The Firebreak Doctrine
An Alternative to Chaos or Surrender
American policy in Iraq is a failure. Alternatives suggested by opponents of the war or the Iraq Study Group, offer no viable solution and amount to nothing more than surrender. In a tragedy reflecting deep divisions in our democracy, politics has trumped policy. The Republican administration forges ahead towards further failure while the loyal opposition merely sees Iraq as a stick with which to bludgeon President Bush. Creative solutions languish on the sidelines while deaths mount and chaos grows. The Surge can only be a stopgap measure and its success rides on the hope and prayer that good generals might solve political, or even more absurdly, cultural problems.
The program of reconciliation within Iraq, ardently desired by the well intended, can hardly develop within a pseudo-nation constructed by post World War I colonial ambitions. Iraq must be understood as a nation of contradictions patched together as a counterweight to Iran held together by dictatorship. To expect reconciliation to grow out of centuries of hatred between Shites and Sunni is wrongheaded and, quite possibly against our national interest. If the United States believes that it can create order in an artificial country that craves conflict, it is sorely mistaken. Yet paradoxically, to simply leave would be the height of irresponsibility, and almost certainly give rise to catastrophic consequences on a global scale.
We thus propose the Firebreak Doctrine. It consists of three parts:
1. Divide the Country
2. Manage the Wealth
3. Govern from a Distance
Part One: Divide the Country
The internal contradictions within Iraq must be faced. Kurdistan is relatively peaceful because of its autonomy. Give similar autonomy to the Shites and the Sunnis. More importantly allow these warring factions to separate themselves officially. In point of fact, this process has already begun in one of the few mixed regions, namely Baghdad. The foreign policy establishment, and the fourth estate reject out-of-hand the division of the country into its presently hostile camps due to the belief that a united Iraq provides balance to the potential superpower of the region, Iran. Iran, its nuclear program notwithstanding, has little or no chance of absorbing the Arab Shites of Iraq and typically acts as a regional power whose influence is overstated. Iran, failing to achieve its policy initiatives conventionally acts as a rogue state, calling attention to itself via acts of piracy such as hostage taking. Nor is Iran the monolithic theocracy sometimes portrayed. Deep divisions create fault lines among many subcultures, the more prominent being that between the theocrats and the modernists. An inherently divided and unstable Iraq "united" through a weak and dysfunctional federalism provides less, not more balance to an ambitious Iran. The United States, in Wilsonian tradition, ought to encourage the formation of coherent countries, not prop up leftovers from the colonial era.
Part Two: Manage the Wealth
Simultaneously with the division of Iraq, U.S. military forces ought to be re-deployed to all areas of oil and natural gas production and distribution within Iraq. The purpose of such a shift in U.S. troops would be threefold: first, to reduce immediately and radically the casualties of U.S. troops in the country, second, to control the source of wealth in the country, and third, to substantially decrease the ongoing cost of fighting. Critics might believe controlling the wealth a transparently cynical move. In reality, it is enlightened compared to the present policy of funding all sides. In effect the bureaucracy in Iraq (both pre- and post-war) is so corrupt that vast quantities of U.S. funds find their way to the very terrorists, Baathists, and jihadists the U.S. presumably fights. Critics of our policy are right to point out that the fragmentation of the country has produced an anarchical situation. Oil revenues fund all sides and the U.S. funds all sides, exacerbating the growing chaos. Remove the source of that powerful chaos, namely the money. Control of the purse will give leverage to a rational program of securing, rebuilding, and pacifying the country. The most democratic way of realizing this is to assign the oil and gas wealth of the country to the people in equal proportions paid out to the government's they elect in accordance with that governments conformity to universally valued (but U.S. mandated and monitored) mandates such as eliminating sectarian violence, rebuilding infrastructure, and ensuring basic freedoms.
Part Three: Govern from a Distance
Division and control of the wealth imply the effectiveness of governing from a distance. No longer policing what cannot be controlled, namely the sectarian fighting, the U. S. military would guard the oil, allowing the United States to effectively control the behavior and therefore the policy direction of the region. In point of fact, any illusions of real, much less consistent influence that the United States has on the decision making process in Iraq should have died long ago by the sword of realpolitik. Unfortunately, policy makers have no end to a supply of delusion. The present administration persists in its public proclamations of spreading democracy, establishing the rule of law, and denying the Middle Eastern heartland to the terrorist enemy. Sadly, these ambitions appear all but lost except in the mind of the most die hard neo-conservative. The implementation of the Firebreak Doctrine would resurrect these policy goals. As firefighters regain control of a wildfire by controlled burning, the U. S. could both eliminate casualties (virtually) and assert control over the direction of politics in Iraq. By controlling the wealth, the U. S. could implement mandates including the neutralizing of militias, establishing the rule of law, and building a lasting infrastructure.
The United States may need to fight this war until rationality and prosperity blossom or it may need to leave the region. Either outcome does not preclude the possibility of containing the conflict. The Firebreak Doctrine resurrects this possibility. Our fatigue with Iraq is based on our revulsion with irrationality and with a grating incongruence: children encouraged by their families to blow themselves up and strange naïve doctrines of virgins in heaven. This is why our greatest vulnerability as a truly civilized society is our civility. Who in a culture other than the jihadist would not wish to simply run away? Thus the profound need for a profoundly new approach.
Christian Hunter
Peter Benbow
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Thoughts on North Korea
originally posted: Sunday, October 15, 2006
The problem of N. Korea is swarming the news lately. For the few in the know, little of that superficial news is of interest. For the majority -some of whom have been asking me for my thoughts- the day-to-day details like "what'd Kim Jong-Il have for dinner" etc. overwhelm the important macro-causes that underly this grave world crisis.
I thought I would, for the few interested, offer a "N. Korea 101" (by my perspective) and, more importantly perhaps, offer a few unorthodox remedies of my own.
N. Korea and S. Korea have been split since the war between the two (which was fought between 1950 and 1953). In a nutshell: in world war two, japan kicked ass all over southeast asia, we then kicked ass all over japan. what ended up left was (like with europe) a mish-mash of redrawn states, with half democratic/capitalist (allied with the United States), and the other half communist (allied with the soviet union/china). Korea was no exception. By most expert accounts, Kim Jong-iL's father invaded the south in an attempt to unify the two under his dictatorial control. The US came to the aid of the South (fearing - as we feared with Vietnam - that if the south was allowed to fall, so too would many other split states...we called it "Domino Theory"). Allot of ass was kicked on both sides, and a stalemate eventually called. The UN sanctioned a split between the two states at the 38th parallel: hence, North Korea, South Korea.
After his fathers death, KJ-iL, assumed control of the country. I won't bore y'all with tales of what a total nutbag he is, but for fun, and if bored enough, google his name with key-words like kidnapping, and freak. Suffice it to say, he is LITERALLY crazy.
This is probably where our problem starts. You see, KJI has made the acquisition of nuclear weapons his primary ambition for almost 20 years. At first, as with Reagan when he made a lot of noise about SDI (the strategic defense initiative) during the 80's, Reagan scared Russia to the bargaining table without even needing to develop the technology. Well, KJI did that with Clinton; threatening to develop a nuclear weapons program unless we gave him stuff. Clinton did. He gave him Nuclear power plants, oil, cash, and food. It's hotly debated, but KJI monkey-fucked us. That is to say, he took our loot and developed nukes anyway. I'm fairly sure that if KJI didn't have a nuklear ability when Bush took office, he was years into development, and months away.
Finger pointing doesn't mean much now however. He got 'em.
Nukes that is. Roughly enough Highly Enriched Uranium to develop 8-13 warheads by most expert accounts. As opposed to our nukes, his are simple (gun design), crude (likely to suffer high failure rates), and low yield (in the 50 kiloton range vs. ours...more in the 30 megaton range!). However, a nuke is a nuke when you're talking about negotiating power, and KJI is milking it for all it's worth.
Our biggest fear is that he'll sell one of his nukes to terrorists. This isn't Saddam Hussein type overblown rhetoric, he really has them, and has a very active market for weapons systems (buys/sells missile technology freely with iran and russia among dozens of nations around the world). This is uncontested fact.
OK, so, to the present:
KJI is a true despot, and sadly, the civilized world doesn't remember what that means. It means he has a "to the last man" attitude when it comes to threats to his power. This is a mind boggling but accurate statistic: roughly 2,500,000 N. Koreans died of starvation in just four years (between 94-98). KJI however has a 100k per year liquor habit, numerous compounds, dozens of barely 12 year old virgins delivered every year, and over 12k US movies to watch when he's done drinking, fucking, and basically being a maniac. A real fuck-rag of a dude.
When we "negotiate" with parties like this, we forget (as the civilized world) that we're negotiating with one man. ONE MAN! One man who, if confronted with the choice between a total megafuck of a war, where 22 of his 23 million citizens died (but a war where he'd be viewed as a hero by the surviving 1 million) vs. avoiding a war all-together but remembered as a failure by all 23 million souls...he'd certainly choose war.
CERTAINLY
That seems like a simple to understand concept, and, in my view is. But the political topography being authored by the US and co-shaped by Japan, China, Russia, and South Korea flatly ignores that paradigm.
If I'm right in my assumption about what a pigfucking cat-puncher he is, then we need a new approach, one - I might add - that could have use not just with N. Korea, but in many despot controlled nations around the world.
In a sentence, my prescription for turning this mess around is this:
Augment his benign power, while containing his malignent power.
More specifically, increase the weight and importance of those areas of power, reward, and fulfillment KJI gets that don't materially harm our national interest. Simultaneously, we should work to diminish the importance (to him) of those areas of power that do conflict with our national interest.
Do we really care if KJI lives out the rest of his existence fulfilled or miserable? Trick question. Yes, we do. And again, that's the point of my suggestion. To the extent he's happy as a fat fucking shitbag of a despot, we have leverage. Remember the old axiom: "never negotiate with someone who has nothing to lose". Our foreign policy "experts" may not. As a consequence, when a country does something against our interest we "ratchet up pressure". We don't negotiate, rather, we act like Dick Cheney did on the phone last month with famous writer Bob Woodward when, angered by an unfavorable piece done on him, called BW's inarguable factual position "bullshit", then hung up on him. LOL! These mother fuckers crack me up. That is, until I remember the stakes: millions -perhaps tens of millions- of lives.
We should absolutely be negotiating with NK, with KJI, and with any nation (Iran included) that is desirous of negotiating with us. Not "back channel", not "multi party". Direct. As we did with our arch enemy -the soviet union- for decades. It isn't appeasement to negotiate with an enemy.
Fundamentally, we ought to figure out ways to enrich KJI, using NK as a proxy, in attempt to increase our political control, give KJI more to lose, and diminish the risk of a worst-case-scenario.
There are some things we should be doing that we aren't, and some we are, that we shouldn't. Among those we shouldn't, and perhaps most obviously shouldn't, is our embargo against NK.
Does it really help us to encourage and enforce a trade embargo against N. Korea (as we've recently sucessfully lobbied to do)? We need only look 90 miles south to the small communist island nation of Cuba for crisp indisputable evidence to the contrary. Embargos against nations with the intent to foment dissent/break will/or otherwise cause a fundamental change to national policy is, almost totally, dead wrong.
If tomorrow, by some bizarre magic, I could totally posess the body of the President....well, I'd do a lot of funny shit. However, one of the less funny, and most important things I'd immediately do would be to schedule a summit to be held in Seoul South Korea between the US and NK. This geographic and negotiatory gesture of good will would -regardless of summit outcome- work wonders to diminish the Presidents reputation as a warmonger, and to restore the US's credibility as a peace-making super-power.
In the summit, I'd agree to lift trade embargo's on all non-military trade. In addition, I'd work to establish a Surrogate Labor State (straight up in China's face) in North Korea. What do you care if your pillows are made in China vs. NK? You don't, but you should. Stuffing down into cloth for our sleeping comfort pays better than digging through garbage, or, more accurately, not working at all. And that's basically what they're doing up there in NK.
Let's get 'em stuffing our pillows. Let's get 'em sewing our boxer shorts. Let's give 'em something to lose.
Lay out a plan for KJI that basically says "yo, you fucked this joint up. bad. but we're here to save the day. let's get your economy booming (theirs is 1 40th the size of S. Korea...so that's not hard). let's make you the hero. we've got work/money for your unemployed masses, and they'll love you for it".
Shit, labor would be cheaper there. It's just one NEGOTIATED deal away, and suddenly, massively, things start changing there. Capitalism is seeded, and starts digging in its deep, and once intact, impossible-to-oppose tentacles into a system that, today, lives entirely without it.
Wal-Mart wins, the ppl of N Korea win, KJI is a hero, and we're vastly less likely to see war.
This is one of many dozens of schemes we could negotiate. The US houses the largest body of brainpower, influence, and power the world has ever known. Only through negotiation however will it be felt. Well, technically I'm wrong. There is another way it could be felt, and, absent negotiation will: through war.
The problem of N. Korea is swarming the news lately. For the few in the know, little of that superficial news is of interest. For the majority -some of whom have been asking me for my thoughts- the day-to-day details like "what'd Kim Jong-Il have for dinner" etc. overwhelm the important macro-causes that underly this grave world crisis.
I thought I would, for the few interested, offer a "N. Korea 101" (by my perspective) and, more importantly perhaps, offer a few unorthodox remedies of my own.
N. Korea and S. Korea have been split since the war between the two (which was fought between 1950 and 1953). In a nutshell: in world war two, japan kicked ass all over southeast asia, we then kicked ass all over japan. what ended up left was (like with europe) a mish-mash of redrawn states, with half democratic/capitalist (allied with the United States), and the other half communist (allied with the soviet union/china). Korea was no exception. By most expert accounts, Kim Jong-iL's father invaded the south in an attempt to unify the two under his dictatorial control. The US came to the aid of the South (fearing - as we feared with Vietnam - that if the south was allowed to fall, so too would many other split states...we called it "Domino Theory"). Allot of ass was kicked on both sides, and a stalemate eventually called. The UN sanctioned a split between the two states at the 38th parallel: hence, North Korea, South Korea.
After his fathers death, KJ-iL, assumed control of the country. I won't bore y'all with tales of what a total nutbag he is, but for fun, and if bored enough, google his name with key-words like kidnapping, and freak. Suffice it to say, he is LITERALLY crazy.
This is probably where our problem starts. You see, KJI has made the acquisition of nuclear weapons his primary ambition for almost 20 years. At first, as with Reagan when he made a lot of noise about SDI (the strategic defense initiative) during the 80's, Reagan scared Russia to the bargaining table without even needing to develop the technology. Well, KJI did that with Clinton; threatening to develop a nuclear weapons program unless we gave him stuff. Clinton did. He gave him Nuclear power plants, oil, cash, and food. It's hotly debated, but KJI monkey-fucked us. That is to say, he took our loot and developed nukes anyway. I'm fairly sure that if KJI didn't have a nuklear ability when Bush took office, he was years into development, and months away.
Finger pointing doesn't mean much now however. He got 'em.
Nukes that is. Roughly enough Highly Enriched Uranium to develop 8-13 warheads by most expert accounts. As opposed to our nukes, his are simple (gun design), crude (likely to suffer high failure rates), and low yield (in the 50 kiloton range vs. ours...more in the 30 megaton range!). However, a nuke is a nuke when you're talking about negotiating power, and KJI is milking it for all it's worth.
Our biggest fear is that he'll sell one of his nukes to terrorists. This isn't Saddam Hussein type overblown rhetoric, he really has them, and has a very active market for weapons systems (buys/sells missile technology freely with iran and russia among dozens of nations around the world). This is uncontested fact.
OK, so, to the present:
KJI is a true despot, and sadly, the civilized world doesn't remember what that means. It means he has a "to the last man" attitude when it comes to threats to his power. This is a mind boggling but accurate statistic: roughly 2,500,000 N. Koreans died of starvation in just four years (between 94-98). KJI however has a 100k per year liquor habit, numerous compounds, dozens of barely 12 year old virgins delivered every year, and over 12k US movies to watch when he's done drinking, fucking, and basically being a maniac. A real fuck-rag of a dude.
When we "negotiate" with parties like this, we forget (as the civilized world) that we're negotiating with one man. ONE MAN! One man who, if confronted with the choice between a total megafuck of a war, where 22 of his 23 million citizens died (but a war where he'd be viewed as a hero by the surviving 1 million) vs. avoiding a war all-together but remembered as a failure by all 23 million souls...he'd certainly choose war.
CERTAINLY
That seems like a simple to understand concept, and, in my view is. But the political topography being authored by the US and co-shaped by Japan, China, Russia, and South Korea flatly ignores that paradigm.
If I'm right in my assumption about what a pigfucking cat-puncher he is, then we need a new approach, one - I might add - that could have use not just with N. Korea, but in many despot controlled nations around the world.
In a sentence, my prescription for turning this mess around is this:
Augment his benign power, while containing his malignent power.
More specifically, increase the weight and importance of those areas of power, reward, and fulfillment KJI gets that don't materially harm our national interest. Simultaneously, we should work to diminish the importance (to him) of those areas of power that do conflict with our national interest.
Do we really care if KJI lives out the rest of his existence fulfilled or miserable? Trick question. Yes, we do. And again, that's the point of my suggestion. To the extent he's happy as a fat fucking shitbag of a despot, we have leverage. Remember the old axiom: "never negotiate with someone who has nothing to lose". Our foreign policy "experts" may not. As a consequence, when a country does something against our interest we "ratchet up pressure". We don't negotiate, rather, we act like Dick Cheney did on the phone last month with famous writer Bob Woodward when, angered by an unfavorable piece done on him, called BW's inarguable factual position "bullshit", then hung up on him. LOL! These mother fuckers crack me up. That is, until I remember the stakes: millions -perhaps tens of millions- of lives.
We should absolutely be negotiating with NK, with KJI, and with any nation (Iran included) that is desirous of negotiating with us. Not "back channel", not "multi party". Direct. As we did with our arch enemy -the soviet union- for decades. It isn't appeasement to negotiate with an enemy.
Fundamentally, we ought to figure out ways to enrich KJI, using NK as a proxy, in attempt to increase our political control, give KJI more to lose, and diminish the risk of a worst-case-scenario.
There are some things we should be doing that we aren't, and some we are, that we shouldn't. Among those we shouldn't, and perhaps most obviously shouldn't, is our embargo against NK.
Does it really help us to encourage and enforce a trade embargo against N. Korea (as we've recently sucessfully lobbied to do)? We need only look 90 miles south to the small communist island nation of Cuba for crisp indisputable evidence to the contrary. Embargos against nations with the intent to foment dissent/break will/or otherwise cause a fundamental change to national policy is, almost totally, dead wrong.
If tomorrow, by some bizarre magic, I could totally posess the body of the President....well, I'd do a lot of funny shit. However, one of the less funny, and most important things I'd immediately do would be to schedule a summit to be held in Seoul South Korea between the US and NK. This geographic and negotiatory gesture of good will would -regardless of summit outcome- work wonders to diminish the Presidents reputation as a warmonger, and to restore the US's credibility as a peace-making super-power.
In the summit, I'd agree to lift trade embargo's on all non-military trade. In addition, I'd work to establish a Surrogate Labor State (straight up in China's face) in North Korea. What do you care if your pillows are made in China vs. NK? You don't, but you should. Stuffing down into cloth for our sleeping comfort pays better than digging through garbage, or, more accurately, not working at all. And that's basically what they're doing up there in NK.
Let's get 'em stuffing our pillows. Let's get 'em sewing our boxer shorts. Let's give 'em something to lose.
Lay out a plan for KJI that basically says "yo, you fucked this joint up. bad. but we're here to save the day. let's get your economy booming (theirs is 1 40th the size of S. Korea...so that's not hard). let's make you the hero. we've got work/money for your unemployed masses, and they'll love you for it".
Shit, labor would be cheaper there. It's just one NEGOTIATED deal away, and suddenly, massively, things start changing there. Capitalism is seeded, and starts digging in its deep, and once intact, impossible-to-oppose tentacles into a system that, today, lives entirely without it.
Wal-Mart wins, the ppl of N Korea win, KJI is a hero, and we're vastly less likely to see war.
This is one of many dozens of schemes we could negotiate. The US houses the largest body of brainpower, influence, and power the world has ever known. Only through negotiation however will it be felt. Well, technically I'm wrong. There is another way it could be felt, and, absent negotiation will: through war.
Let the fuckers in
I went to the pro-immigration/illegal immigrant/amnesty/communist mayday...whatever...rally today. Overall it was an interesting experience. Some things I enjoyed: the passion, activism in a usually apathetic youth, frightened white people. Some things not so much: yelling in Spanish, underlying socialist lean, getting my photo taken as the token Blenders-Mocha-sipping white dude (by more than one photo-journalist). When they started handing out burrito's for everyone (not kidding), I really had to bail. The idea of freeloading a burrito off these guys seemed a bit too far into the strange for me.
But fuck all that noise.
I was there to show my support not for illegal immigrants, or aliens, or Mexicans (allright, maybe for Mexicans); but rather, for people. People, like you and I, that want the best for themselves and their families. We're all immigrants in one form or another, how dare any of us suggest the gate should close when we've established a comfortable life.
At the surface, the issue/question is this: we've got allot of immigrants here illegaly (12 million roughly), and more coming in everyday. The "anti" group suggest they come here, "drop kids" on our dime, take our jobs, depress wages, don't pay taxes, etc. The "pro" group claim they're significantly more valuable to the economy (and our comfortable way of life) than we realize; they posit that without them, crops would go unpicked, dishes unwashed, and bratty ass rich kids untended to.
The problem - as I see it - is: both groups are, in many ways, very right. So, what to do? Well, I can't help but tender my opinion. It is, at least, unique.
I say we tax the fuckers.
And I mean "fuckers" in the most endearing way. We impose an Immigrant Tax; but like our creative Graduated Tax system (which imposes higher taxes as a percentage of income as it increases), we connect the tax to the immigrants country of origin.
Mexico isn't poor because Mexicans are stupid. Same is true with every nation on earth less fortunate than we. Mexicans are generally poor because of the bad choices made by the Mexican government. So what do the smart Mexicans do? They bail. No blowback, no pressure on their ex-government to reform. If we want to see less immigration, hell, if we care about the condition of our fellow man, we must, to our ability, pressure these governments to reform. 12 million immigrants screaming at their ex-governments, vs. ours, is a pretty powerful lobby. Especially considering that a great deal of their earnings are flowing back to their countries of origin.
So the US can open up a heavy channel to force reform, bring 12 million hard working Americans into the tax paying system, and offset (perhaps entirely) the cost of providing social services to this group.
The Immigrant Tax my take into consideration simple things like:
Tax system
Private vs. Government ownership
Citizen participation in government (democracy vs. communism)
Social service net
Education system
Make as simple or complex as we see fit. "Oh, you're from Venezuela, sorry, that Chavez fucker needs to be gone, you're tax rate is 35%. Welcome to the States". You get the idea.
This tax should be finite. Maybe 10 years, maybe less. But at graduation, "Congratulations Sir/Ma'am, you're a full-fledged American, for good or ill. Best wishes"
Now, if by some miracle the government had the balls to pass such legislation, concurrently, we'd need to pass a fresh batch of knuckle-cracking penalties for business' and criminals who continue to work outside of it. As a former business owner, few words have quite the efficacy in getting attention as the word: felony. You hire illegals, felony. You sneak into this country outside the system, felony (we'd need to figure out sufficiently scary Guantanamo-style punishment to deter that group).
Now Immigrant flow-control is an economic function. Want to slow immigration, increase tax. Although it should be noted, from a purely economic standpoint, that heavy immigration of the work-inclined is a net benefit to the economy. In my view, even that is a dramatic understatement. Among other factors, our baby-booming parents are heading into retirement. Many of them smoked away their retirement savings, and are planning to plan when it's too late. A large working class is needed to subsidize their error. Enter immigrants.
But fuck all that noise.
I was there to show my support not for illegal immigrants, or aliens, or Mexicans (allright, maybe for Mexicans); but rather, for people. People, like you and I, that want the best for themselves and their families. We're all immigrants in one form or another, how dare any of us suggest the gate should close when we've established a comfortable life.
At the surface, the issue/question is this: we've got allot of immigrants here illegaly (12 million roughly), and more coming in everyday. The "anti" group suggest they come here, "drop kids" on our dime, take our jobs, depress wages, don't pay taxes, etc. The "pro" group claim they're significantly more valuable to the economy (and our comfortable way of life) than we realize; they posit that without them, crops would go unpicked, dishes unwashed, and bratty ass rich kids untended to.
The problem - as I see it - is: both groups are, in many ways, very right. So, what to do? Well, I can't help but tender my opinion. It is, at least, unique.
I say we tax the fuckers.
And I mean "fuckers" in the most endearing way. We impose an Immigrant Tax; but like our creative Graduated Tax system (which imposes higher taxes as a percentage of income as it increases), we connect the tax to the immigrants country of origin.
Mexico isn't poor because Mexicans are stupid. Same is true with every nation on earth less fortunate than we. Mexicans are generally poor because of the bad choices made by the Mexican government. So what do the smart Mexicans do? They bail. No blowback, no pressure on their ex-government to reform. If we want to see less immigration, hell, if we care about the condition of our fellow man, we must, to our ability, pressure these governments to reform. 12 million immigrants screaming at their ex-governments, vs. ours, is a pretty powerful lobby. Especially considering that a great deal of their earnings are flowing back to their countries of origin.
So the US can open up a heavy channel to force reform, bring 12 million hard working Americans into the tax paying system, and offset (perhaps entirely) the cost of providing social services to this group.
The Immigrant Tax my take into consideration simple things like:
Tax system
Private vs. Government ownership
Citizen participation in government (democracy vs. communism)
Social service net
Education system
Make as simple or complex as we see fit. "Oh, you're from Venezuela, sorry, that Chavez fucker needs to be gone, you're tax rate is 35%. Welcome to the States". You get the idea.
This tax should be finite. Maybe 10 years, maybe less. But at graduation, "Congratulations Sir/Ma'am, you're a full-fledged American, for good or ill. Best wishes"
Now, if by some miracle the government had the balls to pass such legislation, concurrently, we'd need to pass a fresh batch of knuckle-cracking penalties for business' and criminals who continue to work outside of it. As a former business owner, few words have quite the efficacy in getting attention as the word: felony. You hire illegals, felony. You sneak into this country outside the system, felony (we'd need to figure out sufficiently scary Guantanamo-style punishment to deter that group).
Now Immigrant flow-control is an economic function. Want to slow immigration, increase tax. Although it should be noted, from a purely economic standpoint, that heavy immigration of the work-inclined is a net benefit to the economy. In my view, even that is a dramatic understatement. Among other factors, our baby-booming parents are heading into retirement. Many of them smoked away their retirement savings, and are planning to plan when it's too late. A large working class is needed to subsidize their error. Enter immigrants.
Could a good spanking be a fate worse than death
originally posted March 30 2006
Don't know if any of you have been following the trial of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but for those of you that haven't, a quick update from someone who's been following it carefully:
It's a chaotic, embarrasing mess.
Since found hiding out in a spider-hole near his hometown of Tikrit, the US Justice Department has been preparing to put him on trial for his resume of unbelievably grisly atrocities against his own people, and neighbors during his 25 year reign. If you do the math in his favor, you might be able to attribute only 2 million deaths to him directly. He's been a pretty naughty boy.
This should be an open and shut case right? To the simple-minded, yes. And that could be our problem. We are, by contrast with much of the world, civilized, and perhaps we've been that way too long.
More than half a century ago, Winston Churchill had some very simple postwar plans of Adolf Hitler. He let others know that, "If Hitler falls into our hands, we shall certainly put him to death."
That we didn't, after catching Saddam, immediately move to eliminate him from the barely-held-together political topography of Iraq, is looking more and more on the level of the sanity Saddam himself is so brazenly putting on for the camera's.
G. Bush said/promised plainly: "Saddam will face a justice he denied so many".
I'm afraid we may be putting too much un-creative stock in our concepts of "democracy" and "justice", thinking that by granting freedom, suddenly Jeffersonian style democracy would take root: yeah right, the Shia majority voted in an Islamic government (not that sweet a change considering, albiet violent, the Hussien government was secular), and to think they're ready for our brand of justice...sadly, it doesn't look that way.
But that's how it is. So, now he's on trial, and from the first few moments (which I stayed up till 4am one mid-week morning to watch), it became clear that the whole trial idea...well, it was clearly a bad one.
Hussein immediately took control (c'mon, he's a dictator guys, remember, they have some strong-suits), and basically started pimping the first judge (who eventually stepped-down and was replaced under backroom pressure for being Saddams bitch), berating him with rants such as: "Down with the traitors. Down with the traitors. Down with Bush. Long live the nation. Long live the nation.", you know, cool, catchy, convenient slogans for insurgents to chant while slappin IED's together, and their wives around.
Numerous walkouts, numerous postponements of the trial, basically none of the beneficial media the US adminstration had so naively hoped for.
"Naively, isn't that a bit harsh" you might say? Fuck no!
Think about it, we're not putting some white collar Ken Lay on trial, this Saddam fucking Hussein. Delusional? yeah. Murderous? duh, absolutely nothing to lose...well, that's where the spanking comes in (more on that in a sec.)
At present, Saddam has nothing to lose. He knows the Americans consider death the ultimate penalty. He further understands that we put men to death in this country for the murder of 1. This doesn't bode well for a dude who might be able to hide a few...thousand. But he's still got another million or two bloody limbs hanging out the proverbial trunk. He's a cooked goose, and he knows it. Why not mock us all the way down, why not die a marytr...hey, I'm sure somewhere deep down, down in Saddam's private place, the place he accesses right before bed, and after pulling the legs off a cockroach for not respecting him as absolute ruler of Iraq; he hopes he'll be rescued.
Why in the world would he sit passively while the US Justice Dept. manipulated court parades a bunch of savaged witnesses before the media making him look like the barbarian he is? Well, that gets me to the meat of my proposition. I think I have a world-changing plan that could not only help turn the tide of this trial in our favor, but perhaps other trials of brutal dictators, from Serbia, to Rwanda, to Liberia. What do we do?
We spank him.
You read me right. We spank the naughty fucker. We spank him good and hard everytime he explodes into an outburst and makes a mockery of the court.
Now, I'm not advocating we do it right away. No, no, we warn him first. Something to the effect of: dirga, dirga, muha....no, sorry, translated in English: "dude, look, in case you don't know it, there was like...well, this whole war. Two actually..but anyway, yeah, there was this whole war, and, um, you lost. I'm sure you tried, but we actually kicked your ass in like 4 days. I understand it's hard to take after being lied to, after wearing the Emperors New Clothes pretty much everyday. But really, it's over. You're in our custody now. OUR CUSTODY, and you're going to start treating this court with respect, or, well, look over there in the corner". This is when Saddam would look over to the right, to see something like (I liberally estimate) 8 guys all surrounding this one particularly large, and frustrated looking Iraqi...with a paddle in his hand. For effect, the paddle could be inscribed with the Iraqi word for "Justice".
The Judge would go on to say: "So, yeah Saddam, basically, if you don't chill the fuck out, those dudes over there are going to grab you, 2 to a limb if need be, and they're going to put you over Asim's (the big guy) knee. Then, well, then Saddam, Asim over there's going to swat your bottom".
Not being an expert in Middle Eastern culture, there might need to be a pause here for various exhalations, prayers to Allah, etc.
But not from Asim. He'd need to keep pretty cool through the whole thing.
If pressed, if really pressed to guess whether or not Saddam would truly get spanked...I'd put the odds of one spanking at 92% (give or take a couple hundred basis points). Two...I'd put those odds at 15%. Past two, meaning if Asim's forced to take Saddam over his knee a second time, I really think, again, if asked, I think then the whole odds thing goes out the window, and it probably becomes some perverse national spankfest.
Which would probably turn out, at least from a media/entertainment standpoint, pretty fucking cool. But I digress.
I want you to think about how significant those odds could be, and why I believe them to be true. But first, we have to refocus on Saddam's motivation: In his mind, he's already dead. He clutches but two remaining hopes; to be rescued, and resume control of Iraq; or to die a martyr, and enjoy a legacy of power and prestige.
Which is, incidentally, really, really hard to do when taken over a grown mans knee and spanked like a redheaded stepchild on international television.
But I do think it would take one good solid spanking to get in his head that we're serious; that being cracked repeatedly on the bottom by a large, sweaty, slightly weirded-out ex-constituent, all the while kicking, screaming, protesting, and perhaps even whimpering; is really embarrasing. It is. And I seriously doubt any man with an ego the size of his, no matter how stubborn, would want to endure that experience twice.
This radical policy shift would represent a win-win for the US. If Saddam, when warned, through whatever creative imagination he has intact, could anticipate the utter bodyblow to his ego and legacy such a punishment would ingender, and decided to cooperate and stand trial, we win.
If he doesn't, and I guarantee you our Jerry Springer addicted public would be down on their knee's begging for him to-not, well, aside from getting better viewer ratings than Idol, I think the barbaric dictators in office around the world, and in those training, would take a savage hit to their perceived authority as men of power.
And if that's not a win in this shit-bog of a mess, I don't know what is.
Don't know if any of you have been following the trial of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but for those of you that haven't, a quick update from someone who's been following it carefully:
It's a chaotic, embarrasing mess.
Since found hiding out in a spider-hole near his hometown of Tikrit, the US Justice Department has been preparing to put him on trial for his resume of unbelievably grisly atrocities against his own people, and neighbors during his 25 year reign. If you do the math in his favor, you might be able to attribute only 2 million deaths to him directly. He's been a pretty naughty boy.
This should be an open and shut case right? To the simple-minded, yes. And that could be our problem. We are, by contrast with much of the world, civilized, and perhaps we've been that way too long.
More than half a century ago, Winston Churchill had some very simple postwar plans of Adolf Hitler. He let others know that, "If Hitler falls into our hands, we shall certainly put him to death."
That we didn't, after catching Saddam, immediately move to eliminate him from the barely-held-together political topography of Iraq, is looking more and more on the level of the sanity Saddam himself is so brazenly putting on for the camera's.
G. Bush said/promised plainly: "Saddam will face a justice he denied so many".
I'm afraid we may be putting too much un-creative stock in our concepts of "democracy" and "justice", thinking that by granting freedom, suddenly Jeffersonian style democracy would take root: yeah right, the Shia majority voted in an Islamic government (not that sweet a change considering, albiet violent, the Hussien government was secular), and to think they're ready for our brand of justice...sadly, it doesn't look that way.
But that's how it is. So, now he's on trial, and from the first few moments (which I stayed up till 4am one mid-week morning to watch), it became clear that the whole trial idea...well, it was clearly a bad one.
Hussein immediately took control (c'mon, he's a dictator guys, remember, they have some strong-suits), and basically started pimping the first judge (who eventually stepped-down and was replaced under backroom pressure for being Saddams bitch), berating him with rants such as: "Down with the traitors. Down with the traitors. Down with Bush. Long live the nation. Long live the nation.", you know, cool, catchy, convenient slogans for insurgents to chant while slappin IED's together, and their wives around.
Numerous walkouts, numerous postponements of the trial, basically none of the beneficial media the US adminstration had so naively hoped for.
"Naively, isn't that a bit harsh" you might say? Fuck no!
Think about it, we're not putting some white collar Ken Lay on trial, this Saddam fucking Hussein. Delusional? yeah. Murderous? duh, absolutely nothing to lose...well, that's where the spanking comes in (more on that in a sec.)
At present, Saddam has nothing to lose. He knows the Americans consider death the ultimate penalty. He further understands that we put men to death in this country for the murder of 1. This doesn't bode well for a dude who might be able to hide a few...thousand. But he's still got another million or two bloody limbs hanging out the proverbial trunk. He's a cooked goose, and he knows it. Why not mock us all the way down, why not die a marytr...hey, I'm sure somewhere deep down, down in Saddam's private place, the place he accesses right before bed, and after pulling the legs off a cockroach for not respecting him as absolute ruler of Iraq; he hopes he'll be rescued.
Why in the world would he sit passively while the US Justice Dept. manipulated court parades a bunch of savaged witnesses before the media making him look like the barbarian he is? Well, that gets me to the meat of my proposition. I think I have a world-changing plan that could not only help turn the tide of this trial in our favor, but perhaps other trials of brutal dictators, from Serbia, to Rwanda, to Liberia. What do we do?
We spank him.
You read me right. We spank the naughty fucker. We spank him good and hard everytime he explodes into an outburst and makes a mockery of the court.
Now, I'm not advocating we do it right away. No, no, we warn him first. Something to the effect of: dirga, dirga, muha....no, sorry, translated in English: "dude, look, in case you don't know it, there was like...well, this whole war. Two actually..but anyway, yeah, there was this whole war, and, um, you lost. I'm sure you tried, but we actually kicked your ass in like 4 days. I understand it's hard to take after being lied to, after wearing the Emperors New Clothes pretty much everyday. But really, it's over. You're in our custody now. OUR CUSTODY, and you're going to start treating this court with respect, or, well, look over there in the corner". This is when Saddam would look over to the right, to see something like (I liberally estimate) 8 guys all surrounding this one particularly large, and frustrated looking Iraqi...with a paddle in his hand. For effect, the paddle could be inscribed with the Iraqi word for "Justice".
The Judge would go on to say: "So, yeah Saddam, basically, if you don't chill the fuck out, those dudes over there are going to grab you, 2 to a limb if need be, and they're going to put you over Asim's (the big guy) knee. Then, well, then Saddam, Asim over there's going to swat your bottom".
Not being an expert in Middle Eastern culture, there might need to be a pause here for various exhalations, prayers to Allah, etc.
But not from Asim. He'd need to keep pretty cool through the whole thing.
If pressed, if really pressed to guess whether or not Saddam would truly get spanked...I'd put the odds of one spanking at 92% (give or take a couple hundred basis points). Two...I'd put those odds at 15%. Past two, meaning if Asim's forced to take Saddam over his knee a second time, I really think, again, if asked, I think then the whole odds thing goes out the window, and it probably becomes some perverse national spankfest.
Which would probably turn out, at least from a media/entertainment standpoint, pretty fucking cool. But I digress.
I want you to think about how significant those odds could be, and why I believe them to be true. But first, we have to refocus on Saddam's motivation: In his mind, he's already dead. He clutches but two remaining hopes; to be rescued, and resume control of Iraq; or to die a martyr, and enjoy a legacy of power and prestige.
Which is, incidentally, really, really hard to do when taken over a grown mans knee and spanked like a redheaded stepchild on international television.
But I do think it would take one good solid spanking to get in his head that we're serious; that being cracked repeatedly on the bottom by a large, sweaty, slightly weirded-out ex-constituent, all the while kicking, screaming, protesting, and perhaps even whimpering; is really embarrasing. It is. And I seriously doubt any man with an ego the size of his, no matter how stubborn, would want to endure that experience twice.
This radical policy shift would represent a win-win for the US. If Saddam, when warned, through whatever creative imagination he has intact, could anticipate the utter bodyblow to his ego and legacy such a punishment would ingender, and decided to cooperate and stand trial, we win.
If he doesn't, and I guarantee you our Jerry Springer addicted public would be down on their knee's begging for him to-not, well, aside from getting better viewer ratings than Idol, I think the barbaric dictators in office around the world, and in those training, would take a savage hit to their perceived authority as men of power.
And if that's not a win in this shit-bog of a mess, I don't know what is.
Perspective on modern conflict - Part 1
War, and modern warfighting have been on my mind a lot lately. In particular, the question: "Is the United States, the only remaining super-power in the world, prosecuting conflicts to her fullest advantage".
In so many of my thought-chains, the answer is immediately "no", then, after fuller reflection, "no" still.
From our "hot wars", such as in Iraq, and Afghanistan, to our "cold ones", with, sadly, the near remainder of the planet, but more overtly: North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and Syria. The U.S. appears to be caught in abject limbo; both in terms of determining sufficient basis to escalate conflict, and, indeed as we are made to view on television nightly: how, once engaged in direct conflict, to fight well.
In this post, and a constellation of others, I'll attempt to flesh out for myself, and anyone interested, what I believe to be significant errors in current warfighting policy, and a host of unorthodox solutions designed to play to our strengths, as the most powerful nation on the planet.
Basis for conflict
Inspiration for conflict today, as I see it, is principally domestic security. Not since WWI have we derived security from the buffer offered to us by vast oceans. Modern Ships, Airplanes, and later, ICBM's, served as sharp arguments against Isolationism. The ambitions and ideologies of states "over there" became geometrically more threatening against the steady march of technological advance. To suggest, at the turn of the 20th century, that we'd be embroiled in a global war, then acting as nation builders, not once, but twice, before mid-century, would have landed you a seat not on Meet the Press, but probably the looney bin.
It's a sad and terrible coincidence that exactly 100 years later, we as a nation will once again have to overthrow so many sacred, and hard-won precepts. Very little of our experience in dealing securing our nation through international diplomacy, and, when necessary, through warfighting, will, in my view, be of much use.
It should be easy for us as a nation to know what to do if a Dictator were to abruptly sieze power over a nation of wealth and resources, then begin to attack/annex his neighbors, and summarily round up hundreds of thousands of his own people for wholesale slaughter. Intercede right?
Just as with the war in Iraq, it wasn't easy for us as a weary post WWI nation to act either. Only in hindsight did we realize what the implications of not acting would have been: most likely, geometrically more casualties, if not, total domination by Nazi, Japanese, or the Soviet forces. Even after involving ourselves so aggressively, as the US did in WWII, 60 million people lost their lives. Keep in mind that war was fought - save the 300k lost in the atom-bomb attacks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - with conventional weapons.
The new threat
Just over 50 years later, owing exclusively to technology, we stand on the brink of another world war. A war far more dangerous than the last, and, as it was at the dawn of WWII, equally confusing.
We as a nation, during the start of WWII, were highly unclear as to what all the dying was about overseas. In fact, one of the largest Nazi parties on the earth was right here in the US. Few, if any anticipated the savage ambitions of Germany, Japan, or Russia. Only post-war did we grasp the world-changing implications inaction would have had.
I find a bizarre similarity between then and now. It seems today, we're as confused, or understandably more confused, about why we're fighting in Iraq, as we were when fighting in Europe and Asia.
History, as is so often said, isn't conveniently "repeating itself"; though I do believe, with enough information, one can see how it's rhyming.
The fundamental similarities in why we're fighting are much the same today, as they were then: we're opposing aggressive, competitive, enemies that threaten our way of life at home.
The principal difference however, is that these enemies aren't just States, but (as Thomas Friedman defines them) much more lethal "super-empowered individuals".
In what I'm sure will be considered by anyone reading this "arrogant", I'll attempt to cut away as much confusion as I can as it relates to what's so different about modern day conflict, why we should all know what super-empowered individuals are, how to fight them, and the stakes at hand should we (as we were so tempted to do in the first two world wars) choose to isolate ourselves in peace.
In so many of my thought-chains, the answer is immediately "no", then, after fuller reflection, "no" still.
From our "hot wars", such as in Iraq, and Afghanistan, to our "cold ones", with, sadly, the near remainder of the planet, but more overtly: North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and Syria. The U.S. appears to be caught in abject limbo; both in terms of determining sufficient basis to escalate conflict, and, indeed as we are made to view on television nightly: how, once engaged in direct conflict, to fight well.
In this post, and a constellation of others, I'll attempt to flesh out for myself, and anyone interested, what I believe to be significant errors in current warfighting policy, and a host of unorthodox solutions designed to play to our strengths, as the most powerful nation on the planet.
Basis for conflict
Inspiration for conflict today, as I see it, is principally domestic security. Not since WWI have we derived security from the buffer offered to us by vast oceans. Modern Ships, Airplanes, and later, ICBM's, served as sharp arguments against Isolationism. The ambitions and ideologies of states "over there" became geometrically more threatening against the steady march of technological advance. To suggest, at the turn of the 20th century, that we'd be embroiled in a global war, then acting as nation builders, not once, but twice, before mid-century, would have landed you a seat not on Meet the Press, but probably the looney bin.
It's a sad and terrible coincidence that exactly 100 years later, we as a nation will once again have to overthrow so many sacred, and hard-won precepts. Very little of our experience in dealing securing our nation through international diplomacy, and, when necessary, through warfighting, will, in my view, be of much use.
It should be easy for us as a nation to know what to do if a Dictator were to abruptly sieze power over a nation of wealth and resources, then begin to attack/annex his neighbors, and summarily round up hundreds of thousands of his own people for wholesale slaughter. Intercede right?
Just as with the war in Iraq, it wasn't easy for us as a weary post WWI nation to act either. Only in hindsight did we realize what the implications of not acting would have been: most likely, geometrically more casualties, if not, total domination by Nazi, Japanese, or the Soviet forces. Even after involving ourselves so aggressively, as the US did in WWII, 60 million people lost their lives. Keep in mind that war was fought - save the 300k lost in the atom-bomb attacks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - with conventional weapons.
The new threat
Just over 50 years later, owing exclusively to technology, we stand on the brink of another world war. A war far more dangerous than the last, and, as it was at the dawn of WWII, equally confusing.
We as a nation, during the start of WWII, were highly unclear as to what all the dying was about overseas. In fact, one of the largest Nazi parties on the earth was right here in the US. Few, if any anticipated the savage ambitions of Germany, Japan, or Russia. Only post-war did we grasp the world-changing implications inaction would have had.
I find a bizarre similarity between then and now. It seems today, we're as confused, or understandably more confused, about why we're fighting in Iraq, as we were when fighting in Europe and Asia.
History, as is so often said, isn't conveniently "repeating itself"; though I do believe, with enough information, one can see how it's rhyming.
The fundamental similarities in why we're fighting are much the same today, as they were then: we're opposing aggressive, competitive, enemies that threaten our way of life at home.
The principal difference however, is that these enemies aren't just States, but (as Thomas Friedman defines them) much more lethal "super-empowered individuals".
In what I'm sure will be considered by anyone reading this "arrogant", I'll attempt to cut away as much confusion as I can as it relates to what's so different about modern day conflict, why we should all know what super-empowered individuals are, how to fight them, and the stakes at hand should we (as we were so tempted to do in the first two world wars) choose to isolate ourselves in peace.
Perspective on modern conflict - Part 2
Who would have thought that one determined man, with no powerful state backing, sixty thousand dollars, and two dozen men could kill 3,000 civilians, and cause over one quarter of a trillion dollars in losses to the US?
Sadly, few.
Even after the original unsuccesful attack on the WTC by Ramsey Useff, we couldn't as a nation, come to grips with the growing reality that it no longer took another nation to destroy us; it could be done by as few as one man.
That failure of public consciousness is an equal -if not greater ingredient- than the motivations of Osama Bin Ladin in what transpired on September 11th (Bin Ladin's second successful attack on the WTC). To our great national detriment, it seems that the fresh horror of September 11th, and corrosponding public appetite for security, is once again draining below a level likely needed to stave off future attacks.
We have Bin Ladin on the run, but he's just one in legions-to-be of super-empowered individuals.
Who are these men? What makes them different from maniacs of the past? One thing: Technology.
That's it. It's a simple mathmatical reality: As technology's efficacy increases, so too does the ability for one man to use it more effectively to destroy. Put another, perhaps more frightening way: technology increases geometrically (as opposed to linearly...Your computer, for instance, doesn't make steady utility increases in a straight line, but follows Moore's Law, and generally multiplies in processing power over short spans of time, returning vastly increased processing power), in addition, technology democratizes geometrically (take the cost to communicate...150 years ago: The difficulty and cost of communication made it available to few. In increments of 50 years, if put on a graph, the diffusion of that technology is geometric, and the reason that 1/2 a billion chinese are on cell phones today, when 10 years ago, most didn't even have access to a fixed-line telephone). Using those two accelerating realities to describe technology's destructive potential: If you put on a graph the increase in technological efficacy to destroy, the diffusion of that technology to those with an appetite for destruction, and time: well, you have an inevitable rendezvous with calamity. And not just one. In my view, September 11th was the first, and likely to be among the least destructive types of consequence owing to that intersection between angry men, and the ever increasing empowerment technology affords.
Our public sense of urgency needs rallying. In reading countless books and material on WMD proliferation, I've come to understand the myriad ways in which whole tens of thousands to millions of innocent civilians could be killed. Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before realized. It is, however, within our national purvue to radically increase the time between attack intervals, and radically diminish the severity of each. In my view, it starts with recognizing the threat these empowered individuals pose. In the same way we recognized the threat the Soviet Union did, but multiplied by the number of empowered and dangerous men (yes, I'm suggesting that we should view this emerging threat as thousands, even tens of thousands of unique, equally lethal Soviet Unions). Then, as I'll suggest in later posts, determine the most efficient ways to defeat them.
Sadly, few.
Even after the original unsuccesful attack on the WTC by Ramsey Useff, we couldn't as a nation, come to grips with the growing reality that it no longer took another nation to destroy us; it could be done by as few as one man.
That failure of public consciousness is an equal -if not greater ingredient- than the motivations of Osama Bin Ladin in what transpired on September 11th (Bin Ladin's second successful attack on the WTC). To our great national detriment, it seems that the fresh horror of September 11th, and corrosponding public appetite for security, is once again draining below a level likely needed to stave off future attacks.
We have Bin Ladin on the run, but he's just one in legions-to-be of super-empowered individuals.
Who are these men? What makes them different from maniacs of the past? One thing: Technology.
That's it. It's a simple mathmatical reality: As technology's efficacy increases, so too does the ability for one man to use it more effectively to destroy. Put another, perhaps more frightening way: technology increases geometrically (as opposed to linearly...Your computer, for instance, doesn't make steady utility increases in a straight line, but follows Moore's Law, and generally multiplies in processing power over short spans of time, returning vastly increased processing power), in addition, technology democratizes geometrically (take the cost to communicate...150 years ago: The difficulty and cost of communication made it available to few. In increments of 50 years, if put on a graph, the diffusion of that technology is geometric, and the reason that 1/2 a billion chinese are on cell phones today, when 10 years ago, most didn't even have access to a fixed-line telephone). Using those two accelerating realities to describe technology's destructive potential: If you put on a graph the increase in technological efficacy to destroy, the diffusion of that technology to those with an appetite for destruction, and time: well, you have an inevitable rendezvous with calamity. And not just one. In my view, September 11th was the first, and likely to be among the least destructive types of consequence owing to that intersection between angry men, and the ever increasing empowerment technology affords.
Our public sense of urgency needs rallying. In reading countless books and material on WMD proliferation, I've come to understand the myriad ways in which whole tens of thousands to millions of innocent civilians could be killed. Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before realized. It is, however, within our national purvue to radically increase the time between attack intervals, and radically diminish the severity of each. In my view, it starts with recognizing the threat these empowered individuals pose. In the same way we recognized the threat the Soviet Union did, but multiplied by the number of empowered and dangerous men (yes, I'm suggesting that we should view this emerging threat as thousands, even tens of thousands of unique, equally lethal Soviet Unions). Then, as I'll suggest in later posts, determine the most efficient ways to defeat them.
Do you empower others?
It occurred to me, not 20 minutes ago, in nude anticipation of a shower, clearer than ever before, that power is derived from abundance of choice.
It further occurred to me, that there are, simplified, two camps of people:
Those that seek to empower those they love with choice, and,
Those that seek to consolidate their power by denying choice for others.
Don't let the primacy of the first camp lend likelihood to the inclusion of you, or those who claim to love you. The rancid truth of the matter is that, for all the relationships I've been party to, or known of, the latter camp rules the day.
By plain example, they:
Tell you that you look good, when you don't, and they look better, or,
Oh fuck that, just think of the general reception you get from your "friends" when you share good news, vs. bad...?
Which are they more interested in?
From every mother who seeks to usurp the authority and influence of your newest boyfriend, to the boyfriend who seeks to overthrow the subversive power of your girlfriends, to the girlfriends who connive you away from the boyfriend who, by his good company, is syphoning your attention away from them. And on and on, eh?
The most disturbing aspect of this bizzare social institution is this:
For that one in a thousand(?) that are comfortable enough with their own value, and appreciative enough of yours to move in favor of empowering you; well, to the extent you have so much as one detractor (those that seek to subvert you) in your life, that you "love", that person will act like cryptonite to the potential for a healthy relationship.
Why?
Too tired to fully explain, but if anyone's interested....
It further occurred to me, that there are, simplified, two camps of people:
Those that seek to empower those they love with choice, and,
Those that seek to consolidate their power by denying choice for others.
Don't let the primacy of the first camp lend likelihood to the inclusion of you, or those who claim to love you. The rancid truth of the matter is that, for all the relationships I've been party to, or known of, the latter camp rules the day.
By plain example, they:
Tell you that you look good, when you don't, and they look better, or,
Oh fuck that, just think of the general reception you get from your "friends" when you share good news, vs. bad...?
Which are they more interested in?
From every mother who seeks to usurp the authority and influence of your newest boyfriend, to the boyfriend who seeks to overthrow the subversive power of your girlfriends, to the girlfriends who connive you away from the boyfriend who, by his good company, is syphoning your attention away from them. And on and on, eh?
The most disturbing aspect of this bizzare social institution is this:
For that one in a thousand(?) that are comfortable enough with their own value, and appreciative enough of yours to move in favor of empowering you; well, to the extent you have so much as one detractor (those that seek to subvert you) in your life, that you "love", that person will act like cryptonite to the potential for a healthy relationship.
Why?
Too tired to fully explain, but if anyone's interested....
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