29 March 2008
Thinking Shouldn’t Earn a Living
Reading “Out of Print” by Eric Alterman in the March 31, 2008, New Yorker convinced me that we got into trouble when we started hiring people to do our thinking for us. There is a difference between writers who are rewarded by the market with sales of their books and experts who are paid to observe and criticize current events and the human condition. It is the responsibility of every conscious soul to be constantly on the alert and contribute his opinions to the debate among self-governing citizens of a vibrant republic. Each citizen should be responsible for supporting himself by contributing to the common material welfare. Instead, anyone who can afford it has, as a luxury through private contributions and taxes, subsidized the performance of that debate by specialists, relinquishing his duty to perform that function himself.
The resulting division of society between earners and philosophers robs its actions of automatic intelligence. Thought is not a luxury to be purchased, but a duty that must be fulfilled in order to keep a republic on the tracks that lead to the common welfare.
Reading “Out of Print” by Eric Alterman in the March 31, 2008, New Yorker convinced me that we got into trouble when we started hiring people to do our thinking for us. There is a difference between writers who are rewarded by the market with sales of their books and experts who are paid to observe and criticize current events and the human condition. It is the responsibility of every conscious soul to be constantly on the alert and contribute his opinions to the debate among self-governing citizens of a vibrant republic. Each citizen should be responsible for supporting himself by contributing to the common material welfare. Instead, anyone who can afford it has, as a luxury through private contributions and taxes, subsidized the performance of that debate by specialists, relinquishing his duty to perform that function himself.
The resulting division of society between earners and philosophers robs its actions of automatic intelligence. Thought is not a luxury to be purchased, but a duty that must be fulfilled in order to keep a republic on the tracks that lead to the common welfare.
25 March 2008
Consummate Politicians
We need consummate politicians in the White House; this is the relative strength of Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. She is a smart operator with experience in collaborating with various levels of government, from state, congressional, federal administration, and foreign countries. True, Mr. Obama shares some of that exposure by dint of his terms in the Illinois Statehouse and four years in the Senate. However, he doesn’t show an appreciation for the advantages of effective collaboration in making government work.
Typically the Obama campaign objected to Senator Clinton’s proposal to set up a housing foreclosure solutions panel led by experienced economists like Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker. Rather than harboring favoritism for the financial community, these panelists would know how to deal with it: they have shown themselves to be effective in implementing measures to correct missteps like the Mexican peso crisis, the Long Term Capital Management collapse, and the October 1987 Stock Market Crash. Reflexive resistance to competence is often a corollary of idealistic dreams.
Senator Obama can always make speeches, and should continue doing so in order to provide inspiration to the creative spirits of our society. However, just as in the case of Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King, Clinton brings the skillful operating capability necessary for fulfilling those dreams.
We need consummate politicians in the White House; this is the relative strength of Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. She is a smart operator with experience in collaborating with various levels of government, from state, congressional, federal administration, and foreign countries. True, Mr. Obama shares some of that exposure by dint of his terms in the Illinois Statehouse and four years in the Senate. However, he doesn’t show an appreciation for the advantages of effective collaboration in making government work.
Typically the Obama campaign objected to Senator Clinton’s proposal to set up a housing foreclosure solutions panel led by experienced economists like Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker. Rather than harboring favoritism for the financial community, these panelists would know how to deal with it: they have shown themselves to be effective in implementing measures to correct missteps like the Mexican peso crisis, the Long Term Capital Management collapse, and the October 1987 Stock Market Crash. Reflexive resistance to competence is often a corollary of idealistic dreams.
Senator Obama can always make speeches, and should continue doing so in order to provide inspiration to the creative spirits of our society. However, just as in the case of Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King, Clinton brings the skillful operating capability necessary for fulfilling those dreams.
24 March 2008
How Progress in Iraq Is Defined
Vowing that the lives lost in Iraq will be validated by the result achieved, as President Bush did on 24 March 2008, is a backwards reason for fighting a war. The appropriate question to ask is, What result was intended?
The enemy there wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t invaded. That there now is an enemy there apparently is for him enough to justify the war, even if it is after the fact. What a cowboy mentality!
Vowing that the lives lost in Iraq will be validated by the result achieved, as President Bush did on 24 March 2008, is a backwards reason for fighting a war. The appropriate question to ask is, What result was intended?
The enemy there wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t invaded. That there now is an enemy there apparently is for him enough to justify the war, even if it is after the fact. What a cowboy mentality!
23 March 2008
Morals and Evolution
Nicholson Baker’s new book, “Human Smoke, The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization,” reviewed in the New York Times Book Review on March 23, 2008, apparently makes the argument that the deliberate targeting of civilians in warfare can never be justified. This is only true if you believe (a) that evolution occurs without eliminating counterproductive elements from the species, and (b) that justice for all cannot be achieved if it involves the loss of life.
The materialistic view of evolution is at odds with a moralistic standard for human behavior. Confirmed believers in the scientific method frequently dismiss as dogmatic those who preach high religious values and challenge the validity of evolution. And yet, adopting a principle that species-threatening evil, like genocide, does not justify life-threatening countermeasures, like municipal carpet-bombing, requires an a priori acceptance of moral absolutes that are not necessarily consistent with that materialistic view.
Extension and preservation of the human species, as of all other living things, are the driving force of Darwinian Evolution. Establishing other values for human behavior assumes that life serves a different objective, not just its own continuance. Therefore, it is illogical to accept scientific evolution and simultaneously follow an independent guiding set of moral values.
Nicholson Baker’s new book, “Human Smoke, The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization,” reviewed in the New York Times Book Review on March 23, 2008, apparently makes the argument that the deliberate targeting of civilians in warfare can never be justified. This is only true if you believe (a) that evolution occurs without eliminating counterproductive elements from the species, and (b) that justice for all cannot be achieved if it involves the loss of life.
The materialistic view of evolution is at odds with a moralistic standard for human behavior. Confirmed believers in the scientific method frequently dismiss as dogmatic those who preach high religious values and challenge the validity of evolution. And yet, adopting a principle that species-threatening evil, like genocide, does not justify life-threatening countermeasures, like municipal carpet-bombing, requires an a priori acceptance of moral absolutes that are not necessarily consistent with that materialistic view.
Extension and preservation of the human species, as of all other living things, are the driving force of Darwinian Evolution. Establishing other values for human behavior assumes that life serves a different objective, not just its own continuance. Therefore, it is illogical to accept scientific evolution and simultaneously follow an independent guiding set of moral values.
22 March 2008
Moqtada Was Also Wrong
Just like the American public, Moqtada al-Sadr has felt his understanding and sense of control in the Iraq War fluctuate as the U.S. “mission” there has shifted through a series of rationales. From rooting out Al Qaeda, to eliminating weapons of mass destruction, to removing a brutal police state, to establishing a model democracy, to suppressing sectarian violence—many disguises have been adopted to hide the real reason that the Bush Administration was conveniently employed to exert U.S. dominance in Iraq. Above all, “the powers that be” decided that a vulnerable Middle Eastern country sitting on top of one of the world’s three largest deposits of oil was too risky a proposition to be left to the devices of a petty dictator.
Dan Senor and Roman Martinez make clear in their OpEd article (“Whatever Happened to Moqtada?,” The Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2008) that when it believed that it was building a democratic Iraq, the Bush Administration thought it was buying a safe source of energy. Moqtada was also convinced that democracy would assure his majority Shiite community a secure and wealthy future. Both were wrong; so “Plan B” has gone into effect. For the U.S., this would mean possibly staying in Iraq militarily for decades; for Moqtada, it would mean relying on a foreign occupier to protect Shiite safety and Iraq’s border with Iran.
Sorting out the codes of the Iraq War helps in mapping our long-term strategy in the region. “Insurgents” are the Sunni Arabs who have had the most to lose from the establishment of democracy in Iraq: they do not have the oil of the Kurds or the Shiites, not to mention being at a numerical disadvantage. “Militias” guarding Shiite lives and homes were made superfluous by the American “surge,” although they will long have the potential to resist both perceived injustices by the occupying power and a threatening Iran. “Al Qaeda” doesn’t have a dog in this fight, like it does in Saudi Arabia where Sunni Islam is supposedly forced to serve the interests of the infidel West.
The U.S. has two separate challenges to its security that arise in the Middle East: international terrorism and energy dependence. They may be closely related, but they require distinct responses. In any case, trying to impose democracy on the region solves neither of those problems.
Just like the American public, Moqtada al-Sadr has felt his understanding and sense of control in the Iraq War fluctuate as the U.S. “mission” there has shifted through a series of rationales. From rooting out Al Qaeda, to eliminating weapons of mass destruction, to removing a brutal police state, to establishing a model democracy, to suppressing sectarian violence—many disguises have been adopted to hide the real reason that the Bush Administration was conveniently employed to exert U.S. dominance in Iraq. Above all, “the powers that be” decided that a vulnerable Middle Eastern country sitting on top of one of the world’s three largest deposits of oil was too risky a proposition to be left to the devices of a petty dictator.
Dan Senor and Roman Martinez make clear in their OpEd article (“Whatever Happened to Moqtada?,” The Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2008) that when it believed that it was building a democratic Iraq, the Bush Administration thought it was buying a safe source of energy. Moqtada was also convinced that democracy would assure his majority Shiite community a secure and wealthy future. Both were wrong; so “Plan B” has gone into effect. For the U.S., this would mean possibly staying in Iraq militarily for decades; for Moqtada, it would mean relying on a foreign occupier to protect Shiite safety and Iraq’s border with Iran.
Sorting out the codes of the Iraq War helps in mapping our long-term strategy in the region. “Insurgents” are the Sunni Arabs who have had the most to lose from the establishment of democracy in Iraq: they do not have the oil of the Kurds or the Shiites, not to mention being at a numerical disadvantage. “Militias” guarding Shiite lives and homes were made superfluous by the American “surge,” although they will long have the potential to resist both perceived injustices by the occupying power and a threatening Iran. “Al Qaeda” doesn’t have a dog in this fight, like it does in Saudi Arabia where Sunni Islam is supposedly forced to serve the interests of the infidel West.
The U.S. has two separate challenges to its security that arise in the Middle East: international terrorism and energy dependence. They may be closely related, but they require distinct responses. In any case, trying to impose democracy on the region solves neither of those problems.
19 March 2008
Obama’s Naïveté
Recent Letters to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal (from Denis Ables and Howard F. Jaeckel, March 18, 2008) charged Senator Barack Obama with naïveté in advocating withdrawal from Iraq before defeating Al Qaeda’s adherents there. What they miss is the fact that the Bush Administration could have picked a fight with radical Islamic terrorists anywhere in the Muslim world. By that action, the selected country would have become the central front in this war.
Al Qaeda is only one organization that adopts terrorism to achieve its goals. The Algerians used it to force out the French; the Palestinians use it to combat Israel; the Chechens use terrorism against Russia; the Taliban terrorize Afghan farmers; disaffected Indonesians take violent measures against their corrupt government. This tactic is not only common to Islamic radicals--what about Northern Ireland, Colombia, Sri Lanka, etc.? It is a mistake to identify terrorism with Al Qaeda; the real enemy of civil order in the world is nihilism practiced by those who reject the peaceful resolution of perceived injustice.
A successful response to terrorism must find a way to co-opt its practitioners by offering them benefits from collaboration. But this can be costly to the imperium that seeks to impose the order in the world that favors its own values, life style, and commercial interests. Calling all enemies of that imperium radical Islamic terrorists or Al Qaeda is merely a convenience for justifying self-perpetuating warfare. Opposing that strategy is not naïve—it’s calling a spade a spade.
Recent Letters to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal (from Denis Ables and Howard F. Jaeckel, March 18, 2008) charged Senator Barack Obama with naïveté in advocating withdrawal from Iraq before defeating Al Qaeda’s adherents there. What they miss is the fact that the Bush Administration could have picked a fight with radical Islamic terrorists anywhere in the Muslim world. By that action, the selected country would have become the central front in this war.
Al Qaeda is only one organization that adopts terrorism to achieve its goals. The Algerians used it to force out the French; the Palestinians use it to combat Israel; the Chechens use terrorism against Russia; the Taliban terrorize Afghan farmers; disaffected Indonesians take violent measures against their corrupt government. This tactic is not only common to Islamic radicals--what about Northern Ireland, Colombia, Sri Lanka, etc.? It is a mistake to identify terrorism with Al Qaeda; the real enemy of civil order in the world is nihilism practiced by those who reject the peaceful resolution of perceived injustice.
A successful response to terrorism must find a way to co-opt its practitioners by offering them benefits from collaboration. But this can be costly to the imperium that seeks to impose the order in the world that favors its own values, life style, and commercial interests. Calling all enemies of that imperium radical Islamic terrorists or Al Qaeda is merely a convenience for justifying self-perpetuating warfare. Opposing that strategy is not naïve—it’s calling a spade a spade.
The Food/Energy Standard
Dollar volatility since the end of the Gold Standard has more to do with globalization of our economy than with a mistaken monetary policy. In his OpEd article in the March 18, 2008 Wall Street Journal, Neuven Brenner highlights the Euro to illustrate the absence of a governmental issuer of any international medium of exchange in today’s increasingly borderless world.
In order to isolate the aspects of the dollar’s value over which it attempts to exert some direct control, the Federal Reserve relies on the distinction between “core” and volatile elements of the Consumer Price Index. However, the rampant federal deficits and Pollyannaish real estate speculation of the last seven years have made the dollar a wholly unreliable measure of relative value for the most essential commodities traded between citizens of interdependent states. The information technology revolution has allowed the world’s economic interactions to outpace its political integration.
Without an authority to impose a monetary standard to equilibrate commercial and asset-exchange transactions and with no consensus on an artificial marker such as gold, the global standard of exchange by default has become those commodities upon which modern life most depends—food and energy. Their volatility in dollar terms is a function of the instability of America’s monetary system rather than “temporary price shocks” that derive primarily from idiosyncratic sources.
Dollar volatility since the end of the Gold Standard has more to do with globalization of our economy than with a mistaken monetary policy. In his OpEd article in the March 18, 2008 Wall Street Journal, Neuven Brenner highlights the Euro to illustrate the absence of a governmental issuer of any international medium of exchange in today’s increasingly borderless world.
In order to isolate the aspects of the dollar’s value over which it attempts to exert some direct control, the Federal Reserve relies on the distinction between “core” and volatile elements of the Consumer Price Index. However, the rampant federal deficits and Pollyannaish real estate speculation of the last seven years have made the dollar a wholly unreliable measure of relative value for the most essential commodities traded between citizens of interdependent states. The information technology revolution has allowed the world’s economic interactions to outpace its political integration.
Without an authority to impose a monetary standard to equilibrate commercial and asset-exchange transactions and with no consensus on an artificial marker such as gold, the global standard of exchange by default has become those commodities upon which modern life most depends—food and energy. Their volatility in dollar terms is a function of the instability of America’s monetary system rather than “temporary price shocks” that derive primarily from idiosyncratic sources.
15 March 2008
Microloans Synthesize Civil Society
In his Financial Page essay, “What Microloans Miss” (The New Yorker, March 17, 2008), James Surowiecki criticizes those who promote microcredit as a tool to foster macroeconomic development. Making that claim ignores something more important than the need for financial support to spawn small to medium sized enterprises. Microloans, in fact, provide individuals in developing countries the self-respect and independence that other social systems offer their members through the rule of law and respect for individual rights.
In an increasingly materialistic world, made more uniform through the interstitial invasion of Information Technology (movies, music, radio and TV, the Internet), ideas are not as effective as money for engendering personal autonomy. With the sense of accomplishment that economic success brings, members of developing societies can follow a path out of oppressive poverty to political liberty. Microfinance synthesizes the long philosophical process of developing a civil society, and may possibly accelerate the resulting transformation of the social system.
Microfinance is really a tremendously subversive tool for relieving developing countries from autocratic control. Perhaps it is more likely to be accepted by oppressive regimes if it is thought to be intended for economic growth, as directly ineffective as it may actually be.
In his Financial Page essay, “What Microloans Miss” (The New Yorker, March 17, 2008), James Surowiecki criticizes those who promote microcredit as a tool to foster macroeconomic development. Making that claim ignores something more important than the need for financial support to spawn small to medium sized enterprises. Microloans, in fact, provide individuals in developing countries the self-respect and independence that other social systems offer their members through the rule of law and respect for individual rights.
In an increasingly materialistic world, made more uniform through the interstitial invasion of Information Technology (movies, music, radio and TV, the Internet), ideas are not as effective as money for engendering personal autonomy. With the sense of accomplishment that economic success brings, members of developing societies can follow a path out of oppressive poverty to political liberty. Microfinance synthesizes the long philosophical process of developing a civil society, and may possibly accelerate the resulting transformation of the social system.
Microfinance is really a tremendously subversive tool for relieving developing countries from autocratic control. Perhaps it is more likely to be accepted by oppressive regimes if it is thought to be intended for economic growth, as directly ineffective as it may actually be.
03 March 2008
Obama and Judgment
Senator Obama’s retort to Senator Clinton’s 3AM telephone call ad contrasts his judgment with Hillary’s experience. But John Fund’s OpEd article in the 3 March 2008 Wall Street Journal (“Obama and Chicago Mores”) reminds us that Barack has judgment issues of his own.
The vote that Senator Clinton cast in 2002 authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein was, if anything, a failure in accurately judging the reasonableness of the man in the White House, George Bush. She gave him more credit than he deserved for using caution, like his father, in deciding to wield America’s power and spill its blood, not to mention the blood of our opponents and allies.
Senator Obama has apparently made a similar mistake in evaluating the character of campaign fund-raiser and real-estate deal partner, Tony Rezko. Democrats can be thankful for Senator McCain’s stubborn conversion to Bush’s side based on his own failure of character judgment as much on his never finding himself in a war he didn’t like.
Senator Obama’s retort to Senator Clinton’s 3AM telephone call ad contrasts his judgment with Hillary’s experience. But John Fund’s OpEd article in the 3 March 2008 Wall Street Journal (“Obama and Chicago Mores”) reminds us that Barack has judgment issues of his own.
The vote that Senator Clinton cast in 2002 authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein was, if anything, a failure in accurately judging the reasonableness of the man in the White House, George Bush. She gave him more credit than he deserved for using caution, like his father, in deciding to wield America’s power and spill its blood, not to mention the blood of our opponents and allies.
Senator Obama has apparently made a similar mistake in evaluating the character of campaign fund-raiser and real-estate deal partner, Tony Rezko. Democrats can be thankful for Senator McCain’s stubborn conversion to Bush’s side based on his own failure of character judgment as much on his never finding himself in a war he didn’t like.
Channeling McCain
Frank Rich should have channeled Senator McCain away from his typically militarist approach to the world’s problems (Sunday Opinion, March 2, 2008). For example, Mr. Rich could have pointed out the following:
1) The only way the surge could be counted as successful is as a prelude to withdrawal. What it really shows is that lasting peace in Iraq will require a U.S. presence for fifty to one hundred years.
2) What’s more important to the U.S.—widespread respect for human rights or American homeland security? If the latter, then the U.S. was better off with a brutal dictator in Iraq like Saddam, in spite of his inhumane practices.
3) The Iraqis didn’t invite the U.S. to invade. In fact, there was no Iraqi consensus whose invitation we could have accepted, and there likely will not be one in the foreseeable future. A U.S. stand-down in expectation that the Iraqis will stand up is like pulling the beach pail off a pile of sand.
What can you expect from a veteran like McCain who has never shed his military outlook? In his view, if it looks like a war, then it must be won regardless of the consequences.
