Lately I’ve been constantly reminded of a remark that James Lileks made to me in an e-mail regarding the Writing of Essays and Other Deep Thoughts. He’s a perfectly ripe mango of annoyance, that fellow; if the man weren’t so funny and spot-on, I’d like and despise him far less. But no -– my admiration for him continues to grow and soon murder will be the only way for me to adequately express it.
We were talking about this process in an e-mail exchange, and he said that when we chase the rabbit down the hole, we never know where it’s going to come out again. That’s it exactly.
I’ve been chasing a particular rabbit for months now; had it cornered in the back of a cave. I’d gotten out the knife and was prepared to make short work of it, when suddenly the little bastard launched itself fifty feet through the air, landed on my neck and started tearing at my jugular. I’ve been fighting with it ever since.
I’ve been thinking about Power. Thinking about what real power entails, and more importantly, wondering if there is a way to defeat that ancient and highly reliable adage, and perhaps find a way for a nation -– mine -- to wield power, enormous power, without being corrupted -- enormously.
The use of power is straightforward, and throughout history we see salvation or ruin as a direct result of the application of power. But the moral use of power: that is a Jackalope; it’s a Snark -– easy to talk about, but damned hard to catch. But chase it we must, because the United States is a moral country, filled with decent and generous people, and we can see that the few times in our history when we did not fight for a moral cause produced stains on our honor and history, and wrote a page or two identical to the volumes of horrors inflicted by nations and empires with no such moral inhibitions and restraint.
The United States is often referred to as a childish country, an adolescent nation, young and strong and stubborn, but unsophisticated and unseasoned. Up until a short while ago, there may have been some truth to this, for there is one adolescent quality that has long marked the American psyche when involved overseas, and that is the desire to be liked by everyone. As we mature as individuals (and this is not a universal phenomenon -– yes, I’m talking to you, Sheryl Crow), we begin to realize that not only is it impossible to be liked by everyone… it is, in fact, repugnant. I do not want to be admired by murderers and rapists and liars and wife beaters. I want to be admired by good and decent, intelligent and just people, and in order to achieve this I need to do things that make me despised by their opposites.
As we began to fight back against the worldwide terror network, their corrupted ideology, and the states that harbored them, I and many of my fellow countrymen were shocked to discover all of the sympathy and affection generated by our status as victims suddenly evaporated the moment we decided to utilize our power to try to put an end to this threat. We were counseled by our moral superiors that terrorism was a fact of life in this new millennium -– best just to ignore it as much as possible, and not make things worse by poking it with a stick. And as for all those new skyscrapers and super-jumbo airliners and all those other dreams…forget it. Too much of a target. Who would ever want to inhabit the building replacing the fallen towers? The terrorists will just blow it up again. Better to build a park or something less provocative.
How very…French.
Well, we chose a different path, and we have now two years of data to see the results of this experiment. And we also have to ask ourselves some tough questions regarding the use of power. Does fighting back reduce or enlarge the threat to our country? What are the diplomatic costs, and do they exceed the benefits gained from unilateral action? And because we are a moral nation, most importantly: how do we know when the application of our vast power is justified, not only for our own self interest, but also in the consequences to those on the receiving end of that power?
This subject is too important to screw up, frankly. We -– 21st Century Americans -- need to understand power. We need to understand the perils and traps that have throughout history ensnared nations and empires, and turned once noble ideas into bloody disasters.
It is a painful process. It means turning a cold, unwavering eye on some of our own worst excesses. It means rooting out and examining our own failures, disgraces and shortcomings, and pointing out, in broad daylight, the stains of dishonor on our beloved flag unflinchingly and unfailingly.
We need to do this. We need to do this now, all of us. Because we are at another of those fulcrum points in history -– all of us, together -– where the decisions we make will shape a century. We hang in a moment of space and time where one thing, and one thing only, will determine whether we will advance into a century of science, freedom, tolerance and marvels, or fall back into a dark age of tribalism and terror, of religious fundamentalism armed this time with the very weapons of God.
We look out at an uncertain and unformed future. And the one thing we can all agree on is that the single unique force shaping that world in the coming decades will be American Power. Upon how that power is used, or squandered, or perverted, hangs the future of humanity. How, in this coming age of shadows, do we find our way? How do we do what is right and honorable in a sea intentionally made grey by those who would quickly lose a stand-up fight of good versus evil, black vs. white?
How in fact do we fight and defeat the enemies of freedom, of invention and science, of tolerance and compromise, without, as James Lileks wrote, “waking up to find we had become what we hated the most?”
I thought this was going to be pretty straightforward. And then I ran into a voice that knocked the wind out of me.
I was offered a chance to spend four days in the stunning mountaintop home of the scientist-millionaire -– and old friend -- that I profiled in TRINITY. I took it. One look out the window and you could feel your mental horizon expanding. There, in a view extending for at least a hundred miles, one could see, on a clear day, perhaps four or five signs of human settlement -– a few single houses. And these could be easily ignored. What lay around every switchback in the magnificent lower western corner of North Carolina was America in all her pristine glory -– almost untouched, man’s presence so light and scarce that it could be easily removed with a quick pass of the mental Photoshop.
Things were looking promising. Now all I had to do was sit down and write a few hundred thousand paragraphs on military power and the need to use it when the time arose.
Then the flash.
As I was minding my own business during the first few minutes in this magnificent house, this shrine and testament to the fruits of hard work, daring and ingenuity, I saw bookshelf upon bookshelf of interesting titles.
I walked straight toward the nearest, walked right up to it in fact -– as close as I am to these very words. And there, right in the dead center of my field of vision:
Mark Twain on the Damned Human Race, a collection I had not even heard of.
Now it would help if I could explain the kind of effect Mark Twain has on the mind and soul of the American writer. There is no better way to pass a period of hard work than by dipping into small, bite-sized, individually wrapped pieces of Mark Twain. And I soon found out that this would indeed be a wonderful way to pass the hard and backbreaking work of sawing, hammering and hinge-fitting that I was about to face when constructing a gallows to hang myself -– for that is the reaction writers have when they read Mark Twain.
I crack open the book before I put my bags down. The very first line my eyes land on is this:
To my mind, Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.
I’ll just go home now.
Sorry, no escape. I’m hooked again, doomed again. I’ll just unpack my bust of Salieri and place it up here on the monitor. He’ll be a source of great comfort, no doubt, the next time I try to describe the smirk on Michael Moore’s face, the look that Twain caught on a similar creature a century ago when he wrote that he had “a smile all over his face and looks as radiantly happy as he will look some day when Satan gives him a Sunday vacation in the cold storage vault.”
I admire and respect much of the man that was Teddy Roosevelt, but in my opinion there is no doubt whatsoever that the fourth face on Mt. Rushmore should have been Mark Twain’s. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln -- and Twain: easily the four greatest Americans -– to my mind, the four greatest people -– that have ever lived.
But I very soon discovered that On the Damned Human Race was not The Innocents Abroad. It is an angry book, a ferocious indictment of humanity, and most especially America, the country that he skewered mercilessly with the sharpest wit ever granted a mortal person, and a country that through four decades of criticism and remorse never was anything other than the object of his deepest love. It is a glimpse into a world that is long gone, but one that is echoing through a century passed, for me, now. For Twain is writing about the Spanish-American War, and the Philippine rebellion: our one true effort to try our hand at actual imperialism. And what he has to say about Power is not refreshing.
“True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us, we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a shadow from an enemy that hadn’t it to sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited our clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandits’ work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America’s honor and blackened her face before the world…”
(Emphasis mine – BW)
A galaxy of talent divides us, but I know I have at least one critical element in common with Mark Twain. We both love America. And people who deeply love America need to hear his words regarding the massacre of 600 Moro tribesman in a remote crater during the mop-up of the Philippine campaign, a century ago:
“We did not exterminate the Spaniards -– far from it. In each engagement we left an average of 2 per cent of the enemy killed or crippled on the field.
Contrast these things with the great statistics which have arrived from that Moro crater! There, with six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright, and we had thirty-two wounded…
The enemy numbered six hundred -– including women and children -– and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States.”
(Emphasis Twain’s)
Damning words. Fatal. Fatal words. And:
“The next headline blazes with American and Christian glory like to the sun in the zenith:
Death List Is Now 900.
I was never so enthusiastically proud of the flag until now!”
If you were looking for words to prevent the American colossus from stamping out a poor, weak, brown-skinned country -– say Iraq -– you could not do much better than to invoke Twain and his essay, To the People Sitting in Darkness.
You could bring down all of his thunder and wrath and compassion and unquestionable moral power and invoke him to bring American troops home, all across the globe.
You could do it. But you would be wrong.
Before the War in Iraq, before Afghanistan, before 9.11.01 as a matter of fact, I was surfing the web and came across a very interesting animation at the Lockheed website.
It was a demonstration of an entirely new kind of warfare. It was stunning.
The computer-graphics scene was a remote airbase in a distant valley in the dark of night. Two -– two! –- shadowy forms appear on the ridgeline, in ragged cloth Ghillie suits, and lie down to become just two more bushes on a moonless ridge several miles from the enemy base below.
High overhead, several alien, bat-like UCAVs -– Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles -– orbit the battlespace. Without a human crew, they can remain on station for days, replaced by others when they return to refuel.
It is like an attic full of bombs, hanging in the rafters, 24/7.
The two forward observers -– Special Forces guys -– are armed with a laser rangefinder. These two men now wield the firepower of a battalion.
Looking through the telescopic sights, they put the crosshairs on a bunker and pull the trigger. An invisible laser ranges the target to within an inch or two. Since GPS tells the rangefinder where it is, it calculates the angle and distance to the target and passes the coordinates of that bunker up to a military communications satellite. This then beams it down to the unseen, unheard UCAVs orbiting tens of thousands of feet above, which in turn enter the bunker’s coordinates into a GPS-guided J-DAM smart bomb.
The men on the ridge continue to mark targets. A control tower. A transport airplane. A fuel depot. A hospital is spared. And so on.
And then, after receiving authorization, the UCAVs open their bomb bay doors, the J-DAMs fall through any weather, and those targets simply disappear. When a convoy of tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers tries to make a run for it, repeated updates of the target designator take them out, too.
Then the two men pack up and disembark, on foot, for several miles, where they will uncover a camouflaged ATV and exit the area for recovery by helicopter.
I described this animation to my friend Richard Riley, who works in aerospace. He described this type of warfare as having, in effect, The God Button. It is an apt description. We see something, point at it, and it goes away.
Various companies are now flight-testing these very UCAV’s. Deployed from an aircraft carrier, with a range of, say, 1000 nautical miles and carrying advanced optical, IR and radar sensors, these vehicles will be able to loiter unseen and unheard at 40,000 feet and target individuals.
I think the most remarkable weapon deployed during the Iraq war was the GPS-guided JDAM bomb that was modified to have it’s warhead not enhanced, but removed and replaced with ordinary cement.
It did not get a lot of press coverage, this weapon. But think about this for a moment: 500 pounds of precision-guided cement falling from a height of 20,000 feet or more is a weapon that is designed to destroy a single room in an apartment building, or an individual car in a traffic jam -- without damaging anything around it.
I must say that for a racist, mass-murdering nation of Nazis bent on terrorizing poor brown people by blowing as many of them to bits as possible, this is rather an anemic effort. How many American and British lives were lost in Iraq due to our self-imposed reluctance to level, at the merest lift of a finger, the building or city block from which our troops were taking fire? How bitterly disappointed must be the barking moonbats of the lunatic left, that we who had the power to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians to limit our own losses saw fit to stay our own hand? Unilaterally, without prior UN approval. There was not a solitary Belgian in sight to instruct us in morality.
Remarkable.
But I digress…
The United States, today, has the capability to push The God Button and make targets disappear. We are fast developing battlefield lasers that can shoot down incoming artillery shells. Such a system can aim and correct a directed energy beam on a target instantaneously. No artillery barrage, no missile attack, and least of all, no incoming aircraft will be able to penetrate a fully functioning energy-weapon defense. We are testing such systems at this very moment.
Small wonder, then, that the rest of the world is coming to realize that US power is not collapsing or slowing, but rather accelerating, and accelerating rapidly away from the rest of the planet. And so we should not be surprised to see so many efforts to constrain and derail that power.
So it is time for hard questions: how much power is enough? Who can wield such power without being corrupted? And if we voluntarily relinquish this power?
What then?
It never fails to impress me that we best gain insight on the most complex of issues not by boring in closer, but rather by stepping back -– and the further back we step, often the clearer things become.
When all is said and done, discussions of power and morality seem to hinge around a single idea -– or rather two conflicting ideas regarding the nature of power.
Those that would have us disarm, withdraw, apologize and retreat make the assumption that by removing American Power from the world, the planet will become a harmonious village of diversity and mutual respect. Remove American capitalism, and the world’s people will trade solar cars for indigenous beads, our European moral betters will hand over their cash to the third world until all are perfectly equal, and everyone will live in a sustainable ecological paradise. Remove American cultural power and Britney will be replaced with Beethoven, and an exquisite and reasonably priced Pate de Foi Gras Existentialist Meal can be had at a corner drive-in where the former McDonald’s once stood.
This is utter nonsense. It has never been true for a single page of the history of the Damned Human Race. There has never -– never –- been a day in human history when some form of power has not flooded the world, or competed to do so; and those times when the power was most one-sided reveal themselves to be the times of greatest relative peace, stability, and advancement of that quaint notion known as civilization.
This is not merely a European construct. We see this iron rule in Inca and Aztec histories in South America, in Shaka’s Zulu nation, in Chinese empires and Japanese Shogunates, Native American tribal relations, and wherever else we turn our eyes.
The idea that all would be well if only America would retreat from the world and stay at home is a pernicious and seductive one. It appeals not only to those that hunger after the freedom to do mischief in our absence as it does to our natural sense of isolationism. It has been the mantra of communists, totalitarians and elitists of every vile stripe for well over a hundred years. It is utterly and completely wrong. Political power has never been removed from the world -– it has only been replaced. And so our choice –- now pay attention you No Blood For Oil types -– is not between power and no power. It is a choice only of what kind of power will fill that vacuum. Chinese? Russian? European? We have seen all of these before. The horrors they have inflicted, with far less absolute power than the US wields, do not leave me pining for those alternatives. Someone is going to be the world power, or tear the world apart fighting for it. And no matter how hard we may wish it, the winner will not be a Blindfolded Jury of Archangels.
That is an unpleasant realization. It does not bestow glory on the human animal. Mark Twain:
“I am the only man living who understands human nature; God has put me in charge of this Branch Office; when I retire there will be no one to take my place. I shall keep doing my duty, for when I get over to the other side, I shall use my influence to have the human race drowned again, and this time drowned good, no omissions, no Ark.”
We have some very hard decisions to make as a nation, and as a people –- and we have to make them, now. There is no perfect power. There is only human power. History shows that the best we can hope for is that the most decent, least flawed power -– the British, for example -– will, despite their horrors and massacres, displace people who are far, far worse.
It’s really that simple.
We have to face the fact that we are imperfect creatures; that as long as there remain brutal and savage dictatorships, power is not something that can or should be put down or put away, because power dispersed among hundreds of millions of fundamentally decent people displaces and curtails the murders and genocides of those forces that would rush in to fill their place.
We must face the hard and bitter truth that good people can walk away from a fight, but when they do, bad people will have the field, and we have seen the horrors they can inflict.
For there are indeed good people and bad people. We have been, on the whole, the best-behaved, most generous and benign power in the history of the world. But we have had our Ft. Pillows and our Wounded Knees, our Moro Craters and Dresdens and My Lais. We are not immune, no matter how deeply and fervently so many of us wish we were.
We are Twain’s people: fallible, often greedy, prone to vanity and pride over our institutions and successes. We are all this and more. We have committed bloody acts and disgraced our flag and our honor, and written shameful pages in a history that cannot be erased.
Face it.
We have to. We have to do it, now, openly, honestly. We have to look our weakness and our sins full in the face, and accept them, and unlike past occupiers of this position -- unlike, for example, the Japanese, who still refuse to face their responsibilities in World War II -- we must undergo, daily if necessary, the painful and humiliating airing of our worst excesses, and stare right in the face the reflection of our own flawed nature.
But unlike our hand-wringing, self-loathing, paralyzed elites, we must do this not to become immobilized with shame and doubt, but rather to have the confidence and moral clarity needed to be able to act when action is essential, to act when all others are paralyzed by the shame of unexamined atrocities, to act when only action can save this world from the relentless drag of human entropy that cannot abide creativity, freedom, tolerance and success.
Because now, at this moment, this fulcrum point in history, we need American power more desperately and urgently than at any time in memory. And we cannot allow the past errors of a fundamentally decent, generous and kind people to prevent us from acting at this critical moment where inaction and paralysis could doom the world.
There is loose in the world a cancer, a cult of death and destruction, a force that loves nothing but destruction and pain and revenge for slights real and imagined. We face people whose hatred and rage sends them into fits of ecstasy at the thought of their own children being blown to bloody shreds so long as they can kill as many innocents as possible. And the higher we build, the more fervent and hardened their desire to bring us down.
It is a sickness, it is a disease -– it is, in fact, the last animal howling of rage and impotence at a new idea of humanity that is, at a long, bloody and terrible price, fighting and winning a war against racism, sexism, religious extremism, tribalism, conformity and slavery.
It is a war for and against the liberal freedoms of the West, for and against the idea of self-determination, personal liberty and responsibility, human creativity, diversity, and freedom of expression.
It is a fight to the death for and against a culture that can build marvels like skyscrapers and airliners, acts of technological and creative daring, and fill them with individuals of every nation and religion and color, united by their desire to work hard and get along with one another, people who have traded in machetes and blood feuds for letter openers and water-cooler gossip. We are fighting a nihilistic force, a force that creates nothing and would destroy this entire world for their place in the next if given the means, a force that hijacks -– both literally and figuratively -- these miracles of industry, creativity and compromise, and brings them down in blood and fire and ruin.
It is a fight that we cannot avoid. Despite the bleats of terrified apologists and appeasers, this is not a fight against what we have done, but rather a war against who we are and what we believe and represent. That is why we must remind ourselves, daily remind ourselves, that all these miraculous things we take for granted are not the natural state of man, but new and terrifying ideas for millions of people shackled to the past, ideas that must be fought for and maintained by force if need be. Maintained by power, the vast power generated by freedom and creativity and cooperation.
And yet, we woke up on the first day after the world had changed, woke up to find the plainest evidence possible that we are at war with yet another enemy of civilization and progress. And what did we see?
We saw the rest of the Western world cowering in fear and self-hatred, awash in the disease of self-doubt and myopia that comes from decades of success and luxury -– the same disease that brought Rome from the stability and growth of the Pax Romana to the decadent horrors of Caligula. We saw a few friends -– pitifully few; painfully few -- ready to stand and fight this disease, this death cult of Terror. And of the rest?
They have traded in their power, their means of self-defense, for 35 hour work weeks and months of paid vacations and pre-paid health care, and covered it with a patina of moral superiority that masks a rotten and tottering foundation. They have become cultures unwilling to pay the price to defend themselves, cultures so pessimistic and cynical that they have -– literally and without rhetorical flourish -– lost the will to live to the degree that parents outnumber their children and birthrates plummet through replacement levels and into the basement of collapse and ruin.
And so who is willing, who indeed is even able to fight back in the defense of skyscrapers and bridges, of jetliners and miracle drugs? Who will stand and fight the forces that wish to tear down our cities, shroud our women, burn our science, execute critics, torture the different and destroy our new and alien ideas of personal freedom and responsibility, ideas that have lifted billions from the perpetual fear and horror that have been the lot of the Damned Human Race since man walked upright?
Who will fight for that? Who?
We will fight for it. America. Fallible, human, flawed America will fight. Australia -– another tough and proud nation of free men and women will fight. Great Britain, that ancient champion of decency and fair play. Poland, who knows more about war and horror than perhaps any place on earth -– she has shown she will fight. Israel. Israel, who has borne this burden alone for decades…
Who else? Who else with high-rise offices and jetliners, computers and western freedoms, sits on the fence and flatters and bribes these forces that make no distinction among us, who see us as equally infidel -– who else has bet their futures on diplomacy and compromise with an adversary that looks on compromise as weakness and diplomacy as nothing more than a means to get us to lower the drawbridge?
Up until very recently, Terror was growing because Terror worked. Now for the first time, Terror -– Terror as a political tool -- has been met with real power. Two governments have fallen, and contrary to the stated expectations of these savages, ours was not one of them. Terror, for the first time in modern memory, now has attached to it negative consequences. Consequences that have been severe. Severe, indeed -– fatal in a great many cases. And all of a sudden, Terror does not look like such a great bargain after all.
There is a word for this phenomenon. That word is deterrence.
Prior to Iraq, prior indeed to Afghanistan, we were told by the natural cowards that get paid by the catastrophe that to fight back would unleash world-wide Jihad. Suicide bombers would be a weekly -– daily -– occurrence at malls and football games. These deep, deep thinkers assured us that if we so much as lifted a finger in our defense, our society would collapse in the flames of righteous retribution. We defied these defeatists and fought back anyway. As I have said many times, this was an experiment. The results are data.
Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and all the others have the means to launch a wave of suicide bombings in the US. It is not that very difficult. They have not done so. Why?
Because if current events are any guide, such an action would mean the immediate end of Hamas and the rest of their ilk. They are cold-blooded murderers, but they are not idiots. The cost of terror -– in the US at least -– is nowadays higher than the rewards.
History is crystal clear on one point, and that is that power -– the exercise of raw military and political force -– is the only effective cure for dictators and fascists, whatever flag they fly. It is not only morally justified to confront such evil; it is immoral not to do so.
But suppose we had listened to Noam Chomsky and Cynthia McKinney and Ramsey Clark and Ted Kennedy -- that bulwark of personal integrity? What of their promises that the vast Arab Street would arrive from the ocean like Godzilla and smash our cities -- Arrgh! Arrrrgh!! -- if we so much as used harsh language during Ramadan? Who now doubts that an American retreat after 9/11 would have reinforced what these Terror masters had been led to believe -– that we were a weak and decadent people unwilling to fight to defend ourselves? And if these deep-thinking prophets of disaster were so spectacularly wrong then, why should we listen to them now?
If an American withdrawal had succeeded 9/11, what new daily horrors would we be facing in a world where any lunatic teenager could strap on an explosive belt and dictate policy to the greatest power in the history of the world? And who seriously believes that more recruits have flocked to al-Qaeda now that Osama Bin Laden is pasted on the inside wall of a Tora Bora cave than would have joined if he had ridden a white horse into Kabul after blowing up the World Trade Center, and sent The Great Satan packing in humiliation and defeat from Saudi Arabia -– as so many of our liberal elites demanded we do?
It hasn’t happened that way. What changed that equation? American power did. And don’t you forget it.
We can’t afford to forget it. Not now. Not yet. Not ever.
My friend Steve Stipp mentioned in passing a fascinating thought experiment. If you had to design some foreign power to dominate the planet, what would you want it to look like? If there is to be a hyperpower, how would you design one that was least likely to run haywire and plunge humanity into a new dark age?
Would you want its people to have untrammeled respect for authority, like Nazi Germany, with a lock-step willingness to follow its leaders blindly, or would you prefer that it had a deep and passionate anti-authoritarian bend, where the soul of the rebel and the outsider and the little guy fighting big powers was manifest in all of its art and music?
Would you want it to be racially homogenous, like Imperial Japan, advancing out into the mongrel world as the sons of heaven, or the most racially diverse blend of people ever to form a single nation?
Would you prefer that it be driven by a rigid and ironclad ideology, such as the Soviet Union, or rather a hodge-podge of wildly differing and competing ideals doing constant battle in the marketplace of ideas?
Would you want it to be a religious dictatorship with a state church, acting on what it perceived to be the revealed word of God, as is the case with Islamic fundamentalists, or a secular nation with strict and inviolate rules keeping religious fervor out of the decision-making process?
Should it be administered by a small group of hereditary elites, as with Imperial Great Britain, or rather have political power dispersed among its fractious citizenry?
And finally, should it be a product of a culture long isolated from the rest of the planet with a low tolerance of outside ideas and philosophy, such as China, or rather one composed of all the nations and histories the world has to offer?
I have my own opinion. Your mileage may vary.
It is generally agreed that throughout human history, there have been three distinct, world-changing revolutions: megatrends that encompass far more than individual national histories. These three revolutions have been the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Information Age.
Throughout human history, exceptional military, cultural and political power has been applied to create empires. I have argued elsewhere that by no stretch of the imagination does the United States fit such a profile. We control no Parliaments, we exact no tributes, we provide no Governors and we levy no taxes. Indeed, in the nations where the United States has a significant military presence, that force is there to protect rather than suppress, and huge sums of money are paid into these countries, rather than extracted from them at gunpoint.
But consider this, when questioning US motivation and US power:
During the Agricultural Age, the reward for empire was land. Land, livestock, and the people to work it were the source of all wealth in the First Age, and Empires of the period were marked exclusively by their thirst for land, from the Babylonians, Egyptians, Aztecs, Romans -– all the way on up to the British.
The second age, the Industrial Age, was much younger, perhaps three hundred years old. There was a century or so of overlap with its predecessor, but Industrial Age imperial ambitions were not about land –- they were about resources: iron, oil, rubber, cotton -– the raw materials that kept the factories of the time running profitably. The Japanese attacks in the Pacific in the thirties, and German aggression eastward, were motivated by imperial desires for resources.
The United States was born an agricultural nation. Its childhood and adolescence spanned the Industrial revolution, and now it is the leader in the Information Age. And here we see something completely unique in human history, something very telling and important regarding America’s attitude to power and conquest.
During the Agricultural Age, the United States was founded on the prime agricultural real estate on the planet. Therefore, we as a nation never felt any first-age pressures for empire (although it certainly did drive the desire to enlarge the homeland westward to the Pacific).
During the Industrial Revolution, America again had no need to conquer and steal resources. Our oil supplies were more than adequate for the time, and we had more than enough iron ore and other natural resources. That may be nothing more than good luck, but again, the American mindset has always been that we have at home the best of everything. It is the antithesis of envying, plotting, Imperial ambitions.
And now we find ourselves predominant in the world. True, we still require industrial resources, and some of these -– chiefly oil -– do come from overseas. But we have always been a nation of businessmen, and placing morality completely aside for a moment, Yankee common sense tells us it’s cheaper to buy this oil -- at prices set by the sellers, not ourselves -– than it is to fight for it.
Since so many of our critics refuse to countenance the idea that we have morals and restraint, take them out of the picture if you like. What resources do Americans need that we cannot simply buy? What motivation do we have for invasion and war? What temptation to power? Let us not forget that the NO BLOOD FOR OIL slogans first appeared in Gulf War I -– well over a decade ago. What oil have we stolen at gunpoint since that signal victory? Where, in fact, is there any sign whatsoever of us using our overwhelming military strength to take anything?
And consider this for the future: we are now leading the world into an economy based on information. The fuel of this new age is ideas. And where do all the great ideas seem to be coming from? The most cursory glance at the world of invention, art, science and technology show that these come, to a really staggering degree, from the United States. That makes three world-spanning epochs, and during all three, the United States is the only great power in history that did not to need to go abroad to grow powerful and prosper. Those that fear American power in the future might stop to consider that if current trends continue, we will -– again -– have no need to go forth into the world, because what good ideas that do come from outside our borders -– and they are legion -– are cooked up by individuals who almost universally want to come to America because here we admire and respect innovation, here ingenuity is rewarded -– in cash! -– rather than strangled and buried under ever-thickening, Kudzu-like mats of bureaucracy.
It’s like oil loading itself on tankers and making its way to Galveston, or entire counties of prime farmland cutting themselves into sod and stowing away in container ships, to be opened and unfurled in Long Beach harbor complete with sheep and shepherds.
I will grant that from abroad, the prospect of this much American Power is intimidating and worrisome. But how much of this angst, I wonder, has to do with the internal temptations they feel at the prospect of such power at their own command?
Twain again:
“There is only one expert who is qualified to examine the souls and the life of a people and make a valuable report -– the native novelist. This expert is so rare that the most populous country can never have fifteen conspicuously and confessedly competent ones in stock at any one time…The native expert’s intentional observation of manners, speech, character and ways of life can have value, for the native knows what they mean without having to cipher out the meaning. But I should be astonished to see a foreigner get at the right meaning, catch the elusive shade of these subtle things. Even the native novelist becomes a foreigner, with a foreigner’s limitations, when he steps from the State whose life is familiar to him into a State whose life he has not lived."
I am not one of those rare experts. I am certainly not Mark Twain. But I do grasp what he is saying here, and it bears repeating: those foreigners who see in American power imperial ambitions do not know the soul of this country. They see mechanisms and potentials -- they see through the eyes of their own histories and cultures.
I know Americans, because I am one. I keep my eyes open. I listen to people talk. And I have never -– I can stand naked before Angels and say this with a straight face -– I have never, ever heard a single American acquaintance of mine talk of empire, dream of conquest, or glory in the idea of invasion. And I hang out with the mean, nasty, bloodthirsty hawks! There were millions upon millions who were not willing to use force even when we were attacked. The idea of invasion and occupation of a brutal dictatorship like Iraq has caused their heads to explode, to the point where a walk down Sunset Boulevard in LA sounds like a fire at a Jiffy Pop factory.
I have had innumerable discussions about threats, actions, responses, contingencies and capabilities, but I have never, not once in 44 years, met an American who advocated invasion and permanent conquest for national gain.
Never.
I suppose many overseas readers have a hard time believing that. I’ll also bet real money that just about every American that reads this is nodding his or her head in agreement right now, because once it is pointed out, it is a startling, almost unbelievable statement. And it is true.
This is not because Americans are saintly people without vice. On the contrary. We are a proud, aggressive, clever, often violent and ambitious people. We are, on paper anyway, exactly the kind of people the world should worry about.
And yet Imperial ambitions are unknown to us. Why?
Well, I have a guess. My guess is that when fate deals you four aces and a king, you don’t need to kick over the table and draw a pistol, and you damn sure don’t need to discard and draw again.
We Americans know what we have here. We know. Even the dimmest of us know in their bones, in their genes, how good we have life in the United States. Some of it was luck; most of it -– the vast huge middle of it -- was hard work by ambitious, energetic people who did whatever it took to get here. We don’t want to go back out into the world -– our families did everything they could to get away from the world to come here. We are happy here. We want to barbeque and watch football games. We most certainly do not want to be stomping around Ethiopia or New Guinea or Belgium -– it’s a step down for us, capishe? There’s not an American alive that would trade the rest of the World for the southwestern corner of Indiana. It’d be like Hugh Grant out on a car date with Divine when he had Liz Hurley waiting at home.
Stupid.
There are practical restraints placed on US power. There are economic reasons why business is preferable to war. I suppose if things got ugly enough, the entire world could embargo the US commercially, and I cannot imagine a set of circumstances -– short of our national survival -– that could justify the level of US aggression to make that bargain worthwhile.
But ultimately, the best guarantor of American restraint is…American restraint.
Power is not a nocturnal gift from the power fairy. We possess unparalleled levels of political, cultural and military power because we possess unparalleled opportunities for creativity and success. Indeed, with the most energetic and ambitious people of the world constantly flocking to America, one could correctly state that we are a refinery of success.
The things that make America hum: hard work, self-criticism, openness to new ideas, ethnic and national diversity, tolerance and respect, and distrust of authority are not just what makes us powerful. They make us worthy of being powerful. They are the checks and balances that provide so many viewpoints and histories that there is not a country on the face of the earth today that an American army could invade without some of its soldiers invading their ancestral homes. It has an enormously inhibitive effect.
The fundamental decency of the American Character reverberates throughout our history. Immediately after the French and Russian Revolutions, huge numbers of people on the losing side were murdered indiscriminately. In Paris, the gutters ran red with blood and the guillotine saw so much action it must have tottered on the verge of catching fire. And the revenge taken on the kulaks in Russia was horrible almost beyond imagining. During the American Revolution, on the other hand, the winners fought a terrible and bitter war, and the losers…went back to their homes.
During our own Civil War, with a quarter of the population in open, armed rebellion, the Union captured the entire political and military leadership of the Confederacy intact. One man -– the superintendent of the appalling Andersonville prison camp -– was hanged for his command’s monstrously inhumane treatment, but that was not punishment for rebellion. The rest of them: Generals Lee, Johnston, Bragg and Beauregard, not to mention President Davis, Vice President Stephens, and all the others -- were released unharmed. Stephens immediately ran for, and won, his old seat in Congress!
Show me anywhere else in all the pages of history such national decency, forgiveness, and generosity. You can’t do it. It is, like so much of our history, unique.
This fundamental moral decency was evident all throughout the Iraqi war. Countless times, US (and British) troops were under direct attack, and did not return fire due to the presence of civilians, or even due to the fact that the attackers were firing from mosques and we did not wish to offend, let alone kill or injure, the people who we were mocked for trying to save from themselves. There was, and is, no better look at the vast American military juggernaut, than that image of a young American soldier atop a Humvee, in a still-unsecured village, giving hip-hop dance lessons to a group of obviously delighted Iraqi children. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.
Earlier, I said you could invoke Twain to oppose the war in Iraq, but you’d be wrong.
You’d be wrong because although Mark Twain hated war -– hated war more than any author I have ever read -– he hated injustice and hated murder more. Reading Twain's condemnations of our actions in the Philippines, you are struck immediately and often that Twain’s scathing rebuke and criticism, unlike that of lesser minds like Chomsky’s, and far, far lesser minds like Michael Moore and the rest of the Hollywood Herd, was born of a deep love of America and a sense of shame at seeing her dishonored. Twain’s voice is not that of a man convinced that we are the source of all evil in the world, but rather one of a man who loved America, who knew she was better than her actions of the time, who still felt she was a good and great nation that should have known better.
Mark Twain’s voice rings across the intervening decades, as does Lincoln’s, and Jefferson’s, and Washington’s, and all the others. But if Lincoln is the voice of courage, Jefferson the voice of liberty and Washington that of sacrifice, then Mark Twain's is the voice of conscience. It is our own voice. It is the sound of rage and protest when we have lost our way. It is the rapier that nicks and slashes at tyranny and brutality under any flag, including and especially our own. It is the voice of justice and compassion, and it holds us to a very high standard indeed.
I have no special claim to knowing what was in the man’s heart. But I cannot imagine that had he seen the images of torture and rape and murder in that poor, desperate country of Iraq, had he heard the pleadings of families torn apart by that brutality, and had he seen the courage, decency, kindness and generosity of our troops on the ground, and the extraordinary efforts they went to in order to prevent innocent suffering, I do not see how he could have possibly opposed what we did there, and continue to do.
“It is a worthy thing to fight for one’s freedom; it is another sight finer to fight for another man’s” he wrote at the start of the Spanish-American War, when we fought to free Cuba and stated we had no ambitions other than freedom for her people. That we ended up “playing the European game” in the Philippines broke his heart, as it breaks mine, a century later. He would have us (as we did in the beginning in Cuba) “playing the usual and regular American game, and it was winning, for there was no way to beat it. The master, contemplating Cuba, said: ‘here is an oppressed and friendless little nation which is willing to fight to be free; we go partners, and put up the strength of seventy million sympathizers and the resources of the United States: play!’ Nothing but Europe combined could call the hand, and Europe can not combine on anything."
We played the European game in the Philippines and stole a bit of empire. But we didn’t have the taste for it; more likely, didn’t have the stomach to do what was needed to keep it. We fought side by side with the Filipinos during World War II, and spent blood and lives regaining those islands. Then, on the 4th of July, 1946, we did what we should have done four decades earlier. We handed them back their country, as we have handed back every country and territory we have ever conquered with our globe-spanning power, and done it willingly, not as a parting shot after rebellion and failure. We shall soon enough do it with Iraq, once it awakens from its thirty year nightmare and gets back on its feet. It too, like the Philippines, is a nation we broke a promise to, and also one that we owe its freedom and independence by way of atonement.
We played the European game in Vietnam, too; came to the aid of an ally that has come up short on many occasions of late. There is a story that Ho Chi Minh wrote Washington with a plea for aid; his country, he said, only wished for its freedom from a colonial occupying power. Surely America could find sympathy with such a cause after our own birth under similar circumstances?
Perhaps it was a ploy. I don’t know enough about it to say. But, if true, what tragedy, what heartbreak, was made from that decision to play the European game?
I strongly support the toughness and courage the present administration has shown in taking this fight to the enemy. I am deeply convinced it is not only in our own interest, but in the world's interest. I also understand and respect that people of honor and integrity will disagree.
But do not for an instant take my support to mean that I trust this or any administration to be given a free hand to act without criticism, intense scrutiny, and dissent. I do not trust that the President -- any president -- will always do the right and honorable thing. But I do trust, I deeply and sincerely trust, the American people. I read history. We've earned it.
The day may come -– and I hope I never live to see it -– when we may again lose our way. And then, the cause against war will be so solid and so strong that we will not need giant puppets and infantile slogans to try and make a case for peace. If that day comes, those filling the streets will not be aging hippies longing for their youth or furious socialists itching for revolution. On that day, the streets will be filled with middle America, Silent America, the great sensible, decent core and soul of the nation.
And I will be there, too.
I never cease to be amazed at the United States of America. My love for this country is so deep and so wide that I am often accused of being blinded to her many faults. And, to be fair, I can see how it would appear so.
But that is not the case at all. My enormous love and respect for this nation does not come from a belief that she is perfect, unblemished and incapable of error. Precisely the opposite. I love her because she remains an example of what we can aspire to, down here among the Damned Human Race. I love her because she tries to be good; she wants to be. And I love America because I see that America learns from her many mistakes.
I love and respect my nation as if she were a great ship at sea. I admire the quality and genius of her construction. I admire the way she handles rough seas. I poke and prod into the smallest of her compartments and see built-in all manner of ingenious devices to keep her afloat and level. I stand in awe of her speed and power, and sometimes in embarrassment and regret at the damage caused by her great wake. And I have seen her sailed through shoals and narrows that have wrecked scores of nations before her, and seen her emerge scraped and damaged but never fully run aground.
And I admire her crew -– both those that sailed her when she was young, and those that man her to this very day, and those that we will turn her over to tomorrow. I never fail to notice -– in line at my bank, or outside a movie theater, say -– how different and diverse we are, how many colors and accents and histories blended together into a single line of Americans: arguing basketball and politics and all the rest as new people, remade.
It’s a marvel.
Her achievements in science and technology, her military strength, competence and decency, her cultural vivacity and passion -– all of these things mystify and amaze me, even as I contribute my small part to the effort. But nothing astounds me more than her desire to try to do the right thing.
I believe that sometimes, good people have to fight -– and good people, by definition, do not enjoy or glory in fighting. Many peoples –- such as the Germans and Japanese -– have been astonished at the dual nature of American power: in one moment ferocious and ruthless in combat, then tossing candy bars from Jeeps and treating wounds and setting broken bones caused by us the very next.
Ulysses S. Grant was a fighter; perhaps the most direct, heads-down, raw-power commanding General in US History. He had something to say about this startling American duality. He wrote "If we have to fight, I would like to do it all at once and then make friends."
That, to me, is the sound of American power. We do not enjoy sending our sons and daughters to die overseas. But when we have to fight, we fight to win, and win quickly. “War is cruelty; you cannot refine it,” wrote Grant’s friend and subordinate, William T. Sherman. You cannot refine it, indeed. You can only do it and get it over with as quickly as possible.
Those who mistake American isolationism and restraint for weakness would do well to understand this dual nature, and realize in no uncertain terms that while we will tolerate much as a nation, we will not tolerate everything; that certain actions will throw that switch in the American psyche, as it was thrown that September morning, or that December one. September 11th angered us, but the world has not seen America fully enraged since 1945. It is my fervent hope that we will not need to be that angry and that determined ever again. Because if we are, you may count on this: we will fight like furies until we win.
For then, and only then, can we revert to our preferred nature, which is to get on with our own lives, raise our children in the safety and freedom we will not sacrifice -– ever -– and go back to being the kind of big goofy place that a Sean Penn or a Susan Sarandon can again feel comfortable in, because, once again, other, better people have paid their debt for them.
(By happy coincidence, a brand-new web site called Front Line Voices has just today started posting actual letters from the men and women stationed on the ground in Iraq. Go and read them. They will show you the kind of people -- the kind of power -- we really are far more eloquently than anything I could write.)
Welcome to the Eject! Eject! Eject! commenter community. Please read and understand the following:
1. This is not a public square. This is a dinner party on personal property. Good conversation is not only tolerated but celebrated here. But the host understands the difference between dissent and disrespect, even if you do not. Louts will be ignored until the bouncers can show them the door.
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Now let's see some distributed intelligence and basic human decency! Don't make me come down there every five minutes!
Comments
Many, many apologies for the delay. This essay caused me more trouble than any five others, combined. There was still so much left to say.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | October 1, 2003 4:52 AM
*Stands and applauds*
Bravo, Sir! Bravo!
I'm going to be passing this one around to everyone I know.
Superb job yet again,
Posted by: Robin Munn | October 1, 2003 5:44 AM
Another excellent essay!!! I was just watching "Good Morning America" as I read this and they were showing Iraq schools opening for the first time without pictures of Saddam all over the school and the textbooks. The people of Iraq were printing new textbooks FOR THEMSELVES.
Boy we suck at this occupation/empire building/it's about the OIL thing don't we?
Posted by: Jeffe | October 1, 2003 5:55 AM
That was "ABSOLUTELY AWESOME'
Posted by: mary | October 1, 2003 6:07 AM
[Deleted a lovely comment by a truly charming individual, who, as usual, left no name and no address. He posted this link to renowned defeatist idiot John Pilger. Please feel free to take a look -- the satisfaction I derive from making a Pilger fan that unhinged makes up, in some small way, for the overall drop in total human IQ that John Pilger brings to the species - BW]
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4848.htm
Posted by: Anonymous | October 1, 2003 6:23 AM
hate to pedantic bill but Cromwell died of old age. His decaying body was hung, drawn and quartered after the restoration of the monarchy a few years after he died.
Posted by: Pete Cox | October 1, 2003 6:44 AM
I can see I'm not going to get much work done this morning...
Posted by: Kevin Baker | October 1, 2003 6:46 AM
WOW! Seriously, I need to take a walk after reading POWER and think about it some more. It is an amazing piece of work. Thanks, again, Bill.
Posted by: Blackfive | October 1, 2003 7:01 AM
Dear Pete,
Dear God, PLEASE, be pedantic more often! You saved me from a real humiliation while the night is still young. Fixed. Thank you.
As for those of you that came after this comment, Pete was SIMULATING what MIGHT have occurred had I made an actual mistake. We run little tests like this to ensure accuracy. Looks like the system checks out okay, Pete -- thanks for the simulated heads-up! It'll come in handy if I ever make an actual error.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | October 1, 2003 7:13 AM
Another brilliant essay from you, sir. I wish I could express myself a tenth as well as you do.
Posted by: Robert Streeter | October 1, 2003 7:16 AM
Well done!
Good balance, good read.
Well worth the wait.
Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation | October 1, 2003 7:21 AM
Power corrupts? One of The Prince's worst lines, misused time and again.
Power does not corrupt, so much as it attracts the corruptible. It reveals those of us who revel in control and always seek more.
There's a reason Cincinnatus was the role model for Washington. Yes - we are on a fulcrum and American Power seems the only way. It's success or failure will have everything to do with who we have leading us and nothing to do with our technical marvels.
Machiavelli is cool to quote.
I prefer the thrust of your essay, Burkean in nature, that all that is necessary for evil to triumpoh is for good men to do nothing.
Posted by: TheYeti | October 1, 2003 7:29 AM
I wish I could be as optimistic about America as Mr. Whittle. I wish I could believe that the Bush administration is filled with honorable men. I probably could if it weren't for the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, the Taking Scissors Away goons at the airport, the holding incommunicado without charges of alleged "terrorists", the stated desire of Mr. Ashcroft to destroy the tiny bits of the fourth amendment that remain after the ravages of the war on some drugs. These are so inimical to the American way that I have no choice but to consider the administration to be evil, intent on power for personal gain.
Thanks for the reference to Mark Twain on the Damned Human Race. There were a number of used copies at amazon.com. One of them is headed my way. Looking foward to it.
Posted by: Bill St. Clair | October 1, 2003 7:39 AM
WOW. WOW. Wow. Wow. *deep breath* Wow.
That was great. Well worth the wait. I'm with Blackfive on this one. I need to take some time and then reread it again. Two things really jumped out at me though (that alone says something as there is SO MUCH there).
First:
"Political power has never been removed from the world - it has only been replaced. And so our choice.. is not between power and no power. It is a choice only of what kind of power will fill the vacuum."
That jumped out at me because I've always thought that France, Russia and Germany opposed us on Iraq primarily to increase their power. That fact that I couldn't say it with such clarity and brevity speaks more about Bill than me.
Second:
"I have never, ever heard a single American acquaitance of mine talk of empire... [later] I'll also bet real money that just about every American that reads this is nodding his or her head in agreement."
I was! I was actually nodding in agreement! You drove the nail below flush with that statment Bill.
Thanks again.
I will now read all the real intelligant comments from the posters who are so much smarter than me, educating myself in the process.
Posted by: Black Oak | October 1, 2003 7:40 AM
Great as always, Bill. Thanks for the FLV plug! You're clogging up the referral log. :)
Posted by: Matt | October 1, 2003 7:45 AM
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Thanks.
Posted by: Peter | October 1, 2003 7:53 AM
It's been said (forgive my paraphrase, but I'm drawing a total blank on the exact quote) Power corrupts, and total power corrupts totally. This thought was refined by someone recently (sorry, can't remember who) to say that it is not power itself that corrupts, but the freedom from responsibility, the freedom from consequences that so often accompanies power. Total Power by definition means absolute and total freedom from consequences. Freedom from consequences allows one to indulge cruel impulses without fear of reprisal. Power tends to bring out the little kid with a magnifying glass who's just found an anthill. Like Bill, I can't think of any great power in history I'd rather have wielding the military and economic might the US now possesses. I don't even think that point is reasonably arguable.
But if I try, I can understand the Europeans' fear of the mere existence of such power. I can empathise. They don't know us. But they look at ultraviolent video and computer games, and they see Hollywood action movies, and they think they do. When they think "American" they see big, dumb, drunk, and armed Nick Nolte from 48 Hours, because that's the image Hollywood sells them. And I think the Europeans must distrust anyone weilding such power unilaterally. They all had a shadow of such power themselves at one time or another, and they produced the Jacobin Terror, Napolean's retreat from Moscow, Verdunne, Stalin's famine & the slaughter of the Kulaks, the Warsaw Ghetto & Auschwitze...
That said...
There's an enormous counterweight to American military/economic power. Power is only potential. Using it requires WILL (and Will's little brother, Willingness to Sacrifice). Looking at the major media (admittedly not a terrific source of information), I have doubts that the US has the will to stay the course, to finish the job. Looking at recent history - Lebanon, Somalia - I have doubts the US has the will to persevere. Intellegent and pragmatic people can honestly disagree on whether or not we should've gone into Iraq. (I think we should've done so in '98, though I shudder to think of that administration running a real war) But given that we did take out their government, we owe it to the Iraqi people to provide public order and safety, and apprehend the bitter-ender Baathists until they get their own government up and running. I fear we lack the political will to fullfill that obligation. In '45 or '46, one casualty every couple of days wouldn't've even been reported. The populace had some semblence of a clue about what "Major Combat" meant. Laziness, isolationism, spoiled rotten-ness, short attention span, a national case of ADD, unrealistic expectations about cost/effort... Call it what you want, we've got a major counterweight to our power.
Yeti: Loved your statement that power attracts the corruptable. Wish I'd read that before hacking out my first para.
Posted by: Jumper | October 1, 2003 7:56 AM
Mr. Whittle, again you amaze me. Just when I thought you couldn't get any better, you raise the bar again. Just for a day, I would like to be as eloquent as you are, just to see what it's like to be you.
FYI, I have printed off all of your other essays and given them to my 20 year old son, who graduated from Parris Island last Friday. He's looking forward to reading them in his down time during school (which will take him about 18 months). I intend to print out POWER and add it to the other ones. One problem, though: should I place POWER at the end of the essays or make it the first one? Decisions, decisions.
Yes, the NC mountains are beautiful, aren't they? I live in the Raleigh area myself, and don't get to the mountains nearly enough.
Posted by: Steve | October 1, 2003 7:59 AM
I really think you'd benefit from talking to some Philippine patriots, who are just as proud of their country as we are of ours. The ones I talk to tell me that in their view, imperial presence didn't go away until after Pinatubo went, even though some Americans were trying to throw Marcos out with them.
You also want to know more about post-WWII Aisa. _Dragon_By_The_Tail_ by John Paton Davies is a good read. Turns out that the same small group of guys blocked Truman from meeting Ho Chi Minh and Mao; this could have changed the fate of the planet. One guy, the new ambassador to China, essentially prevented Americans from having good influence in those countries for the better. I know, it's an odd assertion, but with some sources,you can be the judge.
A digital copy of the cable Ho Chi Minh sent to Truman is in the National Archives web site, which is down right now but I'll post one day when you have a thousand comments already.
Also, with power can come corruption and evil. One can make the other. How to stay as morally outraged as Twain was is a hard question and worth thinking about; one reason our system works so well is that the power is split and balanced against itself.
Chap.
Posted by: Chap | October 1, 2003 8:01 AM
One of the comment here -- Bill St. Clair's -- has caused me to make an addition to the essay.
I do not trust the Bush administration to not be corrupted by power. I trust US to prevent that from happening. I will go in and try to be a little more clear on this essential point.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | October 1, 2003 8:12 AM
OK, I'm finished with the first run through.
Whew!
Another outstanding work, Mr. Whittle, my thanks.
You wrote: "For there are indeed good people and bad people." Indeed. One of my favorite quotations is this:
"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
-Albert Einstein
Thank you, Bill. Be sure to let us know when the book becomes available. I'll want several.
Posted by: Kevin Baker | October 1, 2003 8:21 AM
Bill, this may very well be your best and most polished piece yet. Wow!
Ironically, I just yesterday used the "fulcrum of history" expression myself.
Posted by: Jay Solo | October 1, 2003 8:33 AM
Oh, and one other thing:
I think you've started a run on Mark Twain on the Damned Human Race. I ordered my copy through American Book Exchange.
Twain will have another bestseller, eh?
Posted by: Kevin Baker | October 1, 2003 8:33 AM
During a one of the British Open tournaments, one of the golfers remarked about the incredibly difficult conditions had a conversation taht went something along these lines: "What are you trying to do here? The world's greatest golfers are having difficulty on this course. Were you intentionally trying to sabotage the world's greatest golfers?" The offical responded, "No, just identify them."
You've hit the nail with this one. Power doesn't corrupt. Absolute power is a test. It doesn't breed scoundrels, it just identifies them.
We are not scoundrels. We are a good and decent people. A people who bred the Bill Whittle's of the world.
Posted by: Mrs. du Toit | October 1, 2003 8:37 AM
Simply outstanding!!
Nitpick: I know that Frank J. hates it when people point out typos, but...
There are two areas where you spell posses instead of possess.
Posted by: Ken | October 1, 2003 8:37 AM
An excellent piece. One that many Americans would
find themselves in agreement with. But there was one part I have a slight contention with. That being about Jefferson Davis being released unharmed. Technically true, but only after two years of imprisonment in chains with no trial and
a nolle prosequi was entered against him and the trial he demanded never happened. It was an
embarrasment to the government that it happened.
Posted by: Ray | October 1, 2003 8:49 AM
Your writing is a gift to us all.
Thanks, Bill.
Posted by: Russ | October 1, 2003 8:51 AM
The quote another poster was looking for was nineteenth century British historian Lord Acton's famous dictum "all power tends to corrupt, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely" Note the potentiality expressed in Acton's phrase, not the certainty. And, the common wisdom version of the phrase is the "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" version. Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote an excellent study of Action a couple of decades ago.
Your essay is excellent, it is astonishing how few people understand the historical record from the perspective of the excercise of power. I daresay everyone has heard the commonplace "power abhors a vacuum" but how many have considered how throughout the world, bad (if you don't like the word evil) men have seized control and governed atrociously following the decline of a previously stabilizing power (the rise of the bolsheviks in Russia, and, of first the warlords and then the communists in China in the first half of the 20th century being but the starkest examples)
Indeed, human nature will always assert itself and unless checked (preferably by limited governments) the strong will prey upon the weak. Isn't one of the major lessons of the 20th century that the 19th century's misreading of the Enlightenment Idea of Progress - the perfectability of human nature - is just wrong. The major continental 19th century philosophies: Hegeliansim, Marxism all stand on this false premise. (As an aside, of course what the Enlightenment really suggested was that progress was possible, not that it was inevitable, but I digress).
Again, thanks for a great read. I think this essay is important enough that it should be read by every student and professor in our colleges and universities.
Posted by: Rob | October 1, 2003 8:53 AM
I spent my junior year of high-school as a foreign exchange student in the Philippines in the mid-80's. I recall one orientation meeting of all of the exchange students (Americans) from a region, where one of our hosts made a joke about a "new" Philippine national anthem being sung to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner. I remember the Filipinos, students and adults alike, laughing uproariously because they shared a common fear of American imperialism (we laugh at what hurts, or what scares). But I remember even more vividly that the 20 young American faces stared on in complete amazement. It was so far removed from the realm of possibility for us that we would ever want to take control of their country, that we didn't even have an inkling that this WAS a joke. Just completely off the radar screen.
The rest of the world may not yet understand that the American character, the American mindset, is so far removed from any desires of imperialism and so set against the abuse of that POWER that Bill just wrote so eloquently about, that our children lacked the cultural background to even understand that joke.
As usual, Bill, an amazing essay. Will buy the book, will attend the show. Please find a way to come visit us here in Hawaii to do it. It's needed here more than most places, I suspect. (I'll buy the first few rounds, and we've got a lovely place to enjoy them.)
Posted by: Patrick | October 1, 2003 8:57 AM
Once again you have captured the essence of what America is about. Bravo! I can't wait for the book.
Thank you for suggesting frontlinevoices.org. I recommend that you read the entry titled "Courage". The person that wrote that entry is the living embodiment of what Bill captures with his words.
The question has often been asked, but where does America keep finding such good men and women like this? We are indebted to all of them.
Posted by: John | October 1, 2003 8:58 AM
Bill,
I've got some constructive criticism to offer.
The two paragraphs you added distinguishing between trusting the President or his administration and trusting the American people are excellent. Placed where they are, though, they break the flow of the text.
You first ask, "... what tragedy, what heartbreak, was made from that decision to play the European game?"
The answer to that is in the paragraph starting "The day may come -- and I hope I never live to see it -- when we will again make that same mistake." Those paragraphs were together in the original version, but now they are interrupted by two paragraphs about the administration and the American people. Putting those between a question and its answer breaks the flow badly -- now you get "I do trust, I deeply and sincerely trust, the American people. I read history. We've earned it." followed by "The day may come ... when we will again make that same mistake." That will leave a reader scratching his head. What mistake are you talking about?
I've just spent ten minutes looking for another place to fit that paragraph (well, those two paragraphs) in. It's difficult -- one of the reasons it stands out in the first place is that all your paragraph-to-paragraph transitions are filed so smooth, any insertion would be rough, jarring. But I think putting those two pagraphs near the bottom of the essay might work -- maybe after the next-to-last paragraph, which ends with "we will fight like furies until we win." That might still require a bit of reworking, but it seems to me it would fit better there.
I almost feel bad, offering up points of criticism on such a fine essay. But it's in the spirit of helping to improve the essay, so here you go. My little bit towards making this gem even more polished.
Posted by: Robin Munn | October 1, 2003 9:09 AM
Dear Robin,
Thanks for the very kind feedback. I agree, the insertion did leave the incoming paragraph a little disconnected. I re-worked it very slightly; it's better now. I don't believe I'll move those paragraphs though; I can't think of a better place for them than where they are, and I think the point is important enough to need to keep.
You people consistently keep me from looking like a total idiot. Thank you all.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | October 1, 2003 9:29 AM
w.r.t. American power & proclivity to use it for business - a favorite quote of mine -
"A man with a mortgage to pay will never be a revolutionary imperialist"
Posted by: vinod | October 1, 2003 9:33 AM
I know you prefer constructive criticism to blind praise, but danged if you didn't hit the nail on the head, AGAIN. You made me get all teary eyed at work, dammit.
Once again, you crystallize what we, the Silent Americans, know in our hearts is true, but can't quite iterate.
Thanks from a fly-over, middle-class, middle-of-the-country American.
Posted by: Kelley | October 1, 2003 9:33 AM
Bill,
Well worth the wait.
Posted by: Scott | October 1, 2003 9:38 AM
Actually, Kelly, I much prefer the blind praise. What do you take me for?
Thanks to all. Now, after the all-night final writing session, the posting and the beeping and zoibel...it is time to sleep.
Sllleeeeeeppppppp.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | October 1, 2003 9:42 AM
Great, of course.
Now for my own take on it: the strength of the American system, that which has allowed it to survive 200+ years where no other democracy has ever been so stable, does not lie in its leaders. It lies in its incredible resiliency to human failings; we have had, I think, as many if not more administrations that were made up of more scoundrels, wimps, and wastrels than of what we'd call good leaders. When we have had great leaders- Lincolns, Trumans, Jeffersons- they have arisen in times of crisis when we truly needed them, made as much by their circumstances as by their character.
The rest of the time, we had Millard Fillmores, Franklin Pierces, Hoovers, Carters, and Fords. And we got on with business, somehow without blowing up either the world or ourselves.
That's a SOUND system.
Posted by: LabRat | October 1, 2003 9:44 AM
Hmmm.....
What worries me is that out choice may not be between imperium and isolationism, but between imperium and destruction.
Four times in the Twentieth century, the United States tried to be isolationist in the hope that we could avoid conflict. Before World War I, before World War II, Before the Cold War, and before the Terror War, we kept our heads down and hoped we wouldn't be noticed.
And each time, the price of that isolation has been war - on our opponent's terms, not our own.
It is a luxury we can no longer afford. The United States does not want to rule the world - but we may not have a choice. If we don't at least lead, if this nation does not consciously embrace it's role as first among equals, our enemies will take advantage of the void.
And I do not want to find out the price of a FIFTH rejection of our inevitable place in the world.
Posted by: Mike McDaniel | October 1, 2003 9:45 AM
I'll be honest- I didn't like 'Magic' or 'Trinity' - the first seemed negative and let the religious types off the hook, and as for Trinity, I agreed with Meryl Yourish.
But 'Power' is truly moving, a return to your best. Beautiful, powerful writing that doesn't overlook the fact that the US needs its allies, and that we cannot triumph against evil by standing alone.
Thank you, sir.
Posted by: Marcus | October 1, 2003 9:51 AM
Bill,
Your essays have always been excellent and this just reinforces that perception. In case you have never read nay of them, L. E. Modessett's works (while mostly science fiction / fantasy) all revolve around one central question, which you neatly skewer. What is power and when is it acceptable to use it. The books come back again and again to the point that in the absence of executing power for the good, a vacuum exists which not good will fill. Again and again the characters are faced with when to use their power and how much power to use in order to remain moral and not to be overcome by those forces seeking to fill that vacuum. if you have not read any of these books, you will see a great deal of thought has been put into this question. Frankly, I like your answers.
Posted by: allyn | October 1, 2003 9:56 AM
Good Sir Bill, you're a national treasure, that's all I can say!
Now get thee hence and have the book published, that I may proceed to buy a ridiculous number of copies of it for myself, my family, my friends and everybody else I can think of plus a few I haven't thought of yet.
That book, when it does arrive, should be required reading in every school worthy of calling itself a school.
Posted by: Emperor Misha I | October 1, 2003 10:02 AM
A great essay, Bill - timely, relevant, and stated with great eloquence (as usual). I will once again send a link to all of my old high school and college chums, most of whom will (as usual) sigh and shake their heads at yet another attempt by ol' aliestar to smack the blinders off their eyes. But if just a few bother to read it - and if even one grasps its meaning - then it's worth all the "here he goes again" comments I'm bound to get. If you can go through the trouble of writing such brilliance, the least I can do is try to get it in front of a few more faces.
I'll jump into the discussion later; right now my head is pounding with an eyeball headache (made no better by squinting at my computer screen for the last hour) and I'm in desperate need of some ibuprofin and a neck massage.
A
Posted by: aliestar | October 1, 2003 10:17 AM
Bill,
In the movie "Tombstone," Texas Jack says to Wyatt Earp, "Wyatt, I ain't got the words."
Me either. Fortunately, you do. Thanks again for saying so eloquently what so many of us feel so deeply.
Posted by: Jon, Imperial Hunter | October 1, 2003 10:21 AM
Hate having to write comments while eyeballs are still glossed over from fighting back the intense pride engendered, to echo Mrs. du Toit's sentiments, by being part of a nation that breeds the Bill Whittles of the world... but responding later always feels less real somehow.
Bill, thanks for pointing out some things I have either been avoiding or simply haven't clearly recognized. Part of what makes your work so accessible is that you find ways to bring to consciousness that which we, as a culture, usually keep hidden away in our subconscious for reasons I don't clearly understand.
This piece magnifies, IMHO, the critical importance of education and an understanding of virtue, among other things. Without these, the notion that Americans can act as the Capacitors in the circuitry required to keep American Power well-regulated is questionable at best.
Posted by: wyatt | October 1, 2003 10:33 AM
Thank you sir!
What I wouldn't give for just a modicum of your eloquence.
This will be copied for all of my C.A.P. cadets to read and think about.
Thank you again and please, please, please come to Kansas City on your tour~
Posted by: Merry | October 1, 2003 10:35 AM
The Yeti, I believe Mr. Whittle is referring to Lord Acton, not Machiavelli.
Mr. Whittle, I can only tender my deepest, and wholly inadequate, thanks.
Posted by: aelfheld | October 1, 2003 10:37 AM
I anxiously await the first printing of your book. It, along with Atlas Shrugged, will be two of the "required reading" books for my kids before I foot the bill to send them off to college. Only thing, I'm a long damn way from having kids, or even having a girlfriend for that matter! Hah!
Bravo though, another most excellent read.
Posted by: fat kid | October 1, 2003 10:44 AM
Bill,
You're welcome. I re-read the paragraphs I was talking about, and suddenly it fits much better. Just by changing four or five words. Writing's funny that way, ain't it?
I agree, the point is important to make. And yeah, now that it fits with the rest of the text around it, that looks like a very good place for it.
Glad I could help.
Posted by: Robin Munn | October 1, 2003 10:45 AM
My favorite quote on the subject is from abraham lincoln- "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
We have effectively unlimited power, today, and we still give massive interest free loans to people with nuclear missiles pointed at us. We protect the rights of people who cry "death to america", and when we have to fight, we do so honorably and with maximum restraint. Then pay for the rebuilding of the country that was defeated.
Amazing, isn't it?
We tend to forget these things, which is why it is so exciting when BW points them out to us. Thanks, Bill. We need someone like you to keep us proud.
Posted by: sleepy | October 1, 2003 10:45 AM
Excellent writing, sir, and a powerful message that needs to be heard, and heard again. No doubt you'll get tired of hearing this... but I'll buy the book when it appears, I'll see the show if you ever come close to Boston, and I'll buy you a beer if I can get near enough.
Many thoughtful constructive criticisms have already been offered; please note that they are fine-tuning to an admirable product, not indications of serious flaws. If you'd had doubts about your writing, that alone would tell you a lot.
Let me add two thoughts -- one, that in the heat of fervor which I'm sure accompanies your typing, typos do tend to creep in. Please do run your prose through spell-check and grammar-check before the printed book is published... or hordes of critics, none of them competent to change your printer cartridges, will seize upon those mistakes and miss the content.
If you desire help in proofreading, let me know.
Also, I find myself wishing, as I read your essays, that you could do without the occasional pop-culture references. Many of your essays come quite close to being truly timeless; I hate to see that spoiled by, say, Star Trek or Dr. Who references. But I do realize that it's part of your style, and I certainly don't begrudge you that.
One final thought -- Mrs. du Toit said something that reminded me of a relevant quote. I'll add it below; the attribution won't surprise you.
best wishes,
Daniel in Medford
"Nearly all men can stand adversity;
but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power."
-- Abraham Lincoln
Posted by: Daniel in Medford | October 1, 2003 10:49 AM
Well done Bill. Very, very well done. I believe that this essay, like History, is a cut above even your own normally high standard of writing.
Posted by: Daniel | October 1, 2003 11:08 AM
Wow. Floored once again.
One quibble though.. in discussing the first Age of Empire (agricultural) you seem to be saying we got out of the age before succumbing to it's imperial lure. Have to disagree. While we started off well ("We need control of the Mississippi river, lets buy Louisiana from the French"), we did slide into "Manifest Destiny" and rip Mexico in half. Thats pretty imperialistic. We bought Alaska, but then we reverted to imperialism in the Pacific, swallowing Hawaii, arguing with Germany over the Solomans, and finally McKinley rationalzied his way into empire in the Phillipenes.
And a light dawned in the US. The people DID revolt, they did it at the ballot box (in a peculiar-but-appropriate slip I wrote "battle box" originally). "The Flag of a Republic Forever, of an Empire, Never!" We realized where it was all going, and so the American people spoke on it. We then made a committment to free the Phillipenes on a specific date in 40 years time _after_ we built up its schools, roads, industry, and cities! Leaving it as it was would simply invite quick reconquest by a European power. Likewise, we began the Open Door initiatives in China, to limit the European empires that were already carving out enclaves like Vladivostok, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
That was another unique American initiative. We stopped playing the game of "your empire is now my empire" and our policy became "none of us should have empires here." Of course, the Europeans couldn't understand that either. Power does ahbor a vaccuum--so we couldn't be tryign to create one. It had to be an American trick to take all of China for itself. But it wasn't.
Elsewhere, we ingored other imperial territorial divisions. Today, Africa is divided into dozens of poor nations with confused identities and arbitrary post-colonial borders, and it lacks a coherent strength of culture, technology, and civilization. China on the other hand, is a vibrant, unified, and powerful country. It's not exactly our friend, but it's not the basket case that Africa is. Was the US interference in Asia at the opening of the 20th century responsible for this difference? Possibly. Or maybe it was an effect of the hated Japanese.
And we definately fooled around in South and Central America. Still, while we might throw our weight around and strong arm the locals from time to time, we did not _conquer_ them. We did not impose imperial taxes on them. We did not make them pay tribute. We did not ship their enslaved people off in chains to wait on our tables. And eventually we wised up and left them alone.
Some might look on all that I've said and say that it completely disproves your point; that I've proved the arguments of all those that say the US is a nasty imperialistic warmongering country.
I cry bullshit. It's like complaining that the model for the Mona Lisa has developed a zit. So what does she do? Commit suicide in disgrace? Stay at home for the rest of her life? NO. She gets out the Clearasil, treats it, and goes on as always. Stick some makeup on it until it goes down, and resolve to avoid excess sweets in the future.
In short (and here's the payoff), we may mess up on the details (Patriot Act, Moro Crater, Mei Lai, etc.), but we get the big picture righter than anyone else in the game, righter by far.
Details can be fixed. Just apply Clearasil and makeup.
Posted by: ubu | October 1, 2003 11:08 AM
If you listen carefully you can hear the sound of printers starting up all across this great nation. One more just joined the chorus. A great many people will be reading this as they sit across from me during a late night coffee break.
Posted by: Candace | October 1, 2003 11:11 AM
INCREDIBLE. Thank you for writing it.
Posted by: Kashei | October 1, 2003 11:19 AM
Stupid Lord Acton. He always does this.
My mistake. I know, but since everyone remembers Machiavelli writing this, I made the mistake. IT just sounds so Machiavellian.
Though Thucydides and Sallust might complain that both men stole from them.
That phrase really has lost all meaning.
And the "Power attracts the corruptible" coems from Frank Herbert.
Posted by: TheYeti | October 1, 2003 11:30 AM
Amazing. Thank you.
Posted by: Ron | October 1, 2003 12:01 PM
Well done, Bill. Oh, and I think I just snagged the last used hardcover of Mark Twain on the Damned Human Race from Amazon:).
Posted by: John | October 1, 2003 12:06 PM
Dear Bill,
You will shortly be added to my blogroll.
This is the first piece of yours I have read, and won't be the last.
It moved me to write the following on my weblog, just now, because I feel it is important that more people read your piece:
I am in tears, I am in awe of a massive writing and thinking talent, I am so overwhelmed by the ideas and beliefs and truths tossed about in a piece I have just read that it will take me several more readings to fully digest it all.
There is a battle going on in the world for the hearts and minds of mankind.
Between the forces of Democracy, Freedom, Creativity, Individualism, and Prosperity, and the minions of Oppression, who want to stifle all attempts at having the above and everything else that goes along with it.
The piece I have just read is the single best writing I've encountered in the Bloggerverse.
This is the standard we all aspire to reach someday.
This is why we blog, and why we read the works of our fellow bloggers.
It stirs the mind, and stirs the soul.
I'd share excerpts, except I do not want to rob you of the thrill of discovering this work at your own leisure, and savoring every word as you do so.
Thank you, Emperor Misha for spreading the word about:
Bill Whittle: POWER
Now, dear reader, go, read, think, and be DANM PROUD, and UNASHAMED, to call yourself an American Citizen.
Posted by: Kiril | October 1, 2003 12:06 PM
Bill StClaire - "I have no choice but to consider the administration to be evil, intent on power for personal gain."
Bill Whittle - "I do not trust the Bush administration to not be corrupted by power."
Bills:
The frightening thing is that the administration doesn't have to be evil, intent on power for personal gain, or be corrupted by power. CS Lewis wrote:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
As Bill W has said before (and far better than I) a great deal of what made the US a great power flows out of our individual liberties. As the people continue surrendering that liberty, our power may slowly fade away with them, leaving the stage open to whoever wants to exert their will. I'm certain China will be ready to flex their muscles by then.
Sorry. Don't mean to be so down. It's just that it hurts and frustrates and infuriates and depresses me to see "we the people" either willingly giving up our liberty, or standing by in apathy while its taken from them.
Posted by: Jumper | October 1, 2003 12:10 PM
Well spoken, Mr. Whittle. I attempted to say these very things a couple of weeks ago, and essentially failed. A lesson in leaving rhetoric to those best suited to the task, I suppose. I particularly admire your invocation of Twain, a writer for whom I have an abiding love.
Thank-you for your efforts and your willingness to share.
Posted by: MD | October 1, 2003 12:23 PM
Not bad at all, my friend, not bad at all.
I feel gratified that America can produce wonderful material like this, to counterbalance the dreck produced by the Chomsky/Moore Axis Of Feeble.
Posted by: Kim du Toit | October 1, 2003 12:27 PM
While others provide a constant and never-ending platter of delightful appetizers, you set before us the sumptuous entrée we've so eagerly awaited.
Many thanks for the delicious feast you've so masterfully prepared.
Posted by: Jill | October 1, 2003 12:34 PM
You, dear sir, are Not Mark Twain, but By God you will Do, until he returns.
Mark
Posted by: Mark | October 1, 2003 1:09 PM
Hallelujah! Another fine essay to add to our blog's Bill Whittle Links collection!
I just spent the entire morning gleefully reading this excellent piece to my one-year-old boy. Considering that he normally has the attention span of...well, a little boy, the fact that he quieted down and raptly listened to me for THREE-QUARTERS of the essay--and only began to get restless because he was hungry--is testament to your brilliant writing skills. Simply amazing!
...Now if you'll excuse me...I have an entire half-day's worth of housework to catch up on...
--TwoDragons
Posted by: Denita TwoDragons | October 1, 2003 1:17 PM
I wish that the White House would wake up and get this man on Bush's speechwriting team.
Posted by: Rich | October 1, 2003 1:29 PM
I can only stand back and admire writing that my feeble brain can comprehend, but cannot ever hope to duplicate. Thanks for this truly outstanding effort.
Posted by: physics geek | October 1, 2003 1:30 PM
Speaking of empire, and power corrupting:
Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln --- and Twain: easily the four greatest Americans - to my mind, the four greatest people - that have ever lived.
No. Not Lincoln.
Posted by: Mark Odell | October 1, 2003 1:38 PM
Please, let's not get into the Lincoln argument on this thread. The difference between a conservative and a libertarian is that the former worships Lincoln and the latter believes that he was America's Lenin. But this is not the place to discuss it. I've seen this discussion get ugly before, and I don't want to see it again here.
Posted by: Bill St. Clair | October 1, 2003 1:46 PM
Bill
If I like your writings, am I a Freeper or a Neocon?
Posted by: Triesch | October 1, 2003 2:08 PM
Bill St Clair--Bill, when you object to the "taking away scissors goons at the airport," what do you suggest as an alternative? We have seen very clearly the damage that a hijacking can cause, and we know that many kinds of weapons and tactics can be used by the hijackers.
I personally think that every airline pilot should be required (not allowed, required) to carry a gun, but this last line of defense does not remove the need for earlier lines of defense.
Posted by: David Foster | October 1, 2003 2:30 PM
Your best yet. Now... write some more, damnit. :)
Posted by: Mr. Lion | October 1, 2003 2:32 PM
Another fine one, my friend.
Posted by: addison | October 1, 2003 2:40 PM
David,
I think that doing something to make it difficult to get a bomb onto an airplane is probably unavoidable. Nothing else is necessary, however.
Everyone should be allowed to bring any other weapon they please onto the plane, though long weapons such as swords, rifles, and shotguns would be impractical due to the nature of the available storage space.
There will not be another airplane hijacking in our lifetimes. No matter what weapons the potential hijackers manage to smuggle or legally carry aboard, in order to hijack the plane, they will have to incapacitate most of the passengers.
Before 9/11, the customary, and usually successful, strategy for surviving a hijacking was to calmly go along with the hijackers until they landed the plane and let you off. The 9/11 hijackings completely changed the rules. Now you must assume that the hijackers intend to kill everyone aboard, so the proper strategy is to do everything possible, including self-sacrifice if unavoidable, to stop them.
It will take a large number of hijackers, even armed with autmoatic weapons, to stop an entire airplane full of angry passengers, even armed only with belts and shoes and pens. But there's no reason for the good guys to be disarmed. If the passengers can shoot back, the liklihood of a successful hijacking becomes virtually nil.
Of course, starting by arming the pilots is a no-brainer.
Posted by: Bill St. Clair | October 1, 2003 2:56 PM
Oh crap. I was supposed to spend an hour working on my already past-deadline webdesign job, but I read this instead.
And I'm glad I did.
Posted by: Sam | October 1, 2003 2:56 PM
I see I'm fashionably late here. Regardless:
[commence with issuing forth the blind praise]
btw: great to see you have "error simulators" at the ready. It's always good to run tests periodically to ensure they are in proper working condition.
I have a lot more to say this time...so I wrote you an email instead. I just hope it doesn't make you comatose...do you see how many would have my head?!
Posted by: serenity | October 1, 2003 3:32 PM
This one sums up all I have to say about the USA. All I want to convey to my socialist peer. But can't find the words to...
Thank you for giving me the words, Bill.
This is your most important essay this far, and possibly the best (in contest with Trinity and Responsibility, in my mind).
/Swedish fan
Posted by: Xipe | October 1, 2003 4:00 PM
Jumper,
Benjamin Franklin addressed the issue of liberty versus security most succintly;
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Posted by: Jamie | October 1, 2003 4:29 PM
A poem of mine to express my respect and gratitude:
The Soothsmith's Song
I shall blast the bellows of hours past
Smelting ores of pain and joy, belief and desire
Of both baser and rarer mettle
And work to craft my Hammersongs.
Clarity is a kiln-pane, to be seen through, not seen.
The white-hot moments when shapes are beaten
Illumine by their intensity;
The subtly wrought point stings like serpents' truth.
And I shall be the soothsmith
And forge facsimile lives
And drive my spikes deep
That, cleaving to contrary hooves
They may yet hold fast my intentions.
Mine is not the alchemist's Art.
I do not blend, but bind and blend
A weighty matter with clumsy tools.
Quicksilver flees the casting pour
Forsaking pig slag, should the solve lack fervour.
Then should one rather render anew
Than palm dross arcs riven at a glance.
Still the pure issue must be fashioned.
A handcramp of anvilling follows
With heat and hammer precisely applied
And clear eye and caring ear
Seeking clean line and true ring.
Neglect is measured in a stricken gait:
The misshapen shoe curses its maker
Posted by: Salamantis | October 1, 2003 4:46 PM
Umm...that's "bind and BEND". Oops!
Posted by: Salamantis | October 1, 2003 5:12 PM
Hmmm...
Well, we are afterall the only society to have unleashed the ultimate WMD on humanity. Now, is that the nukes dropped on Japan or Corporate imperialism sweeping across the globe exploiting natural resources and cheap human labor?
Posted by: Jonathan Elmwood | October 1, 2003 6:06 PM
Well, you've done it again. Keep us posted on tour developments.
A nit - second to last paragraph, near the end, "...September morning, or that December one. September 11th angered us, but the world has not seen America fully enraged since 1945." Umm, either I'm an ignorant maroon, or there's a typo (please let it be a typo!)...maybe that should be "since 1941"?
Thanks, Bill.
Posted by: Randy | October 1, 2003 6:15 PM
Bill, I wish I could express myself with half the eloquence you exhibit. I await your book. (and not patiently, I might add)
Posted by: Jeremy Z | October 1, 2003 6:16 PM
Bill,
I'll throw my congratulations on the top of this already huge pile. Another great essay. I did not believe you could best some of your earlier work but you have done it once more. And, I, also believe you have more and better work yet to come! Thank you!
p.s. Thank you again for not trading away our little corner of the Union away for Lichtenstein or Uruguay or heaven forbid, France.
Posted by: Ed | October 1, 2003 6:20 PM
Randy,
I took Bill's use of 1945 to be the uh, physics experiments carried out over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maybe I was incorrect. I would not want the U.S. to ever be so wounded again as to rationalize the use of nuclear weapons, for it would mean we had at least lost a city or something far, far worse.
Ed
Posted by: Ed | October 1, 2003 6:29 PM
Thank you for once again pointing out the overlooked obvious. Now if only we could get certain people to acknowledge once again that it IS obvious...
(That was a compliment, BTW.)
Posted by: B. Durbin | October 1, 2003 6:34 PM
Bill-
Another fantastic essay, up to your usual standard. Whenever I read your work, I imagine watching President Bush on TV, sitting behind his desk in the Oval Office, presenting your latest essay as a speech. It just WORKS for me that way. Give it a try--reread any of your essays and pretend President Bush is speaking. Fascinating.
Now for a real eye-opener, try doing the same thing but imagine Bill Clinton's voice. You won't make it through two paragraphs.
Mikey
Posted by: Anonymous | October 1, 2003 7:05 PM
Well written. An essay I am definitely going to put on my short list of articles to send to people...
Oh, and congratulations on rediscovering "Repentance". A fierce, critical analysis of the wrongs one has done, with an eye for making sure one does not do them again, is a key component in the Christian religion's view of how one stops being a sinner and BEGINS to come to God. Mark Twain may have thought ill of the Christendom of the times, but he sure knew how to grab a hold of that good old Christian morality and Religion, and twist it to get America's attention, eh?
"We are Twain’s people: fallible, often greedy, prone to vanity and pride over our institutions and successes."
A dim, perhaps slowly growing recognition of the problem that Christianity calls "Original Sin"?
Methinks your journey is not over, Mr. Whittle.
Posted by: Ptah | October 1, 2003 7:16 PM
I saw you had a new one up just about at my bedtime. I immediately blogged it after a quick scan-through. I was going to read it tomorrow. But I couldn't resist reading it through just once. Then I re-read it. I'll probably read it again tomorrow morning, while yawning over a double-strength coffee.
I don't recall who it was that called you a 'national treasure' but I concur.
Thanks for writing.
Posted by: Kathy K | October 1, 2003 7:29 PM
Randy: No. Since 1945 - when the war ENDED.
Posted by: Kevin Baker | October 1, 2003 7:51 PM
Dear Mr. Whittle,
While in the process of spreading the word of your newest essay to a friend via instant messaging, SOMEHOW, the following paragraph erupted from my keyboard....
*** from instant messenger session ***
James Seigler says:
it would be a massive understatement for me to say that i'm IN COMPLETE AWE of him, and his writing....simply, a giant in our midst, a treasure in our time.
(friend's reply redacted)
James Seigler says:
well...thank you....but, i'm a flea looking in at a pantheon of greats..... and that is no plea of "false humility" ( surely one of the most offensive forms of pride )..... but its enough that i can be a good man, pointing to greatness of truly GREAT men....if i can but do that, i will have contributed in this life, and contribuited WELL.
*** end of IM session ***
Mr. Whittle... Sir, I cannot "preach the gospel" as you do. I will though, bring as many as I can to this, your Cathedral of Elemental American Truths.
I meant every word... I wish only that your site meter could subdivide referals from non-bloggers.... cause I'm gonna do everything in my power to make your meter SPIN!
And, to steal from Mr.Dax...." Just DAMN!!!"
Sincerely,
Jim Seigler
Sloop New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Posted by: Jim Seigler | October 1, 2003 8:09 PM
I do not want to take away from Bill's essay by responding to a non-thinking person, but I feel that Jonathan Elmwood deserves a response:
Sir, there are WMDs and there are WMDs. If you think the nukes dropped on Japan represent the WORST atrocities against humanity, you are sadly mistaken. Read a little history regarding the Russian and Chinese communist regimes, or the Nazi empire (and I *do* mean empire). You would also benefit from familiarizing yourself with the current North Korean regime, and the numerous African despotic leaders. Don't neglect the blitzing of London, or the attack on Pearl Harbor. To wit, you appear to have either short-changed your history assignments, or have managed to breeze through them without comprehending their lessons. What Bill is doing is attempting to encapsulate those lessons for you -- and you are displaying an annoying inability to grasp the fundamentals he is laying out for you.
Bill, you've obviously been reading my blog ;^} All kidding aside, you deserve major kudos for solidifying what so many of us think and feel -- America is good, American people are good, there IS good and evil in the world, might does not make right but neither does it make wrong, and historically the American nation is on the *positive* side of world affairs (and we don't claim to be error-free, but we *do* think we learn from our mistakes).
Again, kudos. You've done an outstanding job. And I hope you appreciate (from the comments, if nothing else) how desperate -- and grateful -- many of us are to have an individual such as yourself who can intelligently articulate our viewpoint for us. We certainly are not seeing it in the media, our educational or political systems, etc.
Thanks for speaking on our behalf. In that sense, you ARE a Mark Twain.
Posted by: cj | October 1, 2003 8:24 PM
I don't know how you could possibly top yourself after this magnificent essay, Bill. But I know you will. I can hardly wait....
Posted by: Al Superczynski | October 1, 2003 8:26 PM
Excellent essay. Good insights into American character.
1) Jonah Goldberg over at National Review Online did a great essay on the real meaning and context of Lord Acton's "Power corrupts..." line. I don't have the exact link but check it out.
2) Twain was a major crusader against Belgian atrocities in the Congo and helped write a now rare book documenting them.
3) Anybody have some good links to the military R&D stuff mentioned?
Posted by: John Kennedy | October 1, 2003 9:03 PM
Well. T'was worth it. And Bill, if your tour ever comes thisaway, I'll take you out for a nice steak dinner. (My treat, of course. The least I can do, seeing as how much of your bandwidth I've taken up in the last few weeks waiting for "Power". Someday I'll learn that clicking the "refresh" icon doesn't mean the essay will be posted, as if by "Magic".)
A few weeks ago, I got a chance to see some American Power up close and personal. The Army's Golden Knights and the Navy's Blue Angels were the featured attractions at the Duluth Air Show. (If you've never seen or heard -- or more accurately FELT -- the Blue Angels' "Fat Albert" C-130 do a full-blown JATO takeoff, you've missed out.) We were also treated to some high-speed low-level flybys of F-14's and 15's at full afterburner. That there is some power. Arr, arr arrrrrr!
/TimAllenGrunt
As the F-14 taxied back to its "parking space", or whatever the Flyboys call it, the canopy came up and the RIO held aloft a great big ol' American Flag. The crowd, already applauding the flight team for their aerobatic prowess, erupted into wild, enthusiastic cheers. But the Air Force was not about to be upstaged by the Navy. Halfway through its demonstration, the F-15 was joined by a P-51 Mustang. They made several low-level passes in the kind of tight side-by-side formation that the Angels and the T-birds are famous for.
I had met up with my parents in Duluth just in time to watch these 2 amazing machines strut their stuff. As our ears rang with their afterburners, Mom asked what I thought was a pretty good question: "What the hell are those ragheads thinking, taking on the big dog like they are?"
Well, for far too long they were allowed to see us as paper tigers. Sure, we had our F-14s and -15s and Stealth Fighters (one of which made an apearance that weekend in Duluth) but they didn't believe that we would ever really use them. For far too long, they were allowed to believe that they could blow up just about anything they wanted to, up to and including an American warship, and the only consequence they faced would be a $10 Million cruise missle fired into a $20 tent that hit a camel in the ass. Instead, we gave two nations a taste of American Power, and we let the whole damn world watch.
Since I'm on the subject, it speaks volumes about American power than we have, in fact, only gone into two countries. There are plenty of nations that support or at least sympathize with the twisted goals of the terrorists. Yet we haven't gone in and taken them out. For six months, we had hundreds of thousands of troops based in oil-rich nations like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. We didn't take that long, lingering look around and say "Ya know, it'll be a helluva lot easier to just take over these countries instead of going through with this invasion", we went ahead and did the dirty (and massively unpopular) job of removing a tyrant from power. Because, to paraphrase part of Bill's essay, our sense of decency told us it was the right thing to do.
Our sense of decency (not to mention that e-e-e-e-vil old strawman, "The Profit Motive") is also helping turn these tools of war into valuable technological resorces for the civilian sector. The airliner you'll take this Thanksgiving will get to its destination thanks to a GPS system designed for the military to locate its targets and, as Bill's friend said, "Press the God Button". The internet started out as a way for the Pentagon's computers talk to the various command centers during a nuclear war. But what will be most useful is a new process that uses lasers to shorten the half-life of nuclear waste from hundreds of thousands of years down to a few hours. Those same lasers that can now take out incoming artillery shells, those same lasers that are showing more and more potential as a ballistic missle defense, may soon allow the promise of nuclear power (clean, cheap, safe, efficient) to finally be fulfilled.
One wonders what they'll do with the Yucca Mountain Storage Facility.
--Dave
Posted by: VRWCman | October 1, 2003 9:07 PM
"To my mind, Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature
Congressman."
...“a smile all over his face and looks as radiantly happy as he will look some day when Satan gives him a Sunday vacation in the cold storage vault.”
"to act when only action can save this world from the relentless drag of human entropy that cannot abide creativity, freedom, tolerance and success."
"They have traded in their power, their means of self-defense, for 35 hour work weeks and months of paid vacations and pre-paid health care and covered it with a patina of moral superiority that masks a rotten and tottering foundation."
"we admire and respect innovation, here ingenuity is rewarded – in cash! – rather than strangled and buried under ever-thickening, Kudzu-like mats of bureaucracy.
It’s like . . . entire counties of prime farmland cutting themselves into sod and stowing away in container ships, to be opened and unfurled in Long Beach harbor complete with sheep and shepherds. "
Bill,
As I write this, the last post on this roll is CJ's comment that you ARE Mark Twain. You started POWER by getting floored by some of Twain's nifty turns of phrase. Of the lines I quoted above, which is best? I suspect that if you could bring Twain back, he might soon be quoting you.
Posted by: Prof. Willard | October 1, 2003 9:17 PM
Salamantis: we knew you meant "bend." Great images--the blacksmith as servant, wielder of energy (fire) and great muscular power, bowed confidently, voluntarily, in service to the beast and its rider together.
Bill: I keep remembering the sunny February afternoon when I sat outside outside my daughter's comfortable suburban Phoenix house, my granddaughter in the playpen next to me, and looked up and down the street to see the children riding bikes and playing driveway hockey under their parents' watchful eyes. I remember the prickle of tears as the words of the preamble, "...and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" popped into my mind. What moved me so deeply was my own immediate, almost involuntary, prayer/plea, "Please, Lord, let those blessings come to the Iraqi people as well!" I knew full well that Joshua and Jim and Ron and Eric and John and Ashley and many more friends in the military would be in harm's way. And those are just the ones I know and love--thousands of other sons and daughters who are the most precious blessings we have. Our posterity. For others' posterity? Yes. If need be. For liberty. That was long before we knew of children's prisons and shredders and mass graves, but part of me knew already in February that war would probably be necessary. Blood and body bags and all. Despite the self-censored "news" hacks and the Old Europeans and the peace marchers, I knew. Because I desperately wanted, in that golden Saturday afternoon, for millions of Iraqis to be able to build houses and live in them peaceably, to watch one another's children with no regard to whether they were Kurds or Sunnis or Jews or Assyrians or agnostics, to laugh with each other over trivia, and to celebrate whatever Iraqi holiday season coincides with Christmas/Chanukah/Winter Holiday/Kwanzaa with progressive dinners along a thousand streets across the length and breadth of the former Babylonian empire. In peace. And freedom. And I'm nobody special, just one of 300 million Americans who understand to the center of our bones how important liberty is. And I would say to the world: "Don't underestimate our commitment to the ideals of our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, the Union, and human liberty."
Posted by: ann | October 1, 2003 9:22 PM
The dime-a-dozen wannabe Chomskys who spew their hate speech and only know how to tear down the achievements of others will never understand the ideas presented in your magnificent essay, "Power." But there are millions of us out there in mainstream America who, like myself are aching for a message of hope, an eloquent expression of the thoughts that are in our hearts. Your latest production has the flow, coherence, and ability to engage the mind that one expects from a great piece of literature, and that outweighs the tendency of many to pick at a word here or a sentence there. I thank you profusely for your efforts, and look forward to the publication of your book!!
Posted by: Bloodthirsty Warmonger | October 1, 2003 9:23 PM
I might trade the southwestern corner of Indiana for a Star Trek commemorative beer stein or a realy good pie :)
Although more seriously I think that this was a brilliant essay, which my mind is still digesting along with the movie "Gods and Generals". We are at a turning point in history, much as we were during the civil war, here's hopeing we get it right; lest this become the era that history will pronounce the great democratic experiment a failure.
Posted by: Tim | October 1, 2003 9:34 PM
"I have had innumerable discussions about threats, actions, responses, contingencies and capabilities, but I have never, not once in 44 years, met an American who advocated invasion and permanent conquest for national gain.
Never. "
You know, I think that that actually understates the case. Imagine for a moment that the leaders of some other country (Britain, Canada, Phillipines, Iraq, wherever you find most plausible) have just approached us and applied to become a US territory, and eventually the 51st state. They have held a free, fair, national plebiscite, and a majority of their population is in favor of this idea.
How would Americans react? Here is an opportunity to expand our national borders with no need to spend lives and treasure in an invasion. Any imperial power would have been delighted by such an offer. I have read that Imperial Rome took over at least one kingdom in Anatolia - modern Turkey - because the king left his crown and nation to the Roman Empire in his will when he died.
I imagine that any American who reads this is thinking "Gee, I don't know, would we want to expand our borders under these conditions?" And that is my point. The USA is so anti-imperial in its outlook that we would not take over another nation even if we could do it without killing anybody.
I know that any Brits, Canadians, Filipinos, and Iraqis who read this are probably feeling insulted at this point. My apologies. I know that you are proud citizens of proud nations and that a majority vote in your countries in favor of submitting to American authority is impossible. Bill's point is, we have no interest in using force to compel you. My point is, no American would want you to submit even without the use of force.
Posted by: Prof. Willard | October 1, 2003 9:57 PM
Because history has been so before does not mean that it will be so hereafter. That closes the book on human progress. Pre-american revolution there was no precedent for the society we live in today. This line of thinking leads us back to the glory days of Kings. Then, I am sure it was argued that the pipe dream of a society of elected representatives operating by the mandate of a free populace was absurd and would never happen, because it hadn't happened yet.
We did not move from fuedalism to utopia just as we should not expect to move from capitalism to utopia either, but we cannot close our minds to the dream of something better just over the horizon.
The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see, he didnt just assume that it would be worse did he?
What we celebrate to today as "the great thing about America" is exactly the further destruction of centralized power. Moving it into to hands of the many and grabbing it from the hands of the few. Democracy was the result of looking at an abuse of power and asking "What would be more just?" Why shouldn't power be the product of collective will not elitist whim?
A benevolent boss is still your boss and you know that your life is ultimately in his hands. And no matter how nice he is you will feel resentment at not being your own master. American power gives us a feeling of control, but it robs it from others, and no matter how gentle our hand we will rub people the wrong way.
Bill, masterfully written but I respectfully disagree.
Posted by: bruce | October 1, 2003 10:23 PM
I will also buy your book. Thank you.
Posted by: AblueSilkworm | October 1, 2003 11:02 PM
Bill, I don't see why you compare yourself to Twain so disparagingly. From what I've seen of the two of you, I might even place you on top. To be fair, I haven't read a lot of Twain, but the praise you get on here is not exaggerated, and suffice it to say that if you don't measure up to him, your praise is actually an understatement. I am perpeptually in awe at your writing, it's so damnably rare to see such eloquence, such honesty, and such accuracy come together in one person, and we all treasure your writing because you're one of those people. Your book will unquestionably be in my hands as soon as it can get here, as will anything else you care to write. Price the first printing at $50 paperback, it's worth it and you deserve it.
Posted by: Alsadius | October 1, 2003 11:08 PM
You make a good point, but I'd just like to say that I'm a Canadian who wishes that this country would join the US. And frankly, it's people like Bill Whittle that have brought me to that position - I used to be an ardent nationalist, but as I started to see more of what America truly meant online, I began to like it and respect it more and more. The essays here have probably been the biggest single push over the edge for me, just due to the fact that they scream truth and idealism, two unbelivably powerful ideas. It's gotten to the point that I can't refer to the US in the third person anymore - it's never "you", it's "we". Suffice it to say that the greatest thing that could ever happen to my country would be to join the US, and I would absolutely love to see that happen.
So no, I'm not offended in the slightest at your thought experiment, only at the thought that you wouldn't take us ;)
Posted by: Alsadius | October 1, 2003 11:15 PM
Very nice. Many compelling insights.
My only complaint is the non-critical reference to William T. Sherman. Use the quote if you like, but omitting criticism seems to imply tacit approval. I think that his actions were at least on par with the shameful massacres you correctly disparaged earlier in the essay.
Posted by: Gil | October 1, 2003 11:17 PM
*Quiet, respectful applause*
Thank you. It's very rare that I read a piece and just can't keep a smile from my face because there is something inherently right with the words. The highest compliment I can think to pay you is that this essay sounds like something John Galt would write.
Needless to say, though this is my first visit to your site, it will certainly not be my last.
Again, thank you.
Jared
Posted by: Septimus | October 1, 2003 11:36 PM
Bill,
You are a good writer.
Bob Schulz says it is un-American to pay the income tax.
"The power to tax and the power to wage war are the two most potent enumerated powers; most sought after by government; most potentially harmful to individual Liberty; most in need of citizens’ scrutiny. "
I would like to know your opinion of Bob Schulz and We The People Congress and what you think about this statement that it is un-American to pay the income tax.
See Bob's website here...
http://www.givemeliberty.org/
Posted by: Doug Kenline | October 1, 2003 11:44 PM
A good essay. I see people saying words to the effect that a full reading of this essay will take them about an hour to accomplish.
Maybe I'm a speed reader, maybe the ideas & arguments make sense to me, but for whatever reason, POWER took me only about ten minutes to read.
I apologize in advance if I should happen to come across as a braggart. If I do, please feel free to issue a rejoinder - the more wit, the better.
Posted by: James | October 2, 2003 12:04 AM
Power being concentrated in the hands of the many rather than the few sounds great but historically hasn't been much if at all better. There is nothing intrinsically beneficial about it; if anything, it seems to make populations even more fractious. Examples of power being distributed among many groups: Former Yugoslavia. Somalia. Europe prior to 1945. The Middle East when it wasn't under the bootheel of some empire. Modern Africa.
In many social primates, there is no time at which the individuals in the group are more stressed out, edgy, and unhappy as when there is no clear leader. Even when the alpha is a completely vicious bastard, they're calmer and healthier than when leadership is unclear or changing paws every few days. Other research on stress points to the same conclusion: the known is worse psychologically than the unknown, even a miserable known. When we take risks and strike out for better prospects, that is less characteristically human behavior than settling for a lousy stability we know how to cope with: we are transcending ourselves.
I'm not saying that it is better to have empires and underlings. What I am saying is that equal power distribution is an ideal to look toward, but far more likely to produce a reality we would consider unacceptable or at least a massive change for the worse than the concentration of power in the hands of a smaller number of those who have proven they can be trusted with it.
Posted by: LabRat | October 2, 2003 12:09 AM
Well if you get to this comment I'll be surprised, but on the off chance you do go ot www.notatyou.com! Oh, yeah, I loved the essay. You love your country almost as much as I love mine! And it'd be dishonest to say I didn't have a certain affection for yours.
Go team!
Posted by: Dave The Australian | October 2, 2003 2:52 AM
Goddamn it boy! You certainly can write. Just having you mention Australia puts me in a good mood.
you know who that guy above mentoned www.notatyou.com? well maybe going there isn't such a bad idea eh? eh?
Posted by: Aussie etc. | October 2, 2003 2:56 AM
I hate being the late to offer my praise - but what the hell - here it is. You have again produced the sort of coherently argued essay that most of us can only dream of producing. The best thing I can say is that you essays always make me think.
OK so now here are the nits. Firstly I think that the repercussions after the UK Civil War of the 1640s (not to mention the subsequent not quite a war of the Glorious revolution of 1688) were not at all dissimilar to those after the US war of independence and civil war. People in charge lost power - particularly if they were unwilling to swear an oath of loyalty to the new regime(s) - but there was none of the excesses of the French revolution 100 years later or the atrocities of the 30 years war going on in Europe at about the same time. The US has inherited a lot of things from the British includign this so please don't lump us in with all those nasty continentals :)
Secondly and relatedly - the UK may have been ruled "by an elite" but it as been an elite that has been remarkably successful in coopting the pushy members of the lower classes which is not much different from the US (and by the way when will the US not have a caucasian male president? the UK had a Jewish prime ministre over 100 years ago adn a woman 25 years ago) - the difference is that the UK has tended to make such co-opting explicit by the award of various titles or honours.
Finally and maybe this is a point for another essay, it will be the death of the US to retreat into isolationalism. As soon as a country starts navel gazing it is doomed - China being without a doubt the poster child for this process. The US may indeed be the best country in the world - heck I think it probably is - but there is a tendency in the US to act like there is nothing worth having outside the US and/or that everyone who is anyone will come to the US which is fine in modertion but dangerous in excess.
Francis
Posted by: Francis | October 2, 2003 3:48 AM
Francis wrote:
by the way when will the US not have a caucasian male president? the UK had a Jewish prime ministre over 100 years ago and a woman 25 years ago
The US will have a woman or non-caucasian president at the precise moment the electorate decides he or she is the best person for the job. Alan Keyes, a black man, has made unsuccessful bids for the job in the last two elections. During our last election, one candidate's vice-presidential candidate was an Orthodox Jew, a fact about which he never STFU'd. (I've heard that Barry Goldwater, the candidate in 1964, was of Jewish ancestry, but was not a practicing Jew.)
Elizabeth Dole also ran for President last time around, but her campaign didn't really go anywhere. Today, she is a Senator from North Carolina. Currently, there is a woman running for the Democrats but I don't give her much chance.
And I'm not even going to mention "The Smartest Woman in the World" ((snicker, snicker)) who is already getting her ducks in a row for her shot at the job in 2008.
Posted by: VRWCman | October 2, 2003 4:37 AM
Bill, This was an excellent essay. Eventough I disagree in some parts (Yes, I'm from Europe and No - it's not about that), this article was still an awesome read.
Thanks!
Posted by: Tommi | October 2, 2003 4:45 AM
Prof. Willard hit the nail on the head with his comment. I read his hypothetical situation, read the paragraph starting "How would Americans react?" and paused to figure out my own reaction. It was, "Hmmm, I don't know... Would we want this?" Then I read his next paragraph, where he predicts the reaction of "Gee, I don't know, would we want to expand our borders under these conditions?" The parallelism was eerie.
Posted by: Robin Munn | October 2, 2003 6:20 AM
I got bored after the first sentence,
but you certainly have a lot to say, I agree with the above poster, WOW.
Alias
Posted by: alias | October 2, 2003 6:39 AM
ATTENTION
For all the folks out there who would like to ask if Bill is able to speak in their neck of the woods, should he be able to do a speaking tour, please mark yourselves down on the map below. Don't be shy, and note in the comments what kind of help and assistance you can lend, be it room, board, or roadie.
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Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation | October 2, 2003 6:46 AM
Mr. Kennedy,
Some good sources for God-Button technologies, aside from the sites of the various contractors themselves, are www.fas.org and www.globalsecurity.org. They have a huge amount of content in common but do differ. The reasons behind that are pretty uninteresting, but both are very good primers.
Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation | October 2, 2003 6:49 AM
Excellent essay, for which I thank you. I hate to be a nitpicker, but I found a typo which you might want to correct before putting this stuff in a book (which I will gladly buy):
"The rest of them: Generals Lee, Johnson, Bragg and Beauregard, not to mention President Davis, Vice President Stephens, and all the others – were released unharmed."
There were two prominent Confederate generals named Johnston (with a "t"): Albert Sidney Johnston, who died at Shiloh, and Joseph Johnston, who commanded the Army of Mississippi. I don't know of any prominent Confederate general named Johnson (but I could be wrong; if so, I humbly apologize). I assumed you were referring to Joe Johnston, and would want to correct that so future nitpickers like me won't get distracted. Cheers.
Posted by: Mike Koenecke | October 2, 2003 6:57 AM
J. Elmwood:
A mental experiment. Imagine you are a third world peasant. You have a plot of land, but no title to it, or property rights, so it can be taken away from you.
Option 1: You can work that piece of land sixteen hours a day in the broiling sun, and have a 50% chance of providing yourself a meager, subsistence diet. In a good year, you have enough grain left over to sell some, and buy a shirt. Or a pair of shoes. But not both. Annual income (based on market value of the food you grow & eat), $100
Option 2: You can make Nikes or Reeboks twelve hours a day for $0.50 a day. Annual income $180 in round numbers
People in third world countries are willing to work for "cheap" because 1) that sweat-shop is a better alternative to back-breaking agricultural labor, 2) thier cost of living is low. They don't have your mortgage or rent payment, utility bills, taxes, etc
They are not helpless, mute animals in need of your condescending SPCA routine. They are thinking human beings making rational decisions.
Check out the most recent issue of Scientific American for a fairly good article on the economics of child labor in developing countries.
Bruce:
Taking power away from the few and giving it to the many sounds like a great ideal. Unless you happen to be a member of an unpopular minority. Unless you work harder than someone else, and that someone covets what you acquire. The maximum devolution of power internally, literal democracy, results in Jacobin Terror, Ethnic Cleansing... A mob is the ultimate democracy. If 2500+ years of western civilization have taught us anything, it is that the secret to just governance is about limiting power, not dispersing it. Power can only be weilded within the limits of the law. "Democracy" isn't a virtue in and of itself, it's just a mechanism we've found to try to ensure that the people we put in charge don't run things exclusively for their own benefit.
The history of the Middle East, Asia Minor, & Europe tend to indicate that when power is widely and evenly spread among nations, the nations behave no better than the individuals in a mob: war is near-constant. And lots of small powers doesn't garauntee that the wars will be small, because the mob can unite to lynch the minority in its midst, or form factions and split into two or more opposing mobs.
We are involved in a centuries-long process to try to establish a tradition of "rule of law" for nations. The first major step was the concept of sovereign nations, each theoretically equal, and each was responsible for (permitted to do what it wants) within its own borders (Treaty of Westphallia, I think.). This is analagous to the stage of civilization where the unit of civil membership is the household. The head of the house deals with the heads of other households (things like voting, buying/owning/selling land and chattels), and can do pretty much anything he wants within his own "borders", his hearth and home: smack the wife around, beat crap out of the kids, whatever. Hence, we have situations like Libya sitting on the UN Human Rights commission, while everyone has to pretend not to notice the wife's black eye, and everyone shush's anyone impolite enough to point out the irony.
How do we move beyond this state of affairs? What can we do to produce the maximum amount of liberty in the world? Historicly, some enormous shifts, Bill's "Fulcrums", have occurred when one principality became powerful enough to knock some heads around, and impose a new order, Rome being the best-known. We have the power to start making some of the more brutish national "households" treat their citizens with some measure of dignity (especially if the EU would pitch in). Do we have the wisdom, the right, or the will to do so?
Posted by: Jumper | October 2, 2003 7:03 AM
> During the Agricultural Age, the United States was founded on the prime agricultural real estate on the planet.
I don't think that that's actually true.
Oh, it's good, but there are many better-for-agriculture places elsewhere, not a few that are less productive despite more potential. Moreover, a lot of the US is agriculturally productive because of great effort. (And, in some cases, we're giving up.)
Quantity doesn't distinguish the US either. Mexico has more arable land.
Posted by: Andy Freeman | October 2, 2003 8:04 AM
>You make a good point, but I'd just like to say that I'm a Canadian who wishes that this country would join the US.
Please don't. If Canadians were "worth having", they'd get no benefit from joining the US.
US success can be readily duplicated anywhere. All you have to do is start trusting individuals more and institutions less.
If you do that, you don't need to join the US to get the benefits. If you don't do that, joining the US will only hurt the US.
The best thing that any country can do for itself is to try to out-US the US.
Please go for it - we could use the competition.
Posted by: Andy Freeman | October 2, 2003 8:13 AM
To Andy Freeman:
Amen, brother!
I can think of no saner answer to the despots and terrorist supporters of the world than yours -- "the best thing that any country can do for itself is to try to out-US the US".
Let that be a clarion call to the nations. Don't hate us, don't try to destroy us. Try to duplicate us, for the sake of your citizens, many of whom want what the United States already has. Try to get where we are now by other means, if you like (although doing it the way we did will save you a lot of time).
Some will say that Americans will never let another country duplicate American efforts; such a country would be ground under the heel of American capitalism in no time. To which I respond: nonsense. Yes, Americans are out to make a buck; but Americans are also past masters of "doing well by doing good". Americans also have no compunctions about giving charity for the sake of charity, when it's needed, from the Berlin Airlift and the Marshall Plan to the present day. America has been more generous on the world stage than any nation in history, and amazingly, Americans don't seem to be tired of it yet.
So bring 'em on. If a country can do for its own citizens what the United States has done for Americans, more power to them.
What do you say, European Union? Do we have a challenge?
best wishes,
Daniel in Medford
Posted by: Daniel in Medford | October 2, 2003 8:52 AM
"For then, and only then, can we revert to our preferred nature, which is to get on with our own lives, raise our children in the safety and freedom we will not sacrifice – ever – and go back to being the kind of big goofy place that a Johnny Depp or a Susan Sarandon can again feel comfortable in, because, once again, other, better people have paid their debt for them."
Indeed!
Excellent piece of work, Bill. Thank you.
Posted by: Apeman | October 2, 2003 9:08 AM
A wonderful essay, thank you again, Bill. I considered sending this link to my "sophisticated", Guardian/Le Monde-reading European friends, and then I realized; what's the point? This essay would simply make their heads explode.
One quibble; I don't agree that in Vietnam we were "playing the European game". Whatever else you might think of our involvement in Vietnam, we weren't in it for Empire.
Posted by: Occasional Reader | October 2, 2003 9:09 AM
Andy -
An idea I see occassionally bandied about is that more and more Canadians esp. in the rural west, don't feel like their Nat'l gov't represents their interests & views; and that a lot of them look southward with a growing sense of kinship. The idea is that if the separatists in Quebec set a precedent by succeeding, a few of the western provinces might follow suit, and apply for US statehood before the ink's even dry.
I can't vouch for the likelihood of such an outcome, as I don't have regular contact with "average" Canadian voters.
I must say I've liked most Canadians I've met. And Canada has the unique distinction of having taught frenchmen to do something useful - play hockey.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 2, 2003 9:23 AM
This one was your best yet. Well worth the trouble.
Posted by: Troll King | October 2, 2003 9:43 AM
Well done, a nicely written thinly veiled jingoistic diatribe...
I especially like the lines:
"They have traded in their power, their means of self-defense, for 35 hour work weeks and months of paid vacations and pre-paid health care and covered it with a patina of moral superiority that masks a rotten and tottering foundation. They have become cultures unwilling to pay the price to defend themselves, cultures so pessimistic and cynical that they have – literally and without rhetorical flourish – lost the will to live to the degree that parents outnumber their children and birthrates plummet through replacement levels and into the basement of collapse and ruin."
Who could that be aimed at??
I love the usual American, bible-bashing "Thou shalt have lots of kids or thou shalt burn in hell".
And to be honest I would prefer free day-care centers for kids, 35 hour working weeks so that daddy can get to see his children once in a while (and naturally, that the mother doesn't HAVE to work), 30 days (fully paid) holidays a year ("months of paid vacations", tut tut, exaggeration will get you nowhere) and a health care system where I don't have to show my Visa card before I can get treated to a military machine which has lots of spiffy lasers and "remarkable weapons" (do you get aroused by such things? Sorry for the crudeness but weapons are abhorrent instruments which can never be exalted) that cost TRILLIONS of dollars a year to support and develop.
And as long as American "Power" does great things like overthrowing goverments in Iran, Chile and Venezuela (to name but a few) there will always be hatred against you.
Posted by: Ap | October 2, 2003 10:05 AM
Ap,
I'm sure I'm wasting my time with this, since you have already embraced the devil of socialism, but if we cut the tax rate to zero, and end all the social programs and bureaucracy that burn that tax money, a family would be able to once again live on the father's (or mother's, but not both) 35-hour-per-week blue-collar wages while paying out-of-pocket for health care and catastrophy insurance, and taking 30 days per year of unpaid vacation. Same result. Different path to get there.
Taxes and regulations cost us a factor of eight in the buying power of our dollar. Toss them and we all become eight times as rich.
Posted by: Bill St. Clair | October 2, 2003 10:32 AM
Ap:
The problem with your little fantasy is power abhors a vacuum: absent someone willing to defend your socialist paradise, there will always be someone who covets what you have, and is willing to use force to get it (if he thinks he can). Without our having shared the defense umbrella purchased with the trillions spent by the (more productive, harder working) United States over the past 40 years, you would now be speaking Russian and the Soviet Empire would stretch from Calais to Kamkatchka. Similarly, had not Martel stood at Tours or Jan Solbieski not ridden to raise the seige of Vienna, you might yet be a Moslem with no freedom.
It's all very well that you prefer your ease while others labor, but know well that we're tired of it and will soon leave you to your own devices.
Posted by: Rob | October 2, 2003 10:55 AM
Dang! I checked the site first thing in the morning... nothing new. I come back after work, after midnight, and there's not only a great essay in place (Bill's best by far, in my opinion), but there's already 97 comments chasing it. It took me till after 2:00 in the morning to read them all, and by then I was too tired to respond myself. Great stuff though. Now I check it today, and it's at something like 125 comments... and they're all great! Even the contrary ones have been written with reason and circumspection and respect for their opponents, and that's excellent.
Since my praise for Bill's latest is not only similar to so many others already expressed here (and because I've already applauded him directly and personally for it), I'd instead like to respond to one particular well-written and well-presented counterpoint proposed by "bruce" on October 1st, at 10:23 pm.
You said, "... A benevolent boss is still your boss and you know that your life is ultimately in his hands. And no matter how nice he is you will feel resentment at not being your own master. American power gives us a feeling of control, but it robs it from others, and no matter how gentle our hand we will rub people the wrong way."
I wasn't quite sure whether you were addressing life in America under the "rule" of a president and his administration, or if you were describing how you think other nations of the world would respond to being "lorded over" by the US. Since the latter is really not an option (for all the reasons so eloquently described by Bill in his essay), then I'll presume you meant the former, and from that presumption, say that I must respectfully disagree with YOU.
I, for one, have never felt resentment at anyone who was "my boss." I've resented BAD bosses, but that was because they were bad PEOPLE, not because I felt servile or inferior to them, or because I was not able to "be my own master." I am able to be my own master whenever I am able to live my life the way I want to, NOT just "when I'm in charge."
If I'm happy living the ascetic life of a hermit writer on a mountaintop somewhere, I am fully content to leave the management and leadership of this diverse and volatile nation to those with the desire and vision to do it for me... WITH the proviso that their powers are limited, controlled, and even revokable, and that they themselves can (and will) be replaced at some point (sooner than later, if they're not doing a good job).
I, for one, am also glad that there are people who ARE willing to accept the sometimes daunting responsibilities and stresses of leadership, which I would much rather forego for my own sanity and peace of mind. For all his flaws and mistakes, I am GLAD -- DAMNED glad -- that George W. Bush is where he is today. I think that RIGHT NOW we NEED him, or someone a lot like him, to LEAD this charge.
A leaderless society of scattered allegiances and self-centered motivations could never combine, to join forces sufficiently to mount any kind of an offensive against anything... military, political, philosophical, or even environmental. Look across the Atlantic for a profound case-in-point.
People, by their nature... by their nearly UNIVERSAL nature... will always seek "community," of one form or another, of one scale or another. Whether they be isolated families or clans, small tribal units or communes. And no matter how large or small, structured or free-form, formal or in-, there will always be some form of leadership guiding, coercing, or forcing it along. Some individuals, by their nature, will seek that power. Others, by their nature, will gladly relinquish it, and bequeath it instead to those they deem worthy of possessing it. But one way or the other, regardless of the size or structure of the "community," there WILL be leadership. Always.
The issue then becomes "what kind of leadership is best?" How much power? How much oversight of that power? How to keep it from running amok in the hands of a potential totalitarian? How to ensure that the controls cannot be severed?
And what better model is there... has there EVER been... than the American model? Not that it is perfect, and CERTAINLY not that it is incapable of being abused and misused by the unscrupulous, but because it is continually wide open for review, criticism, and correction. And while any administration is in place, it is capable of being constrained, denied its excesses, and even removed from office by the very people that put it in place. That means that mistakes can still be made, scandalous things can still happen, outrages can still be perpetrated... but they can also be stopped, reversed, and learned from.
And THAT'S what makes this such a great system.
And that last sentence of yours... "American power gives us a feeling of control, but it robs it from others, and no matter how gentle our hand we will rub people the wrong way."... (this is the one that made it sound like your point was more about our international relations than our internal ones)... it contains an often heard complaint that I'm just not seeing the evidence for: namely, that you cannot receive (get, take, acquire) anything without it having first been taken from somebody else. I've just never understood that.
Who is being robbed from? And of what? What are we "taking" that we aren't either paying for, or giving something else back in return? Who is losing anything -- resources, money, human livelihoods, freedom, power, whatever -- to our predations as a superpower?
And "no matter how gentle our hand?"... at what? "Ruling" others? Where do we do that? Where -- and WHY -- would we EVER do that?
The very heart of Bill's essay.
Perhaps I misinterpreted your meaning. I've been known to do that. But it sounded like you were saying that our ideal "utopian" objective should be the complete abolishment of centralized power, because the existence of any "mastery" over others is the root of resentment. And if that was your premise, then, as wordily expressed above, I must disagree. If it was not, then please elaborate.
I appreciated your thoughtful posting, and look forward to your next one.
GHS
Posted by: GreatHairySilverback | October 2, 2003 10:56 AM
Awesome! I feel I've cheated you buy reading such incredible words and not having paid for them.
Bring on the BOOK!!
Posted by: Bart | October 2, 2003 11:04 AM
Rob etc.:
The inherent American belief that socalism is "Wrong", just as Saddam is a "Bad man" is far too simple.
I love lines like: "The Soviet Empire would stretch from Calais to Kamkatchka", and, so?
People would simply be different, different life, different values. Maybe poorer (likely), but after travelling extensively in the ex-USSR in the early 90s, I have to say there were some cultural / social values which were more attractive that those which America currently presents. There is unfortunately more to life that driving a SUV, have a nice air-conditioned house and being able to shoot funky guns.
A lot of younger Russians are also starting to question the value of their leaders "adventure into capitalism". Naturally the Mafia bosses and big industrialists are loving it to bits, but the majority of the population remains unaffected.
"(more productive, harder working) United States"
check your facts, a lot of studies show that US productivity is not as high as most people think.
"but know well that we're tired of it and will soon leave you to your own devices"
Oh please, I find these "Look at all we've done for you and this is how you treat us" empty-headed threats simply laughable.
Oh and your presumption that I am European is most interesting!
I digress, but so did the original post.
Posted by: Ap | October 2, 2003 11:20 AM
I hardly think the Russian mafia cares much about the government's state, seeing as how a lot of it is made up of former Communist party leaders.
The government changes, they're still in power.
And more to life than "nice cares, air-conditioning and guns"? Who the fuck are you to tell me this? Since when is it your right to dictate what is "important" in my life? Poorer under socialism, but having more... errr.. "cultural" advantages and values?
That's bullshit.
Don't think the USSR would've taken over the world if they had had the chance to?
Good thing you weren't dictating policy during the Cold War. They said as much in several instances... the whole world under the banner of communism, as dictated by them.
Or maybe you really do believe that it would have happened, and would have in fact WELCOMED the new soviet masters to Europe, to save them from the evils of capitalism and bring socialist "paradise" to another spot of the world...
Communist propaganda rarely if ever matches the truth.
Posted by: The False God | October 2, 2003 11:27 AM
Excuse me.
That should read "nice cars".
Posted by: The False God | October 2, 2003 11:27 AM
Oh, and I see "AP" made an appearance while I was being longwinded there. Well, let me just answer a couple of points in your posting, AP.
You said, "I love the usual American, bible-bashing (which means "ANTI-Christian," you know... perhaps you meant Bible-THUMPING) "Thou shalt have lots of kids or thou shalt burn in hell"."
Hmm. Ignoring the fact that that's not even close to being a typical "Americanism," whether Christian or not... and ignoring the many other nations where breeding like rabbits IS the self-destructive social norm... that's still not the point of that paragraph. The point was that that trend in the decline of "your" birth rates (which is, in the long term, socially suicidal, since you're effectively decimating your own ranks... a simple mathematical truth) is just one (of many) symptoms that such a state has lost the cultural will to live... or at the very least, to prosper. That, along with the willingness to just roll over and "accept" the predations of terrorism as an inevitability in this day and age. Why try, right? Why spend the money and the manpower? Why "further enrage" the already insatiably angry terrorist hordes? THAT was the point of that paragraph... not that breeding "because the Bible tells you to" is the only "right way."
Then you said, "And to be honest I would prefer free day-care centers for kids, 35 hour working weeks so that daddy can get to see his children once in a while (and naturally, that the mother doesn't HAVE to work), 30 days (fully paid) holidays a year ("months of paid vacations", tut tut, exaggeration will get you nowhere) and a health care system where I don't have to show my Visa card before I can get treated, to a military machine which has lots of spiffy lasers and "remarkable weapons" (do you get aroused by such things? Sorry for the crudeness but weapons are abhorrent instruments which can never be exalted) that cost TRILLIONS of dollars a year to support and develop."
Well, for starters, don't you worry your pretty little well-rested head about all those "trillions of dollars" that we spend every year. We might grimace and kvetch about it a bit, but the fact is, we can afford it. And more importantly, we -- AND you -- cannot afford the cost of our NOT spending it.
And secondly, that list of things "you prefer" is all well and good, as long as you are actually safe to enjoy them. We like them too, for the most part. The problem, as addressed in that particular paragraph, is that those are "your" PRIORITIES... ease of life, great bennies, personal comfort and convenience, over national prosperity, strength, vitality, and even credibility. You'll let the sharks keep nibbling at the flanks of your school (after all, that's what sharks DO, right?), as long as the rest of the fish in that school (the survivors) get to swim in warm, sunny waters.
And that's your right. You should do that, if that's what you really want. But (continuing with the lame school-o-fish analogy), your school will eventually wither and die... because the sharks (that you dare not offend) will keep coming back, your numbers will not be sufficiently replenished, and you will no longer grow or thrive as a community because you do not seek to exist beyond your comfort zone.
We do. Sometimes at great fiscal and human expense, but it is our priority to thrive, to grow in strength and confidence, and then enjoy the comforts and conveniences that come from THAT kind of multi-level security.
And you wrapped it up with this... "And as long as American "Power" does great things like overthrowing goverments in Iran, Chile and Venezuela (to name but a few) there will always be hatred against you."
And here I'd gotten the impression that you had actually READ "Power." Because he (Bill) went to great lengths to address and hold the spotlight to those very mistakes. That was one of his central points. So your holding them up here does not detract from his message at all. In fact, if such political/military actions ARE the basis of all the "hatred against" us, then apparently just about EVERY "First World" country should be globally loathed by definition, and nearly all of them far worse than us... because when it comes to overthrowing, and conquering, and enslaving, and oppressing, and forcibly colonizing other nations throughout history, the rest of you have got us beat, hands down. From Mongol hordes, to Roman legions, to Christian crusades, to Spanish conquistadors in Central and South America... just about anyone who's ever had the capability has shoved their culture down someone else's throat at one time or another, usually with no other motivation than sheer greed, and usually with cruelty and torture and oppression as the means by which they held their captive cultures down by the throat. Tell me how that compares to our PAST (as in "Cold War," mostly) examples of sponsoring movements that overthrew their unwanted governments. Mind you, that doesn't make OUR indiscretions "right" by any stretch of the imagination, but it also doesn't make them unique (or even comparable, when it comes to willful oppression), and it doesn't logically follow, therefore, that THAT is why "there will always be hatred against" us. Because if that WAS all it took, then fire and brimstone would be raining down on all of us.
I'm doing it again... letting speedy fingers do all my talking for me... getting longwinded again.
Sorry all. I'll go take a little nappy now.
GHS
Posted by: GreatHairySilverback | October 2, 2003 12:04 PM
Excellent essay.
Your arguments about whether or not the US needs to build an empire are persuasive to this (European) reader, and you contribute nicely to the well-known notion that there is a strand of thought telling us to lie down and surrender. The answer to that is surely obvious, but you express it well.
However, the tone of the essay suffers from what I call "cruxology", i.e. the belief that we're at a defining point, what Michael Mann calls a "world-historical" moment, a crux.
For all the technology, there are surely restrictions on US power, no? Nuclear weapons are also God-buttons, and their existence in other countries is surely channelling the projection of US power in identifiable ways. The most obvious of these is that the US will not use its post-nuclear hi-tech god-buttons against countries with nukes.
You might say that son of star wars will change all that, and I guess you'd be right. But the true world-historical moment will be when you really have the choice whether or not to project your power into a huge country with nuclear weapons, and you decide that you will. At the moment you don't have the choice.
So although it's always tempting to imagine that we stand, Janus-like, at the threshold of a new historical era, it is history rather than ourselves who will decide.
But for all that, I did enjoy your essay a lot.
And I've always loved Mark Twain too; he should be required reading over here.
Posted by: DaveVH | October 2, 2003 12:21 PM
My favourite essay so far.
People who truly love their country are not those who glorify their country's successes and belittle or deny their failures (Saddam proclaiming victory after GULF I,the "benevolent" rule of the Ottomans,etc...) but those who acknowledge those failures and are proud of their country despite them.
You have shown me why I truly love my country as you do yours.
Till next essay!
Posted by: Miha Samsa | October 2, 2003 12:37 PM
The Goldberg NRO article on Lord Acton is here: http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg102302.asp
Posted by: David Moisan | October 2, 2003 12:57 PM
Ap -
"free Daycare"? "free?" Might I suggest an introductory course in economics?
Nothing is free. Somebody is paying. When the consumer pays for it directly, the consumer pays for Day Care: wages, utilities, facilities. When the consumer elects to have the government pay for it, the consumer pays for armies of accountants to collect the taxes required, a second army of accountants to audit the collection of those taxes, a Ministry of Child Care with a big, modern office building in the capitol, slightly smaller offices in all the regional capitols, smaller offices in all the municipalities, and then, finally, with what little money's left over, the actual daycare facility.
And don't forget that other bunch of guys you're also hiring - the ones who're packing some of those "abhorrent" weapons. Their job is to intimidate singles, childless couples, the elderly, etc. into paying for someone else's babysitter.
We seem to have a slight difference of opinion. I don't believe I have the right to extort money from my neighbor to pay somebody to watch my kids.
Cancer patients in socialized medical systems in many first world countries wait months for a CAT scan. In the US, second year residents in Level I trauma centers routinely order CAT scans to aid the diagnose of trauma victims, and the scans are performed within the hour, considerably sooner if the patient's presenting indications of internal bleeding. In 98% of al specialities, our system produces the best care available. And a lot of people are working very hard at the problem of distributing that care better, without wrecking the system in the process.
But what I find most incomprehensible...
Your feeling that "weapons are abhorrent instruments" is apparently enlightened; but labeling a man as "bad" who routinely ordered execution, torture, and ordered chemical attacks on civilians, that's morally simplistic.
Perhaps you are a shaminist? In my moral framework, inanimate objects, instrumentalites, are incapable of possessing good or evil qualities. Do you find a rock to be abhorrent? A heavy stick? Do they acquire moral qualities if I use a strip of leather or a vine to lash the one to the other?
I'm willing to bet you have a kitchen drawer full of "abhorrent instruments". Ever play baseball or cricket, or were you unwilling to pick up the bat because it is an "abhorrent instrument"? Were the machineguns on the Spitfire fighter that shot down a Nazi bomber before it reached London an "abhorrent instrument"? Were the M1 Garand and Enfield rifles in the hands of American, British, and Canadian soldiers on the beaches at Normandy abhorent, or the pistol in the hand of French resistance fighter?
Human beings choose to perform good, evil, and morally neutral acts. Being higher primates we sometimes use tools to perform those acts, but it is the human who is the moral agent. It is absurd to assign moral value to an inanimate object.
Finally, even Freud himself said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Have you never stared at a piece of art, some marvelous piece of woodworking, or a technological marvel in simple wonder and awe at the elegance of design, the workmanship, appreciation of the years of study and effort required to be capable of producing some item? Aparently not. Yet you feel obligated to point out there's more to life than SUV's & firearms to me?
Posted by: Jumper | October 2, 2003 1:18 PM
Ap,
If you find those other places so defensible and so attractive, go there. I think there are enough readers here willing to pitch in a buck or two for a one-way ticket. Communism and/or Socialism have been or are failures for a reason. Our way is better. Ask 15,000 dead elderly Frenchpersons.
Posted by: Patrick | October 2, 2003 1:43 PM
The inherent American belief that socalism is "Wrong", just as Saddam is a "Bad man" is far too simple.
Why is it too simple to call Saddam a bad man? What complex morally relativistic argument am I missing that redeems a man who murdered hundreds of thousands of his own citizens?
I love lines like: "The Soviet Empire would stretch from Calais to Kamkatchka", and, so?
So...millions of people would be under the heel of an oppressive, murderous regime that mercilessly crushed dissent and purged millions of its own citizens.
Posted by: Joel F | October 2, 2003 1:46 PM
Go Bill! Always a pleasure; always! Personally, I don't like Bush. He reminds me of a used car salesman every time I see him. I don't trust him, nor his administration, but like you, Bill I trust the U.S. populous to keep him (or another administration) from seizing power for more than the 8 years he (may) can.
Frank Herbert, in his great series "Dune" (et al), mentions the 'power corrupts' bit often, but amends it later to 'power attracts the corruptable' and I've notices some posters here have seen the same thing. Bush come across this way to me.
Meanwhile, I support the administration (insofar as they have much better tools with which to make decisions than I) and support the Iraq conflict in which our country is engaged (insofar as I've seen it unfold) and I'm most proud to support our troops, the ilke of these men and those before them earned me the priveledge to say that Bush still plays out like a used car salesman.
But go USA!!!
My apoligies for typos....
Posted by: russ | October 2, 2003 1:52 PM
Ok, now that I've had a while to digest, I don't feel that Vietnam was, necessarily, a "European adventure." A failed effort, perhaps. A bloody, costly, poorly executed effort, to be sure. But I'm not sure that it fits with the Phillipine insurrection.
Granted, it is tempting to assume that the U.S. failure in Vietnam derives from ill-intention or immoral choices, but that's not necessarily true. Obviously, Vietnam doesn't make the grade for a Jacksonian - but that doesn't mean that it's either right or appropriate to write the exercise off altogether.
I guess I kind of think of Vietnam as a sister conflict to Korea.
Beats me - I just a notion and wanted to get some feedback on it.
Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation | October 2, 2003 2:02 PM
Ah, you Americans, so simplisme. You understand so little. I will try to educate the cowboy. (SIGH)
Capitalist success is theft, as you can gain nothing under such a system without taking it from someone else. Forcibly taking seventy-five percent or all of your citizens' income in taxes to pay for goods and services they may or may not want or need is not theft, it is social justice.
The idea behind a system determines not only its success or failure but its moral character, which then flows into every action taken. This is why under a hundred civilian casualties in a war is genocide under capitalism, but a hundred million dead during cultural revolution is a forgivable oopsie.
Happiness is an empty illusion of the American devil. This is why you are not actually happy and fulfilled with spending your money the way you want it to; you just think you are. What you REALLY want as a person is security and the warm feeling that comes of being a proper human being. We will hear no argument on this subject: enjoy the gifts of the state.
Morality is intrinsic and historically contextual. This is why a white male American shooting a prowler in his home is morally reprehensible but a subway spree killing by a black man is also the moral responsibility of the white male American because he's angry at the white man, who probably gave him the gun too. Americans overthrowing a vicious regime committing regular atrocities on its own people is morally reprehensible; Arabs can slaughter until the end of time and it will still be the fault of Americans. Your color and creed determine your moral character: your actions are meaningless.
Power and success are marks of inferior moral character. Nations that are failing are always more admirable than those that are prospering. Their failure means they aren't robbing anyone. If their lowest citizens are desperately poor and their government rich, this is the fault of Americans, even if State Department has to look up the country in Encyclopedia Britannica before it can even comment on it.
America doing anything outside its borders is jingoistic. America not doing anything outside its borders is self-absorbed and ignorant of the world and its peoples. Due to the aforementioned historical determination of morality, and Quantum Politics, it is possible for both of these conditions to be true at the same time.
When anyone sells their goods to America for money at a price they set, or works for an American company for pay higher than that they can gain locally, they are being opressed and robbed by America. See above for historical moral context.
Finally, your motive determines whether the results of your actions are "good" or "bad", as long as it's a preapproved motive. This is the other reason why slaughtering millions for communism is forgivable, but raising people out of squalor but making money off it is heinous.
I'd thank you for your attention, but due to your American attention spans you stopped reading this fifteen seconds in. C'est la vie.
Posted by: LabRat | October 2, 2003 2:43 PM
Excellent essay, but small nitpick: The home-town losers of the Revolutionary War did not "go home." They faced huge, huge, amounts of oppreshion and most of them picked up and went to Canada. That's how English Canada was started, as a refuge area for the losers of the American Revolution. In fact, more people fleed from the aftereffects of the American revolution then the French one. Despite the fact that france had almost 10 times the population as the US.
Posted by: Mike Ralls | October 2, 2003 2:54 PM
Au contrare, mon cherie Lab Rat(okay, I don't speak French)I managed to read the whole thing and only puke once.
"Capitalist success is theft, as you can gain nothing under such a system without taking it from someone else."--Money can be created out of nothing.
"Forcibly taking seventy-five percent or all of your citizens' income in taxes to pay for goods and services they may or may not want or need is not theft, it is social justice."--to what society? Why do I, a gay male, need to pay my taxes toward maternal care, when it's clear I won't be needing it (I'm not a parental type, I wouldn't curse a child by raising one.)
"But a hundred million dead during cultural revolution is a forgivable oopsie."--Bill countered this in 'Power'; I need not try to better him (couldn't anyway).
"Happiness is an empty illusion of the American devil. This is why you are not actually happy and fulfilled with spending your money the way you want it to; you just think you are."--this is about as valid a statement as a gypsy fortune-telling (no disrepect intended, gypsies!)
"What you REALLY want as a person is security and the warm feeling that comes of being a proper human being. We will hear no argument on this subject: enjoy the gifts of the state."--I have that while I spend my American dollars--the state isn't reponsible for my being a proper human being--I am. My most enjoyed 'gift of the state' is it's visible absence in my day-to-day life. It's called FREEDOM. Read Bill's take on this, too.
"This is why a white male American shooting a prowler in his home is morally reprehensible but a subway spree killing by a black man is also the moral responsibility of the white male American because he's angry at the white man, who probably gave him the gun too." --this sentence and the few that follow are patently absurd!
"Power and success are marks of inferior moral character..."-this paragraph is irrational, too. If this is a typical French attitude, no wonder they're on the decline.
"When anyone sells their goods to America for money at a price they set, or works for an American company for pay higher than that they can gain locally, they are being opressed and robbed by America. "--no, they're getting paid more and are taking U.S. dollars out of our economy and putting into yours. I'd say it's more like robbing America.
I can see why you felt your thoughts wouldn't be read; I'm a novice at this blogging and had no trouble in seeing that you're post wasn't worth reading. But I'm having a slow day at work and felt someone more qualified in responding would be wasting their time.
Shesh!
Posted by: russ | October 2, 2003 2:59 PM
I should note, I suppose, that my response to LabRat is very thin; I didn't want to waste too much time on it. I couldn't have been more thorough but I am, after all, at work. In Haste,
Posted by: russ | October 2, 2003 3:04 PM
AR -
Does this make any sense at all? Vietnam in a nutshell.
Vietnam was begun with the idealism of JFK, who said we'd go anyplace, pay any price, bear any burden. (Ok, I know we actually started mucking around there before JFK, but bear with me)
Vietnam degenerated into the cynical lies, expediency and corner-cutting of LBJ.
Vietnam was planned in and run from Washington, by the "best at brightest" (though exactly what they were the best at, we still don't know. It certainly wasn't the prosecution of a war).
Vietnam ended for the US in tired resignation, eventually Nixon's.
I was too young to be very politically aware, but this is sort of what it looks like to me, seeing it through the words of others. The best book I've read recently about that (or any) conflict is We Were Soldiers Once, and Young. The Mel Gibson movie wasn't bad, but of course couldn't do the book justice. I highly recommend it if you haven't read it already.
It's mostly a low-level, down-in-the-mud narrative, but the one bit of strategic/political commentary that struck me most was the author's disparagement of the draft, and the short enlistment periods and short tours of duty which resulted because of it. In the case of airborne, infantrymen were rotating out (or even mustering out of the service) before they were even fully trained. Fresh green recruits were being sent in with zero airborne training - never even been in a chopper before, didn't know how or when to jump out, what to do once on the ground... That angered me more than anything else. The country owed those kids better than that.
Russ - Ever hear of sarcasm? Read the post again. LabRat was doing a curmudgeonly parody of the french "intellectual". (All right, I realize it's easier to recognize sarcasm when you can hear the timbre and tone of the voice)
LabRat - Your way earlier post about primate social behavior. Actual animal science is outside my field of expertise, but observation tells me these things are generally true of all social animals.
Watch horses when they're turned out in the pasture after a new horse comes to the stable. It can be bedlam: kicking, biting, etc. until the new pecking order is established. This is not sexual aggression. Geldings & mares are (almost) as bad as stallions. And if the pecking order doesn't get sorted out quickly, you'll see visible effects of stress even when the horses aren't outside in a group.
Parelli pointed out in one of his videos that if there's eleven horses in a paddock, and number eleven, bottom of the pecking order, is alone in a corner, head down, waiting for a chance to go over and grab some hay without bothering any of his superiors, the minute you open the gate and walk in, poor old downcast number eleven looks at you and asks himself "Is he number twelve?"
Dogs & people are even worse, because our opposition reflex is to growl, bare our teeth and stand our ground, while herbivours are natural, Monty Python "Run away!! Run away!!" types.
Back to Work. And then, if there's any daylight left, the stables.
Posted by: Jumper | October 2, 2003 3:24 PM
I think there's more to this war than you give credit. This war is also about excessive lifestyles, greed, arrogance, religious superiority, and most importantly energy - be that in the form of a barrel of crude all the way to the more meta-physical concept of national attention and the focal energy that comes when you're the center of it all.
Nonetheless, it easy to sit from the armchair and command soldiers to war, but to actually be that soldier, to be that statistic, how can anybody in good conscience ask this? Why is it that when people invoke the 'history repeats itself' clause they always neglect the remarkable effect that Gandhi had in India?
I agree that the US war machine is finely tuned to the point where civilian casualties are minimized to a degree that's unprecedented - however casualities are still mothers, sons and daughters - slain by a foreign country for reasons that are beyond them. How is this fair?
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 2, 2003 3:25 PM
I was born in Glendale, Mo. A suburban St. Louis community. Mark Twain was and always will be my idol, so it is with the deepest respect that I compare anyone's writing to the Great Twain.
Read this again, Bill:
"I love and respect my nation as if she were a great ship at sea. I admire the quality and genius of her construction. I admire the way she handles rough seas. I poke and prod into the smallest of her compartments and see built-in all manner of ingenious devices to keep her afloat and level. I stand in awe of her speed and power, and sometimes in embarrassment and regret at the damage caused by her great wake. And I have seen her sailed through shoals and narrows that have wrecked scores of nations before her, and seen her emerge scraped and damaged but never fully run aground. "
You wrote it. And it is worthy of Twain! Standing in the shadows of the giant, you managed to shine a little light of your own.
Brilliant, excellent, inspiring. I await with great anticipation both your book and your live appearences.
Fight the good fight...
Lampster
Posted by: Lampster | October 2, 2003 3:26 PM
LabRat's Post *had* to be a joke, right?
Right?
And ChefQuix... "Why is it that when people invoke the 'history repeats itself' clause they always neglect the remarkable effect that Gandhi had in India?" The main reason for Ghandi's successes was the morality of his adversary. Had he tried to pull that same line of reasoning with the truly oppressive regimes of his time it wouldn't have gone over nearly as well.
Not much more to add to the praises of the essay, Bill... I agree; the best yet. Looking forward to seeing it live.
Posted by: hindmost | October 2, 2003 3:33 PM
Thanks Jumper; as I wrote, I'm new at this blog thing. Let me be the first to admit my stupidity (to avoid the rush later).
In rereading LabRat's I can see the sarcasm dripping, but my problem is I know a few folks who really do think like that (or close enough to it, which maybe shouldn't be called 'thinking' as much as 'random axiom firings'). I keep in touch with them to keep up on the leftist views.
Also, boy was my spelling/punctuation piss poor today!! My sincere condolences to those with an eye for editing!
A third blurb; can anyone tell me how to get that link above to the 'support B.W. on the road' to work? I've not had any luck. Frickin newbie, I yam. I should just keep to reading Bill and avoid posting. But he's welcome to take over my condo for free if he tour's in Phoenix. Not much in the way of stylish, but I'll cook breakfast (and I'm a helluva cook!)
russ
Posted by: russ | October 2, 2003 3:37 PM
I'll have to remember that.
a hundred civilians killed under capitalism is genocide - a hundred million in the garb of social progress is an oopise.
Excellent satire. Caught at least one fish.
Posted by: TheYeti | October 2, 2003 3:38 PM
Russ- don't worry, I'm a Bill Booster, as it were. My post was meant to be satire, like Jumper said. I'll take its being mistaken for serious as a sign it was well-executed. HTML really needs a "sarcasm" tag.
Jumper- yes, it's really remarkable how universal mammalian stress responses seem to be. Another one of my favorite examples of how psychology mediates stress response involves the time-honored rat. Give a rat fifty shocks a day, then move him down to thirty shocks, and he will relax, his stress indicators moving down. Give a rat fifteen shocks a day and move him up to thirty and he'll be incredibly stressed out, more than the rat who'd gotten used to fifty was.
Depressingly, one of the best ways to "treat" stress in a rat who's just been shocked seems to be giving him the opportunity to bite the hell out of another, innocent rat. Makes him feel MUCH better, drops all those stress hormones across the board. Primate studies and common experience indicates this is still true...
Posted by: LabRat | October 2, 2003 3:43 PM
Bill: Great essay as always! I think TRINITY is still out in front in my book, but it is close.
Russ: Re-read Lab Rat's post with the word: SATIRE
blinking on and off al-la "Monty Python"
Posted by: Dave T | October 2, 2003 3:48 PM
"And as long as American "Power" does great things like overthrowing goverments in Iran, Chile and Venezuela (to name but a few) there will always be hatred against you."
We can continue to live with that. What's new?
Posted by: Cart Williams | October 2, 2003 5:09 PM
Russ,
First, try clicking on my name, which will bring you to my blog, and look for a similar GuestMap thingy in the upper right hand corner of the page and try that one. Sometimes its a bit ornery, so if that doesn't work, you can shoot me an e-mail to BravoRomeoDelta@yahoo.com with all of your data and I'll go plug in.
Jumperero-
I don't disagree with your analysis. It's more the notion of drawing strong parallels between the Phillipine Insurrection and Vietnam as "European-style" imperial wars of conquest that I'm a bit hazy on.
The thing that I'm picking up in the essay is that our failures, both moral and practical, have arisen from the US playing a game to which it is, by nature and temperment, ill-suited. I wonder if one could look at Vietnam as a well-intentioned effort that still turned to crap, rather than an effort that was doomed to turn to crap because we were acting in a manner contrary to our ideals.
I guess I might be reading something that Bill isn't saying - that there exists some sort of tautology that says when America is acting in accordance with it's best nature and tradition, we do well and act well, but when we appeal to more venal and base temptations, then our efforts turn out to be painful failures.
I wonder if Vietnam wasn't indeed America acting in it's best nature and tradition, but still turned out to be a painful failure.
Although, to be fair, it is entirely possible to view, in the overarching Grand Strategic sense of the Cold War, to consider Vietnam a success.
Dunno. I'm beat. I'm thick. I'm done for the remainder of this spin around the Earth's axis.
Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation | October 2, 2003 5:11 PM
Just had to reply to Chefquix post:
A communist regime would have taken Ghandi down into a basement and blown his head off.
See, history does repeat itself.
Posted by: MonkeyPants | October 2, 2003 5:21 PM
Re: GreatHairySilverback's comment -
A leaderless society of scattered allegiances and self-centered motivations could never combine, to join forces sufficiently to mount any kind of an offensive against anything... military, political, philosophical, or even environmental.
I immediately thought of the EU.
Posted by: Ralph M | October 2, 2003 5:22 PM
A little too long.
Posted by: Joe | October 2, 2003 5:36 PM
Bill:
Reading your essays inspired me to come to America. Now I'm here, I don't plan on leaving.
Posted by: Jon | October 2, 2003 5:41 PM
One comment recommended L.E. Modesitt's books - the best one for the purpose that I've read is "The Ecolitan Enigma" (not that the others aren't good - and make sure you read the OTHER Ecolitan books first - but this one's the best.) I have to admit I just finished reading it, and got VERY surprised. Very much a point to think about at the end. Add Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" to the list, and you have some VERY good fiction books to read - now to add non-fiction ones! I think I've got the start of an Amazon list coming here...
Posted by: Curtis | October 2, 2003 5:45 PM
ChexQuix:
In case you were wondering;
Life Isn't Fair.
HTH, HAND.
Also, why does your bloody shirt waving exclude fathers, hmm? Guess life really isn't fair at all.
Posted by: Patrick Chester | October 2, 2003 6:54 PM
A quickie, I promise:
To Anticipatory Retaliation: you beat me to the punch. As I was reading through these latest comments, I set aside a comment of my own that was almost identical to what you said: "I wonder if one could look at Vietnam as a well-intentioned effort that still turned to crap, rather than an effort that was doomed to turn to crap because we were acting in a manner contrary to our ideals." Yes. Complete agreement here. I think we started with a well-intentioned "noble cause," which then got bogged down, then bloated, then perverted over time. Doesn't make it "right" or "good," but it doesn't make it "imperialist" either. Nothing else to add there.
I also preferred your additional note, that "... there exists some sort of tautology that says when America is acting in accordance with it's best nature and tradition, we do well and act well, but when we appeal to more venal and base temptations, then our efforts turn out to be painful failures." I hadn't thought of that. Very cool. Thanks.
To LabRat: you are a goddess! That was a great posting (the satirical one). One long smilefest for me.
To russ: don't sweat it dude. You've been had by the best. Appreciate you defending the home team though.
To Ralph M: as well you should. Thanks.
And to MonkeyPants: that was exactly the right answer (about Gandhi). He got away with his non-violent resistance because of the character of the nation he was up against, just like Martin Luther King. Both great men, both successful in their aims and rightfully so, and both dead men (a whole lot sooner in their campaigns) had they tried their tactics in China, Sierra Leone, or good old Iraq. Know thine enemy.
Thanks folks. I can always count on you.
GHS
Posted by: GreatHairySilverback | October 2, 2003 7:08 PM
I'm copying from about three or four posts above, and pasting it here. Its perhaps one of the shortest statments among all the comments...but to me, it is the most significant of all.
Mr. Whittle, if I had one piece of praise on MY tombstone, it would be this. I properly envy you for it, and aspire to be worthy of the same:
With no further ado:
(start paste)
Posted by Jon on October 2, 2003 05:41 PM:
Bill:
Reading your essays inspired me to come to America. Now I'm here, I don't plan on leaving.
(end paste)
THAT, sir.... is what your essays are all about.
Keep up the good work, and bring it to Houston, please!
Sincerely,
Jim Seigler
Sloop New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Posted by: Jim Seigler | October 2, 2003 7:21 PM
Ok, I've finally finished reading. This is a very poetic and moving piece - your extreme nationalism is obvious. Far be it for me to condemn the U.S. when it is obviously a bright candle in the darkness that is the rest of human history. And I say that with no sarcasm, the U.S. has really led the way in the development of a form of government that is admirably equal.
However - I'm going to have to agree with Carl Sagan here and say that Americans should be pledging allegance to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as opposed to the nation and the flag. That is truely where America exploded - the idea of freedom for individuals, of all being equal - that was truely the revolution. Extreme nationalism like what we have here today is just the opposite of what those documents are all about. When they were drafted, the only thing that concerned americans was the USA, and fair enough, shit had to get settled on the home front before you can go out and save the rest of the world, right? However in the present political climate it has lost it's shiny gloss, and there is a reason for that. The excessive and garish lifestyle only magnifies the lack of in the rest of the world.
Sure you can argue that they've done it to themselves, they won't change, they just want to take us down. But if you really think about it - if a sheep herder in Afghanistan was constantly bombarded with images of Ross, Rachael and Joey underneath the imposing dominance of the Twin Towers, while at the same time forced every day to wake up in his shattered village, war torn by the raging ideologies of the two super powers, wouldn't you be a little pissed off as well? Wouldn't it seem kind of unfair to you?
You mention that Americans are lucky, and they know it. You also mention that most americans are at their heart good people. Both of these statements are very true. I think though that it's easy to forget that the two statements are in a causal relationship - if you're dirt poor and barely scraping by, you can't afford to be good like the Americans. You have to survive, and your family has to survive. That's all that matters, because that's all you're able to do. This is the cause of all the resentment - it's like a poor town with a gregariously rich person at the end of the block who keeps driving down main street in a new luxury car every week.
I think what it basically comes down to is that the American dream is actually turning into a global Nightmare. The vast quantities of materials and labour required to feed our consumeristic lifestyles is physically draining the world - you can almost feel it in your bones. Oooh I'm gonna get flamed for this, ah well such is the internet. Consumerism is the cancer, and America is the tumour. The only difference is that in this case, the individual cells have the ability to fight back.
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 2, 2003 7:47 PM
And here come I, three days late. But I'm mostly a lurker anyway. Now that I'm here I'll give my two - four - err, quite a few - cents.
First of all I was very amused that some people misunderstood LabRat's sarcasm. Of course this is forgivable if you don't yet know just what a genius she happens to be. I printed out that post seperately. I shall employ it as soon as I can. HeHe.
I've also noticed that the dissenting opinions expressed here seem to be less belligerant than usual. Strangely, I have more appreciation for someone who respectfully disagrees like Bruce did than I have for someone who agrees wholeheartedly.
But now on to what I really want to say. We talk about war a lot here, about the many times our great nation has been called upon to fight for a worthy cause. Several times, I've heard WWI and WWII cited as prime examples of this. WWII was our country's most noble fight. WWI was it's polar opposite.
To call the Great War an example of American morality is a disgrace! The first world war was the most hellish war in history, and the most unjustified, foolish, and utterly stupid conflict in the history of our nation. But we had to stop to Germans, you say. The Germans started the war, didn't they? Um. No.
Picture this. All the nations of Europe are ruled by kings and kaisers. It is a time of relative peace. Europe is getting nervous - it's never been so peaceful before. Britain and France ally. Germany and Austria-Hungary ally. Russia joins the British and French to form the triple entente. Italy allies with Germany and Austria-Hungary to form the triple alliance. Everybody else follows suit.
Suddenly Serbian revolutionaries murder the prince of Bosnia. Bosnia declares war on Serbia. Russia declares war on Bosnia. Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia. Britain and France declare war on Austria-Hungary. Germany and Italy declare war on Britain, France, and Russia. Everybody else follows suit.
So who's the good guy? And for what purpose are millions of young men slaughtered? Why do men run in the rotting trenches with both their feet cut off? Why do limbless, bleeding corpses pile up on barbed wire and sandbags? Why are there now so many "men without eyes, without jaws, without faces..." (All Quiet on the Western Front)?
There is no reason! By God, what's wrong with us? then we Americans decide to send our boys over there in 1917. Naturally, people get pissed. So Congress passes the Espionage and Sedition Acts. If you criticize the war effort, you go to jail. And don't forget the [communist central planning] War Industries Board. What bastard thought up that great idea?
If only things had happened differently.
Might we please stop remembering the First World War as a moral cause? See it for what it was: a waste of young lives and an assault on our liberty.
Posted by: Lord Duppy | October 2, 2003 7:49 PM
Oh and Patrick - I know life's not fair. I'm striving to make it better. Are you?
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 2, 2003 7:51 PM
BIll -
Another magnificent piece. As a Canadian, I'm glad that you phrased this section so carefully:
"I have had innumerable discussions about threats, actions, responses, contingencies and capabilities, but I have never, not once in 44 years, met an American who advocated invasion and permanent conquest for national gain.
Never. "
Studying Canadian History Pre-Confederation tends to focus a great deal on the reaction to the American Manifest Destiny movement of the 1840's as one of the contributing factors leading to Confederation. In that sense, I'm glad that the movement was there at the time, just as I am glad that this is no longer the case.
As an Albertan, I don't think that we so much want to be American as we want to be Canadian as the word used to mean - the simplest way I can sum that up is to say less European than we are now. The Canada I remember from my youth was a nation willing to stand on it's own feet, to fight on the side of right with a tenaciousness and ferocity that, sadly, can only now be seen in our allies. We have been sunk into a nanny-state mentality, and the victory of the Liberals in the provincial election in Ontario today makes me despair that we shall ever be able to escape the downward spiral we find ourselves travelling.
My bumber sticker may sum it up best: Canadian by birth, Albertan by the grace of God. I will not renounce my citizenship out of expediency, I will fight to restore my country's honour, and if the best I can fight for is to carve the living, vibrant portions of my land free from the stagnant, decaying corpse of my home country, so be it.
A Proud Albertan
A Disgusted Canadian
Posted by: balticdave | October 2, 2003 8:37 PM
True, true. I suppose it's a bit of a simplistic solution, however, anytime I look at our Constitutions side by side, I cannot help but wish that ours was like yours, a true document instead of a political waffle-a-thon. You're right I suppose, people's attitudes won't change just because their passports have, what we need is more people who are ideologically American, no matter what flag they happen to be waving at the time.
BalticDave: Yeah, the Liberal election is a sad day in Ontario, but I figure we'll win the next two because of it, probably with Flaherty at the head(and you thought Harris was good). You can't win them all, and this is to be expected occasionally. At least it's only the Liberals though, they can safely be trusted not to do anthing of impotrtance that we'll have to fix in '07 or '08.
Posted by: Alsadius | October 2, 2003 8:59 PM
It is been, in the past, my great privilege and honor to read so many comments, all of which were far too kind to me. But this is something else again, and I do not know what to say in reply except thank you all. You have no idea the effect these heartfelt words have on me.
I will tell you a secret: I really have no idea where these essays come from. I'm responsible for part of them, certainly. I may start thinking about a subject and chase it around a little, enough where I feel like I'm ready to sit down and write something. But once I start typing (I write these usually in a single 3-6 hour session -- two for this one)I have no idea where the words come from. When I am finished, I scroll through the paragraphs and am shocked -- and happy! -- at some of the things that are there.
This is perhaps why I simply cannot take credit for all of your extraordinarily kind words. I have said many times that this is not fiction I am writing here, a story I am creating. I just try to set down as clearly as I can the things I see in front of me, and these are things we all see -- there is nothing special about me at all in this respect.
I have tried to describe this blogging phenomenon to several friends, and this is the best I was able to come up with:
I feel like Richard Dreyfuss at the foot of Devil's Tower in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. I feel like a guy who got hit with a light beam one night, and has to keep carving out the same image, the same message, in the mashed potatoes. And I look around at Lileks and Den Beste, Rachel and Kim and Connie, Frank J., Charles Johnson, and all the others, and I want to say, "you too, huh? What the hell are we doing here?"
Albert Jay Nock wrote of what he called "The Remnant." The Remnant is a small group of people who carry civilization forward with them in their hearts. It is nothing like a secret society -- precisely the opposite. It is a group of people from all walks of life and all nations, who on some level resonate with the idea of freedom and responsibilty, and all the other things we hold dear. You can't preach to these people, or flatter them, or buy them. They hear the message, and know as well as I do that it is the MESSAGE, not the messenger, that is important. Nor can you convert people to this Remnant. Some will come around to it in their own time, but it is deeper than argument. It is born of reflection and experience.
Again, thank you all for the overwhelming kindness and flattery. It is the source of the most indescribable pride and humility at the same time -- of you can conceive of such a thing. But I do not deserve anything like this amount of praise. As so many of you have said, I am merely articulating what so many of you seem to feel -- and it is the feeling of it, not the telling of it, that deserves this honor, not me.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | October 3, 2003 12:13 AM
Hey Bill,
Just wanted to add to the chorus here, loved the essay, is gonna take several takes to fully digest it all, and bring on the book and the tours. It can't arrive soon enough to piss on the parade of the Kennedy/Chomsky/Moore axis of evil weasels that just won't seem to fall down. I read all of the comments, and now my brain is officially tired, but I do not mind. I will print this one out and mail it to Dad like all the others.
That said, I do have a quibble with the poster who said it sounded like you were endorsing Sherman. While the means Sherman employed to win the war in the South were gruesome, it had to be done, and don't think it didn't keep Grant, Lincoln, et al. up late worrying about it. But Lincoln and the Union came that close to losing, to going out forever, to us descending into the cesspool, pisspot type of continent that is currently giving us such winning ideas as the EU and such wonderful folks like Chirac and de Villepin. Even with victories at Gettysburg and other places, the South was just like the West Virginia team I watched play Miami tonight.
They are the underdog and have no real business being in the fight, but if you let them stay around long enough, they start to BELIEVE they belong, and that is a very powerful thing, regardless of whether they actually do belong or not. Miami eked out a win by two with a field goal at the horn, and regardless of the fact that it took another year or more to end the Civil War, that's how close it actually was. The Union is 1864 was Miami in the situation I am about to describe in detail.
Miami was facing 4th and 14 from its own 20 yard line, about 90 seconds left, and had no momentum to speak of. The underdog smelled blood, the home crowd was stunned and silent, and the big home winning streak, dreams of a national title, and everything else (our fledgling nation, anyone, Bueller?) were a play away from going up in smoke. Then Berlin completes a 21 yard toss to Winslow II over the middle, a leaping, twisting, impossible grab, and that's when I thought to myself, "Game Over!". And it was, as Miami inevitably drove for the winning field goal and survived.
Sherman's swath of destruction through the South in 1864 was the leaping catch, and although the war wasn't over right then and there, I think it was the backbreaker that let the South know who was going to win. The Union had the numbers and the industry, but that was basically a wash in the face of far superior Southern generals and that damned dogged Southern determination. Something had to be done to break the will of the South, and the march was it. It was not pretty, it was not pleasant, especially not for anyone in that path, but it had to be done. It saved the Union and our nation from extinction.
Then, as Bill notes, we accepted their surrender and let them go home. This draws parallels with Iraq and the War on Terror at large. I may get pasted on this point, but I don't care. I sincerely mourn the death of every single innocent that had no horse in the Iraq fight (other than the horse of freedom, which they likely had very little idea was coming), but the relatively few of them that are gone now, as compared with the utter annhiliation inflicted on Saddam's goons, were worth the price they paid to future generations of Iraqis. Our soldiers did not carpet bomb innocents and maim society, but rather accepted the surrenders of those who would not fight and let them go home to their families. Ditto to the soldiers who cooperated once captured. By and large, the only folks killed (at least intentionally) were those loyal to Saddam, and currently the only ones killed in the post-war era are those trying to kill our soldiers.
Our very presence there and how our wonderful young men and women in the armed services are conducting themselves is a testament to the greatness of America. In spite of grave danger in the Sunni triangle, in spite of sabotage from foreign terrorists, we are building schools. Markets are open, people are free to do, worship say, and feel as they please. I agree with the poster who alluded to seeing kids playing in the street in her neighborhood and immediately was moved to pray that the Iraqi people get the same. That is why our brave young people are over there right now in a strange land away from THEIR loved ones, so that those people can know what we take for granted...freedom, the freedom to aspire to be President or just to aspire to raise a good set of kids, grow old in peace, and try to leave the world a better place than it was when you got here. I think that freedom, and the love of it, and the willingness to fight bad and evil people who would take it from us and would deny it to others, is one of the core values that make America great. It is one among many reasons, one being the author of this great weblog, that I am proud to be from this country.
It is 4 AM and I have a client meeting at the law school in six hours, so it is sleepy time. Once again, great comments to almost all of the commenters, the trolls of course are excepted. But there seem to be even a few less of those this time, thank the Lord for small victories. Good night all, and keep up the good work Bill. As always, you articulate what is in my heart and what I want to scream to the world about this nation when you write. God Bless you, and God bless America, and keep her (and you) safe.
Posted by: Chris Whittaker | October 3, 2003 1:30 AM
Chris:
Aaargh, comparing war to a[n American] football game. How profound.
"the willingness to fight bad and evil people who would take it from us". See above, thank god there are only either Good or Bad people on the planet. How do you deal with "generally good", or "sometimes bad" people - only half shoot them??
Donnie Darko springs to mind: Love & Fear folks.
And take WHAT from you? Good Bagels, pancake receipes, women & children, the pentium 5 circuit board design??
And these are the people who become the hot-shot lawyers? The blinkered, career race-horses. Don't stop and question yourself, it might hurt.
Be scared.
GHS:
There are other idioms of the English language where Bible-Bashing is used as I intended (Try Google my dear), of course seen as how you invented the language, I apologize for using the colloquial.
Jumper:
"Cancer patients in socialized medical systems in many first world countries wait months for a CAT scan", care to name them? I have lived and worked in three and the average time ranged between straight away to 1 week. Price Tag: Free. Yeah, just like "free" day-care centers, thanks all the same for the offer for a course in introductory economics.
Joel F.
"Why is it too simple to call Saddam a bad man?"
Just as it is too simple to call Mr. Bushy a "bad man" or a "stupid man". Oh Hang on, maybe you have a point.
I've lived in 5 countries now (yeah, whoopie, give me a platinum star) all with different political structures and cultural values. But one thing which I have never encountered to such an extent as in the U.S. is this blind faith in your Government / System / Consitution / Way of Life / Correctness.
Love your country by all means, but don't wave your flag in my face and push your values down my throat. If I choose high-taxes and "free" services then it is my choice. Maybe the U.S. isn't empire building, but it sure is playing God.
Question of the day: When does Patriotism turn into Nationalism??
Posted by: Anonymous | October 3, 2003 2:29 AM
Outstanding, Mr. Whittle.
The power of the United States is awesume and is bound to expand. Its hard power, its military, is unsurpassed in the world, yet it stands on the brink of information age warfare. Technology acts as a force multiplier. Armies required in the millions fifty years ago need only tens of thousands to do the same job now. Even fewer personel will be needed shortly. But our soft power, our commerce and culture, is even more impressive. Our enemies fear it more than our armies. One reason the French government decided to confront and balance us over the Iraqi war is the fear that America will render French nation and culture obsolete. And so it will.
The question about power is "what will it be expended it on?" Will America enslave the world? Will it make every nation into a knockoff of Hollywood? No. But to understand why not, we must look at the really big picture. We must ask, "What direction has our country been moving toward since its inception?"
If we see clearly the path our country has taken we can also see the direction we are moving. May I suggest a book about American foreign policy, "Special Providence" by Walter Russell Mead? America is reshaping the world, but is doing so in fits and starts-- without any conscious design. Ask any American if he wants to rule the world and he will laugh. He might ask, "Why would we go to the trouble? What has the world got that we would want?" Yet, America's values will rule the world. We have been moving toward that since the American revolution.
Our country could, at first, only protect itself and serve as an example to others while it worked out the contradictions between 'the rights of man' and the necessities of statehood. Later, it strayed into the sins of empire and socialism, but is moving away from them.
A pattern is emerging. After the second world war America forced the European powers to give up their empires. An unfortunate effect was to abandon parts of the world. Africa thus became a basket case; its per capita wealth is 40 percent lower than in 1945. But, the more advanced colonies were drawn into an America hegemeny of trading partners which grew faster than they would have as colonies. Representative government and market economies became the norm.
The world's nations and cultures become ever closer as they are expected to conform to American norms. This has provoked vigorous reactions in Europe and the Middle East. Rigid cultural conformity will give way to flexibility; age old custom and beliefs will bend. Reactionaries will decry the change without avail. Freedom and tyranny will confront each other; faith, reason and superstition will collide. Terrorists will destroy lives needlessly as Technology breaks down all barriers. Change will come to us all; discomfort us all and enrich us all.
Voices will cry out against the change. They will blame America, but America will be changing as rapidly as the world-- in unpredictable ways. Buckle your seat belt; it's going to be one hell of a ride.
Posted by: Louis Wheeler | October 3, 2003 3:02 AM
Time to fisk ChefQuix
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE OIL!!
You really think we're doing this for our self esteem?
How can anyone ask this? Is this a trick question? What's the use of an army if you don't let them fight because some of them might get killed. They all knew the risk when they signed up, it's their job. Do you really think no one cares?
As others have said before Gandhi's tactics worked because the British are decent people and weren't going to gun down unarmed civilians. Not to mention that Gandhi and his followers might have used a different approach if it were avalable take this quote from Gandhi for instance.
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest"
That doesn't sound quite like a total pacifist to me.
Yes war is ugly brutal and nasty and people get killed and their friends and family mourn their deaths but we should have stayed out and left Sadaam in power so it could be even MORE ugly brutal and nasty and MORE people could get killed and MORE of their friends and family could mourn their deaths. Oh Yeah that would be FAIR
Have you ever read the pledge of allegance? let me go over it for you.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the republic for which it stands: one nation under God, indivisible,
WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.
That last line kind of sums up the Constitution and The Bill of Rights I think.
No kidding.
Those documents were about creating a safe haven where freedom and liberty could thrive. The extreme nationalism we have here today is about preserving that safe haven
The only thing that concerns us now is the USA. The reason we went to war was our national interests were theatened not that we want to save the world. Our policy is simple, Leave us alone we'll leave you alone, Ask for help we'll give it but don't be suprised if we ask for a few favors in return, Fuck with us and you're going to die.
Oh yes we're rich therefor the poor hate us
It would seem unfair if that was the way things were,The way I saw it the Russians invaded Afghanistan. The US supplies weapons to the rebels to help them throw the Russians out. After the Russians leave the Taliban takes over. The US again helps the rebels overthrow oppresion. Seems to me the average Afgani likes us and the only ones that are pissed are the religious nuts we helped throw out.
So what your saying is because the poor people can't afford morals they automaticaly become terrorists and kill the rich folk because thats the only way they can survive.
Now all the enviromental problems in the world are America's fault, I guess if we rolled over and played dead like the French global warming wouldn't happen.
You think?
Posted by: R.L. Hunter | October 3, 2003 3:16 AM
Chris Whittaker, you unmitigated bastard! You bring up the Miami game to the world's most passionate Gator fan as an example of something GOOD? What inverted Bizarro world do you live in, man?
The Miami Hurricanes are one of the purest forms of Evil the world has ever faced. Watching them beat the Gators was like watching Darth Vader put one right through R2-D2, splattering Luke's brains all over the canopy and skinning the Ewoks for a fur coat!
I have read Chomsky and watched BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE strapped in a chair with my eyes pried open like in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and none of those horrors holds a candle to reading your comment.
If you had any class or morality at all you would hang yourself immediately.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | October 3, 2003 3:43 AM
Louis: "One reason the French government decided to confront and balance us over the Iraqi war is the fear that America will render French nation and culture obsolete. And so it will." - Get serious..
The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/1.html
Another good one: Dollar vs Euro
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/19.html
Posted by: Peter | October 3, 2003 5:04 AM
He (she?) who shall not be named said:
The problem with high-taxes and "free" services is exactly that it is not the choice of those who do not like them. They are forced on us at the point of a government gun, whether we like it or not. Yes, without those "free" services you must work for your bread. Otherwise unless you're good enough at the performance arts to convince someone to give you alms, you will starve in the street. Good. That's how it should be.
Posted by: Bill St. Clair | October 3, 2003 5:51 AM
Dear sir - thank you for sharing your gifts of thought and communication.
On the subject of power, I admire the U.S. because it has the ability to utilize the most devastating power, can deliver it at the ready, and chooses not to.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 3, 2003 6:34 AM
Gee Peter, I hate to be a party pooper, but Louis is right. America is going to win the culture war with France by default, even though France maintains a tight colonial grip on countries like New Caledonia, Tahiti, French Guiana, the Ivory Coast and Djibouti. That's because America doesn't need colonies to test its own nuclear weapons. It doesn't need a colony in order to have a rocket base. It has a powerful Navy to roam the world so it doesn't need strategic colonies. France today is France in denial - the same way most anti-Americans are - about the basic fundementals that make America great: Free speech, free enterprise and free elections. It really is that straightforward. No master plan other than individuals, protected by the rule of law, doing their own thing in the marketplace of ideas and commerce, associating of their own free will. That's American culture, and that's why it deserves to dominate the world.
And here is a gem that slipped under the pathalogicaly left Fairfax media radar. From the letters page of the Sydney Morning Herald, 1st October 2003, I give you Paul Severin of Robina in Queensland:
"I am sick and tired of the left wing propaganda of the Australian Media. Day in and day out, all I hear is how George Bush and Tony Blair lied to the world. How the Arabs are poor innocent victims of Western civilisation, and how many American soldiers are killed every day. How Israelis slaughter poor Palestinians who detonate a bomb where the most civilians have gathered. Nothing positive, such as how Iraq is progressing.
It would seem Australian television is being funded by the Middle East. It is appallling.
And then there is the pandering to Indonesia, although even its President made remarks that were not exactly co-operative with the war on terrorism.
Appeasement never gets you anywhere.
Thank God for the Yanks. Without them we'd never survive."
Amen.
Posted by: Proud Mongrel | October 3, 2003 7:13 AM
Bravo. You've once again come as close as anyone in putting the American Spirit into words. You need to get your book and do your speaking, because more people need to hear this. You - or at least your words - deserve celebrity, and I'll help in anyway I can.
Posted by: Frank J. | October 3, 2003 8:03 AM
Ap -
Thanks for posting. I for one, like to see/respond to opposing views, so long as the tone is civil. Sorry about the length. GHS must be rubbing off on me.
I don't need a credit card to get my CAT scan. It will be paid for by my insurance policy, which is membership in a voluntary risk pool. If I don't pay my insurance premiums, no heavily armed goon squad will be sent to haul me away to prison. If I can't keep a horse & saddle between my butt and the ground, I don't feel I have the right to use threats of violence to force my neighbor to pay my medical bill. It's not his fault if I get thrown and crash through an oxer, and it's not my fault that he smokes like a chimney.
As for blind faith...
I have zero faith in any government. Government is at best a necessary evil. Government attracts the good, but also the corrupt, and the corruptable. Worse, it attracts those who actually desire power over others' lives. Government gives those weilding that power the illusion of legitimacy, a presumption of moral justification.
My candidates for the most heinous regimes of the last century:
Khmer Rouge. One third of the population of Cambodia slain.
Red China. At least 30 million dead during Mao's "Cultural Revolution".
USSR. 10-20 million dead under Stalin's Ukrainian terror-famine.
National Socialist (Nazi) Germany. 6 million Jews, Gypsies, gays, and others executed.
These were governments without limits to their powers. These were governments whose agents answered to no authority other than their own conscience. These were also socialist, and every one of them promised to make life better for their citizens. How much easier it must be to murder a dissident when the executioner "knows" in his heart that his victim stands in the way of progress, of making the world a better place. Break a few eggs; we're makin' OMELETS, baby!! I don't believe it's a coincidence that the most vile regimes of the last century were socialist. It's that promise, that moral gloss and shine that seduces the good intentioned but corruptable. When your goal is social justice, the creation of an egalitarian society, where everyone's equally happy, then what cost can possibly be too high? Who can possibly be allowed to stand in the way? What moral boundary can't be raced across in pursuit of acheiving justice and the perfect society?
Our constitution isn't just the blueprint for a bicameral legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. It is a limitation on what the government can do to its citizens. It's supposed to put limits on what the citizens can use government to do to each other. I personally wish it's garauntees were stronger. I wish Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlen had been at the Constitutional Convention. My beliefs are not faith in one system, but a (perhaps cynical or misanthropic) mistrust of 'the masses', a mistrust that I believe history warrants.
I would respectfully submit that the person who favors big government is the one who shoves their values down others' throats. I just want the government to maintain order, and leave me alone. To use my example above; myself, and several tens of thousands of like-minded individuals voluntarily pool our money, and our risk of illness and injury by sending money to an insurance company (who charges a fee for calculating the acuarial data, handling claims, policing for fraud, etc). It is a voluntary association.
The socialist on the other hand, uses the power of government to forcibly deprive others of their property in order to give goods and services to themselves. And also to others who may not otherwise be able to afford it. Ah, there it is - The moral gloss and shine that justifies theft, today. What will it justify tomarrow?
As for your question, I have to confess I do not typically think in those terms. I find it logically absurd when a native-born citizen says they're proud to be an American. When I hear that, I think "Did your ethereal, unborn self fight some great battle to win the privilige of being put in a fetus in the middle one-third of North America?" Rather, I what I feel is gratitude. I'm thankful for how hard my parents worked and how much they sacrificed for my sister and me. I'm thankful for their parents' backbreaking labor and sacrifice. I'm thankful for the sacrifice of my great uncles, one now deceased, the other in failing health, who parachuted into Nazi-occupied France under enemy fire, or sweated malarial chills on the pacific atolls fighting the Japanese Empire. And so on, back to the men, women, and children in my ancestory who endured steerage passage on the decks of wooden ships to come here. Incredibly grateful that they all worked so damned hard, that my paltry contribution to further their accomplishments was able bring me the things I have, and the things I can do. Realisticly, with a modicum of knowledge of the history of the last two centuries, I don't think that could've happened anyplace else (OK, in retrospect, Canada, New Zealand, & Australia. God! I hate it when I start sounding maudlin)
So anyway, how hot is hot? How cold is cold? How many degrees is too hot? Labels & Definitions. It doesn't matter to me what you call "hot" or "too hot" as long as you don't burn people, or serve up salmonella with your chicken (I'm sorry, terrible analogy, but I'm getting punchy). I don't really care whether someone's patriotic or nationalistic. I care about their actions. On the one hand, I try very hard not to presume to know what's in another's heart. On the other, if there's a bootheel on my neck, I don't care whether the foot within is good-intentioned or not.
Don't think we don't stay up sleepless nights wondering and hoping we're doing the right thing.
J
Posted by: Jumper | October 3, 2003 8:31 AM
This post is a Hate Crime!
HILLARY/DEAN IN '04
Posted by: h | October 3, 2003 8:51 AM
Mr.Bill
Wonderful, crisp and brilliant. I could go on, making your head even bigger with great delight.
You have brightened my day immensely and filled my angered heart with hope.
Keep your voice loud and insistent, we will back you, spreading your writings.
I've already sent this to several of my friends, and they in turn will share it too.
Hope to hear you in person some day.
Posted by: quark2 | October 3, 2003 9:01 AM
AP, or some other anonymous person defending her points says:
Aaargh, comparing war to a[n American] football game. How profound.
"the willingness to fight bad and evil people who would take it from us". See above, thank god there are only either Good or Bad people on the planet. How do you deal with "generally good", or "sometimes bad" people - only half shoot them??
Donnie Darko springs to mind: Love & Fear folks.
And take WHAT from you? Good Bagels, pancake receipes, women & children, the pentium 5 circuit board design??
And these are the people who become the hot-shot lawyers? The blinkered, career race-horses. Don't stop and question yourself, it might hurt.
Be scared.
I watched Donnie Darko the other night, and while it certainly was styleish and interesting it didn't make a lick of sense unless you accept that the protagonist is insane. While madness might pass for wisdom in your neck of the woods, here it's just madness.
This entire part of your post seems a bit rambling and meaningless. What are you trying to say, that we don't "question ourselves" enough? I can't speak for everyone who posts here, but for myself I can say that such a statement is woefully innacurate. My opinions exist in a state of continuous self-scrutiny. Your allusion to the idea that such self-scrutiny must lead to the acceptance of socialist ideals is absurd.
AP also says:
GHS: There are other idioms of the English language where Bible-Bashing is used as I intended (Try Google my dear), of course seen as how you invented the language, I apologize for using the colloquial.
Way to pick your battles, AP! GHS ripped your arguement to shreds, but the one point you choose to defend is your usage of the term "bible bashing" (and for the record, he's right - the coloquialism you meant to use is "bible thumping").
What about the rest of the ideas in that post? Given that you neglected to answer them, we'll assume that you concede these points:
1) Population growth in the US isn't due to "bible thumping" christian doctrine but instead to a general sense of optimism, prosperity, and good health ... and also that Old Europe's population is in decline because the citzenry has a general feeling that is almost the opposite.
2) That europe's policy towards terrorism is one of appeasement, and that such appeasement leads to the slow attrition of the population's manpower, will, and resources ... and that America's policy of opposition, while higher in short-term costs, provides a multi-level security that can one day end terrorism.
3) That you either did not read POWER or at least badly misunderstood it, seeing as how Bill's intent was to make the reader consider how the mistakes you mentioned could be avoided, not repeated.
AP also says:
Jumper: ...care to name them? I have lived and worked in three and the average time ranged between straight away to 1 week. Price Tag: Free. Yeah, just like "free" day-care centers, thanks all the same for the offer for a course in introductory economics.
I don't work in the medical field so my knowledge here is admittedly limited, but I do know several individuals who were born elsewhere and then emigrated to the US. And in all cases they and their families will go to any length to get treatment in US hospitals as opposed to those of their native country when they're sick. It might cost them more (especially for the non-citizen family members who don't have insurance with a US company) but they're willing to pay for it. Why? Because our hospitals, doctors, and universities offer the best care anywhere. Period.
AP also says:
Joel F: Just as it is too simple to call Mr. Bushy a "bad man" or a "stupid man". Oh Hang on, maybe you have a point.
To compare the flaws of George Bush and Saddam Hussien is beyond outrageous. It's downright fucking absurd. If this weren't Bill's board - where civility is the rule, even to contemptable, cowardly apologists such as yourself - I would have something genuinely venemous to say. Now I didn't vote for Bush and I'm not a Republican, but let me tell you this: When you find mile-long mass graves you can blame on George Bush, you may then mention his name in the same breath as that of Saddam Hussien. Not before.
What a short-sighted fool you are.
AP also says:
I've lived in 5 countries now (yeah, whoopie, give me a platinum star) all with different political structures and cultural values. But one thing which I have never encountered to such an extent as in the U.S. is this blind faith in your Government / System / Consitution / Way of Life / Correctness.
Your stay in those five other countries must have been quite extensive if you think that Americans, as a rule, have blind faith in anything. Ours is the most scrutinized, contested, and accountable system on the face of the planet (the British come close in the accountability department, but just barely). No where else does the press and the public give the government such a hard time. No living document is argued over more than the US Constitution. And no people question the actions and assumptions of their leaders as much as Americans do. Jesus, AP have you watched the news lately?
And even if you put all of that aside - even if we assume that your statement has even the merest grain of truth to it - Americans have good reason to put some faith in our system. It supports the oldest democracy on Earth, and has consistently provided a level of liberty, security, and a general well-being unseen in any system that preceded it.
And lastly, AP asks:
When does Patriotism turn into Nationalism?
A nationalist supports a idealology based solely on one factor: National identity (hense the term "nationalist"). His support is blind to the merits or flaws of his leaders and system; all that matters is "we're us and they're them, and we're better".
A patriot supports his system and leaders because he believes they are valuable and just. He understands the merits and flaws in his system, and seeks to preserve the merits and correct the flaws. A patriot loves his nation and is willing to fight for it, but he knows it isn't perfect and works hard to make it better.
We'll assume you're alluding to the idea that America is a nation of nationalists, not patriots. A cunning debate tactic (bravo!) because the lines between the two do blur, and America, like any nation, has its share of nationalists (but if you really want to see some nationalism, go to France).
I'd challange anyone making a patriotosm vs. nationalism arguement about Americans to answer the following questions:
1) How often do you see Americans trying to oust extracultural influences? Do we generally embrace the people and products of other nations, or do we close our ports to them because they're different?
2) America is overflowing with foriegn workers, students, and visitors (trust me, I live in Florida). How prevelant is violence and slander against these people? Is someone from another culture generally safe walking American streets, or are they under threat from wandering mobs of nationalist "America for Americans!" gangs?
When you research and answer those questions you'll know whether most Americans are nationalists or partiots. I know what answer I came up with, but over in AP Land - where the sky is a uniform shade of socialist grey, George Bush compares unfavorably to a mass-murdering thug, and Soviet occupation is a desireable goal - things might be different.
A
Posted by: aliestar | October 3, 2003 9:09 AM
Not self esteem - the narcissism that comes at being at the center of the 'relative' universe.
Justifying the use of an army because one has an army is completely circular logic.
Nonetheless, action speaks louder than words. Passive resistance was more effective and less destructive than any other kind of warfare.
Do the ends justify the means? I suppose you think so.
Perhaps they should change the wording to 'WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL AMERICANS'. That would be more in tune with the political mentality.
At the expense of the rest of the world. There are more people on this tiny blue planets than americans, you know.
If you don't give us our oil, you're going to die. If you don't manufacture our useless products, you're going to die. If you don't ascribe to the same religious orthodoxy as us, you're going to die.
Yep, that about sums it up.
Reap what you sew - you trained Al'Qaeda, you provided them arms. You left them for dead when Russia withdrew. Political medling has consequences.
No, I'm saying that the poor people are angry as hell at the beligerance of the US, and those children grow up with that hatred and get recruited by evil men with promises of endless rewards for martydom.
Not all of the environmental problems are the US's fault, but at the same time as the leader of the free world it would be nice to see some leadership in this area. Instead the U.S. pulls out of the Kyoto Accord and the prospect of slowing global warming collapses. Plus, lets not forget that the US is the largest single polluter. Your easy going lifestyle and never a lack of want has a price to pay, and this poor little world is suffering from it.
Look, I'm not a total idiot. I know that you cannot reason with some dictators, and I know that overall it was probably for the best that the US removed Saddam. And I truely believe that the intention of the current administration is to install a pro-democracy government and leave as soon as it's stable, and these are noble goals. I am a huge proponent of democracy, and I'd like to see that ideology spread to the rest of the world.
However I would like to see that idea spread not by the muzzle of a gun, but perhaps by an opening of a book. Knowledge is the true weapon, education is the tool to aquire it. With knowledge and education democracy will come on it's own, and instead of being forced upon people it will come from within the people themselves. When they see the unprecedented freedom that our civil liberties have given us, they will want it, and they will rise up and overthow their dictators and despots. It will be bloody, it will be horrific, but in the end it will mean more to them because they did it themselves.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 3, 2003 10:08 AM
^^^^^--- Forgot to leave my name.. ;)
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 3, 2003 10:08 AM
Sorry Bill, I think this is not your best - possibly not even good, though definitively emotive. I have liked many of your points in the past - memorably that equality of opportunity is a far greater aspiration for society than equality of reward (darn, I cannot even paraphrase it adequately). By the way I am 'foreign' and thus by definition 'liberal' - or something. Essentially I agree with many elements of the libertarian aspects of your writing and am glad to find someone from 'your side of the fence' with enough coherence not to be an obvious out-and-out bigot / nutter.
In what way is attacking Iraq anything to do with attacking or deterring terrorism? I really cannot see that at all. Surely the spectre of terrorism, cooking up now in Iraq, has been well and truly conjured up by the attack.
And the choice was not a stark one, a) be isolationist or b) attack Iraq. Why not indict Hussein for general nastiness (certainly was enough of it) through the ICC - or whatever court you like - and get a mandate for taking him out that way, if the need is for regime change. No-one can say justice is served when the well established priciples of just war are flagrantly violated? Power corrupts but we are different, will just not wash. As I recall, many figures now in the US government were Saddam's good friend when his worst atrocities were being committed.
Currently your government (and mine - I am British) act indefensibly now, as mates of Columbia, in the same way they supported Saddam in the late 80s. There is a certain concept - JUSTICE - I am finding very lacking in your governments actions.
I really do appreciate the insight into the American psyche you provide by the way - honestly.
Regards,
Iain
Posted by: Iain | October 3, 2003 10:14 AM
Methinks that ChefQuix is jealous. Envy and anger is dripping from each sentence.
Having the freedoms to choose how you live in this country is the reason for all the ills and mishaps of poverty stricken countries that long older than the United States. So even before The United States were formed, it was already responsible for all of the dirt poor countries that existed before that formation.
Ghee, and I don't even own a credit card! How much more terrible is that?
Get a grip man!
Posted by: quark2 | October 3, 2003 10:35 AM
The world, along with ChefQuix would rejoice in the streets globally if the United States were do be destroyed completely, leaving nothing but a glass parking lot. They would ululate until they realized the darkness beginning to enshroud them for the rest of humankinds existence.
Let's get one thing straight, you can blather until you are blue in the face, but there's one thing that has not changed in thousands of years of human nature and pysche. Today man is just as primitive in nature as he was when he crawled out of the trees. Only thing that has changed is technology and the fact that we now use a calendar.
I personally don't have any inclination to follow the ways of blind idiotarianism as some posters here advocate. There are in the gene pool those who have poor or no survival instincts or skills.
Posted by: quark2 | October 3, 2003 10:50 AM
ChefQuix says:
If you don't give us our oil, you're going to die. If you don't manufacture our useless products, you're going to die. If you don't ascribe to the same religious orthodoxy as us, you're going to die.
Please give real-world examples of each of your assertions:
What nation have we threatened into giving us oil? As far as I know, we pay for every last drop of oil we recieve, and it comes from nations who are willing to sell it. Nations that would be living on a nutritious diet of sand and religion were it not for US oil money, I might add.
Where do US Marines regularly round up the citizenry and force them to make DVD players and SUVs? Jobs exported to other nations from America benefit those other nations; even at low wages, the people work there because it's better than anything else that is available.
And for god's sake, where the hell did you get the absurd notion that Americans want to force a religious doctrine on someone?!? Of your three outrageous assertions, this one is the most laughable. There is no nation on Earth that is as religiously pluralistic as the US, and there is no government more secular (though there are some that are equally so). Exactly which "orthodoxy" are Americans trying to push on the rest of the world?
A
Posted by: aliestar | October 3, 2003 10:59 AM
Iain -
To understand our (yours and mine, Maggie and Ronnie both) governments' actions I think you have to remember what that part of the world looked like in the 80's. The major feature was a brand new theocracy with a rabid hatred for all things modern & non-Islamic. The only effective counterweight in terms of population, power, etc. was Iraq. The lesser of two evils. Some believe that's why GHW Bush stopped short in '91; as distasteful, vile, dangerous as Hussein was, the region as a whole needed a counterweight to revolutionary Iran. The extent of Hussein's brutality must be compared to the fact that Iran was sending children into battle in human wave assaults, unarmed (the 2nd and 3rd waves pick up the rifles dropped by the annihilated first wave).
I may be way alone in this, but I don't see the "War on Terror" and the war with Iraq as being linked. They are two separate issues. The only link is the use of political capital. This spring we finally took the action the world should have taken in '98, when Hussein clearly and brazenly violated terms of the armistice that ended Gulf War I. That's all the justification required.
I agree Columbia is 100% messed up. Our government's trying to help their government fight the narco-"revolutionaries", but the militaries in South America historically lack, shall we say, "mission focus" (or respect for anyone who isn't armed. The Protugese and the Spanish did not instill in their colonies the same respect for and tradition of rule of law that your country bequeathed to us).
The solution would be to cut off the flow of drug money, but the people of the US will never decriminalize or legalize cocaine, so that'll never happen. In addition to that wonderful body of commonlaw, you also foisted the damn puritans on us ;-)
It's not that justice isn't being pursued, it's just that the governments, powers, and principalities are all flawed to one extent or another.
Power tends to corrupt (this thread predictably contains a lot of references to Acton). Through some good fortune, and a lot of hard work, the US has power to burn. As a nation, the US will try to use it wisely, will try not to be corrupted. Most of us here in the States will firmly believe that we will (use wisely) and won't be (corrupted). The rest of the world will have their doubts. The rest of the world will worry because there's a 600 pound gorilla in the room. And history will be the judge.
J
Posted by: Jumper | October 3, 2003 11:27 AM
That's not rare. I've won national essay contests with things that I just spat out in the last day before the deadline, and every one of the other finalists did the same. It's amazing what happens when you get on a roll. But that said, it's precisely your ability to have it be so easy that sets you apart. You have the right ideals, and you can express them well, and that's a very rare combination(although it's certainly looking less so as the blogosphere filters the best to the top of the fame tree). I know perhaps one person who can put such correctness down on paper so well, and that's only occasional. I can do that well when I'm at my very best, but that happens far too rarely. But to be able to put out more than a dozen essays of such great stature, that's a consistency that's not often seen.
Greatness isn't usually standing head and shoulders over all others, it more often takes the form of not faltering where others do. Most people can speak passionately about something, and that usually translates to text adequately. Many people can sometimes do quite a good job of it. But few are those who consistently put out works of art like you do and still manage to have every one of them still be alive with idealism and meaning. It's not doing it that sets you apart from almost all of the others I've seen, it's doing it consistently.
Posted by: Alsadius | October 3, 2003 11:57 AM
Alsadius, I agree. When Robert Altman was commenting on the song successes from the film, Nashville, he made the remark, "everyone has ONE good song in them."
And that is very true. Almost anyone can write one good essay, one good song, one great story, or come up with a interesting idea for a book or a film.
Now do it. And do it again, and again, and again. That is what makes someone special, like Bill.
This boy ain't no flash in the pan or a one hit wonder. He's the real deal.
Now if I could only figure out how to get him to marry my niece...
Posted by: Mrs. du Toit | October 3, 2003 1:09 PM
Boy, I am so far out of my league here! The education I get from reading the posts is as good as what I learn with Bill's essays (well, some are on par. Mine seem lacking.)
Anticipatory Retaliation, I got through to your site, thanks for the help.
Jumper- I can see your point {...I find it logically absurd when a native-born citizen says they're proud to be an American. }, but respectfully disagree about being proud to be a native American. Yes, I'm grateful to have been lucky enough to be born here, and thankful for all the things you listed.
But I also represent a piece of America, the average worker, who does his part to work and produce and contribute to what I consider to be the grandest plot of land under the best (or least worst, if you will) government the world has ever seen. And I'm proud to be a contributing member doing my little part to help drive the things that keep America great, even if I'm just a little cog in a vast machine. I'm not vainly proud, I'm thankfully proud; on some days it's the only thing that gets me to work (besides them damn pesky bills the mailgal brings.)
I think there's a lot of talent on this site, but my talents in this area are not proficient, so I'll just hush now. But I admire so many of your (collective) perspectives! Thanks, all!
Posted by: russ | October 3, 2003 1:27 PM
"Justifying the use of an army because one has an army is completely circular logic."
Yeah, it'd be pretty damning if that was his point. But that wasn't his point: his point was that our military is 100% volunteer, in counterpoint to your question about how any commander could in good conscience risk the lives of his men. The answer is that no commander worth his rank DOES without serious thought and the conviction that the benefit outweighs the risk. Every man volunteered to risk his life for his country: they are not unknowing "innocents".
Simply because YOU do not consider principles to be worth fighting and risking your life for does not mean everyone else feels this way.
"Nonetheless, action speaks louder than words. Passive resistance was more effective and less destructive than any other kind of warfare."
You need to widen your historical perspective a bit. Passive resistance was very effective for Gandhi, whose opponent was the British, who were outgrowing their imperialist phase anyway, and for the black Civil Rights movement of America, whose opponents were Americans and who were undergoing some ideological revolutions.
On the rare occasions when people were stupid enough to try it against civilizations without strong ethical convictions about the treatment of people, including one's enemies, it's been an unmitigated disaster. The tanks did NOT stop for the students in Tienamen Square, and the PRC is not now a democratic country. The soldiers of the Nazi and Stalinist and Baathist armies did not stay their weapons for unarmed civilians cowering on the ground before them: they gunned them down and threw them into pits. Passive resistance is totally useless when the person you're resisting doesn't have a problem with murdering you. Playing to someone's conscience is a very large tactical error if they don't have one.
"Do the ends justify the means? I suppose you think so."
I don't either. I am extremely sorry for the innocents and soldiers who died. But I also don't buy your counterargument, which is that the means justify the end. People tortured and killed is people tortured and killed whether it is by your action or your inaction, no matter what you meant by it. Do you mean to say that the Iraqi civilians who were being terrorized daily by their own government were less important, such that their miserable deaths were preferable to the much lower current body count that happens to include some Americans and Brits and Aussies? I don't believe that the ends justify the means, but I do believe that just because you can't do something perfectly to achieve a valuable goal doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
"Perhaps they should change the wording to 'WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL AMERICANS'. That would be more in tune with the political mentality."
Rhetoric. Why don't you ask the Afghanis or the Iraqis about liberty? From their perspective the Americans have a lot more interest in seeing them free than their own governments or much of the rest of the world. Unless you'd care to argue that they were experiencing more liberty and justice at the hands of the Taliban and Hussein than they are now.
"If you don't give us our oil, you're going to die. If you don't manufacture our useless products, you're going to die. If you don't ascribe to the same religious orthodoxy as us, you're going to die."
I join the call for you to provide specific examples.
"Reap what you sew - you trained Al'Qaeda, you provided them arms. You left them for dead when Russia withdrew. Political medling has consequences."
Yes, it does. Everybody makes mistakes: we didn't know that they were going to be worse than the Soviets until it was demonstrated as such. We have now rectified our mistake, happily. Would you argue that when we make mistakes, we should then leave the mess and let the people suffer for it while we retreat into self-flagellation?
"No, I'm saying that the poor people are angry as hell at the beligerance of the US, and those children grow up with that hatred and get recruited by evil men with promises of endless rewards for martydom."
There are several problems here. First, in many countries the media hardly gives them a balanced or remotely accurate picture of America: if your media and your government tells you all the bad things in your life are America's fault, you're going to believe it. Second of all, America isn't even the most aggressive world power of this century or even the last twenty years. France spends a lot more time putting down colonial rebellions, Russia spends a lot more time exploiting various resources outside their country and only recently ceased active imperialism, Israel was a British invention, and so on. Why aren't you arguing for more terrorism against them?
Second of all, it isn't exactly our fault if people consider suicidal terrorism a solution to their problems. Why not condemn cultures that value killing a few of their "enemy" more than they value the lives their own children? Why not condemn them for knowingly killing their children or teaching them to kill? Why, out of all the people on the earth who have as much or even more reason to be outraged over their treatment, do they feel the need to become implacable murderers? This is a racist argument, as you have absolved certain people of moral responsibility (which a person needs to be fully an adult) because of their race and/or creed.
"Not all of the environmental problems are the US's fault, but at the same time as the leader of the free world it would be nice to see some leadership in this area. Instead the U.S. pulls out of the Kyoto Accord and the prospect of slowing global warming collapses."
Global warming is a tentative hypothesis, not a reality. All current data- as opposed to the projective models, which to date have failed miserably- do not indicate any global warming. Data from NASA satellites over the last twenty years indicates global COOLING. The only hard global warming data we have, taken from 150 years of surface measurements, indicates a .3-.6 degree increase, which is well within normal variability. We quite rightly recognized that the evidence was insufficient to warrant a treaty as extreme as Kyoto. Don't blame us because other countries are more vulnerable to environmental alarmist tactics.
"Plus, lets not forget that the US is the largest single polluter. Your easy going lifestyle and never a lack of want has a price to pay, and this poor little world is suffering from it."
We consume the most resources and produce the most "greenhouse gases". (See above.) However, we don't dump sludge into our rivers and oceans like Russia and Japan, scatter chemicals all over our countryside like most of the world, slash and burn rainforests like most of Africa and South America, pollute our air like Japan and Mexico where pedestrians need oxygen masks to survive in some cities, whale like Russia, Norway, and Japan...
We also produce a massive proportion of the world's economy to match our resource consumption. Nobody consumes fewer resources than the desperately poor, except the dead.
"I know that you cannot reason with some dictators"
Really? Pray tell, what dictators CAN be reasoned with?
"I know that overall it was probably for the best that the US removed Saddam."
Then why are you arguing that we committed a moral crime in doing so?
"However I would like to see that idea spread not by the muzzle of a gun, but perhaps by an opening of a book."
So would we. Pity books that contain nonapproved ideas were illegal in Afghanistan and Baathist Iraq.
"With knowledge and education democracy will come on it's own"
Also both illegal, unless you consider indoctrination education.
"When they see the unprecedented freedom that our civil liberties have given us, they will want it, and they will rise up and overthow their dictators and despots. It will be bloody, it will be horrific, but in the end it will mean more to them because they did it themselves."
They tried that in 1991, because they thought we'd be along shortly to help us, because we'd encouraged them to. It was bloody, it was horrific, and the revolution was put down with extreme prejudice. We didn't come to help. It's one reason the Iraqis were more suspicious of us this time.
The pen might be mightier than the sword, but it's useless if you can't lay your hands on it.
Posted by: LabRat | October 3, 2003 4:33 PM
I understand that it seems unfair to blame all of the world's ills on the US's shoulders, but there are a lot of problems caused by the endless consumption going on there. It is also true that your country alone has the power to make this world a better place - for everyone.
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 3, 2003 4:40 PM
As for humanity and our 'primitive nature' - well I assume you believe that there is no nurture in the development of a human being? That sort of flies in the face of 5000 years of cultural development. The hardware may be the same, but the software is getting constantly upgraded.
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 3, 2003 4:46 PM
"In what way is attacking Iraq anything to do with attacking or deterring terrorism? I really cannot see that at all."
It was in the sense of getting at the roots of terrorism by refusing to allow snakes' nests of violent anti-Americanism to continue to exist. We were spending $50 billion a year in military presence threatening Saddam into containment, and he STILL wasn't compliant with weapons inspections or other terms. He was also giving money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and thus directly funding terrorism. We've also found numerous links to Al-Qaeda, including one direct invitation to Bin Laden to come to Iraq and talk turkey.
More importantly, other terrorist hotbeds like Syria and Saudi Arabia have been put on notice that we're much less willing to look the other way in order to preserve stability.
"Why not indict Hussein for general nastiness (certainly was enough of it) through the ICC - or whatever court you like - and get a mandate for taking him out that way, if the need is for regime change."
Because we couldn't. That's a political solution, in a climate of total political obstructionism. France frankly admitted that they would oppose regime change in Iraq no matter how we did it. Iraq was already in complete abeyance of the terms of the ceasefire, and the UN still didnt' want regime change.
"No-one can say justice is served when the well established priciples of just war are flagrantly violated?"
What are the principles of just war and how did we violate them specifically?
"As I recall, many figures now in the US government were Saddam's good friend when his worst atrocities were being committed."
I freely admit we fucked up there, see above for Cold War context and rationale. Again, why should we not correct mistakes made?
Thanks a lot for your extreme civility. You don't know how much I appreciate it.
Posted by: LabRat | October 3, 2003 4:49 PM
Look ChefQuix, I grew up dirt POOR. There was no social services, no handouts. I grew up okay, learning that when I did recieve something valuable, like a book, to appreciate it. I do not want a government telling with laws and force that whether I like it or not I am going to pay out of my hard earned money for someone else's health problems. There is nothing moral or ethical about some stranger putting his hand in my pocket and taking my money for another stranger down the street. That is not charity, that is enforced and unwarranted government stealing. I believe in charity, true charity, not the kind that if you don't participate puts you in jail.
So you stay in your comfortable state of welfare. But someday the hardworking ethical taxpayer is going to get disgusted and tired of paying for all of the free rides. When they quit, whose going to pay the bills? You?
Posted by: quark2 | October 3, 2003 5:07 PM
This is a magnificant essay, though not for the reasons cited by the authors of the effusive praise above. In NewsTrolls, I write as follows:
"I don't agree with it, but I know quality when I see it. This is a great essay. Americans should read it if they want to feel better about themselves. Non-Americans should read it as an astonishing glimpse into the American mindset. The essay is at once humble and arrogent, peaceable and terrifying. It is littered with the slogans and revised histories Americans tell themselves. It is as much a study of mythology as of might. But no matter. What matters is that it is brutally honest, a glimpse into the heart of an Indiana farmer or shopkeeper no study could ever reveal. Read this essay."
That said, and because I know I will be flamed (why should today be any different?), I will expand a bit. Though I could cite numerous instances of fiction, perhaps the most striking is the description of the three stages of development, the agricultural, industrial, and information age Americas.
During the Agricultural Age, the United States was founded on the prime agricultural real estate on the planet. Therefore, we as a nation never felt any first-age pressures for empire (although it certainly did drive the desire to enlarge the homeland westward to the Pacific).
Somehow this is supposed to b viewed as different from the other land-grabbing agricultural empires of history, as though all that land were there for the taking. The First Nations (you call them 'Indians'), the Spanish and the Mexicans would not agree. The 'Indian Wars' nearly wiped out an entire culture, while the Mexicans have never recovered from the loss. Nor was the expansion merely westward and southward; Canadians recall America's invasion north during the War of 1812, and the renewed campaign of terror (look up the 'Fenians') in the "54-40 or fight" years following the civil war.
During the Industrial Revolution, America again had no need to conquer and steal resources. Our oil supplies were more than adequate for the time, and we had more than enough iron ore and other natural resources.
Such a statement will no doubt draw gasps of astonishment from those in Latin America and elsewhere who languished for decades and longer under American sponsored dictatorships that robbed the people of their land, established mines and plantations, and looted their nations so thoroughly that they struggle against the yoke of poverty, corruption and repression to this day.
The fuel of this new age is ideas. And where do all the great ideas seem to be coming from? The most cursory glance at the world of invention, art, science and technology show that these come, to a really staggering degree, from the United States.
There is no doubt that the United States appears at times to have a monopoly of ideas. But this may have as much to do with public relations as production, as while ideas are generated around the world, they are frequently copied and claimed for their own by Americans. And lest other nations attempt the same, a strict copyright, patent and trademark regime ensures that proper tribute is paid to the Empire or its representatives. What is expanding is not the generation of ideas, but rather, of American ownership over them, a far more imperialistic position.
I am not here to paint America in uniform purple, and there is no doubt a great desire by many Americans to do good, and there is no doubt that many regimes swept away by American power were worse than their vassal replacements. But many were not worse, and as observed by former Canadian general Romeo Dallaire, who in the face of American indifference found humself witness to slaughter and genocide in Rwanda, the policies and actions of Americans overseas are driven primarily by a self-interest that trumps any prior virtue.
As I said, this is a magnificant essay, but so because it shows how deep and how systematic the mythology runs through the American psyche.
Posted by: Stephen Downes | October 3, 2003 5:26 PM
I was shown this little bit of the Roman Empire by my good friend bucketheed.
Let's have a look...
"You mention that Americans are lucky, and they know it. You also mention that most americans are at their heart good people. Both of these statements are very true."
er, er, er, Most people in the WORLD are good. BELIEVE IT OR NOT! I sure as hell do. As for leaders and power-fucks, no, not generally. It's always the PEOPLE fighting for the LEADERS who just cream off the top without getting their hands dirty
" I think though that it's easy to forget that the two statements are in a causal relationship - if you're dirt poor and barely scraping by,"
You say poor people are bad! You are crazy.
"you can't AFFORD to be good like the Americans."??
YOu say bad things, nasty things. Rich people, not resentful = good and poor people=resentful= bad. Some of the poorest, hardworking people in WORLD are most generous. Would set a place at the table for you and let you eat with them. Some of the richest people in the world are CRIMINALS! Some of them wouldn't sniff at you, least of all share a table with you. My examples are no more true on a global scale. everyONE is different. but you are being too simple and Nationalistic.
"This is the cause of all the resentment - it's like a poor town with a gregariously rich person at the end of the block who keeps driving down main street in a new luxury car every week."
It's rubbish. You are saying all the resentment owards rich people is from poor people?? Poor people aren't defined by resentment. They are defined by you. I would define someone poor as someone (just a normal person) who hasn't a house or food. You define a poor person as a RESENTFUL person because they haven't mansion etc. You forget how many rich people pay scum to do dirty work against poor people. Poor people get robbed too. Land taken by rich. Rich people rob land because the tenants are not rich. You don't understand. You don't want to understand. If a rich and evil person arrives and sees a land with people who have a nomadic lifestyle. Traditional lifestyle. he could think "yes this place would be better if we could get these people some medicine. Or he could say "yes this place is a great opportunity, I'll just pay some local warlords to "keep things simple" whilst I plunder these people's land for oil. They are poor and selfish, they have the oil that will benefit me and the world. "But mostly me" And there are good people too. That's an example, and there are millions of examples of poor people doing bad, and rich people doing good. And vice versa. So why be simple minded and say that 'poor' people are characterised by resentment. There will always be someone poorer, otherwise profit would not work. It's a race for the richest, the fittest. No morals needed. So why worry about the poor? They are better off dead and out of the gene pool.
And for Proteus/Columbus:
People like you want power. People like you want to 'buy' the planet. People like you think there is no-one in the world who wouldn't rather accept a dollar or a bomb to be called American than to be who they are today?. No-one is as honest and non-imperialist as the American (what drivel, every living INDIVIDUAL soul whether American, Brazilian, Chinese or Inuit is DIFFERENT, geddit?) so therefore ultimate US power and making everyone a US citizen is an act of extreme arrogance. Do we change the name of the Earth to America? Do we bomb all dissidents? And bribe and lie as in times of old and new?
And you don't think that's a teeny bit arrogant/bigoted/evil or stupid???
Too late, you're already corrupted, in the head.
You must not be so wordy, nor attempt poetry, because the crux of your argument sounds lke this:
America got attacked by some nutters.
Result: (As per you) "the WORLD is at a universal JUNCTURE where the FREE (American) world is under threat. It's time to take over the world. All this because of a few freaking terrorists.
"We have 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population. . . In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will allow us to maintain this position of disparity. We should cease to talk about the raising of the living standards, human rights, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
-- George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning of the U.S. Dept. of State, 1948"
PS the bit about Native American tribal policy being power based was amusing to. They had skirmishes, their culture wasn't realted to power it was related to the living world, and harmonic interaction. A mystery to the modern man who will understand one thing only: power. At his demise he will understand one thing only: But I MADE this button for GOOD people...
Shame we can't learn from the past and put in a bit of the new and all profit. Nope, it's crazy carrots 'til dawn, we're racing forward. It's not like we have all the time in the world to work out this food/air thing eh?
Less poetry, more right-eous power wielding please.
Spoon *)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 3, 2003 5:56 PM
Watching them beat the Gators was like watching Darth Vader put one right through R2-D2, splattering Luke's brains all over the canopy and skinning the Ewoks for a fur coat!
Bill: you make it sould like skinning Ewoks is a bad thing.
Remember my motto: Fur is Warm!
Posted by: VRWCman | October 3, 2003 6:35 PM
America got attacked by some nutters. Australians got attacked by different nutters. Britain got attacked by some other nutters. And so on, and so on, apology after apology, denial after denial, head thrust deeper into the sand with each gulp of desperate avoidance.
By all means, continue your belief that there are only one or two nuts running around. Plan your life accordingly. If you are right, nothing bad will happen, and I'll be happy. If I am right, we'll be prepared...and you'll be dead.
I've heard this before. We're overreacting. It's just a lunatic handfull of nutcases. Nothing for a great power such as ourselves to worry about. Don't make them angry. Show them the respect they deserve and they will stop hating us and become good citizens.
Of course, I'm mimicking British, French and American attitudes to Nazi Germany in the thirties. A platoon, a single French PLATOON of fifty men opposing the Nazi march into the Rhine, would have resulted in the Army ousting Hitler, by armed coup if necessary. Those are the records of the German High Command, not my speculation. So by all means, keep calling them nutters and isolated loonies. I constantly need reminding what the voice of appeasement and moral cowardice sounds like. When things are going this well in a fight to strangle evil in its crib, it's easy to forget how strong is the impulse to go to sleep and just let it grow and grow and grow...
Posted by: Bill Whittle | October 3, 2003 6:59 PM
"When things are going this well in a fight to strangle evil in its crib, it's easy to forget how strong is the impulse to go to sleep and just let it grow and grow and grow... "
Ummmmmmmmmm so now you've bombed Iraq and Afghanistan, it's best to take over the whole world with US power or risk Hitler happening again because there is a global Nationalist Socialist uprising?
here's a global capitalist fascist uprising too. But that one's too close to home to consider our liberties worth defending.
Get all the baddies, it may take more maths than I've seen here though.
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 3, 2003 7:20 PM
Ok, this is a thinking place. It's as arrogant a place as I've seen, but that's ok if people can assume that goes with the territory.
Lets make a List Of Baddies (the evil people in the world)
And figure out how we (the world) are going to rid this place of their polluting minds and hearts.
I'll start.
Hussein.
Sharon
Blair
Bush
Arafat
Stormfront
KKK
naughty North Koreans
Combat 18
American Nazi Party (oh yes there is)
Tamil tigers
Fundamental christianity
fundamental muslims
free Tibet from China
Lets have more. For sake of debate (this is still democracy??) let's cut and paste the above list, add our own (and/or delete one/some and explain why) and soforth
Then maybe this would be a better discussion.
I'm serious. I hate evil fuckers as much as you, neither am an apologist. Doesn't mean I support nationalists.
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 3, 2003 7:32 PM
Awesome, Bill.
bucketspoon: read Bill's stuff some more.
Posted by: Sophorist | October 3, 2003 7:38 PM
Hussein.
Sharon
Blair
Bush
Arafat
Stormfront
KKK
naughty North Koreans
Combat 18
American Nazi Party (oh yes there is)
Tamil tigers
Fundamental christianity
fundamental muslims
free Tibet from China
Berlusconi
Burschenschafen
Le Pen
Jiang Zemin
Hamas
Any more, there must be?
Posted by: Anonymous | October 3, 2003 7:41 PM
Oh, and...
Mr. Downes, I deeply respect and appreciate your civility and generosity, and it is kind to recommend an essay you do not agree with, as is of course your right.
However, you do seem to fall in to the rather tiresome, and patronizing position that we poor benighted souls wander around with a dim smile of satisfaction due to the diet of 'slogans and revised histories we tell ourselves.' You are kind enough to point out the US invasion of Canada during the war of 1812; I imagine the cause of that war -- barratry on the high seas by the British Empire -- was omitted on your part in order to conserve my bandwith. Thank you.
I made a point not to deny the westward expansion of the United States as an ongoing battle for land. I do, however, maintain that if the definition of empire is "a country or country that rules other countries," then expanding the nation is not the same as empire. Any reasonable definition of "the British Empire" means the overseas posessions of Great Britain: the fact that Wales, Ireland and Scotland were conquered by ruthless land-grabbing wars against the indiginous people of those regions is not part of the "empire" argument. Would you not agree?
Furthermore regarding the Mexican-American war, let us not forget that Mexico was not a nation of indigious peoples sitting around peacefully, but rather the creation of Spain, and Spain's hand in dealing with Native American's would make Himmler blush. Mexico was one of the most corrupt and opressive regimes on the planet. I have repeatedly flown over the Mexican - American border in personal aircraft, and it is the only geographical border I have ever seen that is actually visible in the earth itsself. The American side is sparse, with a few refineries and warehouses. The Mexican side is built up to, and hangs over the border. Millions of people are there and they want to come here. They have life a damn sight better in the US than they do in Mexico -- even today. California and Texas are economic powerhouses of the world, and California the fifth largest economy on the planet -- a leader in aerospace, microelectronics, software development, agriculture, movies, television and music. Prior to the Mexican war it was .. Chiapas. Baja. Poor, corrupt and vacant. Again, I see no distinction between the Mexican war and the British wars in Scotland and Wales and Ireland. I also do not see Americans harping to the British about these brutal acts of aggression. Nor do I hear them mentioned in articles from the Guardian. But we know how much the British enjoy the slogans and revised histories they like to tell themselves.
Regarding the poor third world laborers forced at bayonet point to mine and labor to satisfy mean American corporations...I am of the quaint historical persuasion that these items were paid for, in real money. I also fail to see how the US is responsible for every tin-pot dictator and unstopped genocide, but completely free of any credit where good government and liberal freedoms take hold. Please, do the rest of us a great favor and decide if we are all-powewrful magicians or not. Then we can be either free of the responsibility you wish to pin on us, or we can amuse ourselves at least by crowing about many victories we were naive enough to attribute to the people of foreign nations. Who knew such credit littered the ground?
Regarding all of the airplanes, laser beams, transistors, internets, phonographs, telephones and moon landings invented or performed by other nations prior to our stealing credit for them... as a student of history I beg you in the most endearing terms possible to provide me some photographs of the original items for my private museum. I give you my word as a gentlemen I will not show a single one to my countrymen; far be it from me to disturb the slogans and revised histories we tell ourselves.
Finally, regarding our shocking indifference to the genocide in Rwanda, let me say that we find a world of difference between a dictatorship and a civil and tribal war. Such a thing is not winnable. I, like you, deeply regret the tragedy in Rwanda. I do have a little more difficulty finding the path to blame the United States for this, but that is only because I am a little tired right now. I'm sure when rested I'll wonder who I could NOT have seen it. Until then, perhaps you could enlighten me about something?
Britain, France, Germany and all our moral superiors do have armies of their own, do they not? They presumably carry rifles. Ammunition is available if they are not loaded. Pray, sir, just what do these militaries DO? If the French or British Army is incapable of stoping a band of Rwandans armed with machetes, then why have such a force? And if they are indeed capable of such actions, perhaps you could explain to me down here, from the wider perspective of your higher moral altitude, why YOU people did not put a stop to it?
Thank you again for your kind recommendation. You are, I presume, a British Gentleman, and a British Gentleman is never rude, except on purpose.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | October 3, 2003 7:42 PM
Hey Bill,
Sorry about the Miami game analogy, but it's what was on my mind and it was at least an accurate analogy. I am not going to hang myself though, not yet anyway. I will save that for when the Vols go down on the plains in Auburn tomorrow and lay a giant egg. And for whatever it's worth, I was rooting for the mountaineers too, and I hated that the 'Canes won, although likely for much different reasons than yourself. I too wanted the Gators to beat the 'Canes, and I do agree that they are eeeeevilllll incarnate. I have never liked them, ever since I was little, they're just too damn smug for anyone's own good. Hopefully this can lower me back down to just plain ol' bastard status anyway.
Now, after reading the comments below mine and thinking on this some more, I have some more to add that didn't come out just right last evening. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (leaving aside that at one time we did meddle in those country for the worse, but as another poster said, we are trying to fix that, and free 65 million people or so in the process) were our great, leaping, impossible catch to turn the tide. For so many years, the "handful of nutters", also called murdering scumbag terrorists in my book, saw the US as a paper tiger, unwilling to fight back, even in the face of direct attacks on our soldiers and interests abroad.
I would be willing to bet perfectly good money (and I don't have that much) that Osama and many of his buddies who are now cave-wall decoration or wasting away in Gitmo at this point thought we would rattle a few sabers, shake our jowls at the world, maybe pull a Clinton and bomb an aspirin factory or something, and if we were feeling really ballsy, we might ask the UN to condemn them (like they care).
God help us all, that is most likely what would have happened if Al "I invented the Internet and want to gut the military just like Clinton and kick the can of terrorism anywhere down the road except my term of office" Gore, and I shudder to think of that future. We would likely be living the Israeli nightmare by this point had that happened. They did not think in their wildest dreams (or worst nightmares) that we would come back in full fury the way we did in Afghanistan. And even if they contemplated that in some offhand fashion, they certainly did not see coming our three week asswhipping brewery we opened up on Saddam and his cronies. On top of that, we are freezing terrorist assets worldwide, breaking up sleeper cells when and where we can, and letting other countries know in no uncertain terms that we might just decide that they are next should they threaten us or the rest of the free world.
That is what the "nutters" could have never seen coming, and I for one am proud we have a president (although I think on issues like immigration he is leaving the backdoor wide open for terrorists) that is courageous enough to see this vile and evil threat for what it is, and to act to kill it in its infancy. thanks for listening all, and I will continue to check back on this Comments section, because it has sparked some lively debate. Again, great job Bill!
Posted by: Chris Whittaker | October 3, 2003 7:48 PM
No you read some of my stuff.
I want to rid the world of evil.
And the root of evil.
I just don't believe that the only way to be human is American. There are millions of people inthe world, the whole world can help. They may have to kill people in their own countries, that as ever is the real test, that's why we in Europe you in US have Nazis, cos they are protected by the state, and other countries too. Worldwide. People are good. Internet is good. Don't let our politicians make people do the dirty work they are always using people. Let's make a revolution. Build a hit list. prove we are FREE!
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 3, 2003 7:49 PM
Bucketspoon!
Sir, you are a MASTER! Never, in all my readings have I seen the case for the vacousness of moral equivelence so perfectly and succintly stated!
Saddam Hussein, responsible for the death of 300,000 (and climbing!) people, tortured to death in acid baths and shredders, = George Bush, a man who has difficulty with nuances of the english language! Yes, a perfect moral match!
Tony Blair, democratically elected Prime Minister of a great and decent nation, and Yasir Arafat, the World's Oldest Terrorist, a man who personally orders the blowing to shreds of small girls on their way home from religious schools! Sir, you are not to be trifled with! You are an ASCENDED MASTER of moral vision!
American Nazi Party! Yes! Seventeen members and falling! A perfect counterpart to Hamas. I have yet to read the days papers to catch the score of suicide bombings the ANP has claimed credit for today -- I'll make a tally of them tomorrow.
Ronald McDonald makes people fat! Fat people have some serious health problems! McDonald's = Auschwitz! Disneyland charges people admission, and these people have to work to gain the money! How is this different than being worked to death in a Soviet Gulag? It is NO DIFFERENT!
Yes, I do believe I've got it now. I just pick someone I don't like and add it to the list.
Moe
Larry
Curly
Bucketspoon
WOO-HOO! I never knew winning a debate could be this easy!
Posted by: Bill Whittle | October 3, 2003 7:58 PM
You're not brave or free enough to kil the evil people.
And the state stops people killing politicians, no matter how many murders they sanction. There is the root of all evil. It's the same in EVERY country.
As for the Nazis. I dare just ONE of us to find one and kill him/her.
o? Why not strangle evil in it's crib
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 3, 2003 8:06 PM
Bucketspoon, all 17 members of the American Nazi Party may or may not be evil, but they are certainly not about to expand into something capable of threatening the Republic. Hence, as we here in the US live under the rule of law, there is no need to harm them; and besides, they're frankly harmless.
The whole analogy of killing evil in its infancy is that the evil will grow out of its infancy someday, and actually threaten the Republic.
Really, this argument of yours is just too silly.
JKS.
Posted by: JKS | October 3, 2003 8:16 PM
There is an easy solution that will reconcile bucketspoon's seemingly scattered and confused arguments and moral standards:
He's a superhero.
Posted by: LabRat | October 3, 2003 8:29 PM
Mr.Whittle,
And I thought Charles and Misha had the world's record in attracting world class trolls. I think you've just absconded with that record in no time flat.
I'm left speechless.
Posted by: quark2wearing anti troll tinfoil hat shinyside in | October 3, 2003 8:39 PM
"Bucketspoon, all 17 members of the American Nazi Party may or may not be evil, but they are certainly not about to expand into something capable of threatening the Republic"
Strangle evil in its crib. Apologists are the same everywhere. people in Iraq, scared to kill fascists cuz of reprisals. People in China, scared of reprisals. people in Germany, scared of repisals. people in the street, live next door to nazis. Scared to kill them
We are not free. Our law protects nazis. Our law protects warmongers. Everyone's law protects warmongers. That is the problm. Head in the sand. As ever. No-oone wants free world. All want their own republic. No-one thinks people of their own nation can be evil, they protect them.
Kill evil in it's crib in al nations. Including arms dealers to terrorists. All bad. All peddle death.
Go back tosleep. The nazi nextdoor "is probably not a threat.
Until he kils the gay/disabled/jewish person down the street. Or the Talibal man kills the woman next door. We waited too long. We are scared even today.
World criminal court. Today. No-one will sign. All are scared of losing POWER to kill.
ill the killers. Kill the evil people.
ou think my argument is silly.
Yet this page is about America using power and current war as stepping stone to take over world.
Which is sillier.
1. Rule the world and destroy nations to make everyone super race?
1. Or kill evil people?
No grey answers please.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 3, 2003 8:57 PM
sorry forgot to sign above.
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 3, 2003 8:58 PM
*CLIFF'S NOTES: BUCKETSPOON EDITION*
1.Everybody everywhere should be free.
2.We must protect freedom.
3.Those who threaten freedom are those who advocate killing anybody for any reason.
4.They are evil.
5.There's no compromising with evil.
6.Since evil cannot be reasoned with, anybody with evil opinions will eventually commit evil acts.
7.Since reason or compromise are nonoptions and evil will eventually do evil, we have to kill everybody who has dangerous opinions or ideas.
8.Then freedom will be safe!
Posted by: LabRat | October 3, 2003 9:08 PM
Good stuff. Don't listen to these critical types. A little bit of killing never hurt nobody damn it. It's an essential part of out nature, anyway.. I'm not an American (I'm from the part of the world that actually "rules" the world - for speaking of power) but I clearly see many points in your writings. Reminds me of times forlorn. Now fuck off and give us some new goddamn war to eat our burgers with.
Posted by: Totalscorn | October 3, 2003 9:37 PM
Yet this page is about America using power and current war as stepping stone to take over world.
Uh, what in the heck are you talking about? Here, this is the Cliff Notes version of Bill's essay, since you seemed to have missed the point entirely:
We do not want the world. We're having trouble paying our own mortgages and keeping our own grass mowed--we're not interested in other people's lawns. We just want to eat popcorn on Saturdays at the movie theatres, eat brats at the Cubs games, play with our kids, read, and watch TV, and be decent to each other.
That's what we REALLY want. If you think otherwise, or think that Farmer John and Sara are going to send their corn-fed, strapping boys to take over the world, instead of giving them grandchildren to play with, you're nuts.
Posted by: Mrs. du Toit | October 3, 2003 9:55 PM
Well done, Mr. Whittle. Clear thinking, common sense, logic. The American way.
Posted by: harry | October 3, 2003 9:55 PM
After reading all of the comments, it appears that some persons are incapable of reading only what is printed. I guess some people can only see the words of their personal agendas, no matter what the actual text.
Its late, I'm tired.
arghh, screwed up the url the first time.
Posted by: harry | October 3, 2003 10:27 PM
Of course you don't know where it comes from, It's from that part of yourself that you're so familiar with that you don't notice it any more. It's like your face, you can't tell what it looks like until you look in the mirror. The monitor is the mirror for your writing
Posted by: R.L. Hunter | October 3, 2003 10:44 PM
Mrs. du Toit
Maybe you want to "eat brats at the Cubs games" But I sure don't GO YANKEES :-)
Posted by: R.L. Hunter | October 3, 2003 11:28 PM
Hey hey,
I am from Canada and I am with ChefQuix on consumerism. We up here in Canada are just as bad with our disposable consumerism as The States is.
When the war started I wanted to believe that it was not for the oil or just to try and show the Middle East who is the shit, but as time moves forward it seems to be a bit of both, sadly.
No man (or country) is an island. What one does or does not do will have consequences for you and most importantly others. You can say, "We are the strongest army or nation in the world. So if you are not with us, then fuck off." but regardless you still have to live in the world.
As we in North America consume more and more resources, we will become more and more dependant on other countries to fuel our appetite for resources for our unending consumerism. Our actions towards the rest of the world today, will revisit us later down the road. Everyone reaps what they sow sooner or later.
I heard a good quote today. "The difference between Canada and the US is that Canada realizes that Canada lives in the world. Americans live only in America."
Posted by: TheKitty | October 4, 2003 12:35 AM
This site is interresting to read for a friendly non american ; I hope for some constructive discussions, on common issues, as free-thinkers and decent citizens.
"If the French or British Army is incapable of stoping a band of Rwandans armed with machetes, then why have such a force? And if they are indeed capable of such actions, perhaps you could explain to me down here, from the wider perspective of your higher moral altitude, why YOU people did not put a stop to it?"
Rwanda : French government firstly tried to protect local Hutu authorities, after the coup d'etat, and the beginning of massacres of tutsis, the french send in Rwanda ONE paratroops/special force unit from 1°RPIMA = Régiment parachutiste d'Infanterie de Marine),about 300 professional commandos, who STOPPED the massacres in ONE week with no casualty on their side. (the numbers of hutus fanatics killed by them is unknown).
US army came after to bring logistical reliefs.
It is current, that during the 80's and 90's, US troops were send to countries after the dammage, when risks were lighters..
We can find other examples ..
without commenting US initiative in Irak, What seems to me unmoral from the US policy is that they go to Irak to put away the local dictator Hussein, but not to Liberia, (wich is a smaller and weaker country than Irak), where the local dictator charles Taylor has caused civil war for years with thousand of murdered civilians.
French special troops went in Liberia last july to secure all western peoples, the operation took ONE day...
There was a US amphibious force on the atlantic coast, US Gov. could have easily send some marines to stop the bunches of killers, but they bravely said that the situation was not safe enough to do so, as Charles Taylor was still there..
US troops came after his departure, and after the fight to count the bodies..
What is courageous ? what is moral ?
It is difficult to receive lessons of political morality and courage in combat from US officials.
It is difficult to accept to allways follow the american way of seeing the world..
I beleive that american citizens are trully goodwill peoples, I don't beleive that US governement is that moral.
I think economical interrests of major US firms, controlled by a some few big and egoist share-holders (who represent a small part of all average investors) have the power to finance experts competents enough to influence Bush's decisions, as Murdoch's medias..
And that is a shame for US ideal, a risk for US democracy, and a threat for the rest of the world.
As an average middle-class investor, I can not influence the firms that works only to produce short-term financial benefits, but as a citizen, I can not accept to see the first power in the world being guided mostly by the same individual interrests, and creating greater risks for the rest of world as on short-term (ex ::international crisis) and long term (ex : ecology).
Therefore, I can understand non-american peoples and governments expecting alternatives forces to the USA,wich does not mean against USA.
But american people seems paranoiacs ("you're with us or against us", destroy the potential ennemy), and are schyzophrenics (we want to do the good, but we are hated ; we beleive in our moral values, but be we spoil the planet for our own comfort..) ..
We want to be isolationist but we have to save the world, including our personnal interrest..).
Nobody is dupe anymore, exect the middle-voter
some Intelligence would bring to a better coherence..
by the way, about Irak : 3 europeans leaders (french, German, Russian) refused Bush's orders..and US government is working hard to create divisions between europeans..because it is representing the beginning of an emerging political body, the USE (United States of Europe), that could or allready is :
- be an alternative governmental system
- be more independant from private interrests lobbies (allready the case)
- be more democraticly working
- be more generous with third world (allready the case)
- be more smart with international relations (allready the case)
- be more strong regarding armed forces
- be more rich and economically powerfull (allready the case : in 2003, the 15 european countries will represent a stronger market than US, european population is more than 300 millions peoples); in 2004, 10 new countries will join, Euro is stronger than Dollar, etc..)
Obviously, that would not help the defense of american interrest, but not ruins them either.
- europeans and american share common values and are seen as occidentals by the rest of the world.
- europeans could share the weigh of international influence and responsabilities
- europeans could be more open to new ideas and solutions.
- etc
Please, americans citizens, do not considers europeans only as rivals, try them as partners, not as dangers.
And stop give moral lessons to the non-americans humans.
Your sincerity will be interpreted as cynism or arrogance or ignorance or stupidity or endoctrination (and probably both), as long as you will not reconsider your own systems (political, social and economical) on its consequences to the rest of the world.
Posted by: Burt | October 4, 2003 3:01 AM
aliestar says:
Please give real-world examples of each of your assertions:
Assertion 1: Oil is traded against the US dollar by force
The big push for war in Iraq was partly caused by Saddam's decision to start trading what oil he could against the Euro instead of the Dollar. If it proved profitable other OPEC countries would have followed suit - this would have broken the economic hegemony the US enjoys and caused the dollar to collapse.
Assertion 2: US Consumer products are using forced labour
Citizens of developing countries around the world are being forced to work 16 hour days to produce the goods that we desire. Surely I don't have to proove this to you?
Assertion 3: Religion in America is unable to change
In the clash of ideologies, religion is the most subtle and one of the most powerful influences, but also one the least talked about, at least from a political perspective. It's a hard topic to discuss for many because it requires analysis of ones own self, the unwritten future and the unavoidable end. Because of the differing viewpoints (which ironically enough are pretty damn similar) the automatic suspicion of true communication with unknown questions immediately puts up barriers. Barriers are weapons. The inability to open the mind to new ideas.
To Russ:
You should not sell yourself short, anyone as thoughtful and wise as yourself should have the confidence to speak your mind. I really enjoyed your post.
To Spoon:
You are of course right. I am using the stereotypes generated by the alarmist media to paint a casual picture between being poor and being bad. I do believe that there is good in everybody. I really wish that the ones that were more bad than good would stop trying to manipulate good people to do bad things. I'd much rather see good people manipulate bad people to do good things. ;) If you think I'm trying to bullshit you I'd ask you to read my first entry. I'm sure there's something in there that you can agree with.
As for casually throwing around the idea of going out there and killing the 'evil' ones, I've never heard of anything so unresponsible in my life. What happens if there's some 'nutter' out there who's quietly lurking the site... Haven't we all here seen the Fisher King? It's enough of a possibilty with all the heavy debate going on here that I wouldn't want to be responsible for tipping that instability.
To LabRat:
Every man volunteered to risk his life for his country: they are not unknowing "innocents".
I guess what it comes down to is how much one really values their own life. I don't think it's cowardly to want to be healthy and survive to experience for as long as possible. If everybody thought that way then there'd be heck of a lot less violence. I'm realistic enough to admit that it's not going to happen overnight, but at least it's a goal to strive for.
You need to widen your historical perspective a bit. Passive resistance was very effective for Gandhi, whose opponent was the British, who were outgrowing their imperialist phase anyway, and for the black Civil Rights movement of America, whose opponents were Americans and who were undergoing some ideological revolutions.
Perhaps you should shorten yours. Evolution of thoughts and ideas are speeding up as they are processed by more and more people faster and faster. History seems to repeat itself, but perhaps positive social change gets thrown back in more frequently. While passive resistance probably would not have worked for the first nations people during british colonialism, it may be more effective in current times, at least one can hope so. I suppose though that it isn't particularily effective against terrorism and guerilla warfare, and hence the problem. The question is what is the difference? At least in India there was communication between the opposing parties.
I don't believe that the ends justify the means, but I do believe that just because you can't do something perfectly to achieve a valuable goal doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
I agree 100%. However I'd just like to see it done with more talking, less bloodshed.
Global warming is a tentative hypothesis, not a reality. All current data- as opposed to the projective models, which to date have failed miserably- do not indicate any global warming. Data from NASA satellites over the last twenty years indicates global COOLING. The only hard global warming data we have, taken from 150 years of surface measurements, indicates a .3-.6 degree increase, which is well within normal variability. We quite rightly recognized that the evidence was insufficient to warrant a treaty as extreme as Kyoto. Don't blame us because other countries are more vulnerable to environmental alarmist tactics.
I love how terribly short sited this argument is. Again we see the mentality of nothing matters after I die. Limitless resources as long as I'm around. Justification for abuse of energy and exorbant pollution because who gives a damn once I'm gone.
As extreme as Kyoto??? To cut back pollution to a measly 9% below 1990 levels? How is that extreme??
We consume the most resources and produce the most "greenhouse gases". (See above.) However, we don't dump sludge into our rivers and oceans like Russia and Japan, scatter chemicals all over our countryside like most of the world, slash and burn rainforests like most of Africa and South America, pollute our air like Japan and Mexico where pedestrians need oxygen masks to survive in some cities, whale like Russia, Norway, and Japan...
This is true, but shouldn't these be things that America could fight against, having all this mighty power? Afterall it is your earth too, and what gets dumped into the Ganges will eventually wind up on your shores. So if these acts are so reprehensible, why are you not standing up to protest them?
Then why are you arguing that we committed a moral crime in doing so?
I am trying to advocate peace and communication, a philosophy that I felt was sadly unrepresented during this 'Iraq Crisis'.
So would we. Pity books that contain nonapproved ideas were illegal in Afghanistan and Baathist Iraq.
A mentality that obviously needs to change globally.
The key is in the children. The children are a blank book waiting to be written. If they don't have to opportunity to learn and understand about themselves and the world around them they become easy prey for ambitious men with aspirations of power.
But I suppose it is all empty rhetoric - does any of this actually matter? Do our electronic arguments change in any way the shape of human destiny? Or do you suscribe to the chaos theory model - that every action has reverberations echoing throughout the world, that every event is a fundamental building block of the shape of history?
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 4, 2003 4:14 AM
to chefquix :
I totally agree
Huzzay
Liberty, equality, fraternity
Posted by: burt | October 4, 2003 5:12 AM
xXxXxXxXx I THINK THIS ESSAY SUCKED xXxXxXxXx
First, the style: It was unnecessarily long-winded. That and the self-indulgent purple prose suggest that the writer is too in love with the sound of his own voice.
In a patriotic essay, that's dangerous.
Because it begs the question of whether the writer merely loves America/ or whether his actual love-affair is with listening to himself say how much he loves America.
The style clearly was an appeal to Emotion, as opposed to Intellect. Lines such as "We need to do this. We need to do this now, all of us." invest more in rhythm, than in content. To make the most trite but clear comparision: Hitler was a rousing speaker. And it allowed him to present messy thinking as if it were coherent.
One common pitfall of loud declarations of national pride; is to then paint others as inferior in their patriotic worth. The writer makes this mistake. For example, the slur "How very... French" is used to describe the WTC survivors & families of the dead-- who think Ground Zero should be made into a park, rather than a commercial development.
Such demonization then extends to those who opposed Bush's Iraq invasion. They are uniformly derided here as having advocated Doing Nothing At All, and waving empty "No Blood For Oil" signs. That is profoundly inaccurate. The actual spectrum of protesters extended from the majority of Americans, who opposed a pre-emptive invasion without UN support, to those who carried signs reading "Let the Inspectors Finish Their Job", to Gulf War vet Erik Gustafson of http://www.epic-usa.org/ -- who for a decade said Saddam was adequately contained; and called for an end to UN economic sanctions that only hurt Saddam's victims, discredited the US and UN among common Iraqis, & consolidated Saddam's rule.
The writer is responding to a generalization of a point of view-- not any actual position espoused by any particular person. And so he leaves himself free to derisively invoke the names Michael Moore, or Ted Kennedy, or Noam Chomsky-- without contending with the more astute aspects of any of their particular positions.
Likewise, the writer creates a false dilemma against those who supposedly claim American power should not exist at all; that American power is automatically the wisest, most necessary, form of power available. In actuality, few Bush-critics advocate a wholesale surrender of US power. Rather, they advocate that the power be used as wisely as possible: stick to the real enemy targets, no free pass for Saudi Arabia, no oil profiteering, no reflexive disdain for our democratic allies.
The most intellectually-twisted aspect of the essay, is when the writer lionizes the Founding Fathers, Lincoln, and Mark Twain-- in the service of advocating a monolithic unilateral nationalist hegemony reprehensible to their belief in distributed power.
Right at the top, the writer misconstrues the phrase "Absolute power corrupts absolutely", to imply it is a denunciation of power altogether-- when in fact it is only a criticism of absolute, unshared power, without checks and balances. -That- is what concerns Bush critics.
Intentionally or not, the essay's writer said much that was intellectually-dishonest.
xXxXx xXxXx xXxXx xXxXx xXxXx xXxXx xXxXx xXxXx
Posted by: IcD | October 4, 2003 7:28 AM
"As for casually throwing around the idea of going out there and killing the 'evil' ones, I've never heard of anything so unresponsible in my life. "
It is not casual. If you had said that in pre-Nazi Europe it would have made the same impact. Make a list, everyone agree on the list. That's what politicians do. Are politicians better than you, or are they just trying to get evil people? This is mistaken, they are trying to further interests, they are not make world TOO safe a place.
I don't say kill people casually. I say evil people must be finished with. Zero tolerance.
No-one has courage anymore, liberals, rightwings, all can live next door to a Nazi and have hands tied. Scared of reprisals, scared of going to jail for being the good guy.
Same in Afghanistan, except there is no jail it is death.
I do not advocate irresponsibles. I advocate good people doing right thing.
But if you do, you will be called terrorist. It is politics. Divide and conquer.
That is power and how it works.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 4, 2003 9:16 AM
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 4, 2003 9:21 AM
you are nice people.
This is a good page. For intelligents.
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 4, 2003 9:24 AM
> The idea is that if the separatists in Quebec set a precedent by succeeding, a few of the western provinces might follow suit, and apply for US statehood before the ink's even dry.
As a practical matter, states are admitted in pairs, one Republican, one Democrat.
While commonwealth status might be an option, I'll stick by my previous advice - compete with the US. Do it better than we do.
Posted by: Andy Freeman | October 4, 2003 12:51 PM
Yep, Saddam buying 1000km range missles from the Norks, while feeding people into plastic shredders and imprisoning children, was DEFINITELY 'adequately contained'.
IcD, you think this essay sucked, and I think you are a barking moonbat.
By the by, do you have a poll or other evidence for your CLAIM that a 'majority of Americans' did not want to invade without UN support, from March (after the US got to watch the conniving backstabbing that is the UNSC)?
And don't forget, the browser that brought you here can lead you somewhere else. Like Indymedia.
Posted by: Eric Sivula | October 4, 2003 2:17 PM
But who is in charge of assigning the 'evil' label to a person? Isn't that all completely relative? Purely based on one persons perception? I would never have enough confidence in my own judgement to label someone definatively evil and marked for execution. I would rather try and talk to them, and tell them why I think they're evil.
Glad you like the site, I appreciate the compliment.
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 4, 2003 5:43 PM
Nope, it's NOT all completely relative. Some things just aren't. Is the truth relative? Are morals really relative? In either case, I don't think so.
When a person makes it perfectly clear to a large body of sane, rational people that they fully intend to do whatever they they want, to whomever they want, and it's undoubtedly horrible things they are doing, than action must be taken. Talking didn't work for over 10 years with Saddam Hussein, you may be able to argue on some level that he was contained, but he wasn't contained to the people in the mass graves and the torture chambers. He wasn't contained to anyone who lived outside of the Sunni triangle being ground under the bootheel of socialism. What Saddam did was make it perfectly, crystal clear, that nothing would put an end to his pursuit of WMD and his exploitation, repression, and murder of his own people except force. Some people only understand getting their asses kicked, and Saddam is definately one of them. In his case, war was neccessary because of this.
"I would never have enough confidence in my own judgement to label someone definatively evil and marked for execution. I would rather try and talk to them, and tell them why I think they're evil."
So how much more time should we have given to "talking"....another 5, 10 or 15 years? Time is important too. This is why it's important to never have people that feel this way making such important decisions, because such perpetual abiguity is always seen as weakness by the most selfish and violent in our midst.
Posted by: Jon Davison | October 4, 2003 6:17 PM
Nope, it's NOT all completely relative. Some things just aren't. Is the truth relative? Are morals really relative? In either case, I don't think so.
When a person makes it perfectly clear to a large body of sane, rational people that they fully intend to do whatever they they want, to whomever they want, and it's undoubtedly horrible things they are doing, than action must be taken. Talking didn't work for over 10 years with Saddam Hussein, you may be able to argue on some level that he was contained, but he wasn't contained to the people in the mass graves and the torture chambers. He wasn't contained to anyone who lived outside of the Sunni triangle being ground under the bootheel of socialism. What Saddam did was make it perfectly, crystal clear, that nothing would put an end to his pursuit of WMD and his exploitation, repression, and murder of his own people except force. Some people only understand getting their asses kicked, and Saddam is definately one of them. In his case, war was neccessary because of this.
"I would never have enough confidence in my own judgement to label someone definatively evil and marked for execution. I would rather try and talk to them, and tell them why I think they're evil."
So how much more time should we have given to "talking"....another 5, 10 or 15 years? Time is important too. This is why it's important to never have people that feel this way making such important decisions, because such perpetual abiguity is always seen as weakness by the most selfish and violent in our midst.
Posted by: Jon Davison | October 4, 2003 6:18 PM
Sorry for the double post.
Posted by: Jon Davison | October 4, 2003 6:19 PM
You talk of 'talking' as if it took place over the years of the sanctions. I don't really believe there were any conversations - only just one president or another talking 'at' Saddam. The art of discourse requires two voices to be heard.
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 4, 2003 7:24 PM
"The big push for war in Iraq was partly caused by Saddam's decision to start trading what oil he could against the Euro instead of the Dollar. If it proved profitable other OPEC countries would have followed suit - this would have broken the economic hegemony the US enjoys and caused the dollar to collapse."
No offense, but given that we had several other, better reasons to depose Hussein, why are you concluding that THIS is why we REALLY went to war? This strikes me as grasping at straws. Got any examples that aren't overshadowed by twelve years of hostilities- including a full-scale war, from which we gained no oil whatsoever- and atrocities?
"Citizens of developing countries around the world are being forced to work 16 hour days to produce the goods that we desire. Surely I don't have to proove this to you?"
Actually, yes, you do. See, they are being paid, and I've never heard a damn thing about squadrons of Coca-Cola Gestapo going through villages dragooning hapless natives. If they are voluntarily working these hours for such lousy pay, that implies they don't have a better option. This is tragic indeed, but I fail to see why this hypothetical country's presumably hideous economy is OUR fault. Would you "free" them in order to absolve free-floating American guilt only to turn them out to the worse option?
"It's a hard topic to discuss for many because it requires analysis of ones own self, the unwritten future and the unavoidable end."
Given that I'm an atheist, I think I can probably discuss it without any undue mental trauma.
"Because of the differing viewpoints (which ironically enough are pretty damn similar) the automatic suspicion of true communication with unknown questions immediately puts up barriers. Barriers are weapons. The inability to open the mind to new ideas."
And yet, despite my generally cynical view of organized religion, I honestly think you're overstating the case. If anybody's wanted to make it a religious conflict, it's Bin Laden and his cronies, who characterized it directly as a war of Islam against the West. I've never heard an American more moderate than Jerry Falwell bring it up, and I don't really buy this "subconscious conspiracy" theory. Why do you need a religious cause when you have an actual act of war?
For that matter, I know plenty of atheists with closed minds and plenty of intellectual Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Given that most intellectual progress was accomplished by clerics- Muslims included- until the Enlightenment, characterizing religion in general as preventing a person from getting new ideas seems dubious. There are some strains of religion that are inherently anti-intellectual, but this is painting with entirely too broad a brush. It also smacks of an excuse not to examine your opponent's argument too closely.
"I don't think it's cowardly to want to be healthy and survive to experience for as long as possible."
Neither do I, which is why I don't attach any moral value to military service or lack thereof. My point is that it is their choice to make- just like some glowering general doesn't have the right to hold your lack of service against you, you don't have the right to cheapen the sacrifice of those who choose to make it by suggesting that their commanders are wasting their lives indiscriminately and pointlessly by the very act of being involved in a war.
"Evolution of thoughts and ideas are speeding up as they are processed by more and more people faster and faster."
I am an evolutionary biologist by education and inclination. I am quite aware of the speed of cultural evolution. I am equally aware that the array of instincts and emotions possessed by humans evolves much, much slower.
I am also aware that social systems which reward the cheater over the cooperator never last. The reason total pacifism is an unworkable real-world philosophy is that it collapses as soon as the first person willing to use force comes along, because no one is equipped or willing to stop him. To quote Dogbert, "I wish everyone in the world was peaceful. Then I could conquer the whole stupid planet with just a butter knife."
In order to build a better world with better ideas, we must first make our new system both idiot-proof and villian-proof. Let me ask you this: given the track record of behavior by the Hussein family, which includes well-documented instances of unbelieveable sadism against the helpless, do you honestly believe passive resistors would have accomplished anything besides adding another layer of grime to some torture chamber's floor?
"I love how terribly short sited this argument is. Again we see the mentality of nothing matters after I die. Limitless resources as long as I'm around. Justification for abuse of energy and exorbant pollution because who gives a damn once I'm gone."
I'd say I love how completely you misread my argument in order to make it fit your preconceptions better, but I don't. I find it extremely irritating. Let me make it clearer for you:
THERE IS NO REAL EVIDENCE THERE IS ANY SUCH THING AS ANTHROPOGENIC (human-caused) GLOBAL WARMING. IT IS A TENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS THAT SO FAR HAS BEEN DISCREDITED BY DATA, NOT SUPPORTED. GLOBAL WARMING HAS BEEN DRIVEN FAR MORE BY POLITICS THAN SCIENCE.
Let's make one thing absolutely clear: I am a conservationist. Really; I have the Sierra Club membership and everything. I care quite deeply about the environment, which is why the politicization of the movement depresses and angers me. The degree of intellectual dishonesty, the treatment of science as a two-bit whore, and the scaremongering revolts me, because it is largely counterproductive and in some cases directly harmful.
"As extreme as Kyoto??? To cut back pollution to a measly 9% below 1990 levels? How is that extreme??"
Ever heard the expression "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics"? Well, the first lesson for anyone wishing to be less easily fooled by numbers is this: never trust any number expressed as a naked percentage. There is no better way to make a little sound like a lot or a lot sound like a little than that. Given the size of U.S. industry, nine percent is so nontrivial it's not even funny when it comes to the amount of regulation, mechanical overhaul, expansion of bureaucracy, and overall economic impact; and all for a tentative hypothesis.
"This is true, but shouldn't these be things that America could fight against, having all this mighty power? Afterall it is your earth too, and what gets dumped into the Ganges will eventually wind up on your shores. So if these acts are so reprehensible, why are you not standing up to protest them?"
Who said I don't? One of the reasons the global warming flap pisses me off is that it takes focus off real, directly and demonstrably harmful environmental insults and allows the perpetrators to paint themselves as conservationally minded while using the issue as a cudgel against the U.S., drastically reducing any ability of America as a nation to apply pressure.
So why are you so concerned with the U.S instead of speaking out against real thumbscrew tyrannies? Or does this just mean you recognize that the U.S. is the issue in this thread, like me?
"I am trying to advocate peace and communication, a philosophy that I felt was sadly unrepresented during this 'Iraq Crisis'."
Why don't you take it up with the members of the UNSC that made it clear there was no way it could be resolved through multinational diplomatic channels? Or is "multilateralism" more important than doing the right thing by our nation and Iraq?
"A mentality that obviously needs to change globally."
If we waited for that to happen, untold millions would die under the bootheel of tyranny.
"he key is in the children. The children are a blank book waiting to be written."
Then I guess it's a really good thing the U.S. invasion restored education outside of Koranic study for male children, eh?
Again: faced with the fact that there was no such thing as real education or freedom of thought in Afghanistan or Iraq, how do you continue to assert that that was the route to freedom for them, unlike our ugly military action?
Idealism is well and good, but the effective idealist knows how to adjust his perspective and plans to the situation.
"But I suppose it is all empty rhetoric - does any of this actually matter? Do our electronic arguments change in any way the shape of human destiny? Or do you suscribe to the chaos theory model - that every action has reverberations echoing throughout the world, that every event is a fundamental building block of the shape of history?"
I subscribe to intelligent and informed discussion. I also subscribe to the notion of taking direct and informed action. If debate was good enough for the Founding Fathers and good enough for Lincoln, it's good enough for me.
Posted by: LabRat | October 4, 2003 7:39 PM
"First, the style: It was unnecessarily long-winded. That and the self-indulgent purple prose suggest that the writer is too in love with the sound of his own voice.
In a patriotic essay, that's dangerous."
No, you just don't like it. I read intensely sober and analytical treatises on politics and current events all the time. I come to Bill's side to read damned good rhetorical writing. I don't give a shit if it attracts mindless dittoheads or not, I'm a grownup and capable of reading something stirring without losing my head.
"Such demonization then extends to those who opposed Bush's Iraq invasion."
No, it doesn't. He demonizes opposition based on defeatism, blind political counter-reaction to Bush, and other empty ideas. Given what's at stake, I also find them morally contemptible. I've seen Bill praise the opposition when it's got sound intellectual and philosophical ground before.
"The writer is responding to a generalization of a point of view-- not any actual position espoused by any particular person. And so he leaves himself free to derisively invoke the names Michael Moore, or Ted Kennedy, or Noam Chomsky-- without contending with the more astute aspects of any of their particular positions."
Of course he's responding to a generalization; it was a general topic. And frankly, if Moore, Kennedy, and Chomsky have more astute aspects to their positions, I have yet to hear them. If you want a real debate, then that's what this comments section is for. Bring it on.
"Rather, they advocate that the power be used as wisely as possible: stick to the real enemy targets, no free pass for Saudi Arabia, no oil profiteering, no reflexive disdain for our democratic allies."
Except that while I have seen things expressed that way, those doing so were in the minority. Bill was responding to the majority.
"The most intellectually-twisted aspect of the essay, is when the writer lionizes the Founding Fathers, Lincoln, and Mark Twain-- in the service of advocating a monolithic unilateral nationalist hegemony reprehensible to their belief in distributed power."
For someone so in love with their own analytical prowess, you're reading a lot into the essay that simply wasn't there. Bill was responding to a common positon in which multilateralism is blindly praised without consideration or context- not advocating American world domination. The message is that power in and of itself is not evil, not that we should have all the power forever after.
"Right at the top, the writer misconstrues the phrase "Absolute power corrupts absolutely", to imply it is a denunciation of power altogether-- when in fact it is only a criticism of absolute, unshared power, without checks and balances. -That- is what concerns Bush critics."
Except that the Founding Fathers helpfully designed the American political apparatus WITH checks and balances, which is why Bush by no means has accomplished everything he wanted to in office. (Fine by me. I hate the Faith-Based Initiative.) Like it or not, the invasion of Iraq was accomplished with the support of both the majority of the American people and the majority of the legislative branch. Given this, your argument looks a little silly.
"Intentionally or not, the essay's writer said much that was intellectually-dishonest."
NOTHING like you, I'm sure. Not only did you pass off as illegitimate a writing format that's persisted since the Greeks, you claimed Bill said things he didn't and argued a condition (Bush having absolute power) that doesn't exist.
Posted by: LabRat | October 4, 2003 8:05 PM
One more lucky contestant before I pour myself a stiff drink and retire for the evening.
"It is current, that during the 80's and 90's, US troops were send to countries after the dammage, when risks were lighters.."
So the French dealt with Rwanda. Good for them; given that they used to own it, it's a hell of a lot more their responsibility than it is America's.
Your argument that U.S. troops only came in when the risks were lighter is rather puzzling given that American troops have been the ones dealing primarily with the biggest global conflicts since 1945. Why is it a problem that we don't show up to run every single war on the planet? I thought people hated us so much because we spend so much time interfering with other people's problems- so why when we abstain are we still criticized?
We have enough trouble rallying support for a war that IS in our national interests as well as being the right thing to do. Why should we even try for the ones that are only the right thing to do?
" but not to Liberia, (wich is a smaller and weaker country than Irak), where the local dictator charles Taylor has caused civil war for years with thousand of murdered civilians."
Well, for one thing, our military forces were already committed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the possibility of North Korea. For another thing, our attempts to intervene in small, civil conflicts have been historically unproductive: witness Kosovo and Somalia. The U.N. normally ties our hands in such a way that we can "peacekeep" in limited local areas, but cannot aggressively pursue the combatants. This doesn't seem to apply to France, who have fought several conflicts in Africa over recent years without much more than a go-ahead from the U.N.
"It is difficult to receive lessons of political morality and courage in combat from US officials."
If you're looking to politicians for courage and moral fortitude, you're looking in the wrong damn place.
"I don't beleive that US governement is that moral."
Buddy, I don't believe that ANY government is moral. By their very nature they are amoral and self-interested; it's up to the people to impose some standard of right and wrong on them, which is why we're so hot for representative, elected governments with a high degree of accountability.
"But american people seems paranoiacs ("you're with us or against us", destroy the potential ennemy), and are schyzophrenics (we want to do the good, but we are hated ; we beleive in our moral values, but be we spoil the planet for our own comfort..) .."
Ah yes. Disliking any nation or culture other than America is bigotry and morally simplistic; disliking America and American cultures is progressive. We're not paranoid, we just have a vigorous response to an ACT OF WAR. As for terrorist-sponsoring governments, given that war was declared on us by Bin Laden and co., it makes sense to see them as our enemies.
And since when is doing good and being hated contradictory? It sure pisses off the people you're stopping from doing evil. As for spoiling the planet for our own comfort, give me a freaking break. There are MANY nations with a far worse environmental record than ours. Just because we are not afraid to voice our ideals does not mean that when we fail to live up to them, they are rendered invalid. Do you live up to your ideals all the time?
"3 europeans leaders (french, German, Russian) refused Bush's orders"
Speaking of corporations having undue influence in government, did you know that French oil companies had a number of sweetheart deals with Saddam's Iraq? Did you know that Russia did as well? Did you know that most of the chemical weapons the inspectors did find and list were made by German manufacturing companies? And did you know that Vladimir Putin openly admitted that Russia was opposed due to its economic interest in Saddam's regime?
"and US government is working hard to create divisions between europeans"
Are we? We made our position clear; that's all we did. Europeans did the rest all by themselves. Are you saying that they have so little minds of their own that merely by taking our own position we forced them to disagree with each other?
How can we express to you that we honestly don't care if Europe becomes truly united? Why don't you look at some of the European Union's internal problems before blaming the U.S. for the slow and rocky path? Things like France and Germany getting away with running budget deficits in violation with EU guidelines but getting away with it because they have the most clout, some of the nations being suspicious of losing soveriegnty and being effectively governed from Brussels, the fact that very few of them have a reasonably sized military and none of them have one that comes close to matching the American one, and before that happens they'll have to find billions more money to budget for it... or the fact that Europe isn't really as monolithic as some would like to depict it? When Spain and Italy expressed support for regime change in Iraq, France's prime minister said, and I quote, "They missed a good opportunity to be quiet". Doesn't sound terribly united to me.
"Please, americans citizens, do not considers europeans only as rivals, try them as partners, not as dangers"
We don't see them as dangers. We see them as sometime allies and sometime obstructionists, which is what they are. We never saw them as our enemy in the sense that nations like Syria are.
"And stop give moral lessons to the non-americans humans."
You first. We've been hearing about what arrogant, childish cowboys we are for two hundred years, even when we were actively involved in defending and/or rebuilding Europe after hideously destructive land wars. We've also been hearing about how amoral we are for liberating Iraq from one of the most brutal dicators of the twentieth century.
"Your sincerity will be interpreted as cynism or arrogance or ignorance or stupidity or endoctrination (and probably both), as long as you will not reconsider your own systems (political, social and economical) on its consequences to the rest of the world."
Right back at you, chief. Seriously. If you want to see more European/American understanding, why don't you try questioning your OWN biases, assumptions, indoctrination, and political/social systems and get that sorted out? Try tackling the rates of unemployment in many European countries, higher in good times than ours are in recession. Try addressing why draconian gun control laws don't seem to have stemmed crime any. Question your own governments' behavior and intentions and economic motivations. Question your morality: what is it based on? What are the inconsistencies? How has it worked when applied?
We will take European criticism of our behavior much more seriously then. First, do: then you may reasonably expect others to follow.
Posted by: LabRat | October 4, 2003 8:33 PM
Yeah, and the CIA tries to control your mind from space. There's a thousand good reasons for the invasion of Iraq, but of course it has to be the oner that makes the US the evil greedy bastard. *rolls eyes*
It may be labour that wouldn't be legal in the US, but it's all voluntary, and it's actually better work than the normal in those countries. You don't see the improvements that capitalism has wrought in society because the largest of them happened before your birth, but the fact that a 16-hour day seems odd to you is a sign of that success. Frankly, I'd like it to seem odd to the people in those countries too, but in order to do that we're going to have to let them become democratic, capitalist societies with a respect for the rule of objective law, and that doesn't seem to be something you support.
Yeah, religions are generally resistant to change, and religion is a powerful idea to those that have it(and a bix hoax to those who don't, such as myself). But what's your point?
Wow, something of yours that I agree with.
So you don't think that killing to prevent murder is a good idea? Or you're just unwilling to say the obvious because somebody might go insane because of it? Even if you won't say it, I will: Killing those who plan and do evil acts is a good thing to do. To ensure that we don't have psychopaths doing these things, we generally leave that particular sword in the hands of any democratic nation willing to weild it(usually the US and allies), but the general principle is universal.
Those people signed up because there was something more important to them than their own life, and that is the security and freedom of those around them. Every person in a volunteer army is there because they're willing to risk their life in defense of their nation's foreign policy(which should be dedicated towards the aforementioned freedom and security), and to complain that they're doing what they signed up knowing that they might be forced to do is a pathetic argument. I don't want them to die, but if we allow ourselves to be paralyzed at the thought of a single death, we would be totally impotent.
Perhaps you should shorten yours. Evolution of thoughts and ideas are speeding up as they are processed by more and more people faster and faster. History seems to repeat itself, but perhaps positive social change gets thrown back in more frequently. While passive resistance probably would not have worked for the first nations people during british colonialism, it may be more effective in current times, at least one can hope so. I suppose though that it isn't particularily effective against terrorism and guerilla warfare, and hence the problem. The question is what is the difference? At least in India there was communication between the opposing parties.
Did passive resistance work against Saddam's Iraq, Communist China, or any of the thousands of other tyrranical regimes in history? And if not, why do youy keep advocating it?
We've tried talking, and it lead to more bloodshed than the war did. You want less bloodshed than this, check Utopia or maybe heaven, because there's no earthly way to acheive it.
Plenty matters after I die, but I should hope that things matter when they're closer to the present. Speaking as someone who plans on being alive for another 100 years(I'm young enough that there's a good shot at it), the comment that "it doesn't matter after I'm dead" is about as far from my position as can be acheived without advocating necrophilia.
Resources are eswsentially limitless in a free market, since it's a self-correcting system - we start to run out, the price goes up, and consuption goes down(as well, the increasedf profit margins will lead to more exploration efforts and greater exploitation of existing sources), and conversely if there's a plentiful alternative it will become cheap and drive up consumption of the alternative.
WTF is "abuse of energy"? Are we going to run out of it or something?
And I don't support pollutiuon at all, in fact I favour taxing emissions quite heavily for any chemical proven harmful(and CO2 does not qualify!). What's that do to your theory?
And as for Kyoto, the point is that it's a stupid treaty whose proponents don't believe will have a great impact, which will have a monumental economic impact for this minimal gain, and which is based on slightly more legitimate science than astrology.
It could be because we've got FAR more pressing things to worry about. When American power has eliminated tyranny on this planet, then maybe we can worry about some pathetically minor levels of pollution.
As I stated above, the closest thing to a peace worse having that was acheivable in that "crisis" was what happened. Iraq as it exists today is in a better condition than it was with Saddam in power, can you imagine how much better it will be in five years?
Yes, censorship needs to end(the most notable example of this in the free world being of course being the "No free speech for hate speech" imbeciles), and children need to be taught to think critically, rationally, and intelligently. We can all agree on that.
Who cares what meaning this all has? I do it because it's often fun, and because it keeps my wits razor-sharp.
Posted by: Alsadius | October 4, 2003 9:31 PM
From ChefQuix
Assertion 2: US Consumer products are using forced labour
Citizens of developing countries around the world are being forced to work 16 hour days to produce the goods that we desire. Surely I don't have to proove this to you?
--------------------
I'm afraid that you do.
A previous poster on this thread described two third-world people. One is a peasant herding sheep 16 hours a day, plus dealing with emergencies that occur during the other 8 hours, in all weather, for $100 per year equivalent value. The other is a new factory worker with an indoor job, working long hours (but not on call 24 hours a day), making $125 a year cash. The second person has moved up one notch, perhaps just from from utterly miserable to miserable. But he is still better off than he would be if the products of that factory were not being purchased by Americans. The USA cannot be blamed for not waving a magic wand and pulling that poor person all the way up to middle-class in the twinkling of an eye. Current American living standards were not achieved in the twinkling of an eye either.
Perhaps you are a foreigner, who never heard of the Kathy Lee Gifford scandal. Kathy Lee is a television personality who brought out a line of clothing under her name. Many of the garments were made in third-world countries. Conditions in some of the factories were apparently unacceptable under the standards of the USA Occupational Safety and Health Administration; at least, reports to that effect were published in the American news media. There were protests, there were boycotts, sales of the clothing line were badly hurt, and Kathy had to apologize, spend bundles of money, and insist that her suppliers clean up their acts. Americans are allergic to exploitation.
-----------------------------------------
Different but closely-related topic:
"We have 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population. . . In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will allow us to maintain this position of disparity. We should cease to talk about the raising of the living standards, human rights, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
-- George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning of the U.S. Dept. of State, 1948"
That may have been George Kennan's opinion in 1948, but it is most assuredly not US policy today, and it would make no sense in today's interconnected world. I work for a company that has been transferring most of its manufacturing operations to Southeast Asia over the last ten years. Now the Research & Development group has gone there too. Most of the American scientists were laid off and replaced by engineers, Ph.Ds, and Masters Degree specialists who work for much lower salaries than their American equivalents. In the meantime, electronics companies such as Hewlett-Packard have also begun to move their research to low-labor-cost countries, and insurance companies have begun to move claims processing to India, where salaries are low and there is no language barrier.
For R&D, and insurance claims, the only things being imported and exported are bits of electronic data. There is no way that conventional import duties could raise the cost of doing this work overseas so that American workers could compete in our own market. They have the same computers over there that we have here, so we can't beat them by using better and more automated machinery. The only hope that I can see is to raise the level of prosperity, and hence the wages, over there to somewhere close to American standards.
Socialism won't do that. High-tax regiemes will hinder that. So we have to export American ideas about capitalism in order to prevent damage to our own economy.
We already did this once. The Marshall Plan restored Europe to full productivity and greatly reduced our share of the world's wealth. I am sure that the 50% figure, true in 1948 in the aftermath of WWII, was hopelessly out of date by 1970. But that did not mean depression in the USA as others got larger shares of the pie. It just created a bigger pie. So if you want to know what I think should be done about third-world workers, I will misquote Marie Antoinette: let them eat pie.
------------------------------
I see that several other posts have been added to this thread while I was writing this one. I don't believe this site; four days after a new essay, and the comments still pile up faster than I can write. My apologies for saying some of the same things over again in different words.
Posted by: Prof. Willard | October 4, 2003 9:53 PM
Hi Bill,
Sorry I missed the debut of this essay, especially since it blew me away. Strangely, it didn't leave me in tears like the others, maybe, because it was too much like reading good Mark Twain...:D
Setting around thinking about it, after I finished, it suddenly dawned on me that it comes down to one thing, an American "Nobless Oblige." We seldom think about it, but, this is embedded in the unwritten "Code of the West," which evolved from the "Code of Chivalry," that evolved from the "Society Provencal" of ancient France.
And, it would seem, you are selling the same commodity as "Rene d'Anjou" (Rene the good) who is called in some places, "the greatest salesmen in history." The product Rene was selling is a bit unusual, especially for the age he was living in, it's called, "thinking." King Rene d'Anjou et Lorraine, almost "singlehandedly broke the Church and States stranglehold on Knowledge" by establishing the first Public Library, several Universities, and, sponsoring Medieval Scientists and thinkers all over southern France, including Michel de Nostradame. The movement he started came to be called, "Rene's essence," or, the "Renaissance." He was a writer (essays & poems), thinker, poet, scientist, and, motivator, all rolled up in one, not to mention that he was also a 4th (?) great-grandson of Charlemaine, and, wrote the book on organizing and equipping Jousting Tournaments (along with descriptions of Arms, training, and, methods of combat).
My thoughts on this are that we are standing on the Cusp of a modern Renaissance, or, a Dark Ages, and, tiny things accumulating will tip the scales of fate toward one or the other.
ChefQuix
"The key is in the children. The children are a blank book waiting to be written. If they don't have to opportunity to learn and understand about themselves and the world around them they become easy prey for ambitious men with aspirations of power."
Stalin said, "Give me the children and I will rule the world." Which is exactly what your are advocating. The Montessori Schools have a series of signs that they hang from the ceiling in Halls. I have no idea what the others say, but, the third in line (in a picture in the Houston Chronicle), says, "Sell the Shadow for the Substance." These are supposed to be inspirational signs, but, this one comes from the Communist Manifesto, and, in its long form is: "Tell a lie and repeat it, till it's the last thing heard, and, the only thing remembered"...the essence of Propaganda.
Gordon
Posted by: Gordon DeSpain | October 4, 2003 10:02 PM
Ah, Bill,
An addendum that I should have added in the last post: To learn a little about how we're being deceived, go to American Guardian.com. This is Ron Johnsons website, an ex-IRS Collection Agent who suddenly started asking questions, and, found himself without a future.
Somehow, he sounds a bit like a Bill Whittle clone, handing us a blueprint for survival in the coming world.
Gordon
Posted by: Gordon DeSpain | October 5, 2003 12:02 AM
I read some way back (a long-winded post by Labrat) about the U.S. military being made up of 100% volunteers--total quatsch:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=749&e=1&u=/nm/20031004/bs_nm/bizmanufacturing_dc
Now tell me, does the "17-year-old daughter" really want to "volunteer" or did her options just get severely limited when her papa got laid off (thanks GWB)?
Folks, the grunts in the military are, in large part, poor, frightened kids that didn't have any other option beyond "would you like an apple pie with that". To imply that "they are not unknowing innocents" (Labrats term) is not only ignorant, but a deceitful lie.
On a related note, the day I hear a foot soldier say things are improving in Iraq (vs. blather from 5 star generals, Powell, Rice, Rumfield, etc.) is the day I will actually believe a word of it.
Tell my why I'm wrong but I do beg you to keep your response below the 20 page "i-don't-have-a-life-cept-for-this-blog" manifestos that seem to be the rule rather than the exception around here.
Boo Boo
Posted by: Anonymous | October 5, 2003 6:00 AM
"On a related note, the day I hear a foot soldier say things are improving in Iraq (vs. blather from 5 star generals, Powell, Rice, Rumfield, etc.) is the day I will actually believe a word of it.
Tell my why I'm wrong but I do beg you to keep your response below the 20 page "i-don't-have-a-life-cept-for-this-blog" manifestos that seem to be the rule rather than the exception around here."
Boo Boo:
If you would just click on the link Bill provides at the end of his essay, your wish will be granted. Was that short enough?
Posted by: Pete | October 5, 2003 7:26 AM
Pete, I think that post above yours was short for "well, if you're going to respond with thoughtful, well-researched evidence, and facts, that require that I have my arguments torn apart one-by-one, for which I have no return argument, then I'm just not going to read them!"
Labrat, brilliant--as always.
Posted by: Mrs. du Toit | October 5, 2003 9:00 AM
Excellent!!! We are sharing your paper along with exerpts from Twain's "The Damned Human Race" with family and friends. Keep chasing that "rabbit"
Conservatives in Arkansas
Posted by: Betty Beckham | October 5, 2003 12:02 PM
I have just finished "Power" with tears streaming down my face and a proud heart about to leave my chest. Thank You.
Posted by: Dale Weeks | October 5, 2003 1:15 PM
To those who would claim that the "United States of America" is a Democracy, a quote from the Comments section of "American Guardian.com":
Begin Quote___________
"As I have just revealed, Natural Laws and Rights are Unalienable, Individual and Absolute and CANNOT be regulated, taxed, or licensed. They are not subject to the whims of the majority unless you consent to it, which you have. And, as you have discovered, they aren’t being regulated, taxed or licensed. Simply, you have voluntarily accepted the Political Choice of Democracy over your guaranteed Right to a Republic via your “free enterprise” Right to enter into “private” contracts with anyone you wish, including your own government, who is obviously more than willing to “recognize” and accept your choice and of course the Judges are there to “enforce your choice” (obligation).
Here is how the federal government defined the difference between democracy and a republic. Taken from a U.S. Government Training Manual (No. 2000-25 titled WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, and dated November 30, 1928). It was prepared under direction of the Chief of Staff:
DEMOCRACY: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic- negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
REPUBLIC: Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them. Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure. Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principals and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass. Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress. Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world. [Boldface, underlines and emphasis added]
· A republic is a form of government under a Constitution which provides for the election of an executive, and
· a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation, all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and
· are required to create a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their governmental Acts, and
· to recognize certain inherent individual rights.
If you add to this list of four elements you create a Democracy, If you subtract from this list, you create an autocracy.
Autocracy declares the divine right of kings; its authority can not be questioned; its powers are arbitrarily or unjustly administered.
Our system once operated as a true Republic and most of us think it still is today (or should be). Although we feel, in the pit of our stomachs, something is wrong, but we just haven’t quite been able to put our finger on why it no longer is. Now you know…"
End of Quote________________
("With reservation of all Rights")
Gordon Arthur DeSpain
Posted by: Gordon DeSpain | October 5, 2003 1:25 PM
Lets say that you manufacture a product. A foreign government decides to subsidize that product to the point where foriegn made competition drives down prices. Unable to make a living, you take a job at Wal-Mart.
Would it be fair to say that Wal-Mart offered you a better living than your previous job, or would you assert that your ability to make a living was undermined by a foriegn government's actions and you had no other choice but to find employment elsewhere?
Now consider that the US government has signed another $60 billion to subsidize agricultural products. As a foreign peasant farmer you can no longer sell your goods at a price that can afford you a living. You must sell your land and look for other employment. Now instead of Wal-Mart, you go to work for a company manufacturing products for the US market, the same country whose AG subsidies led to your loss of livelyhood.
At the recent trade negotiations in Cancun, Mexico the major issue of dispute was the continued subsidies that the west has used to give themselves a competitive advantage and to protect politically important constituencies. The US and Europe have used their economic influence to force third world nations to concede to economic changes that have undermined many livelyhoods and when it came time for the west to concede they backed off knowing that with their superior positions they could do so with little or no consequences.
So no, there's no knifepoints involved, just duplicity with the predictable consequence that people with no political power bear the lion's share of the costs and those with the power reap the lions' share of the benfits.
Posted by: bruce | October 5, 2003 4:45 PM
Bill, do you call my wife, so that she sets up trips or other activites on the days when you post an essay? Or is sheer bad luck on my part? I was traveling, and saw your post from a client's site (he reads you too), but have been unable to respond until I got home today.
Most excellent, sir! This one is definitely at a higher level. I see this one tying in so many of the other themes, it could be a capstone piece for the year's essays.
Boo Hoo, I must respond.
How long did you serve, and if you did, what was the time frame of your service? There are 1.4 million individual reasons why people serve, one for each person. The idea of denigrating even the "do you want fries with that?" job is not just ill-mannered, but lacks basis or scope as well. My girlfriend, back in the day, started at Mickey D's at age 15. By the age of 21, she was running one store, and at 24 she graduated from Hamburger Univ. (or whatever it is McDonalds call it) and she was responsible for all the stores in the area. By 28, she was in charge of operations for all of the stores in one state, making well over $70K per year.
I saw people on Active Duty enter the service for a multitude of reasons. As a Recruiter, I worked with various and sundry Reserve units, and the same was true there.
To state that these people had no choice is little better than an outright lie. Life is choice. Maybe the range of choices are limited to some or others, yet they MADE the choice. They understood what is going on. Perhaps someone who entered in the late 70s or as late as the late 80s would not connect the facts, but given the Operational Tempo of the last decade, to assume otherwise is simplistic. Any one who has joined in the last decade and failed to realize that our forces are being (over)employed around the world would quite simply deserve what they got.
The mantra of basic training is preparing for combat. They can get Trainee Discharges before serving too long, so if the idea of going to combat is repugnant or a tremendous suprise, they can get out quickly.
Frankly, comments like yours irritate me greatly. They are made in ignorance, compounding the ignorance of others who generally spout mindless blather that meets the preconceived notions of thier peers. Their targeted audience generally lacks experience with the military, and would not see the "quatsch" (Quatschkoph, perhaps?) across the "Misthafen" as my Budeswehr buds would say.
I am tremendously proud to be a dual qualified grunt. I started military life in the infantry, and then became a combat engineer. It doesn't get much more gruntish than that. Yes, there were guys who were ill- or poorly-educated, myself included, but continuing education is something pushed at all levels. I left service with an AA degree, and a great deal of other credit besides. My service was the first rung in climbing to better myself and rising higher than I had thought possible.
So please take your sharpshooting "insights" regarding servicemembers somewhere else. I'm certain you would recieve accolade at any defeatist blog or site on the internet.
Just don't try to peddle that crap around here.
Sapper Mike
Posted by: Sapper Mike | October 5, 2003 6:05 PM
xXxXx xXxXx STILL UNIMPRESSED xXxXx xXxXx
I find it condescending that Bill is NOT responding to the actual best arguments of the Left, but rather to some strawman 'dumb left'. To illustrate what I mean:
Before 9/11 & before Bush Jr., Republicans claimed to oppose Deficit Spending, & Big Government, & military engagements outside the Powell Doctrine. Such behavior was looked down upon as Democrat Folly.
Under Bush, Republicans have reversed themselves on all 3 principles. Yet they have studiously avoided consulting with Democrats in crafting their version of these Classic Democrat actions. That's like switching from pro-Life to pro-Choice; but trying to perform the abortion yourself-- instead of going to a doctor with experience.
To extend the yucky metaphor-- Bill's essay has the hubris to lecture the Left on the Moral application of American power. As if we are strangers to the topic. As if we were the ones previously naive.
In actuality, it was the Right that simplistically claimed Amoral any-means-necessary power policies were justified by the Cold War's over-arching imperative. So America coddled snakes like Saddam & Afghanistan's radical Muslims. It was the Left that said exporting unAmerican values would come back to haunt us.
Now 9/11 & the Terror War have proven the Left was correct. Thankfully, folks on the Right-- from Bush to Bill-- are finally seeing that a Moral application of power is needed. But it takes a lot of nerve for you new converts to preach to the choir.
Frankly, I find it infantile & provençial that Bill is so sure America ALWAYS Knows Best. But Bill's opinion ain't different from Bush's.
The term "Chauvinist" is derived from a petty-bureaucrat officer in Napolean's Army; who blindly, cartoonishly professed that the French Army was the best of all possible institutions. He festooned himself with French-flag ribbons, medals, and sashes. And he was unshakable in his faith. Because he could effortlessly shrug off any contradictory argument as Impossible. How did he achieve this? Having never experienced anything BUT French Army life, Chauvin confidently discarded all positive descriptions of Everything Else as Unbelievable.
(Don't forget Bush had never been to Europe until the 4-day trip he took while campaigning in 2000.)
At risk of myself being longwinded & condescending; I will close by offering the following excerpt from George Orwell's 1984, describing the mechanics of blind faith in one's Party and Nation:
"The first and simplest stage in the discipline, which can be taught even to young children, is called in Newspeak, crimestop. Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop in short means protective stupidity.
But stupidity is not enough. On the contrary, orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one's own mental processes as complete as that of a contortionist over his body.
Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible.
But since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the Party is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The key word here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary."
(Caveat Emptor, oh LabRat)
xXxXx xXxXx xXxXx
Posted by: Icd Icd | October 5, 2003 9:04 PM
icd, dont think that the right has suddenly discovered the moral use of force, its just the latest pretext. In reality we have returned full bore to the very thought/action process that led to the creation of the mujhadeen, the taliban and saddam (among others), this old cold war mentality that we must meddle in the affairs of others for our own needs, and consequences be damned. The results will sadly be the same. We are stirring the pot once again.
Posted by: bruce | October 5, 2003 11:10 PM
If only most Americans would share your sentiments Bill, we can be rest assured of a better world to live in.
Posted by: yankee_lover | October 5, 2003 11:17 PM
xXxXx Amen, Bruce! xXxXx
This essay argues that the Immorality of American-policy-Bush-style is Relatively Moral; compared to every other option.
And I thought MORAL RELATIVISM was supposed to be a Liberal vice!
The right has only started exporting Morality in word.
Read my lip-service.
But in Deed, they are still exporting Amoral power moves. Or Immoral.
The jargon our spooks use is "World War Four", to describe their covert, new same-as-the-old Cold War imperialism. Google the term.
Do so, and you'll also get hits for "Clash of Civilizations". That favorite book of the Right. Which the claim in this essay that NO AMERICANS speak of imperial ambitions. The essayist isn't listening to enough Freepers. Can hardly blame him.
xXxXx
Posted by: icd icd icd | October 5, 2003 11:52 PM
To LabRat:
Before the war started it was weapons of mass destruction. After they invaded and there were none to be found it became the liberation of the iraqi people. If the 'official' motivation keeps changing, why do you think I'm having such a hard time swallowing it?
America didn't gain any oil from the war, but they did get that oil traded against U.S. dollars again.
Yes I would free them. Perhaps if people consumed half as much they could work half as long.
So you believe that this existence, this 'now' is the only time you will ever be? Then how could you ever willingly sacrifice that experience, knowing that nothingness awaits you? Conversely, how could you ever wish that on anyone else, no matter how 'evil' in your eyes?
Because some of the extreme fundamentalist groups are trying to make this into an East vs West conflict, christianity vs islam, that conflict reverberates through the mental defences of the West to bring up guards. It's almost as if Americans are thinking "Well if they're going to be all religious about it, then we gotta be religious about it too." It's subtle, but it's there.
I guess one of the problems with discussing world politics like this is that there are general trends and then there are contrary examples. Do the attitudes of a few outweigh the thoughts of the masses?
Any loss of life is a complete waste, but it is never cheap.
It may be unworkable in today's life, but it is a wondeful ideology to strive for. Never forget exactly how far humanity has come along - with the explosive growth of the information age and vastly superior communication between individuals, societal culture is about to ramp up.
As for the removal of the Hussein dynasty, yes they were 'evil', yes they were not fit to rule, but how many other dictators out there are just as bad if not worse? My only issue is that the 'policing' that the US does always seems to be centered around self-interest.
So you're not at all worried about the amount of pollution that we throw into the atmosphere? phenomenon like this isn't a concern for you?
Anything worth doing won't be easy. Sacrifices have to be made by us - the consumer.
The U.S. is the hyperpower. Policies and decisions made by your administration have drastic effects around the world. If I don't think you're making the right decision, I'm going to tell you about it.
If there's one thing that fills me with admiration it's the job the US soldiers are doing in Iraq as we sit here and type away at each other. Despite the constant terror attacks they keep on building, trying, and sacrificing. The US army can be a noble creature, if used correctly. I've heard many stories of US compassion from Iraq, and it fills me with hope. If only there was a way to reason without violence.
The problem is that I only see debate on one side of the conflict - where are the voices of the others? How can we impose this right to freedom of communication on countries that have authoritarian regimes? I truely wish that violence was not the only answer - to me it seems like the quick and dirty short term gain, long term loss solution.
But I tell you this, I certainly enjoy debating. ;)
To Alsadius:
rolling your eyes does not negate the fact that Iraqi oil is now once again traded against the US dollar.
I really suggest you pick up Naomi Klein's No Logo before you dismiss any objection to the practice of cheap labour.
My point is that there is a large majority of people in the states who follow a doctrine that is completely outdated with the needs and values of current society. This is holding back the US in my opinion. I mean the fact that evolution is taught as a theory alongside intelligent design is completely depressing.
I don't think any loss of life is a good idea under any circumstances. Every single existence is precious.
I don't really give a damn if it works or not, because as soon as I start advocating violence in any form against another then I am comprimising my fundamental view of life - that every single individual, no matter how vile, corrupt or 'evil' you think they may be has a right to existence that's just as strong as yours. I will not waver on this point.
Resources are eswsentially limitless in a free market, since it's a self-correcting system - we start to run out, the price goes up, and consuption goes down(as well, the increasedf profit margins will lead to more exploration efforts and greater exploitation of existing sources), and conversely if there's a plentiful alternative it will become cheap and drive up consumption of the alternative.
WTF is "abuse of energy"? Are we going to run out of it or something?
Closer to the present??? Why should that matter more than the events surrounding humanity 1000 years from now? We have to stop thinking about ourselves as individuals inhabiting nations and start thinking about members of a species fighting for survival. There are plenty of things that could threaten our existence here, and over-consumption of resources is just one of those things. I suppose your thoughts on say oil usage would be to use up as much as possible while we have that resource and then whoever has to deal with it after can sacrifice? We were here first so fuck our (future) children? How about minerals? Chemicals? What about all the fucking junk that's filling up our landfills? Are we just going to keep building cities over top of our garbage as it accumulates and accumulates? Are we just going to have to set up heavy duty filters to clean our drinking water? Every single thing we consume adds to the level of pollution in this world. Every single thing.
As for energy, what do you think happened on the east coast? Was it a 'surplus' of energy that caused the power failure? Do you not think that the water we divert, the coal we burn, the uranium we mine does not have repurcussions on future generations? We are SERIOUSLY FUCKING UP OUR PLANET, and people like you just sit by and go hey, let the good times roll.
To Prof. Willard:
They are allergic to exploitation until the media focus wears off and things go back to business as usual. Oh yes a sheep herder may earn less money, but at the end of the day they have land, a house, a livelihood that supports them and their needs, and probably a community in which to grow and learn in. A factory worker may make a tad more, but she'll live in a dormitory with the rest of the exploited women until she gets pregnant and then fired to go live in the slums in abject poverty. I recommend that you read No Logo and brush up on a bit of your facts before supposing that capitalism has been a boon to these countries.
To Gordon DeSpain:
The difference between what I'm advocating and what Stalin wanted is that I want children to be able to read everything that's ever been written. There should be no censorship, no barriers. They should be able to learn for themselves what the price of democracy is and why it's so fundamental to the development of humanity. Whereas Stalin would have wanted a particular doctrine taught, I wish that self-discovery was the education procedure - they should be able to learn what they can unfettered by our own preconceived notions of how life aught to be. I have faith that the truth will be found and will set them free.
Life isn't easy for most of the world. We are so lucky to have been handed this gift of being born in a part of the world where we have the freedom to pursue the career of our choosing, to be able to speak what we think without worrying about repurcussions, to be able to afford a level of comfort that is unknown in 4/5 of the world's population. And yet this very comfort is what's corrupting us - once we've acheived a level of comfort then we will never let it go, no matter how much it costs. It's like the fuel efficient cars out there - they cost a hell of a lot less in gas, they're better for the environment, but because there is a sacrifice in performance, nobodies interested in buying. Shame on all of us for our pampered existence.
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 6, 2003 12:11 AM
ICD,
Referring to our kind host as "infantile" would only be atrociously poor manners if in fact your accusation to that effect were true; as it is not, you have identified yourself as not only rude, but ignorant and inattentive as well.
I shall here simply let your words, and Bill's, speak for themselves:
>> Frankly, I find it infantile & provençial that Bill is so sure America ALWAYS Knows Best. But Bill's opinion ain't different from Bush's.
(ICD, 10/5/2003)
>>[W]e can see that the few times in our history when we did not fight a moral cause produced stains on our honor and history, and wrote a page or two identical to the volumes of horrors inflicted by nations and empires with no such moral inhibitions and restraint.
(Bill Whittle, Power.)
>>We are Twain's people: fallible, often greedy, prone to vanity and pride over our institutions and successes. We are all this and more. We have committed bloody acts and disgraced our flag and our honor, and written shameful pages in a history that cannot be erased.
Face it.
(Ibid, emphasis in original.)
>>[W]e must undergo - daily if necessary - the painful and humiliating airing of our worst excesses, and stare right in the face the reflection of our own flawed nature.
(Ibid.)
ICD, I suggest to you that Bill has not attempted to convince anyone that America "ALWAYS" knows best. Please go sit in the back of the class until you start to pay more attention. Homework for next week is to actually read the essay being discussed before rejecting its conclusions out of hand.
Bill did, however, attest that presently the United States' response to the act of war committed upon us on 9/11/2001 is the correct one, and superior to the observed responses of other nations. But surely that's not what you were referring to.
What I find odd in particular about your rather wandering rebuttal to Bill's essay is your conclusion that only now is Conservative America adopting the position that the Enlightened Left has held all along, namely "that a Moral application of power is needed." And, as if to punctuate your slam-dunk assertion that this had been the correct path all along, you piled on with "But it takes a lot of nerve for you new converts to preach to the choir." If we're in such agreement that you'd ask such a question, why the attitude? Be glad we're "now" wielding power with due regard to questions of morality, and rest your angry little head a bit.
Lastly, I must say that I appreciated your fairly innovative application of Newspeak to conservatism somehow, even if it was perhaps too subtle for me to fully comprehend. I simply must point out that the notions of "thought crime" and the criminalization of "hate speech" are eerily similar to one another, and that I've not read of George Bush condemning anyone to sensitivity indoctrination lately.
But hey, ICD, no two statements are so diametrically opposed to one another they can't be believed at the same time, right? No free speech for Nazis, right?
JKS.
Posted by: JKS | October 6, 2003 12:42 AM
""It is current, that during the 80's and 90's, US troops were send to countries after the dammage, when risks were lighters.."
So the French dealt with Rwanda. Good for them; given that they used to own it, it's a hell of a lot more their responsibility than it is America's."
They didn't deal with it. They intervened on the side that was doing the massacres (the Hutus). Nothing to be proud of.
As for Afghanistan, we didn't create the Taliban or al-Qaida. The Taliban were religious students who sat out the war in Pakistan and then fought the mujahadeen. Arab presence in Afghanistan was minimal until they took over.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 6, 2003 2:37 AM
Posted by Mrs. du Toit on October 5, 2003 09:00 AM:
Pete, I think that post above yours was short for "well, if you're going to respond with thoughtful, well-researched evidence, and facts, that require that I have my arguments torn apart one-by-one, for which I have no return argument, then I'm just not going to read them!"
no, it was my preference for treating issues point by point instead of the rambling nature of many posts on this blog. Also, you and your incestouus neocon-wacko (think that is an oxymoron) clubmates pointing me in the direction of a "made for right-wing viewing only" antiseptic view of letters from Iraq, thinking that this convinces me and my "ilk", is really over the top.
Sapper Mike, i stand corrected, you are obviously an authority on all things military so I should just retract everything...yeah, right. Anyone see last night's BBC documentary about the situation in Iraq? Scenes of a bunch of american kids trying to bring order to a chaotic Baghdad market with the frightened look of "i-don't-wanna-be-here, i-don't-wanna-be-here,i-don't-wanna-be-here" written all over there faces. One kid, couldn't have been 20, just gave it to the brass when prompted for his opinion of the situation.
You go make your super-grunt career SM but let me, to use your elegent term, peddle my crap and I'll let you peddle yours.
Boo Boo
Posted by: Boo Boo | October 6, 2003 2:40 AM
Chefquix:
Sigh.
Let's start from the beginning.
>>America didn't gain any oil from the war, but they did get that oil traded against U.S. dollars again.
To my knowledge oil never stopped being denominated in dollars, so to say it's traded against the dollar "again" isn't strictly accurate. The bigger question is "so what"? Oil exporting countries want it denominated in the Euro at present because the Euro is strong against the dollar of late, though the dollar has recovered somewhat. The same people arguing that oil should be denominated in Euros also want the "flexibility" to resume denominating in dollars if and when it suits them, the seller. For example:
>>Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad has proposed for oil to be traded in the euro equivalent of the dollar to protect producers from currency manipulation and hedging against the weakening greenback. He said oil-producing countries are feeling the impact of the weakened dollar which had depreciated sharply against the euro.
"[But] should the euro depreciate against the dollar, then payment should be made in dollars. This is a kind of hedging," Dr Mahathir said.
Very convenient, I suppose, if you're a seller. Not so convenient if you're a buyer. Since I (and my country) are buyers, why should we go out of our way to support that?
>> Yes I would free them. Perhaps if people consumed half as much they could work half as long.
If people "consumed half as much" two things would happen, with respect to any manufacturer using an overseas plant. Right away, the unit volume in sales is cut in half, and therefore one might expect the dollar revenue to be cut in half as well. But if there is a permanent shift of the demand curve to the left for a particular good, the price drops significantly as well. So the manufacturer has his dollar revenue reduced by something like three fourths, and I believe you are overlooking that this will prevent him from continuing to pay his employees the same amount they're used to.
If he's only producing half as much, he needs perhaps only half the number of employees (or fewer hours, which seems to be what you'd prefer happen anyway). You forget that these people aren't on salary. If they work half as much they get paid for half as many hours. And since the permanent shift of the demand curve has reduced the unit price of the finished product, the employees not only get paid for fewer hours but likely less per hour as well. This is freshman level economics.
>>As for the removal of the Hussein dynasty, yes they were 'evil', yes they were not fit to rule, but how many other dictators out there are just as bad if not worse? My only issue is that the 'policing' that the US does always seems to be centered around self-interest.
The "how many other dictators" rhetorical device isn't very convincing. You acknowledge that (a) they were evil; (b) they weren't fit to rule; and (c) it was in the United States' interest (to our advantage) to remove them. How many other reasons would you require before acting?
I've been wondering why removing a brutal thug of a dictator from Serbia was applauded by the Democrats, but removing a brutal thug of a dictator from Iraq (with the added bonus of having it promote US interests to boot) is descried as an atrocity by these same Democrats. What do Democrats have against doing things to benefit the US anyway? Why do Americans elect representatives who find actions in America's self-interest somehow objectionable?
But I digress.
>> So you're not at all worried about the amount of pollution that we throw into the atmosphere? phenomenon like this isn't a concern for you?
The link he provides, for those who haven't checked it, is a NASA story about reduced levels of Arctic summer sea ice and an observed warming at the poles. This is really LabRat's area of expertise (one of many!) so I can't comment on it much. But neither did you comment on LabRat's previous summarization of data on global temperature trends, which I'll repeat for your reference:
>> Global warming is a tentative hypothesis, not a reality. All current data- as opposed to the projective models, which to date have failed miserably- do not indicate any global warming. Data from NASA satellites over the last twenty years indicates global COOLING. The only hard global warming data we have, taken from 150 years of surface measurements, indicates a .3-.6 degree increase, which is well within normal variability.
Can both of these assertions be true? Possibly. I'd be genuinely interested to read an analysis which reconciled the two (LabRat?). At an absolute minimum it suggests the science is currently producing mixed, ambiguous results, which isn't a convincing enough argument to justify massive economic disruption, in my opinion. Check back when you have something more conclusive and I'll listen to it, I really will.
>> Anything worth doing won't be easy. Sacrifices have to be made by us - the consumer.
I don't really dispute the idea of purposeful sacrifice. But it has to be purposeful, not just sacrifice. Demanding substantial sacrifice from some audience group has to be more persuasively argued than just "but look at all my ambiguous data and conflicting studies!" before I'll sign up myself. I'm sorry, but before I reduce the expected levels of my family's future wealth voluntarily, you've really got to convince me that you know.
>>If there's one thing that fills me with admiration it's the job the US soldiers are doing in Iraq as we sit here and type away at each other. Despite the constant terror attacks they keep on building, trying, and sacrificing. The US army can be a noble creature, if used correctly. I've heard many stories of US compassion from Iraq, and it fills me with hope.
Now here you had me entirely in agreement...
>> If only there was a way to reason without violence.
...And there you lost me. I wish we could do it without violence too. I wish someone could have given Saddam a big hug and made him feel appreciated and actualized or something, so he would just give up on all the badness and killing and stuff. I wish I still had the body shape I had when I was 20 and wasn't going bald. I wish lots of things but I recognize many of them aren't relevant to the present discussion because they aren't possible. And I don't muddy the waters of a policy discussion by wondering aloud about these things, because you can't implement them as policy if they aren't possible. Sure, human evolution, thousands of years of progress later, don't give up and all, but you're talking philosophy when we're talking policy.
>> The problem is that I only see debate on one side of the conflict - where are the voices of the others? How can we impose this right to freedom of communication on countries that have authoritarian regimes? I truly wish that violence was not the only answer - to me it seems like the quick and dirty short term gain, long term loss solution.
Bill's voice, and GHS, and LabRat, and many other astute voices are on one side in this. And you, and ICD, and bucketspoon, and Tom Daschle, and the New York Times, are on the other side. John Ashcroft hasn't silenced them all yet, and no one seems to be stopping you from adding your voice to the debate.
I must disagree with your analysis of "imposing" the freedom of speech onto an authoritarian regime by force. If the force lasts a little while but the freedom of speech lasts forever, is gain really short term as you say? And is the loss really the permanent result?
>> rolling your eyes does not negate the fact that Iraqi oil is now once again traded against the US dollar.
Again with the oil-euro-dollar argument. The seller wants it to his advantage. The buyer wants it to his advantage. The only reason you're hearing this now is because the dollar is unusually weak at present. If the dollar appreciates over the next 12 months I'd be happy to grant you your wish and allow oil trades to be denominated in euros.
Why is the fundamental dichotomy of a buyer and seller each trying to maximize his advantage somehow indicative of US desires for hegemony?
>> I don't think any loss of life is a good idea under any circumstances. Every single existence is precious.
[Did passive resistance work against Saddam's Iraq, Communist China, or any of the thousands of other tyrranical regimes in history? And if not, why do youy keep advocating it?] (LabRat)
I don't really give a damn if it works or not, because as soon as I start advocating violence in any form against another then I am comprimising my fundamental view of life - that every single individual, no matter how vile, corrupt or 'evil' you think they may be has a right to existence that's just as strong as yours. I will not waver on this point.
Again with the philosophy in a policy discussion. Go ahead and advocate a course of action which you yourself admit won't work (or at least you don't care whether it will work, which sentiment would not much comfort the mothers and fathers of Iraqi passive resisters after the consequences of futile protest in Saddam's Iraq had been made clear). If you think it's noble, or honorable, or logically consistent, fine. But in a policydiscussion, don't urge an action from your countrymen or your fellow man if you don't think it will accomplish anything beyond making you feel better about what you're advocating.
>> Closer to the present??? Why should that matter more than the events surrounding humanity 1000 years from now? We have to stop thinking about ourselves as individuals inhabiting nations and start thinking about members of a species fighting for survival. There are plenty of things that could threaten our existence here, and over-consumption of resources is just one of those things. I suppose your thoughts on say oil usage would be to use up as much as possible while we have that resource and then whoever has to deal with it after can sacrifice? We were here first so fuck our (future) children? How about minerals? Chemicals? What about all the fucking junk that's filling up our landfills? Are we just going to keep building cities over top of our garbage as it accumulates and accumulates? Are we just going to have to set up heavy duty filters to clean our drinking water? Every single thing we consume adds to the level of pollution in this world. Every single thing.
As for energy, what do you think happened on the east coast? Was it a 'surplus' of energy that caused the power failure? Do you not think that the water we divert, the coal we burn, the uranium we mine does not have repurcussions on future generations? We are SERIOUSLY FUCKING UP OUR PLANET, and people like you just sit by and go hey, let the good times roll.
Whoa there fella. You were doing OK up to this point, and here you just totally derailed. Calm down a moment. *Sigh.* There are a lot of things wrong with the above paragraph. So many F-Bombs, so much emotion, so little supporting fact. Consider the following:
1. If you'll lend me $1000 today I'll promise to make arrangements to repay some descendant of yours in 1000 years. If you won't take that deal, please don't lecture me that the future is so important that we should sacrifice the present. I can't feed my daughter on vague promises of what bliss future humanity will enjoy due to my economic sacrifice today.
2. When oil becomes scarce, it will become an economic decision to utilize other fuels. I posted on this subject at appalling length in the comments section to Bill's excellent essay Trinity, and I won't bore everyone with the recap here. If oil triples in price I'd probably buy a Honda Insight. If it goes up tenfold in price due to scarcity, Honda would be able to sell tons of fuel cell cars for $40,000 apiece. As soon as it's an economic decision I (and industry in general) will switch to something else. There's no need to mandate it.
3. How about minerals and chemicals? That's a nice rhetorical implication, with no facts behind it. I'll cite one group of facts for you, and in future the least you could do if you're to make this argument would be give me one or two specific examples, and explain why those are more significant than the following:
>>Cement, aluminium, iron, copper, gold, nitrogen and zinc account for more than 75% of global expenditure on raw materials. Despite an increase in consumption of these materials of between two- and ten-fold over the past 50 years, the number of years of available reserves has actually grown. Moreover, the increasing abundance is reflected in an ever-decreasing price: The Economist's index of prices of industrial raw materials has dropped some 80% in inflation-adjusted terms since 1845.The Economist,, "The Truth About the Environment," by Bjorn Lomborg, 8/2/2001)
4. The landfill argument hasn't been heard from much lately, largely because its original advocates abandoned it a decade ago. There's lots of examples of this--just Google around a bit--but here's one from the New York Times:
>> consider a different perspective-a national, long-term perspective. A. Clark Wiseman, an economist at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., has calculated that if Americans keep generating garbage at current rates for 1,000 years, and if all their garbage is put in a landfill 100 yards deep, by the year 3000 this national garbage heap will fill a square piece of land 35 miles on each side. This doesn't seem a huge imposition in a country the size of America. The garbage would occupy only 5 percent of the area needed for the national array of solar panels proposed by environmentalists. The millennial landfill would fit on one-tenth of 1 percent of the range land now available for grazing in the continental United States. And if it still pains you to think of depriving posterity of that 35-mile square, remember that the loss will be only temporary. Eventually, like previous landfills, the mounds of trash will be covered with grass and become a minuscule addition to the nation's 150,000 square miles of parkland. New York Times, "Recycling is Garbage," by John Tierney, 6/30/1996)
5. Why don't youtell us what happened with the east coast blackout? I could even buy some sinister corporate-profits-shirking-needed-maintenance argument, but if you are convinced it was caused by some inherent energy shortage in this country, perhaps you could explain it to the rest of us.
6. The water, coal, and uranium we do things with as you mention probably do have some long-term environmental effect. So did the extinction of smallpox virus. Not all changes are so terrible. Pollutants as a whole are diminishing, not increasing. There can be no question that modern industry's smokestack scrubbers produce far less in the way of the very nastiest air pollutants than those of a hundred years ago, say.
>> Many analyses show that air pollution diminishes when a society becomes rich enough to be able to afford to be concerned about the environment. For London, the city for which the best data are available, air pollution peaked around 1890 (see chart 2). Today, the air is cleaner than it has been since 1585. There is good reason to believe that this general picture holds true for all developed countries. And, although air pollution is increasing in many developing countries, they are merely replicating the development of the industrialised countries. When they grow sufficiently rich they, too, will start to reduce their air pollution.The Economist,, ibid).
As for the business about No Logo, and your (shall we say) anecdotal example of this mythical slumdwelling pregnant factory worker, I ask again: how will buying fewer of their products help their economy? If we bought no Elbonian widgets ever again, and the Elbonian widget industry collapses, and Elbonian capital investment (such as it is) diminishes still further as a result, how does this help the workers? Their bosses can even less afford to buy modern new equipment then.
And, one more time please, as I'm having a hard time getting it: if a sheepherder makes $25 less per year but it's a much better lifestyle according to your analysis, why would the sheepherder quit herding and go work at a factory in the first place? Is there really an economic reason for it? And in your example, how did a landowning male sheepherder become so oppressed he became a pregnant slumdwelling factory worker? I think you are comparing economic conditions for very different groups. I'm a lot poorer than the Kennedys. So what.
Sorry everyone for the long post. I got home from a long day's work myself and I'm feeling feisty. I'll be better behaved tomorrow.
JK Saggese.
Posted by: JKS | October 6, 2003 3:18 AM
35 miles square of a solar array to supply the whole country, eh?
Maybe if we go back to peasant agrarian living, working the crops with hand tools.
The absolute peak solar input on a square meter of ground (Clear sky, on the perfect meridian at zenith) is about 1 horsepower. And that's IF you could perfectly harness 100% of it.
Anyone care to do the math and compare this to our current power needs?
And of course figure out how to make our electrical needs precisely correspond to the height of the sun, given that there's no such thing as storage on the power grid.
Oh, and anyone want to guess about the environmental impact of such an array? "Oh, it's just the desert" isn't the right answer.
Posted by: Mauser | October 6, 2003 4:40 AM
xXxXx
>
Ambassador Wilson has been punished for telling the truth. High school kids with antiwar T-shirts, too.
xXxXx
Posted by: icd | October 6, 2003 7:03 AM
Mauser,
A 35 mile square actually COULD provide enough power for the whole country, assuming you could afford that much solar cell, which is incredibly doubtful.
http://www.mrsolar.com/kits/laptop.htm sells a laptop charging device that gets 14.5 watts from a 13.5" by 10.5" array. That's about .1 watts per square inch. There are 4 billion square inches per square mile, which means 400 megawatts per square mile of solar array. Times 35 squared is nearly 500 gigawatts. Don't know what our power requirements are, but that's quite a bit of power.
It's also not very efficient. One horsepower is about 745 watts, times nine is 6705 watts per square foot or 187 gigawatts per square mile. So that solar cell array is extracting less than 1/400 of the available solar energy (assuming your a horsepower / square meter number is correct).
You are of course correct about storage problems.
Personally, I believe that technology that uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen will become commercially viable within our life times. They we'll be able to switch our power generation and automobiles over to fuel cells. We're not there yet, but unless the oil companies and the governments block it, we'll get there.
Posted by: Bill St. Clair | October 6, 2003 7:55 AM
Boo Boo,
Please pardon my initial responce, as I must have mistyped your name.
I do not profess myself to be the "authority on all things military" rather, I simply have been there and done that. I do not rely on what I am told by a single source. BTW, why has the British Navy stopped playing the BBC aboard ship and switched to Sky News? Could it be that the BBC has become skewed so far as to render its products unbelievable? Any longer, I view them with the same attitude as I do the Star and the National Enquirer: with a tremendous grain of salt. Were any of the above to definitively state that it is Tuesday, I'd double check the calendar first.
My point is simply this: Don't try to judge without more than one viewpoint on any subject. You dismiss choice of the voluntary servicemember based upon seemingly specious reasoning. Back up your point with facts. There are many studies done on servicemembers each year on the myriad subjects possible for review. Find a reputable source, quote the facts, and you might change opinions. The condescension towards our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines is what gets my goat.
Sapper Mike
Posted by: Sapper Mike | October 6, 2003 8:29 AM
Icd:
"Ambassador Wilson has been punished for telling the truth. High school kids with antiwar T-shirts, too."
I assume you're referring to the Valerie Plame story with the comment about Wilson. I can think of no other way in which Wilson could conceivably be said to have been "punished". The story going around, as I first heard it, was that a "senior administration official" called several journalists trying to get one of them to leak Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent, and finally got Robert Novak to run the story. The only problem with this little scenario is that that's not how it happened. Robert Novak says so: "The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue." He should know.
As for the high school students, school administration boards have been doing stupid things time out of mind. When a six-year-old kid faces suspension and possible expulsion for taking a plastic butter knife from the school cafeteria, you're not going to convince me that school administrations have any rhyme or reason for punishing kids. Want to convince me? Show me a pattern of repression across the country. But you can't, since there isn't one.
Posted by: Robin Munn | October 6, 2003 11:28 AM
ICD,
Thanks for not responding to any of the substantive points in my previous remarks, and justifying your position on a counter example to my throwaway line at the end. I'm glad I didn't spend much time on it, given your evident superhero immunity to facts.
So a few high school kids were told their shirts were inappropriate, and I'm certain that those shirts were really just strenuously clever after all. So what? Obviously such a scandalous atrocity could not be perpetrated in "several" different high schools throughout the Republic all at once, unless the Puppetmaster George Bush himself were pulling the strings. Were you one of those poor oppressed students whose rights were so clearly violated? Do you take this personally for a reason?
My real objection to your post remains, thus far, unchallenged: namely, that you showed poor manners (but did use big words, kudos) in insulting our host here; you then had the additionally poor form to have your insult be directed at one particular element of the essay which you empirically misrepresented. Reread my excerpts from my last post to you on this subject, in case you missed where I pointed this out.
Until you can play like a grownup and refrain from hurling silly childish insults about the room, without performing so much as a cursory fact-checking, I repeat my request that you go to the back of the class and put your head down quietly on your desk.
JKS.
Posted by: JKS | October 6, 2003 11:49 AM
I posted this by mistake on the "Trinity" comments. His is where it belongs. Sorry for the screw up.
Your essay is very eloquent, informative, and well reasoned. I read it twice. I agree with most of it.
BUT, the fundamental assumptions are dangerous if you carry them as far as you have.
This kind of schematic view of the world--a belief in a giant clash of cultures (a la Samuel Huntington and Robert Kaplan) and the cultural and moral inferiority of Islam (a la Bernard Lewis and Ralph Peters etc.) has lured the Bush administration into a big trap.
Insteading of finishing the job in Afghanistan, we have blundered into Iraq under several mistaken assumptions:
1. That we would be met with dancing and flowers
2. That it would be easy and cheap ("sel-financing") to rebuild
3. That invading Iraq would deter Palestinian terrorism and make Israel feel more secure.
This kind of clumsy response to the 9/11 attacks played into the fondest wishes of the attackers, I'm afraid.
There is no "God button" for getting out of Iraq, I fear, without a serious loss of national innocence.
Anyway, Thanks again.
Duncan
Posted by: Duncan Brown | October 6, 2003 12:58 PM
xXxXx Et tu? JKS xXxXx
So a few high school kids were told their shirts were inappropriate >>
You're gonna lecture me on cherry-picking what I respond to-- and then immediately ignore my example of Ambassador Wilson's wife's cover being blown/ in favor of responding to my far-lesser example of high school kids threatened over antiwar t-shirts?
Real classy.
Despite your claims that I've been rude, Im rather proud of my initial response to the essay. I think that Bill would be a better writer/thinker if he took my criticism to heart. Maybe not a better 'orator', tho. Because I gotta admit; his current approach does go over well with a certain audience.
xXxXx Robin Munn xXxXx
I am sure your description of Wilson/Novak/Plame was offered in good faith. But I don't think Novak's comment, which you present, was in good faith. Novak is disputing the irrelevant details of who-called-who. It doesn't matter if it was on the phone or over lunch. Or if 6 journalists already-calling about the Niger story were called-back & fed a leak , as opposed to 6 journalists being cold-called.
What matters is the substance of the leak.
I refuse to believe that it's only treasonous if the leaker fails to employ rudimentary slyness known to any 6th grade class-gossip.
xXxXx
Posted by: icd | October 6, 2003 4:09 PM
xXxXx ALMOSTFORGOT xXxXx
"And don't forget, the browser that brought you here can lead you somewhere else. Like Indymedia."
--Eric Sivula
Actually, I was invited here by
http://thefriendlyghost.blog-city.com/
Take it up with him. While you're at it, tell him I find the amount of abuse I've gotten here to be indicative of partison desperation, and cognitive dissonance.
Ciao!
xXxXx
Posted by: icd | October 6, 2003 4:15 PM
You know something Bill, for a few moments there you had me shaking my head about something. Because, you see, I'm one of those Americans who has thought about Empire. And meant it. And fervently wished it.
Except...Except I looked a second time carefully at what you were pointing at...The definition of Empire taking from subject states...And I realized that wasn't what I was after at all.
There is a part of me that fervently wants to see American power hammer its way into the impoverished and lawless pockets of the world. Wants to see the Mog taken and taken hard, with APCs at every intersection, a significantly disarmed populace, and American troops patrolling.
But what the hell would we take out of Mogadishu? Don't tell me 'pride'. No.
I want to see America do what it has almost always done in the past. Conquer countries, and then put -into- them rather than taking out. Take Mogadishu. Take Chechnya. Take all those little patches of hell where good folk suffer at the hands of armed mobs or criminals posing as governments. Take them at gunpoint, then feed them, clothe them, shelter them, and rebuild them better than they ever were, as themselves, not as 'little Americas'. Not to incur a postwar rebuilding debt that we're owed or any such idiocy, but simply so that there would be no more of those too-common little cauldrons where innocent souls burned at the whims of the selfish.
Eliminating poverty and racist/religious cruelty at gunpoint and great cost to ourselves isn't 'Imperial'.
Thanks for the (latest) eye-opener.
Posted by: John | October 6, 2003 4:18 PM
Another typo....
"the building of city block"
I think you mean "_a_ city block".
Posted by: Mauser | October 6, 2003 6:23 PM
Hey ICD,
Yeah, my bad. I had been thinking Robin's response pretty much covered it, and had meant to point out that frankly I don't know all the facts on the Wilson case, so I can't rule in or out specifically anything sinister. But neither do you know all the facts yet, but that hasn't stopped you from drawing some pretty firmly held conclusions. Which means you give your assumptions the same weight as conclusions, without the rather boring process of testing a hypothesis against the facts.
So yeah, I forgot to include a comment I had originally meant to. But once I had observed and noted your immunity to factual evidence, I frankly kind of quit trying to argue facts with you. And I don't note any change in tone from you, despite the rudeness you've consistently displayed since dropping by.
So now you've had several posts since I mentioned my real problem with you (your belligerent mischaracterization of the essay we're all discussing) and you continue to debate the throwaway lines at the end. I'm sorry you're all mad because the principal took away the t-shirt slogans you worked on so hard. If that's all you're really here to talk about, I must say I don't care.
This discussion is clearly pointless, and I really don't intend to continue wasting my time pursuing it. Best of luck otherwise.
JKS.
Posted by: JKS | October 6, 2003 6:41 PM
It was hinted out with an earlier post but I thought it shouild be fleshed out.
What is the workable alternative to force?
In our modern world that answer would be connectivity. In a world that sees itself as a global community, connected by intimate relationships with people from all parts of the world there would be less strife. People who do business together don't fight, people that research new scientific discoveries together don't make war. So it follows that the sooner we can eliminate these isolated pockets where hate and ignorance can fester the better, right?
I'm not just talking about piping in television, like episodes of friends, but rather establishing real communication. This means we must start by applying as much (political/economic) pressure as possible to governments that don't allow their citizens to participate in the global exchange. This means bringing people to America to study (which we do already) and really making an effort to educate people here in america about other cultures, learning their languages, visiting their countries.
When we talk about power, we talk about military force for the most part, which in the epitome of irony we feel will work to fight terror. This use of force I cannot condone as it will backfire. It could at best be used to provide security for those who are doing the real work to fight terror.
How do you fight terror? You work to put a face on Americans. For too long we have let our image be defined by demagogs. A recent report made the assertion that we have been absent in parts of the world were terrorism had bloomed. I dont feel that we have to launch a propaganda effort, but we should ACT in ways that creates goodwill, and that ultimately means standing up for the values that people admire in America. I personally don't feel we are doing that. I would be much more supportive of the rebuilding in Iraq if I felt there was suffcient oversight, but right now it seems like most of those precious dollars will head back to the US in corporate briefcases. Cronyism is not an American value we should export.
One of the hardest battles we will face will not be a military one. It will be ourselves. Will we decide that acting on our values means more than acting on our "interests". Too often we let our desire to secure future "strategic" or "economic" value stand in teh way of doing what's right. I believe in doing whats right, even if that means that we lose some advantage. In the end, creating free societies will grow the global market. And we can bring people in the market with conditions;
freedom of speech,
freedom of religion
freedom of press
In short, we should be working to extent the liberties that we enjoy here to the rest of the world. I dont feel that we can do this with tanks. We have to convince others that this is what they want. For we realize that without the compliance of the populace there are no tyrannts.
I feel that ultimately the carrot will prove more powerful than the stick. The world's people will demand that they be allowed to participate in the new modern society unfolding through the miracle of communications. Others will seek to sabotage this global community because they know that it will destroy their abilities to spin lies and deciet, to breed hatred and bend people to their idealogic will. But we should not be deterred, for that is the real war here. Do we create a better world or retreat to old maxims of might makes right?
Posted by: bruce | October 6, 2003 7:27 PM
JKS,
Good-enough explanation for me re: Wilson vs. T-shirts. Thanks for the nod.
But concerning your charges of "belligerence" and "immunity to facts"-- don't jump to conclusions.
There's nothing controversial about the angles from which I criticized Bill's essay. Criticism of Appeals to Emotion, False Dilemmas, and Ad Homina attacks are recognized in any Classical logic class. (Tho I've never taken one. heh.)
I'll be the 1st to admit my referencing Hilter and Abortion was lurid; or invoking Orwell always raises the spectre of pot/kettle/black. But, in fact, I qualified all those statements when I made 'em.
So get a grip.
Don't hold your breath awaiting your every point to be acknowledged or refuted-- who has the time?
Heck, Im still realizing the 1st reply to my criticism-- calling me a "barking moonbat", was a technical term/ not an empty slur: http://www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary_archives/001981.html
The shoe doesn't fit, but I may or may not ever get-around to refuting it. Thems the breaks.
Posted by: icd | October 6, 2003 8:07 PM
"Don't hold your breath awaiting your every point to be acknowledged or refuted-- who has the time?"
An intelligent reader knows what points in a document are important and what points are peripheral and concentratres his or her efforts on these central bones of contention. This is something you should have learned in high school, and if not there, college. A quality liberal-arts education makes how to read a document to find the thesis and how to construct an argument the foundation and builds from there.
This is a dodge. It allows you to continue to assert your correctness without having to bother to prove it, because with this excuse you can ignore any inconvenient arguments and shift the focus to a battlefield you feel you can win. It is- ready class?- INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST.
"Criticism of Appeals to Emotion, False Dilemmas, and Ad Homina attacks are recognized in any Classical logic class. (Tho I've never taken one. heh.)"
I have. I find it intriguing that you seem to feel these are cardinal intellectual sins, even though you engage in all of them frequently, especially ad hominem. You also employ liberal measures of argument from ignorance, prejudicial language, attacking the person, style over substance, hasty generalization, slothful induction, fallacy of exclusion, straw man, and subverted support.
Logic is a tool just like a power saw. I suggest you don't pick it up until you can wield it without cutting yourself. When you do, let me know and I'll be willing to debate with you. Until then, your hypocrisy, attitude, and refusal to argue the facts when they are inconvenient for you make it not worth the effort of further reply.
ChefQuix, on the other hand, argues like a grownup, even if I disagree with him strenuously, which is why it will be my pleasure to rebut. Tomorrow- when I'm not quite so tired and cranky.
JKS, thanks for picking up my ball. You play like a star.
If he doesn't have time to read what he criticizes or argue his own points, where did he get the time for all those x's?
Posted by: Anonymous | October 6, 2003 8:37 PM
Buggerall, that one's mine. I AM too tired for this crap.
Posted by: LabRat | October 6, 2003 8:38 PM
Bruce, can you name some companies that could do the rebuilding in Iraq that aren't American? Specialists, of sufficient size, in oil production, electrical grids, water purification to fix Iraq's infrastructure? Companies that AREN'T from France or Russia? Why should the US halp put cash in the coffers of people who supported Saddam Hussien? You claim that the US is exporting cronyism, yet do not mention the rampant bribery in France by ELF to an administration that did everything it could to lift the sanctions on Saddam Hussein, who had a sweetheart oil deal with ELF. And if the US ONLY wants US companies, why do the incentive packages for foreign investment in Iraq apply to ALL foreign investment?
As for your view that if Americans 'had faces' in these other countries there would be no terrorism, why do many Arab terrorists come from countries with access to American media, and often have Americans living there? Why did the 19 hijackers live in America for months or years without having their hearts softened to US? You speak of having the US stand up for the values that other nations respect in us. What American values do the French want us to stand up for, when they ban the word E-mail because it is damaging to French language and culture? What American values does North Korea want us to stand up for? Saudi Arabia? Iran? Many of these places HATE America BECAUSE of our values. No Sharia law here, no communism, no state sanctioned anti-Semitism. France holds US culture in CONTEMPT, probably because it is so pervasive where American media reaches. I suggest reading Mr. Den Beste's post on US 'soft power' (economic and mostly SOCIAL) here: http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/08/Gulliverunbound.shtml
Can you name an occasion since the Cold War where the US let 'economic' or 'strategic' considerations keep us from doing what was 'right'? (defining what is 'right' would also help) And how do you 'convince' someone of what they want? How do you 'convince' populations you cannot reach? Iran will not let you talk to its people, nor will North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Syria. How will reach those people, when the regimes in power refuse you access? And what about Sub-Saharan Africa, Bruce? How do you 'convince' those people of the importance of the liberties you discuss? The VAST majority of those peoples are uneducated, and either close to starvation AND/OR stuck in a war zone. They cannot afford the modern communications you speak of, nor the specialists to maintain them, much less the free time to use them. Even those in relativly safe areas (like South Africa) often have ideas contrary to those liberties you wish to bring. Like trading PRETEEN girls as compensation in disputes, or a refusal to believe that AIDS is spread by sex. To use a Whittleism, they still have an essentially MAGICAL view of the world.
One last question, Bruce. If you feel that America is in danger of retreating to 'old maxims of might makes right', name me one country that held the same relative power as the US, in its day, and has been more benevolent. Just one.
And ICD: if the Left has ALWAYS known that 'MORAL application of power was needed', then why did the LEFT (the Democrat controlled Congress) block weapon sales to the South Vietnam, which was being invaded? Why did they block AID to South Vietnam earmarked for their defense? Also note that the Democrat'led' Congress had signed a TREATY with South Vietnam PROMISING them these weapons and aid.
Posted by: Eric Sivula | October 6, 2003 9:25 PM
Everyone, I think the point Bill has made (and very eloquently) is that no country has a perfect track record of wielding power. However, the U.S.A. has the best track record and is in the best position to wield that power to a good end.
Even the most zealous extremist easily sees this. By that I mean, the U.S.A. doesn’t suffer from towns people attacking their neighbours with machetes over their supposed differences, the U.S.A. doesn’t have a government in power that feeds children through industrial shredders to spite the parents, the U.S.A. doesn’t impose restrictions on what religion you follow, only that your beliefs don’t extend to harming anyone or restricting their (‘God given’) freedoms. (I.e.: No Burk has are worn and no Waco or Heaven’s Gate craziness.)
“You have the freedom to swing your arms, but that freedom ends at the tip of my nose.”
You can be as pro or as anti the U.S.A. as much as you like, the simple fact is you (the greater majority of sane humanity) would rather be able to enjoy freedom than endure under the whip of a totalitarian state or dictatorship. The U.S.A. just happens to be a great example of the few countries that represent that freedom at this present point in time.
Note: There is no reason at all why Iraq can’t be just like the U.S.A.
Of course, the U.S.A. isn’t perfect, but they come damn close. Especially and even when compared to other countries and their (longer) histories.
I’m writing from Australia, which I believe to be even better country, historically and presently, than even the U.S.A., except of course for the lack of power, which is, as Bill explained, crucial.
The ‘fulcrum’ Bill speaks of is a turning point in history, a fork in the road. We stand at one today. This very day. The U.S.A. a ‘hyper’ powerful country, with the best (but not perfect, remember) track record has the ability to change the entire world. To make every part of this little, fragile blue planet a nice place to live. Yes, that’s the whole point. We all want to have nice lives. Sounds corny? I know I like it. So who cares if it sounds corny?
We are at a point in the world’s history where there is an opportunity for everyone to live their lives more or less the way they want to do so. This has never happened before and if we miss the chance now it may never happen again.
This may sound all philosophical, maybe it is, but there are points in time where political policies and philosophy can meet. That point in time is now. Just a small window of time. Political actions by a dominant power can turn philosophy into reality. We are so close to a utopian society. You won’t believe this until you’ve seen how the majority of the rest of the world lives. Then maybe you’ll be ready to believe that the U.S.A. can make a real difference. So that we never have to go to war again.
Posted by: Rob | October 6, 2003 9:31 PM
Once again the self-contradictory spectre of oxymoronic absolute relativism seems to have raised its ugly head and reared up upon its hind limbs to slime us. "Who can say that the actions of terrorists and their recruiters and trainers are wrong and the actions of those who would kill them so that they cannot murder or send others to murder are wrong, whatever their reason or belief?" seems to be the dominant refrain. "Shouldn't we be more concerned with levelling all power just as we wish to level all wealth, and would that not make it a better world, no matter how we get there? Do not benevolently intended ends justify any means?" seems to be the harmony that follows.
As to the first question, Albert Camus would disagree. He said that our means must be worthy of our ends, not a betrayal or abandonment of them. Thus it is ethical to kill those who plan to spend their lives murdering, for the sake of the victims who will not have to die at their hands, and it is nonsensical, absurd, unjust and unfair to label those who seek to kill these present murderers, in order to prevent them from also being further murderers (as is their fervent and public intention) as murderers themselves.
There ARE indeed some humanistically objective standards which universally obtain, given that we are all spatiotemporally finite, free-will-possessing and carnally embodied self-consciousnesses, that is, thatg we are humans, who must share our common world with others, known and unknown, but all of which deserve all freedoms that do not constrain others in irrational and unreasonable ways. Some things are indeed right or wrong, given these universally human conditions, and they are as follows:
1) For some of those people, whether they claom divine licence or not, to dare to dictate to the others with which they share this world what they must and cannot do, what questions they may and may not ask, what thoughts and opinions they must and cannot express, and what positions they must and cannot hold, is existentially wrong.
2) It is wrong to seek to annihilate human freedom by demanding that every thought or action must be either mandated or forbidden.
3) It is wrong to commit mass murder by using human bombs to blow up concentrations of clueless and unarmed citizens merely pursuing their civilian lives in airplanes or ships or buses or skyscrapers or stadiums or shopping malls, no matter who swears that their god says that it is all right.
4) And it is wrong for scientific inquiry to be forbidden and for evidence supporting doctrinally upsetting positions to be suppressed simply because of some dogmatic pronouncement that a self-styled prophet, of whatever religion, claims was communicated to him by some deity or other centuries ago.
Unless we acknowledge these existential rights and wrongs, we may end up finding ourselves endorsing the ascendancy of totalitarian dogmatisms that would forclose all freedom of thought, action, conscience, doubt and inquiry.
As to the second question, although Camus' pronouncement equally applies to it, Steven Den Beste addresses it most directly and best in his Stardate 20031006.1331, to be found at:
http://www.denbeste.nu/
Posted by: Salamantis | October 6, 2003 10:23 PM
No, but it wasn't supposed to. As I said, while it may be true that the war changed the currency that Iraqi oil was traded in, I have serious difficulty believing that to be the real explanation for the war when a hundred reasons far more credible than that would actually make sense.
I'm trying to read my way through all the lefty screed I can make time for, but that's low on my list of priorities for spare time, and No Logo's not high on my list of lefty books to read either. I'll try to give it a shot sometime, but it may take years before I get to it.
I don't disagree, but I don't see a solution. People are free to believe whatever they choose, and if they choose to oppose the source of progress, I can't stop them other than with my words. Believe me, I give it a good try rather often, but I don't think that religion in the US is nearly as great of a national failing as, say, communism in China. If that's the worst the US has to offer, I can't disagree with Bill's(and everyone else's) loving comments towards America.
So how about the existance of 3000-odd people who died just over two years ago? Or the existance of two million people who died in the last 20 years because of a man we got rid of? Reality isn't Utopia, and sometimes choices get to be made as to who lives and who dies. I choose minimal death, because I know that no death is not an option. Have you come to that realization yet?
And that's why you'll fail to see the world as it is. These foreign-affairs decisions are not a choice between death and not death - if only! They're the choice between a little death at our hads and a lot of death at the hands of others. Let me ask you a question - if you could go back to, say, 1918, and shoot Hitler, would you? Tell me, who has more of a right to existance - him, or the tens of millions of people whose deaths he caused? More accurately, did you answer on the side of less death or more death? Those are your choices, reality won't give you better.
Um, we are individuals(although we take this whole "nation" thing FAR too seriously), and our species hasn't been fighting for survival since the Stone Age. Right now, we're in a fight, with each other(our only natural predator, really), to see not whether we'll survive, but whether we'll thrive. And as long as you're trying to limit us to mere survival, you're the enemy in that war.
My thoughts on oil usage is that the free market does a damn fine job of regulating itself. For example, let's say that you're right, and that oil begins to be in seriously short supply. Five things will happen. First, the price will go up by a large amount, thus driving consuption down, lowering or eliminating the supply problem. Second, the increased profit margins created by higher prices will cause an increase in exploration efforts, thus creating more supply. Third, oil fields that are currently unprofitable to exploit(e.g., the Athabasca Tar Sands in Alberta and Saskatchewan, which has more oil than the whole Persian Gulf, but which costs far more than market value to extract) will become profitable, and will go into production, thus creating more supply. Fourth, use of oil will become more efficent, as waste becomes more expensive and high-efficency cars will become a worthwhile investment. And fifth, research into alternative fuels will be increased, as the increased price of oil willd rive people away from petroleum fuel, thus increasing profits for anyone who develops and implements a successful alternative, creating a great incentive for the more forward-minded companies and individuals to work towards it. That's how any oil shortage should be(and is) dealt with, not trhough ham-fisted, ill-advised government meddling. Sorry if I just torched your strawman, but perhaps you should try ascribing reasonable motivations to my positions before you assume that I'm some evil bastard who clubs baby seals for fun.
As for landfills, I suspect that they're going to become some awesome mines in a hundred years. You seem to have no idea of how large the world is if you're seriously worried about us running out of space for landfills. As for drinking water, perhaps you haven't noticed, but we DO have filters for our water, that's why what comes out of your tap is clear like drinking water, not brown like river water. Nature pollutes itself far more than we do 99% of the time, and the 1% have this odd habit of showing up in court, when there's enough evidence to prove it's them anyways.
And no, I don't actually believe that the water we divert, the coal we burn, or the uranium we fission will have one damn bit of impact on future generations, except perhaps on whether their riverfront property is a foot or a mile off the highway. Nature diverts rivers far more oftren and drastically than we do(most of the human involvement is to prevent that, I might add, not to encourage it). We've been burning coal for thousands of years, and in the quantities we have explored, we could keep burning for thousands more before we even have to go looking again. As for uranium, you have no idea how much of it there is and how little of it a reactor uses. For example, a cubic mile of ocean water contains more uranium than we could even consider using, unless we were literally aiming to purge the earth of life with nuclear weaponry(despite the exaggeration, a full iCBM launch wouldn't kill more than 90% of the living beings on the surface - frightful as heell, of course, but not a full job). The greatest impact any of the above will have will be on mining corporation stock values.
Posted by: Alsadius | October 6, 2003 10:39 PM
Well done, Bill. Well done. Twain would have beamed with pride.
Posted by: Jack Frost | October 7, 2003 12:07 AM
To JK Saggese:
I'll be honest - I'm not an economist. I'm not sure if you read this analysis of the oil currency war by W. Clark that I mentioned before, but I did, and it's enlightening. Unfortunately I read it quite some time ago and the details are hazy. ;) I'd value your honest opinion on it, because this is what I'm going by. I'd hate to paraphase incorrectly. I can't tell you why Democrats do what they do - I'm not one of them. I do agree with their more 'leftist' tendancies in regards to social welfare but I wonder if their 'hands off' approach of firing cruise missles into 'possible' enemy holdouts is any better than sending in the tanks. My problem here is your objection to US imperialism when it comes to regime change. That's how it starts you know. You take over a few rich countries 'for their own benefit', and you send a few troops to the war-torn poor countries to help 'keep the peace'. Eventually those troops get withdrawn because hey, they cost money to support and there's this other country that's got lots of potential for being a bright, thriving consuming 'democracy', and all of the sudden we need more troops in the middle east anyways because there's some hostilities escalating. That's how it starts. Where does it end? That's up to you. I've read a theory that agrees with both statistical view points - that both the ozone hole over the arctic is at its largest size since they began recording and that the average temperature is dropping (I don't have stats for that - ask LabRat). The article is unfortunately missing from their website, but the summary seems to cover the main points - that the ozone hole is melting the the ice caps and desalinizing the ocean around the gulf stream which seems to cause a shutdown of that conveyor of heat to eastern Canada and the US and over to Great Britain. It's kind of odd that only that one article (Triggering Abrupt Climate Change) is missing from their archives... but I digress. I'm not talking about drastic sacrifice here - just some reduction in the excessive consumption that the West seems to overly induldge in. As for 'ambiguous data and conflicting studies' well I don't really think that there can be any studies in this area... It's sort of a feeling you can't ignore, a nagging conscience that's telling you 'Did you really need that pimped out SUV? Is this disposable cutting board really necessary, or am I just being lazy?' That's the kind of sacrifice I'm talking about.There is one kind of overconsumption that I can advocate. People should buy more computers. People should be buying the best they can afford and as soon as they start degrading in performance, they should just buy a new one. Send that old clunky POS overseas. Give them away to as many people as we can possibly can and lets try and get them wired too while we're at it. That is the answer, there's the key. Communication, communication, communication.
Well I think that was my point, I probably should have worded it more clearly. I think you thought I was asking a metaphorical question, but that was really a "How can we do this, what's the best way to get it done" sort of how. This is my quest in the world, my deepest philosophy. The key to peace is communication. All the world should have a voice - the inequities and horrors become more visceral if you're hearing it directly from a person instead of from a 30 second soundbite.
As for the 'voice of the others' I guess you understand now I meant the 'East', if we are the 'West'. We should strive to wire the world, because in the end it will only do us good. It will probably be hard, it will probably hurt, but in the end it will be best for ALL of us.
You see I really do think that there is something to this global consciousness that most people disregard outright as 'hippy bullshit'. To give a brief synopsis of the work being done at princeton: servers around the world are generating random numbers which have been shown to generate non-random information during events when many minds are focused on events - for example a few minutes around New Years Eve and 9/11. They've been recording data from these EGGS around the world since 1998 and I believe they've found statistically relevant data to support their claims. It's a bit of a mind bender, but it also seems to fit as well. Well at least for me it does.
But you see here is the crux of the problem because it is a philosophy issue. International conflict is always about philosophy. It's fundamental belief that is in conflict, and it festers and festers until it pops, and then we have wars. Philosophy has to change (as I mentioned before) before we can have any resolution. I was once told that the key to good diplomacy is to leave both sides wanting, both views unhappy with the current proposal. Not only does it provide balance ('at least they're not getting such and such') but it promotes change in both sides. The nature of humanity and our interactions is to guide that shape of change along a convergent path.
A philsophy that promotes the idea that we are all connected, that our actions have ramifications for people we will never meet makes one more self conscious of ones actions and thoughts. And consciousness is key, you see, as that is the one thing that we all share in common. It's a starting point, at any rate.
I want to apologize for my previous outburst, but I feel very strongly about our pollution of the earth. It is such a self-centered, short-sited mentality that I can't help being passionate about condemning it. I know a lot of people don't agree with me, but at the same time I fell that probably more see it the same way as I do.
I will have to get back to you on the rest of your arguments. It is quite late and I've had a couple of late nights recently. It's been a pleasure debating this with all of you.
Regards,
ChefQuix
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 7, 2003 12:38 AM
Jesus, everytime I post a response there's two more to reply to. Gotta get some sleep and slay the hydra tomorrow.
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 7, 2003 12:42 AM
Chefquix,
Thanks for responding to some of my comments. Your remarks were thought provoking and I'll probably have a few more points I'll want to try to make later, but I won't pile on any more presently since I know you've got a lot of voices debating you here.
I really am interested in your thoughts on the resources/landfills/etc issues I mentioned. I am rather conservationally minded myself, and I do find energy policy to be very important (I made a few absurdly long posts about alternative fuels, hybrid and fuel cell cars, etc in the comments to Trinity). It's just that the numbers don't seem that frightening when closely regarded on most environmentalist claims (resource limitations especially). Certain potential one-time irreversible catastrophes (Antarctic ice sheet sliding into the sea en masse, for example) are admittedly worrisome and the science data surrounding them not fully understood.
If you are willing to invest some time in research, I recommend the book The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. He's assembled a statistical study of the vast body of scientific studies out there on many environmental subjects, and concludes that there are some worrisome issues out there which should demand prioritization of our resources (and attention), but that many environmentalist claims don't bear up under examination of the data. It's an interesting read and exceedingly finely documented and footnoted.
I'll check out the Wesley Clark link you provided and get back to you with my thoughts on it tomorrow.
Regards,
JK Saggese.
Posted by: JKS | October 7, 2003 2:31 AM
William Clark, not Wesley Clark. Sorry.
JKS.
Posted by: JKS | October 7, 2003 2:33 AM
And, LabRat, thanks! You are too kind.
JKS.
Posted by: JKS | October 7, 2003 3:30 AM
Well, I've finally made it to the end of 290 comments, and I hope I can avoid repeating what other people have said.
Bill, you refer to "that ancient and highly reliable adage", presumably some form of "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." The original just goes back to 1887--hardly ancient. I picked this up from _Tolkien: Author of the Century_ by Shippey (highly recommended to anyone who's interested in _The Lord of the Rings_ or who thinks there's no such thing as good literary criticism)--and what's interesting is that neither the quote nor the idea is ancient. Shippey couldn't find much of anything in the way of an earlier distrust of power. It may be that acquiring that distrust has done some good in this era.
My thanks to whoever pointed me at the National Review article about the quote--it was good to have some context. Acton was saying that the evil leaders do shouldn't be excused just because they're leaders (a very strong temptation, even for historians who aren't at risk from those leaders), not that there are no good uses of power.
To GreatHairySilverback: The advantage of democratic/republican systems is that they allow feedback, but America doesn't have a reliable way of getting feedback from the rest of the world. Solving that problem is, to put it mildly, difficult, but it's worthwhile.
The rest of the world isn't simply fools who fail to appreciate our wonderfulness--sometimes we're doing things (like agricultural protectionism) which are causing real damage, and the usual reaction is to resent outsiders meddling in our affairs. (Yes, I know that one isn't just the US. And I was pleased and amazed to see Oxfam come out in favor of free trade and a huge number of people agree with them.)
To Jumper: The Nazis murdered about 11 million people--that 6 million is Jews. Getting such a low number as 11 million is only possible if you don't count WWII as a Nazi responsibility, and I do count it. The fact that WWII isn't counted as mass murder is an example of governments getting more slack than they should. (See above about the temptation to not hold leaders to account.)
Afaik, population growth in the US is the result of immigrants (not just their own numbers, but their greater tendency to have children for a generation or so). As nearly as I can figure it, Western civ (at least the American version--I don't have details of how it plays out in Europe) has greatly increased the cost and limited the benefits of having children, and is going to have to change a great deal to be sustainable.
The US has become noticably less welcoming to foreigners as a result of 9/11--this doesn't impact illegals so much, but it does affect tourists, students, and employees, and not just Arab tourists, students, and employees. I suspect this is going to cost us more than the World Trade Center did.
Bill, IcD is right that the anti-war demonstrators weren't just fools and weirdos. They may have been wrong, but that's a different issue.
To ChefQuix: You gave a slamdunk by complaining about landfills and resource shortage in the same paragraph--landfills can be mined if necessary.
To Eric Sivula: Using a French company to do something useful is not the same thing as giving money to the French government, nor is there any guarantee that people in a company will share the views of their government.
And I hope people are still reading down this far.
Posted by: Nancy Lebovitz | October 7, 2003 6:14 AM
Trading oil for dollars:
As long as we can trade dollars for Euros or gold or yack butter or whatever the local means of trade is there is no problem.
Denominating oil in Euros is not a problem. If necessary you go to a market and do a hedge. It raises the cost a bit. So what? The daily fluctuations in price are probably greater than the added cost.
Besides the Euro is on the verge of collapse. Waiting another year for the Eurosystem to fail was cheaper than fighting Saddam.
What all this tells me is that the anti-war folks are grasping at straws. The Euro issue in the bigger scheme of things is trivial.
The pro war people I know think Iraq was chosen for it's military value - location, location, location. The antis tell me it is about oil.
For me it is not about the oil per se but what those with the oil are doing with their oil money. There is a new fascism about in the world. My religion or death. I say we give them all the death thtey can handle until they change their minds.
As to polution. Rich countries have less of it than poor ones. Capitalist countries have less than socialist. If you want to reduce the pollution problem help the nations of the world become capitalists. Capitalists profit by doing more with less. This is a very big clue.
Posted by: M. Simon | October 7, 2003 6:29 AM
FYI, the WHOI got back to me with the correct link - more specifically this article.
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 7, 2003 8:01 AM
Bruce
I don't buy the "People who do business together don't fight" theory. Throughout history, mankind has demonstrated an incredible adeptness at exchanging the quill and ledger for the sword and shield. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the volume of international trade had never been higher, and Europe was in a near-constant state of war. International trade continued increasing throughout the 19th century, and though the rate of wars-per-decade declined, you still had some pretty serious conflicts between the major powers.
I don't know if you're old enough to remember this, but there was a time in the seventies when trade was stirring up some pretty virulent anti-Japanese sentiment here in the US. The Japanese were so good at selling us ugly little econo-cars that union Joes in Detroit were losing their jobs. That kind of sentiment can be tapped, translated into Nationalism, hatred, and support for a war.
It's not trade, but comfort and security trade can bring that discourage warlike tendencies. A robust economy creates comfort. If the world situation is stable, people will have a sense of security, and will try to avoid disruptions of that stability, perceiving a change in the status quo as a threat to their comfort. To the extent a group feels threatened, they will more readily support war. Note also that both "comfort" and "security" are subjective, not objective, perceived, not quantifiable.
Bruce & Rob -
It's almost impossible for those of us immersed in "western" values to comprehend this, but people conditioned by traditional cultures don't want freedom, at least not as we understand the term. Oh, they don't want to be thrown in prison or tortured. They don't want the government to sieze their property. But Freedom for everybody? That would mean chaos! That kind of freedom means making decisions in the face of uncertainty. Freedom means that people can make bad choices. People might say impious or untrue things. That kind of freedom would mean tolerating heretics and apostates. People in these cultures bribe government officials to do nothing more than the job for which the government pays that official. And they don't object. They grumble, but they pay up, and they look at it much in the same way we look at tipping the waitress when we go out to eat. It's just the way things are done. The way things've always been done. They way things always will be done. The wack-jobs screaming for jihad are behaving no differently than our own ancestors did some centuries ago. How will we know the heretics? One of our answers a several centuries ago was "Kill them all. God will know his own."
Bruce -
You are unlikely to ever encounter a bigger supporter of free enterprise and free trade than myself, and I agree with your general point that prosperity will make populations less eager to support terrorism and other violent methods of exerting group will (if they feel secure in their prosperity), that comfortable living can take some of the edge off centuries-old tribal and religous hatreds. But realize it's a process that will require generations before traditional cultures will embrace the kind of freedoms we take for granted. In the meantime, we must continue to navigate a minefield. The current situation in Iraq is difficult, and a tremendous risk, as you point out. It is also a tremendous opportunity to do the kind of things you advocate. Like you, I hope they don't screw it up.
Posted by: Jumper | October 7, 2003 9:07 AM
M Simon:
If you are going to trade in bizzarre and specious straw man arguments etc then I feel justified in sending you this to chew on:
Posted by: Anonymous | October 7, 2003 9:14 AM
ChefQuix -
The key to peace is communication...
A noble sentiment, but the most clearly, intelligently reasoned argument still proceeds from one or more assumptions. For example, one of mine is that a human being has the right of ownership to that which they earn with their hands or mind. One of a socialist's assumptions is that collectively, "the people" have the right to decide the distribution of wealth. The socialist and I may argue over which economic system produces the most "good", but we will waste a great deal of time unless we first agree to a common definition of "good": is "good" the most and the best, or the most evenly distributed, or some optimally desired balance between the two? Depending on the definition of "good" that is chosen, the socialist may concede that unbridled liberty produces the most "good", but that this extra quantity of "good" isn't worth the inequities; or I may concede that socialism produces the most moral "good", but that the excess "good" doesn't justify the trampling of individual rights. Unless one of us makes the other realize that his assumptions are contradictory, there's little hope of changing each others' minds.
Communication is effective not when we debate, fencing with words, thrust, tierce moulinet parry, but when we also convey to each other our assumptions & definitions. Intelligent people of good will recognize this and at some point say to each other "We will have to agree to disagree." The absolute pacifist and the utilitarian cannot agree without one of them abandoning their principles (Although they may continue to debate/fence for the fun of it, in sport).
Unfortunately, not everyone is content to do this. One of the more troublesome assumptions in the world is (and has been) that one has a perfect understanding of the will and intentions of a God that is all-good. You just can't reason with someone like that. Removing "God" from the equation doesn't help. Nietzche (sp?) predicted the kinds of horrors that would come in 20th century, what would happen when God was dead. The greater good, the good of the volk & room to grow, the good of the people, the making of omelettes justified murder at unthinkable scales.
Wiring the world is a worthy goal. But realize the millions of minds we'll never be able to persuade. Their assumptions include "The old ways are best" They simply won't hear anyone's words to the contrary, will view them as either wrong, or even nonsensical. And when we try to reach their children, they'll be frightened and angry. The percolation of ideas will take a long time. Perhaps a few percent per generation? What do we do in the meantime with those who hate us out of envy, or religous prejudice, or political conviction?
And in the long run, history has a way of taking some unexpected turns. A long long time ago, some of my ancestors were living in thatch huts, drinking stout and writing epics about stealing each others' cattle. Some of my other ancestors were busily turning ancient Rome's infrastructure into modern Rome's tourist attractions (are those Italians ever going to get around to repairing that collesium? ;) ). And the Arabs were the apex of civilization: science, history, philosophy, mathmatics, freedom was the norm in their realms (such as it was in those days)... Who's to say that "the west" might not once again drop the torch of individual rights and freedom. That's the best and most important reason for wiring the world and spreading our philosophy. Not to make our borders safer, and our lives more comfortable, but to ensure that the ideas that made all of this possible survive.
Posted by: Jumper | October 7, 2003 9:28 AM
Icd,
Re: the Valerie Plame story, the more I read about it the more I'm beginning to boggle at how wildly different the allegations and the facts are. The allegations are that a senior administration official (still unnamed) leaked Plame's identity to Robert Novak, who published it in his column.
Here's the column in question. The relevant paragraph is the sixth paragraph, which I reproduce below:
Note which statements are attributed to sources and which are not. The statement that Valerie Plame works for the CIA is not sourced. What Novak claims is that two senior administration officials told him that Plame was the one to suggest Wilson as an investigator. Novak's revelation of Plame's identity as a CIA operative was not attributed to any source.
In a follow-up column, Novak explained that one official "said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. [ ... ] When I called another official for confirmation, he said: 'Oh, you know about it.' " Novak then went on to explain that "[i]t was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA." Read the whole article for yourself and decide whether I'm quoting it fairly.
If anyone had revealed the identity of a covert CIA operative, thus putting their life in danger and endangering their informants, that would be treason and should be treated as such. Revealing that an intelligence analyst works for -- wait for it -- the CIA is not on the same scale by any means. Yes, Novak should not have used Plame's name, since her work for the CIA was "covered" (meaning she officially worked for a different company). He screwed up and should be taking some heat for it. And the administration official who mentioned that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA also screwed up: even if "everyone knew" that Plame worked for the CIA, it wasn't official, so he shouldn't have mentioned it. But to get from this to "Plame's identity was leaked, thereby putting her in jeopardy, as revenge against Wilson for his criticism of the administration" requires such an illogical leap that I'm frankly getting sick and tired of how much it's being harped on.
There's nothing here, folks. Someone screwed up and accidentally said a bit too much. It happens all the time -- that's what Washington news reporters live on. There was no deliberate leak, and it was not motivated by partisan politics. So why is it still considered news, three months later? There are lots of other things the media could be focusing on, like Iran's execution of political dissidents. Now that's "punishment for criticizing the administration". But I haven't heard a great hue & cry over it. Argh -- I get really frustrated with the news media sometimes.
Posted by: Robin Munn | October 7, 2003 9:33 AM
Nancy L.
As you correctly noted, I did not count deaths resulting from formal warfare (or bombardment of civilian population centers).
I was only counting deaths ordered by the governments in question in civilian populations under the regimes' control (including reasonably foreseable consequences, such as the people of a region starving if you export all their food to other regions). I didn't have at hand numbers for combat deaths. Also, I felt attributing all WWII deaths to Germany would be unfair for several reasons. First Stalin was an ally and participated in the sack of Poland. There's no reason to believe he would've been anything but, had Hitler not foolishly decided to mimic Napolean's folly. Hostorians should make the USSR shoulder some of the blame. Second, I wanted to be sure to make an apples-to-apples comparison; there was no equivalent of a WW II to include in the death toll of PolPot or Mao ZeDong. Lastly, and most importantly, I was trying to emphasize governments' barbarity to their own people, justified by the pursuit of some supposed good.
I had no intent to be deceptive, or to be less then totally condemning of Hitler's regime and the people who facilitated it. I hope noone took that feeling from the post.
Posted by: Jumper | October 7, 2003 9:38 AM
Dang it! Four days of brutal work hours, never seeing my house except in the dark, and not getting the chance to respond to all the issues raised in the last 150 comments or so has been KILLING ME! It took me almost 2 hours this morning just to catch up again. And now there's WAY too many points to contend with on an individual basis here... except for a couple that really stood out for me personally.
One of them was "boo-boo," whose assessments about the American military were just flat WRONG. Not just a "varied opinion" or a "different perspective," but just plain factually incorrect.
Clearly you've got zero military experience yourself, or you'd know better. I served for 12 years, at home and overseas, and never met one person, anywhere, who fit the conjectural model you coughed up here. I'll freely admit that MOST newly minted airdales, squids, jarheads and grunts sign up for reasons other than an altruistic desire to throw themselves into harm's way for their nation's sake, but NONE of them do so without being fully aware of what they're getting themselves into, and being fully accepting OF that knowledge. Plus, some DO do it for noble or purely patriotic reasons.
You spoke of that news photo that showed a "what-am-I-doing-here?" expression on the faces of some American soldiers over in Iraq (that comment was too far back in the stream for me to go back and quote you directly). To which I say, "Well, DUHHH!" Scary shit makes for scared expressions.
Take a picture of someone going through a haunted house, while you're at it. Does that "this-is-crazy-what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here" expression on THEIR faces mean that they didn't know what they were getting themselves into at the start? That they're there against their will? That the experience wasn't important enough to them to overlook the implicit terrors? Or that they wouldn't do it again? Look at a freeze-frame of someone's facial expressions taken in the middle of a flying motorcycle accident... the same questions above apply there too.
The point is, those kids DID volunteer for military service... in fact, THOSE kids volunteered for THAT KIND of service specifically, having enlisted after 9/11. THEY actually had a "cause," unlike those of my period of service. Of course they're scared. Who wouldn't be? But what's that got to do with their original motivations?
Sapper Mike was dead-on about this, and he even comes with the experience of being a recruiter, which means he has express knowledge about just how much these kids DO understand at the time of enlistment and throughout their initial training, AND an insight into what their general motivations are. So you ignoring this source data and going with your own "gut instincts" renders your "arguments" moot here. YOU might only enter the military under conditions of duress, loathe every second of it, fear the potential of it, and aspire to desertion at the mere prospect of conflict, but that ain't anywhere close to being the norm. You're better off staying out the military, and the military's better off without you, but don't embarrass yourself and insult all these great "kids" by making such absurd blanket assertions about them. They're doing just what they signed up to do, regardless of how "unfun" it might have turned out to be.
Sorry about the tirade there folks, but this just happens to be a personal burr under the saddle for me. Moving on...
To Nancy Lebovitz: I'm not quite sure what you were going for in your comment directed specifically to me (just a couple of postings back) -- whether it was agreement, disagreement, or just expounding upon a point -- because I didn't see much in it that I disagreed with. So I'll just say, "Okay."
But in your little two-liner note to Bill (quote, "Bill, IcD is right that the anti-war demonstrators weren't just fools and weirdos. They may have been wrong, but that's a different issue."), I think you may have missed one of the key points made in the essay itself about the important role of protestors.
(I just did a fast scan through the essay, and it didn't jump out at me, so I'll just have to paraphrase here, I guess...)
Basically, the role of the protestor is PIVOTAL. It's very important in America that there always be counter-voices heard. It keeps our most greedy ambitions in check (or at least under the microscope). This was actually the whole point in invoking the angry words of Twain in his essay.
These voices tend to be ignored, however, when their "bleating" (sic) is not based on facts, or is in direct contravention of the facts. And in that same vein, just "not liking the idea of going to war" is not enough justification to refrain when there are far greater reasons for going. But the day our nation's "cause du jour" is clearly indefensible -- when those protests can say more than just "this is against my personal philosophy," or that tired old maxim that's been used at least once in every anti-government action since the dawn of government, "it's all about oil and corporate greed" -- then they WILL be heard, and they will have sway. It's the great "middle of America" (Bill's so-called "Silent America") that shifts the weight of the country one way or the other. Offer them more than slogans, and they'll listen.
The point is, Bill doesn't look at protestors as whackos, fools, or wierdos... their role is too important to the healthy function of this country. But he does find anyone, whether actively protesting or not, who bases their policymaking decisions on emotional issues, philosophical biases, or religious precepts alone (among others) to be a waste of his attention. And I agree.
Which means, again, that you and I agree. Moving on...
Generally speaking now (referring to comments from several different posters like ChefQuix [who, with the exception of a couple of heated rants... which we're all occasionally guilty of, myself included... has done a good job of expressing the non-military point of view here]), I'd like to make a couple of general responses.
I, for one, am a firm believer in the effectiveness (and long-term "rightness") of positive shifts of consciousness -- "enlightenments," for lack of a better word -- in the betterment of this nation and this world. Bill and I have discussed this at length in private. He is far less "spiritual" than me, and I am FAR less "spiritual" than most, so we're usually at odds about this issue. But one thing we're in complete agreement about is the INeffectiveness of WAITING for shifts in consciousness when it comes to dealing with urgent RIGHT-NOW issues... like Iraq.
Absolutely, the farsighted push should be for a progressive enlightenment of everyone. Make everyone everywhere understand how well the world works when we all recognize each other's value and relevance, when we all understand how we can all benefit from helping each other rather than fighting each other, the sinkhole of "might makes right" thinking, etc., etc., etc. Personally, I think that LEVEL of global enlightenment is a long LONG way off, but still, it's a worthy objective.
The problem is that, RIGHT NOW, every day that we wait... every hour that we spend in futile diplomatic negotiations, committee room roundabouts of fruitless haggling, and even in vast movements of prayer and positive thinking... every minute that we're not dealing with the likes of Saddam Hussein in terms that HE understands, he and his like are thriving. Not JUST another day, another hour, another minute of striving to develop WMDs, financially supporting terrorism, starving his own people, planning the conquest of neighbors, and flipping off the world when they call for him to play by the rules that he himself agreed to, but... worst of all... it's another day, another hour, another minute of people dying, horribly, outside and inside his country. Dying. Suffering. Day after day after day. Given one week without restraint, how many more innocents could Uday and Qusay have toyed with with their industrial shredders, acid baths, electric probes, and of course the classic tools of rape?
Even if the existence of WMDs was all a bluff by Hussein and company, so what? That was a bluff that HE called, a believable and thoroughly precedented threat that HE issued, to his own detriment.
The point is (JKS's excellent point about philosophical-versus-policymaking thinking aside), even from a purely spiritual point of view, how guilty of negligence are we for having allowed those kinds of atrocities to go on unchecked for as long as we did? How much longer would have been okay? Even if a credible argument could be made for Hussein eventually knuckling under to political pressure "so why not wait a little longer?" (for which, from everything I've seen, there is absolutely NO evidence), how many more thousands of people would have died in the interim, directly or indirectly, at his hands, before we'd have said, for that reason alone, "enough is enough!"
This, among other things, was a war of prevention. Stop this man now, BEFORE he has the weapons and the means of long-range delivery to export far greater destruction across far greater distances... BEFORE his "America-is-a-paper-tiger," "ignore-their-braying" rhetoric can gain any more credence among the angry and disenfranchised of the world, and BEFORE he and the rest of his vile loin-fruit can torture, rape, mutilate and kill anyone else again.
Yes, war sucks. Nobody WANTS it... nobody wants to ENDURE it anyway. But, in many cases, many people can benefit from it. I think the world benefited greatly from the eradication of the Third Reich (against which NO amount of positive thinking, consciousness-shifting, praying, or drawn out negotiating would have had ANY effect), from the elimination of Japanese imperialism, and from the "illegalization" of slavery (it's taken us another century of consciousness shifting to scrub away even a sizable portion of the stain of racism, but that's an exercise in long-term enlightenment that IS slowly working... the key word being "slowly").
In other words, the world needs its consciousness shifted... absolutely... but the world cannot afford to do nothing while it waits and "thinks its way" into enlightenment. Look at how effective negotiation and diplomacy and UN pressure was in stemming the nuclear threats of North Korea. That should stand as a beacon AGAINST that method of resolution. The only thing that makes North Korea even a slightly lesser threat than 2002 Iraq is the fact that it has not already exhibited a propensity for invading its neighbors and using WMDs in the past... Iraq has.
ChefQuix, your posts have definitely improved a lot in tone of late, and that makes their content so much more worthy of consideration. I, like JKS and others, look forward to your next comments.
Enough.
I had so much I wanted to say about everything here, but (a) even I don't want to hear all that crap rehashed again, and (b) LabRat, my favorite voice of reasoning, has already said just about everything for me anyway.
Good work all. A great (and thoroughly exhausting) read.
GHS
Posted by: GreatHairySilverback | October 7, 2003 10:17 AM
"It's almost impossible for those of us immersed in "western" values to comprehend this, but people conditioned by traditional cultures don't want freedom, at least not as we understand the term"
Please I must ask: What gives you the right to speak for every non-american 'traditional' culture? Whilst I agree that 'traditional cultures' includes stupid fundamentalist muslims and certain hacking/slaying tribal feuds, it in no way characterises every non-american in this world.
That kind of generalising is the same kind of propaganda I hear from right and left:
i.e:
"All Americans are the same"
Which is said by both left and right:
i.e: some Right wing say, as they discuss America as 'we' i.e "I speak for all those Americans who are too busy to have a voice" etc when in reality they are using silence as a vacuum to insert their own philosophy.
And some Left Wing : "all Americans are arrogant and bigoted".
I see nothing to choose between such bigoted statements of right and left. I do not understand right and left. We are all born individuals, and the society into which we are born puts pressure on us either to be communal or individualistic or a mix of both. We do not put that pressure on ourselves, it is both environmental and incidental.
We cannot understand that thousands of years worth of traditional cultures around the globe are manifest in many things we do today, and wise persons and communities would take good knowledge from the past and present 'traditional' cultures and discard bad knowledge, and make better our lives. Not to imagine that America is the 'positive' distillation of all 'bad' human history. It's a fact for instance that America lost much that could have been learned in it's swift culling of the Native Americans, just as Europe lost the same shared-wisdom. Although i find it hard to imagine what 'freedom' was offered to the native american in comparison to the freedom he enjoyed before being 'discovered' I'm sure someone will argue this. I believe one of the common prejudices levelled at anything 'traditional' is the fact that any community that isn't a nuclear family unit, is viewed as inherently 'socialist', no matter how primitive. This of course is in contradiction of a common American ethic, that of individualism. It is believed that individualism suffers in a community, the ego is suppressed and technological/economic progress is stunted.
It's all largely academic when discussing this with cultures who choose to live as they do. But no so academic when cultures are held in stasis because of fundamentalism and fascism-induced terror.
in pursuit of truth.
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 11:23 AM
http://home.t-online.de/home/Juliana.Bauhofer/en/kultur.htm
Just an example above of one of the last few traditional cultures, with no moral message. The tradition of 'honor' is especially relevant in the 'fighting' section, and separates them completely from our concepts of war. It's not pick or choose, it's not 'this' or 'that', we actually have the self-determiantion to live as we want?
Self-determination is not an American invention, neither is it inherently 'left' or 'right', although these are concepts that we can juggle in power struggles in politics. Someone that believes that self-determination is a life making widgets in a factory for a weekend bingeing, or a life in a family settlement splitting wood, and growing food, or a life at the head of a corporation and 6 months in a log cabin , ALL is still self-determination to one degree or another? How to measure those degrees? Why? Surely it is all environment-centric? When we turned the natural world into a different environment then we also have now to adapt constantly to these new environments and ignore many instincts, if there be instincts, such as pure self-determination and freedom from capitalism or socialism in it's modern and diverse forms.
I don't believe there is a 'one way' answer, as we create new problems as we go along. The point at which we make 'our' problems also those of 'traditional cultures'.
An interesting point: Mass manufacture is driven by the market. In this we have to maximise profit and balance it off somewhere/sometimes with 'collateral damage'. Not everyone can profit if profit is to be made. For instance, not recalling a certain model of car even though it is proved defective and causes accidents, the lives of those driving it are not worth the 'greater' cause of profit unless the deaths reach certain levels.
The hard-line capitalist may say that their car (the motor industry in general) is bringing greater quality of life to the 'people' and to make the necessary safety measures or recall would lose jobs or hurt the economy. So there are sacrifices to keep people in work. To me , that 'greater good' sounds inherently 'socialist' coming from a 'capitalist'. This dichotomy is just one of many I find.
Capitalism is a strange democracy too. Masses of commuting people leads to a place like the UK becoming gridlocked and sites of natural beauty being concreted. 'Traditional' rural industries are giving way to corporatism, this means that production and administration becomes increasingly centralised The 'masses' actually hold the power over the individual who likes the beauty and tranquility, and *being* of a rural life, or lives in a place where cars are infrequently used. The commuter is the 'communist' here, the road-protestor is the one who has to sacrifice his/her peace to the masses. To the 'greater good.'
It's not black and white, which is highly irritating for me and anyone else who looks for rational truth.
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 12:06 PM
Sorry, ChefQuix, you took so long to respond to my questions that I assumed you'd missed or avoided my post. Anyway:
The big push for war in Iraq was partly caused by Saddam's decision to start trading what oil he could against the Euro instead of the Dollar. If it proved profitable other OPEC countries would have followed suit - this would have broken the economic hegemony the US enjoys and caused the dollar to collapse.
Okay, your comments were really just a paraphrasing of the paper you linked to, so I'll respond primarily to the paper.
First of all, you're making an arguement-by-authority ("if W. Clark says says so, it must be so"). Given that the author is - by his own admission - not an economist, you've in fact presented a very weak arguement-by-authority. Even if it was a peer-reviewed paper it'd still be an opinion; as a non-professional essay it's a suspect source as well.
Nevertheless, I skimmed the entire thing and fully read the introduction, closing, summary, and addendums. What's presented is a fairly thoughtful exposition on oil currency as the sole cause of war in Iraq. The author, however, utterly avoids exploring any alternative theories - aside from some brief lip-service to WMDs there is no discussion of opposing viewpoints or the Bush Administrations stated goals. Ignoring your opponents strongest arguements and shooting down their weakest is called the straw man fallacy, and W. Clark practices it mightily in his paper. I can make geocentrism look "true" if I present it while totally ignoring Kopernican Theory and modern astronomy, but it doesn't mean the Earth is really the center of the Universe.
Your source material is both suspect and biased.
Citizens of developing countries around the world are being forced to work 16 hour days to produce the goods that we desire. Surely I don't have to proove this to you?
Your link doesn't work, and yes, if you're accusing the US government of actively enslaving foriegn civilians I'm afraid we're going to ask you to proove it. And lamenting the long hours and low pay in other nations doesn't constitute proof - I agree the conditions are terrible, but they were here too ... during the industrial revolution. We had to work our way through that kind of economy over several generations and like it or not these other nations are going to have to do the same.
Furthermore, no one is forcing the people to work in those sweat shops or making you buy the products they produce. The workers are free to find some other source of income (but most don't because it's the best that is available) and you're welcome to boycott all products made by American companies in foriegn markets. That's what capitalism is all about.
In the clash of ideologies, religion is the most subtle and one of the most powerful influences, but also one the least talked about, at least from a political perspective. It's a hard topic to discuss for many because it requires analysis of ones own self, the unwritten future and the unavoidable end. Because of the differing viewpoints (which ironically enough are pretty damn similar) the automatic suspicion of true communication with unknown questions immediately puts up barriers. Barriers are weapons. The inability to open the mind to new ideas.
I've studied religion, philosophy, and science all of my adult life, and I've never seen such a (literally) pointless paragraph filled with so many valid statements. Each sentence is more or less true, but taken together they point to no conclusion whatsoever. They certainly don't indicate America is out to force a religious "orthodoxy" on the rest of the world, which is what you stated we were out to do and what I originally took issue with.
The only cohesive idea I can glean from your statement is "religion impedes discourse and social progress". I agree with such a sentiment (I'm an agnostic) but I hardly see where you're going with it in this discussion.
A
Posted by: aliestar | October 7, 2003 12:21 PM
Bucketspoon
Please I must ask: What gives you the right to speak for every non-american 'traditional' culture?
Sorry. A poor choice of words on my part, I'll admit.
What I meant was something more akin to "many people conditioned by traditional cultures", or "a much greater percentage of people conditioned by traditional cultures". If my words sounded condescending, then didn't they didn't convey my feelings correctly. I don't claim to speak for anybody; I just voiced an observation. The trait I described is an inherent human tendency, and not exclusive to developing countries and their cultures. Try to propose more liberty to the average american than he already has, and you much get the same response. "Some people will make wrong choices!!" they'll protest. If you don't believe me, propose legalization or decriminalization of drugs. If one hasn't been exposed to freedom, dreamed of it, or been conditioned by a lifetime of it, one will tend to be less accepting of the seeming bedlam that results when a bunch of free people start making their own decisions.
Imagine how most Americans and Europeans would hate it if "enlightened" space aliens with superior technology came down and forced us to throw away all of our traditions for an Ayn Rand-ian world-view.
My intent was to caution that not everyone will embrace "freedom", and many will resist it out of honest intention and earnest desire for order (that individuals whose power derives from repression will attempt to harness that fear and resentment, I left unsaid).
I also meant "traditional" more broadly than I think you interpretted it. Web surfers tend to look forward, to the future. (On average, we don't spend enough time looking backwards, and as you point out, we discard a hell of a lot of good stuff in our headlong race to tomorrow.) Most importantly, we don't expect tomorrow's world to look like today's, and the fact that today doesn't look like yesterday doesn't scare the hell out of us. In "traditional", was thinking of the middle east in particular (hence the references to impious behavior, heretics, and apostates), but the general case would be any culture where people in general want or expect to their childrens' lives to be more or less along the lines of their fathers'. When suddenly confronted with the seeming anarchy of all their neighbors suddenly having more lattitude and more choices, the first impulse tends to be to recoil into the comfort of "the way things should be", "the natural order", etc. A hundred years ago, this would describe most Americans, at least in rural areas.
J
Posted by: Jumper | October 7, 2003 12:47 PM
"I've seen Bill praise the opposition when it's got sound intellectual and philosophical ground before."
I'm afraid I can't remember who said this exactly, but I'm just curious as to when this has actually occurred. I'm not challenging the statement, but have not personally come across such praise myself in what I've read of this site (admittedly, I haven't read every single word, I've read about two thirds of the essays, I think).
The reason I ask is that the viewpoint of this site and many of its commenters is not one I instinctively share (I'm certainly not as big a fan of America as most of you are, but am here trying to understand your points of view), and I was thinking I might get a better understanding of it if I could see how the essays actually engage with the many strong counter-arguments which exist. So far, my impression is that Bill puts forward his views extremely persuasively and eloquently, but doesn't quite do opposing views justice. I guess expressing your opponent's arguments at their strongest without distortion or leaving things out is more the stuff of dull academia (qualifier: if only all academics actually did this!) than rousing rhetoric, so maybe I'm just asking too much from this site?
Feel free to argue otherwise. You guys know the site a lot better than me, so maybe I've missed something.
Posted by: Contentedly Powerless | October 7, 2003 1:10 PM
>
Robin,
I think you go a little too far in saying it's a great "illogical" leap, to think that Plame's cover was Intentionally blown for political gain.
While it's true that a Clintonesque parsing of Novak's initial article can yield an interpretation that, if accurate, would be less-damning/
surely you must also agree that-- when Novak's article was first published-- one didn't have to go Way Out On A Limb to read those same words and conclude there Might well-be an agenda behind the leak.
Which is why David Corn did the right thing, as the 1st journalist to investigate the propriety of the leak: Corn went to Novak & asked for clarification. And Novak's first alibi certainly didn't dispell the appearence of wrongdoing:
http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=823
Now I don't deny that since-then Novak has offered additional versions of his explanation. All I am saying is that Novak provided a lot of smoke, and it's hardly a great illogical leap to suspect fire. Nor does one have to be a vicious partison to take Novak's more-recent statements with a grain of salt, given that he has motive to try to talk-his-way-out of the mess.
By the way, Corn continues to be a valuable resource as this story develops. He is not without his biases, but at least they appear to be based on his principles, rather than Us Vs. You partisonship. For instance. From the start Corn tried to make the case that, as a journalist, Novak should be exempt from the Treason law:
http://thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3=982
Sadly-- even if Plame Being Exposed was mere human-error with no political agenda behind it-- there remains the question of how the Bush Administration handled the leak. It appears they were content to let months go by without acting to find the leaker. That they were content to milk the leak for political gain, after the fact. ("Wilson's wife is fair game"). That the only thing which made the White House take the leak seriously, was Wilson's attention-grabbing sound-bite about Rove being "frog-walked out of the White House in handcuffs", and the subsequent media storm. It's Not Ok to Only behave ethically When You Think Someone's Watching, Mr. Bush.
Having previously chosen Hitler & Abortion as grand guignol metaphors in this forum; I might as well now invoke AIDS-- to describe what's wrong with Bush's response to the Wilson/Novak/Plame incident.
*There are those who think that that AIDS was invented and unleashed as a weapon by the US Govt.
*There are those who think that the leak to Novak was a premeditated weapon intentionally unleashed against Wilson.
In the absense of ironclad proof of AIDS's actual origin, opinions for & against the conspiracy theory are all mere speculation. I doubt the sinister theory.
However, for the first six ravaging years of the AIDS crisis; President Reagan didn't say the word "AIDS" in public a single time. Reagan put his political agenda ahead of the larger good. And in so-doing he behaved far too much like a diabolical biowar genius would-have/ had Dr. Evil wanted the disease to spread far and wide.
Reagan's negligence was it's own crime; even if he had nothing to do with the initial event.
Likewise, Even If it turns out the leak was unintentional, and Novak's incriminating-at-first-glance wording was actually misleading-- Bush & Co. handled the leak in a way that's a scandal unto itself. Hardly a ringing endorsement that they are suited to wielding POWER any better than Twain's most pessimistic expectations.
Posted by: icd | October 7, 2003 1:13 PM
A brief addendum to my response to ChefQuix:
I don't mean to give the impression that W. Clark's essay is valueless because it isn't a peer-reviewed document. There undoubtedly are American economists and government types that are deeply concerned about the impact the Euro is going to have on the US dollar.
What I do doubt is that the issue is of such hysterical importance that we went to war in Iraq over it (this sounds like tinfoil hat paranoia to me), and I'm also skeptical of Mr. Clark's status as a fair and balanced observer of the facts important to this case.
A
Posted by: aliestar | October 7, 2003 1:22 PM
Please then don't let us give the Dani people 'freedom' from their own self-determination. Capitalism is there to exploit their land, they are 'in the way'. let us be under no assumtions there. Some things are black and white. That's the thing talking about 'us' and 'them'. I'm a white male in the Western World. I ache to be able to grow my own crops , fish, paint and build a home from wood and stuff. It's been my dream since as long as I can remember. Self reliance and the freedom to be in the places I love most of all, natural places. The truth is I will be an old man by the time I can afford the land to do this, and by earning this money, I have not learned any skills that would help my self-sufficiency. So self-determination isn't a clear cut concpet. Just to be able to grow food and build a house. Fundamental freedoms? Not a bit of it. This apporoach is openly scorned and hampered by people who would profit from my NOT being self-reliant. Instead we are forced into a false utopian boxing ring of competition and society-centric egoism. And you're right, many Americans 100 years ago would have fought to keep ther land and way of life rather than industrializing themselves. Self-determination isn't the part of it, 'progress' is a term often hijacked by profiteers and politicians, it means that the past was a child and the future is a grownup. It's a lie of course, we just choose to live and eat in different ways. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. The sad fact of it is that Islam and Christianity have more in common with each other than either of them do with the simple traditional animism of Old World tribes. 'Natural' religions held power to be in 'nature', as that's where ultimate power is. The patriarchs decided that actually humans held the power within themselves and therefore nature was evil, and then set out how to divide up that power, or to wield it. So yes, we are now dealing with straight power concepts. Rather than progress we are aslo sadlled with a 'God-complex'. That isn't 'progress' to me, but it *IS* the way it is, the question remains is who or what would each of us sacrifice for a slice of it, and how big a slice? Is raising children more important than working and earning? Does working and earning mean we have no time to raise our children? Etc etc.
"I also meant "traditional" more broadly than I think you interpretted it."
I have to disagree, I think in saying that people did not want 'western freedom' was an inherently narrow statement. If it was a 'broad' statement, then it was so broad that you actually deemed to speak on behalf of countless non-western views on behalf of all those people and traditions that go back more than the last few hundred years? I would call the self-assumption to be able to do that actually quite narrow-minded, with no offense meant.
I'm a websurfer, and I look forwards, not backwards, I would one day like a peaceful place to build a house and have some kids play safely, without them having to be choked by pollution, killed by a pervert or bullied because they aren't wearing the right clothes. *That* I would call progress.
Is this discussion about 'power' between the US and Islam, or about 'power' concepts in general?
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 1:25 PM
Bucketspoon -
An interesting point: Mass manufacture is driven by the market. In this we have to maximise profit and balance it off somewhere/sometimes with 'collateral damage'.
You're refering to what economists call "hidden costs". E.g., the cost of the electricity to run this computer doesn't include the cost of the lung cancers caused by burning the coal to generate that electricity. Even in the ultimate free-market/libertarian universe, it is an acceptable role of government to pursue policies to incorporate those hidden costs into the product. Doing so allows more rational (decentralized, market-place) decision making, in this specific example, by making natural gas (or wind, or solar) more competitive. Too often, government tactics to eliminate hidden costs (rather than expose them) simply move the hidden costs from one product to another, or perpetuate bad choices & misallocation of resources.
For instance, not recalling a certain model of car even though it is proved defective and causes accidents, the lives of those driving it are not worth the 'greater' cause of profit unless the deaths reach certain levels.
People have to quit thinking of safety in absolutes!!! (Pet peeve of mine)
There is no "safe", or "not-safe", there are only levels of risk. People think I'm crazy for leaping over fences on the back of a hot thoroughbred. I have decided that the level of risk is acceptable, relative to the amount of enjoyment I derive from the activity. Others disagree, and refuse get within ten foot of a horse. I am perfectly content to avoid forcing them to climb into the saddle. I expect from them the courtesy of leaving me alone, and not outlawing the possession of "dangerous" horses - but I digress :).
The point is, rather than depriving people of a choice, the information on the supposed "defects" of this hypothetical car should be made available so that the user can decide for him/herself if the risk versus benefits are acceptable. A car that is not crash-worthy at 70 miles per hour is perfectly safe for someone, let's say "Fred", who never leaves the city streets. Why should the government force "Fred" to pay the extra costs of a highway-"safe" car? What if the cost of the extra margin of safety prevents Fred from buying a new car, and he buys a used car that conforms to even lower safety criteria? I propose that Fred should be the one to decide, not the government. The ultimate arrogance is when the government writes regulations forcing a 98 pound woman to pay extra for the airbag that will kill her if it ever deploys, because she is in the minority, that the majority will benefit from being forced to buy airbags.
The hard-line capitalist may say that their car (the motor industry in general) is bringing greater quality of life to the 'people' and to make the necessary safety measures or recall would lose jobs or hurt the economy. So there are sacrifices to keep people in work. To me , that 'greater good' sounds inherently 'socialist' coming from a 'capitalist'. This dichotomy is just one of many I find.
This paragraph implies someone in central authority is making the decisions. I object to people making mydecisions. In my paradigm, the world I want, some cars would be safer and (more expensive), some would be riskier (and cheaper), the safety info would be freely available, and people decide what they want, based on their personal level of acceptable risk. The government would facilitate the evaluation & creation of the data, and its distribution, and audit the data for accuracy. Government also sets performance standards on items that endanger persons other than the user; e.g. ensuring that cars without brakes may not be operated on public roads.
The only collectivist decision making is that cars on the extremes of the bell curve won't sell enough units, and the market will eliminate those choices.
Capitalism is a strange democracy too... ...'masses' actually hold the power over the individual...
I think most cultures, philosophies, and political views express an attempt to do the most good for the most people (disregarding, obviously, the many outright despots and kleptocracies in the world). In a world of limited space & resources, not everyone can have everything they want. I have 12 acres, Ted Turner has several thousand. He has satisfied more people's wants/needs than I have. He's brought convenience to millions of people by creating 24-hour news and weather channels. I satisfy one company's need for computer software. Do I envy Ted Turner? Hell yes! Do I resent his success? NO. Absoutely not.
A pure free market allocates resouces and makes decisions by the cumulative voice of everyones' daily choices. Other systems put a few (sometimes elected) people in charge to make these decisions on the people's behalf. Either way, nobody gets everything they want, and many get very little of what they want.
You're absolutely right that there is no black and white. It's a matter of doing the most "good" while causing the least harm. I lean towards the devolution and wide distribution of decision-making power, and sharp limits on "authority". Mistakes will be made in this imperfect world, but by following these guidelines, the mistakes won't be of the Holocaust variety.
J
Posted by: Anonymous | October 7, 2003 2:20 PM
I was just wondering whether I qualified as an oppressed foreign worker or not.
I'm 46 years old, living in Orlando, working as a tourism chauffeur for minimum wage, a minimum of 10 hours a day (typically 12 - 14 hours a day, actually), with no time-off for meals, rarely even time to catch up my paperwork. I lift, on average, 2 tons of heavy luggage a day (literally... double that, if you count putting it INTO the car's trunk, and then taking it OUT again at the other end of the run), which is brutal on my back, and I have no insurance or benefits of any kind. The company's owner/founder, and its general manager are buddies from Jamaica originally, who came to America, built themselves up from lowly bell captains and Towncar drivers, and are now both independently wealthy. The owner lives in an amazing multi-million dollar home on a lake, and has a small fleet of exotic cars in his garages. Here in America, I think that's called a "Cinderella Story"... for THEM anyway.
Still... I quit another higher paying office job, with full bennies, including stock options and a 401k plan, to come BACK to this wretched chauffeuring life... because I prefer the lifestyle. I'm on my own, cruising the Florida weather all day long, driving happy Disney guests to and from the airport, for decent cash tips. What's not to like? It's young man's work, but it's got its old man pleasures.
I wonder what a completely clinical review of my situation would look like to an outsider who saw only the "outrage" of how overworked and underpaid and under-appreciated I was, here in my own country, under the management of wealthy "foreigners." Taken individually though, point for point, I'm a happier guy now than when I was doing line-monkey work in an office cubicle.
(Yes, I'm making light of the subject... though this doesn't qualify as a "sweat shop," I do have to wear a black suit and tie, in central Florida heat... that should count for something)
Still, I would like more time for writing...
To "bucketspoon": interesting point you brought up about how "... capitalism is a strange democracy too. Masses of commuting people leads to a place like the UK becoming gridlocked and sites of natural beauty being concreted. 'Traditional' rural industries are giving way to corporatism, this means that production and administration becomes increasingly centralised. The 'masses' actually hold the power over the individual who likes the beauty and tranquility, and *being* of a rural life, or lives in a place where cars are infrequently used. The commuter is the 'communist' here, the road-protestor is the one who has to sacrifice his/her peace to the masses. To the 'greater good.'"
I like the part about how "the masses actually hold the power over the individual who likes the beauty and tranquility and *being* of a rural life." That's a good point. Sounds a lot like the WalMart Supercenters and Super-Targets drawing business out to the suburbs, and draining the life blood from the older, more traditional Mom & Pop stores in the old downtown areas. I know that's a common and popular complaint. Some would call that "evolution," though... maybe even "progress." Or, as I prefer to think of it, "the natural order."
The "masses" are growing, simply because the populations are growing. And they're growing outward, away from the inner cities, simply because that's where the space to grow is. So what's the better solution? To force the steadily growing numbers of citizens to continue commuting downtown? To the same old little stores they've always "traditionally" bought from, enjoying the scenic long lines and shopping bag queues that the Russians have enjoyed for so long as well? Or should we change ("evolve") with the times, adapting to the "natural order" of things, accommodating far more than we inconvenience, and embracing the future order? Scary, maybe. Tough on the little guy, sure. But inevitable, and natural... in my opinion.
I'm actually in a good mood here, so don't take this as a sarcastic argument. I'm just sayin'.
The point is, I don't think we're "giving way to corporatism," or succumbing to "communist commuters" when we spread to gridlock London, or four-lane the quaint country roads to accommodate the new subdivisions. I think we're just sort of swarming our habitat, and adapting it and ourselves in the process... what humans do best.
Anyhoo, it was an interesting point. Thanks.
Next time we'll address why nobody has yet answered Bill's challenge... the one about what you would have the ideal superpower DO with its super power. How SHOULD the ideal superpower (pretend it's any country in the world BUT the U.S.) exercise its capabilities? How much or how little involvement in outside affairs? What kind of leadership? What kinds of freedoms? What limits (if any) on personal growth, travel, wealth, etc.? Should it be called upon to occasionally act as a 'world policeman,' and if so, under what conditions? Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
I really am deeply curious about what people think about this, on both sides of the fence. If YOUR country was the single acknowledged superpower on the planet, with the economic, industrial, technological, and military strength to impose its will anywhere it so chose, how would you have it behave? In our current geopolitical situation, what would your superpowered homeland do differently? And what would you do differently that would prevent the rest of the world from looking at you as "arrogant?"
I think the alternative(s) could be fascinating.
GHS
Posted by: GreatHairySilverback | October 7, 2003 2:22 PM
My apologies to all who are waiting for a response, due to work load and a general level of busyness, I won't be able to reply until wednesday night (probably). There have been some interesting comments that I am eager to rip to shreds, but I must have some time to compose appropriate responses. ;)
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 7, 2003 2:29 PM
Damn! Take one night off and look what happens. I'll try and respond specifically to the line of argument surrounding ChefQuix- if I screw up and say something someone's already said or he's already clarified his position on, mea culpa. (Or if I don't respond to something I should have. Call me on it.) Part one.
"If the 'official' motivation keeps changing, why do you think I'm having such a hard time swallowing it?"
This is a false dilemma. There doesn't NEED to be any one motivation, and the administration never said that we had only one motivation. At various points during the runup Saddam's history of noncompliance, the WMDs, terrorism prevention, and liberating the Iraqis were all cited as reasons- plural- that we were pursuing war. And they are all much more credible than that we did it just to get oil traded against the dollar again. If we cared THAT MUCH about the oil, why didn't we go to war during the OPEC-induced shortage?
And speaking of the WMDs, everybody, including the Democratic leadership, thought Saddam had them and was continuing to actively pursue them. That Bush and Blair made it up out of whole cloth for a reason to go to war is bullshit.
"Perhaps if people consumed half as much they could work half as long."
This would fly if they were living like Americans, but they're not. They're living like peasants on the cusp of an industrial revolution. If they consume half as much, some family members will starve and die.
"So you believe that this existence, this 'now' is the only time you will ever be? Then how could you ever willingly sacrifice that experience, knowing that nothingness awaits you?"
You've got it backwards. If this is the only shot at life in any form I have, then it follows that it is vital to live the best life I possibly can. What's a few decades more or less to geological time? Meaningless. If I live to ninety but can say nothing more positivve for myself looking back over my life than that I never did anyone any direct and personal harm, then that will be the tragedy, not having a life I can be proud of but facing the possibility of dying younger. If the only meaning my life has is what I impart to it, then it is a personal failure not to do so.
As for other people, you're making it out a lot more simplistically than it really is. "Killing" people by supporting a war isn't the same as murder, though it's certainly something, and consciously supporting policies that will mean more people die at the hands of someone not-American isn't something I can do with a clear conscience, either. It is a very complex moral question.
"Never forget exactly how far humanity has come along - with the explosive growth of the information age and vastly superior communication between individuals, societal culture is about to ramp up."
I don't forget, but at the same time I don't let my ideals become so insular and lofty that I forget what made them important to me and allow unacceptable consequences. The combustion engine is a huge step up from muscle power, but it's not a faster-than-light drive and it doesnt' mean that FTL drive is just around the corner, either.
Universal pacifism is as far-fetched a holy grail in civilization as FTL drive is in physics, if not more fantastic.
"As for the removal of the Hussein dynasty, yes they were 'evil', yes they were not fit to rule, but how many other dictators out there are just as bad if not worse?"
I guess if we can't get ALL the dictators, we should just leave them all. This makes no sense.
"So you're not at all worried about the amount of pollution that we throw into the atmosphere? phenomenon like this isn't a concern for you?"
Sure I am. I care quite a bit about the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain, and choking air pollution. I just want to see real problems addressed, not an imaginary one that's going to be a big time, effort, and money sink.
"Anything worth doing won't be easy. Sacrifices have to be made by us - the consumer."
*Intelligent, informed* sacrifices that will actually do something. There is no moral value in a "sacrifice" made because someone was forced to. That's not noble, that's some other bastard taking your choice away, and that he's doing it because he wants to feel good about himself isn't a sound reason. If you're going to take someone's choice away, you'd better have a sound reason so far as I'm concerned.
"My point is that there is a large majority of people in the states who follow a doctrine that is completely outdated with the needs and values of current society. This is holding back the US in my opinion."
Yes, it IS your opinion. I can see much that is admirable in Christian values and some that I don't personally consider as such, but I don't think they're stupid or dinosaurs, I think they just have a different opinion, and I'm damned glad for the first amendment that protects us both.
"I mean the fact that evolution is taught as a theory alongside intelligent design is completely depressing"
Yeah, it sure would be if that were true, but it's not. "Scientific creationism" in general, including intelligent design, was struck down by the Supreme Court in the eighties. The closest the creationists have gotten to their goals is eliminating evolution from the state standards in some places- where it's usually reinstated after they discover the universities don't want kids with half-assed science educations- and putting "warning labels" in textbooks in some others. (And before you ask, yes, ID is a BIG going concern of mine. Check the National Center for Science Education's site for a state-by-state list of what's wrong and what's right.)
"I don't really give a damn if it works or not, because as soon as I start advocating violence in any form against another then I am comprimising my fundamental view of life - that every single individual, no matter how vile, corrupt or 'evil' you think they may be has a right to existence that's just as strong as yours. I will not waver on this point."
Okay. So it matters less if some well-intentioned passive resistor becomes jelly between a tank's treads or a dismembered screaming thing under a torturer's ministrations than it matters that, well, they did things the "right way". What exactly ARE your ideals based on? Because I see no compassion or high value on human life and lack of suffering in them.
It is more important to you that you do not have to examine or re-evaluate your ideals than the lives of the people who face the consequences of those ideals are.
"We have to stop thinking about ourselves as individuals inhabiting nations and start thinking about members of a species fighting for survival."
I hate to break it to you, but even if we did it wouldn't likely change much, because Darwinian selection is based on the fitness of the individual and not the species. The genetically mandated response to thinking of ourselves that way is to turn and put the screws to our fellows as hard as we can so that our germ lines survive whatever comes. Even animals for whom unity of purpose has become so deep it's a fact of life (social insects) still fight wars. (If you want to call a war a concerted effort by one colony to eradicate another.)
"Every single thing we consume adds to the level of pollution in this world. Every single thing."
Perhaps this is why you don't have a problem with the slaughter of the helpless by the strong as long as you don't get your hands dirty, or with laborers starving in authentic cultural squalor as long as they aren't employed by Americans: no one leaves a lighter footprint on the planet than a dead man.
Environmental alarmism is the last politically correct way to be a misanthrope.
"As for energy, what do you think happened on the east coast?"
I think they had a power outage caused by a series of cascading failures caused by an unusual level of demand. We didn't run out of energy, we overloaded the system.
"We are SERIOUSLY FUCKING UP OUR PLANET, and people like you just sit by and go hey, let the good times roll."
I have a story for you. Long ago, the planet was well-populated, and while things weren't perfect, there was no war, very little deliberate killing, and things were overall very, very peaceful and in balanced. Then one population developed a spiffy new invention that gave them virtually unlimited energy compared to what they were used to, and thrived. The problem was that their miracle process released a chemical that, as long as the population was small, simply incorporated harmlessly into the atmosphere... but now that it was bigger, it became apparent that it was severely toxic to all the other life there, making serin gas look like incense. Living things died by the billions. Eventually one radical group invented a way to not only survive the toxic chemical, but thrive on it, and they began spreading as the original life retreated deep underground and to the bottom of the ocean where the toxic gas did not reach, and they could eke out a living on the margins. Today we call the descendants of those marginalized populations "Archaea" and the descendants of the radicals "all the other life on earth". True story- the Oxygen Holocaust of about four billion years ago.
In other words, THE PLANET ITSELF HAS DONE MUCH WORSE THAN HUMANS. Mother Earth is far more efficient at perpetrating global genocide on her inhabitants than we are or are likely ever to be. As was pointed out, even if we set off every ICBM we have we'd only eliminate ninety percent of all life- which has already happened in the past due to purely natural causes! From the Cambrian die-off to the K-2 catastrophe, we are peanuts compared to a genuine natural disaster. Even if we somehow managed to find a way to eliminate our impact on the planet, it might very well shrug us off in a week anyway. We're about due for another large-scale global natural disaster.
Incidentally also, even if we abandoned all technology today we'd still have an impact, perhaps even just as bad or worse as our large population began to starve and act out of desperation. Pre-agricultural peoples have caused large-scale extinctions, permanent terrain changes and desertification, and other major ecological consequences in the past and we'd be much, much worse for our numbers if we went tech-free now.
And no, my attitude is NOT "let the good times roll". Because I think that the chicken little/luddite approach is retarded and counterproductive doesn't mean I don't care.
"It's like the fuel efficient cars out there - they cost a hell of a lot less in gas, they're better for the environment, but because there is a sacrifice in performance, nobodies interested in buying."
There's also the little factor of their very high cost and the fact that they tend to fold up like accordions in an accident. I'd prefer NOT to drive a car that should come with a wreath on top in case of an accident, so they can bury me in it.
The ones that are cheaper and sturdier aren't even that fuel-efficient. I drive an evil high-horsepower, V8-powered sportscar that also happens to be a six-speed manual, and I get better mileage than many of my friends with "fuel-efficient" little economy cars. (Real greens learn how to drive stick.)
Posted by: LabRat | October 7, 2003 3:19 PM
Bucketspoon -
Gotta make it quick, so forgive spelling, grammer, or certain lack of clarity.
Don't be so quick to assign motives & values to others.
I hold that there are universal tendancies of humans (hell of all higher primates); many of them ugly and despicable, many of them "good", independant of evolutionary suitability.
Different cultures accentuate, magnify, bring to the surface, or surpress various aspects of our nature. I don't think it's condescending for me to point out that some cultures encourage a fear of change, any more than for you to observe that current western culture encourages greed and avarice. It is simple math to conclude that fewer individuals within a culture that distrusts change will enthusiasticly embrace our chaotic and bewildering freedom. I do not presume to choose for them, or speak for them.
By measures of physical well-being, we of "the west" (wish I had another word for the concept, "heirs of Greek & Roman philosphy, science, democracy & republic etc." is just too unweildy) have had "progress" for half a millenia. Modern dentistry and the eradication of polio and smallpox is not a bad thing, compared to the alternative.
Modern developed-world workers have more leisure time (presumably available for their children) than a farmer of a hundred, seventyfive or fifty years ago. I had the privilege of knowing a grandfather and two great-grandfathers. The old-style farm wasn't the quaint, pastoral, place most imagine. It was backbreaking labor from dawn 'till dusk. It was going hungry and the kids going shoeless if it didn't rain at the right time, and it was about kids enduring a lifetime of retardation from a kick in the head from a mule, or growing up one-armed from getting caught in the reaper. I do not envy my forebearers that life. And when I rue the loss of the things my culture/society's thrown away, I remind myself of that simple fact.
By measures other than material well being, we are recklessly throwing away things that I value greatly. Many of these things you also value.
I do not believe history is an inevitable march upwards. The volksmarch of a few hundred thousand Germanic tribesmen knocked the entire continent of Europe for a loop, and it was hundreds of years before she recovered (here, I'm measuring "progress" by such measures as a civic recognition of the fundamental rights and dignity of a human being).
But the very fact that I think we both agree on the fundamental value and dignity of a human being, that an individual should have protections from the state, that an individual should have autonomy, that we can question and debate how to best serve that dignity and achieve that autonomy yet not worry whether or not the rest of the tribe, or the holy man will overhear us and lop off our heads... I call that a good thing by any measure.
History, like nature, is a blind and brutal collection of forces. People and cultures get crushed, or washed away by both. We (that terrible "west") have some distinction that we care about anyone outside our circle, be that circle a clan, a tribe, tribal federation, nation, culture, or religion. I don't want a muslum, or a stone-age tribesman to suffer. For any reason. You (I assume) and I have empathy for any human being, regardless of how removed he is from our circle of "us", no matter how "them" he or she is.
As I've said before, We are all trying to muddle through this imperfect world trying to leave it a better place, trying to minimize the harm we do, trying to bring some betteremnt. '
J
Posted by: Jumper | October 7, 2003 3:19 PM
I would have a 'superpower' to be comprised of global representatives. Not politically tied to state, nation or corporation, but a global commitment to end suffering and dictatorships or oligarchical peddling that harms or hampers freedom from oppression. Thing is, with a capitalist superpower or a communist superpower, it generally seems to be about this or that set of bullies. If it harms profit then it will not be allowed. If it harms the State then it wil not be allowed. If it is allowed and it benefits state or profit but hurts others, then it gets 'overlooked'.
We cannot have useful 'moral' directives unless there are certain boundaries. The problem is who has the power to dictate this? Democracy or Republic doesn't address the problem of croneyism or dealing in poverty and death for personal profit. Unless we address those issues I cannot see how any philosophy can gain common ground in the political sphere.
Power politics:
etymologically I could be both loose and mean and say that:
Power = force
Poly = many
Ticks = bloodsucking parasites.
*)
I like this discussion. Idon't have an answer to the world's problems. Just the answer to some people's problems. We could all help one person every day, even if it meant just writing an email. I am suspicious of Power. It is most commonly used for personal gain at the expense of someone else. This doesn't automatically make me anything other than a little cynical. If power is not fundamentally justice-based, then surely it becomes in itself a thing that justice will forever fight?
“Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.”
Richard Armour
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 3:36 PM
"I've read a theory that agrees with both statistical view points - that both the ozone hole over the arctic is at its largest size since they began recording and that the average temperature is dropping (I don't have stats for that - ask LabRat)."
I don't have a solid opinion on that theory specifically- the fact is that climate has its own natural patterns of variability and it could be getting warmer OR colder just because it's that time in the cycle again- but I do agree that there is in fact a big fucking hole in the ozone layer and that's probably why we're experiencing some melting. Again, it's not because I don't care that I have such contempt for Kyoto and global warming in general, it's because I'd like to see that money and energy focused on something REAL, so we can do some genuine good. When's the last time you saw the hole get major media attention? How about compared to global warming? Right.
Fortunately, the Montreal Protocol of 1987, which we DID sign, has assured that chloroflourocarbon levels have been dropping since then, and in another decade we may be able to say with authority that the hole is closing. (CFCs last 50-100 years.) This is a fixable problem that we've already taken action on, which is probably why it's not politically popular.
"As for 'ambiguous data and conflicting studies' well I don't really think that there can be any studies in this area... It's sort of a feeling you can't ignore, a nagging conscience that's telling you 'Did you really need that pimped out SUV? Is this disposable cutting board really necessary, or am I just being lazy?' That's the kind of sacrifice I'm talking about."
It sounds like you're less concerned with what's actually happening to the environment than you are with your own problem with consumerism in general. Again: there is no moral value in involuntary sacrifice, and it is morally wrong to force someone else to sacrifice in order to assauge your own conscience.
"People should buy more computers."
You do know that the superconductors that allow modern, fast processors can be manufactured only with the aid of some extremely toxic chemicals that then become waste, right? And what a huge disposal problem obsolete computers are becoming?
" It's fundamental belief that is in conflict, and it festers and festers until it pops, and then we have wars."
All the philosophy in the world won't eliminate a fundamental conflict of interest, and the problem again with universal pacifism is that it requires every human living to internalize it, at the same time. Anything less and men of good faith must be prepared to use force, or allow those in bad faith to overrun the world.
Oh, and one last comment re the hypothetical shepherd that I forgot to address earlier.
I've lived in the Southwest for all but four years of my life. My father used to work for the Indian Health Service, and I'm literally surrounded by reservation land as I type. You see, I've met the shepherd. They're called Navajos. And it is really not even remotely idyllic. The community- the tribal councils- are fractious and venal and prone to graft. The herders can barely afford to live in conditions much above squalor. Alcoholism and domestic abuse are rampant. Reservation land is covered with blowing litter. (I have an acquaintance who once asked a spiritual Navajo why despite his earth-centric religion, the litter didn't bother him. He replied that since it was ON the body of earth rather than IN it, it was OK.) And you could blame all their problems on Westernization, except without the West they'd be back at having about a one in four child mortality rate and losing the old and sick in years the weather is less than perfect, because this land can only hold subsistence populations lightly. It used to be better, but the Anasazi, in their ancient and traditional way, cut down most of the forest that used to cover this area.
The word "Paradise" came from an ancient word for "an indoor place". Don't romanticize pastoralists until you've seen how they really live.
Posted by: LabRat | October 7, 2003 3:52 PM
J: A lot of what you say makes sense to me. Please do not assume that I have a blinkered and romantic view of the past, I like yourself, agree that nature is a force that operates on all levels, but never 'upwards'. I would say also that leisure time is shrinking again, as the cost of living and servicing all of our extra 'needs' means that we have to run two jobs, or work like crazy. It's a matter of refining over and over what it is that gives us more peace and less war. more time and less suffering. More clean air and less pollution. More integrity and less backstabbing. More healthfulness and les psychiatric disorders and 'modern' ailments. More security and less paranoia. All things I would call progress.
One thing that you said I cannot agree with, or misunderstood:
"We (that terrible "west") have some distinction that we care about anyone outside our circle"
I don't think we are distinct from anyone by default of being born in the Western world. I believe that every individual throughout the world holds within themselves differing views of humanity and whether or not they themselves care about anything outside of their village/circle of friends/family etc etc. To suggest that the Westerner is distinct in this is to me reminiscent of an (say) Eastern fundamentalist saying that "Westerners are bla bla bla, we are distinct because bla bla"
Iwant my children to grow straight in mind and body, strong so that they can oppose fundamentalism. Strong that they can avoid being a puppet of their own ego or obese with cholesterol, considerate of others, yet proud of their individuality. At present I can hope for a child to maybe/or maybe not achieve some of these qualities in the western world. We live amidst many many shouting voices,either selling something, or telling us we should or shouldn't do something. I prefer that than having to kill an opressor in order to have my own original thought. But I don't for one second think that I have to be only a 'westerner' to have this ability. Spokespersons for the west often forget that like anywhere, we have fundamentalist, killers, bigots, gentle souls, strong souls, shrinking violets, ranting nazis, and on and on. There is no 'western' character, and it is THAT that I find a strength, but it is first and foremost a HUMAN quality, that of being an individual. That cannot be trademarked. And when people come together under a common cause for HUMANITY, it makes my heart leap, sometimes to tears. We know good when we see it, or when we feel it. A swell of nationalistic pride is very different from the feeling one gets when you realise that we are all, across the world, just people, and the people who DON'T believe that, are the ones spreading the misery and oppression,whether it's a preacher in a pulpit or a terrorist in a cave, they stepped outside of their humanity and sold themselves to a label.
We are all different, and share a distinction (I imagine)from the rest of the animal kingdom in that we can be rational. Although I've met far more IRRational humans than I have say, cats, or shellfish. ;-)
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 4:03 PM
One last remark, then I'm done, I promise.
I realized what all the talk about how our country is only doing good in another country if it's NOT in our national interest reminds me of: Life reflects art
Posted by: LabRat | October 7, 2003 4:06 PM
"Don't romanticize pastoralists until you've seen how they really live"
What is a pastoralist? I've not heard that one.
I would say that everyone's experience of living closer to the land is different in all culures and climates across the world. Having come from a very small village, and enjoyed harvest festivals and a community life, and YES seen hard work, but happy people, that very individual experience of bucolic life is in stark contrasts to a Mongolian herdsman or a starving Pakistani shepherd, or a native american on a reservation. Or a vineyard owner in the Drome. I can't speak for all American Indian Nations of the past, or for German farmers of the future. What i do understand is that living 'with' a natural environment is more important to our health than concreting it all over, and by that I mean by it being a part of our daily life. Not to live in an endless debate about "nature is bad" "progress is good" because they are both false hypotheses. To have open spaces is essential for human health, as is knowing that we come from the land and we go back to it. These aren't pussyfooting philosophies, they are essential truths. I've lived in both city and rural areas, I've even lived in self-reliant rural communties. I've had good times and bad times in all of these places, and it may be just my peculiarity, but I found the most personal satisfaction and agape joy/humanity among people who had a respect and connection for the natural world rather than the braying types who tried to say that the natural world was a ridiculous thing and deny their connection. We cannot achieve a simple life if we are forever complicating it. That's the way of the today's world and of many many before us. Imagine a world: to see every natural 'commodity' owned by a centralized corporation, therefore private land, and therefore licensed. Universal NGO seeds copyrighted and only grown with licence to do so. No other option. No go area. That to me is an unbearable horror within which I would as surely want to die as would a US nationalist, were he to see his flag burned by a Taliban US president.
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 4:30 PM
"NGO seeds??"
You politicians have made me addled.
GMO seeds. Oh another can of worms.
..."Their relationship consisted, in discussing, if it existed"
I advocate force where necessary, and sensitivity, everywhere.
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 4:35 PM
A pastoralist is a person who lives primarily through domesticated animals. So a culture like the Masaii, who traditionally live purely through their cattle, are pastoralists. (Or more to the point, they live through their cattle and the spoils from terrorizing their agriculturalist neighbors.)
And I wasn't arguing that we should see the natural world as worthless, I was arguing that the idealized view of people who live close to the land as living in harmony with it, or living better than those who don't, is utterly fallacious. Farmers and herders are not living in harmony with their land, they are destroying it on a local level. Sheep are a plague upon any rangeland. Herders grazing their animals made the Sahara as big as it is and are making sure it expands rather than shrinking. Slash-and-burn, so incredibly destructive to forests, is used by farmers who are about as close to the land as you can get.
Myself, I live on top of a mesa where there are more coyotes than people, there is so little light or air pollution that I can still see the Milky Way on a clear night, and the water is so clean that the only contaminants come from old residential plumbing systems. In fall the whole area covers itself with wildflowers. In winter the elk herds come down from the meadows higher in the mountains and we have to take extra care driving. I would trade and have traded a lot to be able to live in a place like this, because I place a very high value on this kind of natural beauty. But the main (virtually the only) source of employment around here? Science and technology. This is where they built the atomic bomb. And the work the laboratory does in environmental remediation- redeeming ruined land to health again- is innovative, productive, and groundbreaking.
I wouldn't wish a subsistence farming-and-herding life on anyone. This is what I wish it could be like for everybody. But to get here, first you need an industrial revolution.
Posted by: LabRat | October 7, 2003 4:52 PM
I share your ability to be able to enjoy the natural beauty LabRat, and I too wish everyone could see that. No-one here to my knowledge was wishing a subsistence life on anyone. I advocate environmental balance, I advocate environmental harmony with the producers, the produced and the consumers. An industrial revolution can only be of lasting benefit to mankind if it learns from our past mistakes and makes far fewer ones as a result of the immediate knowledge.
I could be really cruel and suggest that the 'free' world went and 'liberated' the people in Irian Jaya, by educating them to be part of the Indonesian trade revolution. You know as well as I that they would die out very quickly, and their valleys would be gobbled up as quickly as popcorn on the front row during a frag-fest, but in 200 years, maybe someone working for a biotech firm could stand in that valley saying "if it wasn't for the last 200 years, this beauty wouldn't be enjoyed"
To wish global capitalism on every single soul in this world is wrong. Just as to wish Stalinist or Marxist communism or bloody Martian hegemony on everyone in this world is wrong.
The motivating force lies in power, and they that have it, will use it. As sure as eggs is eggs.
An industrial revolution could be expected globally, the western world included, indeed I'm sure it is needed. BUT, we need to produce things more efficiently, more cleanly, and sold more fairly. That's an industrial revolution too. The developing world could benefit from our mistakes, if we want to share, unless there's a whole herd of profiteers heading any operation, and the same old deaths and poisonings and uprisings could occur all over again. Collateral damage for the 'greater good'. Poorer wages for being 'behind the game'as it were.
I didn't understand the relevance of the Kipling "white man" thing, as I understood america and the 'free world' to be multiracial, hence my optimism for humanity over nationalism.
Assuming that the free world is a white man's burden seems to me as odd as claiming to speak for the 'silent masses'?
In truth
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 6:10 PM
That's because the poem wasn't aimed at you. If you read it carefully, it's an exhortation to America to pick up the "white man's burden" and bring civilization to third world nations, raise them up out of the mud.
It's usually interpreted as a jingoistic cry for empire, but it's not. He's asking America specifically to act not in its own self-interest but to "help" the less civilized.
" Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain."
"Be benevolent and humble in your appearance and work for someone else's benefit for a change."
" Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;"
The UN, WHO, and OXFAM have this covered between them.
" And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought."
He's being quite a bit more honest than they usually are, though.
" Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?""
No comment.
" Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!"
Multilateralism.
That this was written in response to the US takeover of the Phillipines is entirely to apropos.
Anyway, bucket, what I was trying to explain is that it is impossible to live in harmony with the environment unless you're dead. Or, unless you make everyone else beside about ten thousand people in Africa dead. The myth of the "beautiful people" is that the more primitivist and "close to the land" you are, the more in tune with the environment you are; but the only way that happens is when the environment itself is so inhospitable it can support only a small population and the people are unable to overcome this ungenerous habitat with technology. Harmony is bought at the cost of infanticide, rough birth control and die-offs in bad years.
Environmentalism and pushes for free trade must be balanced against humanistic and ethical concerns is really my take-home message.
Posted by: LabRat | October 7, 2003 6:27 PM
Before I toddle off I forgot to say:
labrat: "I wouldn't wish a subsistence farming-and-herding life on anyone. This is what I wish it could be like for everybody. But to get here, first you need an industrial revolution."
So, your "this or that" comment. It's either subsistence farming in the third world, or living on a beautiful mesa and having nothing but elk and coyotes and a science lab? I'm seeing a *little bit* in the middle missing. Am I? I seem to remember my youth working in factories and offices and being surrounded by depression, illness, sickness, drunken weekends of vomiting and shouting and the everpresent stinking industrial wasteland stretching out seemingly forever. I suppose a few of those guys made it out, but I doubt that they think they are 'representative' of the developed world. The lucky ones, I'd say?
Again, I say we need a complete industrial overhaul, not a revolution (i.e 'revolve), because it went round once, and we can short cut a few major improvements from the wealth of experience. Or not.
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 6:46 PM
It seems I've missed the frenzied thrust and ripost of all this back and forth, but wanted to tap on a couple of things really quickly (it's my pigeon impression).
First, denomination of oil argument as an underlying driver of war. Here's an argument I found illuminating. Yes appeal to authority, doesn't talk about the WMDs and all that whatnot. Which is fine, because all I'm doing is presenting an argument I found compelling.
I don't find citing Mahathir to be particularly compelling, as he strikes me as a Moonbat of the First Order:
More MoonbattednessSecond, the simpler charge that it was simply to gain control of oil. Case - Gulf I, US places troops in Saudi and pries Kuwait out of the hands of Hussein. Exactly how many of those countries have taken the control of oil out of the hands of state-controlled companies (e.g. Saudi Aramco)? Just curious.
Third, Kyoto was bass-ackwards because they didn't like to look at pollution/GNP. Which means that countries that are terrible polluters and poor now get a free pass to get to U.S. sized economies with pollution standards wayyy below those currently employed in industrialized countries.
Four, the Plame Affair, in my opinion, is not a leak. (My yammering is here). Of somewhat more interest in this particular interplay is this article in the NYT in which they allege that she was working under non-official cover - and hence whoever spilled the beans really screwed the pooch. However, if the assertion is true, then announcing that she was working under NOC is a big deal. So, I wait with baited breath to hear the inquiry into how the NYT found out and chose to make a much bigger, a MUCH BIGGER leak. Of course, if the story ain't true, then there's no need to skewer the NYT, but then again, that would mean the orignial Novak incident maybe wasn't that big a deal.
Finally, number Five, perhaps the most important point of all - I would like to extend (at least on my own behalf) a warm welcome to the loyal opposition who has remained, taken the time to provide evidence and counterarguments and done their part to expand the debate. Welcome.
Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation | October 7, 2003 6:48 PM
bucketspoon,
Of course compared to utopia you are miserable.
A life with no bullies would be good. You have a plan for changing human nature? I'd like to hear it.
=============================================
To the namless person who said I was trading in strawmen (No Blood For Oil? - I musta heard that some where. I'm pretty sure) It would be nice if you had a name or an argument.
There is always the possibility that neither would hold up. Wise of you to decline to state.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 7, 2003 6:49 PM
"impossible to live in harmony with the environment unless you're dead."
What complete nonsense. I know soemone who makes organic beer. He's an American in the UK. He uses local products, including honey, and filters the waste through a reed filter system which is also a wildlife refuge. People drink his beer and pay him for it. Nice. End of story. Who is he hurting?? harmony is about a relationship. nature is a harmonic process, it's all about balance, including power balances. We live with this as we are natural products, whether alive or dead, we are just recycled organic matter. It's nothing to do with 'beautiful' people,it;s to do with making one's environment more harmonic, that's why milions are spent researching whether or not an office colour scheme affects absences or mood. You don't look after houseplants for their own good,it's a relationship, the pleasure they give is part of that relationship, the air we breath needs to be balanced perfectly in order to achieve optimum health, it has nothing to do with being dead. You are assuming rather too much, as I misunderstood your Kipling quote. Words are poor conveyors of meaning. And many have eloquence that I lack.
thankyou for your comments LR
In truth.
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 6:59 PM
"Of course compared to utopia you are miserable.
A life with no bullies would be good. You have a plan for changing human nature? I'd like to hear it."
I don't understand this comment, it seems assumptive and bears no relationship to what I have said? If it was an insult it likewise missed the mark.
in truth
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 7:03 PM
I prefer being an industrial revolutionary to being a subsistance farmer. Is there a place for me in utopia?
Posted by: M. Simon | October 7, 2003 7:05 PM
"I prefer being an industrial revolutionary to being a subsistance farmer. Is there a place for me in utopia?"
But there is no utopia. There are just people who are either happy or sad with their lot, and people who want to improve their own and other people's lots. I'm sure that includes many on here, it does me. I know a farmer who is more miserable than a steelworker I know. I know someone who works for a biotech company who is happier than a financier politician I once knew (rest his soul),the point is, a utopia exists only in the imagination, and whilst someone lives in a personal utopia, someone somehwere may not. I don't see your point? The way forward is to work out the main causes of misery and address them. Poverty is one of the main causes. It's one that trade can address. But no way is it a cure-all utopia. I wasn't suggesting it was. to suggest that we can improve this here or there is not to be addressing a utopia, but working towards a better working and living environment, which is why we are here, mostly. I want to discuss how power can achieve this. I think it can achieve a lot or I wouldn't be here.
I'm not here because I have gripes or am affiliated to any political parties. I am here because I like to read current policy and personal philosophies.
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 7:26 PM
Thanks for playing "Ideal Superpower Challenge," bucketspoon. Your input is appreciated. But first, let's review the rules...
(1) The "Ideal Superpower" must be a single nation state -- NOT a global committee, or a UN-equivalent -- one country that has independently achieved the economic, industrial, technological, and military might to impose its will pretty much anywhere it wants. This is based on the presumption that as long as there are independent sovereign nations, then there will be a strongest one, whoever you want to make it be... a dominant one, simply by virtue of having the mostest and the bestest at their disposal. Yes, this does represent a frightening imbalance in the world of power politics, and that is rightfully unsettling to anyone outside that country's moats. Hence, the need for (and the point of) this challenge... namely, to suggest how best this theoretical lone superpower should behave in order to counter this imbalance, and calm the understandable jitters and resentments of the planet's other nations.
(2) This is not an ideal WORLD we're proposing here. This is a set of "preferred characteristics" for a frustratingly powerful single nation that's in a position to do an awful lot of harm or good, depending on whatever attributes it exhibits.
As an example, I could say something like, ohhh, let's see...
I'd like my fictional superpower to be self-critical, capable of honest assessments of its actions, and equally capable of learning from those assessments. So that means it must allow freedom of speech, expression, and assembly as basic rights, otherwise where will the dissenting opinions come from? My superpower could not be led by a single voice, be it a king, a dictator, or worst of all, a queen (just kidding). It should have many voices (not all of equal stature, since that would only lead to favoritism, deadlocks and stagnation), and those voices should be representative of all different perspectives and even cultures. It would have to have safeguards built in to its political structure that would prevent a total usurpation of power. Even its all-powerful military would have to have built-in constraints, to prevent it from simply employing its might to impose its will (as in pre-WWII Japan, and just about any Third World tinpot regime that acquired its power through coup d' etat). Religion, of any type, could have no say in its policymaking... its people could adhere to any faith they wanted, but it could not be linked to the nation's decision-making apparatus in any way.
I think my ideal superpower SHOULD play a limited and controlled role as a global "policeman," using its larger stature and strength like a big brother watching over his younger siblings... always with an eye toward keeping the destruction minimal, the collateral damage virtually non-existent, and the intention to help stand the vanquished back on their own two feet once the shooting is all done. To me, the strong have an unspoken "obligation" to protect the weak, the wealthy to help the poor, and the well-endowed to spread their abundance... so to speak. That doesn't mean throwing money off the balcony... it means doing what you can to give the others the same opportunities. And such assistance would include such things as providing relief services in the wake of natural disasters, anywhere in the world, and offering major incentives to other nation-states that make good-conscience efforts to catch up to "First World" environmental standards and practices... those sorts of things. I wouldn't want my ideal superpower to ever IMPOSE its culture on anyone else, but to make it available to anyone who actively sought it out. Blah, blah, blah, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Obviously I've chosen a lot of fundamentally "American" traits for my example here (though, admittedly, not exclusively or uniquely American in all cases), first because its an already established starting point, and second because its one that's already finding opposition out there, from the very people I'd most like to hear from.
In other words, what should we be doing different? What would make us less frightening as a superpower, and less "arrogant" as a people to the rest of the world? Because point for point, and item for item, I WOULD like to see those abovementioned attributes in my ideal superpower... I think they work, if done right... yet somehow this is still all wrong with so many people.
So what would be better?
Damn, I've got to get to bed.
GHS
Posted by: GreatHairySilverback | October 7, 2003 7:28 PM
labrat: "Environmentalism and pushes for free trade must be balanced against humanistic and ethical concerns is really my take-home message"
Of course, balance, harmony. It is all.
But, how is fair trade an antonym of 'ethical concerns' please? Do you otherwise advocate 'unfair trade' for ethical reason?
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 7:33 PM
silverbacked and hairy I will get back.
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 7, 2003 7:36 PM
OF COURSE there's a middle ground and I never meant to imply anything but. But what a big economy and embracing technology as opposed to being phobic about it buys is the ability and the WILL to improve the immediate environment. When you're worried about surviving you don't give a shit about spotted owls. When you're thriving you can afford to look around and see what needs improving, and spend on the RESEARCH (costs money) and development of newer, cleaner, more efficient and environmentally-friendly TECHNOLOGY (costs more money), and be able to regulate industry without crippling it- because those regulations cost MORE MONEY in the health of your economy. Birth control also costs money, as do public health efforts of all kinds. A clean environment is a luxury good.
"End of story. Who is he hurting??"
Unless he lives in a shack with no water, power, or plumbing, and makes his own clothes once a year out of a deer he's killed with his bare hands, he's hurting plenty with his use of fossil fuels for light and heat, his consumption of the foods he doesn't grow that have been planted on land that used to be forest or prairie and fertilized with things that screw up the local freshwater and marine ecology. And if he DOESN'T get heat and light from the coal and oil burners, then he's creating local air pollution with the pollutant-laden smoke from his wood fires. If his house isn't plumbed then he's contaminating someplace with his disease-laden human waste. Speaking of waste, what's he doing with his trash? Passing the problem off to his local community or contaminating his own land with it? (The easiest way for anthropologists to identify ancient settlements is by their garbage piles. This problem is literally as old as humanity.) If he reads books he's contributing to deforestation and the pollution that paper mills cause. As we have been constantly exhorted to be conscious of, your friend doesn't live in a bubble.
"nature is a harmonic process, it's all about balance, including power balances."
Bullshit. Read your evolutionary and geological history. The only "balance" that nature strives for is the chemical balance achieved when you reach the state of lowest energy. Life is an anomaly against this balance, which will eventually disappear with the heat death of the universe. Balances only exist after a lot of blood and sweat has been shed and a tentative power balance is achieved- right up until the next natural disaster or invasive species or excellent adaptation by one species comes along, when everything shifts and MORE carnage follows until a new "balance" is struck. We are the third "stable" ecosystem on the land. The other two were wiped out in biological or geological catastrophes. Balances are the coincidental result of nothing much changing, not any sort of goal or "natural" state. Refer back to the Oxygen Holocaust- "balance" was achieved eventually, but only at the cost of most of the biodiversity in existence at the time. That was all nature.
Posted by: LabRat | October 7, 2003 7:44 PM
"But, how is fair trade an antonym of 'ethical concerns' please?"
It's not. But "fair trade" is a simple concept in theory that's extremely messy in practice.
Take the case of agricultural protectionism practiced by big, rich nations whose production levels makes it worth it putting small farmers in other countries out of business. On the surface, this looks like a clear-cut case of unfair trade. But then pull back a little farther and look away from the farmers to the other people in that country, who are getting food four times cheaper than they would if it were from the local farmers. Is it ethical OR fair to take the option of cheap, nutritious, and readily available food from them in order to protect THEIR farmers, whose traditional agricultural practices are often low-yielding, unsustainable, and damaging to their local environment?
Posted by: LabRat | October 7, 2003 7:51 PM
Motor oil is motor oil, and protectionism is protectionism, no matter what its source or goal.
Posted by: Salamantis | October 7, 2003 10:39 PM
Well I'm glad to see that this debate is still raging strong - I will be back tomorrow to rebute as many comments as I can, but in the meantime I encourage all of you 'right wing' nutters (:P) to watch this 45 minute report by journalist John Pilger:
Breaking The Silence
Please do me a favour and 'suffer' through the first 5 minutes of blatently 'leftist' anti-war propoganda (dreary music and panned shots of civilian casualties) and really absorb the report. I don't think you'll find a piece that is more directly related to the debate topic at hand: American (and British) imperialism and the 'war' on terror, and it certainly does a good job of tearing down the facade of the current adminstrations' ambitions.
Posted by: ChefQuix | October 7, 2003 10:44 PM
Sorry M Simon,
I had spent a long time writing a witty reply - ok it was probably crap - that due to techie issue I sent prior to sorting it out and then found I had lost the main body of, and I had to shoot quickly. Still, sht happens.
You claimed that any anti war types must be clutching at straws on the Euro trading issue. I guess I agree that it is a very minor issue. In essence I was trying to say that given the way things have panned out that pro war people are those clutching at straws - hence your assault on that straw man. Hear tell of WMD? Bah, the moment's passed.
I also agreed Iraq was of strategic value not economic value - so far so good - to the US govt. I disagree that empire is as simple a concept as being directly on the throne of power - as Bill's essay disingenuously suggests in the essay ('What American wants to take over...' etc)
In summary, in your terms, to soften an already weak victim by deprivation and then slap him about does not smack of good use of power. A) Sort out Afghanistan first B) Talk soft carry big stick, IMHO, would have been sronger policy given Iraq was already class weed - like no-one is impressed.
Have you considered the Saudi situation recently?
http://tinyurl.com/pvex
regards
Iain
Posted by: Iain | October 8, 2003 7:01 AM
Wow - so much territory covered since I left.
GHS - The ideal superpower game.
I'd like the ideal superpower to have a constitution written by Ayn Rand, Milton Freidman, Walter Williams, and Robert Hienlen... So that I could move there! :-)
On a more serious note, The ideal superpower's populace should have an attention span longer than that of a gnat. In the ideal superpower, the Secretary of State would be more widely recognized than Madonna. The ideal superpower wouldn't cut and run after the first set-back, like we did in Lebanon, and Somolia.
The ideal superpower wouldn't be so afraid of taking casualties that it does "peace-keeping" with F-16's flying at 15,000 ft, killing the Kosovars they're supposedly protecting because at that altitude the weapons' officer can't distinguish a tractor from a military vehicle. (I know whereof I speak. I've seen those cockpit displays, worked on the targeting pods. They were designed for use at low altitude).
Bucketspoon -
Labrat's right. The "noble savage" living in harmony with nature is a myth created by a 19th century literary/philosophical movement (whose name escapes me). In the real world, such people live a tenuous existence, with high infant mortality. Their population densities are extremely low. In many cases, their agricultural practices are not sustainable, and they survive only by picking up and moving every few years. Archeologists and historians know of dozens, if not hundreds of agrarian and pastoral societies that "extincted" themselves through over-grazing, salinization of the soil from over-irrigation, wearing out the soil, losing the soil to erosion after deforestation...
That's not to say we shouldn't strive to minimize our collective footprint, but the solution isn't going to be found by turning our backs on technology.
The "balance" we perceive in nature isn't a static condition like a balanced scale, but a state of constant flux, barely stable chaos. What looks stable at one scale is periodic at another time scale. Populations alternately boom and bust.
LabRat referred to the Great Extinctions. I'd like to provide an example (over-simplified, but valid in principle) that's less grand, and perhaps easier to relate to, more on the scale of the things we can observe in the woods.
The cotton-tail rabbit population steadily climbs (we all know what rabbits are known for). Easy access to lots and lots of young rabbits causes high survival rates in owl and hawk clutches and fox litters; which leads to explosions in the owl, hawk, and fox populations. The increased predation nearly wipes out the bunnies. Lots and lots of owls, hawks, and foxes to starve to death. Suddenly without so many predators, the bunny population starts increasing again, starting the cycle all over again. (Or, absent the predators, too many rabbits wipe out the local vegetation, most of them starve to death, and they take the entire ecosystem down with them.)
As I said, that's an over-simplification. If I recall correctly, the period of these population cycles typically runs seven to fourteen years in temperate zones of North America. If you're writing from the US, your state's Division of Wildlife can point you at some hard data.
Nature's "balance" consists of unthinkable amounts of suffering. If you don't go around actually counting the bunnies in the woods (or reading the studies of those who do) you'd never know about the boom-bust cycles. Unless you spend enough time in the woods, enough time off of the trail, in the brush and briars to actually find the half-eaten remains of the bunnies, to actually find the blood and fur in the snow, and the impressions left by an owl or hawks' flight-feathers, the carcass of an old doe that froze to death in a cold snap... Nature contains immense beauty, and events which range from the merely sad to the gruesome. It's a nice place to visit, but you really don't want to live there.
Two methods of farming. Which is more ecologicly sound? (Before anyone nitpicks, I'm not presenting a false dilemma. I know these aren't the only two methods of growing soybeans)
Twentyfive years ago, I worked on my grandfather's farm. Back then, you plowed the field in the spring, turning over the earth and burying the biennial weeds and the weed-seeds so deeply that most of them wouldn't make it the surface. Then you had to disk, to break down the furrows created by the plow. Then you dragged, to break up the clods left from the disk. Then you planted. Then, before the beans sprouted, you sprayed a non-selective herbicide like Roundup to kill the weeds that had already sprouted. Then every few weeks, until the soybeans grew too tall, you went over the field with a "tiller" that uprooted the weeds growing in between the rows of beans (like a gardener hoeing between the rows of vegetables). I'm guessing the tractor went over every square foot of those beanfields eight or more times a year, not counting the harvest.
That's a lot of diesel fuel being burned.
That's a lot of breaking the crust of the soil, leaving it vulnerable to erosion.
That's a lot of dust in the air. (I remember blowing my nose and the snot would be black. When you stepped in the shower, the water ran brown from the dust on your arms and face. That was before tractors had air-conditioned cabs)
Today, I observe the farms between my house, and the office where I work. Some time ago Monsanto created geneticly modified soybeans that are "Roundup Ready" ie, immune to the herbicide "Roundup". Since the introduction of those GM soybeans nearly every farmer in this area has converted to "No-till" agriculture for beans. They plant the beans without plowing, disking, or dragging. They spray Roundup to kill the weeds two or three times a year, depending on how much rain we get.
They burn less than half the diesel fuel as the old ways. Less air polution.
They disturb the soil very little, and therefore lose less topsoil to erosion. Less dust in our air, less silt in our rivers & lakes.
Roundup is non-residual, meaning that what isn't absorved by the leaves of plants breaks down into non-toxic compounds very quickly in the environment.
J
Posted by: Jumper | October 8, 2003 7:12 AM
xXxXx THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS xXxXx
A couple comments posted mention Robert A. Heinlein and Ayn Rand.
I definitely think Bill is a wannabe-Heinlein, in writing style. (The biggest one I've encountered since reading Eric S. Raymond at tuxedo.org)
Unfortunately, Heinlein's non-fiction is pretty hamfisted, stylistically. As if he didn't respect his audience enough to think they could be presented with the nuances of the other side's best arguments-- without being seduced. Yet it's clear that Heinlein himself understood those nuances. We know this, because Heinlein's arguments were carefully-crafted to answer opposition nuances, even without acknowleging them explicitly. Similarly, I would give Bill more slack for his snubbing of the credibility of anti-Bush voices; if Bill's counter-arguments were nonetheless sufficient to answer the points he leaves unacknowledged. But, unfortunately, Bill's essay fails to answer the best the opposition has to offer.
Heinlein is much-better in his narrative fiction. There he strives to offer a whole realistic-feeling nuanced World, not just one side of a debate. So he fleshes-out all sides more fairly. I would challenge Bill to try fiction. (Perhaps he is already accomplished in fiction. I don't know.) But I would expect Bill to either fail to write good fiction, because he would portray the antagonists too-flatly for there to be any drama. Or else Bill might rise to the occassion. But to do so, he would have to walk a mile in the other side's shoes more honestly than he did in this essay.
Which brings us to Ayn Rand. Her fiction is crap. For the very reason I just stated. She's too one-sided. I mean, her heroes are tall and manly; and her villains are hunched and bald and slobbering. I understand this is a storytelling convention as old as Man. But ever since the Nazis actually had a political philosophy based on "Pretty Aryans Good, Ugly Jews Bad"; Rand's cartoonish determinism has been every bit as tainted as Stalin tainted Marx's wishful-thinking.
One more point regarding Heinlein. Someone on here recommended "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress". I would too. But, while you're reading it, note that the guise of Fiction gave Heinlein leeway to say a few things that he may not have felt comfortable voicing in a non-fiction letter to the Editor; during the Cold War & McCarthyism. Things which directly relate to the POWER essay, and our post-9/11 world.
For one thing-- the novel's Moon colony under the Warden; is like Iraq under Saddam in the Reagan/Bush years. A client-state, ruled in a fashion we wouldn't tolerate domestically. Heinlein says a conventional rebellion from the tiny, outgunned Moon would be suicide. And sure-enough, Saddam's very-conventional invasion of Kuwait was doomed. However Heinlein offers an alternative. A terrorist/guerilla/populist rebellion. Crashing space-vehicles into Earth. Not a far leap from 9/11.
And this is why "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" is a great rebuttal to the Bill's POWER essay. If this were the metaphor-world of the novel; Bill would be firmly on the side of the Earth; arguing that Earth's American govt was better-suited to rule; than the upstart Commies, Convicted Criminals, Homosexuals, and outback-freaks of the Moon colony. Bill would be failing to acknowlege their legitimate gripes. And he would be claiming that an embrace of Earth's POWER would be the best path to victory; as opposed to ceding to those who are Soft on the Moon. I ain't saying Osama or Saddam are freedom-fighters. I am saying they appeal to a lot of oppressed people yearning for freedom.
If the last paragraph was incomprehensible, you probably haven't read Heinlein's novel. Or else you just can't handle an unpleasant truth.
xXxXx
Posted by: icd | October 8, 2003 8:49 AM
A quick note on Jumper's comment:
I believe you're thinking of Romanticism.
Posted by: Robin Munn | October 8, 2003 9:15 AM
In general response to a few assumptions:
"The only "balance" that nature strives for is the chemical balance achieved when you reach the state of lowest energy."
Sorry if I was unclear, but by 'nature' in this instance, I mean LIVING nature on Earth, our active environment, including ourselves as organisms that depend upon a relationship with other organisms in order to sustain, survive, and prosper. This process is inherently one of balancing needs and desires, of harmony and disharmony, in everything we do, we encounter a need for balance. If I were to hop on one foot for 5 years (I have a spondylarthropathy which has largely impaired the finely tuned mechanisms of both feet, an undiagnosed subluxation in my ankle resulted in long term stresses that mutated the white blood cells, consequently attacking my joints rather than the injury. Again, the required condition for health was lost, and has taught me a lot about 'balance'!) then that foot would become either 1. More efficient at load bearing, or 2. Injured through misuse and malformed, but either way less efficient in it's CURRENTLY DESIGNATED function, losing it's balancing partner. Evolution may develop a race of one footed beings who move perfectly well, but that doesn't help me today. And we are talking about today, I presume? 'Living' nature contains entropic forces that tear down high negentropic structures, unless these are constantly maintained by an informed energy input. It's that 'informed energy input' that we have to concern ourselves with, crucially now we are becoming the designers as opposed to the 'designed. This isn't true on all levels of society, as we some of us are happy currently with 'designer' lifestyles, but that is academic on the grand scale and more concerned with fashion than form, with impression other than expression. *Generally*, the struggle for life is in countercurrent to entropy; metabolism directs a synthesis and repairs the highly ordered protein structures that compose the organs of the body. At death, the forces of entropy take over and the body decays. In time, entropy wipes out the remnants of culture, as it does the corpse of the body. Nature is indifferent as to whether these high negentropic structures were constructed by genetic information or by cultural information, even that of high technology. This also means that if humans, while yet alive, withdraw from the maintenance of our cultural artifacts, the entropic forces will take over to flush out the ephemeral effects of cultural intervention.
Every second the body is adjusting to countless thousands of changing parameters, keeping us in homeostatic balance. No matter what comes along to upset the balance, the body knows its own nature, knows what ideal temperature it should be and the correct chemistry it needs to maintain, and keeps referring back to that blueprint to maintain proper balance. When this balance is destroyed or hampered, there is need for medical intervention. To argue that a balance needed is 'bullshit' is to miss this point in order to make what point? ?
The body is trying to be perfectly healthy all the time, using its innate self-healing, self-regulating ability as it strives for a perfect homeostatic balance
Earth’s complex “web of life” protects human from pests, and parasites in complex and varied ways, most of which scientists are only beginning to understand. When natural ecosystems are disturbed, this delicate equilibrium between species is altered, this is a good time for business as the salve is applied at a cost and a profit. We have to measure and balance ths cost/profit scenario, and in the past and still todaywe make great leap of faith without fully understanding the processes involved.
Nor is it just the entropic forces of nature that return. The self-organizing (autopoietic) forces reappear as well.
But how does this link to human experience today? In every way, in every single little dog day that we enjoy,we are part of a process of reorganising, and moments of harmony AND struggle can define our most joyous state, the state beyond survival,the state that elevates us from mere survival or sustenance. My Central Park theory:
Central Park NY is an example of prime real estate, with presumably huge commercial potential. But what if NY sold Central Park to commercial development? What then? Would the balance of City life be upset, IS Central Park inherently valuable (not just for oxygen or a carbon sink) because it offers a place other than the office and the tenement? Of course we are adaptive, and if it were turned to a car park, then life would go on. If environmental harmony is bullshit, why keep Central Park? Why not have gyms built there instead of lakes and parkland, where people can excercise regardless of the weather. Why not build a shopping mall? Nowhere to walk dogs? Well then build a dog-dome where they can be walked by robotic arms, overseen by a small staff who would profit from the enterprise. Makes more sense than to allow dogs into an open area with trees etc, then there is no revenue, that kind of set-up makes a loss. Or is profit not the whole picture? Do people need to balance things in their lives? Why not just do away with dogs, they don't do much for us? They crap everywhere and demand attention, spread fleas and stop you going on holiday to places that don't have dogs. They go stray and fill the streets with more crap, howling and extra expense in destroying them. Dogs can be considered superfluous to our needs. At least cats catch mice. Mice, there's a thing, why do we allow mice to live?? I really can't answer that, I'm sure we could destroy them all with our technology, and just keep a few in labs with which to test cosmetics and medicines.
Every second the body is adjusting to countless thousands of changing parameters, keeping us in homeostatic balance. No matter what comes along to upset the balance, the body knows its own nature, knows what ideal temperature it should be and the correct chemistry it needs to maintain, and keeps referring back to that blueprint to maintain proper balance. It is trying to be perfectly healthy all the time, using its innate self-healing, self-regulating ability as it strives for a perfect homeostatic balance
"Whenever biodiversity is reduced, a first and fundamental line of defense against infectious agents is weakened. Just like any other opportunistic species--introduced species such as the kudzu plant choking the American south and the cane toad chomping its way across Australia, or native fungi in Brazil devastating cacao plantations--in taking advantage of changing environmental conditions and adapting to new ecological niches created by human disturbance. Anne Platt McGinn of the Worldwatch Institute, a global environmental research group, notes that “the more disruption there is in the human habitat, the bigger the biological risks are for people." I would argue that it's about creating the best 'balance' for our species to not only prosper, but have fulfilling lives within an environment that is not only conducive to such, but dependent upon effective husbandry, our part in the process. It is important to protect nature and biodiversity in the various ecosystems, but it is pointless to deny that man plays a role in this protection
Labrat:"Balances only exist after a lot of blood and sweat has been shed and a tentative power balance is achieved- right up until the next natural disaster or invasive species or excellent adaptation by one species comes along, when everything shifts and MORE carnage follows until a new "balance" is struck.
Balances are the coincidental result of nothing much changing, not any sort of goal or "natural" state."
So you say that 'balance' isn't a process that nature is concerned with, and then go on to say that it IS, but it is 'tentative' I never said it wasn't tentative, in fact I argue that it is. All the time. but what is the point of addressing our human problems TODAY, by discussing the 'carnage' of mega-millennial natural forces? We are concerned with the problems at hand? I never suggested that nature had a 'goal', you may be applying someone elses ideas to mine and answering them so? No 'nature' does not have a goal as far as I understand. But life has a goal, it tries to live. That's all. Another example of 'counterproductive' interference is the drying out of the Aral Sea. For years, the Soviet government drained water from rivers flowing into the Aral Sea to grow cotton in the Central Asian republics that surround it, including Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. The practice harmed both the land and the sea, and eventually the humans who depended on these resources.
Fish have all but disappeared from what remains of the lake, leaving thousands of people without a livelihood. In addition, the environmental degradation created a vast wasteland of glaring white sand that blows into agricultural fields, contaminating the earth and forcing farmers to compensate for declining output by putting more pesticides and fertilizers into the soil — poisoning it even more.
As a result, like the fishermen, many farmers now have no way of feeding their families because their lands have become so depleted of nutrients. Adding to farmers' struggles, the disappearing sea has caused the climate to change. The once gigantic body of water once buffered the cold winds that roared out of Siberia in the winter, while keeping summertime temperatures from growing too hot. Now, the area's climate is becoming more continental, with shorter, hotter summers and longer, colder winters that deliver little precipitation for the next harvest. The growing season has declined to 170 days, missing the 200 frost-free days needed to harvest cotton, once a dependable revenue base in the area. Maybe we can argue that expansionist policy and hard-line capitalism could quickly dictate and FORCE it's own weather systems, but it may not address the underlying truth that it was just this approach that disturbed the equilibrium in the first place, when HOLISTIC husbandry could have improved the lives of all now affected and built upon natural strengths rather than trying to redesign, hamfistedly. Drastic measures bring drastic results too often. A global approach to harmonic existence means that people who live near water BENEFIT from living near water, and the offset is that crops they cannot manage to obtain are available via trade. To be mindful of the necessary balance of living organisms is not to be against concepts of trade. Trade is everything to living things. From the remora that cleans the shark, to the happy dustman who cleans our shit for a good wage and a simple life. If the balance is lost, and the dustman finds he's getting ill, cleaning more shit than his illness allows, and getting paid poorly compared to the hot dog vendor providing the litter, then the relationship is broken down. We need to feel our way through problems every bit as much as we think our way through. It makes no sense to employ crisis management when the same management is creating the crisis. Unless you are selling medicine to cure the ill that you created. Then it really gets messy. The most disingenous and perfect brand of capitalism is that which profits from the problems it creates, the most insidious of these (from a humanistic view) is to keep people ill with drugs in order that they buy more drugs.
What kind of planet do we want? What kind of planet can we get?' Earth is now in a post-evolutionary phase. Culture is the principal determinant of Earth's future, more now than nature; we are passing into a century when this will be increasingly obvious.
Humans now control 40% of the planet's land-based primary net productivity, that is, the basic plant growth which captures the energy on which everything else depends. That is worrisome, but it does leave 60% still in the spontaneously wild. Possibly, with ever-increasing transformation of nature, whatever residual nature remains may cease to be of interest or significance for what it is in itself, with value attached more and more to the artifacted characteristics now superimposed on what was once wild nature. There will typically be degrees of modification, of artifact, intermixed with degrees of the natural: the relatively natural, the relatively cultured-or agri-cultured, or manufactured.
The more perceptive environmentalists have always seen that it is a mistake, in their zeal for nature, to think of all culturally occupied lands as being 'disturbed' or 'spoiled'. Managed they must be, and only semi-natural, but over much of the landscape, the goal is humans in a sustainable relationship (a dialogue, an equilibrium, a synthesis, a symbiosis) with nature. Here culture gardens nature. Nature is no longer wild.
The moral technologist does not wish the end of nature everywhere; they sometimes wish nature as an end in itself. But the moral technologist is not prevalent, and therein is the need for some level of democracy before we find ourselves at the mercy of those who copyright life itself, or build the "Z" machine that will power the world and so control every living human who has been ultimately weaned away from all forms of self-reliance.
To argue against the existence and/or need for harmony is essentially a fake dictum. It's premise lies in nihilism, not in a desire tounderstand processes which affect each of us every day of our lives, in different, yet crucially*observable* ways. 'Nature' is defined in different ways. Many here have assumed my view of 'nature' as 'pastoralist', or akin to some romantic notion of a 'golden age' of Edene-like paradise where Peter and Jane stroke deers in a wilderness of wild berries and pick-your-own-tubors. To say this is to be either assumptive or deliberately misleading. I believe that successful human culture is a dialectical process, in that we both respond and adapt to our environment, yet manage and re-engineer it to be productive for both our fundamental needs and our holistic needs, which in turn dictate the our ability to be both sustainable and prosperous. These two states are always in conflict, and that is power-balancing, yet a level of balance is needed, if it tips heavily in one direction: -misery, if it tips the other: -misery. We overfished the Cod stocks in the North sea. The cod doesn't 'adjust itself' as quickly as we would like, so it makes sense to fish cod more selectively, just waiting one year will restore the stocks juvenile cod spawns every four years. Were we to fish over intensively for 3 year old cod, it would become commercially extinct for many years. The offset is not a crisis, it's just unnecessary and troublesome. That word "holism" brings to the prejudiced mind a whole workshop of unwashed lazy hippies sucking up yoga and chicken soup for the soul, alternative medicine or naive concepts of socialism. That says more about prevalent opnion today than it does about holism. To argue against the human bodys homeostatic process is a bit like arguing against having a beating heart. We can create an artefact that does the job of a heart, but this is not universally useful at ny one time. Were it to be, we would be the worse for wear. Like it or not in a modern world, we are still 'fettered' by our desire to reproduce. This forces us to deal with basic societal concepts, taking, at the very basic level: Two people starting a 'family'. This brings in to play two egos that must somehow balance their individual needs and desires to achieve a useful/harmonic relationship. Culture largely defines how this will be tolerated. If this undertaking is played out from pure power constructs, one can realistically expect disharmony. "My way or the highway" backed up with a bit of physical brutalising is the basest form of an unbalanced relationship. If anyone disagrees with this then they are better of with the Taliban than they are with concepts of harmonic interchange and mutual respect. To imagine that harmony is not desirous is also to suggest that everything is born from the concept of power-balancing. This argument cancels itself out in the Central Park theory. I could argue that Central Park is a luxury within it's immediate environment. But people gravitate towards balance, otherwise it wouldn't BE a luxury, it would be an annoying green patch in an otherwise useful (productively) city.
Many of the reasons we screw up so often is that scientists/politicians/agriculturalists/psychologists etc etc will always inevitably tend to draw from the 'knowledge' of their own specialisms when trying to develop solutions to problems, rather than from a wider spectrum derived from parallel branches of knowledge. The eugenicist will advocate crime to be solved by breeding out an unwanted gene. The political deep-ecologist will argue that 'unwanted' genes are actually necessary for biodiversity to maintain competitive equilibrium. The hippie-manager in the scummy eco-coffee shop will argue that his lax methods are what attract his customers away from Starbucks. They can all be right and wrong. They can also be as much a figment of our prejudices than they are in reality. The important thing to do is to be specific and inventive, to be adaptive and designing, to be mindful always of relationships between, and whether or not the relationships are mutually beneficial, or whether the destruction of a method or implementation of a new one is both necessary and desirable to the immediate functioning microcosm.
Unless we can find a living, breathing way to design and manage our own environments, holistically, benefitting those who can benefit us, i can't see a way out of the trust/power/distrust triangle of political gain.
it's time we defined environmentalism FIRMLY as the science of living n the living world., and our husbandry/design thereof. The time for superstition, of 'nature being God the designer' has gone, likewise 'nature being evil' and 'man being god' has to evolve towards harmonic husbandry on earth, and exploration of metascience and the cosmos, unhampered by petty war and power-politics.
And in answer to someone above who asked what to do with bullies. Well, we ignore them if its just words, they usually tire of being anti-social idiots, or if they domiate their culture or an individual, we shoot bullies, both figuratively and with guns. Don't tolerate them, and neither *be* them, they are counter-productive and maliciously self-serving in all walks of life, whether they are heading a corporation paying warlords to kill people or poison them, or beating their wives or childen bloody. Or preaching from a pulpit saying that they 'speak for others.'
If power isn't wielded towards a harmonic, dialectical relationship, then it's just 'power',and eventually mutates or collapses from its original design.
So I would say that a better world is to gained from using power. I would say it is more important also to ask "What kind of planet do we want" and "how will we get there" and "Who deserves/must be displaced in order to achieve this.
I would want to make those decisions. Warlords and corrupt politicians use capitalism to oppress people, and capitalism uses these warlords to make money. The warlords have to go.
For instance, I'm only partly responsible by using a cellphone, in that coltan mining in Africa is overseen by vicious warlords, and the birth deformities and deaths suffered by impoverished local coltan miners is not only enabled by my purchase (along with the guns held by the warlords), but perpetuated by my silence. Responsibility is all. And human ingenuity can use power and compassion to remind us of our responsibilites. We are not doing this widely enough. Wherever we source goods, we also bear a responsibility, along with the buyer, to remain informed and procative. The consumer can break a chain of responsibility, as everything is a chain. As LabRat rightfully pointed out, we none of us live in a bubble, so we either 'adopt struggle', or 'struggle to adopt responsibility' and work towards a better world than we are currently making. That's not 'utopia', it's earning ones freedom and working for the best compromise within each micro-environment and the environment as a whole, from a recurring pothole in NY, to a dust-bowl in Afghanistan; The human environment is wanting redesigning, and some bits more expediently than others.
Those in power decide for others, whether/how there is compromise. I personally value a human being or the ocean as a commodity, for the same reasons I value my feet as a way to get me to work, to the water hole, to walk up a mountain and breathe clean air, or to help a miserable old bat across the road. Surely it's all important.
LR: "Environmentalism and pushes for free trade must be balanced against humanistic and ethical concerns is really my take-home message"
I would agree. But I would also push to redefine 'environmentalism', as 'living succesfully in an environment is our soul aim'. We, as a species, haven't agreed on the 'afterlife' yet, and I don't see that happening soon, so why not get our environment sorted, and how we manage it.
yes of course the US should help in the common struggle, and why not play a major role, it is expected of a superpower, but we must identify a common struggle that's not based upon party-politics, but upon a global ethic that is also not defined by nationalism or supremacy. How do we achieve this, I ask? How do we promote culture? Or do we let it evolve in response to the free market, and meanwhile kill/lock up the bullies that are both already present and subsequently created?
We are humans, we can be amazing or disappointing, we can be sheep or tyrants. But we can always be better, so lets go!
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 8, 2003 11:22 AM
Apologies for the splurb of writing and bad cut/paste, time is money!
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 8, 2003 11:31 AM
icd,
Thank God you're here to tell us what a waste of time Bill's essay is. How wrong it is.
I guess the vast majority of posters here are stupid, ignorant, no-nothings that are being duped by Bill's slight of hand and prose.
After reading your enlightened critique, The light has shown and I see the truth.
God, what an elitist you are.
bleh.
Posted by: Black Oak | October 8, 2003 12:29 PM
Erratum
"Warlords and corrupt politicians use capitalism to oppress people"
Should be, in addition "blahlords bla blablitians bla COMMUNISM to oppress people"
also.
Not in pursuit of balance in this instance, just truth. Fascism doesn't worry too much about the nature of the fence eh?
*)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 8, 2003 1:38 PM
iCd
I think, perhaps, you're making a fundamental error in failing to distinguish between an essay and treatise (or an op-ed and an academic paper). Bill's essay is not, in any way, shape, or form, an argument piece, a policy paper, or an academic paper - nor was it ever intended to be. It is simply what it is - an impassioned essay and perspective. The critiques that you apply to his posts would be equally invalid if applied to prose.
With respect to your commentary on Heinlein and Rand, it would also seem that you, perhaps, haven't made distinctions between the function and purposes of different types of fiction. Particularly with respect to Heinlein, fiction is often a way of conducting a thought experiment or relating a moral or concept, without generating a weighty philosophical tome. One could also apply your commentary about either Rand or Heinlein to Aesop or any one of a number of passion plays. The critique would simply be misplaced, largely because it fails to address the substance of what was actually being discussed.
BRD
Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation | October 8, 2003 1:44 PM
Jumper: yes, it was Romanticism. The worst of the lot, and the person who actually invented the phrase "noble savage" was Rousseau. Most people, if given the opportunity to go back in time, say they would kill Hitler. I figure since the line to kill Hitler is already going to be around the block with time travellers, I'd like a crack at that idiotic Frenchman.
And bucketspoon:
"Sorry if I was unclear, but by 'nature' in this instance, I mean LIVING nature on Earth, our active environment,"
I mean the whole earth, since the relevant portions of our environment are just as often inorganic and/or nonliving in nature. But even if you are just talking the biosphere, then my statement still applies, because life IS very, very complicated chemistry. You wouldn't believe some of the backflips we go through to avoid that whole "lowest energy state" rule.
"No matter what comes along to upset the balance, the body knows its own nature, knows what ideal temperature it should be and the correct chemistry it needs to maintain, and keeps referring back to that blueprint to maintain proper balance. When this balance is destroyed or hampered, there is need for medical intervention. To argue that a balance needed is 'bullshit' is to miss this point in order to make what point? ?"
I know what homeostasis is. My POINT is that it simply doesn't apply above an organismal level. One body has an interest and is designed to be self-correcting within certain set parameters (although as you've evidently discovered, the system is far from perfect.); a population, species, or an ecosystem has no such mechanism. Humans like patterns, which is why people try to take a local pattern and stretch it over the whole of "nature" so often.
"Earth’s complex “web of life” protects human from pests, and parasites in complex and varied ways"
No, it doesn't. Our immune system protects us from pests and parasites, and quite the daunting task it has, since they evolve much faster than we do. Sometimes the Earth's "web of life" seems to have been protecting us until a disturbance- more than usually it's simply a case of either a new pathogen (like AIDS), or people going into areas previously inhospitable to them and discovering the local pathogens. Have you ever heard the term "Red Queen scenario"? It's from the line in Looking Glass: "Here you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in one place." Host-parasite evolution is an arms race, and it doesn't stop for species that trip and fall. They either adapt or are driven out of the habitat, sometimes out of existence altogether. This has the superficial appearance of "balance", but it's really only balanced in the sense that the USA and Russia were during the Cold War. If at any point someone developed a technology with a big enough edge that the other couldn't quickly catch up, the race would end- with a winner, not a balance.
" When natural ecosystems are disturbed, this delicate equilibrium between species is altered, this is a good time for business as the salve is applied at a cost and a profit. We have to measure and balance ths cost/profit scenario, and in the past and still todaywe make great leap of faith without fully understanding the processes involved."
You're going to have to clarify this paragraph, as I'm really not at all sure what you're getting at.
"Of course we are adaptive, and if it were turned to a car park, then life would go on. If environmental harmony is bullshit, why keep Central Park?"
Need a map? You seem to have wandered waaaay off into metaphor territory. The human temperament and ecology are not equivalent, nor is "natural"- physical, chemical, and biological- harmony remotely the same as inner peace or whatever you'd like to call it except by metaphorical leap. My entire *point* is that nature being nature doesn't have a goddamn thing to do with the amount of human suffering present. It certainly doesn't have any interest in minimizing it. (As for an example utilizing Central Park as "natural", that's not a natural ecosystem, that is a very carefully manicured and maintained GARDEN. It has nothing to do with any balances or balancing force supposedly inherent in nature.)
"Do people need to balance things in their lives?"
Hell if I know, or care. If your point is that people need to see trees on their way to work I really don't know what we're arguing about.
"Mice, there's a thing, why do we allow mice to live?? I really can't answer that, I'm sure we could destroy them all with our technology"
In which case you would be wrong. If it could be done, believe me in many areas it would be. A New York couple in this county came down with bubonic plague from the little bastards last year. Eradicating a vulnerable island species like a dodo or a big overspecialized animal like a rhino is child's play, eradicating a small, rapidly-breeding global generalist that has been co-evolving with us for a million years is much, much harder. (No, I would not really remove mice from the world given a choice, given that they form the primary prey base for much else. But we almost certainly couldn't even if we wanted to. The Australians couldn't get rid of rabbits even with a highly specific and lethal and contagious pathogen.)
"It is trying to be perfectly healthy all the time, using its innate self-healing, self-regulating ability as it strives for a perfect homeostatic balance"
Except when it's using its immune system, in which case it deliberately skews all the readings, and except when it loses hold of the immune system and starts actively eating itself. Again, even given homeostasis- a rickety system to begin with- it doesn't scale.
"Whenever biodiversity is reduced, a first and fundamental line of defense against infectious agents is weakened."
Given that infectious agents are by their nature and requirements highly host-specific, this doesn't make any sense- when biodiversity is reduced, millions of host-specific pathogens DIE.
"Just like any other opportunistic species--introduced species such as the kudzu plant choking the American south and the cane toad chomping its way across Australia, or native fungi in Brazil devastating cacao plantations--in taking advantage of changing environmental conditions and adapting to new ecological niches created by human disturbance."
I really don't see how this is an argument for your point, that balance is something inherent in nature, rather than mine, that any "balance" is temporary or illusory. You DO realize that invasive or opportunistic species don't need humans to do this, right? Large fires, volcanos, and any other destructive event will clear out an ecosystem and make way for the beginnings of the new one, which won't necessarily look anything like the old one. Ecologists have specific suites of species whose major role is as early colonizers. Why would there be such in a "balanced" system originally designed or evolved in conditions that push it back toward a preset stasis?
"Anne Platt McGinn of the Worldwatch Institute, a global environmental research group"
I'm sure SHE's not biased at all.
"the more disruption there is in the human habitat, the bigger the biological risks are for people."
Well, this is true insofar as when our technology breaks down we lose the ability to clean and filter our water, get proper temperature control, or other comforts of being a tool-user. But otherwise it doesn't make much sense. If I disturb the living hell out of, say, a Sri Lankan forest with people in it by dumping a blanket of DDT on them, they're going to be facing LESS risk because I've just destroyed the mosquitoes carrying the pathogens regularly picking them off. The year before DDT was banned, in Sri Lanka there were four malarial deaths. Now there are a few hundred each year, which would be much worse without modern medical technology, because there are a couple hundred THOUSAND cases. (Note: I ultimately support the banning of DDT, because the breakdown products are of a particularly nasty variety. But as far as I'm concerned it does illustrate the problem that humanism and environmentalism often are directly opposing goals.)
The fact of the matter is history itself gives the lie to this absurd statement. The record of human evolution has been one long ecological disturbance as we spread out of Africa and across the world. We caused mass extinctions and desertifaction. And yet, as civilization becomes older and technology more refined, our average lifespan goes UP, not down, and our infant mortality plummets.
"It is important to protect nature and biodiversity in the various ecosystems, but it is pointless to deny that man plays a role in this protection"
I would agree with this statement, but that's simply because life is too interesting, complex, and useful to wantonly destroy. This is a purely anthropocentric, largely aesthetic concern: the earth doesn't care, nor in the long-term scheme of things will it particularly matter. It has very little to do with what's better or worse for our species, as the simple fact is as a species we can get along just fine without much of the other biodiversity on the planet- as we have proved conclusively by surviving just fine through various large-scale local extinctions. Do you know anyone who feels a hole in their soul due to the loss of Chalicotherium? Neither do I.
"So you say that 'balance' isn't a process that nature is concerned with, and then go on to say that it IS, but it is 'tentative'"
No. I still maintain nature isn't concerned with balance, because it ISN'T. I am saying that balances are sometimes ACHIEVED, but not as a result of any predefined or teleological process.
"All the time. but what is the point of addressing our human problems TODAY, by discussing the 'carnage' of mega-millennial natural forces?"
Well, I try not to think about nature purely or even mostly in terms of what it can do for humanity. It's part of that whole scientific objectivity thing.
"I never suggested that nature had a 'goal', you may be applying someone elses ideas to mine and answering them so? No 'nature' does not have a goal as far as I understand."
Then why are you arguing that balances are an inherent and directed process in nature, beyond the organismal level?
"As a result, like the fishermen, many farmers now have no way of feeding their families because their lands have become so depleted of nutrients."
An excellent example of the tragedy of the commons. I'm certainly not arguing that humans can't fuck themselves over by messing up their local environment, I'm arguing that "disturbance" has a neutral value, both to nature and to humans.
"Maybe we can argue that expansionist policy and hard-line capitalism could quickly dictate and FORCE it's own weather systems, but it may not address the underlying truth that it was just this approach that disturbed the equilibrium in the first place, when HOLISTIC husbandry could have improved the lives of all now affected and built upon natural strengths rather than trying to redesign, hamfistedly."
What the hell are you going on about? You're off on a tear against capitalism and expansionism over a local tragedy in a COMMUNIST country in which supposedly the ideal system for thinking "holistically" already exists.
I'm not an anti-environmentalist. That we should use the land with an eye toward sustainability is self-evident. I'm an anti-Romanticist, because anthropocentric and romanticized views of nature have nothing to do with reality. I'm an anti-primitivist, because such lifestyles are often just as damaging if not moreso than technology-driven ones.
"A global approach to harmonic existence means that people who live near water BENEFIT from living near water, and the offset is that crops they cannot manage to obtain are available via trade."
What exactly is your point?
"From the remora that cleans the shark"
Remoras don't clean sharks. They eat their leftovers and increase their drag coefficient. They contribute absolutely nothing to the shark.
" to the happy dustman who cleans our shit for a good wage and a simple life"
...You have GOT to be shitting me.
"We need to feel our way through problems every bit as much as we think our way through."
Why? Most of the time it seems that feeling our way through causes as many problems as it solves. (Note that I don't define morality and ethical behavior as resulting from "feeling through".)
"The most disingenous and perfect brand of capitalism is that which profits from the problems it creates, the most insidious of these (from a humanistic view) is to keep people ill with drugs in order that they buy more drugs."
a)I don't see this as a specific trait of capitalism, as that phenomenon seems to take root in direct proportion to the power of the state and inverse proportion to potential accountability.
b)Please provide me with examples of drugs that "keep us sick" so that we can get more drugs. (And no, recreational drugs don't count.)
"Earth is now in a post-evolutionary phase. "
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!! No. Not by half, not even close. Humans might have largely replaced biological evolution with cultural, and we might be the "dominant" species on the planet by our definition, but the rest of the biosphere certainly hasn't abandoned it. For one thing, we're not the dominant species. Bacteria are. And they are evolving much faster than we do, which is why we now have vancomycin-resistant tuberculosis and species that eat oil slicks. For another thing, even the humble vertebrate is still evolving, and some of them- like cats, mice, rats, coyotes, and pigeons- have evolved in such a way as to take advantage of our habits. I could go on ad nauseam, but suffice it to say that's one of the most absurd statements I've ever read.
"Humans now control 40% of the planet's land-based primary net productivity, that is, the basic plant growth which captures the energy on which everything else depends. That is worrisome, but it does leave 60% still in the spontaneously wild. Possibly, with ever-increasing transformation of nature, whatever residual nature remains may cease to be of interest or significance for what it is in itself, with value attached more and more to the artifacted characteristics now superimposed on what was once wild nature."
You may be much happier once you disabuse yourself of the "humans are all-powerful superbeings that stop evolution in its tracks" myth. "Tame" nature becomes "wild" nature again the second the human leaves. Have you ever been to New England? Have you seen all the forests and meadows up there? That all used to be farmland. The family farm industry went to hell, and now it's forest again. This happened in less than a hundred years. And frankly, many places that humans live aren't all that tame either. I've never lived anywhere there wasn't at least some risk of being attacked and killed by a wild animal.
"But the moral technologist is not prevalent, and therein is the need for some level of democracy before we find ourselves at the mercy of those who copyright life itself, or build the "Z" machine that will power the world and so control every living human who has been ultimately weaned away from all forms of self-reliance."
You're starting to wander away from reality and into tinfoil-hat territory here.
"To argue against the existence and/or need for harmony is essentially a fake dictum."
I'm not arguing against its "existence" or "need", I'm arguing that a)it has nothing to do with nature in and of itself, and b)it's a pretty fucking broad and fuzzy concept anyway. I'm not a nihilist, I'm an objectivist. (Not so much in the Rand sense as the literal one.)
"The cod doesn't 'adjust itself' as quickly as we would like, so it makes sense to fish cod more selectively, just waiting one year will restore the stocks juvenile cod spawns every four years. Were we to fish over intensively for 3 year old cod, it would become commercially extinct for many years."
Meanwhile, the fishermen either reinvent themselves or starve. This doesn't happen because people are careless or clueless, it happens because it's better to not starve today and figure it out later than it is to starve today so that you might not next year.
"That says more about prevalent opnion today than it does about holism."
Perhaps because most of the people who bother to use the term ARE fringe types.
"To imagine that harmony is not desirous is also to suggest that everything is born from the concept of power-balancing. This argument cancels itself out in the Central Park theory. I could argue that Central Park is a luxury within it's immediate environment. But people gravitate towards balance, otherwise it wouldn't BE a luxury, it would be an annoying green patch in an otherwise useful (productively) city."
a)Believing that most balances come from a resting state between powers is not the same as arguing that "harmony" is "undesirable". Most of us are glad for the relative certainty and peace of such a resting state.
b)Your Central Park argument is no more valid than arguing that the human affection for pretty baubles in the form of gemstones indicates a universal holistic need for geegaws, or that a children's fad argues for a deep underlying desire for Pokemon. I happen to agree that humans generally appreciate a landscape with some green in it rather than one without, but for every New York with a Central Park there's another big city without one. Is everyone else in miserable disharmony, or is it maybe not such a huge overarching pattern after all?
"Many of the reasons we screw up so often is that scientists/politicians/agriculturalists/psychologists etc etc will always inevitably tend to draw from the 'knowledge' of their own specialisms when trying to develop solutions to problems, rather than from a wider spectrum derived from parallel branches of knowledge."
Oh, DO tell. I often find that the reason I'm happy to stick with science is that the "parallel branches of knowledge" often don't seem to want to trouble themselves with things like being accurate, or peer review.
"The eugenicist will advocate crime to be solved by breeding out an unwanted gene."
Comparing modern science to a pseudoscience isn't exactly fair.
"The political deep-ecologist will argue that 'unwanted' genes are actually necessary for biodiversity to maintain competitive equilibrium."
Meanwhile, the ACTUAL scientist will blink at you in confusion, as within the context of what is known about genetics, the proposal itself is absurd.
"They can all be right and wrong."
No, actually, most of your examples are just wrong. Sometimes the truth isn't nebulous or lying somewhere in the middle; sometimes somebody is simply mistaken. If I say gravity is going to pull you down when you step off a cliff and somebody else says that if you don't look down and believe wholly that you are on solid ground you won't fall, then I'm right and they're wrong. You're going to be jelly at the foot of the cliff, no philosophy involved.
"The important thing to do is to be specific and inventive, to be adaptive and designing, to be mindful always of relationships between, and whether or not the relationships are mutually beneficial, or whether the destruction of a method or implementation of a new one is both necessary and desirable to the immediate functioning microcosm."
So... we should look before we leap, act out of careful deliberation rather than kneejerk emotional reactions, and be mindful that our behavior is ethical. How is this different from what I've been advocating other than the language?
"Unless we can find a living, breathing way to design and manage our own environments, holistically, benefitting those who can benefit us, i can't see a way out of the trust/power/distrust triangle of political gain."
Please provide me with examples of how this can be accomplished, since as I recall your last attempt at this was refuted rather forcefully.
By the way, what the hell is "metascience"?
"If power isn't wielded towards a harmonic, dialectical relationship, then it's just 'power',and eventually mutates or collapses from its original design."
Just "power"? What on earth else WOULD it be? If I clock you over the head with a baseball bat and take your wallet, then my power hasn't mutated or collapsed from its original design. It's done exactly what I intended it to do. Power is a neutral idea.
"or if they domiate their culture or an individual, we shoot bullies, both figuratively and with guns."
You have yet to explain who gets to decide who's "evil" and should be killed or otherwise permanently incapacitated and on what basis that will be.
"Warlords and corrupt politicians use capitalism to oppress people, and capitalism uses these warlords to make money. The warlords have to go."
I can't wait to see what happens when you run out of the handful of demonstrably evil people in the world and run into the masses and masses of people that simply aren't that good. What happens when you free those coltan miners and they turn around and start an intertribal warfare? In many places in Africa, corruption and tribal politics are so endemic that literally almost everybody is bullying, shaking down, stealing from, or scamming somebody else. Are you going to get rid of them too?
"But we can always be better, so lets go!"
Sure. But since we've got an indefinite lifespan as a species, I say we take it slow and work on determining what is possible before trying to make anything actual. And I don't believe a good assessment of the possible can be made when we're overly weighed down with questionable ideologies.
Posted by: LabRat | October 8, 2003 2:29 PM
"Maybe we can argue that expansionist policy and hard-line capitalism could quickly dictate and FORCE it's own weather systems, but it may not address the underlying truth that it was just this approach that disturbed the equilibrium in the first place, when HOLISTIC husbandry could have improved the lives of all now affected and built upon natural strengths rather than trying to redesign, hamfistedly."
What the hell are you going on about? You're off on a tear against capitalism and expansionism over a local tragedy in a COMMUNIST country in which supposedly the ideal system for thinking "holistically" already exists."
Not a lot of time, but you are right to point out this glaring error. I used Capitalism to describe a general short-sighted exploitative process. Communism does this also. They are not exclusively short-sighted or exclusively arrogant. Neither I would argue holds 'holism' as a realistic goal within their philosophies. There are as many different degrees of capitalist as there are communist.
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 8, 2003 2:55 PM
"From the remora that cleans the shark"
Remoras don't clean sharks. They eat their leftovers and increase their drag coefficient. They contribute absolutely nothing to the shark."
You're right, the remora/shark is a commensal relationship. I hang my lowly head ;-)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 8, 2003 3:05 PM
LabRat:
"Sure. But since we've got an indefinite lifespan as a species, I say we take it slow and work on determining what is possible before trying to make anything actual. And I don't believe a good assessment of the possible can be made when we're overly weighed down with questionable ideologies."
But we aren't taking it slowly are we? And who proved that our lifespan was indefinite? Are you a prophet? We surely have the power to make that indefinite either just that, or finite.
Questionable ideologies? In the way??
Does that mean the bombing can start now, or we should wait until your ideology fits someone elses? Just as you argue that coltan miners are a nasty bunch regardless of the warlords (endemic etc, presumably you met them already)I can similarly argue that politicians have lied to us since the year dot, so why trust them today? My point is that I don't want to wrong someone from irresponsibility. I believe that makes for bad relationships. Whether or not a coltan miner (or his imaginary evil crowd) are likely to be evil even IF the MORE evil warlords were absent, doesn't make me change my mind regarding my own conduct, neither the deformed babies and my part in it. I have no guilt, but a little awareness goes a long way. Unless 'ideology' gets in the way of common sense. I say treat people fairly if they haven't wronged you. Big deal? Yes actually.
We become that which we battle if we do battle too often, OH! I mean Battle ye not with monsters lest ye, ARGH..what I actually mean is do battle with an eye towards, ARGHY.
You know what I mean. You are inclined to argue against harmony. I am inclined to argue for it. End of story. Lets not mix black and white or get lost in whether the human organism is better served in a box or a field. I like fields and trees around my biomes. Keep your hands off 'em.
Now, back to power. Who's gonna wield it and who's gonna get bombed?
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 8, 2003 3:38 PM
I'm enjoying the comments, but damn! Bucketspoon and LabRat make Bill seem concise!
Posted by: Jamie | October 8, 2003 4:08 PM
Anticipatory Retaliation BRD:
>
Sounds like you're saying Bill's just speaking his mind; without any pretense of being right.
Maybe so. But, even then, where's the harm in me pointing out the parts where I think he's wrong?
Posted by: icd | October 8, 2003 4:21 PM
icd =
Sounds like you're just speaking your mind without any pretense of being right.
What the hell kind of response is that? Feckless AND vapid?
Seriously - the difference between what Bill's writing and an academic paper is the difference between a poem and a cookbook. Of course he thinks he's right. He cited the most compelling arguments that shaped his understanding. He didn't feel any sort of obligation to spend 2.3 million years sorting out each and every single counter argument and spend time building them and refuting them individually. It's a bloody different style of writing with a different focus and different intent.
I don't think there's any harm in pointing out where you disagree with him. Knowck yourself out with disagreement - that's what discourse, discussion and debate are all about. The point that I was trying to make is that your substantive commentary was substanative and bore further discussion, but attacking the structure of the essay itself with the commentary you were making didn't lend any weight to the arguments you were attempting to make, any more than me showering you with epithets and criticizing your grammar and spelling would be effective counterpoints to the substance of your arguments.
However, standing behind that while automatically impying that Bill's essay is a base and venal attempt at spreading propaganda and represents deep-seated willful misunderstanding of the situation (which, yes, is exactly what you imply in that first sentence) is the work of a consumate jackass.
Christ - someone gives you an answer to your question and not only do you fail to respond with anything constructive or even remotly on topic, but you also manage to pull a stunner of a shitbird while doing it.
Now if you can find it in your infinite wit to actually say something about something rather than responding with that waste of bandwidth, I would be quite glad to read it, digest it, think about it, do my research and get back to you.
Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation | October 8, 2003 5:51 PM
How to end a conversation about the sweet harmony of nature with a liberal really fast:
"If the outdoors is so swell, how come the homeless aren't more fond of it?"
(PJ O'Rourke, in his excellent book Parliament of Whores). If you haven't read this book, you're only cheating yourself.
Sorry I haven't had more time to contribute to this interesting and vigorous debate; I'm hopeful I'll have time to chip in to the grand effort to slay the liberal hobgoblin and waste Bill's bandwidth.
Thanks all for such an enlightening read, as I'm reading them all even if I don't have time to post.
JKS.
Posted by: JKS | October 8, 2003 6:13 PM
bucket- the devil is in the details and so am I. I don't disagree with you on any of the core issues, I think your grand theory of harmony lacks definition, application, clarity, and accuracy- plus as I've pointed out, it has a lot of loose threads that start to unravel when gently tugged. As for your views on the nature of evil, I find them written in stark black and white when most of reality is grayscale. "Evil warlords" are rare. Plain old people who make immoral choices are common.
Grand visions are lovely, but I'd much rather have a blueprint for something smaller that can actually be built any day.
Posted by: LabRat | October 8, 2003 7:06 PM
Mr. Whittle,
Your essay is a prime example of what's wrong with the general discourse about this war. You take the view that power and morality are linked and that our war in Iraq is just because Saddam was a horror show to his own people. That's fine if you're willing to apply these principles beyond the Iraq war but there is scant evidence you are willing to take that step.
If you were, you might explain to your readers how this just and good nation can go to war with Iraq for humanitarian reasons (as opposed to the various other arguments that were used to justify the war that no longer seem to hold water) and still support the equally despotic governments of Indonesia and Guatemala. We supported (especially conservatives) Pinochet in Chile, Saddam himself during the Iran/Iraq war and many, many other countries and governments that were doing harm to their own people. Those are facts and they are indisputable. We can use whatever justification we choose for what we are doing in Iraq but if we say we are doing this because of our moral superiority, we are simply lying to ourselves.
Please don't lump all those of us who were against this war together with Chomsky and his radical beliefs. You are no doubt aware there are many people who disagree with the war and with Chomsky.
And there's the rub isn't it? Some of the war's cheerleaders like to pretend that being against this war means you're against the war on terror. That is not the case. I am against the war because I think it makes fighting the war on terror more difficult. I would agree that we need to confront global terrorism but occupying and administering Iraq does not get us any closer to that goal. If we were serious about this war on terror, we would be confronting the source of funding which is undoubtably Saudi Arabia. How can we be serious about this if we leave in place the primary funding and recruiting
apparatus in the form of Saudi Wahabism and the millions they spend to keep the terror network up and running?
If you understood the nature of power you would realize that our power, although unmatched in the world today, is not infinite. Ours is not a static world. We have enemies, some that pretend to be our friends, and they will seek out ways to counter our ability to project power around the world. We are not infallible. We are already seeing the signs in the form of asymetric warfare
taking place in Iraq. Sure we can destroy a column of tanks and not break a sweat but the rest of the world knows that and will not use tanks to confront us. They will seek out and locate our weaknesses and exploit them. That's the nature of power my friend. Being the biggest dog on the block means being the biggest target too. We can and will develop effective countermeasures but we should use our power wisely, not like a child in a fit of rage, striking out at whatever target happens to cross our radar screen.
You seem to admire Mark Twain so let me ask you this question. If Sam Clements were alive today do you think he would be a supporter of this war? If you can answer yes to that question, you simply haven't read enough Twain. He was an anti-establishment figure. Someone who challenged the conventional wisdom of his time and he did it with a reason and charm that would have cut some of the faux-patriots who are so quick to call others traitors into tiny little pieces.
"Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and all the others have the means to launch a wave of suicide bombings in the US. It is not that very difficult. They have not done so. Why?"
Please...
Are you seriously saying we can't have another 9/11 tomorrow? The next day? What will you say then? Make no mistake, there are people out there right now planning and scheming and training to do us harm. If you think those people have been persuaded to give it all up because we invaded Iraq then you are wrong. They are still out there,
and the sooner we get on with killing them and their primary supporters the better. Keep in mind that of the three terror organizations you mentioned above, all three have been very active in the post-9/11 world. They haven't quit. They are not destroyed. They live on and so does their funding and recruiting machines. The relative safety you feel is an illusion. We all felt pretty safe on the September the 10, 2001 too.
We, as a nation, were sleeping then. We ain't sleeping anymore. We have a window of opportunity in which we need to act and act forcefully to destroy this threat once and for all. We will never be completely rid of terror. Tim McVeigh has proven we have the capability to be just as ruthless and coldhearted as any islamic terrorist.
But we can make a event like 9/11 less likely. Unfortunately, the Saudi's continue to fund the madrasses, employ and coddle Wahabi clerics who preach hatred of west, and otherwise thwart our efforts to get at the primary funding mechanism of terror.
I am not arguing that that we are a nation of evil people bent on empire-building. We are not. We are a nation that has prospered beyond even the wildest expections of it's forebearers and as such, we have grown intellectually lazy. We are more interested in the sizzle than we are the steak. War and patriotism has been a great way to
counter the fear we all felt after 9/11. It has been an interesting exercise in the madness of crowds. Unfortunately, we will wake up someday and find we have been administering and protecting Iraq for several years and we will be no closer to extracting ourselves from that job then we were a few weeks after the fall of Baghdad. We cannot fail now that we have done what we have done. But have no illusions. We will be here long after there is an Iraqi face to the government there. To expect we can train a few out of work Iraqi nationals and call them an army, then expect them to fend for themselve in the hostile environment that is the Middle East, is pure folly. For a government to succeed there, we will have to protect it from outside and from inside until such time as they are sufficently prepared to take that responsibility on themselves. That's going to be a very, very long time.
These are the reasons I was against this war. Not because I hate America, but because I love it. I fear we have chased this particular rabbit down a hole and are now trapped inside the maze for a long time to come. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. The choice is not between fighting the a war in Iraq and isolationism as you imply. We cannot abdicate our role as the soul superpower in the world today even if we wanted to. Rather it is between choosing to fight a war in Iraq at the expense of confronting the real threats that still exist beyond Baghdad...
Nick Foresta
Posted by: nick foresta | October 8, 2003 7:20 PM
Anticipatory Retaliation,
The amount of steam in your kettle is unwarranted.
("Feckless", "vapid", "consumate jackass", "shitbird")
Stop and consider what you have said.
On one hand, you claim Bill's essay is more informal & off-hand; than a comprehensive academic paper. Fine.
But on the other hand, you find fault with my criticisms; for not adhereing to some academic categorical formality, and being too offhandedly scatter-shot/ rather than being more comprehensively substansive.
Hold us both to one standard. Take your pick.
Posted by: icd | October 8, 2003 8:07 PM
Jumper, whether Hitler was responsible for all the dead of WWII is a sidetrack (would Stalin have gone after Poland if it hadn't been for Hitler?) and I'm sorry I brought it up in the middle of a factual correction. The main thing is that the Nazis just plain murdered about 11 million people.
GreatHairySilverback, Bill said:
"And then, the cause against war will be so solid and so strong that we will not need giant puppets and infantile slogans to try and make a case for peace. If that day comes, those filling the streets will not be aging hippies longing for their youth or furious socialists itching for revolution. On that day, the streets will be filled with middle America, Silent America, the great sensible, decent core and soul of the nation."
I think it's fair to say that he implied that no respectable or moderate people were demonstrating against the war. This isn't true, and it weakens his arguments.
In re your back: I strongly recommend _Somatics_ by Thomas Hanna--it's an intro to Feldenkrais exercises, a way of acquiring enough sensitivity so as not to unduly tighten your back. It's a couple or three hours to learn the exercises and 20 minutes/day to do them, and when I get around to it, my lower back is quite grateful.
Posted by: Nancy Lebovitz | October 9, 2003 1:02 AM
Interesting, but you really don't understand what the beauty and glory of real power is.
For instance, what do you suppose is the real source of the power of law? Its reasonableness, or fairness? Do you think it resides in the law books, or in the judge's gavel?
No. It resides in the baliff's gun and manacles. Without those there is no point to having law at all. We don't like to recognize this, but we have to admit it is the fear of reprisal, be it divine or secular, that forces our obediance to law. We may make pretty speeches about "do unto others" and all that, but we forget that the whole slogan includes "as you would have them do unto you," which is an assurance of unbridled reprisal, if not a veiled threat.
Since this is true (and I defy anyone to demonstrate its falsity), what lessons do you suppose were learned by the US after our demostrations of "power" that included:
WWII? The US has the military and industrial capacity and can work up the will, for a while at least, to fight and win a global conflict in the industrial age.
Korea? The US has the military and industrial capacity and can work up the will, for a time, to fight and draw a one-country conflict in the industrial age.
Vietnam? The US has military and industrial capacity but cannot work up the will to even draw a one-country conflict in the industrial age.
Gulf War I? The US has the military and industrial capacity and can work up the will, breifly, to fight and win a one-country conflict, as long as half the rest of the world joins us, in the information age.
Gulf War II? The US has the military and industrial capacity and can work up the will, breifly, to occupy a third-world country in the information age, even though the mass media don't want, and much of the rest of the world doesn't, either, the conflict and actively campaign against it.
What does this bode for the "war on Terror?" Given that our track record in the "American Century" seems to be slipping, especially when it comes to will, and we really haven't learned anything at all about asynchronous warfare (since our "enemies" and the theatres we fight them in have gotten smaller and smaller while we have allegedly gotten bigger and stronger), it dosen't look good.
Why? Because we don't like the answer to the first question.
And why is this? Because we have made a society so free and open it doesn't care about it's freedom, and that is what's so great about our country and its real source of power. You may rail about citizen apathy and your illusions of what power really is, but you will not overcome our society's right NOT TO GIVE A DAMN, which is in the final analysis our most cherished and valuable freedom, and the dynamo that drives us. It's the "doing unto others" part of the slogan that keeps our defense forward, our military relatively small, and our media harping about how truly weak we seem.
Someone asked me once why I joined the Army three months after the end of the draft, and I couldn't give a satisfying answer. After 26 years of serving my country in uniform I can: So others don't have to.
I can't think of a better tribute than having been a defender of that laudable freedom not to have to care.
After all, the best most of us can hope for a century after our death is to be a trivia question at a family reunion.
The influence of the US will fade, so that in another 200 years our status will be similar to Great Britian: a once-was still grasping the treads of the past. When we become trivial, as we inevitably will, our finest epitaph will have been our enviable freedom to ignore that which we take for granted, and we shall be the only country that will ever have that luxury.
Posted by: JDB | October 9, 2003 5:46 AM
icd -
I agree Rand isn't exactly something you pick up at the terminal to read during your flight (do they still allow books on airliners, or are those considered "weapons" now?), but I find it absurd to argue
- Nazi propaganda used outward characteristics to reflect (supposed) inner character,
- Therefore, this is no longer an acceptable literary technique.
Hitler intentionally wore plain clothing to make himself stand out as unique when among decorated generals. Does that "taint" clothing? Does this mean we shouldn't wear clothes anymore? Or must we all wear ribbons and medals and gold braid to avoid the "taint" of Hitler's plain clothing. Perhaps Aesop, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tolkien, and a whole host of other works have now been "tainted" by Nazi/Stalinist assoications.
LabRat -
I happen to agree that humans generally appreciate a landscape with some green in it rather than one without
Forgive a total sidetrack. The latest issue of Smithsonian had an artical about the Camp David Accords. (paraphrasing):
but the woods that Carter found peaceful and relaxing were dark and forbidding to the desert-dwelling Sadat and Begin. One of the delegates brooded that one had to look straight up to find a patch of blue sky.
Having grown up & lived my whole life between the Appalachians and the Mississippi, I found that odd, until I tried to picture myself in a jungle, or a dense rainforest with multiple canopies. Just curious as to how that Camp David anecdote strikes someone who lives on a mesa.
"Evil warlords" are rare. Plain old people who make immoral choices are common.
Most "evil" persons start out as nothing worse than weak-willed, or moral dwarves, but they find a series of opportunities until they are capable of great evil. A ten year old bully can do little more than steal smaller kids' lunch money. A mental/moral/ethical ten year old with a large adult man's muscles (or a knife or gun) can steal little old ladies' social security checks, and extort protection money. A mental/moral/ethical ten year old with a secret police can feed people into industrial shredders. Give him the support of a substantial percentage of the population, and he can occupy Eastern Europe, France, and start up gas chambers. Or occupy Eastern Europe, and start up gulags.
Evil warlords start out as plain old people, who rise to the top of an organization with no limitations, bounds, or checks.
Nancy L.
When the numbers are scarcely imaginable anyway... I offhandedly used a number that's been bandied about since I was a kid; probably not a good idea given that you practically have to go on a quest to even learn about the Ukrainian Terror Famine, or the Cultural Revolution.
PS- If that Feldenkrais book still in print, I will quite possibly purchas it. I am currently struggling to increase the flexion, looseness and independence of motion in the upperleg/hips/lower back for riding.
J
Posted by: Jumper | October 9, 2003 6:28 AM
Nick Foresta,
Just for an intro, I am a Canadian (about 20 years, originally from Czechoslovakia) and my first daughter, 17, is native here. Also lived in US for a while and have a daughter in OK, now 7. Why I am mentioning this is to shed some light on my emotional ties to both countries. I a sense, I am considering them both my home, despite that my passport is a Canadian one. I would probably qualify as a 'virtual American', I suppose.
Your question essentially is: "Why Iraq and not Saudi Arabia?"
It is a good question. It is more than obvious that the current terrorist Islamist strain has its origin there and its financial basis as well.
I'll try to employ a very pragmatic approach to your question...
The current US policy, as I see it, is a gamble. Necessarily so, because it is difficult to predict outcomes of present actions projected into future. But a gamble had to be taken, because inactivity, passive anticipation of what may have come next would be probably disastrous. I suppose that you would agree on that point.
There were probably heated debates in the administration how to respond to the acute threat that manifested in 9/11 event. There was no doubt that the event has been perceived as a cusp, albeit there were precursors during the 90's.
It is possible is that the previous administration misidentified the threat. I recall that the emphasis was more on the domestic scene, rather on the international developments. Perhaps the Oklahoma City bombing justified that direction, despite some cursory evidence that the protagonist was manipulated by foreign elements. For some reason the lead was not followed on. I do not want to employ conspirational theories here, but it is not without merit to contemplate a possibility that the Clinton adminstration was more preoccupied with 'domestic' enemy, than events on the international scene. The other events, like WTC bombing in early 90's, Kenya embassy and Cole were seen as disconnected attacks, executed by radical individuals, isolated from the rest of the society in which they operated. Perhaps after Cole, there was some degree of connecting the dots, but it has been not yet fully contextualized as an highly organized, systematic effort. Surgical strikes were accepted as an adequate form of containment.
I am not trying to point a finger here, rather to provide some backdrop... aware that the hindsight is always a piece of cake.
The Afghanistan was a direct response, we (remember, I am a virtual American!) were out to get the suckers, and despite some opposition in the world opinion, there was a general consensus worldwide that we are justified.
However, it shortly became apprent that the Al Qaeda and its related offshoots are spread more widely than anticipated, and essentially a part of the loosely organized umbrella that were based on the same ideological footing.
I know that you know... I am just trying to organize my thoughts to get to the core of the question.
Because of the structure and distribution of the enemy, the conventional military strategies were inadequate. The idea, that to a large degree, Saudis are involved, perhaps not on the governmental level directly, but definitely within some sectors of society, presented a large dilema.
The consideration about economic repercussions of a direct military action within Saudi Arabia were probably entertained and considered as a feasible gamble, but political/religious dimension of some form of military involvement were deemed extremely risky and unacceptable.
Yes, I am speculating, but it is not inconceivable to follow what was going on in the minds of people involved in the decisions about further course of action. And that action had to be taken, in an preemptive sense, there was no doubt, after factoring in the information that was gathered after the Afghanistan phase.
You probably know that one of the 'beef items' on the OBL list was the presence of the US military in SA, regarded as a desecration of the holy land. It may have been seen in that light only be the extreme elements of the Saudi society, but imagine if the US outright invaded SA and atarted to sort things out. THere would be in that moment 1.2 billion angry muslims, and the only thing to contain that anger would be another gamble: erasing Mecca (or rather the Kaaba) from the face of earth. It is possible that this extreme action would shock the whole muslim community--they would lose one of the essential pillars of their religion and may let them realize that their religious edifice was a house of cards. But it is equally posible that this gamble would turn into something so nasty, that only apocalyptic scenarios would the modicum. It was clear that any direct involvement in SA is out of the question.
Yet, it was clear that without some kind of entrenchment in the Middle East, it would be impossible to deal with the Islamists in some comprehensive fashion. The SA soil had become hot and the military needed other field of operation, somewhere else that Arabian peninsula, yet close.
Another consideration, no doubt, was that Iran was getting close to achieving nuclear capability and that the terrorist were able to transverse the whole ME without obstruction. It was not difficult to see this expressed in the 'axis of evil' meme, that included Iran and Iraq.
The strategists were attracted to the idea of liberating Iraq, because there were some tangible factors that would be helpful in achieving the goal of establishing US presence in the ME, for the task at hand.
What these stated factors were, everyone knows. THey, on their own, would be sufficient for a resolution of of the Iraq problem (Rogue dictator/possible WMDs/support of terrorist organizations), but with the added benefit of enabling US presence for the task of eliminating terrorist Islamist networks.
Needless to say that any 'oil' considerations were the last thing on everyone's mind, but undoubtedly factored in as a fringe benefit, in the trade sense, of eliminating any dependency on SA oil in the long run.
The liberation of Iraq seemed to present some gamble as well, but far less risky than invading SA, and some interesting possibilities as a result.
If I may try to reconstruct the the overall plan structure...
1. The removal of a dictatorial regime would serve as a warning to other regimes in the area, mainly Iran and Syria.
2. Despite that there was no direct evidence about the transfer of WMD into Islamist' hands, the assumption that if that did not happen to some degree already, the chances that it would happen in the future were considered as certain. It was clear that Saddam would not miss an opportunity to get back at US through proxy (as I suspect was already the case with OCB).
3. Less than certain but reasonable chances of establishing a democratic type of government was an excellent prospect. It was seen as an element that would, in the long run, destabilize the autocratic MS regimes. This is something that is rather a novel in the thinking of the US administration, before the 9/11, there was a strong emphasis on regional stability (anywhere). However, after 9/11, it became apparent that the old strategies would not be able to underwrite the goal of destruction of the Islamist infrastructures.
I have no doubts that the administration has had considered the necessity to stay in Iraq for a long time. Perhaps not in the sense of full deployment as it is now, but undoubtedly with a substantial force, that would not only be available for direct action in the area, but also as a necessary backing of rebuilding Iraq as a democratic oasis in the ME.
I would suspect that after establishment of an elected Iraqi government that would fully take the responsibility of their own affairs, the US will be in the area for another 10-30 year. This may be considered 'bad' by some, but I think it is quite a necessity, if Europe, Okinawa, South Korea can serve as an indicator. To leave right after the establishment of an elected government in Iraq would be extremely foolhardy, and I suspect that Iraqis themselves would rather see US stay for substantial period of time, as a garantor of the democratization process, it won't be over in 2 years.
There was probably another uncertain aspect of the Iraq strategy, the possibility that the US presence would be a magnet for Al Qaeda operatives, so called 'flypaper' strategy, e.g. instead of chasing the enemy in four corners, they just may come to you.
I think that in a lot of crucial aspects, the strategy turned out to be essentially correct and success, despite that it is probably early to tell.
There are already some signs that things are on the move in the region, perhaps in very small, hardly perceptible ways, but the writing is on the wall.
Facing the real possibility that a democratic Iraq would be in a stark contrast to the systems in the region and its influence on the citizenry of the states in the region, the rulers must, by a necessity, take some steam off their repressive systems. Discussions about the systemic problems in SA, ungheard of before, and some signs of changes in Syria indicate that the strategy is bearing some fruit. Not only that, it may as well give some impetus for changes in Iran, where the citizenry is fed up with the theocracy. Granted, it may not happen 'overnight', but it is within the realm of possibility that the US presence in Iraq is a catalyctic factor as Iran is concerned. THere is a risk involved as well, the theocracy feel threatened and they would not go easily--the regime is considering acquisition/development of nuclear weapons. But perhaps that was anticipated at some point in time as well, and it is better to be nearby to intervene if necessary, than not.
Of course, I again have to stress that the whole ME strategy is a gamble, and some unforeseen factors may produce undesirable results.
For instance, there is Israeli/Palestinian conflict that is an unknown variable.
Arafat may be in his last days, and there does not seem to be a firm authoritarian replacement. In my view, there is a considerable likelihood that some form of civil war in the PA would result after Arafat departs.
It is likely that Dahlan may attempt to split Gaza from PA and take over it, eliminating opposing factions (Hizbollah, Hamas) in the process. In the West Bank, the situation may become unpredictable, with all the spectrum of different factions joining the fray.
Israelis may elect a hands off approach, to see how the dices will fall. It would be condemned by all sorts of parties, but the chances are that the same would happen if Israel would intervene (I do not think that Israelis would be that wastefull).
The unknown variable is the reaction of Arab neighbors. I think that they are not able militarily to risk any engagement/intervention, but that possibility cannot be excluded. If Jordan would like to intervene, there may not be any objections from Israelis. But if Syria would try to get involved, it may be a spark in the powder keg. Israel's response would be devastaing, I have no doubts, but other parties may want to get their irons in as well, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran by proxy of Lebanon Hizbollah. At the same time, Al Qaeda elements present in PA may try to pitch in with some terrorist operation wthin Israel proper. All hell would break loose.
Hopefully, Assad is not an idiot to risk this. If the Israeli sortie inside Syria few days ago is an indication, he would behave--I suspect that Israelis picked up a Syrian target precisely because they considered the abpove scenario and wanted to test the Syrian response. So far, it seems that Syrians would hold back, not only because Israel is militarily superior, but they have US forces on ther eastern border as well.
And that, dear Nick, is another reason why Iraq, and not SA has been selected as the pivotal point of US ME policies.
Posted by: alphasheep | October 9, 2003 7:37 AM
"If the outdoors is so swell, how come the homeless aren't more fond of it?"
So you missed the point entirely and assumed I was advocating everyone lived outdoors. My understanding of environmentalism is the science of living organisms (primarily us) living in an environment that is conducive to our productive wellbeing AND our health, both physical AND psychological/spiritual whichever is the current trend. You can argue that harmony does not exist. This would mean tht music is essentially a fallacy, This would mean that very orchestra is involved in a 'power struggle'. That every symbiotic relationshp was actually a lie.
harmony also means an "interweaving of different accounts into a single narrative" Which would describe the most successful business, or the most pleasing and useful working environment.
If you advocate disharmony and eternal power struggles, then give me your reasons. No-one in their right mind can expect utopia, but likewise, no-one in their right mind can expect to work on a disharmonic model, whether they're a city planner, an agriculturalist, a biologist or teacher. The whole is sometimes more than the sum of it's parts. Any unbalanced relationship or mutualism has a sweet-spot. this is moveable according to each individual case, but the general and observable rule is that when we give more than we take, and keep givng, and taking less, the balance is lost and conflict arises. It's a basic fact. You can put someone in a factory with a un o their head, and claim that power is the motivating force. But in reality, survival is the motivating force. Do we want to just survive, or do we want to create a better planet and less war. That's the question I'm concerned with. If it's considered utopian and plain ridiculous to fight for harmonic living and working conditions, then at least tell me why rather than resorting to assumptive sleights. This has been shot down before, but I'll give it one more shot. A dustman removes our rubbish. He's a chain in a societal and economic relationship. If his work overpowers him, or he gets paid so little for such an inportant job that his spirit/motivation falters, then he'll fall sick, or either get so plain angry and disillusioned that he'll decline to shift the rubbish, thankyou very much. The mounting rubbish will in turn create chaos and other peopl will fall sick. This is about balance, about harmonic relationships. And as so withthe environment, the same with people. To ignore this is to ignore the dialogue of life itself. Or one can always hold a gun to his head, or equip some other unskilled to 'solve' the situation by bullying the skilled dustmen into work. Of course the right answer is to pay the right wage and supply the right equipment and knowledge, and create a relationship whereby those doing the work are an inclusive part of the process, their ideas and input are respected and everyone goes home happier. This is called civilisation and not plain survival.
Another example: Huge salary imbalances between CEOs and the people who work for them can send bad feelings throughout an organization, weakening loyalty and eroding the talent pool.
If we look at this as a pure power-struggle, and treat it as such, then the result is no more than people stepping on people to get to the top. If that's the best you think humanity can achieve then good luck to you. The power pyramid is great if you're at the top of your game. And the rest of the world, is of course, just jealous and can't wait for the US to haul them out of the swamp by their boostraps and give them reason. If you think that's a blinkered and prejudiced view, it's as blinkered as America's view of the rest of the world. Dialectical relationships are worth more than nationalism.
In answer to greathairysilverback. I gave it a lot of thought, and what qualities would I want in my Ideal Superpower?
Disregarding for sake of discussion that I don't want to be ruled by a superpower, I would say two qualities are at the top of a list that would stretch around the earth:
1. The desire and ability to listen.
2. The desire and ability to communicate.
3. The ability to realise that there is no idological 'centre' of the universe and it doesn't have a flag on it.
The first two are gloriously demonstrable. Take Bil's attack on Michael Moore. Both Michael Moore and Bill attest that the other is wrong. The whole gun in the bank thing (regardless of it's relevance or non-relevance to anything):
Bill says the bank didn't give him the gun, he got it elsewhere.
It's true because I read it on this blog!
Mike says yes he did get the gun AT the bank.
It's true because I read it at that website.
They are both using sleight of hand to sell their version of the truth. It's an uneasy relationship, and squirts disingenous ink into the air like scuttling squid. Which brings us bacl to politics, as always.
Anyone check these facts and figure out who the liar is?? Is it important?
Where is the truth?
Now back to Arnie, the Centre of the Universe ;-)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 9, 2003 8:07 AM
Jumper,
You've got a point on Hitler & Rand. She's still allowed to draw broad, cartoonish parables to explain her views in rudimentary terms-- even tho he went to the extreme of actually enacting policies that were cartoonishly atrocious.
However, if you're gonna defend her-- you have to give Michael Moore the same leeway. In his "Magic" essay, Bill is quite judgemental against Moore for employing an actual cartoon in Bowling For Columbine.
And Bill is too-quick to lump in every Liberal from Ted Kennedy to Noam Chomsky-- with Stalin.
Play fair.
Posted by: icd | October 9, 2003 8:34 AM
ICD
Gosh, here I was thinking it was the content of the cartoon: comparing the KKK to the NRA that was the reason for the criticism.
But I guess any straw you can grasp in a hurricane will make you feel better.
Posted by: Patrick Chester | October 9, 2003 10:09 AM
bucket- the devil is in the details and so am I. "I don't disagree with you on any of the core issues, I think your grand theory of harmony lacks definition, application, clarity, and accuracy- plus as I've pointed out, it has a lot of loose threads that start to unravel when gently tugged."
Well said. And I splurb in a scattergun approach when I haven't the time to sit and write in a flawless fashion ;-)
It's not a grand theory, just an observed actuality. Disharmony has common causes. It's no scientific thesis to say that run-down industrialized areas and poor wages make for dull and unhappy people. Crime figures mirror this. of course they do. And if you think that Central Park is an incidental pleasantry, an anomaly, and not necessary for the life enjoyed by it's users. Then fine. It was a small example, and anyone suggesting that I think building a park will solve the world's problems missed the entire reason i used it as an example, which was to illustrate that the human mind and body needs many things to be happy, healthful and productive. A healthy living and working environment is essential. We all balance things in our lives differently, some like to work more than play, some like to work hard for six months and play hard for six months. But the environment is crucial to awakening human possibility. If it is made to be dull and uninteresting, you can expect a dull and uninterested response. Diversity is a main strength of places like the US and the UK. They both enjoy a wide climate and topographical abundance, along with cultural diversity. We could level both of them and install factories and fields as far as the eye could see. We could remove all hedgerows and parklands, woodlands, all architecture could be standardised to maximise productivity and cost efficiency. But that doesn't happen, because of the diversity of interests, and the economy is built upon this diversity. Yes it's a tentative balance, but the 'balance' is ALL important.
Life needs to be a rich experience to bring the best out in us, and this is its power, it's drive, its food. To be better is not just to be richer, and it certainly isn't about being poorer. It's about personal AND common goals. That's where we fail, it may be human nature to be completely selfish, it maybe not, i leave that to the socialists and the capitalists to argue, the living world is far too rich and interesting and rewarding for me to bother too much about arguing. I'd prefer to discuss methods of hydroculture than whether or not and how I should wave a flag.
To think that Science and rationalism is the sole answer to the world's problems, is missing the point that music brings us together, it's missing the point that people meet when they walk their dog, it's missing the point that a problem shared is a problem halved. If we are to extend our friendship to the undeveloped world, it needs to come more loudly than the dollar, and with a voice.
"As for your views on the nature of evil, I find them written in stark black and white when most of reality is grayscale. "Evil warlords" are rare. Plain old people who make immoral choices are common."
I agree, but add that most of reality is MORE than 'grayscale', it's as many colours as we allow ourselves to see. I don't like idiotic polarising, that's one of the reaons I was drawn here. Yet for all the variety, there's still one kind of brutalism that always wears the same monocular eyepatch and in this holds the value of human life to be something by which it can personally gain by the loss or suffering of another.
"Grand visions are lovely, but I'd much rather have a blueprint for something smaller that can actually be built any day."
I don't have a 'grand vision', I was pointing out, in an admittedly curmudgeonly and rushed fashion, for a push to redefine 'environmentalism', as:
'living succesfully in an environment'
Rather than a specialist or fringe activity more allied to mindless conservation than human progress, or similarly, mindless destruction rather than an an appreciation of the global importance of diversity. Both sides of that spectrum have their nutjobs, I guess we have to choose who are the most dangerous depending upon how we are wired. I beleive the former t be an irritant, but tolerable, and the latter to be a royal pain in the ass of the world. But that's me and my experience.
Environmentalism (LIVING SUCCESSFULLY IN AN ENVIRONMENT) works at local and national level, and avoiding catastrophes that CAN be averted, using clarity, the benefit of technology, the benefit of social history, and the benefits of working with diversity instead of crushing it out of question and learning later.
The word 'harmony' has been hijacked first by the hippies, and now by the ironic brigade. It has lost it's meaning, so I will abandon its use on account of that. Misunderstanding just gives frustration.
Onto 'evil':
Removing evil people is something that America has pledged to do, that wasn't my grand scheme. But I won't tolerate a fascist, fundamentalist or bully. Some will. I won't. Neither would I put one in power, whichever pole he has up his ass, whichever country he lives in.
Just as the rabid leftie would tax everyone into oblivion for their own good, the rabid right fundie would nuke the remaining world whilst espousing the cultural merits of guns and exposing the 'irritant' of cultural diversity.
*)
Silverback:
I don't want to be ruled by a Superpower:
but in my appreciation of discussion:
they would
1. Listen more than talk.
2. Be ultimately accountable.
3. Wear a heart on it's sleeve with more pride than a flag. A flag can be effectively hidden behind for any cause, our intent can be used for only our intent.
I guess my point is that installing balance saves a lot of power and energy being expended on restoring it. 'Levelling the playing field' is nonsense when we are approaching abject poverty. It's already level. And it's not a game. Inventivity needs reasoning and forecasting. Superpowers have 'all' the power, and their accountability usually falls on the innocent. We are always balancing rights and power structures, it's about time we put some consideration behind our deliberation and realise that not everything is ONLY a compromise, lull between struggle, but also a working relationship. We can't struggle for 'rights' and destroy them at the same time. It's fine *saying* and idealising that a rich man has the same rights as a poor man. But look at the reality. I feel that power needs to be used to address this, not enforce the opposite. I may be wrong, but i haven't seen the effective proof of this in degrees I consider necessary to shift the balance to harmonic mutual benefit of both people and their workplace or options.
Little steps, i agree. You can't catch a fish by splashing in the pond, i know this because i have splashed about verbally and caught plenty of ire that bears little relation to my belief or reasoning ;-)
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 9, 2003 10:51 AM
icd -
just a quick one, forgive spelling & grammer pls. re M Moore,
Haven't read the Magic essay and am unlikely to be able to find time to read it soon. But...
One thing that causes many, many people to have a problem with Moore is not so much that he's a vocal advocate of views they oppose, but that he advocates from behind the fig-leaf of "Documentary" (a word that still carries connotations of nuetrality and objectivity to many). Cheap tactics like negative censorship: providing lots and lots of face-time for the stupidist two-toothed moron he can find to represent a position Moore opposes...
I at least, would give Moore that leeway you ask if he chose "mockumentary" or comedy, or some other medium or style for his advocacy film-making.
Also realize that, as a public figure, Moore's name is often used as a stereotype, a short-hand for a set of views, similar to using the construction "Tax-achusettes" to refer to a broad collection of economic and social policies; or a northerner using Alabama (with the derisive curl of hte lip) to imply trailer-trash swilling beer in their wife-beater shirts.
Sorry no time for a decent discussion/post.
J
Posted by: Jumper | October 9, 2003 11:32 AM
"Need a map? You seem to have wandered waaaay off into metaphor territory. The human temperament and ecology are not equivalent"
I wasn't equating human temperament with 'ecology', I was attempting to illustrate the temperament's relationship with 'environment', whether or not this environment is 'natural' or not, depends on a definition of 'natural. We are constantly redefining the 'natural' human state, which is in reality an expression of it's immediate environment as much as the environment is an expression of human nature. It's a dialog of need and want, of possible and impossible. Any planning and production other than 'subsistence' needs to balance peoples health and needs on ever changing scales. From wage disparity to places available for R & R. Power isn't the only force in human relations, if it is, we might as well get on with putting the weak to work for the powerful and quit fighting about whether 'harmony' is a reality or a 'liberal' invention.
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 9, 2003 11:40 AM
Alphasheep,
I do not advocate invading and conquering Saudi Arabia. Rather, what I would advocate is the Israeli response. Kill those that seek to harm you. Israel felt threatened by a nuclear empowered Iraq and sent their jets in to destroy the facility. It worked. They didn't have to invade and conquer. Mr. Whittle said we have the ability to put the entire firepower of a division in the hands of a few soldiers. We should use that power to really take on the forces that fund and support terrorism. Killing a few Saudi's seems like a good idea to me. Maybe they get the message and maybe they don't but they have no way to respond to that action that doesn't put them in danger of losing everything. It's a gamble, but it's a better bet than 10 to 30 years of occupation.
The broader point about power and it's usage in the post 9/11 world is that we should be concentrating our efforts at getting to the source of the problem, not tying up resources in Iraq. The goal of a democratic Iraq is easy to talk about but very difficult to actually do. If this administration is serious about doing that which we both argee is neccessary, keeping a large presence there measured in decades instead of months and years, why haven't they told this to the american people? Think about all the rhetoric we heard about this war before it was begun. They deliberately downplayed the longterm nature of the occupation. This isn't Bush-bashing, it's stating a simple, verifiable fact. When Larry Lindsey talked about the cost running upwards of $200B, he was cut loose. When the General, I forget his name, stated his estimate of troops that would need to be deployed in post war Iraq, (around 150-200k) he was vilified and marginalized by the Pentagon. Both of these estimates have turned out to be pretty accurate. If, as you say, we will be in Iraq for the next 10 30 years, why isn't this administration willing to say so?
"However, it shortly became apprent that the Al Qaeda and its related offshoots are spread more widely than anticipated, and essentially a part of the loosely organized umbrella that were based on the same ideological footing."
What are you saying here? That we had no idea Al Qaeda had global capabilities? That this was a suprise to us? I think not. It has been widely known for years that OBL and Al Qaeda have offshoots all over the world and that they are loosely controlled. We were under no illusions that we could completely destroy the organization by destroying their base in Afghanistan. Don't misread what I am saying, it was imperative that we did what we did in Afghanistan. Iraq is another story though.
I've heard the flypaper argument before but I don't think it stands up very well to scrutiny.
Do you really believe that ALL the terrorists are going to go running into Iraq to take on the US military? That's not very likely. The professionals, the real threats, are out there somewhere, training and planning and working towards an even more horrific terrorist attack.
Someone is giving them succor, someone is paying for the safehouses and the training and the food and lodging that makes this all possible. That someone needs to die. That someone is more than likely enjoying a nice cup of mint tea in Riyadh right now. They do so because they feel safe and secure in the kingdom. Nothing can touch them there. We need to alter that equation and soon.
As for what OBL wants and doesn't want, who cares?
He is a religious fanatic, pure and simple. His desires are irrelevant. We should be concerned about only one thing regarding OBL, where is he?
If we can find that out, I am certain he will have drawn his last breath.
As for making Iraq the shining beacon of freedom to the rest of the middle east, we will see. IF that was the goal all along, then why not internationalize the occupation? Why not invite UN participation in the administering of government there? Unilateralism makes this particular goal that much more difficult if not all but impossible. This administration has an annoying penchant for taking credit for words rather than actions. They declared victory before victory was won, they claim ironclad proof of weapons when none have been found, they talk of a democratic Iraq as if one already existed. They refuse to plan for anything other than a best case scenario. At least publicly. The world is a complicated place but we should be smart enough to
plan for an outcome other than the most rosy scenario. I have no confidence in this administration's ability to see this through to the bitter end. Nor do I see any signs of them leveling with the american people about the costs and the long term nature of the occupation. That's why this war was not a good idea in the first place.
Nick Foresta
Posted by: nick foresta | October 9, 2003 12:25 PM
"Sorry no time for a decent discussion/post."
Snap!
I'm having to move on for the present with the smug and equally crap knowledge that I've given far less than I've taken.
I still can't shake those words: 'A new kind of war' from my addled skull.
“The nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify the means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end.”
Posted by: bucketspoon | October 9, 2003 12:40 PM
the core of the Bush Cabinet are followers
of one Leo Strauss, thus "Leo-cons." since
they're affiliated with the movers & shakers
of California Recall, the Enroniacs,
it doesn't bode very well.
this whole ideal of our power is beset
by the fact that it's run on a huge deficit
of outsourcing so much manufacturing,
particularly for military hardware.
that's why the DNC refuses to acknowledge Lyn,
because he talks about this stuff.
as for Samuel Clemens, any British Subject can
tell you who that is, but
can he tell you whose pen-name is Orwell?...
I caught his wife's obit, and
*she* uses the pen-name.
--les ducs de Buffet et Schulz ("R"&"D" Chair Assoc.Intl.);
vote NONE OF THE BELOW
on Trickier Dick Cheney's California Recall/e-Dereg!
http://larouchepub.com
http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/
Posted by: Brian Hutchings | October 9, 2003 1:16 PM
these are typical know-nothingisms about 2000
and its crappy election, which is obviously
an attempt to get a "populist" or jacobin bunch
in a "democratic" mob to get rid
of the electoral college, perhaps to go
to an online popular vote for president.
the fact is that the Gore team did *nothing*
to defend themselves (see Bugliosi's book,
the "amplifications" that aren't in the article,
which is on The Nation website). the fact
taht was not reported by any national outlet,
that may explain this, is the deal
that the DNC made with the Supremes,
March 27, 2000, LaRocue versus Fowler,
declaring part of the Voting Rights Act o'65
to be unconstitutional;
can you believe that ****?
also, Gore tossed Arkansas,
not because he didn't campaign, but
because of the 53,000 votes that he stole
in the primary (22% of the Dem vote), although
he'd have won the primary without them. now,
how many EC votes is that?
--les ducs d'Enron!
vote NONE OF THE BELOW
on Trickier Dick Cheney's California Recall/e-Dereg!
http://larouchepub.com
http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/
http://tarpley.net
Posted by: Brian Hutchings | October 9, 2003 1:34 PM
Back to kudos, thanks Bill. Nice work. A wonderful read backed by the music of the Blue Angels outside my window practising for the Fleet Week shows here in SF this weekend.
Posted by: crionna | October 9, 2003 2:39 PM
Nick,
(N)I do not advocate invading and conquering Saudi Arabia. Rather, what
I would advocate is the Israeli response. Kill those that seek to
harm you. Israel felt threatened by a nuclear empowered Iraq and
sent their jets in to destroy the facility. It worked. They didn't
have to invade and conquer. Mr. Whittle said we have the ability to
put the entire firepower of a division in the hands of a few
soldiers. We should use that power to really take on the forces that
fund and support terrorism. Killing a few Saudi's seems like a good
idea to me. Maybe they get the message and maybe they don't but they
have no way to respond to that action that doesn't put them in
danger of losing everything. It's a gamble, but it's a better bet
than 10 to 30 years of occupation.
(A)I agree that US is, for an uncomprehensible reason to me, holding
Israel on 'leash'. If I were in the decision-making position, I would
take the leash off and let them sort things out in any way they see fit.
Including revoking the aid, Israel's economic problems are a result
of an existencial problem, not vice versa. They would do well without,
they did before the aid started pouring in after the '73 war.
The 'world opinion' would be screaming 'bloody murder' when Israel
would start to shape regional affairs according their wishes, but so
what? The 'world opinion' is doing it, regardless -- no matter what
Israel's doing, it is always wrong. Hence, Israel may as well do as
they see fit. I would surmise that without US meddling in Israel's
affairs during the last 30 years, the regions may have look quite
differently by now. Israel as a regional power (with allied Turkey
at that time), would make sure that Islamist nucleus is nipped at
the bud.
I were talking to an Egyptian-born Canadian a while ago and he proposed
an interesting idea. Let the israel take over the Israel historic area.
In fact, give them any land that may be regarded as the part of the
ancient homeland, Eastern Sinai, South-Western Jordan, Southern Lebanon
and a reasonable buffer around Golan Heights. In return, Israelis would
pay a substantial fee 100-years lease after which the land becomes theirs,
cooperate in technology transfer, and provide expansion of the current
Arab university in West Bank, to train scientific and administrative
elites. It would be a win-win scenario--Israel would gain secure borders
and the Arab nations would be lifted from middle ages, the region would
become a beacon prosperity and peace.
I think that he has an excellent point, but this would not be possible
without Israel being in the position of power. I would suspect that
after 'sorting out', with some noses blodied in the process, the scenrio
would be a default result in any case, because Israelis are not
imperialists by nature. It would, undoubtedly take a few decades to get
to that result, probably two generations to establish the status quo.
Well, things are different.
Killing of 'few Saudis' would not resolve anything, without the full
occupation of SA, so the AQ element do not have an opportunity to
hibernate in their natural environ. The reasons for not intervening in
SA I already explained.
(N)...It has been widely known for years that OBL and Al Qaeda have
offshoots all over the world and that they are loosely controlled.
We were under no illusions that we could completely destroy the
organization by destroying their base in Afghanistan. Don't misread
what I am saying, it was imperative that we did what we did in
Afghanistan.
(A)Yes, it was known, or rather suspected and presumed and deduced,
but the specific details became available after Afghanistan.
(N)The broader point about power and it's usage in the post 9/11 world
is that we should be concentrating our efforts at getting to the
source of the problem, not tying up resources in Iraq.
You are forgetting that this is not something happening in a vacuum.
There were US troops stationed in SA, Kuwait and Bahrain. That is no
longer necessary. Also, there is a shift in US view as the deployment
in Western Europe is concerned--the contingent size would be reduced,
probably transferred to Poland, Hungary and Romania/Bulgaria and the
rest would be stationed in Iraq. I estimate that approximately 20k
would be needed in Iraq, after situation stabilizes.
(N)The goal of a democratic Iraq is easy to talk about but very
difficult to actually do. If this administration is serious about doing
that which we both argee is neccessary, keeping a large presence there
measured in decades instead of months and years, why haven't they told
this to the american people? Think about all the rhetoric we heard about
this war before it was begun. They deliberately downplayed the
longterm nature of the occupation. This isn't Bush-bashing, it's
stating a simple, verifiable fact. When Larry Lindsey talked about
the cost running upwards of $200B, he was cut loose. When the
General, I forget his name, stated his estimate of troops that would
need to be deployed in post war Iraq, (around 150-200k) he was
vilified and marginalized by the Pentagon. Both of these estimates
have turned out to be pretty accurate. If, as you say, we will be in
Iraq for the next 10 30 years, why isn't this administration willing
to say so?
(A) Yes, correct, one may hold a grudge in that regard, but the whole
strategy was based on a gamble. Try explaining that to the constituency,
with all the details of possible consequences and scenarios that it
would entail. It is a completely new situation, some of the elements
are in the state of flux and with a high degree of unpredictability.
It would probably not be possible to fully explain to the public what
is involved. I would probably try, but it may mean that the whole
scenario would not fly at all (on the other hand, honesty may be a
very refreshing and attractive to constituency, but it is one more
gamble to involve and it could jeopardize the need to act with
expediency). There is another facet involved, the geopolitical aspect.
I suspect that it was even more compelling to obscure the goals
because of that factor, rather than the domestic considerations.
The reason was that the SD part of the administration decided that it
was necessary to go through obtaining the UN mandate. It is clear that US
had to present the case within the scope that UN can accept. We all know
what happened. Although there were signs that French would try to derail
anything that would change the status quo, I suppose no one would have
predicted they would go to such an extreme.
I think that going through the UN was a mistake.
I thought it at the time, as well.
(N) I've heard the flypaper argument before but I don't think it stands
up very well to scrutiny.
Do you really believe that ALL the terrorists are going to go
running into Iraq to take on the US military? That's not very
likely. The professionals, the real threats, are out there
somewhere, training and planning and working towards an even more
horrific terrorist attack.
(A) Again, this is a gamble. You're right that it is more likely that the
foot soldiers would be involved, but there is a possibilty that the rumor
of presence of one core chief AQ officer's in Iraq may trun out to be true.
(N)Someone is giving them succor, someone is paying for the safehouses
and the training and the food and lodging that makes this all
possible. That someone needs to die. That someone is more than
likely enjoying a nice cup of mint tea in Riyadh right now. They do
so because they feel safe and secure in the kingdom. Nothing can
touch them there. We need to alter that equation and soon.
(A) I definitely agree here. The fact is that the US presence in Iraq
'heated' the region a bit. The Ryiadh bombing is a result of the state of
flux that has entered the region. Saudi rulers tried to 'export' the
radical Islamist elements in the past, so that their domestic scene is
tranquil.
But the stratagem has changed and the radicals are increasingly flocking
back, because it is, after all, the only area they can rely on.
It presents a gread deal of concern for the rulers. They would have to act,
soon, grudgingly and not with great enthusiasm, but by necessity, else
their kingdom goes to basket. Being between the rock and the hard place,
survival instinct would kick in and Saudi rulers would have no choice than
to contain the AQ and radicals, unscrupulously.
Thus, US administration hopes to get a good deal done by 'proxy'.
(N) As for what OBL wants and doesn't want, who cares?
He is a religious fanatic, pure and simple. His desires are
irrelevant. We should be concerned about only one thing regarding
OBL, where is he? If we can find that out, I am certain he will have drawn
his last breath.
(A) No quarrell here.
(N)As for making Iraq the shining beacon of freedom to the rest of the
middle east, we will see. IF that was the goal all along, then why
not internationalize the occupation? Why not invite UN participation
in the administering of government there?
(A) Oh, I see, you have still some illusions that UN is somehow relevant,
or even capable in that regard. It would take a lenghty discourse why this
is simply not the case. But let's simplify it a tad.
UN would only agree to the involvement if they would be in charge, but
that would result in total fuckup. I do not have time to go into that, but
there are compelling reason for this assumptions. Let me just summarize
them in concise fashion:
1. As a typical bureaucracy, their goal is a self-perpetuation.
2. They are not interested in democracy, in the sense that US envisions it.
In fact, they would do whatever they can to make sure that the US goal is
derailed as much as possible.
3. It is them being in charge, or not being there at all. The bombing
of their HQ is only a pretense to leave, leaving only a skeleton staff.
(N) Unilateralism makes this particular goal that much more difficult
if not all but impossible.
(A) Difficult, yes, impossible no. Given enough time, the goal is attainable.
(N)This administration has an annoying penchant for taking credit for
words rather than actions. They declared victory before victory was
won, they claim ironclad proof of weapons when none have been found,
they talk of a democratic Iraq as if one already existed. They
refuse to plan for anything other than a best case scenario. At
least publicly. The world is a complicated place but we should be
smart enough to plan for an outcome other than the most rosy scenario.
I have no confidence in this administration's ability to see this through to
the bitter end. Nor do I see any signs of them leveling with the
american people about the costs and the long term nature of the
occupation. That's why this war was not a good idea in the first
place.
(A) Ah I see, circular we are a tad, aren't we?
The part about inability to inform public in some clear way, that I
agree with.
But I think that despite some signs that a degree of uncertainity about
some components of the plan is apparent, it is more due to the fact that
this is a new territory with quite a bunch of uncertain factors that were
present in the beginning, rather than a sign of unwillingness to see
this through. Nor I would presume that there was not enough contingency
planning done. There were, possibly, some purely politically motivated
considerations on the table as the domestic scene is concerned, resulting
in what may appear as either elitism (something to it) or just a plain
incompetence of the administration's part.
Since it is clear that US is, indeed (bare the UK, Spain, Poland and Turkie
and small contributions from other countries), alone in this, it would be
time to come clean as the long term planning is involved pretty soon. I
agree that if all the aspects of the strategy and contingencies are
presented to the public, with exception of lunatic fringe, the public
would take it rather well, with understanding and provide clear mandate
to see it through, regardless what administration may come in the next
election. Speaking of which... I expect the obfuscation to disappear either
at the next election or shortly afterwards. There would be some results
coming in as the WMD's are concerned--only 8% of the ammo repositories
were sifted through so far, so I would not write off that aspect.
So, I am cutting some slack, but stress the need to for the administration
to come clean, or they risk that the plan would end up a disaster, because
of an increasing public mistrust.
Posted by: alphasheep | October 9, 2003 7:44 PM
I think I can sum up your essay as follows:
Right makes Might.
The reason why the US is the most powerful nation on earth at the present, is that we have come up with the ideas that work the best in the real world. Hard-work, self criticism openness to new ideas, ethnic and national diversity, tolernace and respect and an inherent distrust for any would be kings or emperors, all these work in the real world.
Such ideas are true if and only if they work in the real world. If they make the folks using them, believing in them, healthier and happier. All these ideas together have given fuel to the creativity of mankind.
Where else but here can an immigrant come and start their own business, become fabulously wealthy, heck, even run for governor of the most populace state. Not by force or fraud, not by seizing power, or wealth, or land, but by having it handed to you, like any business transaction.
It is exactly those ideas that made us powerful, and those very same ideas that limit our use of that power. That not only give us the strong hands we have, but stays that hand as well, when we shouldn't use it.
Would any European, or in fact any other nation use its power like we have? Would any other nation even consider dropping food while bombing the enemy in Afghanistan?
And to a large extent, that is why we are hated and feared. We have so much, by playing by different rules. We are a walking, talking blasphemy to so many other regimes and ideologies. Proof that they don't work. We did not sell the rope used to hang ourselves, but lived our own lives and watched as communism withered and died in nation after nation. While we, well, built new cars, listened to CDs tinkered on computers and chatted on the Internet.
Posted by: Ben | October 10, 2003 7:11 AM
alphasheep,
I were talking to an Egyptian-born Canadian a while ago and he proposed an interesting idea. Let the israel take over the Israel historic area. In fact, give them any land that may be regarded as the part of the ancient homeland, Eastern Sinai, South-Western Jordan, Southern Lebanon and a reasonable buffer around Golan Heights. In return, Israelis would pay a substantial fee 100-years lease after which the land becomes theirs, cooperate in technology transfer, and provide expansion of the current Arab university in West Bank, to train scientific and administrative elites. It would be a win-win scenario--Israel would gain secure borders and the Arab nations would be lifted from middle ages, the region would become a beacon of prosperity and peace.
The problem with this scheme, and indeed any scheme which involves Israel annexing territory, is that Israel cannot remain both a Jewish homeland and democratic if she absorbs large numbers of Arabs. Even if Israel annexed only the West Bank and Gaza, within one generation (Palestinian children born in Israel would be Israeli citizens, just as Arabs born in Israel - including East Jerusalem - are now) Jews would be a minority among Israeli citizens. It is likely that the Arab majority would vote to repeal the Law of Return and undermine the Jewish character of Israel. And it is not clear how they could be denied citizenship if the enlarged Israel was to be a democracy in the ordinary English meaning of the term.
Posted by: Jonathan | October 10, 2003 7:31 AM
The U.N.'s Better Idea on Iraq
Published: October 10, 2003
The Bush administration is having a frustrating time at the United Nations again. After all these months, the world's senior diplomats are still not willing to perform from Washington's script. When Secretary of State Colin Powell circulates a Security Council resolution, he wants other countries to endorse its main provisions, and to understand that the White House allows him to negotiate only over secondary details, not matters of substance. In the administration's oddly inverted logic, when this does not happen, as is now the case, it is the U.N. that is failing the test of multilateralism by not rallying around America's nonnegotiable positions. As a senior administration official put it to The Times this week, "They can be multilateral and be part of it, or they can tell us to do it ourselves."
The crux of Washington's latest battle with the U.N. is over when and how Iraq's sovereignty will be formally restored. Secretary General Kofi Annan would like a timetable established for transferring it, at least symbolically, to an appointed transitional government. The United States says that is premature, and it prefers to leave American occupation officials in charge throughout the long transition to an elected constitutional government, a process likely to take about two years.
Mr. Annan's approach is the wiser one. Exclusive American control means that most of the military and financial burdens of the occupation will continue to be borne by the United States. Prolonging unilateral American rule serves no obvious security purpose and guarantees that the United States will remain the primary target of postwar Iraqi resentments.
The administration's wrong-headed insistence on maintaining exclusive control over Iraq has already proved costly. Attacks against American troops, international aid workers and Iraqi police recruits continue at an alarming rate. Separate incidents in and near Baghdad yesterday killed at least 10 people and injured more than 40. The only additional country now offering peacekeeping troops is Turkey, and that offer is vocally opposed by the Iraqi Governing Council, appointed by Americans. An international donors conference later this month could be disappointing because many European nations, along with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, have been reluctant to pledge substantial reconstruction funds before Iraq's sovereignty has been formally restored. And Congress continues to resist the idea of American taxpayers' paying most of Iraq's rebuilding costs.
Washington should be listening more attentively to proposals that promise to open the door to substantial international help. President Bush has repeatedly said that American forces came to Iraq as liberators, not occupiers. He should follow through on the logic of those words and begin arrangements for transferring power to an interim Iraqi government.
Mr. Annan's ideas for doing so would broadly follow the model that brought Hamid Karzai to power in postwar Afghanistan. A transitional government could be built up from the current Governing Council. Doing so would encourage many more countries to offer troops and reconstruction aid, but would still leave Washington in full command of the military in Iraq and the main political power. Details would have to be negotiated with other Security Council members. That would require a more robust concept of multilateral cooperation than the administration has yet displayed.
Posted by: New York Times Editorial | October 10, 2003 8:09 AM
Jonanthan
He thought of that, of course. His idea was an offer of relocation (to Jordan, Syria, Egypt) with an adequate financial compensation. He presumed that a substantial chunk of the current residents of the WB/Gaza would go for it, especially people that do not have deeds for property. Those who own property could sell it and get the relocation compensation on the top of that.
But of course, it was all just highly academic. There are all sorts of factors that would make this kind of deal quite unlikely.
Posted by: alphasheep | October 10, 2003 9:19 AM
Re The U.N.'s Better Idea on Iraq
A link would have been sufficient.
Apropos, what is your opinion, in your own words?
There probably would be some gotchas in details. I would have to see actual proposals and counterproposals to get bearing.
However, this segment:
"The administration's wrong-headed insistence on maintaining exclusive control over Iraq has already proved costly. Attacks against American troops, international aid workers and Iraqi police recruits continue at an alarming rate. Separate incidents in and near Baghdad yesterday killed at least 10 people and injured more than 40.",
has nothing to do with the US/UN issue. Somehow, it seems that NYT presumes that in the case the UN scenario enfolds, like by a swoosh of a magical wand, the attacks would cease and all would be peachy. No. That is a load of horseshit.
Yet it seems to be the only way to interpret this snippet. It only invalidates the credbility of the article, because it seems to be appealing emotions rather than to reason. Whenever something of that sort appears, it always raises a red flag for me.
Posted by: alphasheep | October 10, 2003 10:00 AM
The notion that the terrorist attacks will cease once the UN steps in and takes the reigns from the US reminds of Somalia. As you recall, the U.S. went in, handed it over to the UN, who then promptly got heck shot out of themselves, and then we had to go back in with the Rangers, 10th Mountain Div, and a whole host of other folks and still ended up with all the nasty grunt work, against a warlord emboldened by his previous ambush of Pakistani peacekeepers.
Don't forget that Blackhawk Down is required reading among a lot of folks intent on killing American soldiers.
Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation | October 10, 2003 3:16 PM
This is currently featured at the top of the New York Times website:
---------------
Shiite Outrage Heightens Fears of Danger to Americans
By IAN FISHER 5:27 PM ET
Shiite anger against Americans spilled over into Friday prayers in the Baghdad slum where two U.S. soldiers were killed on Thursday.
• Cheney Defends Handling of Iraq
• Complete Coverage: The Struggle for Iraq
The photo news item currently featured:
img src="http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/10/10/international/iraq.184.1.jpg"
Agence France-Presse
A throng of perhaps 10,000 Iraqis gathered to pay their respects to the two Shiites they believe were killed by American forces on Thursday night. Go to Article
---------------
Posted by: Foreign Policy realist | October 10, 2003 4:03 PM
A link would have been sufficient. >> --AlphaSheep
You would have had to register.
You're welcome.
Another one, also from today's Times:
HARD SELL ON IRAQ
The United States has tried again and again to get help from the United Nations as a way of legitimizing its tragic misadventure in Iraq. But the U.N., which was founded in 1945 to foster international cooperation as a way of promoting peace, is following the quiet guidance of its secretary general, Kofi Annan, whose response to the latest U.S. entreaty has been a polite but firm no.
At a private lunch last week with members of the Security Council, the secretary general made it clear that there was no chance he would go along with a U.S. proposal to have the U.N. assist in the effort to rebuild and reestablish security in Iraq even as the United States retains full control of the country.
"The U.S. would like to have its cake and eat it," said a diplomat who attended the lunch. "It wants to fly the U.N. flag to demonstrate to Iraqis and others that it is no longer an occupying power. But the U.S. would still be the occupying power because it would still be ruling the country."
The latest American request, a proposed Security Council resolution calling for a multinational security force in Iraq, is going nowhere, officials said. The word yesterday was that the U.S. might well abandon it.
There is a widespread feeling at the U.N. that the policies of the United States — its invasion and occupation of Iraq, its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its frequently contemptuous attitude toward the U.N. in particular and international cooperation in general — have made the Middle East and parts of the rest of the world substantially more dangerous, rather than less.
There is an especially emotional quality to discussions with U.N. diplomats about these matters because of the two suicide bomb attacks at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in the past two months. The first attack, on Aug. 19, killed 22 people, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, a highly respected and very well-liked official who was close to Mr. Annan and who led the U.N. mission in Iraq.
"We are not here to serve as a fig leaf for aggression," said one of the guests who attended last week's lunch at the U.N. "The U.S. does not want to share power in Iraq. It does not want to share authority. All it wants to share are the casualties and the costs. That is a very brutal, one-sided game, and we should not be playing it."
The U.N. would be more willing to help, officials said, if the United States were willing to more quickly, and sincerely, relinquish authority to an interim Iraqi government. Then, said one official, "we would be responding to a request for help from a government of Iraq, not an occupying power."
Another official said that if the U.S. insisted on running Iraq itself while having the U.N. serve only an "ancillary" function, "we are quite prepared to confine ourselves to a humanitarian role and wish you the best of luck."
Meanwhile, President Bush, whose poll numbers are sinking in part because of his Iraq policies, is leading a public relations initiative aimed at reigniting support for the war and convincing Americans that the situation on the ground is not as bad as it may seem.
"Americans must not forget the lessons of Sept. 11," said Mr. Bush, in a reprise of his administration's compulsion to somehow link Iraq to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "A stable and democratic and hopeful Iraq will no longer be a breeding ground for terror, tyranny and aggression."
The timing of the president's comments was unfortunate. Even as he was speaking, reports were coming in about a series of tragic occurrences. A pair of suicide bombers killed eight Iraqis and themselves in an attack at a police station in Baghdad. An American soldier was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his convoy in an area northeast of Baghdad. And an intelligence agent assigned to the Spanish Embassy in Baghdad was chased from his home wearing just his undershorts before being shot to death in cold blood in the street.
Despite the carnage, the American administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, did his best for the public relations initiative. He is optimistic, he said. Things are going better than anyone could have predicted, he said.
Selling a misguided war is a lot like selling cigarettes. You can never tell the tragic truth about your product.
Posted by: New York Times Editorial | October 10, 2003 4:58 PM
NYTE: "You would have had to register.
You're welcome."
Who said I am not registered? Or that I wouldn't?
Why you, patronisingly, presume anything about me?
So, no, I have nothing to thank you for.
It also seems that you are unable to formulate your own arguments. The only thing you presented is cut & paste from NYT. Their bias is seeping through even from the first paragraph.
I would suggest that you do not depend only on NYT, but other media, as well as blogosphere, to get a bit more viewpoints. When you do that, and when you are able to present your OWN arguments, then I may be willing to engage in discussion with you. Otherwise, it's a waste of my time.
Posted by: alphasheep | October 11, 2003 3:20 AM
alphasheep,
That last post of yours is simply perfect. Your snit at the presumption of being patronized is priceless. It's also such a moldy-oldly discussion-volley. As is the "unable to form your own arguments" chestnut. Also love that you fault an opinion piece for "bias".
And the helpful suggestion at the end is beyond precious. Do I get to play the sniffy one now? Okay.
Ahem.
Dear sir, how dare thee presumeth the patronage to instruct mine sensibilites for a narrowness they do not possess! Pure phlogiston is thee claim!
Meanwhile...
Leak of CIA officers leaves trail of damage
By Warren P. Strobel
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - It's just a 12-letter name - Valerie Plame - but the leak by Bush administration officials of that CIA officer's identity may have damaged U.S. national security to a much greater extent than generally realized, current and former agency officials say.
Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush critic Joseph Wilson, was a member of a small elite-within-an-elite, a CIA employee operating under "nonofficial cover," in her case as an energy analyst, with little or no protection from the U.S. government if she got caught.
Training agents such as Plame, 40, costs millions of dollars and requires the time-consuming establishment of elaborate fictions, called "legends," including in this case the creation of a CIA front company that helped lend plausibility to her trips overseas.
Compounding the damage, the front company, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, whose name has been reported previously, apparently also was used by other CIA officers whose work now could be at risk, according to Vince Cannistraro, formerly the agency's chief of counterterrorism operations and analysis.
Now, Plame's career as a covert operations officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations is over. Those she dealt with - whether on business or not - may be in danger. The DO is conducting an extensive damage assessment.
And Plame's exposure may make it harder for American spies to convince foreigners to share important secrets with them, U.S. intelligence officials said.
Bush partisans tend to downplay the leak's damage, saying Plame's true job was widely known in Washington, if unspoken. And, they say, she had moved from the DO, the CIA's covert arm, to an analysis job.
But intelligence professionals, infuriated over the breach and what they see as the Bush administration's misuse of intelligence on Iraq, vehemently disagree.
Larry Johnson - a former CIA and State Department official who was a 1985 classmate of Plame's in the CIA's case officer-training program at Camp Peary, Va., known as "the Farm" - predicted that when the CIA's internal damage assessment is finished, "at the end of the day, (the harm) will be huge and some people potentially may have lost their lives."
"This is not just another leak. This is an unprecedented exposing of an agent's identity," said former CIA officer Jim Marcinkowski, who's now a prosecutor in Royal Oak, Mich., and who also did CIA training with Plame.
The leak of Plame's identity to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other journalists is the subject of a Justice Department investigation that has rattled President Bush's White House. Knowingly revealing the identity of a covert agent is a crime.
Critics say the leak was meant to intimidate critics such as Wilson, a former ambassador who traveled to the African country of Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking uranium ore for nuclear weapons. Wilson found no basis for the claims and later publicly criticized Bush's description of Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
One mystery is how one or more officials at the White House knew of Plame's work, since the CIA and other intelligence agencies guard the identities of their covert officers, often even from their political masters.
"The background on an agent typically is not common knowledge," said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Whoever leaked (the information) probably wasn't supposed to have access to it."
Intelligence officials said Plame worked on an issue high on Bush's list of priorities: the spread of missiles and nuclear, biological and chemical arms, collectively known as weapons of mass destruction.
Human intelligence - as opposed to electronic surveillance - about WMD development and weapons transfers is hard to come by, especially in "hard target" countries such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Much about Plame's career remains a mystery, and probably will stay that way. The CIA refuses to acknowledge her employment or anything else associated with the case.
Born in 1963, she graduated from Pennsylvania State University and was recruited quickly by the CIA, attending training classes in 1985.
In 1990 and 1991, Plame was attached to a U.S. embassy in Europe, according to address records, suggesting she may have operated under official cover for a time. Knight Ridder voluntarily is withholding the precise location of the embassy. Plame's name doesn't appear in State Department telephone and embassy directories from that period.
In April 1999, Plame, using her married name of Valerie E. Wilson, donated $1,000 to then-Vice President Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. She listed her employer as Brewster-Jennings & Associates.
The name suggested work in the energy field: The late Brewster Jennings was president of the old Socony-Vacuum oil company, predecessor to Mobil, now Exxon Mobil Corp.
A June 2000 listing in Dun & Bradstreet for a Boston-based "Brewster Jennings & Associates" names the company's CEO and only employee as "Victor Brewster" and says it had annual sales of $60,000.
While that might seem like flimsy cover, former intelligence officials say that in fact meticulous steps are taken to create a life-like legend to support and protect CIA officers operating under nonofficial cover.
The corps of officers using nonofficial cover is small, said former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman, a critic of Bush's handling of intelligence. The program was the subject of an internal battle, he said, opposed by traditionalists, who favored the orthodox method of having spies pose as American diplomats or military officers.
"It was always controversial. There were never a lot. And there are fewer now than there were," Goodman said.
Johnson, the former CIA and State Department official, said espionage training could cost several million dollars, including $350,000 for the first year alone.
It appears that the Brewster-Jennings front was more than what is called "nominal cover," and was used as part of Plame's espionage, Johnson said.
That means anyone she met with could be in danger now, said Johnson, who described himself as "furious, absolutely furious" at the security breach.
On a personal level, if Plame's covert career wasn't over already, it is now.
"My wife's career will certainly change as a consequence of this, but my wife is a star in her business," Wilson said last Sunday on NBC. He added: "I have every expectation that her culture will embrace her and that she will continue to be a productive national security officer. But clearly her responsibilities will have to change as a consequence of this."
Wilson has said his family is taking unspecified security precautions. His wife won't talk to reporters.
"The bottom line is, she's lost her career," said former classmate Marcinkowski.
As a CIA officer operating overseas, "There's only one entity in the world that can identify you. That's the U.S. government. When the U.S. government does it, that's it," he said.
-----
http://www.fcnp.com/331/whitehouse.htm
Nicholas F. Benton's: 'WMD Report cries out for new dreaded 'L' word: Lie!'
By Nicholas F. Benton, Falls Church News Press
The Bush White House announced today it is preparing to spend more U.S. taxpayer dollars in a new self-serving public relations offensive to defend its invasion of Iraq. This is on top of the $600 million more he wants to put into an equally self-serving search for those evasive "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs) in Iraq, as per a report in last week's New York Times..
Bush has a lot more to be worried about now than his nosedive in public opinion polls in recent weeks.
The damning conclusions released last week in the interim report by David Kay and his team tasked with uncovering WMDs in Iraq is the first official confirmation that our deliberately lied to the American people, to Congress and to the world community to justify the deadly, costly and globally-destabilizing invasion of Iraq last spring.
The last man to occupy the White House before Bush was impeached for telling a lie of a magnitude so far below that of Bush's as to be laughable.
The only reason that the world has not already jumped down Bush's throat for the "Big WMD Lie" is because, unlike in the case of Clinton, the major media is protecting him.
The day after the release of Kay's interim report, the headline in the pro-Bush Washington Post echoed on Bush's lame spin on the report, attempting to characterize the report's incompleteness as a vindication.
The current issue of the American Journalism Review asks on its cover, "Are the News Media Soft on Bush?" Duh!
Author Paul Waldman wrote in the Washington Post "Outlook" section Sept. 28 under the headline, "Why the Media Don't Call It as They See It."
In it, he argues, "When politicians or government officials lie, reporters have an obligation not only to include the truth...but to say forthrightly that the official has lied."
But he notes, "Journalists are notoriously reluctant to use the word, `lie,' when describing the statements of public officials," and added that among the media's strongest indictments of lies by the Bush administration was a recent Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial that said Bush, Vice Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his deputy Wolfowitz "fell woefully short of the truth."
What's "falling woefully short of the truth" if not "lying?"
The major media had no problem using the "lie" word in Clinton's case. "The president," it said many times on the national news every night, "is accused of lying."
"Lying" is a strong term, but anything short of it in the Bush case is a cop out, a smoke screen, a cover up, and is, from a journalistic standpoint, irresponsible.
Politicians are reluctant to use the word for fear of electoral backlash unless, that is, the groundwork has been established ahead of time either by a court of law or responsible journalistic reporting that's not afraid to "tell it like it is."
Was everyone associated with the major media asleep all those months leading up to the invasion of Iraq whenever Bush and his cabinet spoke about the WMDs and the imminent threat they posed? Rumsfeld even said he knew exactly where they were. Does no one realize the importance of the deception for the lives lost, the global destabilization and the rest?
To respond with a mere shrug of there shoulders, or the notion that there might have been "flawed intelligence" is reprehensible.
There was a hidden agenda behind the invasion of Iraq that had nothing to do with WMDs, but that the American public never would have supported on its own. It had to do with the Project for a New American Century vision for asserting U.S. unilateralism globally by deliberately undermining the role of the United Nations and other multilateral institutions. An invasion of Iraq has been identified for years as the launching pass for this.
Commenting on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopolous last Sunday, analyst Fareed Zakaria said the Kay report suggests Bush sent the U.S. to war "under false pretenses." The U.S. intelligence on nuclear and chemical weapons capabilities was, as the report demonstrates, he said, "either wrong or wildly exaggerated."
What is "wildly exaggerating" if not "lying?"
"This is a credibility problem for Bush," he concluded. Citing Bush's lack of concern for real nuclear capabilities in North Korea, as contrasted to his fixation on Iraq, Zakaria said, "When you want to take action, you can paint intelligence to be more urgent and striking. When you don't want to take it, you say it's unclear and murky."
What's that, if not lying?
--
William Pfaff: 'Korea: The real danger is the fantasy in Washington'
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By William Pfaff, International Herald Tribune
PARIS -- It is one thing to be imprisoned in a fantasy of your own. It is much worse to be imprisoned in the fantasy of someone else. The latter is the situation of South Korea today. It is a victim of the Washington world-view, a bureaucratized form of fantasy.
Washington people think they know, but they actually deal in a limited number of ideologically constructed "stories" about the world that rely heavily on stereotype and prejudice, and are infrequently submitted to serious pragmatic challenge (dangerous inside an increasingly politicized bureaucracy).
South Korea has been in a tough situation for 50 years. It understands its problem better than anyone else. North Korea is a paranoid totalitarian state on the brink of economic implosion. It plausibly claims to be able to produce nuclear weapons and has already shown that it manufactures ballistic missiles...
http://www.iht.com/opinion.html
---
Stephen Pizzo: 'Ike was right'
Posted on Saturday, October 11 @ 09:48:21 EDT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Stephen Pizzo, TomPaine.com
Talk about sticker shock. The condition of the country was far worse than anyone dared imagine. Engineers released their findings this September and, using a grammar school grading system, they assigned grades to describe the state of disrepair they found.
The country's roads got a D+. Aviation infrastructure got a D. Schools a D minus. Wastewater treatment facilities, a D. Dams, a D. Hazardous waste storage a D+. And, even though the nation is a major oil producer, the energy sector got a D+.
In all, the experts said it would take more than $1.6 trillion over the next five years to bring the country's infrastructure up to modern standards.
Oh, wait. I bet you thought I was talking about Iraq.
No. The report I am citing was released this September by the American Society of Civil Engineers and it described the condition of America's infrastructure. In it, the ASCE warned that America's critical infrastructure was "crumbling" and ongoing neglect would add $300 billion a year to the repair bill. The ASCE recommended the creation of an emergency White House commission to start dealing with the problem.
Yet the same week ASCE released its report, President Bush asked Congress to quickly approve an additional $87 billion in emergency funding—for Iraq—of which around $22 billion would be used to repair and upgrade Iraq's infrastructure. (That figure has since been trimmed to around $20 billion in Congress.) The president made no mention of the ASCE's report and no additional money was requested for United States' infrastructure.
There are all too many obvious ironies in this. When George W. Bush campaigned for office his distain for "nation building" knew no bounds. It wasn't America's business, he said, to run around the world fixing broken nation-states at American taxpayer's expense.
Once in office, key Bush supporters decided the President was wrong about that. The business of nation building could be very good business indeed.
So now hundreds of billions of U.S. tax dollars are flowing to a handful of large, well-connected U.S. companies, not to repair and improve America's communication, transportation, education or energy infrastructure, but those of Iraq and Afghanistan. This is nothing less than the very military-industrial complex President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned against before leaving office.
The U.S. companies getting the bulk of Iraq/Afghanistan infrastructure contracts can be counted on one mutilated hand; Bechtel, Halliburton, SAIC, Fluor. Virtually all the prime contracts were issued on a no-bid basis. (Try that with any large domestic infrastructure project and the unions and taxpayer right's groups would be all over the administration like flies on camel dung.)
So, as you bump your way to work today on pothole-studded streets understand that the cost of your new suspension is a small price to pay for the smooth 1,200-kilometer highway being built in Afghanistan on a $300 million contract to U.S. engineering firm Louis Berger Group.
Then there's the $240 million earmarked to improve Iraq's roads and bridges. And, even as the Bush administration fights subsidies for Amtrak, another $303 million in U.S. funds is going to upgrade Iraq's railroads. Bechtel will oversee much of this work.
Ironically, on the same day the ASCEs released their infrastructure report, the Edison Electric Institute released its report on the state of the nation's electrical grid - which had recently gotten everyone's attention with a major northeast/Midwest blackout. The EEI told the Bush administration that in order to meet demand, "capital investments in upgrades and new transmission lines must increase from the current level of $3 billion annually to $5.5 billion annually over the next ten years."
In other words, an additional $25 billion is needed to keep America's lights on.
Instead the president requested $5.5 billion—the first installment—to begin modernizing Iraq's power grid, a job that Iraq's U.S. Administrator L. Paul Bremer says may cost up to $13 billion. Then there's fixing Iraq's water systems—another $16 billon. Bechtel is the prime contractor on those jobs, too.
The contrasts continue. According to federal housing officials, the government will only be able to fund 5,000 new public housing units this year. Meanwhile the administration has earmarked $470 million to create 20,000 public housing units in Iraq. Another $40 million will go to building 275 new schools in Iraq and provide teachers and supplies to 12,500 schools. Prime contractors for these Iraqi programs are U.S. companies, Bechtel and Creative Associates.
Ten years ago, President Bill Clinton pushed legislation to put more cops on the street. The Bush administration has since eliminated all direct funding for street cops. Now, with money short and so many military reservists—many of whom are cops in civilian life—on active duty, cities and counties find themselves dangerously short of police, fire and other first responders.
Nevertheless, while American law enforcement goes begging, the administration has been generous in letting contracts to rebuild Iraq's civil and military policing. There is the $2 billion to build a new Iraqi army and another $470 million to fund civilian police, judges, courts and related law enforcement services. U.S.-based DynCorp and its parent company, Computer Sciences Corp., are the prime contractors here. Heavy contributors to President Bush and the Republican Party, the company has provided police training and other security services to the Pentagon in other hot spots as well, including Bosnia where DynCorp employees were accused of running a sex ring involving under-age girls.
And then of course, there is Halliburton. The "no-bid contract" trend started when Dick Cheney served as Secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush. Cheney hired Halliburton subsidiary, Brown & Root Services (now Kellogg, Brown & Root), paying the company nearly $4 million to study how the defense department might cut costs by privatizing much of its non-combat activities.
Apparently the advice he got for our $4 million was to hire Brown & Root. Under the new scheme all those troublesome and time-consuming open bids would be eliminated and replaced with an open-ended contract with KBR. The program, approved by Cheney, is called the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). The Pentagon describes LOGCAP's no-bid contracts as "cost-plus-award-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity service."
Shortly after LOGCAP went into effect the election of Bill Clinton freed Dick Cheney to pursue other interests and he became CEO of Halliburton. Most of Halliburton's defense work now comes through KBR's LOGCAP contract, which has made KBR the de facto quartermaster for the US Army.
Among other things, U.S. taxpayers are paying KBR to:
* Provide housing for 100,000 soldiers in Iraq;
* Repair oil facilities in Iraq;
* Build enenmy prisioner of war camps in Iraq and Afghanistan;
* Provide logistical support for David Kay's Iraqi Survey Group searching for Iraq's illusive weapons of mass destruction;
* KBR was hired to build 400 new prison cells at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to house captured Taliban fighters.
Let me conclude by making an observation. Conservatives are correct when the praise the opportunity-creating power of the free-enterprise system. But the Defense Department's privatization of huge chunks of its operations out to a handful of very large, very well-connected companies is crony capitalism. This is walking right into the tar pit that Eisenhower had warned against half a century ago.
Did Bechtel, Halliburton and the others engineer America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? No, of course not. That would be too cynical and simplistic. But, these firms are opportunists and they have the connections to profit in wartime.
And so we are left to ponder. America's infrastructure is mess and getting worse. Instead of spending the additional $25 billion needed to repair it, the administration is handing nearly the same amount in contracts out to a small number of U.S. companies to repair Iraq's infrastructure instead. Had that money been allocated for U.S. infrastructure the contracts would have been, by law, subject to open bidding and would therefore have been divvied up among hundreds of companies, small and large, across the country. In the old days, they called that a domestic economic stimulus plan.
Stephen Pizzo is a financial journalist who lives in Sebastapol, California.
For more information on some of the companies mentioned above, check this Misleader.org report.
Reprinted from TomPaine.com:
http://www.tompaine.com/
feature2.cfm/ID/9120
Posted by: New York Times Editorial | October 11, 2003 9:54 PM
I see, You seem to have mastered cut and paste. Good for ya... Perhaps you can included it in your resume, under Hobbies and interests.
However, you are still unable to present a coherent argument of your own. Until you do, there is really no compulsion on my side to engage in responding.
Posted by: alphasheep | October 12, 2003 4:57 AM
Alphasheep,
Even the alpha- sheep is still just a sheep.
Imagine for a moment that your claim was correct, and I had not mastered the art of arguing for myself. Of verbalizing my opinions, and defending them from all forms of rebuttal-- including spurious forms.
Were this true, would it be so wrong for me to cut and paste the words of those who made the case more succinctly than I could hope to? Would it be ethical for you to dismiss such arguments on the technicality that they were cut and pasted? Is your goal to discuss or find exuses to flee discussion?
"It's the season of the angry liberal. Books like Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," Joe Conason's "Big Lies" and Molly Ivins's "Bushwhacked" have become best sellers. (Yes, I've got one out there, too.) But conservatives are distressed because those liberals are so angry and rude. O.K., they admit, they themselves were a bit rude during the Clinton years — that seven-year, $70 million investigation of a tiny money-losing land deal, all that fuss about the president's private life — but they're sorry, and now it's time for everyone to be civil.
Indeed, angry liberals can take some lessons in civility from today's right.
Consider, for example, Fox News's genteel response to Christiane Amanpour, the CNN correspondent. Ms. Amanpour recently expressed some regret over CNN's prewar reporting: "Perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News." A Fox spokeswoman replied, "It's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than as a spokeswoman for Al Qaeda."
And liberal pundits who may be tempted to cast personal aspersions can take lessons in courtesy from conservatives like Charles Krauthammer, who last December reminded TV viewers of his previous career as a psychiatrist, then said of Al Gore, "He could use a little help."
What's really important, of course, is that political figures stick to the issues, like the Bush adviser who told The New York Times that the problem with Senator John Kerry is that "he looks French."
Some say that the right, having engaged in name-calling and smear tactics when Bill Clinton was president, now wants to change the rules so such behavior is no longer allowed. In fact, the right is still calling names and smearing; it wants to prohibit rude behavior only by liberals.
But there's more going on than a simple attempt to impose a double standard. All this fuss about the rudeness of the Bush administration's critics is an attempt to preclude serious discussion of that administration's policies. For there is no way to be both honest and polite about what has happened in these past three years.
On the fiscal front, this administration has used deceptive accounting to ram through repeated long-run tax cuts in the face of mounting deficits. And it continues to push for more tax cuts, when even the most sober observers now talk starkly about the risk to our solvency. It's impolite to say that George W. Bush is the most fiscally irresponsible president in American history, but it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.
On the foreign policy front, this administration hyped the threat from Iraq, ignoring warnings from military professionals that a prolonged postwar occupation would tie down much of our Army and undermine our military readiness. (Joseph Galloway, co-author of "We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young," says that "we have perhaps the finest Army in history," but that "Donald H. Rumsfeld and his civilian aides have done just about everything they could to destroy that Army.") It's impolite to say that Mr. Bush has damaged our national security with his military adventurism, but it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.
Still, some would say that criticism should focus only on Mr. Bush's policies, not on his person. But no administration in memory has made paeans to the president's character — his "honor and integrity" — so central to its political strategy. Nor has any previous administration been so determined to portray the president as a hero, going so far as to pose him in line with the heads on Mount Rushmore, or arrange that landing on the aircraft carrier. Surely, then, Mr. Bush's critics have the right to point out that the life story of the man inside the flight suit isn't particularly heroic — that he has never taken a risk or made a sacrifice for the sake of his country, and that his business career is a story of murky deals and insider privilege.
In the months after 9/11, a shocked nation wanted to believe the best of its leader, and Mr. Bush was treated with reverence. But he abused the trust placed in him, pushing a partisan agenda that has left the nation weakened and divided. Yes, I know that's a rude thing to say. But it's also the truth. --Paul Krugman, October 10, 2003 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/10/opinion/10KRUG.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fPaul%20Krugman
Posted by: New York Times Editorial | October 12, 2003 5:53 AM
Alphasheep,
Good summary of the purpose of the war in Iraq and our actual grand strategy for the overall war. If you haven't seen it, Steven den Best has also put together a nicely detailed outline of the causes and strategies for the war that you might want to check out. Follow the USS Clueless link from Bill's main page.
And I agree with your protestations against the individual who seems to want to post the entire contents of the NYT editorial page here on Bill's bandwidth dime.
To whomever that unnamed individual is, since you haven't responded well to Alphasheep's indirect requests and comments, I'll put it more directly: please don't post the full text of editorials from other newspapers here. I am a registered user of the NYT electronic edition, and if you post a link and a brief description I'll check it out if I think it sounds interesting. I'd honestly be much more interested in reading your personal remarks on the contents of the editorial, and only then possibly follow up by reading the editorial itself.
If you continue posting the full text of the editorials, we'll probably all have to infer that you are doing it only to be irritating and with no other purpose.
JKS.
Posted by: JKS | October 12, 2003 10:26 AM
Chefquix,
I've wanted to get back to you about the W Clark essay you pointed out to me. I have read it, but I haven't had time to prepare a detailed set of comments on it. I thought I'd prepare a set of general remarks and I could elaborate on any of them if you want. I'm not an economist either, but I studied finance and economics in college and I know just enough about it to be in danger of embarrassing myself. :)
Short version: the author makes a few good points which I agree with, but makes some mistakes in his economic analysis, and ultimately I think his final conclusion is not rational.
Longer version:
The author is correct in saying that it is to the US advantage to maintain the status quo with respect to the standard currency for oil transactions, all things considered. But he greatly overstates how valuable this is; the main benefit here to the US is the elimination of the exchange rate risk, though even here it often works to our disadvantage, not our advantage.
I still maintain that the only reason you're hearing about this Euros-for-oil idea right now is that the dollar is dropping against most other currencies right now. If the dollar starts to rebound you'll stop hearing about this right quick, as it would then cost the sellers of oil money to sell in Euros. I warrant that as much as most of the oil-selling nations dislike the US, they don't dislike us enough to engage in financial transaction disadvantageous to their own interest, just to hurt us too.
And US economic policy is not simply to make the dollar as strong as possible, as the author seems to think; rather, given the dollar's basic fundamental strength, US policy is generally to keep it basically stable. Understand that dollar movements against other currencies cut both ways, and that the US Treasury Secretary recently (misguidedly, in my opinion) applauded the dollar's recent fall for the boost this would provide to US exports (and hence, US GDP, and US employment figures). The flip side is that the fall in the dollar tends to discourage foreign investment in US assets, and capital is harder to raise; this means to US companies that capital-intensive projects to improve efficiency and cut costs must be forgone or postponed, and therefore large and permanent drops in the dollar have elements which are depressive in the long term to US GDP. The whole situation is much more complicated than Mr Clark suggests.
The increase in dollars in circulation by virtue of the oil currency denomination isn't all that significant. Many nations get their oil-buying dollars direct from US consumers via US purchases of foreign goods, so it's not like foreign nations have to go out of their way to buy dollars they'd otherwise not need just so they can consummate their oil purchases. Remember that big US trade deficit we hear so much about; this tends to greatly increase foreign holdings of dollars compared to US holdings of foreign currencies. The holding of dollars by foreign nationals is good for the US in the long run, as it represents foreign investment in US capital, but it's financed largely by the trade deficit, which was $536 Billion in the 12 months ended June 2003. The huge trade deficit itself is less good for the US, though ultimately it's somewhat self-correcting; if eventually we buy so much from foreigners and sell so little in return that the whole world is just saturated in US dollars, demand for the acquisition of additional dollars will decrease. This means the value of the dollar will decrease (and this may be what we're observing now), reducing US consumption of foreign goods and facilitating (via that weak dollar) increased export of US goods, till some equilibrium (or cyclical range, at any rate) is achieved.
The author advocates pegging the dollar and the euro in a "trading band with exchange status parity," which is a fancy was of saying he wants to artificially force exchange rates to be confined within a narrow range, rather than allowing the market to determine it freely; and that we pronounce that the euro is just as good a reserve currency as the dollar. Fixed exchange rates are good policy in some really narrow circumstances, like when a nation with a tremendously weak and volatile currency is trying to artificially encourage foreign investment beyond that which the market has already resulted in, while it works earnestly on its fundamentals. This works reasonably well for a while, provided the weak nation's fundamentals don't proceed to get worse; if this happens, the currency will ultimately collapse horribly and the exchange rate pegging only will have intensified and postponed the collapse. Pegging a major country's (or bloc's) currency to the dollar would essentially be an acknowledgement of the dollar's superiority and would be very unusual policy.
Contrary to what the author suggests, European economies (which may be large in absolute size) have some considerable structural deficiencies, and will not grow faster than the US economy in any sustainable way any time soon. As long as the US continues to have faster average growth than Europe, with low inflation and a stable government, merely saying that the Euro is just as good as a reserve currency doesn't do anything. As long as the US economy offers better growth prospects than the Euro zone, the dollar's long-term trend will be upward against the Euro. And pegging two currencies with an ever-widening gap in fundamentals will ultimately not prove helpful. It is this that makes the dollar useful and attractive as a reserve currency.
Since we didn't buy any oil from Iraq prior to the recent war, and we stopped selling/giving oil to North Korea, those two nations' decisions to stop using the dollar to denominate their oil transactions didn't do anything really to hurt us. The trivial amount of reserves ($10B) held by Hussein would do nothing really to weaken the dollar by virtue of their mere conversion into Euros; consider that this amount is similar to the amount of reserves held by Peru or Columbia, and that by comparison China holds $365B and even Poland holds $30B. Dropping $10B on the exchange market is no big deal.
Now, I don't want to be gratuitously negative about this, but I noted that the essay was posted on Indymedia. Indymedia is well-known for its tremendously liberal slant. The author of the essay even goes so far as to suggest that the media are willing participants in a conspiracy to suppress the information contained in the Clark essay, though he doesn't point out what the media gets for its end of the bargain in suppressing the information. I feel obligated to regard any unsubstantiated conspiracy theory proffered by a biased source (whether liberal or otherwise) with extreme skepticism.
One other general, fundamental issue I take with the essay is the ruthless, godlike competency that Mr Clark rather surprisingly ascribes to the Bush administration. I have not been impressed with either Treasury Secretary appointed by President Bush; Paul O'Neill is a decent man but was clueless as Treasury chief, and Snow seemed downright pleased with the dollar's weakening (leading as it does in the short term to a boost in US exports but causing a decrease in foreign capital investment in the long term). And we all know liberal opinion surrounding Mr Bush's personal intelligence.
Despite this, the author would have us believe that this administration has adopted a long-term strategy centered around an economic subtlety which is difficult to understand, which they don't intend to explain, and that they will pursue this (in their first term!) via a war that the liberals would have us understand no one wanted. I'm not sure most government officials (in this administration or any other) work amid such certainty of their methods. Not all of them even agree on the best practices to achieve a basically agreed set of ends. To suggest that there is some ultra-efficient, incredibly competent, monolithic "corporate-military-industrial network conglomerate" (Clark's term; hereafter CMINC) pulling all the strings with absolute certainty that the actions they influence will produce the results they want is, I think, to give far too much credit to our government officials. What was this omnipotent CMINC doing during the Clinton administration? Was Clinton a tool of the CMINC as well? If not, and by Clinton merely winning an election the CMINC was thwarted for eight years, I'd suggest that maybe it's not really so powerful after all.
All in all, I appreciate you pointing me to the essay and giving me a shot at offering some objections to it. It was interesting reading even if I didn't agree with it. I'd be happy to elaborate on anything I've said above if you'd like, and if I've botched my analysis I'd honestly be glad to hear how. But all things considered, having read the argument you asked me to consider, I am respectfully unconvinced.
JK Saggese.
Posted by: JKS | October 12, 2003 4:13 PM
NYTE states:
"Even the alpha- sheep is still just a sheep."
Your point being ... ???
This is fun...:-)
I won a bet with a friend of mine that you would, in the next 5 posts (you've managed it sooner), employ an ad ovinem attack. I am 50 bucks richer (although it is CDN$, it comes to about $40 USD at today's exchange rate).
So, a little prejudicial, aren't we?
Google for "ovis canadensis", to get some dilatation of your cultural sphincter.
See, it is fascinating that you attribute to me, via cultural inference, what is your actual modus operandi, e.g. I present my own opinions while you resort to regurgitation of someone elses' opinions.
Please do us a favor and succinct or not, kindly present your own opinions, otherwise we would not have any choice but to either ignore you completely (with the possibility that you may be blocked by Bill from further spamming with ULEE [Unsolicited Lame Editorial Entry]), or respond to you with the following endearment: "Dear Regurgitator,... ".
Posted by: alphasheep | October 12, 2003 6:52 PM
JKS,
No, I don't believe I did read the Steven de Beste's article yet. Thanks for the pointer!
Alphons Ovcin
PS (trans. from Czech: ovcin=sheep's/[sheep sheppard];
Alph[ons]+Sheep = aplhasheep) :-)
Posted by: alphasheep | October 12, 2003 7:04 PM
"soon murder will be the only way for me to adequately express it. "
Just have to say that I love the short direct but powerful foreshadowing there and the analogy of chasing a rabbit down a hole with James Lileks, also another brilliant writer. Keep it up!
Posted by: Cecile | October 12, 2003 7:06 PM
>
Sheep,
What the heck is "ad ovinem" ? When Eminem throws an egg at someone? Your friend deserves to lose for not checking a dictionary before paying up. You sold him a pile of ad bovinem.
Are you even American?
US soldiers bulldoze farmers' crops
"Americans accused of brutal 'punishment' tactics against villagers, while British are condemned as too soft
By Patrick Cockburn in Dhuluaya
12 October 2003
US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.
The stumps of palm trees, some 70 years old, protrude from the brown earth scoured by the bulldozers beside the road at Dhuluaya, a small town 50 miles north of Baghdad. Local women were yesterday busily bundling together the branches of the uprooted orange and lemon trees and carrying then back to their homes for firewood.
Nusayef Jassim, one of 32 farmers who saw their fruit trees destroyed, said: "They told us that the resistance fighters hide in our farms, but this is not true. They didn't capture anything. They didn't find any weapons."
Other farmers said that US troops had told them, over a loudspeaker in Arabic, that the fruit groves were being bulldozed to punish the farmers for not informing on the resistance which is very active in this Sunni Muslim district.
"They made a sort of joke against us by playing jazz music while they were cutting down the trees," said one man. Ambushes of US troops have taken place around Dhuluaya. But Sheikh Hussein Ali Saleh al-Jabouri, a member of a delegation that went to the nearby US base to ask for compensation for the loss of the fruit trees, said American officers described what had happened as "a punishment of local people because 'you know who is in the resistance and do not tell us'." What the Israelis had done by way of collective punishment of Palestinians was now happening in Iraq, Sheikh Hussein added.
The destruction of the fruit trees took place in the second half of last month but, like much which happens in rural Iraq, word of what occurred has only slowly filtered out. The destruction of crops took place along a kilometre-long stretch of road just after it passes over a bridge.
Farmers say that 50 families lost their livelihoods, but a petition addressed to the coalition forces in Dhuluaya pleading in erratic English for compensation, lists only 32 people. The petition says: "Tens of poor families depend completely on earning their life on these orchards and now they became very poor and have nothing and waiting for hunger and death."
The children of one woman who owned some fruit trees lay down in front of a bulldozer but were dragged away, according to eyewitnesses who did not want to give their names. They said that one American soldier broke down and cried during the operation. When a reporter from the newspaper Iraq Today attempted to take a photograph of the bulldozers at work a soldier grabbed his camera and tried to smash it. The same paper quotes Lt Col Springman, a US commander in the region, as saying: "We asked the farmers several times to stop the attacks, or to tell us who was responsible, but the farmers didn't tell us."
Informing US troops about the identity of their attackers would be extremely dangerous in Iraqi villages, where most people are related and everyone knows each other. The farmers who lost their fruit trees all belong to the Khazraji tribe and are unlikely to give information about fellow tribesmen if they are, in fact, attacking US troops.
Asked how much his lost orchard was worth, Nusayef Jassim said in a distraught voice: "It is as if someone cut off my hands and you asked me how much my hands were worth."
12 October 2003 08:30
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=452375
Posted by: Winning Hearts And Minds nyte | October 12, 2003 8:50 PM
Dear Regurgitator,
You've probably heard "ad hominem". If you do not know what that means, look it up. Ad ovinem is not grammatically correct as Latin goes, but since "ovis" means sheep, you may be able to put 2+2 together.
> Are you even American?
Lemme check... no, that would be an odd one.
Oh, you don't mean, perchance: "Are you, even, an American"?
I am somewhat an American (explanation some messages back), and certainly a North American.
As the citizenship goes: Great White North.
Well, as the rest of your post is concerned..., you don't get it, apparently.
My daughter invented a scale of densities (1-5, 5 being the greatest density), so you would be 5 on that scale, possibly 6.
Or, I can probably borrow a line from Shawshank Redemption: "Why are you so obtuse? Is it on purpose"?
It is possible that you may be helped. I have to consider that it may be some form of a genetical disorder... but who knows, maybe it can be really changed by some form of therapy, and you might become a productive member of society again. I certainly hope so.
AO
Posted by: alphasheep | October 12, 2003 10:33 PM
Alphasheep,
Anyone who makes jokes based on Latin sources for English words is OK by me. And it's refreshing to meet a Canadian with your views, which I fear may be less common than one would hope among your countrymen.
I tracked down a particular link to the den Beste article I alluded to, since it might otherwise take some searching. I think you and Mr den Beste are on the same track, and needless to say it's one I agree with.
The essay, if I haven't botched all this html business, can be found here:
Strategic Overview
Regards,
JKS.
Posted by: JKS | October 13, 2003 12:37 AM
You've probably heard "ad hominem". If you do not know what that means, look it up. Ad ovinem is not grammatically correct as Latin goes, but since "ovis" means sheep, you may be able to put 2+2 together.>>
You're pretty far gone, aren't you? Wanting so badly believe I needed that explanation. Despite it being clear that I am keeping up with our conversation just fine sans your condescending 'help'. But it's not even about me. Your judgement is too impaired to know how much is enough. As evidenced by this squirming...
Are you even American?
Oh, you don't mean, perchance: "Are you, even, an American"?
I am somewhat an American (explanation some messages back), and certainly a North American.
As the citizenship goes: Great White North. >>
In other words, without the squirming: No.
My daughter invented a scale of densities (1-5, 5 being the greatest density), so you would be 5 on that scale, possibly 6.
Or, I can probably borrow a line from Shawshank Redemption: "Why are you so obtuse? Is it on purpose"?
It is possible that you may be helped. I have to consider that it may be some form of a genetical disorder... but who knows, maybe it can be really changed by some form of therapy, and you might become a productive member of society again. I certainly hope so.
AO>>
Good god. You watched 'The Shawshank Redemption' ?
Yuck.
Doesn't take much to lull a sheep. No wonder you're so receptive to Bush blowing hot carbon monoxide.
At least the Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is aware that Bush is a lost puppet.
Senators: Bush Must Take Charge
WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2003
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Dick Lugar (Photo: AP)
“The president has to be the president, over the vice president and over these secretaries.”
Republican Sen. Dick Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
(CBS/AP) President George W. Bush has lost control of Iraq policy because of infighting among administration officials, the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday.
The committee leaders urged Bush to take charge of U.S. postwar policy in Iraq.
“The president has to be the president, over the vice president and over these secretaries,” the chairman, Republican Sen. Dick Lugar, said during a broadcast interview.
Added the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Joseph Biden: “There's no clear articulation within this administration of what the goals, what the message is, what the plan is. You have this significant division within the administration between the Powells and the Rumsfelds.”
Since early in the administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell has counseled a generally more moderate line than Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Even before the Iraq war in the spring, tales of tension and turf battles between their departments were widespread.
Lugar also predicted American forces might have to be in Iraq in some capacity for eight years or more. Both he and Biden said the country's recovery would cost at least $50 billion more than the $87 billion, including more than $20 billion for the recovery, that Bush has requested and is pending in Congress.
Both Biden and Lugar mentioned Cheney's speech last week, presented as a part of an “information offensive” by the administration to counter what it sees as unnecessarily negative media reports about the Iraq postwar situation.
Lugar called it “very, very tough and strident.” Biden said Cheney's desire, shared by Rumsfeld, is “to undermine international institutions because they feel it's a drag on our capability.”
This makes Biden's position as a Democrat who voted for Bush's war plan frustrating, “the most frustrating time in my career.”
The vote was correct, Biden said, because war was necessary to depose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. “I just did not count on the fact that it would be handled with such a degree of incompetence subsequent to the quote military victory,” Biden said.
The administration also came under criticism from Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry for being unwilling to create a real international coalition and alienating governments everywhere.
“This is haphazard, shotgun, shoot-from-the-hip diplomacy,” said the Massachusetts senator who is seeking his party's nomination to run against Bush next autumn.
Kerry, in a broadcast interview, said Bush and Cheney should apologize to Americans “for having misled America, for not having kept his promises of working adequately within the international community, not having built a legitimate international coalition, not having exhausted the process of the inspections.
“And, most importantly, not having gone to war as a matter of last resort, which is what he promised to America.”
The senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, also accused Bush of misleading the country about the war.
“We did not go to war to bring democracy and prosperity and peace to Iraq,” Rockefeller said in a broadcast interview.
“It was all about weapons of mass destruction and the imminent threat of America getting attacked. And what's ironic is that, in spite of the incredible job that our soldiers and Guard and the Reserve have done, we really are in more peril today than we were at the end of the formal part of the war.”
Bush declared major combat finished on May 1.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/09/politics/main577266.shtml?cmp=EM8707
Posted by: GOP Senator Deems Bush A Puppet, Iraq out of Control nyte | October 13, 2003 2:57 AM
JKS,
Thanks again. Skimmed it over and saw what you mean. Yup, pretty good summary. There are few details that I would probably see through a slightly different prism, but otherwise, Steven nailed it down pretty much as it is.
I might, at some point, feel compelled to expand on it, perhaps by starting a blog of my own and get it out in the open.
I may have only 2 brain cells, in contrast, but intend to utilize them extensively. :-)
Regarding us, Cannucks... we are quiet types, for the most part. It is a mistake to presume that views like mine are marginal. Not so, especially in the western part of the country, Alberta, BC. Here in BC, we have our quota of SLL (Socialist Lefty Loons), but fortunately, not as much as in the East. Our current Chretien's gummit sucks, but there is writing on the wall and the centrist parties (we really do not have true rightist parties here) talk about a merger, so I expect a quick demise of this shamefull period at the next elections. Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.
Regards,
AS
Posted by: alphasheep | October 13, 2003 4:21 AM
A link correction: USS Clueless - Strategic Overview
Posted by: alphasheep | October 13, 2003 4:35 AM
Alphasheep,
Thanks for correcting the html for my link. Someday I may realize one should learn to use a tool, before actually using a tool.
I didn't mean to casually insult Canadians; I live far enough east of you though that I mainly hear about the national government's latest capers, to the exclusion of other news. And the last time I was in Toronto was Valentine's Day weekend this year, when the streets were thronging with hippies and radicals and nutjobs waving Bush=Hitler signs.
It's encouraging to know that the rest of the country doesn't necessarily support all this. And I imagine that Albertans and Ontarians share opinions about like Ohioans and Californians do.
My apologies; no offense was intended.
Regards,
JKS.
Posted by: JKS | October 13, 2003 6:52 AM
Alphasheep,
" Try explaining that to the constituency,
with all the details of possible consequences and scenarios that it
would entail. It is a completely new situation, some of the elements
are in the state of flux and with a high degree of unpredictability.
It would probably not be possible to fully explain to the public what
is involved."
Sorry, but that's not the way we expect our government operate. Ours is a representative government. They serve at the will of the people.
They cannot make decisions, especially on issues as important as going to war with another country, in secret. They HAVE to explain to the american people what the goal is, what the costs will be, at least an estimate, and what ramifications this action will likely entail for the United States geopolitically.
I also take issue with this:
"Killing of 'few Saudis' would not resolve anything..."
Why is that? Let's assume we located an individual who was an active financial and logistics supporter of AQ in Indonesia. Wouldn't we want to locate that person and either take them alive to Gitmo or kill them? Isn't that what the war on terror is all about? They want to kill us so we should kill them before they have the opportunity. Saudi nationality shouldn't matter.
Killing a Saudi national would insult the kingdom but who cares? What are they going to do? Turn off the oil spigot in protest? Somehow I doubt it. What's left? Complaining to the Arab league?
The U.N.? The fact is they would have no recourse whatsoever that wouldn't jeapordize their "special relationship" with the United States. They would be seen as weak, feeble and a puppet of the west within the broader Arab world and that's just where we should want them. Weak and feeble and in need of protection is what they are. We should remind them of that.
Nick Foresta
Posted by: nick foresta | October 13, 2003 8:13 AM
Power indeed.
Within the next two decades demand for oil will outstrip supply. Geologists say as early as 2006, producers think as late as 2026.In addition North America's Natural Gas supplies are crashing according to a recent DoE report.
In a sub-continent in which the inhabitants utilise 25% of the worlds energy demands, the outcome as demand outstrips supply is inexorably a deep economic malaise until alternative energies can be massively harnessed.
A democracy so pussywhipped by it's global corporate masters that carbon rehab is next to impossible - regardless of the political persuasion of the prevailing administration - is headed for unmitigated disaster
As has been pointed out (and yes, eloquently), the history of man follows the history of human power. Consequently, the history of 20th century man was been the history of oil.
As the age of carbon draws to a close, what can we expect from it's chronic addicts who have delayed treatment to the detriment of their economies for the interests of their elites?
Perhaps we are now finding out . . . .
Posted by: Matt Quinn | October 13, 2003 8:50 AM
Matt Quinn,
My granchildren's grandchildren will have grandchildren before your pessimistic energy future even starts to see the dawn of day.
With the future looking that bleak to you, how to you get up every morning?
Posted by: Black Oak | October 13, 2003 10:58 AM
Dear Bill, Your essay on Power touched on one of my favorite topics: the Philippine-American War(1899-1903)--not "rebellion" or "insurrection." I explain the distinction and I'm glad you've discovered America's Iraq-before-Iraq. (By the way, did you know that the Moro Massacre you mentioned shares the Alamo's anniversary?) All those famous Americans that made their mark in this Archipelago:::McKinley, Dewey, Taft, MacArthur, should speak again to Americans in the 21st century... so many people...so much history...so much history in the making. Your comments on the nature of power and the dilemma that faces America over its use, needed this riposte for my readers at Philippine Commentary. (http://deanjorgebocobo.blogspot.com/)
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