Sunday, February 26, 2006

George's Will

Washington Post columnist George F. Will has another piece of angry, angry writing today. It's the most consistent trait in his writing. But today, he takes up a point that (surprisingly) I tend to agree with. He writes about the need for an open society to be open. How constraints of free speech really aren't doing anything to promote a concept of openness.

Amongst the constraints on free speech are laws in 13 countries on 3 continents making it illegal to deny/minimize, etc. the holocaust. I generally agree with Will on this point: It's hard to convince Muslims around the world that Europe (or the West, generally) has a commitment to free speech when it's convicting a guy for exercising free speech--even when it's speech we disagree with. In a sense, the conviction of David Irving in Austria this week is just a state-sponsored version of the protests roiling parts of the Muslim world.

While I agree with him in principal (which is shocking enough) I'm not sure how I see the practice of this free speech playing out. Because free speech has consequences, and it isn't always part of a society's collective response to ensure the truth is told. Take Japan for exampe. In the 61 years since the end of the second world war in the pacific theater, Japan has never fully apologized to it's neighbors for acts of barbarism and policies of institutionalized dehumanization. This "free speech" by the Japanese has led to decades of luke-warm relations with its neighbors throughout the region, and jeapordizes numerous efforts in Asia. So, I guess the question is, "are we willing to live with the consequences of free speech?"

Later, Will brings up the idea of campaign finance reforms as impingments on free speech. Maybe they are, maybe they're not. But maybe we're looking at this the wrong way. If politics is about a marketplace of ideas, and a market is something that is most effective when there is maximum information parity, wouldn't we want as many people as possible participating in the political process? Not just the 50% who vote, but say, everyone who could vote? Why don't we treat politics like a market (not in the sense of buying and selling votes) but in the sense of offering incentives to people to participate. One of the easiest ways seems to me, to lower the barriers to entry. Make it so that a $50 dollar contribution is the largest amount that can be contributed. Is this a restriction on free speech? States, counties, and cities do it all the time. Why can't we pursue this at a federal level--getting more people involved in our political process, and hopefully making it stronger as a result.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Understanding, Close-mindedness, or Piety?

A friend of mine posts daily reflections on the Gospel. I'm not one to go in for regular or lengthy discourses on religion, but there is frequently wisdom in his comments. In the Judeo-Christian-Muslim triad that exists in the modern world, with all three (I think) in agreement that the origins of the faiths are the same, and given the recent combination of violence in the Muslim world over depictions of Muhammed, and sectarian violence in Iraq seemingly erupting, to me there seems to be wisdom to be gained from the following story, used to shed light on the situation from Mark 2,18-22.

"A traditional Hebrew story has it that Abraham was sitting outside his tent one evening when he saw coming towards him an old man tired and dirty from traveling. Abraham sprang up and invited the old man in, washed his feet, and gave him food and drink. The old man immediately began eating without saying a blessing. So Abraham asked him, “Don’t you worship the Lord?” The old man replied, “I worship only fire and no other god.” On hearing this, Abraham became angry, grabbed the old man and threw him out into the cold and dark night. Later that night God called his friend Abraham and asked where the stranger was. Abraham replied, “I threw him out because he does not worship you.” God answered, “I have put up with that man all these eighty years. Could you not put up with him for just one night?” Religious people sometimes have a problem accepting differences in other people. The disciples of John and the Pharisees in today’s gospel are a good example."

I wonder if there wouldn't be dozens of cities around the world that were more peaceful today if they had considered this story over the past month, instead of the violence they've been committing--either through design or through negligence.

Monday, February 20, 2006

What do China and Texas have in Common?

Both like to do things big.

Say what you want about China or the government there, but don't accuse them of being afraid to think big. And I'm not just talking about thousands of years of history building the great wall, or irrigation programs that are large enough for all of Western Europe. I'm talking of modern marvels like the Three Gorges Dam, and their newest initiative 50% more electricity production...in 4 years!

In case any of you are looking for investment advice, I'd say buy stock in raw materials stocks. If China--already a MASSIVE consumer of energy, is going to increase supply by nearly 50%, energy stocks will go through the roof. And you thought $3.00 a gallon was bad. Hmmmm.

Long Overdue Story

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has a story today that my friend Austin was talking about 3.5 years ago... how U.S. telecommunication and internet on-ramping is lagging farther and farther behind our Asian and European friends.

"High speed" connections in the states are between 1 and 4 megabits per second (Mbps). A megabit is 1/8th of a megabyte. Japan, South Korea, and third-wold-giant China all have connections of approximately 100 Mbps avialable to nearly all internet subscribers--and for costs of less than $20 a month. I'll speak from experience--internet in my apartment in China was cheaper and faster than my internet here in D.C.

The article continues to say that European "high speed" rates are about 20 Mbps.

So the question is, why is America, with all of our great private investment lagging behind? Why hasn't American creativity, ingenuity, and better market conditions allowed us to take advantage of what a (2003) Brookings Institution report suggests could be 1.2 million jobs and $1 trillion. A slightly updated version was released in Sept. 2003.

One of the first conversations I had about technology with Austin in the late summer/early fall of 2002 was about how the U.S. was starting to fall far behind the rest of the world in high speed availability. The fact it has taken almost 3 years for these reports to make it into the press--even in a state that is as dependant on high-tech and rapid information as Minnesota (the state that has brought you 3M, Cargill, Northwest Airlines, Honeywell, Wells Fargo, and The St. Paul) suggests that maybe the U.S. isn't paying as much attention to the needs of it's infratstructure and information economy as we should be.

Sweden-Canada in the gold medal women's hockey game is on...so this is getting cut off now.

World's greatest rumor-mill

Anyone who I've ever talked to about the rapidity with which information crisscrosses China will have heard me describe the country as the world's greatest rumor mill. There is a series this week in the Washington Post talking about the challenges and opportunities facing China as more and more Chinese log onto the internet.

Yesterday's story
was about the China Youth Daily, one of its editors, and his boss. There was quite a hubbub last fall over proposed changes to the newspaper. The editor wanted the paper to follow a line more likely to line up with party-leaders' interests, and the editor wanted to be closer to average people's interests.

While it's not yet clear whose side will win, both men have lost: they were both fired last week. That is an outcome to be expected--fire the one because he challenged the system, and fire the other because his failure to take care of the situation only exposed the system to greater criticism.

The remarkable part of the story is the way the internet--and other forms of telecommunication--were used to spread a message, and congeal an opinion. In less than two hours, a 13,000 word letter was posted on hundreds of sites and read by thousands of people. In an unusual reversal, the newspaper reversed it's position on the proposed pay-scale that gave rise to the opposition--because of the public support for the reporters at the paper, and the fact that they were attempting to cover news as it is, not as the powerful want it to.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Sibling Rivalry

If you have siblings, you'll know what I'm talking about here. When you're little you take opportunities to just poke at your siblings (or even your parents). You know, the opportunities are rare, so you have to exploit them: any time in the car; sitting someplace (like church), those moments when neither mom nor dad are in the room.

That's exactly what is happening between the world's two largest (and poorest behaved) children: China and the U.S. Yes, I said China was nearly as poorly behaved as the U.S. Because when it comes to trade, the behavior from the middle kingdom is more befitting a 5 year old than a 5,000 year old. And the U.S? An older sibling coming to grips wiht the fact that it isn't the only child anymore.

Not sure what I'm talking about? The BBC has a story about the latest poke--this time by the U.S. The way the U.S. acts is also like the older sibling who just doesn't manage to figure out that the other child is poking just to see the reaction.

Of course China is going to pursue a policy of maximizing their own benefits and trying to foist the burdens on the rest of the world. Each country plays that game the same. The difference is that China is doing it much better than everyone else--because no one else (the U.S. leading the way) has figured out a way to push China from the offensive in their policy-plays to the defensive.

It is ironic, at least to me, that Europe and the U.S. both used to being front and center on the world stage--and have been for at least a century each--are letting the relative upstart China, call all the shots. I'm not ignoring China's 5,000 year history, but I'm also cognicent of the fact that until for forty of the past seventy years, China's policy towards the world was basically, outside bad, China good. So the fact that they have figured out how to pull all the right strings in the international arena at all the right times--absolutely mind boggling. Especially since they can only have learned so fast if the rest of the world has learned approximately nothing.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Capitalist means, Soviet ends.

One of the growing ironies of 21st Century American political rhetoric is the way it is beginning to establish goals that are nearly a perfect mirror of the Soviet actions of the last century. Don't be confused, not a mimic, but a mirror. A reflection. The same thing from the other side.

The Soviets followed a single-minded planning system, organized from a central source and seeking a single end: aggrandizement of the Soviet Union, and an accretion of its power by whatever means available. It did this through establishment of goals, and spared no effort to ensure it achieved those goals--regardless of the practicality of the means needed to achieve them. It was this kind of thinking, this kind of prioritization, and this kind of action that determined that Kazakhstan was a good place to grow cotton--the goal. The means to get there drained a significant portion of the Aral sea, and instead has made it a ship-bearing desert.

The mirror image rhetoric in America is a demanding insistence on means without a consideration of the ends. It is nearly an inversion, believing means are an ends to themselves. What am I talking about? The best example is the semi-religious zeal the public keeps hearing the chant, "Privatize! Privatize! Privatize!" from conservative pundits and political leaders alike. There is logic behind it (of a sort). The government isn't a productive force within the economy--it is a sap. Private enterprise is what made this country great. Americans' success has always come from their own efforts in spite of government efforts to hold the people down." Fundamentally, it is a faith that the private sector can do anything the government does and it can do it better. Retirement. Health Care. Education. Transportation.

In almost every way, it is the complete inversion of the Soviet belief that the state could do anything the private sector did, and do it better. It's not a new idea. Single minded adherence to an ideology, and a rejection of any alternative is a common feature in history: Pol Pot in Cambodia during the 70s, Mao Zedong in China from the 40s-70s, Lenin in the 20s, to say nothing of religious extremism like the Spanish Inquisition in Spain or Usama bin Laden's present-day Salafism.

The rhetoric is one of "follow the means, the world will be great." Without consideration or statement of what that world would look like. As we begin to privatize our fundamentally American institutions, bit by bit, we're eroding our ability to lead the world in politics, economy, and military. Just like the Soviets, by singlemindedly seeking to fulfill their 5-year plans destroyed their ability to create, produce, and compete, with the West.

To focus on just one such area, privatizing America's public school system is a symptom of the larger disease soon to be weakening our body American. The mythology of Americans pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, and Marlboro-man individualism aside, a major component of American ascendance to economic, political, and military power in the world has been our people. For over 150 years our people have had access to better education at every level than almost anyone else in the world. From school-houses in small towns in the Dakotas, to some of the leading high schools in the country, and the world's premier universities, the United States has provided our youngest opportunities to surpass their parents in learning and knowledge. And it has been available to everyone.

No one has reaped greater economic rewards from this superior eduction than American businesses. This is why American businesses have led the way innovating products, processes and management for the past century--because we have had more people more educated than anywhere else in the world.

Now, just as the rest of the world is realizing America's greatest competitive advantage lies in its highly educated people, American business and political leadership are rejecting the idea that it is important to continue to invest in teaching our children. The money they save today in "privatizing" is better, they say, than the benefits from a long-term investment in education.

Ask the Russians and the Kazakh's today what kind of rewards they are reaping from their single-minded adherence to the Soviet line in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Growing cotton in a desert is an idea with equal consequences as the idea that having a less well educated populace will help maintain prosperity.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Something's wrong in Smallville

There are times in life when you know you're just not keeping up with the Joneses. Normally I'm fine with that. But today, I'm just down. Because the newspaper has deemed fit to just rub my nose in it. Not only do I know that I'm not doing my duty as an American, keeping the economy running by spending lavishly, but now everyone else will too. How do I know this? Because the Star Tribune has just published a story that's bound to make vagabonds of the world (me) feel bad:

Valentine dates under $300


Wait. Never mind. It's a typo.

The real headline is:

Three Valentine's Day dates under $30


I mean, it's still over my $3 limit, but... it's a lot closer than $300. Now I feel much better about not keeping up with the Joneses. Don't any of you take this the wrong way, but happy Valentines Day.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

6 Reasons I'm Tired of People Being Tired

I’m tired of people being tired of Bush bashing. I’m tired of it for several reasons:

  1. It’s the political pass-time of the United States. We make fun of our Presidents. Ever hear of Saturday Night Live? Don’t believe me? I just have to ask those of you tired of Bush bashing how much Clinton Complimenting you did during the 1990s? By contrast, what “viciousness” is there in what is said about Bush? Where are the venomous Congressional Democrats? There are no Democratic Newt Gingrich’s, Bob Barrs, or Tom DeLay. Where is the liberal media? If anything, the media isn’t making much fun of Bush any more because it’s old news. There’s been so much fun poked at him that there’s nothing left—and they’ve moved on to other targets.
  2. There are two simple ways to stop the Bush bashing that is going on in our country: 1. Don’t reelect him. Second term presidents are rarely as popular in the second term as they are in the first. 2. Elect someone smarter next time. It’s interesting that Clinton was bashed for contravening his marriage (which clearly is up to the general public to decide), but his economic policies, his domestic programs, and the foreign policy he pursued left the United States with the strongest economy and best international ties the United States have had for 30 years. Isn’t it also strange that the Bush bashing that is going on has to do more with the fact that Bush took over under those conditions and has squandered America’s economic vitality and international good will on cavalier projects with short term gains to a few and long term costs to many? Maybe others don’t think it’s strange, but I do.
  3. This country has already given this president 5 years of nearly unequivocal support. The last time a President used his powers to detain and imprison Americans for indefinite periods without recourse to lawyers, charges, or even confirmation that there has been a detainment stretches back to the glorious period of U.S. internment of Japanese Americans, or even further to the Civil War, or even better—to that pinnacle of America’s rule of law, not rule by man: The alien and sedition acts. A little more bashing and a little less kow-towing might have helped the U.S. come to more amicable decisions—ones that the minority can live with and the majority likes. It’s the difference between governing by consensus and governing by edict.
  4. I’m tired of it because people think of George Bush as an average American because he grew up in Texas and likes to drink beer. That’s like saying the Pope is an average Catholic because he went to church growing up and likes to celebrate Christmas. George Bush comes from one of the most politically and corporately well-connected families the U.S. has produced in the past ½ century. He went to Yale and Harvard. And an ultra-elite private preparatory High School. I don’t begrudge him those things, but America, come ON—He is only average because like most of us, he didn’t apply himself until he was too late in life to become anything else.
  5. I’m tired of people assuming that Bush bashing is them-bashing. I can think Bush is unqualified to be president; I can think he has made poor decisions; I can think he has surrounded himself with people who exacerbate his weaknesses and play to their own strengths. I can do all of that, and say, while still having an enormous respect for him because he is at fulcrum of more pressure, conflict, and chaos than any of us can ever hope to avoid. And he chose to run for office again.
  6. And I’m tired of people thinking that just because they can string together 2 dozen unrelated sentences that have been mouthed, written, sung, or recited by others with whom they agree that they are either A. making a point, or B. defending a single position.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Of Politics and Hockey

I hesitate to even think this, much less write it down, because it feels sacriligious. Comparing Hockey and Politics. Not something one should do...but I'm doing it anyway.

The analogy is there, begging to be noticed. Politics is a lot like hockey. Not politics everywhere, but at least in the U.S. We don't have a multi-party, mixed aportionment system, or a complex system with a President and Prime Minister. We have two parties. Hockey games have two team. Every 2 years they step onto the electoral rink for a game of political hockey. Keep reading, the analogy has more to it than that statement of the obvious.

If you have spent any time watching college or professional hockey you'll recognize a few common elements on each hockey team. I don't just mean positions like center, wing, defenseman, goalie. But roles as well. Every successful team has goal-scorers, play-makers, a coach, a captain, and a couple of "enforcers."

Goal Scorers are the guys who always find a way to get the puck into the net. Play makers are the people who can get the puck to the goal scorer at just the right time, and in just the right place, to make the scoring chance happen. The coach is the person in charge. He sets the strategy, determines which players on his team should play against which players on the other team. He lays down the law, and people do what needs to be done for the good of the team. The captain is the spritual leader of the team; his job is to make sure each player stays focused on his job and that the team works together. The enforcers are the big guys. You have them around to make sure nothing happens to the goal scorers. They might not be the best skaters, passers, defensemen or scorers, but having them around helps ensure that no one takes cheap-shots at your best players--otherwise the enforcers are going to have a mission.

A good hockey game is one between two teams who both have all these roles filled with people gifted at their role, and who are working in synch.

Similarly, a good political system is one in which both competing factions have each of the roles filled with talented and engaged people who know what part they are playing, and are coordinated in accomplishing their task. The political system in the U.S. today is not a good game. The Republicans have done a fantastic job of recruiting and promoting people to fill these positions, while Democrats have followed the principle of "everyone do what makes you happy".

Here's what I mean.
The Republican Roleplayers:
Goal Scorer (though he's been in a recent slump): The President
Play Makers: House and Senate Republicans
Coach: Karl Rove; the RNC
Captain: Religious Conservatives
Enforcers: Talk radio

By contrast, I can't name a single role the Democrats have filled. It's not a team so much as a tryout. There is no cohesion, and no unifying ethos amongst them. Instead they are all attempting to prove that they should make the team--execpt it's an expansion team, so there is no one to help guide them along the way.

Can someone go make the Democrats into a good hockey team? I'm tired of watching blow outs.

Disjunction

For those of you have been following the exercise of free speech in the Nordic countries, like Denmark, Norway, Germany, France, and others, you'll have noticed that they're experiencing some problems with Muslim communities around the world.

Far be it from me to judge a culture and a people about whom I know virtually nothing, but I do find the fact that Syrians have set fire to the Embassies of Denmark and Norway to be signs of two very different views of how to interact with the world.

In countries whose government and social structure have grown out of the enlightenment, the 30 Years War, and two World Wars, there has developed the idea of freedom of the press. More specifically, there is a culturally accepted concept of critique and discourse on which nearly any topic is valid. Also, a thickness of skin (usually) that allows people to make statements or draw pictures, which, taken at face value, may be offensive; but taken as they are intended are metaphors for a larger issue.

In addition to being illustrative of the fact that Syria isn't exactly a model of stability, the universality of the protests at embassies around the world demonstrate two truths about the world as we inhabit it right now. Without understanding these, the U.S. (our allies, and anyone else around the world) will have a hard time effectively understanding and responding to the world as we are now presented with it.

Issue One: The majority of people in the Middle East do not share Western Europe and North America's penchent for Free Speech. It's not a rejection, per se, it's more a lack of ownership for it, or an opportunity to fully express (and thus utilize) something like it. Having spent most of the past century under repressive colonial rule, or home-grown repressive rulership, there is little- to no wide-spread understanding of the freedom of speech (to say nothing of the U.S.'s other 9 points in the Bill of Rights).

Combine that with the fact that democratic participation in Mid-East countries is lauded when presidential outcomes are so "fair" as to be 88-7:

"The great people of Egypt have voted in a multi-party presidential election -- and now their government should open paths of peaceful opposition that will reduce the appeal of radicalism."
The result? Not shockingly, a generation of Arab Muslims (and their cohort around the world) growing up resenting the U.S. (and, by extension, the West) for our support of repressive regimes in their front yards. When you're given no opportunity to express dissent on domestic topics, it's difficult for the government to stop a group of passionate people from protesting international issues that come up--ask the Chinese. Without an opportunity to discuss/voice/raise issues on a wide scale, when an issues does present itself, it is usually protested out of proportion to th issue at hand.

Second, thge issue of religiously ostricized people the world over. Muslims throughout the world are feeling ostricized, isolated, and singled out for their faith. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant. What matters is that they feel this way. When they see cartoons run in papers of foriegn countries--and when they don't have sufficient experience with free press, they lash out as they have done. It's the same across cultures and times. The difference is that now it's happening against non-colonial European nations instead of colonial nations or other developing countries.

I'm wagering, though, that the root of the protests, the burnings, and all the other dissatisfaction about these cartoons isn't the fact that they exist, but the people who feel targetted by them feel as though they have little recourse to improve their lives, and that European powers are part of the reason. Why? I'm not entirely sure--except for the fact that Syria is a particularly non-participatory regime whose recent accomplishments include (allegedly) arranging to assassinate a Lebanese minister and journalist who were pro-Lebanese Independence. Definately a pro-democracy stance from Syria there.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that there are definate lessons to be learned from the lack of restraint showed by crowds in front of two embassies in Syria. It's also of note the the Syrians, likely sensing something violent was on the way, allowed the crowds to get that close to the embassies in the first place.