Taking Sides

I had a great conversation with a friend the other day that focused on many things, but one of them was the foreign policies of the Obama administration and his predecessors. I  have discussed this subject on this blog before, but there are many subjects which have gone uncovered. This is also related to many of the subjects discussed by the new Zeitgeist movie which I will discuss after this post, and to the last post on Islamism and Egypt which I wrote last week.

If you have not had a chance to watch this video from my last post, please do, it may help to elucidate the arguments which follow. Or it may be better to watch it after reading this piece. Either way, take 20 minutes out of your day and watch it (caution to those with reaction to moderate to strong images of violence and some language)--

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/vbs-news/vbs-news-presents-taliban-in-pakistan-full-length

So, if only because the subject continues to come up, in the face of what is going on in Egypt and what has been going on in Afghanistan for almost 10 years, I thought it might be useful to some readers to see a short essay I put together (loosely as un-blog-related work), and then revised, responding to a famous piece by Wendell Berry written shortly after 9/11. I very much encourage you to take some time out and read Berry's somewhat brief article before continuing on to the rest of this piece. Mine is not remotely brief.


http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/214/



For those of you just skimming or ignoring- again, not recommended- let's go over what Berry is talking about really quick. Wendell Berry's essay delves into 2 principle points.

First, referring to our (the world's) international economic interactions, based on a Western Capitalist model,  he discusses the argument that our global system of free trade, built upon the growth of prosperity (which is) dependent upon the permanence of technological innovation, frantic consumption, and world marketing of the system, and the presence of global security to ensure it... is unsustainable. Dangerous even, for it favors growth over all other things, including people, especially those in countries which are forced to grow (sure, pun intended) dependent upon this system.

Berry points out that this global system is a breeding ground for inequality on an international and local scale because nations tend to support their own self interest regardless of the expense to other nations since there is little incentive in our world trade system for a nation, corporation, or individual to restrain greedy hands backed by raw power. Of course this "power" I refer to is the hard power (military) that sometimes must accompany soft power negotiations across the world; it is the reason we have a vast network of bases across the world-- to safeguard the "peace" of the global system of trade.


With me so far?

This argument is augmented by Berry's second point, mainly that such a global system can and should be confronted with an alternative. This alternative, to Berry, is Peaceableness, and it follows in the footsteps of the great non-violent, compassionate, compromising, and educated leaders of our time. Peaceableness starts with sustainability and information/education, demands restraint, and aspires to a higher moral calling. This goes beyond overarching policy considerations to Berry, and is reliant on an essential transformation of attitudes that penetrates down to the communal and individual level.


Ok, here is the commentary.


Regarding the first section- and I would argue that Berry is saying this, but not explicitly enough- it would have been really helpful if Berry had pointed more clearly to the link between the free-trade system that we enforce across the world- encumbering other cultures different from our own with a liberalism for which they had not prepared themselves nor necessarily requested- and the attacks upon our country on 9/11.

When I use "liberalism", (and now we wander somewhat questionably into the territory of Neoliberalism, but this represents too much to examine here) I mean two different philosophies in the "Western" sense, first (hereafter considered philosophy 1) referring to attitudes of Laissez-Faire economics and protection of persons with regard to their rights to property, and second (philosophy 2) to domestic and international movements for equal treatment under respective laws for differing social groups, classes, races, sexes, genders, etc, ostensibly for the purpose of allowing all humans to have the capacity to have access to the first philosophy. In a word, both of these perspectives are concerned with what we call "freedom" but perhaps "individualism" is a better fit-- ironically the first philosophy, using overtures of the second, seems to create foreign policies which end up looking very much like subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle Social Darwinism, which often runs contrary to substantial progress for the second philosophy. But now we are too far into the finer points.

It seems inconceivable that other peoples might reject our version of social progress- liberalism as described above-, but a progress forced upon any people is at serious risk for being one much maligned. It is not unlikely that given time all peoples may yet come upon some version of the same "progress" we have attained, meaning economic and social opportunity for all people. Let me give an example.

For a long time we have used the Taliban's treatment of women in Afghanistan as a specific reason why we must not allow them to come back into power, that is if the charges of supporting Al-Qaeda don't do it for you. We may decry the Taliban for it's treatment of women, but will installing a government that protects women's rights change the hearts and minds of the people? Is it impossible that allowing them to come to the same realization on their own may be better? Or worse, that their culture is not wrong for being different?

May I pause here for some additional potentially (though by no means intentionally) inflammatory dialogue?

I say the following things in good faith, making a comparison which is probably unfair, but I beleive helps to explain my point to an American audience; please be patient.

_______________________________________________________

Before you shake your head at this relativism that I am positing, consider some of the implications of, say, desegregation in our own country. Especially in the South, but in many parts of this country, Blacks were in a terrible position, oppressed, poor, and with little voice a century after the abolition of slavery. Some in America suggested that without the government intervening and forcing desegregation, nothing could be done about equality. But nothing happened; those in power did not act, fearing repercussions from an equally fearful electorate. Then, over the course of a decade and more, the groundswell that represented the many facets of the Civil Rights struggle forced the hand of authorities, and the desegregation process began. It was only after Americans forced themselves to come face to face with the racism in the country, that change began to occur, and this self realization was done largely at the grassroots level, not otherwise imposed. Some may argue that we should have stepped in sooner to stop such an oppression, and if the federal government had acted to impose these rules, it would have ended Black suffering sooner. But I think it took waiting for Americans to realize it themselves, for it to, unfortunately, get almost to the breaking point that allowed public opinion to go strongly for civil rights, that prevented even more very serious violence or even a race war. Because much of Black suffering was/is from the institutions, and those institutions are made up of people- change the institution all you want, and the people may never change their minds, or even act out against being forced, but allow social pressure to change the people's minds? And suddenly overt racism of the kind 50 years ago is virtually extinguished in this country. In my opinion it is also why the changes have lasted, without a strong backlash.



Let us suppose another example.  There is a school district in the rural Deep South which now must integrate by federal order. Is it better to force them to desegregate, or is it better to let them watch the rest of the nation shame them into not falling "behind the times"? Some will argue that without the federal order, the school will never desegregate, and that the federal order forces the change to occur faster and just as authentically. My essential argument, and yes this does come from my own observations about the world, and some relativism, is that the school district will decide to desegregate on its own over time, when the people who elect such a board realize what social, financial, infrastructural, moral, and associational benefits they are missing out on by continuing its policies. It is slower, and possibly involves more suffering (although in the long run this is up for debate) but it is probably much more genuine, and very likely reflects genuine attitude changes at the individual level. In the meantime the rest of us outside of the district get to reexamine our own attitudes and truly question whether our systems are more effective than the "other's" at achieving the goals of our own liberalism.

I acknowledge and recognize the validity of the other side of the argument for the subject above; do not think I am attempting to reduce in any way a situation of potent complexity. But my argument does gain strength when it is more closely applied to the analogy of foreign policy, fair or unfair as an analogy as it may have been. See, now imagine that the conflict isn't even domestic. It is thousands of miles away in a place where the culture hardly resembles ours, the languages are many and complex, and the expense of implementing overhead, top-down reforms is nearly prohibitive. Can we afford not to wait for an Afghani groundswell as we have seen in Egypt?
_____________________________________________________


Now that I've dealt with that aside, (if it frustrated you, please drop it and continue along in good faith with me) let us return to the argument at hand. The real truth regarding our attitudes about the Taliban in Afghanistan (again, here we return to Berry's main argument) is that philosophy #2 is not the main reason why American military forces are engaged over there.


Because although social progress is sometimes a byproduct of our economic interaction with other countries, it is not the primary reason we desire interaction, rather we seek resources, oil primarily, and while we seek these resources for the mutual benefit of both nations, we do so only as long as the benefit to our nation is greater. What I mean is, we are willing to aid Saudi Arabia in building infrastructure, but we also do have strong influence on who controls access to their oil (and its prices). We do not engage in equal business transactions; this is impossible because we wield much more political and economic influence than most countries with which we deal. And we ensure this state of being through our 'hard power', the global police of which Berry speaks, and this police enforces our economic law, our philosophical perspective, and our cultural preferences, regardless of disagreements locals may bring. After all they are rarely in a position to disagree, and will accept any help they can get to pull themselves up out of poverty, even at the price of what we would call their "freedom".

And since philosophy 1 comes intrinsically and intractably connected to philosophy 2, the policies involving both are practiced in a way that is dependent on this unequal relationship between countries, and leads inevitably to domination of the other, because we have decided that they involve inferior philosophies and inferior economies. Because these other ideas possibly threaten to rob us of the freedom to use our own liberalism to make the world safe for our opportunism, which has suddenly become a violation of our rights.

This is what "they" (sadly government officials oftentimes) mean when they say that the "Terrorists" hate your "freedom". They probably do hate that we have given ourselves the opportunity to live our lives in freedom because, with the permanently consumerist system we have enacted, it seems we must always exploit other countries for this lifestyle they hate us for. And if we run into trouble, our military is powerful enough to be used as a bargaining chip to help negotiations slide our way in many circumstances.


Ok, but let's ask this question. Let's say the system changed, Berry is now World Premier, wouldn't these enemies of ours still hate us regardless? Don't they want to impose themselves on us? Let's say we were to withdraw from all global 'entanglements' -one of Ron Paul's favorite terms- wouldn't we still invite attack because we are still a beacon of domestic freedom, and these enemies despise freedom, they oppose it on a philosophical and theological level, right? Plus, they attacked us; regardless of the world trade system, it's too late to change their minds, and meanwhile how did it suddenly become unreasonable for us to punish those who kill innocent people! We have a lesson to teach here. We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way. 


In this way our language regarding 9/11 is a confusing mixture of vengeful emotional rhetoric and noble defense, this part somewhat grounded in logic, of the cultural mores that define millions of people in "the West". But it seems that Berry and I both agree that both of these are a form of national self righteousness; they require one way to be right (ours) and another way to be wrong, speaking always in dichotomies- sometimes if only because God is on our "side". I ask the next question seriously, and I request that it be taken so. Need there be sides? Because as I see it, all people are just negotiating for a better life in the best way they know how. Many of us negotiate in violence or quietly support such negotiations with our taxes or votes or views and then become surprised when violence is turned back upon us. If we saw all people as people rather than representations of ideologies or sides we might be able to find solutions tailored to individual needs and comprehension of individual compulsion and drive.


Perhaps we like to comfort ourselves with this supposition of dichotomies, that we must fight the physical presence of the ideology which groups like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda espouse in order to protect ourselves from these ideas, but to me this brings into play Berry's second point. Such a supposition is a distraction from what is truly at stake, and education can resolve this point. In fact, I wish fervently that everyone would read some of the publications put forth by Osama bin Laden and sympathetic groups to his cause, to learn exactly what it is that they desire. We would learn that quite often the large majority of what they point to is transgressions caused by our occupation/destruction of what they view as their homeland and people, our exploitation of their resources, or our support of countries which do the same. It is a disturbingly logical case. They are giving us the recipe for their own dissolution. After all, do you think significant support of groups like Al-Qaeda would continue if our liberal global systems and our destructive policing of those systems couldn't be used as a recruiting tool? Because the other smaller parts of their rhetoric which reek of the same national, moral, and religious self righteousness that Berry and I so dislike seems so much weaker without the substance of our great transgressions used for justification. Think on this.

What if... Is is possible that they are speaking out in the only way they know how, the only way they feel the world will listen, in this global society where hard power dominates, and capitalism quashes the voice of the poor and disadvantaged? What would that say about us? What would happen to us if we dared to take the higher road and offer first to extend the olive branch instead of attack, to recognize some of their demands as legitimate, even to apologize when we feel an apology would make us weak, or when we feel after being attacked ourselves that they couldn't possibly deserve to have US apologize to THEM- THEY that killed innocents before our very eyes- but what if we did it anyway, because that was how we wanted to show our strength?

Could we be forgiven for the times we've taken the lives of innocents too? Would so many countries see an opening in our weakness to take an eye for an eye? Would the world turn against us then? Or at the very least, could the world's people possibly hate us more for such an act of patience and compassion than one of revenge and moral imperiousness?

I ask: Would we have everything to lose, or everything to gain?

What paths will Egyptians tread now?

For more background on this from PL vs: look here. Or for a good recap/summation from CNN, here.

I am sure that some of even the most staunch conservatives in this country, those that advocate stability and security over democracy for our world partners, could not help but smile at the inspiring events today in Egypt. It has largely been since the Vietnam War and Civil Rights Protests that we have seen such non-violent demonstrations in our own country for political change, and it is difficult not to find success like what has occurred in Egypt today uplifting.

Hosni Mubarak, greeted by an overwhelming protest movement culminating with great intensity today in several cities across Egypt, has officially resigned his post as President of Egypt, fleeing with his family from the Capital.

The announcement was made by his Vice President, Omar Suleiman, in what has been described as a terse minute-long concession. Power will be handed over to the Egyptian Military (specifically a group of military leaders who make up the Supreme Council of the Armed forces) which has largely refused to take part action against or to protect the protesters.

Last night, Mubarak enraged protesters by appearing on television and refusing to resign, handing over only some of his powers to the Vice President. Some Egyptian leaders had hinted that the speech would signal Mubarak's resignation. When that wasn't what happened, the crowds felt further deceived. Earlier in the week, attention had turned away from Tahrir Square to worker strikes across the nation, but on Friday, new lifeblood had been pumped into the student and young-people driven protests because of the previous night's events.

And now, these demonstrations have turned into cheering, chanting crowds, shooting off fireworks and dancing in the streets. A few hours ago, even now, some streets were so full of people that they were entirely blocked off.


But what will happen to Egypt now? Can we expect things to return to normal? Or will instability spread? The world watches patiently, eagerly, wondering what example Egypt's new leaders will demonstrate. Perhaps the rest of the word's countries will show that they have learned something from this, and dare to illustrate some respectful restraint for a time before inevitably exercising their influence on Egypt's new affairs.


Meanwhile, Egyptian protesters, your tenacity has paid off. May your non-violence and passion be reflected in the policies and personnel of the new government. Now, we can only hope, Egypt is finally free. Let us also hope that America is willing to accept the real consequences of  Democracy in action, regardless of its benefit to our people, companies, or way of life.



Egyptians I raise my glass to you tonight. Your efforts remind us of the achievements humanity is capable of in the face of poverty, violence, and all adversity. Your rage compels us to reexamine our own actions and their many extensive consequences for the world. Your spirit inspires us to work for global change before the human condition pushes any population to such a breaking point. And finally, we wish you all good luck.

Egypt, Islamism, and Questions of Revolution

Welcome back!

I hope none of you get that reference.

Thank you everyone for being patient with this blog, I hope that now that posting will resume, those of you who did follow it before will continue to follow it now. I have had my break from politics, and it was a good time for it, since very little happened in the world of politics outside of 2 major stories, the State of the Union, and the conflicts going on in Egypt now. But now it’s time to start again. I have devoted much time to the study of the Arab world as well as the Islamic world and I could not stay out of the discussions going on about Egypt. These events are too critical a tool for the use of exposing the major problems in US foreign policy. The post below is lengthy, and I debated breaking it up into parts, but I think I'd rather have it all out there and encourage you to take your time reading it.  

But first a note on future programming. I am under the impression that the next post will be from our elusive guest author, the Dr. Professor of Economics; I will try to ensure that we remain on schedule for an interesting fleshing out of our economic systems here in the US and issues regarding the deficit. I also have received a request to review the new Zeitgeist Movie and I fully intend to do so when I have 3 hours to devote to taking a critical eye to it. From what I’ve seen so far, it is much less conspiratorial than previous iterations, and is very careful to ground itself better in established wisdom. I fully recommend you check it out yourself when you have the time, or you can wait until I’ve examined its value. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w&feature=player_embedded

  

But back to the issue at hand. In light of the recent political turmoil in Tunisia and Egypt, and many other locations across the Arab world, I wanted to tie together a few things that may be of interest.

Most of you are familiar with what has been going on in Egypt, many of you may not know that the whole thing began in Tunisia where several weeks prior to Egypt, the “Jasmine Revolution” occurred. We didn’t hear so much about the Jasmine Revolution in America, but we are hearing about Egypt- this is for a few reasons. First, Tunisia’s population is 1/8 that of Egypt’s, it is not considered to be a “critical ally” for strategic or trade reasons, and the revolution that occurred there was rapid, virtually bloodless and successful. Egypt didn't play out the same way.

But here’s the background story. Tunisia had been ruled by a short series of dictators for a generation, the most recent of whom was Ben Ali. Like most of the Arab world today, the economic recession has caused a lot of poverty, and food prices in particular are quite inflated. So, the story goes, a young computer scientist, after failing to find a job in his field or any field, was forced, like many Tunisians, to sell food goods-evidently without a permit- on the street to make ends meet. Some officers of the Regime were trying to clear the streets of such vendors and “asked” him to leave. When the man refused, his goods were confiscated and, evidently lost and hopeless, he proceeded to set himself on fire.

This act of protest was the spark for massive demonstrations in support of the man and in support of removing Ben Ali. After a few tense days, Ben Ali fled the country and the Tunisians are now in the process of reforming their government with opposition members for the first time being allowed to involve themselves in the process.

Encouraged by what happened in Tunisia, protests erupted in various Arab countries, but on January 27 they crystallized in Egypt, when demonstrations probably exceeding 70,000 people broke through police lines and occupied Tahrir Square, a central location in the capital of Cairo. Mirror protests occurred in other major cities. This event was preceded by several acts of self immolation in Egypt in front of government buildings- this should give you an idea of how bad things have become there.

The President and dictator of Egypt is Hosni Mubarak; he’s been serving in Egyptian public office for 62 years now and he is in his eighties. The protesters want to happen to him what happened to Ben Ali, for him to leave and take his influence with him.

  

Last week the protesters were forced to fight off pro-Regime supporters, but after almost 2 days of street fighting, the protesters persevered, and they are still occupying Tahrir Square as of the writing of this post. This is an up-to-date article with good pictures: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/02/07/egypt.protests/index.html

The primary discussions which have been going on in America regarding the occurrences in Egypt have been over whether or not to support the Mubarak Regime. A lot of military aid goes to Egypt in exchange for Mubarak’s cooperation on matters with Israel, which is the US’s primary and unbreakable ally in the region. But Egypt has also been a close partner regarding the United States’ prosecution of the War on Terror, allowing certain interrogations to take place on Egyptian soil which might be illegal in the US, and passing on useful intelligence data regarding the Arab world.

In general, fears of foreign policy experts are that although Mubarak’s Regime is a Dictatorship, it is better to leave in place a US-friendly government than one that is democratically elected but could be an ally of the “Islamists” or "Terrorists" (these terms sometimes used interchangeably). Critics have claimed that it is hypocrisy to promote democracy as an ideology, but support it in practice only when it suits the needs of US interests. Sadly, the United States government has had a history of supporting moderate dictatorships in order not to risk the formation of fundamentalist Islamist republics. I will debate whether this has been a successful strategy, and flesh out the term "Islamist", later. Given the chance to democratically control their fate, some voters in the Middle East have chosen Islamic Fundamentalist parties that support US definitions of terrorism rather than more secular parties backed by the United States.  

  

For example, in Palestine, when democratic elections were held, the people rejected the ruling moderate Fatah Party in favor of Hamas, a terrorist organization by US standards. In Iran, a popular revolution unseated the moderate and pro-West Shah in favor of a Theocracy ruled by the Ayatollahs. And in Lebanon right now there are struggles over whether or not Hezbollah, another terrorist organization according to the US Government, will dictate policy under their pick for Prime Minister.

Likewise in Egypt there are those who are concerned that were democratic elections to take place, Egypt might stop being so supportive of United States policy, or worse, become ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist and relatively conservative Islamic political movement. Fears of the Muslim Brotherhood have become so great that at least one media personality- and perhaps a few others on one particular network- is using this occasion to warn against the perils of a rising Islamist power bloc in the Middle East. Maybe centered in Ancient Babylon. 

But I say, so what if the Muslim Brotherhood ends up on top, as long as the elections were fair? If such an organization can provide for the people and support their needs as Mubarak has failed, why should we be so concerned? It will give the people of Egypt, even the world, a chance to see what positive impacts Islamism is capable of. But more importantly, it’s just not so likely that they will succeed. After all, while there have been examples of Islamism taking hold in some countries , there have been others where popular support falls a different way: look at Tunisia for instance, or the main body of protesters in Egypt. These people are secularists for the most part. And those who are not secularists, well who’s to say they shouldn’t also have a voice, after all, no political leader in Egypt has declared war on us yet! I think if people are allowed to realize their own potential through democracy, they will support moderation and peace, since this is the nature of people who are not pushed to war!

Let me give an example.

There are fears that Islam itself tends to support violence, but I see no basis to this claim. I want to be clear. Islam is not a peaceful religion. Islam is not a violent religion. People have used interpretations of the Islamic cultural sphere and Islamic texts to use violence on behalf of Islam. But when most public figures will tend to say “Islam is a peaceful religion” what they mean is that the overwhelming majority of those practicing Islam practice it in a way that promotes peace in the local community and often abroad. This is true of every religion, because human nature seeks stability and peace in order to live life in a fulfilling way.

Those who do not use religion for peace usually do so for two primary reasons. This is not to say that the 3^rd reason, what I’ll call “Fervent Ideology” (someone passionately believing in a social system that does not promote peace) is not ever a factor, but most of the time it is a result of the 1^st or 2^nd reason and does not spring up on its own.  The 1^st reason is that the ruling state incentivizes the violent use of religion. This was true of the Crusades. Or 2^nd, the peace, stability, and prosperity of a location is destabilized by poverty, religious or non-religious violence, famine, drought, overpopulation, prejudicial discrimination, and trampling of popularly perceived rights and freedoms, etc, and these destabilizations can be clearly and closely connected to an antagonist force against which religious violence can be turned (like a country, or the "West"). These two factors motivate the use of religion for means outside that of a peaceful society. BUT even given these two factors, the MAJORITY of the populace will always support peace and stability, regardless of poverty and state incentivization, etc.

You could argue that Egypt is destabilized and poor, and if the people representing the Muslim Brotherhood are elected they will sponsor religious violence-- these are all the precursors mentioned above! But I don't think this is likely if Egypt remains truly a democracy. Firstly because the Muslim Brotherhood is not necessarily a violent organization or one promoting violence, at least not openly if so, because it has historically promoted non-violence. And secondly, because the majority of people will seek stability, not violence; they will not tolerate a ruling party that trends too far from the center of the general popular view. This is what is happening in Lebanon. Yes, Hezbollah may gain some power through elections, but they are unlikely to advocate something truly unpopular with more than half the populace, like having Lebanon go to war with Israel, or implementing universal Sharia Law- and it's unlikely they'd have the political power to do so even if they wished. I think this will have to be the result of any ruling party in Egypt: relative peace and stability. There is no real benefit to Egyptians waging holy war when they can’t even put food on their table. Meanwhile, it is better for Egyptians to see the United States as supporting their democratic aims; in that case it is even possible, dare I say, for Egyptians to start liking the United States and truly work towards partnering with us of their own will. The longer it takes for the United States to jump on this bandwagon, the weaker the chance there will be for a true democracy, or partnership, to develop!

Because right now the only image of the US that Egyptians have gotten is the “Made in the USA” engraving on the tear gas canisters fired on them by Mubarak’s police, according to an article I read recently. This picture says it all. 

My point, and where the irony lies, is here: it is precisely our insistence on supporting Regimes that trample democracy and help us exploit the natural wealth of others which is actually what is causing the kind of instability, poverty, and prejudice that is a perfect environment for Islamic fundamentalism and notions of religious violence to grow and spread. First and foremost in the mind of US policy makers are the strategic and economic interests of the global business of and people in the United States. Not the wellbeing of all those across the world. The disconnect seems to be that supporting the wellbeing of the world’s citizens seems to also be the thing that best and most efficiently serves the interests of US citizens. Wait. But why are we afraid of supporting the wellbeing of the world’s people then? Instead of explaining myself, I will let images tell the better story...

  

I strongly strongly encourage you to view this video about the Taliban in Pakistan, and you will catch my meaning. It’s under 20 minutes, but be prepared for some moderately intense images of violence and a little language.      

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/vbs-news/vbs-news-presents-taliban-in-pakistan-full-length

One thing I like about this video is that it hopefully helps people to understand that the Taliban is different than Al-Qaeda. That Islamic fundamentalists, or even supporters of Al-Qaeda, are not themselves Al-Qaeda.

So, if you will, let me finish with a few more clarifications. So, what is all of this stuff about Islamism? It seems that what many of us is afraid of is what has been described as an Islamist ideology that will unite the Islamic world against the “West” in a great violent renunciation of all the freedoms and progress that we enjoy. The word Islamist is thrown around a lot by the media and political figures, but I want to make one last point regarding our use of that word.

Islamist has been taken to mean different things depending on the context. Either it refers to “Islamic fundamentalist”, “Terrorist”, “Jihadist”, “favoring a violent overturn of a secular or pro-west government”, or “favoring the restoration of the historical Caliphate”.

Let me break this down really quickly. Only the last definition is truly correct; Islamists favor the uniting of the Islamic world or parts of the Islamic world under one religious and political rulership (called a Caliphate) that would help to dictate the unified interests of the Islamic world. This could mean one country or several. Historically the Islamic world has been united at various points and to various degrees in this way. One does not have to be, nor is likely to be a terrorist or a jihadist to be an Islamist. Nor does one necessarily favor fundamentalism or violence at all, in fact, some Islamists favor democratic reforms which would bring about such a unification. There are other definitions to Islamism, but this is what most people are trying to mean.

There are Islamists who favor the use of violence and violence against civilians to accomplish such reforms, and some who want the entire world to be united under this Caliphate so that Islam could unquestionably thrive; if it is necessary to articulate an "enemy" for the United States, please let it be these people, so described. Al-Qaeda almost certainly falls in this category.   

Islamists alone, though, are not our “enemy”. Remember, Islamism is an Islamic political and religious movement aimed at protecting the Islamic faith and the interests of those practicing it, and only a tiny portion of those favoring Islamism would likely go out and join something like Al-Qaeda given the opportunity.  

  

Moreover, Islamist is not the same as Islamic, though I’ve seen the mistake before; Islamic simply means one of the Muslim faith. The large majority of Muslims are not Islamist.  

And finally, I have used the words “Arab world” in this post. Not all Arabs are Muslims, and Arabs constitute a minority of practicing Muslims. Arabs are an ethnic group and in general they speak a Semitic language related to Hebrew, and this is the language of the Qur’an. It is disappointing when I hear the word “Arab” substituted for “Muslim”.  So when I say Arab world in this post, I mean North Africa and the Southwest Middle East. Primarily Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq. Neither Iran nor Afghanistan nor Pakistan are majority Arab countries.

Glad to get those extra things out of the way. Ask questions if you like. Post comments as you please. Seek more information on this subject if you desire it. And as always, thanks for reading!


::Update 9:15pm, I put the article out before I had made some very important edits, please ensure you are reading the most up-to-date copy of this post. Thanks!:: 

Housekeeping, and Informal Thoughts on Wikileaks

Apologies to all the readers for the extended hiatus in new posting; I've been working on securing two new temporary contributors, and taking a short vacation from blogging, as politics season had taken a short break period after the frantic pace of the pre-election information. But we're well moving into the short Lame Duck session of Congress and there's a lot to talk about. So here I am again, humbly at your service!

I also want to thank the many dedicated readers for their interest in P.L. vs:; thanks to you we had over 300(!) individual page views in the month of November, averaging more than 10 pageviews per day. Keep up the reading, and in return I'll try to keep us growing with more fresh insights and general political news!

But for now, to get things rolling, I feel compelled to comment on the Wikileaks controversy that is swirling amongst the political sphere.


As you all probably know, Wikileaks is the controversial site which has been, well, leaking, here and there, confidential government information and classified military documents. At the moment, it's been dropped from all US servers and is now temporarily operating out of the one country which never takes a side- (you guessed it!) Switzerland, with the generous help of the Swiss Pirate Party. On a side note, the world wide Pirate Party phenomenon is an interesting read, and yes it is a real thing; start here if you want to know more. Oh, it's all so fun!

Anyway, the Wikileaks site can now be accessed at Wikileaks.cn, or the specific IP address: http://213.251.145.96/. The reason for it's drop has to do with a combination of it's hyper controversial nature and vigilante cyber attacks in the nature of DDoS and DoS which have periodically shut down the site.

It's really not surprising that Wikileaks has come under such attack. The non-profit organization has released documents not intended for release on a scale that has never been done before, including documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and international governments are still trying to cope with the fallout from the most recent release: 250,000 individual US diplomatic cables (conversations between diplomats and officials). Some Republicans have been calling for Wikileaks to be designated a terrorist organization for its release of these documents that could potentially put active diplomats and armed service members in harms way. And most Democrats and virtually the rest of the Republicans favor taking serious legal action against Wikileaks or it's founder Julian Assange, if nothing else, simply on the basis of the embarrassment to world leaders and the US government, and the dysfunction, disruption, and international mistrust it has supposedly caused. We could be talking about a charge on the level of treason, or something relative in nature to that charge. Of course, complicating things on the legal front is the First Amendment of the Constitution, the fact the Assange is an Australian citizen, the fact that Assange seems to be hiding out somewhere in the UK, the fact that the servers of Wikileaks are operating out of France and Sweden, or the fact that the domain name is now hosted in Switzerland. Also logistically complicating the removal of Wikileaks servers is that, well, they're in a bomb shelter... bunker... cave. I'm just saying, these Wikileaks guys are ready for anything.

No, wait, it gets better. Assange is now wanted by Interpol; oh yes there he is up on the site, for an alleged sex crime or two in Sweden. The timing of the release of this notice by Interpol is certainly convenient for the United States and many countries of the world which would love to see Assange behind bars. Again, whether or not these sex crime allegations are related to Wikileaks or not is unclear, but the timing of the Red Notice put out by Interpol is suspicious, to say the least. 


Most political commentators have leveled varying degrees of condemnation at Assange, most of whom have echoed what Secretary of State Clinton said Monday at the beginning of this week: "The United States strongly condemns the illegal disclosure of classified information. It puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems." A few bold souls have actually praised the release of these documents, and Clinton addresses these people in the same speech to which I linked above. Her argument against this praise comes at 4:45 in the youtube video. Clinton essentially argues that state diplomacy requires exceptional discretion for it to be effective. A similar argument is made in this article by Paul Schroeder, shared with me by a friend.

My initial reaction to the whole thing was guarded praise for the release of these documents, since I am always in favor of more transparency in our governmental systems. Public servants, in some ways, lose the privilege of privacy when they represent a collective body of citizens, and unless those citizens can make informed decisions about what is going on in their world, not just what the officials want us to know, but what is actually happening, the better we can elect leaders who can carry out the kind of diplomacy in which we believe. The more I have thought about this issue, the more my position has become solidified, again with cautious praise for the Wikileaks release. There are some caveats to this praise however. To address it, I recommend you read the Schroeder article above and then my response to it, which is below.


The article's comments, which surmise most of the major criticisms of Wikileaks, are ultimately not convincing to me. I'm unsatisfied with the explanation that secrecy is necessary, for the sake of secrecy, when secrecy is all we've had. In other words, the argument that states require secret diplomacy to run correctly and effectively may be true, but this argument ignores the question of whether or not the fact that this secrecy is necessary is actually a good thing! It seems to me that secrecy in the public service often has a dubious foundation. Perhaps if we stop treating the public like children unable to professionally analyze the data released in massive leaks, or confidential material in general, the public will become used to such otherwise 'scandalous' materials and use the information to be better knowledgeable about our world's foreign relations situation. As I said earlier, this information can be used in advocacy or in the ballot box.

Meanwhile, the argument that other foreign leaders would be insulted by the information coming out, and it therefore hurts the relations between the US and other countries requires additional questions be asked. I have a hard time believing that foreign leaders are so naiive that they don't already know how our diplomats and foreign officials feel about them, and either way I don't think that the leader of a nation would honestly be so self conscious as to care about what US diplomats or officials think. But the embarrassment really comes from the fact that now the public knows of the humiliation they've received in confidential cables, and it may hurt the pride of these leaders. Well, if public humiliation makes these people more aware of their own shortcomings (both the giver and receiver of the insult) then I am in favor of it.

From my standpoint, these diplomats and foreign officials are a product a concept of prestige based on the power (military of economic) they are representing, of the country from which they come, and that prestige is based upon our unnecessary sociological and cognitive retention of the proud nation state in our world understanding. It doesn't surprise me that the establishment within the government in both parties are condemning the release of these documents, because they lower the prestige of the socially constructed entity for which they work. Power and prestige aren't ideological issues or party issues so why disagree? I have written at length of the major problems in assuming that the nation state is the best or only form of governance, and I think everyone would be a little better off if they remembered that institutions such as the nation (and this includes the officials whose jobs depend on representing that nation) exist only as long as the people continue to tolerate the socialized existence of such things. If leaks of this sort expose the nation-state for the inadequate governing system that it is, then I approve. And I'll reiterate that the cables at the very least raise the question of whether or not it is a good thing that secrecy is required for the system to work in the first place. What, exactly, is preventing our nations from working with complete transparency? And why?

And still, through all of this, I have some major reservations regarding an outright endorsement of the activities by Wikileaks. The final argument made by critics of the organization, to which I am much more amenable, is this: that there is sometimes a time and a place for the release of confidential documents, and that releasing documents without discretion in a huge 'dump' is perhaps ill-advised, particularly as it puts in danger individuals who are trying to anonymously or confidentially warn US officials about anything from genocide to asymmetrical political violence, to discrete forms of oppression. Perhaps Wikileaks should have taken a fine tooth comb through these documents, using a professional who could evaluate them, and blacked out the names of people who might be put in serious actionable danger from the release of these documents. No nuclear wars are about to be started because of these documents that Wikileaks released (and the pride of nations deserves to be checked every once in awhile), but I'm sure the US does possess documents which might provoke a major regional conflict or even a world war, and I think that these kinds of documents should be handled with utmost care.

And yet the major problem with the above suggestion for an approach is that the people best qualified to help Wikileaks determine the difference between information that is seriously and immediately dangerous and information which would just hurt the pride of national figures, are US Government officials. It's unclear that the US Government would have cooperated with Wikileaks in an honest way, or even at all, and it's also unclear that Wikileaks wouldn't have somewhat compromised the press power of the 'document dump' by warning the US of what the organization possessed. But I think it's about time that Wikileaks showed it's commitment to the careful release of documents and proved that the organization is not just dumping these documents for the sake of media attention and controversy. They could do this by reaching out to the US Government and requesting cooperation on subsequent releases.

This is what I meant earlier by cautious praise. I like the general idea of what Wikileaks is trying to accomplish through transparency, revealing the kinks in the system and shedding light on that which the US Government, for reasons of pride (or maybe shame), wants to keep in the dark. But just releasing confidential documents without any discretion seems irresponsible to me as well, and in the future I would ask more from Wikileaks in terms of the acknowledgment of the dangerous potential that the release of some documents may pose. It's very hard to know where, exactly, to draw the line between what is responsible and irresponsible in these situations, but instead of just outright condemnation of Assange and Wikileaks from commentators, I want to hear more of where to draw this line, and why. In the end, anything that provokes discussion of the merits of our current system should be given some praise; methods of provocation, however, might be reasonably and fairly subject to a little condemnation as well.

I want to end by saying that I am NOT a foreign policy expert, and I am ignorant of many aspects which may be present in a larger and more complex argument. Therefore I am very open to additional arguments going both ways in this discussion. What do you think?

Why do we never talk about Ageism?

What follows is a short essay on Ageism in society. Because it is a little longer than a normal post, it will be truncated part way down on the home page. Please click the "Read More" button at the bottom to read the full article. Also I have no idea why the font changes. Please bear with it...

In our modern social world, we always concern ourselves with issues of sexism or racism or disability discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination- even income discrimination- but it seems there is almost never any attention paid to age.

Ageism is the most prolific kind of discrimination, period. I am hard pressed to think of a time in history when this was not the case. Most cultures have it hard wired into themselves to be ageist, that is, the treatment of someone of a certain age differently than someone of another age. Particularly in East Asian cultures, the elderly are revered at the expense of the young; in some other cultures the old are discarded as invaluable and a strain on society.

But the reality is, ageism is more important than ANY OTHER KIND OF DISCRIMINATION, mostly because it is so ingrained into the fabric of our society that it is never challenged and we never seem to talk about it. So let’s talk about it!

Now I understand that Ageism goes multiple ways, but I think there is a substantial argument that the main disadvantaged group with regard to age discrimination is those of young age. This is not to diminish the ageist struggles of the elderly, but I feel that young person discrimination is more often ignored. I write from the standpoint of a young person, so I can only argue what I know and have experienced.

Let’s start off with the basics.

Should News Personalitites be Able to Make Donations to Partisan Candidates?

It's a fair question to ask, especially in light of the (indefinite, but actually just 2 day) suspension of MSNBC anchor and host of "Countdown" Keith Olbermann. Either way, MSNBC seems to be sending mixed messages. Just a few weeks ago MSNBC launched an ad campaign intended to 'subtly' highlight it's position as the more progressive news organization between CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. Their new tag-line is "Lean Forward" and these series of ads showcase MSNBC's nighttime lineup of news shows. You can see an example of a less partisan branch of this ad here and here and a more partisan branch here.

CNN responded to this ad campaign in an attempt to solidify itself as the only news organization which is 'unleaning', using the slogan "Moving Truth Forward". You can see this ad here.

To my knowledge Fox News hasn't entered the fray, hopefully because they are already aware of how partisan their news has become. Or maybe because they're still delusionally stuck on "Fair and Balanced". I wrote an extensive post decrying Fox News for not explicitly stating their partisan tilt, and I will use this post to call on MSNBC to do the same. The people over at Fox News are probably gleeful that MSNBC has embraced it's leftist side, because it only reinforces Fox's argument that every other news station is partisan, and only Fox is balanced. The whole thing is sickening to anyone who's concerned about the difference between rhetoric and truth. 

The idea behind not allowing commentators on the news to donate to political candidates is that it jeopardizes the journalistic integrity of that news station. That makes sense, to a degree. According to this CNN article, Fox News already has 30 hosts and contributors who have donated to political candidates, and CNN and MSNBC have both tried very hard to distinguish themselves from Fox by maintaining journalistic excellence.

So should Keith Olbermann and others from MSNBC be allowed to donate to political candidates? Absolutely. 

Wait, what? Why you ask? Because Keith Olbermann is not a real journalist! At least not in the sense for which MSNBC is giving him credit! It's not his job to report the news, it's his job to put a liberal spin on the news. The same is true for Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly. They are not unbiased. That's the point! MSNBC's suspension of Olbermann is an attempt to legitimize him as a news source, suggesting that he was somehow an example of unbiased journalistic excellence to begin with. He is NOT! Absolutely not! This doesn't make Olbermann not valuable. Just not unbiased news.

What news organizations need to do, therefore, is to recognize and fully own their partisan leans! It isn't exactly journalism when MSNBC's commentators are disparaging Republicans all election night, or when Chris Matthews goes at it with Michelle Bachmann, calling her "hypnotized". It's funny for sure, and yes, Bachmann was dodging Matthews' question, but it seemed uniquely partisan to me, for him to take that tone with her.


And it's not as if I have a problem with left leaning or right leaning news organizations; I'm not a believer in news that's completely unbiased. It's dishonest to suggest that there is a such thing as unbiased or unleaning news. That's why the introduction to my blog states clearly that "To be fair, I fall decidedly on the left side of the political spectrum- however I have made it a point to look at issues in a scholarly/journalistic manner since the September 2010 rebirth of the blog. It is impossible to remove bias from writing, and trying to do so almost completely removes, in my opinion, the essential character from a work. Instead it should be prudent to approach all issues with genuine honesty and reasonable fairness as much as possible."

I make clear where I stand on issues, so you can decide whether or not I'm advocating that perspective or an unbiased one. I like to think that, for the most part, this blog gives an evenhanded approach to news and politics. But MSNBC and Fox News, and sometimes, yes, even for you CNN... all three of these organizations have failed to make clear their anchors' stances on politics.

So, of course, let Olbermann and Beck and Shultz and O'Reilly make contributions to candidates financially; they're already making those contributions in the press, why not allow them to be 'activists' when THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE. Trying to pretend that these personalities are not activists is, again, very dishonest. Therefore I hereby make this suggestion to the three news networks:

Just as there is a disclaimer for "adult content" in late night comedy central or adult swim that essentially warns the audience to be prepared for a certain type of material, there should also be a disclaimer before news shows that show a distinct bias, and you know who you are. "Countdown is not a regular news program at MSNBC, it is a commentator program. It represents viewpoints which are to the left of the political spectrum and does not represent evenhanded news coverage. These viewpoints do not reflect upon regular news programming at MSNBC which takes place between ___ and ___" could be the simplest way to accomplish this. An insult to Olbermann? It shouldn't be, unless he's deluded himself into thinking that his show isn't leftist leaning. And just to be clear, Fox News should have the same exact disclaimer before their commentary shows.

And if these commentary shows' views have spilled into regular news programming at these networks, (and there is some suggestion that they have), these views and objectives should be purged from the regular news programming at the network or else the network itself should have a constant disclaimer up at every change of anchor. That is how one pursues journalistic excellence. Own who you are. Be fair and honest, including as many perspectives as you can. And report on facts and the truth, as they are presented to you.

And then these inherently biased programs become both honest AND useful to the public again. As a liberal, I love Countdown, it's great fun to watch, but I know it for what it is. When you want a spin on news, you should be able to get it. But you should be reminded that it is still spin.

Should we switch to Instant Runoff Voting?

The question in the title comes up from time to time in the political discourse, usually when there are three-way races in which two groups with majority opinion split the vote. In my post yesterday on three-way races, I noted that some of these political contests might provide a more acceptable result for the population and stave off strategic voting, if IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) was implemented.

The Florida electorate is 23% Unaffiliated, 41% Democratic, and 36% Republican. Most Republicans and some Unaffiliateds are backing Marco Rubio, the very conservative Tea Party-backed Republican nominee, but Rubio's campaign has stalled out in its numbers, consistently failing to reach above about 45% of the vote. The assumption, therefore, is that 55% of the electorate does NOT want Rubio elected. These people are a few disaffected Republicans, many Unaffiliateds, and almost all Democrats. And yet Rubio is projected to win the election because Charlie Crist, the Independent, and Kendrick Meek, the Democrat are splitting the "anti-Rubio" vote.Why should Rubio win if most people don't want him elected?

For that matter, why should any candidate win when the MAJORITY of the electorate does NOT want him or her elected? This seems anti-democratic! And yet this is one of the major problems with the "plurality" voting method in the United States. You could win with 5% of the vote as long as no one else receives a higher number.

Normally, the plurality method penalizes the moderate in the election. But because of strategic voting, many people decide to vote for a candidate whom they do NOT prefer in order to prevent a candidate they prefer even less from winning. This is why Crist could win in Florida; there aren't enough Unaffiliateds to win him the election so he needs major defections from Democrats. But this is "dishonest" voting!

In Instant Runoff Voting, voters rank candidates first choice through third choice on the ballot. Let's simulate IRV for the Florida race:

Meek gets 20% of the vote, Crist receives 35% and Rubio receives 45% in this simulation. In plurality, Rubio wins. In IRV, Meek gets dropped from the ballot. Then all the second choices of the Meek voters are counted. It's almost certain that all Meek voters chose Crist as their second choice, since Crist is more moderate. Thus Crist is awarded 55% of the total vote and wins against Rubio who still has 45%! Perfect!

This allowed Meek voters to speak their mind, but also prevented Rubio from winning at the same time. It allowed Crist to be recognized as the overall favorite, even if he wasn't the individual favorite of all voters. This kind of method would also allow other third party candidates to be recognized by voters otherwise afraid of "wasting" a vote on them, like Libertarians or Green Partiers who poll at around 5% in some elections.

Of course, it's not that easy. Despite the proponents of IRV, there are some risks with implementing an IRV method in US elections. I found several sites that spell out the problems of IRV, but the most fascinating and disturbing from a common-sense standpoint is that under certain conditions IRV has the tendency to show chaotic patterns that are nonmonotonic. According to Ka-Ping Yee, who has published some extensive voting system research online, in the mathematics of elections, nonmonotonicity essentially means that "a shift of public opinion toward a candidate can cause the candidate to lose, and a shift of public opinion away from a candidate can cause the candidate to win". That's right, there are scenarios in 3-way IRV where Candidate X could actually cause him/herself to lose... by GAINING support. What?

That doesn't make logical sense for most of us, and rather than trying to explain it myself, I would strongly encourage you to play with this really really cool election simulation feature by Ka-Ping Yee. Click on "Hare (IRV)" at the bottom, and it'll highlight the areas where each candidate will win. Drag out three or four candidates (triangles) and play with their positions until you notice the nonmonotonicity. It's unmistakable because you might suddenly find that an electorate which most sympathizes with "yellow candidate" will consistently elect "green candidate" in IRV. The stats are noted above if you don't understand the graph. And if that's not working or you're still confused, that's fine, please read this nice visual explanation of the "pathological" behavior of IRV. I want to thank Ka-Ping Yee for his work on this, the visualizations are helpful!

If you were playing with those pages, I'm sure you noticed that five different voting systems are profiled. The ones I find most satisfactory are the Condorcet method, the Approval method, and the Range method (which is not mentioned but is similar in some ways to approval voting). Every system seems to have its form of strategic voting, but some have more problems than others. Please read about some of these systems. What is the best? What do you think we should switch to? Range certainly seems to be the most fun to me.


So, is IRV better than Plurality overall? Yes I'd have to say for the majority of situations it is. But I think it would be easiest to switch to one of the three above mentioned methods, particularly Approval voting, since it's not difficult to understand. Or Disapproval voting might be an interesting switch, though not in the interest of toning down the vicious nature of the political arena. Regardless of what form we choose, it seems clear that we need a serious overhaul of the voting system to become a major political priority in the United States.

There is no such thing as "Clean Coal"

Seriously people, can we have an honest dialogue about this? I know there are legitimate reasons for us to continue to use coal for economic, strategic, and basic common-sense arguments, but there is not, I repeat, there is not an environmental argument in favor of the use of coal. 

Anyone who says otherwise is trying to feed you a lie. And the lie is conveniently labeled as "clean coal". Politicians like this term because it makes a good economic and strategic resource seem good for the environment too. Companies and people with interests in coal like this term because it makes the basis of their livelihood (or obscene profit) look as natural as the green trees that are mowed down for mountaintop removal mining.

"Capture and Sequestration Technology" might be a term that you have heard recently. You likely have heard it in a commercial, since politicians tend to avoid big complex words. It's this capture and sequestration that would make coal... clean, so to speak. First of all, there is no example of successful capture and sequestration in full swing right now. So it doesn't exist. It would, if implemented, capture the CO2 emissions from a coal plant and store that gas as a solid underground. Sounds sweet! But the technology for capture and sequestration is not economically viable right now, and maybe even more important, the technology for capture and sequestration, well, like a lot of these things... well, turns out... it also doesn't exist.

Anyone see a pattern?

Ok so this is what we have been able to do. Coal isn't pure, it turns out, and burning it lets off these dangerous poisonous chemicals like sulfur which can form sulfuric acid and turn into acid rain and kill off more green trees and well- let's just say we have had limited success in removing sulfur from burned coal, along with NOx's and particulates. But its very expensive to do this. It would be prohibitively expensive to remove even a portion of the CO2 emissions from burned coal through the theoretical technology that represents capture and sequestration. And even if a significant portion of CO2 is successfully removed sometime in the far future, it will not really make coal "clean" by any stretch of the imagination. Resources dedicated to "clean coal technology" would probably do more to prevent global warming if these resources were used instead for funding other alternative energy projects. Coal is the dirtiest-burning widely used fossil fuel, period. I will go out on a 'limb' and say it is essentially impossible (with technology, infinite funds, magic, what have you), from a market standpoint, to make coal "clean" in the sense that wind or solar power is "clean".

So coal is not, nor will it ever be clean. Its about as clean as a cigarette and full of just about as many lies as smoking advertisements had 50 some years ago. The new "Marlboro Man" is this capture and sequestration technology: it's a fantasy.

There are good reasons to continue to use coal as an American energy resource. It's plentiful and abundant, it can be mined right here and instead of being bought abroad. It can be mined relatively cheaply, and it supports the employment of a lot of Americans. The infrastructure for its use in electricity production is already in place and transitioning to any other source for almost half of the American people would also be economically difficult. But one of these good reasons to use coal is NOT and simply cannot be environmental protection or even global warming prevention. Please, please don't accept these non-truths about coal. Be honest about coal, it has a dark side, literally, and we need to own the dirty reality of coal in order to continue to use it.

Is there an anti-war party?

This post is intended to be an extension of the subject brought up in the previous post on the "Unstoppable Growth of Government" and a preview to another post I intend to write for the 9th anniversary for the start of the War in Afghanistan which is tomorrow.

One thing that was visibly apparent in examining the current positions of the two political parties with regard to government growth is that on national security issues, both parties are reasonably pro-government growth. What this means for foreign policy is that both parties are in favor of prosecuting wars abroad and in favor of fighting the "War on Terror".

According to Ron Paul, the Republican Party used to be the anti-war party, and that Nixon was elected to end the Vietnam War. History tells us a little bit different story, but the reality is that there has been some traditional conservatives in the Republican Party that have been historically anti-war, anti foreign military intervention, anti foreign aid. That has not been the case with the mainstream Republican Party, as Republican Presidents have been great proponents of military escalation and interventionism in the modern period since WWII.

So what about the Democratic Party? Well in the same modern period, Democrats have also tended to favor military escalation and intervention as well. Like the Republican Party, there is also a stream (a stronger stream in this case) of anti-war sentiment in the Democratic Party. Democrats historically have been more anti-war, and more anti military spending than Republicans in the modern period, but this has not meant that Democrats collectively have really espoused an anti-war stance. Even though President Obama was elected to end the Iraq War, he has continued to prosecute the War in Afganistan and to some degree has continued military intervention in Iraq, even after the end of "combat operations". If you take a look at modern military altercations and spending, you can see that both Democrats and Republicans have been very pro-military; Democrats perhaps a bit less so.

Major US military altercations:


Korean War- (D) Truman
Vietnam War- (D) Johnson and (R) Nixon
Persian Gulf War- (R) George H.W. Bush
War in Afghanistan- (R) George W. Bush and (D) Obama
Iraq War- (R) George W. Bush and (D) Obama

Notable increases in Defense spending since 1966. (From this graph and this):

1951-1953 - (D) Truman
1966-1969 - (R) Nixon
1982-1990 - (R) Reagan and (R) George H.W. Bush
2000-2010 - (R) George W. Bush and (D) Obama


Given this information, people considering themselves anti-war have had to vote according to which party will be less pro-war, and recently that has been the Democratic Party. But it is shown over and over again that voting Democrat is not an anti-war vote, and certainly voting Republican is not either.


Some people have rectified this situation by voting third party candidates; although this often amounts to "throwing away your vote" in the sense that third party and independent candidates almost never win, particularly in states where there is little precedent for such action.

These days, I would argue that the strongest third party in the United States is the Libertarian Party, as it represents a group of people virtually outside the purview of the two other parties, and because it consistently performs better than the Green Party, Constitution Party, (Now, the Reform Party is basically defunct) and other third parties in national elections voting and funding. (See 2000, 2004, 2008). It also tends to have the highest count of ballot access of the major third parties (45 states as of the 2008 election). I'm mentioning this because of a recent comment made by Mike Beitler, NC Senate Candidate for the Libertarian Party. He said, “The Libertarian Party is the last anti-war party.”

Recently the Libertarian Party has made attempts to court the liberal anti-war vote (they have a history of anti-war sentiment), and this statement by Dr. Beitler is no exception. Certainly the Libertarian Party is not the only or last anti-war party, as the Green Party in particular has been clear in its stances on non-violence. But at this point in elections, the Libertarian Party can almost certainly be considered the strongest anti-war party, especially because of the Party's ability to bring together a relatively wide coalition of freedom loving voters.

In certain districts where libertarians are running, they poll well, sometimes as high as 10 or 15 percent. There are some districts where the Green Party also polls well in the same manner. Despite this, it is highly unlikely that third party candidates ever win elections. Thus people who consider themselves to be anti-war have a serious dilemma. Should they vote for a third party candidate and almost certainly "throw their vote away" or should they vote for the Democratic Party, knowing that this party (on the whole) is marginally less pro-war than the Republican Party? Should progressives who believe in economic justice, and who consider themselves anti-war, vote for a libertarian candidate, even if they disagree with libertarian positions opposing government assistance of the needy? On economic (and some other) policies, Libertarians are perhaps best described as radical Republicans; how can an anti-war progressive vote in good conscience for less gun restrictions, less environmental regulation, and a repeal of major progressive taxes like the income tax?


For those who wish, perhaps naively, for world peace through non-violence, there are sadly no clear answers or solutions.


In the meantime... the Libertarian Party wants your vote.

Why we need a President who's a little more OCD

The first image that comes to mind is Barack Obama, sitting in the Oval Office, agonizing about whether that picture on his desk of Michelle, Sasha, and Malia had been 'put back right' after David Axelrod, on his exit from the President's office, had bumped the little frame two inches to the left.

That's not quite what I mean. The TV series Monk has probably acquainted audiences in the United States the most accurately with the more humorous aspects of this sometimes debilitating disease, and the movie "The Aviator" ups the hilarity even more, showing what silly innocent quirkiness Leo can manage to get himself into!

But what actually I'm referring to is a concept of an 'Office of the President' who is 'OCD' about the larger house we all live in-- the Nation. On an evening pulling into a campaign stop in rural North Carolina for one of those down-home back-yard cook-out photo-ops, (like those hyphens? One of them doesn't belong...) an irritated Head of State is gritting his (or her!) teeth together after a bumpy ride down a crumbling state highway.  I can just imagine the President ordering his or her Chief of Staff to tabulate exactly how many rough roads there are in this country; breaking bridges, cracked concrete, disintegrating dams, atrophying airstrips-- to hell with partisanship and rhetoric. Everything needs to be 'put back right'.

We have an infrastructure in our Nation which often dates back to the 1940s or 50s- sometimes earlier. And while we often give our interstate highway systems a makeover, there really are plenty of roads out there that need fixing. Perhaps more important are our sewage and water delivery systems, leaking, breaking, and poisoning us while the political big-wigs discuss whether evolution should be taught in our schools. What if we don't have any schools, because they start, literally, falling down?

But yes, even the concept of a President that just gets the little stuff done because (s)he's too OCD to allow it any other way can be applied to other National problems, like weening the US off of oil imports. If the President felt that need, like an itch that couldn't be scratched, wouldn't it have been done by now? I mean, who really disagrees with this stuff? Isn't this the 'little' stuff that everyone thinks the Government should be doing? If the President, or dare I say, more members of Congress, felt more 'OCD' about the state of our Country, wouldn't they want to make sure it was 'put back right' the way it was? Not enough just to notice that the picture frame of this Country might be leaning a little right or left (oh yes, pun intended), but OCD enough to look into the details and question whether the nail holding up the picture frame was about to fall out? Shall we ask scarier questions like: what if our electricity grid is so old that one overloaded line in Ohio (or somewhere else on the grid) can cause a chain-reaction blackout for all of NYC ...and 30 million other people?


Disagree about the higher ideals of political rhetoric if you want, but you can't drive a car on a broken road, or without gas, you can't cook a dinner with contaminated water, you can't teach a child how to use a computer without a computer and maybe an internet connection, a bridge just might not hold the weight of that train for the 50th year in a row, and yes, you can't turn on the lights without a secure means of getting the electricity to you and your neighbors.

Ok, maybe the OCD thing was a bad analogy, or even one in bad taste, but the point I'm making here is that it's these kind of infrastructure things that the US needs to keep going for, well, the US to keep going. And recession or no, while we've been lucky on these issues so far (no catastrophic infrastructure failures), these issues will continue to affect all of us. So let's get some funding out to infrastructure projects, create some jobs, and make sure we avoid a problem that might really (slowly or suddenly) bring our 'way of life' to a frustrating, frightening, or screeching halt.

And let's seriously hope Monk doesn't become President. It would be funny for the first day, and then annoying after that when he insists that he won't sign any bill unless it has exactly 1,185 pages. And an average of 17.3 commas per paragraph.

The Unstoppable Growth of Government

I want to make a quick note here:

In the last decade or three of governance, a disturbing trend has arisen in politics. The "size" (and in this case, it is prudent to indicate that I mean "relative power") of the Federal Government is increasing rapidly in my estimation.

Now a good historian will stop me here to point out that the size of the Federal Government has been growing since the drafting of the Constitution and the emergence of the Federalist Party. Although I will not disagree with this point, nor the point that in the 19th century Abraham Lincoln and his predecessors probably issued in the largest advance of federal powers in US history-- see: Civil War/War Between the States/War of Northern Aggression (depending on where you live)-- it is important to examine party politics since the last great re-alignment of the Republican and Democratic Parties in the Reagan era because it can provide a reasonable prediction of the future of Federal Government growth.

I expect that my educated readers understand what I mean when I say that there are three ideological categories that with relative simplicity all political positions can divided. These are National Security Policy, Social Policy, and Economic Policy (the way I have broken this down, to demonstrate a point, allows 'foreign policy' to have aspects apply to all three of these categories).

For the most part, the Democratic Party, as it currently exists, has been pushing for a Liberal Social Policy, a Liberal Economic Policy, and a Conservative Security Policy. This means that they are (Social) pro-choice, they support gay rights, they support clear separation of church and state, (Economic) pro-business regulation, pro-federal spending, pro-federal market intervention, pro-environmental protections, (Security) in favor of increased government surveillance, in favor of more homeland security, and in favor of "War on Terror" prosecution abroad.  

For the most part, the Republican Party, as it currently exists, has been pushing for a Conservative Social Policy, a Conservative Economic Policy, and a Conservative Security Policy. This means that they are (Social) pro-life, they support traditional definitions of marriage and family structures, they are think church/state separation has gone too far, (Economic) pro-market capitalism, in favor of deficit reduction, in favor of business de-regulation, against environmental protections, (Security) in favor of increased government surveillance, in favor of more homeland security, and in favor of "War on Terror" prosecution abroad.


Sorry for the review for those who were already clear on this point. The Government grows in power when these perspectives are applied: Conservative Social Policy (government control of society), Liberal Economic Policy (government control of the economy), and Conservative Security Policy (government control of security and privacy). 

Although the parties disagree about whether the government should have control of the economy or society, it turns out that the Federal Government will increase its share of power regardless.

For Democrats, the primary issue that their coalition is built upon is a Liberal Economic Policy. At all costs, they will hold Republicans hostage on this issue, ensuring blockage of legislation that might decrease Federal powers in this regard. The reason for this is because, for the most part, the American public is in FAVOR of the Democrats' economic message (by and large Americans like federal control of medicare, social security, government oversight of wall street, higher taxes on the wealthy, unemployment protections etc.). It is unlikely, even with the brief sojourn we are having over in Tea Party land, that there will be substantial changes on these issues; in fact, it is reasonable to say that the US will continue to socialize (very, very slowly) it's economy-- socialist rhetoric is not popular, but socialist policy tends to be.

Meanwhile, liberalism in Social Policy has been stagnating, partially because Americans tend to be socially conservative as a rule. Very few Americans care passionately about advancing Social Policy in general, but it people on the Religious Right tend to have the larger megaphone on this issue, and it becomes disadvantageous for Democrats to focus too much on this area. Republicans, however, love to use social policy as a wedge issue (bringing up controversial subjects like the NYC Mosque in order to break up the Democratic coalition) because Republicans tend to be on the winning side on this subject. To a large degree, social policy isn't moving either direction right now, which retains Federal powers at their current levels.

Then, finally and most importantly, in practice, both political parties are in favor of increased government powers in Security Policy, which means that whichever party is in control, you can expect government growth in this area. Period. The continued and increasing reliance on the Military-Industrial complex, citizen surveillance, and anti-terrorism rhetoric will guarantee the more powers for the Federal Government.

These details and ideological demographics of the American electorate are providing a unique situation where there is little political upside or chance for political success for either party to pursue a decrease in federal powers. Couple this with the fact that elected officials in the Federal Government will tend to support the increase of their own powers in one way or another, and small-government proponents like Libertarians are finding themselves without much leverage.

A recognition of the inevitable movement in this country toward more 'larger' Federal Government seems to be the main motivation for the development of the Liberty movement and the Tea Party which I mentioned in the post before last. I think that this group or any others will soon find that they will not be able to stop the inexorability of Government growth, absent another major party re-alignment, a major change in American attitudes toward policy, or the emergence of a real and influential third party.


There might be a reasonable argument that this perspective is short-sighted or ignores area of Federal contraction, and I am open to these criticisms. In general, we will simply have to see what happens as the future approaches, but perhaps I have convinced you of what is likely to happen, for better or worse.

The Tea Party Coalition

A lot of people don't realize that our beloved American Tea Party movement is not a group of ideologically pure individuals in agreement. It is a coalition, a group of people with diverse views on a variety of issues, but one major issue to bring them together. In this case the driving issue is economic conservatism. To explain, it can be reasonably argued that the history of what became the Tea Party actually began in 2007 with the general public backlash against the President at the time, George Bush.

Representative Ron Paul (R) of Texas shocked audience members at the Republican Presidential Primary debates with his message of extreme fiscal conservatism bordering on outright libertarianism. Though most Republicans were incensed at some of Paul's 'extreme' positions, a number of people who were frustrated with the growth of government spending found for the first time in a long time a person they felt like they could get behind. A person who was unwilling to compromise, had a record of "no" votes on almost anything growing the government, and was charismatic in a folksy way. With massive online fundraising campaigns he called "money bombs" Paul managed to stay in the primary fight long after others had been forced out, picking up support from 5-15% of the Republican electorate in all over the United States. He capped off his bid with an event that took place at the same time as the Republican National Convention that he called the "Rally for the Republic" after being denied a speaking slot at the RNC. More than 10,000 people attended. The groundswell was quite impressive, and the anti-establishment sentiment was clear.

Though Paul's campaign did not result in the Republican nomination for President, and the GOP leaders dismissed his effort as extremist noise, Paul went on eventually to found the C4L (Campaign for Liberty) and went to work trying to elect what he called "constitutional conservatives" to public office. Notable persons that C4L supported include William (BJ) Lawson (R) in NC-04, Adam Kokesh (R) in NM-03, and Bob Conley (D) for SC Senate, none of whom were successful. But the string of attempts, continuing fundraising, and foundation of C4L (and YAL Young Americans for Liberty) chapters throughout the US-- efforts continued through 2008 and 2009 at which point something began to happen in American politics.

The thing that was unique about the C4L or Ron Paul movement (we'll call it the "Liberty" movement) was that it embraced a variety of socially liberal values like elimination of drug enforcement and additional gay rights. Meanwhile the movement called for a return to isolationist American values and the withdrawal of all US troops abroad with the intent of a drawdown of defense spending. We'll come back to this point later.

Some of the first protests that established the Tea Party on the national stage were in response to major bills that increased the size of government spending and bureaucracy, including TARP, the Recovery Act, and Health Care legislation. By the middle of 2009, the Tea Party had already become influential in many local races and in the beginning of 2010, the surprise upset of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Special Election for Senate solidified the group in the national dialogue. Ron Paul was considered a darling, maybe even a founder, of the movement and his son, Rand Paul, used his Tea Party and C4L roots to build the momentum for a major Senate campaign in Kentucky. The rallying cry for the movement was the same as it had been during Ron Paul's upward battle in 2008: pay down the deficit, eliminate bureaucracy, and leave American free enterprise out of the scope of the government.

During those early days, there weren't clear Tea Party leaders like there are today. Many media outlets turned to Ron Paul and his son, Rand, to talk about the movement in connection to what they had started in 2007. But within a matter of months, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Sean Hannity and Michelle Bachmann had established themselves as major "Tea Partiers" and the movement started to show some distinct colors that had been (to some degree) hidden before 2010. Suddenly the Tea Party movement organizers started talking about more things than just economic conservatism. They started talking about the corruption of the family, the evils of Islamic terrorism, and the denigration of American Christianity. Rand Paul, at this point running a very national Senate campaign, on cue began to backtrack on some of his previous socially libertarian positions, becoming hawkish on foreign policy, snapping shut on drug enforcement, and reinforcing his ties to the Christian right. His change in attitude was not just a reflection of the internal concerns of a Kentucky Senate race, but were also a reflection of major shifts in the Liberty movement.

Now the prime examples of true Tea Partiers are people like Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle, Pat Toomey, Joe Miller, and Carly Fiorina (look these people up if you like, you'll see what I mean). Suddenly the Tea Party made it a mission to bring down the Islamic Cultural Center in NYC by drawing on xenophobia, racism, and security concerns within the Tea Party movement. Rand Paul, at this point having defeated the establishment GOP candidate in a primary, proved his clear hard right position by coming out against the mosque.

Meanwhile his father, stubborn as ever, continued to toe his original socially pluralistic line: diversity is good in America, of course Muslims should build the mosque there, why in the world shouldn't they? But where was the rest of the Tea Party when Ron Paul was breaking with them on these issues? Rallying against the Mosque in NYC and spouting rhetoric that seemed to recall traditional GOP fear mongering.

So what happened to those original supporters of Ron Paul's? What happened to the Liberty movement? It's still alive today, as a sub-faction of the Tea Party. It turns out that the Tea Party is a coalition: eager for substantial conservative change on economic issues, original Liberty activists were glad to make room in their movement for foreign policy hawks, the Christian Right, and even members of the establishment GOP. For now, they're content to work with these other people to enact serious fiscal discipline on the part of the Government. At this point its safe to say that the Liberty movement is a minority within the Tea Party, and as long as President Obama continues in office, its unlikely that there will be any major defections from Tea Party ranks from those who would see Ron Paul as President.

But the Tea Party is now a hard right-wing movement that has essentially stripped of itself of all non-economic ideals associated with the Liberty movement. It'll be interesting to see how this coalition holds up as the future progresses. "Libertiers" will be content for now to work with people like Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint, but for how long? This Coalition and this movement are still brand new; can its leaders manage to appease its growing and diversifying membership, or will the group fall into factionalist disarray when some of the original backbone of the groundswell is neglected? The way it's going now, the Tea Party's obsession with "purity" may weed out some of its own members from amidst its own grumbling and disaffected ranks, leaving the GOP with a shrinking set of values (and voters) from which to draw upon, and perhaps leading to the break-up of the once-powerful Tea Party Coalition.   

   

The nature of PL vs: "Idealism"

One of the things that we (as people who follow the political arena) find most problematic in the reconciliation of Liberal views or Conservative views with the respective political realities of the parties is that the Idealistic precepts of any ideological system are consistently in conflict with the simple ability to run a government. It is impossible, or nearly impossible to work in government and achieve an ideological Ideal. Because what this gets translated as is: NO COMPROMISE.

One of the things many passionate people find problematic with politics is that those who are considered the best politicians, most exciting, principled, and worthy of our vote are those who hold to their Ideals with a religious fervor(see Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Sarah Palin, Russ Feingold, Barney Frank, Christine O'Donnell, Bernie Sanders- all the right and left wing 'nut jobs'). Senator Barack Obama may have been included in this list just a couple years ago, but now he's seen as almost ineffectual by his base because it seems that he hasn't 'stuck by his Ideological guns' so to speak.

The politicians who are most able to make an effect are those who get to Washington, and yes, do things they told you they would never do, in order to make the government run. We should be proud of these people for calculating political reality, but we despise them for giving in to the party, or perhaps, the higher calling of governance. So these people get swept out of office, especially when there is an Idealist ideological movement like the Tea Party moving through. A successful Ideological reconciliation with political reality results in the slow-down or outright arrest of government function. And very few even Idealistic ideologists desire this.

I am not free from my own Idealistic pandering, but I find it constantly juxtaposed with my knowledge of facts on the ground. I find my Political Liberalism versus-ing my ideological Idealistic Liberalism and this is why I would find it difficult to enter politics.

As strange as it sounds, and as much as we give the other side crap for it, it's the politicians who manage to hold contradictory views, the politicians who promise one thing and then find themselves willing to compromise, the politicians who don't even necessarily believe what they are saying that are the most effective politicians in the realm of moving government forward. . As representatives, they preside over a group of people who collectively have many conflicting views, changing views, and views rooted in ignorance of how the system actually works. In order to represent those people as best as possible, sometimes its best to do things that the base hates in order to push something through. Even if it means that the electorate won't forgive, and the seat will be lost. Or even if it means lying to and manipulating an ignorant electorate to get back up to Washington to do more of that governing. These politicians who seem to represent everything at once, and therefore 'nothing at all'-- it is these politicians that, somehow, almost, deserve our praise.

If only we could remember that our personal ideologies are effective only for ourselves, and that governing means looking ideologically spineless from time to time. But compromise means the other guys win. We want our enemy clearly defined. How can we reconcile these views with what we know to be realistically true without all of us, ourselves, becoming in our everyday lives, these boring personas which we sometimes disparagingly call 'empty shirt' or 'spineless' politicians? So we keep fighting for 'purity' in politics. : )