Terms I Didn't Know

The Glomar Response - from a tweet -

"Leopold's trying to up the bar now that everyone is getting Glomars."

In response to an image of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that was completely redacted.

The story at Unredacted about the history of the Glomar Response is fascinating.  CIA told a FOIA requester that it could

 “neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence” of  “the use of unmanned aerial vehicles”

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Revanche

"It was thought by Obama and some of his allies that this toxicity was the result of a relentless assault waged by Fox News and right-wing talk radio. Trump’s genius was to see that it was something more, that it was a hunger for revanche so strong that a political novice and accused rapist could topple the leadership of one major party and throttle the heavily favored nominee of the other."  From Ta-Nejosi Coats, "The First White President" in The Atlantic.

From Merriam Webster:

"Definition of revanche
:revenge; especially: a usually political policy designed to recover lost territory or status"

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Eldritch

Also from the Ta-Nehisi Coats article:

"To Trump, whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular. But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies." 

From Wikipedia:

"Eldritch is an English word used to describe something as otherworldly, weird, ghostly, or uncanny.
Eldritch may refer to:
Andrew Eldritch (born 1959), singer, songwriter
Eldritch (band), an Italian heavy metal band
Eldritch Wizardry, a Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game supplement
Eldritch (video game), a video game for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux based on the Cthulhu Mythos
Eldritch Moon, an expansion from the Magic the Gathering card game
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, a 1965 science fiction novel by US writer Philip K. Dick" 

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Topoi (plural of typos)

From a review of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's Vietnam  in the Mekong Review:

"The even-handedness, the flag-draped history, bittersweet narrative, redemptive homecomings and the urge toward “healing” rather than truth are cinematic topoi that we have come to expect from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick through their films about the Civil War, Prohibition, baseball, jazz and other themes in United States history."

From Merriam Webster:

Definition of topos
plural topoi play  \-ˌpȯi\
:a traditional or conventional literary or rhetorical theme or topic 

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I heard today that Twitter is going from 140 characters to 280.  That doesn't sound like a good idea.  As one tweeter responded:  140 characters was my best editor ever.   These terms have been building up as a draft post.  I think four are enough for most people, so I'll quit here.

Remember That Muslim Kenyan? It Seems He Tapped Trump's Phone Too

Let's see.  The next step will be a call to have him removed from the US as an illegal alien.

The New York Times is reporting that FBI director Comey wants the Justice Department to deny Trump's claims:

"The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement."

I found the next sentence interesting for what it tells us about Comey (assuming, of course, this is accurate at all):

"Mr. Comey, who made the request on Saturday after Mr. Trump leveled his allegation on Twitter, has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down the claim because it falsely insinuates that the F.B.I. broke the law, the officials said." (emphasis added)

Back in October when he told the world about reopening the Clinton email investigation, he wrote to FBI  employees:

"Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed." (emphasis added)

Comey seems to have a strong need to protect his own reputation, which may skew his judgment.  

Back to the phone tapping allegations, the Washington Post fact-checker searches down references to FISA court requests and gives Trump four Pinocchios.

Sounds to me like the heats on over Russia and Trump's using his usual tactic of a diversionary attack to get people's attention off Trump.  I guess his mother didn't read him the story about the boy who cried wolf.  

Obama's Press Conference Message: E PLURIBUS UNUM

Listening to Obama now in his press conference, I think there is one message that he is trying to send:  E PLURIBUS UNUM.  "Out of Many One."

It underlies his answers - which are focused on American values, on things like smooth transition, on following procedures, on minimizing Trump's outrageousness.  "The president still is in transition mode.. . There's a whole different attitude and vibe when you're not in power as when you're in power. . . We have to wait and see how they operate when they are fully briefed on the issues, have their hands on the levers, and have to make decisions."

But lest people miss the message, just look at the camera view of the president at the conference.

Screenshot from White House feed of Obama press conference Dec 16, 2016

Look carefully at the lower right corner of the image.  It's the presidential flag.  E PLURIBUS UNUM fits neatly into the corner of the image.  There is no way that was an accident.  Look at the presidential flag and think about how it has to be folded so that E PLURIBUS UNUM folds so perfectly into the corner of the image.  You'll also notice that much more of the presidential flag is in the image than the American flag.

Image from flagandbanner

As an amateur photographer and blogger, I know that I don't capture that kind of image accidentally.

And if you listen to his comments, he tells us over and over again, in his words and in his tone, that we have to improve the public discourse, that we have to stand together as Americans or foreign nations will exploit our disarray.  We are the strongest nation and that we are the only enemy who can defeat us.


The subtext is the old Pogo message.

Image from here

Seriously?

This is what I meant when I predicted that artists would get itchy to create.  It was sent to me from a good friend who has slavery in his family history.


 



From This American Life (expect all funding for public radio and television to be zeroed out by July 2017, but the good news is that it will then be free to stop being so conservative.)

"We’ve been wondering about some of the things President Obama thinks about the current election, but can’t say publicly. But since he hasn’t told us his thoughts explicitly, we asked singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles – who did the Broadway musical “Waitress” – to imagine those thoughts for us. One of the stars of Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr., performs the song. Music direction by Nadia DiGiallonardo, strings orchestration by Alex Lacamoire."

Snowden - The Movie

I've avoided posts about Edward Snowden.  Yes, I've mentioned him now and then, but I've held off from writing about him in much detail.  My dissertation was on privacy.  I've studied whistle-blowing.  Daniel Ellsberg is one of my heroes.  I knew I was primed to be supportive of Snowden and wanted to hold off.  (And whether I say something about him or not isn't going to matter in the bigger scheme of things anyway.)

I wanted to know more.  Well, I really wanted to drop by and talk to him for a couple of days and see if he was the guy I wanted him to be or not.

I've watched some of his tapes and I've pretty much settled, for the time being, on the Snowden the whistleblower side.  He's the good guy who believed in the ideals of his country and was willing to risk his freedom, even his life, to keep his country honest.  That's the narrative that fits most comfortably with what I've seen and heard about Snowden.


So we went to the 12:50 pm showing of Oliver Stone's Snowden today.  I did read a New York Times review when I was checking last night about when the movie played here.  After seeing the movie I'd concur with the reviewer.

This may be the movie that Oliver Stone has been practicing for.  It's restrained and straightforward.  It goes back and forth between the 'right now' and flashbacks.  The 'right now' starts with his arrival in Hong Kong.  The film is totally consistent with my sense of who Snowden is and why he did what he did.

The surprises for me were:

• how conservative he was politically and personally
• how he voiced concerns to others he worked with and for while he was an employee or contractor with the various security agencies
• that he suffered from epileptic seizures

So, until others can present a more convincing narrative - along with supportive evidence - I'm more than willing to call on Obama and others to find a way to let Snowden come back to the US honorably.  Don't make this like the Cuba sanctions that go on forever or our marijuana phobia because we can't admit we're wrong.

There are more thoughts, but I need to do other things and this movie is worth seeing.  It's well made and is entertaining.  At the very least, it should further open the discussion how we keep spy agencies accountable.  And how we treat those who call them on it.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great in the starring role. And I liked how the real Snowden's image replaces the actor's at the very end.

Why Is John Doe Being Treated So Differently From Snowden, Manning, And Assange?

The Wiki-Leaks source Bradley Manning was condemned as a traitor and convicted to 35 years in prison.

Edward Snowden is stuck in Moscow facing espionage charges if he gets anywhere he could be extradited to the US.

Julian Assange, the head of Wiki-Leaks is still in the Bolivian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, and, he fears, from there to the US.

But when the Panama Papers came out, the media and politicians focused on the contents, not the leaker.  I don't hear cries for him to be in prison.

There are differences, to be sure.  Manning and Snowden exposed US secrets.  Manning as an employee of the US and Snowden working for a US contractor.  Yet Snowden's leaks have led to worldwide outrage about US data collection and changes in the law to provide more protections.  The Wiki-Leaks have proven embarrassing, but despite early claims about risking the lives of US military, I have been unable to find evidence this has happened.


And now we have the Panama Papers.  Leaked by someone who has recently identified himself as John Doe.  Instead of calling for John Doe to be punished, we see headlines like this:

"Obama: Panama Papers leak shines light on 'big global problem'"

and

Panama Papers: US launches crackdown on international tax evasion

OK, I get it that these papers weren't leaked from secret government files, but rather from a private law firm practicing out of Panama.

But economic espionage is a big deal.  From the New York Times:

"The private sector spent $665 million on data loss prevention last year, according to the technology research firm Gartner, with a 15 percent increase expected this year. On the legislative front, Congress strengthened penalties for those convicted under the Economic Espionage Act, raising the maximum fine for individuals convicted to $5 million from $500,000. And in terms of law enforcement, the F.B.I. lists digital crime, including intrusions that result in trade secret theft, as its third priority, just behind terrorism and counterintelligence. The agency reported a 60 percent increase in trade secret investigations from 2009 through 2013."  [emphasis added]

Is Obama ignoring the cyber theft of data from a private company because the information that was stolen was important for the public good?  After all, that's the argument that Wiki-Leaks and Edward Snowden make.  They didn't do to help a foreign country.  They didn't do it for money.  They did it because they thought something terribly wrong was going on.

Just like John Doe did with the Panama Papers.

Or is it because the Wiki-Leaks and Snowden leak were embarrassing to the President - both because security was so bad and because the information leaked was embarrassing and revealed that the American public was being lied to as well as being spied on massively?

But the Panama Papers are different because they help to support a point that Obama has been making about American companies avoiding taxes through off shore tax havens?

I keep mentioning John Doe.  I was looking at Panama Papers yesterday and discovered that the person who leaked them has posted very recently his reasons for doing that and for taking the name John Doe.  Here are some excerpts from "John Doe's Manifesto."

He begins by identifying his critical issue:  world wide income inequality.  And even though people are talking about it, it hasn't really been adequately dealt with and there are many questions.

"The Panama Papers provide a compelling answer to these questions: massive, pervasive corruption. And it’s not a coincidence that the answer comes from a law firm. More than just a cog in the machine of “wealth management,” Mossack Fonseca used its influence to write and bend laws worldwide to favour the interests of criminals over a period of decades. . . 

Shell companies are often associated with the crime of tax evasion, but the Panama Papers show beyond a shadow of a doubt that although shell companies are not illegal by definition, they are used to carry out a wide array of serious crimes that go beyond evading taxes. I decided to expose Mossack Fonseca because I thought its founders, employees and clients should have to answer for their roles in these crimes, only some of which have come to light thus far. It will take years, possibly decades, for the full extent of the firm’s sordid acts to become known."

He's pleased that the Panama Papers seem to have now started a serious debate on the topic.

He introduces himself.

"For the record, I do not work for any government or intelligence agency, directly or as a contractor, and I never have. 

Now, some have claimed the CIA is behind this leak.  If true that would help explain why this was so handy for Obama to use in his speech on off-shore tax havens.   Is John Doe's manifesto released now intended by the real leaker to counter those rumors?  Or is it the CIA's way of denying the rumors?  There's nothing in the manifesto that suggests how John Doe knew about all this and had access to it all.  He does point out, by way of justifying this fuzziness about his identity,  that there are a lot of people who would like to see the leaker dead and I don't doubt that.

My viewpoint is entirely my own, as was my decision to share the documents with Süddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), not for any specific political purpose, but simply because I understood enough about their contents to realize the scale of the injustices they described. 

[For those who do not speak German - most people, I'd guess -  Süddeutsche Zeitung means, literally, South German Newspaper.]

He goes on to say that he's hoping that a lot of prosecutions will result from these revelations.  (There were some resignations by people like the Prime Minister of Iceland and the head of a Chilean anti-corruption agency when the leak was first made public.)

The prevailing media narrative thus far has focused on the scandal of what is legal and allowed in this system. What is allowed is indeed scandalous and must be changed. But we must not lose sight of another important fact: the law firm, its founders, and employees actually did knowingly violate myriad laws worldwide, repeatedly. Publicly they plead ignorance, but the documents show detailed knowledge and deliberate wrongdoing. At the very least we already know that Mossack personally perjured himself before a federal court in Nevada, and we also know that his information technology staff attempted to cover up the underlying lies. They should all be prosecuted accordingly with no special treatment. 

In the end, thousands of prosecutions could stem from the Panama Papers, if only law enforcement could access and evaluate the actual documents. ICIJ and its partner publications have rightly stated that they will not provide them to law enforcement agencies. I, however, would be willing to cooperate with law enforcement to the extent that I am able. "

Besides prosecution of wrongdoers, he wants immunity for whistleblowers.

"Legitimate whistleblowers who expose unquestionable wrongdoing, whether insiders or outsiders, deserve immunity from government retribution, full stop. Until governments codify legal protections for whistleblowers into law, enforcement agencies will simply have to depend on their own resources or on-going global media coverage for documents. 

In the meantime, I call on the European Commission, the British Parliament, the United States Congress, and all nations to take swift action not only to protect whistleblowers, but to put an end to the global abuse of corporate registers."

He wants campaign reform in the US. 

"It is an open secret that in the United States, elected representatives spend the majority of their time fundraising. Tax evasion cannot possibly be fixed while elected officials are pleading for money from the very elites who have the strongest incentives to avoid taxes relative to any other segment of the population. These unsavoury political practices have come full circle and they are irreconcilable. Reform of America’s broken campaign finance system cannot wait."

Then he lists all the players he think have failed.

Governments have failed (and he cites a number of examples including:

"Jennifer Shasky Calvery, the director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the United States Treasury, just announced her resignation to work instead for HSBC, one of the most notorious banks on the planet (not coincidentally headquartered in London). And so the familiar swish of America’s revolving door echoes amidst deafening global silence from thousands of yet-to-be-discovered ultimate beneficial owners who are likely praying that her replacement is equally spineless.

Banks, financial regulators and tax authorities have failed. . .

Hopelessly backward and inefficient courts have failed. . ."

The media have failed.

"The sad truth is that among the most prominent and capable media organizations in the world there was not a single one interested in reporting on the story [Panama Papers.] Even Wikileaks didn’t answer its tip line repeatedly. 

But most of all, the legal profession has failed. . ."

We live in interesting times.   There's a lot of interesting stuff on the Panama Papers website and the graphics are outstanding too.   The size of this leak dwarfs previous leaks.  The website has graphics comparing it to Snowden's and Wiki-Leaks. [UPDATE May 8, 2016: I wish though, that they'd put publication dates on their stories.]

I'd just note that the move to computers and then to the internet has made private conversations and messages that the socially, politically, and economically prominent have used to hide their shady dealings available in a way they could never have imagined.  And hackers are following Eastern martial arts philosophies that teach how to use one's opponent's strength against him.

McConnell"s Legislative Activism - Changing President's Term To Three Years

From the New Yorker:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a television appearance on Sunday, the leading Senate Republican warned President Obama “in no uncertain terms” against doing anything in his remaining three hundred and forty days in office. “The President should be aware that, for all intents and purposes, his term in office is already over,” Mitch McConnell said on Fox News. “It’s not the time to start doing things when you have a mere eight thousand one hundred and sixty hours left.”

McConnell continues to astound me.  He's concerned, among many things, about the president nominating a successor to Scalia, a constitutional 'originalist.'  Let's look, Mitch, at what the constitution's Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 says about the president's term of office:

"The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows" [emphasis added].

Sounds like a little legislative activism to try to cut the president's term to three years.

But consider the source.  Here's McConnell back in December 2010:

"Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term."

His job the last five years has been to obstruct the operations of the United States of America.  This seems to be the key plank of the Republican Party's platform.

Well, even with two years to do it, McConnell couldn't deny Obama that second term, and now it seems his top priority is to deny President Obama the fourth year of that term.  The constitution be damned.

Babies are conceived and born in less than a year.  Ask any mother how long just nine months is.

Sunsets Good Here, But Wish I Were In Anchorage With The Pres - Plus Notes From Harding's Visit In 1923

The Santa Monica pier as the sun sets.

I'm spending my days going through closets and drawers, calling government agencies and companies, and trying to get an evening beach bike ride.  Well, it's been so hot that around sunset is the only time it's reasonably comfortable to go ride.  And last night the sunset and the balmy cool air almost made up for not being home.



It was Sunday, so there were lots and lots of people on bikes, foot, skateboards, segways, and something I noticed for the first time today, a segway like vehicle that looks like a skateboard moving sideways, just feet, no handle.  (I just checked - it's an IO Hawk, you can see a German video of it at the link.)

Palms at Venice Beach

But I'm sorry I'm missing the big day when a US president comes to Alaska for a meeting on the Arctic.  I won't miss the street closures, but given his gift to Alaska  - renaming Mt. McKinley to Denali - and all the attention to climate change, this first visit to Alaska of a sitting President since 1923 is a pretty big deal.


Obama's trip compared to Harding's
 
But President Obama's trip to Alaska is going to be a whirlwind three day tour whereas Harding took a leisurely two week vacation in Alaska after a cross-country speaking tour to San Francisco.  From SitNews, July 23, 2003:

"So the Hardings set off on the rail trip to San Francisco, where they would board the U.S. Navy transport the S.S. Henderson. It was smooth sailing en route north, with card games for the men, jerky silent movies enjoyed by everyone, books to read and plenty to eat and drink, in spite of Prohibition.

The first port of call was Metlakatla where Florence [Harding] was startled by accomplished Native Alaskan musicians in their bare feet playing for the presidential couple! They visited the grave of the world famous Anglican missionary, Father William Duncan. (Future President) Herbert Hoover, Harding's Secretary of Commerce, was personally interested in the call at Metlakatla. Hoover's uncle, the man who had raised him after the death of both his parents, had been an Oregon Indian agent who later traveled to Metlakatla to study Father Duncan's unique methods with the Tsimshian people. The widower uncle, John Minthorn, had married a Metlakatla woman.

Mrs. Harding was also given a salmon in Metlakatla on July 8.  They also visited Ketchikan, Wrangell, Juneau, and Skagway.  They got to Seward on July 13 and took the train to Anchorage.

"From Wasilla to Willow the President himself drove the train while the First Lady sat in the fireman's seat." 

The President drove in the golden spike to ceremonially complete the Alaska Railroad in Tenana and then to Fairbanks to open the agricultural school.  I'd add that the party spent the night in Talkeetna. 

They returned to Seward and this time stopped in Cordova and then a stop at Sitka on July 23.   And ate the shellfish that some say caused Harding's death barely a week later in San Francisco.

Photo of Harding in Valdez - from White House History

There was also a stop in Valdez according to White House History where the above picture was taken.


You might also find this link interesting:  LaVern Keys recalls President Harding's visit to the new college on July 16, 1923.

State Legislature Sues Governor Over Medicaid Expansion

The ADN has the story.  Basically 

"a Republican-controlled House-Senate committee voted 10-1 to authorize spending up to $450,000 to hire a pair of law firms to work on a suit against the governor."

WHO VOTED HOW?

Voting in favor of hiring the two law firms were Republican Reps. 

Mike Chenault of Nikiski, 
Steve Thompson of Fairbanks, 
Craig Johnson and Charisse Millett of Anchorage and 
Mark Neuman of Big Lake, 

Democratic Rep. Bob Herron of Bethel  (member of the House Republican Majority)

Republican Sens. 
Anna MacKinnon of Eagle River, 
John Coghill of North Pole, 
Charlie Huggins of Wasilla and 
Kevin Meyer of Anchorage.


Voting against:

Democratic minority member, Juneau Rep. Sam Kito.

Absent: 

"Two Republican senators from coastal areas typically viewed as more moderate, Gary Stevens of Kodiak and Peter Micciche of Soldotna, were absent, as was Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, who belongs to the Senate’s Republican majority.

Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, also missed the meeting. He was in Minnesota undergoing medical treatment but said by email he would have voted against hiring the law firms."

 THE LAW FIRMS TO BE HIRED

The DC Firm:  Bancroft PLLC   - This boutique DC firm, that epitomizes the DC revolving door.  From their own website:

"Bancroft PLLC was founded by former Assistant Attorney General Viet D. Dinh and now includes former Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, former Associate White House Counsel H. Christopher Bartolomucci, and other accomplished professionals focused on our clients’ most difficult and complex legal issues. Among our 12 lawyers are 6 U.S. Supreme Court clerkships, 12 U.S. Court of Appeals clerkships, and 5 Presidential appointments."

One of their top attorneys, Paul Clement, recently had his going hourly rate of $1,100 cut to $300:

"— Judge Mae D’Agostino of the Northern District of New York, giving the reasons for slashing Paul Clement’s customary $1,100 hourly rate to $300 per hour when awarding attorneys’ fees in Osterweil v. Bartlett, a Second Amendment case.

(For what it’s worth, $1,100 was Clement’s hourly rate in 2011, when he was began representing Osterweil. Clement’s current hourly rate is $1,350. Osterweil would’ve been getting a deal!)"

  

Another Bancroft attorney was denied his claim that he worked while driving to the office.

Obamacare is not a new topic for this company.  They represented the 26 states that went to the Supreme Court over  Obamacare in 2012.

Anchorage based firm:  Holmes, Weddle, and Barcott.



Who's Calling The Shots Here?

Not clear.  We know that the Koch supported Americans For Prosperity has been strongly opposed to Obamacare.  Presumably they are working with key members of the House and Senate Majorities on this.  But we shouldn't leap to conclusions.  Maybe others are involved too.   It would be interesting to learn who Meyers, Chenault, and the others talk to behind closed doors and what they talk about.

The members of the Majority seem to believe that they are immune to electoral removal.  Redistricting has given many of them comfortable seats.  But I don't suspect they realize how many people are affected by this who may well be motivated to vote in 2016.

Not only are they still dragging their feet on expanding Medicaid, but they've allocated up to $450,000 on this for their attorneys.  And the governor's office will probably have to spend just as much to defend his decision.  Sure is easy to spend other people's money, it seems.  The Republicans also spent millions of dollars over the years in unsuccessful lobbying efforts to open up ANWR.

Obama Offers Refuge On US Land To Nine Climate Threatened Nations

President Obama today announced that the US would provide new homelands for the nine most climate-change endangered island nations in the world (see table below).  Here is part of the text of the president's speech: 

These nine nations, with a total land size of 1300 square miles (almost the size of Yosemite National Park, 4/5 the size of Rhode Island, and 2/3 the size of Anchorage, Alaska) with a total population of just under 900.000 (less than 1/3 of one percent of the US population), are severely threatened by sea level rise caused by global warming.

These are independent nations whose very existence is threatened by changes in the world's climate caused, in large part, by the side effects of our great prosperity.  We have a moral obligation to the people of these nations, an obligation to assure them that the world will not only find space for them to live, but will also respect their cultures and sovereignty.

There are many different ways the world can react to the crisis faced by these nations.  The world has shown, time and again, its generosity to nations suffering from natural disasters.  But the nations of the world often take a long time to come to agreements  to assist in  human caused disasters.  Thus, today I am guaranteeing that if, by 2020, the United Nations or other international bodies have not found a fair and suitable way to relocate these nations, the United States will find federally owned land in the United States.  The people of each nation must decide whether they want to remain sovereign nations or not.  If they do, they can have the same status US Indian tribes have as sovereign nations within the United States.

These are just the nine nations most immediately threatened by climate change.  I am taking the lead today in this, in hopes that other nations will quickly line up to assist the other nations that will face climate change related disasters later."

Pacific Ocean	Caribbean Sea	Indian Ocean	Size m2 / k2	Population
Marshall Islands			70/181	68,000
Kiribati			313/811	103,500
Tuvalu			10/26	10, 837
Tonga			289/748	103,036
Federated States of Micronesia			271/702	106,104
Cook Islands			91/240	19,569
	Antigua		108/281	80,161
	Nevis		35/93	12,106
		Maldives	115/298	393,500

From Reuters Youtube of Maldives President Cabinet Meeting

The president of the Maldives sent an official thank you letter after a cabinet meeting in their under water chamber.  Other island presidents praised Obama for his humanity and foresight. 

Republicans in the House and Senate were quick to blast the president.  Former Canadian citizen  Ted Cruz blasted the president for proposing to bring more immigrants to the US before solving the existing immigration problem.  He went on to say it was totally unnecessary anyway: 

"The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming. Contrary to all the theories that – that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn't happened,"

House Speaker John Boehner found the idea of giving federal land to foreigners outrageous.  

"That land belongs to the states it's in."

Senate majority leader  Mitch McConnell was nearly unintelligible, his face red and contorted, as he listened to the speech.  

"Half those lands are former British colonies.  Let the English take them in."

In response to reporters' questions about his critics' charges, Obama said,

"The United States is also a former British colony, and few of us would choose to go back to Great Britain.  And yes, there are low lying US cities that are threatened, like Manhattan and Miami.  We will help New Yorkers cope as their island goes underwater.  Remember, too, they are United States citizens who have the right to move anywhere in the US.   However, we are certain that Floridians, whose governor has banned the terms climate change and global warming, will trust that Governor Scott will also ban climate change itself.  We will, of course, send scuba gear for residents, just in case their governor's voodoo doesn't work. 

All of the critics of this policy are also strong supporters, as am I,  of Israel, a country that was created in the Middle East, at a time when the Jewish people faced the possibility of extinction.  If we can ask the people who were living in what now is Israel to share their land, surely Americans can share a tiny fraction of our land with these tiny island nations."

Three law suits have already been  filed in federal courts challenging the president's power to carry out any of these promises.  For the president's complete speech and Republican responses, click here.    For people who wish to know more about this issue, here is a report I've found since writing, but before publishing, this post.

Speaking of Conspiracies - "I cannot be certain that they were all humans"

I got this email yesterday.  Generally these go straight to junk, but with the conspiracy theme in my head, I decided to look.  These people should either be getting psychiatric help and/or writing science fiction, except there's no science involved.  This is just an excerpt.

After I prayed today with a friend, our Blessed Saviour gave me several visions relative to the ebola plague, its spread in this nation and also its spread in some other nations. . .

After seeing this nation, which seemed to be covered in blood, I saw piles of dead people. The dead seemed to pile up so quickly! In great heaps, they were piled up! Then, I saw workers, who took the dead, who were stashed in plastic bags, and they began to toss the heaps of dead bodies into open box cars and onto long flat-bed trucks. Thereafter, I saw them unload masses of these dead bodies and throw them into empty houses and set afire those houses, which were stacked with dead bodies and they burned the bodies and the houses together! Then, I saw these workers take more bodies and throw them into square pits, which had concrete bottoms and concrete sides, but were otherwise open pits and on top of the bodies, they poured accelerants and set afire these bodies and burned them in this way.

After I received the above part of this vision, I then was taken into an underground base and there I saw the President of this nation. Along with him were a small group of people, though I cannot be certain that they were all humans; and I say this because of the high-reptile hybrids, who look like humans. However, they are not human, but can be up to 99% reptilian and they are very great enemies of all people.

I watched them there and I knew that they were in the midst of a plot, a very great plot, indeed; and that plot was to determine how to spread this virus among the people in this nation at a more alarming rate. I saw what they plotted, at least some of it, and firstly I saw that they were planning to put this virus into packaged meat in some of the grocery stores. Then, I saw that they were plotting to put some of this virus into open reservoirs of drinking water. Then, I saw that they were plotting to release terrorists into shopping centers, who would run quickly from one to another shopper and inject certain of these unsuspecting shoppers with the ebola virus, and thereafter flee! . . ." [emphasis added]

Yet people think the CIA raising money for Nicaraguan arms by selling drugs (see previous post)  is far-fetched and they belief this deluded fantasy.  The reptilian stuff is listed at Mother Jones' list of Obama conspiracies.  It's second from the end today as i write, but surely more will be added quickly.   The email did not ask for money or even have a link.  But I guess when I opened it they took all the information they needed from my computer.  Oh, yeah, another conspiracy. 

Why The Senator Who Opposed Torture, As President Says "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

In Obama's talk this morning he used the euphemism "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques."   What he means is torture.  This post speculates on why he uses that term.  I don't come up with a final answer (as if anyone ever does), but I wanted to think this one through a bit and maybe some people will be reminded not to be distracted by euphemisms. 

In an interview with Time magazine, Ralph Keyes, the author of  Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms, said people use euphemisms:

 "to deflect us — and maybe even themselves — about what they're doing. .  .

David Lloyd George — he was Prime Minister of Britain during World War I — once said that if we ever spoke plainly and clearly about what was going on on the battlefields, the public would demand that we bring an end to war."

The euphemism is bad enough, but at the CIA it's been shortened to EITs. 


Am I exaggerating about this being torture?

From ABC News in 2005:

"The CIA sources described a list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt."

 But is that torture?   Remember, these are just the things they talked about openly. 

One of the CIA agents quoted in the story uses the word 'torture':

"It is "bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough," said former CIA officer Bob Baer." 

Judge for yourself with this example: 

"According to CIA sources, Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, after two weeks of enhanced interrogation, made statements that were designed to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear. Sources say Al Libbi had been subjected to each of the progressively harsher techniques in turn and finally broke after being water boarded and then left to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals"

The piece goes on to say the prisoner actually had no knowledge of what the interrogators wanted but made things up

  "because he was terrified of further harsh treatment"

An NBC investigative report on the movie Zero Dark Thirty which put American torture of terrorist suspects on the big screen for all to see, reports:

Working with Mitchell Jessen & Associates, the CIA soon developed a menu of 20 enhanced techniques – a list that was ultimately whittled down to 10, mainly because some of proposed techniques were considered too harsh even for terrorists.
“Not everything they proposed was part of the final menu,” said a former senior intelligence official, also speaking on condition of anonymity. “They came up with some stuff people didn’t like and were not approved. … There were legal tests. … Does it shock the conscience?  Does it lead to deep long-lasting injuries?”

I guess the question is whose conscience?  An average citizen or a psychopath?

But let's stop beating around the bush.  Here's what the UN Convention Against Torture, Part I, Article 1 says:  

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. 

There's no doubt that by international standards, "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" are torture.  


Why does Obama use this term?

It's depressing that the senator and presidential candidate who opposed  torture, now as president not only condones it, but he hides behind the euphemism "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques." 

I assume that his many security advisers have convinced him that certain activities are necessary, or at least have given him enough doubt that he hasn't outright banned torture.  And he's also been told, I'm sure, that he can't use the word torture or he will make the US and perhaps himself, vulnerable to international sanctions and perhaps

The US is a signatory to the UN Law Against Torture, but has a long list of official 'reservations.'  Perhaps we can call them quibbles about the meaning of 'torture.'  Thus, using Enhanced Interrogation Techniques is a way of saying that we are not using torture.  From the United Nations Treaty Collection:

       II. The Senate's advice and consent is subject to the following understandings, which shall apply to the obligations of the United States under this Convention:
       (1) (a) That with reference to article 1, the United States understands that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.
       (b) That the United States understands that the definition of torture in article 1 is intended to apply only to acts directed against persons in the offender's custody or physical control.
       (c) That with reference to article 1 of the Convention, the United States understands that `sanctions' includes judicially-imposed sanctions and other enforcement actions authorized by United States law or by judicial interpretation of such law. Nonetheless, the United States understands that a State Party could not through its domestic sanctions defeat the object and purpose of the Convention to prohibit torture.
       (d) That with reference to article 1 of the Convention, the United States understands that the term `acquiescence' requires that the public official, prior to the activity constituting torture, have awareness of such activity and thereafter breach his legal responsibility to intervene to prevent such activity.
       (e) That with reference to article 1 of the Convention, the Unites States understands that noncompliance with applicable legal procedural standards does not per se constitute torture.
       (2) That the United States understands the phrase, `where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture,' as used in article 3 of the Convention, to mean `if it is more likely than not that he would be tortured.'
       (3) That it is the understanding of the United States that article 14 requires a State Party to provide a private right of action for damages only for acts of torture committed in territory under the jurisdiction of that State Party.
       (4) That the United States understands that international law does not prohibit the death penalty, and does not consider this Convention to restrict or prohibit the United States from applying the death penalty consistent with the Fifth, Eighth and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, including any constitutional period of confinement prior to the imposition of the death penalty.
       (5) That the United States understands that this Convention shall be implemented by the United States Government to the extent that it exercises legislative and judicial jurisdiction over the matters covered by the Convention and otherwise by the state and local governments. Accordingly, in implementing articles 10-14 and 16, the United States Government shall take measures appropriate to the Federal system to the end that the competent authorities of the constituent units of the United States of America may take appropriate measures for the fulfilment of the Convention.
       III. The Senate's advice and consent is subject to the following declarations:
       (1) That the United States declares that the provisions of articles 1 through 16 of the Convention are not self-executing.

I can't imagine that the US Congress would put up with external inquiries into US torture.  They simply would refuse to comply and start withdrawing support for international organizations that tried to enforce sanctions against the US.  The US is still powerful enough to do that. 

But it would be embarrassing and it would officially lower the status of the US world wide.  I'd note that most members of Congress seem to dismiss the opinions of people who oppose what they believe.

For more on this topic, the ACLU has a number of links.

Here's also a CATO Institute comment on torture. 

[This post is evidence of my blogging addiction.  I have other things to do today, but the President's euphemism wouldn't let go of me until I wrote this.  A (bigger?) issue that will have to wait til later is the unspoken acknowledgement that what Snowden did was important.   It's not as proofed and checked as most posts.  I'll check on it again when I get my to do list done.  Your help in fisxing things is appreciated.]

If Biogenesis Had a Contract With NSA - Headlines Would Be About Stolen Data, Not Baseball Players' Drug Use - Obama Responds

The information which led to the suspension of a dozen major league baseball players this week, was stolen from the company.  A disgruntled client/employee/investor took boxes of data and released the information to the press.

From the Anchorage Daily News:

"Porter Fischer, a former employee of the now-infamous Biogenesis clinic in Miami, told ESPN's "Outside the Lines" that there are at least a dozen more athletes across numerous professional sports leagues that have yet to be exposed.
Fischer turned the Biogenesis clinic investigation into a national scandal when he turned boxes of documents over to the Miami New Times last year."

But the reaction of the nation led by the media is in stark contrast to the reaction to the whistle blowers who released information to the world, at great personal risk, because they thought the public needed to be aware of what was being done by the government.  I'm not necessarily endorsing the actions of the whistle-blowers, but I'm sympathetic to their motivation.

Propublica has a timeline of people prosecuted under the Espionage Act.   Here are the key people on it:

• 1971: Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo indicted
• 1985: Samuel Morison convicted
• January 2006: Lawrence Franklin convicted
• May 2010: Shamai Leibowitz convicted
• August 2010: Stephen Kim indicted
• December 2010: Jeffrey Sterling indicted
• Jun. 2011: Case against Thomas Drake dropped
• October 2012: John Kiriakou convicted
• June 14, 2013: Edward Snowden Charged  
• July 30, 2013: Bradley Manning Convicted 

John Kiriakou, one of the men on the list, recently wrote:

"President Obama has been unprecedented in his use of the Espionage Act to prosecute those whose whistleblowing he wants to curtail. The purpose of an Espionage Act prosecution, however, is not to punish a person for spying for the enemy, selling secrets for personal gain, or trying to undermine our way of life. It is to ruin the whistleblower personally, professionally and financially. It is meant to send a message to anybody else considering speaking truth to power: challenge us and we will destroy you.

Only ten people in American history have been charged with espionage for leaking classified information, seven of them under Barack Obama."

 
The leaks of classified documents by people working for government raises many questions, about the leakers and about the government and its reaction to the leakers. However, there is a great difference between whistle blowers and spies.

Spies sell information to foreign governments for profit, because they are being blackmailed, because of ideology, or a combination of more than one of these.  A report on the motivation of spies on this US Department of Agriculture site by By Dr. Mike Gelles Naval Criminal Investigative Service says that most spies have personal issues that the organization should be looking for.  But this report is about spies, not about whistle blowers. 

True whistle blowers believe that the government is doing something that is in serious violation of the law and poses a danger to the public if the information is not released.  They can be right or wrong about this.  And its possible that the information they release causes some danger as well as needed information.  This has some similarity to when a dangerous prisoner is released because the technical rules of justice were violated.  We balance two different important values.

Reporters prosecuted for espionage raise even greater issues.  John Kiriakou writes:

Two of my espionage charges were the result of a conversation I had with a New York Times reporter about torture. I gave him no classified information – only the business card of a former CIA colleague who had never been undercover. The other espionage charge was for giving the same unclassified business card to a reporter for ABC News. All three espionage charges were eventually dropped.

People in power have always tried to keep information from the public.  Some of it is legitimately withheld - the Freedom of Information Act outlines the kinds of information that is exempted from release.  But often, information that the people should know is hidden by those exemptions.

The film  Dirty Wars  which we saw Monday night is one more account of the serious abuse of secrecy in the federal government.  The film raises many questions, I don't have time to pursue now.

Knowledge of what our government is doing is critical to citizens of a democracy making good choices when they vote.   One can't help wonder how much the government is hiding simply because it is embarrassing.  The Municipality of Anchorage, for example, when it settles with someone who has sued the Municipality, includes language which requires the person to not disclose the details of the settlement.  When asked by the media (if they are paying attention at all) about the settlement, the Muni officials say the conditions of the settlement prevent them from saying anything.  Even though this is a condition they insist on and require.  Basically, this is to keep the public from knowing what the Muni did wrong and how much they paid to make it go away.

And yesterday I read that the encrypted email service David Snowden used has shut down:

"The statement posted online by Lavabit owner Ladar Levison hinted that the Dallas-based company had been forbidden from revealing what was going on."

The release of millions of classified documents by Bradley Manning and David Snowden raises huge questions about [the culpability of the government's handling of this sort of data such as:]

• how these folks had access to all this information
• how they  could download and store this information without detection, without the computer programs alerting officials to what was happening
• why private contractors are doing this work 
• how contracting out this work sets up an interest group with motivation to lobby Congress to increase the amount of secrecy and spying

[The government has pushed the danger of terrorism, it seems, in part to keep the focus off questions on their lax security procedures.]

The amount of media attention on these issues has been tiny.

Yet, when Porter Fisher walks off with Biogenesis files and makes them public, the attention is on the drug use of the subjects of the files, not on the breach of the confidentiality of their medical records or on the theft of the files.

How we handle whistleblowers, whether government employees, private contractors, or the journalists who publish the information the leak, is a problem which may be evolving into the biggest danger to democracy in the US today as the NSA, FBI, CIA, the White House and their many corporate contractors, ruthlessly work to silence anyone who dares to reveal their actions.  


Obama came on the radio as I'm finishing this, responding to some of these issues.  Does that means he's monitoring my computer and reading my posts before I even publish them?  I'm sure they don't even know this blog exists.  Here are the four points Obama made:

1. Reforms to Sec. 215 of the Patriot Act
2. Oversight  over the FISA Court - they only hear one side of the issue, they can have adversarial procedures with civil liberty groups expressing their concerns act  in the courts
3. We can be more transparent - instructed inteeligence agency to be as transparent as possible and a website of intelligency agencies to be more transparent and explain what it's doing
4. High level group of outside experts to review and recommend - interim report in 60 days and final report by the end of the year

Now he's answering questions.  You can listen live here.

Metaphor of the Day - The Fiscal Cliff, Where Conservative PAC Money Went

You can't listen to any media lately without hearing 'Fiscal Cliff' repeated over and over.

Metaphors, if they are apt, can help us visualize the abstract.  When Winston Churchill called the border between the East and West in post-war Europe the Iron Curtain, he used a metaphor that vividly brought to life what was happening.  It was a metaphor that stuck.

But many metaphors don't capture the situation so cleanly.  Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty was intended to portray the policy as a strong military mobilization to end poverty.  It came from people whose idea of war was World War II, who weren't considering Korea, and who still believed they were going to win in Vietnam.  Even more problematic was figuring out who "the enemy" in this war was.  Some began to think it was the poor people themselves.  There is a similar problem with the other main War metaphor - War on Drugs.  Drugs seem to be thriving, it's the drug users that have been the enemy.  But like war, it swallows up money.

And people can get in trouble when they mix metaphors as in this gem from Examiner:

"failure of the super committee to reach agreement also triggered the fiscal cliff"

I'll let you visualize that yourself.


So, the question is, how good a metaphor is The Fiscal Cliff?

It's a powerful visual image.  But does it accurately portray the situation?  What or who is going over the cliff?  The country?  The money?  The Democrats?  The Republicans?

Maybe it's what conservative PACs threw all their money over during the election.    

Going over a cliff isn't always fatal either.

Everyone seems to agree that our debt is too high. They disagree on how to fix it and on the timing of the solutions.   I would argue that very few of  us actually understand economics in general and the economic situation of the US and the world well enough to actually know.  Of course, that's where a good metaphor comes in - even if we don't understand, we can all picture a car driving toward a cliff.  So we all feel a certain amount of tension.  Is it the tension we feel watching a car in a movie?  Or is it the tension we would feel if we were in the car itself?

Let's look at a different metaphor for a second.  Conservatives regularly talk about 'running government like a business." I can talk a long time why you can't run government like a business, but let's focus on one aspect where the conservatives NEVER quite apply business principles to government:  Accounting.

In business accounting you list the company's debits AND CREDITS.  When they talk about government, they never consider all the assets.  And if we were to add up the government's assets - all the land, all the buildings, all the wealth in terms of art, historical objects, roads, bridges, airports, human capital, and on and on - it would show us comfortably in the black.

No, they only look at the debit column.  What would happen to Wall Street if all we saw in the annual reports were the companies' debts but not their assets?  Government money spent on education and infrastructure is an investment in future assets. Back to cliffs now.

How did we get to the edge of this cliff?

The Republicans, from my perspective, were playing chicken with the US economy.  Under Bush, they cut revenues by cutting taxes and added to expenses with two costly wars.  Additionally, they cut regulations setting up the banking crisis.  There's no question, Democrats helped them.  Those Democrats seemed to accept that Bush was president and should be allowed to try his policy.  Ultimately, the Republicans were the drivers who led our country to the cliff.  Once we went over that cliff at the end of the Bush administration and the Republicans handed the car keys over to Obama, they locked into a game metaphor - and winning was the only option.  Say a game of poker.  They were going to force Obama to fold by refusing to compromise on taxes and refuse anything he wanted.  If they blocked all his initiatives, they could make him look bad and win the election and then they could do what they wanted again.  McConnell even told us that their top priority was defeating President Obama. 


Except now we know the winning the election part didn't work.

Congress passed The Budget Control Act of 2011 as a way to force themselves to make necessary budget cuts.  It set up a joint committee to come up with ways to reign in the debt (another metaphor).  If the committee failed sequestration (automatic cuts) would kick in to reduce the gap between  Congress' cuts and the spending limit:

•  These cuts would apply to mandatory and discretionary spending in the years 2013 to 2021 and be in an amount equal to the difference between $1.2 trillion and the amount of deficit reduction enacted from the joint committee. There would be some exemptions: reductions would apply to Medicare providers, but not to Social Security, Medicaid, civil and military employee pay, or veterans.^[4][5] Medicare benefits would be limited to a 2% reduction.^[7]

As originally envisioned, these caps would equally affect security and non-security programs. Security programs would include the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Nuclear Security Administration, some management functions of the intelligence community and international affairs from the U.S. State Department.^[8] However, because the Joint Select Committee did not report any legislation to Congress, the act reset these caps^{[clarification needed]} to defense (essentially the DOD) and non-defense categories.^{[9]    [from Wikipedia]}

But the Super Committee did fail to agree and now the Budget Act Reductions plus the expiration of the Bush tax cuts are the Fiscal Cliff people are talking about.

Because they lost the election.  Rhe Republicans' bluff (no increase in taxes) has been called and they are left with the worst of both worlds - Bush tax cuts ending and what they believe are unacceptable cuts to the military.  (I really thought that the Fox News predictions of a big Romney win were cynical fodder to get the masses to want to join the winners by voting for Mitt, but it's appearing that they believed their own hype.)


So, now the House and Senate both appear to have gained a few more Democratic members and Obama's still in the White House.

One thing Republicans do understand is winning and losing and on this morning's post election interviews, Republicans weren't even spinning the results.  They were admitting they lost, that Obama won.  They respect winners, even winners they don't like.

They declared war on Obama's reelection and they lost. Unlike the economy, the election outcome is clear and concrete.  They didn't achieve their top priority.  As they examine why, is it possible they might figure out that the American public doesn't like the stalemate (a chess metaphor) in Congress?  It sure seems that Republicans have a lot more to lose by driving over this 'Fiscal Cliff' than the Democrats in terms of priorities.

I suspect, but I'm not sure, that we all stand to lose a lot.  But I don't understand all the details enough to know how much pain we'll suffer collectively, who will suffer more and who less, and whether the short term pain might lead to long term improvement.  Not letting the Budget Control Act go into effect would definitely be smoother.  Not letting all the Bush tax cuts expire during an economic recovery would be smoother.  But if we do go over the cliff, I don't know who will end up dead, who will end up injured, and who will get up and walk away ok.

Meanwhile, on this day after the election, the bottom of Fiscal Cliff could very appropriately describe where conservative PAC billions were thrown during the campaign.

It appears that Citizens United has led to the biggest income transfer from the rich in quite a while. 

The Presidential Race As A Sporting Event - Part 1

Anyone else getting tired of the sporting event treatment of the presidential election?

The political season, it seems, has less than a month to go and we're into the playoffs.  There are two basic themes I hear in the coverage:

1.  Who's up and who's down?  There's a sense of the multistage competition of gymnastics or diving.  Each event (from the primary elections to the debates) gives the candidate to gain or lose in relation to the other competitors.  The announcers discuss their strengths and weaknesses and what they are going to have to do to gain points and to avoid errors in each event. But there's also the one-to-one battle of boxing.  Other sports metaphors abound.   Some examples:

San Francisco Chronicle:

"Obama, Romney rematch could set TV ratings records"

Forbes:

"It’s almost kick off time to the second presidential debate. Before we begin, a few things to watch for—

. . . the key for Governor Romney will be to make a connection with the people in the audience who will be posing the questions. If Romney can make the people believe that he ‘feels their pain’, it will be difficult for Romney to be declared a loser tonight, no matter how well the President may perform. For President Obama, it is not just a matter of ‘showing up’, he is going to have to both defend the past four years and, more importantly, lay out a very clear vision for what he has in mind for the next four years. He will also need to find a way to be far more aggressive than his first debate performance without crossing the line into Joe Biden territory

From the Washington Post website:

More from PostPolitics

Second debate: Winners and losers

Chris Cillizza OCT 16

THE FIX | The second presidential debate is history. Who did the best? Who did the worst?

2.  Then there is the addition of fact checking this year.  It's been there in the past, but mostly it was done on blogs.  Now fact checking has gone mainstream.  This would seem to be a positive development.  Someone is paying attention to what people are actually saying, not just whether they look and sound presidential saying it.

But it's mostly "did he say X on this Tuesday and Y on Monday?"   Tuesday night I heard them checking whether Obama had used the word terrorism in his Rose Garden speech after the Benghazi consulate was attacked.  Yes, fact checking is important, and I applaud this addition to the scene.  But often it too becomes trivial.  What's missing are the bigger questions about policy and what it all means.

Generally,  the fact checking is just an extension of 1) - who is up and who is down?  We aren't checking facts in a quest for truth and understanding, but to get closer to determining who will win or lose.

For the media, it probably makes sense to treat elections the way they treat sporting events.  It reduces the election to a contest to determine the winners and losers, not to elevate everyone's understanding of the issues.  It raises suspense.  It doesn't require a lot of research or figuring out how to interpret complicated subjects like health care or the economy.   The hype brings in viewers.  More viewers mean more ad revenue.

And for most of us, it simply doesn't matter.

The candidates have figured out that most people already know how they will vote.  Because the winner is chosen by the electoral college vote and not the popular vote, most states aren't even in play.   Even if a candidate wins by a million votes in California, that extra million doesn't count for anything.

So, the candidates' focus is on the small group of undecideds in a few states.  270TOWin identifies eleven states.  (270 electoral votes are needed to win the election.)

The LA Times, in May, created a map that shows 8 "battleground" (sports announcers love war imagery) states.   Let's look at who the candidates are wooing. 

State- 270 To win list	% undecided	LA Times List	Total Reg Voters	Number of Undecided
Colorado	5	√	2,300,000	115,000
Florida	5	√	8,000,000	400,000
Iowa	5	√	1,500,000	75,000
Michigan	6		5,000,000	300,000
Nevada	5		1,000,000	50,000
New Hampshire	6	√	700,000	42,000
North Carolina	3	√	4,500,000	135,000
Ohio	4	√	5,600,000	224,000
Pennsylvania	4		6,000,000	240,000
Virginia	9	√	3,500,000	315,000
Wisconsin	2	√	2,900,000	58,000
Total USA:	1.4%		137,000,000	1,954,000

HTML Tables

   
According to this, all the media coverage we're getting is about  less than 2 million people, 1.4% of registered voters, who can't make up their minds.  Bill Maher's comment on this situation, summed up from this video, is:

"And that, in a nutshell, is America's celebrated, undecided voter: put on a pedestal by the media as if they were Hamlet in a think-tank, searching out every last bit of information, high-minded arbiters pouring over policy positions and matching them against their own philosophies. Please, they mostly fall into a category political scientists call 'low information voters,' otherwise known as 'dipsh*ts.'"

I imagine that people who can't make up their minds are NOT going to decide whom to vote for based on the issues.  It's going to be how they feel about the candidates.
So,  the candidates are pretty much ignoring the 135 million people who either have made up their minds already or are in states where the outcome is pretty certain and they're  pouring their campaign attention and dollars on the 1.9 million undecideds in the 'battleground' states.

The only thing the candidates want from the rest of us is money and labor to turn those undecideds  and to make sure their supporters vote.  I've heard of Anchorage political volunteers being used to call people in Colorado. 

The media, on the other hand, need all of us to watch or read or listen, so they are using the simplest and most successful story line they know:  a sports battle. 

This is politics as entertainment.  It's not politics as an opportunity for national discussion about our future.  It's not analysis of critical issues.  It's simple, black and white:  who's going to win and who's going to lose?  Foreign policy, the economy, the environment, education, war, and all the other burning issues we face are just tea leaves for pundits to ponder to predict who will win and and who will lose. 

And this probably isn't very different from every other election in our history. A little more divisive maybe, but just as simplistic. 

Tigers, Human/Nature Relationship, Free Enterprise, Romney

The tigers are coming, but hold on for some context.

Contrasting world views is an important underlying factor in the sharp political divisions in the US today.  Republicans call this "the culture wars."  There are lots of factors to consider, but let's look narrowly at one very important one:  differences in people's idea of the relationship between humans and nature.

John Vaillant, in his book Tiger:  True Story of Vengeance and Survival (here's a previous post on that book), looks at how differing world views clash in the frontiers of the Russian Far East. His book focuses on the survival of wild tigers, but the process is repeated all over the world with different species and different indigenous peoples.

The modern world came about when humans began to apply science to most human activities including the economy.  With science, it was believed,  humans were no longer at the mercy of nature.  Using science, humans could now control, even conquer nature.

Science has enabled humans to create what in previous times would have been considered miracles.  Free enterprise enabled us to make and sell the amazing feats of science.  We became gods who could rearrange nature to suit us.  But there have been terrible side effects.  So let's go to Vaillant's Russian Far East - near Kharbarovsk - to see the contrasting views on nature and humans.

"Prior to the arrival of Chinese gold miners and Russian settlers, there appeared to be minimum conflict between humans and tigers in what is now Primorye.  Game was abundant, human populations were relatively small, and there was plenty of room for all in the vast temperate jungles of coastal Manchuria.  Furthermore, the Manchus, Udeghe, Nania, and Orochi, all of whom are Tunguisic peoples long habituated to living with tigers, knew their place;  they were animists who held tigers in the highest regard and did their best to stay out of their way.  But when Russian colonists began arriving in the seventeenth century, these carefully managed agreements began to break down.  People in Krasny Yar still tell stories about the first time their grandparents saw Russians: huge creatures covered in red hair with blue eyes and skin as pale as a dead man’s." (141)

Earlier in the book he wrote about how the indigenous populations in other parts of the world - like the Bushmen in the Kalahari desert - who had similar relationships with lions.   He also makes comparisons between the Russian Far East and the conquest of North America. 

"Some of these newcomers were Orthodox missionaries and though they were unarmed, their rigid convictions took a serious toll on native society.  The word “shaman” is a Tungusic word, and in the Far East in the mid-nineteenth century, shamanism had reached a highly evolved state.  For shamans and their followers who truly believed in the gods they served and in the powers they wielded, to have them disdained by missionaries and swept into irrelevance by foreign governments and technology was psychically devastating - a catastrophic loss of power and status comparable to that experience by the Russian nobility when the Bolsheviks came to power.  (141-142)

Anyone familiar with Alaska Native history is familiar with stories of Native drumming and dancing being banned and  kids having their mouths washed out with soap for speaking their own languages at school. And I can't help think that part of today's cultural wars are due to the same sense of loss of power and sense of entitlement by those Americans who are threatened by the rapid changes in the world today. 

In Primorye, this traumatic process continued into the 1950s.  The Udeghe author Alexander Konchuga is descended from a line of shamans and shamankas, and he grew up in their company.  “Local authorities did not prohibit it,”  he explained.  “The attitude was, if you’re drumming at night, that’s your business.  But the officials in the regional centers were against it and, in 1955, when I was still a student, some militia came to my cousin’s grandmother.  Someone must have snitched on her and told them she was a shamanka because they took away her drums and burned them  She couldn’t take it and she hanged herself.”  The drum is the membrane through which the shaman communicates with, and travels to, the spirit world.  For the shaman, the drum is a vital organ and life is inconceivable without it. 

Along with spiritual and social disruption came dramatic changes in the environment.  One Nanai story collected around 1915 begins, “Once upon a time, before the Russians burned the forests down . . .” (142)

It wasn't until the arrival of foreign settlers with livestock that tiger problems arose.  Vaillant met and interviewed Valery Yankovsky and writes about the history of settlement with a focuses on the Yankovsky family. 

“. . . the Yankovsky family hadn’t lived in their new home a year before they registered their first losses.  Between 1889 and 1920, tigers killed scores of the Yankovskys’ animals - everything from dogs to cattle.  Once a tiger dragged one of their hired men from his horse.

In the eyes of the Russian settlers, tigers were simply four-legged bandits, and the Yankovskys retaliated accordingly.  Unlike the animist Udeghe who were native to the region, or the Chinese and Korean Buddhists who pioneered there, the Christian Russians behaved like owners as opposed to inhabiters.  As with lion-human relations in the Kalahari, the breakdown began in earnest with the introduction of domestic animals.  But it wasn’t just the animals, it was the attitude that went with them.  These newcomers arrived as entitled conquerors with no understanding of, or particular interest in, the local culture - human or otherwise.  Like their New World counterparts across the Pacific, theirs, too, was a manifest destiny:  they had a mandate, in many cases from the czar himself, and they took an Orthodox, Old Testament approach to both property and predators.  (148) (emphasis added)

So similar to whites moving into Indian country in North American, and Westerners colonizing much of the world.  There was a sense of their superiority.  Manifest destiny.  They had better weapons, better ships, and better science created technology, not to mention religion.  Many truly believed they were entitled to take over, because of their perceived superiority, and some - particularly the missionaries - believed their presence would "help the natives."

Vaillant compares Yankovsky world view to that of an indigenous inhabitant of the region.

“. . .Even a hundred years later, Ivan Dunkai’s son Vasily’s description of his relationship to the local tigers stands in stark contrast to a Russian settler’s.  “You know, there are two hunters in the taiga:  a man and a tiger,”  he explained in March 2007.  “As professional hunters, we respect each other:  he chooses his path and I choose mine.  Sometimes our paths intersect, but we do not intrude on each other in any way.  The taiga is his home;  he is the master.  I am also a master in my own home, but he lives in the taiga all the time;  I don’t.” 

This disparity between the Yankovskys and the Dunkais is traceable to a fundamental conflict - not just between Russians and indigenous peoples, but with tigers - around the role of human beings in the natural world.  In Primorye, ambitious Russian homesteaders operated under the assumption that they had been granted dominion over the land - just as God had granted it to Noah, the original homesteader:

1.   Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth
2.  And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth

Implicit in these lines from Genesis 9 is the belief that there is no room for two on the forest throne.  And yet, in a different context, these words could apply as easily to tigers as they do to humans.  In so many words, God puts the earth and all its creatures at their disposal:

3.  Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you;  even as the green herb have I given you all things.  (150)

. . .It is only in the past two hundred years - out of two million - that humans have seriously contested the tiger’s claim to the forest and all it contains.  As adaptable as tigers are, they have not evolved to accommodate this latest change in their environment, and this lack of flexibility, when combined with armed, entitled humans and domestic animals, is a recipe for disaster.  (151)

The past two hundred years.  The onset of the modern world in which science was applied to human enterprise and the market system, articulated by Adam Smith in 1776, began to  develop into the industrial revolution.

 Mitt Romney seems clearly entrenched in the modern ideal of science  helping humans conquer nature, which has led to globe threatening development.  Romney referred to this period this week in his talk at the Clinton Global Initiative:

The best example of the good free enterprise can do for the developing world is the example of the developed world itself. My friend Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute has pointed out that before the year 1800, living standards in the West were appalling. A person born in the eighteenth century lived essentially as his great-great-grandfather had. Life was filled with disease and danger.

But starting in 1800, the West began two centuries of free enterprise and trade. Living standards rose. Literacy spread. Health improved. In our own country, between 1820 and 1998, real per capita GDP increased twenty-two-fold.  (emphasis added)

While modern medicine and agriculture have improved the lives of many, and living conditions of Europe and the United States improved greatly, those European nations had colonies around the world that gave them cheap resources and labor.  The US, itself a colony before it broke off from England, took advantage of the enormous wealth of North America by displacing the indigenous populations and exploiting the resources, with slave labor, with waves and waves of immigrant labor, and with imported, cheap Asian labor.

Also, the world population has increased from a billion in 1804 to over 7 billion in 2012.  Yet despite the improvements Romney cites the World Food Programme reports that:

10.9 million children under five die in developing countries each year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths;

Actually another of their statistics shows that the number of hungry people in the world today is almost as high as the total world population in 1804.  So, there is probably much more suffering in the world today than 200 years ago.

• 925 million people do not have enough to eat  and 98 percent of them live in developing countries. (Source: FAO news release, 14 September 2010)

And during that period, to achieve the physical standard of living that the most 'developed' countries have,  humans have had to destroy the world's forests and oceans and sky, so that most indigenous populations have been either physically or culturally annihilated, and untold numbers of animal, bird, and plant species have gone extinct and more are threatened with extinction at an even faster rate today.  See Global Issues, library index, Forest Transitions, or the Sustainable Scale Project for details.

Vaillant's The Tiger details some of that change from living in harmony with nature to the sense of entitlement and dominance over nature in one small part of the world. 

Mitt Romney would continue this trend by expanding US businesses into every possible country where they can continue to exploit the resources to the detriment of the inhabitants.  Romney, like the Russian Czars and the Soviet bosses, sees this as humans' natural dominance over nature and doesn't seem to consider the possibility that Western colonization and exploitation of African and Asian nations (where most of today's world poverty exists) might have something to do with the poverty in those continents today.  To him it's simply the lack of free enterprise, not because they were the victims of free enterprise.

Conditions among indigenous peoples around the world may have been primitive compared to modern Western standards, but most of those cultures had survived intact over the millennia and now many, if not most, have been destroyed or are endangered - usually because their habitats have been devastated by deforestation or other resource extraction by Western business interests. Romney goes on:

"As the most prosperous nation in history, it is our duty to keep the engine of prosperity running—to open markets across the globe and to spread prosperity to all corners of the earth. We should do it because it’s the right moral course to help others." (emphasis added)

We are, he tells us, the most prosperous nation in history.  And so we have a duty to spread the free market system:

To foster work and enterprise in the Middle East and in other developing countries, I will initiate “Prosperity Pacts.” Working with the private sector, the program will identify the barriers to investment, trade, and entrepreneurialism in developing nations. In exchange for removing those barriers and opening their markets to U.S. investment and trade, developing nations will receive U.S. assistance packages focused on developing the institutions of liberty, the rule of law, and property rights. (emphasis added)

Let's see, in order for us to help you, we, the most prosperous nation in history, require you to open your markets to our powerful corporations to take your raw materials (forests, oil, minerals, etc.) with no pesky environmental protections, use your cheaper labor,  and sell our products to your citizens.

Explain to me how the new businesses in these most undeveloped countries are going to compete with the businesses in the most prosperous nation in history.  Tell me how Romney will keep foreign business interests from bribing the local politicians even more blatantly than they do our politicians.  How he will keep them from spoiling their environments and setting up horrible working conditions like in the factory in China Romney bought.

I want to be clear here.  I believe that the free market does unleash human energy and creativity and allows the growth of wealth.  But it's not a panacea.  It comes at a cost.  Economists have noted externalities as a failure of free enterprise.  These are things like pollution and other side effects businesses do NOT pay for when manufacturing their products, but end up as costs to the society as a whole.  As pollution clean up, as health problems, as destroyed forests and cultures. 

These externalities are destroying our planet.  Free enterprise, without government controls to make corporations assume the costs of those externalities, destroys our natural world and those cultures that don't embrace our economic system.

Romney appears to be the bearer of the philosophy that destroyed the forests in the Russian Far East.  It's not the philosophy of free enterprise, because the Soviets destroyed the Russian Far East with the help of the Chinese.  Rather it is the philosophy that man can conquer nature rather than man must live in harmony with nature.  I'm not excusing Obama in this either, though he does, at least, talk about the need to stop global climate change and protect the environment.  But you can't raise enough money to run for national office without the help of all those corporations that want access to foreign markets and easing of government oversight.  But Romney seems to believe all this stuff about the great effects of the unbridled market place. Of conquering nature through science.  Has he been to Russia lately?  Has he inspected the oil fields of the Amazon?  Or in Nigeria? 

One value of Vaillant's book is to show us up close this clash of values in one location in the world.  There are many other books that show how it happened in other locations.  In Alaska we see how Russian fur traders did the same thing to indigenous peoples of our coastal areas as they almost brought extinction to the sea otter population.  And American whaling ships almost wiped out the whales that summer in Alaska waters.  Elsewhere we see it in the depletion of various Atlantic fish species.  And the near extinction of wild tigers.

The free enterprise system has to be restrained so that its profit doesn't come from the depletion of the earth's resources.  We need world views that understand that for humans and other living things, to survive, we must live in harmony with nature.