The Distant Ocean

A controversial legacy

Imagine the uproar if anyone in the US government said this:

Adolf Hitler led Germany for over ten years, a period during which Germany achieved remarkable economic and social development… Though there may be some controversy over his legacy, Hitler was a historic figure who left a lasting imprint on Germany and the rest of Europe.

Now notice the deafening silence after US Ambassador to Indonesia Cameron Hume said the same thing about Suharto, who finally followed the million or more human beings he killed to the grave:

"President Suharto led Indonesia for over thirty years, a period during which Indonesia achieved remarkable economic and social development… Though there may be some controversy over his legacy, President Suharto was a historic figure who left a lasting imprint on Indonesia and the region of Southeast Asia."

I have the nagging feeling that there's some sort of critically important lesson here, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

How did McCain end up in a Vietnamese POW camp?

Dennis Perrin points out that the Vietnamese didn't sneak into the United States and kidnap John McCain from his bed, and that maybe incinerating children from his A-4 Skyhawk didn't make him a hero, and in return suffers the slings and arrows of a group of scandalized liberals.  By all means, read it for yourself.

Assassination by media, completed

Time chimes in on some of the things that sank John Edwards' presidential bid:

[Edwards] was plagued by a series of missteps that damaged his image as a crusader for the poor. First came a spate of stories when Edwards built a $6 million home on 100 acres outside Chapel Hill in 2005. Then came an embarrassing disclosure that he paid $400 for his carefully coifed haircut.

And as we all know, these frivolous, irrelevant stories were discovered by unknown citizens and passed solely by word of mouth throughout the country, spreading like wildfire; within minutes nearly every person in the US had heard about them from friends, family members, and even helpful strangers.  But just think how much worse it could have been if the media had focused obsessively on them as well, almost to the exclusion of anything of substance about Edwards' campaign!

Time also offers this bit of analysis, with no hint of self-reflection:

[T]oday he is admitting what all the pundits and politicos have been saying for the past month: the Democratic contest is a two-person race, and Edwards is not one of them.

And of course the fact that that's been the near-universal media frame for the past month had nothing to do with it.

Edwards' actual record is sordid enough that I never took his (generally outstanding) campaign rhetoric at face value, and it wouldn't have surprised me at all if he'd thrown it aside, in whole or in part, had he by some miracle been elected.  But I did give him the benefit of the doubt for one reason: it wasn't remotely in his self-interest to say the things he was saying, since they were only going to damage his ability to raise money from corporate backers and make him a primary target for the corporate media.  And sure enough, here we are.

With Edwards and Kucinich gone, even the barely-visible flickers of hope that were out there in this election have been extinguished.  At this point, my main criterion is just which of these power-hungry blackguards will be the least painful to listen to day after day for the next four years.

Yes, I'm a lucky bastard

I've mentioned that this is one reason I consider myself lucky.  Another one is that this is only three hours away:

It may have gotten farther since the last time I checked, though, so I'm going to verify it one more time.  And while I'm there I may try walking down a mountainside, but with something strapped to my feet to make it more interesting.

All of which is to say that posting will be light until I get back.  So until then: have much sex your sex, everyone!

Missiles of pita, fueled by aspirin

In comments, SteveB said stuff I like so much that I want to repost it here:
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I wonder how far Obama is willing to go with this collective punishment idea. Obviously, denying Palestinians access to food and medicine isn't intended to directly prevent the missile attacks (unless Obama lives in a magical world in which missiles are constructed of pita bread and fueled by aspirin). So the only "strategy" here is to inflict enough pain on the Palestinians to cause them to rethink their support of Hamas.

But if it's really about bringing the pain to people who aren't attacking Israel, in the hope they'll turn on the guys who are attacking Israel, then why stop with cutting off food? Why not give them food, but put poison in it? Too extreme? Okay, how about putting something in the food that gives them really, really bad stomachaches? I mean, they have to be shown there's a cost for their "support" of terrorists, right?

And can anyone think of a historical example where a "strategy" of this sort actually worked? Where it didn't cause people to rally around exactly the leadership we don't want them to support? Did the blitz cause Londoners to turn against Churchill, did 9/11 cause Americans to turn against Bush?

But sometimes I forget, they're not like us.
________________________

I responded there (and you can follow that link if you want to comment too).  But I just want to repeat that I really, really want to visit the magical world where missiles are constructed of pita bread and fueled by aspirin.  And I'm pretty sure I won't be coming back.

More best intentions (with bonus: Obama offers change!)

The US just went out of its way yet again to demonstrate that it only has the best intentions toward the Palestinians:

...the [UN Security] Council failed to adopt a draft presidential statement calling for Israel "to ensure unhindered access for humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people and to open the border crossings to facilitate the passage of exports and imports to the Gaza Strip."

Why? Because it was not acceptable to the U.S. delegation, a diplomat present at the meeting told IPS. The U.S. rejected the first draft statement because it did not cover Israeli concerns about rocket fire by Palestinian militants into its territory.

But with the law of unintended consequences being what it is, I don't doubt that the Palestinians will misread this gesture as well.  What will it take for them to finally accept the sincerity of our good intentions toward them?  Not only do we love them, we love them to death, and still they misunderstand us!

Here's ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad explaining why the US blocked the resolution:

U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told the Council that Washington was equally concerned about the situation in Gaza and that the U.S. would continue to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. But at the same time, he fully supported the Israeli view that it was the Palestinian militants who are responsible for the misery of their people.

"We believe the current situation is a direct result of Hamas's policies and actions," he said, adding that the United States "condemns in the strongest terms the ongoing firing of rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel by terror groups."

And here's Barack Obama taking time out of his busy campaign schedule to write to Khalilzad, urging him to reject any resolution that wasn't properly constructed to lay the blame where it belongs:

"All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families," wrote Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, in his letter to Khalilzad. "However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this. Gaza is governed by Hamas, which is a terrorist organization sworn to Israel's destruction, and Israeli civilians are being bombarded on an almost daily basis."

Thank goodness we have a candidate for change!

(In related news, Obama wrote letters to George Bush, suggesting that he embrace corporate tax cuts; to Alan Dershowitz, urging him to support Israel; and to Rob Schneider, encouraging him to make more crappy movies.)

The best intentions

For a while at least, Newsweek seemed like a genuine news magazine, at least on some superficial level.  Then I read this:

The Egyptian border debacle is just one more reminder that the law of unintended consequences tends to rule in the Middle East, despite the best intentions of U.S. policymakers. It is also an illustration of just how difficult it will be for George W. Bush to realize his hopes for a "West Bank First" strategy that aims to turn Gazan public opinion against the Islamists--much less his goal of a comprehensive peace agreement. The Bush administration's strategy since Hamas swept to power in local elections two years ago has been to squeeze the Islamists by depriving them of the aid money the Palestinian economy usually depends on to operate. For a while at least, the tactic seemed to be working, at least on some superficial level.

Yes, there's just no telling what those wacky Palestinians will do.  We try to show them that we only have the best intentions for them by strangling them economically and fomenting a civil war, helping to bring the already-devastated Gaza Strip to the brink of "total collapse".   And how do they respond?  Do they sit around candles in their darkened homes, hungry, huddled under blankets, discussing our wisdom and benevolence?  Do they understand that their suffering is just a precursor to a bright future of peace and democracy, all thanks to us, and bear it gladly?  No, of course not; in a baffling display of ingratitude, they blow up the border wall with Egypt and race through desperately before the hole in their cage of pain is patched up again.  But what can you do?  This is the Middle East, after all!

I imagine a Palestinian journalist somewhere writing about this same bewildering phenomenon as applied to Israel and the United States.  Militant Palestinian groups have repeatedly tried to illustrate their good intentions and desire for peace by killing Israelis in suicide bombings and lobbing homemade missiles haphazardly across the border.  Now, it should be obvious to anyone that the sole purpose here is to create an opening for peace by making the occupation untenable—but Israel and the US actually turn around and use it as a justification for further attacks and economic strangulation!  No one saw that coming.  But what can you do?  After all, that's the law of unintended consequences for you.

Nuking the world to save it from, well...nukes

You'd be forgiven for thinking of Ben Tre after reading this excerpt from a NATO manifesto by former military leaders of the US, Britain, Germany, France, and the Netherlands:

"The risk of further [nuclear] proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible," the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of western military strategy and structures. "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."

I suppose it would have been a bit too on-the-nose to write "to prevent the first use of nuclear weapons."

One of the changes to NATO that the authors are calling for is:

- The use of force without UN security council authorisation when "immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings".

This is known as the "Bill Clinton option":

French officials said the deployment of NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo needed to be backed by a United Nations Security Council resolution, a proposition that the Clinton Administration opposed. Washington, according to State Department officials, was sticking to its stand that NATO should be able to act independently of the United Nations.

The debate played out in Paris, Rambouillet, London and Washington with a compromise worked out this afternoon by the British. Instead of the United Nations being asked to ''authorize'' the deployment, the Security Council will be asked to ''endorse'' it, a British diplomat said.

In this way, all sides could claim victory. For the French, the United Nations still got a nod. For the Americans the ''neuralgic word 'authorize,' '' was avoided, the diplomat said.

No such resolution was passed, but the lack of the required authorization didn't stop Clinton from attacking Yugoslavia, of course (and it also didn't lead the throngs of adoring Democrats who'd put him in office to criticize him for thumbing his nose at international law and marginalizing the UN; after all, those kinds of considerations are mainly political weapons to be brandished against hated Republican presidents like George Bush).  Given that one of the authors of this manifesto is John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Clinton, it's no surprise that this would be included.

Is the US going to lose its vote at the UN?

Apparently the US may be losing its vote at the United Nations.  Not its own vote, mind you, but one of its extra ones:

A new government in the Marshall Islands may spell trouble for America

Fifty years have passed since America ended nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. But its 52,500 people are still wrestling with the legacy. On January 7th they ditched the pro-American administration led by Kessai Note and elected instead a government backed by disgruntled chiefs and senators from the nuclear-affected atolls. The new leaders are unhappy with their nation's “Compact of Free Association” (CFA) with the United States. They want to press the claims of nuclear victims on the islands of Bikini, Rongelap, Utrik and Enewetak. They are also considering opening diplomatic relations with China.

Up until now the US could always count on the Marshall Islands (along with other satellites in the US political orbit like Micronesia and Palau, and fellow outlaw state Israel) to hand over its General Assembly vote on issues like strangling Cuba, blocking the international consensus on Palestine, and opposing the creation of the UN Human Rights Council.  This allowed the US government to pretend that it didn't stand alone against the rest of the world on issue after issue.

All that may end now that the Marshall Islanders have gotten the strange notion that they exist independently of the United States.  Or not; the new government has only a slim majority and may find it difficult to renegotiate the CFA, much less to escape US influence more broadly.  Regardless of the outcome, though, I never imagined the day would come when I'd see "Marshall Islands" and "trouble for America" in the same headline, and that alone is very encouraging.

Another dispatch from the coming economipocalypse

The Associated Press sends us more words of warning from the edge of capitalism's yawning abyss.  Apparently the sorry state of the economy isn't just affecting the vast majority of the population, but is also beginning to have an impact on people who matter:

Shares dropped among retailers from jewelry chain Zales Inc. to Saks Inc., which operates luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue, as the spending malaise appeared to deepen and spread beyond lower and middle-income shoppers to more affluent consumers. ...

American Express Co., whose customers are generally affluent, said Thursday it expects slower spending and more missed payments on credit card bills to hurt its profit throughout 2008. Upscale jewelry retailer Tiffany Co. cut its 2007 profit outlook on Friday as it reported a 2 percent decline in same-store sales, or sales at stores opened at least a year, during the holiday period.

But there's some good news mixed in among the dark portents:

"Consumers are feeling very pinched," Steidtmann [chief economist at Deloitte Research] added. He said signs the "aspirational luxury" customer is retrenching are disconcerting, though the super wealthy are still spending. Any retrenchment of the affluent has negative consequences not only for stores, but for the boating industry and other luxury sectors, he said.

I think I speak for all of us when I say: thank you, super wealthy, for keeping the economy afloat!

A side note: a few years ago a friend of mine who was a consultant (and whose husband was as well) told me how she was having a tough time keeping ahead of bills.  I boggled because I had a rough idea of their yearly income, but she explained that it's never enough, because you always want a bigger house, a nicer car, more expensive toys, and so on.  Now I discover that there's a specific term and marketing niche for that: "aspirational luxury".  That's why I like reading the business press; you get such a refreshingly direct picture of how the world works, without the lofty ideological window-dressing that's normally slathered on to impress the proles.

But I've saved the most damning evidence for last:

Drug store chain Walgreen Co. reported early this month that shoppers are gravitating toward store label brands as they look for value. Grocery chain Supervalu Inc. reduced its full-year profit outlook last week, saying shoppers are focusing on its cheaper brands.

"I don't care whether the economy is in a recession, the consumer is in a recession," said Patricia Edwards, a retail analyst with Wentworth, Hauser and Violich. "When you are not buying name-brand cough syrup, something is going on."

Yes, you know we're truly on the verge of econominnihilation when people are no longer willing to pay the 30% name-brand markup for dextromethorphan.

BONUS: See this article for more on the crisis in the "aspirational luxury" market—a heartrending examination of how "formerly free-spending shoppers who were 'trading up' to high-end goods are now less likely to treat themselves to that Gucci bag."  And if that article doesn't get you, this one certainly will ("Rosa Valdez, 29, said she's still willing to spend as much as $1,000 for an item like her Louis Vuitton handbag. But she said business is down at her Tijuana restaurant, Birrieria Guadalajara, because of fewer American customers. Now, she said, 'maybe I'll just buy one purse a year.'").

Obama plants a big juicy kiss on Reagan's sorry legacy

Via Democracy Now!:

Senator Barack Obama: “I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path, because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people—he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

Try tossing that stinkbomb into the middle of a group of Obama-adoring Democrats, and watch the fun!

We must avert this crisis of responsibility

Serious people are discussing a gathering storm:

The Federal Reserve chairman was on Capitol Hill this morning, testifying at the House Budget Committee about the economic outlook and efforts to structure a program to get consumers and businesses spending again.

One of the most important focuses of Ben Bernanke's testimony — and the issue took on the lion's share of the question-and-answer period — was about what Congress should do to push the country away from recession. ...

The Fed chairman said if Congress wants to act, it should do so quickly and focus the effort on getting consumers and businesses to increase spending in the next year.

So to clarify what's going on here: after an orgy of profligacy that led to the first negative savings rate since the Great Depression, people (aka "consumers") in the US are spending less.  Assuming they're making about the same amount of money, this would appear to indicate that they're either paying off their existing debts or saving money.

Now, to any sane person this would seem like a good thing.  But in a well-functioning corporate/state-capitalist system, this responsible, prudent, rational behavior is a serious crisis that must be averted.

That's a lesson worth thinking about.

UPDATE: A couple of American Enterprise Institute drones argue against any stimulus package, which won't work in part because:

The economic evidence from the 2001 experience suggests this is an ineffective tool. Professors Matthew Shapiro and Joel Slemrod from the University of Michigan found that most rebates were saved, not spent.

Once again, the ominous threat of saving rears its ugly head.

Stated without irony

Condoleezza Rice responds to the recent car-bomb attack in Lebanon that targeted a US diplomatic vehicle:

"To the degree that there is any thought of intimidation in an attack of this kind, the United States will of course not be deterred in its efforts to help the Lebanese people, to help the democratic forces in Lebanon, to help Lebanon resist foreign interference in their affairs."

To be fair, I'd assume she means "foreign" as in the phrase "foreign film", which to a US citizen means "from a country other than the United States."

Japan's critical whale research balked by filthy tree-humping environmentalists

Thanks to Save the Oocytes for this bit of good news about Greenpeace:

Greenpeace conservation activists say they have disrupted the Japanese whale hunt near Antarctica's coast by chasing a factory ship out of the whaling zone. ...

The Greenpeace vessel was the first to catch up with the processing ship Nisshin Maru on Saturday, causing the six-vessel whaling fleet to "scatter and run", say the protesters.

The whalers' hunting vessels cannot operate when the Nisshin Maru is not in a position to process the kill.

Of course, the best part of the story is Japan's hilarious ongoing contention that they're killing the whales for research purposes, and not so they can enjoy tons and tons of tasty whale meat:

"Past activities of Greenpeace have been responsible for vessel collisions that risk the lives and safety of our researchers and crew and are illegal under international maritime law," said association president Keiichi Nakajima in a statement.

"I urge Greenpeace to desist from any harassment of the research vessels and to keep a safe distance."

("Research research research," Nakajima added, wiping a bit of plum sauce from his chin.)

Are you curious just what crucial research data the Japanese are getting from their yearly sushi runs?  I was, so I looked it up.  Here are some of the preliminary results of their ongoing "study" of minke and other whales (I paraphrase, except where I quote):

• Lady whales are, like, totally cliquish.  Which is weird, because man whales aren't, and neither are boy and girl whales.  We must eat (I mean study) more to understand this.
• "Many young minke animals are found in the Antarctic."  This statement comes pre-mocked; I have nothing to add.
• "It was found that there are dwarf minkes and larger so-called ordinary minkes in the Antarctic minke whale populations."  And this tidbit of information could not have been obtained without, you know, slaughtering a few thousand whales over the past few years.
• "Very little of chemical contaminants is detected in the Southern Hemisphere minke whales."  However, abnormally high concentrations of soy sauce and wasabi have been found.
• "To make the dish more appetising, the whale is being fried in breadcrumbs, or minced into burgers."

Whoops, that last point actually came from here.  My mistake.

You know, the Japanese could probably convince more people of the seriousness of their "research" if some of it sounded at least slightly more sophisticated than the average 7th grade science fair project.  It's like they don't even respect us enough to lie carefully.

Need Obama's number?

Armando Iannucci's got it, and he wants to share it with all of us:

[Obama's] is a rhetoric that soars and takes flight, but alights nowhere. It declares that together we can do anything, but doesn't mention any of the things we can do. It's a perpetual tickle in the nose that never turns into a sneeze. Trying to make sense of what he's saying is like trying to wrap mist.

But, rhythmically, it's quite alluring. It can make anything, even, for example, a simple chair, seem magnificent. Why vote for someone who says: 'See that chair. You can sit on it' when you can have someone like Obama say: 'This chair can take your weight. This chair can hold your buttocks, 15 inches in the air. This chair, this wooden chair, can support the ass of the white man or the crack of the black man, take the downward pressure of a Jewish girl's behind or the butt of a Buddhist adolescent, it can provide comfort for Muslim buns or Mormon backsides, the withered rump of an unemployed man in Nevada struggling to get his kids through high school and needful of a place to sit and think, the plump can of a single mum in Florida desperately struggling to make ends meet but who can no longer face standing, this chair, made from wood felled from the tallest redwood in Chicago, this chair, if only we believed in it, could sustain America's huddled arse.'

That's the best bit, but the rest is worth a look.

Washington Post perplexed by Bush's fanciful terminology

I recently read a Washington Post article titled "Bush Alters Stand on Palestinians," with the subhead "Compensation Backed to Address Refugee Issue; President Again Urges Israel to End 'Occupation'".  Note the quotation marks.  The Post continued to emphasize that this notion of an "occupation" in the West Bank and Gaza is some exotic, outre formulation of Bush's:

President Bush said Thursday that Palestinian refugees should receive compensation for the loss of homes they fled or were forced to flee during the establishment of Israel and declared that there should be an end to Israel's "occupation" of lands seized in war four decades ago. ...

While Bush has previously used language describing Israel's presence in the West Bank as an "occupation," his words Thursday seemed a pointed prod at the Israeli government, coming on his first trip to the country during his presidency.

Bush went on to refer to the G2-class star at the center of the Solar System as "the sun", the common compound of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom as "water", and several members of the species canis lupus familiaris as "dogs", prompting similar puzzled speculation from the Post.

Libertarians learning no lessons

Amy Goodman writes about Ron Paul being excluded from the New Hampshire debates by Fox:

Leno asked [Paul] how he was responding to Fox’s banning him: “I realized that they really had some property rights ability there, and I wasn’t going to crash the party. And I thought, ‘Well, maybe I ought to sue them.’ I’ve decided what to sue them over, and that is for fraud, because of this ‘fair and balanced’ idea.”

Though he did throw in a reference to "property rights", the very idea that Paul would consider suing Fox over this is inconsistent with his avowed libertarianism, to say the least; after all, it's their network, so they should be able to decide who will and won't appear on it.  Maybe he was joking about this?  (About the "fair and balanced" part, yes, but I mean about suing them at all.)

More generally, this is one of those times when I wonder how American libertarians can fail (or refuse) to see just what an unmitigated disaster their wholly corporate-owned, money-run vision of the future would be.  Goodman rightly observes that the airwaves are not the private property of Fox—in the formal sense, anyway.  But in a true libertarian utopia they would be, and corporations like Fox would exercise total control over what we're able to see, without even the deeply weakened levels of oversight that exist today.

Are there any libertarians out there who honestly feel that would be a change for the better?  Who think it's no problem at all that Fox was able to exclude Ron Paul (and that Hunter guy) and ABC was able to exclude Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel—and not only that, but who earnestly desire to hand over even more of that kind of power to unaccountable private institutions?  The libertarians I've known have generally been intelligent people, and I just find it hard to believe that anyone who's thinking clearly could see that as anything but the nightmare that it would be.

Smith & Wesson: Avoid murderous or other misuse

You may have heard that Taser has introduced a female-friendly version of their lethal weapon that comes in red, pink, and leopard prints, and includes an MP3 player.  Yes, really.  Because you don't want to have to, you know, listen to the screams of your victims while you're putting them down.

I was curious to see what the Taser folks would have to say about their hand-held heart attack machine, so I went to their site to read their legal warnings (pdf).  And there's good news: if you were ever concerned that Tasers might be used for torture you've got nothing to fear, because the product warnings specifically instruct the user to "Avoid Torturous or Other Misuse", adding darkly that "Misuse can result in criminal prosecution and/or civil litigation."  Phew!

Of course, if you believe that Tasers themselves are potentially lethal—based on the 140 or more deaths that have occurred after people were shot with a Taser, and several legal rulings that the Taser was a cause of death—this document will correct those misconceptions as well.  Here's what it has to say on the topic of human mortality:

• "...the very nature of use of force and physical incapacitation involves a degree of risk that someone will get hurt or may even be killed due to physical exertion, unforeseen circumstances, and individual susceptibilities. "
• "If a subject is exhibiting signs or behaviors that are associated with Sudden In-Custody Death Syndrome,  consider need for medical assistance."  (The footnotes describe some of these signs: "extreme agitation, bizarre behavior, inappropriate nudity, imperviousness to pain, paranoia, exhaustive exertion, “superhuman” strength, hallucinations, sweating profusely, etc").
• "Unrelated to TASER exposure, conditions such as excited delirium, severe exhaustion, drug intoxication or chronic drug abuse, and/or over-exertion from physical struggle may result in serious injury or death."
• "TASER-induced strong muscle contractions usually render a subject temporarily unable to control his or her psychomotor movements. This may result in secondary injuries such as those due to falls. This loss of control, or inability to catch oneself, can in special circumstances increase the risk(s) of serious injury or death."

So if you think someone is about to hit you with a Taser, just take off your clothes, pick up a car, and position yourself over a mattress, and you've got nothing to fear.

Forgetting the obvious

Dennis Perrin hits the double bull again:

It might've been nice had Hillary Clinton wept on camera before, say, when told of the children roasted at Waco, or when shown evidence of her husband's role in strangling Iraqis, or when told of her husband's help in slaughtering Kurds, or when Lebanese and Gazans were blasted by Israeli firepower, or when she voted to have more Iraqis killed. Nothing but dry eyes and applause for the violence. So you'll pardon me if I don't get too worked up over Hillary's tears, shed ostensibly for our glorious homeland and her desire to take us to the mountain top.

As I started my leftward drift years ago, there were countless times when I came to realizations (usually guided by those who'd gone before me and left notes about the trip) that made me feel as though I'd been a complete dolt up until that point in my life, incapable of making the most obvious moral comparisons.  I'm talking about the really basic stuff here, like: if the United States has the right to bomb a critical pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan, does the Sudanese government have the right to raze Pfizer, Merck, and Johnson & Johnson headquarters?  Can Haiti forcibly detain Emmanuel Constant, killing thousands of Americans in the process?  Is it acceptable for Nicaragua to blow up schools, childcare centers, health clinics, and farms here?  Or, closer to the point: when Saddam Hussein expressed sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians, should we have believed him?  And so on, and so on, and so on.  It was, each time, embarrassing and humbling to realize that I'd been so well-trained in US exceptionalism that the questions had never even occurred to me.

You reach a point where it happens less and less, though, as you set about consciously ridding yourself of the habit of applying double standards to the US and the people in it, and instead apply the same criteria you'd reflexively use for any of the other 190-odd nations in the world.  But Dennis got me with this one.  I'd only seen a glancing reference to Hillary's little episode and I hadn't given it much thought, but the point he makes is both so important and so blazingly evident that I wonder why it wasn't the first thing that came to my mind.  It's amazing (and distressing) how easy it can be to forget the obvious when you spend your life saturated in a culture that constantly contradicts it.

To show a fairness to Hillary that she doesn't remotely deserve, she's only demonstrating the most basic human nature.  There's a perfect quote that I can't track down (and no, it's not Mel Brooks), but which I'll paraphrase: if I hear that thousands of people in China have been killed by an act of nature, I may spend days in sorrowful contemplation of the tragedy.  I may rail against the awful injustice of so many lives being snuffed out at one time.  I might brood darkly on the fleeting nature of human existence.  But in the end, the strongest emotions I'd experience about that tragedy would pale in comparison to the range of feelings I'd have if I so much as cut my little finger.

Of course, it's a little different if I killed them myself.

"Selfishness, which is at the bottom of civilization"

Since I've just mentioned Understanding Power, here's an extended selection from its meticulously-researched online footnotes examining the process of artificial "want creation" by capitalists and its importance as a means of control (which has clear connections to the the discussion we've been having about the FCC's move to allow greater consolidation of media assets by corporations).  Don't miss the last paragraph in particular:

20.  On British capitalists' discussions of the need to "create wants" in Jamaica after the abolition of slavery in the 1830s, see for example, Thomas Holt, The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor, and Politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832-1938, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992, especially 44-73.  This study notes that as abolition was being prepared in Jamaica, British Member of Parliament Rigby Watson argued on June 10, 1833 (p. 54):

"To make them labour, and give them a taste for luxuries and comforts, they must be gradually taught to desire those objects which could be attained by human labour.  There was a regular progress from the possession of necessaries to the desire of luxuries; and what once were luxuries, gradually came, among all classes and conditions of men, to be necessaries. This was the sort of progress the negroes had to go through, and this was the sort of education to which they ought to be subject in their period of probation [after emancipation]."

Similarly, John Daughtrey remarked (p. 71):
"Every step they take in this direction is a real improvement; artificial wants become in time real wants.  The formation of such habits affords the  best security for negro labour at the end of the apprenticeship."

The British leaders also addressed the problem of the fertile land that would be available to the newly freed slaves (p. 73):

Early in 1836, Lord Glenelg [the Colonial Secretary] forwarded to all the West Indian governors a dispatch addressing one of these policy problems.  He began by noting that during slavery, labor could be compelled to be applied wherever the owner desired.  Now, with the end of apprenticeship, the laborer would apply himself only to those tasks that promised personal benefit.  Therefore, if the cultivation of sugar and coffee were to continue, "we must make it the immediate and apparent interest of the negro population to employ their labour in raising them."

21.  For other examples of capitalists' conscious discussions of the necessity of "creating wants," see for example, Aviva Chomsky, West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996.  An excerpt (pp. 56-59):

[The United Fruit] company claimed in its propaganda that its role was to instill consumer values among its workers. . . .  In 1929, Crowther, another United Fruit biographer, explicitly explained the importance of the spread of a consumer mentality as he waxed eloquent on the virtues of capitalism and bemoaned the immoral effects of a subsistence economy: "The mozos or working people [in Central America] have laboured only when forced to and that was not often, for the land would give them what little they needed."  But this could be changed, he explained, by infusing these laborers with the desire for upward mobility.  "The desire for goods, it may be remarked, is something that has to be cultivated.  In the United States this desire has been cultivated. . . .  American movies, radio, and especially magazines were everywhere, and "our advertising is slowly having the same effect as in the United States -- and it is reaching the mozos.  For when a periodical is discarded, it is grabbed up, and its advertising pages turn up as wall paper in the thatched huts.  I have seen the insides of huts completely covered with American magazine pages. . . .  All of this is having its effect in awakening desires."

Hans Schmidt, The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1971.  An excerpt (p. 158):

[T]he problem of introducing American pragmatism and efficiency involved confrontation with basic Haitian values and ambitions regarding work and material rewards for work. . . .  Financial Adviser Arthur C. Millspaugh stated: "The peasants, living lives which to us seem indolent and shiftless, are enviably carefree and contented; but, if they are to be  citizens of an independent self-governing nation, they must acquire, or at least a larger number of them must acquire, a new set of wants" [see Arthur Millspaugh (U.S. proconsul in Haiti), "Our Haitian Problem," Foreign Affairs, Vol. VII, No. 4, July 1929, pp. 556-570].

Angie Debo, And Still The Waters Run, New York: Gordian, 1966 (original 1940), especially pp. 20-30 (classic study discussing the U.S. government's efforts to drive an awareness of their true wants into the native population during its program of "Indian removal" and annexation).  An excerpt (pp. 21-23):

Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, a distinguished Indian theorist, gave a glowing description of a visit of inspection he had recently made to the Indian Territory [in 1883].  The most partisan Indian would hardly have painted such an idealized picture of his people's happiness and prosperity and culture, but, illogically, the Senator advocated a change in this perfect society because it held the wrong principles of property ownership.  Speaking apparently of the Cherokees, he said: "The head chief told us that there was not a family in that whole nation that had not a home of its own.  There was not a pauper in that nation, and the nation did not owe a dollar.  It built its own capitol, in which we had this examination, and it built its schools and its hospitals.  Yet the defect of the system was apparent.  They have gone as far as they can go, because they own their land in common.  It is Henry George's system [George was a nineteenth-century American land reformer], and under that there is no enterprise to make your home any better than that of your neighbors.  There is no selfishness, which is at the bottom of civilization.  Till this people will consent to give up their lands, and divide them among their citizens so that each can own the land he cultivates, they will not make much more progress."

Chomsky's mentioned that the footnotes to the book are so extensive and thoroughly researched that he often refers to them himself; you can see why.  I've always felt that Chomsky needs a good editor, and Understanding Power is at the top of my list of recommendations of his writing as a direct result of the extraordinary work that Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel did in organizing the book  itself and compiling the footnotes.