Friday, December 30, 2005

Little Trouble in Big China

[singing, to the tune of Mr. Rogers]
It’s an unusual day in the neighborhood,
The Chinese press got up and stood.
Would you believe?
Would you believe?


The BBC is reporting a story that hasn’t been picked up by CNN, the Post, the NYTimes (I broke down and checked the site, for the first time since “Times Select” started scamming people), the Boston Globe, or Reuters.

The story’s lead paragraph states,

“[a]bout 100 journalists from one of China's most progressive newspapers, the
Beijing News, have walked out to protest against their editor's sacking.”

I’m sure the reporters who walked off the job are very politically savvy people—journalists tend to be, and journalists in China have no choice but to be. Which makes the decision to walk out, and leave the paper so publicly in the lurch is remarkable.

It’s unlikely that many of these reporters are going to get jobs with other newspapers—since ‘news’ is largely government controlled, so other newspapers aren’t going to hire ‘rabble-rousing’ reporters to cover the vanilla Chinese news.

Apparently, the story wasn’t covered by any of the newspapers in China (likely because it wasn’t deemed newsworthy by the government censors). In spite of this (or because of it) I’m guessing that about 100 million Chinese will know about it by the end of the day. Why? Because China has the most efficient grapevine the world has ever seen. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but, as an example, a teacher can do or say something at the beginning of a class period and through the miracles of txt messaging, have students who weren’t in the class make reference to it as he walks into the hallway at the end of the period.

Compound that simple example with the idea that the people who walked out were reporters. People who, by nature of their profession must be, 1. excellent networkers and, 2. excellent communicators. It probably doesn’t hurt that most of them are also young and highly computer-literate.

Unfortunately for China, and for the CCP, this comes as another in a recent string of calamities and disasters that are undoubtedly casting doubt on the veneration and single-minded devotion the Party would like to see people hold it in.

As we get closer to 2008 it seems that the government and Party are, along with peasant and workers groups, moving towards the type of situation China suffered the last time China received the type of media attention that is slowly gravitating towards it now. Let’s hope for China’s sake (and our own… “made in where?”) that a means to avert confrontation is found.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Stick it to the....Students!!

In what might be the greatest political move in Minnesota since a Republican tried to run for State Senator from a different district, and was legally barred from appearing on a ballot, Saint Paul City Councilman Jay Benanev is trying to recoup the city's losses from those free-loading colleges.

At a time when budgets are tight, it makes sense to look for new sources of revenue, but it seems to me that charging schools for their students is an age-discriminating way to target those in the population who are least likely to vote in local elections.

Let's think about what David Laird, President of the Minnesota Private College Council calls, "the whole equation."

Benanev's ward includes Hamline and St. Thomas--both are schools that have large off-campus populations. St. Thomas has an undergraduate student body of 5,236 of which 61% live off campus. Hamline is smaller, at 1,872 with 55% living off-campus. So, by some quick math, at just these two schools, 4,223 students will be paying twice for the expensive services the city offers.

The two schools in St. Paul that have the highest rates of on-campus undergrads are Macalester and Bethel, at 69% and 75%, repsectively. All of these are higher than St. Kate's (36%) or Concordia, (24%). This doesn't include any of the community colleges, or the Saint Paul Campus of the University of Minnesota--all of which have lower on-campus totals yet.

What's on the other side of this ledger? Students who are, per dollar earned, huge contributors to the economy of St. Paul. They do their grocery shopping and clothes buying in St. Paul . They study at local coffee shops and hang out on Grand Avenue bars (helping maintain local business and generating sales tax revenue). They provide high-skill, low-cost labor for businesses and non-profits throughout St. Paul helping to maintain it as one of the most livable cities in America.

And most of them do it from apartments and rented rooms around the city. On Grand and Summit, on Selby, or in Mac-Groveland. They pay rent and through their landlords, property tax. They pay income tax, and they pay sales tax.

Mr. Benanev, why are you limitting yourself to just colleges in town? Why not tax all the businesses in St. Paul $25 per customer? If the problem here is really recouping the city's lost income, I think we could start with the amount the city has to spend maintaining roads, and paying transit police for people who's only goal is to (brazenly, I might add) come into the great city of St. Paul, and give it nothing more than a few hours of their time and a few dollars in exchange for simple products sold through local retailers.

Let's add another step. St. Paul should have toll booths set up at every road-entrance to the city. There should be a $2.50 toll for the priviledge of entering Minnesota's Capitol City. What a great idea. Then the taxes would only be on those heretical people who dare live outside St. Paul, or those wayward souls ungrateful enough to leave the city.

C'mon Councilman Benanev, I think there are some much better options than taxing the college students.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Home from the Holidays

After ten days in the not-so-frozen north, I'm back in the District and I have to say its good to be home.

Don't get me wrong, it was good seeing friends and family for the last 10 days--especially friends who were in town from even farther away than I was. But at the same time, it's nice to be back in a town where I don't need to drive, where I can walk around the corner at 830 at night and get a 12 pack and a 2 liter of coke, and also where I can turn the other direction and get a fantastic pecan pie for less than $10.

On the down side, I'm fairly sure that the downstairs neighbors cooked something for dinner tonight that involved a wet dog. At least that's the only explaination for the wet-dog-&-cooking-food smell eminating up through our laundry room on the first floor and bathroom on the second floor.

I did have a chance to do and learn a few interesting things while I was at home.
First, I read Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas". It's a good read, and an excellent political analysis of one means of winning elections and an electorate in the U.S. In fact, it's the first cogent strategic and tactical analysis of Conservative strategy I've read. Imagine, it's taken only 20 years to come up with it. And Democrats wonder why they lose elections.

Second, I learned that my friends are smarter than everyone else. I'm serious. I have proof. On two seperate nights, in two unrelated locations, in two different formats, my friends won rounds of bar-trivia (questionable scoring at Keegan's notwithstanding). If that isn't proof that they're smarter than everyone else, I'm not sure what is.

Third, jamon serrano is nearly as delicious in Minneapolis as it is in Spain.

Fourth, cell phones, voice mail and email may make communicating more convenient, more efficient, and less time-consuming, but that doesn't mean they necessarily make it easier or more successful.

There were probably a couple more, but I've lost them in the distractions of the TV. QUIET flickering box, you derail my train of thought!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. Those of you I didn't get a chance to see or talk to this weekend, please know you are in my thoughts often, and I wish you every happiness and success!

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

AU, Reprised

There was a big meeting in Asia Recently. I'm not talking about the WTO--though that was a big meeting too. The meeting I'm talking about was a bit south-west of Hong Kong, in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. It was a meeting of the Asian Nations and it was held to try and figure out where the region is heading and where it would like to head.

News is coming out today of an interesting, if needed, outgrowth of the session: a new regional organization that will stretch from Japan to India to Australia.

According to the author at the Washington Post,

"The formation of the new group, decided at the first East Asian Summit, marked an attempt to respond to a conviction among Asian leaders that their region requires a stronger independent voice in world affairs and a new forum without the leading role the United States has played since World War II."
In a sense, this is an important step for the region as a whole. As I wrote last week, the quest for some sort of "Asian Union" might be out of the question for a while, but there need to be forums for Asian countries to get together and discuss--multilaterally--their concerns. The challenge facing any associations in the region, whether the U.S. (or Russia) participates, is how to give the organization enough teeth to be a legitimate forum for not only airing concerns, but resolving them; but also keeping the meetings from being "gang up on the year's bad-guy country" punching bag exercises.

Without some delicate and artful arrangement, any of the Asian Associations (ASEAN, ASEAN + 3, this new organization-to-be-named-later) will serve only to further separate and segregate member-countries instead of bringing them closer together.

Here's my first-blush take: the first few meetings will involve countries coming together the rebuke Japan over it's lack of full atonement for the abominable acts committed by it's military throughout Asia during World War Two. As China's regional hegemony and market-power grow, it will shift over 2 to 3 years to being a forum for Asia to band together in ways to channel Chinese growth away from their own economic interests and attempt to push China into direct competition with developed economies instead of those of much of S and SE Asia. At about this time, China will decide the organization served it purpose and walk away/retool it's mission to be more China-friendly, and there goes the idea of parity, cooperation, and equality throughout the region.

Guided by Voices

In case you didn't know, I'm in Minnesota. On Vacation. In December. And it's great--snow on the ground and cold. It gives me incentive to stay inside, watch the news, and do what I enjoy: pick things apart.

One of the news channels had on a few people this morning talking about Bush's admission that he had authorized the NSA to tap phones within the U.S. The only two I heard speak were the LA Times Washington correspondant Mark Mazzetti, and some guy who used to be assoc. deputy Attorney General.

The former Assoc. AG made an interesting statement that needs to be clarified and laid bare quickly, before people allow it to become part of "common knowledge." He said he agreed with the Vice President that in times of War, the President has wider lattitudes in his use of power.

I recognize that this is inevitable and at times even desirable. There's a problem here though; the Constitution doesn't delegate to the president the discression to determine when he needs greater powers. Remarkably, in a system that provides a division of power, and "checks and balances", there is another branch, and only one other branch, that has the authority to grant the president greater powers. It also happens to be the only branch of the government with the power to declare war.

Almost equally remarkable, it requires an ACT of congress, not just its recent tactic of rolling over and playing dead, to declare war or to grant the President extraordinary powers.

Neither of these has happened in the U.S. since...hmmm... 1941. Believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, the last time the United States Congress authorized a president to use extraordinary powers was World War Two. A war that ended nearly 10 months before our sitting president was born.

The assertion that the United States is at war is false. I'm sure there are those of you out there who will argue that I'm being disloyal to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan who are there fighting in conditions that look remarkably like....a war.

I mean no disrespect to those who go where the political leadership demand, to fight battles over places most would never have otherwise seen. But that doesn't mean that I believe the president has the authority to declare he needs more powers, and then, when he doesn't get them fast enough, usurp them.

Quite to the contrary, I believe it was our current President, who, after having piloted a fighter onto an aircraft carrier, declared victory from the deck, and then flew John Wayne-like, "off into the sunset"--while most of our troops remain bogged down in Iraq fighting and dieing, spending yet another Christmas half-way around the world.

What amazes me most is that this president still has any support. It's not a question of party or politics. It is a question of honesty. It is a question of integrity. It is a question of faithfully upholding and protecting the constitution of the United States. There is serious doubt he has actually maintained the high standards his office should and does require of its incumbant.

He has recently announced that some of the intelligence that led him to Iraq was faulty--but that he would have gone anyway. This means he didn't care WHAT the intelligence said, he knew what he was going to do, and let the facts (or what some like to call "reality") be damned.

This is the president who continues to claim that Iraq and Saddam Hussein posed a direct threat to the United States because of links to terrorism. This is completely untrue. Hussein's only ties to terrorism were in Palestine--whose only target is Israel. The idea that there were links and connections between Hussein and Al Qaeda has been completely disproven--yet it is repeated by administration officials as high as the President and Vice President on a regular basis.

He is a president who insists on fighting wars in two countries, with minimal assistance from our allies and former friends, but at the same insists that the United States cannot continue to a free country unless we give the wealthiest 1% of our citizens tax-cuts of more than 1 trillion dollars. (If you're reading this blog, you're not getting any of the tax-cut, by the way.)

He is a president who appointed people to positions of vital importance to hundreds of thousands--and made sure that the only qualification these people had was loyalty to himself. Rather than find people qualified in disaster management, planning or preparedness, he selected a life-long friend, and followed him with a man who ran horse-shows.

He is a president who has systematically discreditted the U.S. before our allies and the rest of the world. He has reduced our ability to bring others to support our positions, and he was pushed away allies and friends when simple things could have been done to hold them close.

He is a president who himmed, hawwed, hedged and dodged for over a year on banning the use of torture by agents of the U.S. anywhere in the world. And it was only because of a passionate crusade by one of the last remaining principaled politicians that he did so--thank you John McCain.

He is a president who may have lost the U.S. the support even of Poland through use of morally questionable and international-law-faux-pas "secret prisons" in other countries. Now when Poland is willing to say to a country, "We might be better off with other allies," you know you've crossed a line.

Rounding up to the nearest whole integer, I can find zero measures by which the United States is stronger or more secure than it was when, nearly 5 years ago, we innaugurated this president. China holds nearly 1 Trillion dollars of U.S. debt, and the amount skyrockets with each quarter. The U.S. is bogged down in conflicts around the world, while real challenges and threats exist elsewhere. Americans from coast to coast are working longer and earning less than they have in decades. Funding for public schools, college education, and the programs that make America a land of opportunity and an example to the world have been heavily hit by caterwaul ideas brought straight from the Texas state-house into your house.

I know there are smart people out there who disagree with me; please tell me 2 things: 1. In what way is the U.S. better off now than it was January 20th, 2001 at 11:59 p.m., and 2. How does this president still have the support of anyone other than his wife?

One Reactor, Two Reactor, Three Reactor, Fore!?

Avid readers of the sections of the newspaper that are only going to affect our lives if government is made "small enough to drown in a bathtub" will already know that North Korea has launched its newest gambit in it's cataclysmic game of Russian Roulette.

Sure, North Korea is a bit rough around the edges, but it has to have some degree of sophistication--how else would it be getting the resources and know-how to re-start two of it's reactors, not to mention BUILD a new, more technologically capable one. One surprising element of the announcement isn't that the North Koreans are exposing their lemming-like cliff-diving urges, but that Japan had such a strident response.

The normally staid and reserved Japanese Foreign Ministry came out with such a searing criticism.

"It is going to be suicidal for North Korea to pursue that course. This is going to undermine the whole rationale of six-party talks."
While the Japanese tend not to be overly fond of North Korea's regime, they don't often come out and talk of something as suicidal. It may be a normal way to describe a really stupid 4th and short play-call on Monday morning, but not Japan's Foreign Ministry.

There's something more interesting happening in North Korea than just new reactor construction however, and this hasn't drawn nearly the same kind of Foreign Ministry response from the international community.

And it might be much more important for the long term growth, happiness, and international integration of North Korea into the international community: A GOLF COURSE.

While I admire the confidence of a country whose economy isn't conducted in cash or currency to try and develop a tourist trade, I have a question that is a bit more of a challenge to answer: between building nuclear plants and golf courses, where is North Korea getting the money? They don't really produce good for export (I mean, why export when you don't use money), they don't have tourism to bring in money (2 flights a week from Beijing), when the rare North Korean is allowed out of the country...say to the U.S. for a major meeting...when they go shopping they bring home aspirin, not Gucci. None of these are signs of a country in any way capable of financing these projects.

So what gives? Where is the money coming from?

When I left China--granted, 2.5 years ago--one of the major causes of concern in Jilin province was the influx of heroin into the province. Heroin? What? Isn't that all down in the golden triangle, thousands of miles to the south or in Afghanistan? Well, it used to be. Many of the provincial authorities in Jilin are much more concerned with the influx of heroin from North Korea. A combination of rising affluence and growing displacement have led to large increases in drug addiction China's North East in the past few years. And almost all of the drugs, apparently, are coming from North Korea.

Which leads to the next question: Why is China seemingly so complacent on North Korea's burgeoning drug-trade, when it is the Chinese themselves who are paying for the consequences? The last time China was well-known for it's opium dens-- the 19th century--it was because foreign businessmen (Americans and Brits, mostly) kept bringing in opium and selling it to Chinese. Get a Chinese talking about it at the right time, and you can just see the anger rise as the indignity of it wells up.

So is drug importation by "poor-neighbor" Asians better than by rich barbarian Anglos? The short answer is probably, "yes. no." Clearly, short answers aren't going to work.

My guess is that the drug trade in North East China is A. under close government and/or military scrutiny; B. providing huge profits for the units (or commanders) involved; C. is seen by the Chinese as the only life-line North Korea's starving people and decayed regime have before collapsing into a chaos that would be worse for North Korea than the present situation, and disasterous for China.

As always, China's self interests are served by the policies they pursue. A collapsed North Korea will send refugees pouring across the border into parts of China that are not economically prepared to deal with an influx of millions of moderate- to low-skilled workers; the region already has enough of those in the form of the people that haven't already fled south as intra-Chinese economic migrants.

A few drug addicted/AIDS infected Chinese as a result of the North Korean drug-trade seems a small price to pay in order to buy time to try and find other means of getting North Korea to be less of a "problem child" and more of a rule-follower on the international stage.

Which still hasn't answered the question: How can North Korea afford construction at 3 reactors AND a golf course (I mean, even if Tiger doesn't design it, it probably wont come cheap)??? Without any basis for fact, here's my guess: N. Korea's pouring almost everything it has into the reactors. On the international bargaining stage it has created, the reactors (or threat of them) is all that's left for NK. The Golf Course then? Actually, it's answered in the story...funny what I get from reading past the first paragraph...
Even as he spars with the United States over nuclear weapons, President Kim Jong Il has handed two areas totaling 800 square miles to South Korean businessmen on the gamble that allowing foreigners to frolic on the beach, play golf and open factories will generate hard currency without undermining the rest of his self-proclaimed "socialist paradise."
But even politically this is a gamble. If it succeeds, Kim Jong Il has created a precedent of basically granting rights to foreign companies to come in and profit without paying much for the territory they need (can you say Manhattan?). If it fails, (as I'm guessing it will because who wants to volunteer to become a hostage?), it means MAJOR setbacks for North Korea's quest to earn hard currency and legitimize it's governement.


Saturday, December 17, 2005

It's not if you win or lose...

...it's how many internet sites you can keep under wraps.

At least thats the thrust of this Washington Post piece about recent Chinese cyber-unrest in the wake of the shooting of protesters earlier this month.

I'm generally not a big fan of the Post's international reporting, but this piece is really well done. It covers many sides of the challenges and opportunities presented to the Chinese by the internet. Not strangely, it also leads with echos of protesters and dissidents past: veiling protests as commentaries about historical events.

What struck me as most powerful, though, was the brilliant simplicity of one of the protest memes. No coordinated attack, not a polished message. Just a direct message, sometimes cleverly delivered, sometimes without frills. In it's simplest form:

I Know.

Because, really, if you held power in a regime that maintained its position by restricting access to information, what would be more frightening?

As the Post story reminds us, the Chinese are excellent censors. The government hires hundreds of people to monitor chat rooms, blogs, bulletin boards, and numerous other means of sharing ideas. This isn't what makes the censorship effective. Most of us usually forget this.

Most censorship is self-imposed. By publishers, or companies, but most often by the writers themselves. Why do they censor themselves? Like most countries, China has laws prohibiting the publication of "state secrets." Unlike U.S. law though, Chinese law is (intentionally?) vague on exactly what is a state secret. And usually its not something one finds out until a story has been published, and someone in a position of authority decides he didn't like the story.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a U.S. government policy shop has a pretty good summation of the way state secrets work, here.

"Chinese laws require that anyone intending to disclose information relating to state secrets, national security, or the nation's leaders must get prior government authorization. The law then defines these terms to encompass all forms of information pertaining to politics, economics, and society. The government therefore has the right to censor any information on these topics, and anyone who publishes such information without prior authorization has violated the law, regardless of the actual contents of their writings (see, for example, the case of Zheng Enchong, discussed below)."
I wonder if anyone in the CCP has had conversations with Alexandr Solzhenitzen, Vaclav Havel, or Nelson Mandela about the effectiveness of censorship.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

The Shots heard round the world

Last year there were over 74,000 protests in China. Last week there was one that made news. It made news because the local authorities decided it would be a good idea to break up the protest--by shooting into the crowd.

For however bad it will make me seem, I think the fallout from this incident is going to be far larger than simply shooting between 3 and 20 farmers and fishermen.

Because it's gone from being an event to being a cause. And it's championed by "Chinese Intellectuals." In most of the western world we don't think much about an open letter to the government signed by....University professors, or writers, or even Nobel Laureates. When it happens in China it's a big deal. Especially when it's not just signed and delivered. No, this time it was signed and posted online. For the world to see.

Not only did these intellectuals call for an investigation into what happened, and punishments for those who made the decision to fire into the crowd--both of which are pushing the envelope of "OK behavior" in the world's fastest growing economy. No, they took it a step further.

They draw parallels between the shootings last week and the way the government dealt with another mass-uprising a few years ago in Tiananmen square. In case you don't remember what happened then, here's a refresher picture.

There aren't any really good analogies to U.S. political life. I guess the closest would be describing some action of a modern administration as similar to the way Native Americans were systematically exterminated. The big difference of course being that a U.S. government and U.S. citizens are aware that it happened. Not necessarily the case for Chinese about 1989.

Most likely what will happen is that the Chinese government will crack down on those who published the letter, and then after they have been sufficiently castigated, steps will be taken to punish the perpetrators of the shooting.

Even this, though, isn't the likely end of the story. Beijing is hosting the summer olympics in 2008. The Chinese are all particularly excited for that to happen. But those who are dissatisfied with the way things work in China are just as excited. Because when the olympics start, China is going to be overrun with journalists. It'll be next-to-impossible to keep an eye on all of them. But more significant than that, the country is going to be inundated with tourists. From the U.S., from Europe, from Japan and South Korea. From all over the world. And the people with the money to afford a trip to China for the Olympics are the same kind of people who will pack their digital cameras, digital video cameras, camera phones, and all the other tricks of the tourism trade. My guess is that there will be serious upheval around China in the month preceeding and following the Olympics, because there will be too many foreigners beaming too many images to the rest of the world for Beijing to keep it under wraps.

Even if that doesn't happen, it'll be an interesting year for Chinese. I'm only hoping that the government can find ways to let people participate in decision-making enough that there wont have to be riots and protests--and shootings--just to make the point that some of the people involved in governing aren't doing a very good job.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Hopes of an AU

Some people look to Europe and the fledgling EU as an example of how formerly adversarial nations can put common interests and the good of their people ahead of old rivalries. On of the regions of the world where this is frequently grafted to is Pacific Asia. Many people hope or believe it is possible for the powers of Japan, Korea, and China to begin moving towards and economic union similar to the EU.

I'm not so hopeful. I haven't been for quite a while, but it didn't come together for me until I read this piece in the Washington Post today. It's one of many recent articles talking about Chinese capitalists exporting business from China to lower-wage parts of the world in search of competative advantage.

There seem to be several reasons why the EU was so successful.

  1. It was begun as a very focused, narrow agreement by small countries on the continent: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxumburg. Not the types of places that have a reputation as threatening or dangerous to their neighbors.
  2. It evolved in a geographic region where countries' priorities were relatively similar and the economic, political, and social institutions of the various countries were already fairly similar, fairly transparent, and fairly integrated; in many ways the EU is both formalizing pre-existing informal ties, and facilitating the deepening and broadening of those ties.
  3. Rule of law was generally applied, more or less uniformly across the countries, and could be used as a starting point for negotiating on points of difference.
  4. Last, and perhaps most significant, even the largest economic powers in the EU; Germany, France, and England, were 220 lb men in a 160 lb arena. They carry more clout, but are in the same realm of magnitude.
The reasons I'm not optimistic about the emergence of an Pacific-Asia Union type of arrangement are almost the same items in reverse.
  1. 1. The countries with the most to gain by beginning a similar arrangement have much larger barriers to conquer: Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand strike me as the most likely to have the incentive to develop a Benelux-style arrangement, but they would have major issues of developmental difference, divergent legal systems, and markedly different political regimes to navigate in doing so.
  2. 2. It would be an effort to bridge countries whose interests are presently seen more as competing than complementing or converging.
  3. 3. The concept of law and justice in most Asian countries is still based more on who you know than what a polity has determined to be appropriate conduct and proper remuneration for a deviation from standards. (ie, there isn't much in the way of a "modern" criminal justice system.)
  4. 4. The lack of parity, both developmentally, economically, and in population, lead me to believe that any Pacific-Asia arrangement is bound to fail. Using terms similar to those above, in the grapefruit league of Asian economies Japan, South Korea, and the island of Taiwan have jumped into the Major Leagues with some all-star years, and some .220 seasons. But there's this up-and-comer in AAA right now, China, who is working on learning all the signs. And once he can, the other three are going to be bumped out of the starting lineup.
Pulling away from what is probably a stretched metaphor, what incentive do Asia's existing powerhouses (Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan) have to encourage an economic arrangement that further aids China's goal of economic growth, unless it benefits them to the same degree? Further, what chance does any Pacific-Asia economic organization have without the participation of China?

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Good Cop, Bad Cop

*Author's note: This was supposed to go up yesterday, but I typed the wrong email address...again.

It looks like we're back at the old (not-so) Merry-go-Round.

Yesterday the AP reporting that the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea reiterated it's assertion that North Korea is a "Criminal Regime," and using that assertion as a means to refuse lifting sanctions against the North.

I was starting to bristle at yet another political SNAFU by the present administration, but then there was rapid comment by South Korea's chief negotiator to the six party talks, "It's not desirable to publicly characterize the other side."

Now I feel OK because I'm pretty sure it's a means of applying pressure on North Korea as the talks continue... but doing it in a way that is face-losing and shame causing (not necessarily good things).

What makes me think so? If the Ambassador is making a statement that bold and direct, it was language that went through channels to the Secretary of State, and was likely cleared by the President. Whatever we think of the Administration, they are good at coordinating message. The sec-state likely bounced the idea off of Christopher Hill, the lead U.S. negotiator at the talks.

My guess is this is a case of the U.S. and South Korea playing "good cop, bad cop" on North Korea.

At least I hope so.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

The Cowardly Lions?

Sorry for the absenteeism lately. Been working about 12+ hours a day for a couple weeks getting ready for a big event next weekend. I hope to be back here more regularly after that.

There is a great piece in the Washington Post this morning by Michael Gurion. In it he talks of the diminishing presence of young men at college campuses throughout the country. How women have overtaken men, not only in numbers on college campuses, but also in terms of academic success at all levels; getting better grades, having fewer discipline issues, and generally attaining higher levels of eduction.

Some consider this a triumph of the women's movement--which in many regards it is. Women (and girls) succeeding can and should only be seen as movement towards a better quality of life for everyone.

Women succeeding is certainly a great thing. Men failing is not a great thing, and anyone who believes it to be is in for a very unpleasant future.

One of the goals of the women's movement was to make it acceptable for women to develop an identity for themselves outside of the their nuclear family; to alter the way the world judged and percieved them. This has fundamentally altered the way men and women interact and deal with each other--in many ways for the better.

There has been, I think, an unintended consequence. Men have seen the world change around them, and seen women's roles as expanding, but there hasn't been an equivalent expansion (until recently) of what socially acceptable roles for men are. Add to this the simultaneous proliferation of children being raised without fathers or father-figures, the surge in gangs across the country over the past 25 years, the impact of globalization on low-skill and low-wage jobs, and the declining presence of social organizations like church-groups or bowling leagues (for lack of a better example) and men are left to grapple with significant challenges to their traditional identities without the same degree of social connection they have had in the past.

I think of men of my grandparents' generation. A man's identity was based in a few places: his work, his church, his family, his neighborhood. One of my grandfathers worked at a meat-packing plant in a blue-collar suburb of St. Paul for much of his life. Later he worked as a warehouse manager. Both of these jobs were low-skill, but neither was low wage. He certainly didn't get rich, but with my grandmother also working, they usually had enough. He was active in his church, and was active in many community groups.

He was paid enough for his work that he was able to feel pride in what he did. Many will view this as a silly "feel good" issue, part of some hippy-based ideology that people have to feel good about what they do. It's more significant than that. Men often derive a large part of their identity from the work they do--and how that work is percieved by others. In our society, much of how we believe work to be percieved is based on pay. If a man believes his work is not valued, he is less likely to believe he has something to contribute. As Gurion points out, men without college degrees are more likely to join the marriage-pool late, or not at all. I believe much of that to be related to the fact that if men don't feel they are being valued, they'll feel they have little to offer. Especially with men-women dynamics changing, a man that earns less than a woman (especially significantly less) will feel he has little to offer her, and will be less willing to marry. Further, a feeling of inadequacy can cause a lot of mental/emotional stress. This isn't good for society generally. (This is my own train of logic here, so any corroboration or contradiction would be appreciated).

It's been a while since I've written, so I'm overreaching here and losing the thread, but I guess I'm trying to say something has to happen soon to help develop a sense of identity and purpose for young men, or we're going to end up with a generation of under-educated, under-motivated, over-entitled young men (and I went to high school and college with many guys like this). Then we're going to have a much larger and longer-term problem to sort out. What people often forget (or overlook) is that there is an element of a lion in most men: we want to be big an powerful and catered to. And when we don't get what we want, we play video games or rob liquor stores.

UPDATE: After I wrote this, I checked out my friend Delobius's blog. As usual, the people I know are better at saying what I'm getting at than I am. Here's what he had to say about being in Iraq, and why he'd go back.


"The last, and probably least important on a day-to-day basis when you're there, is participation in something larger than yourself. When you're there, it's often just daily drudgery, trying to get to the next day so you're one day closer to leaving; but in retrospect, even a support troop like myself can feel pride at being a part of the greatest army of the greatest nation on Earth, and for having a small impact on the country of Iraq - hopefully for the better."

Monday, November 28, 2005

Money for nothing

As if losing access to water for several days, and being confronted with the challenges of having Benzene pollute their homes, people in Heilongjiang province in China (China's northernmost province, bordering Russia and North Korea) also face some of the worst mine-safety conditions in the world.

In case regular readers thought I was being tounge-in-cheek this weekend when I mentiond mine collapse as a problem confronted by average Chinese people, the AP has a good (and short) piece about the most recent of China's mine collapses, like many of them, this was in Heilongjiang.

The piece makes a very precise statement, phrased delicately about two competing forces in China's drive to improve mine safety:

"Efforts to shut down dangerous mines have been complicated by the country's
soaring demands for power to drive its booming economy."

I guess reform is hard when the only two sources of power are A. the Party, and B. relationships. It's probably harder when the profits to be made keep going up, while the costs stay the same. The workers are just poor peasants, after all.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Walk the line

UPDATE, 5:04 pm: This is a great article from the BBC outlining the Harbin-Jilin battle over river contamination, and calls for a more robust government role in regulating the system

Or maybe the tight-rope.

I start this post with "I've been everywhere" playing on my computer, but I'm not thinking of Johnny Cash. I'm thinking of the good ol' CCP. The iron fist of order standing between 1.3 billion Chinese and Turmoil. At least that's how it might view itself. And the trials and tribulations of some 4 million or so people that have so far been disrupted by the benzene spill floating from Jilin north on the Songhua to Harbin, and from there to Russia. (map)

The problem that is being reported today in the Washington Post is the growing sense of public unhappiness over the way the situation was covered/uncovered and how people were lied to. According to the Post, the CCP has banned all newspapers from reporting anything but what is published by Xinhua (the U.S. equivalent would be if the government required all news sources to use Scott McClellan's press briefings as their only source).
There is conflicting news though. Fr. Brian's blog points us to a piece in Chinadaily.com.cn that is remarkably direct in its criticism of the way the situation was handled.

The fact that there is criticism in websites hosted on Chinese servers is surprizing in itself. What is more surprizing is that there are apologies being made by the Jilin provincial government, the Jilin city government, and the companies that operated the plant that blew up.

It seems that the government in China's Northeast is walking a fine line between allowing enough criticism and truth to be uncovered to allow people to vent their fears and frustrations, and yet not allowing so much that people will be emboldened to do something "rash" like start calling for reforms or calling out party/government leaders by name for their contributions to the disaster or the cover up.

My guess is that the only thing working in the government's favor right now is the fact that a long Manchurian winter is just settling in, and the idea of "taking to the streets" in a Parisian way isn't on anyone's mind right now. My bigger fear is that this will quiet down in a week or two, but people will remember it, and if something else goes wrong during warmer months in the next year or two, it will boil over stronger than if people had blown up now.

Authorities near Chongqing might not be as lucky. There were reports a couple days ago about another chemical plant that exploded in Southwest China. It cold there in the winter too, but not as cold as Jilin or Harbin. Let's hope there isn't any chaos coming from that disaster.

I just keep hoping that one of these days, maybe after the 500th mine collapse of the year, or maybe after the 3rd chemical plant explosion in a month that there will start to be structural changes in the way the Chinese operate the regulatory side of the local governments. Clearly what they're doing now is succeeding only at making officials rich and workers dead. Not really a populist notion there.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Ice and Erhus

This was supposed to be posted yesterday morning right after I got to work, but something got crossed in my emailing it in. So, 30 hours late, here it is:

In the public interest and community news section of the blog today, Wednesday in DC is great.
Why? I broke a frozen puddle at the bus stop this morning. This means winter has finally arrived, and real people are allowed back outside without fear of heat stroke. It was such a nice morning that a co-worker I met crossing the street on the way in said, "I hate the cold but there's something in the air today. It's electric." It's going to be a good day (and we have been "released" at 3 pm, so it'll be a short day).
Also, walking past the subway this morning the normal saxophonist had been replaced. Apparently by a pre-Holiday special musician. He was playing erhu! I mean, what? In DC? That's WAY out of character. But it did make me feel like I was back in a Jilin Karaoke restaurant, so it just added to the greatness that is first-frozen-day of the year.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Live from the land of Pitt

This is going to be short because of two things:
1. I'm in Pittsburgh hanging out with friends of mine, and
2. One of them just woke up and I should be a bit more social.

But for starters, I've been in Pittsburgh this weekend, checking out my friends' diggs and seeing what life has brought him and his new wife. To be honest, I was expecting post-apocolyptic run-down steel town: something like a cross between Akira and a Soviet-era housing project.

Instead it's been a fun town with a bunch of disparate views, images, and areas. I'm staying with them in a residential neighborhood a short drive from the U. Pitt/Carnegie-Mellon part of town. There's also a revitalized waterfront area; a warehousey-strip-nightlife area; a mis-named Shady Side that's sort of like Grand Ave. in St. Paull; a commercial (and nothing else) downtown; and the rest of the city I didn't see.

The area that struck me most so far was the converted waterfront. It's where a bunch of steel mills used to be, but has now been converted into a phenomenally generic anytown-USA zone for franchises and chains. I'm not saying it's bad: it's green, new, clean, and well put together, but of the 50 or so shops/cafes/restaurants I saw in the area, about 49 of them were unique to nowhere.

I only bring up the waterfront because it (apparently) was an area so quitesentially Pittsburghian (Yinzer, in the local dialect), and has now become so quintessentially not that it seems to me worth commenting on.

By and large though, in my 35 hours in town so far I find Pittsburgh to be a pretty decent town, and one with the potential to become much more dynamic and vibrant rapidly and dramatically if it can find its niche.

I'll write more later. (sorry, no pics as I forgot my camera)

Thursday, November 17, 2005

China's Rise

I've been trying to muster the mental energy to write a piece about U.S.-China relations in the next decade, but haven't gotten there yet. 
 
Since I know you're all clicking refresh at a mouse-destroying pace to get the news with my spin, here's a direct reprint of a piece that was forwarded to me about China's rise.  I haven't finished it yet (actually been doing work recently) but the author is certainly raising interesting points about world power, regardless of how one views his conclusions.
 


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John Mearsheimer: The rise of China will not be peaceful at all

18nov05

THE question at hand is simple and profound: will China rise peacefully? My answer is no.

If China continues its impressive economic growth over the next few decades, the US and China are likely to engage in an intense security competition with considerable potential for war. Most of China's neighbours, to include India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Russia and Vietnam, will join with the US to contain China's power.

To predict the future in Asia, one needs a theory that explains how rising powers are likely to act and how other states will react to them.

My theory of international politics says that the mightiest states attempt to establish hegemony in their own region while making sure that no rival great power dominates another region. The ultimate goal of every great power is to maximise its share of world power and eventually dominate the system.

The international system has several defining characteristics. The main actors are states that operate in anarchy which simply means that there is no higher authority above them. All great powers have some offensive military capability, which means that they can hurt each other. Finally, no state can know the future intentions of other states with certainty. The best way to survive in such a system is to be as powerful as possible, relative to potential rivals. The mightier a state is, the less likely it is that another state will attack it.

The great powers do not merely strive to be the strongest great power, although that is a welcome outcome. Their ultimate aim is to be the hegemon, the only great power in the system. But it is almost impossible for any state to achieve global hegemony in the modern world, because it is too hard to project and sustain power around the globe. Even the US is a regional but not a global hegemon. The best that a state can hope for is to dominate its own back yard.

States that gain regional hegemony have a further aim: to prevent other geographical areas from being dominated by other great powers. Regional hegemons, in other words, do not want peer competitors. Instead, they want to keep other regions divided among several great powers so that these states will compete with each other. In 1991, shortly after the Cold War ended, the first Bush administration boldly stated that the US was now the most powerful state in the world and planned to remain so. That same message appeared in the famous National Security Strategy issued by the second Bush administration in September 2002. This document's stance on pre-emptive war generated harsh criticism, but hardly a word of protest greeted the assertion that the US should check rising powers and maintain its commanding position in the global balance of power.

China - whether it remains authoritarian or becomes democratic - is likely to try to dominate Asia the way the US dominates the Western hemisphere.

Specifically, China will seek to maximise the power gap between itself and its neighbours, especially Japan and Russia. China will want to make sure that it is so powerful that no state in Asia has the wherewithal to threaten it. It is unlikely that China will pursue military superiority so that it can go on a rampage and conquer other Asian countries, although that is always possible.

Instead, it is more likely that it will want to dictate the boundaries of acceptable behaviour to neighbouring countries, much the way the US makes it clear to other states in the Americas that it is the boss. Gaining regional hegemony, I might add, is probably the only way that China will get Taiwan back.

An increasingly powerful China is also likely to try to push the US out of Asia, much the way the US pushed the European great powers out of the Western hemisphere. We should expect China to come up with its own version of the Monroe Doctrine, as Japan did in the 1930s.

These policy goals make good strategic sense for China. Beijing should want a militarily weak Japan and Russia as its neighbours, just as the US prefers a militarily weak Canada and Mexico on its borders.

What state in its right mind would want other powerful states located in its region? All Chinese surely remember what happened in the 20th century when Japan was powerful and China was weak. In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi.

Furthermore, why would a powerful China accept US military forces operating in its back yard? American policy-makers, after all, go ballistic when other great powers send military forces into the Western hemisphere. Those foreign forces are invariably seen as a potential threat to American security. The same logic should apply to China.

Why would China feel safe with US forces deployed on its doorstep? Following the logic of the Monroe Doctrine, would not China's security be better served by pushing the American military out of Asia?

Why should we expect the Chinese to act any differently than the US did? Are they more principled than the Americans are? More ethical? Less nationalistic? Less concerned about their survival? They are none of these things, of course, which is why China is likely to imitate the US and attempt to become a regional hegemon.

It is clear from the historical record how American policy-makers will react if China attempts to dominate Asia. The US does not tolerate peer competitors. As it demonstrated in the 20th century, it is determined to remain the world's only regional hegemon. Therefore, the US can be expected to go to great lengths to contain China and ultimately weaken it to the point where it is no longer capable of ruling the roost in Asia. In essence, the US is likely to behave towards China much the way it behaved towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

China's neighbours are certain to fear its rise as well, and they too will do whatever they can to prevent it from achieving regional hegemony.

Indeed, there is already substantial evidence that countries such as India, Japan, and Russia, as well as smaller powers such as Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam, are worried about China's ascendancy and are looking for ways to contain it. In the end, they will join an American-led balancing coalition to check China's rise, much the way Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and even China, joined forces with the US to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Finally, given Taiwan's strategic importance for controlling the sea lanes in East Asia, it is hard to imagine the US, as well as Japan, allowing China to control that large island. In fact, Taiwan is likely to be an important player in the anti-China balancing coalition, which is sure to infuriate China and fuel the security competition between Beijing and Washington.

The picture I have painted of what is likely to happen if China continues its rise is not a pretty one. I actually find it categorically depressing and wish that I could tell a more optimistic story about the future.

But the fact is that international politics is a nasty and dangerous business and no amount of goodwill can ameliorate the intense security competition that sets in when an aspiring hegemon appears in Eurasia.

That is the tragedy of great power politics.

John Mearsheimer is professor of political science at the University of Chicago and the author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (W.W. Norton, 2001).

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Wisdom from unexpected sources

Sunzi said it,

"...[k]now your enemy"
And amazingly enough, none other than George Will is pointing out potential opportunities for Democrats in 2008. He's also pointing out cleavages in the American political system that don't necessarily fall along party lines. He doesn't quite say it, but it's left for inferrance that the cleavages are there for whichever candidates are capable of exploiting them.

He uses Russ Fiengold's classical North-central progressivism as an example of how the label "progressive" is not stictly a D or an R label in the 21st century--much like it was not a D or an R label in the 20th when laid upon Robert LaFollette Sr. at the end of the 19th century. I would go further than Will to say the values espoused by Fiengold: fiscal responsibility, government spending to fill in where markets fail (minimum wage, retirement benefits, etc), a foreign policy that creates a better world, and a government that works to ensure that all Americans have the opportunity they work hard to earn.

Who knows, we might have an election in 2008 that will bring real issues to the fore. At least a guy can hope, right?

Explosion rocks Jilin

In a break from the sarcasm and sardonic posts of late, here is real news.

Jilin City, where I lived in China, pretty much has one primary industry left. Chemical production facilities. It's trying to branch out into other things like manufactoring, semi-conductors, and even fruit juice. But the one big employer in the city is the chemical industry.

It just got rocked Sunday. Major explosions apparently hit a workshop/facility in the north of the city. So far, no fatalities reported, though there have been reports of 30 injured. 10,000 additional people have been evacuated because of fears of further explosions, or (more significantly) polution and smoke being released from the factory. Apparently the one that suffered the explosion produces benzene.

It happened about 6 or 7 miles north (I'm just guessing, as all distance measurements in China seem to be time-based, not geography based) of where I lived. You can mostly see it in this map...my university was the icon on the south edge of the map, partially obscured by the copyright.

Apparenly, none of the people I know in town were around the facility at the time it exploded, so I'm hopeful it stays that way, but I'm guessing more news will trickle my way in the next few days.

Isolation, exclusion, and consequences

For decades, possibly centuries, the French have been vigilantly guarding the essence of "Frenchness."

One result of this pattern of behavior has been the difficulty immigrants--especially North African immigrants--have had integrating into French society. It's not easy for most immigrants to integrate into a new culture and society.

Even in the U.S., with our history of successive groups of immigrants, each new wave has faced serious challenges to becoming accepted members of their local communities. Look no further than the Hmong, Somali, or Latino arrivals in Minnesota for the challenges they are facing--some even 25 years after they've arrived.

For the French, the challenges with immigration are greater, because of the enormous value placed on the "traditional" in France. Unlike the United States, it's nearly impossible for most people not born to French citizens to become citizens. This means they can't vote or become complete participants in the local civic life. It also means that the issues and interests one has are going to be ignored by the local political leadership.

Now, where can we find examples of people who have been dispossessed by local political leadership? Where they have isseues to be addressed, no recourse to address abuses or shortcomings? There are a few places coming to mind, but none of them are as well known around the world as the Palestinians.

And remarkably, the dispossessed in France are behaving much like the dispossessed in Palestine.

Let's see if the French come up with a better solution to their uprising than we've seen used in Palestine. I'm not confident we will.

Innovators or insidious masterminds?

This was an intriguing article about Google today in the Washington Post. The company as a whole, and how it has the drive, and creativity to remake the way the world operates. Everything from remaking the business model, to creating a free wireless-enabled world, to returning to the era of "railroad towns."

Seems like plenty of room for good, but just as much for "oops" if not right-out bad.

A taste of the neighborhood

With all due respect to Cupcake, I have the priviledge of living near what is possibly the greatest bakery in the country.

Heller's


It's been a bakery since 1921, and apparently recently went through an ownership change. I don't know who had it before, but the people that own it now are an El Salvadoran family who lives down the road.

It also happens to serve slices of chocolate cake that even I can't finish in one sitting.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Easternization and its Discontents

Yesterday marked the end to a long week. It was Veterans' Day, a day when we remember the sacrifices and commitment so many have made and are making to preserve the American way of life at home and abroad.

I marked this with a solemn day at the office. The best part was the first 4 hours were thoroughly unproductive. So then I followed a very medieval practice and went to be bled. One of the Fellows in my program regularly gives blood at a Red Cross station, and he recruited me. It's astounding how much more clearly I thought with a pint of blood missing from my body.

The fun part of the day came at 7:30 when I decided to go home. I figured it was late enough in the evening that there wouldn't be crowds on the bus, and that I'd have a short trip home.

Wrong.

The bus (which is scheduled to come every 10 mintutes) arrived after a gap of 35 minutes. I was at the first stop, and the bus was completely full by the time I made my way onto it. The rest of the ride (2 miles) was similar to getting on the Subway at Shinjuku station in Tokyo during rush hour. You've seen the pictures. For those of you from the Middle Kingdom, think of getting on a bus to a major tourist destination on National Day, or a train near Spring Festival time. Except for a lack of luggage it was exactly the same.

There are lots of things the U.S. can learn from its neighbors in Asia. But for the love of all that is good, please let it not be the packing of people in public transit vehicles!

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Teething

Based on excerpts of an editorial in an upcoming issue of "The Nation", in Howard Kurtz's column today, it looks like someone on the left is growing a set of teeth.

Unfortunately, it looks to me like the same kind of black-and-white thinking that got us into the mess in the first place.

The Nation therefore takes the following stand: We will not support any candidate for national office who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign. We urge all voters to join us in adopting this position. Many worry that the aftermath of withdrawal will be ugly, and there is good reason to think they are right. But we can now see that the consequences of staying will be uglier still. Fear of facing the consequences of prolonging the war will be worse.
It shouldn't be a question of prolonging the war, or setting a timeline. It should be about setting realistic standards and "mile posts" that, as they are achieved, the U.S. can begin the process of extracting itself.

This isn't a hard concept, so why is it so hard for either our Republican Administration or our Democratic Leadership to articulate it? As far as popularity, what does Bush have to lose? And while it might not be in keeping with the preferred bitch-and-moan opposition the Democrats have taken the past 5 years, they might find that by taking a leadership role on an issue they might actually start to gain voters, instead of simply waiting for Republican defection.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

VINDICATION

As one of the housemates said tonight, "The only Democrats that are sad tonight are the one's thinking about running for President not named Mark Warner."

With Democrats winning in Governors Races in New Jersey and Virginia, and HUGE sweeps by RT Rybak and Chris Coleman (both won by about 2:1) there are a lot of happy Democrats around the country.

But Democrats in Minneapolis's 2nd Ward aren't as happy tonight. In the ward that contains the University of Minnesota and approximately 25,000 18-22 year olds, the self-proclaimed party of young people chose a candidate who's idea of reaching out to young people was to create one intern position for each semester. That's right, bringing young people into the political process, 3 interns a year.

In contrast, the person she beat out for the endorsement (whose campaign I worked on) was a 26 year old that was articulate, dynamic, engaging, hopefull, and had a comprehensive vision for the city. All of which were qualities the "winner" lacked--or at least couldn't convey.

I have to admit that I'm happy she lost. Not because she beat the candidate I was working with, but because of what her victory represented. It was a triumph of the insipid over the innovative. It was a victory of the middling over the exceptional. Worst of all it was a victory of "It's-my-turn politics" over meritocracy.

I realize it was a small election of smaller potatos in the grand scheme of things--even in the scheme of off-year elections in Minnesota. But I hope that the Minnesota DFL takes notice of what happens when it facilitates or encourages people to run for office when they convey an image as frumpy as the issues they promote.

Anger or despair?

A quick piece, and then I need to be productive.

This piece in the Post today, about China's efforts to combat AIDS and the obstacles to that fight inherent in the present Chinese system is enough to make you wonder what can be done.

It's about how China's official policy is trying to stem the spread of AIDS, and trying to treat those who are afflicted. But, as the article states,

Doctors at local hospitals responsible for dispensing free pharmaceuticals are exploiting those in need, padding bills with unneeded drugs and dubious services, according to medical experts, government officials and patients.
In a country that, for 5,000 years has never known the rule of law, and only operated under the dual systems of "who you know" and "the mountains are high and the emporer is far away" it's hard to see how sufficient structures will be developed to counter this type of corruption. I mean, they're DOCTORS.

I'm not saying all, most, or even many doctors are behaving this way. But I know how businesses and many other organizations are frequently run in China, and it's not the kind of knowledge that brings hope.

Here's a toast: May China's development and integration with the world overcome the cultural inertia it has towards methods that marginalize the disposessed, and exploits the vulnerable.

Fool me once...

As a President once said, "Fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me... you can't get fooled again."

Now the same President that brought us Michael Brown and Harriet Miers is asking us, in essense, "Trust me." He doesn't use those exact words. In fact, it sounded more like:

"And so, you bet, we'll aggressively pursue them, but we'll do so under the law."

just in case someone didn't understand where he was going with that, he added,

"We do not torture."
Call me crazy, but anyone (President or janitor) who sends his staff to ethics training over the weekend, and then supports his Vice President's plan to create an a la carte torture ban two days later, needs a reality check. And it's not like the world outside the Whitehouse has no reason to believe there has been torture.

I'm not even talking about the silly things the Whitehouse KNOWS we know.
Like Abu Ghraib. (WARNING: these are graphic; potentially not work-safe.)

No, actually I was talking about things like the Gonzalez memo where our current Attorney General outlined how torture might be OK because the Geneva Convention doesn't really apply to what the U.S. is doing. Because a memo is a lot less cut-and-dried about torture than, say, pictures. Pictures depicting people in states that the U.S. court system would describe as "cruel and unusual."

Then there's the Red Cross. You know who I'm talking about. That bunch of commie-pinkos formerly headed by NRSC Chairwoman, wife of former Presidential Candidate Bob Dole, and North Carolina's junior Republican Senator, Elizabeth Dole. The one's who go around collecting blood donations, and setting up aid stations in disaster areas.

Yeah, that bunch of bleeding hearts (backed by the EU's Stalinist regime) is saying that it suspects the U.S. to have secret prisons in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, and Thailand.

So really, why not trust him? Because clearly we're not torturing anyone.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Live Debate

For those of you who missed it last night, the debate on West Wing was a fantastic piece of television, and a fantastic piece of political theater.

Just to get the obligatories out of the way: Yes, I understand it was scripted. Yes, I understand it's entertainment.

That said, I thought it was more informative, instructive, and presidential, than any of the debates we've seen our glorious, hand-picked candidates soundbite their way through in the past 3 or 4 elections. I only hope that every high school civics class in the country uses that 1 hour of TV to show kids what debating, politics, and differing views of America are all about.

Speaking of high school, when I was that age I'd sit down to watch Questions with the Prime Minister when it was on. (And, yes, I recognize what that says about me.) But what a concept. A nationally televised, script-free dialogue between the head of the executive branch and his colleagues in the legislature.

Now imagine that in the US today. Yes, crying is allowed.

Sure, a week or two of Bush playing president to the cameras in the Senate might be entertaining, but beyond that, he'd be exposed for the uncurious, insufficiently informed, and dolorously unaware of the way the world is as compared to how he thinks it might be.

Almost none of the Democratic candidates in the last election would fare much better. We've created a political system that eschews substance in favor of what consitutes style. And even that is stretching it.

As though it was hard to tell from what I write here, I'm a bit of a romantic (when it comes to politics only) so I'm going to start the campaign right here, right now.

Questions with the President
A 30 to 45 minute weekly prime-time exchange between the President and the Senate. Democrats and Republicans are allowed to alternate questions, and who asks them is up to them. No topic is out-of-bounds. Live broadcast to PBS and C-Span.

Like every press conference, the flacks and pundits will spin it afterwards, but for a change, lets let the American people watch their political leaders engage in a dialogue about the issues of the day. It'd be a remarkable day for civic education in this country.

China 2.0

It appears China has learned some lessons on the need for directness since the last potential epidemic saw tens of thousands of foreigners, including this one, evacuate the country in mere weeks.

I was actually ready to write an piece lauding the vast improvements in China's disclosures--which have been considerable. However, it seems like old habits die hard.

There was an AP piece in the Washington Post Express (sort of an ultra-distilled version of the paper, for reading on the bus/metro on the way to work) about China's bird flu response:
China Probing Whether 3 Villagers Died from Bird Flu

China said Sunday it had asked for outside help to test three possible cases of bird lu in people, while scintists and government represetnatievs prepared for a strategy session in Geneva amid fears of a possible worldwide flu pandemic among humans. China said it asked the World Health Organization to help determine whether the virus caused he deaths of three people in a village in Hunan province.
The headline in the People's Daily struck a different chord, however.
China Reports 3 Pneumonia Cases of Unknown Causes
China's Ministry of Health Sunday gave a briefing on three pneumonia cases of unknown causes in Xiangtan County, central China's Hunan Province, where an H5N1 bird flu epidemic broke out recently.
They walked right up to the edge of saying they believe them to be bird flu, but couldn't quite get that out. Maybe some day soon it wont be impossible to admit that *gasp* Chinese people suffer from the same physical frailties as the rest of the world, but as Bob said, "baby steps."

Lord Cheneymort?

And the silly liberals were afraid of giving the power of the vice presidency to this guy? What a bunch of pansies!

From the Washington Post

"Over the past year, Vice President Cheney has waged an intense and largely unpublicized campaign to stop Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department from imposing more restrictive rules on the handling of terrorist suspects, according to defense, state, intelligence and congressional officials."

More specifically, have you ever seen these two in the same place?


Sunday, November 06, 2005

A Lesson in French Etiquite

There is an amazing divergence of stories growing out of the violence and rioting in France.

One's view of this story is likely to be radically different, depending on who writes your news.
LeMonde (France's version of the NYTimes) is reporting pretty much the facts in it's lead paragraph; that Chirac has called a meeting of a French "Internal" Security Council to discuss ways to deal with riots that have lasted for 10 days.

El Pais (Spain's NYT/WSJ) lead headline reads something like, "The virulence of the riots in France grows in spite of government warnings."

El Mundo (Spain) reports it somewhat differently, "Chirac intervenes in the crisis and holds an urgent meeting to attack the rioters"

The BBC had one of the most "matter of fact" articles, and one of the least informative.

Back in the States, our two major national papers have differing takes.

The NYTimes (yes, I caved for this) "Unrest Spreads to Central Paris and Outskirts of More Cities" Intriguinglingly, it wasn't until the sixth paragraph that the article made clear, "Most of the unrest remained confined to immigrant neighborhoods surrounding Paris..."

The Washington Post had a remarkable piece (remarkable than for no other reason, how bad it's international coverage tends to be) starting to shed light for most of us, on why the rioting is occuring. The story pained in this article is that it's about recognition for a group cut off from main-stream access to political representation and economic participation.

I doubt this was intentional, but China's People's Daily published a story that takes the opposite perspective from the Washington Post's, and gives only the French Government's take on the story. In the story, rioters are described as organized gangs, and seeking "organized violence."

It's interesting to see how different papers present the same scenario. At least I think so.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

You Learn Something New Every Day

One of the roommates was nice enough to go out and buy a Washington Post this morning, so I could look through it for sales at clothing stores. Apparently, however, people who read the Saturday Washington Post are very well-dressed, but in need of home furnshings and new cars.

At least that's what the ads made it look like. No men's clothing adds. Lots of furniture, BMW, and other car ads. I'm used to being 'not catered to' by the ad industry--as my annual net income is less than what some of them pay for suits--but its still distressing to have NO sales going on when I'm actually motivated enough to go and give them money for making me look nice.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Next word

SatanAmericanization.

It means "Re-creating one of America's greatest follies after first dubbing America "The Great Satan." And it has to be capitalized like that. I made it up, I make the rules.

I thought it up after reading this piece in the Post this morning about how it looks like Iran is shaking up its foreign policy establishment to reflect the more *ahem* conservative views of its newly elected president. Granted, almost every president--of companies or countries--have a way of putting people they trust in key places. But I'm worried that Iran's move is a little bit closer to what happened during the 50s under McCarthysim and HUAC.

Ignoring for a moment the civil rights and first-amendment rights these politico-religious crusades trampled, there is a more fundamental issue at stake, and one that transfers more easily to the Iranian system where there isn't the same level of protection for activities like speech.

When McCarthy, and his open-minded brethren launched into "de-communisting" America, they did some substantial, long-term damage to the American Foreign Policy Community. Nearly everyone with experience in Asia was canned. Why did MacArthur over-reach in Korea? Why didn't any top-level decision makers at State or Defense have a better sense of Ho Chi Minh's nationalist movement? Why did it take almost 15 years after the beginning of the Sino-Soviet Schism for American leadership to recognize there were cleavages needing to be capitalized?

Answer: Because all of the people who should have been advising decision-makers in the early and mid-50s were being pushed out. The people filling in behind them, those who should have been mid- and senior-level by the mid-60s were pushed out a few years later by McCarthy and his way of thinking. It left an ENORMOUS experience and knowledge vaccuum in offices that analyzed intelligence and set policy for some of the most important regions of American Foreign Policy.

What does this have to do with Iran today? I'm hoping nothing, but fear much. The announcement that 40 of Iran's most senior diplomats are being pulled out, likely because they aren't sufficiently ideological for the new president, sends shivers down my spine for Iran's relations with the West over the next 20 years. It's also unlikely to be just the Ambassadors who leave; it will be their staffers, and the junior people in the embassies who have come to respect and admire their superiors. Especially if those who replace the outgoing amabassadors are harsh, hard to work for, or generally disagreeable.

Look at it this way: you work for the foreign ministry (and any country could be substituted here, it's a very similar cut of cloth around the world). You're pretty good at your job, and you know it. How do you know it? Because you're working in Washington, London, Paris, or Tokyo. Places where the FM isn't likely to send wet-behind the ear types, nor people who are just coat-tail riders. In addition to Farsi, English, and French, you've probably got two or three more languages at your disposal. Having been in the job for at least 5 or 6 years, you've had a chance to build up contacts all over the world, in government, business, you name it.

Now you have the option to work for an ideological boss who may be harsh, may curtail the way you interact with others in your host country, may cut you out of significant work you'd been doing, all sorts of maybes. Do you put up with being jerked around for 4 or 6 or 8 years, hoping the next election will bring someone who understands foreign policy back to your presidency, or do you jump ship? Work for a multinational, start your own business, anything like that where you can make a lot more money and have a lot less headaches?

Let me tell you, FM types aren't usually going to sit around waiting for something better to come along. They tend to be the most well-educated, well connected, often elitist group on the planet. 80% of them aren't going to be willing to be jerked around when there are significantly better opportunities around.

And this is what I fear for Iran. That it will lose an unbelievable number of very experienced, talented, and savvy personnel. This will lead to a decrease in understanding between Iran and the West--something already in short supply--and will lead both sides to make considerable miscalculations about things that can afford no error. Things like, I don't know...nuclear weapons?

Let's hope Iran doesn't go down McCarthy road. I'm just worried it's running out of side-streets before it hits the expressway.