TOTALITARIANISM TODAY
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Why the Democrats did not dissent in the last election.
In Progressivism in America, Arthur Ekirch analyzed the relationship between progressive thinking, progressive policy, and World War I. What follows is a particularly insightful passage:
The war made partners of government and business, and the individual caught up in the rising tide of nationalism and patriotism could offer only feeble protest. Because the new role of the state was subjected to less criticism in wartime, the Progressives and reformers could indulge themselves in the illusion of success and power. War offered the supreme example of the classless national state, with country above party and all particular or individual loyalties. Thus the Progressive exhortations of sacrifice and duty, of social justice at home, were easily translated into a crusade to make democracy and peace, and indeed all desired values, open to the rest of the world.
In arguing the case for a more positive national state and government, American progressives, like the social democrats in Europe, confused ends and means and were reduced finally to accepting war as the best way to institute social change and reform. From their original revolt against corporate power and the old formalistic absolutisms in thought, the Progressives now had turned to the new Leviathan of the modern warfare state.
The neoconservatives emerged from this cauldron as staunch supporters of both warfare and welfare states, in other words, they emerged as status statists. This is not the first time in US history that Republicrats and Demicans walk, talk, and taste the same. It is the nature of the beast.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
In the words of Oscar Wilde
"To the claims of conformity, no man may yield and remain free."
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
My reasons for doing this.
I always appreciate a post this throrough. In the world of web-logs, it is nice to be inspired. It brings me back for more.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Those nasty Caucasians.
In Russian films, the "bad guy" increasingly seems to be from the Causcuses. Nabi Abdullaev comments on what this might mean for current Russian stereotyping trends.
"There was always an enemy in the politically charged Soviet cinema. After World War II, the enemies were the Germans, then the Americans, and sometimes, latently, the Jews as the enemies within," Danelia said in a telephone interview. "Public enemy No. 1 in today's Russia is crime, and those who depict it in the artistic community strive to make it more colorful and temperamental. They reach this goal by making criminals of the Caucasus people."
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
How AIDS will affect the Russian economy.
So far, the coincident rise of HIV infection and tuberculosis in Russia has led scientists to forecast a tragic epidemic in the coming decade.
The Russian government is not taking the appropriate steps to discourage high-risk behavior in the first place, especially since prisons have been one of the primary breeding grounds for HIV infection in Russia. The Russian prison system is cited as the primary "epidemiological pump" for exposing broad segments of their populations to HIV risk.
Beyond its own seeming lack of interest in tackling HIV/AIDS, the Russian government has also prevented outside organizations from financing related health activities -- most conspicuously, World Bank-proposed programs to combat tuberculosis, a disease associated with HIV infection that is now endemic throughout the country. Further complicating the struggle is Moscow's insistence that legal authorities have access to HIV test results. People who test positive for HIV and are thought to have contracted the illness through illegal drug use are subject to prosecution. This rule creates a powerful incentive among citizens to conceal and misrepresent their HIV status -- and further fans the spread of the disease.
How might the AIDS epidemic affect the Russian economy?
First, by curtailing adult life spans, a widespread HIV epidemic seriously alters the calculus of investment in higher education and technical skills -- thereby undermining the local process of investment in human capital. Second, widespread HIV prevalence could affect international decisions about direct investment, technology transfer, and personnel allocation in places perceived to be of high health risk. These factors suggest that HIV breakout could have lasting economic consequences -- in effect, cutting afflicted countries off from globalization. The long-run economic impact of these effects could be even more significant than the constraints the epidemic could impose on local labor supplies or savings.
And now for the really sobering part:
HIV scenarios reduce Russia's future GNP not only by reducing predicted output per worker, but also by cutting the size of the 15-64 cohort. Thus, under conditions of a mild epidemic, Russia's national output would remain completely stagnant between 2000 and 2025. And under the intermediate epidemic scenario, Russia's GNP would be a shocking 40 percent lower in 2025 than it is today. Indeed, the model suggests that HIV/AIDS in Russia might, under a variety of scenarios, prevent the Russian economy from experiencing any growth in the years ahead.
Scientists predict many young men who engaged in sexual relations with women or prostitutes in East and Central Europe are HIV positive. The trafficking of women, especially from Moldova, across the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, increases the spread of this disease among lower or tourist classes, most of which either cannot afford to get tested or would not consider the need to get tested.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Is an unpaired sock an unhappy sock?
Hannah McGill takes on the problem of socks and the single girl in this amusing essay.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
WMD and the axis of evil
It is clear that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons. It is also clear that the Bush administration considers North Korea to be a threat to US security. In fact, the US government even lists North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. What remains unclear is why the Bush administration continues to expend all its resources and energy on Iraq. While Kim Jong II's hair certainly ups the threat ante, it is nothing a little gel can't fix.
Although the UN's nuclear monitoring body, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), issued a call for North Korea to admit weapons inspectors as soon as possible, it comes across as an empty threat, as IAEA cannot enfore it. Instead, the UN Security Council, which is currently focused almost exclusively on Iraq, would customarily enforce such demands. Even though the Bush administration and several of its allies stopped shipping fuel oil to North Korea in retaliation for the weapons program, there is still no talk of forcing inspections; nor has the US said that it is considering military retaliation if North Korea does not comply.
So why the double nuclear standard? Erich Marquardt thinks the Bush administration wants to keep the public threat perception of North Korea high to justify building the Theater Missile Defense (TMD) program, whose purpose is to constrain China's growing power. Granted, there should be no question that North Korea is a miserable, horrible, and cruel place to live. I cannot stress that enough. But cooperative threat reduction works well with North Korea, and there is reason to believe that it will continue to do so.
After the "axis of evil" speech, some North Korea specialists expressed concern over the Bush administration's tendency to overlook and even impede the benefits of South Korea's sunshine policy. Bush, however, made clear in a visit to Korea that he doesn't think the sunshine policy is working. North Koreans are still living hand-to-mouth; the fact that Bush's fuel shipment cessation took place right before the Korean winter began probably hasn't helped North Koreans in the day-to-day.
The North Korean government has indicated a desire to increase diplomatic ties with the West and attempt to reach some kind of agreement. The economic stress imposed on its people is no longer sustainable. Reportedly, North Korea said it would end its nuclear weapons program in exchange for a visit from President Bush, the signing of a non-aggression treaty, a peace accord, and the lifting of all economic sanctions. According to US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, "If North Korea thinks that the United States will agree to a new framework because it has broken the Agreed Framework, then it is totally mistaken."
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
Mullets were all the rage at the hostels in Prague last summer. I can't tell you how many times I tried to explain why the mullet was NOT a pensive, sexy look for men.
For more lovely T-shirts, this site has all your heart could desire.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
Job security a concern.
A recent poll by Businessweek showed that 70% of the 700-plus respondents said they're feeling more stress on the job than usual, vs. 23% who said they're feeling the same level of stress as always. 31% cited concerns over job security as the primary cause of increased stress, though 18% pinpointed their pace of work, and 12% blamed a confrontational work environment. Not surprisingly, given those responses, 56% think their job is less secure than it was a year ago.
So what to do when businesses are downsizing and high tariffs in manufactured goods aren't keeping Americans employed? Well, there is a fairly decent argument for free trade that might be made. Or, one could seek assistance from "The Hitchiker's Guide to Job Security"
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
Update on the whereabouts of Charles Fried.
Interesting article in the Post about a legal challenge to Washington state's legal aid program. A friend forwarded this to me with the note, "Here's some fodder for the libertarian cannons". I remain disarmed.
Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried, who served as solicitor general during the Reagan administration, said that so-called Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts (IOLTA) programs, which gather up the interest earned on certain client funds that lawyers deposit in banks, amount to an uncompensated government "taking" of the clients' money.
"If the government wants our money, it should get it the old-fashioned way -- it should tax," Fried said.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
"Nightclub" by Billy Collins
You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.
For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.
Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.
Elvis Costello's "All this useless beauty" comes to mind. What to do with all this beauty except revel in it? I miss the naked statues, pace John Ashcroft, that line the streets of Paris. There is something so irredeemably stellar about losing one's self in something beautiful, making room for a little revelation.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
On the Christmas list?
Dr. Harvey Kushner wants you to buy his $1,000 "promotional" family kit to protect you and your loved ones from a terrorist attack. I want Dr. Kushner to stop making a mockery of people's misery.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
Nancy Reagan is back with a vengeance.
Congress has indicated that it intends to use former first lady Nancy Reagan's antidrug slogan, "Just Say No" as part of the President's heavy-hitting media campaign to end youth drug use. Maybe he remembers how effective the Reagan strategy was in deterring him from snorting coke back in the day we all like to forget.
According to Newsweek, many lawmakers think the media campaign won't work. Enter the Office of National Drug Control Policy with its glossy new ads and "cool" new strategies, including free calendars of half-naked men photographed by Herb Ritts. Since when does turning kids on to sex turn them off of drugs?
The National Anti-Drug Youth Media Campaign promises more of what DID NOT work during the Reagan years, though I confess the "brain on drugs" egg-yolk bit made me giggle every time.
A nice sample of the up-and-coming print ads which your tax dollars will be funding deserve a download.
And if you haven't yet had the good fortune of running across the White House's antidrug page targeted towards hip young things, don't miss President Bush's idea of a "Freevibe". I'm sure the web-site was anything but free.
For a less cynical yet far from clinical perspective on the drug war, see Harry Levine's article for The Independent Review on who wins what in the drug war.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
The discipline of economics needs you, Ram.
Ram drew my attention to this research paper, looking at the "commitment problems" plaguing the practice of politics, namely, that parties holding political power cannot make commitments to bind their future actions because there is no outside agency with the coercive capacity to enforce such arrangements. Daron Acemoglu wants to test what he describes as a "political Coase theorem". Surely spanking our leaders is not the solution? On the other hand, reducing their allowances might be much more effective.
I'd like to see itemized tax receipts forcing the government to let us know exactly where the money goes. Call it full disclosure for the masses. Government is the biggest racket out there-- if legislators hadn't written RICO, then they would surely be liable to punishment under its statutes.
Are Congressmen really surprised that businesses do not want their financial records to be scrutinized, or that the temptation exists to paint the general picture rosier than real? Didn't administration after administration do exactly that with Social Security? Let's apply Sarbanes-Oxley to the American government and see how much gets done. I'll see you at the Implementation Center.
