Saturday, November 25, 2006

PERSONAL JUDGEMENT REACHES INTO US

It is a rainy day outside, I am without transport of the private kind so instead I am waiting at the bus stop with my raincoat doing wonderfully to keep the wet and cold outside, I am most happy, I like rainy days, the bus will more or less arrive on time, it doesn’t matter, I don’t expect it to be on time, I am in a pleasant contemplative state, levitation being one of the topics my head is musing, when I hear a screeching hard breaking sound, the slippery wet, the unclenching rubber, the imposing red light, a card skidding sideways, and in seconds, a collision is avoided by oncoming traffic, while the car that crossed in red captures its composure, the driver, perhaps startled, after clearing the intersection, parks at the edge. Surprisingly seconds withheld a police car was just around the corner and quickly lights a Christmas tree of lights. I feel the wave of subsided panics that must have gone through the unlucky driver’s gut, levitation harshly forgone.

As I watch the emergency lights chatter the air, I ponder what I would do were I that police officer? From the breaking you could tell that the driver hadn’t meant to cross the red light illegally but had instead found a surprising red light; intent in trespassing the law was obviously none. The car was not a new model car, while I could not place the year it was obvious that the driver was of limited financial means, a ticket was the last thing this person needed. No one was hurt, sure the oncoming traffic had been obstructed but they had adequately, taken evasive maneuvers and continued on appropriately, it all transpired so quickly and smoothly, for such an event, that no one even bothered to use their horns. Concluding that, an unfortunately absent-minded driver had made a mistake, I as the police officer, would not have given the subject a traffic ticket, I would have said, “just be more careful next time.” The officer in charge of this event didn’t feel the same way, a ticket was issued at the scene.

But that act would be a violation of the police officer’s code ethic, “to enforce the law without personal judgment.” In our society rules are not suppose to be broken thus even if they are broken without intent, they then have to be punished. This is considered “reasonable” and it is based on the assumption that punishment is a deterrent and serves to maintain alertness within the common civic mindedness. The assumption being fewer people will run red lights as long as we enforce the law regardless of the particular circumstances.

That is to say, we will not look at the individual nor offer a personalize judgment of an event, in that manner we may remain objective and serve our community’s civic mindedness well.

After a while I started to wonder if the police officer went home and felt bad about giving this particular driver a ticket, but then I figured than an experienced officer could depersonalize the situation and distance himself enough from it so that the good sleep would not be interrupted. But then it occurred to me, “what if it was his wife running that red light, what if by coincidence the person running that light were indeed his wife or even his brother, or even his best buddy,” then I kind of thought that perhaps the officer would become more humane and personalize his judgment of the event, and let them each go without a fine. Sure I think there is any number of police officers that would still have given their best friend a ticket while saying something like, “I am doing this for your own good, I want you alive and safe…” But I think the majority, observing the very uniqueness of the situation: no one was hurt, traffic automatically restored itself to normal flow, the person had not intended to run the light, then the officer would have told his buddy or his wife: “hey, your lucky it was me that caught you, be more careful or next time you might not be so lucky.” And let it go at that.

But then I think the officer might get pissed-off too if, for instance, it were his wife or his buddy with children in the car. The officer might then feel possible personal pain nearer as caused by the loss of a loved one, and thus personalizing hurt issue a ticket in anger that someone carrying children could be so careless.

Regardless the point is that the depersonalization of this event, by justice logic, causes indifference between the officer on duty and the absentminded driver. Neither is allowed to connect with the other, the officer begins to judge the situation more accurately when it is a loved one, but is more sterile in his judgment when it is an unknown person. And the intercourse of the encounter between officer and absent minded driver is one intended not to emotionally touch either one of them, it is almost as if they had put plastic gloves on their minds, for the driver is probably thinking the following: “What was I thinking…” … “How stupid of me…” … “I am lucky to be alive, the officer is just doing his job, I should have been paying attention…” Contextually the absentminded driver will merely justify the legal actions and expect a well-deserved fine, the incident was/is against the law, and for good reason it should have never taken place. The fine will hurt but it could all have been worse.

What both characters in this play fail to do is to connect to one another and they fail to do that because the secular character of their society does not allow it, that is to say that the police officer and the driver agree that the normalization of their relationship has to remain secular and depersonalized so that the system can work, that individual circumstances must be ignored which is why the situation should be judge on its most basic principles, the light was red, you are suppose to stop at a red light, the driver didn’t, there is a fine, that is the law.

This is hard knowledge, this is a fact of life, traffic laws are not very forgiving, thousands of people lose their lives and are maimed in traffic accidents per day, per year, it is a harsh reality that has to be kept to a minimum as transport for us all is not an option but a necessity of the distances between work, home and the shopping center, the three pillars of our existence.

The rain decides to increase, my very nice and lovable olive Sanyo raincoat is beginning to personalize the existing rain, it isn’t keeping out the cold as well, the bus hasn’t arrived, I fancy it will soon, but then I fancy something else more, I fancy that all those empty seats that are passing by, SUVs that can sit 8 people pass me by, endless cars with 3 empty seats pass me by, all that tonnage and energy, with heating inside, not far from me is an untenable option for a ride, even as some of them if not many of them are going near to where I am heading, and could easily offer a lift but don’t and wont.

The reason they don’t offer me a lift its because they too have depersonalized me, if I was their wife, or their buddy I would have been picked up long ago, but I am someone that they don’t know, they would rather not be bothered with helping me out of the rain, besides that there are so many bad people out there that I could be one of them, better not to take a chance, even as most people tend to be honest, and most people are not criminals, and most people waiting for a bus are probably the least likely to be aggressive types, it requires patience and a certain degree of docility to take public transport, still it is too dangerous to pick up a stranger, the probability of picking up a weirdo or a serial killer might be .000000001 percent specially as most aggressors are driving BMWs and SUVs; but the nightly news from all over the world floods us with threats from everywhere, we are logically or should I say reasonably scared, and as such distrustful of strangers, so I fancy no one is going to want to chat with me, at least part of their lonely way to somewhere.

Still I harbor this strange belief that maybe that driver that run the red light might not have run it had she or he given me a ride, as their passenger I might a said, “hey watch out there is a red light.” And then I think if all those empty seats, passing me by, were filled with people going in the same direction pooling riders together, there would be fewer accidents and fewer cars on the road, but that would require so much personalization of our world, and besides that, my bus has arrived.

Ricardo ©

Saturday, November 18, 2006

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC THINK CHANGE

Now the democrats are high on the hog with their enchanting victories, not only did they do well by winning congress but also the senate, control of both houses was unexpected, the American public however felt it necessary to create a balance that has apparently been voided by a strong White House. Thus the overcorrection but what has taken place is fascinating only in so far as boring can be fascinating.

Generally speaking the idea of checks and balances was that an independent supreme court, a strong legislature and executive, would benefit from power struggles between all three and keep them honest till the end of days. It hasn’t, it didn’t work, it is one of the aspects of our time honored constitution that ought to be revised however it isn’t going to happen until death do as apart. This is because when you fall in love with your constitution it equally becomes an unchanging premise. Thus congress, the executive and judicial will have to corner themselves indefinitely, they being the bulk of the constitution, which might explain why they don’t want to change it.

Consider our current situation, the voters have made leaders of the democrats but the democrats have amply shown that they don’t have the genius or the guts to stop the president. Still the voters figured that someone needed to send a message to the Whitehouse that its “anything goes one way forever” war strategy wasn’t working, being that the president does not have any self correcting abilities, this was necessary, it wasn’t an option, the voters didn’t have a choice, they had to mandate change not through process but by ousting the republicans from the podium. It shouldn’t be that way, the process of checks and balances ought to work, it very well didn’t.

Why it didn’t work is actually as pretty as how pretty it would have been if it had. The reason the process didn’t work its because America has been in decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union, ever since then America has been going through some severe psychological changes at every level, cultural, political, religious, and specially in the case of labor, labor has been going through a massive surge in productivity unequaled everywhere in the world.

Part of the reason for the change is obvious, the Soviet Union was a strategic enemy to have, it was “the perfect” enemy to divvy up the world with, it knew where its turf was and it did not frequent into American claimed territory, which is why the wars fought between the USSR and the USA were mere skirmishes fought through proxy, no one with any real sense of history will consider American losses in Vietnam or Korea significant in the context of two global and critically nuclear empires budding heads. However the collapse of the USSR created a huge hole where their interdependencies mattered. Defense, strategic and global hegemony, economic superiority, and good guy bad guy schematics.

America could no longer, for instance, be the only good guy, in a world where there was no Soviet Union American superiority moral or economic or even militarily could be challenged. As is the case with China and the European Union today challenging America for economic might and military autonomy. NATO has died and it is only true on paper, the EU is a mighty economic power, and the Euro is accreting EU integrity through a fresh supra-national sense of citizenship, the EU is showing that countries and borders do not pose a burden towards integration; counter that with America that is instead securing and fencing its territories from any country South of its borders. America the country that integrated autonomous states to form a successful union does not lead in creating united citizenship nationals or even in global monetary unification.

Through its actions in the Middle East where its interest cannot be seriously disguised America has vanquished moral superiority, the overthrowing of what was mostly an incompetent dictator and even a, like us secularists, instead we have placed the Middle East in grater turmoil and allows Syria and Iran to act with a certain degree of moral immunity, everyone is doing it, pushing their ways, stratifying their extremism, if the Americans can wield their sword at anyone, anywhere it creates a world of nomads, or at least gives a green light in that direction.

As is the case with Nuclear proliferation where America seems to favors India’s nuclear program but not North Korea’s or Iran’s, where you can assert who can make nuclear bombs and who can’t, you cannot!

Defense is another matter, no one likes an aggressor, America always seemed the one that would attack only as a matter of last resort, the rhetoric during the cold war was not to strike first but to strike in retaliation hitting hardest then. Today the policy on defense is twice removed from that, it is not about retaliation, it is not even about a first rapid strike, it is beyond all that, the new policy is of preemptive strike, that is to kill America’s enemies while they are still in the womb, as soon as you can hear their heart beat like beasts. America is confident that it is sensitive enough to realize friend from foe, collateral damage will be kept to a minimum; freedom however must be safeguarded at any cost to international laws, treaties or human rights. In some ways America is right, terrorist do lose their rights by tying the knot on them can ripple senselessly through money trails, communications tapping and detention without a public forum.

American productivity has risen to astonishing levels since the fall of the Soviet Union. Economist will have any number of reasons for this, I have a couple of my own, consider that after the Soviet Union fell there was nothing that could stand in the way of American success, in short if the fall of the USSR proved that America was right then the question was how much right it could further be, and that would lead to a logical extremism of the American way.

The manifestation of that extremism started with the American people, whatever doubts they may have had that they lived in the best country in the world were now eliminated, as the USSR collapsed it proved how bankrupt it was, this was a matter of finance, the USSR had failed to finance it self, it could not loan money to it self the rubble became unrubbled. Americans could then rightly or wrongly feel that they were superior, that there was now physical evidence that their system was indeed the best of all possible systems, further evidence of which could be found by the acceptance of capitalism by China, in other words Chinese and Russian acceptance of capitalism implied that capitalism was not only right but also that it was the guiding principle of economic truth. As such the American workers, capitalists, marketers, bankers, financiers, professionals, now knew for sure that it was up to them to fully exploit the power of capitalism to their own advantage, now it was just a matter of working a little harder, of producing a little more, or taking a risk on that new business venture, there was no naught on the road to wealth and happiness, there was a lot of hard work in between, but the conclusion here is this, the American peoples mindset was hardwired to think that the only way to fail was if the failed to try harder, they had all the right stuff, and so productivity skyrocketed.

Religiously America could then turn to the right and administer moral conservatism, if American values had won in the world then it stood to faith to keep them sacred, and sacred meant unchanging, marriage, the family, the fetus, had to be defended against any new ideas that could corrupt it, gay marriage, lack of prayer in schools, evolution, etc., thus there was a right wing religious uprising to preserve what was right about America and to logically, if fanatically, eliminate what was wrong, as a result a whole evangelical Christian movement surged throughout the country and became something rather unfaithful, that is to say political.

The political activism of a nationalistic religiosity put the secular constitution through an ordeal, to what degree could freedoms be granted and still be considered freedoms? Could you for instance teach “creation” in public schools, and still say that there was a separation of church and state? And what would you tell the Buddhists if the republican president was willing to hand out tax dollars to Christian do gooders but not to their monks and monasteries.

But then the idea that there has been a separation form state of any type is of course a fleece, America’s beef industry is as tied to Washington as the cows existence is tied to meat eaters, as we have seen recently even Indian casinos are part of the constituency of congress, and Enron created and wrote energy policy as much as it wrote off stocks, but then if capitalism is good and it has been proven good beyond belief, then it stands to reason that it is ok to logic that businesses have to lobby Washington and in the process absentmindedly make Washington, a government entity and thus not naturally given to capitalism. Governments cannot at any fundamental level be capitalistic, governement is about control, taxation, regulation, and so businesses have to lobby so that they can convince the government that capitalism is good and that it should be left alone and given maximum freedoms so it can produce jobs and taxes which is what the government actually cares about.

Which is why the constitution is sort of bankrupt, though a pretty document no lesser to any other greater, but it is bankrupt in that it doesn’t acknowledge that the first and foremost constituency is not the people but rather the beholden interest of business which wields power through its ability to create jobs and pay taxes which as far as superior to any of the people or for that matter any individual. I will not send my jet to pick up the president any time soon, equally I don’t think the president is going to come and stay in my spare bedroom, in fact I doubt that I could ever be the presidents friend, or even Nancy Pelosi’s friend, I mean Nancy is probably a nice person but Nancy is also a person of power and power that is not gotten cheaply nor easily, what makes a president also makes a speaker of the house, sorry Pelosi, the filtering process for democrats that make it to the top of the nation’s stage is the same, by the time the process has sifted through the rut, what is left is a political process beholden to moneyed interest. The constitution doesn’t address this matter, the constitution doesn’t address the matter that campaigning is expensive and that the people, or individual freedom, cannot pay for it. Today’s mightiest democracy is elected “by institutions.”

Recently the leading economist for the free hand of capitalism died, Milton Friedman was the man who tied Keynes’s belief that government had a right and a duty to interfere in the economic process, and fanatically promulgated the idea that the government that governs best governs least. There might be some truth in that, but since the fall of Keynesian economics and the rice of Milton Friedman there has only been more government and more regulation, and more laws and more taxes and so even as Milton would have liked to convince us that he could convince Reganomics and the republicans that government was generally a bad thing, he forgot one key thing, politicians are based on government foundations, regardless of what anyone thinks, a bureaucrat isn’t going to think like a businessmen any time soon! Nor is a business friendly president or congress going to successfully operate a country like a CEO, instead politicians will always do what is the politically right thing to do, “agree with their times.” As such we must be somewhat relief that Friedman is not with us anymore, for as one who undid Keynes, we can only assume that in passing he has at least undone himself and his times.

In the mean time, enjoy your riches.

Ricardo ©

Sunday, November 12, 2006

FREEDOM, ITS JUST NOT FOR EVERYONE

Could you ever imagine a dog saying, "hmmm... I don't like the way that smells."

One of the more difficult tasks ahead for America is to get out of the war with Iraq, it will be difficult because it wasn’t easy to get into the war in the first place, reasons for the war had to be created in order to justify it. The enemy had to be created, Saddam Hussein it now turns out was more of an illusionist and more a danger to his own people than to the outside world; but still the American presidency, against the unwilling will of congress, was able to turn him into: Hitler II. He had weapons of mass destruction, he used illegal chemicals, he was working on a dirty bomb, he tortured and gassed people, he didn’t allow for freedom of speech, this latter being particularly offensive to the American people, and so on, till there was naught else to do but do the right thing, take him out.

There was however an uncomfortable problem, first the Americans had supported Saddam’s regime in its early years and so he sort of had some insight into how Americans think, I read somewhere that he feared the ethnic and religious factions within Iraq more than he feared the Americans. But also there was the fact that while America was boycotting Iraq the French and the Russians had generated some substantial rivers of moneyed interests building infrastructures, adding a generator or a power plant and selling them weapons thus creating a symbiotically beneficial relationship, and of course this gave the French and the Russians an interest in fascist stability in Iraq.

Fortunately America has always been very good at marketing even if the product is missing some fundamentals, a war could always be lobbied and sold through a fear mongering marketing campaign that would shame even New York’s top ten marketing agencies. Satellites produced detailed photos of mobile labs that were brewing chemical malice, intelligence read that there were mobile missiles that could possibly reach Israel, and the Continent of Africa had provided Uranium while from somewhere else they had centrifuges. But more critical, Russian scientists that had not fared well since the fall of the Soviet Union, were selling dirty bomb schematics to Saddam. And then one day with the honorable Secretary of State, Mr. Powell, a trusted spokes person, the war was sold but not so well that everyone wanted to join the invading army. And so America did what any child does when it doesn’t get its way, it went at it alone. Besides that would work out better, for as everyone knows the United Nations is controlled by the third world and NATO and the European Union fight wars through a bureaucratic committee process that is paralyzing and America, the can do kid, is better off without those anchors.

And so we went to war.

But as with all things here this one was to be based on everything that had been learnt in the Civil War, WW I & II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, plus with added insight from the first battle with Iraq as done by Bush Senior, that liberated Kuwait’s oil fields from the invading tribal cousins. America also had the valuable advantage of video games and artificial reality, at any given moment Americans, very much like Roman gladiators trained in their on backyards, but at any given moment there are millions of Americans training for war through video games that realistically engage their participants in real world war scenarios, where fighter jets and tanks and soldiers are constantly being strategically engaged, all while in suburbia, to destroy the known foe. But also there are the surrealistic games which also create hyper scenarios of super beings that are able to travel through grave danger to acquire immortal powers, magical potions, double tipped whips and jewel studded daggers, and a plethora of specialize weapons that could scurry battalions of anythings anywhere; and so in general America has always been at the ready not only to go at it alone, but also to be imaginative and ready in the battle front by administering the un-conscripted maximum amount of training to civilians, the national guard and active soldiers even when they are off duty, through realistic sims.

And behind all this, almost as if sent by god was Rumsfeld the Secretary of War, he was a peculiar character in this historic times in that he understood the fog of war could be lifted through the internet of war, if you could know where every soldier was through magic dust, and know if he or she was still beating a heart, and if this soldier could feed real time battle information back to headquarters, then our army would have a greater advantage over that of the enemy’s, specially if our army were smaller, lighter and could be moved on a moments notice, and so we were ready to fight the war of the future today, with the centurion Rumsfeld at the helm.

Sold then by the nice Secretary of State that was himself a former soldier-general but overall a man of peace, who believed that war should be a weapon of last resort but if used should then be one of absolute maximum killing force, we had no choice then, having all means at our disposal, having to rescue the world from terrorists, and from Islamist fanatics, and from dictatorships, our leader, President George W. Bush told us that there would now be a campaign to spread democratic values and free market values to free the peoples of the middle east, and there was naught to do but that or forsake our turn at history.

Tony Blair, a Prime Minister with socialist leanings was whiling to go to it too, because in part he understood one thing above all others, America would win that war. I mean I don’t know how bookies do odds, but I think anyone could see that regardless of how powerful and mighty Saddam was, he could not bankroll a 300 billion dollar war, in the end his psycho babble would collapse because it didn’t have adequate financing, and so I think Tony Blair being the labor minister, crunched some numbers and saw that the math projected inadequate financing in Mesopotamia, and he figured that after the destruction along the Tigres river there would be plenty of construction contracts and he, if he stood by Bush, would be rewarded with the spoils of war and the Unions would see this as an astute labor campaign, after all British truck drivers and British mercenaries are making easy six figure salaries in Iraq. Power to labor.

Towing his good friend behind him to give legitimacy to the cause, Mr. Bush had now no choice but to go to war, he had to prove his mettle, and this he did, Mr. Saddam was recently sentenced for Crimes Against Humanity, and he will hang for it, undoubtedly this is a step in the right direction, the inquisitors made right when they used to do the same, however this is not meant to fix everything, Saddam being choked to death is only part of the way to democracy in Iraq.

Now part of this newly installed government in Iraq, is working day and night, with the American military command, to introduce a professional army, a disciplined police force, and there are any number of American and British companies rebuilding the entire country, its going to look pretty when they are done, however there is just one thing, the ethnic violence, 150 thousand dead in an undeclared civil war. These tribes will just not get along, they are trying to kill one another, brother against brother, mano a mano and the bloodshed is staining the introduction of democracy, freedom and the right to drive a car and cover your face with makeup, and to show your booty.

And where do we find ourselves? Back to square one, we cannot liberate these peoples from themselves, they just don’t want to be free, they love the fray, tragedy is married to them, they don’t want to work together for the common good and no matter how much our good will wants to triumph there, to allow them to be Mormons if they want to be Mormons, to allow them to speak freely against their government if they want to, to allow them the privilege of voting plus a Western style education, to give them the benefits that knowledge and the more important that "reason" has brought us, we can give them all these things but they just don’t want them, they don’t want to practice constitutional rights, hence why things are not working out.

We will probably have to pull out of Iraq, but after spending 300 billion dollars, 3000 American casualties no one, least of all Tony Blair, will be able to say that we didn’t try, that we didn’t give it our best, those peoples over there, they just want to do things their own way, shame to see all the suffering that cost them.

But where does that leave us, a good portion of us didn’t want the war in Iraq, but we support the troops, and we support our president, no one can say anything bad about our mother or our sense of patriotism. Now we are in a perplexing situation, if we say we are against the war does that mean we are being critical of the office of the president and unsupportive of our troops? Of course it does, it is no longer Bush’s war it is now The Nation’s War! Bush might have gotten us there but it is now our war, all of us are now in it, frustrated and perplexed but it is now our war, and it doesn’t matter one bit that Rumsfeld, a leading proponent of testing his theories on defense in real war scenarios, is out and now there is a, use the cross walk please, Mr. Gates. It doesn’t matter the country is now engaged in a war of international proportions and because we went at it alone and didn’t share the reconstruction contracts the French and the Russians are just going to sit by idly amusing themselves. “We told you so.”

And of course we have to support our troops as much as we have to support the defense department and the defense industry jobs. Or we could do the brave thing, and admit that our country was wrong, that we made a mistake, that we have to pull out and that we have added to the instability of the middle east, we could do that, but we are not going to do that, because that kind of valor is suicidal, we will have to tow the line, and the democrats, now in control of senate and congress are not going to stop it, they are not going to because they cannot and suffer not from the will power to do it, in the same manner that they didn’t suffer the brilliant thoughts required to prevent the war in the first place.

The new approach is simpler than admitting defeat, it is to allow the peoples of Iraq to fail them selves, we will keep sending money and troops till they prove beyond all doubt that they cannot be helped because they are not whiling to participate in their own rescue operation. There is already ample evidence of this as they don’t want to end sectarian violence, the national police has been infiltrated by the infidels and they are carrying out poorly disguised massacres. They will fail because they are just not us, they are not like us, they don’t care about freedom and voting and separation of church and state, they don’t, if anyone has given them the chance it is us, Europe was not willing to rescue them from themselves, China has kept mostly quiet, the only ones that dared to care for them was us, and now we have to watch all our efforts come to naught.

A few years from now we will leave Iraq, the bookies surely knew we would win the war, no one said anything about winning hearts and minds, bookies, ever wise, wouldn’t have given odds on that.

Ricardo ©