September 30, 2007
A REFRESHINGLY STRAIGHTFORWARD STATEMENT OF THE FACTS:
The GM-UAW contract: Pace car for the U.S.?: If approved, this deal sets big tasks for GM and the UAW that can help the US stay competitive and healthy. (CS Monitor, 10/01/07)
For the UAW, the task ahead is to run a new type of healthcare enterprise, called a "voluntary employee beneficiary association"(VEBA). GM's initial contribution of $30 billion to VEBA will keep it going for a while. But some VEBAs in other industries have failed. The UAW must show that a consumer-driven healthcare system can work by restraining costs, such as providing incentives for preventive healthcare.Any success with this type of private healthcare could alter the debate over government versus private systems. The current dispute over increased federal funding for children's health in Washington would take the US further toward government-run care. But major Democratic presidential candidates have shifted to emphasizing private systems.
Rare enough for the mainstream to get the implications of either SHIP or the UAW VEBA right, nevermind both.
IN FAIRNESS TO THE METS...:
Florida 8, NY Mets 1 (AP, 9/30/07)
The collapse is complete. When the New York Mets needed a big game, Tom Glavine pitched one of his worst.After blowing a big September lead in the NL East, the Mets missed the playoffs Sunday when Glavine was tagged for seven runs during the first inning of a season-ending 8-1 loss to the Florida Marlins.
New York's loss coupled with Philadelphia's 6-1 win over Washington gave the division title to the Phillies and sent the stunned Mets home for the winter wondering how they squandered a seven-game cushion over the final 18 days of an excruciating season.
Now, David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Pedro Martinez and the rest of this talented team will forever be remembered alongside the 1964 Phillies and other famous failures for skidding to one of baseball's most monumental collapses.
They didn't so much collapse as settle at the level appropriate to their pitching staff. Omar Minaya has to carry the bag for their record.
60-40 NATION:
Local Democrats in West fear impact of unpopular ticket leader: Party officials in the Rocky Mountain region worry their congressional candidates' chances may be hurt by unfavorable presidential hopefuls, such as Hillary Clinton. (Noam N. Levey, 9/30/07, Los Angeles Times)
[A]s he prepares to run for a fifth term next year, [Max] Baucus is entering treacherous territory. Despite recent gains by Democrats in the Rocky Mountain West, party officials across the region are increasingly anxious that their congressional candidates may get dragged under by Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign.The New York senator and Democratic front-runner was by a wide margin the most unpopular of 13 potential presidential candidates in Montana, according to a June survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research for the Billings Gazette; 61% said they would not consider voting for her, compared with 49% who would not vote for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and 45% who would not vote for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. The most unpopular Republican candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, was rejected by 51%.
The GOP basically starts with a natural 30 states and 60 Senators.
SO FORMALIZE THE DE FACTO:
After losses, Palestinian zeal for intifadah flags:
Many are asking whether revolt has helped them (Mohammed Daraghmeh, September 30, 2007, Associated Press)
[T]he vastly outgunned Palestinians have been exhausted by the armed confrontation. A total of 4,453 Palestinians have been killed, along with 1,114 Israelis.Israel has built a West Bank barrier, which it says was designed to keep out attacks. But the enclosure dips into the West Bank at various points, putting 8.5 percent of the territory on the Israeli side. In Palestinian eyes, it is a thinly veiled land grab.
Israel has reoccupied West Bank towns and cities, sharply restricted Palestinian movement within the West Bank, and banned traffic between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinian dependence on foreign aid has grown, and most Gazans survive on less than $2 a day.
The number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, meanwhile, has soared, from about 1,650 to 11,000.
"Everything came to a standstill for seven years," said Adnan Attari, a 30-year-old merchant from a village near the West Bank town of Ramallah. "We didn't move forward but backward."
But the lack of commemoration reflects more than the uprising's setbacks. With the Hamas and Fatah factions locked in a battle for power, Palestinians are more concerned about their internal security than their conflict with Israel, polls show.
Which is exactly what treating them like a state and forcing elections was supposed to do. Now Israel and the US just have to allow the internal political process to play out.
LOW HANGING FRUIT:
China Communist elder issues bold call for democracy (Chris Buckley, September 30, 2007, Reuters)
In a bold jab before a key meeting of China's Communists, a 90-year-old former secretary to Mao Zedong has urged the Party to embrace democracy, saying that only political freedom can end instability and corruption.Li Rui issued his demand for citizens' rights and legal shackles on Party power in a Beijing magazine, China Across the Ages (Yanhuang Chunqiu), just over two weeks before President Hu Jintao opens the 17th Party Congress, which is set to give him five more years in power.
Hu cautiously has signaled modest political adjustments under strict one-party limits. But in a sign that liberal reformers may feel emboldened to press for bigger steps, Li argued that tinkering was not enough.
In the October edition of the outspoken magazine, Li said his country could be dragged back into past decades of chaos unless long-delayed democratization catches up with three decades of market reforms, ending the Party's "privileged status."
"I believe that reforming our Party is the crux that will decide the success or failure of all of China's reforms," wrote Li.
Ferment in Hong Kong, Burma, Taiwan, and the PRC provides a perfect opportunity to give the whole region a good hard shake.
A MATTER OF FACE[BOOK]:
Backpacker turns activist, with boost from Facebook (David Fox, September 30, 2007, Reuters)
A chance encounter in a Burman coffee shop turned Canadian backpacker Alex Bookbinder into a political activist at the forefront of an Internet campaign that has attracted tens of thousands of supporters.Bookbinder, 19, is the creator of the "Support the Monks' Protest in Burma" campaign on the Internet social networking site Facebook.
The campaign seeks to draw attention to the violent crackdown by Burma's military rulers against prodemocracy protests led by the country's revered Buddhist monks. It has attracted nearly 140,000 members since being launched on Sept. 19, and thousands more are joining each day.
"I'm overwhelmed by the response," Bookbinder said in an interview conducted, appropriately, over the Internet.
Gotta turn that attention to a single achievable purpose though, like demanding a US boycott of the Beijing Olympics if China doesn't help isolate the junta.
THERE IS NO CHINA:
Taiwan Party Asserts Separate Identity (ANNIE HUANG, 9/30/07, AP)
Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party passed a resolution Sunday asserting the island's separate identity from rival China and calling for a referendum on Taiwan's sovereignty.The resolution for a "normal country" — passed after heated debate at a boisterous party congress — calls for general use of "Taiwan" as the island's name, without specifically abolishing its current formal name, the Republic of China. It also calls for the enactment of a new constitution, but gives no specific deadline for either that or the referendum.
The resolution, which passed 250-73, could rile China, which has repeatedly threatened war if Taiwan formalizes its de facto independence.
"We should rectify our name to Taiwan and enact a new constitution as soon as possible," the resolution says. "A public referendum should be held at an appropriate time to underscore Taiwan as a sovereign state."
Taiwan can probably defeat China even without our help, which they'll get anyway.
CRANK THE TORQUE:
UN Envoy Meets With Suu Kyi, Junta (AP, 9/30/07)
A U.N. envoy met Sunday with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi after meeting with Myanmar's military rulers as he sought a peaceful solution to the government's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.The separate talks occurred as thousands of troops locked down Myanmar's largest cities Sunday. Scores of people were arrested overnight, further weakening an uprising that sought to end 45 years of military dictatorship.
Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N.'s special envoy to Myanmar, went to the remote bunker-like capital Naypyitaw on Saturday to meet with the junta and stayed overnight, foreign Asian diplomats said.
On Sunday, he returned to Yangon and was whisked to the State Guest House to meet Suu Kyi, who was brought out of house arrest to see the U.N. envoy in what appeared to be an unexpected concession by the junta.
Burma protesters call for help from outside world (Denis D. Gray, 9/30/07, Associated Press)
Watching soldiers firing their guns and beating determined protesters with clubs in the streets of Burma, a distraught man decried the violent crackdown and pleaded for American intervention.With the streets mostly quiet yesterday after the military's brutal suppression of three days of demonstrations, many protesters were losing hope and falling back on such familiar pleas for help from the outside world.
It's a call made every time the prodemocracy movement has dared stand up against Burma's 45 years of harsh military rule, only to be crushed.
Some of those challenging the regime in the most forceful demonstrations in nearly two decades still hope such help - even in the form of US bombing - may arrive.
About 300 protesters marched down a street in the Chinatown section of Burma's main city, Rangoon, yesterday, waving the peacock-emblazoned flags of the democracy movement. They dispersed when soldiers arrived.
Aung San Suu Kyi has tremendous moral cache which she has to use to put pressure on the West if this rebellion is to go any further.
SO NICE TO COME HOME TO:
Bond star Lois Maxwell dies at 80 (BBC, 9/30/07)
Actress Lois Maxwell, who starred as Miss Moneypenny in a string of James Bond movies, has died aged 80.Maxwell starred alongside Sir Sean Connery in Bond's first movie outing, Dr No, in 1962.
She played the role until 1985's A View To A Kill with Sir Roger Moore, who told the BBC she had been a "great asset" to the early Bond movies. [...]
She appeared in more movies than any of the actors who played the lead role in the spy series, including Sir Sean Connery and Sir Roger Moore.
Only Desmond Llewelyn, who played gadget man Q 17 times before his death in 1999, starred in more films.
[Said Roger Moore,] "I think it was a great disappointment to her that she had not been promoted to play M. She would have been a wonderful M."
THE ONE BAD THING ABOUT TIMES SELECT...:
9/11 Is Over (THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, 9/30/07, NY Times)
You may think Guantánamo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda terrorists. A lot of the world thinks it’s a place we send visitors who don’t give the right answers at immigration. I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans. Guantánamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.
...was that it denied bloggers a target rich environment. For instance, Mr. Friedman's insistence that we ought to govern ourselves in order to please our enemies can't help but remind one of a German Jew in the '30s who thought he could act in a way that the Nazis would like him.
BETTER NOT DROP THE GOAL POST REPLACEMENT FUND:
Underdogs deliver multiple hard-to-believe moments (Pat Forde, 9/29/07, ESPN.com)
Underdog campuses were fired up all over America on Insanity Saturday. They were also fired up in Auburn, Ala. And in Manhattan, Kan. And College Park, Md. And Tampa, Fla., too.The students in those locales had reason to party after their teams upset top-10 teams this weekend. Down went No. 3 Oklahoma to Colorado, No. 4 Florida to Auburn, No. 7 Texas to Kansas State, No. 10 Rutgers to Maryland, and on Friday, No. 5 West Virginia to South Florida.
Throw in upset losses by No. 13 Clemson and No. 21 Penn State and even first-half deficits for big dogs USC and LSU against Washington and Tulane, respectively, and you have Insanity Saturday.
Just that fast, the college football landscape shifted seismically beneath our feet.
Just that fast, the Red River Shootout game Saturday between Oklahoma and Texas was dropped to undercard status. For the first time in years, it's not the marquee game in the Big 12. And for the first time in years, the league's maligned North looks more compelling than the South. If you can believe it, the biggest game in that league next week might be unbeaten Kansas at 3-1 Kansas State -- either that or 4-1 Nebraska at unbeaten Missouri.
Just that fast, the upcoming LSU-Florida showdown Saturday in Baton Rouge lost half its helium when the Gators were shocked in The Swamp by an Auburn team that had lost at home to South Florida and Mississippi State on consecutive weekends.
Just that fast, the three Big East teams that began the season in the Top 25 all have at least one loss. Louisville went down first, then West Virginia, now Rutgers. Suddenly South Florida, Connecticut and Cincinnati are the unbeaten teams in the Big East. Honk if you foresaw that in August.
Just that fast, Illinois is 4-1 and tied for first in the Big Ten at 2-0. That's the same Illinois that went 2-10 last year, with only one victory over I-A competition.
Just that fast, we have an ACC plot twist that leaves Virginia and Boston College well out in front in their respective divisions at 3-0 in league play. Virginia was left for dead after a Week 1 blowout loss to Wyoming. Boston College was picked last in its division by at least one preseason magazine.
And just that fast, USC and LSU put that much more distance between themselves and what's left of the pack.
September 29, 2007
AN ACTUAL BLACK SWAN:
Tylenol Tampering Case Unsolved at 25 (DON BABWIN, 9/28/07, AP)
Helen Jensen can still picture the bottle of Tylenol perched in the medicine cabinet. She feels the receipt she pulled from the wastebasket. She hears the pills she poured onto the kitchen table.And she recalls the absolute certainty, even before she finished counting, that pills from the bottle in her hand killed the 27-year-old man who lived there, as well as two of his relatives.
"Six capsules were missing, and there were three people dead," she recalled thinking.
It has been exactly 25 years since Jensen, then a nurse for the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights who accompanied investigators to the home, played her role in a story that sent shock waves all over the country.
In a space of three days beginning Sept. 29, 1982, seven people who took cyanide-laced Tylenol in Chicago and four suburbs died. That triggered a national scare that prompted an untold number of people to throw medicine away and stores nationwide to pull Tylenol from their shelves.
If the scare has faded from memory, pushed aside by terrorist attacks and natural disasters, reminders of what happened are as close as the drug store and the corner market.
"Every time you open a bottle or package (of medicine, food or drink) that has tamper evidence features, a band around the lid or an interior seal, it is because of the Tylenol case," said Pan Demetrakakes, executive editor of Food & Drug Packaging magazine.
Jeffrey Leebaw, a spokesman for Tylenol maker Johnson & Johnson of New Brunswick, N.J., declined to comment Friday.
For those who lost loved ones or investigated the case, pain, anger and frustration remain. Part of the reason is that nobody was ever charged, much less convicted of the crime.
While the incident might never have been repeated, it makes good marketing sense to be seen to be making it hard for it to happen to your product.
THERE IS NO CHINA:
George W Bush to meet Dalai Lama in US first (Richard Spencer, 29/09/2007, Daily Telegraph)
President George W Bush is to become the first American president to meet the Dalai Lama in a gesture of recognition for the religious leader of Tibetan Buddhism that risks infuriating the Chinese government.Mr Bush will meet the Dalai next month at a ceremony in front of the symbol of American democracy, the Capitol building, where the Tibetan leader will be presented with the Congressional Gold Medal.
The Chinese government reacts with fury to any gesture of recognition given to the Dalai who fled the country into exile in 1959 and whom it regularly accuses of trying to "split" Tibet from the rest of China.
Rising up for freedom (The Ottawa Citizen, September 29, 2007)
The battle between freedom and bondage has its moments of clarity, when walls come down, when people rise up, when the world can't look away. This week in Burma has been one of those moments.
[...]The Burmese regime depends on the support of China and, to a lesser extent, India. China is in an awkward position: it is itself an anti-democratic regime, and it put down a major uprising in the same era as the 8888 Revolution and the Suu Kyi election. The parallels are obvious. Besides, China benefits from a cozy economic relationship with Burma.
But as the host of the Beijing Olympics -- which will open next Aug. 8, the 20th anniversary of the 8888 uprising -- China has to at least appear to be concerned about this crisis in its neighbourhood. And while China publicly insists that Burma is not a threat to international security, the health, refugee and drug crises on Burma's borders should worry all its neighbours.
The Chinese government has begun to acknowledge its international responsibilities, and to be held to account for enabling the likes of North Korea and Sudan. The uprising in Burma will be a test of China's ability to pick the right side in global affairs. It should also be a test for democratic India, which has been engaging in a dangerous rapprochement with Burma.
The violence in Burma must end, but a return to the status quo ante would not be any kind of resolution. The people would still be poor and unfree. Democratization must come to Burma, and all nations must work toward that goal.
In securing the Olympics the Chinese handed us a sword which it would be shameful not to use against these regimes on behalf of their peoples.
DEFINE THE CONTRIBUTION AND THE BENEFIT CAN BE MASSIVE:
The UAW's Awakening: A union shows a new awareness of global competition. (Opinion Journal, September 29, 2007)
This week's deal between General Motors and the United Auto Workers is being hailed as a new era for Detroit, and for once that advertising may be justified. The UAW in particular made historic concessions that show a new awareness of global competition. What's less encouraging is how much this reality-based compromise still contrasts with the policies that unions and their political friends are promoting in the unreal world of Washington, D.C. [...]In what seems to be the most creative stroke, GM will pay some $35 billion toward a new health-care trust fund to be administered by the union. That's a big initial cash flow, but it means the company can divest itself of some $50 billion in long-term liabilities, which would only have grown as health-care costs rose and retirees lived longer. Investors loved it, driving up GM stock by around 7% for the week.
The UAW now gains ownership of its members' health-care resources, in effect becoming a financial manager of a giant Health Savings Account for auto workers.
Indeed, you have to wonder if EJ Dionne even understood that he was praising the Ownership Society yesterday
COUGHLIN CORNER:
Father Dobbs: Assaulting CNN audiences with bossy harangues, Lou Dobbs has remained unruffled by conflict and become a major weight on public opinion (James Wolcott, September 28, 2007, Vanity Fair)
If Lou Dobbs were any more full of himself, the tub would overflow. In the autumn resplendence of his telecasting career, Dobbs's self-regard, never meek or slender, has ripened into the pompatus of love. I am Lou, hear me moo, in numbers too big to eschew. It isn't just that the ratings for CNN's starship enterprise Lou Dobbs Tonight have been climbing while those of other cable news shows are being intubated, but that his force of personality and power of persuasion have elevated him to the status of a major public-opinion shaper—a heavy-lumber political slugger. If he were a Robert Ludlum hero, this chapter of his life could be called "The Dobbs Supremacy." It was Dobbs more than any other tongue flapper who put the kibosh on the Dubai-ports deal by flogging it as a risk to national security and economic sovereignty, not to mention a rude slap in the honest face of every hardworking American, which leaves out a few people I happen to know, including me. "For fifteen evenings," Ken Auletta wrote in The New Yorker, "Dobbs spoke about 'the outrage' of allowing a Middle Eastern country 'with ties to the September 11 terrorists' to operate six American ports. Dobbs certainly was not the only person to raise questions, but the resulting furor eventually prompted Dubai to abandon the plan." The scuttling of the Dubai-ports deal was a warm-up bout to Dobbs's biggest feat of strength so far, his duel in the dust with the comprehensive immigration reform bill that was the darling dream baby of President Bush—his last big domestic achievement before returning to Crawford, Texas, to enter that long night of the iguana. As we know, the bill croaked after one of those cloture votes that lend such cliff-hanging suspense to the legislative process. Although the conservative bloggers and talk-radio caterwaulers, tweaking their nipples and twirling their jockstraps, indulged in yet another orgy of triumphalism as they inflated the magnitude of their heroic role in murdering this bill in its cradle (overcome with vapors, National Review Online contributor Mark Krikorian compared the bill's defeat to General Washington's staunch performance at the Battle of Monmouth, in 1778), it was the anti-Establishment establishmentarians of the mainstream media, in the persons of Dobbs and MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan, who were the true picadors, pricking this bipartisan package as an "amnesty" bill to the frustration of its advocates and drawing first blood. "Pitchfork Pat" Buchanan's nativism has always been a niche product, however. Dobbs commands a higher, wider seat of authority, no pun intended. Presiding over the recurring segment "Broken Borders" (cue night-vision footage of Mexicans climbing over and under fences, crossing ravines, running in a crouch), Dobbs has been the chief architect in constructing the ominous, dystopian specter of illegal immigration as home invasion on an epic scale, tracking crime, disease, and rampant illiteracy across our clean floors.
WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER HAT RACK:
Amazing night sets today's stage (Mark Newman, 9/29/07, MLB.com)
Now what?People around Major League Baseball are still recovering from the most unbelievable final Friday of any regular season. Did you see that? Of course you did. You saw everything. You were locked in like it was a Halo 3 all-nighter. Your head was spinning like Brandon Webb's breaking ball from trying to watch up to a dozen games at once.
Mets' meltdown almost complete (Toronto Star, Sep 29, 2007)
The New York Mets' meltdown reached the absurd last night. Out of first place and nearly out of time, they're going to need help just to make the playoffs. All-star third baseman David Wright forgot he had an easy force play, Oliver Perez hit a pair of batters with the bases loaded and the Mets stumbled out of the NL East lead with a 7-4 loss to the last-place Florida Marlins. New York has lost five straight and 11 of 15 to fall one game back of surging Philadelphia, which beat Washington 6-0. The Mets' eighth straight home loss dropped them out of first place for the first time since May 15. Everything looked rosy for the Amazin's when they held a seven-game lead on Sept. 12 with 17 games left, but it's been mostly downhill from there. They're on the brink now of an unthinkable collapse: No major league team has blown such a big lead in such a short time at the end of a season.
Bubbling over: Red Sox clinch first division title in 12 years (Gordon Edes, September 29, 2007, Boston Globe)
Theo Epstein trusted that the Red Sox would hold up their end of a championship bargain, but thought it was a good idea to send a text message to Kevin Millar, exhorting the former Sox partymeister to help put an end last night to Yankee aspirations in Baltimore."I told him, 'You own [Yankees pitcher Mike] Mussina. I said, 'You owe us one,' " Epstein said. "You've got to win at least one game for us singlehandedly. And tell [Orioles manager Dave] Trembley I don't want to see [Triple A] Ottawa out there."
"He wrote back, 'We'll see what we can do. I'll do my best for you.' "
It was the prelude to a made-for-TV experience. The Red Sox, whose 5-2 win over the Minnesota Twins ended at 9:39 p.m., became champions of the American League East an hour and 17 minutes later, at 10:56, when Millar and the Orioles beat the Yankees, 10-9, in 10 innings, a comeback win the Sox watched from inside their clubhouse while several thousand fans watched on the Fenway Park video scoreboard.
Millar did his part, getting hit by a pitch by Yankees closer Mariano Rivera in the ninth, when the Orioles rallied from three runs down to tie the score on a bases-loaded triple by former Sox outfielder Jay Payton. A third ex-Sox player, Chad Bradford, was the winning pitcher after escaping a bases-loaded jam in the 10th, and Melvin Mora dropped a two-out squeeze bunt to bring home the winning run after Millar looked at a called third strike.
Naturally, the irrepressible Millar was heard from in the midst of a wild Sox celebration that reached its apex when Alex Cora took command of the Fenway Park sound system, blasting "Sweet Caroline" while Jonathan Papelbon, wearing sliding shorts and a T-shirt, did a mad Irish jig on the mound.
"He texted me back and said, 'I told you I'd come through for you,' " Epstein said. "He said, 'I'm still sitting on that changeup, by the way. Congratulations.' "
How can the two NY teams spend $600 million and not at least accidentally acquire a worthwhile pitcher between them?
MORE:
NL Notes: Philadelphia Phillies (Houston Chronicle, 9/29/07)
Shortstop Jimmy Rollins got his 706th at-bat Friday to set the single-season major league record. Rollins flied out off the Nationals' Tim Redding in the third inning to break the mark set in 1980 by Willie Wilson of the Royals.
Biggio will put on catcher's mask one more time (BRIAN McTAGGART, 9/29/07, Houston Chronicle
For the first time since Oct. 5, 1991, Craig Biggio will catch in a game tonight as the Astros host the Atlanta Braves. Biggio is scheduled to catch one or two innings before moving to his normal position of second base.
September 28, 2007
"ACCESSIBLE AS HE WAS ERUDITE":
Professor Norman Cohn: Historian and linguist of rare erudition whose masterpiece was 'The Pursuit of the Millennium' (Independent, 29 September 2007)
Norman Cohn wrote three great histories, each thematically related to the other. His first book, The Pursuit of the Millennium (1957), showed how apocalyptic beliefs fuelled medieval heresies and, in the 20th century, Nazi and Communist orthodoxies. His second, Warrant for Genocide (1967), exposed that arsenal for anti-Semites The Protocol of the Elders of Zion for the forgery that it was. His third, Europe's Inner Demons (1976), showed how the idea of the satanic pact was at the heart of the European witch-craze. In 1948 the great Annales scholar Lucien Febvre had written his (then) startling essay, "Witchcraft: nonsense or a mental revolution?" Cohn's published writings would provide the most satisfying answer to that question.But first the nonsense had to be got out of the way. Not just the history – Nazi reliance on a dodgy document. But the historiography: credulous readers' reliance on Margaret Murray's fiction of witchcraft as Christianity's ancient religious rival. Cohn, the most modest and gentle of men, swept her 1921 romance The Witch-Cult in Western Europe into the dustbin. His weapons were, as in all his inquiries, patience, scrupulous testing of evidence and empathy into minds of very different cultures, all backed with formidable linguistic skills.
It was as a linguist, not a historian, that he had begun his academic career. [...]
Cohn was as accessible as he was erudite. Generations of undergraduates thrilled to The Pursuit of the Millennium. Scholars continue to raid his works for fresh insights. In the current Journal of Ecclesiastical History there is a review of a new French book on witchcraft, which grapples with the great question: where was the link between witchcraft as attested in early medieval folklore and the apparently sudden and unprecedented emergence, at some point after 1400, of a belief in a conspiracy between witches and the devil? The reviewer likes the book, but his final message is: go back to Cohn!
Sometimes the very boldness of the presentation leads to a failure in his readers to appreciate the subtleties behind it. Cohn never said – although he has been credited with saying it – that millenarianism inevitably produces revolutions. But his brilliant evocations of John of Leyden's reign of terror in Munster – and those flagellants who seem to have walked straight out of The Seventh Seal – once encountered by the reader stay in the mind. Cohn intended them to do so, but not at the price of failing to realise that millenarian speculations could have stabilising effects as well as destabilising ones.
He was particularly sensitive to the power of belief in a Last World Emperor as a secular companion figure to the Angelic Pope. There are 31 entries on the Emperor cult in The Pursuit of the Millennium index, which will surprise only those who accept a simplified reading of the Cohn thesis.
Norman Cohn, Historian, Dies at 92 (DOUGLAS MARTIN, 8/27/07, NY Times)
In highly detailed, laboriously researched studies that depended on his knowledge of many ancient languages, Mr. Cohn reached far back into history to illuminate subjects of compelling current interest from totalitarianism to anti-Semitism to repression of minorities.His gift for seeing old stories with new eyes shone in his book on the development and interpretation of the biblical story of Noah, “Noah’s Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought.” His crisp writing drew praise.
He was an unusual historian in that as a student he did not study history, but was trained as a linguist; he then put his knowledge of medieval Latin, Greek, Old French and High and Low German to work in his famously meticulous research. He also brought passion to his search for the roots of hatred: he had lost relatives in the Holocaust.
The Times Literary Supplement included his seminal 1957 book, “The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages,” in a 1995 list of the 100 nonfiction works with the greatest influence on how postwar Europeans perceive themselves. Other books on the list were by Camus, Sartre and Foucault.
Beginning with the Crusades and concluding with 16th-century Anabaptists, Mr. Cohn showed in this book how the desire of the poor to improve their lot merged with prophecies of a final struggle between Christ and Antichrist, to be followed by the emergence of a new paradise.
“In situations of mass disorientation and anxiety, traditional beliefs about a future golden age or messianic kingdom came to serve as vehicles for social aspirations and animosities,” he wrote.
This vision, he suggested, passed among cultures and languages and from religious to secular discourse without losing its coherence or power to jolt the downtrodden to rise up. Messianic leaders like Stalin and Hitler appealed to the deep, biblically inspired belief that after intense struggle history would end, and an elect of believers would inherit paradise.
“The old religious idiom has been replaced by a secular one, and this tends to obscure what otherwise would be obvious,” he wrote. “For it is the simple truth that, stripped of their original supernatural sanction, revolutionary millenarianism and mystical anarchism are with us still.”
Mr. Cohn’s theory emerged from a decade of research into millennial movements like the Flagellants who massacred the Jews of Frankfurt in 1349, the 16th-century Anabaptist theocracy of Münster, Germany, and the Ranters of the English Civil War.
Anthony Storr, a psychoanalyst who has written on historical figures, once called Mr. Cohn “the historian of important parts of history that other historians do not reach.”
Norman Cohn (Paul Lay, August 9, 2007, The Guardian)
-ARCHIVES: Norman Cohn - The New York Review of Books
HOLY HARSH STAT, BATMAN:
The Brewers have lost the last 21 games in which Chris Capuano, their starter tonight, has appeared.
NOW THERE'S A WORTHWHILE GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD:
Radical Syrian cleric 'shot dead' (BBC, 9/28/07)
A Syrian cleric suspected of recruiting foreign militants to fight in Iraq has been shot dead in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, his aides have said.Sheikh Mahmoud Abu al-Qaqaa was shot several times by a gunman as he left the Imam Mosque after Friday prayers. [...]
After the shooting, one aide to the cleric told the Associated Press that "terrorists" had killed the sheikh, whose real name was Mahmoud al-Aghassi, for his "nationalist positions".
The one who carried out the assassination was a prisoner of the American forces in Iraq and had been released some time ago
Sheikh Samir Abu KhashbehAnother aide, Sheikh Samir Abu Khashbeh, said the gunman had told him that he had killed the cleric "because he was an agent of the Americans".
"The one who carried out the assassination was a prisoner of the American forces in Iraq and had been released some time ago," Abu Khashbeh said. "He is known to us."
It's not terrorism when we do it.
JUST AS REAGAN FINISHED WITH A TRIP TO MOSCOW STATE...:
Iran invites Bush to speak at university (NASSER KARIMI, 9/28/07, Associated Press)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad invited President Bush to speak at an Iranian university if the American leader ever traveled to the Islamic Republic, state-run television reported Friday.Ahmadinejad caused an uproar during his visit to New York this week when he spoke at Columbia University. He faced tough questioning and the university's president introduced him by saying Ahmadinejad exhibited "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."
"If their president plans to travel to Iran, we will allow him to make a speech" at a university, Ahmadinejad told state TV earlier this week before leaving New York to travel to South America. He was in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
...this would be the ideal capstone to W's presidency. He could almost give the same speech, though Iran is much further advanced towards the End than Russia was, Ronald Reagan at Moscow State University (May 31, 1988)
Before I left Washington, I received many heartfelt letters and telegrams asking me to carry here a simple message, perhaps, but also some of the most important business of this summit. It is a message of peace and goodwill and hope for a growing friendship and closeness between our two peoples.First, I want to take a little time to talk to you much as I would to any group of university students in the United States. I want to talk not just of the realities of today, but of the possibilities of tomorrow.
You know, one of the first contacts between your country and mine took place between Russian and American explorers. The Americans were members of Cook's last voyage on an expedition searching for an Arctic passage; on the island of Unalaska, they came upon the Russians, who took them in, and together, with the native inhabitants, held a prayer service on the ice.
The explorers of the modern era are the entrepreneurs, men with vision, with the courage to take risks and faith enough to brave the unknown. These entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States. They are the prime movers of the technological revolution. In fact, one of the largest personal computer firms in the United States was started by two college students, no older than you, in the garage behind their home.
Some people, even in my own country, look at the riot of experiment that is the free market and see only waste. What of all the entrepreneurs that fail? Well, many do, particularly the successful ones. Often several times. And if you ask them the secret of their success, they'll tell you it's all that they learned in their struggles along the way — yes, it's what they learned from failing. Like an athlete in competition, or a scholar in pursuit of the truth, experience is the greatest teacher.
We are seeing the power of economic freedom spreading around the world — places such as the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan have vaulted into the technological era, barely pausing in the industrial age along the way. Low-tax agricultural policies in the sub-continent mean that in some years India is now a net exporter of food. Perhaps most exciting are the winds of change that are blowing over the People's republic of China, where one-quarter of the world's population is now getting its first taste of economic freedom.
At the same time, the growth of democracy has become one of the most powerful political movements of our age. In Latin America in the 1970's, only a third of the population lived under democratic government. Today over 90 percent does. In the Philippines, in the Republic of Korea, free, contested, democratic elections are the order of the day. Throughout the world, free markets are the model for growth. Democracy is the standard by which governments are measured.
We Americans make no secret of our belief in freedom. In fact, it's something of a national pastime. Every four years the American people choose a new president, and 1988 is one of those years. At one point there were 13 major candidates running in the two major parties, not to mention all the others, including the Socialist and Libertarian candidates — all trying to get my job.
About 1,000 local television stations, 8,500 radio stations, and 1,700 daily newspapers, each one an independent, private enterprise, fiercely independent of the government, report on the candidates, grill them in interviews, and bring them together for debates. In the end, the people vote — they decide who will be the next president.
But freedom doesn't begin or end with elections. Go to any American town, to take just an example, and you'll see dozens of synagogues and mosques — and you'll see families of every conceivable nationality, worshipping together.
Go into any schoolroom, and there you will see children being taught the Declaration of Independence, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights — among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that no government can justly deny — the guarantees in their Constitution for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion.
Go into any courtroom and there will preside an independent judge, beholden to no government power. There every defendant has the right to a trial by a jury of his peers, usually 12 men and women — common citizens, they are the ones, the only ones, who weigh the evidence and decide on guilt or innocence. In that court, the accused is innocent until proven guilty, and the word of a policeman, or any official, has no greater legal standing than the word of the accused.
Go to any university campus, and there you'll find an open, sometimes heated discussion of the problems in American society and what can be done to correct them. Turn on the television, and you'll see the legislature conducting the business of government right there before the camera, debating and voting on the legislation that will become the law of the land. March in any demonstrations, and there are many of them — the people's right of assembly is guaranteed in the Constitution and protected by the police.
But freedom is more even than this: Freedom is the right to question, and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuing revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions. It is the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire among the people. It is the right to stick - to dream - to follow your dream, or stick to your conscience, even if you're the only one in a sea of doubters.
Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority of government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put on this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer.
America is a nation made up of hundreds of nationalities. Our ties to you are more than ones of good feeling; they're ties of kinship. In America, you'll find Russians, Armenians, Ukrainians, peoples from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. They come from every part of this vast continent, from every continent, to live in harmony, seeking a place where each cultural heritage is respected, each is valued for its diverse strengths and beauties and the richness it brings to our lives.
Recently, a few individuals and families have been allowed to visit relatives in the West. We can only hope that it won't be long before all are allowed to do so, and Ukrainian-Americans, Baltic-Americans, Armenian-Americans, can freely visit their homelands, just as this Irish-American visits his.
Freedom, it has been said, makes people selfish and materialistic, but Americans are one of the most religious peoples on Earth. Because they know that liberty, just as life itself, is not earned, but a gift from God, they seek to share that gift with the world. "Reason and experience," said George Washington in his farewell address, "both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. And it is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government."
Democracy is less a system of government than it is a system to keep government limited, unintrusive: A system of constraints on power to keep politics and government secondary to the important things in life, the true sources of value found only in family and faith.
I have often said, nations do not distrust each other because they are armed; they are armed because they distrust each other. If this globe is to live in peace and prosper, if it is to embrace all the possibilities of the technological revolution, then nations must renounce, once and for all, the right to an expansionist foreign policy. Peace between nations must be an enduring goal — not a tactical stage in a continuing conflict.
I've been told that there's a popular song in your country — perhaps you know it — whose evocative refrain asks the question, "Do the Russians want a war?" In answer it says, "Go ask that silence lingering in the air, above the birch and poplar there; beneath those trees the soldiers lie. Go ask my mother, ask my wife; then you will have to ask no more, 'Do the Russians want a war?'"
But what of your one-time allies? What of those who embraced you on the Elbe? What if we were to ask the watery graves of the Pacific, or the European battlefields where America's fallen were buried far from home? What if we were to ask their mothers, sisters, and sons, do Americans want war? Ask us, too, and you'll find the same answer, the same longing in every heart. People do not make wars, governments do — and no mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology. A people free to choose will always choose peace.
Americans seek always to make friends of old antagonists. After a colonial revolution with Britain we have cemented for all ages the ties of kinship between our nations. After a terrible civil war between North and South, we healed our wounds and found true unity as a nation. We fought two world wars in my lifetime against Germany and one with Japan, but now the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan are two of our closest allies and friends.
Some people point to the trade disputes between us as a sign of strain, but they're the frictions of all families, and the family of free nations is a big and vital and sometimes boisterous one. I can tell you that nothing would please my heart more than in my lifetime to see American and Soviet diplomats grappling with the problem of trade disputes between America and a growing, exuberant, exporting Soviet Union that had opened up to economic freedom and growth.
Is this just a dream? Perhaps. But it is a dream that is our responsibility to have come true.
Your generation is living in one of the most exciting, hopeful times in Soviet history. It is a time when the first breath of freedom stirs the air and the heart beats to the accelerated rhythm of hope, when the accumulated spiritual energies of a long silence yearn to break free.
We do not know what the conclusion of this journey will be, but we're hopeful that the promise of reform will be fulfilled. In this Moscow spring, this May 1988, we may be allowed that hope — that freedom, like the fresh green sapling planted over Tolstoy's grave, will blossom forth at least in the rich fertile soil of your people and culture. We may be allowed to hope that the marvelous sound of a new openness will keep rising through, ringing through, leading to a new world of reconciliation, friendship, and peace.
Thank you all very much and da blagoslovit vas gospod! God bless you.
WHEN YOU PLAN FOR THE HIGHLY IMPROBABLE, YOU SACRIFICE THE PROBABLE:
CHAPTER ONE: ‘The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable’ By NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB
Before the discovery of Australia, people in the old world were convinced that all swans were white, an unassailable belief as it seemed completely confirmed by empirical evidence. The sighting of the first black swan might have been an interesting surprise for a few ornithologists (and others extremely concerned with the coloring of birds), but that is not where the significance of the story lies. It illustrates a severe limitation to our learning from observations or experience and the fragility of our knowledge. One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans. All you need is one single (and, I am told, quite ugly) black bird.I push one step beyond this philosophical-logical question into an empirical reality, and one that has obsessed me since childhood. What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes.
First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.
I stop and summarize the triplet: rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability. A small number of Black Swans explain almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives. Ever since we left the Pleistocene, some ten millennia ago, the effect of these Black Swans has been increasing. It started accelerating during the industrial revolution, as the world started getting more complicated, while ordinary events, the ones we study and discuss and try to predict from reading the newspapers, have become increasingly inconsequential.
Just imagine how little your understanding of the world on the eve of the events of 1914 would have helped you guess what was to happen next. (Don't cheat by using the explanations drilled into your cranium by your dull high school teacher). How about the rise of Hitler and the subsequent war? How about the precipitous demise of the Soviet bloc? How about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism? How about the spread of the Internet? How about the market crash of 1987 (and the more unexpected recovery)? Fads, epidemics, fashion, ideas, the emergence of art genres and schools. All follow these Black Swan dynamics. Literally, just about everything of significance around you might qualify.
This combination of low predictability and large impact makes the Black Swan a great puzzle; but that is not yet the core concern of this book. Add to this phenomenon the fact that we tend to act as if it does not exist! I don't mean just you, your cousin Joey, and me, but almost all "social scientists" who, for over a century, have operated under the false belief that their tools could measure uncertainty. For the applications of the sciences of uncertainty to real-world problems has had ridiculous effects; I have been privileged to see it in finance and economics. Go ask your portfolio manager for his definition of "risk," and odds are that he will supply you with a measure that excludes the possibility of the Black Swan-hence one that has no better predictive value for assessing the total risks than astrology (we will see how they dress up the intellectual fraud with mathematics). This problem is endemic in social matters.
The central idea of this book concerns our blindness with respect to randomness, particularly the large deviations: Why do we, scientists or nonscientists, hotshots or regular Joes, tend to see the pennies instead of the dollars? Why do we keep focusing on the minutiae, not the possible significant large events, in spite of the obvious evidence of their huge influence? And, if you follow my argument, why does reading the newspaper actually decrease your knowledge of the world?
It is easy to see that life is the cumulative effect of a handful of significant shocks. It is not so hard to identify the role of Black Swans, from your armchair (or bar stool). Go through the following exercise. Look into your own existence. Count the significant events, the technological changes, and the inventions that have taken place in our environment since you were born and compare them to what was expected before their advent. How many of them came on a schedule? Look into your own personal life, to your choice of profession, say, or meeting your mate, your exile from your country of origin, the betrayals you faced, your sudden enrichment or impoverishment. How often did these things occur according to plan?
Black Swan logic makes what you don't know far more relevant than what you do know. Consider that many Black Swans can be caused and exacerbated by their being unexpected.
Think of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001: had the risk been reasonably conceivable on September 10, it would not have happened. If such a possibility were deemed worthy of attention, fighter planes would have circled the sky above the twin towers, airplanes would have had locked bulletproof doors, and the attack would not have taken place, period. Something else might have taken place. What? I don't know. Isn't it strange to see an event happening precisely because it was not supposed to happen? What kind of defense do we have against that? Whatever you come to know (that New York is an easy terrorist target, for instance) may become inconsequential if your enemy knows that you know it. It may be odd to realize that, in such a strategic game, what you know can be truly inconsequential.
This is so silly on so many levels that you can hardly pick it all apart, but let's try:
(1) There are doves and ravens, Caucasians and Negroes, white sheep and black sheep, yet it is outside the realm of expectations that there are black swans to match our white ones? No, Mr. Taleb's central metaphor actually disproves his entire case (we need hardly point out that the fact of black swans has no impact whatsoever). It would be somewhat more accurate to say that if one considers a flock of white swans in the abstract, to the exclusion of all other human knowledge, then a black swan will be surprising. This makes for the perfect ivory tower intellectual exercise, but has nothing to do with human life as it is lived.
(2) As if black swans weren't trivial enough in their own right, the notion that it is the fact that the "significant shocks" in your life may not occur on precisely the schedule you imagined ahead of time that makes them "shocks" is truly inane. Remember the old apocryphal tale about the college president who addresses the incoming class and tells them to look at the student to the left and to the right and recognize that one of the three of you won't finish. Well, he could also tell you that most of you will marry, most have kids, most lose jobs, most move several times, all lose loved ones, many divorce, etc., etc., etc. Is the utter predictability of these life events really outweighed by the shock effect of their not happening at precisely predictable times? Is it not instead the case that the generally predictable and easily anticipated is just shocking to each of us in the particular?
(3) Not only was a terrorist attack along the lines of 9-11 predictable, but was frequently predicted, a staple of fiction, and had even been attempted already. In fact, the most shocking thing about 9-11 in retrospect is just how few people died. Cast yourself back to that day or to discussions of the earlier truck bomb attack and the casualty estimates were in the tens of thousands. It does not in any way cheapen the loss of life to note that we got off pretty easy compared to what we expected.
This raises a set of questions quite different from the ones the author intends:
Examining our actual losses to terrorism(*)--rather than our emotional reactions--might we not say that our level of preparation was reasonable? Mr. Taleb suggests that if we were serious about the risks we'd have hardened the doors of cockpits and, thus, prevented any attacks on 9-11. It's worth noting, first off, that there hadn't been a successful hijacking of an American flight in twenty years, so existing precautions had worked rather well. But, even if we fall with him into the trap of believing that by taking discrete actions we've anticipated the unexpected, we have to ask why he'd stop there. Given that terrorists have more typically attacked with car bombs, truck bombs, explosive belts, etc., what are the similarly basic steps he'd take to protect against the entirely predictable threat of common motor vehicles and ordinary pedestrians? Obviously if he proposed banning motor vehicles we'd grant that he takes the threat of their being used as weapons seriously and following where black swan logic leads him. However, isn't that the problem with the black swan, that it becomes the be all and end all of existence? The existence of the black swan, in this way of thinking, clouds the mind to the far greater prevalence of white swans. One becomes so focussed on a risk that it can never be assessed in relation to the benefits that accrue from treating it as an outlier.
It would be useful here to consider the black swan that never honked. For forty years people anticipated, with various degrees of hysteria, the possibility or even likelihood that the United States and the USSR would engage in a thermonuclear exchange of some intensity or another. And yet, at no time during those years was anyone even minimally prepared for the event. Sure, preparing even inadequately would have required trillions of dollars and untold man hours and material and so on. In retrospect, we have to be thankful that the black swan was largely ignored, because as it turned out, the damage we'd have done ourselves by taking it would have been catastrophic in its own right. It would have made us the sort of military resource-sink that Paul Kennedy fretted about in Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Instead we mostly went about our lives and the swans kept coming up white.
They usually do. When they don't, we figure out how to deal with the black one, often with little difficulty.
(*) Indeed, does 9-11 even meet the second part of Mr. Taleb's tripartite test? The US economy didn't skip a beat. We fought two rather desultory wars in the Middle East at minimal cost. They're building at the WTC site. The skies are filled with planes. Cory Lidle was able to fly a plane into a NYC building without anyone batting an eyelash. Etc. Where is the extreme impact?
Likewise, we're rebuilding New Orleans, despite Katrina, and the Pacific Rim is populated again. What long term impact do these swans really have?
Here are two really easily imagined black swans that we're all willfully ignoring and it's worth thinking about what you'd do to avoid them: a major earthquake in Los Angeles and a bit of space debris crashing into the Earth.
"SPIRITUAL HARDBALL":
Myanmar intensifies efforts to break up protests: Soldiers club and drag away activists, occupy Buddhist monasteries and cut the Internet. (Associated Press, September 28, 2007)
Soldiers clubbed and dragged away activists while firing tear gas and warning shots to break up demonstrations Friday before they could grow, and the government cut Internet access, raising fears that a deadly crackdown was set to intensify.Troops also occupied Buddhist monasteries in a bid to clear the streets of Myanmar's revered monks, who have spearheaded the demonstrations.
The government said 10 people have been killed since the violence began earlier this week, but British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he believed the loss of life in Myanmar was "far greater" than is being reported. Dissident groups have put the number as high as 200, although that number could not be verified.
Witnesses said security forces aggressively broke up a rally of about 2,000 people near the Sule Pagoda in the largest city, Yangon. About 20 trucks packed with soldiers arrived and announced over loudspeakers, "We give you 10 minutes to move out from the road. Otherwise we will fire."
A group of about 10 people broke away from the main crowd and rushed toward a line of soldiers, who were dressed in green uniforms with red bandanas around their necks, holding shields and automatic weapons. The people were beaten up, and five were seen being hauled away in a truck.
Soldiers dispersed the other protesters, beating them with clubs and firing shots in the air.
"People in this country are gentle and calm. (But) people are very angry now and they dare to do anything," said a shopkeeper, who witnessed the clash and did not want to be named for fear of reprisal.
MORE:
Burma's Revolt of The Spirit (Michael Gerson, September 28, 2007, Washington Post)
The great virtue of Buddhism is serene courage in the face of inevitable affliction. That courage is on display now in Burma -- a nation caught upon the wheel of suffering.The sight of young, barefoot monks in cinnamon robes quietly marching for democracy, amid crowds carrying banners reading "love and kindness," is already a symbol of conscience for a young century. On closer examination, these protests have also shown that nonviolence need not be tame or toothless. The upside-down bowls carried by some of the monks signal that they will not accept alms from the leaders of the regime, denying them the ability to atone for bad deeds or to honor their ancestors. These chanting monks are playing spiritual hardball.
Once again -- as in the American civil rights struggle and the end of communism in Eastern Europe -- religion is proving to be an uncontrollable force in an oppressive society. Religious dissidents have the ability not only to organize opposition to tyrants but also to shame them. Political revolutions often begin as revolutions of the spirit.
THE RATIONALISTS' LONG WAR AGAINST HUMAN NATURE:
REVIEW: of 'Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life ' by Robert B. Reich: The former Labor secretary discusses how capitalism on steroids shapes our lives today. (Terry Burnham, 9/28/07, LA Times)
Reich, a former secretary of Labor for the Clinton administration and now a professor at UC Berkeley, identifies human nature as a central cause for these woes. Borrowing a line from the comic strip "Pogo," he writes that "we have met the enemy and it is us." Throughout the book, he laments the decline in unionization and the increased variability of income in the United States. Finding the culprit in our greed, he writes, "consumers get great deals largely because workers get shafted."Reich's view that our own human nature lies at the root of modern woes stands in refreshing contrast to standard left-right rhetoric. On the left, liberals assert a benign and blank-slate human nature manipulated by evil corporations. The right is even sillier, particularly when it propagates the hyper-rational view of neoclassical economics. For example, Nobel laureate Gary Becker published a famous academic article arguing that heroin addicts "maximize utility" when they inject themselves. Reich, however, threads an important distinction between leftist human innocence and libertarian human infallibility. As he notes in the book's strongest chapter, we are "of two minds" about modernity.
Other aspects of "Supercapitalism" are less satisfying. These include bad history, bad politics, bad economics and bad policy.
Imagine being in the economics seminar where Professor Reich tries explaining the difference between a worker and a consumer? Henry Ford had figured out there was none 80 years ago, which is where we got the weekend.
SAFE AS AMERICAN HOUSES:
Capitalism does work (Chan Akya, 9/29/07, Asia Times)
The most recent episode in US financial markets will be mulled and studied for a long time after all Asian banks - commercial and central - fess up to their losses. While the average Western newspaper appears to blame Wall Street investment banks for the mess, they are barking up the wrong tree as usual. It is not the rapacious capitalists on Wall Street who are to blame, but rather the currency-manipulating Asian central banks. The fault lines of the current crisis thus lie in the antiquated policies of Asian central banks that defy the basic principles of capitalism or even enlightened self-interest.By stoutly defending their currency pegs to the US dollar well past the intended turnaround in current-account surpluses at the end of the 1990s, Asian economies in effect assumed a subsidiary role to US requirements. A ready supply of investments from Asia meant that pretty much "acceptable" security could be sold down, often well below the returns that prudent economic agents would demand.
Asian central banks invested primarily in debt, and were bound by historically inspired mandates of asset quality that relied much on the rating agencies such as Standard & Poor's and Moody's. Profit-seeking agents (or normal human beings to you and me), in this case Wall Street bankers, rightly then provided the service of combining the willing lender with those that America's own banks would not touch with a barge pole, namely the subprime borrowers. Long considered too risky by mainline banks, the borrowers suddenly presented other market folks with exactly the right opportunity, namely the generation of new mortgages, securities on which could be sold to Asian (and European) banks.
I am under no illusion that it was Asia's voracious appetite for such debt instruments that lies at the heart of the mess. Look at the deal that the average burger-flipper in America's heartland got: with a minimum-wage job or two, you could qualify for a largish mortgage that could buy the house of your dreams. True, you had to make mortgage payments (which the government deemed tax-deductible, in yet another assault on the free market) but there was always the chance of selling your house to the next chap for a big profit. The stories of many such new millionaires inspired millions to join the grand scheme. As market returns always fall when trades get crowded, so too did this little scam end, with house prices tumbling across the United States and people facing foreclosure.
Two pretty basic realities make this a phenomena that won't end anytime soon: (1) much of the world's population lives in countries with fairly dismal futures, so it makes good economic sense for them to invest their money in America, not at home; (2) even setting aside the brighter future generally in America, when you consider only the housing market you bump up against the fact that we need to find places for another 200 million people to live over the next 40 years and borrow the money to build and buy those homes. It's a win/win situation and those are more impervious to change than the valetudinarians care to recognize.
WHEREAS, THEY HAVE TO BE LUCKY EVERY DAY:
US Iraq strike 'kills senior al-Qaida leader' (Fred Attewill and agencies, September 28, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)
Brigadier General Joseph Anderson said Abu Usama al Tunisi had been instrumental in bringing foreign fighters into Iraq."Abu Usama al-Tunisi was one of the most senior leaders ... the emir of foreign terrorists in Iraq and part of the inner leadership circle," he said.
Brig Gen Anderson also described al-Tunisi, a Tunisian, as a close associate of and likely successor to Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the Egyptian believed to head al-Qaida in Iraq.
IT'S LIKE THE FED IS OTHELLO... (via mc):
Spending, construction both rise (MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP)
Consumers shrugged off a rash of bad news to spend more than expected in August while a key measure of inflation eased to the slowest pace in 3 1/2 years. Construction activity also rose above expectations.The Commerce Department reported Friday that consumer spending rose by 0.6 percent in August, the best showing in four months and better than the 0.4 percent increase that had been expected. Incomes rose by 0.3 percent, slightly lower than had been expected.
A closely watched gauge of inflation was up just 1.8 percent in August, compared to the same period a year ago, the smallest increase since a similar rise in February 2004.
...but America has a steel throat.
MAKE HIM TIMES SELECT AGAIN, PLEASE:
Hired Gun Fetish (Paul Krugman, 9/28/07, Der Spiegel)
Sometimes it seems that the only way to make sense of the Bush administration is to imagine that it's a vast experiment concocted by mad political scientists who want to see what happens if a nation systematically ignores everything we've learned over the past few centuries about how to make a modern government work.Thus, the administration has abandoned the principle of a professional, nonpolitical civil service, stuffing agencies from FEMA to the Justice Department with unqualified cronies. Tax farming - giving individuals the right to collect taxes, in return for a share of the take - went out with the French Revolution; now the tax farmers are back.
And so are mercenaries, whom Machiavelli described as "useless and dangerous" more than four centuries ago.
Private Security Contractors and the American Tradition (Michael Waller, 9/28/07, Real Clear Politics)
In the wake of the recent shooting deaths of 11 Iraqis in Baghdad, many critics are now claiming that allowing private contractors to operate in Iraq is inconsistent with American tradition. This is demonstrably untrue.Private security contractors, or PSCs, have been part of building the civilization that became the United States for 400 years. They are a founding part of the American entrepreneurial tradition of risk-taking and civic duty.
The first PSC on our shores was little more popular than his descendants today. Captain John Smith, a professional soldier who was paid to protect the interests of the Virginia Company of London in 1607, was accused of conspiring to subvert legal authority and locked in irons during the voyage to America, only to be exonerated and made chief of the expedition that founded the colony at Jamestown.
A few years later, English refugees seeking freedom of worship set off for America to establish their own shining city. They contracted the services of Captain Myles Standish to defend them, loaded a small arsenal of weapons in the lower hold, and sailed the Mayflower to make history at Plymouth Colony.
JOINT OPS:
Defecting Iranian official gave info before alleged Syrian foray (JPost.com, Sep 28, 2007)
Iranian former deputy defense minister Ali Rheze Asgari supplied intelligence sources in the West with information regarding the sites that Israeli jets allegedly attacked on September 6, the Kuweiti Al Jareeda reported Friday. [...]In related news, the Saudi paper Al Watan reported Friday that American jets were hovering in Iraqi airspace close to the Syrian border during the raid. Reportedly, the USAF jets were meant to give aerial backup to Israel in case IAF warplanes would come to any harm.
IT SHOULD BE EASY TO GET IN, HARD TO VOTE:
New citizenship test is unveiled: The 100 questions are more abstract, relying less on rote memory. Some say they're also harder. (Nicole Gaouette, 9/28/07, Los Angeles Times)
The Bush administration unveiled a revamped citizenship test Thursday intended to promote assimilation and patriotism -- a redesign some critics contend erects a higher hurdle for immigrants who want to become citizens.The 100 new civics questions -- which test knowledge of American government, history and civics and take effect Oct. 1, 2008 -- will require less rote memorization and are meant to focus more on fostering identification with American values.
For example, applicants may currently be asked, "What country did we fight during the Revolutionary War?" But starting next year, applicants could be asked to explain why the colonists fought the British. They may also have to describe what the "rule of law" is and outline one constitutional amendment concerning the right to vote. (Applicants are asked 10 questions and must answer at least six correctly to pass.)
"This is a naturalization test which genuinely captures the applicant's knowledge of what it is he's about ready to be, a United States citizen," said Emilio T. Gonzalez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. "It's no longer a test about how many stars are on the flag or how many stripes; it's a test that genuinely talks about those things that make America what it is."
All voters ought to have to pass a test and be net taxpayers.
BUYING OFF THE BLOWHARDS:
Why No Outrage From Washington: To fend off fiascos like last year's failed Dubai Ports World deal, the emirate called in the big guns: The lobbyists (Business Week, 9/27/07)
Dubai and the United Arab Emirates—the loose federation of states to which Dubai belongs—also learned a hard lesson from the collapse of the earlier bid. And over the past 18 months they've launched a multimillion-dollar lobbying push to boost their image in the states and prevent another fiasco.Those efforts went into overdrive in the days leading up to the NASDAQ deal, as a handful of Washington lobbyists led by George Salem, a senior adviser to the law firm DLA Piper and a past president of the National Association of Arab Americans, scrambled to ensure a smoother reception. Dubai executives believe that a big reason the ports deal ran aground was that they didn't give lawmakers advance warning or explain their perspective on the deal early enough. So this time, they made sure they got to key members of the Administration and Congress before the news broke and attitudes hardened.
In the days before the deal was disclosed, for example, a high-ranking Dubai official flew to Washington for a series of confidential briefings. And as soon as the markets closed on Sept. 19, Salem and his team hit the phones. According to a Capitol Hill source, NASDAQ Chief Executive Robert Greifeld personally called Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who had been a ringleader in the fight over the ports deal. The basic message, says one Dubai lobbyist: This deal is good for U.S. financial markets because it will give NASDAQ access to rich Mideast pockets. To counter terrorism fears, the lobbyists argue that the UAE and Dubai are among America's strongest allies in the region. All told, they rang up some 120 Beltway power players in the first 24 hours.
The rapid-fire round of diplomacy came against a backdrop of intense effort to bolster ties to Washington. Dubai alone has paid more than $3 million to three different lobbying firms, which have spent much of the past year talking up the tiny nation in meetings with aides to everyone from Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to Vice-President Dick Cheney. And earlier this year, the UAE budgeted an additional $5 million to lobbying firm Harbour Group to launch a new body, the U.S.-Emirates Alliance, to help shape public opinion. The alliance has quietly contributed more than $100,000 to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a foreign policy think tank, to support Mideast programs—though Jon B. Alterman, who heads the center's Middle East research, says its programs aren't influenced by funding. The alliance has also sent Reem Al-Hashimy, the UAE's Boston University-educated deputy chief of mission, to a dozen U.S. cities since July to meet with civic and business leaders.
Such moves appear to be working.
Just slip Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and a few other talk show hosts some money and there's no one to whip up the wahoos.
SOMETIMES 162 GAMES JUST DOESN'T TELL YOU MUCH:
NL could face 4 days of playoff tiebreakers: 5 teams could end with same record (From wire reports, September 28, 2007)
Here's a scenario that could mess up baseball's postseason schedule: Imagine if the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres finish with the same record.That would create ties in the National League East, National League West and wild-card race, necessitating four days of tiebreaker games to determine postseason berths.
The Devil Rays would have won 90 in the NL.
MORE:
The Mystical Collapse of a Bullpen (TIM MARCHMAN, September 28, 2007, NY Sun)
For the Mets and their fans, the last two weeks have been less like a late season collapse and more like a mystical experience in which science and religion have converged and become one. Many baseball teams have lost a lead down the stretch, but few, if any, have become the center of a temporal dislocation in which the precise same thing happens at the precise same moment, every single day. Were a theologian and a quantum physicist inclined, they could no doubt plumb the mysteries of reason and faith simply by examining these two weeks minutely; those of us who do not contemplate the meaning of existence for a living can just stare on in horror.The full blame for the disaster rests with the Mets' bullpen, and with the men who run it. This doesn't mean that the starting pitchers or position players have played perfectly, but they've given the bullpen lead after lead only to see them squandered. It takes more than the odd booted ball, vacuous base running play, or lousy start to sink a team as the Mets have been sunk. It takes the full force of a relief corps that has, from top to bottom, simply imploded.
Between the beginning of the series against the Phillies and the start of last night's game, the Mets' seven key relievers threw 41.1 innings, in which they gave up 30 earned runs for a 6.54 ERA. This is actually the kindest possible light in which to put their struggles, because this doesn't count unearned runs (usually at least as much the fault of the pitcher as they are of the defense) or inherited runners who have been allowed to score. Nor does it account for the soul-deadening timing displayed by Mets relievers, who have managed to give up their runs just when they counted most
Teams with five inning starters always kill their bullpens.
THERE IS NO CHINA:
Democracy Debate Transforms Hong Kong Election Contest (JONATHAN CHENG, September 28, 2007, Wall Street Journal)
A by-election for a Hong Kong legislative seat is turning into a face-off between two well-known former government officials who represent different approaches toward shaping this former British colony's political future.In 2003, Regina Ip's unflinching support for an antitreason law as secretary for security made her a symbol of fears that China would curtail Hong Kong's political freedom. Yesterday, she announced plans to contest a vacant legislative seat -- and work with Beijing to bring democratic ideals to Hong Kong.
"Democracy is the only way forward for Hong Kong," Mrs. Ip said.
That pits Mrs. Ip, 57 years old, against her former boss, Anson Chan, once Hong Kong's second-ranking official and one of the city's more popular political figures. In recent months, she, too, has been burnishing her credentials as a champion of democracy. Mrs. Chan, 67, announced her candidacy for the vacant seat earlier this month, vowing to put pressure on the government to introduce direct elections by 2012.
While the two candidates seem to espouse the same goals, their approaches differ sharply. Mrs. Ip, running as the establishment candidate, boasts support from the two major Beijing- and business-backed political parties, the chairmen of which flanked her as she announced her entry into elected politics. Her track record supporting Beijing's policies in Hong Kong is expected to make her a more acceptable candidate to China.
Mrs. Chan has taken a more confrontational approach and courted the support of pro-democracy politicians who have openly criticized Beijing's policies and its influence over Hong Kong affairs, although she promises to act as a "bridge" to China. She is predicted to win a primary election set up by the pro-democratic camp that would then make her its approved candidate.
The contest is a new twist in the long-running battle over the lack of full direct elections in Hong Kong, which has separate political, legal and financial systems from the rest of China.
What matters is that they have to espouse the same goals.
PEER TO PEER:
Iraq rejects Turkish demands in anti-terror deal (The Associated Press, September 28, 2007)
Iraq refused to accept a key Turkish demand to send its troops into the neighboring country in pursuit of fleeing separatist Kurdish rebels, officials said Friday.Both sides, however, signed a counterterrorism pact as a first step of cooperation on the issue. In Iraq, Kurdish authorities signaled they might agree to the deal after Ankara's demand to send troops into northern Iraq in pursuit of PKK rebels was dropped.
INSTITUTIONALIZING THE AXIS OF GOOD:
McCain Refreshes a Plan for League of Democracies (NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT, September 28, 2007, NY Sun)
In a week in which the U.N. Security Council once again demonstrated its impotence by failing to halt the massacre of monks in Burma and the U.N. General Assembly became a pretext for a strutting performance by the Iranian president, Senator McCain refreshed his ideas for a more effective international body: what he calls "the League of Democracies." [...]To Mr. McCain, the days of the United Nations as anything other than a refugee and humanitarian emergency organization are numbered. "There are some things they do very well," he said, but he went on to deride "the so-called U.N. Human Rights Commission," which he said is made up of regimes that perpetrate some of the most flagrant human rights abuses in the world.
He told members of the Hudson Institute meeting at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York yesterday that he believes the only reason the United Nations has any value at all — as the gambler said when explaining why he played in a poker school, knowing it was crooked — "because it is the only game in town."
Instead, he told a questioner, America should champion a new League of Democracies, a notion he first proposed earlier this year in a little-noticed address to members of the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He described his League of Democracies as "like-minded nations working together in the cause of peace."
"It could act where the U.N. fails to act, to relieve human suffering in places like Darfur. It could join to fight the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and fashion better policies to confront the crisis of our environment," he told the Hoover audience. "It could bring concerted pressure to bear on tyrants in Burma or Zimbabwe, with or without Moscow's and Beijing's approval. It could unite to impose sanctions on Iran and thwart its nuclear ambitions. It could provide support to struggling democracies in Ukraine and Serbia and help countries like Thailand back on the path to democracy."
"This League of Democracies would not supplant the United Nations or other international organizations," he said. "It would complement them. But it would be the one organization where the world's democracies could come together to discuss problems and solutions on the basis of shared principles and a common vision of the future."
Mr. McCain has promised that if he is elected president, within his first year he will call a summit of the world's democracies "to seek the views of my democratic counterparts and begin exploring the practical steps necessary to realize this vision."
And he's just petulant enough to do it.
THE BELIEF IN MATERIALISM ENDS AT THE TIP OF ONE'S NOSE:
Free will is not an illusion: The Enlightenment idea of conscious, freely acting individuals is worth defending against those who would reduce freedom to neuroscience. (This article is an edited version of a talk given by Raymond Tallis at a dinner held by the Manifesto Club in London on 13 September 2007)
Particularly in the century that has passed, there has been a counter-Enlightenment denial of the centrality of individual consciousness in human affairs. We do not walk, we sleepwalk; we do not act, we react, scarcely aware of that to which we are reacting.Humanist intellectuals have argued that, far from being ‘independent points of departure’, we are in the grip of forces that are largely hidden from us. The historical unconscious of Marxists and their descendents; the psychological unconscious of Freudian and a dozen other psycho-analytical and deep psychological theorists; the social unconscious of various schools of sociology and anthropology; the linguistic unconscious of post-Saussurean schools of thought (structuralist, post-structuralist, and deconstructionist) – these are just some of the tributaries to the great river of anti-humanist pessimism that has flown through the collective conscious of academe in recent history. As for selves, they are either opaque at their heart, or misread themselves, or are fictions, overlooking that in reality, they are dissolved in a sea of symbols, of unchosen customs and practices, of unconscious habits.
From a huge variety of backgrounds, academics and popular writers tell the same monotonous story: we do not know what we are doing, we do not know why we are doing it, and disaster is waiting to happen. Civilisations, which are based upon the notion of humans as rational agents, are in fact pathological: rationality is an illusion, or unnatural and unbearable, and rational planning will lead to unforeseen consequences. All civilisation – usually referred to as ‘a veneer’ and a thin one at that – is headed for destruction.
While most of the counter-Enlightenment thought I have alluded to arises from the humanities, which seem to take pride in being anti-humanity, there is an increasingly prominent input from the very hope of the Enlightenment – the sciences. This is not perhaps as surprising as it sounds. Science has always been committed to identifying the general patterns of causation in the universe. Its standpoint is fundamentally materialist. The laws of nature are a secular version of moira, fate. Laplace, who completed the formalisation of Newton’s mechanistic universe, though he did so without Newton’s God, argued that a combination of the knowledge of the initial conditions and of the laws that governed the behaviour of the mechanical particles would enable every event in the universe, including human actions, to be predictable. As Einstein said in his address to the Spinoza Society in 1932: ‘Human beings, in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free agents but are as causally bound as the stars in their motion.’ However, a recent spin on scientific determinism has brought it nearer home. Neuroscience has been invoked in support of kulturpessimismus.
There is now a significant population of neuroscientists, along with philosophers and others, who accept not only their findings but also the interpretations they place on them, who argue that because of advances in brain science ‘we now know’ that free will is an illusion. The attacks on free will from this direction are particularly powerful because they encompass both material and cultural determinism; for the brain is not only a piece of matter causally wired into the material world, it is also brain-washed in a laundry made of a collective of other brains. This is a powerful double whammy for our notions of freedom and of the self as an independent point of departure.
There are several strands of thought woven into neuro-determinism. The first is that we are essentially our brains: our consciousness, our belief in ourselves as free agents, and so on, is neural activity in certain parts of the brain. Secondly, these brains have evolved in such a way as to maximise the likelihood of our genetic material being able to replicate. Brains are about somatic survival to the point where genetic replication is possible. This is not something on our conscious agenda but it is the true and only business of the brain. Thirdly, for a brain to work effectively, it is not necessary for us to be aware of what it is doing. Cognitive psychologists have, over the last few decades, particularly since the advent of neuro-imaging which reveals activity in the living brain, shown how we are unconscious of many things that influence what is going on in our brain and, it is inferred, the perceptions we form and the decisions we make. Our consciousness has, it seems, a huge black hole at its centre. What price freedom, then, which at the very least depends on consciousness?
Another strand of the neuro-determinism story underlines how, given that nerve impulses are material events, our consciousness, even at its most self-conscious and deliberative, is wired into the material world: it is simply part of a boundless causal nexus that stretches from the Big Bang at the beginning of time to the Big Crunch at the end. Another strand notes that there is no privileged place within the nervous system corresponding to the freedom of the will, or even a point of initiation or a new departure. There are inputs of activity, throughputs of activity, and outputs activity but no points corresponding to where, say, action could be considered as starting. The brain, the body, our life – these are just conduits, like any other loci in the universe, for causes as inputs and effects as outputs.
Colin Blakemore, an eminent neuroscientist, captures all of these views in the claim: ‘The human brain is a machine which alone accounts for all our actions, our most private thoughts, our beliefs… All our actions are products of the activity of our brains. It makes no sense (in scientific terms) to try to distinguish sharply between acts that result from conscious attention and those that result from our reflexes or are caused by disease or damage to the brain.’
These very general arguments have been supplemented by millions of specific observations, the greater bulk of which may be summarised in two lines as follows: that experiments, and natural disasters such as head injuries, have shown that holes in the brain are closely correlated with holes in the mind and in our capabilities. In summary, you are the activity in your brain; your brain has evolved to optimise the chances of survival; and the brain is wired biologically, materially, causally into the biosphere, the material world, and the causal nexus. We now have a neuro-Laplacean universe in which the laws of nature operate undeflected by agency through your life. Or, as former CIA boss George Tenet said about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: ‘It’s a slam dunk.’
I choose my words carefully. Tenet’s slam dunk was self-evident and wrong. Neuro-determinism, though seemingly self-evident, is also wrong.
Mr. Tallis is, of course, actually arguing against the Enlightenment, as he recognizes between the lines.
THE GAMED:
Hamas To Accept Anything Accepted By Palestinians In A Pblebiscite (Khalid Mish’al & Zafarul-Islam Khan, 28 September, 2007, Milli Gazette)
In an exclusive interview with the Delhi-based The Milli Gazette, Hamas supremo Khalid Mish’al said that “things are moving in our favour. It is true that we are badly suffering. The siege is harsh. But the fact remains that Israel too is no longer able to settle things against us.”The interview was conducted with the Hamas leader in Damascus by the Gazette editor Zafarul-Islam Khan. The full text will appear in the 1 October issue of the paper. [...]
Mish’al rejected that Hamas is ready to accept Oslo. “[Hamas] adheres to all the rights of the Palestinian people. It adheres to Jerusalem, right to return, liberation of the Palestinian land. Hamas rejects the legality of occupation. These are permanent positions of Hamas Movement.” Yet, he indicated that Hamas position is not rigid. It is ready to accept a common minimum programme acceptable to all Palestinians. “We felt that it is beneficial that Palestinians of all political and ideological hues should meet and subscribe to a common programme. We agreed on a common denominator acceptable to all Palestinian factions… [they] all agree on the following: to establish the Palestinian state within the areas of 1967 on the borders prevailing on the 4th of June 1967 including Jerusalem, right to return - not right to return to the Palestinian State as some in the region explain it but the right to return to the towns and villages taken away from the Palestinian people.”
He hastened to say that this common minimum programme to some is “their final aim” but it is not the final aim of Hamas. “Our stand in Hamas is that we will offer truce to Israel instead of recognition. This is the perspective of Hamas. It has not changed. We support a state within the 1967 borders including Jerusalem, right of return [of the refugees], no [Israeli] settlements in our territory, total sovereignty of all 1967 lands. In return we offer only truce instead of recognition of Israel. There are rights of the Palestinian people which must be taken into account,” said explaining the position of Hamas.
He said that any other solution will be unacceptable even if agreed to by the Palestinian Authority. But, he added. “We accept what the Palestinian people accept. We have accepted the democratic game and we accept the democratic results. We have faith in our people to whom belong the rights and options.”
The discipline of democracy is harsh on the dreams of ideologues.
PARTIALLY RIGHT:
President who can't see history: The botched invasion of Iraq has no credible parallels at all with the Korean War, Mr Bush (Ian Buruma, 9/28/07, The Australian)
Bush is right to claim that people in the Middle East would like to be as prosperous and free as the South Koreans, but his notion that the war in Iraq is simply a continuation of US policies in Asia could not be more mistaken. In Asia, as in the Middle East, US strategy was to prop up dictators against communism until their own people toppled them. In the Middle East today, it is reckless and radical: invading a country, wrecking its institutions and expecting that freedom will grow in the ensuing state of anarchy.To confuse these different enterprises and pretend that they are the same is not only wrong but dangerous and deeply disappointing to those of us who still regard the US as a force for good.
Mr. Buruma is right that Iraq isn't comparable to Korea, but for the wrong reasons. George H. W. Bush's Iraq War, which liberated Kuwait and Kurdistan but left a totalitarian dictatorship in power in Baghdad more closely resembles the Korean War. What W did was, essentially, topple the North and liberate the whole country. Which we should now do for the Koreans as well.
A BIT PALTRY, BUT THE RIGHT DIRECTION:
Clinton talks ‘baby bonds’ (Athena Jones, 9/28/07, NBC: First Read)
Every baby born in America should receive money that can later be used to pay for college, Clinton told the crowd at the Congressional Black Caucus annual legislative conference in Washington on Friday."I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so when that young person turns 18, if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college," Clinton said, calling it one way to give young people a chance to save money tax free.
Too little money, for too small a purpose, in too conservative an investment instrument. She should go at least as far as Paul O'Neill, A new idea for Social Security (Paul O'Neill, February 23, 2005, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
If we decided as a society that we were going to put $2,000 a year into a savings account from the day each child was born until he or she reached age 18 -- and if we assume a 6 percent annual interest rate -- each child would have $65,520 at age 18. (The worst return for a 25-year investor in the stock market from 1929 before the crash to 2004 was an average of 6 percent a year.) With no further contributions, again with a 6 percent interest rate, those savings would grow to $1,013,326 at age 65.If we began to do this now, the first-year cost would be $8 billion; that is $2,000 times the roughly 4 million children born each year. The second year would cost $16 billion and so on until we were contributing $2,000 per year to a savings account for every child from birth until age 18. When fully implemented, the cost would be $144 billion per year. To put this $144 billion per year into context, this year's combined spending for Social Security and Medicare will exceed $750 billion.
What this plan would do is "pre-fund" for the needs of old age. It solves the long-term financing problem for both Social Security and Medicare, allowing for the gradual replacement of programs like Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid and food stamps and housing aid for those over age 65. To make this work, the savings account money would need to be invested -- my suggestion would be through so-called index funds. The administrative costs would be practically nothing because there's no need for a huge separate tax collection bureaucracy; the money would come from the general revenues of the U.S. government.
Likewise, if he's serious here, let's see EJ Dionne get on the Ownership Society bandwagon, Detroit's Creative Bargain (E. J. Dionne, 9/28/07, Real Clear Politics)
The General Motors contract with the United Auto Workers shows how companies and workers can come together when both understand the economic threat facing American manufacturing, and when workers have a place at the table to protect their most important interests. [...]The UAW is taking a risk, since health care costs could rise faster than the trust fund grows, and since the contract includes fewer protections for non-production workers. But the bigger risk was GM going under or moving yet more jobs overseas. The lesson of The New Treaty of Detroit is that in the face of globalization's challenges, risks and rewards can be shared if there's a will to negotiate them.
Now it's the turn of Democratic candidates to explain how they will be as creative as GM and the UAW.
I don't recall him embracing W's similarly creative solutions.
September 27, 2007
WELL, HE IS TANNED, RESTED & READY:
Learning From Bush's Mistakes: How a prewar conversation can help us pick the next president. (Fred Kaplan, Sept. 27, 2007, Slate)
The crucial exchange, in this respect, comes toward the end of the conversation, when the two leaders are discussing the magnitude of changing Saddam Hussein's regime by force.AZNAR: The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.
BUSH: I'm an optimist because I believe that I'm right. I'm a person at peace with myself. It was our turn to face a serious threat to peace.
Here, in three sentences, is the first lesson on how to assess the current crop of presidential candidates: Don't pick anyone who utters, or seems capable of believing, those three sentences.
Hardly surprising that Mr. Kaplan's perfect president--a pessimist who doesn't believe in what he's doing; is at odds with himself; and wants to dodge responsibility for dealing decisively with the evil of his age--is Richard Nixon.
STILL THE PROTESTS CONTINUE:
Defiance, fear and brutality as the junta turns on the people: It was a day of terror and confusion, with hundreds of monks rounded up by military police and at least nine people killed. But still the protests continue. (Rosalind Russell reports from Rangoon, 28 September 2007, Independent)
I was half a mile from the Sule pagoda when I saw the people running, fear and panic written on their faces. Drivers were making hasty U-turns and speeding back on the wrong side of the street. The driver of my battered Toyota taxi refused to go any further, so I stepped out into the hot, humid street.Stallholders were hurriedly bundling away their vegetables, DVDs and rails of childrens' clothes. Two boys, postcard-sellers, aged no more than eight or nine, ran up to me, still clutching their gaudy pictures of tourist scenes. "Madam it is dangerous for you," one said, offering to lead me away to safety.
Rounding the corner of Rangoon's main avenue, the gleaming temple can be seen at the other end.
But we met a cloud of tear gas. Crowds were retreating, scurrying from the golden stupa towards us, and lines of soldiers were advancing towards them. The crackle of gunfire came then, the sound was unmistakable. That's when I darted into a doorway, joining a group of people watching the drama of this bloody crackdown from the sanctuary of a five-star hotel lobby.
REIGNING KINGS OF AUSSIE POP:
-AUDIO: Augie March performs in the Current studio (Steve Seel, September 27, 2007, Minnesota Public Radio: The Current)
MORE:
-BAND SITE: Augie March
-MYSPACE: Augie March
-WIKIPEDIA: Augie March
-REVIEW: of Augie March: Moo, You Bloody Choir (Dan Raper, PopMatters)
-REVIEW: of Moo (Jeff Swindoll, Monsters & Critics)
-REVIEW: of Augie March: Moo, You Bloody Choir (Jeff Tangari, Pitchfork)
-REVIEW: of Moo (Derek Miller, Stylus)
-REVIEW: of Augie March: Strange Bird (Zeth Lundy, PopMatters)