Category Archives: Politics

Don’t mess with me, man, I’ve read The Art of War.

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About five hundred years before some guy named Jesus said maybe we should be nice to each other for a change, another guy over in China set out to codify the methods of not being nice, and doing it really well. Sun Tzŭ had a lot of thoughts about war and its purpose. In his mind, war was a means to ensure the safety and prosperity of the people of a nation, and if that was at the expense of the people of another nation, well, so it goes.

In fact, throughout his writing, he comes up with argument after argument to support one of his primary tenets: fight the war in the other guy’s country.

For all that, Sun Tzŭ was not a big fan of fighting battles at all. In his opinion, the greatest generals would never become famous because they would rarely have to fight, and when they did they would already have manipulated conditions through espionage, subtlety, and misdirection, so that the battle was already decided before it was fought. The greatest general of all would never fight a single battle.

He also pointed out that war was expensive. He was a proponent of swift, decisive action, and advised that laying siege to a walled city was folly, and would only empty the coffers of your nation and cause undue suffering among the people, which in turn would undermine the security of your homeland. Instead, he advised swift and subtle action, finding something of value to the enemy that was less well defended, and attacking that instead, forcing your opponent to come out from behind his walls. If the enemy does not know where you will show up next, he will have to spread his forces thin, trying to protect everything. Sun Tzŭ advises not even trying to defend less valuable assets.

Are there lessons for the modern age here? The four years of carnage that was World War One run counter to everything The Art of War teaches. Today’s war on terrorism is less clear-cut. Certainly we are the larger force spread thin as we try to defend everything, yielding initiative. But even spread out, we are massive and can carry big hurt just about anywhere very quickly.

There are two other things in the book that stick out, however. The first is adaptability. The author (and subsequent commentators) lay out the principles of carrying out a successful military campaign, and getting the most from soldiers. Time and again, however, we are reminded that flexibility and creativity are critical assets. Sun Tzŭ also pointed out that direct confrontation is one of the last resorts for achieving your objective.

The second thing that sticks out is haunting, considering our current situation in Iraq. “In times of peace, plan for war. In times of war, plan for peace.” When the US military exceeded all expectations and swept into Baghdad, only to stand to the side as the city descended into civil disorder, setting the tone for all that has followed, undermining our authority and credibility, demonstrating an apathy toward law that has yet to be repaired, we saw what happens when you fail to plan for peace during a time of war. There was a period of two days when we had a (not guaranteed) shot at forestalling much of what has happened since. We could have been the undisputed good guys. We failed.

Some of the details in the book are not relevant anymore, and quite a few other people have done some thinking on the subject since. This work has the advantage of being brief, simple, and to the point. He did not say war was bad, he said it was expensive, and that it was best waged swiftly, or, better yet, without using armies at all. But once you have your army on, ou must know exactly what you want and where it is, understand the enemy and all his plans, and take the fight to him. If you are not certain, stay home until you are.

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Proud to be an American?

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I will publish good rebuttals (profane is OK but abusive is not, coherence is required). If there are too many, I will publish the ones hardest for me to refute.

I am an American. I am really, really fortunate to be one. There’s nothing better to be. But I didn’t actually do anything to become an American. I am proud of my accomplishments, and I am grateful for my good fortune. There are political refugees and immigrants of every stripe who have worked really hard to become Americans. There are people who have taken up arms in defense of this nation and only later become citizens. Many more who are currently defending our freedom are waiting for citizenship.

Those people can be proud to be American. For them it is an achievement. I simply am American. I was born that way. I have not earned the right to be proud. I am thankful to be American, but there’s no source of pride there.

There is another way to be proud to be an American, and that’s to take pride in America’s role—our role—in making a better world. That is the pride in accomplishment. And hell, we’ve accomplished a lot. There was a time in Somalia before it all went to stink that I really thought we had managed to beat swords into plowshares. I thought “this is the role of a great nation, standing as a beacon of freedom and peace.” At that moment I was truly proud to be American. Thought honestly I hadn’t done anything personally (except pay taxes) to deserve that feeling.

It got gray sometime after that. Protecting the Muslim population in Kosovo still feels right, but more timely intervention might have precluded much of the violence. [an aside – why do the factions we support almost always come to resent us? Talk among yourselves.] But still, there was an earnest belief that intervention could save lives and transform those troubled regions. Even if those expeditions were ill-conceived, they were noble of purpose. Something you could be proud of.

Frankly, we don’t have that anymore. I am Accidentally-American, or perhaps Fortunately-American, but I have not pulled off any individual accomplishment to which I can hang the label “proud”, and I am not proud of the actions of my nation (granfalloon) as a whole. At least in the past we believed in our nobility, if no one else did.

I am happy to be an American. I am fortunate to be an American; I did not accomplish being American. I am proud to give to my nation more than blind faith.

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Local color

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I went back to the High Country Saloon tonight. (The interior promotion all says High Country Lounge, but what does Anheuser Busch know? The sign above the door says “Saloon”, and that’s good enough for me. The other door says “restaurant”. You know which door I went for. I wrote for a time, with Nikki cheering me on. I’ve had people ask me what I’m doing, but rarely does someone ask, “Are you writing a novel?” For those people I am always embarassed to answer yes, because people who ask tha question are clearly more literature-oriented.

Not so Nikki. She told me that for school papers she had a hard time getting past two pages. I tried, unsuccessfully, to convince her that the ability to put a good idea into the smallest space was a great virtue. I know I could learn to be more compact. Still, it was nice the way she remembered me this time. Sure, “Laptop Guy” is easy, but “Get Novel down to less than 500 pages guy” requires a little more customer interaction. Plus Nikki is cute.

SamIAm Nikki is not who I’m writing about tonight, though. After I did my work tonight I moved from my table to a barstool, where I sat next to Mr. Lujan, disabled veteran who fought in the pacific, who went on to be a magistrate judge, who went without benefits for thirty years because of the bullshit. (His first name started with an S. I was told it more than once, but I’m not so good with names.) He was a rancher, a small businessman, until taxes put him out of business. Two years ago. He’s not a big fan of Dubya, even though he’s the exact profile of citizen that our fearless leader is supposed to be loved by.

Lujan had stories. I only heard a fraction of them. He sat next to me, and with his soft voice he held me. He spoke of watching him return through his binoculars at Leyte Gulf. He told me about Okinawa. He told me about about the clarity of his conflict, and how he felt for the Marines overseas now, with no clearly defined enemy and no clearly defined goal. His war was easy, he said, compared with what our soldiers face now. He told me that after he showed me the scars he had picked up from shrapnel. “We just have to bring them home,” Lujan said.

Then he told me how he had landed in jail for DWI, even while he was a judge. Some of the boys he had previously sentenced sprung him from his cell after he took some time to learn their stories. He wanted to know how they had ended up there, and when the rest of the law enforcement community figured out who they had collared and came to let him go, he refused to leave. He served the sentence he would have given himself.

Lujan is retired now; he sold the last of his cattle two years ago. There really is no room for the small farmer anymore. I’m not going to put a value judgement on that. Big farms are more profitable. There aren’t many big farms up here, though, and the famous tax breaks aren’t doing anyone up here squat. The last large animal vet is about to move a hundred miles south.

Retired I suppose is the wrong word. At eighty-something, he still works cutting hay and who knows what else. He has his horses and his passion. He has his health, and he has his friends at the High Country Saloon.

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I want to ask Peter Jennings a question

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I came up with a question tonight, a question about freedom and responsibility – specifically, about the freedom of the press and the responsibility of the press. Most of this episode will be devoted to why I want to ask Peter Jennings this question. Precious little will be about the question itself. The question has nothing to do with 9/11, but my singling out of Peter Jennings is entirely about that day.

I had been watching football the night before. Ed McCaffery, the indestructible wide receiver for the Denver Broncos, had had his leg shattered. He was the guy that could take any hit and still catch the ball. I don’t remember whether he held on that time as his leg was being smashed into a kajillion pieces. If he caught it, and I think he did, he would have been an american legend. But that was 9/10.

Most mornings I wake up to the radio. I wake slowly. I fade in and out as the stories fill me. That morning I heard about a plane hitting the world trade center. That woke me up. I thought about the B-26(?) that had once hit the Empire State Building. Then I heard that another plane had hit the other tower. The radio reports I heard said the second plane had been a smaller one, but that didn’t matter. Two planes meant intent. I went into the other room and turned on the TV.

It was the same on every channel. Smoke billowing from the towers. Replays of a 767 smashing into the south tower from every angle. Flames billowing. Somewhere in those flames were people. People who, like me, thought of terrorism as a far-away thing. I sat on my comfy chair and watched in horror. As I did so, I found another outrage. Every station had across the bottom of the screen a graphic. They all featured a cross-hair, and said something like “America Under Attack” or “Attack On America”. The major news outlets were competing to brand the tragedy even as it happened.

There was only one exception. Peter Jennings sat at his desk, his tie a little off and his voice a little hoarse, and there were no exploitative graphics. I may be wrong, but I think the anchor still has control over that kind of thing when it really matters. Whether it was Peter or his boss, that news organization showed far more class that day than any other. So it was when the south tower fell I was listening to Peter as he saw it the same time I did. “Oh my God,” he said, or something like that, maybe one of those three words, but his voice caught and it was real and it was the full tragedy.

That day he stood in front of all with courage and compassion, without taking shelter behind slogans and marketing gimmicks. Since then I have afforded Peter Jennings with a degree of credibility I deny the rest of the breathless “journalists” of today. He could say a lot of things I disagree with, and he has, but I will never forget that day.

So that’s why Peter Jennings. I think he’s a journalist. I don’t think there are many others who make the national scene and remain journalists. So now, after that big emotional gush, I will leave you with the question, a hard intellectual nugget that you have to diagram before you digest. But it’s an important question to me.

So, Peter: Responsible journalists try hard to not tell lies. They check the veracity of the statements given them. If the president were to release a statement that research showed to be untrue, would you a) not print the story, or, b) print a story saying the president had lied?

I’m talking to a responsible journalist here, so “run the lie, it’ll sell papers” is not an option.

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Government

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First off, let me tell you that the ‘political spectrum’ is a load of crap. No thinking person can be fit under a pat label of ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’. The whole left vs. right conflict is a false dichotomy created by interests who stand to gain from the oversimplification of the issues facing our nation and our world. The whole ‘right vs. left’ debate ignored the possibility that there may be points of view that are neither right nor left.

If you will allow me, I will try to create a diagram of current accepted political wisdom:

<–wacko<—-democrat—-republican—>wacko—>

The biggest flaw in this model is that ‘democrat’ somehow implies Liberal, while Republican is synonymous with conservative. I don’t know how many tax-and-spend republicans we need before we wake up to that lie.

However, the Republican Lie and the Democratic Lie are not the subject of today’s muddled rambling. Instead I would like to discuss why we have governments in the first place. Governments are important, and they are actually good. Tonight is just the first step in developing my political theory. It is inconceivable that I am the first to think of government this way, so if any of you can point me to other references I would be grateful.

So here goes.

There are three major forces in our economy and out way of life. There is Business, Labor, and Government.

Business
Another name for business is ownership. Business has one goal: to make money. Everyone who participates in ownership, which includes everyone in a 401k plan, benefits from the mandate of business to create wealth through the efficient use of resources. Business at its best is a ruthless profit machine.
Contributes: efficiency, growth
Detriments: greed, corruption

Labor
Labor is the representation of the people whose sweat makes business work. The primary goal of labor is to ensure that the profits reaped by business are distributed equitably. Labor stands for fair treatment of workers and proper recognition of their efforts. (I will post later about just how badly labor is doing in the US, and what they can do to improve their lot.)
Contributes: equity
Detriments: inefficiency, corruption

Government
Government represents the needs and goals of society that are not supported by business or labor. For instance, neither business or labor are motivated to protect the environment. Both of them would sacrifice the planet for better return or higher wages. You can’t fault them, but you have to balance them.
Government ideally lies outside the traditional political spectrum. Ensuring the education of our children is not a liberal ideal, it is a pragmatic need of our society. Protecting borders and looking after collective security is another important role for any government.
Contributes: efficiency, education, sustainability, security
Detriments: inefficiency, corruption

Government appears to be a contradiction. How does it simultaneously provide efficiency and inefficiency? I’m glad you asked. There are certain unsung boons, like the bureau of weights and measures, that make business work better, There is antitrust law, which ultimately (when well applied) increases the efficiency of the marketplace and promotes competition. At the same time government is an impediment to efficiency, and well it should be. By recognizing a long-term value on a resource government ultimately makes that resource more expensive.

<added after posting>
Wow. I managed to talk about the inefficiencies of government like they were all good. I left out a bit. Bureaucracy. Red tape. You know the drill. I guess that’s the risk you take with stream-of-conscious political journalism.

I don’t always mark my updates so obviously, but that was a big omission.
</added after posting>

The idea of short-term hardship for greater long-term gain are lost on both business and labor. That is why we ask people from amongst us, people we trust to be wise and far-seeing, to represent our less tangible goals. It is also why we are disappointed with our representatives so often. It is why I am running for president.

All three vertices of my social triangle contribute corruption. Man, I’m a cynical bastard, but I really think I’m right. Another contradiction of government is the pursuit and reduction of corruption. You look at successful economies around the world, and the one thing they have in common is that everyone is held to the rule of law.*

I have a really neat diagram that shows the tension between the vertices of the triangle, but I’m just too damn tired to get it in here.

Before you get too carried away, my description of the idea role of government is not meant to be an endorsement or a criticism of current governments. I’ll leave that for another day. Trust me, I have plenty of beefs with the way things are going now. I feel it is important, however, to have an open discussion of just what the heck the role of government is. Only when we come to some kind of understanding why we have a government in the first place can we criticize the way our current government is being run. Any criticism or praise of current policy should ultimately be founded on such ideals.

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* Aaaaaaaaagh! I have to say it. I wanted to stay away from discussion of any specific policy, instead examining the higher ideals. But I have to say it. I can’t stop myself. Do you remember why you’re reading this footnote? If not go back and review real quick. Ready? OK, here we go, then. We’re doomed. Starting with Reagan, the US government has shown increasing disdain for the law. There’s a reason Dub has delayed the release of his dad’s records. Being above the law is also not a partisan issue. When our leaders stop answering to the law, we lose everything.

Thanks!

It’s too easy, now.

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I’ve been bashing Bush for several reasons lately, which can be summarized as:

1) He’s an idiot.
2) Big business owns him, especially big oil.
3) He pursues policies that seem frighteningly disconnected from reality.
4) He’s an idiot.

But by now we know all that, don’t we? What of the other guy, John Kerry, the man that almost everyone assumes is the only alternative to Bush? Well, one thing we know is that he promises to keep jobs from going overseas. Uh, huh. He’s standing up in front of unions and laborers promising to keep their jobs safe. There are only two problems with that plan. He can’t, and even is he could he shouldn’t.

Starting with can’t, the president of the United States just doesn’t have the power to tell companies how to run their businesses. Businesses are going to find ways to cut costs or they’re going to go out of business. He may try to penalize companies for using offshore labor, but in the end the trend is too big unless he closes the border completely to imports. That would see him sitting out on Pennsylvania Avenue with his suitcases piled around him.

And well it should. Our economy depends on that cheap labor. Everyone is in favor of keeping the jobs here until they see the price of their shoes double. Technology at home and cheap labor abroad are the two things keeping our economy growing virtually inflation-free, and both are bad for unskilled and low-skilled domestic labor.

Another reason to avoid protectionism (and that is what Kerry is proposing, job protectionism) is that the only way to equalize labor markets worldwide is to let the work flow between countries. Creating jobs in those countries where labor is currently extremely cheap (which is synonymous with abusive to the workers) will eventually lead to better work conditions and higher wages, as workers gain power and have more choice. Only where jobs are plentiful can a person earn a decent wage.

As an aside, this does not mean I endorse US companies tolerating inhuman conditions in their supplier’s factories overseas. The amount of money that moves through some of those empires dwarfs the economies of some nations*. Our corporations could do a great deal more to end suffering than they do, and without much effect on the bottom line. However, it is consumer activism, not the government, that has the power to alter the behavior of multinational corporations.

How do we keep America employed? The same way we always have, by having the best-educated, most productive workers in the world. Not the cheapest, the best. That means taking all that money we’re flushing down the toilet in Iraq and defending Western Europe and putting it into schools and training programs here in the US. It was not long ago that technology companies simply could not find enough qualified workers. That has returned to a more rational keel lately, but the supply of skilled workers will continue to be an important factor to any company choosing where to open its next plant.

Finally, there is national security. Poverty in the third world, exploding populations, and dwindling resources are the biggest threats our nation faces. We’ll forget all about Iraq if Mexico begins to falter. Prosperity is the worst enemy of tyranny. It is no accident that despots keep their citizens poor and ill-educated. We need to spread prosperity, and that means spreading jobs. That fact that it makes us more prosperous as a whole also is just one of those miracles of free trade.

*If anyone wants to fact-check me on that, I’d like to hear from you. I’m just kind of assuming.

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Terrorism Preparedness: Is not! Was too! Nuh-uh! Yuh-huh!

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What it all boils down to is that Osama would still be enjoying the protection of the Taliban in Afghanistan had he and his followers not attacked the US the way they did on 9/11.

For all the posturing by the current administration that they are tougher on terrorists, the United States would not have had the political will or sufficient support from Afghanistan’s neighbors to mount an invasion. Likely we would have continued to funnel support to enemies of the Taliban, and lob in the occasional cruise missile, but you would not have seen US ground troops in there. We would still be using incentives and threats to try to undermine support for Al-Qaida in nations like the United Arab Emirates. In short, we would be doing the same things we have been doing for a decade. When it comes to fighting terrorism, it doesn’t really matter much who the president is.

Iraq, on the other hand, is not about fighting terrorism. At first the Bush administration tried to frame it that way, but no one bought it. so he switched gears and began to rail about Weapons of Mass Destruction. Now that that argument seems to have been a mistake at best and an outright lie at worst, we are hearing about freedom for the Iraqi people. It’s harder to argue against that one, since they certainly were not free before and were suffering greatly, but it’s also the hardest promise to keep. I am skeptical that we will be able to let the Iraqis have complete control over their country without dissolving into civil war, and it will be a long, long time before that changes. I have hope for the Iraqi people, but I can’t help but be skeptical about our eventual success in fostering democracy in the region.

All that notwithstanding, would we have invaded Iraq without the false boogymen of terrorism and WMDs? Many of our allies in that fight have made it clear that they would not. Spain and Poland have both said they feel bamboozled. And what was the hurry? Iraq had been known to have WMDs long before, but suddenly the danger was so urgent that it was necessary to invade immediately. The reason was as simple as an approval rating of over 70% for the president. Strike while the polls are hot.

Which leaves Afghanistan incomplete and neglected. In Afghanistan the real terrorists are still hiding, and in some areas regrouping. Al-Qaida leadership continues to elude us. Pakistan, our so-called ally (you know, the one with weapons of mass destruction) has been shipping dangerous technology all over the place, while bin Laden hides within their borders. If they took some of the troops out of Kashmir, I bet they would have the resources to track him down.

Would a Democrat have invaded Afghanistan in response to 9/11? Hard to say for sure, but I think so. I doubt, however, that a Democrat or even a McCain or Powell-style Republican would have invaded Iraq. Iraq would still be a sore spot in the region, a constant source of frustration, but Americans would not be dying daily — the victims of terrorist acts. Indeed, rather than reduce the threat of terrorism, the invasion of Iraq has made terrorism so routine that it often goes unreported.

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Howard who?

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A couple of weeks ago one of my roommates asked me if I wanted to join him at some sort of event for Howard Dean. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that someone who at times appears to be an actual liberal is getting so much support. It should make for a more lively debate on the upcoming election year. I’m glad that the Democrats are considering putting up a candidate for President based on ideology rather than electability. Relatively speaking, that is.

That notwithstanding, why on Earth would I contribute to the Dean campaign when the most basic tenet of my own candidacy is that money and politics should be separate? No, I do not support Dean, he has baskets of money and he is working hard to get more. His much-ballyhooed ‘grass roots’ fundraising is great, but don’t think there aren’t tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in the DNC coffers with plenty of strings attached. The way things are right now, it is not possible for a Democrat or Republican to be elected without bringing along an enormous amount of baggage.

On top of that, I would be a better President than Howard Dean.

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Incredulous Rant

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if he can possibly believe the things he says. His repeated mantra was that as a result of his foreign policy, the world is safer and freer.

Picture the giant exclamation point and question mark popping out of my head when he said that. China may be freer now than it was three years ago, and you could argue that Afghanistan (or, at least Kabul) has more freedom now, but we in the United States are considerably less free than we were.

And safer – he’s joking, right? RIGHT? This comes from the same administration that has insisted that we need to surrender the constitution because of dire international threats. So just what danger has been reduced? There are more countries that dislike us. There are more arab countries unwilling to cooperate with us materially to combat international terrorism. We have erected ineffective security measures all over the country so we will get the feeling that something is being done, but none of those measures do more than inconvenience the populace.

Oh, but if I’m wrong, and we are safer now, can we have our freedom back?

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bad news is illegal

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OK, I see where the desire of the media to use those images for their own agenda would be objectionable to the families and to the servicemen themselves, but you can’t help but wonder about the timing. Never has an administration been in the position of sacrificing the lives of Americans at such a rate in a war that is ostensibly over. I would love to see Wolfowitz explain to the mothers of those slain servicemen how the sacrifice of their loved ones was worthwhile as it furthered his personal vendetta against Iraq. The dude was jonesing to go over there long before 9/11. Before that day, his opinions were being sidelined. After that day, his agenda became US policy, over the objection of many cabinet members. It will take us decades to repair the damage he has caused.

Where was Bush? You don’t really think he’s making the decisions, do you?

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Air Show This Weekend

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A B-2 went over a few minutes ago while I was out back with the dogs. They were unimpressed. I thought about going; watching those things take off and land is a visceral experience, and hell, I’ve paid tens of thousands of dollars to build those things; I may as well get something out of it.

Of course, Santa Ana winds started this morning, so it will be hotter than hell out there on the tarmac at Miramar MCAS. I think that’s God saying “stay home and work on your resume instead.” After all, if I don’t get another job real soon, who’s going to pay for the next batch of planes?

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Jerry For President

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The obvious question is “Why the hell would you go and do something like that?” I simply couldn’t find anyone to vote for who would put my interests over those of big campaign donors. I am accepting absolutely no campaign contributions, and I hope to get a few votes. Most of all, I get to call George Bush a moron and an embarrassment to our country in a constructive, political manner.

The name of my party is Not For Sale.

Thanks!