A Cup of Coffee

Enegaging Ideas

2005-04-28T14:26:00.000-04:00

Via Democracy Arsenal, I am interested in hearing feedback from my colleague on a recent post by Heather Hulbert:

Tomorrow's Headlines Today

Three topics I'd be very interested in if I were a magazine assignments editor, a corporate strategist, or the head of State's Policy Planning shop*:

1. A small-c conservative shift in Europe is larger than most engaged Americans realize, with implications that we haven't much thought through.

Exhibit A is how the selection of Pope Benedict XVI stunned many American observers, even though in retrospect he was doing some pretty good campaigning for himself in the Italian media. More specifically, how his election has been attributed to the church's concern with the decline in European catholicism. (Remember that Europe is still vastly over-represented in the College of Cardinals.) And what issue did he take on first? A gay marriage law in Spain. I'd never argue that the church's European cardinals are exactly in tune with the continental zeitgeist... but yet...

Exhibit B is the upcoming referenda on the EU constitutional treaty in France and the Netherlands. The treaty is in trouble in France and a concern in the Netherlands, both traditional bastions of pro-EU sentiment. In neither country is the vote really about the 400-page accretion of specificities and compromises that make up Giscard d'Estaing's treaty; in both the anti-treaty sentiment is tinged with anti-Muslim sentiment that has seized on the prospect of Turkish admission to the EU as one of its rallying points (an opposition it shares with Pope Benedict, by the way.)

If a major EU country votes down the treaty, that will provoke a near-crisis. Even if France and the others pull a "oui" out of the fire, the going for the Euro-phile project, and for the tolerant multiculturalism that many Americans, rightly or wrongly, associate with "Europe" is going to be tough for a few years.

Might that have implications for how much energy and vision Europe can devote to challenges beyond its borders? Are the "non" campaigners and the cardinals tapping into some very real discomforts with what the 21st century looks like, discomforts not unlike those that make Americans go running to George W. bush for another four years of safety from terrorism? You bet.

2. A diffuse, unsteady but very real "third wave" of democratization and "people power" is crashing around the world right now. If I were a Bush Administration speechwriter, I'd be bragging about it at every opportunity. Why aren't they?

A theory: we all spend a great deal of time worrying about democracy producing results we don't like in places like Iraq, citing the example of fundamentalists elected in Algeria 14 years ago, and so on. But interestingly, the results most inimical to Washington's order of things right now are coming from Latin America. Chavez is still in power, and still tweaking Washington; Ecuador can't seem to keep a government in power; and voters in Uruguay and elsewhere have acted n their dissatisfaction with how little growth has trickled down to bring in a "pink tide" of leftist governments in recent years.

And then there are the plucky democracy campaigners we can't (or won't) do much of anything to help -- Zimbabwe, Togo.

So narrowly, this wave of democratization was not made in Washington. But it is changing the face of some critical regions -- the former Soviet Union, South America, parts of Africa -- in ways that are good for core US values in the long run, but perhaps challenging for Bush Administration interests in the short run.

3. An amen, brother to Derek's thoughts on building a strategic reserve of people who actually know something about the Arab and Muslim worlds to help make policy on them, with one addition; in my experience, we are also pretty short on Asia experts. The broad issue corresponding to terrorism here is strategy for how the US positions itself politically and economically in a world where Asia is on the rise -- and then the ability to carry out such a strategy. I find the Asianist shortage to get more severe the higher-up one goes; there are still too many of us reformed Sovietologists around. Many of the Bush Administration's miscalculations, to my mind, can be explained by the paucity of policymakers whose minds were formed anywhere other than in the US-Soviet cauldron.

Any comments??

A Goldmine for New Ways to Promote "Freedom"

2005-04-22T23:08:00.000-04:00

In the most recent Washington Monthly Professor William Galston of the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs has an exceptionally important (and exceptionally long) discourse on the meaning of freedom in American history and how it has shaped our political history in the last fifty years.

This piece is full of both lessons for progressives to learn in how they lost the ground to conservaties in leading the push for freedom both at home and abroad. The piece also contains many nuggets of gold for Democrats should mine to push in future elections.

For example, on healthcare:

Consider universal health care. The left typically stresses the social justice side of this issue: In the most prosperous country on earth, it is an avoidable wrong that 45 million citizens lack health insurance. While this point is both accurate and morally admirable, invoking it has not moved the nation any closer to the goal. A more effective argument would focus on the ways in which our current system of employer-provided health care limits individual freedom. Countless Americans today are stuck in unrewarding jobs which they would like to leave—to start a new business or go back to college to upgrade their skills—but dare not, because doing so would deprive themselves and their families of health insurance. A system of universal health care would allow all Americans to pursue their dreams and take more risks.

On access to a college education:

Or consider post-secondary education. During the past three decades, young Americans with no more than a high school education have seen a steadily narrowing range of occupational choices. In that respect, they are less free than were their parents with the same level of schooling. This isn't just an economic growth issue (though it is), or a social justice issue (though it is that, too); it is at its core an issue of individual freedom. While supporting reforms of grant and loan programs to diminish corruption, enhance efficiency, and improve targeting, liberals should insist on unfettered access to post-secondary education and training, regardless of socioeconomic status. This means getting serious about high school dropout rates, which recent studies show are much higher than is generally understood (about 30 percent nationally, and 50 percent in many black, Hispanic, and low income neighborhoods). It means getting serious about the alarming numbers of students who drop out of college by the end of freshmen year because their high school diploma didn't prepare them for entry-level college courses. And it means getting serious about the millions of talented poor and minority kids who don't continue their education after high school because no responsible adult ever told them that they could—and should.

Last, AND MOST IMPORTNANT:

The third principle that should guide a center-left freedom agenda is the notion that freedom is seldom without cost. It usually requires sacrifice. Contemporary conservatism, with its free-lunch mentality, has a hard time admitting this. Liberals should embrace it.

I think these are all important ideas and should as a guide for center-left people looking for ideas. It is a definite must read.

Life in our Nation's Capital

2005-04-18T22:07:00.000-04:00

From tonight's Nelson Report, in its entirety:

Mon., April 18, 2005

BOLTON BATTLE...the real fight

If the fight over John Bolton’s UN nomination were just about John Bolton, he’d be history already. But this isn’t about Bolton, it’s about the exercise of power. Same thing with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. If this was even 5 years ago, he’d be toast. We are at the point now where the Republican Leadership refuses to allow the possibility of a loss on anything, regardless of the merits. This renders “debate” meaningless, since nothing said actually matters, so truth is irrelevant. “Science” depends on faith; everything is a test of power. Oppose something the President wants, and you aren’t just wrong, you are betraying the Party. The underlying message is that you are also offending a very particular definition of God.

The sad, sorry Bolton/DeLay spectacles are about total war, the kill-the-prisoners exercise of power that national US politics has become since the 2000 election. If it were merely about power, it wouldn’t be so terrifying. Washington is used to that...it’s what we exist for. But the fear, the self-loathing, the pathetic, cowardly, sniveling, excuse-making drivel from such “leaders” as Lugar, Hagel, Chafee, the entire House Republican Leadership under DeLay...and the ever-so-very carefully expressed angst of the Democrats...is about something far more dangerous to the Republic than mere political power. What we are seeing is a fight for the political soul of the nation. We’ve had these before, in the existential sense...in my political lifetime, the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the women’s rights versus, to a certain extent, the right to life movement. But this time it’s totally and completely a fight about God...specifically, whether God is going to rule in the United States.

The Constitution says that would be illegal, and any serious expert can tell you that not only were the Founders liberal in their interpretation of the Deity, but they intentionally enshrined a purely secular civic government, including the courts. They didn’t think that Jesus had an official plan for us, much less did they think that politicians who defined their duties in secular terms were defying the word of God. Tom Delay manifestly believes this, and it sounds like any number of Senate Republicans either agree, or lack the imagination or moral courage to disagree...why else would some endorse threats against Republican-appointed judges who dare to interpret the law in secular terms? This is what the Bolton fight is really about: you can’t dump him, because that lets the Democrats win on both the facts and principle...fatal notions to a desire to pack the courts with religious and secular policy extremists. Why else would there be the constant drumbeat of attacks on the “liberal media”, except to undermine public trust in the Constitutionally provided mediator between the politicians and the people?

The Founders knew how to protect what they intended; this crowd has figured out how to undermine the very rule of law in the United States. Listen to what DeLay is arguing...that his excesses have nothing to do with his “persecution”, interesting choice of word, by the Democrats and their “liberal press allies”. If a majority of Congressional Republicans don’t, in their hearts, see the hypocrisy of all this, the Republic is doomed. The real story behind Bolton and DeLay is obvious, to anyone not already seduced by the dark side. Connect the dots. There’s still time

This is a scathing attack, to say the least. We know a lot about many of the prime movers in Washington: Tom DeLay; Jack Abramhoff; of course President George W. Bush. Perhaps my religion expert colleague can help extrapolate on what drives some of these men and women. In the meaintime, this is as good a place to start as any.

Friday Random Top Ten

2005-04-15T15:18:00.000-04:00

I've been too busy to post too much this week. Additionally, I created a new blog to track my health. Check out getting into shape.

Top Ten:
1.Mirah - Words Cannot Describe
2. Radiohead - Fitter Happier
3. Bright Eyes - No lies, just love
4. Interpol - NYC
5. Pulp - Deep Fried in Kelvin
6. Broken Social Scene - Pitter Patter Goes My Heart
7. Flaming Lips - Sleeping on the Roof
8. The Weakerthans - Our Retired Explorer
9.Monster Movie - Winter is Coming
10. Jens Lekman - Maple Leaves

At least there's a better mix this week. Again: work computer, limited selection, etc.

Babysteps Toward A Progressive National Security Strategy

2005-04-14T11:08:00.000-04:00

From a new National Security blog, with no additional comment (she captures it all):

Here goes: Today's progressive still has a basic faith in people, participation and broadly shared well-being. However, given the degraded state of our democracy, and the increasing decadence of our political leadership, progressives can simply go back to basics and reclaim many of the democratic principles enshrined in our history like problem-solving, compromise and benign, pragmatic nationalism. Blogs can claim the role of the progressive journalists of the last turn of the century, who documented the frenzy of institutional corruption and greed--and were motivated by a conviction that publicized facts would lead to social transformation. In other words, that truth would set us free.

Truth is a little more problematic nowadays, however. Current political leadership are virtuousos at "truth management" and polls have shown how a chunk of the population believe the product that's served up despite hard facts to the contrary. Karl Rove has truly turned corporate public relations into a governing philosophy. So we have to learn a hard lesson, there's a worldview and then there's facts. If you're a non-negotiable conservative, when the facts don't fit the worldview, you don't chuck the worldview, you jettison the facts.

Today's new progressive movement needs to be non-partisan but not apolitical. In short, it needs to rescue our democracy by claiming the wide terrain that has opened up in the middle of the political spectrum. This is the fundamental reason why the military and progressives need each other. The market fundamentalism of the conservative movement--along with its anti-government rhetoric--has damaged cultural notions of sacrifice, common good and public service, the military's very reason for being. This damage can be seen in the effects of privatization on the uniformed Americans serving in Iraq...where a private contractor earns several times more than a soldier.

The military institution--whose professional education system is steeped in American history and the labors involved in building a healthy democracy--looks more and more ideal as our civilian/public sector systems fail. Internationally this holds true as well: American JAGs have become global human rights champions for their work defending the rights of prisoners in Guantanamo.

The conservative strategy of substituting public relations for a governing philosophy has impacted the military as well. Intentions aside, the military has allowed the public and elected leaders to persist in the belief that defense industry pronouncements equal professional military opinion. As a Hill staffer, I visited military installations--trailed by industry staff (and lobbyists) where Lockheed or Boeing reps answered all the gadget and hardware questions and the uniformed professionals were mostly silent. Strategy, doctrine and the challenges they were really facing in the world went unmentioned. Military involvement in policymaking is always controversial, but somehow this inaction has helped lead us to where we are now: with lots of non working missile defense and not enough body armor.

In two out of the last three years, the only budgets that have passed in Congress within the fiscal year are the defense bills. If all Congress is willing to fund is defense, then pretty soon everything is going to become a security issue. This should frighten every American, left, right and center.

Progressives need to stand together to turn back the contagion of institutional pyromania unleashed on our federal government by conservatives. Getting to know and understand the military, its history, culture and needs will hopefully lead to a more balanced and mutual respect. This is an important first step in any progressive security alternative.

Lincoln and Bush--No Comparison

2005-04-11T14:00:00.000-04:00

Lately, you occasionally hear or read about how about one of the crazies has compared George W Bush to Abraham Lincoln. However, the comparison couldn't be less apt.

One was a great American who gave all, including his life, for his country. The other cares about nothing beyond electoral politics, strengthening his "base," and pushing forward a narrow agenda to the detriment of his country. To: wit:

[T]he calm also reflects a political calculation among Bush's strategists. In their eyes, mass opinion doesn't matter as much as the attitude of the voters motivated to turn up on election day. As long as the president pleases his base, strategists believe they can produce an electorate that is more sympathetic to Bush and the GOP than the country is generally. That means Bush and his party can survive ratings with the general public that might sink other presidents.

............

This strategy was the key to Bush's win in November. Exit polls showed that Democrat John F. Kerry outpolled Bush significantly among moderates and narrowly with independents. But Bush significantly increased the share of Republicans and conservatives in the electorate from 2000. And they provided him margins lopsided enough to offset his mediocre performance among swing voters.

Bush's congressional strategy follows from his electoral strategy. In issues such as Social Security and taxes, Bush has usually proposed policies that enthuse most Republicans and enrage most Democrats. Most often, he has preferred to pass his initiatives with a skintight partisan majority than to compromise to attract more Democrats (and sometimes even moderate Republicans).

This hardball approach has allowed Bush to advance much of his agenda, often by the slimmest of margins (such as the recent 51-49 Senate vote approving drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). It's also helped him maintain enormous support among rank-and-file Republicans.

But this success has come at the cost of widening the country's political divisions. Bush's electoral strategy makes him inherently less sensitive than most presidents to the concerns of voters outside his core coalition. He appears content to operate as president of half the country. The gap between Bush's approval rating among voters in his own party and the opposition is the largest ever recorded. Bush's approval rating among moderates in Gallup surveys hasn't exceeded 50% since January 2004, and he's passed that milestone among independents just twice in the last year.

----------------------------------------
Ron Brownstein
"Bush's Neglect of Consensus May be Kindling for Fiery
Senate Showdown"
LA Times, April 11, 2005

The presidency is not something that could be enjoyed. Remembering its barrenness for him, one can believe that the life of Lincoln's soul was almost entirely without consummation. Sandberg remarks that there were thirty-one rooms in the White House and that Lincoln was not at home in any of them. This was the house for which had sacrificed so much!

As the months passed, a deathly weariness settled over him. Once when Noah Brooks suggested that he rest, he replied: "I suppose it is good for the body. But the tired part of me is inside and out of reach." There had always been a part of him, inside and out of reach, that had looked upon his ambition with detachment and wondered if the game was worth the candle. Now he could see the truth of what he had long dimly known and perhaps hopefully suppressed--that for a man of sensitivity and compassion to exercise great powers in a time of crisis is a grim and agonizing thing. Instead of glory, he once said, he had found only "ashes and blood." This was, for him, the end product of that success myth by which he had lived and for which he had been so persuasive a spokesman. He had had his ambitions and fulfilled them, and met heartache in his triumph.

---------------------------------------
Richard Hofstadter
"The American Political Tradition"
Pg. 173

Friday Random Top Ten

2005-04-08T13:39:00.000-04:00

Following Pandagon's lead, here's my top ten songs at work (where my collection is admittedly quite limited:

1. Ash - Submitted
2. Bright Eyes - Take It Easy (Love Nothing)
3. Bright Eyes - Touch
4. Magnetic Fields - Queen of the Savages
5. Mirah - Million Miles
6. Weezer - O Girlfriend
7. Elliott Smith - Waltz #2
8. Antarctica - Arctikal
9. Magnetic Fields - Punk Love
10. The Faint - Paranoiattack

Admittedly, probably a little too Bright Eyes-Mag Fields centric, but you can't blame me for that. Blame storage space. And my busted iPod.

Coming to Theatres: The Memo (Can You Teach Me How To Fight?)

2005-04-07T12:23:00.000-04:00

Democrats are, rightfully, giddy about today's revelation that the infamous Republican Schiavo memo was legitimate after all. It's a wonderful smackdown of all the mouth-breathing Powerline and friends have been grunting over it lately. Rather-Gate was a one-time affair, folks. Deal with it.

I don't completely buy it. I think there's a pretty good chance that the memo was faked on purpose. Say you're a strategist in the Republican party. You think that exploiting Schiavo's death will benefit the party by riling up an already ecstatic base. However, you're concerned that the media might suddenly drop ranks from behind you and consolidate around the recognition of your party's exploitation.

You remember the success of Rathergate. If those documents had been valid, they would have helped solidify the truth they were representing to the public. Instead, the forgery discredited the accusations and they didn't really take off like the Swift Boats attacks did.

So you write a quick memo. You want to make sure the lower levels of the food chain know what to do with it, so you make their job really easy: you misspell the name of the woman, which has been splashed all over every news channel for weeks, cite the wrong bill, don't put it on any letterhead, etc. The right-wing blogs jump at the opportunity to prove their relativity once again, and, with enough pressure, they will hopefully elevate the discussion to the MSM. Then you get to paint Democrats as a bunch of dishonest partisans just trying to tarnish the good name of the GOP.

Partisan hackish? Sure. Naievely executed? Definately. But definately not surprising.

Karen the Torpedo (Promenade)

2005-03-16T21:41:00.000-05:00

Ezra mentioned something earlier about Rice wanting Hughes in her new post over at State.

She may very well love the idea. And if that's the case, Ezra's right on.

But I don't think so. I see two possible reasons for Hughes' nomination:

1) There was a substantial amount of media speculation about a Rice run at the Presidency just before the nomination. Rice knocked it down on Sunday, but all last week was abuzz with the sounds of political hacks mumbling giddily about Rice vs. Hillary.
Bush knows this, and he (or, more specifically the Republican establishment) wants to cool her down. She's running all around the world, sure, but she's hogging up the spotlight in a way that even a Matrixed out Colin Powell never could have. Hughes, who in reality has more power (if by power you mean long-standing proximity to the President) than Rice, will be technically underneath her, but in a position almost as prominent. She will have the opportunity to spend as much time talking to Middle Eastern leaders in front of the cameras as Rice, and that will diminish Rice's stature.

So why wouldn't the GOP establishment want Rice? Personal aspirations, sure, but in reality, Rice could never win the nomination. There goes all the inroads with the African-American community, who will be lost for another generation. There goes their attempts to continue to recast Republicanism as a somehow open ideology. Anyone who is less black or feminine than Rice will re-establish those old stereotypes.

2) Bush still doesn't trust State. Diplomats are anathema to him (see: John Bolton for UN), so he wants someone else breathing down their neck that will absolutely carry out the administration's bidding.

Dream Deaths, Pt. I

2005-03-12T10:42:00.000-05:00

Red skies. Clouds of modern art reflecting splashes of color.

Wandering the industrial section of the town on a Sunday sunset, the hulking concrete and steel superstructures towering silently into the fiery sky. The streets were hollow except for me. Nary a car nor bus nor bird nor bee could be seen or heard. My steps didn't even echo in the silence.

And yet I walked on, knowing that eventually I'd hit something. I'd been on my feet for hours, and my soles and shins ached. But I figured that I had no idea what else to do, so I kept putting one foot in front of the other.

I was on a polluted waterfront when I first heard voices. The smells of sewage thickening my senses.

"Halt!" a gruff voice commanded from nowhere. I almost laughed. Pseudo-masculine adolescence vainly and overtly trying to prove itself. It was like a bad movie.

But I didn't laugh; instead, I stopped and looked around. A group of about ten teenaged punks, mohawks and dangling safety pins all of them, were materializing from the corners of buildings. One, obviously the leader, strode forward.

"Who are you?" he barked. Same fake gruffness.

"I-I don't know, actually" I mumbled. It hit me: I didn't know. All those interminable hours wandering around through post-modern desolation must have wrung all the identity from me.

He snickered, turning to one of his cohorts. "Another newbie" he laughed. They chuckled, then scoffed.

"Well, come with us," he said, turning back to me. "You're not going to last much longer out here on your own."

More blog changes

2005-03-12T10:26:00.000-05:00

I've been through several blogs in my time. Most of them have been shuttered after several weeks or months, as the constraints of time, interest, and some late onset ADD have left them dormant. Some were technology blogs, others political, and one or two personal. One of the problems, though, was that I never blended all the interests I straddle. If a blog lends familiarity to the reader, then it can only do that with a somewhat complete picture of the author.

So, in that interest, I'm going to make a few changes. First, the blog's going to be updated with my semi-weekly music newsletter (something like Said the Gramophone). Second, it will continue its occasional discussion about politics, security, and intellectual property (which would be oh so much better if Blogger's moblogging feature actually worked consistently). But my colleague and I will augment that discussion with an oh so general chronicle (this is an anonymous blog, after all) about our attempts to find work in the supposedly plentiful national security field. Finally, I'm going to throw in serialized stories, just because I like all you readers that much. Well, not really; more realistically, I just want to get comments on their direction and my feeble attempts at narration.

Plus, I might move the blog. Typepad's looking mighty tasty these days.

2005-03-12T00:35:00.000-05:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

The Right to Vote (True Blue)

2005-03-09T21:40:00.000-05:00

Mark Schmitt, in response to Kevin Drum's post about individual rights, makes a key distinction between Drum's 3 rights. First, though, Drum:

If you asked me to name the most fundamental rights of U.S. citizen -- the absolute minimum core that we could have and still call ourselves America -- I'd name three: freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial, and the right to vote. The government should not be in the business of limiting any of these things except in the most extreme cases.

And Schmitt:

The official Most Important Right, according to our government, is, The right to vote.

Schmitt goes on to talk about a plan for real universal suffrage, but there's a reason why it doesn't exist - and I think it provides an important context.

Simply put, the difference between the first two rights and voting is their derivation - the first two, according to the Western philosophy that created our nation, derive from the Creator. That means that Congress is, technically speaking, empowered to say that someone should or should not have the right to check a box.

Should they, though? That's the real question. In a democracy, to paraphrase, you go into an election with the public you have, not the public you want. One of the fundamental guarantors of future democracies is that this does not change; that elected officials cannot decide who gets to cast a vote when their incumbency is in question. And that's the real problem with the whole mess of felons not voting - the effect that has on democracy.

And the rats show their noses... (A Bedside Story)

2005-03-05T16:37:00.000-05:00

Whenever a government body makes a decision that is so utterly just
that only the morally despicable can object, those few launch into
self-important screeds against justice itself.

Case in point: this week's Supreme Court decision barring capital
punishment of juvenile offenders. As the majority decision points
out, society draws the line for adulthood at 18. While under 18, an
individual cannot legally purchase or engage in morally questionable
luxury excesses (cigarettes, alchol, gambling), vote, or speak for
themselves before the state in a legal setting. Nonetheless, before
this week, that state could execute them for crimes committed before
18. Moreover, a majority of states had decided that juvenile capital
punishment was such an indefensible practice that it was not allowed
into their lawbooks. Finally, the winds of international opinion have
been blowing against the practice for years.

But the Journal href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006361">disagrees.
Sure, they say that they would be opposed to juvenile capital
punishment; that their opposition to the ruling stems only from its
indefensible logic. But it is their own tortured logic that proves
otherwise.

Take their claim that a national consensus does not exist:

His evidence for this "consensus" is that of the 38 states that permit
capital punishment, 18 have laws prohibiting the execution of
murderers under the age of 18. As we do the math, that's a minority of
47% of those states. The dozen states that have no death penalty offer
no views about special immunity for juveniles--and all 12 permit 16-
and 17-year-olds to be treated as adults when charged with non-capital
offenses.

Watch the logic flop like a fish. By limiting the scope only to those
states that have the death penalty, he is 'able' to disprove the
consensus. What a great manipulation of statistics! Realistically,
though, he's saying that the views of the 12 states that already
outlaw the death penalty do not matter. Nevermind that they
automatically outlaw the practice; to the author, they have removed
themselves from the death penalty debate by choosing a side he doesn't
agree with.

The author later moves on to express his distaste for the use of
foreign opinion to discredit a domestic practice - he even calls up
the Convention on the Rights of the Child (a treaty the U.S. has not
ratified, leaving it in a category only with Somalia). But isn't that
what the U.S. is trying to do in its quest to spread democracy?
Moreover, doesn't that quest itself require the U.S. to set a moral
example - not behave in an unjust manner?

The author's other argument rests on abortion - which I've long
supposed to be the innate hypocricy of the capital punishment debate.
Being 'Pro-Life' should essentially apply to all life. But for many
people it only applies to babies in the womb. Once you poke your head
out, you're fair game. Maybe they should change their identification
to being pro-prenatal-life, or pro-womb-life. At least then they'd be
accurate.

2005-02-21T17:21:00.000-05:00

Hunter S. Thompson, R.I.P

What a difference a border makes (Indian Summer)

2005-02-17T23:42:00.000-05:00

Sleepily strolling through Steve Clemmons' website this evening, I happened upon this speech in defense of gay marriage by Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. The philosophical parts:

We will be influenced by our faith but we also have an obligation to take the widest perspective -- to recognize that one of the great strengths of Canada is its respect for the rights of each and every individual, to understand that we must not shrink from the need to reaffirm the rights and responsibilities of Canadians in an evolving society.

....

The Charter was enshrined to ensure that the rights of minorities are not subjected, are never subjected, to the will of the majority. The rights of Canadians who belong to a minority group must always be protected by virtue of their status as citizens, regardless of their numbers. These rights must never be left vulnerable to the impulses of the majority.

We embrace freedom and equality in theory, Mr. Speaker. We must also embrace them in fact.

Third, some have counseled the government to extend to gays and lesbians the right to "civil union." This would give same-sex couples many of the rights of a wedded couple, but their relationships would not legally be considered marriage. In other words, they would be equal, but not quite as equal as the rest of Canadians.

....

Put simply, we must always remember that "separate but equal" is not equal.

Contrast this with Bush's February 24, 2004 call for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages (which he has conveniently backed away from, now that he no longer has to buy votes with the view):

After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence, and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization.

.....
America is a free society, which limits the role of government in the lives of our citizens. This commitment of freedom, however, does not require the redefinition of one of our most basic social institutions. Our government should respect every person, and protect the institution of marriage. There is no contradiction between these responsibilities. We should also conduct this difficult debate in a manner worthy of our country, without bitterness or anger.

In all that lies ahead, let us match strong convictions with kindness and goodwill and decency.

I think a student of political science would be hard pressed to engage in a more apt reductionist framing of the differences between liberals and conservatives. Liberals, generally speaking, search for the equality they seek in spite of tradition (indeed, they tend to shy away from its wisdoms) whereas conservatives are willing to sell the farm on equality to preserve their sense of tradition.

Both are subjective, allowing the terms of debate in the equality vs. tradition war to shift. But, at the same time, both are noble goals to achieve - just not at the expense of the other.

VA Bill to Make Religion a Right (Dig Your Own Grave)

2005-02-17T23:03:00.000-05:00

I'm surprised the blogosphere, consumed as it is with Guckongate, hasn't said much on this article, which discusses an attempt by Virginia legislatures to guarantee the right to prayer:

The constitution states that people have the right to the "free exercise of religion," a sentence that was written mostly by George Mason and adopted in 1776. It goes on to guarantee that the General Assembly will not give any privilege or advantage to any one sect, that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship." That language, written by Thomas Jefferson, was adopted by the General Assembly in 1786.

....

Carrico's proposed amendment reiterates that the state could not "establish any official religion" but says that "the people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, and traditions on public property, including public schools, shall not be infringed."

How that's not implied is beyond me. This isn't France - you can wear religious symbols. And, unless things have changed since I was in school, praying may get you laughed at, but it's not going to get you expelled.

What you can't do, however - and this is something the courts have reaffirmed on multiple occasions - is endorse the practices or teachings of a specific religion while acting in an official capacity. This means no prayer during football huddles (really, who has time to pray? shouldn't they be calling plays?), no religious songs in choir, etc.

But what I think is really interesting about this language is the "right to pray and recognize" clause. If your religion teaches you that it is your duty to proselytize, then shouldn't you be able to 'recognize' that belief under this law and summarily practice it? That would seem to mean that a teacher could inject his or her beliefs into a class discussion because it is her belief that she should share them with others. Sounds to me like this bill wouldn't find a wooden leg in court.

Really, though, I'd like to see what the Bible belt types say when Muslim children recognize the 3 prayers of the day they miss while in school. More and more, I see these 'oppressed Christian' complaints to be ignorant of what it would be like if their beliefs weren't the ones writing the laws.

The Fight for Corporate Cyber-Rights (Impossible)

2005-02-17T10:58:00.000-05:00

Concerns over cyber security have often led to an age-old dispute: the role of government in ensuring the safety of its citizens contrasted with the power of the free market to do the same. Consultants and government officials tended to lean toward the first side in the argument, corporate representatives to the other. From the article:

Panelists discussing who should be responsible for company security breaches that result in identity theft or economic loss to customers were divided on whether government regulation would help improve security.

Former national cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke and renowned cryptographer and computer security expert Bruce Schneier said that companies will not get serious about securing their networks and protecting customer data until they are forced to do so by regulations that impose fines or other penalties for failing to secure their networks.

But Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America -- whose members include software makers -- and Rick White, president and CEO of TechNet, an association of CEOs, argued that regulation would stifle innovation and wouldn't solve the problems since other regulated industries, like the energy and telecommunications industries, still have issues that regulation hasn't solved.

This argument has been around for as long as I've been interested in the subject (at least half a decade, probably longer). It was epitomized by the discussion surrounding the release of the 2002 National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. Critics were concerned that the document, which was authoured by Richard Clarke's office, did not impose any kind of requirements upon businesses (those that had been in the draft version had been stripped out). Instead, a compromise was reached: a voluntary clearinghouse, the Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII) would allow corporations to share security related information without concern that sensitive information would be transmitted to competitors or the public. In order to participate in the program, corporations had to agree to abide by government security regulations. Of course, the program has "flopped."

Security breaches are on the rise. The industry run center that tracks security violations gave up trying to aggregrate the numbers last year. Spyware and adware are becoming so proliferant that they have awakened the sleeping giant (Microsoft), who is about to release its own anti-spyware tool. And with incidents like this week's Choicepoint hack, in which thousands of individuals' sensitive information was stolen,
the situation is slowly pushing its way out of geekdom and wonkworld into the mainstream public consciousness.

So then what's at issue? The free marketers argue that industry can reliably protect its customers. Government regulation, they claim, would stifle their ability to create new products because they would be forced to comply with rulesets that would quickly grow stale and overcumbersome. Moreover, the constantly evolving world of computer vulnerabilities would be nearly impossible to manage via a regulation regime. Instead, they say, customer and consumer demand will force companies to stay compliant.

The regulationists, on the other hand, acknowledge their ideas' shortcomings but say that industry won't comply automatically. Essentially, they've had their chance - yet incidents of identity theft on the scale of hundreds of thousands of people still occur. Because the threat thrives on its dispersed nature - since most data can be stolen or computers violated from any one of a number of links in the infrastructure - the responsibility for ensuring that citizens are protected is pushed onto the government. The government, in turn, should provide incentives and punishments for companies that can't produce secure products.

Both sides concern me. Obviously, the free market solution is pretty dysfunctional. In the Choicepoint case, the affected consumers generally had no clue that this company had so much of their personal information stored in its databases. Without that knowledge, how could they pressure Choicepoint to comply? Of course, once the incident occured, it's a different situation. But the point of security is to stop attacks or ensure that they are unsuccessful.

Government regulation has its own problems. Obviously, someone will have to be held responsible for compliance. But that would wither the maturing open source movement, which, in many cases, has produced more reliable alternatives than its commercial counterparts. Small software houses would similarly suffer. Finally, the added costs both to consumer price and development time could, indeed, limit American business. Why would Microsoft release a new version of Outlook if they could be held responsible 3 years down the road when some anonymous hacker uncovers a previously unconsidered exploit?

Some have suggested that we should instead move to a process model, similar to the ISO models software uses (or the CE model for electric appliances). Essentially, in order to be 'certified,' the software producer would have to show due dilligence in their software security process (or data collection or archival process, or whatever) that they are taking all reasonable steps to ensure protection. Their products or services could then be branded with the logo, like the CE in a circle logo you'll find on anything electrical. The brand's integrity will rely on the regime's ability to ferret out problems before they occur, and force corporations to move quickly once a vulnerability is exploited. Consumers would, eventually, learn to trust the brand until every product or service bears the label.

Not so fast on Wilf for President

2005-02-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

I guees I spoke too soon. Before the future President Wilf can begin his political career he will have to pay off some medical bills. He was finally able to return home in October 2004. However, per Pete's Post, as reported by the Christian Science Monitor:

After serving 410 days in Iraq with the 1st Armored Division, Spc. Stuart Wilf came home to Colorado on Oct. 2. He changed his clothes, borrowed his mother’s car, and went out with friends to celebrate.

On the way home, he fell asleep at the wheel and had a head-on collision with a tree. He survived, but since he was newly discharged, he had no health insurance.

“That was a mind-boggling thing to find out the first day he’s out of the service,” says his mother, Becky Wilf. “His bill was $54,000 just for the hospital. That doesn’t include the surgeon.”

So much for supporting the troops!! As the article Pete linked to goes on to report, this problem is widespread and being felt by many unfortunate soldiers once they return to civilian life. But I have every reason to believe that Wilf will recover and begin his journey to the White House.

Here's looking out for you Buddy!!

Case No. 1 to Oppose Limiting Lawsuit Liability

2005-02-16T21:57:00.000-05:00

This story yesterday in the LA Times tells a disturbing and ironic story about the US Government-specifically Justice, State, and White House lawyers, backing the government of Iraq against a group of seventeen Gulf War I vets who have filed suit against Iraq for abuse they suffered while prisoners of war. These vets have won a judgement against Iraq for damages inflicted on them, some of these soldiers were tortured in Abu Ghraib, and the Bush Administration is appealing arguing that Iraq needs the $1.7 billion the soldiers have been awarded more than the soldiers, because they have a lot of rebuilding to do in that war tonr country.

Now, I am slightly simpathetic to this argument. Iraq is as in debt as a country can be. They have massive infrastructure problems. There is that insurgency. However, the U.S. and other countries have pledged billions in direct assistance that has not been spent, and there are untold amounts of natural resources that have yet to be exploited. $1.7B is pennies compared to the potential amount of money Iraq could recieve, both from other countries and from the resources below ground.

It may not be technically correct, or it might be seen by some as exploitative. However, I think Democrats should make this their talking point number one for the next week, at least. First, it shows a truly disgusting side to the administration: betrayal of U.S. soldiers tortured by Saddam. Second, this case, if any truly could, demonstrates how bad of an idea it is to try and limit punative damages in lawsuits. Conservatives have made women who sue when they spill hot coffee on themselves for burns, as well as burglars who win suits against people they were trying to rob and injure themselves in the process, as poster children for why the U.S. should limit lawsuit awards. Democrats should put these soldiers front and center in the debate about limiting lawsuit liability. After all, if you were on a jury who would you side with: Bush and his cronies or tortured American soldiers? I know who I would side with.

WILF FOR PRESIDENT!!!

2005-02-16T21:31:00.000-05:00

My colleauge and I went to see the new documentary Gunner Palace this evening. It was an excellent movie, though it drives home to a great extant one central point: WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE ARE DOING IN IRAQ!

The film is the work of documentary filmmaker Michael Tucker. He was embedded with the 2/3 Field Artillery, U.S. Army, in Baghdad for several months in 2003 and early 2004. His filml is basically apolitical. He simPly follows around a group of young men (and a few women) on duty in some of the roughest parts of Baghdad. (Some of the soldiers were featured on the cover of Time's 2003 cover for "People of the Year: The American Soldier.") Basically the young men and women he follows around are average Americans, mostly young kids just out of high school. They are doing their best to get by in Iraq and survive long enough until their tours are up and they can go home.

These young soldiers seem much more grounded and realistic about the mission in Iraq than almost every partisan hack back here in the States. One the one hand, they are the ones on the front line, trying to improve life for the average Iraqi, knowing that they have rid the country of a brutal dictator and have opened up at least a faint possibility for a better life. On the other hand, they also just want to survive long enough for their twelve months to be up so they can go home, and they don't really care what they have to do to make sure they survive.

Though he is subtle about it, I think the director is definitely trying to get a message across, and it came through loud and clear to me. As he shows the constant dangers that these troops go through in their day to day lives, periodically in the background he will play a recording of Rumsfeld or some other commentator saying how we are turning a corner and how grateful the Iraqis are towards our soldiers. It is clear that the soldiers and the Iraqis know this is pure, unadulterated bullshit.

The most appealing character in the film is Sp. Stuart Wilf. He is 19 years old and a complete joker. We enjoy it when he is on film. At the same time, we also see how many more days it is until Wilf gets to leave Baghdad. Wilf, more than Bush or Rumsfeld or anyone else, knows what the mission is. Get home alive with all his limbs. Keep in mind also that this film was made entirely before the spring of 2004, when Fallujah and Najaf began what has so far been an unending insurgancy.

I think the ultimate message of the film is that we have absolutely no idea what we are doing in Iraq. Spc. Wilf, 19 year old high school dropout, has a better idea of what is going on and what we can achieve than Bush or Cheney. So I for one endorse something the film posted in jest: WILF FOR PRESIDENT!!

New NS Blogs

2005-02-13T18:19:00.000-05:00

Seems to be quite a few National Security blogs popping up lately. Some of my new faves:

Liberals Against Terrorism

The Command Post: Global War on Terrorism

The Counterterrorism Blog

Patriot Debates

That last one's dedicated to debate over the Patriot Act. Interesting, all of it.

North Korea's nukes and China (Natural disasters)

2005-02-13T10:08:00.000-05:00

As I'm sure anyone and everyone has heard by now, North Korea (DPRK) has finally announced what's been speculated for a while now - they have nukes.

No surprise there.

And the timing comes as no surprise either - in the midst of the 6 Party Talks, DPRK walked away from the table and summarily announced that they were now in the big boys' club.

Much hay has been made of the Bush Adminstration's...utter lack of involvement in the DPRK issue. Some claim that it is because of the neoconservative obsession with Iraq, others think that - well, that's pretty much the only hypothesis out there (there's also some anti-Clinton instincts, but I'm hoping that's not a basis for foreign policy).

So let me offer a slightly off center analysis: Bush has been ignoring DPRK to keep China in line. If it hadn't been for terrorism, the neoconservatives would now be spending even more billions on their non-working missile defense system. Missile defense was almost entirely geared toward protecting us from the threat they believed was emerging from China. There are numerous reasons why they thought this; the most cynical of which imply that these allies of the Pentagon wanted to ensure that its budget didn't get cut for lack of a war to fight. By assuming China was an enemy, they could force it to become one.

9/11 meant that they couldn't exert as much energy in building up Chinese animosity. Indeed, with a large population of Muslims in Western China (and their own problems with extremism), the U.S. needed China on its side. Of course, at the same time, they don't believe that China could ever be anything but an enemy as long as the post-Maoists remained in power, so they have to ensure that there is a continuing common goal to develop a friendship. Once DPRK is no longer a threat, then there's no reason (from the neo-conservative point of view) for the US and China to continue cooperation.

I don't have much evidence to back this up. Indeed, if this was the strategy, little old citizens like me shouldn't have any clue as to what's going on. Divinations from headlines rule the day. Bush, for example, rebuffed North Korean requests for bi-lateral (as opposed to multi-lateral) talks. China, in a departure from its normal civil discourse, has taken to criticizing the DPRK in its official media and allowing anti-DPRK statements to remain online in censored chat rooms.

Does this add up to anything? Probably not. But if so, it's an interesting means of containment - containment of China at the expense of North Korea.

IP and the ownership society

2005-02-13T04:17:00.000-05:00

Traditionally, intellectual property has been the method of creating a product. So if you figured out a new way to make an engine more efficient, or a vacuum cleaner suck better (about the only situation where you can say that combination of words), then you patented it and hoped to sell bajillions of your new product at overinflated prices until the market couldn't bear it any longer.

Ok, fine. But now intellectual property (ip) has been expanded to include situations wherein the *product* is the ip. The most obvious and headline grabbing examples are music and movies. Content producers - musicians, directors, etc. - create their product and then try to release it into the marketplace. But here's where it gets a little tricky. If you decide to use your vacuum cleaner to help power a levitation device (as Mythbusters did a few weeks ago) that's all fine and dandy. You own that vacuum cleaner. You weren't buying the ip, just the result.

But that's not the same when it comes to content. In that case, you're paying for your right to enjoy - listen, watch, etc. - the content. So the person or entity who actually owns the content -
which usually isn't the same as the creator, but that's a different issue - has, under current law, greater rights to it than the purchaser. This worked fine (from the owner's perspective) when there was no simple way to copy content. But once the digital age started to really progress, the content owners (specifically music content owners) lost this advantage, and got so mad they started throwing out lawsuits like a blind paperboy. Content, which was once naturally restricted, became artificially restricted. And like most artificial creations, it didn't work so well. Every instance of DRM (digital rights management, which restricts how and when a purchaser can listen to their music or dvds) yet created is so full of holes it looks like a Swiss moon.

That's one battle. But what about software? In this industry, ip extends to the methodologies required to create the content as well as the content itself. This lends even greater restrictive control to the content creator. Which leads me to one of my two main points with
this whole little tirade. This week, Intuit, the makers of Quicken, introduced a new format for their online bill paying. Quicken users have been able to pay bills directly from their software for years. Now, however, anyone who purchased a copy of the software as recently as last year has to go out and plunk down money for the new version which supports this format change. Not only that, by changing the format (which has been around so long that it's the industry
standard), they're forcing banks to upgrade their systems as well. So they're raking in profits from both ends because of a system change that many say was unneeded (I'll spare you anything more technical).

This means that because the software creator essentially owns both sides, the production of the product and the product itself, he or she (or it) can revoke the purchaser's right to do so whenever the inclination strikes. The only check on this power is the concerns raised by consumers - whose power in the issue after the fact is dubious anyway. Why? Normally, another vendor could distribute a similar product, but because Intuit owns the right to the format, they could be in legal hot water.

Of course, that's not the entire story. Whereas Intuit is an example of a company trying to make money be destroying old versions of an ip, in many instances, consumers want to continue to access versions of an ip that are no longer supported. That sounds confusing. What I mean
is much more direct, and it usually involves gaming. Say you bought a computer game 10 years ago that you really enjoyed playing. Problem was that it was only made for a Sega Saturn, which Sega stopped supporting in, oh, 97 or so. You were allowed to make a backup of
that software *for archival purposes only* - meaning that, if you had lost your original copy (and hadn't sold it), you could use your archival copy. But what if your Sega Saturn, which you'd attended to dilligently for all these years, suddenly went belly up? You would not technically be allowed to play the game on any other system, so it would be lost forever. A number of developers have written emulators that will play old games, but the distribution of the games (which the average person can't copy from their original cartridge) is strictly illegal - as is using the emulator to play them. If the content owner decides to stop supporting the product, then its fans are sol.

In both cases, it shows a shift toward a licensing model, wherein you stop owning products and instead own a license to use them as the actual owner sees fit. You, the purchaser, can't use it longer or in a way other than than the owner decides. So you can't technically do a 'mash-up,' where you take 2 songs and put them together to create a new song, or sample a song in another creation, etc. Even worse, since software creators own the process, they control some things that are intrinsic to our society. Amazon, for example, owns the rights to the concept of having a shopping cart on a website. SCO, which hasn't produced anything in years, decided instead to file patent infringement lawsuits against any company that 'infringed' on any of
their patents, which they had purchased from another, defunct company. A couple years ago, someone tried to collect royalties from every website owner because they claimed a patent to a hyperlink (like this: http://www.yahoo.com - Oh no! Now I'd owe them money!).

Bush says he wants to create an ownership society. In reality, though, society is dropping the traditional model of ownership. Directed by legislators and the corporations that hold their chains, we are moving instead to a licensing society.

Now What???

2005-01-31T22:46:00.000-05:00

The election in Iraq seems to have been a relative success. It is not yet known whether a corner has been turned, but a big first step was taken Sunday.

So, Now what? That is a good question. I have a few thoughts:

1. One election does not a democracy make
As Tom Carothers has written about the fallacy of democracy promotion:
____________________________________________________________
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, trends in seven different regions converged to change the political landscape of the world: 1) the fall of right-wing authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe in the mid- 1970s; 2) the replacement of military dictatorships by elected civilian governments across Latin America from the late 1970s through the late 1980s; 3) the decline of authoritarian rule in parts of East and South Asia starting in the mid-1980s; 4) the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s; 5) the breakup of the Soviet Union and the establishment of 15 post-Soviet republics in 1991; 6) the decline of one-party regimes in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa in the first half of the 1990s; and 7) a weak but recognizable liberalizing trend in some Middle Eastern countries in the 1990s.

The causes, shape, and pace of these different trends varied considerably. But they shared a dominant characteristicsimultaneous movement in at least several countries in each region away from dictatorial rule toward more liberal and often more democratic governance. And though differing in many ways, these trends influenced and to some extent built on one another. As a result, they were considered by many observers, especially in the West, as component parts of a larger whole, a global democratic trend that thanks to Samuel Huntington has widely come to be known as the third wave of democracy.

This striking tide of political change was seized upon with enthusiasm by the U.S. government and the broader U.S. foreign policy community. As early as the mid-1980s, President Ronald Reagan, Secretary of State George Shultz, and other high-level U.S. officials were referring regularly to the worldwide democratic revolution. During the 1980s, an active array of governmental, quasi-governmental, and nongovernmental organizations devoted to promoting democracy abroad sprang into being.

This new democracy-promotion community had a pressing need for an analytic framework to conceptualize and respond to the ongoing political events. Confronted with the initial parts of the third wavedemocratization in Southern Europe, Latin America, and a few countries in Asia (especially the Philippines)the U.S. democracy community rapidly embraced an analytic model of democratic transition. It was derived principally from their own interpretation of the patterns of democratic change taking place, but also to a lesser extent from the early works of the emergent academic field of transitology, above all the seminal work of Guillermo ODonnell and Philippe Schmitter.

As the third wave spread to Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere in the 1990s, democracy promoters extended this model as a universal paradigm for understanding democratization. It became ubiquitous in U.S. policy circles as a way of talking
about, thinking about, and designing interventions in processes of political change around the world. And it stayed remarkably constant despite many variations in those patterns of political change and a stream of increasingly diverse scholarly views about the course and nature of
democratic transitions.

The transition paradigm has been somewhat useful during a time of momentous and often surprising political upheaval in the world. But it is increasingly clear that reality is no longer conforming to the model. Many countries that policy makers and aid practitioners persist in calling transitional are not in transition to democracy, and of the democratic transitions that are under way, more than a few are not following the model. Sticking with the paradigm beyond its useful life is retarding evolution in the field of democratic assistance and is leading policy makers astray in other ways. It is time to recognize that the transition paradigm has outlived its usefulness and to look for a better lens.

Core Assumptions

Five core assumptions define the transition paradigm. The first, which is an umbrella for all the others, is that any country moving away from dictatorial rule can be considered a country in transition toward democracy. Especially in the first half of the 1990s, when political change
accelerated in many regions, numerous policy makers and aid practitioners reflexively labeled any formerly authoritarian country that was attempting some political liberalization as a transitional country. The set of transitional countries swelled dramatically, and nearly 100
countries (approximately 20 in Latin America, 25 in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, 30 in sub-Saharan Africa, 10 in Asia, and 5 in the Middle East) were thrown into the conceptual pot of the transition paradigm. Once so labeled, their political life was automatically analyzed in terms of their movement toward or away from democracy, and they were held up to the implicit expectations of the paradigm, as detailed below. To cite just one especially astonishing example, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) continues to describe the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa), a strife-wracked country undergoing a turgid, often opaque, and rarely very democratic process of political change, as a country in transition to a democratic, free market society.

The second assumption is that democratization tends to unfold in a set sequence of stages. First there occurs the opening, a period of democratic ferment and political liberalization in which cracks appear in the ruling dictatorial regime, with the most prominent fault line being
that between hardliners and softliners. There follows the breakthrough the collapse of the regime and the rapid emergence of a new, democratic system, with the coming to power of a new government through national elections and the establishment of a democratic institutional structure, often through the promulgation of a new constitution. After the transition comes consolidation, a slow but purposeful process in which democratic forms are transformed into democratic substance through the reform of state institutions, the regularization of elections, the strengthening of civil society, and the overall habituation of the society to the new democratic rules of the game.

Democracy activists admit that it is not inevitable that transitional countries will move steadily on this assumed path from opening and breakthrough to consolidation. Transitional countries, they say, can and do go backward or stagnate as well as move forward along the path. Yet even the deviations from the assumed sequence that they are willing to acknowledge are defined in terms of the path itself. The options are all cast in terms of the speed and direction with which countries move on the path, not in terms of movement that does not conform with the path
at all. And at least in the peak years of the third wave, many democracy enthusiasts clearly believed that, while the success of the dozens of new transitions was not assured, democratization was in some important sense a natural process, one that was likely to flourish once the initial breakthrough occurred. No small amount of democratic teleology is implicit
in the transition paradigm, no matter how much its adherents have denied it.

Related to the idea of a core sequence of democratization is the third assumptionthe belief in the determinative importance of elections. Democracy promoters have not been guiltyas critics often charge of believing that elections equal democracy. For years they have advocated and pursued a much broader range of assistance programs than just elections-focused efforts. Nevertheless, they have tended to hold very high expectations for what the establishment of regular, genuine elections will do for democratization. Not only will elections give new postdictatorial governments democratic legitimacy, they believe, but the elections will serve to broaden and deepen political participation and the democratic accountability of the state to its citizens. In other words, it has been assumed that in attempted transitions to democracy, elections will be not just a foundation stone but a key generator over time of further democratic reforms.

A fourth assumption is that the underlying conditions in transitional countriestheir economic level, political history, institutional legacies, ethnic make-up, sociocultural traditions, or other structural features will not be major factors in either the onset or the outcome of the transition process. A remarkable characteristic of the early period of the third wave was that democracy seemed to be breaking out in the most unlikely and unexpected places, whether Mongolia, Albania, or Mauritania. All that seemed to be necessary for democratization was a decision by a countrys political elites to move toward democracy and an ability on the part of those elites to fend off the contrary actions of remaining antidemocratic forces.

The dynamism and remarkable scope of the third wave buried old, deterministic, and often culturally noxious assumptions about democracy, such as that only countries with an American-style middle class or a heritage of Protestant individualism could become democratic. For policy makers and aid practitioners this new outlook was a break from the longstanding
Cold War mindset that most countries in the developing world were not ready for democracy, a mindset that dovetailed with U.S. policies of propping up anticommunist dictators around the world. Some of the early works in transitology also reflected the no preconditions view of democratization, a shift within the academic literature that had begun in 1970 with Dankwart Rustows seminal article, Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model. For both the scholarly and policy communities, the new no preconditions outlook was a gratifyingly optimistic, even liberating view that translated easily across borders as the encouraging message that, when it comes to democracy, anyone can do it.

Fifth, the transition paradigm rests on the assumption that the democratic transitions making up the third wave are being built on coherent, functioning states. The process of democratization is assumed to include some redesign of state institutionssuch as the creation of new electoral institutions, parliamentary reform, and judicial reform but as a modification of already functioning states. As they arrived at their frameworks for understanding democratization, democracy aid practitioners did not give significant attention to the challenge of a society trying to democratize while it is grappling with the reality of building a state from scratch or coping with an existent but largely nonfunctional state. This did not appear to be an issue in Southern Europe or Latin America, the two regions that served as the experiential basis for the formation of the transition paradigm. To the extent that democracy promoters did consider the possibility of state-building as part of the transition process, they assumed that democracy-building and statebuilding would be mutually reinforcing endeavors or even two sides of the same coin.
____________________________________________________________

Democracy promotion has become the de facto reason for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. While the election on sunday was a success, it is truly only a tiny step on a generational long process to building a stable, democratic country in Iraq.

2. Get the troops out of the big cities
--U.S. troops need to get out of the cities and into the countryside, away from overburdening Iraqis with their presence (it is easy to find complaints from Iraqis about the disruption caused by big military humvees rolling through busy streets). U.S. troops would be more effective patrolling around oil pipelines that run throughout the country and insecuring the borders than anything they can do in Baghdad or Mosul right now.

2a. Get the U.S. embassy out of Saddam's old Republican Guard palace. American policymakers should have already learned about associating themselves to closely with remnants of the old Baathist regime (see e.g. Ghraib, Abu). The last thing they need is to be seen as replacing one dictatorship with another. Symbolism is important.

3. Rapproachment with the Europeans/NATO
One of the lessons that should be learned by the Bush administration by now is that ad hoc "coalitions of the williing" do not have the perseverance to stick through a long term engagement such as Iraq reconstruction. What is needed is a strong institution to oversee the state building exercises. That institution should be NATO, the pillar of U.S. cold war security that has proven its worth ina post-Cold War era, undertaking successful state-building exercises in the Balkans and acting a s beacon for newly independent states in Central and Eastern Europe to move towards the west, thus adopting many western institutions and vaslues.

That's it for the moment.

The Rise of Rational Religiousity

2004-12-04T10:28:00.000-05:00

I really like the guys over at Pandagon. As I was explaining to a friend over a couple beers yesterday, there are different levels to blog reading: those you read when you have no time to read anyone else, and various levels that exist around those few blogs. Maybe it's because they reside in the same demographic as me - either way, Pandagon's one of my daily reads.

That being said, I think the boys over at Pandagon are just slightly missing the point with this post, which talks about the irrationality of the Religious Right.

I think the views of the Religious Right are perfectly rational - and here's why:

Everything I say here is based on the writings of Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun turned religious scholar (and a few others, but primarily her). She postulates that there are two understandings of Christianity - those associated with pure faith, or the mythos, and those based on reason.

Pre-Enlightenment, most of the population based their religious understanding on the mythos. This meant it was very easy for the religious establishment to manipulate the opinions of the masses.

Fast forward a few hundred years. The Enlightenment has liberated the masses from the yoke of the Church, and provided them with Reason to understand God's world. Reason and logic can explain evolution, inter-state commerce, and the secrets of the human genome. What they cannot do, however, is explain the virtues and failings of the human soul - or the place of God in modern life.

This is where modern religion has excelled. Instead of simply appealing to the mythos, or emotive arguments for faith, religion has reinforced emotion with logic. It's easy to argue with emotion - well, not easy, but not entirely fruitless - but when you use emotional underpinnings as a starting point and seal the deal with logic, then there's almost nothing you can do if you're an outsider to this belief system. The problem is that you don't understand the logic of the faith.

Now, I'm not going to lie - I don't really understand it either. My religious beliefs were realized more in my studies of cosmic physics than cosmic religion. But I think the problem is that we're trying to target the rationality, but not the faith. Until we can change the faith, no appeal to economic interests will reap any rewards.

Tax cuts aren't the issue. It's the way that tax cuts have been rationalized as a part of the faith. Sadly, with many people, we're seeing issues such as tax cuts acquire an almost religious element - rationality circling back on itself to create a new set of beliefs. That's what needs to be fought.

Al Qaeda 2.0 Conference - Part One

2004-12-04T00:40:00.000-05:00

I attended the New America Foundation's Al Qaeda 2.0 conference on Thursday (you can see replays on C-Span).

Several comments:

I went into the Senate Office buildings with no pass or explanation. I'm sure that it was because of the conference, but it was definately empowering to be able to wander the halls of power so freely (I got lost on my way to the conference room).
The current foreign policy debate du jour - should we or should we not be promoting democracy with every breath? - was on full display. I think the most poignant examples came during an exchange between Salameh Nematt, a journalist with London's al-Hayat newspaper and Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris.

Nematt, who said that he had been imprisoned in Jordan and persecuted elsewhere for his writings, was adament about the immediacy of the need for democracy. Scheuer adopted an approach that more closely resembled realism than Nematt's idealism.

Now Nematt seemed like a secularist - a very serious secularist. The basis for his adamant advocation of democratization seems to stem from this value. It explains his outspokenness, imprisonment, etc. And that's a great thing. He is an example of the spirit of reform that the Middle East (and many, many other parts of the world) requires. He argues that the artificial stability created by totalitarianism - be it the monarchical kind in Saudi Arabia or the...militaristic, I guess, programming found in Egypt - is a false illusion that will be broken by fanaticism if we don't do something about it, and now. This man has seen the sufferings of his brothers and sisters, and they have affected him deeply. That alone should be cause for lending an ear - and cause for concern.

Scheuer, on the other hand, was more concerned about what would happen if democracy was suddenly imposed as a directive from above from the U.S. Wouldn't that associate U.S. and democracy negatively in the citizens' minds? And how much chance would the true liberal democratics have to win the election - what with anti-American furor at an all-time high? Instead, we could end up with more Irans, and the 25 years of violence that regime has wrought.

Which brings me to my next comment. More discussion of democracy later.
Reuel Gerecht, formerly of the CIA and currently an editor at the Weekly Standard, used the oft-repeated retort the neo-con uses against the realist when discussing democratization:by saying that you can't just expect democracy to develop overnight in the Middle East, you are discriminating against Arabs. Essentially, the argument goes, you're saying that the Arab mind can't handle anything so complex as democracy.

And then, in practically the same breath, Gerecht turned around and said that "all Arabs understand is force." Funny how many faces discrimination can assume. Hilarious.
Daniel Benjamin noted that our problem in Vietnam was that we were fighting both an insurgency and a full-blown army. He says that the same situation is developing in Iraq. Besides asking who the army is, what does that do for our strategy? Seems that we're having a hard enough time fighting an insurgency, let alone a regiment.

I think what he's getting at is organization. Almost every society has dissidents, and some of them turn to violence. But it's when they organize, and coalesce in great numbers, that their movement shifts into a more familiar form. Accordingly, when someone like Zarqawi arises, that becomes a focal point for the movement. It becomes like a comet: a small core followed by a trail of followers hundreds of miles long.

Unless I'm mistaken, this is the opposite of what happened in Vietnam. In Southeast Asia, we were fighting an army which adopted guerrilla tactics when frontal assault failed. This fed back into the guerrilla movement, and the synergy between the two organizations reinforced each other. While the situation may configure itself similarly, I believe that the path it will have taken to arrive at this stage is already shaping up to be different than Vietnam - but I'm not sure what effect that will have.
One more point for now, and then bed. More on this conference later, when I'm a bit more lucid, but I wanted to have something to say about it before all the ideas jumped out of my scalp and raced down my hair toward freedom.
Anyway, Paul Eedle of Out There News talked about the branding strategy of terrorism. His point was incredibly interesting -

For the whole of 2003, Zarqawi was known to the public only in leaks from American and Jordanian intelligence. Then in little more than a month, in April and May 2004, he rocketed to worldwide fame, or infamy, by a deliberate combination of extreme violence and Internet publicity.

In early April, Zarqawi published a half-hour audio recording which explained exactly who he was, what he had done, and why he was fighting. It was a comprehensive branding statement, and it showed incidentally that he views the world rather differently than Osama bin Laden.

....

The Internet gave Zarqawi the means to build a brand very quickly. Suddenly the mystery man had a voice, if not a face, and a clear ideology which explained his violence.

But what is the point of an insurgent group building a brand, establishing a public profile in this way? The answer is to magnify the impact of its violence. The bombings of the UN and Najaf, and of the Red Cross headquarters and many Iraqi police stations in 2003, did send messages of course – but they were open to different interpretations, and Zarqawi needed to kill a lot of people to get noticed.

....

By using the Internet, Zarqawi was able to control the interpretation of his message and achieve his impact with smaller operations
Zarqawi’s brand building on the Internet happened so quickly, after a year without any media strategy, that it would be fascinating to know what triggered it. Maybe one of you here knows. I suspect one individual is all it would have taken – perhaps a jihadi arriving from Saudi Arabia, which has been the base for most of the original al Qaeda Internet effort.

There are several notions inherent in this:

First, the underpinning ideology of Islamic extremism remains fluid, not static. It can be adapted to a variety of situations, from global to regional to national. So who's to say it can't be diluted?
Second, he underscores the power of a face in delivering the message of this ideology. He's not advocating the "cut off the head of the snake" strategy so much as he's commenting on how the international media needs a central point in order to make it interesting. Otherwise, there will be no all-encompassing dynamic ubiqutous across the networks. In that situation, it's chaos. With a face and a message behind it - no matter if anyone listens to the message - people are more apt to pay attention to the deed, and have an idea of what side they should fall on. Note that this applies to Iraqis just as much as it does to Americans.
Third, it shows that the face can change - indeed, the natural forces of international journalism crave the change. That's what creates news - There's a new bogeyman out there! - when the public is numb to devastation and violence.
Finally, it shows that Al Qaeda (as a network or proponents of an ideology, not a "group" filled with static members who meet after bingo) gets this. And that means they can continue to 'control the narrative' as long as the pool of semi-charismatic individuals ready to act in the name of violence remains deep.

OK, enough for one night. More soon.

Old Soul Song (for the New World Order)

2004-11-17T01:43:00.000-05:00

Today, the Washington Post published a historical guide to the makeup of the Congress over the past century, and staring at it got me thinking: the election 2 weeks ago really wasn't as bad as we Democrats thought.

And that's a bad thing for us Democrats.

I don't know if this idea has been circulating through the Democratic circles and blogosphere (frankly, I'm just barely emerging from my self-imposed exile from the latter) but I don't think this was an election on the lines of 1964 or 1932. Those were fatal knockouts that pushed the losing party into a truly minority state. This was more like a blow to the kidneys when the ref's not looking.

So why is this a bad thing? Shouldn't having more power be good for Democrats and their principles? It would be if they knew what those principles were. Tom Daschle might be out, but the establishment is still entrenched in DC. The grassroots are fired up, but they don't have anywhere to funnel that energy.

I read somewhere recently that Democratic donors spread their money out because they want to get the most bang for their buck; they want to make sure they help as many diverse groups of people as they can. This sounds noble, and it is, but it doesn't provide a strong base on which to build the future.

Right now, the Democrats can still smell power. It's the scent of a beautiful woman that lingers in the sheets long after she is gone. And as long as it remains just out of reach, Democrats will do as any man would in that situation - try to figure out what it is they did to get the girl in the first place. Cosmetic shifts and combovers. Suck in the gut and reach to the right. As long as they think there's still a chance of near-term power (we're only a couple seats shy in the Senate!) they're going to keep grasping for straws. And nothing will change that - not strategy sessions, not latte soul searching, not even Howard Dean at the DNC. What they need is a solid, outright and brutal defeat.

If Bush is smart, he won't give it to them.

Encryption guide

2004-11-16T04:41:00.000-05:00

Short guide to encryption over at Techworld.com

A Night's Compendium

2004-11-16T02:09:00.000-05:00

This evening I sat in on a group discussion with Steve Clemons, of The Washington Note and the New America Foundation, on the implications of the election on foreign policy. So I had a few thoughts on it, and it inspired a few connections in my head.

1. I think one of his underlying premises, although he only briefly touched on the subject, was the issue of benchmarks in foreign policy and security issues. Clemons discussed it in terms of a tool to assess our progress in creating a more secure homeland defense environment. But it extends further than that. From various parts of the discussion, and ideas that have been bouncing around in my head, I see that benchmarks are needed in the following areas:

a. The spread and penetration of democracy in target regions and states.

b. Foreign public opinion toward U.S. foreign policy and (presumably) the impact public diplomacy is having on it.

c. U.S. ability to remain the dominant force in most regions even if it is not the most prominent one.

d. Impact of soft power and other non-military power systems, ie. Propaganda, backdoor dealing (temporarily, I’m calling this tough or coarse power until I come up with a better name).

e. the relationship between the U.S. and any particular region or country.

Clemons spoke with an obvious distaste for neo-cons. If you look at all of these benchmarks, they really are little more than methods to measure the progress in implementing the neo-con foreign policy viewpoint and the effectiveness those measures are having (in other words, the effectiveness of the philosophy). I think I may have extended a bit of what he was saying beyond what he meant, but it’s in my head so I have to get it out.

2. In a similar vein, what do neo-cons do with their current democratization plans when they don’t bear immediate fruit? It seems like they’ve built their entire grasp on power on the promise of spreading democracy, and it will be difficult to continue to hold onto power if democracy doesn’t spread. Moreover, will they be able to cultivate the seeds that are planted? I’m thinking of Saudi Arabia and the local elections that are scheduled for the near future (after initial discussion that they were actually going to be elections to the Majlis al-Shura). So here’s my point – will they be able to acknowledge small steps and help engender greater ones, or will they keep looking for the quick fix?

My bet is on the latter, which is in line with history. Afghanistan was too far out of the way and went too well (according to the popular media), so why not Iraq? Even with the tin foil hat cast aside, the neo-conservative rhetoric (and the similar breathings coming from their brethren on the left, from whom they stole most of their popular ideas) toward Iran seems to be leading in this direction. Going back to the speaker, Clemons’ sense was that they were expecting Iran to screw up, and were on the lookout and agitating for it. He used the phrase “cosmetic game vs. the real game” – democratization, coming from the neo-cons, seems like the cosmetic game. I’m just not sure yet which of the many options provides the majority of the rational for the real game.

3. The idea that the Middle East is, technically, more Europe’s problem than ours. They have the geographical and, thanks to migration, cultural proximity that we lack. Not that I condone this, but if the U.S. were ever to pull out of Iraq and leave it in chaos, the Europeans would probably be obliged to jump in and put everything back together just so that the anarchy doesn’t spread. I don’t really put much stock in the idea (it’s mostly a strategic mental exercise) but I do think that the eventual coalescing of the ESDF into a viable force will be the result of a crisis in the Middle East. This might be due to something in Iran, but I’m not certain.

4. I just wanted to make note of the idea that occupying forces have to create an entirely new class of the wealthy and prosperous who will act as their support base both while they remain in the country and after they leave. The obvious corollary is the middle class that the Marshall Plan built. In Iraq, of course, the U.S. was mesmerized by Chalabi, so didn't see a need for any such time consuming efforts.

5. The rise of the winner take all philosophy in foreign policy, which accelerated through the 90s, has come at the expense of traditional humility, both in domestic and foreign policy. See the decline in worker protection policies, the forgetfulness of the “walk softly, carry a big stick” philosophy, decimation of aid policies, etc.

I’m not sure that there’s much causality in this one, because I don’t recall this much of degradation during the Clinton years (then again, I was in college and not paying much attention) but it may speak to the psychology of the neo-cons, et al. in their disdain for traditional sense of ‘place’ in the U.S.’ constraints within the international community.

Tomorrow (or sometime soon) I’ll talk more about the ascendancy of Iran.