The Distant Ocean

Missing inaction

The blog forecast calls for light to no opining for the next two weeks or so, with a chance for occasional squalls if I have the time and the inclination.  Enjoy the break.

If you're looking for something worthwhile to read in the interim, here's an essay (assembled from several speeches) by Joe Bageant—one of a number of people whose writing I don't actively seek out but nonetheless always enjoy when I happen across it.  This is one of the most thought-provoking and insightful things I've seen from him; I've excerpted the (happy) ending below, but it works best as a whole.  If you do take the time to read it I'd be interested to hear what you think.

__________________

[E]ach of us is but one strand in the vast organic web of flesh and blood chlorophyll. All things and all beings are inextricably connected at the most profound level. Any physicist will confirm this. We are bound by its every wave and particle, all of us -- the lonely night clerk at Motel 6 and the leviathans of the deep, the sleeping grandmother in New Haven, Connecticut and the maimed Iraqi child in Kirkuk. It can be understood by anyone though, simply by owning one's own consciousness. And in doing so we find that ownership and domination are both temporary and meaningless. And that the animating spirit of the earth is real and within us and claimable.

The purpose of life is to know this. Einstein glimpsed it. Lao-Tzu knew it. So did St. Francis. But you and I are not supposed to. It would shatter the revered, digitized, super-sized, utterly meaningless hologram. The one that mesmerizes us, and mediates our every experience, but isolates us from universal humanness and its coursing energies. Such as love. Or mercy. Compassion. Existential pain. Hunger. Or the unmitigated joy of simply being alive one finds in children everywhere, even among the poorest. Most of the human race still lives in that realm.

Blessed is the one who joins them. Because he or she learns that the truth is not relative, and that because the human mind seeks balance, social justice is not only inescapable in the long run, but inevitable. I won't be around for that, but on a clear day if I squint real hard I can see down that road ahead. And on that road I can see the long chain of decent human beings like yourselves walking toward the light. And for your very presence on this earth and in this room, I am grateful. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

I'm glad that's settled

There's never been any question where the vast majority of the world stands with regard to the legality of Israeli settlements, as expressed in documents like UN Security Council Resolution 465:

The Security Council, [...]

5. Determines that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel's policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East;

6. Strongly deplores the continuation and persistence of Israel in pursuing those policies and practices and calls upon the Government and people of Israel to rescind those measures, to dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem;

But two years ago we found out that the Israeli Foreign Ministry's legal adviser came to the same conclusion in 1967, before the settlement project had even begun (and has unequivocally reiterated that conclusion):

A senior legal official who secretly warned the government of Israel after the Six Day War of 1967 that it would be illegal to build Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories has said, for the first time, that he still believes that he was right. [...]

The legal opinion, a copy of which has been obtained by The Independent, was marked "Top Secret" and "Extremely Urgent" and reached the unequivocal conclusion, in the words of its author's summary, "that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention."

And this week we discovered that the United States reached the same conclusion as well, in a legal opinion that still stands:

Thirty years ago, the State Department legal adviser issued an opinion in response to an inquiry from Congress: The establishment of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories "is inconsistent with international law."

The opinion cited Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that an occupying power "shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." [...]

Despite the passage of time, the legal opinion, issued during the Carter administration, has never been revoked or revised.

I'm sure you'll agree this is wonderful news!  Now that we know that the entire world—including Israel and the United States—is unanimous in recognizing that Israeli colonization of Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, has been in direct contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention, surely it'll be just a few weeks before this whole sordid chapter of history is closed.  Given this universal understanding that settlements are illegal, I'm sure Israel (with U.S. backing) will do everything it can to get those international law-breaking, human rights-denying settlers out of there in no time!

Now, I'm sure some people might doubt this will happen, and I guess I can understand their skepticism.  Much worse, though, I'm sure there are a few who feel that Israel and the U.S. should ignore their own unequivocal legal advice.  But clearly the only people who'd want upstanding, law-abiding nations like Israel and the U.S. to continue behavior that the world unanimously recognizes as flatly illegal are unrepentant America-haters and anti-Semites—people who want nothing more than to make these two paragons of virtue look bad.

So from now on, whenever you hear someone defending Israeli settlements or calling on the U.S. to lend any support to the settlement project (including the slightest compromise on "natural growth"), no matter who it might be, you can rest assured they're motivated by nothing more than their implacable hatred for both Israel and America.

Yes we koan!

This article in the LA Times ("Environmentalists baffled by Obama's strategy") strikes me as the perfect summation of the abyss of cognitive dissonance facing Obama's legion of increasingly confused but as yet still trusting supporters:

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama wooed environmentalists with a promise to "support and defend" pristine national forest land from road building and other development that had been pushed by the Bush administration.

But five months into Obama's presidency, the new administration is actively opposing those protections on some 60 million acres of federal woodlands in a case being considered by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. [...]  Administration officials say that in some cases, they are defending the [Bush administration] policies to prevent the courts from settling the issues -- a prospect that would restrict the government's ability to set the environmental agenda. [...]

Whatever the overall strategy, the result has been a series of cases in which Obama appears to be taking positions in court that run counter to his stated goals.

Yeah, that's a shocker alright.  We certainly haven't seen that before.  Really, I'm stunned.

But the article hits its dadaist peak with the closing sentence:

If the courts agree with the government and allow the building of more roads in wilderness areas, the administration could face enormous difficulties in achieving its ultimate goal of keeping the roads out.

I know it's difficult not to burst into laughter (or tears?) when you read a sentence like that, but remember, this is the same Obama who demonstrates his anti-war credentials by increasing the military budget, his commitment to open government by refusing to release White House visitor records, his deep respect for the rule of law by opposing habeas corpus rights for the people we've kidnapped, etc, etc.  If anyone can fight to allow the building of more roads in wilderness areas in order to advance the ultimate goal of keeping roads out of wilderness areas, he's the one.

Now, maybe I'm wrong to respond skeptically to these machinations.  Maybe there really are plans within plans within plans here, and when we look back we'll see that Obama did it all because of his deep commitment to the environment.  And if it really does end up that the the forests erupt in song and the bear dances with the woodchuck and the lion lies down with the lamb and the lamb lies down on Broadway, I'll be the first one cheering zen master Barack—the only person in all of human history who can build a house by setting it on fire.

But until then I think I'll just follow the path of least resistance and assume that if it looks like a betrayal, that's exactly what it is.

GEEK TIME: My all-time favorite koan, by way of the Unix fortune program:

A new koan:
If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you.
If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you.
It is an ice cream koan.

And another favorite fortune that fits the theme:

Q:  How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A:  Two: one to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly-colored machine tools.

Barack Obama, Naderite

A presidential election ends in a bitterly contested result, and Barack Obama offers this analysis:

"It's important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place...the difference...in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised."

It's like 2000 all over again!

ADDING: There are a few key differences, though:

• The right-wing scumbag who's claiming victory may actually have won the election.
• Peevish Mousavi voters aren't whining that Mehdi Karroubi was nothing but a spoiler who threw the election to Ahmadinejad.
• Iranians are rioting in the streets to demand their rights, whereas their American counterparts signed numerous online petitions and even made a phone call or two.

Everything old

Whatever else you might say about it, Binyamin Netanyahu's speech was a "dramatic transformation" for him.  Wasn't it?

Let's take a look at a 1996 interview with David Bar-Illan, then a top advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu 1.0:

Mr. Netanyahu has often said that he wants the Palestinians to have as much self-rule as possible, as long as it does not endanger the security of Israel. Now if you have a sovereign state, obviously you can have as large an army as you can raise, you can produce or import all sorts of weapons.

So in 1996 Netanyahu endorsed Palestinian self-rule without actual sovereignty.  By comparison, Netanyahu mentioned the word "sovereign" or variants three times in his latest speech—all in reference to Israel.  The most significant of those was "This tragic history of powerlessness explains why the Jewish people need a sovereign power of self-defence"—a recognition that the right to self-defense is a feature of a sovereign nation, which makes the meaning of his requirement that any Palestinian state be demilitarized crystal clear (and of course the Palestinians, with their triumphant and powerful history, don't need to defend themselves from anyone).

Going back to 1996, Bar-Illan continued to explain this notion of not-quite sovereignty he and Netanyahu shared:

If we say the Palestinian entity must have limited sovereignty, we can impose it primarily if we are still on the Jordan River, because we can immediately close any connection between the Palestinians and the Hashemite Kingdom if we want to. If we are not there, it’s impossible to close that border.

(This would be the official excuse for Israel's effective annexation of the Jordan Valley.)  And just in case anyone wasn't getting the point, Bar-Illan drove it home in no uncertain terms:

I am not talking about the State of Palestine, a state implies sovereignty, but the entity of Palestine, commonwealth, whatever you want to call it, that is what the prime minister meant when he talked about a possibility of limited sovereignty, at least for a time. [...] Semantics don’t matter. If Palestinian sovereignty is limited enough so that we feel safe, call it fried chicken.

This, then, is what Netanyahu and his top advisor were saying in 1996.  So Netanyahu's "dramatic transformation" in his speech this week was that he finally, fully embraced Bar-Illan's understanding that semantics don't matter, and he could mouth the meaningless words "Palestinian state" in reference to the fried chicken Israel is willing to grant to the Palestinians—who can then pick up the trash and run the prisons in their bantustans, and generally pretend that what they've got is a real state, just like the big kids have!

(This was similar to Ariel Sharon's realization that withdrawing from the Gaza Strip—which was all but worthless to Israel anyway, except as a bargaining chip—would "supply the amount of formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."  Every once in a while the insane far right realizes that the whole "crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women" talk that expresses the deepest desire of their shrivelled, blackened hearts doesn't play well to a general audience, and gets a little smarter about covering it up.  Which is also when they're the most dangerous.  By contrast, the ostensible left understands the need to blow smoke constantly about what it's doing, which is why it's usually more dangerous than the right.)

With that out of the way, it's worth noting the specific contexts in which Netanyahu used this semantically-meaningless phrase:

• "there is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state"
• "It is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarised."
• "If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitirization and Israel's security needs, and if the Palestinians recognise Israel as the State of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarised Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state."

So we have one mention of the threat a Palestinian state would pose to Israel, one assertion that it's "impossible" to expect Israel to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state, and one statement that Israel may be ready in some vague and distant "future peace agreement" to "reach a solution" involving some form of Palestinian "state" (or fried chicken, or whatever else you want to call it).

Now that is one hell of a dramatic transformation.

UPDATE: I somehow missed Netanyahu stating point blank in his speech that he'd told Obama "if we could agree on the substance, then the terminology would not pose a problem."  Nice to have it straight from the horse's ass's mouth.

Shell game

I've written before about the proliferation of misunderstood memos, but it looks like the problem is even deeper than I realized.  Consider the case of some of the letters Shell sent to the Nigerian government and security services:

In one document written in May 1993, the oil company wrote to the local governor asking for the "usual assistance" as the Ogoni expanded their campaign. There was a stand-off between the Ogoni and the US contractor Willbros, which was laying a pipeline. Nigerian military were called in, resulting in at least one death.

Man, you send one innocent message about the "usual assistance" and the next thing you know someone's dead—when all you really wanted was, oh, I don't know, translation services for gas flaring regulations.  And the comedy of errors just continued:

Days later, Shell met the director general of the state security services to "reiterate our request for support from the army and police". In a confidential note Shell suggested: "We will have to encourage follow-through into real action preferably on an industry rather than just Shell basis". The Nigerian regime responded by sending in the Internal Security Task Force, a military unit led by Colonel Paul Okuntimo, a brutal soldier, widely condemned by human rights groups, whose men allegedly raped pregnant women and girls and who tortured at will. Okuntimo boasted of knowing more than 200 ways to kill a person.

That's "real action" all right.  So what did Okuntimo do, thanks to his utter and complete misreading of Shell's benevolent intentions?

In October 1993, Okuntimo was sent into Ogoni with Shell personnel to inspect equipment. The stand-off that followed left at least one Ogoni protester dead. A hand-written Shell note talked of "entertaining 26 armed forces personnel for lunch" and preparing "normal special duty allowances" for the soldiers.

But surely they'd have gotten those "special duty allowances" whether they'd attacked the Ogoni protesters or just reasoned calmly with them over a few drinks, as Shell no doubt intended.  Right?  And Shell was probably just giving them lunch to make them feel better for the terrible mistakes they'd made based on their misinterpretations of Shell's intentions.  Who's with me on this?

Shell is also accused of involvement with the MPF [aka the "Kill and Go"], which worked with Okuntimo. One witness, Eebu Jackson Nwiyon, claimed they were paid and fed by Shell. Nwiyon also recalls being told by Okuntimo to "leave nobody untouched". When asked what was meant by this, Nwiyon replied: "He meant shoot, kill."

Yeah, yeah, we get the picture.  Look: it's not Shell's fault if its entirely innocuous requests were constantly misread by the Nigerian soldiers and paramilitaries they were paying, feeding, and harmlessly arming with Beretta semi-automatic rifles and pump-action shotguns.  If you think about it, it was just like a zany episode of Three's Company—except instead of Mr. Roper finding Jack in bed with Chrissy, some protesters were beaten and shot.  Oh, right, and hanged.  But otherwise exactly the same.

Whatever your feelings about all of this, though, I think we'd all agree that human communication is rife with misunderstandings.  For instance, if I say that Shell is a vicious corporate criminal willing to bathe in vats of human blood to boost its profit margins, you might think I'm being critical, right?  But you'd be totally mistaken, because all I really meant is that Shell is a major oil company and an important part of the global economy.  You see how it happens?

Help with definitions

Binyamin Netanyahu explains what he meant when he used the seemingly-clear but actually quite subtle phrase "without preconditions":

Therefore, a fundamental prerequisite for ending the conflict is a public, binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. To vest this declaration with practical meaning, there must also be a clear understanding that the Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside Israel's borders. [...]

Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The second principle is: demilitarisation. The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarised with ironclad security provisions for Israel. Without these two conditions, there is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza. [...]

Regarding the remaining important issues that will be discussed as part of the final settlement, my positions are known: Israel needs defensible borders, and Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel with continued religious freedom for all faiths.

Wow, who knew such a straightforward phrase was fraught with such complexity!  Now you can see why peace in the Middle East is so difficult.

(In fairness to Netanyahu, the full quote was "Let's begin negotiations immediately without preconditions," and he didn't specifically say negotiations on what—so maybe he's just looking forward to getting together with some Palestinians to decide if they should get a falafel and, who knows, maybe play some foosball.  Or perhaps "preconditions" is actually a Swahili word which translates roughly as "a chance in hell of success.")

The utility of interpretations

In an apparent oversight, the State Department may actually add a group to the terrorism list even though it's targeting an official enemy:

The United States State Department is considering placing Jundullah on its terrorism list to send a conciliatory signal to Iran.

Jundullah has killed scores of Iranian soldiers and border guards since 2003. Most recently it has claimed responsibility for the Thursday suicide bombing in an Iranian mosque that killed 25 and wounded 125.

But at least they haven't completely forgotten the terrorism list's second and more important purpose as a political bludgeon:

Some US officials argue that the administration should swiftly place a terrorist label on Jundullah as a sign of Washington’s good faith.  Others, however, see the move as a premature giveaway.

Yes, we wouldn't want to "give away" anything to Iran by adding a terrorist organization to the list of...terrorist organizations.  And there's at least one  good reason for the State Department to be reticent:

A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.

The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.

It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.

(Considering that a New York man was convicted of "material support" of terrorism and sentenced to nearly six years in prison for nothing more than broadcasting Hezbollah's television station, just imagine how many years U.S. officials will spend in jail for this!)

Adding Jundullah to the list wouldn't be entirely unprecedented, though; on September 10, 2001, the Bush administration's State Department added the AUC (right-wing Colombian death squads) to the terrorism list, despite the fact that the U.S. had spent years supporting and financing them indirectly through the Colombian military.  So when our terrorists either outlast their usefulness or go a little too far, they may find themselves on the list.

And in any case, the Obama administration is already working on putting things back to their natural order:

The Obama administration says it will consider putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and is pressing for a U.N. resolution authorizing the boarding of North Korean ships to search for nuclear materials.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says recent activity by North Korea, including nuclear tests and missile launches, is forcing the United States to consider placing Pyongyang back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

"Obviously they were taken off of the list for a purpose, and that purpose is being thwarted by their actions," said Clinton.

There, that's more like it.  If restored to the list, North Korea will again join the ranks of menacing terrorist powerhouses like Cuba—a country which threatens our very way of life with its...uh...illicit exports of potentially-exploding cigars?  Tarantula-infested bananas?  Red hot salsa dancing?  Help me out here.

WIBSI?

On November 5th, 2008—the day of the ascension of the last great hope for America, and indeed of all humankind—Chris Floyd coined the indispensable acronym WIBDI, which he explained as follows:

This user-friendly analytical tool provides a quick and easy way of determining the value of any given policy while correcting one's perception for partisan bias. Simply take a particular action or proposal and submit it to the WIBDI test: If Bush did this, would you think it was OK? Or would you condemn it as the act of a warmonger, or a tyrant, or a corrupt corporate tool, etc.?

(If you haven't already, you should read the whole thing—read it, love it, live it.)

In the process of writing about the habit of skepticism I realized there's a minor but useful corollary to Floyd's rule, namely, the WIBSI test: if Bush said this, would you still find it as convincing?  Would these exact same words coming from that beady-eyed, simian face sound as reasonable and persuasive to you?  Would you give them as much of the benefit of the doubt?  Or if Bush said it instead of Obama, would you bring every last one of your critical faculties to bear?

To give WIBSI a proper chance you have to do one thing I've been doing for years now: reading political speeches rather than watching or listening to them.  I found it necessary to do this starting with Clinton* and continuing through the Bush years, since listening to either of these smug, hypocritical bastards put me at risk of major organ failure.  And although Obama doesn't inspire as visceral an allergic reaction (yet) as those two did for me, I can still feel my gorge rising as the glib, thought-smothering propaganda starts to pile up.

There are plenty of benefits to reading political speeches.  The first is that it takes far less time—not only because you read faster than they speak, but because you don't have to sit through interminable programmed applause moments and you can skip the formulaic hosannas to our national greatness.  Reading a speech also instantly puts you at one remove from the charm and charisma that people like Clinton and Obama have in spades, insulating you from the visual and auditory cues (the easy grin, the soothing baritone) that are meant to sneak their talking points right past the watchful neocortex and into the poor unsuspecting limbic system.

But reading on its own still won't quite make you immune, because you'll still know that it was Obama saying the words, and so you're likely to hear that voice—that rational, thoughtful, seductively reasonable voice—in your head as you read.  No, to get the full benefit, you not only have to read Obama's speeches rather than listening to them, you have to read them in Bush's voice.  I know it sounds painful, because it is.  But it really does work.

Give it a try—go ahead and find any quote from Obama and read it normally, then read it again in that smirking halfwit's drawl.  See how it instantly sounds less convincing?  How you find yourself wanting to disbelieve rather than believe?  How you can practically feel fences going up around your brain?  I'd submit that that's clearly the best mental state to be in when you're reading any speech from an American president.

* (If you're wondering what took me so damn long, so am I.  The answer is here.)

Hyperbole world record attempt!

Background:  the Vatican put out an order to Catholic Charities a few years ago instructing them not to place adoptive children with same-sex couples.  In response, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a nonbinding resolution condemning the Vatican's order.  And in response to that, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights filed suit against San Francisco, accusing it of not sufficiently separating church and state or some such nonsense.

Got it?  Ok, with that background in place, we can now watch with bated breath as Richard Thompson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, takes a stab at the HYPERBOLE WORLD RECORD.  Can he achieve this awesome feat?  Let's watch:

"It is not a stretch to compare the San Francisco board's actions to that of the Nazi Germany policy of Gleichschaltung, vilifying Jews as an auxiliary to and laying the groundwork for more repressive policies, including the final solution of extermination."

Success!

Have you heard the good news, brother?

As much as I enjoy suffering the death of a thousand cuts each day as I absorb the news, it's nice to hear the good stuff now and then as well.  And it doesn't get much better than this:

Victims of murder, torture and other abuses by Nigeria’s former military government yesterday hailed a landmark out-of-court settlement with Royal Dutch Shell over its alleged complicity in the crimes.

Ken Wiwa, 40, son of hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa, said his father would have been happy with the result. "It will provide some kind of psychological relief to have those who they feel were responsible for the violations of human rights, being held accountable for their roles in those human rights violations," he said. [...]

Shell agreed on Monday in New York to pay out $15.5 million to relatives of Nigerian writer and activist Saro-Wiwa and others executed in 1995 in what plaintiffs said was a campaign of repression backed by the oil giant.

One of the plaintiffs' lawyers (Judith Brown Chomsky) discusses the evidence they were prepared to present against Shell in the impending trial:

[T]here’s the general evidence of the partnership between the military government and Shell. There are a lot of documents from Shell, statements by Shell officials, that show how intertwined Shell was with the military government.

Separate from that, there is specific evidence. One is Shell’s participation in the bribing of a witness—of two witnesses against Ken Saro-Wiwa and the others. And the other is a series of conversations between Dr. Owens Wiwa [and] Brian Anderson, who had been the head of Shell in Nigeria, in which essentially Brian Anderson said, "We can free Ken Saro-Wiwa, we can free your brother, if you will guarantee to stop the campaign, the international campaign against Shell."

(Shell would have us believe that the $15.5 million they're coughing up after 14 years of stonewalling and legal chicanery is a "a humanitarian gesture" and "a compassionate payment to the plaintiffs and the estates they represent in recognition of the tragic turn of events in Ogoni land," not a desperate attempt to prevent a public airing of their bribery, blackmail, and other crimes.  If you find this convincing, I'd like you to send me your life savings in small unmarked bills, which I will carefully iron, fold, and mail back to you.)

Congratulations and thanks to the good lawyers of the Center for Constitutional Rights (and associates) who made this possible; this case has set an important precedent, and it will likely lead to many more lawsuits against Shell and other corporate malefactors.  As George Monbiot observed prior to the settlement, it was corporate impunity itself that was on trial here:

Regardless of the outcome of the trial, the fact that one of the planet's most powerful companies finds itself in the dock changes everything. From now on, no transnational corporation involved in possible human rights abuses will feel completely safe. [...]

What this trial shows is that people like the Ogoni, though they may be poor and though they may possess little power, can no longer be treated as disposable. For two centuries corporations and governments from the rich world have treated the people they encounter overseas as nothing but obstacles to the extraction of resources, who – when they could not be enslaved to assist that work - had to be disposed of as expeditiously as possible: by bribery, deception, terror or massacre. The richer the resources a land possesses, the more viciously its inhabitants are treated. Now these inconvenient people might begin to be seen as human beings.

Spot on.  And finally, as Saro-Wiwa family friend Akin Omotose said, "The settlement is a recognition of a long struggle. It proves that it is worth never giving up hope."  Words for us all to live by.

The habit of skepticism

I have an embarrassing admission: I may have been too harsh in my judgment of Barack Obama's speech in Cairo.  Maybe years of reading the words of politicians with a critical eye, always looking for the rotten core of hypocrisy and dissembling, have made me too reflexive in my rejection of the potential for real change; I was dead certain it would just be a shiny new coat of paint on the same decrepit house, and I suppose I saw exactly what I'd convinced myself I was going to see.  Perhaps I've just made too much of a habit of skepticism to let myself believe in the possibility for transformative honesty in our deeply-corrupted system.

Whatever the case, I decided to read Obama's speech again, but this time with a mind cleared of all prejudice and preconceptions—and as much as it pains me to say so given how hard I've been on him in the past, I have to admit I was impressed to hear an American politician (finally) say some of these things.  Let's look at a few excerpts.  First, there was the deference for Muslim culture and traditions:

We have great respect for the commitment that all Muslims make to faith, family, and education. And Americans of many backgrounds seek to learn more about the rich tradition of Islam. [...] I have asked young Americans to study the language and customs of the broader Middle East. And for the first time in our nation's history, we have added a Koran to the White House Library.

That bit about the Koran was particularly bold since it was bound to be red meat for conservatives in this country (especially given his own background), but he took it even farther later, mentioning "the revelation of God's word in the holy Koran to the prophet Muhammad" and observing that "today this word inspires faithful Muslims to lead lives of honesty and integrity and compassion."

The flip side of his respect for Islam was the way he used the secular and inclusive "E Pluribus Unum" to characterize the U.S. rather than the more divisive or religious alternatives favored by some other presidents I could mention:

Our country's citizens come from diverse backgrounds and cultures, which has enabled us to realize the vision embodied in our first national motto: "E Pluribus Unum," meaning "Out of many, one."

These are all just platitudes, you might say (and I wouldn't argue with you)—but consider the importance of this respectful approach, given the audience.  And in any case, there were plenty of specifics as well, like his commitment to a state of Palestine and his recognition of the suffering of the Palestinians:

I'm committed to two democratic states -- Israel and Palestine -- living side-by-side in peace and security. I'm committed to a Palestinian state that has territorial integrity and will live peacefully with the Jewish state of Israel. [...] The Palestinian people have suffered from decades of corruption and violence and the daily humiliation of occupation.

"The Palestinian people have suffered the daily humiliation of occupation"?  Now that's political dynamite.  But throughout the speech he refused to kowtow to AIPAC and Israel, as though he was unconcerned with the potential political cost:

Israel also has a large stake in the success of a democratic Palestine. Permanent occupation threatens Israel's identity and democracy. A stable, peaceful Palestinian state is necessary to achieve the security that Israel longs for. So I challenge Israel to take concrete steps to support the emergence of a viable, credible Palestinian state.

"I challenge Israel"?  Tough language like that certainly isn't going to make him more popular in Tel Aviv.  And he refused to back down on his demand that Israel stop all settlement activity, going so far as to cite U.N. resolution 242 (with its incendiary language about "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war"):

Israeli settlement activity in occupied territories must stop. And the occupation must end through withdrawal to secure and recognize boundaries consistent with United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338. [...] Israel should also show a respect, a respect for and concern about the dignity of the Palestinian people who are and will be their neighbors.

After reading this speech I can almost bring myself to understand how some supporters of Israel might consider him "pro-Palestinian".  He's still got a long way to go, but this is an important start.

Moving on, there was this detailed declaration of his commitment to a full and unconditional withdrawal from Iraq (one of the very welcome changes from his predecessor):

This withdrawal will take place in two stages: The first stage will occur [in 2009], when Iraqi forces assume the lead for security operations in all major population centers, while U.S. combat forces move out of Iraqi cities and move into an overwatch role. After this transition has occurred, the drawdown of American forces will continue to the second stage, with all U.S. forces returning home from Iraq by the end of 2011.

And then there were his thoughtful overtures to the people of Iran and his embrace of multilateralism on a host of global issues—worth quoting at length to fully appreciate the depth of the compassion he made a point of showing during this wide-ranging speech:

Let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.

To overcome dangers in our world, we must also take the offensive by encouraging economic progress, and fighting disease, and spreading hope in hopeless lands. Isolationism would not only tie our hands in fighting enemies, it would keep us from helping our friends in desperate need. We show compassion abroad because Americans believe in the God-given dignity and worth of a villager with HIV/AIDS, or an infant with malaria, or a refugee fleeing genocide, or a young girl sold into slavery.

There was also the bold new approach he took on Iran—granting their right to have civilian nuclear power so long as they'll give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons:

[The international community has] made the Iranian regime offers that would enable Iran to have a civil nuclear energy program. [...] Iran's true interests lie in working with the international community to enjoy the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy, not in isolating Iran by continuing to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons.

And finally, the religious and cultural sensitivity he exhibited as he made it clear that he understands how misguided it is to blame Islam—or any religion—for the behavior of a small minority of violent extremists who threaten us all:

By deliberately murdering the innocent to advance their aims, these extremists defy the fundamental principles of international order. They show contempt for all who respect life and value human dignity. They reject the words of the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, or any standard of conscience or morality.

Yes, it was quite a speech.  After reading it a second time I think I can almost begin to understand the ecstatic praise so many liberals offered Obama after they heard it (which I admit I first thought was not only embarrassing but dangerously naive).  After all, who could fail to respond to such an intelligent, thoughtful, nuanced, articulate, compassionate attempt to begin a genuine dialogue with the rest of the world?  Honestly, I think even the most unrepentant leftist reading these words with an open mind would have to admit that they show just how different Barack Obama is in every imaginable way from George W. Bush—and more generally, the huge differences between Democrats and Republicans.

There's just one problem: none of these quotes were actually taken from Barack Obama's speech.  Not a single word.  They are quotes from an American president, though.  No points for guessing which one at this point, but if you need a hint I can tell you that he was in office from January of 2001 through January of 2009.

(Observant readers may have noticed that I gave away the game with the Iraq withdrawal quote—since unlike Bush, who as you can see cited the correct date of 2011 that's mandated by the U.S./Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement, Obama apparently feels he has the right to unilaterally change the negotiated terms of that agreement and declare that U.S. troops Iraq won't leave until 2012.)

As these quotes make clear, there's scarcely a sentiment in Obama's Cairo speech that wasn't already spoken by George W. Bush.  And yet when Obama offers the same platitudes—sometimes in the exact same words—credulous liberals are seized by fits of swooning and enraptured praise just shy of glossolalia.  Obama's speech wasn't some epoch-defining moment of transformation from a "transcendent leader"; it was a moment of polished stagecraft from a consummate salesman for American empire and corporate capitalism.  It was the same old wine in a lovely new bottle, from someone who's already shown us repeatedly that his words aren't matched by his actions.  And had it been their arch-nemesis George Bush giving this speech instead of the Anointed One, they'd have had no trouble seeing that.

One can only hope that some day these people will embrace the habit of skepticism for all politicians, not just the ones on the other side, and finally and fully accept that fine words alone mean nothing at all—no matter who speaks them.

My employment prospects

After forcing myself to read Obama's speech to the Muslim world, I felt it would be impossible to understate its historic significance.  So what did I see in the Washington Post?

The historic significance of President Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo cannot be overstated.

See, this is why I'll never get a job at the Washington Post.

The destruction was mutual

Barack Obama, 2009:

For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is in fact a tumultuous history between us.  In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.  Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.  Rather than remain trapped in the past, I've made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward.

Jimmy Carter, 1977:

The destruction was mutual.  We went to Vietnam without any desire to capture territory or impose American will on other people.  I don't feel that we ought to apologize or castigate ourselves or to assume the status of culpability.

Yes, it's true that I killed your family and stabbed you in the lung, but you gave me a seriously nasty scratch while you were wrestling the knife away from me.  Rather than remaining "trapped in the past," can't we just agree that "the destruction was mutual" and "move forward"?

TUMULTUOUS HISTORY, DEFINED: Just in case you're wondering what constitutes "tumultuous history", here's a sample of what the U.S. was supporting in Iran:

Formed under the guidance of United States and Israeli intelligence officers in 1957, SAVAK developed into an effective secret agency. [...]

Over the years, SAVAK became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest and detain suspected persons indefinitely. SAVAK operated its own prisons in Tehran (the Komiteh and Evin facilities) and, many suspected, throughout the country as well. SAVAK's torture methods included electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails. [...] The head of the SAVAK agents in the United States operated under the cover of an attache at the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, with the FBI, CIA, and State Department fully aware of these activities.

In 1978 the deepening opposition to the Shah errupted in widespread demonstrations and rioting. SAVAK and the military responded with widespread repression that killed thousands of people.

But in all fairness, we should keep in mind the tremendous quantities of broken glass and boiling water inserted into God-fearing American rectums by Iranian-backed secret police over the years.  And you can't really blame the U.S. anyway; after all, the Iranians left us no choice but to subject them to decades of torture and murder when they committed the unpardonable sin of establishing their country on top of our oil. 

How to prevent more terrorist attacks

When three prisoners at Guantanamo committed suicide in 2006, U.S. officials described it as "an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us" and "a good PR move."  Now it looks like we've suffered another attack, as a Yemeni man who'd been imprisoned at Guantanamo for seven years without charges apparently took his own life—"a politically motivated act by a committed jihadist who wanted to inflame anti-American sentiment around the world," according to the Weekly Standard.

Now your first response might be to condemn this as some of the most vile and narcissistic propaganda imaginable, but I think we should follow the logic to its natural conclusion, since the surface barbarism may mask a deeper meaning.  If these suicides really do represent "asymmetrical warfare" against the United States, then clearly they must somehow be prevented—and continuing to lock people away without charges in this gulag is demonstrably not going to do the job.  No, it's obvious now that the only way to prevent any more of these attacks is either to 1) charge and try every single person currently imprisoned in Guantanamo or 2) release them outright, if there's no evidence against them.  And it also follows that anyone who doesn't agree that we should either try or release all of the prisoners at Guantanamo is effectively calling for further "asymmetrical warfare" against the United States which they know full well will "inflame anti-American sentiment around the world," and is therefore guilty of high treason.

Strong words indeed, but they follow naturally from the premises.  So rather than criticizing, I think we should applaud these unlikely champions of civil liberties for taking such an uncompromising stand in favor of due process of law.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it

The Center for Constitutional Rights has something worthwhile for you to do.

Business, as usual

Bloomberg explains the true significance of the loss of hundreds of human lives:

The following companies may have unusual price changes in European trading. Stock symbols are in parentheses, and share prices are from the previous close. [...]

Air France-KLM Group (AF FP): An Airbus A330-200 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people aboard went missing after reporting an electrical-circuit breakdown and encountering turbulence, the company said. The shares gained 3.5 cents, or 0.3 percent, to 11.26 euros.

Libnerdtarianism

I'm having a great time reading The Android's Dream by John Scalzi, and since he's been blogging for over a decade I thought I'd check out some of his online writing as well—which is how I happened across this worthwhile rant of his that explains why he hates liberals, conservatives, and libertarians.   It's hit and miss, but hits most often in the section on libertarians, with observations like this:

Libertarians blog with a frequency that makes one wonder if they’re actually employed somewhere or if they have loved ones who miss them. Libertarian blogs [are] even more snide than conservative blogs, if that’s possible.

And this:

Blissfully clueless that Libertarianism is just great as long as it doesn’t actually involve real live humans.

And especially this:

All for legalized drugs and prostitution but probably wouldn’t want their kids blowing strangers for crack.

(For more on the "doesn't actually involve real live humans" bit, see this.)

I'd guess that Scalzi comes closest to the mark with libertarianism because (as he observes) it's the "official political system of science fiction authors," so he's had plenty of chances for close observation.  But that draws the line too narrowly; libertarianism is actually the official political system of nerds in general, of which science fiction authors are just one particular category.  "Science fiction fans" (which necessarily includes science fiction authors, and by definition includes nerds) is more inclusive, and it has the benefit of largely encompassing tech geeks—a particularly sizable and important species of the libnerdtarian genus.

(If I had a dollar for the number of times I've seen someone reading Atlas Shrugged on the train to Silicon Valley, I'd have...well...about three dollars.  Maybe four.  But hey, that's still more people than I've seen reading any other book on the train over the years.  Just trust me on this: there's a tech geek libertarian contingent out there well out of proportion to libertarian representation in the general population.)

So what explains the prevalence of libnerdtarianism?  I'd like to tell you I've studied this deeply and amassed a wealth of historically-informed speculation about it, but honestly, I haven't.  I do, however, have a half-assed theory.  It goes like this: nerds spend their formative years being turned into surly loners by the taunts and abuse of their intellectual inferiors.  Since they've essentially been rejected by society, they reject society right back, embracing a political philosophy which raises "the individual" (read: them) above all else.  Nobody ever cared about them, after all, so why should they care about anyone else?  The nerd may grow beyond this feeling in adulthood, but the sense of being outside society is likely to linger.

So liberalism, with its ostensible focus on the common good, is of course right out.  And while the selfishness at the core of conservatism makes it more attractive, the expected expressions of compassion—twisted and limited though they are (love the fetus, but the kid's on its own)—still require too much of a communal focus.  And then there's the conservative fetish for tribal institutions like the military, whose lower ranks are largely composed of nerd-abusing post-jocks.  No, libertarianism of the right-wing American variety is perfect for the nerd because it gives political expression to his (yes, his) childhood isolation; he wants to be left alone, and he's more than willing to return the favor.

Which is somewhat sympathy-inspiring, of course, but that's only part of the story.  As already noted, the nerd is generally smarter than the people who abuse him, but his fatal flaw is that he comes to see this intellectual superiority as a mark of an overarching superiority.  After all, isn't it intelligence that sets us apart from the beasts of the field?  So in any rational assessment supremacy of intelligence should equate to overall superiority, right?  Honestly, he can be a real jerk about it.

So the notion of meritocracy that's inherent to Ayn Rand-style libertarianism, which elevates the superior (read: smarter) man (read: him) above all others, holds near-infinite appeal for the nerd; basically, he wants very much to see the establishment of a system in which the one with the biggest brain gets all the money and chicks.  Well, ok, maybe the chicks part is a bit of a stretch, but the nerd is nonetheless deeply interested in having society organized such that the smartest people are rewarded the most (read: financially) and are left alone to enjoy the fruits of their labors (read: to keep as much of that money as possible), because he's convinced that he's one of those smartest people.  And with the rise of the Internet, the ability to monetize nerdly talents has never been greater.  In other words, the nerd favors libertarianism in large part because he's confident that in a libertarian meritocracy, he wins.

All of which is why right-wing Randian libertarianism—with its deification of self-interest, its testy rejection of altruism or any other form of communal responsibility, and its tantalizing promise of an intelligence-biased meritocracy—is tailor-made as a nerd philosophy.  The wonder isn't that so many nerds become libertarians, but rather that any of them manage to become anything else.

[ Just in case someone thinks I'm a bad person for mercilessly picking on one of society's most abused groups: I'd probably have scored a solid 93% on the nerd identification test as a teenager, and I could probably still answer all of the Tolkien questions (even before I saw the movies). ]

ON AN EXTREMELY RELATED NOTE: As part of my extensive research for this article, I happened across this perfect quote:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.  One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.  The other, of course, involves orcs.