Obsidian Wings

Viva L'Espana

I'm heading over to Madrid in about a week, on art business, and have been wondering how different it will be since my last visit. I've been concerned that there would be inescapable heartbreaking remnants of the bombings (my hotel and the gallery of good friends I'll be visiting are both near Atocha) and that the anti-American sentiment would be even higher than during my last visit (when I marched in an anti-war rally). I'd rather not have every conversation about politics require I distance myself from this or that policy before I'm given the benefit of doubt that I'm not "the enemy." (I had a cab driver last time who I thought was going to dump me in the middle of nowhere unless I gave her the answers she wanted.) Honestly, I've been worried my visit would be anything but cheerful.

Until I read this, that is (via bloggy):

Spain's defense minister on Tuesday rejected Pope John Paul II's criticism of its Socialist government, which wants to legalize gay marriage and streamline laws on divorce and abortion, and he said some church positions go against the teachings of Jesus Christ.

"Faith is not something a government can impose. It is not something that it is up to the state, but rather to people," Defense Minister Jose Bono told Spanish radio, the news agency Efe reported.

He said some of the church's positions, such as its opposition to homosexuality and use of condoms, go against the message of Jesus Christ, according to the report.

"Today, Christ would be more worried about the 25,000 children who die each day of hunger or in wars. I think Christ would side with those who are peaceful," Bono was quoted as saying.

While I'm not sure Bono is quite the theologian he may think he is, I love his attitude. More governments around the world should tell religious leaders that they need to appeal directly to people, not to their governent leaders, to make their case. Bullying states is repugnant and disrespectful of the separation that defines our most successful democracies.

I think I'm going to have a fine time in Madrid again.

"The Evil Principle of Democracy"

There were many unofficial Democratic responses to President Bush's superb inaugural address (one of which I'll hone in on further down), but there was no official Democratic response. There was, however, an official terrorist response from none other than un-Iraqian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

"We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," said the speaker, who identified himself as Zarqawi. "Anyone who tries to help set up this system is part of it."

Auschwitz Open Thread

hat tip Murat
~~~~~~~~~~~~

World leaders gathered in Poland to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz today. Here's what a few of them said:

"These commemorations are intended to promote knowledge of Auschwitz as widely as possible and bring the truth about the camps to the younger generation." ---Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski

"Even in our country, in Russia, which did more than any to combat fascism, for the victory of fascism, which did most to save the Jewish people, even in our country we sometimes unfortunately see manifestations of [anti-Semitism] and I, too, am ashamed of that." ---Russian President Vladimir Putin

"Auschwitz must be placed in the central place of collective memory of the reunited Europe," ---Israeli President Moshe Katsav

"The story of the camps shows that evil is real and must be called by its name and must be confronted..."We are reminded that anti-Semitism may begin with words but rarely stops with words and the message of intolerance and hatred must be opposed before it turns into acts of horror." ---US Vice President Dick Cheney

"This is a sacred place for me and my family.... This is a place where Andrei Yushchenko, my father, suffered. There will never be a Jewish question in my country, I vow that." ---Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko (whose father, a wounded Soviet prisoner of war, survived Auschwitz).

The most evil aspect of Auschwitz for me is the organized way it was run. The calm with which they carried out the murders. The calm with which they pillaged the belongings of the prisoners. It was so dehumanizing by design.

I still can't believe this happened in Europe in recent memory. Evil like this comes to power systematically, step by step. It must be stopped systematically as well. Each step toward demonizing or dehumanizing any group of people must be met with a powerful push back.

Unfortunately, our current world has multiple conflicts in which both sides see themselves as the ones being dehumanized and therefore needing to push back. By stopping to reflect on what can happen if the rest of the world doesn't take it seriously enough fast enough when one side is pushing too hard, however, hopefully we'll reach a good marker for a middle ground that, if breached, the rest of the world steps in as one to stop. The acknowledgment by Putin that more needs to be done to fight anti-Semitism in Russia is one good outcome for today's ceremony. Let's hope there's more.

The Right Question II

Today's entry is inspired by Mark Kleiman. 

Persuading eight-year-olds to demand unhealthy food and expensive athletic shoes, thus making those items staples of second-grade culture, is a nasty trick to play on the parents of those eight-year-olds. Indeed, it is nothing less than a commercial assault on the natural hierarchy of the family, where the parents give instruction to the children rather than vice versa.

It's not a question, it seems to me, of whether some particular pitch for sugared cereal is "deceptive" and therefore an "unfair trade practice." It's a question of who ought to have control over what messages children are exposed to. Commercial speech directed to children is simply not on a par with the content of newspaper editorials, or even with the content of soap operas, in terms of either First Amendment jurisprudence or of the underlying policy considerations.

Television is, for better or for worse (I'm convinced it's very much for worse, but conviction doesn't make me right) a central part of the lives of American children. Children who do not watch television, or watch only the programs you and I might like them to watch -- children, in particular, who never watch advertising-supported television -- are cut off from the culture of their peers, which is an uncomfortable and otherwise disadvantageous position. It is therefore wrong to argue that advertisers should be allowed to put on whatever ads they want as long as parents have the right t turn off the set.

Parents shouldn't have to decide to cut their children off from the culture of their peers in order to protect them from being sold various forms of junk, or be put in the position of being the bad guys as they attempt to police their children's television-watching.

I am sypathetic with this in principle, but I am aware of some practical difficulties.  My question has subparts:  if you want to control advertising to children,

A)  Who are the children you are trying to protect (what age range)?

B)  How do you know when children are the targets?

C)  Is regulating 'deceptive' advertising enough?  Advertising Honey-Soaked Sugar Puffs as "tasty and sweet" isn't deceptive, but it probably the kind of stuff you are trying to control. 

D)  Is this last paragraph I quote a fair statement?  Perhaps we need to have enough parents who are willing to actively change the culture of peers. 

As usual I don't have answers.  Only questions. 

Self-Esteem 2

Back in December, Scientific American had an interesting article on self-esteem which von wrote about before I could get to it. Now its authors have written an article in the LA Times (via Kevin Drum, and this time competitive me is determined to be the first to pounce on it. From the LA Times article:

"Here are some of our disappointing findings. High self- esteem in schoolchildren does not produce better grades. (Actually, kids with high self-esteem do have slightly better grades in most studies, but that's because getting good grades leads to higher self-esteem, not the other way around.) In fact, according to a study by Donald Forsyth at Virginia Commonwealth University, college students with mediocre grades who got regular self-esteem strokes from their professors ended up doing worse on final exams than students who were told to suck it up and try harder.

Self-esteem doesn't make adults perform better at their jobs either. Sure, people with high self-esteem rate their own performance better — even declaring themselves smarter and more attractive than their low self-esteem peers — but neither objective tests nor impartial raters can detect any difference in the quality of work.

Likewise, people with high self-esteem think they make better impressions, have stronger friendships and have better romantic lives than other people, but the data don't support their self-flattering views. If anything, people who love themselves too much sometimes annoy other people by their defensive or know-it-all attitudes. Self-esteem doesn't predict who will make a good leader, and some work (including that of psychologist Robert Hogan writing in the Harvard Business Review) has found humility rather than self-esteem to be a key trait of successful leaders.

It was widely believed that low self-esteem could be a cause of violence, but in reality violent individuals, groups and nations think very well of themselves. They turn violent toward others who fail to give them the inflated respect they think they deserve. Nor does high self-esteem deter people from becoming bullies, according to most of the studies that have been done; it is simply untrue that beneath the surface of every obnoxious bully is an unhappy, self-hating child in need of sympathy and praise."

The conclusion: "After all these years, I'm sorry to say, my recommendation is this: Forget about self-esteem and concentrate more on self-control and self-discipline."

The Beginning of the End

Note: Not for the conspiracy-theory-allergic.

Yup, this is one of the signs my conspiracy theorist friend Dr. V. told me to watch out for. China losing faith in the dollar. Collect your commemorative empire souvenirs while you can folks, the US's days at #1 are numbered:

China has lost faith in the stability of the U.S. dollar and its first priority is to broaden the exchange rate for its currency from the dollar to a more flexible basket of currencies, a top Chinese economist said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum.

At a standing-room only session focusing on the world's fastest-growing economy, Fan Gang, director of the National Economic Research Institute at the China Reform Foundation, said the issue for China isn't whether to devalue the yuan but "to limit it from the U.S. dollar."

But he stressed that the Chinese government is under no pressure to revalue its currency.

China's exchange rate policies restrict the value of the yuan to a narrow band around 8.28 yuan, pegged to US$1. Critics argue that the yuan is undervalued, making China's exports cheaper overseas and giving its manufacturers an unfair advantage. Beijing has been under pressure from its trading partners, especially the United States, to relax controls on its currency.

"The U.S. dollar is no longer -- in our opinion is no longer -- (seen) as a stable currency, and is devaluating all the time, and that's putting troubles all the time," Fan said, speaking in English.

"So the real issue is how to change the regime from a U.S. dollar pegging ... to a more manageable ... reference ... say Euros, yen, dollars -- those kind of more diversified systems," he said.

According to Dr. V., what comes next is a more overt land grab. The groundwork for it has been laid already...tax cuts for the wealthy, the path to the dismantling of the New Deal, private leases to all public lands, solidification of control over the government, religion, media, military, etc. Loosen up the nation's assets so the powerful can grab all they can get.

As much as I can normally reason that Dr. V's a loon, China doing this is exactly what he predicted. The whole thing is beginning to read like a historical account of the fall of any empire.

Fan said last year China lost a good opportunity to do revalue its currency, in July and October.

"High pressure, we don't do it. When the pressure's gone, we forgot," Fan said, to laughter from the audience. "But this time, I think Chinese authorities will not forget it. Now people understand the U.S. dollar will not stop devaluating."

Scared yet? Why not? I could use some reassuring...

Social Security (Remix)

..... As readers of the blog know, I'd like to reform it, revise it, and privatize it.  Social Security was sold as a retirement program, but it ain't working no more.  It pays a pittance.  Its fundamentals are based on a fetishized version of let's-rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul.  It's a simple wealth transfer -- not a program of investments, of growth, of building.  It's not what it could or should be.

But I know that the wind is against me.  My champion for reform, President Bush, seems to have misplayed his hand.  There is no Social Security "crisis" -- and attempts to argue otherwise results in stupid mathematical mistakes,  grammatical contortions, or truly weird analogies.  Moreover, the current deficit spending, coupled with the uncertain costs of the continuing war in Iraq (and elsewhere), make the present an unwise time to take on more debt.  Indeed, given the relatively long horizon during which Social Security will be solvent, increasing the national debt to pay for reforms is a little like taking out a credit card loan to pay off a mortgage.

I'm not the only one who has a finger in the wind -- folks who actually matter do as well.  Talk is shifting to alternate approaches -- other proposals for Bush to try. 

Well, here's mine:

(1)   Means test.  There is no reason to offer multi-millionaires a small subsidy in their retirement.  Social Security functions like a welfare system; it's time to fund it like one.

(2)  Radically up the limits on 401(k)'s and the like.  If you want to put $25k a year into the market, you're doing us all a favor -- and you should be able to do it tax-deferred. 

(3)  Repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.  It's a total piece of crap.  (O.K., fine, that has nothing to do with Social Security reform -- I just tried to sneak it in.  Mea cupla.) 

(4)  Finally, resist resist resist attempts to add programs that are government run -- a kind of "private accounts lite."  The result will be the worst of all worlds:  expanding Social Security payments, more government involvement in the markets, and larger deficits.   

Unholy Alliance: Greens and NeoCons

An artist I know has been predicting doom for civilization because we depend too heavily on electrical energy and it cannot last forever at the levels we consume it here in the US. He religiously turns off lights and other machines in other people's spaces and rants about how offensive he finds, for example, video art, because after we have no more electricity, it will be totally useless. I used to think he was a bit obsessive. Then I watched Power Trip, the PBS special on the energy situation in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, and I got a glimpse of the future my artist friend has seen coming for years.

Against The Confirmation Of Alberto Gonzales

A group of bloggers, many of them past and present contributors to Daily Kos, have drafted a petition for bloggers opposed to the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. It's quite good, and I am signing on (on behalf of myself, obviously, not ObWi as a whole.) Some quotes:

Gonzales's advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales's legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law's undoing.

In January 2002, Gonzales advised the President that the United States Constitution does not apply to his actions as Commander in Chief, and thus the President could declare the Geneva Conventions inoperative. Gonzales's endorsement of the August 2002 Bybee/Yoo Memorandum approved a definition of torture so vague and evasive as to declare it nonexistent. Most shockingly, he has embraced the unacceptable view that the President has the power to ignore the Constitution, laws duly enacted by Congress and International treaties duly ratified by the United States. He has called the Geneva Conventions "quaint." (...)

Michael Posner of Human Rights First observed: "After the horrific images from Abu Ghraib became public last year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the world should 'judge us by our actions [and] watch how a democracy deals with the wrongdoing and with scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our own mistakes.'" We agree. It is because of this that we believe the only proper course of action is for the Senate to reject Alberto Gonzales's nomination for Attorney General. As Posner notes, "[t]he world is indeed watching." Will the Senate condone torture? Will the Senate condone the rejection of the rule of law?

With this nomination, we have arrived at a crossroads as a nation. Now is the time for all citizens of conscience to stand up and take responsibility for what the world saw, and, truly, much that we have not seen, at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. We oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, and we urge the Senate to reject him.

While none of the President's recent cabinet nominations would have been my choice, in every case but this I am not opposing their confirmation. But Gonzales is different. Both in memos he wrote and in memos he approved, his legal advice gave legal cover to torture. Moreover, he argued in support of the view that the President has the right to set aside laws and treaties in time of war. This claim strikes at the heart of our system of government, which is based on the rule of law. To have an Attorney General who accepts it is, in my view, unacceptable.

There are plenty of exceptional lawyers in this country. Many of them are quite conservative. No one forced President Bush to choose, out of all the competent candidates whose views are compatible with his own, a person who argued against the rule of law. That's why I'm signing on to this petition. I would urge other bloggers, especially conservatives, to consider doing so as well. There is nothing conservative about the idea that the President should not be bound by the law. Conservatism, I always thought, involved the idea that government should be restrained by the law, and that loosing those restraints is profoundly dangerous to individual freedom. This administration has argued, among other things, that it has the power to detain citizens indefinitely, without charges or access to counsel, on the President's say-so. (The Padilla and Hamdi cases.) While this particular argument has been shot down by the Supreme Court, the administration has not renounced the view that the President is not bound by law in wartime. We need an Attorney General who will oppose such arguments in future, not one who will abet them.

What the Military Thinks

Sean at Blackfive.net has done a sort of ad-hoc poll of fellow military (mostly former service-mates) on a few issues.  This is not to be taken as The Voice Of The Military, but it's interesting nonetheless:

1.  The Duration Plus Six Concept - All believe that, at the start of the war, the entire force should have mobilized for "the duration plus six months".  This is what was done during WWII.  This would have set expectations correctly for the coming fight.  "The duration plus six months" mentality means that everyone (Active, Reserve, Guard) is mobilized until six months after the war is over.  It's a fight till it's over mentality.

This probably would have been less stressful to the soldiers, I agree.  Not that I know of what I speak.

2.  Troop Strength - All believe that the Army needs more than 30-40,000 additional soldiers.  And most believe the Marines should be significanlty plussed up in the MEUs (and all should be SOC).  Troop strength increases will take time, but will be necessary for years.

Not all that much new, here.  Still, the discussion that follows is interesting.

3.  Donald Rumsfeld should resign - Everyone likes Rummy.  However, nine soldiers think that he should resign immediately after the elections in Iraq.  The rest think June is more appropriate for Rummy to step down.

This ought to make nearly everyone well, if not exactly happy, approximately equal in happiness over the whole Rumsfeld issue.  Anyway, go read the whole thing.  Again, it's not as much a scientific conclusion as it is something to mull over.

Not much of a post, I know, but the natives were getting restless.