Economic Crisis Passes Over the Rich

I just read this - a new record has been set for the selling price of a private home.

So, I thought I'd write just a quick post on this. "The World's Most Expensive Home," should serve as an indicator at how ridiculous our economic system is now. I concede that the sale was made in Monaco, but it is still right to say "our" economic system, because capitalism is a global phenomenon that if not supported by, is at least driven, ideologically, by the US. So we now live in a world where Americans, citizens of the most powerful nation on Earth, can't afford to hang on to their homes, nor find jobs to remedy that situation, but there remain people who can throw away $305 million on a place to live. I'm not suggesting the rich should give away their money to the poor. I'm suggesting that our economic system is so broken that gobs of money land in the hands of a few, while the rest of the world struggles everyday - and America has it pretty easy despite our unemployment rate and various other problems; there are plenty of locales with MUCH greater poverty.

Capitalism is FUNDAMENTALLY about competition and the amassing of wealth and power - it is a game and winning is obviously the prime objective. Some would argue you shouldn't begrudge the wealthy the spoils of their success. I agree. I also believe you shouldn't make sport of human existence. Capitalism means there WILL be losers. If one man has $305 million, that means $305 million less to go around. Free-market fundamentalists are deluded with the idea that there is always room for growth and expansion. How can this possibly be true so long as we are bound on this solitary planet? If you live under the condition that success means the accumulation of wealth and power, that means without debate: LESS wealth and power for those who are NOT successful at the crap-shoot called capitalism. If you let one man control a picnic table and he doesn't feel like sharing, everyone else who showed up to the party goes hungry. This metaphor is incredibly simplistic and doesn't nearly touch on all the facets of capitalism, but it holds truth that still applies.

If there is a global economic crisis afoot, then no one should be setting spending records. And yet it's happening. Sadly, many would say more spending is good for the economy, but the divide between incomes of the rich and poor means that money spent mostly finds its way back into the pockets of those holding the reigns. Since the economic crisis isn't really affecting the rich, its just affecting the rest of us, those with the wealth and the power have little incentive to care.

Pastor Passes on Petraeus's Plee

UPDATE: This post still has relevant opinions, but I feel obligated to acknowledge that Terry Jones did not follow through on his plan to burn the Qu'ran and promised never to do so in the future either. However, some I read some where that another idiot did in fact burn some pages from said holy book. I apologize for not having a link to that story, but I'm sure you can find it on Google. The original post follows:

A growing theme for this blog is identifying the frightful way our nation fosters a gather fascist storm. I this light, it is difficult deciding what to make of news that a Florida church led by pastor Terry Jones has plans to burn Qu'rans "in memory" of September 11, and that General Petreaus has condemned this event. You see, it is great to have a figure of authority, a military man no less, speak out against such an act of ignorance and hate, but this particular church will still proceed, and it shows such an utter lack of tolerance, and such a perversion of Christianity that one begins to lose all hope in anything.

I tend to be mistrustful of organized religion for precisely the reason that it is so easily co-opted and misused, but I recognized at the heart of Christian doctrine teachings that have intrinsic value. But this only makes it that much more frustrating to see the evil perpetrated in this country by so-called Christian leaders.

To put it unoriginally, we are living in a difficult time and difficult situation (as if that status was any different from all of human history). Decent people derive something of value from Islam and if it provides what they need to cope with the world, feeds a spiritual inclination, then it is worth protecting. Yet the struggle remains because most of the other dominant religions are able to co-exist with secular governments, while Islam is more geared towards theocracy.

This is not a religious blog, and I am a strong proponent for keeping religion out of politics at all turns, but we find ourselves in an era when our leaders have sought to instigate a Christian vs. Muslim struggle, and in so doing, send our civilization back to the Dark Ages. And so I am inclined to comment on religious matters in a political context. I may have certain sympathies with one religion or another, but I promote none and discourage none. Instead, what I have to say is that Christianity is supposed to be based on the teachings of Christ, and having encountered those teachings in my formal education, I can say that one of his primary concerns was tolerance and love for all. Love thy neighbor, love thy enemy. Ergo, you cannot be a proselytizer of Christainity and preach hatred of other religions and people. I also believe in free speech, and would not ask to prevent Terry Jones from speaking his mind or even from burning whatever books he chooses. But he cannot do so in the name of Jesus. To do so makes him a hypocrite, a deceiver, a manipulative war-monger, and a messenger of hate.

Only a Mosque

Obama has given his support to building a Mosque and Muslim community center near the WTC, and I'm happy whenever he gives us a glimmer of progressivism. Those who are so vocally opposed to the Muslim center are flat wrong. They are un-American. They are racist. There is no way around that truth. Muslims are not terrorists, yet that is the implication Palin and Guiliani are making. Again, as I wrote in my previous post on immigration, this is the kind of behavior that wreaks of fascism. At the very least, people like Sarah Palin are trying to send us back to the pre-Civil Rights days, the days before we were a true democracy. This sort of reactionary attitude does not provide counterbalance to the mindset of terrorists, it is in fact the same mindset because it is a narrow, exclusionary, prejudicial and antagonistic attitude.

What is Florida so Scared of?

Perhaps you have heard what Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum wants to get started in Florida, if not you can read here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/11/florida-arizona-illlegal-immigration-laws

This is of course part of a trend started by Arizona with their passing of immigration enforcement laws that allow cops to stop innocent people on the street to ask for proof of citizenship. The fact that this is a growing trend (20 states are trying to follow Arizona's lead) is itself surprising given all the negative feedback they received, including hometown basketball franchise, the Pheonix Suns, having made and worn special jerseys that read "Los Suns" to draw attention to the issue. And of course it further draws attention to the fact that a large part of the "illegal" immigrant community is Latino, and if you're talking about Arizona, you're talking about Mexicans. But if you're talking about Mexicans, then you should also be talking about the fact that Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California were all at one time part of Mexico! So there is a sort of psychology to Mexicans crossing the border that says "this isn't really wrong." And it isn't wrong.

A family friend pointed out to me in conversation that in Europe they have no immigration problem because all European Union members have open borders to other nations of the European Union. If you were born in Poland but suddenly get word that there are jobs aplenty in Madrid, Spain, you can hop on a train and pursue your chances of a better livelihood. Now, we're not talking about complete open borders. I, as an American citizen, can't move to Italy and get a job. And its not without disturbance, such as the 2005 riots in France involving Algerian immigrants. But on the continent of Europe, there is freedom of movement that allows, theoretically, for populations to shift towards regions with the most availability of work. Here we have an example of how to deal with the Mexican border - if you make crossing easier and legal, you eliminate the seedy side of sneaking into the States. Mexico is deeply embroiled in a drug war that could pose a threat to the US should we have a more permeable boundary, or it could provide an opportunity for the US to help get a hand on the problem by giving our law enforcement agencies better access to trouble spots in Mexico. It would also dry up the labor pool for drug cartels since law-abiding folks desperate to get to the US would no longer have to resort to being mules for cartels or paying "coyotes" (smugglers of immigrants) which also further supports criminal power.

Now Florida doesn't have to deal with being adjacent to Mexico, and Mexicans are not the only people immigrating to the US, but it bore thinking out since Arizona has been so pivotal in the debate as of late. The new twist Florida would provide is a 20 day stay in jail for immigrants who were unable to supply official documentation of their status. Our nation already has the highest rate of imprisonment of the industrialized world, our prisons are overcrowded, ineffective and have absurd recidivism. Stuffing more crap down a clogged drain never provides a solution.

I fail to see what is to fear from undocumented immigrants. If I try and look at it from the other perspective, the risks might be considered as follows: immigrants taking jobs from citizens during a recession; immigrants straining social services for which they don't contribute taxes towards; terrorism and increased crime.

I'll take these one at a time. It is true we have high unemployment, but we also have a population that is resistant towards taking certain jobs and we also have an economic system that has created the recession in the first place. Some other time I may provide a more detailed critique of capitalism, but for now, let's just say that if CEOs and upper management weren't so overpaid, we could probably have more jobs available, or even too many jobs available since the US has a very low birth rate.

Undocumented immigrants may put a slight strain on social services, or they may not. It would be hard to tell, since in reality, undocumented immigrants often do pay taxes when employed by companies that overlook citizenship. Not every "illegal" alien is a day laborer. Furthermore, we send financial aid to other countries anyway, what's the difference if we give a little aid to those who've made it to our soil?

To assume that illegal immigrants bring crime is first racist. Second, part of whatever crime they might bring is strictly due to the fact that we've made immigration so difficult that they feel forced into the illegal method of border crossing to begin with, and so they are already dipping their toes into unlawfulness. Third, a lot of the presumed crime is drug related, and that's a problem WE created by making drugs illegal. Again I'm opening a door to another debate, so I'll just quickly note that I'm not condoning or supporting drug use, but I do think it's wrong to make it illegal and it creates more crime, it creates the industry of drug production and smuggling. The more we try to contain drug proliferation, the greater the lengths cartels and dealers will go to protecting their source of income. As for terrorism, this is frankly a difficult subject but the bottom line is that you would have completely ban all travel, all tourism, permanently ground every plan and erect giant walls at every boarder and on every beach to keep out people who don't like the United States. Even then, some would still get through and you wouldn't have accomplished anything in the way of preventing domestic terrorism.

The planet was here before we were, the physical land we call the United States of America was here before we were, and in fact there were other people here before we were (I saw Gary Shandling say in an interview with Tavis Smiley that Native Americans should be in charge of immigration policy). So the idea that This Land is Our Land, apologies to Woodie, is a bit flawed. The land is there whether we are or not and the concept of telling certain people they aren't welcome is convoluted. We've created a society, and a greater community, and it's right to want to protect that, but should always be striving to perfect it and that means we can't just exclude people, that's not what democracy is about. We are in great danger of letting fear devolve into nationalist fervor and then further still to fascism.

Wolves

A quick response to this news: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67503V20100806?type=domesticNews

I feel like our country is going completely insane, and I'll have more to say about that at a future date, but I just thought I would briefly address the plight of this blog's namesake species. If you read the article provided with the link, you probably won't be surprised. The US's puritanical roots have yet to shed the "man vs nature/order vs chaos/good vs evil" mandate, and ranchers hating wolves is an old story. But we have to keep addressing it because the balance of our ecosystem is off and will continue to be until we accept that we are part of nature, not above or removed from it.

If wolves decrease livestock, I understand the economic concern for ranchers, but as a country that provides ludicrous subsidies to other agriculture interests, including corn farmers (that is a whole other story for another time), we should be able to make accommodations. The meat industry is already a heavy burden on the environment because Americans stubbornly demand high quantities of beef for their diet and we insist on eating a non-native species, when in fact we should be embracing the more eco-sustainable and healthier option of native buffalo (you know, that animal our gun-crazy fore-fathers nearly wiped off the earth). Again, I find myself introducing another debate. But the issue is that complaints of reduced livestock are overstated and provide a weak argument when trying to defend the destructive way of life that is our agricultural industry.

Hunters that complain of wolves reducing game-stock? Less prey makes hunting more difficult, so are they afraid of a challenge? Modern hunting is so lacking in honor-ability with all the tech available and game preserves that this concern lacks any substance.

I don't know if this is a problem Obama can address, but if Idaho gets its way, it will feel like he hasn't set the right tone for environmental issues.

UPDATE:

Indeed, according to an NY Times editorial, under the Obama administration, the Interior Department had been upholding Bush era doctrine that removed wolves from federal protection in Montana and Idaho.

But the good news is that a federal judge has ruled against this policy and so wolves will in fact remain protected for the time being, reversing the fears laid out in the earlier article from Reuters which is linked at the beginning of this post. However, they won't be safe forever, since public policy wavers with every regime change, and apparently Obama is not on the side of the environment, or at least not on the side of the wolf. Disappointment persists.

Civic Duty?

This morning in a bit of sleepy stupor, I subjected myself to an extended and extremely asinine segment on a network morning news show about the split between Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston or whatever the hell his name is. And now, writing this, I must restrain myself from subjecting the reader to unending profanity. Not only am I offended that our journalistic institutions consider this news worthy at all, but I am also unnerved and terrified that these media-baffoons actually had "experts" on their show to give critique! And the experts had nothing intelligent to say! Because what would they say? They were powerless to disguise the absurdity of what they were doing.

I had fully intended to update this blog on a regular basis. And certainly there's enough going on in the realm of politics to give me a plethora of things to criticize. And yet I still felt uninspired for several months. It's quite plain why, since when I actually turn on the news, stupidity slaps me in the face. I stopped caring.

That hasn't changed. But I have begun to wonder why it has been that way. The answer is probably as old as politics itself. Disillusionment. And that's a phenomenon that's bound to go in and out of my mind, or anyone's mind, like the tide. Of course, I never believed in any way that writing a blog would change anything in even the smallest way. Rather, my growing apathy is rooted in the perpetual sameness of our government during a time when I was expecting great change. If the economy still has to suck, then let me see some daring change in how finance operates. If we can barely handle an oil spill, then let me see some concrete movement towards sustainable energy. We just get placating incremental efforts.

I sometimes don't know what I want from the news, because often I'm not interested enough to warrant more than a glance at Google headlines. And yet news-media often proves that this is about as much attention as they deserve. Its quite a thrill to stumble on an article of investigative journalism, but how often do those pieces really get the attention they deserve?

So what I do know I want is a paradigm shift in the political sphere and in the journalistic sphere. Journalists should stop pandering to the public and tell us some hard truth and not hide behind "objectivity." Government needs to get its hands out of the pockets of big business and focus on the citizens it serves. These are two big and vague statements. They're also two things that won't happen and it is a symptom of the problems that I don't even feel inclined to say anymore to help make my own point.

TEA DRINKING TO ALLITERATION

Take heed, leftists, the Tea Party cometh. Take heed because this is what you should be doing. Just because you got the President you wanted doesn’t mean you can rest, that you can stay quiet. Now is the time to be loud because now you have an ear. Meanwhile, the Tea Party rises, steeped in secrecy (is it a legitimate movement or orchestrated by a powerful-elite-cabal for a greedy agenda?) and an ambiguous if not ignorant message. There’s no better illustration of this than the upcoming first National Tea Party convention which is barring journalists from full coverage and has Sarah Palin as a spectator. In case you need that explained: a supposedly populist movement is shrouding their biggest even yet and is featuring a woman who couldn’t even recall the name of any newspaper let alone prove she knows how to read (I don’t think Going Rogue is any credit, that’s what ghostwriters are for) and who is a documented liar (I site her lumping Obama in with terrorists during the infamous campaign and her claim that Democrats wanted to set up “death panels” to judge the elderly). I suppose some discount the Tea Party as isolated irritants with no influence. But even so, these gatherings that keep popping up show a trend, a very real trend that took shape during the race to replace Ted Kennedy. Democrats lazed about thinking it was in the bag; Republicans took up the example of the Tea Party and caught the Blue state unawares.

The Tea Party’s professed points of contention are valid at a glance. Anyone who’s ever gotten a pay check wishes they could get some of that dough back, and certainly health care has come off the rails. Of course, they don’t want to fix health care; they just don’t want to pay for it. But they can’t discuss these issues intelligently, or without using disinformation. For example, at a rally in Wisconsin recently, they had one Dr. Pureth deriding the socialized health care system of Ireland, painting it as a third-world-chop-shop in a cautionary tale of uncared-for pregnant women. Yet the infant mortality rate in Ireland is lower than it is here by both the reckoning of the UN and the CIA World Factbook. The lowest rates are attributed to Iceland by the former and to Singapore by the latter. The infant-mortality rate is generally used to assess the overall health of a country and both of those nations have universal socialized medicine.

Additionally, the event in Wisconsin featured a large bonfire and Joe the Plumber. Sounds more like a keg party then a political rally, and definitely not something that any good could come from. Progressives need to pay close attention to this rabid mob trying to sway Washington. JournalTimes.come gave a list of some signs held up in the crowd and I list them here, each followed by some of my own commentary:

“If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”

(The day this isn’t true is the day we wake up in Utopia.)

“The ACLU is the enemy within.”
(This seems digressive. I thought we were talking about healthcare and taxes? Furthermore, if you want to claim a position of liberty – with such other signs as “Wake up America, your liberty is gone,” and “Liberty, not tyranny,” – then the ACLU is your friend.)

“Marxism. Communism. Obamaism. Sameism.”

(Isn’t Joe McCarthy dead?)

“Don’t blame me, I voted for the American.”

(This reeks of racism – what makes Obama un-American? Skin color? Foreign father? Politics?)

“Free markets, not freeloaders.”

(Unregulated free markets got us in this recession mess. End of discussion.)

According to Wikipedia, Tea Partiers have been seen co-opting leftist iconography such as the raised fist of solidarity and the usually pro-choice slogan “Keep your Laws off my Body.” This makes for a perplexing political movement. It also confuses the greater discussion because the left is not yet thrilled by Obama’s performance, but it would be counter-productive to side with tea-partiers. Society can be stifling, but once you agree to adhere to a civil society, maintaining it is not achieved by being more passionate about making sure everyone can own a gun over making sure everyone has access to a doctor, food and shelter. And if the Tea Party really is a manufactured phenomenon marionetted by Big Business, then we all lose because we already have two puppet political parties.

This is a tricky time. After eight years of having a Mayflower-Ivy-League party boy posing as a good-ole-Texas-rancher in a ploy to appeal to the common man and conceal ineptitude, our country came around and elected a candidate who didn’t hide his illustrious education or his flaws. Obama stumbled, perhaps by relying on too many Clinton cronies, and somehow we’ve disproportionately lost ground and gone dumb again. Polls show no one wants Palin for President, but she’s a persistent polyp on political podiums. Scott Brown, just elected in Massachusetts, is another case of populist pandering: the most important thing on his mind after winning? Announcing again that he drives a pick-up truck. Scott Brown, Bruce Springsteen you ain’t, so shut the hell up.

Mop-Top Mayhem in Mesquite

By my observation, it seems that some are under the mistaken impression that it is our Constitution and Bill of Rights that give us our freedom. No, they only protect it from physical and psychological oppression. But we understandably augment these freedoms, to ensure a more functional society. But we cannot forget our inherent liberty because sometimes society is wrong and we have to buck and kick against those constraints to prevent eventual tyranny. This means taking even lighter infractions with the utmost seriousness. Such is the case in Mesquite, Texas.

It is there that a four year old boy, Taylor Pugh, is being withheld from his Pre-K class because he has grown his hair long. This violates the district dress code which claims that it is distracting to the learning environment. Before commenting, I would like to state that having read several articles on these events I find it unclear whether it is the child or the parents who refuse the hair cut (though it is clear, the boy likes it uncut). Either way, since he is so young, it falls to the parents for the final decision, and ultimately they are the ones being critiqued. Two issues demand analysis regarding this affair: the validity of dress codes, and personal freedom.

Dress codes do serve a purpose. I was subject to one myself as a student in a Catholic high school. However, that was a private institution and the dress code was a part of the education style, a point of discipline and formality gearing us for the perceived rigors of college, and not an effort to mold us according to mainstream notions of appearance. Agree or disagree with the intent, it was a private school and so personal rights were never violated; attending was a choice. The Mesquite school in question is public. In public schools, a dress code has been thought to benefit the student body. The problem of gang colors is often given as the reason. Some public schools use simple uniforms and this immediately hinders overt shows of economic and social status, which could potentially shield children from some of the cruelty they inflict on each other. Limiting sexually suggestive clothing seems reasonable if for no other reason than preventing minors from becoming targets for sexual predators. So those are a few scenarios for which I can tolerate a dress code – I wouldn’t demand it myself; I merely concede that there are reasons for implementation. Of course I haven’t even scratched the growing occurrence of LGBT students butting heads with school administrations regarding their clothing, but we’ll leave that aside since the student currently being persecuted is only four years of age, and his hair length is probably not a gender statement, which is not to imply that it even would be if he were older. Yet gender equality does come into play when talking about individual liberty.

The showdown in Mesquite consists of a young boy with long hair who for several months has been sent to the library, isolated from his class with a tutor, and a mother who refuses to cut those contested locks. First, I have to say, I don’t see what is distracting about long hair (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/education/13hair.html). In a country still grappling with equality of all forms on a daily basis, shouldn’t we allow that if a girl can wear long hair to school, so can a boy? Hell, at one time it was fashionable for gentlemen of “polite society” to wear powdered wigs. I find that infinitely more distracting. You also might notice from the photo that Taylor’s is not an extreme hair style – though the linked article shows it in a pony tail in an effort to mitigate the administration’s ire. In fact, the school board’s idea of a compromise was to braid the boy’s hair and pin it up in back. Again, I find that infinitely more distracting (and the parents refused this option because of time constraints – braiding it every morning – and because having tried the braids, Taylor found them painful). Lastly, I see this dispute as one of personal freedom. Dress codes may have their function, but the body, the unadorned natural body, is the last stronghold of an individual’s liberty. Why does the military shave recruits’ heads? To break down their identity so they can be re-configured into a model soldier. Militarizing and homogenizing the student body is not a good plan for preserving our glorious Republic. We have agreed to limit our freedoms so that they do not hurt the freedoms of others, but Taylor is hurting no one and as for that “distraction,” how about the “distraction” of ostracizing a young child because of his appearance (isn’t there a law against that? Aren’t we supposed to be teaching kids tolerance?), and then subjecting the entire school to the national scrutiny of news coverage by engaging in a stand-off with protective parents?

Standards of dress and grooming vary wildly by geography and time period. You could say they are a part of humanity’s cultural evolution or down right arbitrary. Given this truth, and the inalienable right of individual freedom, it hardly seems the place of a public school board to dictate what those standards should be, beyond safety concerns. Furthermore, it is the right of every parent to raise their own child without outside influence (provided they don’t harm or neglect the child). Fortunately, Taylor is young enough that his education won’t be sacrificed in any significant way, but still, he is quoted as saying that he misses his friends. I condemn the school for depriving him his rightful (and legally mandatory) education over such a paltry issue and praise his parents for taking on this fight. These are the kinds of citizens that make a democracy. It may seem small, and of course they aren’t Rosa Parks or Cesar Chavez, but the small fights still contribute to our national integrity.

WAR WITHOUT BLOOD

At a recent party, with the influence of a few drinks, I got pretty riled up by a discussion of Obama and his announcement that he would be sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. I invoked the names of Dr. King, Gandhi and Howard Zinn. I yelled a bit unnecessarily, considering I was only amongst fellow left-leaners; not hard-core pacifist-folk, but loudness was out of order. A bit ironic that mankind’s bloodlust inspired my own rage – a subtle reminder that peace has human nature for an adversary.

I am not opposed to finding bin Laden, or seeking Justice. But I don’t believe Justice comes in the shape of bombs and bullets. Furthermore, I find the idea that the US can stamp out terrorism delusional – terrorism is a tactic, not a belief system in and of itself. And trying to end terrorism by imposing democracy at gunpoint shows even greater misunderstanding: while terrorism is not a belief system, democracy is, and not just a method of governance. Being a government for and by the people, it only comes when people want the way of life that it brings.

But these are problems merely of contemporary United States foreign policy, and though our dealings in this field are a persistent blemish of shame, exacerbated by such crimes as those in Latin America (banana republics, the war on drugs), and Vietnam, it is but a brief chapter in the history of warfare. And I have come to the opinion that we cannot force an end to that history in one single act of grace. Protestors and pacifists, please, carry on. But I would like to ponder how we might progress in the present, begin the next chapter on the way to finishing the story of war.

First we must attack our perception of war. For instance, prominent in the media over the last couple of years has been the issue of torture. It is an insidious practice and I would stand with those who have called for prosecuting those involved under the Bush administration. But we need to recognize the hypocrisy of the usual outcry against torture. If I may, I will us John McCain here as an example. He was an outspoken critic of torture, understandable given his own personal experience, but has been a supporter for the Iraq War, championing the 2008 troop surge. So, why would someone consider it inexcusable to inflict pain and distress on an individual to get what they want and yet desirable to destroy a nation, sacrifice 4,000 countrymen and between 100,000 to 1,000,000 civilians (depending on your source) to achieve a vague goal in a far off desert. I see both scenarios as inhumane, but we must look at this stark comparison. A solitary scared man with no hope of escape is subjected to prolonged pain. We don’t know the questions he is asked, but we may guess they amount to “Where are the terrorists?” And on the other side of the scale, over one million souls are sent to their graves; essentially offerings to the same dark alter for that same question, “Where are the terrorists?” (Never mind that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11… But the equation, with different statistics, still applies to Afghanistan or with a different question or desire to anywhere). In a strictly utilitarian sense, torture seems the less evil option. And yet our politicians have chosen BOTH (in recent past) when many of us would prefer neither.

Here we segue to my next point. We often forget that politicians speak for us. And it is easy to forget. They often don’t act in our best interest. They often don’t listen to the public and instead carry out the desires of a few rich and powerful elite. But their failings do not break the bond between us. If we are to end the violent spread of democracy and instead inspire that spread, we must really believe in it and fully absorb the concept. This is our country, and everyday we choose to live here and not under monarchy, not under dictatorship. That means that we all represent the nation, and the nation represents us all. The carnage our politicians inflict is on all our hands. It is easy to dismiss this or even celebrate it (for some) from the armchair and frankly, I don’t know how to make a person really meditate on the notion that innocent people have been and will be killed in their name, on their behalf, and with weapons they PAID for (you pay taxes, don’t you?). Others more capable than I have given proper weight to the gore factor of war and I won’t rehash that here. It is a tragedy that requires sanctity in it’s telling to give due respect to the sacrifice of the soldiers and their families. Those stories are out there and I leave you to find them as recounting them is not my function.

Still, there will remain those who are married to their idea of patriotism, enthusiastic about the military aesthetic. Even I will admit to a life long fascination with warplanes, to having played with GI Joe action figures and toted toy guns as a child. Laser tag, paintball, video games, museums, memorials, and camouflage underwear: we have draped our society in countless tributes to military glory. And we hammer home flag worship in our schools, nudge children into team sports, all creating an atmosphere conducive to “support for the troops.” And here it seems a good moment to restate the old saw that old men make war for their own ends, but send young men to do the actual killing and dying. We tell ourselves that our enemies are evil, but that is rarely true. It is tiresome to keep letting hawks point to Hitler to justify all of our subsequent misdeeds (due credit here goes to Howard Zinn for making this point in a recent Bill Moyers interview). I don’t dispute he was a cruel mad man, but he never would have come to power had it not been for the hardship and humiliation Germany experienced from the demands of the Versailles Treaty – the result of WWI, the blame for which could be easily spread around. As Tolstoy philosophized in War and Peace, the course of history is not shaped by the will of individual men, but by the swell of circumstances that make their names and the unconscious will of the masses. It is the masses that allow the spilling of so much blood and it is the masses that do all the dying. So yes, sometimes a devil comes to power, but the soldiers on the ground are at worst only misguided, and more likely conscripted by law or herd behavior. But the usual war is either a power struggle or a clash of culture. Vietnam and the Korean War for example (proxies to the Cold War) were fought because of shared hatred of opposing political and economic beliefs. Such a dispute is more suitable for an undergraduate political-science class. If we recognize this weakness for conflict, we might be able to harness that propensity.

What I propose will seem radical, and yet it is more compatible with the current norm than to just give up war completely. As Eisenhower warned, the military-industrial-complex is too ingrained in the structure of our society, government and economy so that even if our leaders were blessed with a moment of enlightenment, it would be almost catastrophic to end war. Because to truly end it would mean disarmament; the jobs lost alone would have a devastating impact: factories and science research shutting down, military bases closing, entire towns dependent on said facilities left destitute and soldiers suddenly unemployed. We are not ready for the final phase of peace. And we must remember how much conflict is part of our nature. Rather, the next logical step is not to end war, but end killing. If we cannot muster a devotion to diplomacy then let us strive toward a devotion to the value of life. Perhaps you are confused. But as a country that claims the moral high ground, it is surprising that the police doctrine of not shooting unless shot at does not extend to the military. More relevant to my plan is that in law enforcement we already have forms of non-lethal weapons including tasers, rubber bullets, and rock-salt or bean bag cartridges for shotguns. These are rudimentary and perhaps inefficient for military scale. But they show us that the concept is possible. So it will call on our human ingenuity that we are so smugly proud of to develop new technology. Imagine turning to the minds that have given us sniper rifles accurate to 2,000 meters and laser-guided bombs and demanding they churn out non-lethal equivalents? At this point, you might cry out that the enemy will not give up his bullets, his bombs. Well, first, I say, this is another job for our scientists, set them to work on better body armor and better ways of deterring bombs or missiles. Second, I say that a soldier is no less vulnerable to gunfire and explosives because he has a gun in his own hands. The devastation of IEDs in the current wars has demonstrated this too well. Third I point out that the US being the primo super-power at this time would have an excellent chance at persuading Europe and parts of Asia to follow these new guidelines and in doing so we would be turning off the main spigots of weapons production. Insurgents might be making their own car bombs, but they can’t build a tank or an M-16. Non-lethal warfare aspires to be an ideology, a cultural construct so that it could spread, so that if today’s friends are tomorrow’s enemies, we would fight with equal footing, much as the Geneva conventions put limits on us at present (though I concede not everyone follows them). It also comes with the precedence of domestic law-enforcement that I mentioned before. Of course, police have prisons, and while “prisoners of war exist”, the military is not in the business of taking prisoners. This would be difficult in non-lethal warfare and I won’t pretend to have a solution. But I would call on our greater minds to consider this and other problems. My goal here is not to provide the answer to world peace, rather to change the conversation since w have been stuck for the last 10,000 year history of civilization.

We know what we are, at least when we look honestly. We are violent, we like to root for the home team and we are ingenious. Knowing what we are doesn’t mean we can or must change, but we should make a moral choice to channel our instincts. We like to root for the home team: then let us take pride in our unwillingness to kill. We are violent: then let us lay down our guns, because we can’t be trusted with them. We are ingenious: then let us devise technology to foil our inclinations to fight mortal wars. We must be self aware and realize that our reasons for waging war are always foolish. Why meet this foolishness with the seriousness of death? It’s wonderful to take up picket signs, march and shout against atrocity, and I hope that continues, even escalates. But we need to have something tangible happening at the functional level so we can progress to a pacifist society at the pace most digestible for the average human and for the corporate giants that profit from the arms trade. That means incremental change. So I have suggested such a change, broad in scope, but when broken down in chunks, something that can be executed. Calling it practical would be both insensitive to the gravity of our condition and naïve when accounting for the stubbornness of politics. But it is an idea for a different kind of peace that allows for human ego until this trait has been bred out of our species.