A few more comments and some questions to ask yourselves in the weeks ahead.
+ I continue to remain much disturbed by the ease of the attack on the
Pentagon. After suffering enormous casualties from kamikaze pilots in
WWII, why was the Pentagon unprepared for this sort of thing - especially
considering that about five years ago, a suicidally crazy man crashed his
turboprop into the White House lawn? Can you imagine how much worse the
death toll would have been if Bin Laden had simply flown explosive-laden
propeller planes into the buildings? Planes spraying nerve gas, plutonium
dust or anthrax?
+ FAA controllers watched that second plane for minutes knowing where it
was headed, what it would do and yet, apparently, could do nothing. Why is
there no defense plan for this?
+ After the first bombing of the trade center, why weren't parachutes or
gliders issued to those on the top floors?
+ If Bin Laden and his organization isn't eliminated right away - either
by us or the Afghanis - expect to see foreign governments implicated.
Quite possibly, to Khatami's horror, Iran might be one of them. For the
first time in our lives you will see the joint defense clauses of the NATO
treaty activated, involving Canada, Europe and Turkey in whatever military
action we consider. We also have defense treaties with Australia, Saudi
Arabia and Israel. What a combination. But how do you declare war on a
nation if only a small part of it supported the attack on you?
+ Do not believe that old antagonisms will not rear their heads. The
Europeans have been deeply disappointed by the failure of the new US
"president" to reengage the Israelis and Palestinians in peace talks. If
Mideast peace doesn't move higher on Bush's agenda, expect European support
for retaliation to thin.
+ I have not been troubled by the media's coverage, at least for the first
day. Events happened too fast to spin. After hearing William Bennett go
on CNN and say this moment finally brought a return to "moral clarity" in
America, I begin to have doubts.
+ Now do you see why I criticized Bush for giving $50m in foreign aid to
the Taliban and why I criticized him for not taking swift action when those
zealots arrested aid workers on the death penalty offense of
prosyletization? It may be "just politics" but it affects all our lives.
These people are as bad as the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
+ I have no problem with a tax cut... provided it goes to the right
people. If you're going to do it, you should do it now and do it for most
Americans, not the wealthiest. The tax rebates were Democratic ideas
forced onto the Republican tax package. The vast bulk of Bush's cut
doesn't begin to take effect until late next year. And, of course,
economic stimulus was never the original point of the tax cut. Bush has a
habit of, when events change, not changing his actions but changing his
justifications. I fully expect to see him, for instance, push the missile
shield with even greater fervor.
This was entirely the WRONG kind of tax cut to stimulate consumption.
Consider what happens when 40% of the tax cut goes to the richest 1% of the
country. These people already buy all the food and gasoline and other
consumables they're likely too. Whatever percentage of that tax cut they'd
spend on consumption, it's vastly dwarfed by the percentage that the other
99% would spend. There is an argument that they'll invest it instead of
spending it and that will be good... but invest it in what? Money is
flowing OUT of the stock markets already. Giving more money to investors
who thus acknowledge they mismanaged their finances into a stock bubble of
epic proportions will do NOTHING. How will a capital gains tax cut help
you if you've got no capital gains!?
Bush, if anything, has made life more painful to the average consumer.
When you give 40% of a $2.6 trillion tax cut (that's what the IMF says the
true cost will be) to the richest in the country, the $3+ trillion in debt
does not magically vanish. What you've done though is a) stretch out
payments on it and b) shift the burden of paying it of onto those other 99%
of the tax payers. Because the rest of us did not get AS substantial a cut
as that 1%, the percentage of the federal debt we will have to pay off has
shot up. To top it off, on the bottom end of the income spectrum, income
taxes aren't even the largest percentage of taxes paid. Payroll taxes are
eating people up and Bush is deaf to moderating them - because rich people
don't pay them. Probably the single worst thing he did right away in his
term was sign a bill transforming unsecured, high risk credit cards into a
secured form of debt so that irresponsible banks could get their money back
in bankruptcy proceedings ahead of HMOs and doctors. This recession was
the first in my memory caused by investment mismanagement and
overproduction in the technology sector. We should not reward stupid
bankers who knew the risks and went out and offered credit cards to toy
poodles. Five year olds, pets and dead people are bad credit risks. Duh.
If you don't regulate banks closely, they get giddy and go out and do
stupid things. Remember the S&L crisis? Been to Japan lately?
A good stimulus package would have cut payroll taxes, extended unemployment
benefits and raised the minimum wage. To the extent the rate cuts have
lowered people's mortgage payments, they're a good thing. To the extent
they encourage people of questionable means to go buy homes on variable
rate mortgages which will explode when rates go back up... that I'm not so
sure about.
+ I fully support our actions in Bosnia. There are two factors you need
to examine in civil war/subnational conflicts such as exist in Northern
Ireland and Palestine. What do the opposing leaderships want to do (the
elites) and what's the opinion of the people (the mass). The people in
Northern Ireland dragged their leadership kicking and screaming into recent
peace talks. In the case of Yugoslavia, Milosevic and his cronies made the
decision late in the 1980s to stoke Serbian nationalism for their own
gains, both financial and political. The people did not by and large feel
a sharp antagonism until encouraged to do so. A few well placed threats by
NATO here and there could have dissuaded the leadership early on from
pursuing this course. Instead Sec. of State Baker met with Milosevic in
early 1991 and inadvertently encouraged things. It will now be quite
impossible to pacify the people and we are in it for a generational
mission. It's what we did with Germany and Japan. We cannot afford not to
get involved because Greece and Hungary are now NATO members and would
quickly be drawn into any wider war.
+ Some have gone on TV claiming the economy will be stimulated by this
destruction. Don't believe them. 8 million square feet and countless
financial documents were destroyed, which is nothing compared to the loss
of human capital and expertise. Look up the term "opportunity cost."
These people were the creme of America's financial sector.
That is not to say the message from our politicians needs to be the same.
Bush needs to reassure financial markets as much as anything. If he can
convince people not to sell their stock, we may not be totally sunk. If he
doesn't or can't, it's probably going to be a wash.
+ Bush cannot be blamed for this bombing. The lapses in judgment leading
to this span decades, starting when terrorism first shifted from hijackings
to bombings in the 1970s. I feel this current incident may well represent
its zenith - at least as far as conventional explosives go.
+ Having said that, I feel Bush has done everything he can to make
America's future less secure. He has abrogated or intends to abrogate more
treaties than I can keep track of, including nuclear non-proliferation and
test-ban agreements - going as far as to let India off the hook for its
program if they'll support his missile defense. He's also given China the
OK for expanding its own missile forces for the same reason. He is
literally an ideological zealot who will bring us all to the brink of war
in 10-20 years if somebody with some sanity like Colin Powell doesn't turn
his steering wheel and point it in a better direction.
I'm sure you've heard of Kyoto. Here are two more important treaties he's
withdrawn us from or failed to submit for ratification after good-faith
negotiation: germ warfare inspection protocols and OECD money laundering
regulations (how will he track terrorist networks without this?). I
suspect that the reason we won't allow germ warfare inspections is that we
have or intend to gear up our labs to manufacture biological weapons.
This behavior has very real consequences. The Congress RATIFIES all
treaties. Shouldn't it have a say when they're broken too? It's not the
president's power alone.
And why would any nation ever negotiate an agreement with us again if they
think the next president can just throw it in the trash? Would you obey
laws passed by Congress if they were changed 180 degrees every two years?
Last week, for the first time I think in history, a former Australian Prime
Minister suggested that Australia should withdraw from the ANZUS mutual
defense treaty if the US seriously believes Australia should defend Taiwan.
AUSTRALIA is discussing this - not France, not Germany, but Australia.
Certainly none of this behavior has gone down well in Europe. It's
solidified European community and accelerated the ongoing devolution of our
power and influence in the world.
Even the Girl Scouts have criticized Bush. Bush sided with Sudan at a
UNICEF conference on children's rights. The UNICEF has been working for a
decade to improve the plight of boys and girls caught in civil wars. The
boys are pressed into military service and forced to commit horrible acts
which scar them for life. The girls are raped and sexually tortured by the
troops. UNICEF has been trying to put an end to these despicable practices.
Sure, signing a declaration of rights probably won't do much, but at least
it's a start.
So what upset Bush?
He was upset that raped girls wouldn't be counseled abstinence is the best
method to prevent pregnancy.
I think you'll agree, whatever your opinion on birth control, that
abstinence is not an option with rape.
I'm not making any of this shit up. Start reading the paper if this is
news to you. Tune in the BBC on short wave. Go into the library and pick
up a foreign paper.
Bush's pattern is not to alter his behavior in light of new facts, but to
redouble his efforts and change his justifications. Clinton had some
spectacular foreign policy fiascoes in his administration, but at least he
learned from most of them.
Bush is a curious active-negative-passive-aggressive president. Unless the
American people bring tremendous pressure to bear on him to tell him he
cannot do something, he will not listen. The right-wing takeover of the
press makes this difficult.
+ If the aviation network stays down much longer, many direly ill will
start to die who did not have to.
+ Why am I worried about cameras on every street? Simple. Some partisans
down in Florida decided, "Hey. Why beat the niggers in the head with
nightsticks to keep them out of the polls. Let's use a computer to do it.
We'll turn them into convicted felons and send that list to the counties."
While only about half of the list was black there is ample evidence that
Sec. of State Harris set out to use racial criteria to block people from
voting. Go look at what the Choicepoint executives have told the press and
the US Civil Rights Commission. But hey. No harm, no foul. Put it behind
you. So, assuming Jeb Bush can find another technology officer for Florida
who, at the very least, won't get caught for his embezzling, what do you
think will happen if those felon lists were linked into the police face
recognition systems on election day? Probably not only would some people
not be allowed to vote, some of them would be shot and killed by police
when their "recapture" was attempted.
NOW do you trust the government?
*I* would, if people in power would just obey the constitution.
+ I am deeply disturbed by the response of Rhonda's students. Ask one of
them what they would do if another student put a gun to their head. Would
they say, "I'm ready for my closeup? Did you get that on film?" This lack
of a sympathetic response is evidence of extreme ennui. I think maybe such
people have had their emotions overstimulated like a drug.
>> We need to invest in man - the fallen man, that corrupted creation, the
>> smelly guy on the back of the bus.
What do I mean? Just what's printed in _Genesis_. We *are* our brother's
keeper. You can't pull back from Mideast peace talks simply because it
doesn't do anything for your electoral fortunes. You can't let the crazy
guy with schizophrenia go off his medication and panhandle on the street.
It affects us all.
>> The public square continues to get narrowed and privatized.
>I don't understand this statement, Wade. It seems to me the fasted way to
>narrow the public square is to un-privatize it, and impose the type of
>government uniformity you describe below.
If it's unprivatized, don't we all own it?
I didn't say we could ALL get what we wanted. Obviously, if your idea of a
good public square is one sporting open prostitution, you probably won't
get what you want. What's bad with a little repression?
It's not always a case of giving everybody what they want. Sometimes you
have to pick.
Some people win and some people lose. Pretending there don't have to be
any winners or losers merely means you're trying to hide who they are.
Don't read my attack on THIS government as an attack on government. If
government were responsibly constituted with a strong infusion of popular
legitimacy (say 75% turnout) and followed its own democratic principles, I
would easily trust its actions over those of a private corporation. In a
country where the people do not want to do their citizenship duties, the
public square gets sold off (privatized schools and prisons). This is not
a good trend. It's a bad trend. It only accelerates the cynicism. I
won't reiterate the arguments I've made about this before.
>This is scary. WHO decides which values are inculcated, Wade? Surely you're
>aware of the historical abuses of this type of approach? This is how you
Surely you're aware that SOMEBODY gets to make that decision?
Is it better to let schoolboards in Oklahoma ban _To Kill A Mockingbird_
because they think it's racist? How about the teaching of evolution?
We have concrete scientific evidence that students who receive a thorough
sexual education (including birth control) are much more likely to behave
responsibly when it comes to sex, not less so. And yet we let idiots run
around bullying schoolboards into teaching abstinence because they feel it
furthers their goal of increasing responsibility - when in fact limiting
information is shown to do just the opposite.
Now do I think everybody will benefit from the same policy?
No. Clearly different individuals need different levels of attention.
Is the education bureaucracy too onerous? Certainly.
Have you gone to your local school board meeting to change it?
I don't blame Americans for their difficulties. The work week has expanded
(along with commuting times) and when it did, it cut off the time people
had to invest in community activities. When you don't watch bureaucracy
carefully, it grows out of control.
The relationship between church and state has always been a complicated
one. I won't reiterate my past arguments on this list, but sufficeit to
say I think both institutions are in decline.
And, yes, you do instill values. If somebody instills values of murder and
revenge, you have to stand up to that.
I cannot pretend there aren't very complicated questions out there which
can lead "good" people to very different conclusions. But what does the
imperfection of man's faculties have to do with the values of humility? Go
back and read the Federalists re "ambition checking ambition" and the lack
of "angels" to govern us.
>> It's one thing to note the horror of the ongoing intifada but what do we do
>> concrete about it?
>What do you think of Clinton and Albright's efforts in that area? Or in
Uh, blessed are the peacemakers?
If you chose to pull completely out of the mideast, you'll probably get
bombed by Jewish militants. If you side openly with Israel, you'll
continue getting attacked by Islamic militants. And if you negotiate in
good faith with both, ALL the bullies will target you.
Remember who shot at Rabin and Ghandi?
It took fifty years to free Eastern Europe. The Cold War cost billions.
Was it in your mind a fruitless endeavor?
These are generational problems. In an area like Ireland, you've got to
grab ahold of the children early on and start teaching them something
different than what their parents learned. These are problems of poverty
and ignorance. They are not easy to treat. And they are not "problems" in
the sense of an algebraic solution being out there somewhere.
There are plenty of problems the private sector can solve. How do you get
bread on the store shelves the most efficiently? But do not be confused
into thinking that public choice and private choice are the same things.
In many ways, they are opposites. Go read about Condorcet's paradox.
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