Cybrpnk's Rantings

Holiday in Cambodia

cybrpnk — 2005-12-15T23:51-08:00

I have just returned from an amazing trip to southeast asia. Truly extraordinary to be in places where one has a completely different perspective on free trade and globalization. While most of the trip was spent in Vietnam (more on that another day), we did spend a few days in Cambodia. Enough to convince me that I owe my friend Jesse an apology: we don't have real poverty in America, at least not that I've seen. You were right about that. While I am sure that there is even deeper poverty elsewhere, the poverty in Cambodia makes American ghettoes seem middle-class; although the violence in many poor American communities makes life less tolerable than the basic living conditions would indicate. Yet it is unclear how replacing aid with freer markets, as recently proposed by Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank, would help these people. Cambodia is a country that has not only been torn apart by thirty years of civil war, but also lost an entire generation of it's intellectual class. The Khmer Rouge saw to that.

Nowadays the state of education is still deplorable. My local sources told me that the country has a 40% literacy rate. And school is not compulsory (the natives optimistically conclude that statement with 'yet'). And even if children receive an education, it is no guarantee of any employment, let alone well-paying work in one's field of study. Not even learning IT or computer programming skills makes one employable. Working as a tour guide, or in a big hotel, is considered a good job. So it's a complicated situation. The people must become educated to benefit from globalization, yet those who are educated currently just end up in the servant class. The Khmer Rouge set out to bring the country back to 'year zero' and didn't miss by much. And what the Khmer Rouge failed to accomplish, government corruption seems intent on finishing off. While their neighbors in Vietnam are known for their own problems with corruption, it seems significant that it was only in Cambodia that I had to bribe someone at the airport to get my film hand-checked instead of run through the x-ray machine.

Yet one thing that is very clear while one is here is that the Cambodians are not poor because they are lazy. Everywhere one goes one encounters people eagerly trying to sell one things. While there is some begging, raw commerce is the rule. And those Cambodians who have jobs take them seriously. Sure they don't have the same hustle and bustle urgency of New Yorkers, but they work hard. And seeing six-year old kids riding to school at 6:30 in the morning on bikes that are twice their size really drives home how coddled American children are. Yet they are all poor, and likely to stay that way. These people have no skills of interest to manufacturers. Too few educated people to draw IT work from abroad. Insufficient capital to start their own global businesses. A countryside still strewn with over a million landmines. A corrupt government. One can easily see why foreign investors are disinterested in such a place.

The existence of such a doomed population vividly illustrates the moral bankruptcy of an attitude that claims that free trade is the solution to world poverty. Free trade can only help when a country has something to offer. And while it is very easy to point out all of the technical changes that the Cambodian government should be making to reform their system, none of that will replace the intellectuals slaughtered in the killing fields. And, as with the poor in America today, the fantasy of a more perfect world in some mythic, indeterminate future, offers neither solace nor sustenance to those trapped by the unfortunate accident of being born at the wrong time and in the wrong place.

Crush The Roach

cybrpnk — 2005-09-28T18:12-08:00

Today may very well be the beginning of the end for the Roach. Tom Delay was indicted today on charges of conspiracy to circumvent Texas state campaign laws. This indictment forces Delay to step aside from his role as House Majority Leader. It also suggests that prosecutors may well be on the verge of blowing the cover off of the sewer that the GOP has turned Texas politics into. This is an instance not of 'follow the money,' but of 'follow the fallout.' Allegedly Delay and friends plotted to funnel corporate money into elections for the state legislature. This money was instrumental in providing the Republicans with a majority in the legislature. They used this new-found status to ram through redistricting (remember the run-away legislature?). The redistricting gave the GOP five extra seats in the current congress. At slightly over one percent of the entire house this is a consequential distortion of national politics. If this scandal really does develop fully, it will clearly demonstrate that any talk the Republicans spout about 'returning morality to government' is pure hooey. This crowd clearly cares about nothing but power.

Grover Norquist's Bathtub

cybrpnk — 2005-09-20T12:57-08:00

For years we have been hearing conservative critics of American government deride the civil service; portray government itself as a force for bad; and promise a world with less government. This message has been accompanied by pledges to reduce taxes whenever possible, and a persistent reckless unwillingness to level with the American people about what 'less government' looks like. Instead we have been treated to absurdities like 'it's not the government's money, it's your money.' Although it should be noted that this absurdity was true with the tax cuts: most of the money given as a gift to the ultra-rich was money that working Americans had been paying in to Social Security to ensure income after retirement. This may indeed match the Conservative vision, but this reverse Robin Hood behavior seems to be all that government would be capable of if it were indeed, as Grover Norquist desires. "small enough to drown in a bathtub." Well Grover, we've found your bathtub. It's what we got when we poured a whole lot of Lake Pontchartrain water through a broken levee and into the City of New Orleans. And, Grover, bad news. It appears that what is getting drowned is your radical, mean-spirited vision of a return to the Hobbesian uncertainty of the 18th, or perhaps 17th, century.

It turns out that, when push comes to shove, Americans actually want, nay expect, their government to be around to help out. We expect it to be efficient, swift, and effective. Actually, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Polls have been showing for years that most Americans, given the choice between better schools and lower taxes, choose better schools. Given the choice between accessible medical care and lower taxes, choose medical care. Given the choice between safety and lower taxes, choose safety. The conservatives have been very effective at not only selling people on lower taxes, even though the benefit has gone primarily to the wealthy, but they have also obscured the reality of how much we were giving up to make up for those taxes. They have gambled that people wouldn't ever figure out that when they were saying less government, it wasn't just less government for 'them.' it was less government for 'us.' They have been pushing the idea that we can have lower taxes, less government, and still remain true to our country's core values. Then Katrina happened.

When the American people started seeing the shocking scenes of people being left to die; of a city descending into chaos, an American city decaying into Chaos, they were outraged. These images exploded the cognitive dissonance which the conservatives have relied on to push their agenda. These images were too close to what we associate with third-world government. With poverty. With corruption. With incompetence. All of a sudden it wasn't them, somewhere on the far side of the world. It was us, staring into a mirror. And we did not like what we saw. Now is the time to question how we have allowed ourselves as a people to be so horribly gulled for so many years. To ask how we have let ourselves go so far astray. We have gone from a society that values the individual to a society that values only the flow of capital. We have seen what they mean by 'less government' and we are not amused. Mr. Norquist, your bath is ready.

Irresponsibility

cybrpnk — 2005-09-13T20:14-08:00

Here's a letter I sent to the NY Times today:

To The Editor:

It is bizarre that the Republican party, which claims to be the standard bearer for 'personal responsibility,' has a leader who seems to have no comprehension whatsover about what it means to 'take responsibility.' Truly taking responsibility for reckless, careless, or simply inadequate action requires far more than simply stating that one is responsible.The president must not just state that things went wrong, but explain how his own actions and ideology has led to the poor performance of federal agencies. It is time for Mr. Bush to come clean with the American people. To explain that when he and his conservative colleagues talk about 'less government' this is exactly what they mean. The inadequacy of FEMA's disaster preparedness was not incompetence, it was the expected result of a `starve the beast` ideology which holds the worship of tax cuts above the real hard work of actual governing.

The flooded city, hundreds of thousands displaced, and still uncounted dead are vivid reminders of what it means when government is undermined and denigrated. The country doesn't need a president who says they take responsibility, we need someone who actually acts responsibly. Roll back the tax cuts, invest in our vital infrastructure, admit that government can and must play a vital role in people's lives.

I wanted to work in something about Grover Norquist now having a large enough bathtub to drown the Bush administration, although probably not the whole government. But I was already over the word limit.

Asleep At The Switch

cybrpnk — 2005-09-02T10:31-08:00

For anyone who doesn't know what has been going on in my life and is wondering why I haven't been writing lately, drop me an email. It just isn't something I want to post about.

Now, back to our long-overdue ranting, previously scheduled....

For anyone who was still under the impression that our so-called president and our Orwellian 'Department of Homeland Security' were really doing the job we all think they are supposed to be doing, I offer the sad spectacle of New Orleans. I should note that I write about New Orleans not as a distant observer, but as someone who has spent fairly large amounts of time there over the last twenty years. I am saddened, sickened, and disturbed by what is going on there now. But not surprised. New Orleans has always been a city of stark contrasts, extreme poverty (by North American standards at least), and enduring racial divides. Bu today's topic is not what is going on today, but what didn't go on over the last three years. If the emergency response which we have theoretically been pouring tens of billions of dollars into bolstering is this bad when we had several days notice to evacuate people and prepare supplies, troops, etc., how much worse will it be when a natural disaster or terrorist attack hits without warning? As I have previously written, our government seems to be dedicating far more effort to conditioning us to accept a fascist state than they are putting into actually making us safer.

People who live in New Orleans have long known the risks of living below sea level. Few people live in the city without being regularly reminded, by the site of a levee or flood-control channel, that it is only the work of engineers that keeps them safe from massive flooding. This is a city which has long been voicing concern about the diversion of federal money away from maintaining and extending this flood-control system, and into the war in Iraq. Despite absurd comments by our so-called president, people in New Orleans were expecting that the aftermath of a massive storm like Katrina would stress and quite possibly breach the network of levees and flood walls. Yet most people felt safe. The criminal negligence forced on the corps of engineers by the extensive sleight of hand this administration has used to hide the full cost of it's folly in Iraq made it hard to follow the arguments about why the city was in greater danger than it had been for years. This is also a city with a population given to extreme, unquestioning patriotism. I still remember Woody Harrelson getting uninvited from a Carnival parade back in 1991 when he dared to question Gulf War I. This was a populace that, for the most part, would have believed the Fox propaganda that questioning the management of the war and homeland security was being unpatriotic. Clearly the government abused this trust and faith.

While New Orleans burns, Michael Chertoff mumbles platitudes about how complicated the situation is, and claims that his department is doing everything it can to help out. It may indeed be true that, starting this week, Homeland Security is doing everything it can do, although even that is debatable. But what have they been doing the last three years to prepare for this? Do first responders in New Orleans have radios that all work on the same frequencies? I don't think so. Was there a plan in place to evacuate those too poor to own cars? Apparently not. Was there a regional plan to pull in resources from nearby cities? It sure doesn't look like it. What if this had been a chemical attack (easy to envision with the concentration of refineries and chemical plants in the 'toxic corridor' between New Orleans and Baton Rouge)? What if terrorists had blown a couple of holes in the levees and blown up one or more of the main roads out of town? Is our military and national guard strength really so diluted by Iraq that we really can't have gotten order restored by now? If our Department of Homeland Security is so incompetent that it can't handle a mid-size city after a natural disaster which we had several days warning of, how badly will they bungle the next catastrophe that strikes without warning? It is time for a day of reckoning about the true cost of Bush's wars, both overseas and here at home. This administration has had years to prepare, and billions of dollars to spend, and this is the best they can do? Do you feel safer?

Crime or Slime?

cybrpnk — 2005-07-19T14:05-08:00

There is much and sound and fury over what Karl Rove knew, when he knew it, how he learned it, and to whom he disclosed it. This is a mistake. There is a very clear and simple indictment of the Bush administration to make, and we should make it. Churning up lots of arguments and engaging counters from the right on each one is wasted energy. You want traction, stick to a simple message. There are only two possible interpretations of Rove's actions, neither of them reflect well on the Bush White House. Either Rove passed on solid information which he had used government resources to confirm, or he passed on unsubstantiated rumour. The first is a crime, the second is pure slime, which this administration claims to be above. Sure, none of us who are politically engaged think that they believe that line, but lots of ordinary people do, and they are the ones we want to get to.

According to the stories that we have been getting from Rove, Robert Novak and Matt Cooper of Time the chronology appears to be that Novak told Rove about Plame. Rove then told Cooper. Since this is the version being offered by the right as a defense, let's just take it as is, and show how this best-case scenario from them is actually really bad. Once Rove received the information from Novak, he either confirmed it before passing it along to Cooper, or he didn't. If he did confirm it, then he was using his official position to obtain information about a CIA employee. Even if there was no issue of covert operations, accessing personnel records and then divulging them is still an abuse of power. Presumably these records are not generally available. I would think that were someone without the appropriate security clearance to attempt to gain this information they would be stonewalled. For example, Novak probably couldn't have confirmed this information without inside help. Remember the flap about the Clinton administration illegally obtaining personnel records? This seems at least as bad, and arguably much worse since an intelligence operative is involved. So, if Rove acted to confirm the information from Novak, and then passed along what he learned, we have at the very least a breach of the presumed confidentiality of government personnel records. I believe that that is a crime. At the worst, Rove used his security clearance and then divulged classified information, thus blowing the cover of covert CIA operatives.

Ah, but what if Rove didn't confirm any of the information he got from Novak, but just passed it along. This appears to be the defense that the right is cooking up. But how much of a defense is it? A high-ranking White House official personally passed along rumour and innuendo about someone he had reason to believe was a CIA agent in order to damage the credibility of that person's spouse. If this is what George W. Bush means when he talks about bringing integrity back to the White House, I'd hate to find out what he considers dirty tricks. This is dirty, disgusting, slimy, underhanded, and despicable. For the President of The United States to sanction this sort of heinous behavior is below deplorable. Then you top it off with this administration's sanctimonious blather about the family. Oh yeah, we love the family. We think women should be loyal to their husbands. We respect the sanctity of marriage. Oh, but if we can gain politically by trashing someone's spouse because we don't like what they are saying about us we will do so? I feel unclean just thinking about how mud-spattered this administration is. If the best defense this crowd can come up with is that they are admittedly bottom-dwelling scum-suckers, one suspects that the real story is so ugly that even Bush supporters will be dismayed if it ever comes to light.