AIFF: A Taxi to the Dark Side

[March 2, 2008: Taxi didn't win the best doc at the Anchorage International Film Festival, but it did win the Academy Award. Gibney sold the broadcast rights to the Discovery Channel, but they decided not to show it. But they did sell it to HBO which plans to show it in September.]

I began this about 2pm Sunday but I didn’t have wifi access.

I still need to post on last night’s showing of Joe Strummer. I’m at OutNorth now where the power went out during a showing of Taxi to the Dark Side. We’d seen about 85 minutes of it so we had enough to be pretty incensed (about the content of the movie, not the power outage.)

"Taxi" discusses an Afghan villager who manages to save enough to buy a taxi. He hasn't had the taxi long when he disappears. It turns out he was arrested and imprisoned at American run Baghran prison. A reporter manages to find his family and is shown the documentation they were given with the body. Cause of death, marked by the American doctor, was "homicide."


The power has just come back on so Autism the Musical should be starting.



Many films (there were a bunch in the animation show) later:

The movie interviews guards who were at Baghran at the time of the death as well as senior military officials, journalists, and military attorneys. I try to be objective and even handed. I said to myself, “Well they could be taking things out of context, they could be slanting this” and they could. But they have interviewed enough people intimately involved in the Baghran and Abu Ghraib prisons and senior military personnel - people who would normally be thought of as pro-Bush Republicans - and what they say is consistent with other disturbing things I’m hearing.

The movie was disturbing in many ways, but I was totally sucked into it. Those who continue to deny that the Cheney administration has authorized - unofficially if not officially - torture have to be basing their beliefs on various ideological and/or emotional bases, not logic or reason. In any case, every American voter should see this movie. If it has serious holes, then go at it. But see the evidence that's out there and make your own conclusions.

The video includes the response to the film of audience member JM. I managed to get him in a shaft of sunlight in the powerless Out North.

Sicko

Say what you want, but Michael Moore knows how to frame an issue. And we all have had enough experience with US health care to know that he's not just making this up. Stories of people who didn't qualify for health care. About a lady who had a surgery and then her insurance said she had lied about her health record - a minor yeast infection that had absolutely nothing to do with her condition - and so she really wasn't eligible for the surgery and should return the $7,000 payment.

Then they interviewed someone who had worked for the insurance companies whose job it was to go thru people's medical records - after they'd had an expensive procedure - and find something in their record - like a yeast infection - they could use as an excuse to drop them.

The interviewed doctors who talked about the incentives - bonuses for rejecting the most procedures, promotions because they had saved the company money by rejecting needed procedures. We heard stories of people who died because of refused procedures. Here are a few clips I took in the theater to go with this review.



Moore effectively attacks the stories that Americans have been taught about health care. Here are a couple of the myths he challenges:

1. America has the best health care in the world
2. The free public health systems in Canada and England are second class, you have to wait forever for treatment, and the doctors are poor.
3. Cuba is a wretched country
4. Americans take care of their own

He challenges #s 1 and 2 by looking at people with similar health issues in the US and in other countries and how they got treated. A man in the US without health insurance who cut off the ends of two fingers is told - the middle finger will cost you $70,000 to fix, the ring finger $12,000. Which do you want? Then they showed a guy in Canada who cut off four whole fingers and had them all reattached - and he could move them - for free. You saw the sick baby comparison in the movie. They tour health care in England looking for the terribly things people say about it and find it pretty good.

OK, I'm sure you can find horror stories in Canada and England, just as you can find stories of good care in the US. My wife and I have had good care with caring doctors in nice facilities. But we are also hearing from friends who are turning 65 who are having trouble finding doctors who will take patients on medicare.

The real issue is the outcomes. The statistics he gives are consistent with others I've heard showing the US lower in critical stats such as infant mortality rate and life expectancy than these other countries with free health care - even Cuba. If you're thinking, "that's BS," I'd ask you to stop and think why you think that. Probably because it goes against the stories in your head that we have the best health care. Go look up the statistics - not on Rush Limbaugh's site, but at the US Centers for Disease Control or the World Health Organization. Here's a table I put together from two WHO stats, you can see life expectancy and costs.



According to this table, Moore was wrong. Cuban life expectancy for both males and females for infants is .7 years lower than US life expectancy. On the other hand, Cuba manages to be that close paying 3.7% of what the US pays for health care. Maybe the US should contract out our health care system to Cuba.

And finally Moore shows footage of various politicians, including Bush, talking about our great heroes who worked to rescue people after 9/11. Then he interviews some of them five years later with respiratory diseases and other problems who can't get the health care they need. He takes them and other people he's interviewed for the movie to Cuba where one gets $120 worth of medication at home for 3 cents, and everyone gets looked at with fancy equipment, diagnosed, and some treatment and a health plan for home. Would you get treated like that in Cuba if you walked in off the street and didn't have a camera crew with you? I don't know. I do know years ago an older friend of ours got great treatment for a stroke while visiting Canada at no cost. And in Thailand recently, my wife got rabies shots after she was bitten by a dog, for about $20 per shot. From a list serve discussion of rabies in North Carolina:

>Treatment involves at least 6 injections in the arm, given over 28 days.
>More injections are sometimes given near a wound, if the rabid animal has
>broken its victim's skin. The cost typically ranges from $1500 to $2000 and
>is often covered by insurance

If we take the low figure, that would be $250 per shot. More than 10 times the cost in Thailand.

This movie takes on people's myths about America's greatness, about the efficiency of the market, about how bad other countries are. This confrontation with a view of things different from the propaganda we're used to seeing will cause many people to go into denial. They will sit and squirm in this movie, because they'll have to deal with their own deception. But they'll know from their own experiences or from that of friends and relatives, that these stories ring true.

Truer than the images we get in commercials from the health care systems or from politicians who have received large campaign contributions from these industries. Politicians who have been wined and dined and flown to nice resorts by their lobbyists.

I read somewhere that the difference between Russian newspaper readers and Americans was that the Russians KNEW their papers were all lies and thus they learned how to read between the lines.

Wear This T-Shirt, Win $80,000

CHARLESTON, WV - The American Civil Liberties Union today announced a successful resolution of the case of Jeffery and Nicole Rank, the young Texas couple arrested on the West Virginia capitol grounds on July 4, 2004 for peacefully expressing their opposition to President Bush. According to the settlement agreement, the United States government will pay the Ranks $80,000.

The Ranks, who wanted to attend the President's Fourth of July address without being mistaken for supporters of his policies, wore homemade t-shirts bearing the international "no" symbol (a circle with a diagonal line across it) superimposed over the word "Bush." One t-shirt said "Love America, Hate Bush" on the back and the other said "Regime Change Starts At Home." Click for more.

Don't have an anti-Bush T-shirt so you can get arrested and sue? ReadytoImpeach.com can solve that problem. Actually, these are aimed at impeaching Cheney, but I suspect the Bush crowd control manual doesn't make such fine distinctions. Unfortunately, we can't know for sure since most of the text the ACLU got was redacted.

Thanks to AlaskanAbroad for the lawsuit story.
Disclosure: My son and a friend set up readytoimpeach.com. T-shirt in the picture is the Pacific Northwest Edition. Others for the rest of the Congressional Districts are available.

OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL

Nothing new here, except that there are still people who don't get it - that the most likely reason we are in Iraq is oil, and that the Bush administration isn't going to leave as long as they think there is a chance they can get control of the oil to their oil company cronies.

Both Bush and Cheney came to the White House as oil men.

As all the other excuses for starting the war, and the rosy views of how we are winning it and should keep fighting, are exposed as pr, there is only one solid explanation. I woke up thinking I just had to post something about oil.

For those who are still skeptical and haven't read Daniel Yergin's Pulitzer Prize winning book The Prize, just go read the book. Yes, it's big. But so is our bill in Iraq. Make a sacrifice for America and read the damn book and you'll quickly see how this war fits the pattern of wars the West has waged to secure sources of oil. I'm not dismissing the importance of oil in our world, but it can't be used to justify destroying Iraq and the US constitution. And even Cheney knows that. That's why national security and not oil is the official excuse.


And after starting this post I ran across this NYTimes editorial about the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership today. It underscores the Cheney Administration's rapacious thirst for oil.

This is its first lawsuit against the government, and one it did not undertake lightly — in part because it is not a litigious group and partly because the hunters and anglers who make up the bulk of its membership tend to be largely Republican.

That the partnership is now going to court shows how distasteful the administration’s public lands policies have become and how little they have changed since Vice President Dick Cheney, in his notorious energy report, ordered up a full-court press for domestic oil and gas resources regardless of the environmental consequences. Like other conservation groups, the partnership has never disputed the need to develop supplies of natural gas, nor has it objected to responsible development undertaken at a measured pace with due regard for other values, including the protection of wildlife.

What drove the partnership over the edge and into court was the sheer one-sidedness of the administration’s approach, as well as its reckless disregard for the law, and if that does not get Mr. Kempthorne’s [secretary of interior] attention, nothing will.

Lisa Returns Property

The ADN headline today is "Murkowski returns disputed land." At least Lisa M. recognizes that some people could see this as a conflict. But apparently she still doesn't completely get it.

Murkowski said it was a heart-wrenching decision because she, her husband and their two sons -- all avid fishermen -- have long sought a place on the Kenai River.

And how is it that Bob Penney made the offer to her and not to me? Is it possible that one factor is that I'm not a US Senator who'd make a nice, useful neighbor? It's the same reason Tom Anderson got all those jobs where he didn't have to do too much.

Selling back the land was a good step. But it doesn't absolve her of any wrong doing. After all, if I rob a bank, and then when the cops appear to be closing in on me, I get remorseful and return the money, they aren't likely to dismiss the charges. It may affect the sentencing though.

On the other hand, I must say in Lisa's and other politicians' defense, people can get pretty ugly venting their anger. I'm sure much of the worst invective comes from people transferring their own self loathing. After all, if the ADN report is accurate, Lisa got bad advice from the Ethics Committee staff.

"Senate ethics says that if the properties are used for personal use, you don't disclose it," she said. She said she disclosed the mortgage for the property but not the transfer, based on advice from Ethics Committee staff.

Murkowski dismissed criticism that she used a Ketchikan bank with close family ties -- she once sat on the board, and her sister is a current shareholder and director. She and her husband received a two-year balloon mortgage known as an "equity lot loan" that can be rolled into a construction loan to build on raw property.

I think we all go to friends we know 'in the business' who we trust and think will give us a good deal. In the case of the bank, I suspect she would have gotten a special deal just because of her family connections to the bank, even if she weren't a prominent politician. Yet this form of 'privilege' where you get deals that aren't available to the average person, is the kind of thing that blinds the privileged to the realities of life of the rest of us who don't have that sort of connection. While I think it is relevant to investigate, I think the personal invective reflects more on those invecting than on Murkowski.


One danger is that people like Cheney and Bush who stonewall every step of the way, who attempt to destroy those who oppose them (ie outing Plame) get off through their bluffing, whereas people who step forward and try to make things right get punished. Though there is nothing in the ADN article that suggests Murkowski thinks she did anything improper. The only thing she seems to be concerned about is the public trust (translation: her electability).

"While Verne and I intended to make this our family home and we paid a fair price for this land, no property is worth compromising the trust of the Alaska people," Murkowski said in a written statement.

And she does fall into blaming her accusers:

"There are those who will do anything to bring down the strength of the Alaska delegation. I think that is a reality. I think what I do is to get up every morning and do the best job I can representing Alaskans. That's what I was elected to do."

I'm sorry, I can't help it, he's so egregious

From Scott Horton, Harper's Magazine.

For those of you who missed the testimony of Alberto Gonzales before the Judiciary Committee, I’d recommend making the effort to catch it on a CSPAN rebroadcast. There’s simply no way to adequately describe the whole scene: that creepy, evasive visage, calmly churning out falsehood after falsehood. You have to keep reminding yourself—this man is the attorney general of the United States. He is the physical embodiment of an idea. At this point no one, Democrat or Republican, would argue that he is highly qualified to hold the position he now occupies, that he is the obvious choice among America’s legions of lawyers to be the attorney general. He was chosen and installed as the exaltation of personal loyalty and fidelity over all other traits, especially intelligence, honesty, loyalty to the law and especially the Constitution. Gonzales stands for the willingness to lie and dissemble in order to protect his patron; he is the ultimate and absolute politicization of high office. His selection and installation reflect the values of a tyranny, not a democracy...


Robert Conquest wrote that the Soviet Union was the only nation with a completely unpredictable past. But meet Alberto Gonzales. He was extremely busy rewriting history today, and it now appears that when he raises his hand and swears an oath, there’s no telling which version of the past will appear next. First, he tells us that the trip to see Ashcroft in the hospital has to do with something entirely different from the Terrorist Surveillance Program about which his former Deputy James Comey testified. In doing this, he contradicts his own prior testimony, and he contradicts Comey. At least one person is lying. And indeed, that person has to be Gonzales. The only issue is which of his diametrically opposed statements is the lie...

Tuesday, July 24. All in another day’s testimony for Alberto Gonzales, the worst attorney general in the history of the United States, the man who has come to embody the lawlessness and immorality of the Bush Administration.

For the rest of the list of Gonzales' lies and a few capital offenses according to Horton, click here.

Has Gonzales No Shame?

How did we get here? How is it that Gonzales is still the attorney general? What will the history books say about this administration? Has Gonzales no shame? Has Bush no shame? I recognize that TPM has edited the testimony, but all the various reports on his testimony suggest it is one of the low points of the history of US Attorney General's Office.

Pulling Out of Iraq

Rosa Brook's July 13 piece from the LA Times helped crystallize some questions I've been having about the calls for withdrawal from Iraq.

Basically, the same people saying we should withdraw from Iraq are saying we should do something about Darfur. It is hard to get a good sense of exactly what would happen if we withdrew - whether our presence is the problem or whether our withdrawal will open the flood gates for even worse violence.

As bad as Saddam Hussein was, the lives of Iraqis appear to be much worse today than before we invaded. And under Hussein, Iran was kept in check. And even those of us who can say we didn't vote for Bush and that we opposed the war from the beginning, have some responsibility for not protesting louder and more effectively. It is the US that has gotten Iraq into this situation. Now that we've totally mucked things up, can we with a straight face say, "Ooops, sorry, we screwed up. Better leave now."

Brooks' article critiques the basic arguments being offered both for and against withdrawal including mine above. The issue, of course, is about our ability to accomplish a better outcome by staying than by leaving.

Clearly we have obligations to the Iraqi people. But are we capable of meeting those obligations? I think one key strategy is to get other countries involved in the peace keeping. When the war began, companies from countries that didn't support the war were kept out of the contracts in Iraq. Cheney's company, Halliburton, has profited hugely from the war. Perhaps France and Germany might have more interest in helping keep the peace if their companies got part of the action.

It's clearly an incredible mess, largely of our own making. Will our withdrawal help wind down the violence? I suspect things will get worse before they get better, and in the end, Al Qaida and/or its allies will control the oil of Iraq. Way to go George.

Ready to Impeach - House Resolution 333

My son is back in the T-shirt business. He designed a T-shirt when he was headed to Denmark to work several years ago. As an American in Europe, he wanted to make it clear that he hadn't voted for G W Bush. He had it made through CafePress and other people could buy it. Proceeds, if any, were going to Doctors without Borders. He sold a few T-shirts after a few months, but then some conservative blog blasted him as a traitor and sales suddenly took off. Cafepress grossed around $45,000 from that and Doctors without Borders got several thousand out of it too.

So now he's back in business. This time with this:

He and a friend are making 20 different T-shirts and each shirt covers a different set of states with the names and phone numbers of the members of Congress in those states. California and New York had to be divided into two because there were two many members of Congress to fit. You can find details at readytoimpeach.com.
The back of the T-shirt has the beginning of Dennis Kucinich's House Resolution to impeach Vice-President Cheney.

The President Didn't Lie

On July 19, 2005, MSNBC reported

President Bush said Monday that if anyone on his staff committed a crime in the CIA-leak case, that person will "no longer work in my administration."

I guess we should have paid closer attention. The President didn't lie. Libby no longer does work in the administration. We didn't know that 'would not go to prison' was also part of this promise.

Time for Us All to Stand Up to Bush and Cheney

Attending and posting on the Anderson trial has kept me from addressing another important issue: the commuting of Scooter Libby's prison sentence. With so much to be said about this, how does one zero in on the truly important issues here? Let me try to articulate why I think this is such an important event.

Our nation is founded on the rule of law. The Constitution spells out the compact that Americans have. It outlines the procedures by which we will make decisions. It is this set of procedures and the laws made following those procedures that have made the US a special place in the world. We make decisions based on a set of rules we that all have a role in establishing and changing. We don't make decisions through the whim of a monarch or through violence. Not everyone follows those rules, and we may not always find 'truth' in the court, but even if there are mistakes, there are further procedures with which to correct those mistakes.

Thus obstruction of justice is not a minor crime, it is an assault against the foundations of the United States of America. Bush has now said, "Fuck the Rule of Law. Libby is one my friends and I don't want him to go to prison." [I almost never use "Fuck." Not because I'm a prude, but because if we use it all the time, it loses the power it has as a taboo word. I use here, then, with all the shock value it once had, to say, "This is serious."]

But he hasn't denounced the Special Prosecutor or the Judge. When Clinton was impeached, he faced a conservative Special Prosecutor and a Republican controlled Congress. But in Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald and Judge Reggie Walton, Libby was facing people appointed by George W. Bush.


Essentially, this event should make clear to even the most obstinate Bush supporter that

• the rule in the administration is not the rule of law, but the protection of their own interests. But we knew that after the 2000 Florida voting theft.
  
• Criminals aren't people who break laws, they are people Bush and friends don't like. There is nothing wrong with five years at Guantanamo for people who have never been charged with a crime, but one night in prison is one too many for our close friends.
  

I'm convinced this is not just, or even, a gesture to a friend. I'm persuaded by Marcy Wheeler it is also a way to insure that Libby will not reveal what he knows about Cheney's and Bush's obstruction of justice in the Plame leak and who knows what all else. There isn't one single event that is the turning point in any trend, but this one shows that those who are guilty in Bush's campaign to dismantle the Constitution and establish a dynasty, will be taken care of and that American justice as we knew it (think Guantanamo, secret detention camps, firing US attorneys as well) no longer exists. If we don't stand up now to stop this assault, it will be much harder to stop things later on.

Even if you only say, "Commuting Libby's sentence is an outrage. I expect you as my (Representative/Senator) to do something immediately to get to the bottom of this" now is a good time to write to you legislators.

Other bloggers are all over this.

I've mentioned before a minor addiction to the Blog Next Hurrah and the key blogger there, Marcy Wheeler. She and her commenters mostly write with knowledge and insight. She sat through the Libby trial and blogged live from the Libby sentencing. She knows this as well as the attorneys involved almost.Here's what she has to say about commuting his sentence. Her take is that commuting Libby's sentence (and presumably the fat legal defense fund that was raised to help Libby will take care of the $250,000 fine) will ensure that Libby won't say what he knows about Bush and Cheney's involvement in obstructing justice. Here she is on MSNBC in the video.

Changing One's Story of How Things Work

The Washington Post began a series on Dick Cheney Sunday. It's June 2007, almost six years after 9/11, and I'm sure that there are still people who will argue that this series is just a liberal smear of the vice president.

How many people have actually examined and tested the ways they distinguish between truth and falsehood and the various stages of uncertainty in between? How many people examine the 'stories' in their heads that they use to explain how the world works? Or even know that they have such stories?

Cognitive dissonance is when the actual world we experience is inconsistent with the world our stories lead us to expect. For a while, especially in national political situations, we can just dismiss what we are told as political maneuvering - in fact that is one of the 'stories' most of us have in our heads. We have to figure out when the story and the facts more or less match, and when use of the story is a way to distract from the real facts.

Questions about whether the dismissals were politically motivated have been swirling since January. But they reached a fever pitch on Tuesday with disclosures by the White House that Mr. Bush had spoken directly with Mr. Gonzales to pass on concerns from Republican lawmakers, among them Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, about the way certain prosecutors were handling cases of voter fraud.

NY Times on US Attorney Firings

At the moment, the state's former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, stands convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges and faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Siegelman has long claimed that his prosecution was driven by politically motivated, Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys.

Time

Did NEJM and politically motivated whistleblowers conspire to upstage the FDA on Avandia?
The May 30 Heartwire report on fallout from the Avandia controversy (to which I linked earlier today) suggests so:

But new reports go one step further--suggesting that FDA whistleblowers coordinated with politicians critical of the agency and the study authors to get damaging data into the public arena before the FDA could issue a safety statement on rosiglitazone.

Notes from Dr RW

After politically-motivated delays, FDA approves Plan B without a prescription

NewsTarget.com

"This politically motivated move of the Andhra Pradesh Government, supported by the UPA Government at the Centre, is violative of Articles 14, 15, 16 and 340,'' he said.

The Hindu


Perhaps the dissonance is temporary, we can then retreat back into our old stories. But if it persists, eventually we have to question our stories and find better ones to explain what is happening.

This happened with Watergate. People had various stories that kept them from believing that Nixon was lying. A major story was tied up with the idea of the president of the US being our leader. He wouldn't lie to us. The Watergate hearings, live on tv, or the evening news' highlights, caused some to waiver. Eventually the tapes of Oval Office conversations convinced most people. But even then, I'm sure there were people who would have excused Watergate because they felt overall Nixon represented the greater good for the US and the world.

It seems today the same thing is happening. We don't have such a tangible clear cut single event like the Watergate tapes, but we do have dead soldiers (even if their coffins are hidden from the tv cameras), the tv coverage of Katrina, the daily Bagdad death count, the growing gap between rich and poor, the cost of medicine, etc.

And for those who read, the Washington Post series on Cheney appears to be one of the first in-depth reports on what has gone on behind the scenes in the White House.

The New Christian Confederacy: How Would Americans Act if Our Country Were Iraq’d?

It seems hard for some Americans to understand why Iraqis might not be too happy with American soldiers in their country. But what would happen if we were occupied by military forces from other countries? How would we react? Would some of us side with the occupying force as a way to gain advantages? Would we start guerrilla warfare against the occupiers? Would people take advantage of the unrest to settle old feuds? Would gangs and drug lords help lead insurrections? It’s worth thinking about what things might look like if we were occupied.


Impossible you say. Aside from the fact of our great military strength, our geography also makes it extremely difficult for any other nation or group of nations to conquer us. Maybe. But what if we conquered ourselves?

Suppose that after the 2006 elections the Bush administration began to plot out their permanent control of the United States. They start making lists of generals who have been loyal and those who questioned Rumsfeld and the Bush administration. Among the many documents captured in Iraq are Saddam Hussein’s strategy for holding power in Iraq, for stifling political dissent. Imagine how interesting that would be to Robert Gates – an actual plan to quell the violence. How useful it would be to Karl Rove – an actual plan to stifle dissent. And when Saddam Hussein was executed in Baghdad with a leaked video as proof, unbeknown to all but a few, the dead man was one of Saddam’s doubles, and the real Saddam is now safely hidden in Wyoming ranch where he can give advice on how he kept the relative peace in Iraq all those years and how the Bush administration can take care of the traitors in the military, in Congress, in the media, in academia. and elsewhere.

The list of suspect military is now expanded to all sectors of the population. Torture techniques have already been approved and we already have prisons where these techniques are practiced. Handy for finding out who’s loyal and who isn’t. Some get called up on morals charges – lots more illicit IM logs come to light. An aneurysm here, a car accident there, an attempted robbery. Slowly enemies disappear. Dark skinned men with beards. Gays. Atheists. Environmentalists. Parents of the dead or injured US troops who dared to question official reports. And anyone who stands up for any of these people. Life becomes more difficult. Air travel becomes an ordeal. Telephones make strange noises. Police put down ‘riots’ at hip-hop concerts and other events where undesirables gather. The dead and wounded brought it on themselves.

Things get murky. Journalists find out there are consequences for aiding and abetting the enemy with their traitorous stories and printing and broadcasting classified material – even if it is already publicly available. A string of explosions at military bases inside the United States is the last straw. The President mourns the loss of our courageous fighting men and women and vows to find and destroy the perpetrators of this outrage. The terrorist alert color scheme has now gone past red to purple. The media, even if they have connected the dots between the enemy lists and the bases destroyed, do not even think about reporting the story. With his loyalists now firmly in charge of all the military branches, and with Blackwater mercenaries deployed to potential hotspots, Bush declares martial law. There are curfews in place. People don't come back from foraging for food. But staying home isn't safe either. All United Nations personnel from countries that have not supported the United States in at least 90% of all votes, and 100% of all votes the Bush administration deems critical, are ordered to leave the country in 24 hours. US troops then take over the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Germany, Holland, and Denmark are the first European countries to break off diplomatic relations with the US. Most Muslim countries also cut ties. The Chinese and the Russians are both nervous and smiling. They always knew that democracy couldn’t work. They understand dictators much more than they understand democrats. Across the nation there is panic. Most of the people who own guns and know how to use them are siding with the government. The liberals take to their computers and begin hacking the government systems. In some cases they find and post internal documents and plans. In other cases they are able to shut down vital systems. The power goes out in Washington DC and the surrounding areas. Troops occupy Microsoft, Google, and other critical computer centers and internet use is severely restricted.

The disruption to trade caused by the United States crisis threatens to topple the world economy. NATO, minus the US, but with help from Russia and China, and dissident US generals and troops overseas, begin to meet to determine what to do. Pakistan, having broken all ties with the US, is now working closely with North Korea to nuke Alaska.

Bush rallies his support. A new Confederacy is authorized to establish a semi-autonomous region in the South, ruled by fundamentalist Christians. The insurgents - a mix of liberals, libertarians, and true conservatives - are using what internet is left to appeal for help from NATO. Many have slipped into Canada or Mexico to start resistance movements.

Do I think this might happen? Of course not. We live in the United States of America, with the oldest constitutional democracy in the world, a constitution that guarantees such things as freedom of speech, freedom from religious prosecution, habeas corpus, due process. But I just spin this scenario so people can start to imagine what life might be like for Iraqis. So people can start to imagine the kinds of choices they would have to make if our cities' streets were ruled by violent militia and you couldn’t count on the police for safety, or the markets for food, or the corner gas station for fuel. When electricity and running water can no longer be taken for granted.

What would your options be? How would you protect your home, your family? What would you do if someone got sick or hurt, but the hospitals were occupied by drug dealers and looters?

So, when NATO - including China and Russia - troops finally landed, what would you do? Would you volunteer to join the new police? Would you join up with your ethnic, religious, or professional compatriots? Would you try to flee across the border? Would you join the insurgency? This is the life every day Iraqis would appear to be facing right now.

The Next Hurrah - Blogging one's life away?

How much do I need to know? How much time do I need to spend to keep up?

Here's what the Anchorage Daily News had to say in its "In Brief" section today:

Longtime Bush Aide to Leave White House

WASHINGTON — Dan Bartlett, President Bush's longest-serving aide and one of his closest confidantes, said Friday that he would leave the administration in the summer. Bartlett's is the latest and most significant departure in what has been a shrinking of Bush's inner circle. Bartlett, who turned 36 on Friday, has spent more than a third of his life working for Bush, starting as a junior policy aide when Bush ran for governor of Texas. Bartlett said he was leaving to spend more time with his family and pursue new career options. -Daily News Wire Reports

A quick Google search found an expanded copy of this on the Houston Chronicle website, which included:

By JIM RUTENBERG
New York Times

plus half a sentence more the ADN left out of the selection above, and then it went on further, though I suspect less than the original NY Times article. OK, Bartlett's a Texas boy, so Houston should spend more time than Anchorage.


But I've been reading The Next Hurrah a political blog that, while I've been reading it, has focused on the inner workings of the Department of Justice. I think I must have first found it when they were talking about the Alaska Legislative indictments - from a DOJ perspective, of course. It's refreshing to read well written, thoughtful discussions of the inner workings of government, by people who have much more access to the players than I have. They've been discussing the Libby trial and sentencing, the firing of the United States Attorneys, the Gonzales hearings, and other DOJ business. Yesterday I read Buh Bye Bartlett at The Next Hurrah. The post wasn't that long, but there were 68 comments dissecting every possible (liberal) interpretation of his leaving.

So how much do I really need to know? The ADN brief paragraph? Or The Next Hurrah's version? As I ponder this, first it seems that someone has to watch closely every branch of government and various corporations as well. Second, when something important happens they need to send the alert beyond the confines of their blog. Of course, if the general public gets word something is happening they can google the term and find these specialized blogs, and good reporters are also monitoring them for tips. Third, citizens need occasionally to dip into these much deeper than normal discussions of an issue just to get a sense of how an administration or a party looks under a microscope, rather than the superficial documenting of events from the mass media and the spin industry.

Keeping up with The Next Hurrah takes way too much time for me to read the posts and all the comments on a regular basis, but it's nice to know it's there and I can peek when I want. But now I'm wondering about the blog communication across ideological lines. Clearly Hurrah's bloggers believe they are keeping the Bush administration's feet to the fire, making sure wrong doing is exposed and corrected. While there are disagreements, I haven't seen anyone challenge the basic assumptions that the DOJ is in crisis because of Gonzales and the Bush administration. But surely conservatives felt the same when they were going after Clinton. Some have argued that Rove really doesn't care about decency, the law, or other common values; he only cares about winning. But no doubt there are liberals who fit that category too. A number of the posters at Hurrah can't resist the catty remark now and then, and a number would take glee if Bush were impeached. Even if he deserves impeachment, it would be a sad day for the US. And I know as I write these words, that most of us can't help but feel good seeing a criminal brought to justice. But how do we prevent those emotions from taking us beyond reasonable?

How can people with differing ideological stances get past the bluster and posturing and the need to be right, the need to win, and look at the facts that are available and the various reasonable interpretations of those facts? I remember during Watergate the Republicans on the committees, while making sure Nixon got a fair hearing, recognized their duty to the citizens of the US was a higher duty than protecting their party from scandal. They knew the party would take a big hit, but the violations were clear and most did what was right.

For various reasons, discussed by many - such as redistricting which favors the extremes rather than the middle - we are in a different era. There are more nasty, greedy zero-sum players. Perhaps bloggers can play a positive role in forcing the mainstream media and legislators to do a better job of reporting on government and of governing.

Cal Thomas - Victory or Defeat - False Dichotomies and Zero Sum Games

May 01, 2007
Defeat, Retreat, and Repeat (RealClearPolitics
[The title for this at the Anchorage Daily News was "War opponents are wrong; we must stay and fight to win"]
By Cal Thomas
For the sake of argument, let's say former CIA Director George Tenet is right in his book and that Vice President Dick Cheney pushed too hard with questionable or inaccurate intelligence because of a predisposition to go to war in Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. So what? We can't go back and fix the mistakes of the past. Only two choices are available: victory or defeat.

Thomas is presenting us with what is called by many "a false dichotomy". Don Lindsay calls it 'excluded middle:"

"Excluded Middle (False Dichotomy, Faulty Dilemma, Bifurcation):
assuming there are only two alternatives when in fact there are more. For example, assuming Atheism is the only alternative to Fundamentalism, or being a traitor is the only alternative to being a loud patriot."

To get the point, we could ask Cal Thomas what he means by victory? Maybe he'd say:

Americans can claim victory when whatever Iraqis are left have a peaceful, democratic nation; with an economy that affords Iraqis at least as high an average standard of living as they had under Saddam Hussein; that is friendly to American business interests and has a strong enough military to prevent takeover from Iran or other neighbors.

If not this, what are you willing to settle for Mr. Thomas? What would a victory look like to you? Because I can't see any possible way we'll end up with the one I've pictured here. Here's an alternative to that one.

Americans can claim victory when all Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are destroyed and Saddam Hussein is brought to justice.

In this case, we can pull out now.

By giving us the choice of 'victory or defeat' Thomas is giving us no choice. If you buy into that false dichotomy, there's only one option. But as the two descriptions of victory above show, there are a lot of variables he hasn't factored in and probably an infinite number of points on a line from the first victory described above and some equally extreme defeat (maybe Islamic forces led by Osama Bin Laden taking over the United States.)

Let's look at some of the variables:

Number of dead Iraqis (but then this would have to be broken down into types of dead Iraqis - military or civilian; Sunni or Shiite; male or female, under 15 or over 15; wealthy or poor; Southerners or Northerns; educated or un-educated; you get the picture. And if you are thinking these are all false dichotomies too, I'm happy.
Number of dead Americans, non-Iraqis (you can fill in the details here)
Cost to get to the end of the war (we've already discussed lives, but there is also money, prestige, impact on US economy, on familes of soldiers - dead, wounded - mentally or physically; level of environmental degradation, archeological damage, and on and on)
Benefits(here we could list anything from ownership of Iraqi oil reserves; increased skills and abilities -knowledge of Arabic or English, skills with weapons, flying planes, inspiring others, better understanding of geography, and on and on; greater power; and I'll leave it for any readers who make it this far to think of other benefits)
Distribution of the costs and benefits (who ends up with which costs and which benefits will affect the balance of power, in individual families, individual countries, and in the world)

Of course, I'm assuming that Cal Thomas knows all this. His purpose wasn't an attempt to clarify what we know about American defense policy and to help find a path to a policy that is built on models that describe cause and effect relationships that, when implemented, lead to the predicted outcomes. Getting us more accurate models than the one that said, "if American troops take over Bagdad, the people of Iraq will welcome them like heroes." No, people who use rhetorical devices like false dichotomies are trying to hoodwink people into accepting their argument by limiting their choices. In this case he is trying to discredit George Tenet who's written a book critical of Bush by making it look like he's calling for defeat.

While I would hope the reader can see that Thomas' "Only two choices are available: victory or defeat" is a ridiculous false dichotomy, I'm more interested in readers spotting other dichotomies and learning ways to expose them. "What do you mean by victory?" "What do you mean by defeat?" "What do you mean by traitor?" "Who is them?" "Who is us?" etc.

And kids shouldn't graduate from high school without being able to spot and expose the most common logical fallacies. This link or the Don Lindsay link above will give you enough to cover most situations.

And what's the connection to Zero-Sum games? This post is getting pretty long already. Briefly, zero-sum games are those in which there is a winner and a loser, or at least when the players think that way. What the winner gains, the loser loses. It's like sharing a pie. What I get to eat, you can't eat. By framing our options as Victory or Defeat, Thomas is using zero-sum game thinking. But, as I showed above with all the variables involved (number of deaths, other costs, various possible benefits and how they are distributed, etc.) we see that the outcome isn't either/or. It's variable (non-zero sum game is often called variable sum game). We could have 'victory' by killing every last Iraqi and hundreds of thousands of Americans or we could have declared victory when there were clearly no weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein was brought to justice. This is a real simplification, but I at least wanted to make the connection. For those who don't know these terms already, you can look them up. I haven't found a good simple link on this, but try wikipedia for game theory, zero-sum games, and non-zero sum games.

Barbados Free Press Curious About Who Veco's Bought in Barbados

The Barbados Free Press in a May 5th post picked up on Pete Kott's interest in a job in Barbados.

“You’ll get your gas line, the governor gets his bill, and I’ll get my job in Barbados,” … Peter Kott, former Speaker of the House, as recorded during FBI Alaska bribery investigation. Kott was offered a position with VECO involving the new Barbados prison.

Breaking News: On Friday, May 4, 2007, American politicians and businessmen were indicted in a bribery scheme involving VECO Corporation, a company that is heavily involved with the Barbados government and various Barbados politicians and business people. VECO’s Barbados projects include the oil terminal and pipeline, and the building of the new prison.
Which Barbados Politicians Are Involved?

VECO is a huge corporation headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska. With close ties to the Bush Republicans and operations in Alaska, Washington State, Alberta & British Columbia - Canada, India, Russia, United Arab Emirates and Barbados, VECO is a powerhouse in the oil and natural resources industry. VECO also has large interests in construction, pipelines & terminals, power generation, manufacturing, biotechnology and military contracts industries.

VECO Corporation and it’s wholly owned subsidiary Commonwealth Construction were the primary contractors on the Barbados Terminal and Pipeline project, and the (then) “$120 Million” new Barbados jail.

The company has often been criticized for having a corporate culture of unethical behaviour, bribes and undermining democracy. (Obviously, the American Federal Bureau of Investigation would probably agree with that statement.)

If VECO Corporation has acted unethically on their home turf of Alaska, one has to wonder what they might be guilty of in a foreign country like Barbados.


We know from media articles that the FBI even has recordings of telephone conversations between VECO officials and the corrupt politicians - where VECO’s Barbados operations were a topic of conversation.

What else does the FBI have?

You can bet that the Prime Minister of Barbados and many of his gang aren’t going to get much sleep in the next little while as they wonder what will surface during the trials and investigations yet to come.

Barbados Free Press will continue to follow up on this important story - even if no one else in the Barbados media mentions it.

Maybe the people of Alaska and of Barbados should be working together here. And where else does Veco do their business?

When Should One Resign?

Resignation of Ambassador Randall Tobias
Resigned when his name came up on a list of call girl customers in Washington,DC. He was working on programs to stop prostitution around the world.

I will not resign, says Wolfowitz
Having made corruption his most important battle at the World Bank, his staffers now say that effort is compromised by Wolfowitz's working out a high paying job for his girlfriend. So far he refuses to step down.

BP boss quits over private life lie Lord Browne has brought British Petroleum from the sidelines of the oil industry to one of the big boys. He's also transformed the image with a strong environmental theme. More recently there have been problems with a fire in Texas that killed workers and an oil spill in Alaska caused by the erosion on neglected pipelines. But it was accusations from his former boyfriend and how he responded to them in court, that caused his resignation this week. He was planning to step down this summer.


Bush rejects calls for Gonzales resignation The list against Gonzales is both extensive and probably better known to most. After a dismal Senate grilling where he 'couldn't recall' over 70 times details of the firings of Federal Prosecutors, even Republicans are calling for his resignation.


Olmert hangs on amid resignation calls The results of the investigation of last year's invasion of Lebanon has reignited calls for Israeli Prime Minister Olmert to resign.


Embattled University of Alaska regent resigns
Jim Hayes, the University of Alaska Regent, only resigned April 27. He was first asked to resign by the governor in January and has been refusing to resign despite being under indictment for felony fraud misusing $450,000 in federal grant money at a non-profit he ran. The Alaska Legislature was working on a bill to give the Governor the power to remove the Regent when he resigned.


We have here three office holders trying to hold on, and three who have resigned in the last week. The only two didn't fight their resignations. How can we balance the public interest with fairness and justice? Well, for one thing, no one is owed public positions, though they shouldn't be removed against their will without some reasonable cause. What are reasonable grounds for asking for one's resignation or for refusing to resign? Here are some preliminary thoughts:

When people should resign:
1. They've abused the public or their employers' trust through misuse of their position - they've used their office for personal gain, and/or they have made decisions based on personal criteria, not the objective, professional criteria required.
2. They have caused harm or damage through neglect, incompetence, or other inability to do the necessary work
3. A significant portion of the public and/or the people who work with or for them no longer trust them or have confidence in them to the point that it affects the credibility of the agency or company

[March 14, 2008: The Spitzer resignation raises a possible fourth category, or maybe it's part of number 3 - hypocricy. If someone is caught violating a value he has espoused strongly, perhaps that increases the pressure to resign.]
When people should fight to keep their positions:
A starting assumption for all of these is that, using as objective evaluation criteria as possible, they are doing a good job.
1. Despite doing a good job others are attacking them This could arise for various reasons:
a. Whistleblowers are often attacked for revealing bad practices.
b. Someone's good performance can make others look bad in comparison
c. Someone else may covet their jobs - it appears this was part of the reason behind the firing of the federal prosecutors
d. There may be a power struggle between different political camps or ideologies
2. They want to finish a project or program they have begun.
3. They want to hold their place until the regime changes - Supreme Court justices may wait until after an election hoping the new administration will replace them with someone of the same legal philosophy


Why people might fight to keep their jobs even if the above conditions do not hold:
1. Stepping down is seen as an admission of guilt, fault, wrongdoing
2. Admitting wrong would result in shame or disgrace
3. Stepping down would result in loss of income, or they may need a little more time in the job to qualifiy for retirement or other benefits
4. They haven't finished the work (legitimate or illegitimate) they want to get done.
5. They want to retain the power or prestige of the position
6. They want to block a rival from gaining the position
7. They honestly believe they are doing a good job
8. Stepping down reflects poorly on their supporters or allies
9. Their personal identity is wrapped up in the job and without the job they have nothing to do
10. They are afraid to face reality and accept that they aren't doing a good job

Of course, more than one could apply.


So we can create 'stories' around any of the headlines above that would justify a swift resignation or a vigorous fight to retain the job. The dilemma for us is to be able to fill in the facts well enough to determine which story actually fits. The media should play a key role in this. And some media do. Unfortunately, the media have various motives other than exposing truth these days. Making a profit is essential for any business. For many media organizations, improving the bottom line is easier if they produce cheap and sensational stories rather than in-depth investigations. Other media outlets are simply propaganda machines to gain power for their ideological causes. There is no interest in the truth, only the appearance of being fair and unbiased. But ultimately, citizens bear the responsibility of knowing about the people they vote for or against. There is enough available information to gain informed judgments, that enable one to determine if Wolfowitz is being hounded because the action with his girlfriend a) was a serious breach of ethics and a crippling blow to the World Bank, b) was an understandable issue to use to oust him for other more serious, but complex problems or c) an issue to be used because he has been threatening the cushy jobs of long time World Bank bureaucrats. I'm afraid it's harder for me to find facts that justify Gonzales' continued tenure as Attorney General. though if his supporters strain hard enough they could argue it is simply a political attack on his ideology. You can evaluate the other headlines yourselves.

Good Bye David Halberstam

The Best and the Brightest was an incredible book that meticulously told the story of how Kennedy put together his dream cabinet, that blundered into the Vietnam War, and under Johnson continued that blundering. The Powers That Be examined the media in the US. These were huge books that gave both endless detail and an understanding of the big picture. Not an easy task. As this article shows Halberstam was still active, and he was killed in a car accident on the way to an interview on his next book about the Korean War. This isn't a bad time to go back and read The Best and the Brightest. What will be the name of the Bush era version of how we got into Iraq?

Let's remember Halberstam as a great journalist whose reporting contributed to ending a bad war.

And let's remember how quickly everything can change - one bad left turn in this case.

Virginia Tech Shooting

The first response is shock. Then, as a blogger, I feel myself with nothing to say that adds anything to what has been said. What topics are there to discuss?

There are the facts of what happened. I have nothing to add there.
There's opinion of what it means. Not enough facts to assess that yet, if ever.
There's condolences for those killed, those injured, and their families and friends. Meaningful words that bring any comfort to the grieving are hard to put together and deliver. Nevertheless, my thoughts are with those who have lost family and friends. Others share your grief knowing there is little we can do to make your burden any lighter.

But then I start thinking other thoughts and feel myself self-censoring. Part of this is respect for those in mourning. There's a time of emotional response where rational discussion is irrelevant. People must work through the emotions first. How long did it take after 9/11 for people to be able accept any response but a reverent awe of the enormity and terror of the events? To start raising questions about why in a city of skyscrapers, the fire department's best response plan was to walk up the stairwells with heavy packs at about one floor per minute was attacked as demeaning the heroes. Criticisms of the President's response were condemned as disloyal at best, as treason at worst.

Can we use events like these to get perspective on other events? One feels the pressure to hold off because one might be accused of using this tragedy for partisan political gains. Certainly that was used to discredit criticisms of the response to Katrina. I'm not working with any political party at the moment. I'm not pushing any candidates. I'm just trying to think some of this through. Besides only a few people are ever likely to read this.

What can we learn from the campus shootings? I'm sure yesterday's events will not be quickly forgotten by most Americans, just as Columbine is not forgotten. But how many Americans remember this event?

BAGHDAD (AP) — An explosion outside a Baghdad universityas students were heading home for the day killed at least 65 people on Tuesday in the deadliest of several attacks on predominantly Shiite areas.

This is from USA Today, January 16, 2007, exactly three months ago to the day. I didn't hear a single commentator on the radio yesterday mention this. I don't begrudge the coverage of yesterday's events. This is a big story. But the horror we feel should help us get a better sense of what it is probably like in Bagdad. Here, in the US, at least, most of us know this was a relatively isolated event that will not directly affect our lives. Yes, University security departments and local law enforcement agencies will be forced to devise new procedures for campus security. But unlike in Bagdad, we don't see this sort of attack as something that could happen in our neighborhood any day. At least if we don't live in areas where gang violence regularly brings gunshots onto our streets. We don't plan our lives, our shopping for food, going to work or school, with strategies to avoid being shot or blown up. The terror the students felt yesterday and which affected all of us at least vicariousy is a daily fact of life in Iraq.

The current level of violence in Iraq, whether we like it or not, is our responsibility. While Saddam Hussein's police and army were responsible for horrible crimes against the Iraqi people, the killing was never as widespread, frequent, or random as it is today. It was the American people's willingness to support President Bush in the emotional, fearful aftermath of 9/11 that has put our military in the impossible position it is today, and has given the Iraqi people daily events as horrific as the attack at Virginia Tech. And the ongoing and pervasive nature of the violence in Iraq makes it far more horrific. The only Americans who can truly understand this are the troops and others who are over and see it and feel it.

So my reaction to Virginia Tech is the hope that it helps us understand the horrors we have caused in Iraq. And that it may motivate a few more to move the US to take action to find a better way to end the violence and give the Iraqis their lives back.

Will things automatically calm down if the US pulls out of Iraq? That's unlikely. The pullout must be accompanied by committed the multilateral forces that the President did not bring together before he took the US into Iraq. Ideally it will include Europeans, Arabs and other Muslims, and as well as the Chinese. It isn't going to be easy. I'm sure many people around the world who opposed our invasion of Iraq take some pleasure in being proven right and watching us struggle with the results of our folly. And humility and contrition are not Bush strong points. This isn't going to be easy.

Yom HaShoa Time Capsule in a Milkcan

Six of us raised our hands when the rabbi asked who had parents, siblings, grandparents, or great grandparents who died in the Holocaust. He invited us to come forward and we each lit a candle in remembrance.


My father got his visa to the US in 1934 through his aunt and uncle in Chicago. His parents were never able to get visas out of Germany.


I only know my grandparents through pictures like these, (the one of my grandfather Georg and the other of my grandmother Martha), through stories my father told me, and through the letters they sent him until 1942. My mother only got her visa in 1939 and just barely got out of Germany before the war, also leaving her parents behind.



After the candles were lit and some poems read, pictures from a show produced by the Holocaust Museum were projected onto the wall. Fortunately, I hand't read anything about this and had no idea what was going to happen. I wasn't even sure if this was a movie or a powerpoint or what. There was music and then images of the Warsaw ghetto. Then there was the accented voice of man coming from a speaker from the other side of the room. He was clearly speaking to us from the pictures, but from a different speaker. I'm not sure what those first lines were. Something about needing to write, to document what has happening. His amplified voice was louder than the speaker on the projector. And as I'm processing all this, out walks a man in a black suit and grey hair and the voice and the man become merge.

He introduced himself as Emanual Ringelblum. We were back in the early 1940s in the Warsaw Ghetto. He was telling us what had been happening in the last few years and about his project to get all the Ghetto dwellers to document what was happening in writing. I was totally transfixed and I'd really have to see it again to figure out exactly how he did this, what he said, whether he addressed us as Ghetto residents or outsiders. I know he wandered amongst us and gave some people sheets of paper which they read aloud, the words of Warsaw Jews written at the time and saved in metal boxes and milkcans so that the Nazis' deeds would be known. I think he said there were 10 boxes and six milkcans. After the war two survivors, only one who knew where the writings had been buried, helped to dig them up, though a few are still missing. I have no idea how long he talked to us. He left the room and the powerpoint voice, I think, said that he and his family had been found in the Polish home where he was being hidden and killed.

Then Emanual returned as Marc Spiegel and answered questions about this production of Time Capsule in a Milkcan that he performed for two years at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Emanual/Marc urged us all to to write and document what is happening around us. Good encouragement for a blogger, encouragement I interpreted as increasing the more serious content here. Marc is in Anchorage as Albert Einstein Alive which he is performing around the state and for kids in the Anchorage School District. His lucky son Ben got to come along on this trip.

Another fascinating Jewish WWII chronicler is Victor Klemperer [you may have to log in to the NYTimes online to read this review, but do it, it's free and worth every penny] whose two volune I Will Bear Witness Italics chronicles his daily life in and around Dresden during WWII. He talks about the mundane - planting his garden, getting his car repaired - and he talks about how the Nazis are manipulating language to effectively get the German people to support the Nazi Party, a particularly appropriate topic for those living under the Bush regime. It is a fascinating account of day-to-day life of a Jewish professor in Nazi Germany. He had converted to Christianity and was married to an 'Aryan' and had been on the front lines for Germany in WWI, all of which helped delay his being taken to the concentration camps. The first volume covers 1933-1941. The second volume covers 1942-1945.