9 Feb, ’07
I guess its just old age creeping up on me, but it seems I totally fail to understand the journalistic mind anymore. (Well, I didn’t really understand ‘em during the Vietnam War either.) Currently the press reports have America as being totally polarized over this so called “War on Terror”. Half of us are supposed to be wringing our hands and wailing that it’s all our own fault for mistreating the poor Arabs. The other half are supposed to be demanding a new religious crusade, and apparently we can start by indiscriminately bombing Mosques, schools, and hospitals and the like. Oh yeah, both half’s are supposed to be berating President Bush on the subject as well.
I think the media have it wrong, they’ve completely missed the frame of mind in this country. Americans are polarized all right, polarized over our presidential politics, taxes, unemployment, and a host of other internal problems. We get some jim-dandy arguments going over whether or not we should keep our troops in Iraq, and even over silly things like should we dismantle Iran and North Korea as well. The press, both the world press and our own, seem to enjoy making wild headlines out of all this apparent discord.
The media, and a lot of politicians, always seem to forget something about Americans. We take our wars very seriously, and we certainly don’t like sending our youth off to get killed in some foreign land without a darn good reason. Whatever the cause, we’re prone to argue the case for a long time before anything gets done. Our military may not have a centuries long regimental tradition, but they are a class act on the battlefield, as some of those ancient foreign regiments have learned the hard way. So far, they’ve whipped, decisively, every army in the world that they’ve been sent us against.
Like the Irish, we take our politics quite seriously, and tend to get rather verbal about it. Our political campaign season commonly looks somewhat like a three ring circus to the rest of the world, but no one seemed to notice that even with the squabbles over “hanging chads” and “stolen elections”, we didn’t have another revolution, unlike what would have happened in a good many other countries. Our national policies and goals change with a new administration every four years, which keeps everyone confused, and brings foreign diplomats to complain that Americans are illogical, and certainly not predictable.
Well known authors and college professors constantly tell us all about the things that are “wrong” with our country and our society, but I notice that an awful lot of immigrants are beating at the doors trying to get into this country. We get quite indignant about crime, yet we bend over backwards to assure criminals their rights. Our “Righteous Right” and “Loony Left” constantly wail about how wrong or unfair things are, and get all the press coverage, while the “Muddling’ Middle”, who just happen to make up the vast majority of our population, inevitably get ignored for the most part, much as the “silent majority” was ignored during the Vietnam conflict. One of these days the middle ground is going to figure out just how much weight it actually carries in our politics, leaving the loudmouthed radicals to figure out just how few and unimportant they actually are.
Our society literally worships wealth and all it’s trappings, yet we’re not a nation of misers by any standard. Instead we’re probably the most generous of people, with more major charities per square mile than any other nation on the Earth,. Our armed forces have more experience in handling humanitarian aid missions than they do in actual warfare. In time of a civil disaster, even our national enemies can depend on us for assistance.
Yes, Americans are illogical to a point. We actually pay professional athletes outrageous sums to go out in the back pasture and commit mayhem over a misshapen ball. Many of us get all excited over professional wrestling even though we well know it’s faked. Actors get paid all out of proportion to their abilities, so they can make movies about their version of “reality”, and we call it entertainment. We tolerate congressmen spending our tax dollars on building bridges to nowhere, while the exploration of our solar system constantly gets short shrift. We spend billions on patent medicine cold remedies every year, and almost nothing on a cure for cancer. We weep and wail about our dependence on foreign oil, and do little or nothing to solve the problem.
Certainly we’ve got a few skeletons hidden away in the national closet, and there are a few pages in our history that we’d rather forget. But for the most part we’d prefer to be a peaceful people, going about our daily business, following the “live and let live” philosophy. But that fact about us doesn’t sell papers, and thus never makes the headlines. Instead we’re portrayed as a nation of uncultured gun-slinging mobsters consumed by greed and the pursuit of instant gratification. Certainly some of us fit that description, but by no means all of us.
About 60 years ago a bunch of wannabe world conquerors made the mistake of believing what they read in the American press, and apparently in some wistful thinking as well. They then decided that Americans were a soft people and wouldn’t fight. By 1945 to their sorrow, they had discovered the error of their ways. A handful of disgruntled Arabs started it all over again in 2001.
They forget that while we can be fine friends, we also make terrible enemies. They forget that our thin veneer of civilization covers a rather bloodthirsty bunch of mostly European barbarians, essentially the same European peoples that ran roughshod over the world a few centuries ago, totally crushing any and all opponents. They forget that it always takes us awhile to get our act together, and they also forget what happens when we finally do…
Japanese Admiral Yamamoto made a comment to his staff on December 7th 1941, following the Pearl Harbor attack, that is as pertinent today as it was then. “I fear that all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant, and filled him with a terrible resolve.” Right now, and particularly if they keep pushing us, a lot of freelance Islamic fundamentalists would do well to a remember Admiral Yamamoto’s comment.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Civilization
2 Feb, ’07
I found an interesting web site not long back, that informed me that there are 129 people in the United States with the same name as mine (middle name not included). Interesting, but hardly earth shaking. Then, after thinking about it for a moment, I tried to see what other information about me is available on-line, and after a lot of work, I found there is quite a bit. Not only name, age, address, and phone number from numerous websites, but I even found a satellite photo of my house! (My old pick-up is in the picture, so I was home at the time.) Sort of makes me wonder what else can be found out about almost anybody, right off the internet.
Just where does all this information come from in the first place?
Nowdays, thanks to the Patriot Act, the federal government can monitor our e-mails and telephone calls, they can also legally (?) read our snail mail as well. I suppose the next step will be cameras and microphones inside the house so they can make sure I’m not plotting something or other. They collect our educational records, employment records, military records, legal records, tax records, medical records, travel records, library records, financial records, and all the miscellaneous stuff the Census bureau has been asking about for decades. We need licenses to practice a trade, conduct business, drive a car, and in many cases even own a gun, all of which leaves a paper trail which can be gathered up and filed away for future reference. We’re monitored on closed circuit TV, watched by satellites and remotely piloted spyplanes, tracked by GPS units installed in our cars, and photographed by ATM’s. If we use a credit card some computer system instantly knows where we are. Your electric power usage is watched, just in case you start using gro-lites to raise marijuana. We’re monitored by the government and the corporate world by what we purchase. Our dogs, cats, and cows get implanted identification chips, while some newer version allows all those fur bearin’ varmints to be tracked down and located by satellite. Now there’s even a movement afoot to put those chips in people as well. If you just want to get away from it all for a few days… forget it.
Our likes, dislikes, wants and wishes, are determined by the census bureau and a mid-sized herd of anonymous pollsters. Hollywierd and the corporate media generally tell us what and how to think (and then berate us if we don’t agree with them). We’re expected to be “politically correct” in everything we say and do, and are essentially social pariahs if we disagree.
I sometimes wonder if we can even go to the bathroom without some government snooper knowing all about it.
Our politicians use that data to determine what concerns the most of us, and with a few little white lies manage to get themselves reelected. Apparently a lot of bureaucrats use that data in their endless paper shuffling, but I surely can’t figure out what for. In the dollar-ninety-eight words used by the experts, this data collection and compiling effort is called “demographics”, with most of the information available to anyone who’s interested, although not necessarily by the individuals name.
Along with this we’re allowing ourselves to be regulated to death. We need licenses and permits for just about anything we might want to do, and find ourselves saddled with rules and regulations from all sides.
We all consider our personal privacy and personal space to be quite important to our well being. But so many people don’t seem to care one bit about having “the government” looking over their shoulder twenty-four hours a day. For the most part it almost seems like we’re being conditioned to accept constant observation and supervision by Orwell’s Big Brother from the book “1984”. It appears that the end goal is to have us all think and act somewhat like a hive society where the everyone is an identical, interchangeable component. Where the individual means absolutely nothing, where originality and initiative are crimes, and where everything is for the betterment of the hive. There, if you stray from some sort of government established standard pattern, you can quickly be removed as an abnormality, a danger to the body politic. There have been a good number of fictional books written over the years on just this subject, and a few serious studies as well. None of them paint a very pretty picture of such a society, communism carried to its extremes.
Perhaps, with our burgeoning world population, such an overly civilized society may prove necessary to the survival of the species. But I would hope that when that time arrives, we’ve found somewhere else for the anti-social barbarians among us to go.
And personally, I think I prefer being a barbarian.
I found an interesting web site not long back, that informed me that there are 129 people in the United States with the same name as mine (middle name not included). Interesting, but hardly earth shaking. Then, after thinking about it for a moment, I tried to see what other information about me is available on-line, and after a lot of work, I found there is quite a bit. Not only name, age, address, and phone number from numerous websites, but I even found a satellite photo of my house! (My old pick-up is in the picture, so I was home at the time.) Sort of makes me wonder what else can be found out about almost anybody, right off the internet.
Just where does all this information come from in the first place?
Nowdays, thanks to the Patriot Act, the federal government can monitor our e-mails and telephone calls, they can also legally (?) read our snail mail as well. I suppose the next step will be cameras and microphones inside the house so they can make sure I’m not plotting something or other. They collect our educational records, employment records, military records, legal records, tax records, medical records, travel records, library records, financial records, and all the miscellaneous stuff the Census bureau has been asking about for decades. We need licenses to practice a trade, conduct business, drive a car, and in many cases even own a gun, all of which leaves a paper trail which can be gathered up and filed away for future reference. We’re monitored on closed circuit TV, watched by satellites and remotely piloted spyplanes, tracked by GPS units installed in our cars, and photographed by ATM’s. If we use a credit card some computer system instantly knows where we are. Your electric power usage is watched, just in case you start using gro-lites to raise marijuana. We’re monitored by the government and the corporate world by what we purchase. Our dogs, cats, and cows get implanted identification chips, while some newer version allows all those fur bearin’ varmints to be tracked down and located by satellite. Now there’s even a movement afoot to put those chips in people as well. If you just want to get away from it all for a few days… forget it.
Our likes, dislikes, wants and wishes, are determined by the census bureau and a mid-sized herd of anonymous pollsters. Hollywierd and the corporate media generally tell us what and how to think (and then berate us if we don’t agree with them). We’re expected to be “politically correct” in everything we say and do, and are essentially social pariahs if we disagree.
I sometimes wonder if we can even go to the bathroom without some government snooper knowing all about it.
Our politicians use that data to determine what concerns the most of us, and with a few little white lies manage to get themselves reelected. Apparently a lot of bureaucrats use that data in their endless paper shuffling, but I surely can’t figure out what for. In the dollar-ninety-eight words used by the experts, this data collection and compiling effort is called “demographics”, with most of the information available to anyone who’s interested, although not necessarily by the individuals name.
Along with this we’re allowing ourselves to be regulated to death. We need licenses and permits for just about anything we might want to do, and find ourselves saddled with rules and regulations from all sides.
We all consider our personal privacy and personal space to be quite important to our well being. But so many people don’t seem to care one bit about having “the government” looking over their shoulder twenty-four hours a day. For the most part it almost seems like we’re being conditioned to accept constant observation and supervision by Orwell’s Big Brother from the book “1984”. It appears that the end goal is to have us all think and act somewhat like a hive society where the everyone is an identical, interchangeable component. Where the individual means absolutely nothing, where originality and initiative are crimes, and where everything is for the betterment of the hive. There, if you stray from some sort of government established standard pattern, you can quickly be removed as an abnormality, a danger to the body politic. There have been a good number of fictional books written over the years on just this subject, and a few serious studies as well. None of them paint a very pretty picture of such a society, communism carried to its extremes.
Perhaps, with our burgeoning world population, such an overly civilized society may prove necessary to the survival of the species. But I would hope that when that time arrives, we’ve found somewhere else for the anti-social barbarians among us to go.
And personally, I think I prefer being a barbarian.
Domestic Spying
26 Jan, ’07
If you give up a little bit of your freedom here, and a little bit there, you’ll soon find that you don’t have any freedom.
The domestic spying issue is in the news again, this time not only involving the NSA and FBI, but now we’re informed that both the CIA and the Pentagon are also in on the act. In 1947, then President Harry Truman established the CIA to oversee and coordinate all US government intelligence functions. The agency was only to operate abroad, and was to have no police or law enforcement functions. Domestic intelligence gathering (commonly called Counterintelligence) was a function reserved to the FBI. The various military intelligence organizations were responsible to their parent service, and to the CIA. In 1952 the NSA was established as the nations cryptologic organization, and is responsible for gathering intelligence data from intercepted foreign electronic communications. The NSA is specificially restricted (by US Signals Intelligence Directive 18) from intercepting or collecting information on US citizens, entities, corporations, or organizations. (Backed by a Supreme Court ruling that forbids US intelligence agencies from spying on US citizens.)
In 2002, President Bush signed a secret order authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite the legal prohibitions against such domestic spying. The aim of this spying program was to rapidly monitor the phone calls and other communications of people in the United States believed to have contact with suspected associates of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups overseas. The authorities were apparently worried that vital information could be lost in the time it took to secure a warrant from the special surveillance court. Thus the NSA has monitored the e-mail, telephone calls and other communications of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of American citizens.
The law governing clandestine surveillance in the United States, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, prohibits conducting electronic surveillance not authorized by statute. (That act was enacted by Congress in response to the domestic spying and intelligence gathering conducted by the CIA, FBI, NSA, and DoD during the Vietnam era.) According to the law, a government agent must show he was "engaged in the course of his official duties and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent jurisdiction". The current NSA activities are justified by a classified Justice Department legal opinion arguing that congressional approval of the war on al-Qaeda gave broad authority to the president. Congressional sources familiar with aspects of the program made it clear there were serious questions about the legality of the NSA actions. The sources also said the work of the NSA is so secret that it is difficult to determine whether or not it is acting within the law. The NSA's operation is outside the court's jurisdiction, and according to a New York Times report, the Justice Department may have sought to limit how much the court was made aware of NSA activities.
For more than four years, NSA has tasked military intelligence agencies to assist its broad-based surveillance effort directed at people inside the country suspected of having terrorist connections, even before President Bush signed the 2002 order that authorized the NSA program, according to an informed U.S. official. The effort, which began within days after the attacks, has consisted partly of monitoring domestic telephone conversations, e-mail and even fax communications of individuals identified by the NSA as having some connection to al Qaeda events or figures, or to potential terrorism-related activities in the United States, the official said.
It has also involved teams of Defense Intelligence Agency personnel stationed in major U.S. cities conducting the type of surveillance typically performed by the FBI: monitoring the movements and activities -- through high-tech equipment -- of individuals and vehicles, the official said. The involvement of military personnel in such tasks was provoked by grave anxiety among senior intelligence officials after the 2001 suicide attacks that additional terrorist cells may be present within U.S. borders and could only be discovered with the military's help.
Just a day before the nation celebrated the life of the once-federally-spied-upon Martin Luther King Jr., the New York Times reported that both the Pentagon and the CIA have been issuing subpoenas to domestic financial institutions to investigate possible terrorism. Although the military and the CIA are barred by law from spying on Americans within the United States, the Pentagon has stepped up its surveillance of American citizens after 9/11 as part of what it calls "force protection", the protection of military installations on American soil.
Now it’s revealed that both agencies have been using "National Security Letters" -- which are self-issued subpoenas for documents. These subpoenas are widely used by the FBI since they do not require a judge's approval. In 2005, the first year the Justice Department was required to report how often they used this power, the DOJ said it issued 9,254 such letters to get information on 3,501 U.S. citizens and green card holders. Unlike the FBI's version, the military and CIA’s letters are supposedly voluntary. While nobody is legally required to act on these letters, who’s going to refuse the FBI, DoD, or the CIA, when they invoke the magic words, “National Security”? Pentagon spokesmen said the letters "provide tremendous leads to follow and often with which to corroborate other evidence in the context of counterespionage and counterterrorism".
I’m told that if a person doesn’t have anything to hide, they shouldn’t be concerned about any “invasion of privacy”. If that’s so, why is it that we don’t run around in public stark naked?
If you give up a little bit of your freedom here, and a little bit there, you’ll soon find that you don’t have any freedom.
The domestic spying issue is in the news again, this time not only involving the NSA and FBI, but now we’re informed that both the CIA and the Pentagon are also in on the act. In 1947, then President Harry Truman established the CIA to oversee and coordinate all US government intelligence functions. The agency was only to operate abroad, and was to have no police or law enforcement functions. Domestic intelligence gathering (commonly called Counterintelligence) was a function reserved to the FBI. The various military intelligence organizations were responsible to their parent service, and to the CIA. In 1952 the NSA was established as the nations cryptologic organization, and is responsible for gathering intelligence data from intercepted foreign electronic communications. The NSA is specificially restricted (by US Signals Intelligence Directive 18) from intercepting or collecting information on US citizens, entities, corporations, or organizations. (Backed by a Supreme Court ruling that forbids US intelligence agencies from spying on US citizens.)
In 2002, President Bush signed a secret order authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite the legal prohibitions against such domestic spying. The aim of this spying program was to rapidly monitor the phone calls and other communications of people in the United States believed to have contact with suspected associates of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups overseas. The authorities were apparently worried that vital information could be lost in the time it took to secure a warrant from the special surveillance court. Thus the NSA has monitored the e-mail, telephone calls and other communications of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of American citizens.
The law governing clandestine surveillance in the United States, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, prohibits conducting electronic surveillance not authorized by statute. (That act was enacted by Congress in response to the domestic spying and intelligence gathering conducted by the CIA, FBI, NSA, and DoD during the Vietnam era.) According to the law, a government agent must show he was "engaged in the course of his official duties and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent jurisdiction". The current NSA activities are justified by a classified Justice Department legal opinion arguing that congressional approval of the war on al-Qaeda gave broad authority to the president. Congressional sources familiar with aspects of the program made it clear there were serious questions about the legality of the NSA actions. The sources also said the work of the NSA is so secret that it is difficult to determine whether or not it is acting within the law. The NSA's operation is outside the court's jurisdiction, and according to a New York Times report, the Justice Department may have sought to limit how much the court was made aware of NSA activities.
For more than four years, NSA has tasked military intelligence agencies to assist its broad-based surveillance effort directed at people inside the country suspected of having terrorist connections, even before President Bush signed the 2002 order that authorized the NSA program, according to an informed U.S. official. The effort, which began within days after the attacks, has consisted partly of monitoring domestic telephone conversations, e-mail and even fax communications of individuals identified by the NSA as having some connection to al Qaeda events or figures, or to potential terrorism-related activities in the United States, the official said.
It has also involved teams of Defense Intelligence Agency personnel stationed in major U.S. cities conducting the type of surveillance typically performed by the FBI: monitoring the movements and activities -- through high-tech equipment -- of individuals and vehicles, the official said. The involvement of military personnel in such tasks was provoked by grave anxiety among senior intelligence officials after the 2001 suicide attacks that additional terrorist cells may be present within U.S. borders and could only be discovered with the military's help.
Just a day before the nation celebrated the life of the once-federally-spied-upon Martin Luther King Jr., the New York Times reported that both the Pentagon and the CIA have been issuing subpoenas to domestic financial institutions to investigate possible terrorism. Although the military and the CIA are barred by law from spying on Americans within the United States, the Pentagon has stepped up its surveillance of American citizens after 9/11 as part of what it calls "force protection", the protection of military installations on American soil.
Now it’s revealed that both agencies have been using "National Security Letters" -- which are self-issued subpoenas for documents. These subpoenas are widely used by the FBI since they do not require a judge's approval. In 2005, the first year the Justice Department was required to report how often they used this power, the DOJ said it issued 9,254 such letters to get information on 3,501 U.S. citizens and green card holders. Unlike the FBI's version, the military and CIA’s letters are supposedly voluntary. While nobody is legally required to act on these letters, who’s going to refuse the FBI, DoD, or the CIA, when they invoke the magic words, “National Security”? Pentagon spokesmen said the letters "provide tremendous leads to follow and often with which to corroborate other evidence in the context of counterespionage and counterterrorism".
I’m told that if a person doesn’t have anything to hide, they shouldn’t be concerned about any “invasion of privacy”. If that’s so, why is it that we don’t run around in public stark naked?
Energy Independance
19 Jan, ’07
With all my grumbling and growling about Islamic fundamentalists, perhaps I should clarify a point. I have nothing against any religious fundamentalist of whatever creed. It’s the extremists, Muslim, Christian, Animist, Idolaters, or any other group who attempt to push their particular beliefs on me that I can’t stand. Nor is it just the religion salesmen that I get upset with, as I happily snap and snarl at politicians, “progressive” liberals, environmentalists, and door-to-door salesmen. It’s Okay though, as my wife makes sure my shots are kept current.
Thomas Friedman of The New York Times recently wrote an interesting article about the need for American energy independence. In considering the conflict between radical Islam and the rest of the world, he states that "Not only would ending our oil addiction protect us from the worst in the Arab-Muslim world, it would help us support the best. These regimes will never reform as long as they enjoy windfall oil profits, which allow them to maintain closed societies with archaic education systems and protected industries that can't compete globally... energy independence that will enable us to continue to engage honestly with the most progressive Arabs and Muslims on a reform agenda, but without being hostage to the most malevolent."
Then too, we know we’re running out of oil. There’s no such thing as an infinite resource on a finite planet. One of these days the well’s going to run dry, and we’re going to be in serious trouble if we don’t do something in the very near future. Yes, energy independence is certainly something I can support, although it appears to be a hate phrase to more than a few hard core environmentalists.
During the course of his last Town Hall meeting here in Grangeville, Sen. Larry Craig made several comments about recent oil discoveries in both the United States and Canada. Apparently we have oil reserves sufficient to last quite a long time, if someone would start them producing. But that brings us to another problem, drilling into those reserves requires federal permission, and so far the environmental terrorists seem to control congressional voting on the subject. I guess the Snail Darter or some such is more important to them than the well being of American citizens. Red China doesn’t have that problem, and as I understand things is presently drilling for oil in the sea floor between Florida and Cuba, an area currently “off limits” to American oil companies, even though we know the oil is there. Sen. Craig also mentioned oil shale and tar sand deposits, which certainly is another source of petroleum. But the oil from tar is an extremely heavy crude, containing a high percentage of paraffin and asphalt, along with considerably smaller amounts of gasoline, diesel, and the lighter fuel oils. We’re not going to get much help from that, unless you can figure out how to burn chassis grease and canning wax (paraffin) in your car. Oil from shale isn’t even oil, but rather an oil precursor called “kerogen”, that requires extensive processing to make anything useful from. Then to, accessing those shale and tar deposits promises to be a large scale strip mining operation rather than drilling a few oil wells. Mention of either drilling or digging is guaranteed to generate hysteria and lawsuits in the ranks of the Sierra Club.
One potential fuel source is found in the various “bio-fuels”, such as ethanol and biodiesel. Granted that these have possibilities, particularly for the farm producer/user, they aren’t going to reduce US dependence on petroleum fuels, as we’d have to convert all our farm lands into fuel production to make more than a minor dent in today’s energy demand. And if we were to do that, who do we wish to become food dependent on? President Bush has placed himself strongly on the side of the “Hydrogen Fuel” movement, a step I was quite happy to see. But a hydrogen economy has it’s own problems as well. Hydrogen is easily produced by the electrolysis of water, but doing so requires that we put more energy into the process than we can possibly get back (Hydrogen has a 60% energy recovery rate). Additionally we’d have to build the entire production / distribution / user infrastructure from scratch and at great expense.
“Alternative Energy” ideas abound, and are technologically feasible. Wind power, tidal power, geothermal, all have been successfully demonstrated. But… they are extremely limited in scope, promise to be quite expensive, and like so many other things have the environmentalists in an tizzy. Nuclear power would currently be our best bet by far, if the public could ever overcome an almost superstitious fear of nuclear energy. The radiation hazard from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl combined is far less than the respiratory hazards produced daily by fossil fuel power plants.
Finally we have the potential of solar energy. Solar power offers us the chance to replace both fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, thus eliminating much of the pollution and residual radiation hazards. Solar power and electric vehicles could soon clear the skies in our smog infested cities. Here the environmentalists get quite upset with the idea of “solar farms” being built all over the planet, and possibly interfering with the life style of the local flora and fauna, even though desert areas close to the equator would be the preferred sites. Even better would be constructing an SPS (Solar Power Satellite) system. Built in geosynchronous orbit, an SPS would beam its power to earth based receiving antenna farms via microwave energy. Such a power source has a fantastic potential, but like anything in space would be expensive to construct. Here, like every other idea, the environmentalists protest that beamed microwave energy might be dangerous. They’ll probably decide that microwaves could interfere with the mating habits of mosquitoes or some such.
Environmentalists, again and again. Often depending on junk science and feel good propaganda, they seem bound and determined to outlaw any progress, and legislate us back into the stone age. Humm… Perhaps we can use the environmentalists in a squirrel cage generator system, and thus electrify the entire world… maybe they’ll work for peanuts?
With all my grumbling and growling about Islamic fundamentalists, perhaps I should clarify a point. I have nothing against any religious fundamentalist of whatever creed. It’s the extremists, Muslim, Christian, Animist, Idolaters, or any other group who attempt to push their particular beliefs on me that I can’t stand. Nor is it just the religion salesmen that I get upset with, as I happily snap and snarl at politicians, “progressive” liberals, environmentalists, and door-to-door salesmen. It’s Okay though, as my wife makes sure my shots are kept current.
Thomas Friedman of The New York Times recently wrote an interesting article about the need for American energy independence. In considering the conflict between radical Islam and the rest of the world, he states that "Not only would ending our oil addiction protect us from the worst in the Arab-Muslim world, it would help us support the best. These regimes will never reform as long as they enjoy windfall oil profits, which allow them to maintain closed societies with archaic education systems and protected industries that can't compete globally... energy independence that will enable us to continue to engage honestly with the most progressive Arabs and Muslims on a reform agenda, but without being hostage to the most malevolent."
Then too, we know we’re running out of oil. There’s no such thing as an infinite resource on a finite planet. One of these days the well’s going to run dry, and we’re going to be in serious trouble if we don’t do something in the very near future. Yes, energy independence is certainly something I can support, although it appears to be a hate phrase to more than a few hard core environmentalists.
During the course of his last Town Hall meeting here in Grangeville, Sen. Larry Craig made several comments about recent oil discoveries in both the United States and Canada. Apparently we have oil reserves sufficient to last quite a long time, if someone would start them producing. But that brings us to another problem, drilling into those reserves requires federal permission, and so far the environmental terrorists seem to control congressional voting on the subject. I guess the Snail Darter or some such is more important to them than the well being of American citizens. Red China doesn’t have that problem, and as I understand things is presently drilling for oil in the sea floor between Florida and Cuba, an area currently “off limits” to American oil companies, even though we know the oil is there. Sen. Craig also mentioned oil shale and tar sand deposits, which certainly is another source of petroleum. But the oil from tar is an extremely heavy crude, containing a high percentage of paraffin and asphalt, along with considerably smaller amounts of gasoline, diesel, and the lighter fuel oils. We’re not going to get much help from that, unless you can figure out how to burn chassis grease and canning wax (paraffin) in your car. Oil from shale isn’t even oil, but rather an oil precursor called “kerogen”, that requires extensive processing to make anything useful from. Then to, accessing those shale and tar deposits promises to be a large scale strip mining operation rather than drilling a few oil wells. Mention of either drilling or digging is guaranteed to generate hysteria and lawsuits in the ranks of the Sierra Club.
One potential fuel source is found in the various “bio-fuels”, such as ethanol and biodiesel. Granted that these have possibilities, particularly for the farm producer/user, they aren’t going to reduce US dependence on petroleum fuels, as we’d have to convert all our farm lands into fuel production to make more than a minor dent in today’s energy demand. And if we were to do that, who do we wish to become food dependent on? President Bush has placed himself strongly on the side of the “Hydrogen Fuel” movement, a step I was quite happy to see. But a hydrogen economy has it’s own problems as well. Hydrogen is easily produced by the electrolysis of water, but doing so requires that we put more energy into the process than we can possibly get back (Hydrogen has a 60% energy recovery rate). Additionally we’d have to build the entire production / distribution / user infrastructure from scratch and at great expense.
“Alternative Energy” ideas abound, and are technologically feasible. Wind power, tidal power, geothermal, all have been successfully demonstrated. But… they are extremely limited in scope, promise to be quite expensive, and like so many other things have the environmentalists in an tizzy. Nuclear power would currently be our best bet by far, if the public could ever overcome an almost superstitious fear of nuclear energy. The radiation hazard from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl combined is far less than the respiratory hazards produced daily by fossil fuel power plants.
Finally we have the potential of solar energy. Solar power offers us the chance to replace both fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, thus eliminating much of the pollution and residual radiation hazards. Solar power and electric vehicles could soon clear the skies in our smog infested cities. Here the environmentalists get quite upset with the idea of “solar farms” being built all over the planet, and possibly interfering with the life style of the local flora and fauna, even though desert areas close to the equator would be the preferred sites. Even better would be constructing an SPS (Solar Power Satellite) system. Built in geosynchronous orbit, an SPS would beam its power to earth based receiving antenna farms via microwave energy. Such a power source has a fantastic potential, but like anything in space would be expensive to construct. Here, like every other idea, the environmentalists protest that beamed microwave energy might be dangerous. They’ll probably decide that microwaves could interfere with the mating habits of mosquitoes or some such.
Environmentalists, again and again. Often depending on junk science and feel good propaganda, they seem bound and determined to outlaw any progress, and legislate us back into the stone age. Humm… Perhaps we can use the environmentalists in a squirrel cage generator system, and thus electrify the entire world… maybe they’ll work for peanuts?
New Years Resolutions
12 Jan, ’07
It seems to be a long standing tradition to talk about new years resolutions immediately after the holidays, and far be it from me to break with such a hallowed thing as tradition. So… Washington, are you ready for this?
It’s my understanding that Homeland Security has a new training program for those wonderful TSA folks who inspect you and your baggage at the airport. It seems that they’re paying attention to the claim that they’re not sensitive enough to the wounded feelings of Muslim travelers. Now that in itself isn’t a problem, as I also get a little upset when I have to let some stranger rummage through my bags, empty my pockets of the last bit of change, explain that the mini-bottle of nitroglycerin tablets in my pocket really is Doctor prescribed medication, remove my belt buckle and shoes, and then pass through an x-ray machine or metal detector. Muslims seem to think that this is unjust treatment while they’re traveling on a pilgrimage or something, so Homeland Security apparently plans to ease the procedure for Muslims. Of course your 87 year old Grandmother will still be strip searched, the lady traveling with a baby will have to unpack all that paraphernalia while holding a squirming kid, and my cowboy hat apparently indicates that I need lots of special attention to make sure that I don’t have a six-gun hidden in my boot heel.
So… how about the folks in our nations capitol make a resolution to relax all this nonsense, eliminate quite a few of these make-work security jobs, and maybe cut part of the public tax burden at the same time?
Another problem seems to be Social Security funding, lack thereof. Social Security has been around since the 1930’s, and working Americans have been required to pay a percentage of their wages into the system. After all that time, you’d think that there’s be quite a lot of money in the bank, and I understand there was… until congress needed more money for their insistent pork barrel programs. Now, Social Security is nearly broke and has become Social Insecurity. As tampering with the Social Security system is seen as being tantamount to political suicide, nothing ever gets done about the problem, except to continue robbing the trust account and blaming the “other” party for it.
It really seems an easy enough problem to solve… Congress, make a resolution to keep your sticky fingers out of the public retirement kitty, and start replacing the money you’ve stolen… ahh… “borrowed” over the last seventy years. Do that, and social security will be rolling in dough!
From all the commotion on the news about the war in Iraq, perhaps we ought to look at that little problem as well. We’ve known for a couple of years now that al-Qaeda was pretty well wiped-out in Afghanistan, along with most of the Taliban. For all intents and purposes (except the headlines), the war on terror is over, and we won. BUT (and that’s a pretty big word), if we continue to retain the US armed forces in Muslim countries, and keep pushing them around, we’re going to instigate “War on Terror – part II”. That could get nasty, as we wouldn’t be facing a few disgruntled Islamic fundamentalists anymore, but rather we’ll have a billion Muslims mad at us… Muslims who just happen to own seventy-five percent of the worlds oil supply, and a lot of hi-tech weapons systems. Iraq is after all a civil war, not the war on terror. If the Iraqi’s really want to kill each other off, that’s their problem, not mine. Don’t forget that this hate session has been going on just fine without our help for over a thousand years now. As to the “insurgency”, what would you think might have happened in 1861, if somebody had invaded the US, to “keep the peace”? Bobby Lee, and U.S. Grant would have joined forces, done some serious attitude adjusting, and gone right back to shooting at each other just as soon as the last foreign soldier left for home. Why should the Iraqi’s have a different attitude? In addition, somebody in the Puzzle Palace on the Hill really ought to remember that we got the seat of our pants kicked up around our ears in Somalia a few years back. Yet today, the Ethiopians seem to be doing a pretty good job of straightening out that situation. Perhaps we ought to send them a couple of shiploads of replacement ammunition, point them towards Iraq, and just keep our mouths shut.
So, if Congress will make a resolution to remember that the United States can’t afford to be the world’s policeman (and nobody asked us to either), perhaps our troops can come home, and stay home as well. Halliburton can subsidize themselves.
Then we have the high cost of health care. For one thing, I can remember the days when Doctors actually made house calls, drove a five year old horse and buggy, and didn’t make annual pilgrimages to the beaches of Hawaii, so I’m probably not the best judge of what’s a fair price for medical care. Still, I rather think the problems stems from the outrageous fees that Medicare and the health insurance companies pay out, as an excuse to fleece the public out of even more tax money. As socialized medicine doesn’t seem to be working all that well in other countries, perhaps we ought to forget that idea, and go after the financial angle.
Yo, Congress, put a heavy duty cap on the prices Medicare pays out, look into using the excess profits laws on the health care industry, and start investigating the huge bills that are being submitted.
Oh well, who keeps new years resolutions anyhow?
It seems to be a long standing tradition to talk about new years resolutions immediately after the holidays, and far be it from me to break with such a hallowed thing as tradition. So… Washington, are you ready for this?
It’s my understanding that Homeland Security has a new training program for those wonderful TSA folks who inspect you and your baggage at the airport. It seems that they’re paying attention to the claim that they’re not sensitive enough to the wounded feelings of Muslim travelers. Now that in itself isn’t a problem, as I also get a little upset when I have to let some stranger rummage through my bags, empty my pockets of the last bit of change, explain that the mini-bottle of nitroglycerin tablets in my pocket really is Doctor prescribed medication, remove my belt buckle and shoes, and then pass through an x-ray machine or metal detector. Muslims seem to think that this is unjust treatment while they’re traveling on a pilgrimage or something, so Homeland Security apparently plans to ease the procedure for Muslims. Of course your 87 year old Grandmother will still be strip searched, the lady traveling with a baby will have to unpack all that paraphernalia while holding a squirming kid, and my cowboy hat apparently indicates that I need lots of special attention to make sure that I don’t have a six-gun hidden in my boot heel.
So… how about the folks in our nations capitol make a resolution to relax all this nonsense, eliminate quite a few of these make-work security jobs, and maybe cut part of the public tax burden at the same time?
Another problem seems to be Social Security funding, lack thereof. Social Security has been around since the 1930’s, and working Americans have been required to pay a percentage of their wages into the system. After all that time, you’d think that there’s be quite a lot of money in the bank, and I understand there was… until congress needed more money for their insistent pork barrel programs. Now, Social Security is nearly broke and has become Social Insecurity. As tampering with the Social Security system is seen as being tantamount to political suicide, nothing ever gets done about the problem, except to continue robbing the trust account and blaming the “other” party for it.
It really seems an easy enough problem to solve… Congress, make a resolution to keep your sticky fingers out of the public retirement kitty, and start replacing the money you’ve stolen… ahh… “borrowed” over the last seventy years. Do that, and social security will be rolling in dough!
From all the commotion on the news about the war in Iraq, perhaps we ought to look at that little problem as well. We’ve known for a couple of years now that al-Qaeda was pretty well wiped-out in Afghanistan, along with most of the Taliban. For all intents and purposes (except the headlines), the war on terror is over, and we won. BUT (and that’s a pretty big word), if we continue to retain the US armed forces in Muslim countries, and keep pushing them around, we’re going to instigate “War on Terror – part II”. That could get nasty, as we wouldn’t be facing a few disgruntled Islamic fundamentalists anymore, but rather we’ll have a billion Muslims mad at us… Muslims who just happen to own seventy-five percent of the worlds oil supply, and a lot of hi-tech weapons systems. Iraq is after all a civil war, not the war on terror. If the Iraqi’s really want to kill each other off, that’s their problem, not mine. Don’t forget that this hate session has been going on just fine without our help for over a thousand years now. As to the “insurgency”, what would you think might have happened in 1861, if somebody had invaded the US, to “keep the peace”? Bobby Lee, and U.S. Grant would have joined forces, done some serious attitude adjusting, and gone right back to shooting at each other just as soon as the last foreign soldier left for home. Why should the Iraqi’s have a different attitude? In addition, somebody in the Puzzle Palace on the Hill really ought to remember that we got the seat of our pants kicked up around our ears in Somalia a few years back. Yet today, the Ethiopians seem to be doing a pretty good job of straightening out that situation. Perhaps we ought to send them a couple of shiploads of replacement ammunition, point them towards Iraq, and just keep our mouths shut.
So, if Congress will make a resolution to remember that the United States can’t afford to be the world’s policeman (and nobody asked us to either), perhaps our troops can come home, and stay home as well. Halliburton can subsidize themselves.
Then we have the high cost of health care. For one thing, I can remember the days when Doctors actually made house calls, drove a five year old horse and buggy, and didn’t make annual pilgrimages to the beaches of Hawaii, so I’m probably not the best judge of what’s a fair price for medical care. Still, I rather think the problems stems from the outrageous fees that Medicare and the health insurance companies pay out, as an excuse to fleece the public out of even more tax money. As socialized medicine doesn’t seem to be working all that well in other countries, perhaps we ought to forget that idea, and go after the financial angle.
Yo, Congress, put a heavy duty cap on the prices Medicare pays out, look into using the excess profits laws on the health care industry, and start investigating the huge bills that are being submitted.
Oh well, who keeps new years resolutions anyhow?
Saddam Hussein
Jan. 5th, 2007
Saddam Hussein, ex-dictator of Iraq, and arguably the greatest mass murderer in recent history, is dead. Deposed by the United States armed forces, Saddam was captured and turned over to the Iraqi civil government for trial. Saddam, who was hanged Saturday at age 69, had ruled Iraq with singular ruthlessness. Brutality kept him in power through war with Iran, defeat in Kuwait, rebellions by Kurds and Shiite Muslims, international sanctions, plots and conspiracies. Trusting few except relatives, Saddam surrounded himself with sycophants, selected for loyalty rather than intelligence or ability.
And when he was forced out of power in 2003, he left a country impoverished despite vast oil wealth, and boiling with suppressed ethnic and sectarian hatred. He ended up dragged from a hole in the ground by American soldiers in December 2003, bearded, dirty, and with his hands in the air.
Image and illusion were important tools for Saddam. He sought to build an image as an all-wise, all-powerful champion of the Arab nation. His model was the great 12th century warrior Saladin. He promoted the illusion of a powerful Iraq — with the world's fourth largest army and weapons of mass destruction. Yet it was all hollow. His army crumbled when confronted by the Americans and their allies in Kuwait in 1991. And in 2003, his capital fell to a single U.S. brigade task force. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction eventually proved a bluff to keep the Iranians, the Syrians, the Israelis… and the Americans, at bay.
In accordance with Iraqi law, Saddam was hung before sunrise Saturday morning, by Iraqi civil authorities “somewhere in Baghdad”, and leaving the Iraqi’s with a somewhat perplexing problem of what to do with the body.
One thought is to hand the body over to his family for burial. His close family however, and for very good reason, all live outside the country, and the chances of their coming to get him are considered rather slim. Another idea is to give him a normal funeral in Iraq. This however leaves the Iraqi rebels (who are already calling Saddam a “Martyr to the Cause”) with a common rallying point, and probably another “holy site” as well. An unmarked grave somewhere in the desert is yet another option, but is apparently considered somewhat vindictive by many. Personally I’d recommend an open air grave in the middle of Tikrit, sewn into a pigskin “casket”, and with the liberal application of lard. I suspect however that this might create a lot of other problems, particularly for the US Army. Oh well, I’m sure something will eventually be done, amid all kinds of protests and objections from the Muslim, and world, community.
Saddam’s execution has also brought on the usual spate of worldwide weeping, wailing, and hand wringing from those opposed to the death penalty, particularly from Europe. In general I’m not opposed to the death penalty, although I do think it’s used far to often. But in this particular case, as in the case of nearly all tyrants, I do think it’s quite fair.
I can just imagine the Devil, Saddam, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Attila the Hun, and a few hundred other mass murders all sitting around the hot basement furnace, busily plotting revenge. Not a pretty picture, considering the number of people who willingly follow such “leaders”. Hollywierd will probably present us with a colossal “All Star” movie on the subject before long, pointing out to us what a great guy Saddam really was, how everyone misunderstood him, and how cruelly he was treated by the evil Americans. I doubt I’ll attend.
As for Saddam Hussein… Good riddance!
Anticipating New Years Eve in a few hours, I’ll cut this short, and wish a happy and prosperous New Year to all.
Saddam Hussein, ex-dictator of Iraq, and arguably the greatest mass murderer in recent history, is dead. Deposed by the United States armed forces, Saddam was captured and turned over to the Iraqi civil government for trial. Saddam, who was hanged Saturday at age 69, had ruled Iraq with singular ruthlessness. Brutality kept him in power through war with Iran, defeat in Kuwait, rebellions by Kurds and Shiite Muslims, international sanctions, plots and conspiracies. Trusting few except relatives, Saddam surrounded himself with sycophants, selected for loyalty rather than intelligence or ability.
And when he was forced out of power in 2003, he left a country impoverished despite vast oil wealth, and boiling with suppressed ethnic and sectarian hatred. He ended up dragged from a hole in the ground by American soldiers in December 2003, bearded, dirty, and with his hands in the air.
Image and illusion were important tools for Saddam. He sought to build an image as an all-wise, all-powerful champion of the Arab nation. His model was the great 12th century warrior Saladin. He promoted the illusion of a powerful Iraq — with the world's fourth largest army and weapons of mass destruction. Yet it was all hollow. His army crumbled when confronted by the Americans and their allies in Kuwait in 1991. And in 2003, his capital fell to a single U.S. brigade task force. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction eventually proved a bluff to keep the Iranians, the Syrians, the Israelis… and the Americans, at bay.
In accordance with Iraqi law, Saddam was hung before sunrise Saturday morning, by Iraqi civil authorities “somewhere in Baghdad”, and leaving the Iraqi’s with a somewhat perplexing problem of what to do with the body.
One thought is to hand the body over to his family for burial. His close family however, and for very good reason, all live outside the country, and the chances of their coming to get him are considered rather slim. Another idea is to give him a normal funeral in Iraq. This however leaves the Iraqi rebels (who are already calling Saddam a “Martyr to the Cause”) with a common rallying point, and probably another “holy site” as well. An unmarked grave somewhere in the desert is yet another option, but is apparently considered somewhat vindictive by many. Personally I’d recommend an open air grave in the middle of Tikrit, sewn into a pigskin “casket”, and with the liberal application of lard. I suspect however that this might create a lot of other problems, particularly for the US Army. Oh well, I’m sure something will eventually be done, amid all kinds of protests and objections from the Muslim, and world, community.
Saddam’s execution has also brought on the usual spate of worldwide weeping, wailing, and hand wringing from those opposed to the death penalty, particularly from Europe. In general I’m not opposed to the death penalty, although I do think it’s used far to often. But in this particular case, as in the case of nearly all tyrants, I do think it’s quite fair.
I can just imagine the Devil, Saddam, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Attila the Hun, and a few hundred other mass murders all sitting around the hot basement furnace, busily plotting revenge. Not a pretty picture, considering the number of people who willingly follow such “leaders”. Hollywierd will probably present us with a colossal “All Star” movie on the subject before long, pointing out to us what a great guy Saddam really was, how everyone misunderstood him, and how cruelly he was treated by the evil Americans. I doubt I’ll attend.
As for Saddam Hussein… Good riddance!
Anticipating New Years Eve in a few hours, I’ll cut this short, and wish a happy and prosperous New Year to all.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Rethinking Iraq
Dec. 29th, 2006
The mainstream media is in the midst of another feeding frenzy it seems, over the war in Iraq. The goal appears to be “get Bush”, and is being aided by a lot of politicians trying to get their names in the headlines. Now we’re “rethinking” the war, and happily hunting for scapegoats. Faulty Intelligence was the first thing we heard about when the war didn’t go as planned.
I will agree that the reasoning for the war in Iraq was based in part on erroneous intelligence information. But… that data was deemed accurate enough by the intelligence agencies, the presidential advisors, the President, the Members of Congress, and the news media, to go to war over! A year or so later we find that things weren’t exactly as advertised, and immediately start blaming the President and the CIA for all sorts of things. No, I don’t blame the President for “faulty intelligence”, after all, the system can’t be right all the time no matter how hard they try.
Unfortunately the public view of the CIA is that of a bunch of incompetent klutzes stumbling around in the dark. Very few people appreciate just how much of a class act the agency really is. Consider that they have to function without many of the tools they need, under bloodthirsty congressional (political) oversight, in accordance with the law of the land, within their (Classified) budget, with tight scrutiny from a somewhat rabid news media, and on top of everything else they’ve got political appointees and a herd of federal bureaucrats running most of the show. It’s a wonder anything gets done, and yet the CIA is one of the best (and most accurate) intelligence agencies in today’s world!
What I do blame the President (and Mr. Rumsfield) for, is neglecting a very old military maxim, “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”. It would appear that somebody in the defense department forgot to make a “Plan B’ for Iraq, and the national command authority (the President), didn’t think of it either. A couple of centuries ago Karl Von Clausewitz wrote about the term “The fog of war”, a polite way of saying that when the battle starts, things get screwed-up real fast. That description pertains to the intelligence game as well as to military matters.
Regardless of the reason, the invasion of Iraq was a purely military matter, and overall it went quite well. The problems arose after the war phase, with the government (and public) failure to recognize the cultural problems facing the US authorities in Iraq. For one thing, we expected the Iraqis to jump right up and embrace “Democracy”, forgetting that they have had absolutely no experience with that political concept in their several thousand year long history! The Arabic peoples have always been ruled by tribal chiefs, kings, dictators, occupying powers, and assorted religious authorities. Offhand, I doubt they have a word for “democracy” in the Arabic language!
Assuming that the local yokels will welcome an invading army with cheers and flags is a common enough error throughout history, that I’m rather surprised that the US Government also fell for it in planning the Iraqi campaign. We expected the Sunni Muslims of Iraq to welcome us with open arms when we threw out the ruling Shi’a Muslim Baa’th party controlled by Saddam Hussein. Instead, the Sunni’s (85% of the Arabic population) are doing their best to kill off the Shi’a (15% of the Arabic population), in a full blown civil war. Then of course the Shi’a are returning the favor, in spades. Being nice guys and trying to keep the peace, the US armed forces are caught in the middle and paying the price. We forgot that the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book, teaches Muslims to convert the infidel, and to kill all those who don’t see things their way. And both Islamic sects see the other as being infidels. The US Army does a real good job of killing people and breaking things, but they really aren’t trained to keep two warring religious factions apart.
Now we hear that the US should just pull out of Iraq and come home. A nice idea of course, but hardly practical under the circumstances. If we did pull out, I’d expect to see the Kurds (the third leg of the Iraqi population triad) to come roaring south with the intent of carving a homeland out of Iraq. And that would bring Arabic speakers from all over the mid-east into the fight, with a whole lot of tanks, guns, and jet fighters. Welcome to a full scale Donnybrook Fair in the world’s biggest sandbox.
Like the war in Vietnam, we’re faced with a political conflict that requires a political solution. All the military can do is hold the ground and keep on bleeding while the politicians keep arguing over what to do next. Yes, the situation can be defused, but it’s going to take a Muslim army to hold the ground, while Muslim politicians work out the details. And that of course carries its own risks.
Personally I think this country would be far better served if our politicians would quit seeing us as the world’s policeman, and if the US media somehow got a transfusion of reality. Both could then come down from the rather vapid utopian wonderland they seem to be living in.
The mainstream media is in the midst of another feeding frenzy it seems, over the war in Iraq. The goal appears to be “get Bush”, and is being aided by a lot of politicians trying to get their names in the headlines. Now we’re “rethinking” the war, and happily hunting for scapegoats. Faulty Intelligence was the first thing we heard about when the war didn’t go as planned.
I will agree that the reasoning for the war in Iraq was based in part on erroneous intelligence information. But… that data was deemed accurate enough by the intelligence agencies, the presidential advisors, the President, the Members of Congress, and the news media, to go to war over! A year or so later we find that things weren’t exactly as advertised, and immediately start blaming the President and the CIA for all sorts of things. No, I don’t blame the President for “faulty intelligence”, after all, the system can’t be right all the time no matter how hard they try.
Unfortunately the public view of the CIA is that of a bunch of incompetent klutzes stumbling around in the dark. Very few people appreciate just how much of a class act the agency really is. Consider that they have to function without many of the tools they need, under bloodthirsty congressional (political) oversight, in accordance with the law of the land, within their (Classified) budget, with tight scrutiny from a somewhat rabid news media, and on top of everything else they’ve got political appointees and a herd of federal bureaucrats running most of the show. It’s a wonder anything gets done, and yet the CIA is one of the best (and most accurate) intelligence agencies in today’s world!
What I do blame the President (and Mr. Rumsfield) for, is neglecting a very old military maxim, “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”. It would appear that somebody in the defense department forgot to make a “Plan B’ for Iraq, and the national command authority (the President), didn’t think of it either. A couple of centuries ago Karl Von Clausewitz wrote about the term “The fog of war”, a polite way of saying that when the battle starts, things get screwed-up real fast. That description pertains to the intelligence game as well as to military matters.
Regardless of the reason, the invasion of Iraq was a purely military matter, and overall it went quite well. The problems arose after the war phase, with the government (and public) failure to recognize the cultural problems facing the US authorities in Iraq. For one thing, we expected the Iraqis to jump right up and embrace “Democracy”, forgetting that they have had absolutely no experience with that political concept in their several thousand year long history! The Arabic peoples have always been ruled by tribal chiefs, kings, dictators, occupying powers, and assorted religious authorities. Offhand, I doubt they have a word for “democracy” in the Arabic language!
Assuming that the local yokels will welcome an invading army with cheers and flags is a common enough error throughout history, that I’m rather surprised that the US Government also fell for it in planning the Iraqi campaign. We expected the Sunni Muslims of Iraq to welcome us with open arms when we threw out the ruling Shi’a Muslim Baa’th party controlled by Saddam Hussein. Instead, the Sunni’s (85% of the Arabic population) are doing their best to kill off the Shi’a (15% of the Arabic population), in a full blown civil war. Then of course the Shi’a are returning the favor, in spades. Being nice guys and trying to keep the peace, the US armed forces are caught in the middle and paying the price. We forgot that the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book, teaches Muslims to convert the infidel, and to kill all those who don’t see things their way. And both Islamic sects see the other as being infidels. The US Army does a real good job of killing people and breaking things, but they really aren’t trained to keep two warring religious factions apart.
Now we hear that the US should just pull out of Iraq and come home. A nice idea of course, but hardly practical under the circumstances. If we did pull out, I’d expect to see the Kurds (the third leg of the Iraqi population triad) to come roaring south with the intent of carving a homeland out of Iraq. And that would bring Arabic speakers from all over the mid-east into the fight, with a whole lot of tanks, guns, and jet fighters. Welcome to a full scale Donnybrook Fair in the world’s biggest sandbox.
Like the war in Vietnam, we’re faced with a political conflict that requires a political solution. All the military can do is hold the ground and keep on bleeding while the politicians keep arguing over what to do next. Yes, the situation can be defused, but it’s going to take a Muslim army to hold the ground, while Muslim politicians work out the details. And that of course carries its own risks.
Personally I think this country would be far better served if our politicians would quit seeing us as the world’s policeman, and if the US media somehow got a transfusion of reality. Both could then come down from the rather vapid utopian wonderland they seem to be living in.
Dec. 7th
Dec. 15th, 2006
“Historically, despite Washington’s experienced and cogent advice to make due preparations for war, it is traditional for us to be inadequately prepared.”
Captain Ernest King USN, 1932
On December 7th, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched an attack on the United States military installations on the Island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii. Six Japanese aircraft carriers launched 350 combat aircraft in two attack waves. 2,403 Americans died at Pearl Harbor, and another 1,178 were wounded. Eighteen ships were sunk, including five battleships. 188 American aircraft were destroyed. Beginning at 7:55 AM, and lasting only ninety minutes, the brilliantly conceived and executed Japanese aerial attack catapulted the United States into World War II. On the same day, Japanese naval and air forces attacked the British in Malaya, the Dutch in Java, invaded Siam, and attacked the American forces on Guam, the Philippine Islands, Wake Island, and Midway Island. In attacks spanning the Pacific Ocean, the Imperial Japanese forces handed the Americans and their allies a continuous series of defeats, until the US Navy finally destroyed the heart of the Japanese carrier striking force at the Battle of Midway in June 1942.
The Japanese attack could not have been avoided unless the Americans, British, and Dutch governments had given in to Japanese demands and effectively abandoned the South Pacific to the Emperor. However, the loss of life, and the material damages, could have been much less severe if… If the US government had known that Japan was planning those attacks.
Unfortunately that last statement is untrue. Thanks to radio intercepts, US intelligence agencies did know that the Japanese were coming. They just didn’t know exactly when or where. However, the State Department, the War Department, the Navy Department, and the President of the United States all knew that war was coming, and knew to within a day or so of when it would start. Due to government secrecy, and bureaucratic fumbling, nothing was done with that information until far to late. It took months for the US to “get it’s act together”, but World War II ended four years later, at a cost of trillions of dollars and tens of millions of human lives, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
On September 11, 2001, a small group of suicidal Islamic terrorists hijacked four US airliners and used them as improvised missiles to attack the United States. Two of those airliners struck the Twin Towers in New York City, bringing them down. One struck the Pentagon in Arlington Va. One aircraft, it’s target the US Capitol building, crashed into a Pennsylvania field when the passengers decided to fight the terrorists rather than remain in their seats meekly waiting to be killed. In addition to the nineteen hijackers, 2,973 people, predominately civilians, died in the course of this attack.
Many government officials have denied any similarity between Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Another untruth, at least in part. US intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies very definitely did know that an attack was coming. They also had information indicating how it would occur. What they didn’t know was the exact timing or location. And once again, due to government secrecy, and bureaucratic fumbling, nothing was done with that information until far to late.
In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, a few heads had to roll to assuage public opinion, primarily those of Admirals Stark and Kimmel, along with that of Army General Short. Now, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented. Thomas Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, and appointed chairman of the 9/11 commission by President Bush, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame. "This was not something that had to happen." said Kean, “They simply failed”. Politics? Perhaps, but that’s the name of the game when government fails in it’s duty to protect the nation.
To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political minefield, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president's top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on the administration statement that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building. "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said then national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002. How is it possible that we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records stating that this is a distinct possibility? It’s simple really. Government secrecy, jealous bureaucratic infighting, and simple “careerism” prevented the various agencies from comparing notes, and connecting the dots.
Still, even with foreknowledge of the 9/11 attack, there was little that could have been done to stop it. As in 1941, the US military was in no position to stop those airliners, or any aerial attack against the US. The United States Air Defense Command was deactivated as a budget cutting measure in the 1970’s, because as one congressman stated, “there’s no longer a threat of aerial attack against targets in this country.” Only a handful of Air National Guard fighter aircraft are tasked with air defenses, along with a mirade of other duties.
(This article is being written the morning of December 7th, 2006, at nearly 8 AM, the hour of the Japanese sneak attack at Pearl Harbor, sixty-five years ago. I’m sitting at my desk, remembering the family stories about two of my fathers cousins, young sailors who are still aboard the USS Arizona.)
“Historically, despite Washington’s experienced and cogent advice to make due preparations for war, it is traditional for us to be inadequately prepared.”
Captain Ernest King USN, 1932
On December 7th, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched an attack on the United States military installations on the Island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii. Six Japanese aircraft carriers launched 350 combat aircraft in two attack waves. 2,403 Americans died at Pearl Harbor, and another 1,178 were wounded. Eighteen ships were sunk, including five battleships. 188 American aircraft were destroyed. Beginning at 7:55 AM, and lasting only ninety minutes, the brilliantly conceived and executed Japanese aerial attack catapulted the United States into World War II. On the same day, Japanese naval and air forces attacked the British in Malaya, the Dutch in Java, invaded Siam, and attacked the American forces on Guam, the Philippine Islands, Wake Island, and Midway Island. In attacks spanning the Pacific Ocean, the Imperial Japanese forces handed the Americans and their allies a continuous series of defeats, until the US Navy finally destroyed the heart of the Japanese carrier striking force at the Battle of Midway in June 1942.
The Japanese attack could not have been avoided unless the Americans, British, and Dutch governments had given in to Japanese demands and effectively abandoned the South Pacific to the Emperor. However, the loss of life, and the material damages, could have been much less severe if… If the US government had known that Japan was planning those attacks.
Unfortunately that last statement is untrue. Thanks to radio intercepts, US intelligence agencies did know that the Japanese were coming. They just didn’t know exactly when or where. However, the State Department, the War Department, the Navy Department, and the President of the United States all knew that war was coming, and knew to within a day or so of when it would start. Due to government secrecy, and bureaucratic fumbling, nothing was done with that information until far to late. It took months for the US to “get it’s act together”, but World War II ended four years later, at a cost of trillions of dollars and tens of millions of human lives, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
On September 11, 2001, a small group of suicidal Islamic terrorists hijacked four US airliners and used them as improvised missiles to attack the United States. Two of those airliners struck the Twin Towers in New York City, bringing them down. One struck the Pentagon in Arlington Va. One aircraft, it’s target the US Capitol building, crashed into a Pennsylvania field when the passengers decided to fight the terrorists rather than remain in their seats meekly waiting to be killed. In addition to the nineteen hijackers, 2,973 people, predominately civilians, died in the course of this attack.
Many government officials have denied any similarity between Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Another untruth, at least in part. US intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies very definitely did know that an attack was coming. They also had information indicating how it would occur. What they didn’t know was the exact timing or location. And once again, due to government secrecy, and bureaucratic fumbling, nothing was done with that information until far to late.
In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, a few heads had to roll to assuage public opinion, primarily those of Admirals Stark and Kimmel, along with that of Army General Short. Now, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented. Thomas Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, and appointed chairman of the 9/11 commission by President Bush, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame. "This was not something that had to happen." said Kean, “They simply failed”. Politics? Perhaps, but that’s the name of the game when government fails in it’s duty to protect the nation.
To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political minefield, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president's top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on the administration statement that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building. "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said then national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002. How is it possible that we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records stating that this is a distinct possibility? It’s simple really. Government secrecy, jealous bureaucratic infighting, and simple “careerism” prevented the various agencies from comparing notes, and connecting the dots.
Still, even with foreknowledge of the 9/11 attack, there was little that could have been done to stop it. As in 1941, the US military was in no position to stop those airliners, or any aerial attack against the US. The United States Air Defense Command was deactivated as a budget cutting measure in the 1970’s, because as one congressman stated, “there’s no longer a threat of aerial attack against targets in this country.” Only a handful of Air National Guard fighter aircraft are tasked with air defenses, along with a mirade of other duties.
(This article is being written the morning of December 7th, 2006, at nearly 8 AM, the hour of the Japanese sneak attack at Pearl Harbor, sixty-five years ago. I’m sitting at my desk, remembering the family stories about two of my fathers cousins, young sailors who are still aboard the USS Arizona.)
NAU
Dec. 8th, 2006
It appears the misanthropes are at it again, only this time it’s the political variety. It's an irritating arrangement, and about to be pushed on the American people without their consent. To me it’s indicative of a totalitarian mindset (mankind is not conforming to my beautiful IDEAL, and is therefore evil, hopeless, and worthless, and I will do anything to bring my ideal to the fore, reguardless of what anyone else wants). Perhaps I'm overreacting a bit, but I've seen this before. From eco-nazis to luddites to apocalyptic prophets of doom, to utopians, this same theme appears again and again throughout our history. (That's not to say I think people are perfect or that you can assume their natural goodness. Far from it. It's for things like this that you have to watch your back when dealing with human nature.) Essentially the "sheeple" must be herded to greener pastures, otherwise they'll just stand there, doing whatever pleases them, and we can't have that, can we? It's also taken for granted that they will be herded by "evil" manipulators if they aren't herded by the "enlightened", "good" manipulators, that they have no volition or agency of their own, that their autonomous goals and desires aren't sufficient direction for their lives or are irrelevant to the Real Important Things. I am of course speaking of the movement towards the “North American Union”.
You might recall that we had quite a squabble over the passage of NAFTA, and that there is still a quite large part of the population that objects to it. Now it appears that our enlightened government is herding us into NAFTA on steroids.
The North American Free Trade Agreement is modeled after the European Common Market. NAFTA was signed by the then leaders of the three countries, President Bill Clinton of the US, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico, and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada, on December 17, 1992 and went into effect on January 1, 1994. Unlike the Common Market or the EU, NAFTA does not create any supranational governmental bodies, nor does it confine national legislation by regulations set by such bodies (that’s for later I’m afraid). NAFTA is a treaty under international law, but in United States law it is classed as a congressional-executive agreement rather than a treaty, and it’s still binding. It’s intended to eliminate barriers to trade, and facilitate the cross-border movement of goods and services between the three countries. It’s supposed to promote conditions of fair competition in the free trade areas and increase investment opportunities in the region. It provides for protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, creates procedures for the implementation and application of the agreement for its administration and the resolution of disputes. Finally it establishes a framework for further cooperation to expand and enhance the benefits of the agreement. All to the good… in theory. But we also noticed Ross Perot’s “giant sucking sound” as American jobs promptly started moving to Mexico, which President Clinton solemnly promised us wouldn’t happen.
Now we have the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” (SPP) which was launched in March of 2005 as a trilateral effort to increase security and enhance prosperity among the United States, Canada and Mexico through greater cooperation and information sharing. This initiative is based on the idea that our security and economic prosperity are mutually reinforcing. The SPP claims that our three nations are bound by a shared belief in freedom, economic opportunity, and strong democratic institutions (tell that to the Mexican government). The SPP provides the framework to ensure that North America is the safest and best place to live and do business. It includes ambitious security and prosperity programs to keep our borders closed to terrorism yet open to trade. The SPP builds upon, but is separate from, our long-standing trade and economic relationships. It claims to promote other aspects of our cooperative relations, such as the protection of our environment, our food supply, and our public health.
Looking forward, President Bush, Prime Minister Harper and President Fox have identified emergency management; influenza pandemics (including bird flu); and energy security; along with safe and secure gateways (border security and facilitation) as key priorities for the SPP. The leaders also announced the creation of North American Competitiveness Council to fully incorporate the private sector into the SPP process. Humm… “Private Sector”? As in big business / big money? (Picture raised eyebrows over that one.)
Unfortunately, it seems that the government has again failed to assess the will of the American people before it committed us to laying the groundwork for the formation of a “North American Union”, which goes far beyond the model of the European Union. The “NAU” effectively combines the governments, populations, and territories of all three North American countries into one as yet unnamed “Super State”. (One of these mornings we’re going to wake up and find that the United States of America no longer exists, with the consent of congress.) Economically this will probably be a good thing for the corporate world, handing them free access to the resources of Canada and Mexico, along with the Mexican labor market. But I want to know two things up front. What’s going to happen to the wages of US and Canadian working stiffs, and just what sort of government they intend for us. Rest assured that our wages will fall, and the wages of the Mexican workers will rise, slightly. Then, will we become a part of the British Commonwealth with a ceremonial Governor General appointed from London, will we have something vaguely resembling our Constitutional Republic, or perhaps our laws will be issued from a Corporate Board Room patterned after the Patronage system that has cursed Mexico since their days as a Spanish colony? You can bet that our Constitution and Bill of Rights will become little more than interesting historical papers.
Welcome to the progressive “New World Order”.
It appears the misanthropes are at it again, only this time it’s the political variety. It's an irritating arrangement, and about to be pushed on the American people without their consent. To me it’s indicative of a totalitarian mindset (mankind is not conforming to my beautiful IDEAL, and is therefore evil, hopeless, and worthless, and I will do anything to bring my ideal to the fore, reguardless of what anyone else wants). Perhaps I'm overreacting a bit, but I've seen this before. From eco-nazis to luddites to apocalyptic prophets of doom, to utopians, this same theme appears again and again throughout our history. (That's not to say I think people are perfect or that you can assume their natural goodness. Far from it. It's for things like this that you have to watch your back when dealing with human nature.) Essentially the "sheeple" must be herded to greener pastures, otherwise they'll just stand there, doing whatever pleases them, and we can't have that, can we? It's also taken for granted that they will be herded by "evil" manipulators if they aren't herded by the "enlightened", "good" manipulators, that they have no volition or agency of their own, that their autonomous goals and desires aren't sufficient direction for their lives or are irrelevant to the Real Important Things. I am of course speaking of the movement towards the “North American Union”.
You might recall that we had quite a squabble over the passage of NAFTA, and that there is still a quite large part of the population that objects to it. Now it appears that our enlightened government is herding us into NAFTA on steroids.
The North American Free Trade Agreement is modeled after the European Common Market. NAFTA was signed by the then leaders of the three countries, President Bill Clinton of the US, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico, and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada, on December 17, 1992 and went into effect on January 1, 1994. Unlike the Common Market or the EU, NAFTA does not create any supranational governmental bodies, nor does it confine national legislation by regulations set by such bodies (that’s for later I’m afraid). NAFTA is a treaty under international law, but in United States law it is classed as a congressional-executive agreement rather than a treaty, and it’s still binding. It’s intended to eliminate barriers to trade, and facilitate the cross-border movement of goods and services between the three countries. It’s supposed to promote conditions of fair competition in the free trade areas and increase investment opportunities in the region. It provides for protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, creates procedures for the implementation and application of the agreement for its administration and the resolution of disputes. Finally it establishes a framework for further cooperation to expand and enhance the benefits of the agreement. All to the good… in theory. But we also noticed Ross Perot’s “giant sucking sound” as American jobs promptly started moving to Mexico, which President Clinton solemnly promised us wouldn’t happen.
Now we have the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” (SPP) which was launched in March of 2005 as a trilateral effort to increase security and enhance prosperity among the United States, Canada and Mexico through greater cooperation and information sharing. This initiative is based on the idea that our security and economic prosperity are mutually reinforcing. The SPP claims that our three nations are bound by a shared belief in freedom, economic opportunity, and strong democratic institutions (tell that to the Mexican government). The SPP provides the framework to ensure that North America is the safest and best place to live and do business. It includes ambitious security and prosperity programs to keep our borders closed to terrorism yet open to trade. The SPP builds upon, but is separate from, our long-standing trade and economic relationships. It claims to promote other aspects of our cooperative relations, such as the protection of our environment, our food supply, and our public health.
Looking forward, President Bush, Prime Minister Harper and President Fox have identified emergency management; influenza pandemics (including bird flu); and energy security; along with safe and secure gateways (border security and facilitation) as key priorities for the SPP. The leaders also announced the creation of North American Competitiveness Council to fully incorporate the private sector into the SPP process. Humm… “Private Sector”? As in big business / big money? (Picture raised eyebrows over that one.)
Unfortunately, it seems that the government has again failed to assess the will of the American people before it committed us to laying the groundwork for the formation of a “North American Union”, which goes far beyond the model of the European Union. The “NAU” effectively combines the governments, populations, and territories of all three North American countries into one as yet unnamed “Super State”. (One of these mornings we’re going to wake up and find that the United States of America no longer exists, with the consent of congress.) Economically this will probably be a good thing for the corporate world, handing them free access to the resources of Canada and Mexico, along with the Mexican labor market. But I want to know two things up front. What’s going to happen to the wages of US and Canadian working stiffs, and just what sort of government they intend for us. Rest assured that our wages will fall, and the wages of the Mexican workers will rise, slightly. Then, will we become a part of the British Commonwealth with a ceremonial Governor General appointed from London, will we have something vaguely resembling our Constitutional Republic, or perhaps our laws will be issued from a Corporate Board Room patterned after the Patronage system that has cursed Mexico since their days as a Spanish colony? You can bet that our Constitution and Bill of Rights will become little more than interesting historical papers.
Welcome to the progressive “New World Order”.
Globalization
Dec. 1st, 2006
Industrial and political globalization is the wave of the future… according to most media forecasts. In reality globalization is a combination of business and politics that will determine what people are the economic winners in this world, and who are the losers. As a nations big corporations become international mega-conglomerates, the mutual dependence between the nations politics, economics, and society become artificially weakened. In stable societies, an unspoken social contract provides for enough wealth to trickle down to keep the “lower classes” from rebelling. Thus, in the 1950s, when Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of defense said that what was good for General Motors was good for America, most Americans, including the United Auto Workers, agreed. Within the boundaries of the U.S. economy, capital and labor needed each other. Essentially politics is an interrelated conflict among the different “classes” of people, over who gets what share of the economic pie.
In our shrinking world and with the absence of global democracy, corporate owners and top managers have seized the opportunity to set new business rules without those social constraints, and little to no legal restraints either. The first head of the World Trade Organization called these new rules a “constitution for the global economy.” It’s a constitution that protects just one world citizen—the corporate investor. It bypasses protection for workers, consumers, and the environment. The greatest possible profit at the least expense is the only goal. However, today’s corporate investor is hardly the small scale Mom and Pop retirement investor of only a couple of decades back. Today’s investor owns a few hundred thousand shares… in each of several corporations. Anything less is hardly worth talking about!
We see globalization in the many corporate mergers of today’s international business community, which form international mega-corporations that wield more effective power than many national governments. It’s nearly impossible to explain why the Democrats have championed NAFTA, the WTO, the looming specter of a “North American Union”, along with other instruments of international corporate protectionism, and have traded away the interests of their blue-collar base in favor of the investors from Wall Street. Nor is it possible to explain why Washington is indifferent to a relentlessly rising trade deficit, and the resulting foreign debt that has put the country’s future in the hands of the central bank of China, while the Pentagon still simulates war games with China as the principal enemy. The press consistently talks about our national interest without defining just what that interest is, and who is getting what. Thus, American workers are told that the Chinese, Indonesians, the Mexicans, or the laborers in any of several other countries are taking their jobs. But the so called “China threat” is in fact nothing more than another global business partnership… between Chinese commissars who supply cheap labor, and international businessmen who supply the technology and two-thirds of the capital used to finance China’s exports. Everybody profits, except the Chinese workers who are still paid a pittance, the American economy, and American workers who have lost their jobs.
In the US at least, labor is the single most expensive component in manufacturing. By moving their manufacturing facilities offshore, business escapes that cost, along with consumer protection and the costs of environmental protective efforts. After all, how do you effectively force an international corporation that is not subject to your laws, to abide by those “local” laws?
After a quarter of a century, the world is beginning to resist policies that have shifted wealth and power away from those who work for a living to those who invest. Scarcely a day goes by without a major riot somewhere in China, Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia. In South America, anti-neo-liberal parties have come to power in Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela and Argentina—and already have slowed down the effort to extend NAFTA to the rest of the hemisphere.
But perhaps more important, the U.S. government is in trouble. The opposition to the war in Iraq has demonstrated the limits of America’s willingness to send its children off to die in order to force the world’s cultures into one vast shopping mall. And the looming crisis of America’s foreign debt will cramp the ability of our elites to use the countries’ economic power to support their global corporate backers. The erosion of the American social contract, already being reflected in stagnant wages, financial insecurity and collapsing health care system, could soon force the government to pay more attention to Bloomington, Ill., than to Baghdad, Iraq.
Globalization will not go away. Improvements in communication and transportation will continue to make the world smaller for as far into the future as we can see. Nor will economic classes soon disappear. The question is, as always, who sets the rules and in whose interests? So although the globalization party may not be over, the rest of the world seems less willing to pay for it.
Industrial and political globalization is the wave of the future… according to most media forecasts. In reality globalization is a combination of business and politics that will determine what people are the economic winners in this world, and who are the losers. As a nations big corporations become international mega-conglomerates, the mutual dependence between the nations politics, economics, and society become artificially weakened. In stable societies, an unspoken social contract provides for enough wealth to trickle down to keep the “lower classes” from rebelling. Thus, in the 1950s, when Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of defense said that what was good for General Motors was good for America, most Americans, including the United Auto Workers, agreed. Within the boundaries of the U.S. economy, capital and labor needed each other. Essentially politics is an interrelated conflict among the different “classes” of people, over who gets what share of the economic pie.
In our shrinking world and with the absence of global democracy, corporate owners and top managers have seized the opportunity to set new business rules without those social constraints, and little to no legal restraints either. The first head of the World Trade Organization called these new rules a “constitution for the global economy.” It’s a constitution that protects just one world citizen—the corporate investor. It bypasses protection for workers, consumers, and the environment. The greatest possible profit at the least expense is the only goal. However, today’s corporate investor is hardly the small scale Mom and Pop retirement investor of only a couple of decades back. Today’s investor owns a few hundred thousand shares… in each of several corporations. Anything less is hardly worth talking about!
We see globalization in the many corporate mergers of today’s international business community, which form international mega-corporations that wield more effective power than many national governments. It’s nearly impossible to explain why the Democrats have championed NAFTA, the WTO, the looming specter of a “North American Union”, along with other instruments of international corporate protectionism, and have traded away the interests of their blue-collar base in favor of the investors from Wall Street. Nor is it possible to explain why Washington is indifferent to a relentlessly rising trade deficit, and the resulting foreign debt that has put the country’s future in the hands of the central bank of China, while the Pentagon still simulates war games with China as the principal enemy. The press consistently talks about our national interest without defining just what that interest is, and who is getting what. Thus, American workers are told that the Chinese, Indonesians, the Mexicans, or the laborers in any of several other countries are taking their jobs. But the so called “China threat” is in fact nothing more than another global business partnership… between Chinese commissars who supply cheap labor, and international businessmen who supply the technology and two-thirds of the capital used to finance China’s exports. Everybody profits, except the Chinese workers who are still paid a pittance, the American economy, and American workers who have lost their jobs.
In the US at least, labor is the single most expensive component in manufacturing. By moving their manufacturing facilities offshore, business escapes that cost, along with consumer protection and the costs of environmental protective efforts. After all, how do you effectively force an international corporation that is not subject to your laws, to abide by those “local” laws?
After a quarter of a century, the world is beginning to resist policies that have shifted wealth and power away from those who work for a living to those who invest. Scarcely a day goes by without a major riot somewhere in China, Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia. In South America, anti-neo-liberal parties have come to power in Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela and Argentina—and already have slowed down the effort to extend NAFTA to the rest of the hemisphere.
But perhaps more important, the U.S. government is in trouble. The opposition to the war in Iraq has demonstrated the limits of America’s willingness to send its children off to die in order to force the world’s cultures into one vast shopping mall. And the looming crisis of America’s foreign debt will cramp the ability of our elites to use the countries’ economic power to support their global corporate backers. The erosion of the American social contract, already being reflected in stagnant wages, financial insecurity and collapsing health care system, could soon force the government to pay more attention to Bloomington, Ill., than to Baghdad, Iraq.
Globalization will not go away. Improvements in communication and transportation will continue to make the world smaller for as far into the future as we can see. Nor will economic classes soon disappear. The question is, as always, who sets the rules and in whose interests? So although the globalization party may not be over, the rest of the world seems less willing to pay for it.
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