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anonymous

Geithner's Speech on the Global Economy | STRATFOR - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...eithners_speech_global_economy

geopolitics economics

shared by anonymous on 07 Oct 10 - Cached
  • three points where the United States sees dangers to the global system.
  • The first is maintaining growth.
  • Next, Geithner pointed to differences in exchange rate systems.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Third, Geithner spoke about the reformation of the global financial architecture and evoked the framework agreement signed at the September 2009 G-20 summit.
  • The problem for China is that while Germany and Japan are U.S. allies, firmly lashed to the American-dominated international system, and have already been forced to change in response to American demands — such as the 1985 Plaza Accord in which Washington forced them to adopt market-oriented exchange rate policies — China is not.
  • If the United States is serious about enforcing such a policy, it will require changes to the next three biggest economies — China, Japan and Germany — as well as to those who have grown accustomed to the status quo, that is, in some way, almost everyone else in the world.
  • anonymous on 07 Oct 10
     
    "U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner spoke at the Brookings Institution on Oct. 6 and outlined Washington's economic and financial goals for a series of major upcoming international meetings. He called for G-20 countries to continue working together on global economic and financial challenges, and presented three points where the United States sees dangers to the global system. " At Stratfor on October 7, 2010.
anonymous

Can Americans Think (Strategically)? - Council on Foreign Relations - 0 views

www.cfr.org/...icans_think_strategically.html

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 26 Oct 10 - Cached
  • And to answer your question, "Can Americans think strategically," the answer is yes. You can think strategically, but you have not been doing so. And the thing that -- that's puzzling here is that geopolitics is supposed to work on the basis of logic.
  • And you know, my first time I spoke in the council here was in 1985, 25 years ago. Peter Tarnoff was the head then. And the topic that I chose was why the American naval base would be moved from Subic Bay to Cam Ranh Bay, right? And this is 1985, at the height of the Cold War. The United States was isolating Vietnam. And I said no, in due course Vietnam will move closer to the United States of America because Vietnam's primary geopolitical contradiction is with China and not the United States of America. And over time the geopolitical logic fell into place, and today the number-one supporter of American naval presence in Southeast Asia is Vietnam. So you could see that 25 years ago.
  • But here I want to emphasize, I don't see China as an enemy of the United States of America, okay? That's not my message. Actually, I do think you can work out a long-term win-win arrangement with the U.S. and China. But to be able to do that, you got to focus on China. Eighty percent of your resources should be focused in dealing with China, and you should get out of this mess that you have had within the Islamic world.
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  • And let me just -- let me end with one story. This illustrates how brilliant the Chinese geopolitical behavior can be. You know, in my previous book, I tell this story. You know, after -- as you know, after United States invaded Iraq, in March 2003, you discovered you had a problem because there was no Security Council resolution -- (inaudible) -- invasion. Technically, the American/British occupation of Iraq was therefore illegal under international law. And the previous Security Council sanctions were still in place for America to not export Iraqi oil.
  • So some brilliant move on their part. They got direct geopolitical benefits and long-term indirect geopolitical benefits. But that's an example of what I call good geopolitical behavior, focusing on what your long-term needs and interests are. And the thing that many of us in the rest of the world are worried about is when is America going to focus on its own long-term geopolitical interests?
  • anonymous on 26 Oct 10
     
    "WINSTON LORD: So I think we'll get going. My name is Winston Lord. I'm delighted to be presiding at this session. Let's get the housekeeping out of the way at the beginning. This meeting actually is on the record. Please turn off your cell phones -- not only noises but vibrations. And the way this is going to work, as I think most of you know, is that for the first 25 minutes or so I'll interview Kishore and we'll have a conversation, and then we'll turn back to you for your questions or comments, which I know will be concise and will be preceded by your grabbing the microphone and identifying yourself. So that's the basic ground rules. Let's get down to business here."
anonymous

NATO's Lack of a Strategic Concept - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...1_natos_lack_strategic_concept

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 12 Oct 10 - Cached
  • The gravity of the Soviet threat and the devastation of continental Europe after World War II left the European NATO allies beholden to the United States for defense. Any hope of deterring an ambitious USSR resided in Washington and its nuclear arsenal.
  • the Soviets were confident enough throughout the Cold War to maintain a no-first-use policy on nuclear weapons in the belief that their conventional advantage in armor would yield quick results. NATO simply did not have that luxury.
  • Three major developments changed how different alliance members formulate their threat perception.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • First, 9/11 brought home the reality of the threat represented by militant Islamists.
  • Second, NATO’s enlargement to the Baltic states combined with the pro-Western Georgian and Ukrainian color revolutions — all occurring in a one-year period between the end of 2003 and end of 2004 — jarred Moscow into a resurgence that has altered the threat environment for Central Europe.
  • When the United States does fully reawaken to the Russian resurgence, it will find that only a portion of NATO shares a similar view of Russia.
  • Third, Europe’s severe economic crisis has made Germany’s emergence as the political leader of Europe plain to all.
  • Central Europeans are nervously watching as Paris and Berlin draw closer to Moscow while committed Atlanticists — Western European countries traditionally suspicious of a powerful Germany — such as Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom want to reaffirm their trans-Atlantic security links with the United States in light of a new, more assertive, Germany.
  • The United States launched proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam largely to demonstrate unequivocally to European governments — and the Kremlin — that the United States was willing to bleed in far corners of the planet for its allies. U.S. troops stationed in West Germany, some of whom were in immediate danger of being cut off in West Berlin, served to demonstrate U.S. resolve against Soviet armor poised on the North European Plain and just to the east of the Fulda Gap in Hesse. Recent years have not seen a reaffirmation of such resolve, but rather the opposite when the United States — and NATO — failed to respond to the Russian military intervention in Georgia, a committed NATO aspirant though not a member. This was due not only to a lack of U.S. forces but also to Germany’s and France’s refusal to risk their relationships with Russia over Georgia.
  • The disparate threat environment is grafted on to a membership pool that can be broadly split into three categories: the United States, Canada and committed European Atlanticists (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark)
  • Led by the United States, Atlanticists want the alliance oriented toward non-European theaters of operation (e.g., Afghanistan) and non-traditional security threats (think cybersecurity, terrorism, etc.); an increase of commitments from Core Europeans in terms of defense spending; and a reformed decision-making system that eliminates a single-member veto in some situations while allowing the NATO secretary-general to have predetermined powers to act without authorization in others.
  • Led by Germany and France, Core Europe wants more controls and parameters predetermined for non-European deployments (so that it can limit such deployments); a leaner and more efficient alliance (in other words, the freedom to cut defense spending when few are actually spending at the two percent gross domestic product mandated by the alliance); and more cooperation and balance with Russia and more consultations with international organizations like the United Nations (to limit the ability of the United States to go it alone without multilateral approval).
  • The Central Europeans ultimately want NATO to reaffirm Article 5 both rhetorically and via military exercises (if not the stationing of troops); commitment to the European theater and conventional threats specifically (in opposition to the Atlanticists’ non-European focus); and mention of Russia in the new Strategic Concept as a power whose motives cannot be trusted (in opposition of Core European pro-Russian attitudes).
  • The problem with NATO today, and for NATO in the next decade, is that different member states view different threats through different prisms of national interest. Russian tanks concern only roughly a third of member states — the Intermarum states — while the rest of the alliance is split between Atlanticists looking to strengthen the alliance for new threats and non-European theaters of operations and the so-called “Old Europe” that looks to commit as few soldiers and resources as possible toward either set of goals in the next 10 years.
  • Without that looming threat, other matters — other differences — begin to fracture the alliance.
  • During the Cold War, NATO was a military alliance with a clear adversary and purpose. Today, it is becoming a group of friendly countries with interoperability standards that will facilitate the creation of “coalitions of the willing” on an ad-hoc basis and of a discussion forum.
  • anonymous on 12 Oct 10
     
    "Twenty-eight heads of state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will meet in Lisbon on Nov. 20 to approve a new "Strategic Concept," the alliance's mission statement for the next decade. This will be NATO's third Strategic Concept since the Cold War ended. The last two came in 1991 - as the Soviet Union was collapsing - and 1999 - as NATO intervened in Yugoslavia, undertaking its first serious military engagement." By Marko Papic at StratFor on October 12, 2010.
anonymous

The Myth of Charter Schools by Diane Ravitch | The New York Review of Books - 0 views

www.nybooks.com/...myth-charter-schools

education

shared by anonymous on 25 Oct 10 - Cached
  • Guggenheim presents the popularized version of an account of American public education that is promoted by some of the nation’s most powerful figures and institutions.
  • The message of these films has become alarmingly familiar: American public education is a failed enterprise. The problem is not money. Public schools already spend too much. Test scores are low because there are so many bad teachers, whose jobs are protected by powerful unions. Students drop out because the schools fail them, but they could accomplish practically anything if they were saved from bad teachers. They would get higher test scores if schools could fire more bad teachers and pay more to good ones. The only hope for the future of our society, especially for poor black and Hispanic children, is escape from public schools, especially to charter schools, which are mostly funded by the government but controlled by private organizations, many of them operating to make a profit.
  • The annual Gallup poll about education shows that Americans are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the quality of the nation’s schools, but 77 percent of public school parents award their own child’s public school a grade of A or B, the highest level of approval since the question was first asked in 1985.
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  • The message of the film is clear. Public schools are bad, privately managed charter schools are good.
  • Some fact-checking is in order, and the place to start is with the film’s quiet acknowledgment that only one in five charter schools is able to get the “amazing results” that it celebrates. Nothing more is said about this astonishing statistic.
  • The proportion of charters that get amazing results is far smaller than 17 percent.Why did Davis Guggenheim pay no attention to the charter schools that are run by incompetent leaders or corporations mainly concerned to make money? Why propound to an unknowing public the myth that charter schools are the answer to our educational woes, when the filmmaker knows that there are twice as many failing charters as there are successful ones? Why not give an honest accounting?
  • The propagandistic nature of Waiting for “Superman” is revealed by Guggenheim’s complete indifference to the wide variation among charter schools. There are excellent charter schools, just as there are excellent public schools.
  • Guggenheim seems to believe that teachers alone can overcome the effects of student poverty, even though there are countless studies that demonstrate the link between income and test scores.
  • The movie asserts a central thesis in today’s school reform discussion: the idea that teachers are the most important factor determining student achievement.
  • But this proposition is false. Hanushek has released studies showing that teacher quality accounts for about 7.5–10 percent of student test score gains. Several other high-quality analyses echo this finding, and while estimates vary a bit, there is a relative consensus: teachers statistically account for around 10–20 percent of achievement outcomes. Teachers are the most important factor within schools.
  • But the same body of research shows that nonschool factors matter even more than teachers.
  • The film never acknowledges that charter schools were created mainly at the instigation of Albert Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to 1997.
  • He sold the idea as a way to open schools that would collaborate with public schools and help motivate disengaged students. In 1993, Shanker turned against the charter school idea when he realized that for-profit organizations saw it as a business opportunity and were advancing an agenda of school privatization.
  • Under NCLB, low-performing schools may be closed, while high-performing ones may get bonuses. Some charter schools “counsel out” or expel students just before state testing day. Some have high attrition rates, especially among lower-performing students.
  • Perhaps the greatest distortion in this film is its misrepresentation of data about student academic performance. The film claims that 70 percent of eighth-grade students cannot read at grade level. This is flatly wrong.
  • NAEP doesn’t measure performance in terms of grade-level achievement. The highest level of performance, “advanced,” is equivalent to an A+, representing the highest possible academic performance. The next level, “proficient,” is equivalent to an A or a very strong B. The next level is “basic,” which probably translates into a C grade. The film assumes that any student below proficient is “below grade level.” But it would be far more fitting to worry about students who are “below basic,” who are 25 percent of the national sample, not 70 percent.
  • Guggenheim didn’t bother to take a close look at the heroes of his documentary. Geoffrey Canada is justly celebrated for the creation of the Harlem Children’s Zone, which not only runs two charter schools but surrounds children and their families with a broad array of social and medical services.
  • On the 2010 state tests, 60 percent of the fourth-grade students in one of his charter schools were not proficient in reading, nor were 50 percent in the other. It should be noted—and Guggenheim didn’t note it—that Canada kicked out his entire first class of middle school students when they didn’t get good enough test scores to satisfy his board of trustees.
  • Contrary to Guggenheim’s mythology, even the best-funded charters, with the finest services, can’t completely negate the effects of poverty.
  • While blasting the teachers’ unions, he points to Finland as a nation whose educational system the US should emulate, not bothering to explain that it has a completely unionized teaching force.
  • His documentary showers praise on testing and accountability, yet he does not acknowledge that Finland seldom tests its students.
  • Guggenheim simply ignores the realities of the Finnish system.
  • Becoming a charter is no guarantee that a school serving a tough neighborhood will produce educational miracles.
  • It raises important questions, but all of the answers it offers require a transfer of public funds to the private sector. The stock market crash of 2008 should suffice to remind us that the managers of the private sector do not have a monopoly on success.
  • First, I thought to myself that the charter operators were cynically using children as political pawns in their own campaign to promote their cause.
  • Second, I felt an immense sense of gratitude to the much-maligned American public education system, where no one has to win a lottery to gain admission.
  • anonymous on 25 Oct 10
     
    "Ordinarily, documentaries about education attract little attention, and seldom, if ever, reach neighborhood movie theaters. Davis Guggenheim's Waiting for "Superman" is different. It arrived in late September with the biggest publicity splash I have ever seen for a documentary. Not only was it the subject of major stories in Time and New York, but it was featured twice on The Oprah Winfrey Show and was the centerpiece of several days of programming by NBC, including an interview with President Obama." By Diane Ravitch at The New York Review of Books on November 11, 2010.
anonymous

Objectivism & "Metaphysics," Part 17 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...ivism-metaphysics-part-17.html

criticalthinking objectivism

shared by anonymous on 29 Oct 10 - Cached
  • Rand’s explicates her views on this issue as follows:The primacy of existence (of reality) is the axiom that existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness), that things are what they are, that they possess a specific nature, an identity. The epistemological corollary is the axiom that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists—and that man gains knowledge of reality by looking outward. The rejection of these axioms represents a reversal: the primacy of consciousness—the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both). The epistemological corollary is the notion that man gains knowledge of reality by looking inward (either at his own consciousness or at the revelations it receives from another, superior consciousness).
  • 1. To begin with, how meaningful is it to declare the “primacy of existence” against the “primacy of consciousness,” given that consciousness is itself a part of existence?
  • apologists for Rand will declare that the primacy of existence simply means that consciousness does not create reality, as various forms of idealism imply. But if so, why didn’t Rand just say that consciousness doesn’t create “existence” and be done with it?
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  • 2. Rand’s primacy of existence construct is a rather confusing way of stating realism. However, Rand’s equation of the primacy of existence (i.e., realism) with the axiom existence exists leads to a palpable contradiction.
  • The term existence, when Rand first introduces it, is equated with the content of consciousness.
  • Both the elephant at the zoo perceived by onlookers and the pink elephant perceived by the drunken sot “exist” according to the logic of Rand’s statement.
  • The only way to escape this conclusion is through equivocation, i.e., by claiming that the drunk does not in fact “perceive” the pink elephant, but merely hallucinates it.
  • To sum up: it is illogical, even on Rand’s premises, to deduce or infer realism (i.e., the primacy of existence) from the axiom existence exists.
  • 3. Rand’s “primacy of existence” and it’s opposition to the “primacy of consciousness” implies materialism, which contradicts the predominant anti-materialistic tone of Objectivism.
  • It's also amusing to see how Rand unashamedly chose the viewpoint of the primacy of consciousness when she quoted approvingly the line "I will not die, it's the world that will end", a nice illustration of solipsism...
  • What's even more annoying is that when you try to engage an Objectivist in an intelligent discussion of the axioms and why they are not what they are hyped up to be, the usual result is having a bundle of epithets tossed in your direction related to your capacity for rationality.
  • Now what exactly is this “existence” that Rand declares as “primary”? Rand’s equation of the term existence with the term reality hardly improves matters, since Rand does not go on to define very clearly what she means by the term “reality."
  • The real problem here is not that Rand is an unwitting materialist, but that her metaphysical speculations are so loose that one can draw whatever conclusion one likes from them.
  • anonymous on 29 Oct 10
     
    By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on October 25, 2010.
anonymous

Objectivism & "Metaphysics," Part 18 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...ivism-metaphysics-part-18.html

objectivism criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 05 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Rand’s version of foundationalism is particularly virulent, because of her obsession with “validating” knowledge. She even went so far as to suggest, at least implicitly, that the fate of civilization itself rested on “validating” knowledge.
  • Peikoff contends that his claims are “now evident throughout the world.” Really? If so, why doesn’t he give any specific examples? How many people, in point of fact, are bothered one jot by their inability to answer the charge that their mental content is “detached from reality”? Has Peikoff or any of his Objectivist cohorts ever thought to put this contention to the test? Where, exactly, are all these people “paralyzed by doubt”?
  • As Santayana noted, the problem with skepticism is not that it is illogical or inconsistent, but that its difficult to maintain in the face of the natural demands of the psyche. Hunger, thirst, fear, love, vanity all conspire against maintaining an unbreached skepticism (and remaining "paralyzed by doubt").
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Foundationalism rests on the assumption that knowledge can ultimately be justified based on certain “self-evident” beliefs (e.g., like the Objectivist axioms). But, as I have explained in an earlier post in this series, “nothing is self-evident,” not even the Objectivist axioms.
  • The notion of existence only becomes coherent and meaningful within the context of animal sense and memory, neither of which are self-evident or given. You cast doubt on those, and the axiom “existence exists” becomes a meaningless, raving tautology.
  • Two main points in all of this.
  • The first involves Rand’s contention that everything has an identity. In the sense of self-evidence, of what is given in consciousness, identity holds no warrant of truth and therefore is irrelevant.
  • The second point Santayana makes is easily misunderstood. The skeptic, Santayana contends, is false to assert that nothing exists, since the very act of asserting suggests that the skeptic exists.
  • “Tenable intuitively” means within the context of an ulimate skepticism, wherein no gratuitous (i.e., non self-evident) assumptions are allowed.
  • anonymous on 05 Nov 10
     
    "Foundationalism 101. Foundationalism, in the words of philosopher Rob Bass, is "one of a number of views that holds that knowledge has foundations, that there are privileged starting points for knowledge, that justification runs uni-directionally from foundations to superstructure, that nothing is justified unless it is connected in the right way to the foundations…. I consider [foundationalism] deeply confused and, though most foundationalists did not so intend, an invitation to skepticism."" By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on November 4, 2010.
anonymous

The World Looks at Obama After the U.S. Midterm Election - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...bama_after_us_midterm_election

geopolitics politics america

shared by anonymous on 04 Nov 10 - Cached
  • U.S. President Barack Obama hopes that the Republicans prove rigidly ideological.
  • John Boehner, already has indicated that he does not intend to play Gingrich but rather is prepared to find compromises. Since Tea Party members are not close to forming a majority of the Republican Party in the House, Boehner is likely to get his way.
  • I’d like to consider the opposite side of the coin, namely, how foreign governments view Obama after this defeat.
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  • There were several major elements to his foreign policy.
  • First, he campaigned intensely against the Bush policy in Iraq, arguing that it was the wrong war in the wrong place.
  • Second, he argued that the important war was in Afghanistan, where he pledged to switch his attention to face the real challenge of al Qaeda.
  • Third, he argued against Bush administration policy on detention, military tribunals and torture, in his view symbolized by the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
  • In a fourth element, he argued that Bush had alienated the world by his unilateralism
  • The European view — or more precisely, the French and German view — was that allies should have a significant degree of control over what Americans do.
  • Thus, in spite of the Nobel Peace Prize in the early days of the romance, the bloom wore off as the Europeans discovered that Obama was simply another U.S. president. More precisely, they learned that instead of being able to act according to his or her own wishes, circumstances constrain occupants of the U.S. presidency into acting like any other president would.
  • Campaign rhetoric notwithstanding, Obama’s position on Iraq consisted of slightly changing Bush’s withdrawal timetable. In Afghanistan, his strategy was to increase troop levels beyond what Bush would consider. Toward Iran, his policy has been the same as Bush’s: sanctions with a hint of something later.
  • Obama seemed to believe the essential U.S. problem with the world was rhetorical. The United States had not carefully explained itself, and in not explaining itself, the United States appeared arrogant.
  • The idea that nations weren’t designed to trust or like one another, but rather pursued their interests with impersonal force, was alien to him. And so he thought he could explain the United States to the Muslims without changing U.S. policy and win the day.
  • It is not that anyone expected his rhetoric to live up to its promise, since no politician can pull that off, but that they see Obama as someone who thought rhetoric would change things. In that sense, he is seen as naive and, worse, as indecisive and unimaginative.
  • While it may seem an odd thing to say, it is true: The American president also presides over the world. U.S. power is such that there is an expectation that the president will attend to matters around the globe not out of charity, but because of American interest.
  • The questions I have heard most often on many different issues are simple: What is the American position, what is the American interest, what will the Americans do? (As an American, I frequently find my hosts appointing me to be the representative of the United States.)
  • I have answered that the United States is off balance trying to place the U.S.-jihadist war in context, that it must be understood that the president is preoccupied but will attend to their region shortly.
  • anonymous on 04 Nov 10
     
    "The 2010 U.S. midterm elections were held, and the results were as expected: The Republicans took the House but did not take the Senate. The Democrats have such a small margin in the Senate, however, that they cannot impose cloture, which means the Republicans can block Obama administration initiatives in both houses of Congress. At the same time, the Republicans cannot override presidential vetoes alone, so they cannot legislate, either. The possible legislative outcomes are thus gridlock or significant compromises." By George Friedman at StratFor on November 4, 2010.
anonymous

Caucasian Nation - 0 views

nplusonemag.com/causcasian-nation

politics racism

shared by anonymous on 30 Oct 10 - Cached
  • But it’s futile to insist on nuances of history and law when we’re speaking the language of “offense.” The mythical heartland Sarah Palin speaks from, or for, is full of these voiceless, downtrodden plain folk who are constantly being offended, for whom there is no end to the offenses, real or imagined, perpetrated against them: the Mexican immigrant speaking his native tongue, the Muslim at his prayers, the black man drinking from a public water fountain (oh wait, that one’s not offensive anymore . . .). One of the more charming stories in Budiansky’s history of Reconstruction concerns a Southern gentleman who wanted a freed slave whipped because he had the temerity to wish him “good morning” without being spoken to first. These offended people see with such dreadful clarity things that don’t exist, and so remake reality to suit their grievances.
  • Of course, the majority of white Americans, like the majority of all other kinds of Americans, have good reason to feel aggrieved. They are the victims of bad economic and foreign policies; their state budgets are crippled by debts, their federal legislature is paralyzed, environmental catastrophe stalks their shores, oceans, and atmosphere. But when they go to the polls in November, if they go at all, a fair number of them will cast their vote on the basis of who stood up for them against imaginary Muslim hordes invading lower Manhattan to pray to their terrorist God.
  • In a late interview by turns confessional and triumphant, Lee Atwater, author of the strategy that turned the solidly Democratic, racist South into the solidly Republican, racist South, described the Southern Strategy’s metamorphosis over the years, “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.” Partly through Atwater, Republicans developed a kind of reverse means test, an economic version of the old “one-drop rule.” Policies that were likely to help blacks, even if they were also likely to help poor whites, because they were policies largely designed to help the poor, regardless of color, became issues to campaign against: welfare, health care, federal education funding, progressive taxation, clean air regulations, funding for public transportation, just about any “progressive policy” you can think of. Some whites would be hurt, but blacks would be hurt worse. This has proved true. African Americans as a group are still poorer than whites as a group, regardless of the achievements of this generation’s talented tenth and of the growing army of the unemployed of all colors.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The ideology of states’ rights against federal enforcement, the metastasized right to bear arms, the fear of “big government” intervention — these were the pillars on which the Confederate and later segregationist South sought to erect a white plantation nation.
  • As of right now, there exists no serious strategy to combat this new bigotry. The Democratic leadership appears content to hope that once these radical Republican race-baiters take control of Congress after the midterm elections, the ordinary responsibilities and realities of power will force them to abandon the strategies they used to obtain power.
  • Instead of being “overcome,” historic American racism against nonwhite people has gone into deep cover and, with the irrefutable illogic of the unconscious, emerged as a newfangled American antiracism for the protection of white people.
  • “This guy, is, I believe, racist,” said Glenn Beck of Obama back in 2009, probably because he believed, like Breitbart, that when you accuse somebody of racism, however baselessly, the burden of proof shifts to the accused.
  • The crowds thronging to join Beck’s march on Washington — conveniently coinciding with the 47th anniversary of King’s “I had a dream” speech — showed the rest of us that Obama’s “postracial” America looks a lot like racial America.
  • In fact there has been an authentic white culture in American history, or rather a way of life concerned above all with the protection and preservation of white ethnic domination, and playing up the white victim has always been a part of it.
  • Even though we’ve mostly done away with outright racial violence, the memory of violence survives in the symbolism of  the Shirley Sherrod affair, the signs at Tea Party protests that say “the zoo has an African Lion and the White House has a Lyin’ African,” and the “open carry” demonstrations sponsored by the NRA, descendant of the Confederate gun clubs, at the town hall meetings for national health care.
  • Even so we have not yet achieved a more intriguing benchmark of progress: the election to the presidency of the descendant of an actual slave.
  • The most enduring behaviors of nations, like the hardest-to-break habits of individuals, are those we are least aware of. The new racists — that is to say, “concerned citizens” of Caucasian descent — seem only dimly conscious of past American racism, an ignorance no doubt unconsciously maintained, but more potent for that. Journalists for supposedly liberal publications like the Times and the New Republic have sought “actual racists” in the Tea Party movement and, because no one would say the N-word on the record, duly exonerated the Tea Partiers of racist intent. In exchange, Tea Party spokespeople acknowledge that the odd unreconstructed crank might turn up at one of their rallies. It’s a free country. All the reporters could find was that self-identified Tea Partiers were more likely than most Americans to pick a poll option asserting that “too much attention has been paid to problems facing Black Americans.”
  • Ostensibly, then, all the Tea Partiers want are the same contradictory things that most real Americans want: Medicare benefits, disproportionate federal spending on rural districts, and no taxes. As a T-shirt puts it, “I’ll keep my guns, money, and freedom, you can keep the ‘Change.’” But the summer’s events show that the defense of unthreatened freedoms counts for less than an apparently widespread white wish to make more out of their difficulties than other people. This is no longer a culture war, a revolt of stoics against the “culture of complaint,” but something deeper and older that precedes the identity politics movements it aims to subvert. Forty-two years after the Civil Rights Act, white people who still think of themselves predominantly as “white people” want to air their grievances with the aid of a social movement. One half of what passes for American two-party discourse calls now for another rebirth of a nation: the Caucasian States of America, a postmodern ethno-nationalist republic.
  • The Confederacy provided us with our own native opposition to classical 19th-century Liberalism, both economic and political, and it shouldn’t really be that surprising that contemporary antiliberalism with strong support in the former slave and border states borrows its language and gestures.
  • The robust case for dominating other people sounds awful to most American ears today. So the contemporary idea of ethnocracy relies instead on an opposite rhetoric of victimization. The simple-minded mantra we’re taught in grade school goes like this: blacks good because oppressed, whites bad because oppressors. So if whites suddenly became oppressed, even while remaining the majority, they would magically become good again. Many Americans are now being taught to think this way.
  • There is no dispute that both American common-law traditions of liberty of conscience and the First Amendment protect the construction of the center, regardless of its popularity. It shouldn’t be a big deal. And yet: “Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate,” tweeted Sarah Palin, white goddess of the victimization movement. This opening salvo was later amended, with little more grammatical success, to “Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real.” The idea that 9/11 somehow taints all of Islam, so that all Muslims should be honor-bound not to practice their religion within an unspecified radius of Ground Zero for fear of hurting other people’s feelings — this is like the blood libel meets Oprah.
  • anonymous on 30 Oct 10
     
    "Last week, the NAACP released a detailed report tracking racist elements in the Tea Party. Looking past smoking gun links to actual card-carrying white supremacists, Marco Roth argues that the rhetoric of the Tea Party is tainted, from its very origins, with a long-running strain of "white victimization" politics, dating back to the Confederate South's refusal to accept that it had lost the Civil War." By Marco Roth at n+1 on October 25, 2010.
anonymous

Objectivism & "Metaphysics," Part 19 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...ivism-metaphysics-part-19.html

criticalthinking objectivism

shared by anonymous on 14 Nov 10 - Cached
  • If the skeptic is not refuted, how can he be prevented from wreaking havoc within society, and sending civilization over the brink?
  • this challenge was laid to rest over two centuries ago by the philosopher often most associated with extreme skepticism, David Hume
  • All discourse, all action would immediately cease; and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • What his meaning is? And what he proposes by all these curious researches?
  • He is immediately at a loss, and knows not what to answer.
  • When he awakes from his dream, he will be the first to join in the laugh against himself, and to confess, that all his objections are mere amusement, and can have no other tendency than to show the whimsical condition of mankind, who must act and reason and believe;
  • though they are not able, by their most diligent enquiry, to satisfy themselves concerning the foundation of these operations, or to remove the objections, which may be raised against them
  • Pursing doubt to its ultimate end, Santayana challenges self-consciousness, discourse, logic, change, memory and time. In doing so, he goes well beyond Descartes’ doubts to discover the ultimate certainty, the perusal of a passing datum, a mere instance of awareness.
  • This “solipsism of the present moment,” Santayana concludes, cannot possibly be a bedrock of certainty, because it does not constitute knowledge.
  • Knowledge does not arise until intelligence arrives on the scene and connects these instances of awareness into larger, meaningful wholes, which can then be interpreted as symbols of a posited, external reality existing in time and space.
  • this animal faith is by no means an entirely groundless or “arbitrary” inclination, but one which is tested and corroborated during every moment when intelligence holds dominion over our lives.
  • Critical to Santayana’s view is the notion that some views are biologically inevitable, so that philosophers who deny them are not being altogether sincere.
  • Some beliefs are inevitable because they have been bred in us by evolution (or by “nature,” if you prefer).
  • the nature of truth is correspondence, the test of truth is pragmatic
  • in relation to these issues, often equivocates between rationalistic speculation (e.g., the Objectivist axioms) and an extreme empiricism (e.g., basing all knowledge on the “evidence” of the senses)
  • the ultimate raison d’être of knowledge is to cope with animal needs; and so whatever knowledge best satisfies these needs, which leads to successful action and solves the most problems in the real world, is that knowledge which most likely has the stamp of truth about it.
  • In rising out of passive intuition, I pass, by a vital constitutional necessity, to belief in discourse, in experience, in substance, in truth, and in spirit. All these objects may conceivably be illusory. Belief in them, however, is not grounded on a prior probability, but all judgements of probability are grounded on them. They express a rational instinct or instinctive reason, the waxing faith of an animal living in a world which he can observe and sometimes remodel.
  • anonymous on 14 Nov 10
     
    "Whenever the Objectivist mania for "validating" such things as "reality," "causality," "man's mind," "the senses," "reason," "concepts," and "morality" is subjected to criticism, sooner or later somebody will come forward and suggest that without such validation, how can we know anything? If the skeptic is not refuted, how can he be prevented from wreaking havoc within society, and sending civilization over the brink?" By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on November 13, 2010.
anonymous

Geopolitical Journey, Part 4: Moldova - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...litical_journey_part_4_moldova

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 20 Nov 10 - Cached
  • First, there is the question of what kind of country Moldova is. Second, there is the question of why anyone should care.
  • Stalin wanted to increase Ukraine’s security and increase Romania’s and the Danube basin’s vulnerability.
  • After the Soviet collapse, this territory became the Republic of Moldova. The portion east of the Dniester revolted with Russian support, and Moldova lost effective control of what was called Transdniestria.
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • Let me emphasize the idea that it “began to shift,” not that it is now a strategic asset. This is an unfolding process. Its importance depends on three things: the power of Russia; Russia’s power over Ukraine; a response from some Western entity.
  • Seventy years after the partition, Moldova has become more than a Romanian province, far from a Russian province and something less than a nation. This is where geopolitics and social reality begin to collide.
  • In the Eastern European countries, the Soviet era is regarded as a nightmare and the Russians are deeply distrusted and feared to this day. In Moldova, there is genuine nostalgia for the Soviet period as there is in other parts of the former Soviet Union.
  • For a large part of the Moldovan population, Russian is the preferred language.
  • three-way tension between Romanians, Moldovan Romanian speakers and Russian speakers.
  • The real struggle is between those who back the communists and those who support an independent Moldova oriented toward the European Union and NATO.
  • The real issue behind the complex politics is simply this: What is Moldova?
  • There is consensus on what it is not: It is not going to be a province of Romania. But Moldova was a province of Romania and a Soviet Socialist Republic. What is it now? What does it mean to be a Moldovan?
  • It is said to be one of the poorest countries in Europe, if not the poorest. About 12 percent of its gross domestic product is provided by remittances from emigrants working in other European countries, some illegally.
  • we have a paradox. The numbers say Moldova is extremely poor, yet there are lots of banks and well and expensively dressed young women.
  • There are three possible explanations.
  • The first is that remittances are flooding the country
  • The second is that there is a massive shadow economy that evades regulation, taxation and statistical analysis.
  • The third explanation is that the capital and a few towns are fairly affluent while the rural areas are extraordinarily poor.
  • From the Moldovan point of view, at least among the pro-Western factions, Moldova’s strategic problems begin and end with Transdniestria
  • The Russian view, driven home by history, is that benign situations can turn malignant with remarkable speed.
  • Regardless of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russians are the ones concerned about things like a defensive river position while the Ukrainians see the matter with more detachment.
  • Moldova is a borderland-within-a-borderland. It is a place of foreign influences from all sides. But it is a place without a clear center.
  • If geopolitics were a theoretical game, then the logical move would be to integrate Moldova into NATO immediately and make it a member of the European Union.
  • geopolitics teaches that the foundation of national strategy is the existence of a nation.
  • Romania is still there. It is not a perfect solution, and certainly not one many Moldovans would welcome, but it is a solution, however imperfect.
  • anonymous on 20 Nov 10
     
    "This is the fourth installment in a series of special reports that Dr. Friedman will write over the next few weeks as he travels to Turkey, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. In this series, he will share his observations of the geopolitical imperatives in each country and conclude with reflections on his journey as a whole and options for the United States." By George Friedman at StratFor on November 19, 2010.
anonymous

Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2010111202857_pf.html

media partisan politics

shared by anonymous on 12 Nov 10 - Cached
  • We celebrate truth as a virtue, but only in the abstract. What we really need in our search for truth is a commodity that used to be at the heart of good journalism: facts - along with a willingness to present those facts without fear or favor. To the degree that broadcast news was a more virtuous operation 40 years ago, it was a function of both fear and innocence. Network executives were afraid that a failure to work in the "public interest, convenience and necessity," as set forth in the Radio Act of 1927, might cause the Federal Communications Commission to suspend or even revoke their licenses.
  • On the innocence side of the ledger, meanwhile, it never occurred to the network brass that news programming could be profitable.
  • It was an imperfect, untidy little Eden of journalism where reporters were motivated to gather facts about important issues. We didn't know that we could become profit centers. No one had bitten into that apple yet.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Broadcast news has been outflanked and will soon be overtaken by scores of other media options. The need for clear, objective reporting in a world of rising religious fundamentalism, economic interdependence and global ecological problems is probably greater than it has ever been. But we are no longer a national audience receiving news from a handful of trusted gatekeepers; we're now a million or more clusters of consumers, harvesting information from like-minded providers.
  • anonymous on 12 Nov 10
     
    "And so, among the many benefits we have come to believe the founding fathers intended for us, the latest is news we can choose. Beginning, perhaps, from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unattainable, Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it. They show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be. This is to journalism what Bernie Madoff was to investment: He told his customers what they wanted to hear, and by the time they learned the truth, their money was gone." By Ted Koppel at The Washington Post on November 14, 2010.
anonymous

The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother - 0 views

www.thestar.com/...on-high-security-little-bother

security

shared by anonymous on 16 Nov 10 - Cached
  • First, the screening area is surrounded by contoured, blast-proof glass that can contain the detonation of up to 100 kilos of plastic explosive. Only the few dozen people within the screening area need be removed, and only to a point a few metres away. Second, all the screening areas contain 'bomb boxes'. If a screener spots a suspect bag, he/she is trained to pick it up and place it in the box, which is blast proof. A bomb squad arrives shortly and wheels the box away for further investigation.
  • That's the process — six layers, four hard, two soft. The goal at Ben-Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes.
  • In Israel, Sela said, a coordinated intelligence gathering operation produces a constantly evolving series of threat analyses and vulnerability studies. "There is absolutely no intelligence and threat analysis done in Canada or the United States," Sela said. "Absolutely none."
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • "We have a saying in Hebrew that it's much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it's dark over there. That's exactly how (North American airport security officials) act," Sela said. "You can easily do what we do. You don't have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit — technology, training. But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept."
  • anonymous on 16 Nov 10
     
    "While North America's airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification. That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel's, which deal with far greater terror threat with far less inconvenience. "It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago," said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He's worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world." By Cathal Kelly at thestar.com on December 30, 2009.
anonymous

Geopolitical Journey, Part 3: Romania - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...litical_journey_part_3_romania

geopolitics romania russia

shared by anonymous on 20 Nov 10 - Cached
  • In school, many of us learned the poem Invictus. It concludes with the line, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” This is a line that a Victorian gentleman might bequeath to an American businessman. It is not a line that resonates in Romania.
  • empires collide where Romania is.
  • the great powers are sorting themselves out again and therefore Romania is becoming more important to others.
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • The Carpathian Mountains define Romania, but in an odd way. Rather than serving as the border of the country, protecting it, the Carpathians are an arc that divides the country into three parts.
  • To the south of the mountains is the Wallachian Plain
  • To the northwest of the Carpathians is Transylvania, more rugged, hilly country.
  • In the east of the Carpathians is the Moldavian Plain.
  • Romania is one nation divided by its geography. None of the three parts is easy to defend.
  • About the only time before the late 19th century that Romania was united was when it was completely conquered.
  • Some of us experience geopolitics as an opportunity. Most of humanity experiences it as a catastrophe.
  • To understand Romania as an ally one must bear this in mind: When the Soviets began their great counterattack at Stalingrad, they launched it over Romanian (and Hungarian) troops. Romanians maneuvered themselves into the position of fighting and dying for the Germans, and then got their revenge on the Germans by being slaughtered by the Soviets.
  • The way the Romanians got the Soviets to tolerate this was by building a regime more rigid and oppressive than even that of the Soviet Union at the time.
  • Contemporary Romania cannot be understood without understanding Nicolae Ceausescu.
  • Stalin didn’t trust communists who stayed home and resisted. He preferred communists who had fled to Moscow in the 1930s and had proved themselves loyal to Stalin by their betrayal of others.
  • Ceausescu decided to pay off the national debt. His reason seemed to flow from his foreign policy — he didn’t want Romania to be trapped by any country because of its debt — and he repaid it by selling to other countries nearly everything that was produced in Romania.
  • One of her books, The Appointment, takes place in Romania under the communists.
  • When one reads this book, as I did in preparing for this trip, one understands the way in which the Securitate tore apart a citizen’s soul — and remembers that it was not a distant relic of the 1930s but was still in place and sustaining the Romanian regime in 1989.
  • Romania emerged from the previous 70 years of ongoing catastrophe by dreaming of simple things and having no illusions that these things were easy to come by or things Romanians could control.
  • Romanians yearned to become European simply because being Romanian was too dangerous.
  • For Romania, national sovereignty has always been experienced as the process of accommodating itself to more powerful nations and empires. So after 1991, Romania searched for the “someone else” to which it could subordinate itself. More to the point, Romania imbued these entities with extraordinary redemptive powers. Once in NATO and the European Union, all would be well.
  • Germany remains an exporting country exporting into Romania and leaving precious little room for Romania to develop its economy.
  • a good part of Romania’s exports to Germany are from German-owned firms operating in Romania.
  • During the period of relative prosperity in Europe from 1991 to 2008, the structural reality of the EU was hidden under a rising tide.
  • Romania is a developing country. Europe’s regulations are drawn with a focus on the highly developed countries. The laws on employment guarantees mean that Europeans don’t hire workers, they adopt them. That means that entrepreneurship is difficult. Being an entrepreneur, as I well know, means making mistakes and recovering from them fast. Given the guarantees that every worker has in Europe, an entrepreneur cannot quickly recover from his mistakes. In Romania, the agility needed for risk-taking is not readily available under EU rules drawn up for a mature economy.
  • There are regulations and there are relationships. The latter mitigate the former. In Germany this might be called corruption. In Romania it is survival.
  • First, there is no doubt that NATO and the European Union did not work in Romania’s favor at the moment. Second, there is no question of rethinking Romania’s commitment to either.
  • NATO and the European Union keep the anti-democratic demons of the Romanian soul at bay. Being part of Europe is not simply a matter of strategic or economic benefits. It represents a transitional point in Romanian history.
  • The Western Europeans are not about to be drawn into Eastern European paranoia fed by nostalgic American strategists wanting to relive the Cold War, as they think of it.
  • I raised two strategic alternatives with Romanian officials and the media.
  • One was the Intermarium — an alliance, perhaps in NATO, perhaps not — of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.
  • Turkey is Romania’s fourth-largest export target, and one of the few major trading partners that imports more from Romania than it exports.
  • In this region, the fear of the past dominates and oppresses while the confident, American-style military planning and economic restructuring I suggested is alien and frightening.
  • I had thought that Romania’s problem was that it was part of Europe, a weak power surrounded by stronger ones. They seem to believe that their solution is to be part of Europe, a weak power surrounded by stronger ones.
  • anonymous on 20 Nov 10
     
    "This is the third installment in a series of special reports that Dr. Friedman will write over the next few weeks as he travels to Turkey, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. In this series, he will share his observations of the geopolitical imperatives in each country and conclude with reflections on his journey as a whole and options for the United States. " By George Friedman at StratFor on November 16, 2010.
anonymous

What I've learned from Less Wrong - 0 views

lesswrong.com/...at_ive_learned_from_less_wrong

criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 20 Nov 10 - Cached
  • It’s much easier to be egalitarian and respect everyone when you can always say ”Well, I suppose that might be right -- you never know!“
  • in a desire to be exceptional, I naïvely reasoned that believing similar things to other smart people would probably get me the same boring life outcomes that many of them seemed to be getting
  • it no longer makes sense to be a meme collecting, universal egalitarian the same way I was before
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • This is because induction is the only way to reliably find candidate hypotheses which deserve attention.
  • Not only is the free will problem solved, but it turns out it was easy. 
  • philosophers failing to uniformly mark this as ”settled“ and move on is not because this is a questionable result... they’re just in a world where most philosophers are still having trouble figuring out if god exists or not.
  • anonymous on 20 Nov 10
     
    "I've been compiling a list of the top things I've learned from Less Wrong in the past few months. If you're new here or haven't been here since the beginning of this blog, perhaps my personal experience from reading the back-log of articles known as the sequences can introduce you to some of the more useful insights you might get from reading and using Less Wrong."
anonymous

A Convenient Untruth - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...convenient-untruth.html

objectivism criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 11 Dec 10 - Cached
  • The Ayn Rand Institute’s mission is not to further intellectual enquiry but instead to perpetuate the jejune cult of personality that surrounded the writer, and that Rand herself endorsed from its earliest beginnings.
  • With philosophy as the ultimate discipline, and Objectivism as the ultimate philosophy, its inventor could only be, therefore, the ultimate philosopher – and with all the intellectual, ethical, aesthetic and even sexual qualities that that entails
  • Faced with the inconvenient facts, delivered by an independent historian with no pre-existing agenda and whose evenhandedness is evident on every page, the Ayn Rand Institute and their fellow travelling True Believers' response has been to simply pretend it doesn’t exist: a state of denial Rand called a “blank out.”
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • This is really The Education of Ayn Rand; where the oddball immigrant, simmering with equal parts talent, ambition, and resentment, absorbs the basic political program she was to later do so much to promote.
  • beneath a superficially clear prose style in fact Rand was a confused and contradictory thinker, who had a garbled misunderstanding of the important philosophical problems she claimed to have solved and depended on her own obscure, pseudo-intellectual jargon – not to mention her sheer chutzpah - to conceal her lack of comprehension from both her followers and herself.
  • swathes of Rand’s unpublished writing and speeches have been stealthily rewritten to banish all uncertainties and contradictory thoughts, and keep the convenient untruth of Rand's immaculate conceptions alive.
  • First, they begin with the pro forma objection that the critic is "biased" against Rand, and “doesn’t understand Objectivism”, despite the fact that it is far from clear who, if anyone, actually does understand Rand’s rambling and ramshackle construction.
  • Second, True Believer Objectivists invoke what I’ve dubbed the Objectivist Double Standard.
  • The final True Believer tactic is to simply limn the piece in question for various Thought Crimes such as “determinism”, “pragmatism” or “subjectivism” - terms so conveniently vague that it’s possible to convict just about anyone.
  • From the central darkness of Planet Peikoff itself, only a few, faint, on-the-fritz radio signals have been detected.
  • anonymous on 11 Dec 10
     
    "Jennifer Burns' new biography, Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Market is a genuine event: the first independent, scholarly biography of one of the 20th century's most widely read novelists and thinkers, arriving right in the middle of her biggest revival in decades. Goddess has been acclaimed from the mainstream of Time magazine to the margins of Mises.org, and been plugged from the left of The Daily Show to the right of the Economist. But there's one place where it literally doesn't seem to exist: over at the organization Leonard Peikoff founded in 1985, three years after Rand's death, the Ayn Rand Institute. Searching their website turns up only some fine-print references to it in relation to the Ayn Rand Archives; officially the ARI has not even mentioned it, let alone promoted it."
anonymous

Taking Stock of WikiLeaks - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...0101213-taking-stock-wikileaks

geopolitics wikileaks

shared by anonymous on 14 Dec 10 - Cached
  • First, how significant were the leaks? Second, how could they have happened? Third, was their release a crime? Fourth, what were their consequences? Finally, and most important, is the WikiLeaks premise that releasing government secrets is a healthy and appropriate act a tenable position?
  • the U.S. State Department documents constituted the third wave of leaks.
  • The first two consisted of battlefield reports from Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • For someone who was watching Iraq and Afghanistan with some care over the previous years, the leaks might have provided interesting details but they would not have provided any startling distinction between the reality that was known and what was revealed.
  • Hundreds of thousands of troops have fought in Iraq, and the idea that criminal acts would be absent is absurd. What is most startling is not the presence of potentially criminal actions but their scarcity.
  • the case cited by WikiLeaks with much fanfare did not clearly show criminal actions on the part of American troops as much as it did the consequences of the insurgents violating the Geneva Conventions.
  • Only those who were not paying attention to the fact that there was a war going on, or who had no understanding of war, or who wanted to pretend to be shocked for political reasons, missed two crucial points:
  • It was the insurgents who would be held responsible for criminal acts under the Geneva Conventions for posing as non-combatants, and there were extraordinarily few cases of potential war crimes that were contained in the leaks.
  • it required a profound lack of understanding of the geopolitics of the Persian Gulf to regard U.S. diplomatic cables on the subject as surprising.
  • I am not cherry-picking the Saudi or Italian memos. The consistent reality of the leaks is that they do not reveal anything new to the informed but do provide some amusement over certain comments, such as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev being called “Batman and Robin.”
  • That’s amusing, but it isn’t significant. Amusing and interesting but almost never significant is what I come away with having read through all three waves of leaks.
  • I would argue that the leaks paint a flattering picture overall of the intellect of U.S. officials without revealing, for the most part, anything particularly embarrassing.
  • This raises the question of why diplomats can’t always simply state their minds rather than publicly mouth preposterous platitudes. It could be as simple as this: My son was a terrible pianist. He completely lacked talent. After his recitals at age 10, I would pretend to be enthralled. He knew he was awful and he knew I knew he was awful, but it was appropriate that I not admit what I knew. It is called politeness and sometimes affection. There is rarely affection among nations, but politeness calls for behaving differently when a person is in the company of certain other people than when that person is with colleagues talking about those people. This is the simplest of human rules. Not admitting what you know about others is the foundation of civilization. The same is true among diplomats and nations.
  • It would take someone who truly doesn’t understand how geopolitics really works to think that this would make a difference.
  • It may well be that the United States is hiding secrets that would reveal it to be monstrous. If so, it is not to be found in what has been released so far.
  • Nations have secrets for many reasons, from protecting a military or intelligence advantage to seeking some advantage in negotiations to, at times, hiding nefarious plans. But it is difficult to imagine a state — or a business or a church — acting without confidentiality.
  • Imagine that everything you wrote and said in an attempt to figure out a problem was made public? Every stupid idea that you discarded or clueless comment you expressed would now be pinned on you.
  • This is the contradiction at the heart of the WikiLeaks project. Given what I have read Assange saying, he seems to me to be an opponent of war and a supporter of peace. Yet what he did in leaking these documents, if the leaking did anything at all, is make diplomacy more difficult. It is not that it will lead to war by any means; it is simply that one cannot advocate negotiations and then demand that negotiators be denied confidentiality in which to conduct their negotiations. No business could do that, nor could any other institution. Note how vigorously WikiLeaks hides the inner workings of its own organization, from how it is funded to the people it employs.
  • Compartmentalization makes it hard to connect dots, but it also makes it harder to have a WikiLeaks release. The tension between intelligence and security is eternal, and there will never be a clear solution.
  • Assange cannot be guilty of treason, since he isn’t a U.S. citizen. But he could be guilty of espionage. His best defense will be that he can’t be guilty of espionage because the material that was stolen was so trivial.
  • anonymous on 14 Dec 10
     
    "Julian Assange has declared that geopolitics will be separated into pre-"Cablegate" and post-"Cablegate" eras. That was a bold claim. However, given the intense interest that the leaks produced, it is a claim that ought to be carefully considered. Several weeks have passed since the first of the diplomatic cables were released, and it is time now to address the following questions: First, how significant were the leaks? Second, how could they have happened? Third, was their release a crime? Fourth, what were their consequences? Finally, and most important, is the WikiLeaks premise that releasing government secrets is a healthy and appropriate act a tenable position?" By George Friedman at StratFor on December 14, 2010.
anonymous

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 4 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...mpirical-responsibility-4.html

criticalthinking objectivism

shared by anonymous on 13 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Rand, alas, never provided any evidence for this assertion. Her chief disciple, Leonard Peikoff, did provide the following:
  • There are at least two problems with this:
  • first, it's merely an anecdote and as such cannot be regarded as decisive on this issue; but even more critically, the anecdote doesn't establish what it claims.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • the real question is not whether emotions are inexplicable or whether thinking may influence emotions, it's whether emotions are entirely the product of thinking.
  • The idea that the emotions have to be programmed by the intellect, whereas the intellect can choose values independently of any help from the emotions, suggests a hierarchical relationship between intellect and emotion, and a unidirectional picture of moral and psychological development.
  • However, if infants and young children (not to mention animals) have emotions in a pre-conceptual form -- as they surely do -- then emotions cannot be entirely dependent on the intellect.
  • Some Objectivists have claimed that evidence on behalf of Rand's theory of emotions has been compiled on behalf of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).
  • anonymous on 13 Dec 10
     
    ""Emotions are the result of your value judgments," Rand declared in her Playboy Interview; "they are caused by your basic premises, which you may hold consciously or subconsciously, which may be right or wrong." How did Rand know this? Where is her evidence for this extraordinary assertion? Surely a theory so bold, so unconventional, so contrary to obvious facts commonly known should be supported with evidence strong enough to shift the balance of plausibility in its favor!" By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on December 13, 2010.
anonymous

Russia's Expanding Influence (Introduction): The Targets - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...20100304_russia

russia geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 08 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Moscow has already had some success in consolidating control over what it considers the four most crucial countries, but it would like to push back against the West in several other countries if it has time to do so before Washington’s attention returns to Eurasia.
  • Moscow is making progress in its grand scheme to solidify its position as a regional power in Eurasia once again, reversing what it sees as Western infiltration. The question now is how far Russia wants to go — or how far it feels it must and can go — in this quest.
  • Russia’s defining problem stems from its geographic indefensibility.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • But in 1989, the Soviet Union lost control of Eastern Europe and had disintegrated by 1991, returning Russia essentially to its 17th century borders (except for Siberia).
  • While Russia reconsolidated, the United States became preoccupied with the Islamic world. As the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have developed, they have absorbed Washington’s focus, presenting Russia with an opportunity to push back against the West’s increased influence in Eurasia.
  • Russia’s most crucial victory to date has been in Ukraine, where the top four candidates in the country’s January presidential election were all pro-Russian, thus ensuring the end of the pro-Western Orange movement.
  • Essentially, Russia has placed the countries of its former sphere of influence and other regional powers into four categories:
  • Russia’s geopolitical imperatives remain: The country must expand, hold together and defend the empire, even though expansion can create difficulties in the Russian core. This is already a difficult task; it will be made even harder when the United States is free to counter Russia.
anonymous

The Realist Prism: Shaping the Multipolar World - 0 views

www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx

geopolitics foreignpolicy

shared by anonymous on 05 Mar 10 - Cached
  • At first glance, the Obama administration appears to have ruled out the "concert of powers" approach to managing multipolarity. The United States instead remains committed to a 21st-century version of the "Open Door" policy, rejecting anything that would recognize "spheres of influence" or "zones of privileged interests" in the geographic neighborhoods of the other great powers. As Vice President Joe Biden reiterated in Kyiv in July 2009, "We don't recognize, and I want to reiterate this, any spheres of influence." Nor is it likely the current administration would embrace an updated version of Nixon's "regional policemen" idea -- having a major power assume the lead for ensuring stability and security in a specific region of the world.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 05 Mar 10
       
      Biden's statement is so adorable...
  • Multipolarity is the future, says the U.S. intelligence community, and many serious students of foreign policy tend to agree. But policymakers in Washington don't seem eager to embrace change, or to make the strategic choices that would be needed to guarantee continued U.S. global leadership.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 05 Mar 10
       
      I am not convinced that global multi-polarity is how the near future will unfold. The author is quite right that there are a *number* of "what if's", but there always are when trying to predict the future. The U.S., for the time being, is still very strong, cultural, militarily, and economically. This is in stark contrast to the perception; that whole American zeitgeist-thing. There is still no indication that China and Russia still be growing in geopolitical significance given all the very large structural problems they are facing. Even so, planners plan for the worst and they SHOULD play for a multi-polar world, which will manifest itself eventually. Unipolarity is the exception, not the rule.
  • U.S. policy seems predicated instead on expecting the rise of other powers to be interrupted, or even reversed. There is some rationale for this approach
anonymous

Shift happens: Will artificial photosynthesis power the world? - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/...post.cfm

energy

shared by anonymous on 04 Mar 10 - Cached
  • One drinking-water bottle could provide enough energy for an entire household in the developing world if Dan Nocera has his way. A chemist from M.I.T. and founder of the company Sun Catalytix, Nocera has developed a cobalt-based catalyst that allows him to store energy the same way plants do: by splitting water.
  • His example? The automobile. After all, in 1898, concerned civic leaders from around the world gathered because estimates predicted that London would be buried under three meters  of manure at then current rates of growth; New York City would have piles reaching to the third story of buildings. Within two decades, that problem was entirely gone. "They didn't see the automobile industry coming," Nocera said. "Shift happens."
  • anonymous on 04 Mar 10
     
    I love news that has to do with long-term energy generation issues. This is pretty interesting stuff.
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