Hypocrisy in Action
Sure. The logic is clear, and easy to follow. See, the US backed independence for Kosovo, a separatist "breakaway region" of Serbia. You see, it's just Democracy in action, the people don't want to live under the bootheel of Serbian governance. They want to forge their own path, make their own decisions, form a nation of like-minded people of similar ethnic background and live in peace with their neighbors. This was vehemently opposed by the Russians.
The Russians could not sit by and watch the aspirations for Democratic independence amongst the Abkhazians and South Ossetians crushed by those dangerous, authoritarian Georgians. The people who occupied those separatist "breakaway regions" of Georgia didn't want to live under the bootheel of Georgian governance. They wanted to forge their own path, make their own decisions, form a nation of like-minded people of similar ethnic background and live in peace with their neighbors. This was vehemently opposed by the Americans.
While every player in this panoply of pawns is obviously guilty of the most blatant, self-serving hypocrisy, I do have to say that Putin (oh, I'm sorry - should I be saying Medvedev? Haha, just kidding) and Medvedev are just
slightly less guilty than bush/rice. Both events, Kosovo and Georgia, happened on Russia's frontier, deep inside their sphere of influence. Just exaclty what the US and NATO think they are accomplishing creating military and political challenges to Russia on her doorstep is hard to determine. Most of us learn very early on that if you are INSIDE the bears cage, repeatedly poking the bear with a sharp stick is going to lead to some highly counterproductive results.
So the US put radars in the Czech Republic, and Midcourse Defense Interceptors in Poland, explaining patiently to Putin and the Russians that they are just SILLY if they construe that as any kind of threat to THEM - it should be obvious that missiles in Poland were necessary to counter the threat from Iran and North Korea. The Russians, however, don't seem to be buying that logical construct. But I think it's historically interesting the way the US reacted to the possibility of Russian missiles in Cuba. For that matter, the rhetoric employed by the US Diplomatic Corps after the Chavez Government in Venezuela negotiated military purchases from Russia.
But the best available analogy to the American "activities" in Georgia is hypothetical. Just imagine Washington's reaction if the Russian government began developing extensive military, diplomatic and economic ties with Mexico. If the Russians were training the Mexican Army, and providing arms and military aid. If they invited Mexico to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Do you think the US goverment would smile and welcome the Russians to the Western Hemisphere? Somehow, I doubt that the American reaction would be terribly sanguine.
So Bush chastises Russia for using military force against a sovereign nation, and Rice flails Medvedev over Georgia's "territorial integrity" (Russia's EXACT argument against the independence of Kosovo) while people - real people with lives and families and houses and possessions and hopes and dreams - people watch those lives and dreams extinguished over nothing more than a playground scuffle. But on this playground, the boys who are fighting both have big brothers who can wreck the whole neighborhood if they get drawn into the fight.
It's the tribal madness of ideology writ large. No one stands to gain anything but a little international leverage - and the world stands to lose so much...
My Speech Before the Democratic National Convention
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Mikey!!
[Crowd goes predictably wild]
*AHEM*
Hate. Fear. Greed.
There's powerful motivation in the base emotions. We hate what we fear. We fear what we hate. We want what we don't have, and we hate and fear those who have it or want to take it away.
It's hate that conquers continents. Fear that builds tribal and national unity. Greed that builds wealth. We would not be who we are today, we would not be sitting in the wealth and comfort and safety that is the envy, yes, the desperate envy of so much of the world, without those motivations.
But now? Now there's nothing left to be conquered. Nationalism, ethnicism, tribalism only limit our ability to interact with the rest of our species both within our nation and globally. And greed? Greed creates structures to protect and preserve wealth. Without legal constraints on greed, a wealthy class is perpetuated, and the dream of becomming wealthy is nothing more than that - a dream.
Folks, it's been a long time since Hate, Fear and Greed were a way to move a society forward. Now those same base emotions are used to perpetuate the status quo, to compel people to use their vote to preserve the position of the wealthiest, against the best interest of that voter. Manipulated, divided, scared.
The united states of america spends more on the military, on machines of war, tools of war, warriors and wars, than the rest of the world COMBINED. And that goes unquestioned. I'm asking the question. Is that the best way to invest your tax dollars? Do you suppose, if we all got in a room, sat down around a table, and figured out how to spend the tax revenue of the wealthiest economy in the world, that at the end of that dialog we would arrive at that figure? To say that it is insane is to grossly understate the case. For the taxpayers themselves to agree to it, to agree to it ACTIVELY, is ten times insane.
We stand, now, at an historic fork in the road. We are not being asked to choose a president. We are not being asked to commit to an ideology. We are not being asked to decide on a personality. We are, here and now, being presented with two paths. And we must choose one. Two paths forward, neither has a guarantee, neither leads to a clear outcome, neither assures a perfect world.
One path is the path of Hate, Fear and Greed. It is the path of more wars, more military spending, more arbitrary, unilateral international actions. More support for the corporation at the expense of the worker. More degegulation, more limitations on unions and workers rights, more opportunities for corporations to profit, without any requirement for those profits to roll down to the workers who create them. Without any promise that a successful, profitable corporation will reward it's workers with even the continuing promise of a job.
Another path is one of strength, courage and unity. It is a path that rewards the people, that recognizes and accepts the responsibility of government to contribute to the well being of it's people, to help them achieve success, raise their families, educate their children, and retire in security. It is a path that takes us to a peaceful coexistence with our international neighbors, working together to bring poor nations into prosperity, eradicating disease and improving lives. It is a path that rejects war as failure, not success, and reduces American strategic military spending by two thirds. Immediately. It is a path that makes certain that no American is hungry, that every american has the best health care available in the world, and every American child is educated to the extent he or she wishes to pursue.
So the choice to be made, the decision demanded by the moment, is simple. Will it be Hate, Fear and Greed? Or will it be hope, courage and solutions? Will it be wars and imperial occupations, or will it be domestic growth and help for people like you and me. Will we choose to squander our remaining wealth on international adventurism and foreign entanglements, or will we choose another way to spend our national treasure?
It seems like a simple choice. It seems obvious. It seems easy. But so many of the American people have chosen instead against their interest, in order to choose hatred, military intervention and authoritarianism. This is a drive that cannot be understood by people who cherish liberty and American Values, but if this drive cannot be redirected, America will perish.
It's time for America to grow up. You have a responsibility. Read the positions of the candidates. Think about how they might affect you. Make a decision with your head. Not your heart. And not your genitals. Look at the costs of the policies of the last eight years and think about what YOU would do differently. And think about what Barack Obama brings to you. Then make your choice.
I have no doubt that you will make the right decision.
Thank you, and good night...
Political Realities
I've been thinking about American politics. Nope. It's not the convention that drives this deeper reflection on the state of our Democracy in this foul year of our lord, 2008. I guess, more than anything else, it was the REACTION to the Biden VP choice. They started braying right off that the Obama/Biden ticket was some kind of fringe far-left loony tunes hippie-commie tag team that was going to lead the country off some kind of cliff. The fact that the bush/cheney administration has pretty much monopolized the cliff market these days doesn't seem to occur.
I've arrived at a couple conclusions. While they don't rise to the level of epiphany, they do help me both accept in an adult manner the flaccid, useless outcome of "the most important presidential campaign in history" and put in perspective the incredibly bad decisions that americans keep making that are leading us willingly to our own destruction.
First, America is a nation that collectively lives in terror of losing whatever it has managed to accumulate. It seems that the American people are willing to accept any affront, any imposition of authority, the elimination of any freedom if they can just feel like they will be able to keep their position, and no one on a lower rung of the ladder will be allowed to move up. Those spaces are limited, and not to be shared - especially with people who are "not like us". Americans are like an old man with all his money buried in coffee cans in the back yard. So afraid of all the unprocessed changes around him in society, he cannot bring himself to use that capital to fund a transition to the new realities. Eventually he dies, and the wealth just disappears into the mists of time.
Second, the lessons of the Bush/Cheney administration and their compliant lap-dog congress are there for all to see. Unfettered power in the hands of those with a corporatist and authoritarian agenda is toxic to everyone not already "in the club". It seems that all branches of government and the national media whose income is provided by that government have a vested interest in the status quo. Sure, populist economic programs and a major reduction in military spending, along with reinvestment in infrastructure, health care, education and energy would be very good for 85% of the population. But it would be bad for those who make laws, allocate money and form opinion. And therefore, they are accepted as "bad".
If the American people don't even have the wisdom, insight or courage to vote in a reasonable center - right Democratic government led by a charismatic young man with at least a few vestigial populist instincts, they will have gotten exactly what they deserved. And in the blood, smoke and disease of endless war, deficit spending and unregulated corporations, they will watch the end of it all. Everything they allowed themselves to be convinced they were protecting by sacrificing so much of what it meant to BE an American.
John McCain and the criminal, dishonest power-hungry old white men who represent the Republican Party in 2008 have nothing to offer the American people. And the sad thing is, they don't even feel that they need to pretend they do. The entire Republican campaign is about Barack Obama, an effort to make him a frightening threat to everything we keep trying to hold on to, even as we watch everything change around us. If they win, they will jealously protect the status quo, everyone in their party desperately clinging to one last good run, to live well and die well, with no thought to the economic, diplomatic and environmental death spiral they were responsible for.
It's not hard to see what the policies of today lead to. But if racial, tribal and religious hatred can outweigh national and global survival, then perhaps we, as a culture and as a species don't have any goddam right to survive.
The Drake Equation's last variable is the lifespan of an intelligent species. I think it's an important question - perhaps the most important question. Because if a society, merely by dent of it's inherent intelligence, builds an unsustainable society out of greed and hate, it cannot be expected to last a very long time, and perhaps, ultimately, that is in the best interest of the cosmic neighborhood.
Georgia on my Mind
At this point, the madness, stupidity, hypocrisy and blind ideology have reached epic proportions. Let's look at what actually happened objectively. Georgia, traditionally a region under the purview of Moscow, with a limited history of independence, took advantage of the fall of the Soviet Union to declare independent nationhood. The borders were arbitrarily set to coincide with the original borders from the Georgian independence of 1918. These borders enclosed a number of independent minded regions with no love for the Georgians and no interest in being part of an independent Georgia. These regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, became autonomous regions with support from Russia.
Georgia is led by an American Educated nutjob with delusions of relevance on the world stage named Mikheil Saakashvil. Saakashvili pursued close economic and military ties to the west, primarily due to the fact that he had no hope of developing good relations with his enormous neighbor to the north. With ideologically - driven support from the Bush Administration, Georgia wanted to join NATO. Russia was understandably concerned by these actions by a nation with which it shared a 723 kilometer common border.
So we come to last week. Believing he could act in an unfettered manner due to perceived security agreements with the US and NATO, Saakashvili ordered his forces into South Ossetia to dislodge the separatist leadership and re-assert authority over the breakaway region. Russia, deeply unhappy with Georgia's increasingly close ties to the west, and unwilling to see Georgia incorporated into NATO, did the obvious, predictable thing and with her overwhelming military advantage over tiny Georgia drove the Georgian military units out of the Ossetia region and continued an offensive to punish Georgia for her actions, cripple her military capability and demonstrate that in her sphere of influence, it is a very bad idea to make Russia angry.
While this outcome was not only obvious and predictable, but entirely in keeping with the way the world has always worked, the American response has been just as predictably hypocritical and deeply, dangerously stupid.
The hypocricy is reflected in the sad bleating of the American administration over things like "Territorial Integrity", "Georgian Sovereignty" and how it is unacceptable in this day and age for a powerful nation to impose her will by force and seek "regime change" in an external nation. There is of course the obvious comparisons to Afghanistan and Iraq, but in fact, the complete lack of self-awareness and shame runs significantly deeper. For there is also the key question of geographic proximity. Powerful, imperial nations have always jealously managed the nations in their immediate sphere of influence. There is a security dimension to this, along with the economic and political explanations. It not only explains America's traditional dominance of her neighbors to the south and long-term friendly relations with Canada, but also the stick-in-the-craw spittle-spraying anger with Cuba that has led nearly to nuclear war on at least one occasion, and to dozens of confrontations over the years.
How can one be surprised, or even take significant umbrage at Russia being actively involved in the political and military status of neighbors with whom she shares a common border? If America can justify the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq on national security grounds, how can she begrudge Russia doing the same with a regional neighbor? America's leadership may not like it, but for them to mindlessly bray about how it is no longer acceptable for a modern nation to act in this way flys in the face of Imperial America's actions in the last decade. And they must realize that this is clearly and transparently visible to the rest of the world.
And then there's the abject, ideologically - driven stupidity of the belligerent American response. With our recent lessons on the limitations of armed might, with our army and marines bogged down in the occupation of a couple of tiny, third world nations, much of our equipment deployed and worn out, National Guard and Reserves heavily over-committed, with the lessons learned over and over again since Vietnam, lessons clear for all to see, with all this knowledge and history apparent for the world to study, to threaten Russia with any kind of military response on THEIR BORDER is simply insane. Other than starting a nuclear war, what could we really hope to accomplish. Our forces would have to find a way to get halfway around the world while the Russian forces could just sit and wait for them. Our air might be better, but they have local bases and plenty of planes. Our navy might be better, but they can deploy subs and missile right there locally - our navy would lose most of their capital ships in two weeks. What do these idiots want to see, some kind of Normandy invasion? We don't have the ships, the troops or the ability to land in those numbers. And can you imagine the difficulty of doing so today, under a rain of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and smart bombs?
And of course, the other side of this rich panoply of international idiocy is the threats and belligerence themselves. As they get repeated, without any action, indeed, without the
ability to back them up, they lose all currency. Just as the threat of American military intervention was taken much more seriously before the actual American military intervention in Iraq demonstrated that the anticipated effectiveness of large - scale military action did not live up to the actual effectiveness. Indeed, America's military "sucess" in Iraq has damaged her much more deeply than Saddam ever could have dreamed. As American polititians, pundits, candidates and thought leaders continue to rant about the evils of Russian intervention in Georgia, ratcheting up the rhetoric to "Remember the Maine" levels, they merely demonstrate for all the world to see the impotence of twenty first century imperial America. For all McCain could actually do, he might as well tie an onion to his belt and yell at clouds. Russia knows America is powerless to act, and every threat and challenge she issues merely reinforces that point around the world...
Drilling for Dummies
So American Politics has finally hit bottom. All lies and pandering, all the time. It's rapidly approaching the point where both campaigns will be running entirely fact-free campaigns by the debates.
There's suddenly a whole bunch of political heat around domestic oil exploration and drilling. Not just ANWR these days, but offshore. Offshore drilling has been a political non-starter for decades. There's two reasons why it's a ridiculous idea at this point.
First, what problem are you trying to solve? Sure, we're running out of oil globally, and with the increasing demand from the developing nations, particularly India and China, that trend can only accelerate. But the amount of oil available on the market is greater than or equal to demand. We are not in a shortage situation, where we need more crude to meet demand. No, apparently the goal is purely political - have some impact on retail gasoline and home heating oil prices before the presidential election.
Lets interject a few quick facts into this debate:
- It takes YEARS to bring a new oil platform on line
- There are no available oil rigs - they are all in use
- The oil companies don't give us a discount on American Oil
- America's reserves are so tiny as to have NO discernable impact on prices
- The problem is not additional crude - without additional refining capacity, there's nothing we could do with it but sell it to foreign nations anyway
It's not difficult to understand the way the international oil market functions, at least on a macro level. John McCain just thinks you're as stupid and uninterested as he is. Barack Obama has given up, and decided John McCain is right about you.
Second, and by far most importantly, oil is NOT the solution. Oil, and gas and particularly coal, is the PROBLEM. We're actively and rapidly killing the planet. If our current economic uncomforatability causes us to pump more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, are we really bringing anything resembling a solution to bear?
If you believe, as I do, that high oil prices are not a temporary economic anomaly, but rather a new reality that will be with us forever, then tinkering around the margins in an attempt to lower retail gasoline prices will not accomplish anything of value. If you can artificially drive prices from $4.25 to $3.75 temporarily, without doing anything to restructure the fundamentally unsustainable underlying economy, you have actually made the situation worse.
One of the things I find amusing in the debate is that the new offshore rigs, even if we authorize them today, would come online in the 2012-2014 time frame. Now setting aside any economic or political consideration, the pace of the effects of Global Climate change seems to be much faster than originally anticipated, and it also seems to be accelerating. That being the case, it's very possible that in five years, in the name of our own survival, humanity may well have enacted draconian anti-fossil-fuel laws that would make any additional oil production meaningless at that point.
And the alternative view, that the world will be just as desperate for fossil fuels in 2015 as it is today, is even more frightening and dystopian. What might a world of 2020 look like if we don't reduce our carbon output? Not even to mention our nitrogen problem, our oceans problem, our water problem.
If you are under 40 years old and this does not terrify you, I simply don't understand what you are thinking about. The parallel disasters of economics and pollution are going to swarm our civilization in the next ten years. There may be NO hope. But whatever hope there is is fully predicated on taking very serious action NOW, making the changes and sacrifices necessary to pass on a world that provides for it's population in a sustainable way. NOW. Not in a few years, not after the super bowl, not after our daughter graduates. NOW.
People are sleeping. The planet is dying. I can't be the only one who thinks you'll deserve what you inherit...
I Miss Jeff
I know. Lots of people miss Jeff. I don't want to make it a competition, but frankly? You've got your own problems. Jeff was the friend I never had to measure up to. The guy that carried me home that afternoon, right through my parents dinner party, passed out and covered in vomit, and he never allowed a question.
And none was asked.
We're well beyond the point where Jeff taught me things, indeed, I plumbed the depths that life can offer well beyond any glimpse of the void he ever danced over. But it was the embrace, the knowledge that even though I didn't have the style or the dance, I was welcome in his world.
He always found a way to bring the best out of me, and we found the same kind of ridiculous funny.
It's sad I don't have shit for photos. It just never seemed important. The story was open-ended, y'know? It didn't need to be documented because it was endless, and part of our lives. Well, lesson learned. And please don't be offended if I point my camera in your face. You cannot be allowed to escape from my life that easily. I don't have an easy way with eternity, and I don't know how to negotiate the details.
I've lost something I can't replace. And you can't tell me it's ok...
Welcome to the Resistance
It's time to step all the way out of denial. Perhaps not to admit total defeat, but to acknowledge that the forces of darkness have won every round and are likely to continue to do so. And to operate in clear-eyed acceptance of the new realities.
When you recognize that Congress passed a law in direct contravention of the Fourth Amendment allowing government agencies and even private companies to eavesdrop on your personal communications
without warrant or court order and at the same time you realize that the government has asserted the right to examine everything in your computer and storage devices without even any "individual suspicion", well you better stop pretending you're still in Kansas.
Instead, think in terms of East Germany or Soviet Russia circa 1980.
But wait, you say. I'm just another guy, a working stiff, trying to raise my family, make a living, just live my life. I'm in no way working against the American government.
Ok, sure. But here's the problem. The rules have fundamentally changed. They used to tell you what you couldn't do. Laws had to very clearly inform you what was illegal, and the proscribed punishment for each infraction. It was realtively simple to educate yourself and stay on the right side of the law. As long as you did, you typically had no problems. And you could accept the premise that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" because, frankly, it was pretty easy to NOT be ignorant of the law.
But today, they don't need a law. They don't need to tell you what you did. In fact, they specifically say they don't even need to suspect that you did anything at all. Any reason, any moment, any comment or bad day at home or something you wrote or said or did. Anything. They can take your laptop. They can go through your data. Oh, and don't forget. They can detain you without charges indefinitely if they choose to.
So you don't have to be part of any revolution. Just to try to live your life in these times, you are part of the Resistance. You must think in those terms. You must take steps to protect yourself, your family, your friends and your company from the most intrusive authoritarian surveillance state outside of the Peoples Republic of China.
But there is some good news. Once again, it is technology that helps somewhat level the playing field. In an upcoming series, I will examine the various available solutions to your personal data and lifestyle security. In the short term, take these actions immediately:
1. Get a
Box.net account. It's not expensive, get as much storage as you need. The idea is to have NO data on your laptop when you travel.
2. Get the largest capacity USB Flash Drive you can afford. Download and install
TrueCrypt encryption software.
3. If you travel often, or if you can afford it, consider getting a second laptop just for traveling. Because it will not actually contain any data, merely an OS and applications, it does not have to be expensive or powerful. Check into some of the inexpensive Ubuntu machines available these days.
4. Start using Google Docs. All you need to open an account is an email address. Consider setting one up just for that purpose - preferably one that can't be traced back to you or your computers. Google does the storage, the applications run in the browser, it's truly a zero-footprint solution. And when you delete your surfing history, no one would have any way of knowing about your Google Docs (or, for that matter, your Box.net) account. It's worth remembering that if they do find out, your friendly government agency can likely get Google to turn over your documents, certainly with a court order, so consider what you choose to store there.
Look. We were all raised in the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave". It can be very hard to get your mind around the new normal. But everything has changed. You can rail against it, fight against it, agitate against it and work against it. But in the meantime don't forget to recognize that it is real, it is in place, and it has you in it's sights.
Sure. The logic is clear, and easy to follow. See, the US backed independence for Kosovo, a separatist "breakaway region" of Serbia. You see, it's just Democracy in action, the people don't want to live under the bootheel of Serbian governance. They want to forge their own path, make their own decisions, form a nation of like-minded people of similar ethnic background and live in peace with their neighbors. This was vehemently opposed by the Russians.
