The More Things Change....(Iran Edition)

'W. E. B. DuBois – Biography of a Race' closes in 1919 with DuBois touring Europe in the aftermath of its Civil War of 1914-1918. He is hopeful that Europe will cast off its African Colonies and allow them to become self-governing, and in so doing, light the way for America to reduce, and ultimately eliminate its own suppression of the Negro in its midst.

What interestingly escapes DuBois until much later in his life is that wars are fought not to free secondary or oppressed people: Wars are fought between the powerful to consolidate or expand the power, territory, and citizenry under their control. Just as territorial control was a driver in Europe's Civil War, so was land and territorial control a major driver in America's Civil War 65 years earlier. Sure, both wars were dressed up in ideology at the time and in our kinder remembrances of them, but the expansion of power was at the root of both.

Reading history is an interesting exercise: One continually has to confront the truth of the observation that things now are in many ways, and almost completely in the ways that matter, little different from what has gone before. I read with heavy heart of the high cost of war, the destruction of property, technology, agriculture (and the ability to feed a populace), and the tragic loss of life. The book is closed, I surface in the now, and hear the drumbeats leading to another war, this one potentially modern. Sure, the pundits claim that the loss of life will be minimal, the damage contained, etc.

But, it will be war. Our folks will be killing their folks, our boys (and girls) killing their boys and girls, and being killed in turn. Our resources and energy will be diverted from educating our young, building our commons, researching for cures to the diseases that ail (and sometimes plague) us to building weapons, creating means of destruction rather than means of construction, and strengthening the warrior hierarchy of our society.

We just fought two wars under the mistaken notion that we could do so without cost, that the benefits would overcome them: Instead, we've plunged our country deeper into debt, increasing our vulnerability to economic sabotage by those who might wish to do so, weakened our children's future and neglected items we formerly took great pride in. Now, we worry that we cannot afford to provide for our elderly, either in money to live on or health care to live by; we decree that higher education must be put further out of reach, and standard education must be crippled; that maintaining the previous standards of our society must be forsaken, and we must all accept the gradual diminishing of our way of life.

So, for those who believe that we need to engage Iran, I have but a single question: What will you personally relinquish so that we can do so? Will you pay more in taxes to support the war effort in the hopes that the investment in containing Iran will accrue to you in future years? (Taxes you currently do not pay and could not escape through any loophole, but a new tax that you will bear above your current tax load.) Will you accept a loss of income increases at your job for the duration of the war, and perhaps for several years after until America regains her feet and pays down her wartime debt? Or, will you personally put your life or the lives of your sons or daughters on the line by going to the front and fighting in Iran to remove whatever threat our leaders believe is there?

For if you are not willing to, in the same breath that you advocate war with Iran, explain how you will share in the burden, then your thoughts are the specious thoughts of a coward. There is one other constant of history that is always present: People are ever willing to advise and admonish others to do some thing, especially when doing that thing will result in a good outcome to the adviser and the cost will settle on the advisee.

Think we need to go to war with Iran? If you are willing to pay some of the cost directly, then, and only then, will I listen to your argument. Otherwise, you can talk to the hand – the hand making the sign of peace.

J. Edgar

Watched J. Edgar last night.

This morning when I got up, the movie was still on my mind. Foremost were two questions: What is this movie inviting me to think about, and How much of what I saw is reliably true?

The second question bears considering first, as it plays into the first.

I watched the credits in their entirety to gain some insight – hoping to see something about the sources, their reliability, etc. Of course, this is a movie, but based upon history... What did come up was standard boilerplate: “Although this movie is based upon historical facts, some scenes were dramatized...”

Which is very disquieting in terms of uncovering how we should view this movie. There are many, many scenes which involve J. Edgar alone, or J. Edgar and one other person, very often another person who was considerably loyal (and unlikely to record separate notes on what took place.) So, every scene with just him and his mother, just him and his friend Clyde, or him and his secretary Helen becomes suspect as to its accuracy, and without additional confirmation, we have to take the information portrayed and, if not discount, at least tend very carefully to its influence on our thinking.

So, for instance: We cannot take at face value the movie's assertion that his mother was his rock, his mentor until her death (when Hoover was well into adulthood, perhaps his 40's, the exact timing of certain events was difficult to ascertain giving the movie's habit of jumping back and forth in time), that he had not 'grown up' until then and was instead still in some Freudian relationship. Maybe, maybe not. We cannot trust the exact nature of his friendship with Clyde, either: so much of what was portrayed takes place behind closed doors – certainly Clyde never spoke of it to another? That their friendship was profound, that they placed almost complete trust and gave complete loyalty to one another we can see, but...again, the intimations, giving from two un-verifiable scenes, one with his mother discussing a childhood friend, the other in a hotel room of a fight with Clyde, we cannot take as true.

Which leaves us to contemplate the remainder comprised of stuff that certainly is true: That J. Edgar oversaw and drove a burearu from its nascent, 1919 form to the powerful entity that it was in the 1960's. That he was both instrumental to its success and prone to exaggerate his own importance. That he surrounded himself with two individuals who appear to have had a like-minded pursuit of the work they were in: That catching criminals and preventing a radical take-over of America took precedence over all else in life. That he was profoundly paranoid of that possibility.

Which I think is the invitation the movie gives us: We are to consider the differences between the as portrayed useful paranoia of J. Edgar which drives him to ask of congress for more power for the Bureau, for the ability for its agents to carry guns, for Bureau jurisdiction of kidnapping, and retention of all fingerprints, and the establishment of a well-staffed and well-funded forensics lab; and the as portrayed over-blown paranoia which drives him to write an inflammatory letter to Martin Luther King, to keep his own set of 'confidential' files on the private doings of others in power, to exaggerate his participation to his memoirs, and to stoop to blackmail when he sees his or the Bureau’s power threatened.

The fact that the two levels of paranoia co-exist and exert themselves throughout his life is an interesting insight into the complexity of Edgar Hoover and his actions. We can see, wrapped up in a single individual, a drive that gives him insights and the will to pursue them that is beneficial, at the same time the very same forces are driving him beyond to actions many would consider self-serving and to a degree contradictory to his mission (for blackmail and un-warranted eavesdropping are certainly illegal activities.)

Finally, the movie, in an amazingly neutral manner, does give us something to think about: J. Edgar Hoover was certainly participating in pre-emptive surveillance; intelligence gathering of the individuals who may or may not prove a threat to his power or the nation, individuals who had committed no crimes other than show that they had a following, individuals both within and without government. That he used that information a few times is certainly true, but what should give us pause as to its true purpose: He commanded (and it was apparantly carried out) of his secretary to destroy the files if ever anything became of him.

That level of paranoia certainly is not healthy for an individual, or a nation.

Rethinking Daylight Saving Time

The annual switch forward from standard to daylight saving time is always greeting with a moan and a sigh (and sometimes even greater anguish!) around my house. I didn't mind it too much when it came in April, but the recent switch 3 weeks sooner into March has bothered me. I normally rise fairly early, and I tolerate getting up in the dark all winter, but look forward to the spring and summer when I can rise with the sun – it is just so much easier to get up when it is a little light out than before! So, I've been fairly critical of the change for the past couple years, and often wished it could go back (or at least match the UK and have it the final Sunday in March!)

This morning, however (4 days since the change), I finally rose at my normal time, now in complete darkness, got ready, and headed off to work. I was greeted by a wonderfully colored pre-sunrise sky as I drove, something I hadn't seen for weeks. I enjoyed the colors and the awakening world, and realized how much I do enjoy catching the very earliest hours of the day. I thought back to the previous evening, where after dinner, still light, the kids were able to head out to play. It becomes tiresome during the winter months: As Lord Baden-Powell observed, “Boys are not sitting animals.” In my house, and I suspect in many others, neither are girls sitting animals, and as they run and play inside, sometimes the energy and noise becomes a tad overwhelming.

So, the switch to Daylight Saving brought my wife and I a glorious hour of house quiet, able to sit and converse as the sun dropped to the west and the kids ran off their youthful energy. The slanting golden sunbeams, the warmth, and the relative quiet raised our spirits, and the sounds coming through the open windows from the kids indicated that their enthusiasm for life was elevated, too.

All would have been perfect had little girl, not yet a shoe-wearing animal, not gotten a sliver in her toe from the winter-worn and dried playset. Nevertheless, it was cleaned and partially removed in pretty short order and the relative magic of the evening restored.

As I parked my vehicle and made the walk into work this morning as the last pinks and purples of dawn splashed across our mountains, recalling the wonderful evening before, I realized that perhaps I've been too harsh on the earlier switch. It certainly hasn't been a hardship this year, and if we were still on Standard time, we would have missed all these experiences.

Maybe ol' Benjiman Franklin was onto something, and institutionalizing it isn't such a bad idea after all!

Libertarian For A Day

There has been a lot of talk about Libertarianism lately, and it's so catchy: Liberty! Freedom! So, I decided that I would be Libertarian for a day.

Now, the first thing one learns about Libertarianism is that its definition is negative: Freedom from government interference. Liberty is gained when the government is not interfering with your life.

So, I thought about how the government interferes with my life, my freedom, my liberty. Of course! The biggest government wrought interference with my life is that government bolstered, government sanctioned antithesis of Democracy: the Corporation! With its embedded hierarchy, its entrenched forms of domination, its ability to act without concern for those around it, its ability to silence my voice and my desires through campaign funding, its concentration of power in the hands of a few (what we previously called oligarchy), there is nothing that so daily interferes and deprives us of our good liberty as that enormous government created entity known as a corporation.

Working in concert with our government through the auspices of eminent domain do those corporations deprive us of property that was previously ours. Whispering promises in officials ears do corporations gain unfair tax advantages, and shift the social burden onto our backs while they extract resources and leave behind messes we must provide the means and the money to clean, restricting our freedom to pursue our own happiness with the money lost. Undemocratic, we are many employed there but at the whim of those above is in the corporate hierarchy – anger a superior and you may find yourself begging other corporations for a livelihood without due process (or any processes at all!).

In what has to be the defining coup d'etat: Corporations, through their machinations within our government, have usurped what has to be the sine qua non of existence and have themselves been declared as persons, equally under the law with actual persons. There can be no equality under the law when a single individual faces a 'person' in the form of a corporation, thousands strong, in court. Only the stroke of a recorders pen and the invidious interference of government into our daily lives allows this farce to continue. Up with Libertarianism! To the End of Government Interference through the Corporate Lie!

Hold on. My phone is ringing....

“Hello?”

“This is the H. Foundation (A Libertarian Think-Tank) calling. It came to our attention that you were incorrectly understanding libertarianism...”

“I am? But I thought that libertarianism was best defined as freedom from government intervention: in the marketplace, in our society, in our daily lives?”

“It is. But you do not understand interference. Interference is when the government imposes regulations on the market, reducing the ability of economic actors to act.”

“I'm trying to understand this. We have had to place a myriad of regulations on corporations through the years to avoid their undesirable behavior, and it occurred to me that perhaps we should strike the root and eliminate the corporations, freeing the market of both the regulations and the bad actors.”

“No, no. It is the regulations that cause the bad actions: Free to act towards their own ends brings true liberty to all. Without corporations, the market would be much poorer, as strong economic actors would not be able to combine to bring you the goods, er freedoms, you desire.”

“So combining for a common goal is a libertarian principle?”

“Certainly!”

“So, if my neighbors and I combine and place our money together to fund a public school system with the common goal of educating all of our children on the principles of liberty and teach them the skills they need to think and act in our society, that's an example of realizing a libertarian principle?”

“Oh, no, no, no! That is just socialism, the antithesis of liberty and freedom. You become enslaved to the government provider...”

“But: doesn't removing ignorance and transferring skills to our progeny equip them to think critically, to avoid enslavement by the more powerful, and give them the very skills they need to seek, grasp, and hold liberty? Doesn't doing it in combination not only make us more likely to succeed, but also remove that bane of liberty, unfair advantage?”

“Advantage is the natural selection process at work! We cannot deny it, for then we deny the liberty of those selected by nature, nurture, and drive. It is natural that weaker individuals are dominated by stronger, and only through a free, libertarian society can the strong avoid interference by the weak. The strong should be free to gain all remunerations and accoutrements their skill and ability can, without interference! The weak exist to be exploited!”

“How do you know they are weak? If people begin their journey unequally, some without benefit of money or class or heredity (or education) to guide them, wouldn't that by definition decrease their liberty if they are prey to the strong? Shouldn't libertarianism apply equally to all?”

“You are nearly hopeless. Libertarianism is freedom from government interference, it doesn't posit that you'll be free from any interference. You have to make your way in the world, and if you are not strong enough to do that, then liberty is not yours to have.”

“So, libertarianism is a philosophy of the strong: You can have as much liberty as you can carve out of the societal wilderness, is that it? You are free so long as no-one stronger than you comes along, and building institutions and governments to ameliorate that is not only useless, but anti liberty?”

“Well, yes. Equality is a fool's errand. The real purpose of libertarianism is to promote the gain of wealth by those strong enough to grasp it, and to prevent you peons from using your 'democracy' to claw it back through higher taxes on the rich or successful. Public school has no place in a libertarian society because it not only prevents the extraction of wealth from the parents who want their children educated, but reduces the chances that the wealthy can continue their invisible aristocracy. Liberty is defined by the property you control, by the people you control. The bigger your corporation, the greater your liberty! You too can become powerful and infused with liberty if only you will try hard enough!”

“H., those aren't exactly the tenets of Nozick...The mistreatment of women, the oppression of many, the actual enslavement of some are direct outgrowths of societies that have employed the strategies you are endorsing. I believe your Koch is showing...”

Click.

Guess I'm not cut out to be a libertarian. I will have to return to my previous, liberal world-view where domination and suppression by any entity, whether governmental or private, is cause for concern.

Oh, darn. Massive corporations corrupting my democracy with their unlimited campaign contributions; their employees moving in and out of my government passing laws favorable to themselves (and hurtful to the rest); their money backed (and board-room vetted) candidates free to spout messages of spite, bigotry and misogyny, are still an issue.

Rats!

Is there a political or philosophical ideology I could join where those wouldn't be issues so that I would be free to pursue my happiness without concern or care for the rest of society? 

Oh! That's what the libertarian was trying to say (no, I'm not going back!)

A Century Ago...

On September 22, 1906 a mob of white people (thousands strong) stormed Atlanta, beating, and sometimes killing, every black person they came across. In his account of the Atlanta riot, David Levering Lewis writes*:

The immediate cause of the terrible Atlanta riot of 1906 had been the newspaper drumfire of alleged assaults upon white women by black men. The underlying cause was to be found in the politics of class conflict among the white people. As cities of the New South like Atlanta filled with poor whites and blacks, the planters and politicians in rural counties mobilized...to brake the power of the urban colossi. Bloodsucking railroads, flint-hearted banks, merciless factories, the loss of white men's jobs to black men, sin corruption, and race mixing -- the rural diatribe ... was shrill and long. ... As [W.E.B.] DuBois wrote in a moving essay in The World Today, the explosion had occurred inevitably after "two years of vituperation and traduction of the Negro race by the most prominent candidates for governorship, together with a bad police system"

 Brought on, one might add, by the strong xenophobia the country had towards the ex-slaves, the Negros in their midst.

Thank goodness that is all behind us: Today we don't exhibit xenophobia towards people who are racially, culturally different; We have no difficulty advancing the cause of liberty to anyone regardless of their views on life; our leaders and newscasters don't spread vituperation via senseless name calling or degrading of those whose views differ from their own; The divisive fire of class warfare is not stoked by the elite nor politicians intent on gaining office. In short, the century that separates us from the riot of 1906 has brought us tolerance and the ability to discuss our different opinions about the country in a 'cool marketplace of ideas'. We should rejoice that we have ascended so far from those events...

What? What was that you said?

Oh.

Nevermind.


* Lewis, David Levering. "W.E.B. DuBois - Biography of a Race 1868-1919" Henry Holt, New York, 1993. p334.

Fall Of Angels - L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

Not too often does a book have my heart pounding, my eyes racing across the text, concerned for the fate of the protagonists, eager yet fearful to find out how the story will unfold. Fall of Angels is one of those books – a gripping story about the fate of a ship-wrecked crew on an unknown planet.

Unlike so many in the genre, however, the crew encounters not some alien race, but a human civilization that was the result of some previous colonization – a civilization cut off from the colonizers for generations that has evolved back into a relatively low-tech society.

The story becomes one of survival. The crew must use what they have to construct a sustainable outpost, learn the local customs, trade with the people to gain the supplies they need, using their technology at first to create the things they will need when their technology (and battery-stored power) wears out.

Modesitt doesn't wave his hands and expect us to just accept that the crew will survive. He outlines the struggles as they plant crops, learn to harvest the variety of local food, build their shelter, determine where to obtain their heat, encounter problems with sanitation, and even struggle with their sometimes strained relationships as they adapt to a lifestyle none knew before. Through the efforts of Nylan, the ship's engineer, Modesitt takes us on a tour of the sorts if problems that plagued human civilization for generations, nay, thousands of years prior to our own period.

Although the survival efforts wind throughout the story, this story is not about survival or aliens or even magic: It is a classic tale of Good versus Evil, but told in a new and compelling manner.

For the Evil that the crew (Angels to the locals) encounter is not that of some malevolent individual bent on world destruction or domination. Instead, the evil arises as a result of fear, tradition, and subjugation.

The local civilization resembles many in our past: Tradition-bound, xenophobic, and built upon male dominance and female subjugation. Women are property, to be used, abused, and cast off when no longer needed. The ship-wrecked crew represents an affront to all three elements: They lack the traditions, they are new, and most profoundly, they are egalitarian (both the ship's captain and the head of the marine contingent are women.) When the first marauding group of locals stops by to raid their women and is wiped out, word spreads of the 'evil' Angels amongst the locals, and the seeds for a show-down confrontation are sown.

As the story unfolds, we get insights into both groups. The antagonist is revealed to be thoughtful, against the wars he feels compelled to wage, a family man: I started wishing a different fate for him than what I expected might be. He ends up being driven, again, not by evil desires, but by the evil that exists in the society he is in.

Fall Of Angels is a tragedy – a tragedy born of the fears of individuals. Modesitt shines a light on the evil that arises when society values conformity over progress, devalues some individuals (or entire classes of individuals), and wages war to 'hold' something they have no use for.

This becomes the real value of the story. Through elegant story-telling that sweeps us along, Modesitt encourages us to think about our position in society and our society's traditions and values: He clearly drives us to consider that a society that values all individuals will be stronger than one that discounts or abuses significant portions; and that those abuses and lines of thinking will drive us to acts that are both detrimental and evil.

The Deficit, Part Two...

One of the things that drives me nuts about politicians and politics is that they rarely are required to keep even a superficially consistent story. It would make so much more sense if we had on the one side those who believe that less should be privately controlled and more publicly controlled, offset by those who wish for stronger protections for private property, both balanced by the conservatives who just want to slow the pace of change and keep the status quo (and let's face it, changing for change's sake is not usually a good policy!). But instead, we get this:


In August we were treated to the spectacle of the deficit ceiling colliding with the rising deficit, and the hand-wringing of that singular (okay, so it turns out it wasn't that singular!) event: We were going to drive the country into ruin! We must cut the deficit! We must, must, must! One party in particular was driving the debate as the #1 issue facing the nation, now and into the future. We may disagree about the seriousness of the event, but they certainly can take a stand on it...

So, I would expect (especially after the collapse of the Deficit Reduction Commission - DRC) that any Republican candidate for the Presidency would continue to campaign on that idea - that the current policies followed by the current administration continue to increase the deficit and take us towards ruin. But, I am wrong.

Turns out that now candidates feel the best way to win the White House is to campaign on a promise to increase the deficit - on average by the amount the DRC was targeted to reduce: $1 trillion dollars. Say it with me: ONE TRILLION DOLLARS!

I am speechless. I'll let James Kwak tell the story:

The Times has a story out today: Surprise, all the Republican candidates’ tax plans increase the national deficit! The numbers (reduction in 2015 tax revenues, from the Tax Policy Center):

• Romney: $600 billion
• Gingrich: $1.3 trillion
• (Late lamented) Perry: $1.0 trillion
• Santorum: $1.3 trillion

*Paul is excluded, see fn1.

If I were an Independent or Democrat candidate for the Presidency, I would jump all over this (heck, if I were just an average journalist, I'd be all over this!) "Mr Candidate: Why isn't the deficit an issue any more and you feel that you are free to accelerate it's growth over the four years of your presidency if you were to be elected?" 

I have an idea why, though: Tax cuts are always popular - cutting programs is not. Sadly, though, all four candidates plans cut taxes for the rich and then wait for the resulting deficit to materialize so that they are 'forced' to cut government programss: Which usually are programs that aid the middle and lower class. You don't still doubt that we are governed by an oligarchy of the rich now, do you?

fn1: Mr Paul doesn't have a specific plan - other than to eliminate the IRS and wave his hands and hope that the reduction will be offset somehow - which leaves his plan well north of $1 trillion in deficit increase. But, he hasn't published specifics, so the Tax Policy Center can't run specifics...