Sympathy for the Bedevilled

I watch this year's meltdown on the streets of Paris with the same combination of sympathy and Schadenfreude that I watched last year's. The French are conservative people in the original sense of the word. They want to "conserve" things as they were, or perhaps as they like to imagine they were, rather than be constantly changing and adapting the way that America does, or perhaps the way that they imagine that America does.

'Take agriculture. France's agricultural policy is actually a part of its cultural policy. France has long had an agricultural policy geared towards maintaining what's called "La France Profonde". French Governments and legislatures have consistently made decisions about agriculture that were meant to not change the landscape, literally. They want rural France to never stop looking like rural France. So they subsidize small farms connected to archaic village market systems which in turn are connected to national markets via some "methode ancienne" or another. And in a way, it's a good idea. France is the world's most visited tourist destination and one of the things tourists look for is the French country town with its produce markets, bakers, etc. How fun would it be to visit these same towns if they were inhabited by no actual locals but rather only by wealthy city people from all over the world that like to spend two weeks a year there? 'Cause that is in fact the alternative. In a France fully connected to the global marketplace of produce and food, the "paysans" of France would no longer be able to live in these beautiful places.

Now let's apply that kind of genuine conservative thinking to the current debate about labor laws that is going on in the streets of Paris. The French don't want France to change. Last year, we realized that the native, non-immigrant, non-descendant-of-immigrant Frenchmen don't really want a multicultural France, at least not on a personal, bread-breaking level. They want a Frenchman to look and sound like Frenchmen do. Now this year, after the whole question of ethnicity has been grappled with ad nauseum and has resulted in a resounding lack of change to the staus quo, they deal with another almost existential question regarding Frenchness. The question is a labor issue and regards the way that worktime, holiday time, and the age-old process that determines who gets the really good jobs affects how France looks, feels, behaves. Anyone that has lived in France knows about this. The French civil service is the most codified, rules-based, unchangeable thing existing the First World, even the Roman Catholic Church is more open to change. The French civil service ensures for those within it, a guarantee of five weeks of vacation, 36 to 40-hour workweeks, lifelong employment, and never ever having to do anything that is not in your official job description. That ethic within the civil service affects how the private sector works as well. These rules are the reason for example that when you go to a cafe in France you are served by almost formal, uniform-wearing middle aged men who proudly regard this as their profession rather than by some local college student trying to get beer money. These rules are the reason that Paris has effective daily trash collection by seemingly normal people you might otherwise have a coffee with in a Brasserie.

I could go on all day about this, but the point is, the French are grappling with maintaining their identity and it is both sad and satisfying to watch it happen for many of us. Sad because so many of the things that make those of us who love France really value the place are under incredible pressure to disappear. Satisfying because so many of those of us who have to live elsewhere than France are really sick of having to struggle on out here in Globalized Land while all those Jean-Baptistes and Yvettes live these wonderful lives under the watchful eye of La Patrie.

My Pride in their Ownership

I am finally seeing the advantages of the complete absence of influence of liberal Americans over US Government policy over the last three years, and that is the lack of a possibility of being complicitous in the incredible mistakes that have been made by the Government in this recent period. Because whatever you have seen happening over the last three years or so, be it related to foreign policy, the waging of wars foreign and domestic, the balance of trade, deficit spending, industrial emissions, disaster relief, etc...all of those things are the fruits of the labors of those who have had the power and the influence to push them through. Whatever is going on now is the result of the desires, intentions, and very best efforts of the the Administration, the Republican-controlled Congress, and of the conservative Democrats who have sided with them. The War in Iraq is their baby. Whatever happens there is fully their responsibility. The deficit was built up by them, it's their doing. If you don't like the fact that the Chinese Government now holds enough US bonds to cripple our economy any time they want, well you know exactly who to take that beef to, the people who have made the decisions and pushed them through to implementation. The list of screw-ups is long and it wholly belongs to the right-wing and for that I am grateful.

What are liberals to blame for? Allowing all of this to happen uncontested.

Now for a question for discussion. I would assume that the neo-con advisors to the Administration will attempt the impossible, and that is to try to put the blame for the failures of this Administration and Congress on the one group of people that has had no influence over policy whatsoever, the liberal Democrats. How are they going to do it? Anybody?

Milosevic Dies In Prison Cell

Milosevic dies.

Good riddance to him!

Dumb Logic Then - Dumb Logic Now

What happened to you're either with us or against us?

(AP) President Bush said Friday the collapse of the Dubai ports deal could hurt U.S. efforts to recruit Mideast governments as partners in the worldwide war on terror.

...

"I'm concerned about a broader message this issue could send to our friends and allies around the world, particularly in the Middle East," said Bush during an appearance before a conference of the National Newspaper Association. "In order to win the war on terror, we have got to strengthen our friendships and relationships with moderate Arab countries in the Middle East."

So aren't they with us?

No?

Then they're against us. That's the mantra isn't it?

Cross-posted at On The Road To 2008.

Road to Guantanamo

Last night I watched the Channel 4 film, which can be downloaded from http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/features/road_to_guantanamo/index.html for those who have not seen it, on how three wide boys from Tipton in the UK ended up in Guantanamo Bay. What stunned me was how, despite their persistent denial of involvement in Al Quaida no-one belived them and they spent 3 years in Cuba. See Channel 4 http://www.channel4.com/film/newsfeatures/microsites/G/guantanamo/index.html for more information.

I was horrified at the graphic depictions of the treatment handed out and the way they were housed, fed, etc. Dogs in kennels get treated that way, if not better, but not humans. Just for the record, I have seen the inside of a German prison during my legal studies (day excursion, and normal prisoners get treated better than those poor bastards locked up in Guantanamo or any of the other US prison camps in Diego Garcia, Iraq or Afghanistanhttp://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/T/torture/chains.html. Hell, we don't even know what those are like as they officially do not exist, no-one is allowed in and who knows if anyone ever comes out of those alive. In my mind there are no two ways about it, but that the treatment given out to prisoners in these camps does amount to torture, both physical and mental. Channel 4 also has a site on this subject http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/T/torture/index.html

A question I asked myself is just how those guards/soldiers became so brutal. Yes, we (should) all know that experiments have shown that when one group of people is given control over a supposedly criminal group, they become brutal. For those who don't, the Stanford experiment on trying to recreate Abu Ghraib should be enlightening http://www.prisonexp.org/. And still, even then there must be some feelings left, yet even those who feel things are wrong seem unable to stand up. Somehow the horrors humans inflict on each other become worse, as you realise that most people will not go against the system. All the pogroms, camps etc become easier to understand when you know that poeple just fall into their roles. Not nicer or cosier or more acceptable, but it helps understand how people can be so cruel. And still it worries me that we, as a species, can be so vicious against our own. After all we always claim to be better than animals. I also ask myself what I would be like in such a situation as a guard or a prisoner.

And if a country which claims not to torture can hand out such treatment, how can it expect to be taken seriously on the human rights issue? The Asia Times is certainly not, but is laughing itself silly http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC10Ak02.html. Furthermore, they just will not learn from other countries prior experiences, the latest instance being the force feeding of prisoners in Guantanamo who are on hunger strike http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article350367.ece. The UK tried this and failed, and the whole procedure and descriptions thereof just look like more calculated cruelty. You cannot insist on the Geneva Convention for everyone else, but reserve for yourself the right to ignore it.

The final touch for me, and I think the makers wanted us to remember another famous camp, was the sign outside the prison stating "Honor bound to defend freedom". What honor is there in treating people as punch bags and hating them for their religion? What honor in torturing them, humiliating them, abusing them (sexually or otherwise)? How does it defend freedom if you lock people up without trial? Does freedom benefit when cruelty and circumvention of laws becomes more important than justice and legal conventions? Is there honor in bombing from high altitudes, potentially killing innocent civilians? In using cluster bombs or depleted uranium? Do we become freer is we destroy a county and occupy it? If we claim its natural resources, destroy its infrastructure, and use mercenaries within its border are we freer? Are the civilians of that country feer? And who is showered with honor in such an undertaking?




P.S.
Articles have already been written on whether or not the US is on the road to fascism ( a word which carries many conotations and whose meaning is hotly disputed, just check Wikipedia), and on some levels the administration is certainly heading that way. Worse yet seems to be that the population is going down the road of equating Muslim= Terrorists, why else the outcry over the ports deal? Don't they know how much is already in Arabic hands? Then again the Iran/Iraq war will correct this...

The Long War

As I peruse the depressing headlines about Iran and the dilemma it presents our governments with, I am reminded of an issue that presented itself a couple of months ago when the Pentagon presented its Quadrennial Review (for a good perspective on this see this story in The Guardian). In this paper which is published every four years, the US Department of Defense envisages something it calls "The Long War" going on for.....the forseeable future. Ostensibly the enemy is radical Islam (in the same way that expansionist Communism was the enemy in the Cold War) and it is slated to be not only the conflict of our current era but of the next era or two as well (depending on how you define "era"). The first thing that worries me about this is that these things can easily be self-fulfilling prophesies in that if you keep treating people like criminals, they will have no choice but to act like criminals. Of course there ARE dangerous radical Islamists in this world just like there are any number of other categories of dangerous people that we need to be aware of and protect ourselves against. However, given the level of illiteracy and institutionalized control of information that exists among so many Muslim populations, it is soooo easy for them to be manipulated into thinking that it is we in the West that are out to get THEM instead of vice versa . And hence these people can be expected to be our enemies for as long as we may care to call the bastards that control them our enemies. Well this can go on forever, hence the "The Long War."

I have to ask this question, "Who benefits from the Long War?" Does it truly make you and me safer in the long run? I think it's debatable.....or have we completely given up on our Enlightenment roots and decided not to bother debating things anymore?

And what the heck is all this Iran news supposed to result in? All of the power of the Anglosphere (U.S., Britain, Australia, plus their hangers-on) has been brought to bear on one, small, mostly flat, socially fragmented, demoralized artificial state (Iraq) with what can only be called disappointing results for all concerned. What the heck does anyone think is going to happen if this kind of fight is taken to a highly nationalistic, fairly cohesive, mountainous country (Iran) that has three-times the population of Iraq and is three times as big geographically? It seems to me that we need to use the carrot and not the stick with Iran. And carrots can work. Why not pre-empt the oil-as-weapon thing by telling the Iranian leadership that the EU and US will stop buying their oil in one year if they don't back down on their weapons program, will additionally stop providing economic aid to anyone that buys their oil, and will pressure both India and China to fall into line too.

Any other answers out there?

My post today is nothing but a simple quote.....

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering, before committing suicide at the Nuremberg Trials