I'm done

We've had a pretty good run, here in the US. At least, since the Great Depression, things have been remarkably stable. My feeling, and that of others, is that the time for relative peace and economic growth has come to an end. You can see the signs everywhere, if you look for them. Unfortunately, too many people refuse to look, or refuse to recognize them for what they really are.

The bailout is not the problem. Sub-prime lending is not the problem. The credit crisis is not the problem. Unemployment, foreclosures, and defaults are not the problem. They are merely symptoms of the real problem. The real problem lies in our paradigm, the problem lies in our belief that things will, or must, always grow, always improve, and that tomorrow will always be better than today. This blind faith in inexorable progress is belied by the simple fact that our growth is simply unsustainable. Daily, more proof arrives that the tremendous march of "progress" since the industrial revolution has been purchased at a tremendous cost- one that the planet can scarcely bear for much longer. Or, as award-winning journalist Chris Hedges argued yesterday in a brilliant article, "It's not going to be OK".

Many will wonder why nobody tried to warn them what was coming. The reality is, there are voices out there that are telling you what is coming, but it's not a pretty picture and so you choose to ignore them. For myself, I listen to those who have been right all along. I choose track-record over happy thoughts. Since the current economic crisis really picked up steam in September of last year, the "experts" have been wrong time and time again, while those few voices in the wilderness have been saying that this downturn will be worse than anyone's expecting, will last longer than anyone's expecting, and the consequences will be far worse than anyone's expecting. Those are the voices I choose to listen to now. It certainly is not the politicians that have been saying that nobody could have predicted the current crisis, ignoring the fact that plenty of people did predict it. No longer comparing the current crisis to milder recessions of the 70's, 80's or 90's, expert economists are now calling for an unprecedented depression.

Journalists are starting to realize that they've been far too complicit. Lost in all the news about why newspapers are shuttering their doors around the country is the simple fact that they have been wrong, horribly wrong, for far too long. The rise of the internet has delivered undreamt of resources to those of us who demand truth, and that truth has come at the expense of the so-called opinion makers and spin-doctors. When the media only quotes those who say that we've reached a "bottom", and it becomes clear within days (or hours) that there is no end in sight, it becomes clear that both those sources and the media themselves are no longer worthy of attention. At the same time, they are useful as they ferret out a small portion of the corruption in our modern age. A staggering amount of wrongdoing exists in all levels of government, and if the populace were truly paying attention, the government would have already been overthrown. Taking one small glance at the news of the day reveals that two of Obama's cabinet level appointees (or 17%) have suddenly remembered that they forgot to pay taxes on perks or income they received, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Luckily, they remembered just as Obama won the election! Geithner has been confirmed, and Daschle is expected to be. These two people should have been disqualified on that basis alone, and yet nobody seems to think it's a problem.

Politicians only have themselves to blame, both for the current crisis and the fact that nobody is yet grasping the gravity of the situation. Like the boy who cries wolf, decades of overheated rhetoric has numbed the public to pronouncements of genuine seriousness. A week ago Friday, our new president had this to say: "Look, we are all political animals here. If we don't do this, we may lose seats. I may not be re-elected. But none of that's going to matter if we don't pass this because the economy will be in a crisis and the American people will be hurting." Ignoring for a moment the fact that his solution is unlikely to work, and just listen to the raw appeal for desperate measures. "I may not be re-elected. But none of that's going to matter." When have you ever heard a politician say that getting re-elected does not matter? It's a half-step away from admitting (as a British minister did last week) "The banks are fucked, we're fucked, the country's fucked."

Iceland's government has fallen in this crisis. It will not be the last. Civil unrest is spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe and China, and there have been many predictions that it will strike in America before we're done. We've thrown trillions of dollars at the problem, close to 30 banks have failed (with hundreds or thousands more poised to fail at any moment), unemployment has been rising at over half a million per month, and still we are no closer to anything resembling a solution, or even a slowing in the bloodbath.

I'm not asking anyone to take this all on faith. Read both sides of these arguments. Then go back and read the counter-arguments. Read opinions that disagree with yours, read about subjects that you ordinarily would not. Rely as much as you can using direct evidence, or any statistics you can find. The reporting of statistics can be spun, but the raw numbers themselves do not lie. Obama was indisputably correct during his inaugural speech when he said "the time has come to set aside childish things." Stop watching "American Idol", or whatever mindless drivel masquerades as entertainment these days. Are you prepared to provide for yourself and your family should the grocery stores suddenly be empty of food- or closed due to bankruptcy? Or if water stops coming free from the tap, how will you conquer thirst?

Food banks around the country are reporting a 30% increase in demand, double the increase from six months ago. Last week, on Monday- in a single day- approximately 80,000 Americans lost their jobs, and the stock market rejoiced, if only briefly. That's 15% of the total loss for December, and it came in a single day. Where will you go for food when you have job, no money, and the food banks are empty? I hope you won't be part of the rising numbers of Americans taking their own lives.

For what it's worth, the government now admits that we have essentially ignored global warming for too long- it's now irreversible. The twin crises of global economic collapse and climate change are more interrelated than most people realize. In any case, it's too late to do much to solve either- the time has now come to focus on ways to mitigate the fallout. This is what collapse looks like. A slow-motion collapse is now occurring, and time is short for you to figure out how best to weather it.

As I said, rely on those whose predictions have been proven correct, not those who tell you comforting lies. Consider this from a 2006 Maclean's article:

And when the truth can no longer be obscured, the price will spike, the economy nosedive, and the underpinnings of our civilization will start tumbling like dominos. The U.S. -- Consumer No. 1 in the lingo of Leggett's book -- will be the most vulnerable, having allowed its citizens to pile up mountains of debt. "The price of houses will collapse. Stock markets will crash. Within a short period, human wealth -- little more than a pile of paper at the best of times, even with the confidence about the future high among traders -- will shrivel." There will be emergency summits, diplomatic initiatives, urgent exploration efforts, but the turmoil will not subside. Thousands of companies will go bankrupt, and millions will be unemployed. "Once affluent cities with street cafés will have queues at soup kitchens and armies of beggars. The crime rate will soar. The earth has always been a dangerous place, but now it will become a tinderbox."

By 2010, predicts Leggett, democracy will be on the run. As with the Great Depression, economic hardship will bring out the worst in people. Fascists will rise, feeding on the anger of the newly poor and whipping up support. These new rulers will find the tools of repression -- emergency laws, prison camps, a relaxed attitude toward torture -- already in place, courtesy of the war on terror. And if that scenario isn't nightmarish enough, Leggett predicts that "Big Oversight Number One" -- climate change -- will be simultaneously making its presence felt "with a vengeance." On the heels of their rapid financial ruin, people "will now watch aghast as their food and water supplies dwindle in the face of a climate seemingly going awry." Prolonged droughts will spread, decimating harvests. As oceans warm, fish catches "will fall off a cliff," and protein will become a luxury.

The first paragraph reads like recent history or current newspaper headlines (see hyperlinks for examples, or your local newspaper), the second paragraph is yet to come. If you wish, there are plenty of others out there that have made similar arguments. Contrast the words of these prophets with the statements of your politicians, you will find very little overlap, if any. One of these groups has been consistently correct, the other group repeats lame excuses that "nobody could have anticipated the reach, depth, or severity of the current crisis" and then proceeds to promise you a return to "normal" in short order, if you only vote for them or agree with their decision to throw trillions of dollars at the crisis.

How can I begin to explain to you the insanity of politicians? They advocate spending close to a trillion dollars in a stimulus package in which they argue that every $1 of stimulus results in $1.50 in economic growth. If that were true, then why not spend like this every day? Why not spend quadrillions of dollars, and make everyone in the US wealthy? Or why has nobody noticed that every four years we have this masturbatory celebration known as an election- new politicians come to power promising change, vowing to tackle corruption and to solve the really hard problems; and yet, nothing ever changes, corruption is endemic, and the really hard problems are only growing in severity? Frankly though, we're all to blame. We keep looking to them for solutions to problems that they caused in the first place. Well, those days are ending, soon they will no longer be able to pretend that they have solutions- in fact, you can hear that in their statements right now if you are paying attention. The word "unprecedented" is used all too frequently for them to really know what they are doing. Even economists seem eager to get the stimulus on, as it will solve for them the debate over whether fiscal stimulus really works or not. Although politicians worldwide seem to act as though that debate was already settled, in fact, it's not. And what are we to do if we throw trillions into this black hole, and it doesn't do anything after all? Is anyone even asking that question? The Wall Street Journal quotes Rahm Emanuel as saying, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before." This frank admission is chilling to anyone familiar with Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. In short, the frightened masses which would normally oppose this type of reckless endangerment of their fiscal health (not to mention that of their children and grandchildren) can be persuaded that "desperate times call for desperate measures." Left unsaid is the fact that the desperate measures will tend to benefit the upper class of society disproportionately.

Most of the masses take some comfort in the fact that doomsdayers have been wrong before, a point I freely grant. However, doomsayers only have to be correct once. Additionally, those who believed their empires would last forever have also been wrong-- 100% of the time, historically. As the great Roman society was poised on the brink of destruction, did anyone alive at the time really believe what was happening, did they recognize the signs for what they were? Or any of the great civilizations that have sprang up to dominate their world- Mayan, Incan, Egyptian, Norse- did any of them recognize the coming collapse? Clearly, not in time to prevent it. Are we any different?

Of course, the end of the world has been promised by Jews, Christians, Muslims and assorted crazies with sandwich boards for as long as there has been a human world to end. But those doomsdays were the product of faith; reason always used to say the world will continue. The point about the new apocalypse is that this situation has reversed. Now faith tells us we will be able to solve our problems; reason says we have no answers now and none are likely in the future. Perhaps we can't cure cancer because the problem is simply beyond our intellects. Perhaps we haven't flown to the stars because our biology and God's physics mean we never can. Perhaps we are close to the limit and the time of plenty is over.

The evidence is mounting that our two sunny centuries of growth and wealth may end in a new Dark Age in which ignorance will replace knowledge, war will replace peace, sickness will replace health and famine will replace obesity. You don't think so? It's always happened in the past. What makes us so different? Nothing, I'm afraid.

If we manage to escape the current crisis relatively unscathed, will we heed it for the warning sign it is? Jared Diamond's amazing book Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed poses an interesting question: What did the person on Easter Island who cut down the last tree think about as he was doing it? You see, deforestation was a major factor in the collapse of Easter Island society. Diamond spotlights several other once-mighty societies that collapsed because of their stupid, short-term, profligate use of natural resources. Put simply, they used their resources until they were gone, and then they died. Their societies crumbled surprisingly quickly, often within only decades from reaching their peak. There is nothing to suggest that American society is any different, or has learned the lessons of the past. Quoting Diamond:

"One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations collapse. Few people, however, least of all our politicians, realize that a primary cause of the collapse of those societies has been the destruction of the natural resources on which they depend. Fewer still appreciate that many of those civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society's demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power."

If we assume this is not the great collapse, then it will certainly arrive within decades if we continue on our current path, and probably even if we make radical changes. The deniers have been far too successful, and we are utterly unprepared for the implications. They have postponed action on the most pressing of problems, citing potential damage to the economy (which after all, must continue to grow, at all costs). Well, they've succeeded, and gained the ultimate pyrrhic victory. The economy is now in the process of being destroyed, and it's too late to solve the environmental problems we will be facing. Scientific consensus is now that the human race, if not all life on Earth, will go extinct within the next 100 years. It takes a bit of connecting the dots, but they are all well-regarded scientific studies. Or, if you choose not to believe that one, how about the NASA scientist and climate expert that says Obama has only 4 years to save planet earth? I, for one, am not optimistic that he can muster the will to do so, even if we grant that it's not yet too late.

In any case, I am not going to be spending much more time chronicling this collapse. I'm definitely done posting about political and economic corruption within the US, as there are far too many articles and I have too little time. I urge you to spend whatever time and resources you can muster in preparing yourself for what's to come. I am not going to point you in the direction of "recommended reading" or some similar list. If you are interested, you can find such information on your own, but I suspect that most of you are not interested enough to even try. Pity, but consider this parting thought: before the rise of the age of oil (a mere two centuries ago), the earth was able to support approximately 1 billion people. There are now approximately 6.7 billion. If there is the slightest chance that any of our most respected scientists are correct then the coming wars, pandemics, droughts, famine, and extreme weather are set to reduce that number dramatically, if not totally erase it. Mankind has proven itself to be a parasite, remorselessly feeding on the resources of our host planet. Like a parasite, we may just be killing ourselves along with our host. Or perhaps a cancer is an apt description- growing exponentially, eventually choking out and destroying the healthy parts until the whole organism dies.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to read my postings over the past year or two, and I'm very sincerely wishing you good luck.

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

It's not going to be OK

I'm finding it difficult to have much to say about this article. For once, I don't have anything to criticize. I thought I might be able to pick on the reporter himself, but he's impeccably credentialed, as far as I can tell.

It’s Not Going to Be OK

Posted on Feb 2, 2009

AP Photo / Nikolas Giakoumidis

Riots have spread across Europe since the economic crisis began. Here, Greek riot police stand near a burning car.

By Chris Hedges

The daily bleeding of thousands of jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political crisis. The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled France, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Iceland will descend on us. It is only a matter of time. And not much time. When things start to go sour, when Barack Obama is exposed as a mortal waving a sword at a tidal wave, the United States could plunge into a long period of precarious social instability.

At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or has the possibility of totalitarianism been as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. And poverty and despair will sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future. There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has collapsed.

How will we cope with our decline? Will we cling to the absurd dreams of a superpower and a glorious tomorrow or will we responsibly face our stark new limitations? Will we heed those who are sober and rational, those who speak of a new simplicity and humility, or will we follow the demagogues and charlatans who rise up out of the slime in moments of crisis to offer fantastic visions? Will we radically transform our system to one that protects the ordinary citizen and fosters the common good, that defies the corporate state, or will we employ the brutality and technology of our internal security and surveillance apparatus to crush all dissent? We won’t have to wait long to find out.

There are a few isolated individuals who saw it coming. The political philosophers Sheldon S. Wolin, John Ralston Saul and Andrew Bacevich, as well as writers such as Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, David Korten and Naomi Klein, along with activists such as Bill McKibben and Ralph Nader, rang the alarm bells. They were largely ignored or ridiculed. Our corporate media and corporate universities proved, when we needed them most, intellectually and morally useless.

Wolin, who taught political philosophy at the University of California in Berkeley and at Princeton, in his book “Democracy Incorporated” uses the phrase inverted totalitarianism to describe our system of power. Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds its expression in the anonymity of the corporate state. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism and the Constitution while cynically manipulating internal levers to subvert and thwart democratic institutions. Political candidates are elected in popular votes by citizens, but they must raise staggering amounts of corporate funds to compete. They are beholden to armies of corporate lobbyists in Washington or state capitals who write the legislation. A corporate media controls nearly everything we read, watch or hear and imposes a bland uniformity of opinion or diverts us with trivia and celebrity gossip. In classical totalitarian regimes, such as Nazi fascism or Soviet communism, economics was subordinate to politics. “Under inverted totalitarianism the reverse is true,” Wolin writes. “Economics dominates politics—and with that domination comes different forms of ruthlessness.”

I reached Wolin, 86, by phone at his home about 25 miles north of San Francisco. He was a bombardier in the South Pacific during World War II and went to Harvard after the war to get his doctorate. Wolin has written classics such as “Politics and Vision” and “Tocqueville Between Two Worlds.” His newest book is one of the most important and prescient critiques to date of the American political system. He is also the author of a series of remarkable essays on Augustine of Hippo, Richard Hooker, David Hume, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Max Weber, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx and John Dewey. His voice, however, has faded from public awareness because, as he told me, “it is harder and harder for people like me to get a public hearing.” He said that publications, such as The New York Review of Books, which often published his work a couple of decades ago, lost interest in his critiques of American capitalism, his warnings about the subversion of democratic institutions and the emergence of the corporate state. He does not hold out much hope for Obama.

“The basic systems are going to stay in place; they are too powerful to be challenged,” Wolin told me when I asked him about the new Obama administration. “This is shown by the financial bailout. It does not bother with the structure at all. I don’t think Obama can take on the kind of military establishment we have developed. This is not to say that I do not admire him. He is probably the most intelligent president we have had in decades. I think he is well meaning, but he inherits a system of constraints that make it very difficult to take on these major power configurations. I do not think he has the appetite for it in any ideological sense. The corporate structure is not going to be challenged. There has not been a word from him that would suggest an attempt to rethink the American imperium.”

Wolin argues that a failure to dismantle our vast and overextended imperial projects, coupled with the economic collapse, is likely to result in inverted totalitarianism. He said that without “radical and drastic remedies” the response to mounting discontent and social unrest will probably lead to greater state control and repression. There will be, he warned, a huge “expansion of government power.”

“Our political culture has remained unhelpful in fostering a democratic consciousness,” he said. “The political system and its operatives will not be constrained by popular discontent or uprisings.”

Wolin writes that in inverted totalitarianism consumer goods and a comfortable standard of living, along with a vast entertainment industry that provides spectacles and diversions, keep the citizenry politically passive. I asked if the economic collapse and the steady decline in our standard of living might not, in fact, trigger classical totalitarianism. Could widespread frustration and poverty lead the working and middle classes to place their faith in demagogues, especially those from the Christian right?

“I think that’s perfectly possible,” he answered. “That was the experience of the 1930s. There wasn’t just FDR. There was Huey Long and Father Coughlin. There were even more extreme movements including the Klan. The extent to which those forces can be fed by the downturn and bleakness is a very real danger. It could become classical totalitarianism.”

He said the widespread political passivity is dangerous. It is often exploited by demagogues who pose as saviors and offer dreams of glory and salvation. He warned that “the apoliticalness, even anti-politicalness, will be very powerful elements in taking us towards a radically dictatorial direction. It testifies to how thin the commitment to democracy is in the present circumstances. Democracy is not ascendant. It is not dominant. It is beleaguered. The extent to which young people have been drawn away from public concerns and given this extraordinary range of diversions makes it very likely they could then rally to a demagogue.”

Wolin lamented that the corporate state has successfully blocked any real debate about alternative forms of power. Corporations determine who gets heard and who does not, he said. And those who critique corporate power are given no place in the national dialogue.

“In the 1930s there were all kinds of alternative understandings, from socialism to more extensive governmental involvement,” he said. “There was a range of different approaches. But what I am struck by now is the narrow range within which palliatives are being modeled. We are supposed to work with the financial system. So the people who helped create this system are put in charge of the solution. There has to be some major effort to think outside the box.”

“The puzzle to me is the lack of social unrest,” Wolin said when I asked why we have not yet seen rioting or protests. He said he worried that popular protests will be dismissed and ignored by the corporate media. This, he said, is what happened when tens of thousands protested the war in Iraq. This will permit the state to ruthlessly suppress local protests, as happened during the Democratic and Republic conventions. Anti-war protests in the 1960s gained momentum from their ability to spread across the country, he noted. This, he said, may not happen this time. “The ways they can isolate protests and prevent it from [becoming] a contagion are formidable,” he said.

“My greatest fear is that the Obama administration will achieve relatively little in terms of structural change,” he added. “They may at best keep the system going. But there is a growing pessimism. Every day we hear how much longer the recession will continue. They are already talking about beyond next year. The economic difficulties are more profound than we had guessed and because of globalization more difficult to deal with. I wish the political establishment, the parties and leadership, would become more aware of the depths of the problem. They can’t keep throwing money at this. They have to begin structural changes that involve a very different approach from a market economy. I don’t think this will happen.”

“I keep asking why and how and when this country became so conservative,” he went on. “This country once prided itself on its experimentation and flexibility. It has become rigid. It is probably the most conservative of all the advanced countries.”

The American left, he said, has crumbled. It sold out to a bankrupt Democratic Party, abandoned the working class and has no ability to organize. Unions are a spent force. The universities are mills for corporate employees. The press churns out info-entertainment or fatuous pundits. The left, he said, no longer has the capacity to be a counterweight to the corporate state. He said that if an extreme right gains momentum there will probably be very little organized resistance.

“The left is amorphous,” he said. “I despair over the left. Left parties may be small in number in Europe but they are a coherent organization that keeps going. Here, except for Nader’s efforts, we don’t have that. We have a few voices here, a magazine there, and that’s about it. It goes nowhere.”

Embrace the cause of liberty!

Politics is the science of liberty: man's government of his fellow-man, no matter the name under which it lurks, is oppression: society's highest perfection lies in the marriage of order and anarchy.
The end of the old civilization is nigh: under a new sun, the face of the earth is going to be remade. Let us leave a generation to die out; let us leave the old prevaricators to perish in the desert--the blessed earth will not cover their bones. Young man, outraged by the corruption of the times and consumed by a yearning for justice--if you hold your country dear, and have any feeling for the interests of humanity--make bold and embrace the cause of liberty. Strip off your ancient selfishness and immerse yourself in the popular tide of nascent equality. There, your rehydrated soul can drink deep of a sap an an unknown vigor: your wit, gone flabby, will recover irrepressible energy; your heart--even now shriveled perhaps--will be rejuvenated. Your purified eyes will see everything in a new light: new sentiments will inspire new thoughts in you; religion, morality, poetry, art, language, will loom taller and more beautiful; and, certain then of your faith, thoughtfully enthusiastic, you will greet the dawning of universal regeneration.

Proudhon, from Property is Theft

Riots continue in Iceland

As I noted here December 23rd, riots and violent protests were disrupting Iceland, a country not known for these types of actions. Admittedly, the economic situation there is much worse (currently) than in the United States, but perhaps not for long. The Icelandic current account deficit is currently 22% of GDP, vs. 7% for US; the Icelandic GDP is forecast to decline by 9.6% for 2009- a number nobody is contemplating for the US. Inflation in Iceland is rampant, while deflation has taken hold in America.

However, there are several parallels worth noting. Iceland is forecasting a rise in the unemployment rate to 7.8% in 2009 (a number the US would be lucky to maintain in the face of steeply mounting layoffs and business closures). Iceland's currency has lost more than half its value, which is certainly not unforeseeable in the future for the US. But more than just the numbers, the story certainly sounds familiar to those of us in the United States. From The Guardian:

The fault is clearly shared between the business elite and the government, which failed to regulate the newly privatised financial sector, allowing a few incompetent and egotistical business tycoons to gamble with the nation's fortune. And yet neither the government nor the bankers – who, by the way, seem to have disappeared into the cold thin air – see anything wrong with their own behaviour.

The governor of the central bank blames the risk-seeking bankers, the bankers blame the government and the prime minister attributes the whole crisis to the international credit crunch. This lack of any sense of responsibility has angered the Icelandic public to the extent that they have turned to the streets in greater numbers than ever before.

Sound familiar? Do you hear anyone in American politics or banking accepting responsibility?

From the Huffington Post:

Thomas Jefferson wrote in the American Declaration of Independence that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed [and] whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government." As the protesters fight to enforce that right, in this county that has known no war for generations, that has not seen violent conflict among its citizens for centuries, we must ponder what could be.

Today, as the United States makes a fundamental shift in direction, Iceland is tearing itself apart. The peaceful transition of power we watched in Washington following a fiercely contested election is a symbol of hope to us. The competent confidence and inspiring rhetoric of Barack Obama have rallied the vast majority of Americans behind him to face the myriad challenges all around us. The arrogance and obliviousness of Iceland's ruling elite has had the opposite effect.

Once again, I sincerely hope that I am wrong about the direction we are headed. However, the way I see it, he stimulus package cannot stand up to the kind of fiscal devastation that has been unleashed around the planet, nor can the TARP (or TARP 2.0, 3.0, etc... which are surely going to be coming). Please consider what could happen here if the results that people expect from the incoming administration fail to live up to the expectations engendered by the utterly non-specific rhetoric of "hope", and "change", and "yes, we can". What happens if we simply cannot? Once more, from The Guardian:

It is the first time in Icelandic history that a young anarchist can well expect to meet his grandmother in the crowd demonstrating against the government and drumming with her kitchen knife on pots and pans. The government is surely hanging by a thin thread and might fall at any moment.

The Icelandic public fear that their country has virtually been stolen by the globetrotting business elite that spent more time rubbing shoulders with international high society than giving back to the society that enabled them to enjoy this privileged lifestyle. Now ordinary Icelanders are determined to take their country back.

Happy Inauguration Day

I stole the graphic from Nostate.com, a page run by an anarchist that has just renounced his American citizenship. Kudos to him! As a commenter there pointed out, perhaps "Stooge" isn't exactly the right word, given how complicit Obama is in being the ruling class, so make up your own mind.
As an atheist, I don't see why prayer has to be part of a government function at all, but as prayers go, this one is decent. I like a lot of the sentiments there, but asking an invisible skydaddy to give you tolerance, compassion, etc... tends to absolve one of the responsibility to research those things on your own.

You may have heard the controversy over the bigot Rick Warren being invited to give the invocation. Subsequently, Gene Robinson was invited to give a prayer to open the whole inaugural event, and here's what he prayed:

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Cynicism and the electorate

David Sirota has done some really excellent reporting on the massive theft....errr... "bailout". Today he highlights one senator that criticized the bailout to get elected, then turned around and voted for it yesterday. Sirota opines:

When politicians campaign on populist themes, and then weeks later quite literally vote for the bills they attacked, it makes a mockery out of our democracy. It tells the American people that those representing us think representative democracy - with its campaigns, and promises to voters - is a laughingstock. And what we end up getting are policies that turn our economy into a laughingstock whereby those at the top guffaw their way to the bank, while the rest of us are the butt of the joke.

And so the reason to be disgusted with this kind of vote - whether it comes from Merkley, the Udall brothers or anyone else - has as much to do with the bailout being awful policy as it does with leaders defiling the very political process they are a part of. When that happens thousands of times over the course of many years (as it has in this last decade), it sows the kind of deep cynicism that erodes the public's foundational confidence in its own government.

The only question left is why do people keep voting? What recourse do you have now? As a voter, you thought you were getting someone who was going to vote the way he said he would- silly rabbit! Now you have to wait another 4 years before you can vote him out, and get someone else who is going to tell you appealing lies during the campaign, then ignore you once they are safely in office. Consider the following:

A central question that any voter who claims to wish to be informed must ask is: why is this man’s name on the ballot?

The standard answer is that he has a vision to fix the neighborhood, the city, or the country, and so he has nobly dedicated his life to public service, and needs your vote so that he can begin fixing the problem. He is a pragmatic idealist who knows that compromises must be made, but who can still make tangible improvements in your life.

Of course, this is all pure nonsense, as we can well see from the fact that things in a
democracy always get worse, not better. Standards of living decline, national debt explodes, household debt increases, educational achivements plummet, poverty rates increase, incarceration rates increase, unfunded liabilities skyrocket – and yet, election after election, the sheep run to the polls and feverishly scribble their hopes on to the ballots, certain that this time, everything will turn around! (For those reading this in the future, we are currently right in the middle of “Obama-mania.”)

The question remains – why is this man on the ballot?

We all know that it takes an enormous amount of money and influence to run for any kind of substantial office. The central question is, then: why do people give money to a candidate? I’m not talking about a national presidential campaign, where obviously people give a lot of money to the candidate in the hopes of giving him power to achieve some sort of shared goals and so on.

No, I mean: where does the money to get started even come from?

Why would pharmaceutical companies, aerospace companies, engineering companies,
manufacturing companies, farmers, and public-sector unions and so on give money and support to a candidate? Clearly, these groups are not handing out cash for purely idealistic reasons, since they are in the business of making money, at least for their members. Thus they must be giving money to potential candidates in return for political favors down the road – preferential treatment, tax breaks, tariff restrictions on competitors, government contracts etc.

In other words, any candidate that you get to vote for must have already been bought and paid for by others. Does this sound like an odd and cynical assertion? Perhaps – but it is very easy to figure out if a candidate has been bought and paid for.
Candidates will always talk in stirring tones about “sacrifice” and so on, but you surely must have noticed by now that no candidate ever talks specifically about the spending that he is going to cut. You never hear him say that he is going to balance the budget by cutting the spending of X, Y or Z. Everything is either couched in abstract terms, or specific promises to specific groups. (At the moment, the current fetish – in leftist circles – is to pretend that 47 million Americans can get “free” healthcare if the government lowers the tax breaks on a few billionaires.)

In other words, if you don’t see anyone else’s head on the chopping block, that is because it is your head on the chopping block. Of course, if the government really wanted to help the economy at the expense of some very rich people, it would simply annul the national debt – in effect, declare bankruptcy, and start all over again.
Why does it not do this? Why does it never even approach this topic? We have seen price controls on a variety of goods and services over the past few generations – why not simply place a moratorium on paying interest on the national debt, at least for the time being? Well, the simple answer is that the government simply cannot survive without a constant infusion of loans, largely from foreign lenders. This is a bit of a clue for you as to how important your vote really is, and how concerned your leaders are about your personal and particular issues – relative to, say, those of foreign lenders.

Ah, you might argue, but why would a pharmaceutical company, say, give money to a
potential candidate, since no deal can possibly be put down in writing, and that potential candidate might well take the money, and then just not take the calls from that pharmaceutical company when he or she gets into power?

Well, this is a distinct possibility, of course, but it has a relatively simple solution.
When a candidate is interested in taking a run at any reasonably high office, he goes around to various places and asks for money. When you ask someone for a few thousand dollars, naturally, his first question is going to be: “What are you going to do for me in return?”

Early on in any particular political race, there are quite a number of candidates. Anyone who wants to donate money to a political candidate in the hopes of gaining political favors down the road is only going to do so if he believes that the candidate will fulfill the unwritten obligation – the “anti-social contract,” if you like.
In politics, as in business, credibility is efficiency. Those who have built up reputations for keeping their promises end up being able to do business on a handshake, which keeps their costs down considerably. No new person entering a field will have the credibility or track record to be able to achieve this enviable efficiency, and so will have to earn it over the course of many years.

Thus we know for certain that when a company gives money to a political candidate, in the expectation of return favors in the future, that political candidate already has an excellent track record of doing just that. This kind of information will have been passed around certain communities – “Joe X is a man of his word!” – just as the reliability of a drug dealer and the quality of his product is passed around in certain other communities.

Thus we know that any candidate who receives significant funding from special interest groups is a man who has consistently proven his “integrity to corruptibility” in the past – for if he has no track record, or an inconsistent track record, no one will give him money to get started. (Just as a side note, this is a very interesting example of exactly why anarchism will work – we do not need the state to enforce contracts, since the state itself functions on implicit contracts that can never be legally enforced.)

In other words, whenever you see a name on the ballot, you can be completely certain that that name represents a man who has already been bought and paid for over the course of many years, and that those who have paid for him do not have, let us say, your best interests at heart.

But we can go one step further.

Since all the money that moves around in a political system must come from somewhere – the millions of dollars that are given to the sugar farmers must come from taxpayers – we can be sure that just about every benefit that special interest groups seek to gain comes at your expense. Pharmaceutical companies want an extension on their patents so they can charge you more money. Domestic steel companies want to increase barriers against imported steel so they can charge you more money. If a government union wants additional benefits, that will cost you. If the police want to expand the war on drugs, that will cost you security, safety and money. Whoever strives to benefit from the public purse has their hand groping towards your pocket.

Thus it is perfectly fair and reasonable to remind you that every name that you see on the ballot is diametrically opposed to your particular and personal interests, since they have been paid for by people who want to rob you blind.

Another aspect of “democricide” is the inevitable and constant escalation of public
spending necessary to achieve or maintain political power. Let us take the example of a mayor running for his second term. When he was running for his first term, sewage treatment workers donated $20,000 to his campaign, and in return he granted them a 10% raise. Now that he is running for his second term, and cannot give them another 10% raise, they have no reason to donate to his campaign. Thus he either has
to offer the sewage treatment workers some other benefit, or he has to create some new program or benefit which he can dangle in front of some new group, in order to secure their donations. This is why political candidates always announce new spending when they throw their hats into the ring – the new spending is the rather unsubtle promise of benefits which will be granted to those who donate to his campaign. A new stadium, a new convention center, a new bridge, a new arts program, new housing projects, highway expansions and so on – all of these inevitably and permanently raise the “high water mark” of governmental spending, and are an absolute requirement of running for office. Now, our aforementioned sewage treatment workers would of course prefer a permanent 10% raise rather than a one-time cash bonus. Thus they will always try to negotiate a permanent contract rather than continue to be at the mercy of the will and whim of their
political masters.

As this process continues, the proportion of non-discretionary spending in any political budget grows and grows. This is another reason why new spending initiatives must always be created in order to secure new donations. Money cannot be shifted from one area to another, because it has permanently been earmarked for a particular group in return for a one-time political contribution in the past.
If the mayor who is running for his second term decides to attempt to roll back the 10% raise, in order to free up money which he can then offer to someone else in return for campaign contributions, he would be committing political suicide. He would be breaking a freely-signed contract, sticking it to the working man, and provoking a very smelly strike – but for his own particular self-interest, the effects would be even worse.

Remember, people will donate to a political campaign based on an implicit contract of
future rewards from the public treasury. If a candidate attempts to “roll back” benefits that he has distributed previously in return for donations, not only will he incur the wrath of the existing special-interest group, but he will be revealed as a man who breaks his implicit and unenforceable “contracts.” Since this candidate can no longer be relied upon to give public money back to those who donate to his campaign, he will find that his campaign donations dry up almost immediately, and his political career comes to an abrupt end.

Of course, ex-politicians are highly prized as lobbyists as well, but if this mayor breaks faith with a donator, he will no longer be valuable in that capacity either, and will forego significant income in his post-political career.

Finally, any political candidate who has channeled public money to past donators faces the problem of blackmail. If he attempts to cross any of his prior supporters, mysterious leaks to the press will start to emerge, talking about the sleazy backroom deals that got him in power – thus also effectively ending his political career. All the other candidates will piously deride his cynical corruption, while of course making their own sleazy backroom deals in turn.
(It is highly instructive to note that two well-known fictional portrayals of the political campaign process – “The West Wing” and “The Wire” – repeatedly portray the candidate begging for money, but never once show why he receives it – the motives of his donors. The reason for this is simple: they wish to portray an idealistic politician, and so they cannot possibly reveal the reasons why people are giving him money. If the fictional story were to follow the inevitable “laws” of democracy, the storyline would be abruptly truncated, or the lead character would be revealed as far less sympathetic. The candidate would ask for money, and then the potential donor would indicate the favor he wanted in return. Then, the candidate would either refuse, thus ending his campaign for lack of funds – or he would
agree, thus ending any real sympathy we have for him. This basic truth – like so many in a statist society – can never be discussed, even on a show like “The Wire,” which has little problem revealing corruption everywhere else. A policeman can be shown breaking a child’s fingers, but the true nature of the political process must be forever hidden…)

Thus we can see that – at least at the level of economics – democracy is a sort of slowmotion suicide, in which you are told that it is the highest civic virtue to approve of those who want to rob you.

Oakland to fire 11 cops in search warrant case

Is it shocking to anyone that cops have been lying to obtain warrants? Especially in Oakland, California (site of the recent murder of unarmed and detained Oscar Grant at the hands of the police).

In this case, 2 sergeants and 9 officers are about to be terminated for lying to obtain search warrants. Is everyone clear what a lie is? It's when you tell something that isn't true. I only ask because the attorney for the cops apparently doesn't understand what the issue is here. Mary Sansen, the attorney for the officers, says they weren't trained on how to properly fill out an affidavit.

"The fact that I have anybody who's being terminated over this case is just simply outrageous," Sansen said. "Some of my officers have routinely been denied any form of training. I have clients who are writing search warrants who have never been to search-writing school, who have been expected to pick up as they go."

OK, I guess we're supposed to believe that training is the issue, it's not lying. When the cops told the judge that substances seized from suspects "had been identified by the Oakland police crime lab as narcotics", the judge gave them a warrant. But those statements were LIES. It doesn't matter if they didn't fill out the form correctly, what matters is that THEY WERE LYING. I don't care if they've never been to "seach-writing school", whatever the fuck that is, but I do care that THEY WERE DELIBERATELY LYING in order to get warrants that were not supported by the evidence.

Related Stories:

• 98% of Emergency Room doctors believe they've treated patients who were victims of excessive force by police. Ninety-eight percent!?!?!!! That's a staggering number. 95% report treating injuries caused by fists and feet. "Unlike cases of suspected domestic violence, elderly abuse and child abuse, which doctors must report to authorities, physicians are not required to notify anyone of suspected excessive force by police." How convenient, one law for us, and no laws for them.
• An Oakland man has stepped forward, saying that he is also a victim of police brutality at the hands of former-officer Johannes Mehserle. Mehserle was the pig who shot unarmed, defenseless, prostrate Oscar Grant in the back while another officer kneeled on his neck. Disturbing video of the execution can be seen here.
  

Another Anarchist tidbit

"Anarchism, more than any other social theory, values human life above things. All Anarchists agree with Tolstoy in this fundamental truth: if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life. That, however, nowise indicates that Anarchism teaches submission. How can it, when it knows that all suffering, all misery, all ills result from the evil of submission?
Has not some American ancestor said, many years ago, that resistance to tyranny is obedience to God? And he was not an Anarchist even. I would say that resistance to tyranny is man's highest ideal. So long as tyranny exists, in whatever form, man's deepest aspiration must resist it as inevitably as man must breathe."

--Emma Goldman

Riots: Coming to America? Part 2

As I mentioned in my last post, rising levels of inequality in the US are feeding a growing sense of discontent. Bloomberg.com had a couple of items on the front page mirroring what I'm talking about.

The first discusses the hatred for billionaire Stephen Feinberg, founder of Cerberus Capital-- the company that's in the news lately for trying to give away their share of Chrysler for free. (So far, there are no takers).

As CEO of a $26 billion company, Feinberg has a net worth of about $1 billion, according to Forbes Magazine’s 2008 list. Brukardt made $24 an hour, or about $80,000 last year including overtime. Brukardt said he owes $160,000 on the mortgage for his five-bedroom duplex on College Avenue in Appleton, Wisconsin, and he doesn’t know how long he can keep making payments.

Sound's like a classic example of the type of inequality we're discussing.

“There’s a pent-up anger wherever I travel,” said Leo Gerard, president of the Pittsburgh-based United Steelworkers, which represents 1.2 million members, including the Kimberly mill workers. “People feel very much like they’re being screwed. I really think you’ll see tens of thousands of people if not hundreds of thousands taking to the streets and protesting across the country.”

...

As unemployment grows, displaced workers are starting to protest. In Chicago, employees of Republic Windows & Doors occupied a factory earlier this month after Bank of America Corp. of Charlotte, North Carolina, forced the company out of business by cutting its credit line. Bank of America and New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co., a part-owner of Republic Windows, agreed Dec. 10 to a $1.75 million loan to cover the severance pay of 240 employees.

“With nothing left to lose, militancy gave them their one hope,” said Harley Shaikin, a labor relations professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “We’ll see more rather than less of this.”

The second article focuses on Iceland, where the banking collapse is stirring unrest:

The fallout in Iceland may presage civil disruptions elsewhere, as job losses multiply and credit bills come due. Few nations can count themselves safe, says Ian Bremmer, president of the New York-based Eurasia Group, which analyzes political risk for businesses.

“As people have their expectations changed radically, you can have protests come out of nowhere,” even in developed countries, Bremmer said.

Riots in Greece this month, sparked by the police shooting of a teenager, became tinged with economic dissension. A group of Kuwaiti equity traders marched on the emir’s office in October to demand the closing of the stock exchange to stem losses. Even in U.S. cities, civil disorder is “conceivable” if unemployment rises above 10 percent from November’s 6.7 percent, Bremmer says.

Hauksdottir, the owner of a Reykjavik witchcraft shop, says over a cup of thyme and juniper tea that only civil disobedience can force banks to stop collecting debts that people can’t pay.

“We’ll use our voices, and then if we have to we’ll use our hands, and maybe axes,” Hauksdottir says.

...

The protests may escalate as bills come due and severance pay runs out for those who lost jobs at the three biggest lenders, including Landsbanki, the second-largest, says Stefan Palsson, a historian. He once led the Campaign Against Militarism, opposing NATO bases in the 1960s.

He said he’s surprised ordinary people are backing activists once considered “hooligans.” There was public outrage three years ago when environmentalists poured yogurt over aluminum representatives to protest a new plant.

“Now you have protesters kicking down doors at police stations, and respectable elderly people saying ‘Well, they’re young and full of enthusiasm, and anyway, they’re right!’” he said.

Military urges preparations for widespread civil disorder

(source, see also here for some stunning photos)

(T)here are some risks to national security which . . . can be conceived, but not predicted or fully anticipated. Because they cannot be anticipated, such events are very difficult to plan for effectively. At least two reasons apply. First, by their very nature, these events alter the international system by their reversal of significant trends, thereby undermining the facts upon which future planning is built. Second, many of these events fall outside the scope of traditional or permitted defense planning.
— Sam J. Tangredi (p. 4)

The above quotation was cited in a new report from the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Institute entitled "Known Unknowns: Unconventional “STRATEGIC SHOCKS” in Defense Strategy Development", authored by (Ret.) Lt. Col. Nathan Freir. In the report, Freir "targets the incoming senior defense team" (p.2) and urges preparations for "strategic shocks", defined as

events that, if they occur, would make a big difference to the future, force decisionmakers to challenge their own assumptions of how the world works, and require hard choices today. (p. 5)

Frankly, I'm terrified at the implications in the report, especially given the rapid build-up of combat troops within our borders, as well as the increasingly frequent speculations that the U.S. may be facing new wars for secession or some other revolutionary action (including food riots). The Washington Post reports that the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is warning "in only slightly veiled terms that violent protest may erupt on a global scale if governments continue to provide inadequate or confused responses to what could quickly become 'a global depression' in 2009. "(emphasis mine). In fact, Strauss-Kahn explicitly included "advanced economies" in his warning.

Riots have already broken out in Greece, Russia, China, and the situation looks increasingly unstable elsewhere. An internal Citigroup memo obtained by The Telegraph urges clients to buy gold and speculates that the steps taken by the world's financial authorities are a "gamble" and "likely to end in one of two extreme ways: with either a resurgence of inflation; or a downward spiral into depression, civil disorder, and possibly wars." (Telegraph's phrasing, not in the original memo). Police and Sheriff's Departments in Arizona say they're prepared for civil disorder, Janet Napolitano's (Obama's pick for head of Homeland Security) office declined to comment.

Perhaps this type of civil unrest in the US seems improbable now, but Obama is promising that things "will get worse before it gets better" and recovery "will take longer than any of us would like -- years, not months." In the same article, Biden is quoted as saying "There is no short run other than keeping the economy from absolutely tanking. That's the only short run." I genuinely and sincerely hope that they have answers to solve this crisis that have so far eluded governments around the world. But if they don't, and unemployment goes to 15%, 20%, or 25%, or if China dumps their foreign reserves (as they are starting to threaten, and which would cause the dollar to become essentially worthless), or if the trillions of dollars being helicoptered into the economy are not withdrawn in time and massive inflation takes hold (again, making the dollar essentially worthless), then it's not too hard to imagine that millions of people that are suddenly unable to buy food, or medicine, or anything would take to the streets to demand the government start to take care of them for a change.

Consider the following quotations from the report (all emphases mine):

The current administration confronted a game-changing “strategic shock” inside its first 8 months in office. The next administration would be well-advised to expect the same during the course of its first term. p.2

Unconventional security challenges lie substantially outside the realm of traditional warfighting. They are routinely nonmilitary in origin and character. Yet, nonmilitary, in this context, does not necessarily mean nonviolent, nonstate, or disordered and unorganized. p.3

Indeed, future purposeful shocks are likeliest to come when state and nonstate competitors learn to effectively circumvent traditional U.S. military overmatch, employing non-military means as war. They will leverage politics, economics, hostile social action, and discriminating nonmilitary violence in innovative combinations. As a result, traditional U.S. military advantages will be sidelined not by breakthrough military technology or concepts, but by the simple absence of a legitimate causus belli. p.16 [sic- casus belli or "justification for acts of war"]

The most challenging defense-relevant shocks might emerge from adverse conditions endemic to the environment itself. This is made more certain by the unguided forces of globalization, toxic populism, identity politics, underdevelopment, human/natural disaster, and disease. In the end, shocks emerging from contextual threats might challenge core U.S. interests more fundamentally than any number of prospective purposeful shocks. This is especially true given the degree to which threats of context remain unconsidered or, at a minimum, undervalued in contemporary defense planning and decisionmaking. p. 16

Threats of context might include but are not limited to contagious un- and under-governance; civil violence; the swift catastrophic onset of consequential natural, environmental, and/or human disaster; a rapidly expanding and uncontrolled transregional epidemic; and the sudden crippling instability or collapse of a large and important state. Indeed, pushing at the boundaries of current convention, it would be prudent to add catastrophic dislocation inside the United States or homegrown domestic civil disorder and/or violence to this category as well. p. 17

By way of example, realist calculation indicates that epidemics and widespread civil violence might be tolerable in some parts of the world. Shock would result if these occurred inside the United States or inside a key strategic partner to such an extent that they forced DoD to radically re-role for domestic security, population control, consequence management, and stabilization. p. 18

Violent, Strategic Dislocation Inside the United States.
As a community, the defense establishment swears to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. DoD’s role in combating “domestic enemies” has never been thoughtfully examined. Thus, there is perhaps no greater source of strategic shock for DoD than operationalizing that component of the oath of service in a widespread domestic emergency that entails rapid dissolution of public order in all or significant parts of the United States.
While likely not an immediate prospect, this is clearly a “Black Swan” that merits some visibility inside DoD and the Department of Homeland Security. To the extent events like this involve organized violence against local, state, and national authorities and exceed the capacity of the former two to restore public order and protect vulnerable populations, DoD would be required to fill the gap. This is largely uncharted strategic territory.
Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security. Deliberate employment of weapons of mass destruction or other catastrophic capabilities, unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters are all paths to disruptive domestic shock.
An American government and defense establishment lulled into complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to rapidly divest some or most external security commitments in order to address rapidly expanding human insecurity at home. Already predisposed to defer to the primacy of civilian authorities in instances of domestic security and divest all but the most extreme demands in areas like civil support and consequence management, DoD might be forced by circumstances to put its broad resources at the disposal of civil authorities to contain and
reverse violent threats to domestic tranquility. Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance.
A whole host of long-standing defense conventions would be severely tested. Under these conditions and at their most violent extreme, civilian authorities, on advice of the defense establishment, would need to rapidly determine the parameters defining the legitimate use of military force inside the United States. Further still, the whole concept of conflict termination and/or transition to the primacy of civilian security institutions would be uncharted ground. DoD is already challenged by stabilization abroad. Imagine the challenges associated with doing so on a massive scale at home. p. 31-33

Big Brother is listening! And watching...

Is the government listening to you? How would you know? As it turns out, you wouldn't.

The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone."

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone--all without the owner knowing it happened. (The FBI declined to comment on Friday.)

"If a phone has in fact been modified to act as a bug, the only way to counteract that is to either have a bugsweeper follow you around 24-7, which is not practical, or to peel the battery off the phone," Atkinson said. Security-conscious corporate executives routinely remove the batteries from their cell phones, he added.

I am uncomfortable with this technology, mostly because of the incremental way in which these changes come. At first, we are assured that it's only to be used against criminals and terrorists, but then we find out that it's used against everyone: soldiers, journalists, aid workers, even foreign leaders. Those on the right will argue, "If you're not doing anything wrong, then you shouldn't have anything to hide." Everyone else realizes that it's a clear example of the government overstepping the boundaries that once prevented us from calling our government "tyrannical". Sadly, since the advent of the Patriot Act, those boundaries are mostly gone.

It's not only cell-phones by the way. This surveillance is possible everywhere, making George Orwell's 1984 frighteningly prescient. Does your vehicle come with On-star? If so, it also comes with FBI. Does your computer have a webcam? How about the internet- ever use that? Walk down any street and keep a count of how many surveillance cameras you see. Do you have a passport? Have you ever made statements critical of governmental policy? Then you may find yourself in a situation like these Americans- entered into a database of terrorism suspects. And for nothing more than being outspoken against the death penalty, being anti-war, and/or being pro-environment. Regardless of how you feel about those issues, think about how it would apply in your case. Because unless you consistently agree with the government, then you are a potential target. These are not violent criminals being surveilled, they are ordinary citizens that disagree with the government and are expressing their dissent under the protections of the First Amendment.

I've mentioned elsewhere the legal prohibitions against the military performing law enforcement duties at home, largely ignored. And in the wake of the political conventions this year, we find out that spy satellites, military, as well as the major telecom companies were involved in "pre-emptive policing". In other words, arresting people before they've committed a crime.

Incidentally, notice in the article where they point out that, "Security-conscious corporate executives routinely remove the batteries from their cell phones." This implies one of three things:

• Corporate executives are concerned about being surveilled by the government due to criminal wrongdoing.
• Executives are worried about being surveilled by the government, even though there has been no criminal wrongdoing.
• The power to do this type of surveillance is already used by people other than the government, despite assurances from the telecoms.
  

None of these options are very palatable, but it's food for thought anyway.

UPDATE: A federal appeals court has made the right decision, and overturned part of the Patriot Act.

Because of the ruling, the government will now be forced to justify individual gag orders before a court, instead of casually wielding the power of a blanket gag as the Bush administration has done since the blindingly fast passage of the Patriot Act in Oct. 2001.

In Sept. 2007, a federal judge ruled unconstitutional provisions within the Patriot Act which allowed the government to obtain search warrants without probable cause.

Corruption, horse-trading, or politics as usual?

The country seems to be shocked at the governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, and his allegedly corrupt practices and subsequent arrest earlier this week. I would like to suggest that the only reason we call him corrupt is that he was doing it for money. Political horse-trading like this goes on all the time, but the only time we call a spade a spade is when there are large sums of money involved. As Chris Bowers at Open Left pointed out, there are several examples of Democrats offering to vote a certain way in order to get something that they desire in exchange.

While it is not illegal to threaten to switch voting habits if certain demands are not met, it is just as unprincipled as selling a Senate seat for money. In both cases, power is for sale for its own sake, prior beliefs and values be damned. Lieberman was threatening to start voting with Republicans on a number of issues that he previously did not if he was not granted more power. The same appears to be the case for these three Senate Democrats in New York. Power trumps values. Like Blagojevich, they are all demanding certain amounts of power before they will support your ideas.

And that's why the government is broken. There are no principles anymore, there is only "what can you do for me?" Moreover, corruption of the Blagojevich scale is not even that rare anymore, he was just dumber than most in getting caught on tape. As John Stewart pointed out on the Daily Show:

After noting in a segment 'for children' that 3 of the last 7 Illinois Governors have ended up in jail, Stewart explains that statistics show if you grow up to become the Governor of Illinois, you're more likely to go to jail than if you commit murder. Calling the job of Governor for the state of Illinois a "dead end" and "a ticket to nowheresville," he says if Blagojevich is convicted, that will total "50% who end up in jail" while "If you commit murder, only 48% end up in jail for their crime."

And all of this after running on an anti-corruption campaign.

Until his arrest Tuesday on federal corruption charges, the self-proclaimed "always lawful" Blagojevich had built a political career, in part, on fighting corruption. When he ran for governor, he touted his past as a state criminal prosecutor and promised to break away from politics as usual.

"A governor must be willing to take on the special interests, not carry their water," he said when he announced his candidacy for governor in 2001, at the North Side Chicago steel mill where his Serbian immigrant father once worked. "It means shaking up a system that serves itself instead of the people."

So I started thinking about others that have been accused or convicted of corruption or ethics problems in recent memory:

• Norm Coleman
• Sarah Palin
• Ted Stevens
• Michael Bloomberg
• Chuck Rangel
• William Jefferson
• Rep. Robert Ney
• Rep. Peter Roskam
• Jack Abramoff
• Duke Cunningham

And that's where I got depressed and stopped thinking about it. I thought maybe I was overstating things, and decided to turn to Wikipedia and see what the data said. Turns out there's a survey known as the "Corruption Perceptions Index", which measures "the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians". Countries are scored on a 10-point score, with 10 being perceived as least-corrupt. If you scroll down, the USA is about 20th on the list, with a score of 7.2. Our score has also been sliding down, from 7.6 in 2002, indicating that the perception of corruption has been steadily increasing since that time.

I'm not saying Blago ought to be given a pass, what I am saying is far more revolutionary. Professional politicians do not have our best interests at heart. We have ceded far too much control over every aspect of our lives to political "leaders" that are utterly divorced from the views of those that they are supposed to represent. As Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." It's time for us to start taking some of our power back.

Some things are too important to be left to the "free market"

Amidst this implosion of financial markets, I think that it's critical to discuss a few ideas. Namely, that there are some things that are simply too important to be left to the vagaries of the market. Water and food, especially.

Since the days of Upton Sinclair, we've known that capital markets have been ineffective in guaranteeing food to consumers that is fair, clean and healthy. It's no different today- it seems as though there are new reports of tainted meat, tainted vegetables, or tainted milk.

But we are also still dealing with famine and food riots around the world. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization reported this week that another 40 million people have been pushed into hunger this year, bringing the worldwide total to a staggering 963 million. FAO Assistant Director-General Hafez Ghanem:

For millions of people in developing countries, eating the minimum amount of food every day to live an active and healthy life is a distant dream. The structural problems of hunger, like the lack of access to land, credit and employment, combined with high food prices remain a dire reality.

Notice that he didn't implicate farming techniques, climate change, seed quality, or any other technological problems as the reason for hunger- the problems he cites are due to the failures of markets to ensure that people get fed. It's not just the UN either- Bloomberg news yesterday reported that the World Bank's consistent prioritization of free markets has been a "manmade recipe for famine [that] included corrupt governments and companies that profited on misery."

It's not just the World Bank, it's the World Bank working in concert with the IMF and the World Trade Organization (WTO) to create "open markets" that are increasingly unable to provide either farmers with a living, or consumers with food. At least 87,567 farmers in India committed suicide between 2002 and 2006, largely as a result of globalization of the food trade:

Analysts cite several factors for the suicides, including crop failure due to agrochemicals and climate change, lower prices due to U.S. farm subsidies, state restrictions on export trade, and the dumping of surplus crops in an oversaturated domestic market.

As the economic crisis is making us aware, capital markets to not always function properly in America either. Our food aid program has recently been implicated in starvation around the world, due largely to the influence of lobbyists and monopolistic corporations in charge of the food chain.

Increasingly, it's becoming clear that food and water are different. They should be basic human rights, completely independent upon one's ability to pay for them. I just hope we don't have to wait until billions are starving around the world before we figure that out.