of human history, this oversimplifying silliness has rendered libertarianism a joke, in the one country where it had a chance. Pity. (Though, steer some of them toward Ron Paul! A decent man, if 1/4 crazy.) If you tell them Bush has systematically quashed our government’s professionals and institutions, in order to rob us blind, they will ask “so?”
* “Tribal republicans.” A far larger group. People who have simply bonded with the GOP and will accept whatever definition of “conservatism” is spoon fed to them by their anointed leader, or on Fox, even if it is diametrically opposite to what they were fed ten years ago. Their loyalty is tribal in the sense that it is far stronger than their love of country or civilization.
(In fairness, many lefties are like this, too!)
Most of your troglodyte uncles are just this hopelessly and rigidly and “tribally” certain. They might concede the entire list of hypocrisies, and blithely reply “well, the next republicans will be better.” Or else,“any democrat would be worse.”
* Which leaves the last group. “Decent conservatives.” Dole Goldwater Republicans. Men and women who have let their definitions drift, and who may have some tribal-obstinate reflexes, but who really do have some rock-solid values that you can appeal-to.
Above all, they would actually choose America, if forced to see that the decision really is in stark terms... a choice between our nation and today’s GOP. (This category also includes more broadminded libertarians, who have actually read Adam Smith.) Only this last part of Karl Rove’s Big Tent Coalition - the ostriches - will be budged by evidence or reason. That’s the bad news.
The good news? These people make up the largest single bloc in Rove’s tent! If we use honor, evidence and patriotism to lure enough of them outside, the tent will unravel. The crazies will be marginalized. Culture War will wither.
Even better, this category includes many of those skilled professionals - in the civil service, officer corps, FBI and so on - who may yet save us all. If they wake up. Enough to do their jobs.
So let’s finish up. Onward, with more skewers for hypocrites.
(Remember, don’t simply ask your Ostrich to read these on paper. They will skim and their minds will veer. It is essential to sit them down and read the list to them, aloud.)
==WOULD YOUR HACKLES RAISE IF IT WERE DEMOCRATS WHO...==
...insist that it is just fine for two companies, run by a pair of extreme partisan brothers, to manufacture the nation’s voting machines, never submitting their software code for open testing, obstructing paper trails or auditing, while lobbying for state laws that forbid exit polling, as a last ditch way to verify election results? Wouldn’t that combination make you a little, well, paranoid? That is, if democrats did it.
...kept buying up newspapers, radio stations and television outlets, aided by rule changes that allow just a few men to control most of the news Americans get to hear? Fabulously rich men who are actively and relentlessly partisan?
...let politically connected companies control the FDA, write laws, pick the inspectors who regulate them, and allowed Big Tobacco to settle court judgements for one penny on the dollar?
(Self-check: Admit it! If Cintonite Democrats had done any of these things, you’d be up in arms! So why are you ignoring it now?)
==OTHER HYPOCRISIES==
Don’t you think you would have called it politically “significant” if Democrats were involved in nine out of ten of the lawmaker sex/perversion/corruption scandals, in the last decade? Of course you would!
You’d call it symptomatic of deeply-rooted Democratic depravity.
So how do you manage to shrug it off as “irrelevant” when -- in fact -- it turns out to be GOP lawmakers getting caught as flagrant perverts or crooks, nine times out of ten?
Is that symptomatic? Deep-rooted? No?
Why not?
Among all of the major candidates running for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations, five out of six of the divorces... and all of the really nasty ones... are on the GOP side.
Not important, you say? Not morally indicative?
Would you have said the same thing, if the stats were reversed?
Really?
Well then, would you call it politically “significant” if all if the worst spies to harm America in the last generation happened to be Democrats? Of course you would! You’d call it symptomatic of Democratic wickedness and a propensity for treason.
So how do you manage to shrug it off as “irrelevant” when -- in fact -- it turns out that all if the worst spies to harm America in the last generation were, in fact, Republicans?(The Walkers, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and so on.)
When “abstinence” programs result in much higher teen pregnancy and STD rates than Sex Education, can you be practical and abandon a dogma that failed?
When divorce rates are much higher among fundamentalists than among bluestaters, shall we listen to them preach about marriage?
When they rant against science, doesn’t it embarrass you?
When brazenly doctrinaire fundamentalist groups take millions in your taxes, to use seeking converts, does your copy of the Constitution even cringe?
When they declare that millions of their fellow citizens are literally and inherently damned to eternal torment in Hell, because of differences in faith, do you squirm, even a little?
Above all, when those same fanatics publicly yearn for an end to the world -- impatiently salivating for an imminent, blood-drenched, Revelations conflagration -- shall we rush to give such people control over diplomacy, policy, our military, and nuclear weapons?
Really?
People who pray daily for events that will terminate America should be given control of our nation’s tiller?
Is this where “conservatism” has gone?
And is that whirring sound Barry Goldwater, spinning in his grave?
Oh, but the ironies and hypocrisies go on.
==WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN UPSET IF BILL CLINTON...==
...responded to a terror attack by grounding all Americans for two days, not allowing them to fly...
...but meanwhile whisked out of the country, in luxury, every rich or well-connected citizen of a hostile foreign power? The same foreign power from which most of the terrorists had come? Including some relatives and close friends of the plotters? Not even allowing the FBI to ask them any questions?
Would you have let all that tickle your paranoia bone, if a Democratic president did it? Or would you have shouted treason?
Then why aren’t you even a little bit curious in this world. The world where your party has guided America down a path of steep decline?
Is there even a chance you’ll be honest and honorable enough to realize that -- this time -- it is your side that has gone quite jibbering insane?
And delusional, even at the level of personal evaluations of character.
WARNING: some of the following section may seem immature and degrading. Skip over it, if you like. But none of it is below the level of things spewed by Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter, for decades.
==What if Bill Clinton...==
...preened and preached about his own personal courage, then had himself put unconscious under anesthesia, simply to avoid the discomfort of a routine colonoscopy? Not once but twice? While the White House made a big deal out of “minimizing the risk this caused the nation” by transferring power officially to the Vice President? Can you imagine what Rush would have made of such incredible wimpiness, if Clinton had cried to be put out for a routine exam?
...preened and preached about his own personal courage, then hid out for the first few days after a nation’s trauma with a major terrorist attack? (That is, after finishing reading a 2nd grade children’s book aloud, before watching cameras.)
...mocked and sneered at a condemned woman’s plea for clemency, on national television? (Whatever your opinions on capital punishment, is a “mature leader”someone who treats such matters with sober dignity, or with fratboy nastiness and hand-rubbing glee?)
...spent his first days in office re-assigning scores of FBI agents away from proper duties, sending them, instead, sifting through executive department files, in a vain and (utterly!) fruitless search for any kind of dirt on the previous administration? Agents who were thus not on duty, looking out for dangers to the people, during months leading up to a terrible terror attack upon the nation?
(Wouldn’t you have called that an impeachable offense... even outright treason... if the fellow doing it had been Bill Clinton?)
What if, while publicly calling out for tighter immigration controls, Bill Clinton acted to cripple the Border Patrol during his first year in office, so that his backers would have access to cheap, undocumented labor?
(Of course, in real life, Bill Clinton did the opposite, doubling the Border Patrol, during his first months, while preaching racial tolerance. But what if someone else did do that other thing? Would it make you even a little mad?)
...had to be bailed out of failure after failure in college, the military, law school, and every business venture that he ever “ran” (into the ground) always counting on friends of his father to come save the day? Only then, with ultimate power in his hands, he found new friends, with character more like his own? Whereupon he banished pop’s former advisors, and party elders, and old-style conservatives - and even the old man himself - from any further position of advice, party leadership, or “grownup supervision”?
Okay, let’s put aside all the lesser character flaws of narrowmindedness, incurious dogmatism, yes-man egotism, and irresponsibility. What about the truly monstrous and unforgivable flaw of sheer ingratitude?
Toward the men who smoothed life’s road before him? Or toward the nation that nurtured him? Or toward his own father? Would this story of relentless, feckless “failing upward” - combined with smug, unprincipled and unappreciative ruthlessness - have drawn at least a little worry from you by now?
That is, if Bill Clinton were the one described here?
== A Capsule Summary?==
How can any final capsule envelope all these comparisons? All these crimes?
If one president balanced budgets and the other bankrupted us. If one enhanced government efficiency while the other gave 200+ billions in non-bid contracts directly to friends. If one oversaw a boom in small business and the other a surge of monopolies. If one sliced secrecy while the other sent it rocketing to levels never seen in the Cold War. If one helped all society to prosper spectacularly and the other helped only aristocrats. If one earned respect from the US Officer Corps and the other one betrayed the military at every turn...
...which would be the logical choice for a patriotic and logical "decent conservative?"
If one maintained military readiness, including thirty fully ready combat brigades, and the other one stripped us bare, exhausting our brave troops and leaving us with only two ready brigades, which would be a "strong" president? The one who handled his war with fierce, surgical precision costing no American lives and transforming a continent, while boosting our popularity and alliances? Or the one who has driven away all of our allies, made us more hated than ever, while accomplishing nothing at all?
One doubles the Border Patrol and the other shatters it. Which was the Republican? One leaves office without a single official indicted and the other loses comrades to jail or ignominy almost every week. Which was the "sleaze" subjected to a $2 billion witch hunt?
Oh, there is no way to summarize. No way to reprise or shortcut. Because ostriches will squirm and struggle to keep their heads in the sand. No, the only way to do this is to go through the whole thing, over and over again, till the hypnotic spell shatters, the neocon fever breaks, and they -- our cousins and neighbors and fellow citizens -- finally wake up.
== THE WORST HYPOCRISY OF ALL==
Let’s cut to the chase. Of all the actions that would have condemned Bill Clinton and the Democrats to perdition, if they did it to America -- Culture War would surely have been the worst crime of all. Dividing our nation, pitting us against each other along dismal, geographic and dogmatic lines. Making partisanship the sole test of any issue. Any at all.
That would have enraged you, if the other side did it. Now, live with having helped and excused the same crime, simply because “culture war” served your side, for a while.
Only, dig this: it was “blue America”... people living in the nation’s cities... who responded with courage and fortitude, both on 9/11 and every day since. Who fought back (aboard Boston originated flight UA93). Who stood atop rubble in New York, shouting at the terrorists“Is that all you got?”
Urbanites already pay the most taxes, getting least in return. Yet, led into war, they say “Tax us, not our grandchildren, so we can support the troops and get on with winning... or else get us out of that crazy quagmire!”
Above all, they have said: “Fear? What fear? An ‘endless emergency’ only gives in to terror and lets crooks bypass the law! Let America get back to normal law. Normal rights and progress. Accountability. And stop using us as an excuse to grab power.
“Yes, urban America is in the crosshairs. When more bad things happen, we will take the hits. But we’ll face whatever comes, with courage, refusing to let it daunt or change us. Can you say the same?”
== WE REFUSE TO BECOME THE USSA==
Our country won’t be panicked into becoming the United Security States of America.
Red America can’t have it both ways, despising cityfolk while using New Yorkers as martyrs. Yammering fear of terror, while loathing their fellow citizens who actually live in the crosshairs. Demanding the benefits of a continental republic, while waging Culture War against half its populace.
It’s time for “decent” conservatives to pull their heads out of the sand. Former supporters of the neocon movement must own up and say aloud the words that every scientist - and every honest citizen - learns to speak, from time to time, as a simple matter of mature habit:
“I might be wrong.”
Admit, before it is too late, that you were so very wrong about culture war, about the neoconservative Gang of Thieves, about climate change, and just about everything else, since the 21st Century began.
Admit it! Be adults. Salvage the best parts of conservatism by rescuing the movement from monsters. Act now, while there is still something left of it to save.
And join us in rebuilding our country, repairing the ravages of this, our latest Civil War..
.
“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men.”
- Edward R. Murrow
By now, you know what to do. Print out parts I, II and III and use them as a long list of hypocrisy skewers to wear down an ostrich. Of course, you’ll have to be persistent, because it may take all of these things, before their state of denial finally erodes far enough for him to start getting mad. Mad over how they have been made a tool. Over how conservatism has been hijacked by monsters.
And, especially, furious at a gang of thieves, for putting him in a position of having to apologize for six years (and more) of obstinate block headedness!
Still, in order to avoid wasting time, be sure and distinguish between five types of Republican! Four kinds are a complete waste of time.
* The owners and thieves themselves, insiders benefiting from the Great Klepto Raid. Or their high-paid shills. I doubt you’ll meet any of these. But they already know what you’d say. Having sold America, they only care about evading accountability.
(Don’t worry, they’ll be taken care of - in the greatest irony of all - by their own children.)
* Fanatics and dogmatists (see below). Not all bad news. Some of the sincere religious are starting to see the light. But you lack the charisma, incantations, or credentials to be their agent of change.
* The narrowminded variety of libertarians, who can see only one threat to markets and freedom - bureaucrats. Ignoring all of human history, this oversimplifying silliness has rendered libertarianism a joke, in the one country where it had a chance. Pity. (Though, steer some of them toward Ron Paul! A decent man, if 1/4 crazy.) If you tell them Bush has systematically quashed our government’s professionals and institutions, in order to rob us blind, they will ask “so?”
* “Tribal republicans.” A far larger group. People who have simply bonded with the GOP and will accept whatever definition of “conservatism” is spoon fed to them by their anointed leader, or on Fox, even if it is diametrically opposite to what they were fed ten years ago. Their loyalty is tribal in the sense that it is far stronger than their love of country or civilization.
(In fairness, many lefties are like this, too!)
Most of your troglodyte uncles are just this hopelessly and rigidly and “tribally” certain. They might concede the entire list of hypocrisies, and blithely reply “well, the next republicans will be better.” Or else,“any democrat would be worse.”
* Which leaves the last group. “Decent conservatives.” Dole Goldwater Republicans. Men and women who have let their definitions drift, and who may have some tribal-obstinate reflexes, but who really do have some rock-solid values that you can appeal-to.
Above all, they would actually choose America, if forced to see that the decision really is in stark terms... a choice between our nation and today’s GOP. (This category also includes more broadminded libertarians, who have actually read Adam Smith.) Only this last part of Karl Rove’s Big Tent Coalition - the ostriches - will be budged by evidence or reason. That’s the bad news.
The good news? These people make up the largest single bloc in Rove’s tent! If we use honor, evidence and patriotism to lure enough of them outside, the tent will unravel. The crazies will be marginalized. Culture War will wither.
Even better, this category includes many of those skilled professionals - in the civil service, officer corps, FBI and so on - who may yet save us all. If they wake up. Enough to do their jobs.
So let’s finish up. Onward, with more skewers for hypocrites.
(Remember, don’t simply ask your Ostrich to read these on paper. They will skim and their minds will veer. It is essential to sit them down and read the list to them, aloud.)
==WOULD YOUR HACKLES RAISE IF IT WERE DEMOCRATS WHO...==
...insist that it is just fine for two companies, run by a pair of extreme partisan brothers, to manufacture the nation’s voting machines, never submitting their software code for open testing, obstructing paper trails or auditing, while lobbying for state laws that forbid exit polling, as a last ditch way to verify election results? Wouldn’t that combination make you a little, well, paranoid? That is, if democrats did it.
...kept buying up newspapers, radio stations and television outlets, aided by rule changes that allow just a few men to control most of the news Americans get to hear? Fabulously rich men who are actively and relentlessly partisan?
...let politically connected companies control the FDA, write laws, pick the inspectors who regulate them, and allowed Big Tobacco to settle court judgements for one penny on the dollar?
(Self-check: Admit it! If Cintonite Democrats had done any of these things, you’d be up in arms! So why are you ignoring it now?)
==OTHER HYPOCRISIES==
Don’t you think you would have called it politically “significant” if Democrats were involved in nine out of ten of the lawmaker sex/perversion/corruption scandals, in the last decade? Of course you would!
You’d call it symptomatic of deeply-rooted Democratic depravity.
So how do you manage to shrug it off as “irrelevant” when -- in fact -- it turns out to be GOP lawmakers getting caught as flagrant perverts or crooks, nine times out of ten?
Is that symptomatic? Deep-rooted? No?
Why not?
Among all of the major candidates running for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations, five out of six of the divorces... and all of the really nasty ones... are on the GOP side.
Not important, you say? Not morally indicative?
Would you have said the same thing, if the stats were reversed?
Really?
Well then, would you call it politically “significant” if all if the worst spies to harm America in the last generation happened to be Democrats? Of course you would! You’d call it symptomatic of Democratic wickedness and a propensity for treason.
So how do you manage to shrug it off as “irrelevant” when -- in fact -- it turns out that all if the worst spies to harm America in the last generation were, in fact, Republicans?(The Walkers, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and so on.)
When “abstinence” programs result in much higher teen pregnancy and STD rates than Sex Education, can you be practical and abandon a dogma that failed?
When divorce rates are much higher among fundamentalists than among bluestaters, shall we listen to them preach about marriage?
When they rant against science, doesn’t it embarrass you?
When brazenly doctrinaire fundamentalist groups take millions in your taxes, to use seeking converts, does your copy of the Constitution even cringe?
When they declare that millions of their fellow citizens are literally and inherently damned to eternal torment in Hell, because of differences in faith, do you squirm, even a little?
Above all, when those same fanatics publicly yearn for an end to the world -- impatiently salivating for an imminent, blood-drenched, Revelations conflagration -- shall we rush to give such people control over diplomacy, policy, our military, and nuclear weapons?
Really?
People who pray daily for events that will terminate America should be given control of our nation’s tiller?
Is this where “conservatism” has gone?
And is that whirring sound Barry Goldwater, spinning in his grave?
Oh, but the ironies and hypocrisies go on.
==WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN UPSET IF BILL CLINTON...==
...responded to a terror attack by grounding all Americans for two days, not allowing them to fly...
...but meanwhile whisked out of the country, in luxury, every rich or well-connected citizen of a hostile foreign power? The same foreign power from which most of the terrorists had come? Including some relatives and close friends of the plotters? Not even allowing the FBI to ask them any questions?
Would you have let all that tickle your paranoia bone, if a Democratic president did it? Or would you have shouted treason?
Then why aren’t you even a little bit curious in this world. The world where your party has guided America down a path of steep decline?
Is there even a chance you’ll be honest and honorable enough to realize that -- this time -- it is your side that has gone quite jibbering insane?
And delusional, even at the level of personal evaluations of character.
WARNING: some of the following section may seem immature and degrading. Skip over it, if you like. But none of it is below the level of things spewed by Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter, for decades.
==What if Bill Clinton...==
...preened and preached about his own personal courage, then had himself put unconscious under anesthesia, simply to avoid the discomfort of a routine colonoscopy? Not once but twice? While the White House made a big deal out of “minimizing the risk this caused the nation” by transferring power officially to the Vice President? Can you imagine what Rush would have made of such incredible wimpiness, if Clinton had cried to be put out for a routine exam?
...preened and preached about his own personal courage, then hid out for the first few days after a nation’s trauma with a major terrorist attack? (That is, after finishing reading a 2nd grade children’s book aloud, before watching cameras.)
...mocked and sneered at a condemned woman’s plea for clemency, on national television? (Whatever your opinions on capital punishment, is a “mature leader”someone who treats such matters with sober dignity, or with fratboy nastiness and hand-rubbing glee?)
...spent his first days in office re-assigning scores of FBI agents away from proper duties, sending them, instead, sifting through executive department files, in a vain and (utterly!) fruitless search for any kind of dirt on the previous administration? Agents who were thus not on duty, looking out for dangers to the people, during months leading up to a terrible terror attack upon the nation?
(Wouldn’t you have called that an impeachable offense... even outright treason... if the fellow doing it had been Bill Clinton?)
What if, while publicly calling out for tighter immigration controls, Bill Clinton acted to cripple the Border Patrol during his first year in office, so that his backers would have access to cheap, undocumented labor?
(Of course, in real life, Bill Clinton did the opposite, doubling the Border Patrol, during his first months, while preaching racial tolerance. But what if someone else did do that other thing? Would it make you even a little mad?)
...had to be bailed out of failure after failure in college, the military, law school, and every business venture that he ever “ran” (into the ground) always counting on friends of his father to come save the day? Only then, with ultimate power in his hands, he found new friends, with character more like his own? Whereupon he banished pop’s former advisors, and party elders, and old-style conservatives - and even the old man himself - from any further position of advice, party leadership, or “grownup supervision”?
Okay, let’s put aside all the lesser character flaws of narrowmindedness, incurious dogmatism, yes-man egotism, and irresponsibility. What about the truly monstrous and unforgivable flaw of sheer ingratitude?
Toward the men who smoothed life’s road before him? Or toward the nation that nurtured him? Or toward his own father? Would this story of relentless, feckless “failing upward” - combined with smug, unprincipled and unappreciative ruthlessness - have drawn at least a little worry from you by now?
That is, if Bill Clinton were the one described here?
== A Capsule Summary?==
How can any final capsule envelope all these comparisons? All these crimes?
If one president balanced budgets and the other bankrupted us. If one enhanced government efficiency while the other gave 200+ billions in non-bid contracts directly to friends. If one oversaw a boom in small business and the other a surge of monopolies. If one sliced secrecy while the other sent it rocketing to levels never seen in the Cold War. If one helped all society to prosper spectacularly and the other helped only aristocrats. If one earned respect from the US Officer Corps and the other one betrayed the military at every turn...
...which would be the logical choice for a patriotic and logical "decent conservative?"
If one maintained military readiness, including thirty fully ready combat brigades, and the other one stripped us bare, exhausting our brave troops and leaving us with only two ready brigades, which would be a "strong" president? The one who handled his war with fierce, surgical precision costing no American lives and transforming a continent, while boosting our popularity and alliances? Or the one who has driven away all of our allies, made us more hated than ever, while accomplishing nothing at all?
One doubles the Border Patrol and the other shatters it. Which was the Republican? One leaves office without a single official indicted and the other loses comrades to jail or ignominy almost every week. Which was the "sleaze" subjected to a $2 billion witch hunt?
Oh, there is no way to summarize. No way to reprise or shortcut. Because ostriches will squirm and struggle to keep their heads in the sand. No, the only way to do this is to go through the whole thing, over and over again, till the hypnotic spell shatters, the neocon fever breaks, and they -- our cousins and neighbors and fellow citizens -- finally wake up.
== THE WORST HYPOCRISY OF ALL==
Let’s cut to the chase. Of all the actions that would have condemned Bill Clinton and the Democrats to perdition, if they did it to America -- Culture War would surely have been the worst crime of all. Dividing our nation, pitting us against each other along dismal, geographic and dogmatic lines. Making partisanship the sole test of any issue. Any at all.
That would have enraged you, if the other side did it. Now, live with having helped and excused the same crime, simply because “culture war” served your side, for a while.
Only, dig this: it was “blue America”... people living in the nation’s cities... who responded with courage and fortitude, both on 9/11 and every day since. Who fought back (aboard Boston originated flight UA93). Who stood atop rubble in New York, shouting at the terrorists“Is that all you got?”
Urbanites already pay the most taxes, getting least in return. Yet, led into war, they say “Tax us, not our grandchildren, so we can support the troops and get on with winning... or else get us out of that crazy quagmire!”
Above all, they have said: “Fear? What fear? An ‘endless emergency’ only gives in to terror and lets crooks bypass the law! Let America get back to normal law. Normal rights and progress. Accountability. And stop using us as an excuse to grab power.
“Yes, urban America is in the crosshairs. When more bad things happen, we will take the hits. But we’ll face whatever comes, with courage, refusing to let it daunt or change us. Can you say the same?”
== WE REFUSE TO BECOME THE USSA==
Our country won’t be panicked into becoming the United Security States of America.
Red America can’t have it both ways, despising cityfolk while using New Yorkers as martyrs. Yammering fear of terror, while loathing their fellow citizens who actually live in the crosshairs. Demanding the benefits of a continental republic, while waging Culture War against half its populace.
It’s time for “decent” conservatives to pull their heads out of the sand. Former supporters of the neocon movement must own up and say aloud the words that every scientist - and every honest citizen - learns to speak, from time to time, as a simple matter of mature habit:
“I might be wrong.”
Admit, before it is too late, that you were so very wrong about culture war, about the neoconservative Gang of Thieves, about climate change, and just about everything else, since the 21st Century began.
Admit it! Be adults. Salvage the best parts of conservatism by rescuing the movement from monsters. Act now, while there is still something left of it to save.
And join us in rebuilding our country, repairing the ravages of this, our latest Civil War..
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“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men.”
- Edward R. Murrow
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