Sparks

by demosthenes
www.selparis.com

If the stories examined in detail by news networks accurate represent the interests of the American public, then it seems we are resolutely focused on political mudslinging and trite accusations. What we are evidently uninterested in, except in the wee hours of Saturday morning, or any time when it will not unduly attract attention, is the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars (which are nowhere in sight on twenty-four hour news), the economy, and oil prices.

You might have seen some coverage about the economy and oil prices, but it is nothing more than the usual drivel repeated hour after hour. Has there been a single examination of the potential impact of offshore drilling? Somehow, it has largely slipped mention that the executive ban on drilling was originally instituted by our current president’s father, George H. W. Bush, and no one has broached the subject of why the ban was established in the first place. It was there to protect the tourism industry because unsightly oil rigs detract somewhat from the beauty of our country’s beaches. In other words, the reason was economic rather than environmental. Has anyone bothered to explain, for the benefit of the public, what the actual economic impact of the offshore drilling plan would be? Of course not, with all the juicy innuendo about race baiting in the campaign flying around. Needless to say, this neglect has contributed to polls showing support among the public for expanded drilling.

Sheer distraction can be the only reason why the public has missed the fact that oil companies already have leases they have failed to put to use. And do these companies really want to drill more to lower oil prices? What reason would they have for doing so? Why do Exxon-Mobil, BP, and Shell want Alaska’s Wildlife Refuge and the continental shelf open for drilling?

The answer is simple: having those extra territories open to them will ensure their profits for the relative long-term. They won’t drill there this year, in five years, or in ten years. They will drive prices as high as possible, and keep them there for decades, drilling in new locations only when it is absolutely necessary and will not substantially increase supply.

In addition to this, they also want to show that they can get away with ruining our beaches. They want to show environmentalists that they can outright fool Americans about their environmental record by putting immense advertising budgets to concerted use. In July of 2006, BP admitted to spilling 270,000 gallons of oil in the Alaskan tundra due to poor maintenance of their pipelines, and yet this same company has the gall to trumpet their environmental awareness. Exxon-Mobil has fought for twenty years to avoid paying damages for the Valdez oil spill even though the company, with record profits, could easily afford the penalty for its failure to make a reasonable attempt to clean up the notorious 11 million gallon discharge. Are these the companies we are seriously thinking of entrusting our beaches to?

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding at work as well. “Offshore oil drilling” makes it seem as if the activity will be safely away from the country. Phrasing it as “beachside oil drilling” might, perhaps be more accurate and produce more appropriate responses. To be sure, the oil platforms would be miles away from the beaches, but the structures are enormous, and their impact to the aesthetics of our shoreline would be devastating. Not that our beaches are pristine as they are, mind you, but what exactly is Florida without its tourism revenue, without people across the country flocking to its beautiful ocean front? Who paid the Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, to embrace the fundamental destruction of his state’s economy after his ardent opposition to drilling? Why isn’t any of this being mentioned, when it seems our country is being swindled by oil companies into giving them rights to territory we should fight to protect from their hands?

The offshore drilling issue is only an example. The truly abominable example of media neglect is the War on Iraq. News agencies have reasoned that people do not want to keep hearing about the war day after day. The problem is, because no news is coming out of Iraq, Americans have come to think that no news means good news, and have been fooled into thinking that the surge is working. When Republican talking heads appear and make this claim, they are not challenged, even though the surge was meant to make the Iraq government self-sufficient, and that government is nowhere near that state. If the surge was working, we could leave Iraq today. We are not leaving, therefore the surge has not worked. It is that simple.

Instead of troubling everyone with the real story, the cable news networks have chosen to deliver up yarns about presidential election that have nothing to do with important issues or reality. Why? Because fiction is so much more attractive than the hard facts of life in the economic doldrums we have faced since 1970. Because trite gossip is so much more comforting when our great nation is being outpaced by upstarts. But if the American people are not exposed to the truth, we cannot expect to rise up from our rut. If denied accurate information on which to base decisions, we will make mistakes detrimental to our future.

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by demosthenes
www.selparis.com

The question boils down to this: Will Barack Obama’s nuanced thinking alienate voters to such a degree that it trumps his claim to the simple catchword of the entire campaign - change? So far, the answer has been no. As Obama increasingly shows his intellectual ability to consider different points of view with an even hand, and to embrace the ideological diversity of this country to show that he will be everyone’s president, not just a blue state president, he will inevitably leave the most passionate advocates of particular stances disaffected. That is neither a surprise nor a political problem - the extreme ideologues on every side, with the possible recent exception of the Christian Right, have always been excluded by the governing system of this country, because they are a small minority of the population. The interest of the candidates lies elsewhere.

The key to winning an election is the so-called “center", and that vast ocean of apathy has little interest in political affairs at all, and will essentially toss a coin to decide whether they show up in November to vote. For that weighty mass of the population, it is sufficient to base their vote on a single issue or a single word. In 2008, that word has, by the consistent media repetition of it, been “change". Don’t bother to ask what it means or entails. Not everyone in the uninterested and uninformed majority will vote for change - they may pick other pet issues like abortion, gay marriage, the war in Iraq, tax breaks, and so forth. The point is that they will have no time for subtlety.

In fact, there is a significant percentage of the population that becomes quickly irritated by shades of gray. The media seems to identify this segment as its core demographic, because any instance of hedging, uncertainty, or interest in other positions exhibited by a politician is instantly labeled flip-flopping. The phrase “flip-flopping” has become so overused that it loses all sense of meaning. Except in one recent concrete case per candidate, I doubt any supposed instance of a flip-flop is anything more than a show of flexibility.

It can be firmly acknowledged that Barack Obama changed his mind on public financing and that John McCain did so on the Bush tax cuts. The question is, was it a sin for them to change their minds? The circumstances changed. Barack Obama developed an unprecedented base of support online and John McCain saw the economy change drastically between 2000 and 2008. Do their new opinions show a fundamental flaw in their characters, or rather an ability to adapt to a change in circumstances? Why is flexibility shunned by the media and the public, when difficult times call for a president who can make a variety of attempts to deal with a problem, and to recognize when one potential solution is not adequate, or even counterproductive?

The answer is simple. The majority of the American population votes based on a single issue or a single word, and on that they expect a candidate to be firm. They only have time for a yes or no position. Are you Pro-Life? Are you against the Iraq War? Are you for change? People want yes or no answers, and they need to be able to rely on those responses to vote. If the opinions of the candidates are subject to change depending on the circumstances, then this lazy, irresponsible way of voting fails to function. Therein lies the essence of politics today - the laziness of the electorate.

Will Obama be a candidate of change bringing a new form of politics to the system? As he himself readily admits, and often reminds people of in his speeches, he can only accomplish this feat if the electorate is engaged and active, parsing out the positions of the candidates carefully, and ignoring the spurious attacks made by groups with no interest in the truth. Will McCain outline policies measurably different from Bush’s? Only if the voters put more energy into determining who becomes president than the interests that supported Bush do.

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by demosthenes
www.selparis.com

In response to those who might claim that, under extreme circumstances, the torture of prisoners might be necessary to obtain vital information, I offer the following quote from the movie “Judgment at Nuremberg” from the final decision by the fictional Judge Dan Haywood:

“Janning’s record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial: If he and all of the other defendants had been degraded perverts, if all of the leaders of the Third Reich had been sadistic monsters and maniacs, then these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake, or any other natural catastrophe. But this trial has shown that under a national crisis, ordinary - even able and extraordinary - men can delude themselves into the commission of crimes so vast and heinous that they beggar the imagination. No one who has sat at through trial can ever forget them: men sterilized because of political belief; a mockery made of friendship and faith; the murder of children. How easily it can happen.

“There are those in our own country too who today speak of the “protection of country” - of “survival.” A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient - to look the other way.

“Well, the answer to that is “survival as what?” A country isn’t a rock. It’s not an extension of one’s self. It’s what it stands for. It’s what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult!”

Delivered by Spencer Tracy, it is the eloquent summary of a key idea that is often forgotten. Patrick Henry was famous for reminding his fellows of the same concept when he said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” In other words, this country was founded on the notion that we do not give up our liberties simply for the purpose of base survival, but that we fight for our principles, even to the death. We do not condone the erosion of our constitution simply because it is the way of least resistance, and will preserve for us some illusion of safety.

Every now and then, we have to be reminded of this truth, and watching “Judgment at Nuremberg” is one of the least painful ways. Finding out that your name has been put on the no-fly list and having no right to petition to have it taken off might be a more common way. Unfortunately, most of the violations of our civil liberties, such as the compiling of over a million “suspicious activities” records, remain under the radar and, by the time it culminates in a critical mass of infringement on our freedom, it will be too late to reverse the trend.

The time to make the undermining of our principles an issue is when the violations are starting to poke through into the general perception. Too often, the great majority of reasonable people catch on too late, and by the time they feel the need to have their voice heard, the exercise of free speech has been curtailed, and the signs of autocracy has become all too evident.

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by demosthenes
www.selparis.com

In response to this story: Despite Investigations, Blackwater to Keep Working in Iraq

What else does Blackwater need to do? We already know that its unaccountable presence in Iraq involves over a hundred failures to obey the rules of engagement enforced within the U.S. military. We know that the wage and benefit disparity between Blackwater and regular troops is detrimental to the morale of our army. The company was only selected to provide security in Iraq because its CEO has been a regular Bush contributor and supporter. The mercenary firm stands accused of tax fraud, improper use of force, arms trafficking, and overbilling. What else does it need to do before our government will refuse to renew its contract.

Instead of outlawing this potentially dangerous band of mercenaries operating within our borders, the State Department has extended its contract for another year, costing the taxpayer $240 million. For that money, should we not expect an exemplary team of experts instead of opportunistic profiteers? Can’t we hold these people accountable to our laws, or Iraqi laws, or any laws, if we are funding their activities? If we pay them ten times as much as we pay our troops, can we really expect ten times the service, considering that our military is already doing all it can?

It is long past time to hold the Bush administration accountable for its actions. It is not adequate to simply wait until next January, when the buddies for George W. Bush will finally lose their undeserved positions and contracts. To have our country represented abroad by such a dubious band of warmongers as Blackwater should be unacceptable to both liberals and ocnservatives. If those in Blackwater wish to make money by fighting in a war, let them do it according to the rules, as the men and women in our military do. If the Bush Administration wishes to stay in power for the remainder of its final year, it had better make certain it does not grant Iraqi contracts to organizations that are under investigation by a grand jury, federal prosecutors, and congressional investigators.

It really is that simple.

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by demosthenes
www.selparis.com

Written in response to this BBC story:Iraq forces battle Basra militias

A day after the cable news networks spent twenty-four hours discussing how there had been 4,000 American military fatalities in Iraq, and lamented the lack of attention paid to our war in that country, they have neglected a major story coming out of Iraq.

The ceasefire between Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army and the Iraqi government has evidently broken down, leading to clashes between that militia and Nouri al-Maliki’s forces in Basra and Baghdad. The reason for the reversal is the detainment of some members of the Mehdi Army by U.S. and Iraqi forces, and subsequent demands by Sadr that those members be released. This development has the potential for breaking down the fragile order that has existed in Iraq, which has allowed the administration to claim that the “Surge” is working. It is a reminder that factional struggles in Iraq, even within the ranks of the Shia majority (remembering that both Sadr and Maliki are Shia), will continue to make it difficult for U.S. forces to withdraw from that country without triggering a power vacuum that will lead to civil war.

The reality in Iraq, which has occasionally been mentioned in passing in the news, is that we are currently bribing Iraqis not to kill each other, literally paying off tens of thousands of militants. Even if we removed our troops from Iraq, it is likely that we will continue this practice, and even escalate it, since it promises to keep the peace while being under the radar, so that the American public will not be aware of it. This infusion of cash is, in fact, far more critical than the surge itself for the current security situation in Iraq. Our troops are not trained as peace officers, and are uniquely unsuited to that role, being readied instead for combat operations which ceased, according to the President himself, on May 1, 2003. Since that time, American troops have not had an appropriate role in Iraq.

That said, the actions of the Mehdi Army show that, like any gang, money will only mollify them to a certain extent. The attempt to detain members of the gang produces an all-too-predictable backlash. Any other perceived transgression will lead to a similar breakdown in order. Sadr’s militia is essentially above the law as long as the Iraqi government depends on the ceasefire to maintain order, as are members of similar groups across that country. Having heard no news of this, I wonder if the Iraqi government has been able to enforce the law at all. Have they brought anybody except Saddam Hussein’s regime to trial?

It may seem to be a small point, but until there are regular civil and criminal trials in Iraq (not, of course, just in the Green Zone in Baghdad), then the Iraqi government cannot be sovereign. It can pass all the laws it wants, but without the ability to enforce those laws, sovereignty will remain in the hands of the various armed forces in Iraq, including the United States military, and mercenary gangs like Blackwater. In other words, it is rule by might instead of right, making it foolish to speak of an Iraqi government at all.
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