Civil, disobedient

Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal:

At a dinner last week in California, I was reminded of the debt we owe to those who have, for 233 years, sustained our freedom and independence.

Were you served an indictment?

Lessons learned

Philip Stephens, Financial Times:

As for suggestions that Israel is ready to bomb Iran to prevent Mr Ahmadi-Nejad from getting his hands on nuclear weapons, the issue was now more complicated. “How do you bomb Neda?” the diplomat said, in a reference to Neda Salehi Agha-Soltan, the young woman whose death on the streets of Tehran has become a symbol of the regime’s repression.

I don't know about you, but if there's one thing I've learned from Neda, it's the importance of bombing her before she becomes an international symbol for Iranian civil rights. Otherwise there is no telling how she might inconvenience you.

The praxis of "evil"

Bernie Madoff was sentenced to being "evil" because he stole money from the rich. Had he merely stolen from the poor, state laws vary.

Not wisely, but too well

Thomas Frank says Republicans screw up in order to prove government can't work, but I prefer to say that Republicans do not advance the interests of the vast majority of Americans very, very well.

Perspective

Elie Wiesel's Dawn, a sort-of sequel to his death camp memoir, Night, is the story of Jews employing guerrilla tactics and terrorism against the occupying British force in Palestine after World War II, with an eye toward establishing their own state.

All of which seems somewhat relevant in light of the guerrilla tactics and terrorism that others have employed against the Israeli occupying forces, with an eye toward establishing their own state.

Pollution goes green!

New York Times:

If products are recycled rather than dumped, parts of the machines are refurbished for new use where possible; if not, they are disassembled, their glass and precious metals are recycled, and the plastics, which have no reuse market, are often shipped overseas to developing countries for disposal.

...[O]nce there, they are often incinerated, because they cannot be reused, and spew toxic chemicals into the air.

Exporting waste to the developing world gives wealthy consumers "peace of mind." This why the New York Times calls it "A Green Way to Dump Low-Tech Electronics": it is "green" for the people who matter.

Plato's republic

Wall Street Journal:

While lawmakers in both chambers craft health-care bills for votes later this summer, some Senate Democrats are whittling down provisions considered sacrosanct by liberal advocates, reducing proposed subsidies for the uninsured and opposing the creation of a government-run plan to compete with private insurers....

Some Democratic lawmakers say they are trying to keep the party from moving too far left and alienating voters.

Look at these high-minded Democrats. How could they "alienate voters" on a controversial subject like national health insurance -- which is only supported by most Americans and a majority of doctors -- when greeted daily by an avalanche of health care industry "votes?"

This is the essence of moderation.

Dollars and sense

New York Times:

For decades, Mr. Madoff built his reputation — and his client base — on the promise of healthy returns that flowed in as reliably as the tides.

Reputations are easy to build when money flows in as reliably as the tides, aren't they?

Lyndon LaRouche and Obama's Nazi health plan

I was speaking with a Lyndon LaRouche tabler about, among other things, "Obama's Hitler Health Care" plan, when he called everyone an idiot who did not recognize that the British Empire controlled the world. Then he asked me for $500, which was ironic.

LaRouche has been around a long time, but that hasn't stopped most people from never hearing about him. And it probably doesn't help his cause that those who do have no idea what he is on about.

Like many fringe groups, there are some good ideas in there, but you always notice that the good ideas are never original to that group, but are borrowed from some already established tradition. It is only the crackpot shit that they come up with on their own.

How constitutional is now?

David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, Wall Street Journal:

If the government cannot proscribe -- or even "unduly burden," to use another of the Supreme Court's analytical frameworks -- access to abortion, how can it proscribe access to other medical procedures, including transplants, corrective or restorative surgeries, chemotherapy treatments, or a myriad of other health services that individuals may need or desire?

By broadening the scope of affordable health care options available to Americans, the government will invariably limit some health services. The objection here is that this is a job best left to insurance companies, who accomplish the same thing by not covering people at all.

Crazy

Gail Collins, New York Times:

The people currently in charge in Iran may very well be nut jobs. On a scale of 1 to 10, with North Korea as 9.5, maybe Iran is an 8.

David Brooks says the people currently in charge of Iran are crazy because they want to remain in charge of Iran, and Gail Collins concedes his point. This is called debate at the New York Times.

To the owner, the spoils

Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.) recently introduced a bill that would guarantee workers up to seven paid sick days per year.

Business advocates see such measures doing more harm than good for workers. To pay for additional benefits, employers may have to reduce wages or other benefits, said Randy Johnson, vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Business logic with respect to employees rests on the idea that because what generates greater profits for the employer has the potential to benefit workers, social goals must therefore defer to this formula at all times, because it necessarily will.

However, I think the larger point history would like to make is that it won't, necessarily: whether some portion of the profit created by workers is subsequently captured by them is a decision that lies squarely with management, and made in what is perceived to be their own best interest. Because this means different things at different times, and for different reasons, it is impossible to say what greater profits -- or conversely, greater obligations -- will mean for workers in every case.

What can be said with any degree of certainty is that employers are constituted in a way that compels them to pursue profit, and being so constituted, they will do so by any means they can. It is a public responsibility to enforce decent behavior.

Democracy in America

Financial Times:

[A] New York Times/CBS poll on Saturday...showed 72 per cent of Americans supported the creation of government-administered health insurance available to all, which would compete with private schemes in an attempt to expand coverage and force private insurers to cut their prices.

But the measure faces an uphill battle in Congress...

Three quarters of Americans support some kind of universal Medicare option, and yet the political advantage remains with the health care industry. How can this be?

While three quarters of Americans are working for a living, the health care lobby lives by working on Congress. Private industry often plays a role in public life that the average citizen does not, because it is easier for them to bear the costs. Corporations can afford to be citizens; Americans can only afford to be employees.

Solidarity

What Americans can do about Iranian repression is limited because the US has little influence over Iran. On the other hand, there are plenty of repressive governments which the United States openly supports, which could conceivably be denied support, should Americans become as preoccupied with the policies they can change as they are with the headlines that they can't.

Hanging 'nads

Power is always eager to "help" in areas where it lacks sufficient influence, principally as a means to establish greater influence. So you get yer Iraqz and yer Vietfragistans, whose measure of success boils down to whether sufficient influence was achieved, and for what cost, politically and economically speaking (and shit).

But let us observe that power is much less inclined to address identical challenges in areas where it already has influence, since this, by definition, means abandoning some mode of influence. And do you think the point of power, existing, is to evaporate on behalf of some corny constitutional principle?

No, my friends: there is a reason shit like that is deposited on paper! The point of power is to be advanced, defended, and maintained. Championing rights and freedoms is helpful when advancing in foreign terrain, but denying rights and freedoms is necessary when defending one's turf.

This is why Iranians are being "denied their rights" in the event that their unfree elections were additionally unfair, whereas American voters are merely disenfranchised by the former, and thus occupy a unique position to tutor others.

Give them liberty or give me CNN!

Roger Cohen, New York Times:

Deceit and the attempted silencing of dissent are now Iran’s everyday currency. In this city of whispers one of the whispers now is: Where is Obama?

The short answer to this might be "the United States" -- the same place Roger Cohen will be (or the closest hotel room to it) during the final crackdown in Iran, no doubt helped along by the perception of foreign intrigue à la certain columnists in the New York Times.

Reading LOL!ita in Tehran

"A student in Iran," New York Times:

We look over this wall of marching people to see what our friends in the United States are saying about us... To our great dismay, what we find is that in important sectors of the American press a disturbing counternarrative is emerging: That perhaps this election wasn’t a fraud after all. That the United States shouldn’t rush in with complaints of democracy denied, and that perhaps Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the president the Iranian people truly want (and, by extension, deserve).

Wow, what important sector of the American press is that? I would very much like to become acquainted with this important sector of the American press, and other important sectors like it, which pen disturbing counternarratives implying the United States shouldn't rush to judgment on the subject of Iran.

Hate the player

Wall Street Journal:

All you loyal foot soldiers of business who have endured the forced camaraderie of team-building exercises at corporate retreats, whose office shelves bulge with loose-leaf binders from long-forgotten management-training seminars, who have wearily committed to memory the latest makeover of the company's inscrutable Mission Statement, rejoice. Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon offer a way to cope in their breezily cynical survival guide, "I Hate People."

This captures the sociopathic ethos of corporate culture nicely.

Let the good wars roll

Financial Times:

They [Islamic militants] have a global agenda, they have a regional agenda, they are not confined to Pakistan. They could go in to the [Persian] Gulf, they could go in to India, they can go anywhere,” [Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mahmood] Qureshi said. “There is a collective interest and there has to be a collective realisation that this is not Pakistan’s problem. It’s a larger problem”.

One of the most salient features of the war formerly known as "on terror" is that the enemy is so pitifully conceived as to be virtually ubiquitous. Do they have two legs? Then they are not confined to Pakistan. Do they have a particular way of seeing the world? Then they have a global agenda.

It is an insurmountable handicap in any war to define an enemy in no greater terms than having the ambulatory capacities of a human being and a "suspicious vibe." This only gets many, many people killed -- or as the folks in Special Forces like to say, "How the fuck am I supposed to tell difference between a goat-herder and an insurgent, unless the goat returns fire?"

Of course, there is utility in setting the bar so low that anyone with two feet and a gripe can readily cross the threshold: the enemy is whoever you want them to be. Today they are the Taliban. Yesterday they were al-Qaeda. Tomorrow they will be the world -- rest assured, plenty of it is poor and pissed-off; has dark skin but never had Communion; and lives on top of resource wealth that incorporated private interests would prefer to call their own.

But who is brave enough to stick their hand into someone else's livelihood in order to take it for themselves? Of course, no one is. That is why it is done in the name of national defense, for the benefit of others -- or by soldiers who just needed the cash and wanted the education. It is the poor who take land from the poor, just as it is the poor who take bullets for the rich.

Wireless welfare

New York Times:

[W]ireless carriers are receiving subsidies to provide people like Mr. Cobb with a phone and typically 68 minutes of talk time each month. It is a form of wireless welfare that puts a societal stamp on the central role played by the mobile device....

Telecommunications industry analysts said the program, while in its infancy, could benefit mobile phone carriers, who face a steep challenge of their own: most Americans already own a cellphone, so the poor represent a last untapped market.

When the impoverished citizen -- or, more accurately, the government -- is the final frontier for growth in a prevailing domestic industry, a service that was once regarded a luxury slowly takes the appearance of a human right.

That poor people aren't perceived in need of cellphone service until service providers have turned every corner and a corner more for subscribers -- Cuban-Americans, who George Bush last year made "free" to buy plans for island-bound relatives -- speaks volumes in itself; the poor enter the field of benevolence when invited, in tandem with the needs of their benefactors.

This underscores the point that what the poor might really "need" -- like, some material way to be less poor -- can never be the starting point of respectable conversation, but must evolve out of the self-referencing deliberations of the rich.

With friends like these, who needs insurgencies?

Economist:

The army’s progress is encouraging. On May 23rd it entered Swat’s biggest city, Mingora, where only 20,000 of around 375,000 inhabitants are estimated to remain.

Financial Times:

In a stark reminder on Thursday that the threat of further terror attacks still looms across the country, a bomb went off on a train in Baluchistan, the south-western province at the centre of a past separatist insurgency, killing one person and injuring 35.

As I mentioned earlier, Pakistan was not initially keen on making several million people homeless in order to get at several thousand Taliban fighters.

"Humanitarian crisis" is not the stuff of reelection, for one. But perhaps President Zardari was moved by Barack Obama's soaring oratory; alternatively, a large wad of cash and the chance to add Obama to his Facebook friends.

2.5 million refugees later, the west celebrates its crimes as evidence of success, and the relative impotence of the Taliban as portending disaster.

Hyperbole

FedEx argues that losing a regulatory advantage over a competitor constitutes a "bailout" that America cannot afford.

As for me, I miss the days after 9/11 when the common grievance could be extrapolated into "terroristic threats" for maximum redress.

If the shoe fits

Economist:

On the wall behind the desk of Andrea Jung, the boss of Avon, a beauty company, hangs a plaque labelled “The Evolution of Leadership”. It displays four footprints: that of an ape, then a barefoot man, then a man’s shoe and finally a high-heeled shoe. It is a symbol both of Avon’s self-proclaimed mission to empower women and of Ms Jung’s own high-heeled ascent to the corner office.

Appropriately enough, Ms Jung first saw the plaque hanging in the office of James Preston, the previous boss of Avon, when she was interviewed for a job at the firm in 1993.

Isn't the high-heel both restrictive and appealing to men? In a word, empowering.

Loose change

New York Times:

We were encouraged when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on China this week to confront its past.

Personally, I was encouraged when I called on my bank account this week to confront its past. And yet, no progress has been made in the balance.

Pillow talk

New York Times:

“The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends,” Mr. Bush said, to applause. “It is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them.”

In the seven more years that he would govern the United States, Mr. Bush would often repeat those words, or ones similar. So too would his advisers. And yet, America’s relationship with Muslims continued to deteriorate.

This takes me back to my post-collegiate days, when I would bring home a little more than $100 a week from the old parcel plantation. In the endless conflict between rent and food I would repeat the words, "I don't have to eat," or ones similar. And yet, my relationship with consciousness continued to deteriorate.

Anatomy of a speech

The thing about speeches is that they sound differently when you are in a refugee camp vs. when you are updating your status on Facebag.

I've heard a similar distortion can occur when you are unwittingly transformed into many separate pieces on behalf of the person speaking.

Subjects, naturally. But subjective?

New York Times:

[T]he idea that women may inherently view the law differently on occasion is something that troubles even several female judges who believe it may be so.

You have to admit it's troubling to think that women judges might "see things differently" than an all-scrotal SCOTUS, especially if you are the far-left, liberal New York Times.

I mean, this is the kind of thing that could have implications and shit, you know, for "society."

A woman's work is never done

Wall Street Journal:

As the downturn persists, U.S. employers flooded with resumes increasingly insist that job hunters jump through unusual hoops. An investment bank ordered an experienced female marketer to come dressed in fancy evening wear suitable for entertaining wealthy clients.

This reminds me of my theory that the task of the "restaurant hostess" isn't so much to chart a course to table from door as it is to announce the sexual preference of the restaurant owner as patrons arrive. And this is supposed to be a step up from waiting tables. Jobs kill me when you think about them.

The sins of Sotomayor

If you take Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court and contrast it with Barack Obama's ascension to the White House, what you see is an openness to people of color insofar as they play "post-racial" -- which means they attach only as much significance to race as white preference will bear, thus ensuring "consensus."

Barack Obama did this in spades, which is one reason why he is so widely admired, ushering in the "post-racial era," and so on. Finally: a capable black leader who lets white people set the pace on race, rather than pushing them to catch up with reality; may he set the precedent for all who follow!

To the extent that Sotomayor departs from this standard (not only does she confess to being influenced, even graced, by her non-white background; she's being appointed for life!) she is called a "reverse racist" or a "racialist": in short, she acknowledges the significance of race (and gender) in a way that certain, self-appointed white gatekeepers do not. In some corners of the political class, this has made her a very controversial figure.

Fortunately for the country, these corners are diminishing rapidly, with most of the population solidly behind Obama's pick. Still, the old guard dies hard; they propagate their arguments through ownership structures (radio, TV, and the internet) that can make the "debate" seem much more national than it really is.

Enjoy the silence

Democracy Now!:

AMY GOODMAN: That question of Barack Obama being handed, by President Hugo Chavez, Open Veins of Latin America, your classic work, what you would like him to learn from this book, President Obama?

EDUARDO GALEANO: No, I don’t want to teach anybody anything. Never. I even insisted last evening, when I was talking in that theater—

AMY GOODMAN: At the Ethical Culture Society.

EDUARDO GALEANO: Yes—the fact that I would be glad if Obama and all the USA progressive governors or people here begin to change the word—the word “leadership” by the word “friendship,” because leadership implies the resistance in someone over, above the other ones. And in the real human relationships, the real ones are horizontal, horizontal, not vertical; solidarity instead of charity; and no borders and no classes to receive from anyone, because the Northern world acts as if God would made them the teachers of the South, and they are taking examination all the time. To Venezuela, for instance, is it really democratic country? We’ll decide, because we are the teachers on democracy.

And paradoxically, the teachers on democracy are the factories of military dictatorships. I mean, the United States, and not only the United States, also some European countries, have spread military dictatorships all over the world. And they feel as if they are able to teach democracy.

So I don’t want to teach anything to anybody. I just want to tell stories deserve to be told. That’s all.

Galeano goes on to say that "when words cannot be better than silence, it’s better to shut up." There is certainly something not to be said for that.

Your own personal jihad

The relationship between morality and power is such that doing the right thing often sucks. This is the message of the gospels: do the right thing and you will make life that much harder for yourself in the short-term, and probably in the medium-term, as well; in the long-term you will be dead. There are no other guarantees, and even "doing the right thing" can amount to an act of faith. That's the bargain.

The rewards are what we make them. To be sure, they are not always obvious. If you give your only sandwich to someone because they ask for it, only to later discover two-thirds of it in the trash, it's fair to say the emptiness in your gut will not be from hunger alone, but from the wastefulness of an exchange that cost you considerably.

But it's important to remember what is at stake: on one hand, a sandwich; on the other, the freedom to help someone who asks for it directly. If the conclusion we take from this experience is, "I will not give up a sandwich without a guaranteed outcome that satisfies me," then we lose the freedom to act under almost every circumstance. So the reward in this regard is to invest in the kind of person we want to become. This may be less tangible than a sandwich, but as Tolstoy says, "Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them."

Handouts

The Social Unrest, 1903:

Our magnates of industry have not preached paternalism, but, in season and out of season, they have practised it. They have practised it so long and so openly, and with such conspicuous profit to themselves, that it is grotesque drollery for them to cry out against paternal legislation. They have not merely looked to the government to assist their enterprises, they have taken possession of it. Hat in hand, they have begged with such importunity that the law-making power, federal, state, and municipal, seems to have been looked upon as a private preserve. Yet these who discovered paternalism and reduced it to a political art and method, never fail to raise the alarm when the humbler classes ask legislative aid of city or state.

Obama leads

At first it seemed like Pakistan was reluctant to attack its own population in order to get at a couple of Talibanis, but then Obama convinced them that our campaign in Afghanistan was at stake. Two million refugees and an escalating spiral of violence later, things are looking up.

Women, culture, and dispossession

Financial Times:

Ms Atiyat says some of her friends will face pressure from conservative parents to stay at home. One of them, a talented writer, is lobbying her parents to relent so she can go out to work. If this fails, she plans to pursue a back-up plan of freelance editing and journalism.

The courage to challenge authority is necessary as campaigners such as Ms Awadhi chip away at the edifice of the [United Arab Emirate's] patrimonial society.

Capitalism wrecks traditional cultures something fierce, and the effects can be awesome. Marx admired this process, I think, because he favored the secular thrust of capitalism over the "backward" cultures of pre-capitalism, not least of all for the scientific and technological foundation it presupposed. In other words, Marx would have rooted for Ms Atiyat to betray the dictates of her parents and adopt the cosmopolitan outlook of the international businesswoman, because this could at least be justified on the basis of rational, economic self-interest, whereas blindly following a religious authoritarianism could not.

The condition of Middle Eastern women under contemporary religious rule is interesting to think of in terms analogous to the experience of American women in the 1950's. Not unlike Ms Atiyat, American women ultimately forged an alliance with corporate patriarchy in response to the unholy alliance of domestic patriarchy, religion, and the state. Under the circumstances, this made sense: corporate patriarchy granted women far greater freedom and independence than domestic serfdom; and insofar as it solicited educated white women in particular, it could recruit some of feminism's most influential actors in exchange for making their personal struggle that much easier.

Much global conflict, particularly with regard to "non-state actors," terrorists and so on, boils down to the violent interface between property rights as asserted by capitalism on one hand, and the sovereignty of traditional orders on the other. As CUNY professor David Harvey observes, most of this is happening around issues of "dispossession" -- the appropriation of traditional community resources by private interests, usually through state violence. Marx might have applauded this for the sake of "progress"; indeed, by some measures "progress" occurs, as with women in need of an ally against some worse offense.

On the other hand, women's entry into pursuits of profit is one part of an equation which also includes famine, disease, warfare, and the critical support of groups like the Taliban or the House of Saud when they are perceived to be sufficiently useful to business concerns. As with the American experience, many women lose even as others "advance" within institutions that are not their own.

Suffer the phony controversy

New York Times:

[A]ll the achievements of the feminist era may have delivered women to greater unhappiness.

Presumably, women don't want their priorities defined for them by others, whether the "instruction" comes from husbands, governments, employers, or anyone else.

It's not a contradiction to suggest that "the achievements of the feminist era" addressed some of these concerns and not others, and that women are increasingly dissatisfied with the constraints that remain.

Memorial days

If a mine owner tried to honor his employees for their "sacrifice" in a preventable tunnel collapse, the community would not bow their heads in prayer, but put the mine owner's on a stick. And yet the politician gets away with this year after year, war after war.

Parole

Away till next week. Until then, your friend and mine, the Angry Arab:

On national security

Whenever I hear talk of "national security" and "defending our way of life" I think about how my life is most insecure -- as it relates to employment -- and am forced to conclude that "our way of life" is the primary culprit. So why in the world would I want to defend it?

Marxist Mondays (belated)

Something cool that Marx teaches us is that we aren't compensated based on the value of what we produce; we are paid the going rate for our willingness to work.

This is the brilliance of capitalism: it buys up every family farm and corner store -- every independent means of survival -- and then offers cash payments based on how people feel in the face of starvation.

This is precisely why capital is now "globalized": the most desperate people are in other countries. Those of us in the "developed" world became too spoiled, demanding a decent standard of living. In short, we attached too many conditions to our willingness to work. Therefore, the production process moved elsewhere.

Anyhooker, the difference between what you and I are willing to be paid and the actual market value of what is produced is called "profit" -- it is absorbed by the owner. Now put that in your hash pipe and smoke it.

This note is brought to you by Black Box wine and work/4 hours sleep.

Cynicism we can believe in

Asking whether the Taliban are going to take over Pakistan and launch nukes is like asking whether 4,000 NRA members in Virginia are going to sack Washington and jerry-rig ICBMs to their Dish Networks. The fact that Virginia is "not far" from DC and that "the government has nukes!" does not lend credibility to the scenario.

So why does the Obama administration and, say, liberal news outlets like the New York Times have such a hard-on for the old second-coming of Hitler scenario?

Juan Cole observes:

Washington is alarmed at the spread of the Taliban in the North-West Frontier Province because it has implications for the security of southern Afghanistan, and therefore for US troops and NATO troops in Afghanistan. And so, from their point of view, this is a big crisis.

They don't want more safe havens for the Taliban in Afghanistan who are killing US troops. And they were upset with the Pakistani elite for not taking this problem more seriously. And I think, sort of saying that Pakistan is unstable, or it's about to fall, or the nukes are in danger, all of this sort of thing, is a signal to Islamabad that you had better get serious about this, because it matters to us. So this is Washington strong-arming Pakistan.

There once was a man named Noriega who was called the new Hitler right before we invaded his country, too. I don't remember him very well, either.

Lies of the liberal media

This from an email forward I received today:

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor;" of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers;" of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery;" of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.

Oh, yeah. I'm totally tired of hearing about how Islam is a religion of peace.

Losers

Last night someone told me Democrats are like communists: they take from the rich and give to the poor. I said this was certainly true when it comes to losses.

Captured

Let the sins of the system be blamed on the administrators, not the owners -- this should be the motto of government by and for the rich.

The government, as a rule-writing, baton-wielding presence, obviously has its shortcomings. Among these, the biggest may be that government acts on behalf of the most influential groups in society. In a highly unequal society, the "most influential" may not even include the majority. In other cases, minorities that lack influence aren't granted rights at all.

Most of what is wrong with government, in this respect, is that it too often defends minority interests in cases where the majority should rule (e.g., public policy); just as it abandons minority or non-citizen concerns in cases where the majority has no claim (e.g., civil rights; foreign policy). Of course, it is the violent character of government which ensures such "errors" will be pursued to their most tragic conclusions.

In short, government is most often a tool of the wealthy and the powerful, which effectively grants them a resource base and coercive powers they would otherwise lack. This happens under the rubric of "the nation" or "the national interest," which broadens the scope of possibility far more than the call to lay down one's life or livelihood on behalf of the rich: the Iraq war would never happen for Halliburton alone.

It is also no secret that the government gives the wealthy a fall guy when their policy preferences blow up in their face. The private sector, which is always driving deregulation in areas where it smells profit, has done a respectable job assigning blame for the financial crisis on government agencies that had not served the banks poorly, but too well. Only last night did I discover the expression which best accounts for the ensuing mess, and the role government played in achieving it.

NP-har

Some NPR host asked Gillian Tett if the business press might not represent the interests of "the rest of us." Hmmm: A press which specifically markets itself to big business... not looking out for the little guy? I give you the cutting edge of public radio!

Naturally, Tett, who is employed by the Financial Times, did not answer, "Yeah, pretty much," but instead talked about the business press being "in transition" -- because what isn't these days? -- and underscored the challenges of business journalism in speaking the language of Wall Street while writing accessibly for the public good. I thought this was interesting considering that a yearly subscription to the FT runs close to $500, which tells you something about its public purpose. Tett's investigative reporting on credit market chicanery may have yielded insights relevant to the public good, but that is only because it was deemed useful the business community first. It is only after the fact that one publishes a book aimed at a general audience.

Kapo

Whether it is the corporate office or the concentration camp, the most effective programs of control always include multiple tiers of authority and reward. Nobody is free, but at least there are rewards for "good" behavior.

You've come a long way, maybe

Progress!

measured by

the device in hand

passing by

the homeless man

Everything is made convenient

Everything is made convenient that plays its part for power. Isn't it remarkable how far we have come? The satellite has replaced the courier.

Everything is made convenient -- and easier still in the final hour! -- that plays its part for power. Surely we'll have something great, before our night has flowered.

Technocracy

Something like this:

What jumps out from the book is Sunstein's mistrust of human judgment in everything from politics to business, especially when people band together.

always leads to something like this:

Part of the answer is putting people with humility, curiosity, and openness in power.

and it kills me -- or somebody else -- every time.

Better living through stupidity

Financial Times:

[M]any scientists say we may need to start building space mirrors, creating artificial clouds or altering the chemistry of the sea to prevent the worst effects of global warming.

Never underestimate the ability of the big, the flashy, and the ill-conceived to beat out the cheap and sensible when power is preserved by the former.

When it comes to the environment, one option is to preserve what's left of the natural planet by consuming at the point of production, producing what is needed with minimal waste, and so on.

The other option is to consume what is shipped from the other side of the planet, produce anything and everything that might be sold, dump the rest into the sea, and download our personalities into robots when the planet becomes uninhabitable!

Good government

If Bush taught us anything, it is the importance of good government. After all, it's not like you would naturally invest in incompetent bankers or exploding villagers. But a first-rate government might persuade you otherwise.

Rest assured, it takes a special sophistication to substitute "the national interest" for your own.