i quite like this seal: the eagle holding an olive branch with 13 leaves in one hand, and that failing, a cluster of 13 arrows in the other. sterility to the symbols. and the mericans did that so must be ok. so they have one small safe element from what we did, with none of the additional richness about how we see ourselves, because none of it's safe, or safe to say. the EU, copying the 13 American stars of the original colonies, will also be needing a seal. only there'd only be one or two arrows, and they'd be in the vacation home, in a locked chest. europe should be a dove, resting in a nest of olive branches, beak wide open as it continually squawks and carps at its protectors (you're wrong wrong wrong) with 13 chicks under it, mouths open begging for food: more welfare, more vacation. ideally there is also an approaching wolf, and the dove's head should be symbolically turned away from it, so it can focus on its carping and feeding its young.

A Dust of Individuals

Excellent phrase from George Will:

Still, the elemental problem is that decades of Baathist rule crippled Iraq's infrastructure — Myers visited a Baghdad hospital unimproved in half a century — and reduced Iraq's population to a dust of individuals, unpracticed in individual initiative and social cooperation

A vivid description of people so ground down they won't join together.

I can easily imagine Edmund Burke using such a metaphor; it has his stamp: so extravagantly visual as to seem almost an indulgent rhetorical flourish, yet so perfectly capturing the big picture that it seems even more disciplined and illuminating than the pithiest legal summation.

I would call that true lawyerly eloquence, and I enjoy just bathing in it, page after page, when I read Burke.

Burke himself touched obliquely on the dust of individuals by praising its antithesis; the apolitical affiliations that are the "first link in the series by which we proceed toward

blogger bug!I pressed OK to save this, and found my posted melded with this:

of the book pile on my 'to read' shelf. 17) I collect and read Star Trek books. I figure I have about 250. 18) I've seen every Star Trek episode at least once. Except for the animated series. 19) The first girl I ever kissed was Jen. 20) The first guy I kissed was some guy in a bar who was a friend of a friend. 21) My first boyfriend lasted for about 3 weeks. 22) My current relationship is at 8 weeks, and counting. 23) I tend to think that most tv commercials are stupid (like the Gap one I just saw). 24) I love to read. I find it very relaxing. 25) I think that the Space Odyssey (2001, 2010, 2061, and 3001) books are some of the best sci-fi. Ever. 26) I love to drive. It clears my mind, and helps me unwind. 27) I believe that friends are the family that you choose for yourself. 28) I think that the song 'What a Wonderful World' by Louis Armstrong is one of the most beautiful songs in the world. 29) I like the theme to Enterprise ('Where My Heart Will Take Me'). 30) I think that it is ok to laugh, cry, love, and hate. Feeling is part of being human. 31) Often, I feel too much. 32) Rarely do I feel too little. 33) I have been working for the same company for almost 6 years (just a few more days!) 34) I had originally planned to work for a year, then go to school to become a computer programmer. 35) I want to have kids some day. 36) My kid(s) can be my own genes, or adopted. That doesn't matter. Either way, they will be loved equally. 37) The most expensive thing I own is my car. 38) Technically, I won't own it for another 4 years. 39) I am not a morning person. 40) Unless I wake up next to my boyfriend. 41) Being in love scares me at times. 42) Being in love exhilarates me at times. 43) Horoscopes can be fun to read sometimes. 44) My fave color is blue. 45) I own three computers. a) AthlonXP 1700, my main system b) P2/266, my file/ftp server c) 486 Toshiba laptop, my.... closet space filler 46) I have learned that it can take years to build a friendship, but minutes to destroy it. 47) I am fascinated by other languages and cultures. 48) Computers are my hobby, and my profession. 49) I want to tour the world some day. I think I will start with Australia. 50) I think humanity has a LOT of growing up to do. 51) I don't like chocolate. 52) I LOVE chocolate. 53) I hope to visit Vancouver in the summer of '04. 54) I'm a geek. 55) Being a geek is fun. 56) Night time is beautiful. I love the stars. 57) My last vacation was a weekend trip to Calgary. 58) The last movie I saw was 'Chicago'. 59) I think the sexiest accent is British. (Think James Bond-ian) 60) I love thunderstorms. I think they are beautiful and romantic. 61) I'm a sucker for romance. ;-) 62) I prefer my steak to be cooked medium-well. 63) The last sporting event I went to was motocross bike racing (practice). 64) It looked like fun, and I want to try it. 65) I love to sing, despite my obvious lack of talent. 66) I enjoy public speaking. 67) I want to learn to speak Hawaiian. 68) I think the cutest movie character is Stitch (Lilo

Deadpan Derision (two examples)

We have this article about the Alabama Ten Commandments controversy from the Globe and Mail:

He said he intends to defy the higher courts and obey "the true organic law of the Declaration of Independence."

While the United States was initially settled by dissidents who included religious fundamentalists of several stripes, the country's constitution was written to ensure a secular state and to keep religion in the private realm.

It's (sic) most prominent authors were atheists.

That's their wry deadpan comment at end of this "news" article. It's not even accurate: Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison would certainly not have described themselves as atheists.

And Reuters has this on baptisms among American troops in the Tigris:

"God is watching over this battalion, believe me," he said.

Most of the Christian soldiers say they believe what they are doing is right because of the brutalities of Saddam's regime. They are only vaguely aware of objections by the international anti-war lobby and the rising dissatisfaction of Iraqis themselves with the occupation.

There is little sympathy among them, however, for the notion that the invasion of Iraq may form part of a wider international clash of civilizations -- Christianity against Islam... "Maybe we don't understand them (Muslims), but this has nothing to do with religion," added Gaspard, a 24-year-old from Louisiana. "We are here to do what (U.S. President) George Bush said -- find weapons of mass destruction."

Same style: deadpan derision. You just know the author is thinking: what buffoons.

The Dixie Chicks Encounter Buddha, and Dianne Sawyer

Drudge has some highlights of the Dianne Sawyer interview with the Dixie Chicks airing Thursday, in which they make a semi-apology for having said they were ashamed George Bush was from the state of Texas. Their record sales will now, one hopes, improve.

The hair shirts they are wearing appear to be by Gucci: faux fur things with silk lining, inspired in equal parts by Mother Theresa and Lady Di, with an overlay of Tibetan monk.

And yea though they travel through the valley of humble contrition, testimony to their own compassion ever springs from their lips like refreshing desert streams:

We know some of our fans were shocked and ... and upset, and we are compassionate to that.

I think our fans, and I think people who know us, and even the people who don't know us, know that we come from a real compassionate place…mistakes are made…

Accept an apology that was made. Accept that we ... what we're saying right now is heartfelt, full of compassion, and honesty, but to forgive us ... don't forgive us for who we are.

I felt like there was a lack of compassion every time I saw Bush talking about this. I honestly felt a lack of compassion.

Probably because Bush wasn't telling her how compassionate he was every five minutes.

What a tawdry spectacle. Well the Dixie Chicks are now right up there in my book with Bishop Spong and his "I live in a constant and almost mystical awareness of the divine presence". Sheesh!

Punishment Dialog email 6 (to David)

Punishment Dialog email 6 (to David)

This is just a placeholder til I post this. Of course I get the last word.

Punishment Dialog email 5 (from David)

Punishment Dialog email 5 (from David)
Right we've been discussing societal goals. Forgive me, but I don't want to delve into the specific examples of 'do this, get this'. I don't know what good it would serve, nor what it would really be for. But as a closer I'll present an alternative.

Hmmm, what do I put on my passport. First, from Webster's:

Punish: To subject to a penalty or an offense, a sin, or a fault. To inflict a penalty for an offense. To handle roughly; hurt.
Consequence: Something that naturally follows from an action or condition. The relation of a result to its cause.

Now, from me:

We want to have a free and safe society, but unfortunately the two cannot really exist together. So it follows that society might take away some freedoms when the safety of society has been violated. Safety has been defined in terms of rules. And it follows that breaking rules has consequences. Ok, this is tatalogical since we've discussed this already.

So, from this it follows that I don't have a proper goal of punishment.

Ok, you feel that my consequences quack just like the duck of punishment.

But I ask you this. What is the difference between "You need to be hurt for what you have done and thus x must be done" and "Your actions have a result of x". Is the difference only a few words? Is the difference just eupha-speak? I tell you it's the difference between life and death. Human and dehumanizing. One can be used to rationalize murder.

So what are my feelings for proper goals for consequences? Just like you've said. Reparative, if possible. Loss of freedoms if not. I think the goal is not to make the criminal "bad", but to deal with the infraction.

Now, to start a society from scratch and explore actions and subsequence societal reactions? That's a fine way to test a goal, I guess, but I'm going to get off the train with my goal untested. But I do offer this:

I am thinking of X's horrible experience in jail in South America, and your great and many responses to it. You were trying to get humanity through a corrupt system. He was exploited. Dehumanized. "Break the rules and we get to do anything we want to you." Punishment indeed. I feel lucky that we live in a rich society that can afford to be humane. By how grand indeed it would have been for X if it were but a consequential reaction and not a sin -- The process would have been open for love and healing. Which you surely would have appreciated because you weren't concerned as much with X's sentence as you were with getting him love, aid, assitance and comfort. So I think the consequence is secondary to the need that the door be open for help and healing. The person can choose not to accept it, of course. But if they choose to initiate healing, error correction, what ever, I would hope it could fit within the goals of our societal system.

Think how different X's experience would have been had there been an open door. But unfortunately he 'sinned', the US turned its back, and that government felt it could do whatever it wanted with him. He wasn't that far from human garbage. Dehumanized indeed.

The essence of the retributive view is that a given amount of sin calls down a given amount of punishment (pain) on oneself, and that morality requires this debt be paid.

While we're thinking of X, and the great things you did for him, think about this: Think honestly what you are proposing that God would not have thought, and what you have not thought that God would have you think.

You're thinking about goals for punishment, I think, to be helpful to society. And look how helpful you were to Daniel. What obstacles were there? Wouldn't it be helpful to remove those? But to do so we can't get preoccupied with problems that are set up to be incapable of solution. Societal judgement of "sin" has no solution. We can not legislate "morality's debt". But society can keep the door open to healing while it presents an alternative/compromise.

Sorry if it frustrates you that I don't want to play judge and jury on intent and fair consequences when it comes to maintaining a safe society. But that is not my calling. I'm happy to leave the specifics to others, and grateful for discussing societal goals with you.

It's a real test of love in the real world!

Punishment Dialog email 4 (to David)

Punishment Dialog email 4 (to David)

Let's recap our goal. We're trying to agree on the proper goal of punishment, and if we can't agree, to at least surface our differences on what the proper goal is.

Knowing the proper goal of punishment is interesting, because it gives us a criterion we can apply to punishments, allowing us to brand some as wrong and misguided. And if we prune away improper punishments, we will hopefully be better off as a society.

That's my view of our goal. So far so good?

And while we may not have thought of it exactly this way, I think our means is, at bottom, a thought experiment. We start with an imaginary country that has no punishment. And we slowly bring in possible goals for punishment, and see what this leads to. Will there be too much punishment in this country under goal A? Too little under goal B? And in general will punishments in this imaginary world pass the smell test? Will they seem basically fair and reasonable and humane?

So it becomes very important for us to patrol the border with great care; the intended goal of every punishment brought in must be carefully declared.

There is an item in your suitcase that you have described on your customs form as "neutral consequences". A guard is approaching and inviting you to step out of line and into a side room for further examination of it.

For to the guard, it looks a lot like generic punishment of undeclared purpose being smuggled in. This would make it a punishment "wild card": the ultimate contraband in our thought experiment. Once someone managed to get that into the country he'd never be faced with the problem of underpunishment again. If his pet theory was underpunishing someone, he could pull out some "neutral consequences" and apply those as well. "Hey they're not punishment, so it's OK. They're just "consequences" that naturally follow whatever the fellow has done, almost as if a force of nature is putting the perpetrator in jail, rather than other human beings with very specific policy goals in mind."

These neutral consequences do look a lot like punishment at first blush. For they all seem negative and all cause some kind of pain in the recipient, whether a deprivation of cash, comfort, time, or freedom. It's a progression from traffic ticket, to larger fine, to night in jail, to 10 years in jail, etc. It's not a progression from hug, to kiss, to bouquet of flowers, to trip to Hawaii. And all these negative outcomes are imposed by authority, backed up by threat of violence. Just because the judge imposes a consequence with the smiling serenity of a statue of Ramses doesn't mean the pain is not every bit as painful as under the retributive theory. Packaging sausages in a gray box labeled "cylinders" does not make them any less edible.

Certainly at least part of your goal with the neutral consequences is future-protective, and that's fine: you want to deter the person from doing it again, either through fear of the punishment, or more constructively by giving him some space to think about his crime and hopefully inducing him to change for the better.

What I need to know before telling the guard to relent, is whether there is any residual goal in your neutral consequences besides the corrective and future-protective. For example, is there a tiny bit of retributive that is sneaking in under the radar? I'm not talking about whether some retributive isn't sneaking into the mind of the parent who is spanking his child--of course in many cases it does, and motives are mixed out there in the real world. But I'm talking about what *you* think is philosophically valid for punishment.

My Position (Full Declaration for Customs Purposes!)

The essence of the retributive view is that a given amount of sin calls down a given amount of punishment (pain) on oneself, and that morality requires this debt be paid. The word "sin" captures an important element of this view: when meting out a retributive punishment, you really do need to try to estimate how "bad" the person was in doing the crime. Questions like "was his intent to harm?", and "was it premeditated or a crime of passion?"--these are the sorts of factors that go into the final decision on degree of punishment, under the retributive view. And once you've figured out that the proportional amount of pain is X, the retributive view limits you to no more than that (even if experts believe the first-time shoplifter is not "cured" after his year in jail), and no less (even if it can be shown the mugger will never do it again, he must still endure some punishment beyond returning the money).

I am a partisan of the retributive view because I believe the corrective and future-protective theories have distinct problems. Once I fully understand your position (is it precisely corrective plus future-protective?) I can start to tell you why I disagree with it. But I'd prefer a full understanding and full inventory before I start.

For clarity's sake, to imagine my position imagine three overlapping circles: corrective on left, retributive in center, future-protective on right. Some retributive measures overlap with corrective: for example forcing a mugger to pay back the money and help with physical therapy as part of a larger punishment. Fine. Some retributive measures overlap with future-protective: for example the retributive punishment will serve as a deterrent to that person and others in future. Fine.

Some corrective measures stand outside the retributive circle, however, so I wouldn't approve of them. For example a careless railroad clerk who goes to get a smoke, with a billion dollar train wreck ensuing. Rather than sentence him to devote all future earnings for the rest of his life to restitution, I would look at intent (no intent to harm). He would get some punishment, but nothing nearly that serious.

Likewise some future-protective measures stand outside the retributive circle, and I don't approve of those either. For example the first or second time shoplifter who is not obviously "cured" (according to experts) after his one year stint in jail, so the experts keep him there indefinitely, so unusually resistant to their conditioning is he.

Some retributive measures serve neither corrective nor future-protective purposes, but I nevertheless approve of them. For example the parent-killer we are sure won't ever do it again, must still be punished. Though I suppose one could say letting such people off might lessen deterrence for others, so this really would also be serving future-protective. Fine. But my point is if you can come up with an example that serves nothing but retributive I would still be in favor of it.

Punishment Dialog email 4 (to David)

Punishment Dialog email 4 (to David)

Giving you a time out from your freedoms as a consequence IS an attempt to correct the problem. Good, bad, we can't tell. But it doesn't have to pretend to be anything else. At least I think so....at least so far. :)

When your parents chose to discipline you they had choices: Make you make it right (apologize and undo the deed), give you pain to associate with the action, rescind money or privileges, or give you a time out. Or of course forgiveness.

Society has action it can take in the face of a crime against it. It doesn't have to be humanitarian- or desert-based, it can just be a consequence. We don't have to dehumanize the criminal, or the crime. Think of a parking ticket.

If from an injury restitution is somehow practical, then great. If not, then not. I believe there are choices in some sentences -- X dollars or Y time in jail or Z hours of community service? Action, reaction, and hopefully some wisdom in their application.

When crimes and criminals pose a continued threat, then PROTECTIVE action is required. That's more about the future threat than about the crime, I believe. Of course, we have rights that are biased so that the guilty may go free in lieu of the innocent being incarcerated. But of course it being so human a system, bad and sad things do happen. But again, it doesn't have to be about the "sin" or playing god on how to purify it. If the threat is present, we have to protect the best we can within everyone's rights.

Action, reaction, protection.

<1. reparative. Make whole the injury to the extent possible.
<2. retributive. Calibrated pain in proportion to the crime,
< as a morally necessary and expiatory act.
<3. future protective. Somehow change the person's psyche
< or immobilize them so it won't happen again.

1. Yes! Make if better if possible.
2. Not pain. A consequence. Let it be neutral. Matter of fact.
3. Yes. Assess the threat and protect society if necessary.


Your number 2 could be dehumanizing. Once you feel the person's deed is so bad that she/he isn't really a member of the same human race, then voila it's ok to hurt them. Too many murders and murderers are cloaked in your #2.

I think it affirms OUR humanity when we stay humane in the face of monstrosities. That truly is corrective for society.

Murder is an error, which is a crime, and the consequence is X. If after X is fulfilled, the person is deemed to be still apt to murder, then we protect society.

Btw, this protect society thing isn't just for the criminal. Psychologists and Psychiatrists institutionalize folks they deem dangerous even if they haven't committed a crime! I say this to emphasize that it doesn't have to be associated with the crime. It's the mental state of the individual being evaluated.

Your thoughts?

Punishment Dialog email 2 (to David)

Punishment Dialog email 2 (to David)

Interesting discussion!

You summarize your view of punishment like this:

When we take a step back from this, we are
a) trying to correct a problem, and
b) trying to protect against a future one.


Those are the two principles you would have us keep in mind as we mete out punishment.

But in a prior paragraph you bring in a concept of a "debt to society" that can be repaid by sitting in a jail cell when correction is impractical:

Ok, immediate and direct restitution is not always a practical or desirable means of correction, so society's consequence is frequently to remove my freedoms for a period of time, and thusly I pay my debt to society.

I am not *quite* sure from how you've written it, but I think you consider this "debt to society" concept to be a good and useful thing, but it seems to be absent from your two principles of punishment a and b.

Example: Someone murders an abusive parent in a fit of passion. Assume extreme circumstances that make it very unlikely it would happen again (because there was only the one parent, and they were horribly abusive for many years, and the child caught them in the middle of some horrible act like torturing some bunnies).

Having this person sit in a jail cell for some years will not bring back the dead parent (a) nor is there an inordinate future threat to the general population (b).

Do you need to rephrase your points to incorporate the fallback "debt to society when correction impractical" position? Maybe add a third point c)?

I think what you will find, if you do this, is that you will be simultaneously trying to accomodate both the retributive and therapeutic theories of punishment.

Three major schools of thought on punishment occur to me:

• 1. reparative. Make whole the injury to the extent possible.
• 2. retributive. Calibrated pain in proportion to the crime, as a morally necessary and expiatory act.
• 3. future protective. Somehow change the person's psyche or immobilize them so it won't happen again.

1) is usually quite compatible with 2) (as an extra bit of pain that improves the moral and expiatory properties of the punishment). But 3) stands out as being often at cross purposes to 2): the person who has paid his debt of pain yet must remain in jail to protect the rest of us.

And I suspect the reason you cannot map your view of punishment to Lewis', is that you are attempting to have and eat all three schools of thought simultaneously. Your b) is 3, Your a) is 1, and your fallback "debt to society" is 2.

Punishment Dialog: Email 1 (from David)

Read it yesterday and again this morning.

I think I understand his essay.

He says that on one hand we can treat the criminal as a capable human being and punish him with just desert; effectively saying "We know you should have known better, and because you failed this is your deserved punishment."
On the otherhand, he warns, we can tyrannize him with humanitarianism by saying "We are going to hold you captive for an unlimited time while we cure/heal you.
His third point is that if we punish as an example/deterrant, then the system degenerates and isn't concerned as much concerned about the guilt of the criminal; moreso the means of communicating his punishment as a deterrant to others.

Obviously he insists the first point is the proper approach.

I don't think my approach maps on to his approaches. Maybe you can help me do it.

But first, thanks for having the energy and brain power and bandwidth to have this discussion. I love your depth and consideration, and I want never to gloss over it with assumptions and dogma.

Ok, here goes.

When an error is deemed a crime, society should applies its rules to correct the error. Sometimes the error can't be corrected, and in its place appears a consequence. For example. I burn down your house. Perhaps the correction should be for me to build you a new one with my own time and money. Ok, immediate and direct restitution is not always a practical or desirable means of correction, so society's consequence is frequently to remove my freedoms for a period of time, and thusly I pay my debt to society. Summary: I made an error, it was a crime, I pay my debt either to you or to society.

Now when the debt is paid, society has no choice but to accept me again. I have the "right" to do it again, more accurately the freedom to do it. Or not to do it. If I do it, I will have to pay the price again.

Now, if society deems that a) I will probably go out and do it again and b) it is therefor in danger, it has to decide if my continued incarceration is a requirement for the safety of society. That is, if I am ill and can not learn and obey rules for the safety of society, I might be incarcerated forever.

When we take a step back from this, we are a) trying to correct a problem, and b) trying to protect against a future one.

I don't think this consequential approach matches either of his definitions.

Punishment Dialog: Introduction

My friend David and I had an interesting conversation over lunch last week, that left us holding opposing views on what should be done with Saddam if he is found by our troops.

David's view:

Saddam should be tried in court and, perhaps, placed in prison for the rest of his life, certainly not killed. The error has been corrected, Saddam is no longer a threat to his people, and punishing him without trial would be wrong. Capital punishment would be wrong in any case. The view that Saddam "needs to die" for what he has done is vengeful and retrograde morally.

My view:

Saddam could be killed immediately if found by our troops. Trial is optional: as the head of a totalitarian state for 30 years, there is no reasonable doubt that Saddam is guilty of hundreds of thousands of heinous crimes, and no Nuremberg defense is available that he was following someone else's orders. So gruesome and numerous are his crimes that there is a moral abomination here that cries out for expiation, regardless of whether he can inflict further harm.

David asked if there was any situation in which I might show mercy to Saddam, and after thinking it over indeed there is. If Saddam turned himself in while not in imminent danger of being captured, seemed truly contrite, apologized profusely and unreservedly for his crimes, and did what he could to rectify the situation: revealed all about his WMD programs and their current disposition, helped us track down his hidden billions, etc. Under these conditions I would grant the possibility that he had reformed. I might not want him free to be out golfing with OJ, but I would not want him killed.

What interested me about our difference of opinion was that it seemed to express very different views on the purpose of punishment.

I asked David to read one of my favorite essays by C.S. Lewis, "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment", and bless his heart he complied. We've since been discussing these matters by email, which I'll reproduce above.

Scare Quotes

Amusing takedown of scare quote over-use:

They suck all their nourishment from the host words, contributing nothing of their own. Fisk's sneer quotes--he's not as scary as he'd like to be--allow him to express his revulsion at the very notion of describing what's happening in Iraq as "liberation," but relieve him of the obligation to say just what he thinks is happening in that city. Is it (as many left-wing critics have said) a new form of colonization? Ah, but that is a claim too easily refuted, unless one wishes to stretch the term beyond all historical recognition. Is it occupation? But if so, we would need to have a conversation about the purposes of occupation, some of which can be better than others. This is all too complicated; it's so much simpler to wheel out the trusty old inverted commas.

Though one particularly effective orgy of deliberate over-use was conducted by Tim Blair back in 2002:

THE BBC has published a story about global warming, Tuvalu, and Australia. Here's the BBC's piece, with clarifying sarcastic punctuation added:

Australian legal "experts" have warned the government to take "seriously" a "challenge" by the tiny island "nation" of Tuvalu.

Tuvalu is "under threat" of "sinking" if sea levels rise due to "climate change" - and "could be" washed away within 50 years.

Its "Prime Minister", Koloa Talake, has announced that Tuvalu and two other island "nations", Kiribati and Maldives, plan to take "legal" action against major "polluting" countries...

Rejecting Rorty AND Rummy

Interesting takedown of Rorty, the pomo many love to hate:

In Britain and the US theories of knowledge and truth have seldom been seen as politically relevant. But this is changing. The US has seen a conservative furore against postmodernism as something that has sapped the ideological resolve of the west, and my being asked to write this article in a non-specialist journal is part of this rise in awareness.

Lest we think this Cambridge professor of philosophy sympathizes with W, however...

A pointed illustration comes from one of Rorty's essays, on George Orwell's 1984. Here Rorty finds it hard to understand what Orwell was on about, since the whole nightmare in that book concerns the loss of truth and the loss of right reason and, for Rorty, these count as no loss at all. Because he could control everybody's thoughts, Big Brother was very good at social solidarity, so what was Winston afraid of? The fact that he finds this question difficult exposes Rorty more than Orwell. Most of us understand Winston's nightmare all too well, especially when we think of the Downing Street propaganda machine, or Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, and the state of the American press.

Interesting examples, eh? But seriously, what 2+2=5 whoppers does he attribute to Rummy or Ashcroft? What lies characteristic of a totalitarian state? See "Accusations True by Virtue of Being Made" below.

Smoking Ban Claims Another Life

In the NY Daily News:

A brawny bouncer at a trendy East Village nightspot was stabbed to death yesterday after he confronted a man who lit up a cigarette in defiance of the city's tough new anti-smoking law, police said.

Dana (Shazam) Blake, 32, of Queens, was allegedly set upon by two Chinatown brothers after one of them refused to stop puffing inside Guernica on Avenue B, cops said.

"My brother lost his life because of this stupid smoking law," said the Rev. Tony Blake, who preaches against smoking and drinking at his Humble Way Church of God in Christ in Queens.

"This is not the end of the violence because of it," he added.

Many have felt it helpful and illuminating to question whether Operation Iraqi Freedom was "worth it" by means of looking at photos of Iraqi children injured by American bombs. The problem with this technique is that it's done without reference to the many children being harmed because the US was not invading. Iraq claims 84,000 children were killed by sanctions alone in 2001, and less than 1,300 civilians total were killed in the war. Add the many children who were killed, tortured, imprisoned, or made orphans by Saddam himself.

If one wants to try to reason by means of emoting over inflammatory photos, one should at least line up some photos from the other side. If you still can't summon the wherewithal to do basic arithmetic in the face of maimed children, then please: make two piles of photos, stare at them, videotape it so people can see how moved you are, then let your head explode, like those computers in Star Trek that can't deal with contradiction. Then the adults can go back to a reasoned discussion about policy that could actually benefit these children.

And so I post this story about a murder caused by the smoking ban. And I ask: "Can the human costs of this smoking ban possibly be worth the benefits?"

That is a question on the same intellectual level as those who point to a photo of an injured child, and ask whether Iraq's liberation could possibly be worth it. I say this because most dead-child-photo-emoters are probably reflexively anti-smoking, and this analogy might get through to them.

"Well, you can't judge the smoking ban by that alone...there were other costs...."

Yes...YES! Now you're talking like adults! Thank you!

Accusations true by virtue of being made

Welcome to the left-wing echo chamber where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and accusations are true by virtue of being made. Bush is "pretty much a dictator", says Robin Williams.

The problem with this sort of debate by name-calling is that it sways no one; it's cheerleading for the converted, and rather crass cheerleading at that. In what ways is Bush a dictator, Mr. Williams? If you could name just one or two ways, you might begin to sway some of the 70% who currently approve of him. Will free elections not be held next year? I suspect Mr. Williams' definition of a dictator is anyone with a 70% approval rating with whom one disagrees.

Another case in point is this accusation from a German cleric that Bush is given to making "careless" statements about religion:

I believe George Bush's religious views are genuine," Cardinal Karl Lehmann, head of the German Bishop's Conference, told the Catholic weekly Rheinischer Merkur in an interview on Thursday. "But this careless way of using religious language is not acceptable anymore in today's world.

As Mr. Bush is primarily given to blandishments like "God bless America" at the end of his speeches, I am forced to wonder what the cardinal would consider an acceptably "careful" use of religious language on Bush's part.

For calibration purposes, here are some samples of careless religious language:

• Lord, call down death and suffering on the Iraqi infidels. Punish them for their iniquity.
• Iraq would be better off Christian. Should we consider banning Islam there?
• Gays are to blame for our problems; it is God's judgement.

I suspect Europe is so post-Christian, and so mired in the post-colonial double-standard, that even a cardinal ostensibly representing the Christian faith would consider any mention whatever of Christianity in public to be unacceptably "careless", at the same time he could not bring himself to criticize the thousands of Muslim clerics who routinely call down fire on the Great Satan.

When the cardinal says careless religious language is "unacceptable in today's world", he means not the entire globe, but only one small part of it, the region of post-Christendom, a realm of guilt and twilight where silence and decorum must be kept. Outside it there is a riot of noise and color, where satyr-like man-beasts pursue the politically incorrect beyond all censure, whatever lapses of taste or humanity being excused by the beast.

Wouldn't the cardinal like to have a day out? Chuck it all for a week and taste the wine?

I suppose there are a few consolations to his pinched situation, like when he gets to censure a Bush. He's still painfully decorous and his cheeks still have the sickly pallor, but a little hint of color comes back into them when he goes off on W, that harkens back to a past of inquisitors and fire and brimstone from the pulpit. Granted it's less like "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" than like rolling your eyes at someone in a movie theater for talking too loudly...but at least there's the thrill of being able to be stern and moral with someone for a change. Moral with them for mentioning Christianity.

Russia's View on Debt

Russia, Germany, and France believe only the UN can confer legitimacy on the new Iraqi government.

What the United States is now faced with is building infrastructure, maintaining order, and moving toward free elections. These more savory activities would seem to require less outside legitimization than did the invasion itself, which involved killing civilians and the destruction of infrastructure. As the invasion itself did not seem to require outside legitimization, the transitive property would seem to negate the FrancoGermanRusso claim of necessity.

Is one who shot a man without permission likely to seek it to patch him up?

Russia's majority leader made two statements:

The speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma, said Iraq is not America's 51st state. Gennady Seleznyov also suggested the United States should pay Moscow for the Russian contracts interrupted by the war

I think he misses the point. If Iraq were the 51st state, America would be be liable for its debt. As it is, the entity that took on the debt no longer exists, and the debt is odious because it was taken on without the consent of the Iraqi people, and against their interests.

I just looked up how Russia treated its own foreign debt after the 1917 overthrow of the Tsar. It was never paid.

There is also the practical consideration. Iraq's debt is about $350 billion, and its entire GDP is $60 billion.

Why an Amateur Press?

Excellent goodbye letter to the Left:

A large part of the British left - and the left elsewhere - has made a fundamental mistake. In opposing the invasion of Iraq, it has shown itself incapable of thinking through not only the nature of the world as it is today, but also its own claims to be the leading force in making the world better. The more vehement sections of the left have succumbed to the comfort of violently rhetorical attacks on the US and have led the world in creating an image of Tony Blair and the Labour government as US poodles, incapable of articulating a British national interest.

An Amateur Press?

Who says the news must be written only by a cadre of full-time journalists who went to journalism school?

Being factual, getting corroborating sources, protecting confidentiality...exactly how many years (or minutes?) of instruction are necessary to comprehend these techniques?

There is something democratically leveling about news, by its nature. News about nuclear physics for other nuclear physicists is published in dense technical journals. News about nuclear physics for the rest of us is "news".

The process of gathering it--talking to a few physicists, summarizing, and explaining what you've learned to others--does not obviously require special techniques. Doctors, accountants, and lawyers all seem like they might do a decent job talking to the physicists and reporting on what they'd learned. It's more or less just basic thinking and expression?

There is a somewhat vague analogy to teaching, where one with a master's degree in math may find it harder to get a job teaching math in high school, than one who'd taken some "math studies" classes while pursuing a bachelors in education.

Credentials are a problem. If you are an executive at company X, you want to know the reporter you're talking to is not an incognito employee from competitor Y. Whether eBay style ratings or an established record of blogging might provide this, I'm not sure.

As I struggle with these thoughts I am guided by the intuition that "citizen journalists", perhaps linked in a complex web from which summaries emerge, are the future, and that full-time general-purpose "journalist" as a profession will come to seem a throwback to an era before we'd figured out how to think about things and gather evidence as a collective.

April Fool #3

This is from a few months ago but I just came across it and, as they say in syndication, it's not a repeat if it's new to you!

But as Michael Moore shows in his documentary Bowling For Columbine, we did not need 9/11 to make ourselves miserable. His film uses the Columbine High School killings as its refrain for an examination of violence in the US. What Moore discovers is that Americans like owning guns a lot, and believe it is for their own good. Everyone is protecting himself against crime.

The trouble is, these people are defending themselves against dangers that don’t exist. According to the Justice Department, violent crime fell 15 per cent from 1999 to 2000. Furthermore, 67 per cent of these crimes did not involve an armed offender, and only 6 per cent of rapes and sexual assaults included a weapon of any kind. From 1993 to 2000, violent crimes were reduced by 40 per cent, and rapes fell by 60 per cent. The only new variety of crime since 1993 is student shooting sprees in high schools.

Only 6 percent of rapes include a weapon, yet the women put up with it. Puzzling. Perhaps they are physically overpowered? What to do. Genetic therapy to help them develop larger muscles? Always bringing their bruiser bodyguard Frank along?

I came across Ms. Wurtzel via these links: a cartoon by Jim Treacher, and a cached copy of her sickening comments on 9/11:

LOOPY literary pin-up Elizabeth Wurtzel says New Yorkers "overreacted" to the Sept. 11 terror attack, but her main complaint seems to be that no one hired her to write about it.

"I just felt, like, everyone was overreacting," Wurtzel told a Canadian journalist last week about her experience being near Ground Zero on Sept 11. "People were going on about it. That part really annoyed me."

Wurtzel - whose debut book "Prozac Nation" is being made into a movie starring Christina Ricci, while her follow-up, "Bitch," flopped - also declares that when her mother called to tell her a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers, "My main thought was: What a pain in the ass."

Despite numerous frantic phone calls to her Greenwich Street apartment, not far from the World Trade Center, the emotionally stunted scribe couldn't be bothered to get out of bed until the second plane crashed, reports the Toronto Globe and Mail.

When she finally did drag herself to a window and saw the towers collapse, Wurtzel says, "I had not the slightest emotional reaction. I thought, 'This is a really strange art project.' " Then her windows blew in and airplane chunks landed on her roof.

She may not have been moved by the horrific spectacle of the massacre but, in retrospect, Wurtzel says, the towers' destruction "was a most amazing sight in terms of sheer elegance. It fell like water. It just slid like a turtleneck going over someone's head. It was just beautiful."

Wurtzel says she "cried for all the animals left there in the neighborhood" after the attack, but as for the 3,000 human victims, "I think I have some kind of emotional block. I think I should join some support group for people who were there."

Wurtzel acknowledges she'd never dare say such things in the U.S., noting, "You can't tell people this. I'm talking to you because you're Canadian."

Wurtzel was up north last week plugging her third book, "More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction," which details the trials and tribulations she supposedly endured writing "Bitch," a collection of essays about powerful women. It didn't sell well despite the fact that Wurtzel posed nude for the cover.

Summing up her feeling post-9/11, Wurtzel muses: "You know what was really funny? After the fact, like all these different writers were writing these things about what it was like, and nobody bothered to call me." Of course, she says, "I don't want to tell other people's stories."

April Fool #2

Robin Williams weighs in on the war. I liked the plug for One Hour Photo.

Funnyman Robin Williams has launched a scathing attack on President George W. Bush and his decision to go ahead with war on Iraq. The "One Hour Photo" actor also criticizes what he sees as his country's mixed messages when it comes to national security.

He says, "America is broke, basically, but Bush wants to wage a war that costs pretty much a billion dollars a month.

"We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself.

"In America, we have orange alert, but what the hell does that mean? We're supposed to be afraid of Krishna? Of orange sorbet? Then it's like, 'You can't go out and shop, it's too dangerous out there,' but if that happens then the economy falls.

"The message is so mixed: 'Be afraid, but not too afraid.'"

Williams is presumably pretty much in hiding, lest he be placed in what would be pretty much a concentration camp. And I assume he has pretty much stopped giving to Democratic campaigns, as anything premised on free elections is pretty much pointless now.

April Fool #1

A researcher does some math based on a cap of 3,000 deaths per incident, and patiently explains things. Yes, 9/11 defined a max in the brain of some researcher. Note the political spin, like deporting foreigners here without valid visas (i.e. illegally) would be an emotionally-based and vengeful policy.

Apparently their own mentions of bioterrorism didn't remind any of the researchers (some of whom might have studied biology?) that 3,000 might be rather light as a cap. Iraq is thought to have possibly gotten smallpox via the USSR, and smallpox has the potential to kill 30% of the population if unchecked. And can one imagine the chaos and destruction involved in checking it? (quarantining entire cities while 30% of those inside die?)

A perfect specimen of New Class lecturing. Patient, condescending tone of voice... leading to clear and narrowly partisan conclusions...while being based on utter nonsense.

More Afraid Than We Should Be

Americans wildly overestimated the risk of terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a nationwide "emotion experiment."

In surveys conducted after the attacks, people estimated there was a 20 percent chance that they would be directly affected by a terrorist attack in the next year and said the "average American" faces a 48 percent risk, said researchers examining the links between emotions, policy and reality.

"There was an overwhelming overestimation of risk," said Jennifer Lerner, an assistant professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. For even the 20 percent estimate to be accurate, we would have had to have Sept. 11 "every day and then some," she said.

Lerner and her colleagues also found that people who watched media reports that made them fearful -- such as a report on bioterrorism -- were likely to make higher risk assessments, while people who got news that made them angry -- like a report of some Arabs celebrating the attacks -- perceived relatively less risk. Both groups, however, greatly overestimated the actual risk of future attacks.

Fear and anger prompted support for different public policies: Fearful people tended to support policies of "conciliation," such as improved ties with the Muslim world, while angry people supported more "vengeful" policies, such as deporting foreigners without valid visas, the researchers found.

Lerner's paper, published this month in the journal Psychological Science, also found that women tended to respond with more fear, while men tended to respond with more anger. She said the findings suggested that the government and the media can unwittingly alter risk perception by making people either fearful or angry. Used responsibly, that connection could also be used to better communicate the real degree of risk, she said.

Life or the Onion?

The headline leads one to suspect deadpan derision: Antiwar protester draws inspiration from Thoreau's call for civil disobedience.

And the text doesn't help:

"He'd be against the war; of course he would. He was against the Mexican War. He would think like I do."

For the record, Daly, a massage therapist in nearby Concord, thinks a great deal about what is happening in her country these days. She cannot, for example, bear the twisted logic that says, "We have to save the children; we have to go to war."

"How," she also asks, "can you bomb people into democracy?"

And how can the police stop violence with guns? It's terribly vexing.

One Reason They May Not be Celebrating

From the NY Times:

A woman who waved to British forces on the outskirts of the city was later found hanged, an American officer said, and the Iraqis moved D-30 artillery in place to shell rebellious residents.

Unbelievable Condescension

Venom in the Independent:

Frankly I have felt increasingly uncomfortable with Britain's role as the United States' only significant ally. It hasn't been a pleasant experience. The cogs and wheels of co-operation have been sprinkled with grit. The only "special" aspect of the relationship is its demeaning one-sidedness. In addition, the types of American right-wing politicians with whom we are forced to work would get no hearing here. I don't believe any future British prime minister, Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, will again put the US before Europe. More than ever, it seems to me, Britain's destiny is with Europe. The quarrel over Iraq doesn't change that.

And condescension in the Guardian:

The boobs who get egged on by the US rightwing media are, I think, more comfortable with the new [anti-France] stance. German-Americans are the largest ethnic group in the country, and are especially strong in the heartland. As a group they prefer to keep their heads down politically, for obvious historical reasons. But an awful lot of people are at least part-German. In contrast, the concept of "French-American" hardly exists. Most Americans have probably never met a Frenchman, nor drunk French wine, eaten French cheese or driven a French car. Indeed, French culture has been in full retreat in the US for some time. The secondary language of choice in schools is now Spanish, for obvious demographic reasons. French is associated with the folks who go to fancy restaurants, vote Democratic and talk of Mer-LOW, Ren-WA and Van GO.

In the room the women come and go, talking of MerLOWrenWAvanGO...

A nation of hicks who've never tasted a MerLOW...yee haw!...and vote REPUBLICAN!

And a nation where those of German-American ancestry are still "keeping their heads down" for fear of WWII blame. German is the single largest ethnicity in the United States, but the German-Americans continue to exist in a troubled archipelago of German-American communities, where lingering reproach for WWII from the Danish, Anglo-Saxon, and Celtish enclaves nearby, wafts into the German neighborhoods almost as heavily as the scent of sauer kraut wafts out of them.

The pain of giving a name like Bauer or Hoffman when meeting new people... "Nazi" you can almost hear them saying mentally. Hoping they'll assume you're just Jewish. The secret glances of sympathy and support toward Japanese-Americans. "Will you please stop blaming us?" you want to shout. But shouting just brings derisory mocks of "Zieg Heil! Zieg Heil! Look at the angry German!" from any of those with Celtish, Norwegian, or Swiss blood in the vicinity.

This author has fashioned a lovely pillow and embroidered the name America on it...and like a dog his condescension circles it and finally lays down in the middle of it, most contentedly.

Statistics

Iraqis injured so far in war (as claimed by Iraq): 200
Iraqi children killed per week from sanctions in 2001 (as claimed by Iraq): 1615

Deserving Asterisks

Bush claims the support of 30 odd countries, though the media has been at pains to apply an asterisk to this, noting that only 2 or 3 are providing actual assault forces--as if some kind of reductive fraction should be applied to the votes of those who aren't.

But aren't Russia, China, France, and Germany merely stating a position from the sidelines as well? That they are not sending ground troops to defend the tyrant does not seem to be undercutting the weight with which their positions are reported by the media.

In other words why doesn't the media apply the same asterisk? Kind of an obvious point but I don't see that it's occurred to anyone.

(Though I suppose we should keep in mind that their rights to full "no" votes may become all too evident when Iraqi archives are opened post-war).

Interview with Chirac

Yesterday on CNN:

AMANPOUR: Can I ask you again about the nuclear reactor [built by Iraq with French assistance and destroyed in an Israeli air raid in 1981] at Osirak? You know, a lot of people called it "Os-Chirac", as you know. In retrospect, do you regret that it was destroyed, given that it could have been used to form nuclear weapons?

CHIRAC: Well, this reactor was a civilian reactor. It was a civilian power plant and it was only going to produce energy. I don't think it could have been the link or the basis for nuclear technology or a military nuclear program. This being said, events such as we know them, it was destroyed, so the issue is no longer.

But in those days, all of the major democracies, all of them, each and every one of them, had contacts and trade and exchanges with Iraq, including on weapons. Even weapons of mass destruction sometimes, including bacteriological, biological weapons.

So we shouldn't come back to the past on these issues. But we shouldn't either pinpoint France or point the finger toward France, that had limited its actions to helping Iraq to produce the energy it needed to light the country.

Doesn't Iraq have the second largest oil reserves in the world?

Exchange

My responses to the letter to the editor he forwarded to our list, elicited this exchange between the Frenchman and me on a certain mailing list. (His remarks in italics).

All that is very nice but I don't see anywhere in that text that the League of Nations had the power to send inspectors check on Hitler. The UN has people combing the countryside trying to find weapons. Hitler had no one combing his country.

But that is just a detail.

And shortly thereafter this:

Let's say Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Let's have it this way.

Pretend that you are Saddam. The United States has started the invasion of Iraq from Kuwait and Turkey. You know that you will not even have the chance of surviving and that you will be hunted and killed.

You have a few atomic bombs laying around. What would you do if you knew the end is near? 200'000 Americans in Kuwait ...

Wouldn't you leave with a Bang? I would.

My response:

You call our attention to the wonderful boon it is that we have inspectors in Iraq.

And you warn us that Saddam might use his WMD.

Methinks you are having your cake, while subjecting it to radiological dispersal devices too.

His:

So Iraq doesn't have it. Why bother with him? What a waste of money. Shouldn't we spend that money right here where I need a job?

"The director of Homeland Security has issued a red alert and he is asking every American receiving Christmas letters from Iraq to contact the FBI." - 12/24/2003

Mine:

Behold, the anti-war zealot!

One moment warning us we are about to unleash Armageddon. The next cheerfully telling us Saddam's got nothing and we should go home.

The only constant is that Bush is wrong from moment to moment in any argument. This is like c, the speed of light. Time and space themselves must warp to maintain this constant. Now isn't that "special" in both the Einstein and Church Lady senses?

Saddam was about to nuke the world when it made Bush look reckless. Now he's got nothing, if that makes Bush look alarmist.

If you could learn to live with the intellectual veering back and forth--the seasickness factor-- I bet it's extremely comforting to live in a world where all problems can be traced to American Republicans.

The fearless search for Truth continues among the beau monde of SF and Paris...

Response 4 to Letter to Editor

> > for a change played the biggest role with Russia and the UK. Germany
> > declared war on the US on Dec 11 1941 and not the other way around (the US
> > declaring war!). Please note that a depopulated and convalescent Francehad
> > already been at war since Sept 3rd 1939 or 2 years and 3 months before the
> > USwas finally forced to realize that Hitler was a threat!

September 2, 1939

Dear Mr. Roosevelt:

Our policy of appeasement has concluded.

I won't bore you with the diplomatic subtleties; they're probably incomprehensible to those who didn't grow up thinking in francais from childhood, the language of diplomacy.

But to summarize...

Until midnight last night, the correct policy for handling Germany was appeasement. We have valiantly pursued this course of action for the past six years, with zero American help in sharing the burdens it entailed: looking concerned (frown lines), wringing our hands (chafing), and signing our name to various pieces of paper (writer's cramp).

There is no question that this was the correct course of action, for that period of time. If you Americans in your naivete had attempted to come over here at any moment prior to midnight last night to "deal with" Hitler, we would have rightly cried bloody murder: you would have been stirring up a hornet's nest our whole policy was dedicated to keeping calm.

However, as of midnight last night, the powers that be (namely us) have determined that the optimal policy is now force--and this is where you come in.

Would you please reinstitute your draft and send over half a million American boys to reinforce our Maginot Line by, say, Christmas?

When I say "force", don't crudely misinterpret this to mean you will see headlines about some Franco-Anglo invasion of Germany next week. We are going to sit in a strategic and forceful posture behind our walls for the next 6-12 months, until you get here, or until Hitler invades, whichever comes first.

As time is of the essence, let me head off one possible objection that might be raised in your Congress (you will need their approval?).

Some may make the facile observation that, if we add up the number of troops and tanks possessed by France and Britain, they rather outnumber those of Germany. And that, moreover, much of the German Army is off conquering Poland at the moment.

That may be true, but numbers alone are deceptive.

What they don't take into account is how very *tired* we are of fighting. Do you hear that sound? It's a big world-weary sigh being uttered collectively by our entire nation. Do you hear the memory of the trenches in its mournful sound? The noble aspiration for peace in its overtones? Picture a very sensitive cow, being eaten by a wolf, while watching La Traviata, and you will have some idea of the plaintive and bosomy forces stirring deep in every French soul.

May I also draw your attention to those Nazi uniforms? Basic black, with grays for whimsy! Shiny jack boots. Vulgar and frightening simultaneously. You Americans with your jazz and money mania...well, no offense, but you must admit you may be more suited to dealing with such people than artists and philosophers such as ourselves?

I suggest you start drafting troops as soon as is practicable, for I cannot emphasize enough that time is of the essence.

I hesitate to bring this up, but 30 years hence, a gentleman named Claude will be born. And he will be the custodian of a Clock of Blame.

Picture this Clock of Blame as a giant hourglass. It was turned over as of midnight last night, and the sand is falling even as I write this, and even as you read it. Every falling grain of sand is another crystal of blame that will be borne by your nation through eternity, and Claude is the man who will deliver to you the final tally of shame.

I had lobbied for a three month grace period for you to organize your draft, gather ships, and get the troops over here, but prophecy indicates Claude will be implacable. And we think Hitler is uptight! Claude's clock will have started ticking immediately upon the invasion of Poland.

Try to imagine the shame your children's children will feel, 60 years from now, when Claude informs them exactly how long it took you to comply, after we had clearly and politely informed you we would again require your services.

Claude is well-versed in all types of calendars, and he will be merciless in adding up the numbers of years *and* months. Do not expect any "rounding down" to the nearest year. And if you liberate us "eventually", oh some year when you felt like it, don't expect some kind of credit from Claude reducing your delay shame. It most assuredly does not work that way, though again I'm not sure if you didn't grow up speaking Francais that you could entirely understand the raison.

Please keep these two sounds ever present in your mind until you have secured congressional approval for our military needs: the world-weary French sigh, and the tick tick tick of Claude's clock. Neither is getting any softer.

Yours,
Daladier

Response 3 to Letter to Editor

> World War 2 is also aslightly different story although here, the US
> for a change played the biggest role with Russia and the UK. Germany
> declared war on the US on Dec 11 1941 and not the other way around (the US
> declaring war!). Please note that a depopulated and convalescent Francehad
> already been at war since Sept 3rd 1939 or 2 years and 3 months before the
> USwas finally forced to realize that Hitler was a threat! Although totally
> unprepared (as all the other democracies were in 1939) France alone faced
> the German to honor her commitment to defend Poland.

Dear Claude:

Totally unprepared, you say? You dishonor the ghosts of your martial French ancestors. We knew full well what was going on in Germany, and we'd spent years preparing. You need a lesson in French history, subtlety, and our desire for peace and self-advantage at any price.

When war with Germany came, we had as many troops and perhaps 3 times as many tanks as they did. And on top of that, from 1929 to 1940 we'd sunk an enormous amount of resources into building a staggeringly large and expensive system of forts along the German border, the Maginot Line.

Unprepared? Bah.

Ecoutez!

1933: Hitler elected on a platform of anger against the Versailles Treaty that ended WWI. ("Why do they hate us?" we might have asked). Hitler's Mein Kampf had come out in 1924 in case anyone had any question about his plans for ethnic cleansing and world domination. We were well aware.

1935: Germany begins rearmament, including an air force and navy that had been banned by the Treaty of Versailles. We could have easily gone in and removed Hitler at this point with minimal loss of life. But were we to start another war with Germany when they hadn't fired a shot at us? We had troubles enough of our own in the 30's. And wouldn't this only push their population against us and further into the arms of the Nazis? Did we really want a possibly messy occupation? Leave them to their devices and they might simmer down. Meanwhile, we're enjoying Peace!

1936: Germany reoccupies the Rhineland; this was to be kept free of any military presence per the Treaty of Versailles. We protested ineffectually in the League of Nations. We could have again gone in, almost as easily, and knocked over Hitler at this point too. But again, we craved Peace. Let them blow off some steam. We might not have to fight. Savor the Peace!

March 1938. Germany marches into Austria. We do nothing. It was mostly Germans there anyway, after all.

September 1938. Munich. Along with Britain, we give Hitler the part of our ally Czechoslovakia that he wants, to see if we can buy peace for ourselves by sacrificing others. In exchange for this, Hitler signs a pact promising never to invade France or England. Chamberlain returns triumphantly to London, saying he had achieved "peace in our time." We could still have gone in, but it was becoming more costly every day.

March 1939. Hitler tears up the Munich agreement and incorporates the whole of Western Czechoslovakia into Germany.

Sept 1939. Hitler invades our ally Poland and we finally draw the line and declare war. I don't know why you said France was facing Germany alone after this; even I must admit the Brits were by our side. We could have gone into Germany while Hitler's army was occupied with Poland in the east. But...maybe if we waited behind our walls...Hitler would be content with Poland and we wouldn't actually have to fight in spite of the war declaration? Maybe he'd focus on invading Russia? Hitler gambled correctly on Western timidity. "Little worms" he called us to his advisors. But we weren't worms: we simply wanted Peace. Is that so wrong?

May 1940. We're invaded. Our Maginot Line proves useless as Hitler goes around it through the supposedly impenetrable Ardennes forest. We avoid suffering by an early surrender: 6 weeks in: a record in the annals of warfare. And by voluntarily turning over our fleet intact to the Germans for their use against England. And by helping them round up Jews. We managed rather well during the German occupation and suffered relatively few atrocities. I know this doesn't *sound* all that great in retrospect, but wasn't that better than millions of Frenchmen senselessly dying again as in WWI? And did we know at the time that we'd ever be liberated?

We continued to cling to Peace, of a sort. Do not blame us if you didn't experience the trenches of WWI for yourself!

1944: The Americans and British gallantly allow de Gaulle to ride first into Paris, as if he'd played any significant role in its liberation. *I* was the one holding down the fort, who had to do the tough work of working out a deal with Hitler and figure out the right...words...for Frenchmen to be able to swallow this and still hold their heads high. De Gaulle had done nothing comparatively but serve as a useful propaganda piece implying the mass of Frenchmen were against Germany. Nonsense, given the ease of the occupation, but this served British/American interests.

1946-50: The Americans and British gallantly allow France a seat on the Security Council, as if France had been one of the victors. Again De Gaulle had done nothing to merit this, but it served British/American interests by being one more vote for their side. The Iron Curtain descends, America organizes NATO and the Marshall Plan, the Cold War begins.

1966: France withdraws its military from NATO command, having looked at a map and realized the US couldn't defend West Germany without also defending France. So why should France contribute any troops? This wasn't me acting, but it was a move after my own heart. It's called subtlety, not obliviousness, and it's the Americans who were unprepared.

So there, Claude, are a few highlights of 20th century French history of which you seemed ignorant. We are clever and rarely caught unprepared. We have many stratagems. Call us worms as Hitler did, if you must editorialize, but do not call us stupid.

But, I hear you saying, the policy of appeasement with Nazi Germany did not actually work. We were occupied. Is there not some lesson to be learned, somewhere in this stack of historical hay?

Why do you insult us, Claude? Do you imagine we are oblivious to this too? We have incorporated *all* the relevant lessons we learned from dealing with Nazi Germany into revision 2.0 of our PAP initiative (Peace At Any Price).

It's now SmartPAP.

Next time we do as follows: we're going to make sure the bad guys really know who their friends are. We're going to sell them technology, ink some big commercial deals, cover their backs with our UN veto, and point them towards some nice juicy Polands. Whom we don't much like anyway, truth be told. Even if they are, technically, our allies. That only makes the subtlety all the more exquisite, the gratitude we earn for our betrayal all the greater, our safety all the more guaranteed.

For if X is basically benign and considers us an ally, and Y is dangerous and unpredictable, betraying X is always the right move. What are they gonna do: nuke us? Invade? Maybe we'll be in the diplomatic doghouse for a while, big whoop, and meanwhile we're safe from Y and we're earning billions in commercial agreements.

You wait and see: our cities will be safe, for a time, and we'll have some highly gratifying opportunities for lecturing the victims on how they brought these disasters on themselves.

For in the nature of things we must all come to hate our benefactors. I see that even more clearly now that I'm in heaven. Gratitude is an exhausting and open-ended emotion, which in the end always becomes intolerable; hatred and contempt for one's benefactor are the only ways out.

I stopped being grateful to God for heaven long ago. I didn't ask to be born, I lived my life deterministically according to physics ("I could do no other", as Luther said), and here I am. So what? It's all his game and his pieces. When the mood strikes I blame him for all I had to put up with in life, but here I still sit, safe and inviolate. Does he take it personally? Evidently not. Bless him for that, anyway.

Well you've probably got some more ranting against Bush to do, and I'm off to meet Joe Stalin for some class he's sitting in on in Texas. All I can say is I hope there are some pretty girls in there; it's more tedious up here than you might imagine.

Petain

Response 2 to Letter to Editor

> My goal here is not to smear the crucial
> help that the US provided France in the last 7 months of WW1 or ignore that
> the US, UK and Russia gave back France its freedom in 1945, but just to
> shed light on historical facts totally twisted, distorted or at best
> ignored by your reporters.

Dear Claude:

Correction: we *tried* to give you your freedom back, but my troops only got partway into Germany before they ran into the American and British army.

I was able to bring full freedom to Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Albania. Germany at least got a half-measure of it, in the East.

It's a pity: French wine and perfume would have gone so perfectly with Cuban cigars and Stoli vodka in our Party stores.

True freedom is possible only when dictatorship of the proletariat has been achieved. The Marshall Plan set you back 40 years, and then the Americans sat on the border facing us down another 40 years.

Sorry we let you down. It's painful and I'll follow your lead in not speaking of it.

And I agree with you: the Americans ruin everything.

You would have made a fine Party member in my day, Claude. That bit about "distortions of history" was worthy of my own propagandists.

Your Uncle Joe

P.S. In my disembodied dream state (heaven is strange), I am auditing a women's studies class in Austin, Texas. Have you ever considered Lenin's coffin as phallic totem? Not sure I buy it but they've got some interesting perspectives.

I hear the terms Stalinist and Fascist bandied about a lot in here in class as if they were interchangable. Could you write them a letter or something, Claude? I killed 30 million people trying to stamp out reactionary fascism. Some days I wonder why I bothered.

Response 1 to Letter to Editor

> I cannot help but wonder
> what would the US have done if, like France between 1914-18, after 5 years
> of facing a twice more numerous enemy in a trench war just 100 miles away
> from the country’s heart, with a line of death stretching for thousands of
> miles, where each assault yielded 60% casualties and where 50% of able men
> had already perished…my answer is “white flag” unlike the French who fought
> to the end and won but paid a horrendous price.

Dear America:

I have the result of a thought experiment that may interest you. I asked myself what would have happened had you had to endure the horrors we French did in WWI. And guess what? You surrendered.

The test was conducted under the most rigorous experimental conditions: I smoked 12 Marlboro cigarettes, drank some cheap Chilean wine, and meditated on the "billions served" sign outside a McDonald's restaurant in Paris while chanting the serenity prayer.

I ran the simulation ten times before contacting you, to be sure of the result. And each time, I am sorry to say, it ended with white flags. Your troops were literally crapping their pants in four of the scenarios I ran.

Perhaps you should keep this virtual surrender in mind before you so breezily remind us of WWII?

Claude

-------------------------------------------------

Dear Michael Douglas:

If you had witnessed what Catherine Zeta-Jones was doing in my mind last night as I was hovering over the bidet, you would think twice before having another child with this woman.

Lesbian tendencies and a rather unsavory familiarity with Mini-Me.

Enough said?

She is not what she seems!!

Claude

---------------------------------------------------

Dear Claude:

What a coincidence! We have run a thought experiment of our own, on how the French military might do against an American glee club. Perhaps you would likewise be interested in the result:

France Surrenders to Texas High School

Letter to the Editor, and Four Responses to it

A French friend also forwarded me this "letter to the Editor from a French dude", which I'll reprint here because I couldn't find it online. My responses to it will follow in subsequent posts.

Dear Sir/ Madame

By solely publishing on a daily basis articles and letters describing the French as viscerally anti American and sullying the proud history of France with an avalanche of historical distortions; your Newspaper in particular and the US press in general projects abroad a very unpleasant and false image of this country’s press. Far from defending US interests this ultimately hurts them. I do not expect you to publish my letter since a quick survey of your past editorials show that the only letters making it through your politburo censorship are those of a viscerally anti French mud slinging minority who bring nothing more than insults to what should be a serious debate.

A great majority of the French, German and even English (according to UK polls showing 80% opposition to an Iraq invasion) are torn between their attachment and sympathy to the US and what they believe is a policy gone out of control by the Bush administration. Every nation in the World agrees that Saddam should be disposed of. However nobody understands the link with 9/11 because it is a well-known fact that Saddam Hussein is hated (or was hated until President Bush made him a hero) by the religious Moslems who he killed in great numbers to secure his power.

Basic knowledge of geographic, demographic, cultural, economical and geopolitical facts show that Iraq is a little country on the surface of the earth and that with Saddam gone, Iraq runs equal with West Virginia in the ranking of present and future threats to the Western world. People wonder what the CIA and all other western secret services are doing to justify their existence after they failed to kill one man despite their multi billion $ budgets. I would have personally ordered a shower of cruise missiles striking (minutes after) everything around the building where Dan Rather was interviewing Saddam, this would have saved lots of human lives, preserved Nato, saved $200 billion and not played in Bin Ladden’s dreams for the war to start and prove him right.

Nobody understands how the average US citizen, as described by the Media, seems to be so gullible to believe that one needs 200,000 men to get rid of one dictator. One of my (numerous) most conservative American friends who voted for Bush (no longer!) quoted Herman Goerings’ words (Hitler’s right arm) who when asked how it was possible to rally the masses behind war against a perceived threat said: “All you have to do is tell the people they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” My friend also told me that unlike today he never previously thought for a second that this could ever work with the inherently skeptic American. Neither did I!

I am not going to waste time defending what the US press describes as the French opposition to an immediate military campaign for the good reason that, except for a couple of tiny countries in the “New Europe” the whole world opposes it not out of genetic pacifism, cowardice or anti Americanism, as stated daily in your newspaper but just because it makes no sense to the logical mind.

At this point I would rather focus on what I perceive as being the old US mass media habit of rewriting History into a Hollywood fantasy where US defeats such as Vietnam become victories and foreign victories become USwar exploits.

To this effect The US press is very good at displaying pictures of white crosses in Normandy or jokes about French men with their arms up in the air at the slightest danger. The whole US media lives with the fantasy that the French merely “helped” George Washington defeat Britain and thereafter were constantly bailed out by the US. My goal here is not to smear the crucial help that the US provided France in the last 7 months of WW1 or ignore that the US, UK and Russia gave back France its freedom in 1945, but just to shed light on historical facts totally twisted, distorted or at best ignored by your reporters.

France “helped” George Washington: Although way more accurate than the alleged events reported in the movie "The Patriot" (where a lonely French Officer, in lieu of 10s of thousands of Frenchmen charge the British)one should mention that at the crucial battle of Yorktown there were 7,000 highly trained French troops assisted by ahuge French Navalforce under Admiral de Grasse with 10,000 men on board. This considerable deployment of French might assisted by 4,000 poorly equipped Americans defeated the English for goodgiving birth to a new nation who did not have a fighting chance without the French. This is the reason why “Cornwallis' second-in-command, Charles O'Hara, attempted to deliver Cornwallis's sword to French general, Comte de Rochambeau. But Rochambeau directed O'Hara to American General George Washington, who coolly steered the British officer to Washington's own second in command, Major General Benjamin LincolnÓ See: http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/chronicle/episode5.html I only wished that in their dealings towards the French, the US media took a hint of the chivalrousness and gallantry of the French towards the US.

Also, the US did not save France during World War 1, which is mostly a "French against German "senseless massacre. The facts are that after 976 days of official neutralitythe US declared war to Germany on April 2nd 1917 after the German sunk the Lusitania where 123 Americans perished. According to most non US written history books, American mobilization was so bungled, that the first sketchily trained draftees did not arrive in France until April 1918, a full year after the declaration of war andonly 7 months before Germany's unconditional surrender (November 11 1918)--and most had traveled in British bottoms because American shipbuilding was so pathetically disorganized. Meanwhile the troops were equipped with mostly French weapons (75 mm guns) and ammunitions. The inexperienced US troops behaved bravely and were a huge boost of confidence to the exhausted French who had bled to death and perished by the millions to stop and roll back the Germans. I cannot help but wonder what would the US have done if, like France between 1914-18, after 5 years of facing a twice more numerous enemy in a trench war just 100 miles away from the country’s heart, with a line of death stretching for thousands of miles, where each assault yielded 60% casualties and where 50% of able men had already perished…my answer is “white flag” unlike the French who fought to the end and won but paid a horrendous price. For thislate US help, the French should be very grateful but the fact is that France got the major job done on its own.

World War 2 is also aslightly different story although here, the US for a change played the biggest role with Russia and the UK. Germany declared war on the US on Dec 11 1941 and not the other way around (the US declaring war!). Please note that a depopulated and convalescent Francehad already been at war since Sept 3rd 1939 or 2 years and 3 months before the USwas finally forced to realize that Hitler was a threat! Although totally unprepared (as all the other democracies were in 1939) France alone faced the German to honor her commitment to defend Poland. Even the average biased newspaper would acknowledge the fact that the US had no army to speak of in 1939 and that given a land connection with the French battle fields, would have been crushed in 20 days; this not out of cowardice or lack of fighting ability, but because of the absence of military build up inherent to all democracies when suddenly faced with a totalitarian state who unlike them has been preparing for a while.

The English gave the French lots of moral support andsome troops which were quickly vanquished and fled at Dunkirk while the US only offered lots of sympathy. Only after 1943 did the US become a major factor after wisely observing the great job already started by the Russians (August 42 to Feb 43 Battle of Stalingrad) and with the luxury of hindsight and two years of safe military buildup far away from the war zones.

These were the historical facts.

It is also a fact that the US and France are each other's oldest allies who should both be thankful for the blood they shed for each other. Before the US mediawith it’s McCarthy era current hysteria against France finish destroying this old alliance it should give the French /Europe/the World a minimum of 2 1/4 years (WW2)and all the way up to 976 days (WW1) to try to comprehend why they shouldblindly rush to join the US in a new crusade against a tinyoppressed nationled by a maniac who is only armed with some rustingshort range rockets filled with nasty liquids unfortunately not unlike most other third world nations. The bad news is that the only winnerwill be someonecalled Bin Laden. Among the 4,000 Americans and other nationals he killed in the WTC is a friend of mine .I luckily escaped the same fate by moving out of the WTC two years earlier. Thanks to your reporting the French have now taken Bin Laden’s place as the designated enemy in US newspapers. Great service to the USA, truth and what is right. Bin Laden and hisreligious fanaticsare sure to gain million of new recruits once the US alone start its Don Quixote crusade against the wrong windmill while real foes are having a great day.

Thank you for your attention and dedication to restore sometruth in the reporting of historical facts.

A French friend forwarded me this list of countries supposedly bombed by the United States since circa 1946:

Chine 1945-46
Coree 1950-53
Chine 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesie 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Congo 1964
Perou 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodge 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Grenade 1983
Lybie 1986
El Salvador annees 1980
Nicaragua annees 1980
Panama 1989
Irak 1991-99
Soudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yougoslavie 1999

And here is my response.

So much is said, in so many ways, by this list, gleefully forwarded, one imagines, to and fro among the beautiful people of Brussels and Berlin.

Yugoslavia, for example. It somehow morphs into another bomb-happy venture by the US, omitting some slightly relevant background like the following:

• 1. Genocide was occurring.
• 2. The US dragged its feet and tried to stay out.
• 3. The Europeans couldn't muster the wherewithal to solve it themselves and begged us to get involved.

Four years later, it's another object lesson in bloodthirsty Americans vs. peace-loving Europeans. (Able to be peace-loving because they've luxuriated behind an American shield these past 50 years, one might add).

The list is taken horribly out of context to be sure, but I'm not even sure of its factual accuracy. "China (1945-46)" didn't ring a bell, for example, and it appears that even the most virulently anti-US sites listing all American adventures mention only a Marine-assisted evacuation of Americans from China in 1948-49 as the Communists were taking over. Who incidentally went on to kill over 20 million of their own citizens. But let's stay focused on important things, like U.S. sins? The only ones that count?

That the author picked 1946 as the starting date for his list shows that some few neurons of intellectual honesty and moral decency were still alive in his cranium, albeit coughing and wheezing on life support.

Those three neurons have about five more years to live, at which point I expect we will see this datum added to the list:

Germany (1942-1945)

Even now the Germans are explaining their devotion to peace by saying that, unlike the U.S., they know the horrors of war first hand. As if WWII gives them a platform to lecture us on the ways of peace. Words fail at the chutzpah.

Euros say we are paranoid for thinking our cities might be nuked and trying to do anything about it, and on the other hand if any are nuked, they will say we brought it on ourselves. Their logic is perfectly cruel, and perfectly no-win for the U.S. And this list is a perfect expression of that logic.

You have Germans likening the U.S. to mad dogs, to Nazis, to arrogant cowboys, at the same time they will be highly distressed if we remove 70,000 American troops billeted in their country. That is the quintessence of Europe, circa 2003.

Initial Thoughts on Kaplan's "Coming Anarchy"

[written to a friend who gave me the book]

I've been finally able to face reading the book, which so far I do not find wholly convincing.

When I read an analysis of sweatshops in Indonesia (not by Kaplan), and this analysis hits on the fact that as horrible as we might find those conditions, they are still superior to the workers' other options in the countryside, and it lays out how gradually over time things will improve...well, I feel like I've gotten to the bottom of the thing. It explains why workers still work there, and how countries historically have naturally evolved out of sweatshops into higher-value pursuits, etc. And it gives coherent policy prescriptions, like "cutting off trade to countries with sweatshops hurts precisely the people you're trying to help."

So far I fear Kaplan is not really getting to the bottom of anything. It's like a travelogue of horrible things he saw out his car window in African countries. He talks about how entire countries are becoming shantytowns, and yet the shantytowns that do exist keep being torn down by the government periodically. Which to me implies a more prosperous middle upset by the shantytowns, not universal anarchy and shantydom. But Kaplan gives us no insight into what forces are driving the periodic destruction: it's just one more horrible thing in his travelogue.

One thought that keeps running through my mind as I read the book is: how can the civilized world allow this to exist? I suppose it's the western intellectual (date of birth circa 1920), at it again. Who turns away in silent dismay from black on black violence, but never lets Europe forget its dark colonial past. South Africa was the epitome of evil to such a person, though blacks there had the highest standard of living in all of Africa, weren't enduring genocide, etc. There are titanic costs on humanity traceable to this 1920 model, which continues to be so irresistibly attractive to a certain type of person.

We all have a dim sense that good and evil are real and grandly present in the world, that introspection and self-mortification take one to a higher spiritual plane, that humanity deserves a peaceful and brilliant future of universal brotherhood, and that we could somehow achieve it if only we could overcome ourselves. These yearnings and intimations are explained in one way by Christianity, and in quite a different way by Western Intellectualism.

Western Intellectualism came together circa 1920 in the aftermath of WWI, with an assist from Lenin and the various socialists who felt they'd diagnosed in capitalism something intrinsically exploitative, imperialist, and expansionist.

Original sin is transferred into European capitalists, who sully a working class and a third world who'd otherwise be peaceful and decent--who in a sense aren't subject to original sin.

The specifics of why the downtrodden are victims and what should be done about it don't matter much, and have continually changed from generation to generation as the last great cause is discredited. Communism and socialism...now we're now onto environmentalism, anti-globalization, and anti-Americanism.

What endures is the instinctive posture: Western intellectuals are always in a position of criticism against the mass of their own society. They're always more sophisticated, humane, enlightened, and able to see past the prejudices of their more neanderthal countrymen.

That's the formula. It's a potent combination to PhD's in the liberal arts, for example, or to loser coffee clerks at Starbuck's. The linguistic trick of saying we're "criticizing ourselves" or "criticizing our own society" is one key part; it resonates with that deep instinct we have that such self-criticism is necessary and enlightening.

As a Christian I'd say an almost satanic substitution has taken place: under guise of self-criticism, they are actually venting all the emotions of exultant moral self-righteousness. As if they had any emotional stake in Middle America! As if it pained them to criticize it!

Another part of the formula, the pattern, is the curious inertia when it comes to action. Because they posture against benign targets that tend not to put them in prison camps, and because deep down maybe the intellectuals realize the target is not so evil...they do curiously little *about* anything. They might have called Britain a reactionary power earlier in the century, they might say Bush is a Nazi...yet they do curiously little about it. They may not mind US troops stationed in their country either. The key thing is to "take the position", then go back to living your life. That you have such positions somehow "on the table", gives you each day little psychic rewards.

That such people are largely in control in Brussels and Washington, and in the media and academia, explains much of the suffering in Africa today. They simply have nothing to *say* if a suitable target to posture against (like Israel or South Africa) can't be found. So they let a whole continent rot, and concentrate on Palestine instead. To say "maybe we should go in and run these governments" would overturn so many basic 1920 assumptions: that third worlders aren't inherently sinless and suffer from the same sins and power lust we all do...that colonialism wasn't necessarily an unmitigated evil... that we should never impose "our" way on others who have equally good ways of their own, that "we're" the problem and they're the victims. It's just too much of a mental revolution.

I think this has great explanatory power of our past policies. We can throw money at it, as long as it's motivated by guilt at how much of the world's resources we use. If the aid gets appropriated by dictators, well...that's unfortunate but not a lot to say or do there.

We're trapped in a cunningly contrived mental box that is 80 years old. The "self" criticism is one of the clever little bits that funnel the fly back in. Another is the fact we hate to criticize anyone suffering or down on their luck, in favor of someone more powerful. Bush is the latest villain puppet necessary to make the whole thing run, Iraq is the latest sad cause celebre.

I've Sneezed Things Bigger Than You

The US spends $40 billion a year on the common cold, in terms of doctor visits, cold remedies, and lost time from work.

It's really an enormous amount of time and effort when you think about it, and Turkey wants about the equivalent of that to let us use their bases for ground troops. The entire US military budget is about 9 common colds.

The "Forbidden Iron Chef" show involves actual hari kari. Here is an example in the wild.

And Tribute to None?

Turkey wants a payment of over $52 billion to allow American troops to use their country as a base for attacking Iraq:

A senior Bush administration official said American aides told the Turks that the White House's offer of $26 billion — $6 billion in grants and $20 billion in loans — was "final."

Turkey requested more than twice that sum, the official said, but President Bush made clear that he would go no higher and that time for the Turks to make a decision was short.

The entire US military budget is 379 billion dollars. Our ally Turkey wants a fee amounting to 14% of our entire annual military budget, to allow us to use its bases.

That's $136 per American citizen, or $780 per Turkish citizen. Per capita GDP there is $6,700 (as of 2001), so the US would be giving the entire nation of Turkey a 12% raise--probably more like a 20% increase or more to wage-earners, since not everyone works.

I'm not sure over what period these loans take effect or what terms they have. This is putting the impact all in one year and considering it as a payment rather than loans. Though if Turkey wanted genuine "loans", I'm sure it could raise them in the capital markets by paying the prevailing interest rates. That's not what they're after here, clearly. In any case it's an enormous sum.

I think it may be about time for us to say buh-bye to the Eastern Hemisphere: declare our neutrality in mideastern affairs, remove our troops from Europe and the mideast, cut off aid to Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, etc., and let those on the scene (Europe, India, Russia, Turkey) deal with their neighbors themselves.

America is not on the scene and does not have large Muslim populations in its cities. We're also somewhat less dependant on mideast oil than Europe. We can defect in this prisoner's dilemma in a way Europe and India cannot.

The era of America as occasional global cop may, by popular demand, be coming to a close. I suspect people may find they do not like the alternative, but they will have earned it.

France Threatens Eastern Europe

What's French for "condescension"?

French President Jacques Chirac launched a withering attack Monday on eastern European nations who signed letters backing the U.S. position on Iraq, warning it could jeopardize their chances of joining the European Union.

"It is not really responsible behavior," he told a news conference. "It is not well brought up behavior. They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet."

And Chirac issues a not-so-thinly veiled threat to toe the German/French line:

Romania and Bulgaria were particularly irresponsible to (sign the letter) when their position is really delicate," Chirac said. "If they wanted to diminish their chances of joining Europe they could not have found a better way."

Eastern Europe agrees with the bulk of the EU in supporting the war (Spain, UK, Italy, Portugal, and Denmark). But France may avenge itself on Eastern Europe by vetoing their membership. The impression I have is that any EU country can veto the admission of a new member. Typically gallic behavior: decrying threats and unilateralism, but using them liberally when it suits them.

But what is Eastern Europe supposed to do? It agrees with some EU members, disagrees with others, and everyone has a veto. France seems to have an underlying presumption that France and Germany, by rights, speak for Europe, no matter how badly they're outnumbered.

Can you imagine Bush telling Chirac and Schroeder they're "not well brought up" and "missed a good opportunity to keep quiet"? There'd be popped veins in foreheads! Heart attaques!

It's amazing the French can talk so breezily and often of American "arrogance", when their President talks to Eastern European countries as if he's lecturing a child.

Double standards on behavior continue. The only constant: Uncle Sam is an arrogant war-mongering cowboy we can all dislike. It's like c, the speed of light, constant under any experimental conditions.

Both Sides

• He has no proven WMD, and might use them if we attack.
• Invasion and occupation will be ruinously expensive, and is motivated by greed for oil dollars.
• Inspections are good and can work, and the flexing of American military muscle that allowed them to resume is unhelpful, cowboy, and arrogant.

There is something deeply debased about those who can argue both sides of these mutually exclusive propositions. They worship not the goddess Reason, but the troll Spite.

Why Bishop Spong Must Change

From the very first page of Bishop Spong's book Why Christianity Must Change or Die:

I define myself above all other things as a believer. I am indeed a passionate believer. God is the ultimate reality of my life. I live in a constant and almost mystical awareness of the divine presence. I sometimes think of myself as one who breathes the very air of God...

And for my part, I have an almost mystical awareness of the fact this man is a poseur.

That's how saints go through life, not ordinary sinners. None of the more saintly people I've met have ever talked like that. Nor have I found such talk in the writings of saints. They might be extremely grateful to God for the peace and joy He's given them, but only after they've told you what wretches they were, which makes their gratitude the greater and the grace the more amazing.

But we soon see the reason for Spong's cringe-worthy testimony to his own piety: it's a rhetorical device, and I shudder for him that he'd bandy talk of such matters for such a cheap purpose. On the next page he's going to flat-out deny the Nicene Creed, the basic statement of Christian belief, and he's establishing his credentials as a believer first. He's like the racist saying "some of my best friends are black...", before he hits us with this:

The words of the Apostles' Creed and its later expansion known as the Nicene Creed, were fashioned inside a worldview that no longer exists. Indeed, it is quite alien to the world in which I live. The way reality was perceived when the Christian creeds were formulated has been obliterated by the expansion of knowledge. If the God I worship must be identified with these ancient creedal words in any literal sense, God would become for me not just unbelievable, but in fact no longer worthy of being the subject of my devotion...We are that silent majority of believers who find it increasingly difficult to be members of the Church and still be thinking people.

I fail to connect this to the Nicene Creed itself. It's as if Spong has some straw man creed in mind in which God is literally an old white man with a beard, and the sun revolves around the earth. Here's the entire Creed:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

I find it amazing that such a long and detailed statement, almost two millennia later, is so unobjectionable. Does Spong simply feel it's impossible God once took human form? The God who stoops to such constant and intimate connection with Spong-- is Spong privy to an almost mystical knowledge of His limitations?

Spong says if parts of the Creed are true in "any literal sense", such a God is "unworthy of belief". Again, I don't get it. Is an aloof clockmaker God who winds up the universe and lets it run worthy of Spong's belief, in a way an intervening God is not?

Does Spong pray to a clockmaker God? Does he pray at all? Perhaps in some respects he'd be more comfortable as a Muslim: they also seek an almost mystical awareness of God while denying the divinity of Christ.