More on Julian Assange

Last night on PBS' Charlie Rose, a guest again used the word "treason" with respect to Assange.  According to Black's Law Dictionary, "treason" is "The offense of atempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance."     Emphasis added.  Black's continues, "Treason consists of two elements: Adherence to the enemy, and rendering him aid and comfort."

Assange has never been an American citizen.  The word "treason" does not apply to him, even in the twisted vocabularies of the Far Right.  [Well, perhaps Sarah Palin....]  

And who is the enemy here, who is rendered aid and comfort?  Is it that world opinion is the enemy?  American citizens who also want to know?   To what enemy does Julian Assange adhere?  To freedom of access to information?   Doubtless that is an enemy of the United States, and of most regimes the world over, but surely the politicians don't want to emphasize that so baldly.

Should doing harm by revealing private information that is supplied to one by a third party with access be criminalized?  The crime of disseminating information by exercising free speech?  How does the 1st Amendment come in?  Is the 1st Amendment to fall by the wayside like a scrap of soiled paper, like the Constitution and Bill of Rights in the Guantanamo connection?

Will knowing, thought itself, become a crime,  analogous to possession of a controlled substance or child pornography?   Mental possession of things it is illegal to hold and to know?   This is what scares me most, that as the fascists go after Assange tooth and nail, they are well on their way to declaring possession of information to be a crime.  And after that, George Orwell's thoughtcrime is only a skip and a step away.

And what is the harm done by Wikileaks?  That everyone will be less inclined to confide in American diplomats?  Remember that once these confidences were made, it was expected they would be shared with tens, if not hundreds, in the U.S. government, and that, as it goes in the world, there would be leaks.  As Ben Franklin said, "Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead."  Did anyone who confided in State Department personnel have a realistic expectation of perfect confidentiality?  Hah!

With respect to military operations, spies, informers, agents, fifth columnists, there may in fact be specific harm possible.  But remember, this data was not kept like the identity of a mole in the Kremlin;  it was accessible by thousands. 

It was in fact only a matter of time and chance before all this information came to light.

And what laws have been broken by Assange and Wikileaks?  Assange is Australian.  Does Australia have a law forbidding its citizens from revealing information tht comes into their hands about another government?  I don't think so.

Nick Davies of the British newspaper The Guardian  was leaked a copy of the criminal file on Assange compiled by the Swedish police.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-davies/post_1506_b_802680.html   Did Davies commit a crime by looking at the material?  By his newspaper exposing the information in the file?  Is Sweden justified in trying to prosecute Davies for his role as a passive recipient of confidential government information?  Are there some Swedes, like some Americans, talking of treason and assassination?  Again, hah!

Events surrounding the Wikileaks matter contain so many analogies.  Davies' role is similar to that of Julian Assange, as far as we know.  Assange is in a position similar to the U.S. government, protesting access to leaked information, and so on. 

Assange and a cohort have had a falling out.  Both are writing books, that are each expected to diss the other.

If the Wikileaks/Assange situation did not have the potential of becoming deadly and destructive to free speech and access to information, it would be terribly funny.

Now.  About Julian Assange himself.  Except for his role in establishing Wikileaks, he is no hero.  Why should we expect him to be?  Who is a hero through and through, anyway?  Will Assange be convicted of anything in Sweden?  Who knows?  Who cares, so long as he is not rendered over to the Americans for assassination, extra-Constitutional detention a la Guantanamo, or formal prosecution, and I don't think Sweden will do that.

Is Wikileaks senescent, to be replaced by other such organizations?  That may be.  Cryptome carries an obit for Wikileaks, estimating that at the current rate of document release, in 35 years all of the diplomatic cables will be edited and released.

What is most disturbing is the accusation that Wikileaks may have sold or suppressed information for pay. 

And so once again we have that circular irony surrounding Wikileaks.  Who polices the police?  Governments need to be watched, to have their confidential goings-on made public.  But so does Wikileaks.

Handgun Access to Those Under 21

A lawsuit has been filed in my hometown of Lubbock, Texas, challenging the law that prevents anyone under 21 from purchasing a firearm.  Here is something I posted in the local newspaper in response to other coments.

Yeah, the military issues an 18-year old a firearm, but they durn sure won't let him carry it around loaded! They are issued cartridges on the firing line and have to account for every cartridge just as a nurse at the hospital has to account for every controlled drug dispensed.

If recruits had uncontrolled access to live ammo, do you think there would be a D.I. left standing? There is a reason why officers like to lead from the rear, you know? It's smart to be as afraid of inaccurate or accurate shooting by your own side as accurate shooting by the enemy.

Here I think ____________  is correct about courts leaving it up to the states.   That will be the likely decision, as much from unwillingness to tackle the case as from a sense of principle.

Now actually, if you look at a firearm as an agent of self-defense (which it is not; more on that later), college students are in as much or more need of self defense as anyone else, even in dorms, because of (1) the high incidence of property crimes and (2) the incidence of rapes in dorms and apartments.

Of course, you have to balance that against the fact that youths are more likely to belong to gangs, to commit crimes or to commit suicide. Against the fact that binge drinking is a way of life for those in the 18-20 age bracket. I'm not sure that anyone under 30 should be permitted to go out and buy a concealable handgun except under special circumstances.  Reason being that by age 30, there has been some culling of of those who are particularly criminal or emotionally unstable.  Age 40 is okay too.

Why are firearms not useful in self-defense?

(1) If you own a gun, it is more likely that it will injure or kill you or a family member than that it will be used to shoot an outsider in self-defense. Every month, the NRA gleans from anecdote and the media as many occurrences of firearms used in self defense as it can, but there are usually under a dozen per month (see American Rifleman). By contrast, there are something like 5,000 shootings per month in the USA resulting in injury or death. We might also note that a number of those "shootings in self-defense" involve a citizen shooting an unarmed drunk or druggie who likely meant no offense-- we've had that in Lubbock, you may remember.

(2) There is a lot more to self-defense than owning a gun. Using one safely and successfully in a crisis takes a lot of training and preparation, that few gun owners have. The idea that an average citizen can wake up suddenly to find a prowler in the room and shoot the prowler while missing the baby in the bassinet or the 8-year old in the next room is insane.

The War Between Liberals and Conservatives; Correlations of Politics With Brain Structure

It has happened, and I am almost beside myself.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/28/political-allegiances-brain-structure-study

What they're saying, although this particular news report doesn't explain it, is that conservatives show more development of the amygdala, a brain structure involved in fear, territoriality, identification of self versus others and personal space, and various instances of psychopathology when enlarged or deficient.

Progressives show more development of the anterior cingulate cortex, which is involved in empathy, evaluation and what may be called judgment.

All of which I have been predicting for years. And waiting for,

Now, will conservatism be formally recognized as a form of psychopathology? Will a cure or treatment be developed? And how d the differences arise? Are there environmental factors that cause this differential development? Will we have sanitariums for the chronically conservative?

[Added later.]

Took a nice 2 mile walk on this fine winter evening, pondering the implications.

I'm not going to gloat over what sounds like putative conservative pathology. Instead, I want to declare that these differences between us ought to be celebrated.

Cultural anthropologists like to say that natural selection acts on human beings not so much as individuals as is the case in the rest of the plant and animal kingdoms, but on humans collectively, on human societies.

Monoculture, in biology, is dangerous. If you sow a field with very similar plants, of corn or cotton or maize or whatever, you are asking for trouble. A predator or disease could wipe you out for a whole season because there were minimal differences between the individual plants in your field.  Diversity is adaptive.  Diversity is a survival trait for the species.

Same thing is true of human beings.

If you want a strong human society, you don't want rows and rows of supermen bred by Nazis for war. You want diversity. You want some hyperaggressives, some natural diplomats, some scientists, some technicians who nearsightedly spend hours a day knapping flint into tools and weapons. You want lone scouts who can wander far and come back with news about what the buffalo or the nomads over the mountains are doing. You want homosexuals because they often have a divergent viewpoint. You want some conservatives and some liberals. Never, never, all conservatives or all liberals.   Never a monoculture.

So let's stop this bashing. You need me just as much as I need you. And we both need Gary the homosexual next door, not to breed up more warm bodies for working or fighting but for his mind and perspective.

Respect diversity, because our lives depend on it.

[Actually, I started thinking along these lines back in the late 1970s, while reading Watership Down.  (Interesting how children's books and myths often present truths most effectively.)  That story was at root about human societies and how people work together.  And it did a bang-up job of showing how societies need prophets, seers, soldiers, organizers and technicians.]

More on the So-Called "Financial Sector" and Balance of Trade and so forth

Years ago as American manufacturing began to move factories elsewhere and the steel plants shut down it became apparent that this country's heavy industry was dying. At that time, we were afraid of Japan. Japanese cars, Japanese electronics and optics, hell, of the world's 10 biggest banks a half-dozen were Japanese. Japan had Canon, Nikon, Konica-Minolta, Yashica, Mamiya, Chinon and so on and we ... we had Bell & Howell and Kodak. Which was like comparing a jet fighter to a piper cub. We had Buick and Olds and Mercury while Japan had Toyota, Subaru, Honda, Lexus, Acura, Mitsubishi.

Now even Japanese manufacturing has moved to Korea or Taiwan or Singapore rather than the Home Islands. 15 years ago I was buying a VCR. Only Panasonic's at that time was still "Made in Japan." I got a returned Panasonic then returned it too because it seemed noisy; got a new Motorola made in Guatemala or Honduras or Malaysia instead; shoulda stayed with the Panasonic. My LP's Honda Prelude was one of the last American sold Honda's to be Made in Japan and shipped to Port of Los Angeles. Good car, though it's steering linkage needed work at well under 200k miles. Anyway...

So the pundits started saying that the future of the USA was in the "service industry," whatever that meant. They claimed it meant computer software and repairs, but I think it meant cleaning bathrooms and assembling hamburgers at McDonalds and selling off our hard assets to the Ay-rabs, Japanese and Chinese.

Actually as it turned out, a big part of "the service economy" was in the financial sector, where we sold imaginary things to ourselves and to others. Where we stripped good undervalued companies and sold the parts for salvage. Where a big part of our economy was in hawking stocks, bonds and various highly creative and nonsensical pseudo-investment vehicles from telephone boiler rooms.

Where "savings" was replaced by home equity and retirement, both of which could be borrowed against to pay off sky-high credit card debt.

That is what that guy Frank Rich was talking about in the NYT article I linked to in my previous post.

What would our GDP be if we excluded transactions in the financial sector? I think we would far more worried about what has happened to our country if we looked at the economy that way.

Stock sales and purchases, except for IPOs are a zero sum game, that add nothing real to our economy, IMO. Damn stock exchanges ought to be outlawed, same as numbers running and non-injun casinos.

Now we have an economy based on "the financial sector" plus our national consumer buying frenzy that moves dollars to China which we borrow back in order to finance our national debt. Our biggest national security is that we--the USA--are too big to fail. Because if we failed, what would the Chinese do with all their dollar-denominated holdings? They have to keep us afloat just as we have to keep them afloat.

So thus the world's economies are like a group of one legged men holding each other up.

Cutting the American War Machine?

This post was mostly provoked by this article by Nicholas Kristoff, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26kristof.html?src=me&ref=general, which was partly provoked by this book, http://www.amazon.com/Washington-Rules-Americas-Permanent-American/dp/0805091416, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War

More on Col. Bacevich and his new book here: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/2/andrew_bacevich_on_afghanistan_war_the

From Kristoff's essay, quote:
"...Let me be clear: I’m a believer in a robust military, which is essential for backing up diplomacy. But the implication is that we need a balanced tool chest of diplomatic and military tools alike. Instead, we have a billionaire military and a pauper diplomacy. The U.S. military now has more people in its marching bands than the State Department has in its foreign service — and that’s preposterous.

"What’s more, if you’re carrying an armload of hammers, every problem looks like a nail. The truth is that military power often isn’t very effective at solving modern problems, like a nuclear North Korea or an Iran that is on the nuclear path. Indeed, in an age of nationalism, our military force is often counterproductive.

"After the first gulf war, the United States retained bases in Saudi Arabia on the assumption that they would enhance American security. Instead, they appear to have provoked fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden into attacking the U.S. In other words, hugely expensive bases undermined American security (and we later closed them anyway)...

"... Paradoxically, it’s often people with experience in the military who lead the way in warning against overinvestment in arms. It was President Dwight Eisenhower who gave the strongest warning: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” And in the Obama administration, it is Defense Secretary Robert Gates who has argued that military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny; it is Secretary Gates who has argued most eloquently for more investment in diplomacy and development aid.

"American troops in Afghanistan are among the strongest advocates of investing more in schools there because they see firsthand that education fights extremism far more effectively than bombs. And here’s the trade-off: For the cost of one American soldier in Afghanistan for one year, you could build about 20 schools...."

Now my take: Of course. But the problem is, we have high unemployment and we are thinking about "laying off" hundreds of thousands of military personel? Not smart politically. Not two years before a presidential election. This president will not do it. And take a look [in the radio transcript linked to above] at the way that Col. Bacevich raked Obama over the coals for actually increasing spending on a war he didn't even believe in! And always, when you cut back, the ones kept on the payroll are more likely administrative deadwood and ineffectual generals, colonels and majors than fighting forces.

It will be done, in a small way, as National Guard and reserve troops come home and go back to their jobs, if any. But as far as remaking the Pentagon and it's plans, that is as practical as teaching a lion to eat spinach.

A lot of folks in my neck of the woods fuss about entitlements and those on welfare.  But the military is as much an "entitlement" program as social security, medicare, farm subsidies or food stamps.  And like the others, it will be damned hard to cut.

The Financial Industry Versus The American Dream

From "Who Killed the Disneyland Dream?" a Dec. 25 New York Times essay by Frank Rich, at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26rich.html

"...How many middle-class Americans now believe that the sky is the limit if they work hard enough? How many trust capitalism to give them a fair shake? Middle-class income started to flatten in the 1970s and has stagnated ever since. While 3M has continued to prosper, many other companies that actually make things (and at times innovative things) have been devalued, looted or destroyed by a financial industry whose biggest innovation in 20 years, in the verdict of the former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, has been the cash machine.

"It’s a measure of how rapidly our economic order has shifted that nearly a quarter of the 400 wealthiest people in America on this year’s Forbes list make their fortunes from financial services, more than three times as many as in the first Forbes 400 in 1982. Many of America’s best young minds now invent derivatives, not Disneylands, because that’s where the action has been, and still is, two years after the crash. In 2010, our system incentivizes high-stakes gambling — “this business of securitizing things that didn’t even exist in the first place,” as Calvin Trillin memorably wrote last year — rather than the rebooting and rebuilding of America...."

And now we have a president who used to work near, if not on, Wall Street, who hobnobs with megabusiness CEOs, who hires Wall Street wunderkinder for Treasury and financial advisors. Not that this president marks any sort of change in that respect.

Part of our problem is that we have come to believe that the gambling game that we call the stock market is our financial system, and that it's welfare is our welfare, that it is the most visible epitome of American business. It isn't.

There are connections between a stock's performance and the performance of the company that issued the stock, but they are not identical and in most instances are purely psychological. Wall Street has as much to do with American business as paramutual betting has to do with horse raising.

At best, we have fostered a species of middlepersons, who feed off business and society the way sharks feed off schools of fish. At worst, we have created a parasite that is devouring us from within.

A personal note.  I have been interested in investing for years, starting as a student watching Lou Ruykeyser's "Wall Street Week"  and continuing through "Adam Smith's" clever books, The Money Game, Paper Money and Supermoney and on to contrarianism and  the teacher that guided Warren Buffet's emphasis on fundamentals.    But I have come to believe that the whole thing is not "investment," but a form of socially acceptable gambling, that has only token benefit to the economy as a whole.

The Volcano Myth as an Attack on Global Warming

Our missive of rational thought and balanced opinion, the Avalanche Journal newspaper, today carries on the editiorial page a comment posted by one adunn, that starts off like this:

"More carbon dioxide is put into the atmosphere by a single large volcanic eruption than has been released by the human race since the discovery of fire. And there have been many volcanic eruptions."

True or false? There are three ways to approach this.

1. Authority. The USGS says at http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html, quote:

"[i]Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually.

"This seems like a huge amount of CO2, but a visit to the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) website (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/) helps anyone armed with a handheld calculator and a high school chemistry text put the volcanic CO2 tally into perspective. Because while 200 million tonnes of CO2 is large, the global fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes. Thus, not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value[/i]." [emphasis added.]

2. Consideration of the Threshhold or Buffering Effect.   The earth exerts a buffering effect on changes. For example, as CO2 in the amosphere increases, the oceans sop up a lot, and plants become slightly more efficient at using CO2 to build up plant tissues (which is itself slightly offset by plant respiration, which takes up oxygen and releases CO2). But the oceans are reported as at CO2 saturation, even around antarctica, which is especially important because colder water can absorb more gas (a real killer being that, as ocean temps rise, a lot of CO2 is released as the water warms because warmer water can hold less CO2 in solution! Which has started to happen.)

Ever titrate an unknown acid or base solution in chemistry lab? You've got a beaker of an unknown concentration of acid or base in it, along with a color pH indicator like phenolphthalein, and you add known volumes of an acid or base to neutralize whatever it is in the beaker. You dump some solution in, and nothing happens. Dump some more in, and nothing happens. Let fall a drop more, and voila, instant color change. The earth is like that. Add CO2, nothing happens to atmospheric CO2. Add a little more, nothing happens, because the earth is capable of buffering or neutralizing the CO2 -- up to a point. And then, a little more CO2, and big atmospheric change. Point being that we have reached or are reaching the buffering limit of the earth. A little more CO2, big change. So how much CO2 volcanoes emit is just another nail in the environmental coffin.

What counts is not whether there is a CO2 contribution from volcanoes or not, but whether the earth has been pushed off the precipice yet by that last drop of CO2.

3. Do your own calculations. One big active volcano is in Iceland. According to googled results, it emits as a top figure, 300,000 tons of CO2 per day. That's a lot. And over a year's time there are maybe 50 volcanoes that are active, most emitting less CO2 than 300,000 tons. So just for comparison, how much CO2 do we in Lubbock County, Texas, emit from the burning of petroleum and natural gas and propane and coal?

That's hard, because it requires a lot of data about power plant fuels (some of which are coal and some of which burn natural gas) and propane sales and natural gas sales. Let's make it simpler; take only consumers of gasoline, not commercial drivers, just consumers like you and me.

There are, what?, 240,000 people in Lubbock County? Figure a fourth of us are drivers. 60,000. Figure that we drive an average of 15,000 miles a year. That our average fuel economy is 20 miles per gallon (That's a little high, but let's leave it).

A gallon of gasoline weights a bit more than 6 pounds. Most of that is carbon, because while there are more than twice as many hydrogen atoms as carbon atoms, a carbon atom weighs 12 times as much as one hydrogen atom. When you burn gasoline completely, you get CO2 and water. We are worried about CO2, so forget the water. Forget also that there are traces of sulphur in gasoline, and that the process of combustion at high temp and pressure can create some nitrogen compounds.

When you burn carbon completely, you get CO2. One atom of carbon, atomic weight of 12, combining with two atoms of oxygen which together have a atomic weight of 32, and so the CO2 molecule has a molecular weight of 12+16+16=44. So, 6 lbs of carbon in a gallon of gasoline burns to form 6 X 44/12 = 22 lbs of CO2. Say 20 pounds of CO2 per gallon.

60,000 drivers X (15,000 miles/20 mpg) X 20 lbs = 900,000,000 lbs of CO2 per year. Which is 450,000 non-metric tons per year.

Not as much as a big volcano, which can emit 2/3 that in a day, but Lubbock County is a drop in the bucket of U.S. population and industry. Actually Lubbock County pop is about 1/1300 U.S. pop, so multiplying 450,000 tons by 1300 = 585 million tons for USA non-commercial drivers. Which is a lot more than the CO2 emissions by a single large volcano. Which disproves the assertion in a fun way.

Actually though, Lubbock County probably produces a couple of billion pounds of CO2 yearly from fossil fuels all told. Or more.

Communism Is An Economic Theory, Not a Theory of Government

Bring up the subject of communism and first thing that comes to mind is oppressive government control and dictatorship.  But that is not what Marx had in mind.

Marx was primarily an economic theorist.  Sure, he elaborated on the dialectic theory of Hegel, who saw a pattern in history as civilizations fell and new civilizations took their place.  For Marx, communism was an historical inevitability. 

But Marxian theory was about economics.  Government, he seemed to think, would wither away and drop off like an arm of leg deprived of blood.  Rather naive, actually.

And wrong.  The weakness of communism was that people are not motivated to work for the good of all.  People are motivated by greed and lust for power, which doomed communism from the start, and set what were supposedly communist nations onto an inevitable road to totalitarianism and economic mediocrity or failure. 

Capitalism, by contrast, is realistic about and accepting of  human weakness.  Using of human weakness.  "Greed is good,"  as Gordon Gecko said. 

What I find obscene about capitalism is the way that its proponents try to make it sound moral and just.  Whatever capitalism is, it is not moral and not just.  Neither does it unfailingly reward hard work and genius.

The obscene chimera raising its head right now is an unspeakable hybrid of capitalism and Christianity, where the devout are materially blessed, and poverty and business failure is seen as a moral flaw.  This is actually preached in some American churches.   Whatever happened to the Sermon on the Mount?

[Added:  This is similar to ancient Jewish thought, that maintained that good Jews would be rewarded materially on earth and not in some pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye fashion.  And for another diatribe on the confusion of form of government with economic system -- IMO democracy and communism is a natural mix -- see my January blog.]

Unholy Permutations: Economic Theory. Political System, and Religion

A blogger over at http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/may/2010-12-19/one-nation-under-god-part-10?page=2#comment-144736  got me started on a rant.   One of my themes is that political systems and economic systems are independent and capable of different combinations.  So democracy is not necessarily allied with capitalism or communism with dictatorship.  Another theme is to attack the mindset that Christianity is material and allied to capitalism.  Here's one of my comments on that blog, where the blogger was attacking humanism as the root of all evil:
 

Interesting. I would classify socialism and communism as primarily economic theories, fascism as authoritative political-governmental especially with reference to expansionist foreign policy, and secularism as the opposite of theocracy.

A good example of the secular-theocracy tension is what is happening in Turkey. A trending back to an Islamic state away from the secular state devised by Kemal Attaturk. Which means we may be on the verge of losing an ally next to the middle east.

"Humanism" is the concept that human beings are basically good, capable of ethical/moral improvement and to a degree perfectable. It is closely related to Christian ethics and has similar approaches: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, educate the ignorant, heal the sick, reeducate the criminal. It can be an individual philosophy or a group approach.  There is Christian humanism and there is secular humanism; two approaches with different foundations moving toward a common point.

I can see that socialism and communism are related to humanism, but so is Christianity. Strict practice of Christian ethics gives rise to a microeconomic system that is communist or socialist and probably democratic in political form. Were early Christian communities communist? Certainly some ascetic communities were. And some made decisions by pure democracy as well.  All of which was in the early days before Christian theocratic states arose in the 300s. 

What Mr. ________  does is to mix up religious concepts with economic and political concepts. But instead of realizing that strict Christian practice means a socialist or communist economic system, he goes the other way and espouses a Christianity that goes hand-in-hand with dog-eat-dog economic darwinism, where the "winners" in the economic struggle are somehow more godly as well as being more wealthy. As if the winner of a game of monopoly buys his way into heaven as first prize. It's an odd mix, but one actually preached today as Christian materialism where "blessing" means economic as well as spiritual benefit.

I don't mix up economic, political or religious concepts at all. IMO, you can have democratic communism or totalitarian capitalism. A theocratic state is necessarily more likely to be authoritarian, but it could blend in a considerable amount of democracy.

Mr. ______  is in good company when comes to mixing up concepts. Marx himself hated religion and the modern democracies and created a communism that was a hodgepodge of economic and political ideas. But strictly speaking, communism is an economic theory. It is humanist in the sense that in order for communism to function, human beings must be altruistic, which we (mostly) are not, and that is why pure communism fails: because it assumes that we are capable of always acting for the common good and not for our own pleasure or filled belly.

Hit Amazon; and Find The Jester

Is a new democracy forming on the internet?  Are the hackers known as "Anonymous" and allied groups the new Sons of Liberty whose agitation helped birth a new nation 235 years ago?

Well, that remains to be seen.  But to the extent that the U.S. government and prominent politicians behave like the British in 1776 and before, it is quite possible.  Forces in repression of free speech and of access to information have sparked statements that many of us find outrageous. 

Now we learn that the government may already have indicted Julian Assange under the Espionage Act of 1917, a piece of repressive and anti-democratic legislation as infamous as the Intolerable Acts and just as much a burr under the saddle as far as exciting revolution.

As the USA more and more resembles the totalitarian nations it professes to war against, the patriots of the internet are loading up their squirrel rifles and readying for war.   "Squirrel rifles" in this day and age being computer hardware and software and communications equipment.

Was Jesus Gay?

Was Jesus gay? While most Christians treat this as a scurrilous allegation, it is a question that Christians must deal with.

Why? Because there may have been a version of the Gospel of Mark suggesting Jesus had intimate physical contact with a naked disciple.   Which would suggest that Jesus was gay or bi.

All evidence of that lost gospel depends on the following: In the 20th century, Morton Smith claimed to have found a copy of a letter written by Clement in the second century, quoting quite disapprovingly from a version of the Gospel of Mark that stated the above.

1. Did Morton Smith really find a copy of such a letter? Or did he forge it?

2. Assuming Smith did find such a letter, did someone else forge it?

3. Assuming the letter was a true copy of a letter by Clement of Alexandria, was the version of Mark he quoted itself doctored?

So belief in Morton Smith's thesis of secret initiation ceremonies http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnJlbGlnaW91c3RvbGVyYW5jZS5vcmcvY2hyX21pc3M1Lmh0bQ==, hangs by a tenuous thread. Most have attacked Morton Smith as a forger as the simpest way to dispose of a troubling dissonance.

Biblical Archaeology Review has just sent out an email with links to articles suggesting that if there was a forgery, Morton Smith may not have been the forger. http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmJpYi1hcmNoLm9yZy9zY2hvbGFycy1zdHVkeS9zZWNyZXQtbWFyay5hc3A=. The publisher, Herschel Shanks, has weighed in with some observations: http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmJpYi1hcmNoLm9yZy9iYXIvYXJ0aWNsZS5hc3A= ... ticleID=07

Now my view. There are three possibilities, assuming there was such a person/being as Jesus.

1. Jesus was non-sexual
2. Jesus was heterosexual, and most likely, married. Possibly with children. As a Jew, he would ordinarily have been married. To have not been married would have invited criticism and speculation that he was homosexual or that something was physically wrong with him.
3. Jesus was homosexual.

IMVHO, a person who taught as Jesus taught might well have been homosexual, because homosexuals bring a different perspective to things. Jesus' concern for the poor and disadvantaged and disparaged might well be associated with homosexuality. Jesus said there are neither male nor female in heaven, a revolutionary concept at the time, and even in America well into the 20th century.

It was Paul who said that women are the weaker vessel and that they should keep silence in the churches. Paul was a hard-nosed conservative who wrote most of what has guided churches and Christian dogma for 1900 years, and always he seemed ignorant of or uncaring about any teachings of Jesus himself. If he had read or heard anything like a gospel, he did not quote from it or use it in his writing. For Paul, it was as though Jesus did not exist except as a lamb intended for sacrifice.  For Paul, it was as if the words of Jesus were non-existent or carried no weight of authority.

Which is all very strange, considering that Jesus and Paul were near-contemporaries, that Paul was a follower of a prominent rabbi in Jerusalem and surely had his ear to the ground, and that all kinds of stories about Jesus, precursors to the gospels, would have been rampant in the region if the gospels are to be believed.  [Some have seen in this strangeness evidence that there was in fact no Jesus at all, or that Jesus was based on a person known in Rome but not in Judea -- the "one Chrestus" that Tacitus referred to.]

Paul was only interested in Jesus as a sacrifice and not as a teacher or person. So Christianity is not really based on Jesus (except for Jesus' dying as a sacrifice) or the teachings of Jesus but on Paul. It should be called "Paulinism."

So. I am receptive to the possibility of Jesus gayness, but like the existence of Jesus, the jury is still out.   Not that it will ever be anything else.

Nixon Tapes, v. (n+1)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/us/politics/11nixon.html

Speaking of Nixon tapes, I have one of those GPO paperback transcripts of key Nixon tapes that the investigating committee focused in on. Think I'll put it up on eBay or Craigslist. While I was interested in the Watergate hearings, that was more thanks to the personalities and drama of the Senate Committee headed by Sam Ervin with counsel Sam Dash and Howard Baker leading the Republicans with that young Tenessee lawyer Fred Thompson obfuscating and advising them.

Interesting how the perps either went under or reinvented themselves. G. Gordon Liddy, while a psychotic misguided pawn of the villains, went on to make a comfortable living as a talk show host, exactly as Ollie North did after Reagangate; the spin of the losing side never quite goes away, and there are those who pay in an effort to hang on to the spin; nostalgia, probably. Chuck Colsen found God in prison (just the place, if you ask me!). John Dean went on to lecture on legal and governmental ethics. Most everybody wrote a book (or had one ghostwritten). 

Nixon himself never sounded as smart or as presidential as he did when interviewed in later years.

Nixon's taped conversations are hard to endure. As you can infer from the new tapes. I never even tried to read the GOP transcript I have. Interesting primary material for psychology and politics, I suppose, if one has the patience.

All of which brings up Harry Truman's story about when he was first elected to Congress (or was it the Senate?). He was treading fearfully and respectfully when an old timer came up and put a figurative arm around his shoulder. "You're new here, and you're looking around at all these great and august men and wondering how the hell you came to be elected and to sit among them. But just you wait; soon you'll be wondering how in hell THEY got elected."

Which is the case with Nixon. How the hell did that guy get elected so many times, and to the presidency! Makes you wonder what other presidents were clay from the hair down.

Today, though, presidential candidates are put under a dissecting microscope for a grueling two-year campaign.  I doubt that Nixon would have been nominated, considering the gift scandal he managed to weather by the skin of his teeth as vice president.    But most disturbing about Nixon is the private man.

 

Tiananmen Square of the Internet?

Good NYT discussion of what is happening right now, internet attacks on companies that acted against Wikileaks.   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/techn

From the article, quote:
""Some internet experts say the situation highlights the complexities of free speech issues on the Internet, as grassroots Web companies evolve and take central control over what their users can make public. Clay Shirky, who studies the Internet and teaches at New York University, said that although the Web is the new public sphere, it is actually “a corporate sphere that tolerates public speech.”

Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, “Any Internet user who cares about free speech or has a controversial or unpopular message should be concerned about the fact that intermediaries might not let them express it.”

"She added, “Your free speech rights are only as strong as the weakest intermediary.” "

You know how this will end. Like Tiananmen Square.   Some say said the U.S. gov'ment will pull the plug. More likely, companies will, one at a time. Because internet functions are not provided as a public service, but for commercial purposes. When you tweak the beard of the lion, even a sleepy unmotivated one, you end up being eaten.

In the end though, like Tiananmen Square all this probes boundaries and shows us what the truth is. Without truth, we are nothing and freedom is nothing and we have been living in a fool's paradise.

Julian Assange, Man Without a Country, Or Not?

To hear the prime minister of Australia tell it, Assange can expect little besides a cold cell and jail food  from his native country.  Foreign Minister Rudd sings a different tune, not only seemingly willing to extend all consular assistance to Assange, but also blaming the USA for the leaks--which happes to be my own point of view.  http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/08/uk.wikileaks/?hpt=T1

Rudd, who was previously Prime Minister, was not complemented by American diplomats, who called him an "abrasive, impulsive control freak."  [See the CNN report linked to above.]  What that description may, or may not, tell us about Rudd is that he did not kowtow to U.S. diplomats.    Feddies are all the same, in my opinion, officious bastards who think they belong to the ruling class of the New World Order by virtue of graduating from a university and being hired by a federal agency.     (You always have to read between the lines rather than taking a statement at face value.  Another example of this is the Bible.  When the Bible describes a king as a "good" king or a "bad" king mostly depended on whether the monarch was under the thumb of the priests who wrote the scriptures.)

Espionage

Lieberman and others have been making noises about extraditing Julian Assange and charging him with espionage.   How realistic is that?

Probably not very.   The chief threat to Assange is either assassination or being placed in perpetual limbo at Guantanamo without trial.  Both definite possibilities under the practices instituted by the Bush administration and contiinued by Barack Obama.  Torture in U.S. custody is also a definite possibility.

While American citizens - like Jonathan Pollard or  Ben-Ami Kadish, sentenced for spying on behalf of Israel -- have been convicted of espionage, and foreign nationals spying within the USA could be, has any spymaster such as those in the Mossad or KGB been successfully extradited and brought to the U.S. for trial?  Of course not.  And a foreign national owes no allegiance to the United States.  If caught in the United States without diplomatic immunity and proven conspirators, they could be charged.  

And Julian Assange as far as we can tell so far was not involved in a conspiracy to steal classified documents.  If a citizen of Australia while abroad bends over and picks up a file of secret American documents, does he commit a crime by reading the file or sharing it with others?  Of course not.  (Well, that conclusion depends on whether there is some applicable Australian law.  But on humanitarian considerations, no nation can any longer render up it's citizens to U.S. custody without becoming a possible accomplice in the consequences, which include torture and lack of due process.)

Pfc Manning on the other hand is up the creek without a paddle.  Pollard got a life sentence back in 1987 and will be in prison for life unless he is surrendered to the Israelis.  (Netanyahu and others have been lobbying for his release.)   Manning is sure to draw life as well.  Not that the leaks are really worth such a penalty except for the sheer volume.

Pollard on the other hand sold classified documents to Israel and perhaps also South Africa.  It is claimed he attempted to sell information to Pakistan.

"Join Up," from the 2004 Election Issue of El Chismoso

The daughters of President and Mrs. Bush have graduated from college, and are beginning the campaign trail in support of their father.  They are to be congratulated.  Their conduct had been near-exemplary, apart from a curious practice involving the protrusion of the tongue when being photographed in public [perhaps they thought they were in Tibet], and they are a credit to the first family.

            That said, we have a suggestion concerning how they could most help their father’s campaign.  Posing in a Vogue Magazine layout may not have harmed the President’s support among, as he once phrased it, “the haves and the have-mores.”   But the public as a whole would be far more moved if the Misses Bush traded their debutante attire for khaki and camouflage.

            What more perfect way to express support of their father and his policies and steal the thunder of Mr. Bush’s critics—such as Michael Moore—than for one or more of his daughters to enlist in the U.S. Army.

            I am reminded of Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, age 57, son of one president and cousin of another, who despite severe arthritis and a heart condition that would kill him later that year, was the only general officer to land with the first-wave troops in Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and stand in the path of enemy fire. He landed on Utah Beach.  His son, Capt. Quentin Roosevelt, landed that day with the 1^st Division on Omaha Beach.  [Both later bcame members of a most elite group, fathers and sons awarded the Medal of Honor.

            You cannot push a string, and you do not lead from the rear. 

2004 Pre-Election Interview with the Blog Author

This is an unretouched  selection from the summer, 2004, edition of El Chismoso.   Some observations were in retrospect naive while others were remarkably prescient.

From Politics To War To Terrorism: A Conversation With The Crusty Curmudgeon

Caution:  The “Crusty Curmudgeon” is an outspoken self-described expert on military and political affairs, whose controversial views are often aired in El Chismoso.  This conversation is reported essentially unedited, with the Curmudgeon’s vulgar language and strong expression intact, and the content is not recommended for young or sensitive readers.

What do you think about the president?

            George W. has two facial expressions that have troubled his handlers from the start.  There is a cat-that-ate-the-cream smirk, and there is the bewildered little-boy-lost expression.   I have come to believe that his character and administration are accurately defined by those two expressions.

You don’t like the President, do you?

            I like a man who drives around his property in an old truck and cuts his own brush.  But as President, no.  I think the man is totally inept and unqualified to be president.  He should never have been nominated.  It’s not just him.  I think our political system weeds out the better qualified people.  The skills for getting elected are not the same as those needed for job performance.  There is some overlap, but not enough.

            In one sense, this is a good thing.  Maybe the best you can say about the American system of government is that it usually doesn’t work very well.  Maybe when it does work well is the time we are really in trouble. 

But our government and people worked  together after 9-11 to fight terrorism.

Exactly.  The popular reaction to 9-11 suddenly aligned most Americans and politicians in one direction so that for a time, government worked “well.”   And look at the result.  The Patriot Act.  Afghanistan. Iraq.  Explosive deficits.   Paranoia and fear bring people together, who as often as not move in an irrational direction toward disaster.  In Germany of the 1930s, inflation and governmental chaos stampeded the Germans to the ascension of the Nazi party and a scapegoat agenda.  Beware a panicked crowd. 

Are you saying we should have done nothing in response to 9-11?

            I am saying we went way too far, that like a herd of spooked cattle we allowed ourselves to join in a stampede that trampled on our civil rights as Americans and killed a lot of innocent people.  Every moral crusader should take careful note: Most people killed in any “morally justified” war are totally innocent, as a general rule.   

In retaliation for the 3,000 Americans killed, we have killed somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 people in Iraq and Afghanistan, fewer than 100 of whom were directly linked to 9-11 and the WTC.  Most of those we have killed have relatives, and some of those relatives are going to join in the endless cycle of revenge.

Will life be better for people in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Maybe.  We just do not know yet.  We could not have known. Bush did not know.  And that brings up the question that hews at the root of what has happened in the last three years:  By what right did we make the decision to kill in order to improve the world?  What would-be philosopher-king weighed the pros and cons in his flawed, biased mind and decided that it would be best to kill in order to be kind?  We are self-appointed judge, jury and executioner over the lives of 40 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It would never have happened if Russia were still a superpower and able to curb American excesses.  And in the end, from our point of view, we have triggered a chain reaction that breeds more terrorists than we killed.

            I am saying something else, too.  We should not base our foreign and domestic policy in reaction to the events of 9-11.  It is not a major issue.  3,000 people were killed, it was a tragic event, and an avoidable one.  Things like that happen.  They will always happen.  There will always be a Timothy McVeigh, an Osama Ben Laden, a Red Brigade, a Black Panther movement, a Squeaky Fromme. There will always be individuals and groups who have a grudge and are willing and able to kill.  Mourn for a month, and get over it!  We—and I mean all of us—have lost our sense of proportion.  

            Look. Every year in this country 40,000 of us are killed because of medical mistake.  Is Bush calling out the National Guard for posting to our hospitals?  Lives could be saved by doing just that.  If a guardsman tested every doctor coming into the hospital   to make sure the doctor was coherent, sober and drug free, we could save 5,000-10,000 lives a year.  Way more than the number who died at the WTC on 9-11.  But the Bush administration instead wants to limit lawsuits filed by victims against drug companies.  That’s their idea of medical policy.

            In the 20^th century, at least 250 million Americans died from alcohol or tobacco as a direct cause of death.  Alcohol or tobacco will be a factor in upward of a million deaths this year.  If we are appalled at the killing of 20-35 million Russian peasants in the 1930s by Joe Stalin, and the killing of ten million civilians by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945, what can we say about licensing American companies to commit institutional genocide over generations for profit?  Hitler and Stalin pale in comparison to American business as perpetrators of genocide.  But did Bush order the air force to drop napalm on the tobacco fields?   Are cruise missiles targeted on R.J Reynolds headquarters?  Commando strikes scheduled for the Anheuser-Busch brewery?  Is a marine sniper sighting in on the window of the Seagram’s Building where the board of directors meet?

            If we had a universal medical insurance plan in place that would cover those of us unable to afford health insurance, many, many thousands of lives would be saved. But it is the Bush administration’s policy to kill tens of thousands of Americans by neglect.  Death by neglect is okay, genocide is okay as long as it is home-grown and American businesses profit.  But if a minor terrorist threat exists that can scare the voters and be milked for political mileage, that threat becomes the number-one Republican campaign issue for 2004.

            I’ll say it again.  Get over 9-11.  Shit happens.  We cannot eliminate every danger; we need to look at the big picture, and the big issues.  Osama and Al-Quaida are dangerous nuisances, nothing more.   Wake up and take off the blinders.

Do you contend Kerry can do better than Bush?

I first heard Dean speak in late 2002 and liked him quite a lot, then jumped to Edwards when Dean’s campaign ran aground and sank; now I support Kerry. Actually I prefer Teresa Heinz Kerry, who is a stone fox, over her husband.  Kerry is a politician; but his wife can afford to have liberal principles.  Pity she is foreign born and cannot run for president.

            Environmental issues and supreme court appointments are important issues to me.  I am a Green Party man at heart, and Nader says a lot I agree with. 

But to answer your question directly: Anyone—anyone!--but the incumbent.  Let someone who does not have blood on his hands take a turn.  Joe Blow of Altoona would be just fine.  Beat bloody Bush.

Why does Nader run when he has no chance?

            We have always had a two party system because, when a third party arose with a platform that appealed to voters, the other parties would steal the platform, and the upstart party would fade away.  Nader would say publicly that he runs in order to influence the Democratic party platform, in the hope the Democrats will respond to his threat by incorporating Nader’s platform, and in that case, that he would be happy to just fade away.

            Some would say (quietly in order not to anger Nader, which neither Republicans nor Democrats want to do) that he runs out of pure vanity.

            But I speculate there might be another subtler reason--that Nader is  machiavellian enough to want to torpedo the Democrats.

Why would he want to do that?

            You have heard the expression, “an addict has to hit bottom before he can change.”  Our politico-governmental system is reactive rather than proactive.  A problem has to jump up and bite us in the cojones before something can be done about it.  And even then, what we get is an ugly patch instead of a solution.

            Look.  Al-Queda is a dangerous nuisance, but not a big problem.   North Korean nuclear warheads--same thing.  They are little problems that are diverting us from the big picture.  They are a smoke screen thrown up by George W. Bush to panic voters and drum up support for his robber-baron agenda.  Our biggest problems are energy, water, overpopulation, poverty, pollution. Nurturing sustainable industry. Conservation. The economic gradient between rich and poor in our own country and elsewhere. Do you realize that the ocean fisheries are nearly depleted?  That we in this country have built cities on top of our most productive farmland?  We have drained our aquifers, and pumped out most of our petroleum, all in the span of just a century.  Non-renewable resources are thrown away without a thought.  We have skimmed the cream off the world’s resources, and face sharply diminishing returns in the near future; these are real issues. But doing something about it is not politically or economically feasible.  We are a runaway train, and there will be a crash, unless our governmental and economic systems are fundamentally and radically altered.  I personally see no solution.

            But Nader might believe that with one more Republican administration, conditions may get so bad there will be a mass revolt against both parties--that the green party may have a real chance to win national offices in four years with enough of a mandate to make a real difference. That will not be true following a Kerry administration.

How can matters “get bad” as you describe?

            We moral Americans are callous to starvation, suffering and death, as long as it occurs on the far side of the world, and nobody wealthy and famous is involved.  Our economic problems are a different story.  The real way to sway a voter is closest to the voter’s heart: the pocketbook. Dubya’s explosive spending on the war has pretty much guaranteed a high inflation rate of 10-15% within four years if employment rises.  There has been a lot of home mortgage financing lately, at extremely low interest rates.  What happens to the holders of that debt paying 6% when the prime rises to 15%?  Consumer credit is still high. What happens to homeowners with ARMs?  Look for a lot of bank failures and government bailouts.  Rising personal bankruptcies. 

            And there are Iraq and Afghanistan, if anyone cares, where there are no pleasant surprises in store--continued American casualties, tottering governments, rising hatred. 

           

Aren’t there technological solutions to the energy problems you described earlier?  Alternative energy sources like hydrogen and alcohol, for example.   

            Many idiot politicians—Schwartzenegger for one—do not know what an energy source is.  Hydrogen is not an energy source.  (Unless you are talking about nuclear energy from deuterium, and we do not know if controlled fusion will ever be possible.) There is a nearly infinite supply of hydrogen in seawater.  But it takes energy to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. About 120% or so of the energy you will get when you burn the hydrogen thus produced.  You lose energy in the overall  process.

            Hydrogen is a way of storing chemical energy, like a battery.  And like a battery, every time there is a transmission of electric power or conversion of energy from one form to another, there is energy loss.  Besides, hydrogen as a fuel is no cleaner than the source of the electrical energy that must be generated to produce it.  But hydrogen does have the advantage of not increasing carbon dioxide levels itself when it burns, unlike hydrocarbons.

As for alcohol—did you know that a gallon of alcohol contains roughly 60% of the chemical energy contained in a gallon of gasoline?  That alcohol is corrosive when exposed to untreated metal? That alcohol has a much higher heat of vaporization than gasoline, which means you have to warm up a cold engine to get it to start?

                       

Okay. Back to the election.  What about Hillary Clinton?

            Are you from the National Enquirer?  What is this fascination with Hillary?

Why are we so attracted to kings and lords?  Is it the fascination of celebrity or the desire for security and certainty of succession?  We Americans pretend to reject kingship, but dote on all the news and scandals pertaining to the “royals.”  Then we talk about “Camelot” and JFK and rest our hopes on a young “John-Boy” who by any measure was hopelessly unfit for high office.  So it is with George W., who would never have been considered for president—or for governor, or even mayor, except maybe of Crawford, Texas--if his father had not held high office.  Is it just name-recognition, or is there some deep-seated anti-democratic flaw in us that hankers for dynasty?   Do we hate having to learn new names and make new choices so much that we want to look to the same old families for leadership?

Was the American Revolution for nothing?

            About Hillary.  A few years ago, I speculated that Foster had been murdered and that his papers were removed at Hillary’s behest to hide the Clintons’ involvement in embarrassing or criminal activities.  The investigation into Foster’s purported suicide and access to Foster’s papers was inadequate.   I have suspicions.  Enough said.

           

You must agree that President Bush has proved himself to be a strong leader.

George W. took office with a pre-conceived agenda to Americanize Iraq, a perspective fed to him by his daddy’s rich cronies with global ambitions and designs on opening up a new frontier for American business in the land between the rivers.  He twisted the facts to fit his agenda, used the public paranoia about Al-Quaida and terrorism to garner public support, told a bunch of bald-faced lies that Saddam posed a direct threat to the U.S., and on the pretext of enforcing a UN resolution (which only the UN itself had a legal right to enforce!) he launched a costly and dangerous war.  He even told us that the oil from Iraq would help finance the war!   He lied to us and maybe to himself.  He is either a con man and a fraud or not quite sane.  Take your pick.

Is a leader in front because he is leading, or because he is being chased?  Bush has a lot of ghosts in hot pursuit, and I don’t know how he can close his eyes at night with the specters hovering about.  I see him as a male lady Macbeth, wandering the halls of the White House, stopping in every bathroom to wash the blood from his hands.

But wasn’t the CIA to blame for poor intelligence?

Sure, but that’s not the point.  Every president should be suspicious of intelligence, that the data they are being fed are imperfect.  A president always has to act on imperfect or unreliable information. Or on no information.   That’s where common sense comes in.  The president has to use caution and good judgment in weighing data.  And if the president has a mind-set or bias leading toward a certain action, he (or she) must be especially cautious trying to sell or justify that action.  This is the quality we have to look for most in a president—good judgment.  And that is the quality that George W. utterly lacks.   Neither does he have good advisers.  Look at the people close to him.

The people close to him?

            Watergate occurred 30 years ago, and we still refuse to learn its lessons.  The problem is that the president wears two hats, one as chief administrator of the country, and another as political campaigner and party hack.  The president naturally appoints cabinet and advisors whose primary loyalty is to the president (not to the presidency) and who are also dedicated to ensuring reelection.  And, not by coincidence, these people are closely aligned with the president on the issues even apart from their loyalty to him.  Those not aligned are quickly weeded out.

            This means the president is surrounded by yes-men and yes-women who are inclined by inclination and circumstance to agree with the chief.  When diversity of opinion fails, judgment fails, morality fails.

            Can the term “advisor” have any meaning in this environment?

            George W. needs somebody close to him who can say, one-on-one, “Boss, you’re full of shit and you need to reconsider.”  There’s nobody like that in this administration.  Powell is the only one who might have tried it.

            If the administration were even run like a typical business, the president would have had Rumsfeld’s head brought in on a platter for Abu Ghraib, and for multitudinous other SNAFUs in Iraq. That may happen yet during the Olympics, when there is so much competing news that embarrassing news stories can be leaked with minimal effect.  Or not.  It’s not that Dubya is loyal to his people, it’s that he is afraid of seeming weak, indecisive or desperate.

How can you blame the administration for the actions of a few jailers at the Abu Ghraib Prison?

First of all, it was not a “few jailers” who were responsible for what happened at Abu Ghraib.  Dozens were involved.  Colonels and generals are going to be forced into retirement over this.  But of course, only a few privates and non-coms will likely do hard time; that’s the way the system works. 

Second, the abuse—and even murder--of prisoners is not limited to Abu Ghraib.  It exists elsewhere in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo, and in the United States itself.  There is a mind-set in the Bush administration that the end justifies the means--that in order to preserve our Constitution we have to scrap the bill of rights.

It started with the so-called “Patriot Act,” which was not only overreaching but unnecessary.  Existing laws were quite sufficient to hunt down terrorists and prevent terrorism.  That an act of terrorism was permitted to occur was a human, not a legal, failure.  The problem was coordination of agencies and forthright sharing of information between them and limiting agency rivalries and jealousies. And finding time and manpower to do a thorough job.   Mr. Bush was so dismayed and embarrassed  that 9-11 happened on his shift that he overreacted and promoted a set of laws that we are going to have to spend the next 20 years trying to weed out.  This mind-set filtered down the command structure.  A paranoia and overreaction similar to the anti-Japanese American paranoia of WWII.  To the administration’s credit, it has tried to avoid popular backlash against Arab-Americans.

Third, the Bush administration has been incredibly stupid.

How has the Bush administration been stupid with respect to the prisoner scandal?

            Because the treatment of prisoners was obviously going to be a hot issue, and the propaganda war is the real war in Iraq.  Rumsfeld and Bush should have made certain that nothing in the treatment of prisoners—Iraqi or otherwise—could come back to haunt us.  I would have appointed a team of independent observers at the first—not necessarily military personnel—to oversee all interrogation and holding procedures and continually report straight back to the Secretary.  Prevention is always better than cure. Abu Ghraib has cost American lives and will cost more lives over the next few years.  Not to mention national prestige.

            This is typical of the screw-ups in Iraq.  The administration utterly failed to anticipate problems before they arose. 

           

President Bush is a moral, church-going man.

            Many of the worst crimes of history have been committed by the most devout. The deeply religious are often the worst scoundrels and manipulators.  And I believe that membership in a Christian fundamentalist church should be a disqualification for the presidency.

How can you possibly justify that belief?

            They see the world filtered through their paradigm.  For example. 

If you believe that human beings are a sort of creator’s prize pet, that the world was made for us and for our use and exploitation, and that the end of the world is coming soon, how does that affect your views on long-term issues?  Conservation?  Pollution?  Wouldn’t it mean that we have a god-given right to alter the natural world and consume its resources as we see fit? 

If you believe in a life after death, and that evil is a discrete force in the universe, then you are more likely to kill someone you regard as evil, more likely to risk the lives of your own men to do so.  Sound familiar? This is why true believers tend to be blood-thirsty.

If you believe that the State of Israel is somehow tied in with a prophesied end of days, won’t that affect your foreign policy toward Israel?

The rest of us are compelled by circumstances to constantly test and revise our paradigm--our little mental model of the world.  We modify it or throw it out entirely as we gain in knowledge and experience.  But religious fanatics change their perception of the world to fit their model.  They refuse to test or change their model.  Because they define those beliefs as unchangeable.

This is the problem with Muslim extremists.  It is the problem with Christian extremists.

I submit that a Christian fundamentalist makes a dangerous and irrational president.  We cannot afford to have such a president.  Give me an atheist or agnostic any time.  Give me anyone who questions his own beliefs.  Who can experience doubt

President Bush’s critics claim that he went to war over business or oil.  What’s your position?

I think Dubya had a lot of reasons for invading Iraq.  Including as he said, the fact that Saddam tried to kill his dad.  He and Condi Rice wanted to send a message to North Korea and to Iran:  “We are dangerous and unpredictable, and you may be next.”  Frankly, Iraq was an easier target than anybody else except Libya, and Libya had been rather helpful to the U.S. in recent years.  And Dubya wanted to redeem what he saw as a loose thread of his father’s legacy, maybe even show up his father by accomplishing something the senior Bush could not. Maybe we had a little father-son rivalry.  No doubt many people Dubya had talked to since 1990 wanted a piece of the Iraq economy, post-Saddam.  I am quite sure Dubya discussed post-Saddam scenarios before he took office.

You have to understand what it was like to be part of the Bush family even before a Bush became president.  You have all these wealthy people offering the Bush children salaries and consulting fees for doing absolutely nothing, in the case of Neil Bush.   And doing favors like keeping George W. out of Vietnam. When Dubya’s oil business failed, friends of his dad bought his near-worthless business for an exorbitant sum, and kept him on as a paid advisor!     I’m not saying these were clear-cut bribes.  Favors create good will and facilitate access.  Access means opportunity to share information.  Sharing of information influences decision-making.  A president’s decisions nudged in the right direction are very profitable.

So many life and death decisions trace back to information derived from conversations at the golf course, or over drinks at a party.  Or in more formal settings, such as the infamous discussions between Cheney and Bush and Ken Lay.  This administration has denied the American public has a right to know how much the administration’s energy policy was affected by those secret meetings.  Shine the light!

Back to Iraq. The Iraqis are free now, and have a brighter future without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, thanks to President Bush.

            We’ve killed a lot of people in Iraq.  Probably 20,000-30,000 in the “Gulf War.”  Others died in the in-between years as a consequence of our embargo against Iraq.  Some claim 50,000 a year because of the shortage of medicines.  Embargoes always hurt the poor harder than the leaders they are supposed to hurt, but this figure may be a little high.  Probably we killed another 30,000-50,000 (including 15,000 civilians so far) in this war.  More have been maimed.  What do the children of those dead and maimed Iraqis think?  Will better schools and some soccer fields buy their affection?  Candy and chewing gum?    Will a working TV set and chance at a better paying job make people forget? 

How would you feel if your home were bombed, and members of your family killed? Even if there were a good rationalization for doing so.   Think how Americans feel now about the World Trade Center.  But let’s suppose that instead of a half a dozen buildings destroyed and three thousand people killed—that three million people were killed on 9-11 and  10,000 buildings were destroyed.  How would an average American feel then?  How long would that hatred last?

I’ll tell you--unto the seventh generation and longer, if people mope and nourish their hatred.  The U.S. government is chief recruiter for Al-Quaida and other extremist groups.  And now there are a lot more candidates to recruit from—we’ve seen to that.

We are good at fighting a war.  We have the most expensive, best-equipped and best-trained military in the world and we absolutely defeated those rag-tag Third World armies.  They couldn’t stay in the field with us.  We should be very proud of ourselves and our great dedication and heroism.   There should be a special medal for killing poor people with superior firepower.  Call it the “Bush/Rummy Big Bully” medal. A lot of people might retroactively qualify.  The last time American troops fought an enemy on an equal technological footing was WWII. 

On thing for sure:  no Iraqi candidate will win public office in a free election anywhere in Iraq if that candidate is overtly pro-American.   That is going to be so for a long time. What else happens in Iraq is anybody’s guess. 

What is your guess?

            Dubya’s confident assertion to the contrary, we are not so hot at nation building.  Our only successes at nation building were in rebuilding countries that were already cohesive nations, like Germany and Japan. 

Ever read Uncle Remus?  Iraq is our tar baby.  And there will be U.S. military presence there for 10-20 years.  Most likely, when the U.S. gets really desperate to get out, a dictatorial committee will be set up, with some rather un-democratic powers to ensure its survival.  If a powerful, ruthless political leader clearly emerges, the U.S. will do a deal with him to allow him to take over as a kind of Neo-Saddam-style dictator.  So far,  there is no such leader.  

This situation, where there are radically disparate religious, ethnic and political elements—you have a number of sheiks kind of like the ward bosses of American cities, the Baathists, the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shiites, etc.—usually requires a strongman like Marshall Tito, or Joe Stalin, or Saddam Hussein to bind the country together by force.  Democracy will not work unless Iraq is split up into three or four small independent countries.  If there is no glue to bind Iraq together, then it has to be held together by force.

Is there no “glue” that would work?

            One thing only.  Hatred of the U.S. can be a binding force.  But it will take time.  We may have that kind of time in Iraq.

Do you deny that eliminating Saddam Hussein makes us safer?

            Of course we are no safer.  Quite the contrary.  What Americans often don’t grasp is the fact that Saddam Hussein was the enemy of Muslim fundamentalism and of Al Quaida.  Saddam had to limit fundamentalist activity in Iraq in order to survive. He might have thrown them a bone now and then for political reasons.  But there was no relationship.

But whether the new Iraq descends further into chaos, or firms into a strong democratic government, Iraq will be a fertile breeding ground for anti-American and  terrorist activity.  No new government will ever be as effective at suppression of Al-Quaida—or other dangerous groups--as Saddam’s regime was.  Unless they are as bad as his regime.  And then in that case, what did we accomplish in overthrowing Saddam?

            And as for that claim of the Bush administration that Saddam was working on a robot plane that could deliver WMD to the U.S. mainland—well, that was absurd.  Just a scare tactic to bolster support for the war.  Saddam even with biological weapons and nuclear materials would have been a threat to Israel, and a de-stabilizing force in the Middle East.  Not a direct threat to the U.S. 

            Of course, right now, Israel is the main threat to Israel.  That country is in the throes of self-destruction.

Surely you do not maintain that Saddam Hussein was not an enemy of the United States.

            Do you know one reason why we were so certain that Iraq had anthrax cultures?  Because some cultures came from us!  Saddam had two sugar daddies: the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. of A.  The Reagan and Bush I administrations attempted to use Saddam Hussein as a pawn in the Middle East and were covertly leaking weaponry and technology to Iraq—until the news stories broke about genocide and the pictures of the dead lying on Iran/Iraq battlefields became too offensive to the delicate stomachs of the American public.  And then the Republicans backed away from Saddam to avoid embarrassment.  Before invading Kuwait, Saddam asked the U.S. ambassador what the American response would be if Iraq pressed its claims against Kuwait.  There was no response from the State Department. (Instead of saying “Daddy Bush, can I have the keys to the car?”  Saddam asked, “Daddy Bush, can I have Kuwait?”  Silence gave consent.)

            Ever wonder why our self-proclaimed democracy so often befriends and uses dictators and tyrants?    That’s because our government is influenced and controlled by wealth more than by any other factor, and throughout the 20^th century the wealthy feared nothing as much as socialism and communism, which among small countries tended to rise up in opposition to fascist dictators and tyrants.  And the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  Therefore, America was at one time or another, bosom buddies with a whole passel of murderous megalomaniacs, including Somoza, the genocidal Chilean Colonels (who came to power after the CIA caused a duly elected president to be deposed and killed, just because he was a Marxist), Chiang K’ai Shek, Reza Pahlavi a/k/a The Shadow of God On Earth (placed on the Persian throne by the CIA), Noriega, Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier (presidents-for-life just off our shores) Batista (just off our own shores), Saddam Hussein, and a host of others. And don’t forget the Taliban, who as the Mujahideen were Cold War pawns of the Reagan and Bush I administrations but were dropped cold just as soon as the Berlin Wall came down; hell, some of the weapons used against Americans in Afghanistan had been supplied by us! 

If Adolf Hitler rose to power during the Cold War, the Republicans would have made him an ally, as long as he stayed anti-communist. And maybe the Democrats too. (Actually, before WWII, Republican business interests did press for an alliance with Nazi Germany.)

            But to answer the question, yes, at this point in the relationship, Saddam had become an enemy, but a rather impotent one.  E pleuribus unum. 

           

Do you maintain Saddam Hussein should have been left in power?

The jury will be out for a long time.  We’ll be counting bodies for a generation.  Or more.  Call me in 20 years. 

Was 9-11 preventable?

            In the form that it took, hijacking U.S. airliners and crashing them into ground targets, absolutely.  And so easily.  Hell, Tom Clancy in his 1994 novel, Clear and Present Danger, had a pilot crash an airliner into the Capitol building during, I think, a State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress.  Took out almost the whole government. Clancy’s fictional airliner flew from California and did not have full fuel tanks; so the 9-11 terrorists improved on that scenario.

Maybe the government should hire Tom Clancy as a consultant.   

            Maybe.  You know, I read a few years ago in Newsweek that Tom Clancy was invited to a meeting with some government bigwigs.  He thought he was going to be asked for real input on policy.  But they just wanted to use him for PR.  Arrogant government bastards.

But just think, to prevent what happened on 9-11, all we had to do was install strong, locking cockpit doors on all commercial airliners allowed to fly in this country, and establish a protocol that the doors would stay shut and locked in flight, no matter what.  A few hundred dollars an airplane, max.  That is the one significant anti-hijacking measure we have seen.  It should have been in place by 1975.

And it would have been politically acceptable too, while long lines at security checkpoints would not.  Remember, on September 10, 2001, the big story in the airline industry was the flight delays.  Passengers were so frustrated that politicians were talking about congressional hearings and legislation to speed up flights.  One day changed everything.  Then for a while passengers felt better about standing in line.

Of course, terrorists can always find a way to attack, but some ways are easier than others.  And do more damage.  We left that door wide open.

And searching passengers for box-cutters and knives helps too.

            No.  9-11 should have taught us that we want passengers to have pocketknives.  We should pass them out to passengers who are unarmed.  Passengers are the last line of defense, and we don’t want them totally unarmed. 

Some things you may not be aware of.  Weapons are not necessarily made of metal.  The sharpest and best knives are ceramic, but they’re expensive.  There are plastic composite knives you can buy for a $5 bill that will go through an ordinary metal detector, but are sharp enough to slit a throat or punch through a rib cage. There’s a hairbrush that hides a plastic dagger. Shit, if you have real glass eyewear and duct tape, you can build an edged weapon in the airplane rest room.  Ditto watch crystals.   You can sharpen a credit card with sandpaper enough to slice into the jugular.   And dental floss can be a dandy strangling cord--come up behind the flight attendant, and slip a double loop around her tender neck.  Maybe her screams will get the pilot to open the door.

There are chemicals you can easily carry onto a commercial airliner undetected, that can be absorbed through the skin, for disabling flight personnel.  Just get close, and slap a plastic patch onto the attendant’s skin.

            You don’t want passengers to bring bombs or guns on board, but small knives are not a big problem.  What I am trying to point out, the only way to keep weapons off a plane is to do a strip search.  Or, what is more practical, have all passengers take off all their clothes and effects, put them into sealed bags, and put on clothing supplied by the airline just for the duration of the flight.  Of course, without a body cavity search….

Never mind.  If what you say is true, why confiscate pocketknives and metal nail files?

            Two reasons.  It makes the passengers feel more secure, and it does make it a little bit harder to take out the air marshal, if there is one on the plane.  If the air marshal can be identified, he or she can be killed with a long blade before the hijacking starts.  Then the hijackers will have a gun of their own, and no armed opposition except, maybe, the pilot.  But identifying the air marshal is not a sure thing.  Neither is fatally stabbing him; you’d have to grab him on the way to the toilet.  Or reach over his seat from behind very fast and sever the carotid artery. 

You sound like one of those freaks who read Soldier of Fortune magazine.

            Never picked up a copy.  I oppose the NRA lobby and the politicians they bribe with campaign contributions and political support.  I’m just an informed citizen who happens to hate a lot of the idiots in the federal government.  Especially the ATF, the FBI, and most especially the top people in the Bush administration.  I stand for reinstating the Bill of Rights, the decisions of the Warren Court, states’ rights, for militant environmentalism, and for curtailing non-environmental and non-health related powers of the federal government.  My positions overlap a bit with some of the militia groups.  But not much.

What have you got against the NRA?

            Other than for their corrupting influence on politicians, I oppose them for their illogic. 

Illogic?

            The fact is, if you own a handgun, it is more likely that it will be stolen and used to commit a crime than it is that you will ever use it to prevent one.  Your gun will more likely take your life, or the life of a family member, than save a life.  The NRA’s claims to the contrary are anecdotal and based upon questionable surveys and data.  And wishful thinking.

You are a gun control liberal?

I go back and forth.  If you value human life and safety above all else, you have to favor strict gun control, far, far more strict than we have today. But because I tend to believe the people may need to effect a fundamental change of government soon, I tend to favor plenty of private firepower.  

People are so unpredictable.  “Guns don’t commit crimes, criminals commit crimes.”  Nonsense.  Any of us is potentially a criminal and capable of extreme violence.  And there is a psychological synergy between people and their guns. Availability of a gun may give rise to the notion of killing.  Sure, you can kill with a ballpoint pen or a beer bottle, but it’s a lot easier with a gun.  And less messy for the physically weak or squeamish.  Just point, close your eyes and pull the trigger.  You don’t even have to watch.  If you stand back a ways, you won’t even get blood on your clothes.

A ballpoint pen?

            Sure.  Earholes, eye sockets, nostrils.  Right into the brain.

That doesn’t sound easy to do.

            Not easy at all.  Just the point.  Guns are really easy to use.  Way too easy.

We never had a hijacking threat before 9-11.  It was totally unexpected.

Wrong. You’re too young to remember, but 30-odd years ago, we had an epidemic of airplane hijackings.  It became a joke, that if you were flying to Miami, you would probably end up in Cuba.

What was done about it?

            Armed air marshals.  And metal detectors.  Most of the early airline hijackers had guns.  But I think the hijackings really petered out because would-be hijackers got the message that Cuba was really not a very nice place to visit, and no red carpets would be rolled out in Havana.  Just a long-term guest membership at Uncle Fidel’s favorite prison.  And intimate acquaintance with some unhygienic people.

            There was no safe comfortable place for a hijacker to go to.

What will the terrorists’ next target be?

            They may go for symbolic targets over mass casualties, or maybe not.  I have speculated that the 9-11 bunch purposely sought to avoid large numbers of casualties.  A night attack on the WTC would have minimized casualties, but then they would have more trouble finding the targets.  They could have hit the WTC just after dawn and cut the number of people killed by one-half.  Maybe it was unplanned that so few were killed on 9-11.    Maybe they didn’t care one way or another.  One thing we can say--maximizing casualties was not a primary objective at that time.

Three thousand is a lot of people killed.

            No.  It is a very low number.    Could have been 25,000-30,000 later in the day.  But the hijackers certainly did not know the buildings would collapse.  No one did.

A mad bomber could kill more than 3,000 at a sports event or in a crowded street or subway using a pretty small bomb.  A Black Sunday scenario could kill 50,000 plus.

            Even if the 9-11 bunch did want to minimize incidental killing, that will not be the case now with their successors.  There is blood in the water.

An intelligent, rational, but suicidal terrorist would probably want to spend his or her life on something significant and important.  Not penny-ante street stuff that Palestinian suicide bombers go for.  There’s no intensive planning and preparation with the Palestinian kids.   They’re just naïve kids with issues and a short attention span who are egged on and used by handlers who supply the goodies and point out the target.  If they wait too long, they would be apt to change their minds. 

So you’re looking at either large numbers of people or something prominent and symbolic of America’s power structure.

Or both.

            Or both.

How would you prevent acts of terrorism?

            You don’t.  Anyone can be a terrorist, even our own citizens.  And they can strike from outside our borders.  Example.  Al-Quaida buys a rust bucket freighter for $200,000.  They equip it and send it toward a major port, NYC, LA or Houston.  Before it enters U.S. waters, a hatch opens.  A Scud-type tactical missile is launched out of the hold with a NBC [Nuclear, Biological, Chemical] warhead right toward the port.  What can you do?  Nothing.  If the Patriot system were a thousand times better than the high priced fuck-up it is, it couldn’t do anything except spread the NBC over a wider area. 

You just live with the dangers.  The human species grew up with continual danger from famine, disease, predators, war.  Why should the future be any different?