Edgewise

Florida and Michigan--Rebels on the Run

Leaving aside everything else about this campaign, I’d like to zero-in on whether the delegates from these two states should or should not be seated. So, I have composed this imaginary statement in the name of the Democratic National Committee:

STATEMENT

—Barak Obama promised not to campaign in Florida, and he kept his word. He must be punished.

—Mr. Obama promised not to campaign in Michigan, and he kept his word. He even took his name off the ballot!. He must be severely punished.

—To all the other state parties who had also sought to hold earlier primaries, but in the end agreed to keep to the rules. Just kidding!

—By seating these two delegations, we are trying to send a message to you and to all 50 states about the primaries that will come up in 2012: Go ahead and ignore our warnings. There will be no sanctions to back them up! See, they did it, and nothing happened to them.

—To the voters in Michigan and Florida, please don’t hold it against your own state party leaders for invalidating your votes. This was their decision. They are the ones who willfully and deliberately put you in this position. But is it fair to hold them accountable for it?

—This all started when we decided to preserve a tradition: Primary season opens with the slow-paced, multi-candidate, face-to-face “retail politics†of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

This year, the Iowa caucuses took place on January 3. But think how great it would have been if you had jumped ahead of them, pushing the primaries back into 2007. The attention! The coverage! The Red Carpets!

Of course, after we seat Florida and Michigan this year, you will have a lot of company and competition in the 2011/2012 cycle. We could have a two-year long primary season!

Why did Barack Obama have to go and keep his word? What an idiot! We’ve got to nip this in bud.

Will There Be US Bases in Iraq?

Absolutely not.

“The U.S. ambassador…told Congress last week that the deal would not establish permanent bases in Iraq nor specify the number of forces to be stationed” there. —Washington Post, 4-15-08

This unspecified number of troops will not be housed in bases, but since they will be stationed there for an also unspecified period, the Army plans to consruct Stations. Military architects envision a standardized high-domed Grand Central Station motif, encircled by tall, tapering blast-walls. The Army, you know; they’re just sentimental.

Capitalism and the Homeowner: Contempt Hidden in Plain Sight

Marxists have long suggested that home ownership is encouraged under capitalism because when masses of people own small-scale properties, they identify with and defend large-scale capitalist ownership of true wealth in the means of production. Homeowners in America, then, are comparable to the land-owning peasantry in the Old Countries, unwitting bastions of reactionary economics.

From Marxists, this can sound a bit conspiracy/paranoidish. So, let’s hear it from The Man

[My BF]: “[Greenspan] said that the subprime boom would boost home ownership and was ‘worth the risk.’ ...[because] ‘protection of property rights, so critical to a market economy, requires a critical mass of owners to sustain political support.’†http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/20/AR20080320037082.html?nav=rssemail/components&sid=ST2008032003800

And political support there has been! Ordinary people insisting on tax cuts for multimillionaires. It has worked amazingly well, indeed, insanely well.

Worth the risk. Greenspan is a risk-assessor extraordinaire, legendary. So, how much pain was he willing to risk inflicting?

For instance, how many millions of life-plans, some carefully provided for over many years, was he willing to see shredded in an instant? How many millions of secure retirements gone to Hell? How many educations snatched from outstretched fingers? How much poverty and homelessness, night-terrors and desperation suicides was he willing to risk inflicting on America?

All of these consequences, we are told, while not inevitable, are definitely in prospect.

But it was “worth the risk.” Clearly, he does not express this as a close call, but as a small price to pay to “sustain political support” for what he still whimsically terms “a market economy.” For the wealth class, It is a small price because it will be paid by small people: the working people, the unemployed, the literally dispossessed. In a famous phrase, the “little people,” who, unlike the rich, have to pay their income taxes.

As Greenspan notes, capitalism requires legions of small owners over the long term: their false hopes, flotsam businesses, and fragile 401(k) sense of ownership. In good times, when obscene wealth is vulnerable to the disgust of decency, they are indispensable. But things change. We have rocky seas. The bet turned bad. But here is the Greenspan world’s courage on display, disregarding the extreme danger of splash marks on their vests, they have the guts to throw the small owners overboard like garbage.

And in the midst of this, the unconscionable cynicism of an Alan Greenspan can be stated publicly in the newspaper, and pass unnoticed.

The Obama Charisma Recoi. "Have a little faith; there's magic in the night."

I wrote this in response to an article on another list, but the general attitude I responded to is common enough. It is a recoil at the sight of Barak Obama’s rallies and speeches mostly, but also his political positions. The typical terms include: platitudes, revivalist, naive, empty, credulous, cult, spell, euphoria, fervor, creepy, messianic. It is a revulsion of the sophisticated from what they see as mesmerized, mindless mass hysteria.

So, some responses to all of that:

8 things come to mind. (Most of them, I notice, are more than 30 years old.)

1. When I was working in the Bob Scheer for Congress campaign in 1966, people would say he was using us, and I would say, “Never trust a politician who isn’t using you.”

2. When I wrote an endorsement of McGovern for President in 1972, people would say he wasn’t going to do what he says that he will do, and I would say, “Then he is building us a protest movement; what have we got now?”

3. When we said in 1964, “Don’t trust anybody over 30,” I honestly think that expressed, “Don’t trust anybody who is over 30 in 1964.” Because we saw a generation for whom every mass political gathering was the growth of fascism. That was the life they had lived. They had reason. We have no excuse.

4. A “cult.” I used to indulge in making fun of Mormonism. And one day someone said it was not a religion, but a cult. And I realized, “What am I doing?” A Jew deriding someone else’s religion. I could describe Christianity or Judaism, using accurate detail, in such a way that it sounded like a cult. You can describe any congregation of belief, good or bad, as a cult. The Anti-Vietnam War movement was a cult. Thank God for it.

5. Platitudes. “We Shall Overcome.” “Freedom Now!” “Keep Your Eye on the Prize.” Platitudes. Thank God for them.

“Black and white together.” A wild, desperate hope. How credulous can you get? How unsophisticated and naive can you be? And it takes many years. And it is far from being done. But when we see some of it in action, in big-time action, in credulous, youth-driven action, why can’t we rejoice? Even if the hope and heart we see this day, this time around, should end in disappointment, should only move us one step forward, why can’t we rejoice? I am proud of holding hands in a vast, naive, credulous circle, singing platitudes with a thousand other fools. Thank God for that folly; it did good. This, today, is doing good.

Virtue needs our help more than folly needs our disapproval.

1. In the days of “Listening to Prozac,” I saw something in my own subculture, a commitment to despondency, an implacable cynicism. If you were sensitive, you were miserable, and if anyone was happy, they weren’t facing reality.

2. “Obama’s….going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can’t possibly redeem…. Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad.”

Talk is not cheap. If talks with Iran meant nothing, this administration would have yielded to them long ago. But, settlements are too much within reach. They fear a settlement. Syria and Iran have both offered comprehensive settlements, including Palestine. But we refuse to give up “regime change,” which means overthrowing their governments and installing ones that we approve. (Yes, that is our policy.)

Talks mean normalization, regional security, renouncing the overthrow of their governments. In return, Assad suggests he could even turn off Hamas, which in turn would turn off the Israeli Right. Talks mean peace, and we will not allow it.

1. Talk isn’t cheap at home. Health reform. Someone asked Obama what he would do if that couple from the 1990s TV commercials were brought back, the folksy ones who destroyed health reform by saying the government would choose your doctor and dictate your medical care. Obama said that he would go on television and say that they were lying.

That was actually deep. I think he, and no one else around—in part because of his so objectionable inclusiveness—could really do that and be listened to. When the truth is listened to, more often than not it is believed.

Bush has cut taxes for the rich repeatedly for the last eight years. He got away with it because there was no talk. Let’s have a national discussion. Let’s bring in both Left and Right. Are we afraid of that?

Most of Bush’s policies have been totally indefensible. Let’s make somebody defend them. Let’s go back to Square 1 and defend the assumptions we have made. We should be eager for an open-ended talk about fundamental questions. For example:

“Are the wealthy the engines of progress, of economic growth? You used to say it was the marketplace, ordinary people with money in their hands, well informed, making their own decisions, driving economic growth. Only the wealthy who served them would prosper, and the rest would fade away. Now you say bypass the ordinary people and give money directly to the wealthy, all of them, not because they serve, but just because they’re rich. What good does that do? Could you please defend that policy?”

But they cannot defend that policy. The Right cannot survive such talk. If we all put our cards on the table, we will have the stronger hand. And I can see why old fighters returning to the ring are not likely to precipitate it. Maybe Obama, the bland, open to all, folksier-than-thou, but still, please notice, insisting on a core of serve the people, and putting youthful eyes on politics, maybe Obama can make a start.

What have we got now?

Life Affirming -- Dorothy Paker Style

Resume

—Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

Illegality of Marijuana May Cause Lung Disease

A few studies now suggest that marijuana may increase the risk of lung disease—not the marijuana itself, but its illegality, which makes it expensive, causing people to hold the smoke deep inside their lungs.

The DEA is all about Public Health. They will undoubtedly now campaign to make marijuana legal and cheap, so the smoking styledoesn’t harm the lungs. Already, they reassure us that today’s crops are much more potent—trying to get across that marijuana is now safer: less smoke, same effect.

And how delighted they must be that the new smokeless vaporizers have proved as effective as the smoke itself. They’ll probably tell parents “Kids listen. Protect them with straight talk about the health benefits of vaporizers.” Maybe they’ll back a tax credit.

—David

If Jews had met Budhists

Great religious coincidence. Last week I wrote to a friend:

“But mainly the sense of Jewish superiority was in relation…to the idol worshipers. It would have been interesting if there were strong contact between Jews and Buddhists, but it didn’t happen. So there were not other high religions [in their world] to [give] respect [to], except in certain ways the mystery religions, but they were in a slightly different line of business.”

Today, a quote from the Talmud unlike any I’ve ever seen:

“Whoever repudiates idolatry is called a Jew.”

• Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 13a

New from Aristotle

This came in this morning’s Aristotle message:

“To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.”

It came as news to me that he had said this. He never mentioned to me before. And if I am remembering the dates right, it must have come before Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.”

(In a more serious vein, I do realize that Descartes’ point on this score was much more fundamental, that it was the starting point, and the only possible starting point, for any other knowledge whatsoever.

Which in turn electrified the challenge raised by the late Paul Feyerabend, our cantankerous and really beloved Philosophy of Science prof at UCB, who argued persuasively that it was not possible to come to know something without already knowing something.)

—David

Sitting next to my father

It could be a very curious experience sitting next to my father watching a bad movie. He thoroughly enjoyed anticipating the next line of a predictable dialog.

This involved more than just getting the words right. There was also the timing. It had to be quick, and had to hit on the half-beat in the movie’s pacing, exactly midway between two lines spoken on the screen. So I’d hear my father first, courteously sotto voce, and then hear the actor on the screen repeating him! As in…

“Have you completely lost your senses?”

 <em>No, I've just come to them.</em>

“No, I’ve just come to them!”

Or this one:

“What’s stopping you? Nobody will know.”

 <em>I'll know.</em>

“I’ll know!”

In remembrance,

David

Sort of about Chanukah and Christmas

Got this in the email today:

The lasting achievement of the Maccabees was not that they won a war but that they rekindled the light of hope in Jewish hearts and saved the faith of monotheism from defeat. - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1997

[Background: Chanukah celebrates the victory in the 160s BCE of a Jewish People’s War/guerrilla war (possibly the first of its kind) against the gigantic armies sent from Persia to impose Greek culture and religion on them. The Jews were the last hold-outs who insisted on retaining a religion and culture of their own. The Maccabees were the leaders in the war.]

Rabbi Sachs is surely wrong about monotheism; it has enough juice in it to have emerged somewhere besides Palestine (and indeed it did, including, in a different way, the Mysteries). But Christianity? That’s different. That might really be so: No Judaism in Palestine, no Jesus and Christianity.

Besides its origins, the Jewish legacy was an indispensable impetus to the growth of Christianity, not just because of monotheism, but also the deep ethical dimension so weirdly absent from the culture of the Greeks. Communities who cared for the widow and orphan, for all of the needy, and who affirmed a fundamental equality before God for all, were an immense part of the attraction that drew to Christianity such vast numbers in Rome and the Roman Empire.

There would still be some kind of tree complementing the Menorah at the Winter solstice, but it might have been a different kind of tree.

Funundrum

Nobody knows what the Sun really looks like. —DKo

Philosophical Courage

I’ve been getting an Aristotle Quote of the Day on my (Google) home page. Today it was,

“Character is habitual action.”

And—totally apart from the content—I am thinking, “What guts! To say something so flat out straightforward, so intellectually committed as those four words.” And there is nothing obviously true about these words.

Where are the self-protective qualifications? Where are the noncommittal “Cover Your Ass” phrases and clauses? After all, Character is elusive and complex. Less obviously, so is Habit. So, complicate it! Sophisticate it up! Who could blame you? They say there is safety in numbers; in philosophy there is safety in supererogation.

I understand this sentence didn’t earn its living in the stark isolation I see on my computer. There is context par excellance in the celebrated chapter where it makes its home.

Nevertheless, if you were a philosopher who wanted to draw a connection between Character and Habit, there would a thousand insightful, subtle, and suggestive points that you could make, cautious, but still estimable points.

But this is Aristotle. He says what he thinks, and a philosophical view doesn’t get any more lucidly blunt than this. It rushes back to me why I revere him.

(By the way, he also says that you can change your character, not by a single act of will, but by a long succession of right choices, each one moving your character just a little bit in a better direction.)

Drop by Drop

“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” —Aeschylus

I wish to Hell I didn’t know what he was talking about. But I do. We all do. Or if you don’t know yet, you will. And how the Hell did he find a way to say it? That must have cost him something too.

I read this in Newseek! Bobby Kennedy cited it, calling Aeschylus his “favorite poet,” the night he had to tell a crowd of people, few of whom had yet heard, that Rev. Martin Luther King had been shot and killed that day.

So, without knowing it, he was also speaking to the people who would watch him die a few weeks later. He was, like King, an avatar of the hard truth in America, a country with politics so shallow you really can kill an idea with a bullet. One more for Wallace, with his divisive vote on the Right, and you’ve got Nixon, and you can forget about the truth.

I don’t think either Nixon or the Bushes ever needed to be warned to stay away from Aeschylus if they didn’t want to feel their lies sucking out their breath and cutting their own throats.

How honest WAS he?

“To the tune of” the stand-up comedian’s standard intonation.

How honest WAS he?

HE was so honest that when he got the “Bank Error in Your Favor” card in Monopoly, he paid the money back!

Buried Alive in Water: Leave No Marks; Suffer No Penalties

This article in today’s Washington Post distills into one and half pages a straight-to-the-point legal history of Waterboarding, and plainspoken descriptions of the actual physical experience. It is worth more than all the other obtuse, vacillating, shallowly researched, tongue-tied, contortedly circumspect coverage I have seen, all of it, combined.

The author, Evan Wallach, is a Federal judge of obviously unshakable courage and integrity, committed to the rule of law down to the bottom of his boots. He serves at the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York.

He is also my beloved cousin.

Here’s the WP article:

Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime

By Evan Wallach

Sunday, November 4, 2007; B01

As a JAG in the Nevada National Guard, I used to lecture the soldiers of the 72nd Military Police Company every year about their legal obligations when they guarded prisoners. I’d always conclude by saying, “I know you won’t remember everything I told you today, but just remember what your mom told you: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” That’s a pretty good standard for life and for the law, and even though I left the unit in 1995, I like to think that some of my teaching had carried over when the 72nd refused to participate in misconduct at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

Sometimes, though, the questions we face about detainees and interrogation get more specific. One such set of questions relates to “waterboarding.”

That term is used to describe several interrogation techniques. The victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed. The media usually characterize the practice as “simulated drowning.” That’s incorrect. To be effective, waterboarding is usually real drowning that simulates death. That is, the victim experiences the sensations of drowning: struggle, panic, breath-holding, swallowing, vomiting, taking water into the lungs and, eventually, the same feeling of not being able to breathe that one experiences after being punched in the gut. The main difference is that the drowning process is halted. According to those who have studied waterboarding’s effects, it can cause severe psychological trauma, such as panic attacks, for years.

The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government — whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community — has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: “I was given several types of torture… . I was given what they call the water cure.” He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. “Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning,” he replied, “just gasping between life and death.”

Nielsen’s experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan’s military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

In this case from the tribunal’s records, the victim was a prisoner in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies:

A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession.

The United States (like Britain, Australia and other Allies) pursued lower-ranking Japanese war criminals in trials before their own tribunals. As a general rule, the testimony was similar to Nielsen’s. Consider this account from a Filipino waterboarding victim:

Q: Was it painful?

A: Not so painful, but one becomes unconscious. Like drowning in the water.

Q: Like you were drowning?

A: Drowning — you could hardly breathe.

Here’s the testimony of two Americans imprisoned by the Japanese:

They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about two gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness.

And from the second prisoner: They laid me out on a stretcher and strapped me on. The stretcher was then stood on end with my head almost touching the floor and my feet in the air… . They then began pouring water over my face and at times it was almost impossible for me to breathe without sucking in water.

As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the “water cure” to question Filipino guerrillas.

More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that “the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to … the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee’s mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation.”

In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners’ civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to “subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning.”

The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

We know that U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture. That’s a lesson worth learning. The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history. The law of war is no different. This history should be of value to those who seek to understand what the law is — as well as what it ought to be.

Evan Wallach, a judge at the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, teaches the law of war as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School.

DKo: Judge Wallach also has a quite fascinating Website.http://lawofwar.org/ Well worth a visit.

—David

All Time's the Wrong Time

[My boldface]

Vetoing health care for children. President Bush explained:

“[W]ith federal revenues at an all-time high and the deficit declining, now is not the time to raise taxes.”

It goes without saying that when federal revenues are low and the deficit rising, that is also not the time.

So it’s a lot like Iraq and Vietnam.

—When you are losing, that is the worst time to leave.

—When you are winning, that is also the worst time.

—A third worst time is when it’s just middling—because you really ought to do a six month assessment.

It will always be the wrong time to provide health insurance to children. If that’s the case, let’s do it now.

Snack-Size Candy Bars

At this time of year, nutrition experts urge parents to remember that “snack-size” candy bars only that. There’s just not enough there in one bar for an entire meal.

The eerily missing word

Even if you slept through most of Social Studies in high school, the word “Extraterritoriality” was almost impossible to avoid. It was going to be on the test. Yet, in the weeks since the mass slaughter by Blackwater in Baghdad, it has been absolutely eerie in its total absence from the news.

It referred to the unilateral impunity of the citizens of the ruling powers within the territory of their humiliated subordinates. It was virtually synonymous with Colonialism, which every reporter is required to know does not exist.

Therefore, even the Quiz Question answer sheets of high school history have become Too Liberal to Mention in the American press. So here’s a quick refresher course for American journalists of what they should have learned just to get out of 11th grade:

“In the 19th cent. Western powers, often through coercion, secured unilateral extraterritorial rights for their citizens in China, Egypt, Japan, Morocco, Persia, Siam, and Turkey in the belief that these ‘uncivilized’ states were incapable of establishing justice….

“Extraterritoriality of this type was strongly resented as an infringement of sovereignty and was abolished in Japan in 1899, in Turkey in 1923, and in Egypt in 1949….

“In 1924 the USSR voluntarily abandoned its privileges in China, as did the United States and Great Britain in 1943. Italy and Japan lost their special status during World War II because they were enemies of China. In 1946, when France abandoned its privileges, nondiplomatic extraterritoriality in China came to an end.”

—The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004

So it was expelled from China in 1946, but it is alive and well, and living in Iraq.

Do these people even read what they write?

This was in a letter from my credit-card company:

“So that you have no surprises, know that your APR’s, fees and other terms can change at any time.”

—I guess they mean no surprising surprises.

Happy Rosh Hashana! L'Shana Tovah! Happy New Year!

May your name be inscribed for good in the Book of Life!

I understand there is another New Year, celebrated on January 1, but I think we need all the New Years we can get. The Jews actually have two. One is the start of the first month of the Jewish Calendar, in the Spring, when life sprouts out of the ground for reasons it will not reveal.

The reason we have Rosh Hashanah as a second New Year is that it is the birthday of the Universe. Happy Birthday Universe!

My Own Obviously Optional Religious Note:

Rosh Hashanah has another importance too, because of the Book of Life. This is, of course, the book we are writing just by being alive. Rosh Hashanah is an ideal time to take stock of what we have written in this year’s edition. The saying is, “On Rosh Hashanah it is written; on Yom Kippur it is sealed.” My friends from publishing will understand this very well. On Rosh Hashanah it is in galleys; on Yom Kippur it is shipped. So, many people use these days to make their last minute corrections.

But, wait! We can make corrections any time, and they are reflected in all that was written in the past.

Here we have these two ideas on the table: One is you can make a turning any moment of any day. When you choose it, it is there. Every time you close your eyes, every time you open them, you see the promise of forgiveness waiting.

The other is a structure that forces you to stop and face yourself, that asks what you’ve been doing with your life, have you measured up to your own idea of kindness, is there someone you’ve forgotten and wanted to forget. You know them all, because they are your questions, but now you feel you have to answer. Why now? Because this is the time.

Two ideas on the table. I’ll take both!

There are some really wise ideas structured into the Rosh Hashanah tradition. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are called the “Days of Awe.” A lot of things we’d like to repent of require some preparation first. So it takes time.

Sometimes we have to earn our repentance. When we are sincere, God would be willing to just forgive us everything, right then and there. But that just isn’t possible. If you have offended God, God can forgive you. But if you have wronged another person, how can God forgive you? Only the one you have wronged can do that.

So the Days of Awe are sacred to forgiveness, for going to the person I’ve avoided, looking them in the eye and, speaking on the level, expressing my regret. It is required that if there are amends to be made, I make them first. If recompense is owed, I pay it. I must sincerely intend not to repeat what I have done, and I must express that too. Then your regret has been earned.

On the other side, during the Days of Awe, forgiveness cannot be withheld--not without violating the spirit of the days, which has come down to us as a gift, and is prepared to set us free, if we will set each other free.

You can’t go back, but you can turn around.

Terrorism and Appalling Taste

“After Mr. Qaddafi’s renunciation of terrorism and his agreement to end programs to develop unconventional weapons, the United States last year removed Libya from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.” NYT">

DKo: It was the “unconventional weapons” that really got our generals’ goats. Qaddafi painted his fighter-bombers in the most garish purples and pinks. He had machine-guns that fired smelly pellets of Limburger cheese. No respect! It was an embarrassment for everyone. We put a stop to it.

Deadline Approaches. Bush Unconcerned.

“President George W. Bush and his Democratic foes…fire the opening shots in a long-brewing clash likely to seal the fate of US war strategy….set[ting] the stage for Bush’s critical progress report,…due by September 15.” AFP

DKo: So, why is Bush so unconcerned about this deadline bearing down? The answer, say confidants, is he plans to download a paper from the Internet.

The Ticking Time Bomb

“They would put people naked for up to 40 days in cells where they were deprived of any kind of light.”

“History Will Not Absolve Us,” Nat Hentoff, the Village Voice, August 28th, 2007

DKo: Why does it go on and on? For one thing, they frighten us with stories of the “ticking time bomb.” This prisoner knows exactly where it is. How can we be so sure? Because the scene is taught primarily in movies. We saw him do it; we saw it with God’s eye. So we beat the Hell out of him. It’s a movie, so it works.

But I don’t think that ticking time bombs tick for forty days. I don’t think we know what we are looking for. I don’t think the torture gets it out. So, please, tell us: How many ticking time bombs have you actually stopped? In the last four years, how many? Was it even one? You have tortured thousands. So, tell us, out of thousands, was it even one?

If there has been one, and someone beat the Hell out of him, and really stopped a bomb going off, and lives were really saved, then charge and try him—he broke the law. I promise you, he will be probationed; he will be pardoned.

You keep them in the dark. You keep them there forever. If you stopped a ticking time bomb, try the truth.

Concerning Vampires

From the promo for a play I’m going to see, “DRACULA,” Bram Stoker, “We think you’ll find it nothing less than epic…”

I can believe it. There certainly must be something fundamental about the Vampire. There’s not much that competes with it for perpetual fascination. There used to be the gunfighter; I remember watching 15-20 Westerns a week, and the gunfight never got old. No more.

The Martial Artist is a contender. I don’t think The Rock Star is, not as the subject of stories anyhow. Angels were coming on strong for several years, but faded. Certainly, The Babe. (In the fifties, they came up with the phrase “Sex Symbol.” Marilyn Monroe was a Sex Symbol. Where did they get that? Jung, I suppose. So, it is probably true, but they were also in denial about just plain Sex.) The Babe who is also The Martial Artist is newish, but I think she’s here to stay; she has it all.

The Zombies are always hanging around, but in a second tier. Spies need to be in really good movies now, to steer clear of farce. Then there’s the Slasher. Always a kind of farce, appreciated by the audience. I am just too old to get it, but they have the numbers.

The non-Slasher Serial-Killer has become an irresistible protagonist, but I suspect more to the screenwriters, as prefabs for loosely integrated and yearned-for multi-orgasmic plots. By now the story has to carry the appeal; I doubt it’s a bona-fide audience-driven archetype.

Superheroes, for sure! I don’t care what the superpower is; I want to see that movie. This place used to be filled by the Galahad Knight, or simply by The Hero. Hercules was mortal, but a demigod, based on his Heroics. He must have founded a thousand cities. He had an inexhaustible litany of locales and legends to his name. I don’t think Achilles had “legs” like that.

Anyway, I am always up for a vampire.

The Torah says many times, “Thou shall not eat the blood, for the blood is the life.” The Breath is mentioned at the Creation, but mainly it is the blood.

A non sequitur story I liked from the Buffy series spinoff, Angel. (He’s a Vampire with a soul. Drinks animal blood.) A Demon makes him go through memories of all the people he had killed (before the soul). He says he can no longer live with it. The Demon says he doesn’t have the courage to end his life. He says, “I don’t need courage. I just need the sun to rise.”

—David

The Straitjacket of Socialism

It would be mighty convenient if everybody put the “Printer Friendly” button in the same place on their Web pages. But that’s exactly what the communists would do!

Lawful Combatants, but not POWs

US changes status of 14 detainees, AP, 8/10/07

“…Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Commander Chito Peppler said the proceedings….do not distinguish between lawful and unlawful combatants.”

DKo: So, we took lawful combatants prisoner in the War in Afghanistan and they were not Prisoners of War.

—Probably a bunch of unpaid parking tickets.

Etiquette Tip: Belated Birthday or Holiday Cards

Sometimes you just don’t manage to get all your cards out on time. Nevertheless, you don’t want to appear rude. So here’s an easy etiquette tip that solves the problem. Write at the top on the front of the card:

I can’t understand why this is just now reaching you! I mailed it weeks ago.

Shiite Insurgents. Shiite Insurgents!

“Shiite Insurgents.” The Bush administration has been rolling this surprising combination out in recent weeks. I think we’ll be hearing more of it.

For years, “Insurgents” has meant Sunnis, because they are trying to bring down the government. Shiite fighters, have been “Militants,” and “Extremists,” but they haven’t been “Insurgents.” Whom would they be insurgent against? There is already a Shiite government in Baghdad. At the same time, Sunni fighters are being transmogrified into “Allies.” Allies of whom? The US Army?

My basis for the following is very thin at this point, but I suspect we are about to be sold a major “paradigm shift,” an extremely dangerous one. that “Shiite Insurgents” represents. If so, the inexorable Iraq Study Group plan—the Bush version of it, anyhow—would turn very ugly as we watch its generalities turned into specifics.

The Generalities:

—We end “Combat Operations.”

—We concentrate on training.

—We continue to strike at just one remaining target.

They used to say this target was Al Qaeda in Iraq; but increasingly they say it is “Terrorists.” (So, we’ll strike terrorists, but not truck bombers. Truck bombers would be “Combat Operations.” What do you have to do to be a terrorist around here?)

The Specifics (according to my very speculative suspicions):

1- “Combat Operations” turn out to be operations coordinated with, and subject to, the Iraqi government. Majority rule in Iraq has become an annoyance. We’ll cut the government out.

2- “Training” bypasses the government and goes directly to the army—or rather to the parts of the army we select. Maybe (discreetly) to our new Sunni Allies too. Our favored Training Units get good food, supplies, armor, weaponry, Intel, and logistics. They get paid on time. They get patronage. They bond directly to us. They stop answering Maliki’s phone calls.

3- “Terrorists” will be whoever we say they are, including these new Shiite Insurgents (probably Moktada’s forces), and definitely the vast network of Iranian-controlled (i.e., anti-US Shiite) terrorist cells that we say riddle the country.

The Shiite Insurgents turn out to be insurgent against us.

Seeing Strange Things

Every so often I like to just stop and click over to the Ames Room for a moment, because it really helps undermine my perspective on things.

It gets my vote for the greatest of all optical illusions. The two people you see are actually the same height. It’s just that someone has carefully constructed a very funny sort of room. Scroll down the page for an explanation.

Way worth a click.

—David

FAQ in Windows Messenger Help: "Why can't my contacts see my music?"

One of the FAQs in the Windows Messenger Help is:

“Why can’t my contacts see my music?”

I think Microsoft was very gutsy even getting into this. Anyhow, this is the answer from Tech Support:

“If some of your contacts can’t see your music, they have probably been dropping some really weak acid.

“It might help to sit back in a nice comfortable chair, close their eyes, and picture the music coming right out of the instruments in big, soft, cartoon balloons. Works for us.”

DKo: This is the kind of thing that makes me such a strong supporter of drug testing in the schools. There has been some really bogus acid going around, and a whole lot of good kids are getting burned.

"Tough" and "Harsh"

Bush alters rules for interrogations, AP, 7/20/07

The Supreme Court had ruled in June 2006 that trying detainees in military tribunals violated U.S. and international law, so Bush urged Congress to change the law. He also insisted that the law authorize CIA agents to use tough methods to interrogate suspected terrorists.

DKo: I have found that the choice between the terms “tough” and “harsh” occurs with remarkable frequency and is exceptionally well worth watching.

For Kirkuk Aficionados

An email yesterday triggered my continuing Kirkuk obsession. So…

David,

Has the major fight over Kirkuk begun?

Ever since you wrote about it (was it two or three years ago?) that I’ve been waiting for the perfect storm to begin.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070716/aponremiea/iraq

Reply:

[Why am I still so up on this? Because, I’ve imposed a self-discipline on my vanity-punditry, restricting it to this, Centrifuges, and Unlawful Enemy Combatants.]

It is heating up, isn’t it? And, my narrow-focus speculation-intensity has by now become kind of weirdly intricate. To wit:

The closer it gets to actual annexation, the more the level of violence will rise. An anti-annexation consensus among all the other fighting forces is emerging—the non-Moktada Shiites (i.e., under the Hakim leadership) may be forced by competition to fall into line—and Maliki says the Surge is driving violence North and away from Anbar anyhow.

The referendum is scheduled constitutionally for December, and Maliki says it will go ahead. That would require a census very soon. I’d guess the opposition will make that impossible, by killing the personnel, blowing up offices, etc. Then the Kurds would probably move unilaterally.

It will go a little differently if the Kurds agree to a delay, though I don’t think they can sign on to an oil law—which determines the crucial control of the contracts on new oil—without owning Kirkuk. And they will be pressed to move, with or without a referendum (i.e., moving in a governmental structure in de facto annexation) sometime before the US withdrawals in the Winter/Spring.

A lot of the people in the US who want to “re-deploy,” mean move to Kurdistan. Because it is so peaceful, they say. But increasingly it won’t be, and it would require a politically implausible, hurried shift away from the supposedly all-important Baghdad “crackdown.”

If it occurred in the context of annexation, It would set the US squarely against all the Arabs in Iraq—which is not that different from the long-term alliance advanced by Iraq Study Group gurus, but it is supposed to be drawn-out, Saudi-backed, below the surface and subtle.

I think Turkey will do whatever they see as necessary to prevent annexation. Weapons, commandos, (aerial?) intelligence, logistics, at least. They’ll also open a “second front” in the North. Will they come in with the heavy infantry and fighter planes? Maybe I promised too much. We’ll find out.

It matters how heavy the Kurdish weaponry will be. What shape will Kurdish “counter-terror” repression begin to take? It is likely to be in a form that will set off both mainstream Arabs and Turkey. And any large-scale killings of Turkmen will put Turkish politics into a volatile frenzy, especially the still quasi-ruling military, whose controlling role in Turkish politics is currently up for grabs, with elections impending.

Stay tuned.

Who Will Control the Past?

Americans don’t like to admit that they have changed their minds. We convince ourselves that somehow or other, in some way or another, we have always thought what we are thinking now.

The media are foremost enthusiasts of this fantasy, driven by their own heartfelt passion for self-justification. So, inevitably, Iraq, like Vietnam, will come to be boilerplated as “an unpopular war,” as if it had always been unpopular.

The overwhelming, 24/7, gun-barrel chauvinism, the imbecile credulity about evanescent WMDs, and the subsequent more flaccid, but equally resolute pandering of “Stay the course!” all will fade away. There will be no headlines, “Exposed! We Ignorantly Led You into Murderous Catastrophe!”

Here are two things I fear we will not see:

—Apologies and gratitude to those who helped to make the war unpopular.

—An effective distinction between preemptive hegemony and humanitarian intervention (Darfur, Rwanda).

Meanwhile, I’d watch the denouement of the Iraq Study Group, after its inexorable humiliation of George Bush over the next few months is complete, for “Who Will Control the Past?” this time around.

Let's Put a Lid on Prisoner Exchanges

I don’t get the point of why countries make prisoner exchanges. It must be a case of “The grass is always greener on the other side.”

What makes them think they’re going to get a better class of prisoners out of this, compared to the ones they are sending away? More likely, the new prisoners will be every bit as bad as the old! (Not to be cynical, but if the other country liked them, why would they be trading them?)

I think it is far better to just let your hair down and try and work things out with the prisoners you’ve got.

—David

One of the All-Time Great "Thought Experiments"

This must have come from Galileo, I guess. In any case, it is to show that heavy objects don’t fall faster than lighter objects.

Imagine three identical bricks falling—at the same speed, obviously. Two of the bricks have adhesive on their sides.

As they fall, these two bricks happen to touch, and the adhesive joins them together.

Does this double-weight object suddenly begin to fall faster than the third brick?

Mass Confusion over "ASST"

I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets confused by the terribly ambiguous abbreviation “ASST.” I mean, all you have to do is take one look at:

ASST VEGETABLES

and

ASST DA’s

Don’t you often find yourself reading them:

Assistant Vegetables

and

Assorted DA’s

Please, sign-makers, a little clarity wouldn’t hurt.

A Four Star Officer Is Something to Be

“[Vice Adm.] Olson, 55, has been the command’s deputy chief since August 2003. If confirmed by the full Senate, he would receive a fourth star and…”

I can totally relate. I once won a Gold Star for getting all the words right on a Spelling Test. It was a terrific motivator. And it still works with adults!

"Enemy Combatant" vs. "Unlawful Enemy Combatant"--A Technicality?

The Guantanamo prisoners were found by pre-trial tribunals to be “enemy combatants,” but not necessarily “unlawful enemy combatants.” US officials have characterized this as a “technicality,” and the press has bought in to that.

Shockingly, even Sen. Levin’s proposed revamp “would make the commissions act’s definition of ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ the same as it is in the review tribunals, effectively eliminating the problem identified at Guantanamo on Monday.” (Boston Globe) Just run them through again.

(I am, as usual, disclaiming legal expertise here, but…)

We were at war in Afghanistan, fighting primarily the Taliban army, the only army that nation had. If a tribunal finds you an enemy combatant, what they have found is you were an enemy soldier.

A captured enemy soldier is a Prisoner of War. To be deprived of the rights of a POW (including no interrogation beyond “name, rank, and serial number”), you must be found an “unlawful combatant,”not a technicality. There are many criteria never considered before. For example:

—Were you wearing a uniform? (Do “black pajamas” pass muster?)

—Were you part of a military command structure? (Has any evidence been brought on this?)

—Did you show yourself as a soldier? (Keeping in mind that Army snipers and mine-setters obviously count as soldiers.)

Any revamped tribunals must adhere to Geneva standards.

And, politically, everyone has to realize that fighting against American soldiers in war—or even chauffeuring Al Qaeda leaders or attending their training camps—does not, in itself, make you a terrorist.

Apocalypse from the Moment of Conception

US charges 4 men in plot to blow up JFK airport, Boston Globe, 6/3/07

“[T]he alleged plot was never close to fruition. The FBI had been tracking the alleged plot since 2006, and a member of the group was an FBI informant. In addition, the suspects lacked both the expertise and equipment [explosives, for example] necessary to turn their aspiration into a reality…”

DKo: It was barely a gleam in the eye. But this is the Bush administration’s Article of Faith: Every horrendous aspiration has, from the very moment of its conception, the right to treated as full-grown, real life threat. I mean, it’s not like they just hype something up whenever things have been too quiet. Is it?

“Roslynn Mauskop, the US attorney in Brooklyn, described the arrests as a major victory that broke up ‘one of the most chilling plots imaginable…’”

DKo: This person needs to read some Edger Allen Poe.

Why Should Halliburton Have to Suffer?

“Democrats accepted a GOP plan to establish 18 benchmarks….If Iraqis fall short, they could forfeit U.S. reconstruction aid.” Washington Post

DKo: Forfeit U.S. reconstruction aid!

Why should Halliburton have to suffer for Iraqi failures? We know that $16 billion in US reconstruction aid has provided negligible benefit to Iraqis. This won’t hurt them. But Halliburton will face severe hardship. Securing contracts is their core competence. Take that away and you leave them with nothing. [WP Article]

If we learned anything from Katrina, it is that people who are already in misery have little to complain about. We continue to learn that even years later. Well, who is more already miserable than the Iraqis!

But if Halliburton is thrown to the wolves, who bid for contracts and carp about performance, nobody is truly safe. Not even the wealthiest, who have so terribly far to fall, and so terribly much to lose—not even they are sure of being spared. They could be treated unconscionably, as if they were themselves Iraqis, for God’s sake. It breaks your heart.

Where the humanitarians now!

"The Constant Gardener"

I have just seen a beautiful film, “The Constant Gardener.” (Based on a John LeCarre novel, it is both a thriller and a love story. Rachel Weisz won the Oscar for her role.)

I remember years ago seeing the definitive James Bond farce “Our Man Flint,” and laughing myself silly at the punch-line of the plot. The villain was not a government at all, nor even a phantasm like 007’s SPECTRE, but a private company, The Phone Company. What a laugh that was! What a lark!

In “The Constant Gardener,” the villain is again a private company—a pharmaceutical giant inflicting fraudulent, deadly drug testing on poor people in Kenya, then murderously suppressing the truth about this practice. And now it is not incongruous at all, no longer What a lark! Now, it is Of course! Of course these bastards will stop at nothing in their callousness and greed.

Now, we know better. I didn’t laugh myself silly at this film. That silliness is gone, and I am sadder for it. It is a time of bitter laughter. The loathsome and outrageous have turned commonplace. Cover-up? Mass graves, a private company, government complicity? Of course.

—David

Two year olds!

Despite warnings, most U.S. babies watch TV Reuters, 5/7/07

About 90 percent of U.S. children under age 2…are regular watchers of television…

Two year olds! It’s like talking to a wall. You warn them and warn them, but they just won’t listen!

Economics Joke

Here’s a tip. It won’t make you a fortune, but it’ll be well worth your while.

Take a look at the dollar bills in your wallet. To the right of George Washington (the first President of the United Sates), and downward and leftward of the round green seal, you will see a date. Most of your bills will say “SERIES 2003 A.” But you’ll still find a few that date back to “SERIES 1999.”

Hang on to them! Any sophisticated economist will tell you that, because of inflation, 1999 dollars are worth considerably more than 2003 dollars. Do this consistently. Over time, you’ll find that little extra effort adds up to a tidy sum.

I figure as long as I have my expertise in economics, I might as well share it with my friends.

—David

Bush's "Loyalty" to Wolfowitz and Gonzales

It’s the people who have done the most dirt for you, who can do the most damage, if they should feel betrayed.

Washington Post

Wolfowitz Says He Is Target of ‘Smear’ Tactics

Never Stab a Stabber

People without integrity have been indispensable to Bush, but they may also lack the internal loyalty that would make it safe to let them go.

See Washington Post

Did Bush Trade Kirkuk for Kurdish Brigades in the Baghdad Surge?

I’ve had Kirkuk on the brain for quite a while now. Since I am not a pro, I figure I’m willing to be off base or completely wrong. Besides, it’s too long to read. So, since I have thought about it a lot, this is my Sharing Time contribution for today:

It seemed like a foregone conclusion. Everybody with any sense, including the inexorably all-powerful Iraq Study Group, had decided that the Kirkuk census and referendum, constitutionally scheduled for this December, must be put off. The Kurds threatened to simply seize Kirkuk if that happened, but some way would be found to avert that move.

Everybody knew Kirkuk would be deferred. But it looks like something must have happened. The Maliki government said last week it was going to proceed with paying Arabs to leave Kirkuk. He was not compelled by anything to suddenly bring this up.

The Kirkuk Arabs credibly claim the population, in preparation for the census, has already been “packed” with tens of thousands of Kurds who are not post-Saddam “returnees” at all, but rather had never lived there. So encouraging a further exodus of Arabs came to many as a shock.

Will the census and referendum, against predictions, go ahead? Maybe not; the settled expectations may hold good. But, if they do go ahead, why? I have a guess at part of the reason.

But, first, background: Why not go ahead?

If the Kurdistan autonomous region annexes the immensely oil-rich and gas-rich Kirkuk, either by referendum or by seizure, every gun in Iraq is going to be turned: The resident minorities in Kirkuk, who include Sunni and Shiite Arabs, Turkomens, Assyrians, Christians and others, will take up arms.

The Iraqi Sunni forces at large (the “Insurgents”)—whose central region would then be really bereft of gas and oil—will mobilize against an annexed Kirkuk in force. Baghdad will become secondary to them. The Al Qaeda elements will re-unite with the domestic Sunnis, and join them in this.

The Moktada-led Shiites, with their own central-region base of two million in Sadr City alone, who have already begun a pattern of attacks, will join in absolutely full force. The Shiites of the competing Badr Brigades might also be “shamed,†as Arabs and as Shiites, to back this effort at least to some degree.

Turkey may not invade, as threatened, with a modern force of 100,000 already massed at the border, but arms, logistics, commando forces, up-to-date NATO technology will be thrown in against the Kurds. Iran, like Turkey fearful of its own large Kurdish minority merging into a wealthy new Kurdish nation, will do everything it can as well. The Iraqi Army and police, except for Kurdish units, will certainly resist fighting against these forces, and, as Arabs, might join them in substantial numbers.

On the other side, the Kurds, who constitute the only