Category: Musings

Thoughts, profound and otherwise.

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Does Humanity Need Auschwitz to Remember?

BBC NEWS | Europe | Should Auschwitz be left to decay?

Never again. That has been the Holocaust survivors’ mantra for over sixty years. How do we fulfill this mantra? While the concentration camps and death camps–Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sachsenhausen, Mathausen, Buchenwald, Dachau, and the many others–stood there preserved, genocide was carried out in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Darfur. This is what lends weight to Robert Jan van Pelt‘s argument that we need not preserve such terrible places like Auschwitz in order to serve humanity.

I do not agree with van Pelt, a man I consider very nearly a hero by virtue of the admirable service he has rendered against anti-semitism. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski‘s contention that the fallibility of human memory requires the presence of these physical reminders of what we are capable of perpetrating against each other is far more compelling. People forget. This truism justifies the preservation of these monuments to human evil.

Implicit in the debate, however, is the bigger question which does not get addressed. What does it mean to say “never again”? What ends will the preservation of these monuments serve? What benefits will the building and preservation of memorials serve have for a civilization that has countenanced unspeakable atrocities numerous times since the Holocaust? Absent a will to keep memories alive and the will to educate the generations who must remember these atrocities, the debate rings hollow. Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Darfur, and maybe even Chechnya and the former Congo/Zaire provide convincing evidence that monuments alone cannot help mortals muster the will to act.

These are precisely the sorts of invaluable causes that asinine political promises like “no new taxes” will never address.

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The Truth about Israel’s Campaign in Gaza

Egypt attacks Iran and allies in Arab world | Reuters

This much was clear to me from the beginning of this whole affair, but perhaps I should have aired my enlightened and apparently correct opinion here earlier so that I could prove it to everyone.

Israel was eliminating Hamas in Gaza in order to do Egypt a favor. The public statements made by Egypt today confirm this. Read the article linked above.

Israel’s embarrassing campaign in Southern Lebanon in 2006 made it very clear to all neighboring Arab states that Iran’s influence–as exercised by proxy Islamist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas–posed significant threats to the Arab states and the sovereignty of their governments. The war against Hezbollah completely derailed Lebanon’s recovery from its devastating civil war. In essence, Iran was perfectly willing to sacrifice the entire nation of Lebanon for the sake of its influence in the middle east.

This recklessness on the part of Iran was not lost on the Arab states, for once. Even Syria began to realize that further strengthening of Hezbollah would undermine Bashar Asaad’s tenuous grasp on power and, hence, Syrian sovereignty. Ultimately, this is what prompted Syria to soften its stance on Israel and to collaborate, albeit surreptitiously, with the west.

Egypt acted in the same vein. The full cooperation that Egypt provided (in the form of a total blockade of Gaza) in Israel’s campaign betrayed Egypt’s intent. Egypt’s long battle with Islamist fringe groups (most prominently with Ikhwan Al Mosalman, the group that spawned Ayman Al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden‘s right hand man) rages still, and Iran’s ridiculous use of Hezbollah as a proxy force in Lebanon made Egypt realize that it is vulnerable to Iran’s ploys for influence in the middle east. Consequently, it acted with complete accord with Israel toward the total annihilation of Hamas.

It would be an exceptionally foolish mistake to confound Egypt’s desire for the destruction of Hamas as any sort of empathy, sympathy, or affection for Palestinians. Egypt is acting in the interest of nation and the preservation of its sovereignty. Any benefit that this might bring Palestinians–whose entire misery stems from the simple fact that no political entity (not even their own) has ever advocated their cause–would be purely ancillary. Egypt may well support the Israeli-Palestinian peace process solely to rid itself of the Islamist threat and Iranian influence that infiltrate Egypt through Gaza.

Strangely enough, this “hopeful” scenario is about the only good thing that arose out of George W Bush’s asinine war in Iraq. The American failure in Iraq dramatically emboldened and enabled Iran. Iran’s influence in the middle east increased dramatically as the United States eliminated Iran’s two biggest foes: Iraq and the United States. With Saddam Hussein gone, Iran had no military rival left in the region, and with the United States engaged in an economically crippling guerrilla campaign in Iraq that drove up the price of oil, Iran’s economic influence similarly grew.

Once the price of crude oil reached more realistic levels and Iran’s economic might was consequently tempered, Egypt saw an opportunity and seized it. Anti-American sentiment was waning as the Obama Presidency loomed. Iran found itself economically crippled by the collapsing price of oil, and neighboring Arab countries shared Egypt’s justified fear of an almighty and Shi’a Iran. Egypt seized the moment and moved in for the kill, and Israel was kind enough to oblige.

The fantastic dream that may be realized out of this is that of pan-arabism that has been kept painfully elusive by ancient internecine animosities. Even more fantastic would be the recognition that Israel can actually aid Arabs in effecting control over their own domains as it is aiding Egypt now. Thus, the net effect, in the minds of the neocons who dreamt this nightmare in Iraq, would be a total disaster for the United States: the Iraqi campaign that was designed to increase American influence in the region is now ending in the fortification of Arab states and the nearly total elimination of American political influence in the region.

Fortunately, a more rational presidential administration is in power now in the US, and it is highly likely that Obama, Clinton and company will see the opportunity to engage the middle east as friendly, willing partners in the creation of a new economic alliance against Russia, China and, to a much, much lesser extent, Europe. Such could be the consequence of Hillary Clinton’s use of American “soft power” (or “smart power” to use her words), and that would be the greatest consequence for the USA.

Let us thank the powers that be, then, that the morons are finally out of office.

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Sympathy for the Devils

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraq fails to sell Saddam’s yacht

Whom should one pity? The billionaires whose failing fortunes prevented them from purchasing this ridiculous yacht (equipped with rocket launchers, gold plated amenities and an escape hatch leading to an escape submarine)? Or Saddam Hussein, the original owner of the yacht, who imiserated an entire nation for the privilege of owning this magnificent ship and yet never managed to board it?

The sale of the yacht would have benefited the Iraqi people. In over forty years, they have never suffered any good fortune. They are, perhaps, better off than Rwandans, Congolese and Palestinians, but is the greater suffering of others a legitimate source of relief?

Is it more appropriate to pity billionaires who had once known greater times, or the most wretched of the earth, those who have never known good times? Were it not for the miserable times being suffered by all, there may have been enough sympathy and good will toward mankind left to make the posing of the question relevant. As it is, I truly don’t care, and I’m certain that no other soul on earth does, either.

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The State of “Journalism”

BBC NEWS | Business | Blogger brought down by dire forecasts

Living in modern times, one finds it difficult to find comfort in the misery of others. After all, modernity derives to some extent from the establishment of standards and the adherence to standards by practitioners of all stripe. Consequently, the lower standards to which less industrialized (i.e., less modern) societies conform provide no relief to the modern citizen. The educated, modern citizen will find relief only in the elevation of the higher standards in which he or she lives, and he or she will lament the deterioration of the high standards to which she or he has grown accustomed.

That said, it is pretty amazing to learn that economic journalism and prognostication in South Korea is about as pathetic as it is in the United States. A single, high school educated blogger seems to have outdone the entire South Korean economic journalism establishment in analyzing and predicting Korea’s financial course. Whether it was the government that ended the blogger’s career or a thoroughly embarrassed journalism establishment remains, consequently, a legitimate question.

Still, it would be nice if “journalism” had some meaning in the US, the Korean debacle nothwishtanding.

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Truth and the War on Terror in Afghanistan

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Karzai blames allies for problems

Anyone who has scrutinized the fiasco undertaken by the United States in Afghanistan ostensibly against the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11/2001 attacks in New York City is well aware of the fact that the United States policy in Afghanistan has been a colossal failure and that the coalition operating in Afghanistan remains more figment of political arm twisting than reflection of any shared desire to disarm terrorists and the Taliban.

Perfect evidence of this comes in the above article. On the day George W Bush  officially leaves office, moments from Barack Obama’s swearing in as the new President of the United States of America, Hamid Karzai, the Afghani Prime Minister anointed by George W Bush, goes on the offensive and excoriates the United States and our allies for our failure to improve Afghanistan’s political situation. He further criticized the West’s ineptitude in tackling the sources of the problems: arms trade, infiltration from Pakistan, drugs trade.

Now that our so-called allies have the freedom to speak, Americans who have had their heads in the sand may finally hear of the horrors, the incompetence and the corruption that had been projected onto the world scene as the emblem of the U.S.A.  over the past eight years. Our reputation is so badly tarnished that it is hard to conceive of any speedy recovery, however much good will Obama may have on his side.

Then again, there will be those who will refuse to accept the reality no matter how many American alliances crumble, how many allies publicly denounce America’s aims and motives, and how many friends publicly renounce America’s mission. It all echoes of Primo Levi’s accounts of the wretched starving corpses who still managed to delude themselves that they still led some semblance of a life in Survival at Auschwitz (previously published as Is This a Man?). Perhaps if the horrors of Auschwitz cannot force people to relinquish their fantasies, then there is no hope for the deluded in the United States.

Obama’s hands will be full, indeed.

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Unscientific Evidence of the Distribution of Intelligence

Out There: People Who Live Without TV | Yahoo! News

The entire argument hinges on this premise: recognizing that American television programming is garbage and failing to tolerate such garbage is a sign of intelligence. If one can accept this premise, then it would seem as if the very politically liberal are more likely to be intelligent than the very politically conservative. According to this fairly small survey, two-thirds of those who find television so insufferable that they refuse to keep onee in the house are politically liberal. 

The politically conservative cited in this survey may be more appropriately described as frightened, for they are turned off more by the perceived affronts emanating from television rather than the sheer stupidity of the programming that multibillion dollar corporations insist on producing and airing. In other words, the conservatives are more likely to fear what they see on television than to loathe it. 

And, if that premise is also true, and if one also accepts the premise that intelligent people are more likely to loathe stupidity than to fear it, then it is simply true that the politically liberal are more likely to be intelligent than the politically conservative. Fear and loathing may have made for a remarkable story in Las Vegas, but the two sentimens do define a stark line of demarkation between those who prefer to act on the merit of things and those who act on their fears and prejudices.

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Mass Media’s Reach

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China Games ‘a broadcast record’

The Chinese Olympic games are now history, and the viewership of these games was stellar because there were so many Chinese watching the games and because the games were so magnificent. Whether the human and environmental costs of the games were greater than the $40 billion (hey, this guy uses the same template as I do) that the government is said to have spent on the games will not detract from the magnificence of the spectacle. These games were truly something to behold.

What is disturbing, however, is the remarkable reach that modern media have. As the above BBC article states, it is estimated that 800 million Chinese people watched the opening ceremonies, and that estimate may possibly place the number of global viewers at nearly 2 billion. One wonders how quickly a lie could propagate given such an immense audience. The digitally enhanced fireworks and the lip-syncing child were exposed, but what tricks were not?

Without a doubt, this is the sort of propaganda platform after which Hitler was lusting when he hosted the 1936 Olympic games. Although the Chinese regime cannot be compared with the Nazi regime, certainly it cannot be said that the zeal with which the Chinese regime pursued and conducted the Olympic games was born of pure benevolence. Most unfortunately, the remarkable success of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the phenomenal reach that its coverage enjoyed serve as reminders that the world is more vulnerable to propaganda than ever before.

Will some combination of responsibility in media management and regulatory regimes stop the ongoing decline of mass media into abject irrelevance and pure propaganda? We cannot hope so. People should take action.

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AIDS, Homelessness, Valor and Cowardice

U.S. Reports Drop in Homeless Population | NYTimes.com

The evil liberal media dominators at the New York Times report on a Bush initiative that has had an apparently remarkable impact on the chronically homeless in the United States. What is especially surprising is that all sides of the issue seem to be in agreement that the data are reliable. If such consensus is born of truth, then it is true that the chronically homeless population has declined by nearly 30% in the United States over the past four years.

Coupled to this report on PBS’s The News Hour about how resoundingly successful the President’s AIDS relief program in Africa has been, this astonishing development compels one to think of all the remarkable good that could have been achieved with the trillions of dollars (projected costs including interest) currently being squandered in Iraq. After all, the total cost of these programs ($15 billion for AIDS relief as cited by The News Hour report, and ostensibly no more than a few billions of dollars for the “housing first” program; I can’t presently find a citation) absolutely pales when compared with the $752 billion cited by the CBO for the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan thus far. Had such resources been allocated to AIDS relief and homelessness, the earth may well have been purged of both scourges.

Could the President be asking himself if the pursuit of the war in Iraq was a gross misappropriation of resources? After all, the three-quarters of a trillion dollars thus far spent in Iraq has had the sole effect of bringing the American economic engine to a halt by sending the price of crude oil into the stratosphere. Thus, the military operation in Iraq has, in effect, quashed all effective programs undertaken by the government in two ways. First, it has absorbed moneys that would otherwise have been dedicated to such effective programs like AIDS relief and housing first. Second, it has reduced the capability of the American economy to provide for any government program by reducing economic output.

Thus, the reasons why the neoconservatives keep insisting on the validity of the military operations in Iraq are almost understood. Any admission that moneys spent elsewhere would be more effective than the moneys squandered in Iraq would reveal these war mongers to be the frauds and the hucksters that they are. It is, therefore, nothing but an article of fear that compels the cowards who wage war to deny their misdeeds.

And, that is why their cowardice is almost understood. Those occupying positions of power must have the courage to make such admissions. It is their duty. It is, in fact, their legal obligation to confess to their mistakes so that these mistakes can be rectified or remedied before they erode the public’s trust and destroy the institutions that guarantee accountability and efficacy in governance. This very fact that persons vested with authority must carry a higher responsibility is the reason why such childish denials of fault in government are labeled high  crimes and misdemeanors, while those of the child who had broken a vase are labeled mere fibs.

If the constitutional mandate that punishments fit crimes were observed, then such high crimes and misdemeanors would merit harsher punishments than those meted out by parents for their children’s fibs. As it is, however, children are being held accountable for breaking vases, but politicians are exonerated for their squandering of the common wealth and the nation’s prestige. Who is measuring the merits of spending a pittance for the sake of the welfare of humanity against the spending of fortunes to increase the misery of mankind and opting for the latter?

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To Protect and to Serve the War on Drugs

BBC NEWS | Americas | Drug stash found in US police car

We are led to believe that the huge stash of cocaine found in this undercover Dallas police officer’s car was an accidental discovery. The car in question was an asset seized from a drug operation, and the police claim that drug traffickers have become so sophisticated in their means of concealing contraband within the various open spaces of a car that the police had no idea that nearly $400,000 worth of cocaine remained hidden protected by various hydraulic schemes inside this car which was seized from a drug dealer.

The NPR series on how drug seizures have become a means for police departments–especially those in the south states of the United States–to fund themselves casts serious doubt on the authenticity of this claim of accidental discovery. Incidents in which police seize private assets legally but illegitimately are on the rise, and the impetus seems to be the independence that the departments gain from the municipalities and constituencies that support them. Confined by meager budgets that restrict their hiring practices and their appetites for high-powered fire arms, police departments have found a bounty in poorly written laws that empower them to declare private assets as ill-gotten arbitrarily and to seize those assets thus declared  illicit. Thus, the poorly written drug-related asset seizure laws have become a means for police departments to disentangle themselves from the accountability that binds them to the communities that they serve. If these drug seizures are appreciable, police departments no longer need popular support to receive additional funding. They can simply seize what they need.

At least, one can only pray that this is not the destination toward which we are headed. For if it is true that police departments do view and employ drug seizure in the manner outlined above, then the war on drugs has been transformed from the politicians’ wet dream to a perverse vehicle that empowers the most corrupt elements of society against the society that created them. If any of the foregoing has any truth, then the war on drugs is what the war on drugs is seeking to protect.

In other words, the war on drugs is no longer the pursuit of the protection of the public. It has become exactly what the most pessimistic among us had predicted. The war on drugs has become a power grab that seeks only to perpetuate itself. More drugs lead to more war which leads to more power to those who are waging the war.

Put away that joint, if you know what’s good for you. In truth, this means “put away that joint if you want to keep your car and your house”.

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Love is not a Scriptable Application

Why is the stereotypical computer geek typically single? Because he can’t find a woman who is perfectly scriptable.

Not that the rest of us have not contemplated that prospect.

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