Fog Walking

2007-10-11T11:44:00.000-04:00

There will be millions and millions of words written about Radiohead's In Rainbows. But a day after listening to the album for the first time (and many more times after that), I feel like this is an album of joyful paranoia (para-joy-a?) -- the culmination of a paranoid (android) journey from apocalypse (OK Computer), to the words that come after from a digital grave (Kid A & Amnesiac), to a tremulous re-engagement with a broken world (Hail to the Thief), to this: A transcendent acceptance of brokenness and a desire to find love and happiness in the ruins. I can imagine this album being the soundtrack to the lives of those lonely few that we meet at the end of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, loving and living in the midst of post-apocalyptic horrors. This is the album you listen to while contemplating bringing a child into this world (or conceiving that child) in the face of everything that's so undeniably fucked. For these reasons, this album might be the most necessary Radiohead album; there is no way forward without the thesis that there is a good life to be lived in the face of (or shortly after) catastrophe.

Defunct

2007-04-16T19:13:00.000-04:00

This blog is, sadly, defunct. The sprit behind the blog has been re-funked at http://apundectomy.blogspot.com.

Mind-blowing

2006-03-16T10:48:00.000-05:00

So I haven't posted in a while. Senior essay + running Elmseed + senior year = no blogging. But recent events demand a response. It seems most everyone is asking questions about why the democratic leadership is so effing incompetent. There was the Daily Show piece about it, which you can find at www.crooksandliars.com. The best line from that comes when Ed Helms responds to a Dem strategist's snide chortle about how it doesn't hurt to run against Republicans who keep making mistakes. Here's something close to Helms' response: "Yeah, I got mugged once. This bum was beating me with a bottle. And I sat there and decided, I'll do nothing and wait for him to accidentally hit himself with the bottle. And he did! I was unconscious, but I'm pretty sure I won that one." That is the perfect analogy for Democratic strategy.

I just do not understand how decrying a President with low 30s approval ratings can possibly be a political misstep! I'm no political genius, but if you criticize the president, you have 60+% of the American people behind you! Triangulation? Are you kidding me? You have two thirds of the triangle just by honestly criticizing the President.

Then there's the NYTimes article about how the prospect of censure and impeachment are going to rally the Republican base. As others, especially Digby at digbysblog.blogspot.com, have pointed out, this is the one thing that might actually rally the Democratic base. More so than Hillary's desperate pandering to the right. More than the hype around Barak Obama. And the issue does not have to be impeachment. It should be oversight. It should be a restoration of checks and balances. It should be a return to democracy. That does not necessarily involve impeachment—it simply involves the Congress doing its job.

Fair enough. I've said very little original here. But this is really a demand for someone to explain to me how the current Democratic strategy makes sense.

Straight shooters

2006-02-16T21:42:00.000-05:00

One would think that Dick Cheney's obvious incompetence in an area that so many members of his political base understand would demonstrate the point that progressives have been making about this administration for five years: They don't know what they're doing. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the take away message.

I wouldn't be surprised, in fact, to see a slow 180º turn by the media on this one. Cheney shoots a guy in the face (manly), then "mans" up and admits it (manly), then does a western cowboy silent grimace (uber-manly ). Cheney comes out seeming tough, emotionally approachable, human. Fox News is already going in that direction with their "How must Dick Cheney feel?" line of inquiry (I'm sure it's like he was shot through the heart, as opposed to his friend, who was shot through the heart).

And this brings me to "straight shooting." Apparently, if you're a conservative, it doesn't matter if you make a mistake, as long as you admit it. Look at Chertoff, or Brown (who was roughed up in front of the Senate). They expect us to appreciate their manly admission of error. As Sandy Cohen said last week on The OC, kids are expected to lie, but men are expected to own up to their failures. So Cheney shot a guy straight in the face, but he has admitted it, and can be absolved. He didn't hit a quail, but he hit what he thought was a quail head on (nicely done).

Boys will be boys, and men will be men—which is identical to being boys, except you admit to idiotic tom-foolery. I'm glad that's all cleared up now. Mrs. Cheney, Chertoff and Brown can play their supporting, wifely roles, sticking by their husbands even in trying times (acceptable if husband A. short someone, or B. let thousands die stranded in a hurricane, but unacceptable if he was unfaithful). We have faithfullly adhered to gender roles, reemphasized the conservatives' unique calim on masculinity, and made those hand-wringing liberals sorry for ever doubting how straight we can shoot.

Enemies: the rise of the other, the antagonist, and the decline of postmodernity

2006-02-15T16:40:00.000-05:00

Who are our enemies? Why do we have enemies, and what purpose is there to have enemies? Why can't we just be good pious people that walk around all the time saying good-day, or asalamalakim.

So what the hell am I talking about? I refer to a rising tide in America to use words such as enemy and evil to encourage a sense of otherness (orientalist) and thus envelop society in a good/bad binary.

The conservative revolution has done much more than push forth an agenda...it has seeped into the national dialogue. The 'I' is replaced by impersonal normative statement: no longer must I decide for myself, so much as theory and theology should decide for me. As Bush said a few months ago.

In the years ahead you will find that indifferent or cynical people accomplish little that makes them proud. You'll find that confronting injustice and evil requires a vision of goodness and truth. You'll find that many in your community, especially those younger than you, look to you as an example of conduct and leadership. For your sake, and for the sake of our country, I hope you'll always strive to be men of conviction and character.

Being a good person requires a fusion with a good force: an objective goodness. Of course conservatives can make good with their financial ties by announcing that maximizing oneself is in God's good design. That, in very Calvinist terms, being good and showing God how good you are is the best way of earning your place in heaven: it is why Calvinists were also the most prosperous groups in society; despite the great discrimination it faced from other dominant sects.

Bush's words highlight a new moral character. No long are moral sentiments sufficient for our understanding: a good person now defines himself against the image of a large and imposing other: that in divine language we have gone away from the individual and returned to the macroscopic: the creation of a national mythology around conquest and destiny, supremacy and power.

These thoughts have always been around...they were equally the products of WWII. But society, recovering from the 70s and 80s, and even into the postmodern existence of the 90s and consumer culture...we have revived our destiny in mythic terms.

There is good and bad. And we need enemies, regardless of whether they are deserving to be enemies; regardless of any history that should deflect our actions, or any fact that should make us question. We need enemies to make us believe we are children of the divine.

For a Woman President

2006-02-03T12:13:00.000-05:00

Every time I talk to someone about Hillary Clinton running for president, or how long it will be before a woman wins, the conversation takes a decidedly defeatist lean, and ends with, "That will never happen." But let me drop what "would" happen so I can make an argument for what "should" happen.

Let's face it, our government will continue to do a lot of things that should not be done. And perhaps, as my friends say, a woman will not get elected. But should a woman be president? I would argue that, even in times of conflict—perhaps especially in times of conflict—a woman should be president. I don't mean a woman who talks tough like a man, but a feminist who understands how to build consensus, bring voices to the table, and can understand the complexity of the issues our country faces.

It's ridiculous to me that people talk about George W. Bush being a strong leader when he has done so much to divide the country. A strong leader unites, not divides. Unfortunately, he's shown himself far more able to divide and conquer the American electorate than he has to defeat the Iraqi insurgency. In the process, we find ourselves in an incredibly rancorous political era, with our country and war effort suffering for it.

Feminist theory, the feminist lens for evaluating problems, is to seek resolution by bringing disparate perspectives to the table. Just imagine how much more coherent our approach in Iraq could be if the president had listened to more perspectives than simply Cheney and Rumsfeld. A woman, feminist president would never find herself relying on two trusted advisors.

So our country might be too scared, too terrorized by our own government, to see beyond tough-talk cowboy language. But, if we want to win the war on terror and strengthen our civic spirit, then we should elect a woman president

Who Wins?

2006-02-02T04:12:00.000-05:00

Today the House passed House Resolution 653, which is related to S.1932 that was passed using VP Cheney's tiebreaking vote.

It is, of course, the measure that calls for the end or revision of over 150 social programs. The first problem is that this cut is not enough. We will still be in deficit each year; which means the debt has no place to go than up.

There is no firm plan to pay down the debt.

And in the meanwhile, defense spending remains not only an impressive chunk of discretionary spending -- but there is no cap on its continuance.

Our polemic, it seems, is no longer liberty v. security. It is not so banal, so simple and understandable as this. We have through revisions to Medicare, the death of programs such as Adult Literacy etc. come to hurt most of the programs that go to those with the most need. The response by the government is to offer firm tax breaks that put money back into the hands of working adults. The irony of it all: those that don't pay taxes because they are too poor not only do not get a rebate, they get programs cut.

I would like to single out the great Congressman from NY Randy Kuhl. Why? Because he is my congressman and his top issue is this kind of financial literacy. Of course huge deficits are not suggested (although their economic effects are believed to be minimal). And I must say that many efforts, at least how they are advertised, try to better manage programs. But while the gist of the resolution is not wrong, the thought process seems a bit off.

In a modern welfare state, the task of government has been to provide for those least fortunate complete with the understanding that some people will not take advantage of their services. It catches people from falling through the cracks, but in itself is not yeast -- it doesn't make people rise up like a phoenix. Providing these necessary tools that free-market society does not offer, or would not without enticements, is considered by our culture and society the right thing to do.

Redefining this through minimizing these programs has drastic consequences. As a meritocratic nation, or so we shall become, the emphasis on growth of lets say 85% of the nation shall proceed at the competitive stream. And with minimizing valuable programs and taking away loan opportunities we cut a large percentage of our population out of the loop.

The population size and effect...I need numbers, and will look them up and run calculations (however shifty they may be). And as I stay up at the early hours this morning reading the actual text of some small passages it is rather shocking what is happening. A disabled veteran, for instance, can only claim upto 10,000 when returning from war to have his house adjusted for standards, or the same to buy one that is already outfitted. Of course people have read how it effects us college students: nothing seems to be too far out of the ordinary except they are changing the Pell Grant rates, and there will be, asthe NY Times reported, higher loan rates. Overall, it is going to yield an interesting few years as this lasts until 2010.

What does this mean for the country? I feel a pretty strong shift. Of course this wont call an end to pork-barrel projects that build bridges to no-where and fund efforts that never happen; and worse yet supply funds in kickback schemes such as the one we have seen in Iraq, and the bribery scandals that have recently embroiled Congress. I would call these egregious issues that should take pre-eminancy, but I suppose I should take my back seat -- I don't control the agenda, but I sure as hell wish I did.

It all makes me quite livid, particularly with Congressman Kuhl for his complicity. Why him? because he is MY Congressman. I think I will ask him: If we are without liberty nor opportunity, is security even worth the argument? It is quite the interesting predicament. I do not need to melodramatize it so much; but it is a real issue - something I believe deserves more attention than I think it has reserved. A story of such historic proportions shouldn't be an afterthought. I would hope people renew the fight to question the legitimacy; it was good to read many moderate republicans voted almost shamefully and wish they could change their vote.

Note to self

2005-11-07T01:46:00.000-05:00

Stop being lame—return to blogging.

P.S. It's really late at night now. Start blogging when you're awake.

P.P.S. Prepare presentation on why economic inequality is bad for economic growth to deliver in front of very conservative high school teacher's economic classes. Fulfill dream of being liberal alum coming back to deliver profound and convincing "Na-na-na-na-na."

The good old days

2005-08-03T11:12:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, you'd have to launch a coupla Cruise missiles, invade a sovereign state, or assassinate a foreign leader if you wanted to distract the country from your administration's pisspoor performance. How silly past presidents must feel knowing that now the CIA has only to abduct innocent, vacationing white women or let loose a coupla sharks in coastal waters to distract the public for months on end. Wagging the dog is so ridiculously easy now. Does it worry anyone else? I mean, our government is getting more powerful, and it's simultaneously becoming easier to manipulate the public. Yeah. Bad, bad convergence.

The best Valerie Plame post I've seen

2005-07-13T09:48:00.000-04:00

The Valerie Plame affair is as sordid as it is confusing. Did Rove break the law? Was Plame a covert agent? What is a covert agent? Why is Scott McClellan so happy to be the President's lamb for slaughter?

To help us understand all of this, check out this guest spot by Larry Johnson over at TPMCafe. This guy's a former CIA operative, and explains a little about why this Valerie Plame affair is such an important scandal, and why it should have devastating political implications for the White House.

Is the press corps growing balls?

2005-07-12T09:13:00.000-04:00

Watch as Scott McClellan makes an ass of himself and a usually subdued White House press corps decides to stop rolling over.

(Video hosted by Crooks and Liars.)

Kant and Operation Yellow Elephant

2005-07-11T11:36:00.000-04:00

Some of you may have already seen the effort, appropriately called Operation Yellow Elephant, to encourage College Republicans to enlist in the army. I discussed how chickenhawks tend to rationalize away any personal sense of duty to the Iraq War in an eariler post andPhoebe asked whether young, well-off Democrats who don't want to see poor, minority youth fighting by themselves have an equal obligation to join the war in order to support and fight alongside the troops already there. When I posted Chickenhawks Rationalize, I thought about including a paragraph addressing that question, but didn't have anything lined up, so I went ahead and posted without it.

Now, I've done the necessary thinking and I have a response that both answers the question and helps to illuminate the sickness at the heart of pro-war, enlistment-age Republican movement. The place I looked for some enlightenment was Kant's Fundamental Principals of the Metaphysic of Morals, written in 1785. (Obviously, not the best place to look to convince a conservative of much of anything, but if they're going to be talking about duty, they should at least be able to deal in an intellectual way with a guy who was really all about it.) What follows is a quick rundown of Kant's ideas, so if you know this already, feel free to skim/skip entirely. At the heart of Kant's ethical worldview is the idea of the "categorical imperative"—a duty to action that is moral regardless of circumstances. In order to know whether an imperative (e.g. Thou shalt not kill) is indeed a categorical imperative and thus universal law, it's useful to think about the categorical imperative in three ways, which Kant outlined.

The first (Universal Law formulation): "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
The second (Humanity or End in Itself formulation): "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end."
The third (Kingdom of Ends formulation) combines the two: "All maxims as proceeding from our own [hypothetical] making of law ought to harmonise with a possible kingdom of ends." (Taken from the Wikipedia article on the Categorical Imperative.)

For the sake of a quick example in how to think like Kant, take this excerpt from Fundamental Principals (also called the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals), in which Kant makes an example of a line of thinking that violates the first formulation because it cannot become a universal law—everyone cannot do as the man in the example does without arriving at a logical inconsistency:

[A man] finds himself forced by necessity to borrow money. He
knows that he will not be able to repay it, but sees also that nothing
will be lent to him unless he promises stoutly to repay it in a
definite time. He desires to make this promise, but he has still so
much conscience as to ask himself: "Is it not unlawful and
inconsistent with duty to get out of a difficulty in this way?"
Suppose however that he resolves to do so: then the maxim of his
action would be expressed thus: "When I think myself in want of money,
I will borrow money and promise to repay it, although I know that I
never can do so." Now this principle of self-love or of one's own
advantage may perhaps be consistent with my whole future welfare;
but the question now is, "Is it right?" I change then the suggestion
of self-love into a universal law, and state the question thus: "How
would it be if my maxim were a universal law?" Then I see at once that
it could never hold as a universal law of nature, but would
necessarily contradict itself. For supposing it to be a universal
law that everyone when he thinks himself in a difficulty should be
able to promise whatever he pleases, with the purpose of not keeping
his promise, the promise itself would become impossible, as well as
the end that one might have in view in it, since no one would consider
that anything was promised to him, but would ridicule all such
statements as vain pretences.

Everyone still with me? If you understood the example, we can move on, because I'm just going to use the universal law formulation of the categorical imperative to answer Phoebe's question and make some other points.

Let's look at a young college Republican's maxim, or principle, as Kant would. So a young pro-war Republican's maxim is this: "Do not fight in a just war if fighting would put your ambitions and safety at risk, but instead ensure the war is fought by other people." (I assume that a "just" war is a war that can be ethically fought, which is a big assumption about a lot of things, but let's just take it.) Now, if we were to make this universal law, clearly no one would be fighting any wars (which wouldn't be a bad thing). Running around shooting at people who are shooting at you is risky business, and there's no fighting in a war and being perfectly safe. So if everyone adopted that maxim, there would be no militants, there would be no war, and there would be a contradiciton, since the war would not be fought and the maxim would be violated.

And to further clarify things, that maxim also violates the second formulation of the categorical imperative. By ensuring that a war is fought by others and not by you, you make those other people means to an end, and do not treat them as ends in themselves. Those people are protecting you from doing your own duty (we're talking about a "just" war); they are a means to the fulfillment of your career ambitions. So, the young Republican maxim clearly violates the "categorical imperative." Their maxim is immoral.

What about the young Democrat's maxim? I'll state it as this: "If a war is unjust, do not fight in it and work to free others of any legal requirements to fight in it." Basically, don't fight an unjust war and try and get the enlisted men and women who have to, by their terms of duty, out of there (or if they're also following your maxim, make sure there are no legal ramifications for their refusal to fight). Can this maxim be made into universal law? Certainly. Whenever an unjust war would come along, no one would fight in it. There would be no unjust war, and, if you believe there's no such thing as just war, no war at all. There's no contradiction there. The maxim stands as a categorical imperative; it is moral.

* * * * *

Let's leave the dry philosophy behind. The logic at work in Kant's imperatives also reveals how the argument that Republicans are making is fundamentally despotic and the position of young Democrats is fundamentally democratic. In a despotic society, we can all make other people do our bidding; we can force them to do our true duties for us if those duties are unpleasant. If there was a society that operated only on the young Republican maxim, the most powerful would enslave the weaker, sending them out to fight war after war while the powerful fulfill their ambitions and are made happy and fat. Basically, you're talking about feudalism.

If you imagine a society where everyone follows the Democratic maxim, you have a democratic society. Not fighting in unjust wars is pure democratic action; the government is at the mercy of the people. Bureaucrats cannot wage unjust wars because they are rendered army-less by the maxim. The government is at the mercy of the people.

This is what I mean by illuminating the sickness at the heart of the young Republican movement. These arguments really reveal how the young, Republican, pro-war movement is not a democratic exercise—these are a bunch of despots we're talking about. These are men and women who wish to use their fellow Americans as means to their ends. These are not democrats in the little-d sense. Values of democracy, citizenship, civic duty have all disappeared from these students' thinking and in their place is despotism, entitlement, and ambition.

I'm not seeking absolution for Democrats who sit around and do nothing but wring their hands. I'm seeking justification for the position that you don't have any duty to fight for a mistake—that you're not doing anyone but the power-hungry any favors by making yourself a tool of a mistaken military project. Instead, you have a duty to keep your fellow citizens from dieing for the wrong cause. Alongside Operation Yellow Elephant must be a rallying cry for young democrats (little-d) to lobby their Congressmen and their fellows for peace and as swift an end to our involvement in the Iraq War as we can manage. In the meantime, we all should be working to support our troops in the truest sense—doing everything we can to see them home safe.

The unbearable heaviness of being . . . morally indignant

2005-07-08T12:46:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it's enough to keep me from writing anything. Such is the case right now. But there is a new blog I'm involved with at elmseed.blogspot.com. There's nothing there yet, but there will be. Elmseed is the non-profit micro-credit organization I'm involved in, and the blog will be a place to discuss big ideas of economic development, micro-credit in the United States, and whether full-time students can be part-time loan officers.

"Fascism": Sesame Street's word of the day

2005-06-26T09:59:00.000-04:00

After the election, my father, uncle and I debated about what the totalitarian regime that Bush would try and create would look like. My father and I were thinking "fascism," playing on the fear of the American people to create a mostly secular, corporate-backed, kleptocratic fascist state. My uncle was betting on theocracy, demanded and managed by the evangelist Christian right. Obviously, the debate was premature. But it seems less hasty every day.

In his latest editorial, Frank Rich tells the emerging story of how the administration is harnessing public radio and television as propaganda outlets. Some highlights:

Kenneth Tomlinson, the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, paid someone $14,170 to watch Bill Moyer's "Now" and listen to programs on NPR like the Diane Rehm show, in order to rate every guest as either C for conservative or L for liberal (liberal meaning anti-administration).
Patricia Harrison, the new president of the CPB is a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee who, as assistant secretary of state, praised the fake news stories that her department produced as "good news" stories.
Tomlinson today is head of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees all of the United States' non-military propaganda outlets. So he is simultaneously the head of our propaganda efforts oversees and our domestic public broadcasting effort.

So the corporate MSM has no problem cementing pseudo-fascist ties to the administration, and now the public broadcasting infrastructure is at risk of becoming another branch of the administration's propaganda machine. Good luck, democracy. It was nice knowing you.

Chickenhawks rationalize

2005-06-25T12:28:00.000-04:00

Everyone who's ever wanted to see rationalization at work should read this story about young Republicans explaining about why they don't want to go fight in a war that some of them consider a "moral imperative." The thing that bothers me most about these young, dumb Republicans is that some of their reasoning runs like this: "I can do more to help the troops by working for the Republican party." Huh? You mean the same Republican party that has failed to provide our troops with the armored vehicles and equipment they need? The same Republican party that has been so ineffectual with supplying our soldiers that young Marines are told to buy $600 worth of equipment on their own if they want to survive? Hey, Chickenhawks, you're not doing the troops any favors by playing patty-cake with US congressional aides, raising money for the Republican party, or planning your K-street careers. I'd really like to have a reporter go up to a Marine who's just finished a day's hard slog through a Baghdad slum and ask: "Excuse me, son. How does it make you feel to know that so many young Americans are supporting you by going door-to-door for the Republicna party?" He'll be like, "A-wha?! Ex-fucking-scuse me?" If the war in Iraq is a moral imperative, helping a political party does not constitute coming to the aid of your nation. And, believe it or not, there are soldiers who are not Republicans! Oh well. Listen, it's as simple as this: If you're going to spew rhetoric about why the war in Iraq is a "moral imperative," you had best have a better excuse for not enlisting than your own political ambitions.

Oh, and a special note to one Vivian Lee, who said: "Frankly, I'd like to be a politician. I want to live to see that." Frankly, Vivian, you have no career in politics because of that comment. Ahhh, the irony. But it's okay; you'll make more money as a lobbyist anyway.

Letter writing

2005-06-25T11:48:00.000-04:00

Here's the email I wrote to my congressman, Randy Kuhl (R-NY):

Dear Mr. Kuhl,

I write to ask why you have not yet signed Representative Conyers' letter to President Bush asking him to answer critical questions about the Downing Street minutes. The Downing Street minutes present direct, legitimate evidence of a usurpation of government power that has driven us into a costly war, with 20,000 American soldiers killed or wounded. Given the seriousness of the issue, I would have assumed that a responsible and intelligent representative such as yourself would have eagerly signed the letter, regardless of political allegiance. Sometimes, party-lines must take a backseat to doing the right thing, defending our democracy, and holding the executive branch to the level of scrutiny that our founding fathers envisioned when they designed our government. To do otherwise is to fail our country, our citizens, and your constituents. I am looking forward to graduating from Yale University next spring. I hope that I will not have to spend my summer working furiously to unseat a congressman who ignores the most serious threats to our democracy in a mistaken sense of loyalty to his political party. Please sign Representative Conyers' letter and ensure that our country is as free and democratic as it can be.

Yours sincereley,
Nathan Huttner

I think my favorite part is the threat. Truth is, I'll probably work to unseat him no matter what. Woot woot! It'll actually be a blast to be done with college and kicking some ass.

Writing for an election

2005-06-21T21:40:00.000-04:00

Of late there have been a lot of people hinting at a run for the presidency, and in NYS a run for the governor's mansion. It is rather laughable, to be honest, to see these people become such products of the nasty system of distorting candidates to fit some prewritten mold; not even compromise or accomodation of agendas, but rather complete reversals, and awkward press conferences make this new batch of presidential hopefuls as whitewashed as Rochester in the winter time.

As the times has reported of late poking good fun at Bill Frist's rendezvous with idiocy (and failure) it seems that the elections seem to come ever sooner and sooner. It almost seems fated that a democrat should be positioning himself for office, but besides the enigmatic Hillary there is very little bombast from the left. (With Daschle deposed, Harry Reid less than magnanimous, Gephardt gone, Edwards gone -- the crowned prince of the party seems to be hiding in the background -- Evan Bayh? -- or perhaps we will find it to be an empress from yesteryear?).

But the so-called right takes pot shots at itself it isn't to say something is bad about being a republican: but it certainly isn't a good time to be in the conservative public relations junketts. The persistant bickering, internal squabbling, make handsome and intellectually inept characters pop up from the shadows (yes you Mitt Romney, if you are so smart -- then certainly the direction you've been treading...farther right than anyone else in your party and you are from Massachusetts...seems to be such a calculated move it smells of bullshit; perhaps this is who you really think you are...but what shame it would be to run for president and get destroyed in your own home state).

But this new Tom Golisano/Stephen Minarik thing over in NYS is starting to be just as laughable. Golisano attacks Pataki on something as minute as wind power plants; and then gets coronated the apparent heir? If you like my use of royal terms to describe the debacle which is our present democracy: then you shall see my cynicism is ripe and ready for another season of elections...oh wait, we have another damn year before they arrive. And the horses have already come to the gates.

Mukhtaran Bibi

2005-06-19T11:28:00.000-04:00

I initially conceived of this blog as a way to discuss difficult questions that lacked easy answers, hence the title, which alludes to vague meandering and an absence of direction. But I have found that there are always issues with easy answers that demand attention, and I figure what little light I can shed on those issues can only do good. So today I write about Mukhtaran Bibi, the Pakistani woman whose struggles against an oppressive and near-sighted regime have slowly caught the attention of humanists and democrats across the world.

She was the victim of a village-council sponsored gang rape in Pakistan, which is also a death sentence for many women who cannot bear to live with the attached public shame. She chose a different path, "fighting back, opening schools for boys and girls to try and affect social change." The courage and nobility of her struggle caught the attention of western NGOs, one of which, the Asian-American Network Against the Abuse of Women, wanted to bring her to the United States on a speaking tour. The government, under orders from Pervez Musharraf, emprisoned her, blocked her visa, destroyed her passport, sent her back to her village. As of now, there will be no speaking tour of the United States, no chance for this strikingly courageous woman to speak to American men and women about the terror that faces women in her country each and every day.

Now that you know the story, if you didn't already, I have two points to make about Musharraf and how he is making a mockery of his own administration and a mockery of our government.

First, Musharraf apparently banned Mukhtaran Bibi from leaving the country because she would ba a blight on the good Pakistani name, a public relations nightmare unfairly portraying the plight of women in Pakistan. But, he swears, he's on her side. So two cases present themselves: Either Musharraf is lying about being on her side, or he has no fucking clue about how to use PR. I really don't know that much about Musharraf, but either seems plausible. The first case doesn't need much explanation, and it also doesn't take much to see how a savvy politician and supporter of Mukhtaran Bibi could have used her story to strengthen Pakistan's image in the west. Send Mukhtaran Bibi on a government-sponsored tour of the United States! Let her say everything she has to say without fear of reprisals. Create a public trust that will take revenue from ticket sales and donations, along with matching funds from world governments, including Pakistan's, to create education programs and outreach centers to prevent ritualistic gang rapes from ever happening again. I mean, it's so flipping obvious that Musharraf must be lying about his support for Mukhtaran, or be so cowed by the Islamist fundamentalists in his country that he's powerless. (And if that's the case, then he's really not much of an ally in the war on terrorism, is he?)

The second point I want to make is this. Musharraf and Pakistan are supposedly close allies in the war on "terrorism." What the hell is terrorism if it doesn't include the ritualistic gang raping of innocent women? Terrorism could be broadly defined as any violent or threatening act that promotes fear and disorder with the aim of overthrowing or blocking democracy. Gang-raping innocent women obviously fits that description. There is no democracy that does not promote the rights of all citizens, that does not protect them from brutalization and lawless, sadistic vigalantism. And there is no war on terror that does not root out and destroy that behavior. Men that would use autocratic, fictionalized Islamic law to rape a woman are no different from men who would reap destruction and kill innocent men and woman. They are cowardly, sadistic, cruel, and twisted. One of the less frequently heard criticisms of the war on terror, at least among main stream media types, is that it isn't broad enough. It doesn't understand terror's origins, its corrolaries, and, as Mukhtaran Bibi's shows, even ignores some of its most obvious and shocking manifestations. A war on terror that is literally a "war," and does not provide money for debt relief, economic development, the protection of women from vicious patriarchal regimes, is a sham. So we have a president who's allied himself with a man who ignores terrorism against his own citizens. This is our great ally in the war on terror.

My speechifying Downing Street Memo post

2005-06-17T16:14:00.000-04:00

Here's my added comment to Ted Kennedy's petition:

As a young American who believes strongly in the highest ideals of this country, it pains me to see the forces of greed, corruption, and cynical power-mongers bring our country into disrepute. Our country is founded on core principals—they define it as much as apple pie, baseball, and white picket fences. Those principals were enshrined in the Constitution by our founding fathers, where they would be protect immutibly. Yet this president has repeatedly flaunted his power, made a mockery of the Constitution, and in so doing fundamentally victimized our country. Please take this opportunity, with the evidence presented by the Downing Street Minutes staring us in the face, to defend our country. I know that you have our country's best interests at heart. Good luck.

I should be a speech writer. Or take humility classes.

Oil in Darfur—Just what the doctor ordered?

2005-06-16T10:02:00.000-04:00

According to Ken Bacon, the president of the American non-profit advocacy group Refugees International, the discovery of oil in Darfur will "lubricate the peace talks," and may lead to the end of conflict there. After all, now that there's oil, the stakes of the conflict are higher.

Wait. So now that the stakes are higher, violence will stop? That analysis strikes me as a bit muddled. Bacon's opinion rests on the past settlement in the south of Sudan, where conflict was assuaged thanks to an agreement that split oil revenues fifty-fifty between the government and rebels. The government could not exploit the oil without an agreement with the rebels in place. Bacon believes that if the sides are smart, they will come to a similar agreement. But he also admits that the government does not seem interested in any division of oil profits.

Even if both sides were operating from a rational place of game theory analysis, weighing different strategies and playing best responses, it is not clear to me that peace would be the logical outcome. After all, if the Sudanese government has the rebels on the run in Darfur, and if they can maintain that situation efficiently while drilling for oil, there is no reason to pursue peace. We do not know for how long the Sudanese government has known about the oil, and experts, including Bacon, speculate that the rebels never knew about it, and were rebelling for other reasons. So the conflict started for non-oil related reasons—both sides saw other potential gains. And now Khartoum is pursuing a scorched-earth strategy of slaughter against the rebels. While the oil could offer rebels a bargaining chip in negotiations, it also offers further incentive to Khartoum to pursue complete eradication or displacement of the rebels, a costly strategy, but one that might be justified now that there is oil at stake. If anything, oil raises the stakes in a way that enflames the forces of genocide. If this were an even conflict, it might spur negotiation and peace, but from what I've read, the situation is not even, but heavily favors Khartoum. Oil gives them a reason to pursue a final, devastating victory over the rebels, speeding them along the course of genocide.

* * * * * *

But who knows. Maybe the oil reserves will be large enough to finally picque the interest of western governments. After all, it's long been obvious that, to the Bush administration, oil wells are far more worthy of military intervention than human slaughter. And if Americans and Brits get involved, they will aim for peace, and a nice steady flow of western civilization's lifeblood.

What's the deal with Iran?

2005-06-13T10:07:00.000-04:00

On Tim Russert's Meet the Press, Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania started to decry Iran as the real reason why we're having so much trouble in Iraq. But that confuses me, so let me think through it. Iran is a Shi'ite religious state. The dominant political force in Iraq right now is the alliance between secular and Shia politicians. Sunni agitators represent the major source of the insurgency, according to most non-Weldon analysts. Here's Weldon's description of the situation:

In fact, as we talked with the Iraqi officials and we met with the speaker of the parliament, the prime minister, the defense minister, the two generals in charge of the Iraqi military, the chairman of the constitutional writing authority, we heard a common theme, that Syria may have the largest number from outside of Iraqi country, but Iran overwhelmingly has the quality behind the insurgency. And we've got to come to grips with that.

So is Iran's strategy: "Bog down American forces in Iraq with an insurgency"? That would make sense. Actually, this is making more and more sense as I think about it. You give aid to a "Sunni" insurgency in order to bloody the United States, but keeping the insurgency small enough to prevent it from ever posing a serious threat to the incoming Shi'ite government. Then, once the United States is out, you pull the plug on the insurgency in a way that makes the Shi'ite government seem more effective at protecting Iraqis than the Americans. That's a huge propaganda victory, and fuels anti-American feelings coupled with pro-Iraqi back-patting, the kind of nationalism that can really cause problems for us big super powers.

Well, if that's the Iranian strategy, then I'm impressed—that's a complex waltz of tactics to put in motion. If Rep. Weldon's blowing smoke up our collective asses in order to foment American feelings against Iran, then he's pretty jam stupid. Somehow I don't think that's what he's doing. And maybe Iran doesn't have the long-term strategy in mind that I laid out. Maybe they just enjoy screwing with us.

P.S. I'm going to be posting regularly now.

Ethical Illegality

2005-06-12T23:00:00.000-04:00

At our age, the border between legality and illegality is as blurred as ever. Between drinking underaged, getting fake ids, sharing music, there is an obvious tendency to do things that are illegal. At which point we have to question the effectiveness of these laws, and more than that, the necessity of these laws. It would seem, through simple inspection, that if our ethical minds tell us that sharing music is okay, that drinking at 19 is okay, then we ought to do it. This of course does not include abuse of anything, but if we are to be truly true to ourselves and our society, would it not seem logical for us to follow our ethical decisions in our neo-utilitarian way?

I have heard many people say that utilitarian moral philosophy has won out and as a result this is who we are. And as Nietzsche says this and Rawls and others, I believe that in terms of reality we have another player at hand. The economic-legalistic framework that stands contrary to the utilitarian perspective. As the RIAA meddles in favor of maintaining its profit share, it honors this relatively new-American concept of intellectual property. They proclaim that a person's art is owned and operated by them alone. This of course is absurd, actually, and a recent suit brought against Al Franken involving the terms 'Fair and Balanced' has proved that the kind of intellectual property rights garnered through words are in no way protected. Moreover, intellectual property rights do not protect if I am to film a piece of work (e.g. a picture of a painting is considered in itself a new artisitic creation, the MPAA then would be faulted in attacking bootleggers, and any law against bootlegging should be struck down (in the name of intellectual property rights)). If I rearrange, slightly, the notes in a song it has become in itself a new song -- if I cover the song, it can be considered my own. There are a wide array of faults in making this low form of art intellectual. Art has in the past garnered its fame because of its excellence and its originality. Art in its intellectual escape is not the popular misfits that are put out today -- we look at a Monet and not a copy of a Monet because we can say it is a Monet, and we can enjoy its aging grace. We look at new art today that excites us and label it great because it reminds us of how we feel when we look at other great works of art [and this is me simply summarizing -- and definately not bringing to justice -- the art history philosophy of Danto]. Ciara's 1,2 step, however, doesn't breed a similar kind of appreciation. It ought to fall under the category of Pleasure Property where its primary focus is inciting pleasure in the subjects. It is within us that the satisfaction is garnered and is transfered to the 'artist' through a back-channel of economic success. The reason why true phenoms don't exist in the pop music business is because in truth the RIAA and the record executives mass produce these relatively worthless talents into catchy poppy personas that we just can't get enough of listening to, but 10 years down the line wont give three shits about. Does anyone care about Juvenile? Anyone read the recent NY Times article on the decay of Limp Bizkit? The ought not be protected on anything besides the sentiment of greed that ingratiate these business maestros who commondeer our attention and our cash. When in truth the artist is undeserving of attention, they only sustain the very shifting taste and pleasure of a person, and in that regard the business of suing people shall only serve to deflect the real issue. People will continue to push the quick fix until either music becomes good again, or the RIAA stops hiding behind this unsuitable veil of intellectual property rights.

We are also confronting an equally evil danger: the parental-authoritative impulse where our elders presume to know more of life than us and wish to eliminate our sentiments legalistically. When we of course know at 19,20 and the like that the desire to drink far outweighs our personal obligation to law. It is but a farce written down on a whim to please the moral values of a select few americans [concerned parents]. The same people who unknowingly ruin school for their children through the incessant badgering of teachers and administrators have popped their little heads in order to redefine an ethical relationship on the basis of a this confuscian non-americana perspective. What is agreeable to all is that people learn to drink responsably, and more so that we do not with a signature on a piece of paper make 15 million Americans instantly criminals for having impulsive and still legitimate, assuming excess is not involved, desires. This would be the utilitarian determination. It would be Aristotlelian. It would be good. But in imposing personal beliefs on others we have lobbied for a law that stands directly in contrast to the national benefit, and personal excercise. If we said that a majority of college students did not drink, perhaps we could stand on the slippery slope and still hold our ground, but as this is not the case America just seems to be falling into denial, self-delusion and a bunch of other neurotic conditions that force it to pretend as if all is well, when it really isn't.

And thus, if we hold this truth to be evident that the moral philosophy for which we believe in is to be utilitarian: then by the goodness that is in our young hearts may we remain ethical in our lives, albeit contradictory to our backwards laws.

Prospects for a Columbian Education

2005-05-25T00:21:00.000-04:00

What does it mean to be a Columbian? In the elegant tone of PrezBo it would seem to be idealistic and cherished in opitimism. The prosperity of his words is unmistakenable: which is good to hear, and to believe in...there is someone that truly cares about this school sufficient to believe he can change this school. It is ambitious, rare, but is it Columbian?

Treading, always, between insanity and pessimism -- the Columbian ventures away from optimism an speaks, instead, of the darker dreams that lay ahead. There is a problem of expediency, efficacy and value. As we valuate ourselves, our needs, our communities needs -- we harbor restraint, more so than Bollinger, in seeing the great path to the future. Hobbled by our mindful constraints we lay to rest any image that being at Columbia is easy. It isn't. Is Bollinger an idealist, as the recent NY Times article suggests...I could see people agreeing with this, falsely, I think.

Bollinger is an academic, bright, articulate and always pensive. His work ethic is clear -- as you see the delicacy and detail in his briefs, in his speeches, in his knowledge. Perhaps my bias shows: I must say I truly respect the man. So what hasn't he done for me? Nothing. I think the problem is less him, and more the Columbian. The problem you could call it, but that suggests there is a necessary or appropriate response, which there is none for our condition. We are the skeptics. We are the purveyors of pessimism, and as such any oasis of mind is rebuked by notions of toil, challenge, difficulty and uneasiness. Is this all of Academia? Is this life? Perhaps, but Columbia accentuates it, I have noticed, it pampers itself in its lack of action, constant skepticism and driving pessimism.

What we ought to ask at this time: should we change? Should we sell-out to be a better school, or are we good enough already? These are questions we need to answer for ourselves: and they should be the questions we use to qualify our commitment to the process. If we want to be better (or at least better known) is it worth the effort, everyone's effort? If not, then let us remain as we are, it would seem to be more intelligent, than struggle in strife.

Politics and the University

2005-03-24T19:22:00.000-05:00

Columbia tends to live from controversy to controversy; it keeps things here interesting. But as much as it may seem like fun, it impresses on lowly college students the most trying national/global issues of our time: teaching assistants striking bring forth, to paraphrase Andrew Delbanco, the difficult intersection between a dying field (the humanities) and the incertainty of the job market--the battle between capitalism and academia; the question of racism railed Columbia a year ago; now we are facing a new controversy that has played itself out in newspaper articles, on tv, in editorials.

To those who may actually read this, and do not know what I speak of, I am referring to the controversy regarding "Academic Freedom" or the alleged curbing of the rights of students via intimidation and one sided presentation of topics. Columbia's President articulates this issue in a fantastic speech the other night; transcript can be found at this link .

The quesiton particular to Columbia is not Academic Freedom, but resides far closer to a discussion as contemporaneous as anything you could imagine: what is the role of academia vis-a-vis the Middle East. Embroiling the MEALAC department of Columbia into questioning its teaching has some pleasant and unpleasant aspects. It is good to know that people care enough from the outside to be guarantors of liberty. But whereas Students for Academic Freedom wear the hat of liberators, intuitively it feels like this is more of a facade than a reality.

What is the reality? What is the hope for harmony and peaceful coexistence? On both sides (Israeli and Arab) I feel an almost unambiguous no. It is the frightening position, the delicate construction that President Bollinger articulates, where you cannot win if you choose, and thus you relegate yourself to hanging from a cliff holding on as best you can before a nasty fall; there is no right thing to say without coming out as attacking a group, preferring a group to another.

Friends of mine come to me from schools far and away and ask me what is the deal with Columbia, why is it anti-semitic, why is it anti-zionist. It is a consuming case that not only challenges the integrity of my university, but that of all universities. What is the role of academia in politics? How do we escape from the political game of reciprical actions? Academia works as an ivory tower; a monastic place of inquisitive, quirky, bright minds trying to learn, trying to solve problems. Can it resolve itself to play in the dirty world of right and wrong? As ethics professors pronounce morality, the distinctly amoral aspect of the university is what has allowed it to prosper, I believe, as a champion of the whatever possible. The ever present legacy of the disputatio; knowing every side of an issue and arguing the death out of it is the basis of the University. Between universities and the free press, the great independence and objectivity of our country remains secure--until the evil head of politics enters into them, and then the hellish notion of 'I don't know' becomes all too pervasive. Because I don't know what our country would look like once we make academics too political. From the outset, it just seems scary. Perhaps I am wrong, but then again, at this moment all I feel is the notion of freedom slowly creeping away from the university, as its autonomy is it play in the court of political opinions.

Language Barrier

2005-03-18T09:07:00.000-05:00

I got to spend some time in London the is past week. Now: going on the trip in the first place made me exceptionally poor, so I became a fantastic budget traveler, taking on London while only spending about $250 over 6 days. But in doing this I got to spend most of my time walking around London, jumping into small eateries, seeing how they develop their service industry as compared to us.

The first thing I realized is how easy it was to communicate no matter what language you spoke. Blame it on the EU because this place comfortably caters to French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese and what have you. Then there are places here and there that speak chinese, japanese, hindi and more! Going into a store and seeing a rather small chinese woman trying to speak Spanish to a customer made me think about those barriers we have erected in the US against language. Being multilingual is such an advantage that few seem to take advantage of. Defaulting into English seems to be too easy, and when you see all these exclusionary 'nativists' promoting English as the only language it just makes you see how incredibly unattractive the US must be to foreign travelers. Oh wait! They already are familiar with English because outside of our exceptionalistic attitude other cultures do learn multiple tongues!

Is there a moral of the story? I don't know. Perhaps just ranting. But doesn't it seem odd that other places can be so open to different people, and America is so static? Far from the center of London you can find money exchange places, or at least the values listed on windows of banks. Here you barely see anything besides the sightseeing tour bus that passes by my window every few days.

It would be nice to see us jump into the 21st century. We'll see if things change.

Corruption in Iraq??? Gasp, gasp, triple-gasp!

2005-03-16T11:22:00.000-05:00

Apparently, corruption is more and more of a problem in Iraq. In fact, according to Transparency International, Iraq is in danger of becoming "the biggest corruption scandal in history." Furthermore, the United States "has been a poor role model in how to keep corrupt processes at bay." Really? You mean, letting the target of an audit edit that audit for release to the United Nations isn't an example of good, transparent governance? No, I guess we haven't been a very good role model.

The silliest part of all this is we're going to try and put Paul Wolfowitz in charge of the World Bank. Here's a section from the BBC article about the Transparency International Report:

Companies found guilty of bribery should forfeit the relevant contract and should be prevented from bidding for similar work. Tendering processes should be open to public scrutiny and independent oversight.

The World Bank - which since last year has required all companies awarded large-scale projects under its control to sign an anti-bribery agreement - said the report highlighted issues of "deep concern".

"The diversion of funds from publicly financed projects represents an unacceptable tax on the poor," said World Bank president James Wolfensohn.

"In the construction sector, it represents a deplorable opportunity lost for the delivery of essential services and it undermines citizen trust in government."

Wolfowitz, the man that helped ensure Haliburton got a no-bid contract to do construction and supply work for the Pentagon and the Iraqi authorites, and has not cancelled that contract despite Haliburton's loss of millions of dollars, and further allowed Haliburton to edit its own audits, will be in charge of an organization that gives out hundreds of billions of dollars of contracts each year. Excellent. Now the World Bank can be a super-good role model for Iraq too!

Oh, so they're protecting SS???

2005-03-16T11:11:00.000-05:00

Guess what! Greenspan, Bush, all those conservatives . . . they're trying to make sure the government can't spend your Social Security assets! Greenspan mentioned this in his testimony yesterday before the Senate Speical Committee On Aging (see last post). Greenspan said:

"The major attraction of personal accounts is that they can be constructed to be truly segregated from the unified budget, and therefore are more likely to induce the federal government to take those actions that would reduce public dis-saving."

So, personal accounts are designed to prevent government dis-saving. Except, hang on, creating private accounts would create trillions of dollars in new debt. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! You know, there's a much cheaper way to ensure that the government doesn't dis-save by spending funds meant for Social Security—legislate the "lockbox" that should already exist! Make it law that Social Security funds cannot be spent on the general fund. That solution costs no money. No new trillions of dollars of debt. These people are either liars are idiots. Given how many times they use the "incompetence" defense, they're happy to be idiots. But no one is this stupid. So let's call them liars.

Greenspan the lackey

2005-03-16T10:44:00.000-05:00

Greenspan bashing has become the trendy thing to do among liberals recently. And for good reason. He has contributed hugely to a regressive, hurtful transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich that began with his arguing for the raising of payroll taxes in the 80s, continued with the lowering of income taxes on the wealthy in 2001, and will come to fruition if Social Security is destroyed by the President's considered (but not yet proposed) "reforms."

In the face of huge budget deficits, Greenspan went before the Senate Special Committee on Aging and was forced to defend his endorsement of the tax cuts in 2001 and argued that he only made the same mistake that many budget-watchers were making—namely that huge surpluses were on the way. Given that Greenspan is the chief economic engineer in the country, this is a disingenuous effort to avoid responsibility. Greenspan knew full well the economic picture that the US faced, especially given his central role in shaping the economic future through the Federal Reserve's monetary policies. He simply ought to have known better than to expect budget surpluses forecast on the basis of current trends, which were certain to change given his own policies, to materialize.

Furthermore, Greenspan's support of tax cuts, without seeing the legislation itself, was irresponsible. Greenspan must have known that endorsing the concept of "tax cuts" would be a huge boon to Republican politicians eager to offer their core constituencies (the wealthiest Americans), deep tax cuts, regardless of whether or not they were responsible. Before the committee, Greenspan argued that he wanted tax cuts only if they contained "trigger" clauses that would force Congress to re-evaluate the tax cuts if the budget projections proved wrong. Well, the tax cuts did not include those triggers. And if Greenspan had wanted to emphasize concerns about poor budget projections, he should have emphasized those. For example, Greenspan could have said, "We must hold tax cuts until we are sure that promised surpluses will materialize." But he didn't. He provided a political blank check to irresponsible Republican law-makers. And since those tax cuts, when he has had opportunities to call for their repeal given that surpluses did not materialize, Greenspan has remained mum, or tacitly supportive of the tax cuts. Greenspan is a lackey of the Republican law-makers who are turning our fiscal picture into a portrait of irresponsibility. Congrats.

Comfort women

2005-03-12T12:01:00.000-05:00

Last year, I took my first Woman's Studies course at Yale. It was a simple introduction to the topic of feminist theory, analyzing issues through a feminist lens, and such fun stuff. One of the lectures told the story of "comfort women," captured by the Japanese army during WWII and placed in shacks where they were serially raped for years by Japanese troops who needed "comfort." The horror of that plight is unimaginable to me. Don't need to say too much more about that.

What does deserve some attention are the efforts of the Japanese government since their victims have come forward. The Japanese government didn't officially recognize them until 1992. The Japanese Supreme Court two years ago denied requests for compensation by 10 South Korean comfort women on the basis that they had filed their claims too long after the events took place. As far as I can tell, the only sensible reason to deny such claims because of the elapsed time between the claim and the event is to prevent false claims that cannot be verified. But in this case, that reasoning doesn't work. First, the chance of false claims in this case is extremely low given the shame associated with the victims of the Japanese army's rape program. Victims today tell of how their families shun them because of the shame they bring. And second, if claims are hard to verify, allow cases to be made in court, don't simply reject the cases at the outset. I'm no legal expert, but this attempt by the Japanese government to avoid real responsibility for the victims of their comfort women program is transparent and ludicrous.

I'm not sure how widely-known the story of the comfort women is in the United States. I didn't learn about it in my high school history books. I didn't learn about it until I took a course on women's issues. But the plight of the comfort women is not a feminist issue, it's not a women's issue. It's sickening what we'll sweep under the rug. Now, the victims are organizing a petition that they hope will have 1 million signatures. Here's to the Japanese government getting called out before the victims die and their pleas are buried with them. Imagine if these were Holocaust victims. Imagine that the German government didn't recognize the Holocaust until 1992. Imagine that they wouldn't publicly acknowledge culpability for what happened.

And now I'm going to help with my little brother's clown party.

New look

2005-03-10T09:53:00.000-05:00

So Fog Walking now has a new look. The change was made partly out of necessity, partly because change is good. For whatever reason, the old template wasn't updating, so new posts weren't showing up. That's annoying. The new template looks better and will hopefully not have the same problem. It's a bit of pre-spring cleaning, I guess. Enjoy!

Of poppies

2005-03-06T18:52:00.000-05:00

Okay, so the poppies. Specifically, Afghan poppies. Specifically, the fact that Afghan poppy production has trippled, and that it accounts for between 40-60% of the Afghan economy. And the fact that, at this point, Afghan poppy production is essentially world poppy production. All of these facts are relevant to understanding why the US State Department worries in a recent report that Afghanistan might be on the verge of becoming a narcotics state. The story of how this has come to be is familiar to most of us. Basically: Under the Taliban, not much poppy production; under the democracy that has been established since, lots and lots of it, thanks to the power of local warlords, an ineffective central state, and inadequate American troop presence. (Just to be clear, I mean inadequate to prevent drug production. Not that I believe that should be the top priority of American troops.)

The fact that the State Department worries that Afghanistan might be on its way to a narcotics state is, to me, kind of like saying that North Korea might be on its way to communism, or that the United Arab Emirates might be on its way to an oil economy. When 40-60% of your economy derives from the production of a single commodity—a single illicit commodity that the government would rather you not produce—you have a serious problem. You're not on your way to a serious problem, you're there. And more heroin in the market place is a serious problem for the world, not only for the future of Afghan democracy. Cheaper heroin means more heroin use, means more intravenous drug use, means more HIV trainsmission.

A number of political scientists argue that a country can't be called a democracy until it has survived two changes in power—two elections where the losing party concedes control of the country to the winning party. This is a sensible hurdle for countries struggling to be "democracies." After all, the exchange of power is the most difficult part of democracy. Until countries like Iraq and Afghanistan complete two exchanges, they won't be democracies, and crowing conservatives are premature. And, since Afghanistan is nearly a narcotics state, it's unlikely that its government will pass the test any time soon. Political struggles will be fuelled by drug money, warlords will continue to hold sway in some areas of the country, and they will be as well funded as the government.

Think about it like this. Let's say 50% of the country's GDP is in poppy production. And let's say that a shadow "government," an illicit power structure of warlords and gangsters, taxes that portion of the economy while the real government cannot. Let's futher assume that warlords and gangsters charge an exorbitant tax rate on the income of poppy farmers because . . . well because they're hearltess, un-democratically elected gangsters. It's easy to see the trouble that the Afghan government would have facing them. Though not as cohesive, the various regional warlords and gangsters would probably be better funded than the government. And their cohesion isn't necessarily a problem, since their geographic dispersion would force the government to spread their weak forces so thin, the walords don't have to coordinate themselves.

(Conservative response: "Don't hate on America! Don't hate on democracy!" Not that I can see a fat old white man yelling "don't hate on" anything, but you know, it would be funny.)

Umbele Foundation

2005-03-05T21:31:00.000-05:00

Some of you people have heard of the fantastic foundation started by Columbia Professor Xavier Sala-i-Martin. It aims to provide, particularly young women, incentive to go to school and not have to deal with the opportunity cost issue of staying at home or working. It has been proven in economic studies to increase productivity of the workforce; and by that extension increase growth. It follows a similar idea put forth by former Mexican President and current Yale Professor Ernesto Zedillo and his Progresa initiative. A fantastic idea that aims to support a continent that has been strife by political unrest, famine and epidemics. Whereas it cannot solve those deep problems, what it can do is look at this particular question of declining economies and perhaps do what many people say Capitalism does do: increase opportunity, increase prosperity.

In any case: we are having here in this neck of the woods a faculty auction to support the organization, and one of the options was a book that is yet to come out called The End of Poverty by reknowned Economist Jeffrey Sachs. The autographed copy of this yet to be released; I am going to get it before most people book; is now mine. As I have purchased it in the auction. Highly touted by people around, I hope it is as good as I have heard. I am extremely excited about it.

If I ever find a greater love for math and problem sets, I shall follow Mr. Sachs and to an extent Mr. Sala-i-Martin and go for a PhD in Sustainable Development. Understanding the nuance relationships between what man must do and what he can do. Helping this world, a few dollars at a time, a few thoughts at time. If only we would stop paralyzing ourselves with petty bickering over what some professor wrote in an editorial about Israel, or over legitimacy of some constitution.

He who is without sin may cast the first stone; oh that isn't a possibility? Then at the very least let us cast out a few dollars, a few ideas and try to make this place more agreeable to live in, instead of suffocating in a pool of antagonisms.

Democrats are a joke

2005-03-04T18:57:00.000-05:00

. . . Or how the right learned to undermine the left.

I was thinking on the AirTrain over here (I'm sitting in JetBlue's terminal, comlete with wireless internet access) that the Republican strategy of constantly associating liberal causes with comedians, actors, singers, and entertainers is a powerful political one, and something of a role reversal. The way I came to this line of thinking is kinda funny. I saw a poster advertising contact lenses with a picture of that mousy, bespectacled Scooby Doo character without her glasses on, and I though of how much Janeane Garofalo looks like her. Then I thought about the show Scarborough country, and the fact that she appeared a few times as the liberal on their pannel.

Thinking about other panels I'd seen, I was amazed at how many times the Republican point of view has an old, authoritative-looking guy plugging it, and how many times the liberal side is taken by a young, well-dressed, metro guy, or by an entertainer. For conservative news channels and conservatives generally, this makes sense. It's hard to take an entertainer seriously, even if they're well-spoken, and often they're not. (No offense to Janeane Garofalo, but she's a better comedian.) Hammering home how out of touch liberal entertainers are trying to steal our country, conservatives do more than construct liberals out of touch. They're also constructing us as intellectual lightweights.

To me, that's certainly an ironic project. Though there are certainly conservative intellecturals, there's a reason that so many colleges and universities are liberal havens. (And despite what conservatives say, it's not because there's ideological discrimination.) Conservatives, I believe, self-select into fields that fit their worldview; they enter business, follow "greedy" money-making pursuits, and demand ever-lower taxes. Liberals also do a certain amount of self-selecting, and frankly I wish more of them would decide to practice their philosophies instead of thinking about them all the time. So perhaps conservatives are combatting the impression that liberalism is the "intellectual" or "thoughtful" position by cementing the image of the liberal entertainer in the public consciousness.

Of course, there used to be another side of liberalism—the activist side. And I say "used to" because, up until the emergence of the Deaniacs, it seemed that liberal activists had become non-facors in national politics, coopted by hopeless political causes, like Nader's failed runs. There used to be union activists, pro-labor activists, who fought for hard-nosed, classist political causes, that they identified with and that meant a lot to them. This side of the Democratic party, this activist liberalism, is all-too rarely seen. Students more and more are carrying that torch, but they don't hold the same weight as coal miners do. Like entertainers, it's too easy to portray students as idealistic lightweights. I guess that's what I meant by hard-nosed. Coal miners, factory workers, are hard to classify as lightweights. They are forces that conservatives, even conservative ideologues, have to at least seem to respect, lest they alienate Americans.

So I have to board soon. This isn't as well thought out and careful as it could be, or ought to be. Frazzled from travel and all that. About to be home for spring break. Maybe the rate and quality of blogging will pick up.

Looking ahead to summer

2005-03-02T12:54:00.000-05:00

So my summer plans are solidifying nicely. I'll be staying here in New Haven, and doing a combination of the following three things:

Running the Elmseed Enterprise Fund. Elmseed is, as far as I know, the only student-run micro-credit lender in the country. It's been up and running for more than four years now. Right now we have 9 long-time clients with 11 more awaiting certification. We've loaned out more than $25k to local New Haven entrepreneurs and have a repayment rate of over 85%. I run the client services department, which provides free business consulting and loan application writing help to our clients. Over the summer I'll be running the whole shebang, booking speakers, doing publicity and recruiting new clients, some fundraising, and running training sessions for our clients.
Working as a research assistant to Professors Patrick Bayer and Fabian Lange here at economics department here at Yale. The project I'll be working on is about the location decisions of firms and workers, particularly firms that hire low-skilled workers and whether or not their location decisions are affected by a binding minimum wage. The reasoning goes like this: If wages are market-clearing, i.e. wages are set by the market, then firms that demand low-skilled labor will locate near its abundant sources. But if you introduce a binding minimum wage, firms might not employ as much low-skilled labor, not need as much of it, and so not see so much advantage in locating near its sources. This has grave implications for low-skilled workers, who are often in areas with poor infrastructure, might not own cars, and so might find it hard to travel to employers. And low-skilled workers in the areas where firms choose to locate are actually in high demand and low supply, and so can demand a higher-than-minimum wage. Thinking all of this over makes me a bit leery; is this the lead-in to an argument against the minimum wage? It will all depend on what the data show. The data set they have is massive, including every employer in California over 15 or so years. I'll be in charge of organizing all that junk into something usable. It'll take a long time, much more than the 160 hours I'll work over the summer. In fact, I'm going to start working on it in the next few weeks as the data comes in.
Part-time job at the Beinecke Rare Book Library. The job is dull, for the most part, but it does involve working with, at least in passing, some pretty amazing stuff. Have you ever touched a 17th century doctorate from the university in Basel, Switzerland? Hah!
McKenzie Leadership Summit. Still think about this one. It would be an all-expense paid weekend. Applications due at the end of March. Positives: Might set me up for a job at McKenzie after school. Negatives: Might set me up for a job at McKenzie after school. Obviously, I'm a bit ambivalent about consulting. It sounds like it might be really interesting. Game Theory certainly picqued my interest in business strategy.

So that's the summer plan. Hanging in the balance: My career plans. Will I like working with the economics data? Will it inspire me to apply to graduate school? Or will I like managing Elmseed so much that I choose to go the MBA route, with an eye on non-profit management?

In any case. Thought I'd let you all know what I'll be thinking/writing about in the summer months. Hopefully, it'll all provide me some interesting posts.

Democracy? What is it in the first place?

2005-03-01T23:11:00.000-05:00

The notion of American proto-individualism (as I will call it for fun's sake) during the early years of the revolution seems to be what has led us down a rather interesting path towards this glorified notion of democracy, which has mixed itself so wonderfully with the thoughts of capitalism, or has it?

I pose this question rather rhetorically, of course, I do not think that this country is a democracy, as we ought to raise the word. If we go as far back to Plato he would call our system a Polity. A good constitution he would mention, where the essential crux of power is in the hands of what he called the middle-class; a pre-Marxian notion of the Bourgeois, perhaps? Not quite, but it is interesting to note that he did think there would be at least some kind of middle class capable of being the mean between the rich and the poor, while being (as he put it) frugal so as to not fall into unnecessary appetites.

What would he think of our culture now? One would have to ask. Although, perhaps he isn't the best person to ask, if we are to speak about cultural decay, yes decay. Why is America not a Democracy? Because it doesn't even know what the word means! After decades with this amorphous notion of democracy being touted in classrooms, we stand today less sure of what we are, and who we are than the founders who created the censitary republic back when. I argue this without arrogance, without contempt, but honestly. What does it mean to be in a democratic state; we think we know, we assume we know. We spout things like we have fought for freedom when we use it in thousands of ways; each time we contradict the other ways. Is freedom for all? Is freedom a right? A natural right? What limitations are on our freedom? Is religion the limit of freedom? Can freedom be limited without us throwing our words into a vaccum? Is it freedom of the individual or freedom of the commonwealth? Is there a common good that our nation cares about? Is freedom more important than economic wealth?

This country lost democracy the moment it stopped knowing what it was in the first place. Is democracy filled with fillibusters and private interests? Is democracy filled with million dollar campaigns that aim to shine the bright spots on people? What about our thousand person bureacracy, does freedom watch over the arbitrary actions of some civil servant writing a memo in Saudi Arabia?

For this country to truly be free, it must be free from its arrogance. It ought to relinquish these petty notions that we are right because we have always been right and start asking the bigger questions. If we don't then do we have the right to spout the words democracy and freedom with such ease? Lets get our priorities straight and stop bullshitting under some cover that we some how are democratic, and that there is not any corruption. Our nation is slowly beginning to uncover its darker sides: people are disenfranchised. We cannot even hold onto that as a notion of democracy; not everyone even has the right to vote. We neglect our poorest constituents, and we succumb to awkward prejudices that pit man against man, man against woman, class against class, race against race. We have so lost the ability to think clearly that we are fueling this cultural illusion to use Nietzsche's words, until we can't even tell the difference between the real world and the fake world. We hold ourselves to be stronger than our enemies, but if we only claim to know ourselves (and never take time to study our history, to ameliorate from our dirty past, and to push forth to redeem our past) we shall never have the right, nor the clarity to say we are a democracy and mean it. Because ignorance surely plays into an authoritarian's frame of mind.

A purely American Argument against SS Reform

2005-02-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

American Exceptionalism is what has driven for all these decades America to be self-assured, confident, pompous, uncompromising and also (nasty word here) republican (lil' r). How is it republican? Well basic language enlisted during the age of revolutions brought with it a current of impressive considerations from men we now disdain, like Rousseau, and men we admire, like Tom Paine. They argued for the same thing as British Whigs in the mid 18th century, and American revoultionaries until the end of the century. Private Property is a right of all people. And, said John Madision, the only way to prevent the corruptive powers of the so-called factories being put up in British cities is to promote the westward expansion of our nation; placate all people through giving each person an opportunity to their own. Because nothing was more insulting in this time period than to be a dependent laborer. What makes you independent? Property. What is more degrading than being lets say a factory worker? Being a speculator. The scum of the earth! You know who we considered land speculators? The British government; just one of the reasons we wanted to break away. Ring a bell?

Social Security becomes probably one of the few signs of this kind of republicanism. Far less of a dream than the Townsend proposal, but unless you can't see the clear connection...the point of the program is two fold: 1) Government will undoubtedly be asked to provide for someone's health in future years, which makes it only logical that instead of raising taxes on something else it tax people's wages (as it being the logical foundation of their health; wealth to health). 2) Government does this not at the expense of republicanism, but rather as the child of republican values that aim to maintain the independence of the laborer and prevent the dependence of the person on any charity, private or public institutions. If this is what SS does, then it certainly looks to me to be a good child of the revolution. The spirit of the revolution to maintain independence, and also careful enough in its construction that it does not put in jeapordy the future health of a person. In case you were wondering: the republican doesn't care whether someone can retire like Warren Buffett with billions of dollars without ever raising a finger, this isn't republican, but rather they care about the wage laborer being able to maintain a proper proportion of their labor (to paraphrase the Knights of Labor).

The point being. The capitalist/market revolution was never a real challenging point in the framework of American debate in the 19th and early 20th Century. The United States could be one of the first truly capitalist countries where very little regulation went down against capitalist expansion mostly because of the burgeoning ability for there to be land; people being pushed out by gentrification (to be anachronistic) could move out west and start a comfortable lifestyle. It was not until mid-century when the corruptors of liberty began to speculate and make money off the labor of others, and the production of capitalists. Does anyone remember Andrew Jackson and the Bank? We wonder why he had a problem with it, well to make it simple (not to diminish other biases he may have had or may have happened) the ultimate republican in the 19th century had a problem with the speculation foundations of the Hamiltonian institution. Hell, he had a problem with bankers in general. (But please don't let me stop you from working in IB or Private Equities).

Does this make sense? Could you really make an argument against speculation? It is probably the most American argument out there. The core to having equal opportunity many would argue is to have a proper proportion to your labor, and thus if your wages and your profits are being cut into by land speculators (real estate) that own your land, and you have to pay money to them. This is a problem. It puts into the pockes of the idle-corruptor money they did not earn. And takes out of your pockets money you did earn.

So why should we build a system whose basis is just this? How could we turn a right (as we have ascribed it) to living healthy as an older adult and turn it into a corrupt system? And so when Republicans (big R) look at you with contempt at caring if Wall Street makes a buck on this. Tell them to change their party name. Because there is nothing republican about what they are saying! It ties itself into some of the most corrupt ideas you can imagine. Some guy in some building in Wall Street makes money off of my labor so that I can make a higher return for my retirement (a necessary retirement that government institutes understanding economic realities I could argue; I will let Nate argue them; or perhaps I can pull up my old Profe Xavier to help me out sometime in the future). It sounds ludicrous. And if anyone cared to wonder if America is acting American in creating a Bush ownership society: I hear John Madison laughing. I hear Thomas Jefferson rolling over in his grave.

Want to kill American republicanism? Put a trillion dollar program in the hands of speculators.

Seeing like a blind man

2005-02-26T15:10:00.000-05:00

Wasn't planning on blogging again today, but I had to link to these two stories from The New Scientist. The first is a story about a blind Turkish painter. It reminds me of a story I read in the New Yorker last year about the visual cortex and visual abilities in the blind. One blind man had memorized the dimensions of his roof and could fix it, alone, at night. He had such powerful spacial reasoning, he always knew exactly where he was on the roof. It's intriguing stuff, and has some glorious sci-fi implications. For example, as we understand mind-machine interfacing better, could it be possible to train blind and sighted men and women to interpret radar or sonar signals as visual ones? Imagine a submarine guided by a sonar system hooked up to a blind pilot, so that he "sees" just as a while might. Or imagine a blind soldier "staring" at the sky with a powerful radar system.

The other story is a quick blurb about a British company that has offered to make wedding rings by growing partners' bone tissue. I haven't yet decided whether it's more cool than grisly. But it's definitely bizarre enough to become a good conversation-starter.

Happy belated V-Day

2005-02-26T14:23:00.000-05:00

Must-read post here. It's not that the phenomena described in the post are unique, only that it's good to be reminded of what's out there. We're close to two weeks out from V-Day (Victory, Vagina, Valentines Day), and I thought I'd do my small (masculine) part as a "Vagina Warrior" (a woman or man committed to ending violence against women and girls).

I guess I owe you all (the loyal, um, three?) a post about seeing the Vagina Monologues on February 11th here at Yale. Eve Ensler, the playwright, came and spoke at the end of the performance. The performance itself was tremendous; it was deeply moving, hilarious, and very true. Eve Ensler herself was moved. She spoke about the other performances she'd seen, far more significant ones, like a performance in Islamabad, Pakistan, which invovled a word of mouth whisper campaign and took place in a secluded basement.

It was interesting to me to see how closely sex is linked with power in the Vagina Monologues. Though the play deals with sexuality, it's most often in a way that links sexual freedom to empowerment. Sex, as in real life, is never just sex. When, in one of the monolouges, the actress mimics a whole litany of different moans, there's the sense that these are really battle-cries.

I'm taking a Biology of Sex and Gender class, and it's clear from discussion sections that some Yale men and women, whether they know it or not, support the lessons of the Vagina Monologues to heart. In discussions about the female orgasm, it was obvious that women expected to have them and that their men were expected to help. Now that the female orgasm is not an object of such intense mystery and women are, at least in some places, allowed to be independent, assertive sexual agents, men are expected to be sensitive, effective lovers. This is something that some men understand, but that a couple members of the men's hockey team in the section didn't seem to quite grasp.

While there are some negative consequences of this development—a NYT story about young men using Cialis and Viagra in order to enhance performance details one new method of fighting performance anxiety—for the most part, this can only be good for society. As Eve Ensler would argue, when vaginas are free and able to express themselves, women will be more powerful and freer from violence.

I admit I'm a bit out of my element in all this. Ah well.

New Fog Walking?

2005-02-25T07:39:00.000-05:00

I am The Columbian, a pretty bad epithet, but then again creating a name at 2am slightly inebriated will lend itself to such a mild, boring, a bit cliche appelation. It references my departure from Yale, at least, seeing as I do go to Columbia, but I know Nate from High School, so many of Pittsford kids will recognize me as Keith.

I've enjoyed posting comments on this page before, it is fun and great to engage in debate, so for any of my posts, I highly encourage you try to shut me down. But content wise, I probably will depart a bit from Nate; not just because if we both post on something it may just seem repetitive, but to most likely widen the scope of liberal topics. I, at least at this time, have a particular interest in cultural and social constructions. I like to talk about how people manifest truth, create that kind of truth and believe it to be real. It is a very elementary sketch, of course, I am not a Philosophy PhD, and in fact I will be coming at it from what I am...a history major. I think contextulalizing at a wider level the problems of any absolutist doctrine could perhaps elucidate the issues in contemporary politics, economics and society. Being held captive for no good reason is never something worth any of our time, and yet we are, and worse than that (from the perceivably minority end) we cannot rationalize why it is wrong. What does it mean for something to work, and something to be right, and something to be useful. All these crazy ideas sometimes intermix not because they are really there, but because people attribute them to being there. The Iraq situation both boggles the mind and warms the heart; when we get confused we tend to not know what to do, and side-step issues. How can someone come out against Iraqi "democracy?" How can someone also articulate that Iraqi democracy is but an intermediary for a wider plan without seeming conspiratorial? Could there in fact be no ulterior motives? Could this be paradise in government? That even if today's US government is the world's greatest friend abroad, does that excuse their malignancy to their own people?

As you can tell I write with a lot of questions, and I tend to end with a lot of questions. Mostly because I believe life to be too complex to ascribe a final point with a final nail in the coffin. Which I think is the problem with democrats/liberals today. The constant fear to ever acknowledge something as absolute kind of lends itself to ridicule. Incertainty is beautiful, accurate and true to life, I could argue. But it makes a bad ad campaign. That even with what I say, and how I say it I'll be treading the line between these kind of pompous self-confidence, and the more realistic notion that I don't know. I think as close as I can get to that point, along with good posts on mostly current events and my analysis of them, this should be a fun experience. I hope people read and enjoy.

Blogs'n'friends

2005-02-25T02:15:00.000-05:00

Alright. So my frequency of posting pretty much sucks. So sue me. I'm a student + part-time job + community service gig. I don't have a lot of time to muck around. But I do have friends. And they do like to muck around. And I have somehow managed to rope one of them into this shindig. So look for his posts to start popping up sometime soon. He'll be posting under TheColumbian, at least at first. I'll let him introduce himself when he starts posting.

(It might be a bad idea to let the only person who reads this blog write for it, but whatever.)

(I'm excited.)

(Also, there's lots of other cool stuff I want to tell you all about. Like my revitalized interest in comic books. But that'll have to wait til later. Maybe this blog won't be soooo dry? God knows.)

An object at rest . . .

2005-02-25T01:58:00.000-05:00

So it seems that, at least for now, the effort to privatize Social Security (read: gut SS) has stalled. And the question now must be, when will it start again? And, maybe more importantly, when it starts again, how will it get going?

The nature of political momentum seems to suggest that Bush will need to generate some external force from somewhere in order to get the death of SS rolling again. As a lame duck president, it's not entirely clear to me where he's going to get that from. Some have suggested that he'll look to another security crisis. I'm not sure how a security crisis that renews people's insecurity will give him momentum to eviscerate a program with the word "security" in it, but I guess if he can spin it well enough, anything's possible. Furthermore, word on the street is that Bush is talking "incentives" with the Europeans on Iran, though Scott Ritter, former weapons inspector, claims that Bush has plans to bomb Iran in the spring.

(Really quickly, let me just say that bombing Iran would be a monumentally stupid idea. One good reason, that might not be immediately obvious, is that the newly elected government of Iraq will most likely have a religious Shiite leader with, at least, religious sympathy for Iran. The new Iraqi government are not people we want to piss off. And any sort of Iran-Iraq entente is also something we don't want to see.)

So, where will Bush get his momentum from? I think, ironically, it could come from hints of weakness on Wall Street. Fund managers and stock traders would really like to see their coffers grow as millions of Americans channel funds into their hands, and it would do a lot to increase the demand for American shares. It might be that a wobbly stock market could bring about arguments that we need to inject the economy with more money for investment, through the privatization of Social Security accounts. Now, that argument is horribly wrong, since by most accounts our stock market, despite some declines, is still overvalued, and any influx of Social Security money would be a temporary, transitory, and ultimately counterproductive action.

Okay. So. Weak post after not posting for a while.

Iraqi constitution-making

2005-02-05T18:54:00.000-05:00

. . . Or how the "values" debate comes to Iraq.

Just read this latest NYTimes article on the constitution-making process in Iraq.

The fact that religious Shiites won a resounding electoral victory has a number of implications for the future of Iraq. The Shiite victory really shouldn't surprise anyone, given that Iraq is predominantly Shiite, and many Sunni Arabs washed their hands of the election. But given this Shiite victory, further insurgent activity cannot be viewed as anti-American, anti-occupation. The Sunni insurgents will ultimately become warriors in an ethnic conflict between the Shiite majority and a militarized Sunni minority. How Shiites will effectively govern their country without a meaningful Sunni minority party remains to be seen. Many of the cities that proved difficult for the American military will prove just as problematic for a Shia government. Conservatives who looked to elections as yet another corner to turn in the fight against insurgents will be disappointed. The motives for the insurgency will not change—the Sunni rebels will still be fighting what they view as a non-representative and malicious government.

The other implication is that secular Iraqis may find themselves alienated and targeted by the resultant constitution. American conservatives who object to how religious the product of the constitution-writing will be, and many of them will react badly, since there are secular American conservatives, ought to remember their party's alliance with the Christian right. The resonance between the language of Shiite clerics who want to enshrine Islam as a source of law and the Christian conservatives who would like to do the same with Christianity is telling. A fundamentalist is a fundamentalist is a fundamentalist . . .

One could hope that this constitution-writing process in Iraq, and the inevitable complaints of too much religiosity, of too little democracy, will inspire Americans to take a more critical view of our own system. One could also hope that Americans will come to their senses in a myriad other ways, but one would be, more than likely in both cases, hoping in vain.

One other thing: All of those pictures of Iraqi women proudly raising their blue-stained fingers now have a distressing irony. The Shiite forces that have come to power thanks to that election are bent on reducing the rights of women, especially in marriage, divorce and inheritance. And if they allow women to vote, it's no doubt because they trust religious women to vote in line with their religious husbands, and not with feminist causes. So all of those pictures of women raising their fingers for democracy were also raising their fingers to the codification of anti-woman discrimination. Sigh.

How not to handle incentives — EU-China arms embargo

2005-02-02T10:26:00.000-05:00

The consensus among EU officials is that the arms trading ban that EU has had in place since 1989 and Tiananmen square will get lifted "soon." Despite the fact that the ban was put in place because of China's atrocious human rights practices, and China has made no effort to show any "verifiable" evidence of improved human rights conditions. So what exactly is the EU doing?

Obviously, the initial idea was to use arms trading as a carrot to induce China to improve its treatment of human rights. But Europe, fallen on hard economic times and committed to a "strategic partnership" with China, doesn't really want to wait for China to improve its human rights efforts anymore. It should have become clear to China by now that it really doesn't have to show the EU much of any improvement in human rights, since it is by now clear that the EU wants out of the weapons ban as badly as China does. The EU, though it has not abandoned the arms embargo yet, has essentially abandoned the arms-embargo-as-incentive approach by showing its hand, making it clear how strong the European pro-arms trade lobby really is.

To me, this is an interesting example of real politic concerns trumping ideology in Europe. For an international organization that makes such a big fuss out of following liberal ideology, promoting human rights, acting as a power with a conscience, the removal of the arms embargo against China before groups like Amnesty International have really been placated is a dramatic example of a new consciousness in Europe. Not only do the German, French, and, apparently, British now want to strengthen their economies by upgrading the Chinese military, but they also want to pursue a powerful "strategic partnership" with China, putting the EU in a very different political position than it has been.

After all, the removal of the arms embargo puts the future of NATO in serious doubt. The Bush administration and Congress will likely act to end the sharing of weapons technology with Europe, since that would be tantamount to sharing it with China. And NATO, which has long benefited from the trans-atlantic exchange of technology, will be hobbled. You generally don't want to have military allies that you worry will be stealing your technology to sell to a potential enemy whenever you perform joing military tasks. Thus, it might be that the EU decision to trade arms with China might also speed Europe along the path to an independent military. That would be a truly new development for the EU.

Another interesting thing to note is that Britain has now come down with France and Germany to support an end to the arms embargo. For the UK, this would be a stunning break from the US, given how strong American lawmakers feel about the arms embargo. It would mark, for the first time in recent history, that the UK has broken with the US and sided with the EU on a military issue.

This post does build on all of those posts about currency realignment because we may be seeing the development of a new global order, one that is far more multi-polar than uni-polar. While I take many of Matt Yglesias's points to heart about the gap between the American military and the militaries of China and India, it's not hard to imagine scenarios in which that gap might shrink not because of the Chinese and Indians gaining global militaries, but because of the United States losing its own. If NATO disintegrates, if Turkey gets pulled into nastiness in Iraq over the Kirkuk issue (Turkey mentioned because of US troops there), if the North Korea-South Korea détante deepens and becomes peace, and if the Europeans actually decide to try going it alone, if the Japanese decide to resurrect their military, a lot of countries will be less willing to tolerate American troops on their soil. Given the debacle in Iraq, Bush's gung-ho inaugural address, and his terrible popularity (or lack of it) abroad, foreign (democratic) governments may begin to find American bases a political liability. As the geopolitical situation changes, the very real negatives may truly outweigh the positives.

In any case, enough is enough. I'm all done for today.

Is the US dollar still an international public good?

2005-01-31T13:34:00.000-05:00

(Has it really been a week since my last post? Try to improve on that . . . )

The international currency we see today, with the US dollar acting as the primary reserve currency for the world and the most important currency for internationally traded commodities, is not an unprecedented one. Lawrence Broz, an economist and historian, has written about another international monetary regime, one that existed in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries during the era of the gold standard. Broz argues:

From the perspective of international political economy, such a regime is something of an international public good. When a sufficient number of governments commit credibly to a set of international monetary rules, the result is that goods, services, and capital can flow across borders relatively unimpeded by currency concerns, creating joint-welfare gains and promoting technical efficiency.

The international monetary regime that Broz analyzes had three key players: England, France and Germany. England had a strong commitment to the gold standard, ensuring that the sterling always had a fixed value. This worked wonders for European trade, since European countries could trade with a newly industrialized England with the assurance that the sterling that they received for their raw materials would hold its value and would buy them a healthy basket of English industrial goods.

In order for England to maintain their gold standard without wildly fluctuating interest rates, which would've been a burden for the European economy, and would've resulted in similarly fluctuating rates in France, the Bank of England needed a lender of last resort. Essentially, the Bank of England needed the Bank of France to lend them gold when their reserves were drained in order to prevent crazy interest rate increases. And France built up huge gold reserves in order to act as a lender of last resort. According to Broz, by 1908, the Bank of France had "well over three times the reserves held by the Bank of England."

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? After reading a ton about the Chinese-American currency situation, I definitely noticed some paralels. In the current international currency regime, which is really a dollar hegemony, Chinese lending preserves the system. Without China buying American treasuries—lending to the United States—the dollar would be unable to preserve its current value.

Understanding the current situation as an international currency regime also gives shape to what might come after the end of the dollar's reign. What we might be experiencing now is the end of the dollar regime and the rise of another. Perhaps the Euro will take the place of the dollar, or perhaps we will operate without a clear regime until there is an obvious replacement. If the latter happens, we can expect huge economic costs for the world, due to the increase in transaction costs. Until a new system forms, the international economy will be fundamentally unstable. But, as Broz says:

From a perspective of comparative politics, however, a smoothly functioning monetary regime is far from a natural state of affairs. Adherence to a common set of monetary rules and conventions requires a certain degree of macroeconomic-policy cooperation among member governments, despite potentially vast differences in the domestic constraints confronting policy makers. The overriding political obstacle in the way of establishing and maintaining a multilateral commitment to a common set of exchange-rate rules is that national politicians face heterogeneous domestic electorates and organized constitutencies, not homogeneous global ones. According to this view, the paradox is not the difficulty of designing a stable international monetary regime in a world of opportunistic but like-minded national governments, but that such systems, composed of an extremely diverse group of nation-states, have ever existed, let alone operated relatively smoothly for extended periods of time.

So the rise of a new regime is certainly not a foregone conclusion.

Here are some pertinent questions that I don't feel up to answering right now:

As there are now three huge economic powers—the United States, China, and the European Union—is a stable currency regime possible? Can China afford to be the lender of last resort to the EU as it was to the US, and for how long? Will it decide to establish a free-floating currency that could make a claim for the leader in the regime in its own right?
What are the domestic political barriers in China, the US and the EU that are killing the current regime and might lead to the rise of the next one?
What are the interim costs of a regime-less world economy? What does it look like? Will we go back to gold in the interim? Will we go back to gold for the long-run?

I think I've talked myself out for now, but I'm really interested in answering some of those questions, especially the second one, so I'll try to post again in the next couple of days.

Sports writer + jingo + Super Bowl = joygasm

2005-01-24T14:20:00.000-05:00

I'm sure some jingoistic sports writer somewhere is having an orgasm over the Patriots v. Eagles Super Bowl. Ohhhh, how sweeeet.

How irresponsible tax cuts are treasonous

2005-01-24T13:34:00.000-05:00

In Bruce Sterling's science fiction novel Distraction, the Chinese government crippled the American economy by offering every American software product free for download from their satellite network. While an intriguing idea, it would actually take a much less illegal step by the Chinese government to cripple the American economy.

In 2003, 83% of the American current account deficit was funded by central banks. While this does have some benefits—institutional investors are less susceptible to a panic than individual investors—there are also some unique risks. Not all central banks are as independent from government interference as the Federal Reserve is. I don't actually know the status of the independence of the Chinese central bank, but I'd be willing to bet my lifetime earnings it isn't entirely independent. Given that the Chinese still have a command economy, the central bank is just another tool of communist economic planners.

And the Chinese central bank is the leading institutional funder of the American current account deficit. In 2004, China funded a third of the current account deficit, increasing their dollar reserves by $207 billion. Now their primary motivation for this dollar-buying is the maintenance of the peg of their currency, ensuring that the renminbi remains cheap compared to the dollar. This also ensures that the dollar maintains its value—if China stopped buying dollars to, say, shift it's currency peg to a mixed peg or to a Euro peg, then the value of the dollar would drop precipitously since demand for the dollar would drop staggeringly. That would crush the buying power of the average American, impoverishing the country. Thus the Chinese have an incredibly powerful economic weapon.

Of course, the question of whether or not they would ever use it is important. I believe it to be a credible threat—one becoming ever more credible as the Chinese deepen trade relationships with Latin America, Europe and South Asia. In 2003, 22.5% of Chinese exports went to the United States. A huge oversimplification of the situation would be to say, "Well if the United States set up an embargo against China in retaliation, it would only kill about 23% of Chinese export revenue, and that's less than 33% of the American current account deficit that China funds." A detailed would analysis would have to be made about the cost-benefit balance for the Chinese in ending their support of the American dollar. But if tensions mounted between the Chinese and American governments, I believe the threat to be credible because the Chinese have other trading partners, because the Chinese are not a democracy and could weather the internal dissent such a move might spark, because the Chinese could do it subtly and slowly and insulate themselves from some of the negative consequences.

* * *

So how do tax cuts fit into this equation? The current account deficit can be written as:

CA = Sp — I — (G — T)

where Sp is private savings, I is investment, G is government spending, and T is government tax revenue. If the government deficit increases (as G — T increases, or as the gap between government spending and tax revenue widens), a nearly identical increase in the current account deficit occurs. Of course, if the government deficit increases but it's offset by increases in private savings and domestic investment, the current account deficit doesn't move.

American private savings have been piteously low for years, and many American consumers suffer dissavings—debt. This has not changed since President Bush instituted his huge tax cuts for the wealthy. What has changed is the government deficit. Our current account deficit is growing at record pace, requiring more and more funding by foreign investors—foreign central banks—and requiring the Chinese to buy more and more dollars to maintain their currency peg.

Hiding in plain sight is treason. Bush's rabid desire to put more money in the pockets of the wealthy has increased this country's vulnerability to a currency shock orchestrated by our chief rival.

* * *

I believe progressives must make "betrayal" the central theme of their fight against the conservative establishment. These are wealthy men who have betrayed our country by their fiscal irresponsibility. They have betrayed our people by threatening Social Security, whose preservation is mandated by Congress and the Constitution, in order to enrich the wealthy. They have betrayed our fundamental values by tarnishing the American flag with torture, imperialism, and brutality.

Some of this language will be too hyperbolic for Democratic Congressmen. But it ought to be made a central part of our argument because it's powerful and true.

There is no crisis

2005-01-19T10:01:00.000-05:00

As you can see, I put a nice "There Is No Crisis" add on my sidebar. Pretty snazzy, eh? I have to get to class, otherwise I'd give you a whole mountain of links to stories about why there isn't any crisis. Most importantly for now, though, go to www.thereisnocrisis.com, read about it, add an advert to your sidebar, help get the word out. Time to rally around something new, after the election defeat. Also, Matt Yglesias has been writing about the phony Social Security crisis for ages, so check out his most recent post about this newest effort to stop Bush's power grab, and pick through his archives. More to come from me, I think.

The accountability moment

2005-01-16T16:08:00.000-05:00

Regardless of your party-affiliation, one universal value of Americans must be accountability. It is one of the fundamental aspects of democracy that makes it more desirable than other systems of power. Unlike under a dictatorship, democratic leaders are accountable to their fellow citizens. Indeed, Freedome House, a pro-democracy NGO that publishes a democracy index for the world's governments, added a question about accountability to its 2003 survey.

So everyone ought to be peeved by President Bush's recent comments that the American populace support his Iraq policy, since the election was an "accountability moment," and he's still in office. In fact, he says that his reelection represents an endorsement of his policies.

This ridiculous assertion of some "accountability moment" by the President is anathema to American democracy. Accountability must go far beyond elections held once every four years, even beyond Congressional elections held once every two. If it does not, then we put in place a fresh set of dictators at every election cycle, or confirm the rightfulness of the last set. This is why our Constitution sets forth the separation of powers—so that accountability is embodied by the branches of the government itself, with each answerable to the next. The President's understanding of accountability further points to the "Putinization" of American politics, as Matt Yglesias has coined it, and hardens the impression that, after four years of failed Congressional oversite, manipulation of the media by the administration, media agglomeration around conservative ideologues, and the implementation of an unreliable electronic voting system, our democracy is, frankly, travelling down that oft-foretold slippery slope.

And, besides, the President's claim is bullshit. The Republicans are trying to argue an inherently contradictory set of positions. "We won the election because of 'values,' so it's a vindication of conservative Christians." Or, "We won the election because the people liked our Iraq policies." You cannot have it both ways when you win with just over 50% of the electorate. The truth is, there were a hundred cross-cutting political issues, and polls conducted by the New York Times and other organizations that showed majorities of Americans believing the war has cost us too many lives and too much money make it clear that, as spurrious as the "values" argument might be, it holds more water than an endorsement of Iraq policies.

I fear that now that we're on this slope, there's no way off of it. How do you combat political forces that are willing to sacrifice democracy in so many ways in order to remain in power? Once the fundamental beliefs in democracy have been sacrificed to realist strategems, there's no obvious righteous path back to democracy. Many would argue that many of those values in democracy, and our government's commitment to maintain them, were illusions to begin with. In that case, at least now the beast is out from under the bed. Good luck getting it back down.

UPDATE: 58 per-cent of people think that the situation in Iraq was not worth going to war for. 44 per-cent said the war has destabilized the middle east. There's no vindication there.

More about religion; the intersection of spirituality and science

2005-01-03T15:13:00.000-05:00

For Christmas, I received a book about the Kabbalah and its applications to modern life (an odd Christmas present, I know, but such is the life of a Unitarian). I haven't yet gotten into it, reading some lighter fare. So before anything deeper sticks, I thought I'd do a bit of dot connecting.

First, there's the story at the Agonist about a study conducted at the University of Wisconsin with Tibetan monks that shows a measurable change in brain activity as a result of meditation. This comes at the same time as Atrios, in his Bobo's World feature, links to the story of a famous study conducted a few years ago that showed a correlation between prayer and fertility—praying for women increased their fertility, and has now come under serious investigation and attack as a fraud.

Now, obviously, the University of Wisconsin scientists' findings about brain activity are not quite as dramatic as a supposed increase in fertility, but they're profound nonetheless. The fact that science can now describe a measurable effect of meditation helps link the scientific with the spiritual in a powerful way. If the results of the study stand up, it will perhaps begin to carve a real place for spiritualism in the lives of, let's say, "aggressively" rational people. That, I think, will be a great thing. Maybe we'll one day look at meditation and spiritual exercise as we now look at running, weight-lifting, and aerobics. I'm looking forward to the emergence of a Jane Fonda of meditation.

Meanwhile, a cornerstone in the same process of linking science and spirituality, this infamous fertility study, is collapsing. This is not to say that deep, concentrated prayer might not have similar benefits to meditation. But it remains a matter of faith that prayer can have any measurable effect on another person.

Anyway, it's too easy to read a political and ideological story line into these two stories: "Eastern religion has always been the baby of crazy liberal academics, so it's no wonder that meditation gets raised up on scientific evidence while prayer gets torn down." And I'm sure there's some conservative commentator somewhere who would happily howl that to her grave. I'm not sure that's really the most realistic or interesting connection between the two stories. I'll think more about this and maybe more will come out of it. But for now, I'll stop at connecting the dots.

Sweet, sweet trackback

2005-01-03T14:45:00.000-05:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Let's give a shout-out to the automatic install. And a further shout-out to HTML illiterates. Sa-weet.

Isn't God great???

2004-12-26T13:10:00.000-05:00

Given that it's the holiday season, a season of giving and generosity and genuflecting (some before Mammon and others before that holy heartthrob J.C.), I can't help but think about this tragedy in terms of religion. I appreciate peoples' religiosity. I appreciate that they want to believe that God has the ability to affect their lives. But who wants a God that spends more time making sure that happy coincidences happen than he does preventing mindnumbing, heartbreaking tragedy? When more than 7,000 people die in tidal waves in Southeast Asia, it's hard to imagine that all that suffering is part of God's plan. And if it is, God needs a new plan, or we need a new God.

I mean, what are the options? Let's take an argument by cases. Let's say that God is omnipotent, and so had the power to prevent the tragedy. In the case that He allowed that tragedy to happen, and if we accept the humanity of those people that died, then He allowed, or even sanctioned, vast amounts of suffering. If we say that, no, those people are not quite human--as pawns in God's plan they didn't feel any pain and are rewarded in heaven, or something, then we do violence to the very concept of humanity and make charity and generosity and aid work all seem like one giant charade, since those people we're helping are not really human anyway. So if God is omnipotent, then either He is not benificent or some people are not human. If God is not omnipotent, then He is not really God at all. See the dilemma?

I guess the point of attack for Christians, and others who believe in a benificent, omnipotent God, is around that point of what we say about people hurt in natural disasters. Even if we argue that somehow man's free will lies outside the bounds of God's power, but we leave the natural world under his control, then we still have earthquakes and hurricanes and vast tornadoes to explain. So God does have some control over who dies and who lives, and over the magnitude of human suffering. (And, if you figure that God can control the weather, you'd think he would've had some choice lightning bolts for Hitler, the Khmer Rouge, Stalin, Charles Manson, so there's still that to answer.) So what do we say about Him and His disasters?

I'm comfortable with a God-as-creator concept, but not one that makes God some benificent ruler. I mean, if He is trying to be one, He is the George W. Bush of deities. And if God really is up there, poo-pooing everything I say, unfathomable and unapproachable, then I'm sure He can find it in His infinite good-will to forgive my wavering belief. I work hard to live a life that I think He would approve, though not for His sake, but for the sake of my fellow man and woman.

Home, and wondering about the state of the world

2004-12-22T18:49:00.000-05:00

Well, I never did make it to Ireland. A horribly sad story if you ever want to hear it. But for now, some thoughts about recent events.

Take the news that the world's largest gold producer knew that it was pumping tons of mercury into the Indonesian air. Coming not too long after the anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, it only goes to show how ineffectual environmental regulations are in many places of the world, and what a farce the idea of corporate responsibility really is. Conservatives like to bandy about the idea that we can trust corporations to obey environmental standards without regulation. I think not, and if Bhopal and this newest case don't prove it, I'm not sure what does. The public can effectively pressure large corporations that have a brand name, like Nike, by boycotting their goods. But how do you boycott a chemical company whose goods are ingredients in a thousand products, or a gold producer who doesn't put a swoosh on the rings or bracelets you buy? In these cases, we need government to exert the pressure that we can't because we can't identify or effectively boycott the bad guys. I'd like some conservative to tell me how the public can more efficiently watch over corporations than the government, given that corporations will never be able to watch over themselves.

This newest thing also means that, since buying diamonds is kinda questionable given, well, Africa, it's hard to find jewelry that doesn't have a morally questionable origin. In fact, I'm beginning to think that it's hard to justify buying jewels at all . . . but I'll be the first to admit that's a bit radical. I, for the life of me, can't think of a really great reason why there should not be a huge luxury tax. Other than that a lot of new technology gets tried out in high end goods first, then works its way down to us schmos without the yachts and first generation plasma TVs. But it seems that a smart luxury tax could find a way around that. Why not tax the hell out of luxuries?

Global rebalancing

2004-12-14T20:57:00.000-05:00

Watching global rebalancing at work is kinda like watching a really drunk person walk a straight line. She might successfully walk the line, or she might break something. Stephen Roach has become a bit more bullish in his prognosis, but notes that we're still not out of the fire. No surprises there, I guess. I didn't see anything in there about Opec reducing its dollar exposure. If Opec eventually moves to oil priced against a mix of currencies, rather than just the dollar, that will put a whole new spin on the drop in price of the dollar, exacerbating inflationary pressures in the United States. However, no dramatic Opec rebalancing is likely to happen in the near term.

Cobbling the Financial Times report together with yesterday's post about leaks from the Pentagon and CIA should provide a thorough critique of President Bush's "war on terror" foreign policy. The "war against terror" has:

Contributed to the negative impressions of Muslims across the world and helped spawn transnational, anti-American movements of Muslims, both moderates and radicals.
Failed to stop terrorist movements and, indeed, made Muslims more receptive to radicals' demands.
Intensified the anger of activists working to overthrow secular and, indeed, oppressive Middle Eastern regimes to be replaced with not necessarily democratic governments that will almost certainly be less willing to accede to American demands.
Driven oil producers and their financers, for fear of having assets frozen by the American government, to further reduce exposure to the dollar and move more quickly to a different pricing scheme (read: drop demand for dollar, accelerate depreciation and inflation, force the Fed's hand in raising interest rates?)

So, who knew it could possibly fail so spectacularly on so many fronts? Honestly, when the president of Pakistan—the undemocratic president of Pakistan—points out that the US is counter-productively heavy-handed, you have a serious, serious problem (that was in that interview yesterday).

And another thing. When the government announces plans to borrow $1 trillion more dollars to replace the transmission in a Social Security system that needs a brake job, how are foreign creditors going to react? And why isn't anyone bringing this up? A lot? Isn't it just good policy to deal with the Social Security's problems in a couple of years when we'll have the means to do it? As Paul Krugman points out, we're facing a shortfall of 19% of promised benefits. That's doable. What is not doable is borrowing a $1 trillion when people are worried about lending us money as it is! If there's a better modern example of ideology trumping good policy in the US . . . it probably happened under this administration, but I'm too shocked by this one to think of it. It's like giving that drunk friend a shot of tequilla while she's trying to walk a straight line. And then pushing her.

UPDATE: Larger than expected trade deficit. Ummm. Rebalancing? Huh? Is this "steady" rebalancing then? Shouldn't Americans be buying less? I'm going to Ireland tomorrow. Where they use the Euro. Buggers.

So you think you're paying for an education . . .

2004-12-08T18:59:00.000-05:00

Wrong. You're paying for the right to tell everyone you got an education, and then flash the fancy diploma in her face to prove it. Or at least that's one way to look at it. Most of what follows is taken from a lecture on game theory and signalling by Ben Polak, an Economics professor here at Yale. I'll just condense it a bit.

So, imagine a world where there are two types of workers, good workers and bad workers. The good workers are more productive than the bad workers. Employers have no obvious way of telling good workers and bad workers; there is no obvious "good worker trait." If employers know that a worker is good, they will offer her more money than a worker they know to be bad, since those workers will also produce more for their employers, and their services will be demanded more heavily than those of bad workers. In this world, there then must be some way for workers to signal employers that they are in fact the good ones.

In this scenario, then, the educational system provides a nifty way for workers to signal that they are in fact good workers. The example that Professor Polak offered was working to get an MBA. Good workers will have a higher payoff from achieving an MBA and getting paid as a good worker than a bad worker would have from achieving an MBA and getting paid as a good worker, since good workers actually face lower costs from doing all the extra MBA work because they're more productive. If you make getting an MBA hard enough, then getting one will be an effective signal that someone is a good worker—it's a signal that requires a cost to give, a much higher cost than a worker saying in an interviewer, "Oh yes, I'm a good worker." Furthermore, it's a cost that, since it's tied to one's ability to do work, actually varies according to whether or not a worker is good, so it's a very effective, reliable signal.

The same principle is easily extended to college degrees. And then to what grades you get while achieving said college degree. If you get better grades, you signal that you're a better worker, and you have the good grades to prove it. Getting good grades is probably not proof that you "learn" better than somebody else, but it may show that you're more reliable, good at meeting deadlines, goal-oriented—all things that an employer wants to see.

Obviously, problems with this explanation of why the educational system does what it does abound, specifically that learning becomes secondary to signalling. And there's also the fact that getting an education is not neccessarily due one's good worker-ness; after all, people getting better educations these days are as often signalling their whiteness, richness, suburbanness, and good parented-ness as they are their good worker-ness. Since I should be writing a final paper right now, I probably fall into that last category there.

Before you go to sleep, take a leak

2004-12-07T01:37:00.000-05:00

Remember in my earlier post when I said something like, "Oh if Bush were to delay elections, he'll lose all political momentum?" Well it seems as though, if the press does its job (yes that is a momentous, awe-inspiring "if"), Bush may well find his political capital depreciating almost as quickly as the dollar, regardless of Iraqi elections. Two recently leaked reports, one from the CIA (not surprsingly, since they're like a sieve), and one from the Pentagon are both very critical of the Bush administration and offer bleak prognoses for the future.

The leaked CIA report is an assesment of Iraq. Apparently, nothing's really going as planned. No surprises here. Notable in the Times article, though, is this little quote:

It was not clear how the White House was responding to the station chief's cable. In recent months, some Republicans, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, have accused the agency of seeking to undermine President Bush by disclosing intelligence reports whose conclusions contradict the administration or its policies.

It strikes me as interesting that McCain is characterized as criticizing the CIA for disclosing negative reports. Whether or not he has been criticizing their disclosure or their existence is an issue I am not nearly well enough informed to speak to, but if it is as the article says, then there's something wrong. Why critize an organization for disclosing the truth? If we can't trust our elected officials to tell us the truth (you know, the ones who are supposedly "accountable"), then I'd hope that someone is. It's really the height of patriotism. McCain should be all about the patriotism and the flag waving and fun things like truth. After all, I don't hear him complaining about people leaking damaging Grand Jury testimony that tarnishes Barry Bonds' image. Or maybe his bonds with Bush are closer than his with Barry. Or something.

But the really interesting stuff is in the Pentagon report. It's a meta-criticism of the entire philosophy of Bush's war on terror. Funny how close the report sounds to what the president of Pakistan said in an interview with the BBC. Since I don't know how much longer the link to the coverage will be workable, I won't put it here, but Musharraf argues that American policies have left the world less safe. And the Pentagon report doesn't come out and say it, but noting that we've convinced nearly every Muslim in the world that we can't be trusted is not far away.

Alright, so if the press does its job, then President Bush should have a lot of tough questions to answer. Can we please stop talking about the bogus "values" question long enough to discuss something substantive? Can the press now please stop feeling completely beholden to the administration? He's a lame duck! Or he will be quite shortly, even shorter if we all start asking the tough questions we deserve answers to.

*****

I wanted this blog to be very, very deep. That takes far too much energy from day to day. Especially when I have to think deeply about everything else. But occasionally, expect this puddle to turn into a, um, deeper puddle.

Iraqi elections, Civil War, Merry Christmas!

2004-12-06T10:34:00.000-05:00

So I haven't posted in quite some time. I could blame it on school, but that would be hooey, so I won't. I have no excuse.

But on to the really important point. Check out this story in the New York Times Week In Review that has everyone talking.

All my fears about civil war in Iraq seem to be coming to fruition. It didn't take a visionary to see it coming. The United States essentially allied itself with Kurds and Shiites, a sure-fire way to alienate the Sunnis. Not only that, but everytime you read "Iraqi forces," especially in the north of the country, you can replace that with "Kurdish forces." In any case, the article makes a great argument for why elections can't happen on January 30th. No election in which Sunni parties don't show will ever be legitimate.

So the Big Question becomes, can the Bush administration move to delay elections? The answer, I think, is "No." Not if it expects to have political capital to spend on its crazy domestic agenda (not "crazy" in the "crazy good" sense). Americans are itching to get our troops out of Iraq, while the Pentagon continues to send them in (it's always a few months too late with them). Meanwhile, 8 soldiers are suing the Pentagon to get home.

We have soldiers suing to leave, an American populace frustrated with a lack of progress, and a President with an extremely controversial domestic policy agenda in the pipes ("mandate" or no, there's no way you're going to reform Social Security without it being controversial, especially when you plan to increase a dangerously swollen deficit to do it). And the President is already feuding with his Republican Congress over the issue of the intelligence bill. If Bush pushes to delay elections in Iraq--the only chance they have at legitimacy--he will drive questions about the competency of the occupation into overdrive and create a political shitstorm that will clog the Congress, drain any momentum, and start Bush's lame duck Presidency very quickly.

So President Bush has a choice: Politically legitimate elections in Iraq or his own domestic agenda. Which do you think he will choose?

*****

One final thing. To a crowing Matt Yglesias, I have only this to say. I love his blog, but his alma mater . . .

Osama bin Laden: Signalling an attack with his new video?

2004-10-30T11:33:00.000-04:00

I have no idea how the Osama bin Laden tape will affect the election. I would hope not at all, since if anyone has forgotten that Osam bin Laden doesn't like America and needed to be reminded, they shouldn't be voting. But there's one point I'd like to make to the fear-mongerers on the right. Why did bin Laden need to release videos to trigger terror attacks before? Because dates of attacks are not set in advance and the cells need their cue. So, if al Qaeda were planning an attack for a set date (ahem, Election Day), why in the world would they need bin Laden to spur them into action? Who knows why bin Laden released this video (probably to mess with our heads, which has been amazingly successful), but I would bet it's not to cue attacks any time soon. Probably more posts to come. Midterms are done and done.

Quick post: Watch this

2004-10-09T09:52:00.000-04:00

Watch this speech by Congressman Tim Ryan about why so many people are worried about the reinstatement of the draft:

http://www.mydd.com/files/admin/TimRyan_Medium.mov

Thanks to DailyKos for posting it. (www.dailykos.com)

Al-Zarqawi gaining support in Iraq?

2004-10-08T18:48:00.000-04:00

This, from Knight Ridder: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9842981.htm

First, I'd like to commend the reporter, Hannah Allam for actually getting out into Baghdad and talking to people. It's not a safe place for anyone, let alone foreign reporters (I'm assuming foreign, although she might not be). Second of all, I think all of this raises an incredibly important point: Cracking down on guerrillas that are this embedded with the population with air strikes, pitched gun battles in city streets, and firing into crowds (as an American helicopter did when a group of Iraqis were celebrating around a burning tank) will inevitably drive people into the hands of the opposition.

Right now it seems that the process has made anti-American Iraqis into pro-Zarqawi fighters. At the point that it begins to make moderates anti-American fighters, then the war is lost for the Americans. The moderates in the population are really the critical group. In the face of a violent and brutal opposition that is blowing themselves up in crowded Baghdad neighborhoods, the moderates should always be on the side of those working to destroy the resistance. If we manage to alienate them, through civilian casualties and negligent tactics, then we have no way of maintaining a presence in the country. Anyway. Maybe I'm being too utterly obvious, so I'll stop. Just read the article.

Also, note on the right, there's a new button that says "Subscribe to Bloglines." If, for some reason, you want to subscribe and get notified when I update this thing, click on, it follow the directions.

Kurdistan, Kirkuk, Turkey . . . can you say "civil war"?

2004-10-03T11:17:00.000-04:00

This from Reuters: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/BAK247765.htm

Of course the Kurds are starting to push for their independence. With a fairly stable polity and de facto independence since the 1991 Gulf War, who would want to be shackled to a state racked by internal violence and the growing threat of Sunni-Shi'ite conflict? Though, if the Kurds make a significant push for independence, which they are bound to do if conditions don't improve in southern Iraq (and which they might do regardless), the problems for the new Iraqi state become perhaps even greater than the current rebellion. Reuters touches on some of the conflicts that might ensue: Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs battling for control over Kirkuk, while pro-independence Kurdish parties unite to lobby the new government and Sunni and Shi'ite Arab parties for control of the city's oil revenues.

But what else could happen? Innumerable scenarios jump to mind. Turkey, long opposed to a Kurdish state, would continue to mount a military presence on Iraq's northern border. The United States and Europe might effectively pressure Turkey to stand down, especially considering Turkey's desire to join the EU. But will the US really risk alienating the only allied, secular state in the region? Unlikely. But what's the alternative? Alienating the only faction of the Iraqi population that has always supported the United States and the invasion of Iraq? If the United States pressures the Kurds to remain a part of the Iraqi state, it's not hard to imagine a coalition of parties forming within a newly formed Iraqi government to buck American influence over the country. And then?

While American leaders spend their time speaking up the challenge of putting down the rebellion in southern Iraq, that is only the first problem. Growing numbers of murders in Iraqi cities, increasing evidence of Sunni-Shia ethnic violence, and mounting pressure from the Kurds to will rip the country apart. I hate to say it, but perhaps a strong autocratic government is the only one capable of keeping the country together. And any move to break it apart will inevitable involve Iran (supporting Shi'ite independence, or seeking to absorb those regions into the Iranian religious state) and Turkey (to prevent Kurdish independence), and probably every other country in the Middle East. The democracy in Iraq will operate along ethnic lines. Ethnic political parties, all of whom wouldn't mind being in control of its own state, will pull in different directions.

All of this is not new. I wrote about this two years ago in a final exam for my Moral Foundations of Politics class. These are the scenarios that I discussed with my friends. I remember a certain Flash animation that followed this logic to a bloody inferno conclusion. The challenges in Iraq go so far beyond the "insurgency" or the "rebellion," it's astounding.

Two posts for the price of one

2004-09-28T20:49:00.000-04:00

Here's another post, with a couple of other thoughts.

1. Can a country be a democracy if the citizens of that country don't think it is? I mean, even if a country has elections, and meets the Schumpeterian minimalist criteria (competitive elections = democracy, more or less), but the people don't think the elections were competitive . . . I'm thinking here of Iraq. After the Time article that revealed that our government toyed with the idea of tampering with the Iraqi elections, and then dropped it, Iraqis are going to have huge doubts about the election, even if it is perfectly fair.

2. Doesn't it seem as if all this expectations spinning is like, say, derivative markets? It's a strategy enabling campaigns to hedge their bets; if they lose, they don't lose as badly, but if they win, they win a whole lot because they weren't expected to win. Our spin markets are quite well evolved. I'm impressed.

That's all. So maybe 1.5 posts for the price of one? Either way, I've gone from the blog-equivalent of a high end novelty store to a Walmart (but I'll probably go back to being a novelty store).

Is the United States a "delegative democracy"?

2004-09-28T20:24:00.000-04:00

What is at stake in this election? Or, more appropriately, what isn't at stake? Perhaps one more thing to add to the list of what is:

The political scientist Guillermo O'Donnell describes the phenomenon of "delegative democracy," a flawed form of government that, while it features competitive elections, does not meet the criteria of an ideal liberal democracy. It is not responsive to the population, it concentrates power in the executive, and it can lead to dangerous policy mistakes. Here are excerpts from his description:

"What [the President of a delegative democracy] does in government does not need to bear any resemblance to what he said or promised during the electoral campaign--he has been authorized to govern as he sees fit." (Sounds famililar . . . will the American people re-elect George W. Bush and essentiall confirm that authorization?)

"Since this paternal figure has to take care of the whole nation, it is almost obvious that his support cannot come from a party; his political basis has to be a movement, the supposedly vibrant overcoming of the factionalism and conflicts that parties bring about." (Bears eery resemblance to the discourse of the Bush presidency and the discourse of his campaign--a movement of patriots to defend the country from immorality, terrorists, the French.)

"In this view other institutions--such as Congress and the Judiciary--are nuisances that come attached to the domestic and international advantages of being a democratically elected President." (Notice the number of executive orders the President has executed, the "fox in the henhouse" method of staffing Congressionally-required positions with people antithetical to the organizations' core philosophies, and the buckling of the courts to the President's handling of prisoners, at least until the minor set back that the President faced with forced trials for Gitmo prisoners.)

"[In a delegative deomocracy] if elections do not directly generate a clear-cut majority, that majority must be created for supporting the myth of legitimate delegation." (After seeing Vice President Gore undermine the efforts of African-American Congresspeople to challenge the election results . . . )

"DD [delegative democracy] has the additional advantage of allowing swift pollicy-making, but at the expense of a high likelihood of gross mistakes, of hazardous implementation, and of concentrating responsibility for the outcomes on the President." (Amazingly, the President has managed to avoid responsibility, mostly through misdirection, lying, feigning incompetence, and generally "being a good guy.")

Ultimately, O'Donnell argues that delegative democracies often come about during periods of social and economic crisis, and that they often exacerbate those crises. Furthermore, they damage democratic institutions. Granted, he is examining mostly Latin American democracies, and how they are not following a democratic teleology. But what happens when a supposedly liberal democracy begins to exhibit some of the characteristics of DD?

It will take a long time to make any determination abou the deterioration of American democracy. But as more events become signposts, as more patterns fit theories like O'Donnell's, the more it seems that our liberal democracy is breaking.

Two weeks, too weak

2004-09-27T01:00:00.000-04:00

It's been two weaks since I last wrote. And I am not too weak to write, as the title might suggest. At least not physically. I've been busy, what with school starting up.

I just finished reading the New York Times Magazine article about the bloggers at the DNC. It was interesting stuff. Of course, all the bloggers getting the attention are topical, politically divisive (though often insightful), mostly liberal writers. There doesn't seem to be much demand in the blogosphere for ummm "thoughts" or "ideas" about things other than politics, which tends to cast a lot of doubt on my whole project here. Which, as the two week lag might show, has become a half-hearted one. I have been holding myself to a high standard; only write when I think I actually think I have something intellectually interesting to contribute. Ideally, some of the things I write are at least tangentially related to what's happening in the world (it's really impossible for them not to be, since they came out of my head, and I am fairly engaged).

Maybe it was the article I just finished reading, but I feel inspired to be a bit more divisive and topical. When you look at the New York Times map of where states stand in the election, four of the solidly blue states are Massachussetts, New York, Illinois, and California. That is no accident. Those three states also contain four major American metropolises (perhaps THE four major metropolises). Cities have become the centers of liberal politics around the country. Some world argue that is thanks to more minorities and impoverished within cities. And of course that has an affect. But more important, cities are the centers of economic growth, new ideas, innovation, the arts, and culture in our country. In the grand ideological divide between progressives and conservatives, cities are progressive headquarters because they are fundamentally about change, growth and dynamism. As Jane Jacobs has written (an economist I've cited before), cities are where new work is created. All the inefficiency of cities--high transportation costs, dense populations--serves the purpose of innovation.

Of course this observation has some ironic implications. Local Republicans, who are far more likely to also be suburbanites and dependent on the city for their economic well-being, resist efforts to bring suburban tax dollars to bear on urban problems. "Pro-business" Republicans cripple the economy's ability to create new businesses by preventing the dense communities of entrepreneurs and consumers (the city) from thriving. Tell this to Republicans, especially the fiscal conservatives that enjoy "the Republican lifestyle" and spout pseudo-economics, and they will talk about the macro-economy, federal tax rates, venture capital, interest rates. But how do you talk about the macro-economy without talking about the cities that make it vibrant?

Maybe we should not only weight states in the electoral college for their share of population, but also for their share of GDP. In that scenario, it would be Republicans running to the left instead of Democrats running to the right. The prosperity of the country--the prosperity of the metropolises that are centers for progressivism, free speech, the arts--has allowed winners to move into the suburbs (or stay there), where they begin to protect their high incomes, vote Republican. And the irony continues. That has always been a central irony of fiscal conservatives, especially ones who pride themselves on pulling themselves up. Once they've achieved, they close the door behind them based on the fact that they have achieved, they know what it takes, and they know it doesn't take taxing their wealth.

Maybe we don't need to re-weight the electoral college. Maybe we should just do away with it altogether. In that scenario, too, Republicans would have to start running to the left. And national policy would more accurately reflect the desires of the most number of people it affects, and by definition, it will assure the highest welfare for the nation. As long as the losers in redistributive schemes control national debate, the nation suffer. Once their grip slackens, redistributive policies that can increase the welfare of our country can come into being.

All of this oversimplification, all of these generalities, gives me pause. But it's the fad in blogging, and it's what everybody else is doing. Maybe one post that follows the trend won't make me a poser. And maybe being a blogger won't either. (Chuckle)

Jane Jacobs, Cities, the Internet . . . Not Presidential politics

2004-09-13T17:19:00.000-04:00

It's been a long week. Seeing my girlfriend off to Ireland for a semester abroad, getting classes settled. I've watched Bush bounce, Kerry flounder and talk tough, the assault weapons ban pass into obsolescence (barring some last minute, James Bond-ish rescue operation), and the propsects of a happy November 3rd (and 2005-2008) decline. So I'm sick of talking Presidential politics right now. When I started this blog, I conceived of it as a place to discuss interesting things that might not be overtly political. So in pursuit of that goal . . .

Jane Jacobs, an economist, has written a great deal about thow cities grow and why large cities, despite their inefficiencies of transportation, high rents, crowding, and pollution, are still the centers of economic growth. Basically her theory, backed up by a body of empirical work, argues that cities allow vast economic growth when they retain diversified industries. Innovations in one industry spur innovations in others, employees form breakaway efforts that further divide labor, create new products and services, and increase the vigor of the economy. Cities that become "company towns," like Rochester, where I spent my teen years and which is dominated by Kodak and Xerox, tend to stagnate. Cities where growth is most vigorous are cities where new businesses are constantly being started, which means businesses are also constantly failing. There's an inefficiency built into the system--trial and error--but it has a huge return--economic progress. Cities sacrifice efficiency of production for development.

So, if that explanation seems to make sense . . . The proximity of businesses and industry that cities afford can be approximated by the internet and the information technology revolution. It has long been argued that the developments of the IT revolution have collapsed space and time; suddenly the global economic system seems more urban, with the potential for growth that spacial proximity has afforded city-based innovators. There are still senses in which knowledge and innovation remain local. If a great deal of innovation and information is being developed and traded in English, then English-speakers will be able to tap that resource. Of course, the nice thing about language is that it's not exclusive. Although you can only live in Chicago, you can speak and read English, French, Chinese, Spanish, Swahili, so that you can inhabit a number of spaces all at once.

All of this discussion is somewhat reductionist. Anthropologists and other acamedicians have written at much more length at the reduction of space and time, the overlapping of "ethnoscapes," "mediascapes," "technoscapes," "financescapes" and "ideoscapes" (Arjun Appadurai's "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Economy). Cities, as Jacobs explores them, are technoscapes, in which new techniques of production jump between industries, creating ever newer types of production, and new divisions of labor to go along with them. A global economy that can mimic the density of an urban technoscape, through exchange of information, cheap trade of goods (allowing engineers in one country to see what engineers in others have come up with), might allow innovation to occur anywhere in the world, and increase the chances of global prosperity.

Another way in which the internet and information revolution have changed how growth happens: value is created in the software industry by writing code to fit new functions. The resource of open source code is an obvious instance in which a product developed for one industry--one software solution--could be examined and reengineered to fill a function in another industry, or create a whole new set of software solutions.

Anyway. Ideas I've been thinking about. Not too much to get shrill about, but toss me what you got.

The one party country

2004-09-06T09:35:00.000-04:00

How many more national elections will the Republican machine win before they become the national party? How many more elections before the democratic base, recognizing it cannot get any of its issues turned into policy, begins lobbying the Republican machine directly? Maybe it's a hopelessly wrong doomsday prediction, but my God . . .

Look at New York, California, and Massachusetts. Three liberal states with Republican governors. For good reason, liberals in those states have decided that allowing one party, in this case the Democratic party, to control the entire government is counterproductive (though in New York, it doesn't seem as though the government is especially well-working for all of its balance). Despite the fact that those three governors would be considered liberals in much of the Bible belt (a fact that perfectly represents the serious internal divisions that the Republicans have managed to suppress as they retain power), they are Republicans nonetheless, fiscal conservatives who check any free-spending impusles from the states' legislatures.

In the national government, one party now controls all three branches, as many have pointed out before. But that power will only deepen if the President is reelected. At least three Supreme Court Justices to nominate will place the Court firmly in the hands of conservative ideologues (fairwell to legalized abortion, hello to a country without civil rights in a constant war on terror). All signs point to the Republicans holding Congress as well, allowing them to further shape the country as they choose--and the political discourse of the country as well--which will almost certainly deepen their hold on power.

What has one party in power gotten us? An ineffective Congress that gave the President the power to make war on faulty intelligence that it was their duty to oversee and an absolutely massive fiscal deficit which will counteract the expansionary monetary policy of the Federal Reserve and reduce US exports for years to come, increasing our twin deficit mess. And of course there's Iraq. You all can read a trillion other words one way or the other on that issue, and either way, mistakes have been made.

The Republican party has in the past, though they hate the word, taken nuanced positions on issues. This is a party with a large contingent of (usually) intelligent, thinking moderates who believe in reproductive rights for women, who value science's contributioon in areas like stem cell research, and who don't think a "no tax and spend" strategy for running a government is responsible. Where are their voices? Drowned out in a polarized debate? Who knows. But take one look at the Republican platform and it's clear they had little say on what it includes.

In any case. Moderates in the Republican party haven't jumped ship because as long as their party remains in power, they know they'll get a few scraps thrown their way from the Neocon-Christian Conservative power mongers that run the party. How long before the Democratic base starts moving in the same direction?

(I'll accept "never" as answer, but can I be scared anyway?)

C.S. Lewis and Patriotism

2004-09-01T10:23:00.000-04:00

For the record, I really wanted to call this post C.S. (F)Lew(h)is Coop, but I figured that stretching that far for a pun would be wrong. But just in case it isn't, I put it in the first line of the post.

So, in his classic book on love entitled, appropriately, The Four Loves, Lewis writes: "Rulers must somehow nerve their subjects to defend them or at least to prepare for their defence. Where the sentiment of patriotism has been destroyed this can be done only by presenting every international conflict in a purely ethical light. If people will spend neither sweat nor blood for 'their country' they must be made to feel that they are spending them for justice, or civilisation, or humanity. This is a step down, not up. Patriotic sentiment did not of course need to disregard ethics. Good men needed to be convinced that their country's cause was just; but it was still their country's cause, not the cause of justice as such."

Part of me wants to flush that whole section down the toilet. It seems out of step with a great deal of moral philosophy written by men far more focused on the question of what constitutes a "just" war. Thinkers from Augustine to Michael Walzer have outlined why wars should never be based on patriotic self-interest. How else can one hope that her country's cause is just except if her country's cause is justice? Otherwise, must we not worry about self-interest shrouded in justice?

I believe that obscured self-interest is what worries Lewis in the first place, and that's why I don't think, in the end, think we should flush his thoughts away. The fact that Lewis leaves no real space for honest service to justice represents a powerful streak of realism in this idealistic Christian thinker. However, the real concern as it stands before us today, is the very option that Lewis supports. Many in our country today believe that our cause is just because we are seemingly the only ones strong enough to defend civilization as it ought to be defended. That belief, that only we are willing to make a stand, and that others see that it should be done but are too weak to deal with the consequences, is indeed an inflated sense of patriotism, a fervent mixture of religious and patriotic zeal. Of course Lewis warns against this, but when he guts the mission of serving justice that, even if occasionally flawed, drives men to a higher standard than patriotism by implying that it can never truly exist, he leaves us with few options.

Anyway.

Garden State v. Rilke, the battle royale

2004-08-28T20:38:00.000-04:00

A quote from a friend's profile:

"If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place."
-Rainer Maria Rilke

As a suburban kid who thinks intellectual thoughts and tries to write fiction once in a while, Rilke's words struck me. I've written stories about death sending announcements in the mail beforehand, jaws falling from peoples' faces, debates about whether it would be cooler to be Santa Claus or a hitman. When I saw the movie Garden State, about the Jersey suburbs, it reminded me of the impulses I had in my fiction to write about quirky, fantastic, surreal events. Undoubtedly, moments in the movie were powerfully poetic, but the story itself, the characters that populate it, were craaazy.

So, did Zach Braff take a shortcut to poetry by leaving reality behind? Braff could not call for the riches of suburban life without presenting a suburban experience that few would recognize. Granted, I know next to nothing about Rilke. I think he was French, or something. He may or may not have been a romantic. But I like his sentiment, and I recognize how difficult a task it can be. Anyway. An ideal to struggle towards?

My very first post

2004-08-27T16:48:00.000-04:00

From my mother's home office, upstate New York, when I should be packing to go back to school, here is my very first post. The end of my blog virginity (I think I've gotten to the second base of commenting a few times).

Quick question I've been playing with, just to make this first post worth reading. Is the human mind capable of the changes in scale that technology poses? How do beings trained to live in three dimensional, concrete space, make sense of the webscape, as it renders location less and less meaningful? I'm not convinced we can. All of this inspired by the question of genetic material and bio-prospecting. It seems like local governments should have a right to a portion of the revenue from products earned that are based on genes found locally. But what is the ethical argument that supports that? Especially when, in the case of bacterial bio-prospecting, the environment is not harmed? Trying to find an analogy to this situation is difficult. I see the scale shrinking to the unbelievably small on one instance, and also growing ever larger (out further and further into space), while the inner space becomes ever more complex, with connections growing every which way.

All needs to be fleshed out more, thought on, sat on. Maybe some day when I have the time I'll give it a shot.