He Completes Us

Given the comparative strength of the Democratic ticket, this Presidential election, now, more than ever, we need the Daily Show.



The one really clear and obvious advantage that Barack Obama and Joe Biden have over John McCain and Sarah Palin is that the Democratic contenders are far smarter than their Republican counterparts. I don't agree with many of Barack Obama's policy positions. But this advantage should not be underestimated, for good or for ill. And if John McCain and the Republican party are going to fall down on the job honestly debating and engaging The One, as they so clearly have this election season, then maybe John Stewart can give it a shot.

Smart people have one tendency more than any other that is concerning: they think they know it all.

Takes an arrogant know-it-all to know one. John Stewart knows that feeling. I do too. We all need someone to check our inner know-it-all.

Smart people are also just as likely, if not more likely, to abuse power and to avoid responsibility when their use of power is ineffective or badly used. Hitler and Stalin were pretty smart cookies, remember. And both of their entire careers were spent acquiring power at the expense of anyone who challenged them.

Thank goodness that there are some smart people out there who have neither animus nor hero worship to blind their vision.

We're going to need a lot more liberals, conservatives, and anyone who is everyone who can fill that criteria if we are going to have a more honest democracy.

Smart people are going to need to learn to face their inner arrogant prick. And not-so-smart folks are going to need to nerd up.

We gotta democracy to operate here. And we're gonna need folks who can open up some honest space for engagement.

And if the rest of the country is going to engage in stupid, self-righteous posturing, John Stewart is a good person to get us started.

Feel the honesty.

Power and freedom

Joe Nye posted on his blog about China and soft power. His post gave me an opportunity to reflect on the value, and lack thereof, of that concern.

The Olympics and China's Soft Power

"As the flags are lowered over the 2008 Olympic games, China is basking in the achievement of a major objective -- an increase of its soft power. Not only in terms of gold medals won by Chinese athletes, but by the successful staging of the games, China hopes to have advanced its prestige and attraction to other countries.

Power is the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes you want. One can affect their behavior in three main ways: threats of coercion ('sticks'); inducements or payments ('carrots') and attraction that makes others want what you want. A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. 'Soft power' has now entered China's official language. In his keynote speech to the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on October 15, 2007, Hu Jintao stated that the CPC must 'enhance culture as part of the soft power of our country to better guarantee the people's basic cultural rights and interests.'

China has always had an attractive traditional culture, but now it is entering the realm of global popular culture as well. Yao Ming, the Chinese star of the National Basketball Association's Houston Rockets, could become another Michael Jordan, and while China lost to the U.S. in basketball, Yao was one of the stars of the Beijing Olympics. The enrollment of foreign students in China has tripled from 36,000 to 110,000 over the past decade, and the number of foreign tourists has also increased dramatically to 17 million per year even before the Olympics. In addition, China has created some 200 Confucius Institutes around the world to teach its language and culture, and while the Voice of America's was cutting its Chinese broadcasts from 19 to 14 hours a day, China Radio International was increasing its broadcasts in English to 24 hours a day.

But just as China's economic and military power does not yet match that of the United States, China's soft power still has a long way to go. China does not have cultural industries like Hollywood, and its universities are not yet the equal of America's. It lacks the many non-governmental organizations that generate much of America's soft power. Politically, China suffers from corruption, inequality, and a lack of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. While that may make Beijing attractive in authoritarian and semi-authoritarian developing countries, it undercuts China's soft power in the West. Given the domestic problems that China must still overcome, there are limits to China's ability to attract others, but one would be foolish to ignore the gains it is making. The Beijing Olympics were an important part of China's strategy to increase its soft power."

This is the line that stuck with me:

"Politically, China suffers from corruption, inequality, and a lack of democracy, human rights and the rule of law."

I keep reading that assertion - that China lacks the rule of law - over and over again, and I have to say that it is something that I find kind of amusing.

Last time I checked, China has a Byzantine array of laws and a pretty powerful commitment to enforcement of the rule of law, as evidenced by their enforcement of bans on political protest and free expression.

The truth is that China has laws that, for good reason, we do not like because they trample on the freedoms of Chinese citizens and foreigners within their jurisdiction. It is the lack of freedom that we are concerned about, when we are honest, not the lack of the rule of law, the latter be quite abundant since it has been a necessary requisite to limit freedoms in repressive countries and cultures since the beginning of civilization and earlier. The rule of law has been present in likely every repressive and authoritarian government in the history of humanity. It was one of the most powerful weapons of the Nazi and Communist regimes. Which is why its presence is hardly any assurance of honest, decent, or good government. Our confusion on the matter has not only romanticized law and led to a fairly bankrupt notion of progress for liberal democracies in the 21st century, it has rationalized the repression of authoritarian regimes around the world, from Beijing to Harare, all of whom can look to their own application of the rule of law to justify their power.

China's lack of democracy is the most concerning fact we and the Chinese people face, largely because its absence also limits those freedoms that Joe mentions and many, many more that Chinese citizens, not to mention Taiwanese, Tibetan, and Hong Kong's citizens, deserve to enjoy. I very highly doubt that you would find Chinese, Taiwanese, Tibetan, or Hong Kong's citizens telling us that they want more application of Chinese rule of law. I very seriously bet that they would tell us that they yearn for freedom and independence, or, if they are attempting to be more modest in their claims for the sake of political expediency, more freedom and autonomy. Somehow I very seriously doubt that we would be reassured by a Chinese commitment to enforce the rule of law anymore than the Chinese would. They enforce their laws regularly now. That's the problem.

What China needs is more of the values that liberal democratic citizens take more seriously than the rule of law: freedom and democracy. These two principles are valued most in liberal democracies for good reason, illustrated well by the case of Chinese law. People, like nations, need freedom and self-determination to lead better lives and to make independent judgments about what such better lives entail. The entire history of liberal democracy and Western civilization is based on this commitment as the basis for progress, not the rule of law which has been with us throughout our more repressive, authoritarian, and brutal past. The rule of law is a neutral code which is either used to advance causes like freedom and democracy or causes like totalitarian or authoritarian rule. It is not a value in and of itself. Except to those who covet power. And it is those characters that those more honestly committed to freedom and democracy have always and should always be wary of.

What China should be concerned with is the welfare of Chinese citizens, not its soft power. And that welfare is advanced with freedom and democracy not soft, hard, or any other form of power. Power can be used in the course of advancing these clearly more important priorities and principles or it can be used to undermine them. But it these values, and not China's soft power, which should be China's and the world's concern. I, nor the Chinese people, have any inherent interest in China's soft power except insofar as it advances freedom and democracy for the Chinese people, and honest commitment to to those principles in the form of independence for the peoples of Taiwan, Tibet, and Hong Kong. Everything else is power gambles by those whom neither I nor the Chinese people have any real interest in supporting.

And the first commenter is right. America's soft power and, therefore, our capacity for engaging credibly our hard power, is eroding quickly, also for good reason. Insofar as Americans make such gambles in the name of their own power and not genuinely in the interests of their fellow Americans or people who their policies impact, the more their power is undermined. It is a hard lesson that American leaders of all ideological stripes will have to learn during this political period. And they will learn it - or someone else will - because to not learn it is to undermine their capacity for leadership and their credible use of power, altogether.

The Chinese will face the same dilemma as long as the people of China, Taiwan, Tibet, and Hong Kong yearn for freedom and the right to determine their own lives. Which will be till the end of time. It is a necessary requisite for modern life and for a life of dignity and mature independence in any period of human history.

The power of the American government and the Chinese government will forever be a function of that kind of power - the power of citizens to determine and improve their own lives - from now until the end of human existence. And no amount of soft power will ever be able to compensate for that more fundamental fact of humanity.

Power

I was just thinking, today, about all of the foolish ways in my life that fighting undermined important relationships and goals in my life, either lording over others or being lorded over or just fighting that goes nowhere.

The most important losses in my life - other than the deaths of others that I had no control over - have occurred because of this fact of life. And it just so sad to me that I and everyone have to repeat this mistake over and over again until we learn the lesson.

I lost the closest friendship I've ever had in my life as a consequence of this kind of fighting. And most of my mistakes in relationships with others have happened similarly. Still do.

I've gotten tons better. I'm a better teacher, today, as a consequence. And a better friend. And son and brother. And student. And just a better person, today, as a consequence, I think.

I've watched all of the power-mongering over the last 7-8 years or so, the whole time I've thought exactly what I said to a friend of mine this weekend, "How in the world could people behave in such snarky, dishonest, ugly, mean-spirited, power-obsessed ways and think that other people should take their example or judgments about the world seriously?"

They shouldn't, is the answer. And less and less people do, these days. We're in kind of a crisis of confidence, these days. Liberal democracies. Our confidence in our political leaders and our important institutions, like the press and universities, is at a serious low. And yet they keep moving in the same ugly, dishonesty, power-obsessed directions until they can finally learn the lesson.

They will. We will. We always do. It just takes time.

Imperialism did not unravel in a day. It took most of the 20th century post-World War I and post-World War II for us to finally give up its ugly logic.

And commitments to freedom, similarly, have taken many, many years to take root. America was only committed as the first nation to sustainably predicate itself on the principles of freedom and democracy 232 years ago. Liberalism, as we know it today, dedicated to freedom and independence of conscience and choices of individuals, was a serious coherent philosophy for less than that. And democracy and liberalism as presumptions for how the world should organize itself and as the clearly stronger means of doing so has only been plain and clear within the 20th century, or the last 100 years or so.

It will take time for freedom to take more unshakable root and for power to be limited in the imaginations of free peoples, nevertheless unfree peoples, and, thus, in its use and justification, in the 21st century and forever beyond that time.

And, today, as I reflected on my own failures when it comes to power and aggression and way I've treated others and the ways that I've been treated, it was just reinforced for me what a small, petty, and ignoble aspiration it is to have power over others rather than caring about their own free and self-determined aspirations for themselves.

That was Twain's big problem with the world, I think. That we could never give up the pettiness. And, in the face of that, what are you going to do but laugh? And maybe help us laugh at ourselves.

Same shit. Different era.

Until we learn to give it up, that is.

Georgia and Russia in 30 seconds

There's too much going on in this situation to reduce it to 30 seconds.

But here goes.

The fundamental issue at stake that all of the press coverage I have read, except for the Economist coverage which is closer, seems to overlook in this situation, is the democratic self-determination claims of each party involved.

South Ossetia deserves to be able to govern its own fate insofar as its people wish to do so. This should not be a matter of power. The self-determination claims of the people involve trump the claims to power of both Georgia and Russia. If they cannot come to terms with this, they should expect further violence as well as never achieving a resolution that will ever accept their rightful governance. Georgia abrogated South Ossetia's claims on self-determination and Russia exploited Georgia's power-gamble for its own.

This whole situation is an excellent example of the folly and tragedy of using military force to resolve a situation that has an easy and straight-forward political resolution: self-determination for South Ossetia. As it is, Georgia and Russia engage in militarily-led power gambles, neither of which now or ever the world community will give legitimacy to since neither are legitimate.

The real resolution to this issue is easy. South Ossetia gets independence. Georgia gives independence to any other regions that want to self-govern. Russia does the same and neither war with one another over such claims. Diplomacy to encourage independence is the best option. The least aggression possible should be used if military force is necessary to push back against aggressors, but political negotiations and less aggressive options should be preferred, as much as possible.

And if aggressors like both Georgia and Russia, in this case, cannot end their aggression politically, regional and international multilateral arrangements should try to find diplomatic resolutions. If diplomacy is unsuccessful, other non-aggressive means should be explored. And if aggressive or military means are necessary, regional or international multilateral collaborations between nations with enough military power should intervene in ways that minimize, as much as possible, both aggression and casualties in ways that respect and, as much as possible, collaborate with self-determining groups within the disputed terrority.

The resolution to such disputes is not that difficult. What is difficult is for those rationalizing power to give up their rationalizations and claims. Their aggression should be rebuffed in the least aggressive ways possible.

The abuse of justifications for military force by the U.S. government in Iraq and with Iran has seriously undermined the willingness of nations to collaborate in such efforts. The situations in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, and other repressive regimes where the international community has been paralized to take action or where action has been ineffective or counterproductive, as it has in places like Iran, are a testament to that failure of blunt power to be a sustainable way to promote liberalism and democracy internationally.

Ultimately, all peoples, liberal and democratic and illiberal and undemocratic, must give up the obsession with power and aggression to resolve their cultures' and nations' most serious problems. Aggression and power are necessary in limited situations. But the abuse and rationalization of that fact to use them for any and every purpose deemed worthy of change is the logic that has animated repressive regimes like those just mentioned and every repressive regime since the beginning of time.

The situation between South Ossetia, Georgia, and Russia is one long complicated playing out of that logic and its utter and irrevocable failure to finally resolve such questions without respecting the freedom and self-governance of everyone involved.

It's an ugly habit that is hard for everyone - including those in America and the rest of the liberal democratic world - to break, apparently. I don't know why since it is so clear that freedom and self-governance has clearly served them better than the repression and long abuses of power in repressive cultures and nations.

But, until we do break this habit, none such questions will ever be resolved, finally, no matter how much power is asserted. China may try to pretend that their abuse of power has resolved the question of the independence of Taiwan, Tibet, and Hong Kong. But only a fool really believes that such questions are actually really resolved by China's power. The fools in the Chinese government come to mind.

And Georgia and Russia can act foolishly in this way all they want. The question will still not be resolved. It will only and ever be resolved when the independence and self-governance of people involved is taken seriously.

Perhaps we will be the generation that finally effectively uses force to resolve all of these questions, in contrast to the long historical trend-line of force failing to resolve such matters and towards greater freedom, independence, and self-governance. Something tells me that the long historical trend of evidence running in the direction of freedom and against the direction of power to resolve such questions will outweigh our power-hungry inclinations on such matters. And something tells me that I could never really accept anything else.

But I suppose, as always, humanity must fail often and in serious ways before it finally faces up to this failure.

How sad that such hubris so persistently trumps reason. How tragic for humanity indeed.

How to defeat terrorism

Two fascinating articles on terrorism that I happened upon today.

The Economist tackles the question of means to defeat terrorism head on in an excellent column.

Taking on terrorists: Is military force the best means to defeat terrorist groups?

This is why I love the Economist. Because the open, honest, empirical debate is more important than presuming the conclusions.

"Many studies have asked how terrorist groups are born; relatively few have described how such groups are best put out of business. A recent effort to do the latter, by RAND Corporation, an American think-tank, is therefore welcome. It considers the fate of some 650 groups (defined widely), between 1968 and 2006, asking in particular what put an end to them. In the process it casts some useful light on a hoary old question of counterterrorism: whether military force or smart policing is the more effective method for tackling terrorists and insurgents.

Proponents of military force have quite a bit to cheer at the moment. Most notably there is the success of the military surge in Iraq in tackling al-Qaeda and other insurgents (other changes, such as a shift in allegiance of Sunnis, have helped too). In Sri Lanka, in January, President Mahinda Rajapakse formally scrapped a cease-fire agreement that had been signed in 2002 with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The campaign against the separatists has been growing more intense, with the government forces claiming that the Tigers will be defeated next year. On Friday August 15th Sri Lankan soldiers said that they had killed 26 rebels in fighting in the far north of the island.

Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, has similarly pursued the military option against the FARC, managing to kill thousands of the group's members, including several leaders. In March Colombian forces (with American training and a heavy dose of intelligence work) bombed a jungle camp in Ecuador, killing Raul Reyes, an important figure in the movement, and recovering computers containing valuable information. Then in July Colombian forces freed Ingrid Betancourt, a former candidate for president, and 14 others who had been held hostage by the FARC for several years. Mr Uribe had resisted calls for negotiations to secure their release.

According to RAND, some 20% of the insurgencies it considered have been ended through the use of overwhelming military might. But such force seems to tell only in particular situations. Where opponents are large, organised like armies and occupy territory, military methods are likely to be more effective. Insurgencies, however, are a specific set of conflicts, comparable to civil wars where hundreds or more have died on both sides involved.

When it comes to terrorist groups more broadly, military might is less useful. As the RAND study points out, the vast majority of terrorist groups have fewer than 100 members. It considered groups ranging from the tiny, such as the Oklahoma City bombers, to the massive, such as Aum Shinrikyo, the movement responsible for a nerve-gas attack on Tokyo's subway in 1995. For isolated cells and other groups, conventional military weapons are unwieldy and often ineffective. The think-tank says that military action put an end to only 7% of the terrorist groups that it looked at.

RAND concludes that police sleuthing and more intelligence work are often more useful methods when tackling smaller groups and organisations—perhaps including al-Qaeda—that operate in the shadows. Of the 268 terrorist organisations that folded, the most common reason was a change of method in favour of a political process. This happened in 43% of cases and was mainly possible where groups had specific goals that might be accommodated. A similar number of groups—some 40%—were dismantled with the help of police and intelligence work.

The think-tank, which regularly conducts research for the Defence Department, therefore suggests that the current American strategy against terrorism is flawed. The report’s authors urge a 'fundamental rethinking' of policies against al-Qaeda, arguing that America's campaign should no longer be waged as a 'war on terror' but instead conducted as a 'counter-terrorism' mission. The authors say that 'there is no battlefield solution to terrorism', saying intelligence and policing should get more attention."

Jarkata-based journalist Anies Baswedan makes a case for his claim that terrorism is interest-based, primarily, and religious, cultural, and ideological, secondarily, in his interview with the World Press Review.

Clash of Civilizations or Calculation of Interests: An Interview with Anies Baswedan

"What exactly do you mean by 'a calculation of interests' in Muslim-Western conflicts?

The choice to engage in violence or peace isn't the projection of any ideological, cultural, or religious factors, but instead, a strategic calculation, or a calculation of interests. A group opts to use violent approaches or peaceful methods depending on each approach's incentives or disincentives. Who is considered the enemy and what confrontational method will be used is often determined more by a calculation of interests than of ideology, religion, or culture.

For example, let's consider relations between what we commonly refer to as the Afghan mujahideen and the United States. These various Afghan opposition groups were allies of the United States while fighting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980's. At that time the United States considered them freedom fighters or heroes. Now, however, some of these same groups are fighting against the United States, the new occupying force, and are therefore indiscriminately called terrorists.

It is the perspective of each party, how it sees its challenges, interests, and positions, that influences whether it becomes allies or enemies with the other.

Does this mean the clash of civilizations is nonsense?

I think it's a forced terminology. What really happens is a polarization, and it has occurred in many forms throughout the history of mankind. There are polarizations in culture, ideology, race, and religion. Polarization has become an innate part of life itself.

Samuel P. Huntington's clash of civilizations is too forced—as if there is a specific religious/cultural conflict between the Muslim world and the West. There isn't. Throughout history, conflicts pitted as clashes between civilizations weren't solely about religion. For example, the Crusaders also had interests in land and politics.

What about ideological or religious motives behind Muslim-Western conflicts? Do you deny such motives?

I don't deny them. Ideological or religious motives, of course, exist. However, they only occur at the micro, or individual level. Religion or ideology is just a tool that is hijacked to recruit and motivate people and to create solidarity with the perpetrators to whom it gives an air of legitimacy. These conflicts are presented as ideological or religious campaigns in order to inspire followers, legitimate the war as a 'just war,' and attract allies, etc.

That is why we need to use rational strategic analysis to enable us to acknowledge potentially violent conflict that is about to arise, so we can find a way to prevent it. But if we only employ a cultural framework (an approach that sees the psycho-religious-cultural variables influentially shaping the actions of a person or a group), we would walk in circles, without ever learning how to solve the conflict.

Don't you think that hijacking ideology, culture, or religion for such strategic interests shows that they could be lethal weapons?

Exactly. Ideology, culture, and religion are all excellent weapons for creating solidarity because of their transcendental and messianic values. But as weapons, they are used for external interests, not for themselves. When the external interests are achieved, they might be used for other strategic interests, which, in the case of geopolitical change, could turn allies into enemies.

What do you think about the future of Muslim-Western relations?

Today, the situation is fascinating. Islam grows and exists in prominent civilizational centers, such as in the capital cities of America and Europe. As a minority, Muslims there have to express their religious nature and negotiate Muslim values through the language and structures of the host country, becoming part of its civilizational treasure. The same thing is also experienced by Westerners that live in the Muslim world. It is in the hands of these ambassadors that the future of Muslim-Western relations lies, for they are in the privileged position of being fully a part of both Muslim and western societies."

Different forms of terrorism are going to be motivated differently, but I think terrorism is likely based upon interests that are often viewed through religious, cultural, and ideological lenses, depending on the group, which are often rationalized versions of all kinds of irrational passions, fear, hatred, and envy, primarily, of terrorist groups with other political and cultural groups they believe threaten their interests, viewed through such lenses, especially those with overwhelming power, dominance, or hegemony in affairs that affect their interests.

Meaning, terrorism may very well be a calculation of interests. I think, at some level, it is. But I don't think that a calculation of interests should be confused with a primarily rational calculation of interests. All calculations have some relative degree of rationality associated with them. But most terrorist impulses have heavy doses of irrational calculation associated with them. Hence both the uglier impulses - murder and mayhem - and the general failure of such tactics to accomplish their ends - the reliable accomplishment of political goals they claim. While terrorist groups will frequently claim victory, generally it is the efforts of peacemakers that ever actually accomplish any of the ends remotely associated with the goals of terrorist groups, if and when those goals are ever accomplished. The peace agreement in Northern Ireland and independence for Ireland and autonomy for Northern Ireland are often cited (often by those sympathetic with terrorist groups' ends) as evidence of success of those terrorist movements. The irony, of course, being that not only did political negotiations, not violence, lead to anything approaching the political goals of terrorist groups in Ireland and Northern Ireland, but the roads of violence were generally long roads with no tangible benefits gained until peaceful negotations took place.

The most notorious calculation of interests of terrorist groups and any person or group with power, hence, is to never admit defeat, even when various uses and abuses of power clearly lead to counterproductive results.

That is but one of the many reasons that Lord Acton accurately concluded that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. After a time, power becomes an end in itself even when it abrogates important and even not-so-important freedoms and even when it fails, often for very long periods of time and history, to accomplish its goals.

The long term consequence of such behavior is to undermine the credibility and the ends of the various political actors, terrorists being the most notoriously irrational of such actors.

Thus, terrorism becomes a irrational and flawed calculation of power to advance interests, generally, with such calculation being heavily shaped by religious, cultural, and ideological outlooks which rationalize the irrational, mistaken, and often very ugly passions and outlooks which animate its use.

Such irrational and flawed calcuations of the use of power are not isolated to terrorists. They are, in fact, common in liberal democratic governments and societies, as well as in illiberal and undemocratic governments and societies. Terrorism represents one of the more extreme, murderous, and uglier versions of such irrational calculations. But irrational and ugly rationalization and calculations for power are all too common in liberal democratic socieities, is the truth. That does not equivocate terrorism with the legtimacy of liberal democratic governments. Liberal democracy which better supports the freedom and self-governance of liberal democratic citizens is the most legitimate form of government in the history of humanity, that I am aware of. What that observation does acknowledge is that irrational calculations for power to advance interests - the central motivating force for terrorism - are common even in countries and cultures which better value freedom and democracy. Deepseating fears about freedom and its by far stronger empirical consequences for cultures and individuals tragically motivate large swaths of people in liberal democratic cultures as much as the murderous efforts of terrorist groups. Doing so ignores and undermines the without question better consequences of liberal democratic values - freedom and self-governance - and societies.

But, like terrorism, it does so to rationalize the irrational and ugly impulses of liberal democratic as well as illiberal or less liberal and undemocratic or less democratic citizens and all of those who believe power can accomplish more than it can.

Wiser and more reasoned minds and hearts have always and will always embrace liberty and eschew power, as much as possible, as a function of the consequences of the use of aggression and power as much as the moral or ethical legitimacy of liberal democratic values and governance.

And terrorism is but one of the many irrational, tragic, and ugly rationalizations of power for ends that it almost never accomplishes.

Our goal must be to end this rationalization, in liberal and democratic socieites as much as in illiberal and undemocratic circles, including terrorist circles, and to embrace freedom and self-governance and the stronger personal and governing values that they represent.

It is only with such respect for freedom and self-determination in our own governance, as well as active tactical efforts to coordinate political, military, and law enforcement efforts to combat terrorist groups and bring them to justice, when possible, and kill them, if necessary, and to enlarge the sphere of free, open, engaged, and non-violent political, religious, and citizen activity that terrorism will ever finally be ended.

Terrorism is an irrational, ugly, but real response to the failure of liberal democracies to take seriously and honestly enough the liberal democratic values that underpin them. The ugly rationalizations of power at the expense of freedom and self-government in liberal democracies fuel the rationalizations of power, murder, and repression of repressive groups and governments, including terrorist groups, and will continue to do so until liberal democracies begin to take seriously freedom and not power as the legitimate basis for their security and governance.

Greater real security generally follows greater freedom, as an empirical matter as much as for any intrinsic reasons to favor liberty of its own accord.

The challenge for liberal democratic societies, today, is to embrace those values and let go and transcend the fears and rationalizations of power that animate illiberal and undemocratic impulses and fuel the rationalizations for repressive governments and groups, including terrorist groups.

To the extent that we do, we will successfully end terrorist activity. To the extent that we do not, repression, terrorism being only one version of that impulse, will continue to haunt us.

It is good to know that some people take the thinking about this problem seriously.

Infinite complexity

There are, potentially, infinite levels of complexity to almost any task, depending on what we bring to that task. Being a janitor can be a thing of invention, if someone brings their mind to that task with a commitment to understanding how to do that job better.

There is no reason for some of us to be smart and some of us not. There is too much to be understood about the world.

What John Edwards says about America

I've been catching up with John Edwards coverage, tonight. I'll tell you what I think.

I think maybe America has decided that it just can't ever give up the ugliness. I don't mean Edwards cheating on his wife. I mean how the media and everyone has decided that shitting on this decent man after he fucked up is somehow the best that America has to offer.

Perhaps America has decided to forgo being a shining city on a hill and decided instead to be the perpetually bitter, angry, jealous, vengeful shitheap that we keep pretending is "progress" (if there is any notion that makes me giggle a little, today, it is the ridiculous and kind of comic idea that this long fuckin' train wreck of news for America is "progress"; I mean, how long can people keep up the bullshit, really?).

Maybe America just doesn't have it in us to be better.

Maybe we are just forever this small-minded, spiteful, nasty, ugly little culture pretending to be something better because to face all that ugliness is just too much for our tiny little hearts to bear.

I don't think so. I think we have more potential than that, I guess I should say.

People are always small before they become bigger. We are always shitty before we get less shitty. Humanity have always been as they are today. Assholes trying to be a little less assholish.

As Ken Layne of Wonkette observed, this is not America's finest moment, right now. We're kind of trailer trash, really. The whole country. Which is all fine and good as far as I'm concerned. That's where I come from. I feel like Br'er Rabbit amidst the Briar Patch that is America, these days.

What a sad, small little nation we have settled for becoming, these days. What a sad, small little people humanity has settled on becoming, these days.

Nothing new. Nothing to be taken more seriously than it deserves either.

What John Edwards says about America is that we have work to do to face up to what assholes we have become in the name of nothin' special.

Unless you feel good about all the progress the assholes have created that is.

In which case, have at it dumbass. You get to live in that world, too, moron. At some point, I would hope that you would want it to actually get better instead of the bullshit that we keep pretending is decency and brilliance, these days.

I, for one, just want to see us get better. I'm tired of the bullshit. And I'm tired of us pretending that our shortcomings are really something better than they are. And I'm tired of America and the world - all of us - acting like our shit don't stink.

We stink to high heaven, right now, is the truth. I'm tired of the stench.

Bout time we all came clean and stop being such shitheads.

Make for a nicer time while we're here.

Progress

I just hung out with my roommate and his friends, last night. It was a younger crowd, for me. Everyone was from my roommate's work where folks range from 18 to 80. And I was struck, last night, by a very promising fact of life. That young people really do seem to take freedom and inclusion more seriously than older folks.

And it's not about immaturity or not understanding the unfailing wisdom of older folks that has made the world such an unimaginable paradise. It's about friendship and caring about one another.

I do understand that older folks and many people don't understand this as well. And, after awhile, I don't care.


http://view.break.com/223912 - Watch more free videos

I love watching this video, because it captures this spirit better, publicly, than a lot I've seen or read.

And the original by Ben Folds.



I do understand that older folks don't get it. I understand that a lot of people don't understand the kind of loyalty and mutual acceptance of each other and their flaws that this younger spirit embodies. When older and other folks don't really ever make an effort to understand because they're always so convinced that they know better, I just don't care after awhile. Until they do.

Learning and life

Tonight, I realized that there are some important lessons in life that it has taken a longer time for me to learn than I wish were necessary. There are lessons that I think I could have been learned earlier and had a more productive young life with better relationships and a stronger education in life from my family and other adults in my life.

That education came through my own learning curve and many hard knocks and experiences to substitute for something more thoughtful, decent, and preparatory. Ce la vie, I suppose.

But I do very much hope that my experiences will mean for a better education and preparation for life for my children and maybe my students.

There are many regrets that I have had choosing to be a teacher and a scholar. First and foremost, that I intend to correct for, is that I want to build a life that stands on its own completely independent of my words or thoughts or arguments. It is this fact of the life of people like Warren Buffet, Stephen Spielberg, Mark McGwire and others that I admire that I think can be remarkably persuasive beyond any argument. I will build wealth and do work outside of teaching and scholarship, I hope, that can establish this legacy for my life, as well.

But one serious advantage to the life I have now is the ability to reflect on, gain experience, and prepare to raise and educate a family and my children in ways that I could only have wished to experience as a child. My children might not agree. But my eyes and ears will be open to that fact, as well. If I have learned anything as a teacher, a scholar, and just as a person, it is to keep my mind and heart open to possibilities I never considered or imagined before.

I think the role of teachers, scholars, thinkers, and just the larger marketplace of ideas and perspectives, at large, is to quicken that learning curve and to facilitate stronger learning and fundamentals for living and improving contributions to the world, in general.

But it is an advantage that comes with my chosen professions, at this point, that I don't want to lose sight of, as often as I notice places that I wish my parents or teachers had anticipated better such matters of life for me.

Too much of my life has been one long melodrama of integrity and wise living that I wish I oould have avoided with better learning earlier about such matters. I didn't, not early enough, despite some very earnest, honest, and far too ambitious efforts to do so. Those experiences have had a lot of influence on my outlook on people and the world and yielded some fairly powerful insights, I think, into many of our failures as individuals and as liberal democratic and illiberal and undemocratic cultures, I believe. I hope my first book will bear out that belief. We shall see.

In the meantime, I learn. It is often difficult and painful. Too difficult and painful, by far. But I learn nonetheless.

Facilitating that learning on everyone's part is our biggest challenge, I think, including the learning of our brightest neighbors and our most powerful citizens. To do so will involve embracing more freedom, not less, I believe. And it will involve shedding our often narrow, parochial, sectarian, too often self-righteous outlooks seeking all too desperately confirmation of more final truth than we, in fact, could ever possibly have access to. It will involve facing our limitations and opening up the possibilities for ourselves and others to challenge those limitations more honestly and with more possibilities for more people to do so.

What liberal democratic cultures need is more space for learning and for the better lives that comes with that learning.

I hope my own lessons, from failures and successes, can serve some purpose beyond my own life and benefit.

Our choice

It's ironic. Watching this ad -



- and this ad -



- led me randomly to this ad -



The third is definitely the most inspired of the three.

But it rings hollow these days.

You can't talk about not being as divided as our politics suggests, about being one people and being one nation while you engage in divisive politics.

And the real problem, in this political moment, is that leading America as a united nation and as a united people, no matter what the cynics say, really is important.

Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Jack Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan all had their many, many flaws. None of them were infallible. All of them made very serious mistakes of policy and power.

But despite their often grave errors of judgment, one thing all of these Presidents have in common is that they led with a more genuine commitment to a united America and with a sincere concern for our common humanity, flaws and all.

The same cannot be said of all Americans or all American political leaders, or of all people or all political leaders anywhere. In fact, it can be said of all too few of us, really, honestly.

But if America does not have an option of a political leader who is more genuinely committed to all Americans and all people, generally, there is no possible way that he or she or America, herself, can claim to lead any other American or any other citizen anywhere.

People can only follow leaders who are genuinely committed to their interests.

And if America cannot offer up a candidate who is genuinely committed in such a way then she will suffer for as long as that is the case and there is no possible way that she can claim to lead the world.

Americans, especially Barack Obama and John McCain will have to make a choice, this election.

They will have to choose to either lead others, Americans and people around the world, with a genuine commitment to them and their lives and interests. Or they will have to learn to live without the world looking to them for leadership and her President will have to learn to live without Americans looking to him or her for direction.

Power or leadership. That is the fundamental choice we face this election. It is abundantly clear to me that we cannot have both, at this point. Not really. If we choose the first, the second will be a charade, always, until we choose differently. And, at this point in our history, noone is going to pretend otherwise until we have real leadership. Power is an inherent part of authority. But abusing that authority and rationalizing the abuse of power, as America has and continues to do, during this period, has consequences. Namely, it engenders the kind of mistrust that Americans feel in all branches of its government, right now.

The same will be true of America's relationship with the world. If America chooses to rationalize power this election, the world will continue in the direction it has already been taking: looking elsewhere than America for leadership. If America chooses more genuine leadership, we can offer a path that just might make some of the kinds of course corrections that America and the world needs given the challenges we face, namely corrections that more honestly expand freedom and democracy.

But continuing to rationalize power will not be confused with leadership for long. And this election and its very disappointing start illustrates that point well.

The fact is that America and the world are not inspired by a Karl Rove or a James Carville. They are not inspired by power-mongers and manipulators.

They are and will only be inspired by people who are more genuine leaders.

These two men were our best options from each party, I think, for all of my disagreements with them.

But if they cannot choose to lead by example and inspire a commitment of a united America to common cause, America and the world will just have to learn to live without such leadership for four years and see what that world is like until we can choose differently.

I would have thought that eight years of this ugliness would have been enough. And the eight years previous are too low a standard, at this point.

So the question for us is: will we choose more genuine leadership or not. And, if not, will we take responsibility when we deal with the consequences of that choice for another four years.

That is the choice before us, this election. It is a choice for Barack Obama. It is a choice for John McCain. And it is a choice for the American people.

And when all the dust clears, all of us will be responsible for that choice, no matter our protestations, our attempts to shift blame, and our excuses to the contrary.

It is the most important choice America has faced in the 21st century, thusfar, I think. May we choose wisely.

Stinkin' thinkin'

I never thought I'd find myself nodding to such bullshit. But this election, without all that stinkin' thinkin', our candidates make everything so much easier.


Today Now!: How To Pretend You Give A Shit About The Election

Stupid and mean

I'm beginning to figure out, now, why I put such a premium on finding a girl who is nice and smart.

Because most people are stupid and mean, is the truth. I'm beginning to believe irredeemably so. I put more value on nice than smart because clever shitheads are more of a pain in the ass than dumb shitheads.

But stupid and mean pretty much sums up who most people are, I think. Perhaps trying to be something else, when all else fails.

I just want someone who is a break from all that bullshit.

Because God knows there is plenty of the alternative in the world. And watching it persistently confuse itself with something wiser or better gets to be really old, after a while.

It'd be nice if people acted better than this. But in the meantime, I have no clue why they think that such bullshit qualifies them to tell me to do a damn thing other than don't trust people like us.

People have some funny notions of themselves. Decent and trustworthy is perhaps the funniest. Stupid and mean is more accurate.

I identify

Study Finds Young People Remain Apathetic About Office Politics

Finally, I do not care

Finally, this election has done what no previous election has been able to accomplish in my lifetime:

Convince me that it really doesn't matter.

When the level of discussion is this infantile, self-righteous, and petty, why would anyone think that it matters which one of these fools has power?

I think we're capable of being grown-ups. I just think we refuse because it doesn't serve our egos as well. Though, ironically, it would serve our genuine self-interest better. We just constantly get self-interest and selfishness confused.

Because we're children. All of us.

And when your political process is one long playing out of The Lord of the Flies, for fear of something more honest, who really cares who wins the crown.

Not me. Not at this point.