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.

What our damned fool elections say about us

I've been reading coverage of the American Presidential candidates, of the Heather Mills/Paul McCartney divorce (randomly), and just news, generally.

And I'm beginning to wonder if we are even capable of growing up.

We're such children. We snark and taunt and bully and call names endlessly. We avoid substantive discussion, disagreement, and anything that would challenge our self-righteous notions of the world like they are, collectively, a modern-day plague. Even the smartest among us pretend like they have all the answers to our problems, which is not literally possible if Jesus Christ himself came back to earth and promised the same. We pretend like all our fighting is the same as having some greater or more insightful understanding of our challenges and their solutions.

We need a nap. Or a bottle. Or some time reviewing Sesame Street to remember what is involved with being a decent human being.

The maturity level of even the most thoughtful and compassionate among us is just kind of sad really.

We're all so invested in our self-righteous notions of the world that we cannot even conceive what might be involved in having a sober, serious, and open-minded, open-hearted discussion about the various issues we face to get to solutions quicker than our own egos might otherwise allow.

It's pathetic, is what it is. It's a sad spectacle. And how we could ever engage in it and pretend like "this is the way that the world must be forced to conform to" is way beyond my obviously shortsighted and uncomprehending thought process.

This election is already so fuckin' pathetic. It's one long regurgitation of the same old, tired melodrama, "Liberals right. Conservatives wrong," or, if you're looking for something particularly novel, "Conservatives right, liberals wrong."

If my own children were behaving like this, I would want to sit them in a corner. Or send them to their rooms. And think about how foolish and self-centered they were behaving.

But, instead, I have to pretend, for one more election cycle, like I respect this bullshit. I have to pretend like it's more worthy of a democratic debate and election than it really is. I have to pretend like these are the people worthy of leading me and the free and not-so-free world.

And then I have to pretend that I can't expect more not because most people are so fuckin' self-centered and unwilling to take responsibility for what sad, immature, self-centered dumbasses we are, but because this is the pinacle of human progress.

No offense, but if this is the pinnacle of human progress, we are in some deep, deep shit.

Mark Twain says everything I'm saying tonight much better, much funnier, and in a way that more people can take in easier. That's my shortcoming and Twain's brilliance at work there.

But, for tonight, I don't feel like making light of our persistent foolishness. I'm just dissappointed and kind of fed up.

It doesn't help that I've got an ex-girlfriend on the heart, tonight, who just never seems to get off no matter how hard I try.

But after an evening of giving it my best effort, I thought I'd say the obvious.

We are a world of juveniles. And a nation of children. And I am concerned, at this point, that it is medically impossible for us to be responsible for ourselves in a democratic society without acting like feuding kindergarteners without grown-ups to referee us.

The problem, I realize now after 17 years as an adult participant in this process, is not that there are certain participants in democratic society who are immature and ones who are grown-up and figured out how to tend to the rest of us.

The problem is that we are all children. And we just can't seem to grow up, for fear that to do so means to face our own limitations in a way that is too embarrassing for us to admit, lest we learn something and grow a little wiser and more humble in the process.

I cannot, for the life of me, name one exception to this notion. Not even myself, since I am reminded daily of what a short-sighted and unenlightened fool I am. I mean it was me who just spent the last hour of his life reading about the old news of that ex-Beattle's divorce proceedings.

Elections and politics in America and in the democratic and not-so-democratic world do not say great things about us, at this point. We have potential, that's for sure. But greatness eludes us while we decide if we're going to report on Barack Obama's hatred for the American troops and ambivalence toward the fate of Israel or the Iraqis or on John McCain's failure to master geography or economics.

We are obsessed with the petty and the trivial. With whether Barack Hussein Obama is code for "dirty Muslim" or whether John McCain's time as a prisoner-of-war qualifies him as President.

We're one big high school class, is what we are, all wondering who is going to be Prom King.

It's fuckin' pathetic. And unbecoming an election of a serious head of state of the most powerful 21st century liberal democracy. We want all that power. And we all want to gossip like schoolgirls while we wield it.

Like I said. Twain said it all better. He said everything better, didn't he?

I'm just in a lousy mood, tonight, and I've lost patience, for the moment, with this maddening and stupefying process. I think I have lost I.Q. points watching this election. And I'm pretty sure that I have acquired a learning disability of some kind reading and watching and following the press at large.

If this is all we have to offer, we are in serious trouble. Because we're not just kind of stupid and mean. We are farcically and unbelievably juvenile in how we conduct ourselves and campaigns for the most serious position of leadership in the world (though perhaps not for long, at this rate).

Surely there is more to democratic politics than this sophomoric exercise every 4 years.

And if not, why would anyone care?

Millions of Americans and liberal democratic citizens ask themselves that very question every voting cycle. And the irony is that millions of Iraqis are losing and risking their lives alongside thousands of Americans, British, Australian, Polish, Kuwaiti, and numerous other forces for the right to ask themselves that very question.

How foolish that we would be fighting a war so that Iraqis, like Americans, can take for granted that very right of having a serious and sober, open-minded and open-hearted debate and discussion of important matters of governance during elections like this one and not take seriously the election and democratic debate and discussion right in front of us.

How foolish that we would send our neighbors and family members to die for the right of citizens to participate in and take seriously important and reasonable matters of governance when we cannot even bring ourselves to take advantage of our own democratic opportunity to conduct such an earnest and honest discussion.

We are debating whether to send fellow Americans to die for the right to debate matters that we barely debate seriously, ourselves, in our own country.

And, all the while, we trumpet what unchallengeable wisdom we have to govern and make decisions for one another.

It is a fool's paradise, is what it is.

And we would rather have our friends and neighbors die than open our hearts and minds to an honest discussion.

I cannot think of anything more tragic and foolish. Which is appropriate. Since this is the most persistently tragic and foolish tendency that human history has repeatedly and inexplicably witnessed.

It is days like today that I remember why H.L. Mencken figures so highly in my mind in observation of human nature, even as Mark Twain had a truer understanding of people, I think.

Because what Twain anticipated that Mencken did not is the question, "Given the ridiculous and unimaginably absurd state of human affairs. What next?"

It's a good question. And what Twain anticipated was, "Somehow, we've got to get over this nonsense. Someone's got to help folks understand and recognize their own foolish pride, if at all possible. Might as well be me."

I'm working on it, Mark. My heart's just a little clogged, right now, with my own foolish attachments and blind romantic notions.

I'm working on it, I swear. My heart's just a little overwhelmed with it all tonight.

Pause

Ya'know. It's so funny. It's not the death that ever threatens to dissuade me from military service. It's the little shit, like this.

Silent Posting: With His Blog Kaboom, a Young Soldier Told of His War. Last Month the Army Made Him Shut It Down

"There was a boy who went to war, like many other boys before him. Maybe it made him a man, maybe it didn't. Maybe he already was a man, maybe he wasn't. Maybe it doesn't matter, maybe none of it does, maybe it all does. Maybe.

-- Lt. G, March 4

He was an unlikely warrior, this scrawny boy from Reno, Nev., the son of two lawyers, raised in the suburbs.

He had a way with words, this boy. When his Stryker unit deployed to Iraq last winter, he was a rookie platoon leader who had never seen combat. And like many other soldiers before him, he decided he'd chronicle the war on a blog. Intending to keep family and friends abreast of the follies and pitfalls of soldiering in a five-year-old war that now relies less on gunfire and more on diplomacy, this boy, under the pen name Lt. G, launched 'Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal.'

An indictment of the war it was not. Lt. G's dispatches -- at turns hilarious, maddening and terrifying -- provided raw and insightful snapshots of a conflict many Americans have lost interest in.

Word got around, and more and more readers closely followed the postings of 25-year-old Lt. Matthew Gallagher, with the site drawing tens of thousands of page views. By the time Kaboom went kaput last month -- Lt. G was ordered to take down his blog -- it had a following that would be the envy of many a small-town paper.

The blog's downfall was a May 28 posting that, in violation of military blogging rules, Gallagher failed to have vetted by a supervisor. (That the posting depicted an officer in the unit unflatteringly might have played a role. Gallagher declined a request to comment...)

'This is a disgusting decision on the part of the Army command,' one reader fumed, while another wrote: 'A free society would not shut down your blog.' Still another drafted a template letter and urged others to contact their lawmakers to demand that Lt. G's cyber gag order be lifted...

Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a military spokesman, said in an e-mail that Kaboom was 'deemed by the commander to be counter to good order and discipline of his unit.' He added that the blog had not been registered with the military, an assertion Dennis Gallagher disputes.

Lt. G wrote in his last dispatch that all postings, except for the one about the promotion talk, had been vetted by a supervisor. On June 27, he wrote one last entry, titled "A Tactical Pause":

I'm a soldier first, and orders are orders. So it is.

If you think, please think of us. If you pray, please pray for us. The second half of our deployment will be just as challenging and dangerous as the first half.

Thank you for caring. Agree or disagree with the war, if you're reading this, you are engaged and aware. As long as that is still occurring in a free society, there is something worth the fighting for."

Here's the link to the archived blog:

Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal at http://kaboomwarjournalarchive.blogspot.com/

And here's the post that got him in trouble, with the music that plays on the site.


The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage

That post in toto:

"I’d brushed aside the informal inquiries for months now. No, not me. Not interested. Keep me on the line. I want nothing to do with a lateral promotion to XO (Executive Officer) that involves becoming a logistical whipping boy and terminal scapegoat for all things NOTGOODENOUGH. I’ve been out here in the wilds too long, dealing with matters of life and death, to go back to Little America for PowerPoint pissing matches. Not me. I’m that too skinny, crazy-eyed mustang who drives a hippie van with a McGovern bumper sticker and keeps his hair long and actually read the counterinsurgency manual rather than pretending he did, even quoting it during meetings and out in sector in this era of recentralized warfare, remember? You aren't gonna break me, no matter how enticing the fires of the FOB are.

Semper Gumby.

I guess they forgot, and instead focused on matters of competency. Cue outright offer.

Cue LT G 'thanks but no thanks' response.

Cue illogical backlash from higher, acting like a spurned teenage blonde whose dreamboat crush tells her point-blank that he prefers brunettes.

Q finding myself on the literal and metaphorical carpet of multiple field-grades, sometimes explaining, sometimes listening.

Mostly listening.

Yes, Sir. I’m getting out. No, I’m sure. Definitely sure. Surer than sure. What am I going to do? Don’t tell him Option A, he’ll scoff at Option A. He believes dreams are only for children. Option B will suffice. Well Sir, I’m going to go back to school, somewhere on the East Coast. Haven’t decided if I’ll focus on the Spanish Civil War or Irish History yet, though. I think I’d be a pretty good wacky professor. I already like to ramble and I look good in banana yellow clip-on ties. Sir.

No, Sir. I’m not saying that at all. I would absolutely bust my ass as an XO, and perform the job to the best of my ability. I’m just saying I’d be screwing a peer of mine, who is staying in, and could use this professional development, benefiting both him and the big Army in the long run. Uncle Sam agrees with me.

No Sir, I don’t think I’m selling myself short. Recognizing one’s own weaknesses isn’t a weakness in and of itself. Crushing balls is only my thing with people who aren’t wearing an American uniform.

If I throw enough clutter in the way, something will stick.

This is the Army, son. Your opinion doesn't matter.

Roger. Acknowledged. I'd figure I'd proffer it, just in case.

You need to start thinking big picture, Lieutenant. That’s what officers do.

I roll out of the wire everyday to bask in a third-world cesspool craving my attention for nothing more than the most basic human need - hope. Is there a bigger picture than that, or just different vantage points from safer distances?

Yes Sir, I will remember to think things out more rationally next time. (Pause long enough to make the point that this was already a well-thought out decision.) Of course. Sir.

No Sir, this isn’t just because I want to stay with my platoon. (Maintain eye contact so he doesn’t think you’re lying, for the love of God, maintain eye contact!) I won’t lie though, Sir – it was a factor. Just not my motivation.

Nice work, liar.

Another reason? Well, Sir, two of my best friends in the world are LT Virginia Slim and LT Demolition. If I were to become their XO, I would be extremely uncomfortable with possibly having to order them and their men to their deaths. As their peer, I should be right there next to them. Hell, I probably would insist on it.

Yes, I know that was a good point. Don’t say that out loud. Don’t say that out loud. Phew. That was a close one. I almost out-louded rather than in-loaded.

Yes Sir, I have full confidence in my platoon to be able to succeed without me. SFC Big Country would be more than capable of performing the job of a platoon leader. But he’s an NCO. He shouldn’t have to deal with lieutenant bullshit. That’s my bullshit to deal with. I’m the soldier’s buffer. (Cough. From you. Cough.) If a butterbar were here, I’d understand. That’s the natural order of things. But since an opening occurred without a backlog, I really strongly really definitely really definitively believe that it should go to a LT who wants it. Hell, there are some of them out there who NEED it. Aren’t I being a team player here?

The ballad of a thin man walking a thin rope. Moonwalking a thinly-veiled rejection of his superiors’ life decisions. Wondering why they are taking it personally. People are different. They want different things out of existence. Let’s not act like I’m a ring of Saturn stating the case that Pluto’s planethood should be reconfirmed.

Don’t fall on your sword, Lieutenant. No one likes a martyr.

Can’t help it, I’m Irish. And. Yes. They do.

Fine, I’m not going to make you do it. (Even though I spent three days trying to do so.) But you are now on my shit-list, and I want to fuck you over for daring to defy and defying to dare. A bullshit tasking will eventually come down the pipeline, and I got a rubber stamp with your name on it. And yes, I know your performance has been outstanding, and we have consistently rated you above your peers, at the top echelon. Doesn’t matter now.

You’re right. It doesn’t. Doesn’t matter at all. Even if I’ve only haggled a few more months with the Gravediggers, it was worth it; I came here to fight a war, not to build a resume. My men need me. And. I need them. It would have been worth it for a few more days.

Victory.

Mustangs don’t blink.

You know where we learned how not to?

It wasn’t behind a desk.

Every day of free-roaming makes it worth it."

I don't know about you, but I like this guy more after reading this post, not less. Fuck 'em, Lt. G.

It's one of the more serious deterrents to me signing up. Not being able to speak and think freely and, as a function of those, to blog reasonably freely. Not being able to say what's on my mind. Not having a place to vent. Especially when your mental health as much as your physical safety is taking such a beating as it inevitably does in war.

Still. Job's gotta get done.

And I respect soldiers like Lt. G who fight because it's the right thing and not because it's a path to promotion. That's all I want out of the experience, at least. Do right. Let the rest of the chips fall where they may.

As Poppa G, Matthew's father, put it after he was ordered to take down the blog:

"I find it incredibly ironic that the day after the US Supreme Court issues a landmark decision concerning the second amendment of the Constitution, some midmanagement bureaucrat decides he can piss on the first amendment. Incredible!"

Apparently, Matthew's superior officer misses the irony, here, that while Lt. G is fighting for someone else's freedom and right to self-determination, in a war of self-sacrafice, rather than a war of self-defense, that he signed up for out of his own free will, his own freedoms get abrogated in the name of that fight.

I'm with Poppa G. I think this commanding officer got his feelings hurt, pussed out, and took the lame option of shutting the Lieutenant down rather than accepting his decision not to opt for promotion.

Pretty weak, if you ask me. Not sure I trust that kind of weak-ass shit to lead us in war. Maybe this C.O. ought to rethink his idea of good order and discipline.

Definitely has me rethinking it, that's for sure.

Good on ya for stickin' to your guns, Lt. G. Better officers know to respect the consciences and judgments of the men and women under their command.

If there's one lesson I've been trying to learn more than any other when it comes to my students, my friends, my family, everyone, this is the one. Just because I choose a path that serves others or which I think is a noble one or which I think is a better one, doesn't mean that everyone else should too. And, like Lieutenant Gallagher, here, just because they give you service doesn't mean they owe it to you into perpetuity.

If there is one lesson that Americans and the world needs to learn when it comes to how they relate to one another, this is it. We need to learn to respect the consciences and judgments of those around us.

It's a hard lesson to learn. And it's especially hard while the whole world rallies to disrespect that conscience and judgment in the name of forcing good intentions on the one another.

But we will never, ever, ever have peace with one another until we learn this lesson. Meaning we will fight and fight and fight and fight endlessly with one another, until we learn this lesson. And there is no assertion of authority or power or capacity to force each other otherwise which will resolve this fight in any other direction. The only real resolution we will ever really accept is one which respects the consciences and judgments of people involved.

And not having my conscience and judgment respected is the single biggest fact to give me pause for signing up. It's the single biggest fact to give most people pause to sign up for most public service, including military service, I think. And yet we keep barreling down that path like it doesn't mean a thing.

And folks like Lt. G take it on the chin for our hubris. A lot of people taking it on the chin for our hubris, these days.

Trying to decide if I'm willing or not. Whether the mission is more important than the bullshit.

I think it is. But that doesn't make the bullshit any less bullshit. FUBAR, as the boys in Saving Private Ryan refer to it. And fuck 'em for that.

If I thought we were too foolish and stubborn to ever get over it, I'd give it all up, today. The teaching. The writing. Considerations of the service. Even the theater and film work. I'd just go straight money. Nothing wrong with money. And it's awfully handy to have around.

But I know we're better than that. We don't always act like it. We fuck it up plenty along the way. Always have.

But I know we're better than that. And I'd rather keep working on behalf of me and others getting better than that than leaving it the mess that it is, today.

And I like the idea that there's other folks out there, like Matthew, who would too. Thanks for your service, Lieutenant. Truth is, we need more thoughtful, decent upstarts like you, Matthew. And we're not going to get more of them by bullying them. We will only get that kind of commitment in the ranks by treating them decent and respecting their conscience.

And, if not, I'm with you, Matthew. They can fuck off and try to win those wars on their own.

Something tells me that wiser heads will prevail on this one, eventually, Matthew. Thanks for your service, in the meantime.

Freedom and understanding

The Economist offers some insight into Unhappy America.

"There are certainly areas where change is needed. The credit crunch is in part the consequence of a flawed regulatory system. Lax monetary policy allowed Americans to build up debts and fuelled a housing bubble that had to burst eventually. Lessons need to be learnt from both of those mistakes; as they do from widespread concerns about the state of education and health care. Over-unionised and unaccountable, America’s school system needs the same sort of competition that makes its universities the envy of the world. American health care, which manages to be the most expensive on the planet even though it fails properly to care for the tens of millions of people, badly needs reform.

There have been plenty of mistakes abroad, too. Waging a war on terror was always going to be like pinning jelly to a wall. As for Guantánamo Bay, it is the most profoundly un-American place on the planet: rejoice when it is shut.

In such areas America is already showing its genius for reinvention. Both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates promise to close Guantánamo. As his second term ticks down, even Mr Bush has begun to see the limits of unilateralism. Instead of just denouncing and threatening the “axis of evil” he is working more closely with allies (and non-allies) in Asia to calm down North Korea. For the first time he has just let American officials join in the negotiations with Iran about its fishy nuclear programme (see article).

That America is beginning to correct its mistakes is good; and there’s plenty more of that to be done. But one source of angst demands a change in attitude rather than a drive to restore the status quo: America’s relative decline, especially compared with Asia in general and China in particular.

The economic gap between America and a rising Asia has certainly narrowed; but worrying about it is wrong for two reasons. First, even at its present growth rate, China’s GDP will take a quarter of a century to catch up with America’s; and the internal tensions that China’s rapidly changing economy has caused may well lead it to stumble before then. Second, even if Asia’s rise continues unabated, it is wrong—and profoundly unAmerican—to regard this as a problem. Economic growth, like trade, is not a zero-sum game. The faster China and India grow, the more American goods they buy. And they are booming largely because they have adopted America’s ideas. America should regard their success as a tribute, not a threat, and celebrate in it.

Many Americans, unfortunately, are unwilling to do so. Politicians seeking a scapegoat for America’s self-made problems too often point the finger at the growing power of once-poor countries, accusing them of stealing American jobs and objecting when they try to buy American companies. But if America reacts by turning in on itself—raising trade barriers and rejecting foreign investors—it risks exacerbating the economic troubles that lie behind its current funk.

Everybody goes through bad times. Some learn from the problems they have caused themselves, and come back stronger. Some blame others, lash out and damage themselves further. America has had the wisdom to take the first course many times before. Let’s hope it does so again."

The one most serious unspoken mistakes that America and the rest of the world has been making in the last 8 years or so is this profoundly undeserved suspicion and reversal of freedom as some kind of solution that it has, without much doubt in my mind, not proven itself to be, in the least. Americans, like everyone else, romanticize power and force to solve problems it cannot possibly solve. We do so largely out of frustration and fear. But neither compensate for understanding. And that is what freedom offers better. A stronger opportunity for understanding.

If America and the world could learn to trust freedom and understanding to do what cynicism does not understand and cannot achieve for us, the world would be in much better shape. It is our fears and what we do with those fears that perpetually causes so much death and destruction in the world. It is fear that is at the bottom of terrorism, repressive government, repressive religious, cultural, and ideological traditions, and most of the places in the world where we do damage to ourselves and one another in the name of self-centered self-preservation.

It is fear that drives our most needlessly destructive impulses. And the only andidote to that fact of human nature is more freedom and more understanding. With freedom and understanding comes the kind of self-awareness and self-determination that make the repression of others and our fears of them unnecessary and unthinkable. Or rather, we can think about them all we want. But it becomes clearer the more we reflect on our fears and their destructiveness and self-destructiveness that, perhaps, we are better off learning from the freedom than trying to control what we cannot control.

It's either that or live with the mess we've created for ourselves.

I'll take the freedom and the understanding.

Everything else just seems like an enormous waste.

"The single brightest light"

Baxter Black - cowboy, poet, humorist and former large animal veterninarian - features an essay and a poem on his webpage that I think captures the right mood for this point in the war in Iraq and America's and the world's efforts to offer help to the world's downtrodden and to fight for freedom.

He writes:

"With your permission I would like to indulge in a little naked patriotism. The United States, during my lifetime has become a nation like none other on earth. Not because it is the most powerful nation on earth, but because we, more times than I can count, have taken the side of the oppressed with no intention to conquer, rule or pillage.

In the act of offering our assistance, we have sacraficed blood, money and lives. We have beat ourselves up. We have questioned our motives. Our leaders have engaged in heated debate about the hows and whys, but we continue to be the single brightest light for the world's mistreated. We will take on the schoolyard bully.

In spite of all of our mistakes, missteps, misjudgments and misgivings, the world today would be a completely different place if our country; conservative, liberal, black, white, rich, poor, North, South, Manhattan NY or Manhattan KS, Americans all, had turned our back on the injustices and inhumanities that relentlessly stalk the globe.

Supporting the troops and their families on the front lines in the war on terror is not a partisan act. It is an act of pride, compassion, love, concern, anguish and hope. They carry our colors into harms way, and have since 1776."

Black includes a poem to the flag, that he originally wrote in 1999 and updated for the current historical moment, that captures well the spirit of the flag and the times.

It concludes:

"And they've signed it in blood from Bunker Hill
To Saigon, Kuwait, Bosnia
Kabul, Baghdad, and Toko Ri.
I give you the flag that says to the world
Each man has a right to be free."

Baxter's sentiments are exactly the perspective that Americans need for our current round of similar challenges, I think.

For all of our disagreements about how it might occur, we all fight for freedom. For our own and for others. And that fight is bigger than any of the debates that we engage to do that better, not to abandon that cause.

And it is on that common ground that we need to stand as we debate, honestly and in good faith, how to win and secure that freedom best.

Time to stop takin' myself so goddamn seriously.

If there is one lesson I've needed to learn this summer, I'm beginning to figure out, for my teaching, for my writing, for my relationships with my family and friends, for my life, I think, this is the one.

For all of my worries that I haven't been getting enough done, this summer, learning not to take myself and my efforts so seriously is the most important thing I've needed to learn for a very long time, I think, now, with some retrospect on a life where I have taken myself and everything I do far too seriously.

All I know is that'd I feel more comfortable hanging out with Larry the Cable Guy than Joe Nye or Victor Davis Hanson, anyday. Though I'd be very curious about what Joe and Hanson might have to say about the state of the world.

But with Larry, I'd be right at home.

And that's how it should be. If there's a poster-boy for soft, beer-bellied power, Larry the Cable Guy is your G-string model.

Makes me hungry for wings. And to want to stop thinking about Larry the Cable Guy in a G-string.

You know what the problem with the world is?

Not enough people find both these guys funny as all shit.

Larry the cable guy's christmas carols

Or don't like 'em. I don't care. Don't like me, either, I suppose.

You realize I'm the one asshole who thought the two best albums during this war were Shock and Y'all and the Home Album (The Black Eyed Peas' Where Is the Love? was a nice effort, but country music just got the jump on everyone this war).

More Love's the reason I bought that Dixie Chicks' album (Fuck controversy is my general motto), but the Chicks' cover of Patty Griffin's Top of the World is one of the most beautiful songs I ever heard in my life.



And if you don't get teared up during American Soldier, you got a heart of fuckin' stone. I could listen to Toby Keith salute these boys and girls in uniform all fuckin' day long.



I don't know what's wrong with us, half the time, is the truth. Get so full of ourselves. Think we've finally got all the goddamn answers. It's goddamn foolish is what it is.

That's why I like takin' a moment with Dave Chappelle and Larry the Cable Guy and rememberin' that I don't. Nobody does. Just a bunch of goddamn fools, just like me, tryin' to get life figured out.

Be nice if we remembered that every once in awhile. Make more sense, at least. Make for nicer holidays. Be more decent.

I could handle that. For my kids, at least. Maybe their kids. Maybe all of us.

Get-R-Done, kids. And Fuck Yo Couch, while you're at it.

Time to stop takin' ourselves so goddamn seriously.

1043 reasons to be leary of government

The U.K.'s Daily Mail, via Hotair, offers this insight into the consequence of our romanticism of power.

Now there are 1000 laws that will let the state into your home

It has never made any sense to me why people think that power is something to authorized lightly, except that they haven't thought about it enough and are convinced that it can do and can be trusted to do more than it can.

But here are 1043 reasons to be leary of the nanny-state, invasions of home and privacy, and otherwise seriously skeptical of government power.

When all is said and done with this political period, given the incomparable level of freedom, voice and participation that citizens of liberal democracies have in their government, there is only one person or group that we need blame for this period of regressive and repressive encroachment on liberty:

Ourselves.

My g-g-generation

This is either a sign of the Apocalypse or a sure witness to progress.


Bitches Aint Shit A Capella - Watch more free videos

I do smell brimstone. But that could be the Mexican I ate earlier.

Either way, bitches betta recognize. Berkeley style.

Fat kid on a roller coaster

I'm a tender-hearted teacher. So this shouldn't be funny. I know, I'm going to Hell. But this shit's funnier than shit.


http://view.break.com/285075 - Watch more free videos

There's nothing that can quite make your weekend than to realize, "Thank God I'm not that big cryin' fat kid on the roller coaster."

All brawn, no brains

It is the fact that most people watch and engage in democratic grudge matches along these lines that has us so fucked up, and so stupid while we're at it, all the fucking time.


http://view.break.com/514445 - Watch more free videos

But you gotta admit. Mike Awesome's got style.

If political folks didn't pretend to take themselves so seriously while they behaved like this, I would take them with a more grave repose.

As it is, when you act like goons, you get treated like goons.

Because something more thoughtful just seems so boring by comparison.

In the meantime, it's fun having front row seats to the overmuscled freak show that is moderal liberal democratic politics.

Bad day

Sometimes, you just gotta let off a little steam.



May I suggest yoga.

Reppin for the homies

Hotair alerts me to this remarkably well-behaved gentleman from my hometown of Wichita, Kansas.

"Via Bill Amos, a symphonie du bleep for lazy Friday afternoon. Interesting case here, actually. The charge was battery stemming from the defendant having spit in the eye of a sheriff’s deputy. The sentence: 13 years in prison, three more than the prosecutor had asked for. Why so long? Because he’s HIV-positive, which makes that loogie a potentially (albeit unlikely) deadly weapon."



This is behavior I see on almost a daily basis at the school where I work. It is refreshingly shocking when I watch someone else withstand it. Cutting through the ego defenses of kids who do this to get to a place of greater responsibility is extremely difficult work. But if we don't do it early, this and worse is the consequence later.

A nice reminder of why I do the work I do, abuse and all.

Nothing in life is anything that I stubbornly refuse to acknowledge as such

The insanity of it all is so aggravating, you can only laugh.



Because shooting yourself in the head only works once.

The fate of al Queda and international terrorism

The Economist features an excellent report on the present fate and ultimate future of al Qaeda and the successes and failures of American and international efforts to challenge its global jihadist aims.

Winning or losing?

"Al-Qaeda has built on decades of Middle Eastern terrorism. Palestinian groups internationalised their violence in the 1970s; Hizbullah used suicide-bombers against the Americans in Lebanon back in 1983; Palestinian suicide-bombers sought to inflict maximum civilian casualties in Israel from 1994; and Algerians who hijacked a French airliner the same year tried to fly it into the Eiffel Tower but were foiled.

In those days, though, attacking Western targets was part of a local nationalist or sectarian fight. Al-Qaeda’s dark genius was to weave these strands together with the tools of globalisation to create a networked movement with a single worldwide cause: jihad against America. Conventional terrorist groups, such as the Basque ETA movement or even Lebanon’s Hizbullah, often keep their violence in bounds to avoid alienating their political supporters. But global jihadists, without a domestic constituency, seek to maximise civilian casualties for spectacular effect. Counting the victims is tricky. Attacks on Western civilians have dropped, but the routine use of suicide-bombings has raised the slaughter, mostly of Muslims, to appalling levels (see chart 1).

Al-Qaeda’s ideology was forged by one big victory and two decades of failures. Disparate Arab fighters who helped Afghan ones evict Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989 were initially elated, but became dejected by the ensuing civil war and the failure of violent campaigns in Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere. Many extremists decided to end the bloodletting. But a cadre of wandering jihadists gathered in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban and decided to redirect their ire from the 'near' enemy to the 'far' one...

Al-Qaeda’s ideology was forged by one big victory and two decades of failures. Disparate Arab fighters who helped Afghan ones evict Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989 were initially elated, but became dejected by the ensuing civil war and the failure of violent campaigns in Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere. Many extremists decided to end the bloodletting. But a cadre of wandering jihadists gathered in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban and decided to redirect their ire from the 'near' enemy to the 'far' one...

Seen in this light, one of the objectives of the September 11th attacks was to provoke the Americans into invading Muslim lands. But if al-Qaeda intended to trap America in Afghanistan, its plan went badly awry, at least initially. The Taliban fell quickly in 2001 and al-Qaeda’s followers were forced into hiding.

A hubristic America, however, then walked into a trap of its own making by invading Iraq in 2003. It got rid of a dangerous dictator but gave the jihadists a popular cause against American occupiers in the Muslim heartland. For a while the jihadists thought they could carve out a base in Iraq from which to destabilise the region. That danger may now have been averted. Helped by al-Qaeda’s excesses, a bloodied America seems to be fighting its way out of the worst of the troubles it created for itself.

So terrorism experts are now debating whether al-Qaeda is starting to burn itself out. 'On balance, we are doing pretty well,' Michael Hayden, the director of America’s Central Intelligence Agency, told the Washington Post in May. 'Near strategic defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al-Qaeda globally—and here I’m going to use the word ‘ideologically’—as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam.'

Many thought he was being overly optimistic. Had General Hayden himself not given warning two months earlier that the restoration of an al-Qaeda haven in Pakistan’s tribal belt constituted a 'clear and present danger' to the West?

A related argument has been provoked by 'Leaderless Jihad', a book by Marc Sageman, a counter-terrorism consultant. He argues that al-Qaeda’s core leadership has been 'neutralised operationally'. The bigger danger now comes from loose groups of Muslims in the West who radicalise each other and carry out autonomous, self-financed attacks.

This thesis has come in for strong criticism, particularly from Professor Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University. He notes that al-Qaeda’s imminent death has often been heralded in the past, only to be contradicted by the sound of new explosions. Many plots in Europe have direct connections back to Pakistan, he notes.

Part of the problem lies in al-Qaeda’s diffuse nature. Its core members may number only hundreds, but it has connections of all kinds to militant groups with thousands or even tens of thousands of fighters. Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organisation, a militant network and a subculture of rebellion all at the same time.

To explain the movement, many experts draw parallels with globalisation. Some describe it as a venture-capital firm that invests in promising terrorist projects. Others speak of it as a global 'brand' maintained by its leaders through their propaganda, with its growing number of 'franchises' carrying out attacks.

The rise of al-Qaeda’s stateless terrorism does not mean that the old state-sponsored variety has disappeared. Libya, which once supported the IRA and other violent causes, may now be co-operating with the West, but Iran, among others, supports both Palestinian militants and Lebanon’s Hizbullah movement. Should Iran redirect Hizbullah towards a global terrorist campaign against the West—for instance, if the country’s nuclear sites were bombed—the effect might be more devastating than any of al-Qaeda’s works.

For the moment, though, the most immediate global threat comes from the ungoverned, undergoverned and ungovernable areas of the Muslim world. These include the Afghan-Pakistani border, the parts of Iraq still in turmoil, the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, and swathes of Yemen, Somalia, the western Sahara desert and the chain of islands between Indonesia and the Philippines (see map)...

This special report will attempt to answer the impossible question posed in 2003 in a leaked memo from Donald Rumsfeld, then America’s defence secretary: 'Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?'"

An interview with Economist defense and security correspondent, Anton LaGuardia, is a very interesting discussion worth your time if you are interested in this question.



If I have learned anything this summer, it is that there is no dearth of valuable expertise and insight on serious questions like international terrorism. That speaks well of what is possible when we have a robust enough marketplace of ideas to support such expertise and thought. The fact of that broad, robust, liberal democratic marketplace of ideas is the West's most important strength and weapon in this battle.

May we use it wisely.