The Citizens

Bell Curve

The Law Talking Guy

Raised by Republicans

U.S. West

Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Oh, you mean that swastika?

New York Times today:

"Britain's royal family could hardly be described as immune to slips and stumbles and scandals, but even by those standards, Prince Harry, son of Princess Diana, grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and third in line to the throne, has broken new ground. After photographs of him wearing a Nazi swastika at a private fancy dress party appeared in the British tabloid The Sun today, Jewish groups from Los Angeles to Jerusalem registered protest and some people called for him to visit the Auschwitz death camp to understand why his party clothes caused such deep offense."

Um... oops?

Deliverance

Koala Boy brought to my attention an LA Times article concerning an Australian who is being released from Guantanamo: Detainee Says U.S. Handed Him over for Torture. The article says that while official testimony/investigations show about 18 terrorism suspects have been "rendered" to Middle Eastern nations, the actual number is far higher.

"Officials say the CIA's role has varied widely, from providing electronic and other covert surveillance before raids to flying blindfolded terrorism suspects from one country to another on a Gulfstream jet the agency uses.

"It's a growth industry," said a recently retired CIA clandestine officer who worked on several "renditions" in the Arab world. "We rendered a lot of people to Egypt, Jordan and the Saudis in particular…. Ultimately, the agency just wants these people to disappear forever."

I'm appalled by this, as I assume most of The Citizens are. My question is: if such "terrorism suspects" are in fact foreigners captured on foreign soil, is the CIA doing anything in violation of U.S., foreign, or international law? If the CIA is not acting in any official capacity, isn't this called "kidnapping"? If the CIA just "renders" them to foreign governments with no instructions and never inquires what has become of them, aren't they still liable for what happens to them in some way, like sending Jews back to Nazi Germany (didn't we do that at some point)?

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

A Crash Course in Space Exploration

On Friday, January 14th, the Huygens space probe (successfully detached from Cassini on Christmas day) will land on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. It will take a 2-hour plunge through the atmosphere and, if it survives the plunge, hits solid ground, and survives the crash, it may last for a few minutes. The entire Cassini-Huygens mission is estimated to end up costing $3.25 billion by the time it wraps up 2008.

Another NASA space probe, "Deep Impact," launched today and will smash into the compet Tempel 1 on July 4th. Scientists are hoping to blow a stadium-sized hole in the large comet to see what's inside. Amusingly, the payload for Deep Impact includes a CD-ROM with half a million names on it, of people who apparently wanted their names vaporized in a 23,000 mph collision with a heavenly body. This mission will cost $330 million all told.

So are these projects worth the money? Don't get me wrong--I love that we're funding 'em--but justifying the fun isn't so easy. There are tangible benefits to the space program, mostly in terms of technologies developed, but if that were the goal, we could just invest the money directly in technology development instead. The only real way to justify space exploration I can think of is to wave your hands, appeal to history, destiny, and the love of adventure, and argue that increasing our knowledge of the universe is a worthy endeavor in and of itself.

And believe me, NASA has become an expert at doing just that, but all they've been able to do with 40 years of propaganda is just about keep their budget stable--even with Bush's "new" push to land on Mars, oh, sometime before the Second Coming. Well, perhaps this new trend of crashing our spacecraft into rocks at high speeds will bring the NASCAR dads onboard.

Comments? Discussion? :)

Monday, January 10, 2005

The Republic

In our recent heated debate about partisan versus non-partisan methods to make the politics of failure work again I mentioned that Dr. Strangelove’s proposals seemed (at least to me) to be reminiscent of Plato’s Republic. I’m not trying to start another fight about Dr. Strangelove’s arguments. But I do think The Republic is an interesting subject for discussion. What follows is merely a brief introduction to The Republic and barely even that. I’m not a political theorist and I’m sure I’m leaving many important things out.

In The Republic, Plato lays out (through the hypothetical words of his mentor Socrates) his ideal form of government. Society will be divided into categories of people who will be bread by the state to be optimally adapted to their role in the society. Workers bred to work. Soldiers bred to fight. “Guardians” bred to rule. Guardians are the wisest in society, the ones who know what is best for the community.

“So the state founded on natural principles is wise as a whole in virtue of the knowledge inherent in its smallest constituent part or class, which exercises authority over the rest. And it appears further that the naturally smallest class is the one which is endowed with that form of knowledge which alone of all others deserves the title of wisdom.” (Part 5, Book 4, section 429).

The Guardians attain their rank by birth initially but must spend their childhoods passing tests and trials and must follow strict rules: Guardians own no private property. Guardians have no home or storehouse to which all shall not have access. Food shall be provided to them as an “agreed upon wage” for the Guardians.

And how would these Guardians be prevented from abusing their position? Plato advocates the creation of a state religion. “They must be told that they have no need of mortal and material gold and silver, because they have in their hearts the heavenly gold and silver given them by the gods as permanent possession, and it would be wicked to pollute the heavenly gold in their possession by mixing it with earthly, for theirs is without impurity, while the currency among men is a common source of wickedness.” (Part 4, Book 3, section 416e).

One might think that this merely a utopian speculation. But in Plato’s time, Greek states assumed many of the powers that he discusses. For example, Spartan children were taken over and raised by the state. Indeed, Plato’s form of government is based in part on Spartan principles. To Plato, this was a serious proposal of a practical form of government.

This approach to establishing good government was widely followed for nearly two thousand years. Macheivelli is part of that tradition, as are the advocates of the divine right of kings. In the 18^th century a new approach arose based on individual preferences and laws. These philosophers (Locke, Jefferson, Madison etc) no longer think of selecting or creating the best possible types of governing elites. Instead they dream of creating institutions capable to getting the most out of who ever gains office. Which leads me to the Federalist Papers which I have posted about before and probably will again.

"Cheerleaders all over America form pyramids"

Koala Boy just brought this article to my attention: Prisoner pyramid a "control techinque." You need to read it. The lawyer defending one of the soldiers charged in the abuses at Abu Ghraib says there's nothing wrong with what was shown in the pictures. He likens the scenes to cheerleading pyramids and the tethers some people use to keep track of their children! I'll bet it is going to be all over Al Jazeera, although here we're just reporting on the local rainstorm...

1 Dead in La Concita Landslide

Yes, yes, I know that getting killed in a landslide is nothing to laugh about, but when several U.S. soldiers are being killed practically every day in Iraq, and tens of thousands are still starving in the aftermath of the tsunami, and even a dozen other people have already died from the storms over the weekend in California, I thought the L.A. times front page headline I saw this afternoon (the caption for this post) was hysterical.

I Guess We'd Better Buy More Lottery Tickets

Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget plan was released today. The education portion of it is what we all predicted: when faced with the choice of raising taxes or hurting California's already beleaguered schools, he has chosen the latter.

Last year, Schwarzenegger got education officals to suspend Prop 98 to give $2 billion to the general fund, with the understanding they would be repaid. Now, not only is he not repaying it, but he wants to suspend Prop 98 again. Naturally, educators are crying foul. In his defense, the governor argues that in his budget overall spending on schools will still increase (though it is unclear if this is in real dollars).

The 800-pound gorilla standing in the room that nobody wants to talk about is Prop 13. Tax cuts are not free: they are darned expensive. They're costing the future of California's children. I think the Democrats can make the argument--if they are bold enough--that this is too high a price to pay.

An In-gene-eous Plan

An article in today's NY Times, To Try to Net a Killer, Police Ask a Small Town's Men for DNA, pokes at some interesting questions. The gist of it is that the police in Truro, MA are stumped and are asking (politely) every man in town to give them a DNA sample (the police are sitting in sub shops and waiting at the postal counter, ready with swabs).

This is not a new concept. The article mentions that these mass DNA collection drives have been used successfully in England and Germany, including a case in 1998 when they collected 16,400 samples and found the man who'd raped and murdered an 11-year old girl (the man also confessed afterward.) It's also been done in this country before.

The program is "voluntary," but the police are clear that they will, "pay close attention to," those who do not provide a sample. The police sergeant said they were, "trying to find that person who has something to hide." This aspect of the DNA sweep is mostly what has offended some residents, who called in the ACLU. It's worth noting that after a similar sweep in Baton Rouge last year, the samples were kept on file, and now 1,200 men are suing to have them destroyed.

Question for our legal scholars: how does this sit with the constitution? While I appreciate the police's dilemma, this certainly seems to be on the border of the law. On the other hand, if everyone were required to give a DNA sample to the DMV as a matter of course, wouldn't that be essentially the same thing? And don't we do something like that with fingerprints?

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Framing Social Insecurity

The NY Times reports that Bush is trying to build momentum for his Social Security (SocSec) privatization plans by, "searing into the public consciousness," that we are on a, "fiscally unsustainable," course (quotes are from a White House memo). They want us to believe we are facing a "crisis" and the system cannot be patched--the only thing responsible, farsighted people can do is create individual savings accounts. Unless the Democrats start framing the debate over SocSec better--and fast--seniors will be bamboozled into not mobilizing their considerable political muscle to oppose it. Here are some thoughts on how to do this.

1. Never call this sense of urgency a "crisis;" call it "frightening seniors." There is no crisis; everyone agrees that SocSec is projected to be solvent until at least 2042 or 2052. "Stop frightening seniors, Mr. President. Our seniors deserve better than to be treated like this."

2. Never say that SocSec is "broken," "bankrupt," or, "insolvent;" say that it is a "great system" that "will need our help to keep going, as it always has." Say that when it needed help in the 80s, our parents shouldered that responsibility and made sure it was still here. Now it's our turn. Say that the system has been going strong for four generations of seniors and it is still the "best thing" we have ever done for our parents. Think of Bob Dole and repeat after me: "We have the best Social Security system in the world. We have the best Social Security system in the world. We have the best..."

3. Never call SocSec a "program;" call it a "promise." The promise was that if you work hard and play by the rules, when you retire you are guaranteed a decent income for the rest of your life. It never runs out and it doesn't matter what the hell the stock market is doing. "You kept your promise with your elders when you were younger, and today's youth will keep their promise to you."

4. Never say that Bush is "reforming" SocSec; say he's "giving up" on it. Never say he's "overhauling" it; say he's "abandoning it." Say that it's our "job" to keep this promise, and, "we will do whatever it takes to make the system work. We will never give up on our parents' future or our children's. We can make sure this promise will always be there if we make that a priority." Say that this isn't how we keep promises, and we can do better than that.

5. Never say "privatize;" use the word "end" or "ruin." Saying you are going to privatize SocSec to make individual retirement accounts is like saying you are going to "burgerize" a cow to make individual meals. It may sound mighty tasty, but trust me: after you do that, there ain't no cow no more. It is shortsighted and doesn't look to the future.

6. Never say Bush is "building the future" of SocSec; say he's "turning back the clock." FDR invented it after the great depression so that seniors who had saved all their lives would never lose their retirement again. All he's doing is turning back the clock to a time when you had to fend for yourself.

7. Never say Bush is "letting" Americans "invest" in their own retirement; say he's, "leaving us no choice," but to, "gamble our retirement away on the stock market." The stock market--can you believe it? Didn't we learn that lesson in 1929? Maybe the Bushes did OK during the depression, but a lot of people did not. His plan may sound good to an MBA, but in the real world, seniors can't afford to take this kind of risk with their retirement. Let Bush invest his own money in the stock market and let seniors keep their social security.

I think this message could really work.

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Would You Like Falafel With That?

Elections in Afghanistan concluded last month; elections will be held in Palestine tomorrow (Jan. 7th); and elections are scheduled for Iraq on Jan. 30th... what a politically fascinating time it is for the Arab world! And yet they all have a few things in common. They all have a U.S. backed candidate (Karzai, Abbas, Allawi) on the menu who is already in power. There is no suspense regarding who will win. And all three victors will face an uphill battle against military insurgencies in their nations. And so the question on everybody's mind is: will these elections make any difference?

I don't hold out much hope for the Palestian elections because of the tremendous power and popular support that Hamas and other murderous groups have who will continue to kill regardless of any peace overtures the elected leader may make. And Karzai is largely on his own, holed up in Kabul, while the vast rural areas of his nation turn into a Columbia-style narco-state before his very eyes. But believe it or not, I have hope for the Iraqi elections. Let me explain.

I am wondering if one aspect of the conventional wisdom regarding the deployment of US troops in Iraq may be wrong. Even the Democrats have been reluctant to set a firm date for withdrawal--but I wonder if might not be precisely what we need to do! If we made a firm committment to exit in, say, 12 months, that would give us time to train Iraqi forces while making it 100% clear that we were going to leave.

Remember: the only reason the Iraqi insurgency is having any success is that the Iraqi people support it--because they want us to go away. Perhaps the insurgency would lose some of its popular support if the people had a good reason to believe that no such violence was necessary to get us to leave. Furthermore, it would make them start paying more attention to the Iraqi government, which many of them (rightly, I suspect) believe isn't really calling the shots yet.

I respect Allawi and I think he knows how to negotiate with the relgious and military factions. The key is for the elections to feel reasonably legitimate to the people of Iraq. A landslide victory for Allawi would make questions of the exact balance of Shia/Sunni voters irrelevant. Although today's New York Times suggests that the whole-nation (no districts) voting plan for the parliament may "distort" the legislature by failing to elect "enough" Sunnis, since they live in areas where there is a lot of violence that may dissuade them from voting... consider the alternative.

Wouldn't a person elected from a such a district alone appear even more illegitimate? And I admit I sort of feel that since the Sunnis are the ones supporting the terrorists more than the other groups, it's kinda their own fault that there is violence in their own towns. If they wanted to stop it, they could. The insurgency could not be alive without a network of supporters and tacit support from their communities.

I admit it may be naive, but I think it is vital that the occur ASAP (on schedule) regardless of the violence, because a legitimate Iraqi goverment may be the only thing that can stop it. Yes, once we leave, maybe a civil war will break out between the factions--who can say? But that will be a different matter, not related to the current insurgency and foreign terrorist activities.

Friday, January 07, 2005

Reason #251 to Abolish the Electoral College

From today's LA Times:

Kerry won 252 electoral votes, but an apparent error by a Minnesota elector reduced his official tally by one vote. When Minnesota's 10 electors officially cast their votes for president in December, one apparently mistakenly entered the name of then-Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Kerry's running mate. So Edwards officially received one vote for president.

Let's try to picture this: you are 1 of the only 535 United States citizens who is actually allowed to vote for the President, you have just one tiny job to do to fulfill your sacred Constitutional duty... and you go ahead and f*ck it up. So what happened? Had the esteemed Elector already forgotten which John was at the top of the ticket in the 6 weeks since the election was held? Was the Minnesota delegation using the butterfly ballot? Did someone forget to darken the oval next to the name?

Can anyone give me a rationale for keeping the Electoral College? And even if you can come up with one (there are many clever political scientists on this blog)... do you truly believe it?

I was in my car, listening to NPR, when I heard that the Senator who joined Representative Stephanie Tubbs in objecting to the counting of Ohio's electoral votes was Barbara Boxer, and I actually cheered. (I talk to my radio sometimes.) It was sweet to hear that a feisty Jewish grandmother from my home state interrupted the joint session of Republican triumphalism to force Congress to address the issue of voting irregularities, if only for a couple of hours. Because even if we abolish the Electoral college, we're going to have to change how we conduct national elections if Americans are going to trust them again.

How sad is it that in our great democracy we permit partisan elections officials in each state to design, distribute, and tally the ballots? How sad is it that we let them handle all registration and eligibility issues for voters as well? (And not just for the national elections, but often for their own jobs as well! Think foxes and henhouses.) And then we are shocked--shocked!--to find, as we saw in Ohio, that they put a few, old voting machines in poorly staffed polling places in the precincts likely to vote against them (ensuring long lines and mechanical failures), while they put lots of fresh new voting machines in the precincts where their supporters live. And we also discover that registration forms for some "enemy" voters mysteriously get lost. Truly, if Bush had proposed a system for electing the Iraqi Governing Council in which the local warlords ran the elections, he would have been laughed out of the White House.

I'm sure that Boxer & Tubbs' (sounds like a good buddy cop movie, huh?) little stunt will be forgotten by tomorrow. I only hope that it signals a willingness on the Democrats' part to finally put this issue of fraudulent or unfair elections processes near the top of their agenda in Washington.

[And on a personal note, my thanks to The Citizens for adding me to their blog!]

Thursday, January 06, 2005

The Right Wing by any Other Name

Governor Schwarzenegger of California ran for office with a fantasyland pledge: no new taxes, no cuts to education or other critical programs. He immediately backed down this pledge -- no, not the taxes part, the "no cuts" part. He made separate deals (bypassing the legislature) with K-12, Community colleges, theCal-State system, and the UC system asking for cuts, but promising no more. Swayed by his celebrity status and popularity, a popularity buoyed by the fact that nobody would oppose him, the deals were made. The Governator also asked for a "one time" $15 billion deficit bond, again bypassing the legislature. Not a bond to fund capital projects, but a bond to fund current expenditures. Again, he made the fantasyland pledge that this would solve everything. Again nobody opposed him.

Now we have a $8 billion deficit. The Gov's new financial guru (finance minister?) Tom Campbell, a snake whom I know personally, has broken all the pledges, save the only one he ever really meant: no new taxes. Tom Campbell's trademark is pretending to be a moderate while actually pushing a hard-right agenda. As a professor, Campbell would go to shocking underhanded lengths in order to injure the careers of liberal students, all the while pretending to be a moderate or a bipartisan figure (by not being a total bigot on social issues). He's made a career out of it. The Gov's association with Tom Campbell is disappointing, and has produced the expected, sad result: a thoroughly right-wing set of priorities presented by supposedly moderate figures. The new plan: cut billions from education and pensions for employees.

It seems that the Democrats may now be willing to call a spade a spade, and fight the Governator on these broken pledges. Perhaps somebody will, at last, call the Arnold Schwarzenegger on being a self-made millionaire and model immigrant. He took tons of illegal drugs (steroids and god knows what else) to help him create a freaky body which he has exhibited on television and movies for money. He has also participated in the bodybuilding industry, in which heavy-steroid-using persons sell insecure young men on the potential of building tremendous bodies by purchasing their magazines using their supplements and vitamin projects. He made his other money running restaurants employing illegal immigrants and paying minimum wage (or less). Not a hero.

Perhaps Democrats will point out the real problems with Arnold's right wing politics, and lay off the trumped-up-sounding accusations that during his drugged up bodybuilding days of the 1970s, he inappropriately touched some women (don't women's groups realize these actually burnish his tough-guy image by 'proving' he's not gay, which is a constant issue for bodybuilders, whose lives revolve around obsession with physical appearance and masculine beauty).

The question is whether the Democrats will expose Arnold for who he really is. Can they take on the Hollywood PR? Maybe so. Hollywood preaches that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Not true in politics.

Long Term Response To Tsunami

Hi Everyone,

OK, the immediate response: shock - apathy - disgust - horror - guilt - compassion - self satisfaction is drawing to a conclusion. The world is beginning to turn to long term solutions. My favorite starting place for a debate on the long term response to global poverty and living standards is the Copenhagen Consensus. Check it out!

Tony Blair has begun pushing for debt forgiveness for the stricken countries. Good idea. Blair has been pushing debt forgiveness for the developing countries world wide for a while now and he seems to be taking a page from the Book of Bush here - namely use traumatic events as a justification for actions you've advocated for years before the trauma.

I would add my little pet peeve here too. If we in the developed world want to really help the people of South and South East Asia the best thing we can do is end agricultural subsidies. Here is an article about how agricultural subsidies are distributed in the United States. Rich farmers get most of the subsidies and rice growers (grown in the south) and cotton growers (grown in the south) are the disproportionate beneficiaries of subsidies. Agricultural subsidies are the Republican Party's secret weapon for getting out the rural vote in the South especially. If the GOP is for it, progressive people should seriously consider being against it. Here is what OXFAM says these subsidies are doing to Mexican farmers. Of course, Mexico isn't in South Asia but it has a very similar relationship to trade and the developed world. Ag subsidies are not the exclusive domain of the United States. The EU's system is at least as bad, as is Australia's. This is one of a number of situations where the pro-market approach is actually the most progressive. These subsidies disrupt the market in ways that benefit the rich at the expense of the working poor throughout the world both "North" and "South". They also create incentives for illegal migration as farmers from developing countries are put out of business by unfair trade practices and go "North" looking for work.

So what do the Citizens and friends think about other long term solutions? What do you think of these two?

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Religion and US Media Coverage of the Tsunami

Hi Again,

Many of you may have noticed that while the overwhelming majority of victims of the tsunami are South and South East Asians, most of the people being interviewed by the US media are either Americans or other westerners. One announcer on CNN had the decency to be embarrassed about it and try to make an excuse about not having access to anyone else (what ever happened to investigative journalism??). I've begun to notice another development. The few non-western people being interviewed have an strong tendency to be Christians. CNN even did a prolonged interview with a guy from Sri Lanka who believes he stopped the tsunami in mid air by shouting Bible verses at it. Another story about 2 widowed sisters made a point of mentioning that they were Christians. Interviews with aid organizations and refugee centers have been predominantly run by Christians. Prayer vigils among the Sri Lankan immigrant community in the USA are shown to be led by Christian ministers. I have watched A LOT of this coverage since I'm on vacation and I have not seen any interviews with Buddhist, Hindu or Muslim clergy (check out recent cartoons by Danziger on the link to the right). From the coverage one might get the impression that Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand have large Christian populations. I have to admit, I didn't know for sure and I've heard that South Korea actually does have a surprisingly high percentage of Christians....so I looked it up in an atlas I got on sale at a local book store. Here are the religious affiliation percentages for the most seriously effected countries:

Indonesia: 86.9% Muslim, 9.6% Christian, 1.9% Hindu, 1% Buddhist, .6% other
Thailand: 94.4% Buddhist, 4% Muslim, .5% Christian
Sri Lanka: 69.3% Buddhist, 15.5% Hindu, 7.6% Muslim, 7.5% Christian, .1% other
India: 80% Hindu, 14% Muslim, 2.4% Christian, 2% Sikh, .7% Buddhist, .5% Jain, .4% other
Maldives: 100% Sunni Muslim

There are some Christians but they are nothing like a large part of the population.

Comments? Discussion?

Thursday, December 30, 2004

US Reaction to Tsunami

Hi Everyone,

Well, as the death toll spirals upward, it is perhaps a bit early to talk seriously about the political reaction to this global disaster. After an initial pledge of 15 million was regarded with disgust, the Bush administration upped the pledge to 35 million and announced a plan to form a long term alliance or "coalition" to respond to the disaster. This "coalition" (catchy name TBA) includes the United States, Japan, India and Australia. OK, so aside from the P.R. aspects of this move, what is its political impact?

I think that this is an concerted effort by the Bush administration to undermine the U.N.'s role in humanitarian relief. Just as Iraq under cut the U.N.'s role as a collective security organization, this is an effort to make the U.N. irrelevant in humanitarian relief as well. I believe this is seen by the neo-cons as an opportunity to further their "Realist" agenda (see the first posting I put up on this blog). They have a strong ideological commitment to the dominance of nation states in general (as opposed to international organizations) and the United States in particular.

I saw an interview with Bob Barr on CNN where he argued that the U.N. was too corrupt to be trusted with American humanitarian relief contributions and that the United States should (and would) focus more on "bi-lateral" government to government aid transfers.

I'm interested in what the other Citizens and our visitors think not only about the US reaction but about political implications of this disaster both with regards to the US and "the West" and in the countries actually hit by the tsunami.

Monday, December 27, 2004

Tsunami

Hi Everyone,

Our intent in setting up this blog was to focus mainly on political issues. However, there are natural disasters that are so enormous in their devastating effect that they are impossible to ignore.

The day after Christmas one of the largest earthquakes the planet has ever experienced (the 4th largest since we started measuring and recording them) hit the sea floor west of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. The quake spawned a series of tsunami that traveled at hundreds of miles per hour across the Indian ocean devastating the cost lines of countries from Indonesia and Thailand to India and Sri Lanka to Somalia and Kenya! Sri Lanka appears to be the worst hit. The current death count is over 21 thousand but many of the worst hit areas still are out of contact with the outside world. Also, the waves roll in, destroy everything and then suck it all out to sea so many victims will never be recovered. In countries without good census data, the true death toll may never be known. Over a million people are known to be homeless so far. There are entire islands in the Maldives that have been completely out of communication since the tsunami struck.

Destruction on this scale MUST have a political effect in the countries involved. These are some of the poorest parts of some very poor countries. Regional economies have literally been swept away. Some of the worst hit areas of Sri Lanka are not under government control but are under the control of the infamous Tamil Tiger terrorist group. This will likely disrupt efforts to determine the extent of the damage and deliver aid.

The truly sad part is that Americans will likely never hear of this event again after a few days. Consider the American reaction to 9/11 in which 3,000 people died. That relatively minor event sparked years of paranoia, political debate, nationalism, war and a surge in religious fundamentalism.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Bush, Democracy and Democratization

Hi Everyone,

Bush is very fond of saying that elections in Iraq are an important milestone because "free people never choose tyranny." Well, as a political scientist my first reaction to this statement is always, "WHA!?" I found a neat little website that gives some entertaining factoids about democracy.

Among other things it gives a little list of democratic regimes that have been replaced by dictators. Note especially the following:

Spain 1923 and 1936: a democratic government was overthrown first by a coup d'etat and then, after a brief democratic restoration, by Franco who had widespread support in many regions of Spain.
Italy 1926: Mussolini was elected
Poland 1926: Polish general and dictator, Pilsudski was elected before taking dictatorial power.
Germany 1933: Adolf Hitler was elected
Argentina 1843, 1966: Like many Latin American countries Argentina has had the pattern of election-coup-election-coup.
Chile 1973: Pinochet installed with US support.
India 1975: elected PM, Indira Ghandi declares martial law and rules by decree for two years

The list is longer but I think this points to the idiocy of Bush's statement about democracy and tyranny. Many democracies have slipped back into dictatorships, especially if they have not been democracies for very long. The website has a GREAT page here that gives a little map showing the transitions from democracy to dictatorship in Europe during the interwar period. Note: these transitions DO NOT INCLUDE INVASIONS BY GERMANY OR ITALY!

What does all this show? It shows how the Bush/Neo-con view of democracy and democratization is superficial and largely incorrect.

Sunday, December 12, 2004

The Economist Says LTG Wrong About Putin

Hi Everyone,

Since we all seem more interested in arguing about stuff over which we have little control instead of commenting on massively important tax code changes, I'll pick another fight.

This week's Economist has a series of articles about Russia's President/Dictator-to-be, Vladimir Putin. You can link to their opinion piece here. There are links to the other Economist articles on Putin buried within the opinion piece. Here is an interesting extended quotation from The Economist.

"That Mr Putin is more of an autocrat than a democrat has been clear ever since he became Russia's president in 2000. Yet after the chaos of the Yeltsin years, many hoped that he would at least bring order, a respect for property rights and the rule of law—and that, in time, these might permit the institutions of a liberal democracy to take root. Such hopes led many European leaders to reach out to Mr Putin, and refrain from criticism over matters as the war in Chechnya, human rights or press freedom....In truth, hopes that political pluralism might emerge in Russia were dashed even before Mr Putin's party swept to a two-thirds majority in Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma, last December, and before Mr Putin himself was overwhelmingly re-elected in March. His snuffing out of all independent television and most independent newspapers, his hounding of wealthy businessmen (the “oligarchs”) who crossed him, and his rigging of elections all testified to the controlling instincts that one might expect in a former KGB officer. His connivance in the attempt to steal Ukraine's presidential election, his interference in Abkhazia, a Russian-sponsored part of Georgia, and in Moldova, and his support for the dictatorship in Belarus show that he applies these instincts not just in Russia but across the former Soviet Union, the break-up of which he has publicly regretted. Worse, his instinctive response to criticisms of Russian policy in its near-abroad has been to relapse into general hostility to the West. The West, in turn, has become frostier."

I think this pretty well sums up LTG's position on Putin. In earlier postings he defended Putin more or less exactly the way the Economist describes. At the same time, those of us who were critical of Putin were critical because of the military adventurism and oppression of political opposition and press freedoms that The Economist references.

Comments? Discussion?

Monday, December 06, 2004

Red State Blue State Your State Screwed State

Hi Everyone,

If you guys thought that the Republicans were ONLY about God, Gays and Guns, here is some evidence that they may be just as much about robbing from highly educated, thriving economies in largely Democratic and swing states to subsidize public subsidies and services in their under educated, uncompetitive agricultural economies.

Now, it is well known (or should be) that the states that depend most on Federal handouts tend to be in the Deep South (plus Alaska) and tend to vote for Republicans. States like California generate far more revenue for the Federal government in the form of taxes than it receives back in Federal money. So what we have is a situation where Democrats are subsidizing Republicans' life styles while those same Republicans publicly espouse an ideology of self-reliance and small government.

One of the features of our tax code that takes some of the bite out of that is the fact that we can deduct some of our state income taxes from our federal income tax bill. However, the Bush administration is currently looking at ending that deduction in an effort to raise revenue without appearing to raise taxes.

This move would mostly hit people in Democratic leaning states and swing states. Many of the solidly Republican states have very low or non-existent state income taxes (why would you need a state income tax when you get such a disproportionate share of the Federal money!?). So this move would have the effect of increasing the tax burden on voters in Democratic and swing states without first looking at reducing things like agricultural subsidies (which are at record breaking highs now) or raising the overall federal income tax rate.

This is nothing short of a naked and cynical attempt to pick the pockets of political opponents to finance pork barrel projects for your political supporters. Its nothing new in politics and I'm far from shocked. But as a resident in a Democratic state - who will almost certainly never live in a state with no or low state income tax because they have crappy public universities (Texas being the lone star exception to this because of the oil probably) - I'm outraged.

Keep in mind that if you voted for Bush but live in a state where most of your neighbors did not, you are also going to get screwed by this move! In that case, it serves you right!

I encourage you all to write your congressional reps and Senators. If this gets blocked it will be by the House - where the population advantages of the so called "Blue States" are most important. The Senate favors agricultural interests which would benefit from this.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Amending

I have gone on record in this blog saying that I didn't want to see the Constitution amended for anything but ditching the Electoral College. But I have changed my mind. There's another idea floating around right now that I'm starting to like -- amending to allow foreign-born naturalized citizens to become President.

Now I know what you're thinking -- this is the Arnold amendment, right? After all, the most popular website promoting this idea is AmendforArnold.com. (The site is also billing it as an amendment for Gov. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, but I think this is just to pretend to be bipartisan). Well, maybe in the short run, this is the Arnold amendment. But that's why we have to do it now.

Huh?

Think about it. In the short run, passage of this amendment might lead to Arnold Schwarzenegger being elected President. However, that is far from a certainty (especially given the recent evangelical tilt of the Republican party) and it is good for America in the long run. Moreover, this may be the only chance we ever have of getting conservatives on board for this amendment.

So what do we think? Is the possible short-term pain worth the long-term gain?

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