World Watching And Politics

Making The Inward Turn

Posted on by Laughingnomad

When one stops moving…constantly having one’s awareness being drawn outward when traveling…integration begins… and reflection.

I have been home since the middle of June after six months in Asia…losing myself in the mundane and thoughtless but pleasurable duties of house and home.  Pruning, raking, repairing, having things repaired and replaced, banking, filing, web surfing, visiting old friends…my son, home from Thailand for a month…for company.  But I have rented the house again and will be on my way again in November for Oaxaca, Guatemala and onward through Central and South America.  Then back to the wonderful northwest I call home…the best of all worlds I have seen so far. And in the fall onward to the Balkans and then Asia again where two of my sons live. But my feelings are conflicted…giving up this comfort.  It has taken three months this time for return culture shock to abate…and my nervous system…indeed my brain…to start operating again.

In talking about the current political climate a friend  got my wheels turning.  She mentioned transmutation.  And the masses.  For some reason I am thinking strongly of Marshall McLuhan (The Medium is the Message.)

this from wiki:
The slogan, “the medium is the message”, may be better understood in light of Bernard Lonergan’s further articulation of related ideas: at the empirical level of consciousness, the medium is the message, whereas at the intelligent and rational levels of consciousness, the content is the message. This sentence uses Lonergan’s terminology from Insight: A Study of Human Understanding to clarify the meaning of McLuhan’s statement that “the medium is the message”; McLuhan read this when it was first published in 1957 and found “much sense” in it — in his letter of September 21, 1957, to his former student and friend, Walter J. Ong, S.J., McLuhan says, “Find much sense in Bern. Lonergan’s Insight” (Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987: 251). Lonergan’s Insight is an extended guide to “making the inward turn”: attending ever more carefully to one’s own consciousness, reflecting on it ever more carefully, and monitoring one’s articulations ever more carefully. When McLuhan declares that he is more interested in percepts than concepts, he is declaring in effect that he is more interested in what Lonergan refers to as the empirical level of consciousness than in what Lonergan refers to as the intelligent level of consciousness in which concepts are formed, which Lonergan distinguishes from the rational level of consciousness in which the adequacy of concepts and of predications is adjudicated. This inward turn to attending to percepts and to the cultural conditioning of the empirical level of consciousness through the effect of communication media sets him apart from more outward-oriented studies of sociological influences and the outward presentation of self

As I read this, I realize how deeply affected I was by my Jesuit education. Unfortunately, I am afraid that this time it has not worked to our advantage. In an interview a few years ago of Paul Newman, RIP,  Larry King asked how many good scripts came across his desk every year.  Paul sighed and replied: whereas there used to be 3-5 a year, now maybe there is one.  Larry asked why.  I think because they are all shooting for the lowest common denominator, he said.

There is a wonderful story on wiki about the title of McLuhan’s book:

According to McLuhan biographer W. Terrence Gordon, “by the time it appeared in 1967, McLuhan no doubt recognized that his original saying had become a cliché and welcomed the opportunity to throw it back on the compost heap of language to recycle and revitalize it. But the new title is more than McLuhan indulging his insatiable taste for puns, more than a clever fusion of self-mockery and self-rescue — the subtitle is ‘An Inventory of Effects,’ underscoring the lesson compressed into the original saying.” (Gordon, p. 175.) However, the FAQ section [1] on the website maintained by McLuhan’s estate says that this interpretation is incomplete and makes its own leap of logic as to why McLuhan left it as is. “Why is the title of the book The Medium is the Massage and not The Medium is the Message? Actually, the title was a mistake. When the book came back from the typesetter’s, it had on the cover ‘Massage’ as it still does. The title was supposed to have read The Medium is the Message but the typesetter had made an error. When McLuhan saw the typo he exclaimed, ‘Leave it alone! It’s great, and right on target!’ Now there are possible four readings for the last word of the title, all of them accurate: Message and Mess Age, Massage and Mass Age.”

Speaking of.

Finally…a non-threatening younger woman in high places. (sarcasm) Has anyone ever commented on Madeleine Albright’s clothes?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/26/AR2008092600859.html?wpisrc=newsletter

In contrast, I was particularly struck when Obama got out of that black limousine  in dark glasses and expensive dark suit, and walked with that confident Harvard stride to get on the plane for Biloxi Mississippi. There was something subliminally appealing (to me) with his clothes bag casually slung over his shoulder…hanging onto it with two fingers. Cosmopolitan.  But not Everyman. That shot will forever stick in my mind.

The Palin Doctrine

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The Bush Doctrine of preemptive war is the first time in history that America has given up on diplomacy as a cornerstone of foreign policy.

The problem is not that Palin didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was in the ABC interview by Charles Gibson, but that she hadn’t thought about what “preemptive” war and what it means for the country…and that is no end of wars started by the U.S. any time it feels threatened…like the one in Iraq. Palin has indicated the U.S. must attack any country that appears to be threatening.  Is this what we want?  Think about it.

Sunday Sept. 14, 2008 10:48 EDT
Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com

Where is the debate over the Bush Doctrine?

Before it became clear that Sarah Palin had never heard of it, nobody — including the presidential candidates themselves — ever had difficulty answering questions about what they believed about the Bush Doctrine, nor ever suggested that this Doctrine was some amorphous, impossible-to-understand, abstract irrelevancy. Quite the contrary, despite some differences over exactly what it means, it was widely understood to constitute a radical departure — at least in theory — from our governing foreign policy doctrine, and it is that Doctrine which has unquestionably fueled much of the foreign policy disasters of the last eight years.

In 2003, the American Enterprise Institute’s Thomas Donnelly wrote an article entitled “The Underpinnngs of the Bush Doctrine,” and argued that “the Bush Doctrine, which is likely to shape U.S. policy for decades to come, reflects the realities of American power as well as the aspirations of American political principles”; that it “represents a reversal of course from Clinton-era policies in regard to the uses of U.S. power and, especially, military force”; and “the Bush Doctrine represents a return to the first principles of American security strategy.” Donnelly had no trouble understanding and articulating exactly what the Bush Doctrine meant: namely, a declaration that the U.S. has the right to — and will — start wars against countries even if they have not attacked us and are not imminently going to do so:

Taken together, American principles, interests, and systemic responsibilities argue strongly in favor of an active and expansive stance of strategic primacy and a continued willingness to employ military force. Within that context, and given the ways in which nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction can distort normal calculations of international power relationships, there is a compelling need to hold open the option of — and indeed, to build forces more capable of — preemptive strike operations. The United States must take a wider view of the traditional doctrine of “imminent danger,” considering how such dangers might threaten not only its direct interests, but its allies, the liberal international order, and the opportunities for greater freedom in the world.

Put more simply: ” The message of the Bush Doctrine — “Don’t even think about it!” — rests in part on a logic of preemption that underlies the logic of primacy.” A few months earlier, Norman Podhoretz wrote a long cover story for Commentary — entitled “In Praise of the Bush Doctrine” (sub. rq’d) — in which he argued that “To those with ears to hear, the State of the Union address should have removed all traces of ambiguity from the Bush Doctrine.” He, too, pointed out the obvious: that from this point froward, the U.S. “would also take preemptive action whenever it might be deemed necessary.” The extreme deceit that lies at heart of neoconservativism is vividly illustrated by the willingness of their leading lights — such as Charles Krauthammer and NYT “reporter” Michael Gordon — suddenly to proclaim that the Bush Doctrine is far too amorphous for Sarah Palin or anyone else to be able to opine on it, even after their Godfather years ago declared that “all traces of ambiguity from the Bush Doctrine” have been removed for “those with ears.”

That the Bush Doctrine is both clear and central had continued to be accepted fact into the 2008 election. In January of this year in New Hampshire, Charlie Gibson himself asked the presidential candidates about their views of the Bush Doctrine during the primary debates he hosted. Nobody had any trouble answering it:

How Stupid Are We?

Posted on by Laughingnomad

 From Crooks And Liars blog:

The latest Pew Survey on News Consumption, which is conducted every other year, was released yesterday.   Most notably, there was a great section of the report on news-consumer knowledge and sophistication.

About half of Americans (53%) can correctly identify the Democrats as the party that has a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. In February 2007, shortly after the Democrats gained control of the House after a dozen years of GOP rule, many more people (76%) knew the Democrats held the majority.

The public is less familiar with the secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice) and the prime minister of Great Britain (Gordon Brown). About four-in-ten (42%) can name Rice as the current secretary of state. The public’s ability to identify Rice has not changed much over recent years: In April 2006 and December 2004, shortly before she was sworn in, 43% could correctly identify her.

The prime minister of Great Britain is not well known among the public. Just more than a quarter (28%) can correctly identify Gordon Brown as the leader of Great Britain.

Overall, 18% of the public is able to correctly answer all three political knowledge questions, while a third (33%) do not know the answer to any of the questions.

…how humiliating this is to the nation overall. Personal Note:  In contrast, as I travel around the world and talk to English speaking people from other countries, invariably I can hold an intelligent and informed conversation in which Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove,  Powell and others are well-known.  They know because our foreign policies have a direct impact on them.

Crooks And Liars:  “But one-in-three Americans got all of the questions wrong. For all the talk about the Democratic Congress, barely half the country knows there’s a Democratic majority.  Maybe my perspective is skewed because I just finished reading Rick Shenkman’s “Just How Stupid Are We?” but at a certain point, the political world is going to have to come to grips with the fact that a striking percentage of the electorate has no idea what’s going on.”
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Mad Cow Disease Or…?

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The demonstrators are still at it in South Korea, I see on CNN tonight.

When I was in Hanoi this month I was sitting on the front steps of my guesthouse waiting for a van to take me on a day trip when all of a sudden a tall, young good looking guy appeared at my side. He was obviously Asian, but never knowing if you are talking to an American, or an Asian from some other country, I asked where he was from. South Korea he said. Then we traded travel stories.  He is traveling long-term.   He has excellent English and is obviously well-educated. Hmmm, well-to-do, I thought. He wissoft-spoken…not anything like his older countrymen that I have come across.  I said that I had noticed that a lot of South Koreans weren’t happy these days. He laughed. Oh, yeah, he said, we don’t like your country selling your beef to us. But, I said, we aren’t getting sick from Mad Cow Disease. Then we get down to it.

South Korea has a strong long-held tradition of dissent. My son’s best friend, Mike, who lived in Seoul for 10 years teaching English told me once that many young demonstrators are paid by in-country interest groups, like the many unions, to demonstrate. Every week almost, there is a demonstration against something…they’ve got it down to an art, he said once.

However, in this case South Koreans are not so much unhappy with the U.S. as they are with their own new President. He has disappointed them. He is not conforming to the will of the people on many issues, my friend in Hanoi said. Like why do we have to buy beef from the U.S. which competes with our own farmers. And your beef is more expensive than ours. Why does our president have to do everything the U.S. wants? Seems his new president is a little too chummy with us. You wouldn’t know this from listening to the media reports in the U.S. But, he said, we have a soft spot in our hearts for you Americans because you defended us in the Korean War. Then we talked about how the U.S. wants a lot of things from many countries. Then his van arrived. I have to go, he said, as we shook hands and said goodbye. As he darted for his ride, he looked back and said, “I don’t want to leave you!” Of course I loved that conversation! This is one of the great moments when traveling.

Instant Run-off Voting

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Wikipedia says instant Run-off voting is a voting system used for single-winner elections in which voters have one vote and rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first preference rankings, the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated and that candidate’s votes redistributed to the voters’ next preferences among the remaining candidates. This process is repeated until one candidate has a majority of votes among candidates not eliminated. The term “instant runoff” is used because IRV is said to simulate a series of run-off elections tallied in rounds, as in an exhaustive ballot election.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

Sounds good to me! What do you think?

Return To Oregon

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After 19 hours traveling from Bangkok to Tokyo to Portland, I am finally home…of course still waking up at night and napping during the day…a vicious cycle.

This is what I have come home to:

Retired Major General Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.

Now, CNN’s Barbara Starr reports: “One thing perhaps worth noting in this report, is the forward, the preface to the report was written by retired major general Anthony Teguba. He’s the army general that led the investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. in this report the general says, ‘there is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes.’ The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held into account. pretty tough words from a man very well regarded inside the army when he conducted the investigation into Abu Ghraib. For its part, the pentagon continues to say that it deals with detainees in a humane fashion, that there is no policy towards torture, and if there was any misconduct, any abuse, it was in violation of government policy. But this report clearly is a pretty damning indictment if it stands on its own.”

Note: Just before I left Bangkok I was told that to get a visa to Burma an American now has to apply for it in Washington D.C.

Press Conference on Burma

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Tuesday May 27 2008

Dr. Surin Pisuwan, Secretary General, ASEAN, reporting at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Bangkok Thailand on the donors’ conference Sunday with Gen. Than Shwe of Myanmar and UN chief Ban Ki Moon in Yangon. The key issue has been the loosening of strict controls on foreign aid workers pressing for unfettered access to the disaster zone. To counter Burmese fears of “hidden agendas” by Western workers, ASEAN has agreed to coordinate all relief efforts.

What has been achieved is far more than what was expected. A new humanitarian “space,” however limited, so that ASEAN with the support of the UN can engage with the Myanmar authorities. That humanitarian space needs political support because in and of itself it cannot be sustained. The secty general of the UN and ASEAN has asked for the full cooperation of the aid community.
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“The River of Lost Footsteps”

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The Bangkok Post review says that this timely book by Thant Myint-U, published by Faber and Faber London, rewrites 3,500 years of Burmese history “in order to enrich today’s debate on Burma and establish a strong base for future analysis and consideration.”

The author is critical of the “absence of nuance” and the “ahistorical” nature of current debate on the country. Therefore, Myint-U focuses on why Burma’s military machine developed into such a powerful force by General Ne Win, the country’s “supremo” from 1962 virtually until his death in 2002, and why the country became so isolated.
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Aid To Burma

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The U.N. is reporting as many as 100,000 dead and more missing.

International media is reporting that most countries wanting to send aid to Burma, including the U.S., are waiting outside the country in ships, helicopters and planes…waiting for permission from the junta to let them enter. NGO’s insist on distributing the aid themselves but the junta wants it to go through them…of course…and then they’ll snag much of it and take the credit for the rest…not wanting to admit that they can’t handle the catastrophe themselves.

Commercial flights, however, have partially resumed. The web is awash with people in Asia wanting to help. Yesterday a woman posted this:

I am presently talking w/ my colleagues back in Myanmar at the International School Yangon (Rangoon) and they are setting up a fund raising ‘relief’ fund in Singapore that they will be able to access to directly help the people of Myanmar without governmental interference – soon. Most likely I will find out tomorrow, Friday May 9, some more information and will be able to share that with you. Our school is putting together several community service projects to rebuild homes, provide safe water, food and other services. I will post the information as soon as I have it.

A Swiss guy living and working in Rangoon has this to say this afternoon:

“To my knowledge most of the money donated to charity will end up in administration and of the money that actually makes it to Myanmar a huge percentage will end up in the hands of the corrupt Junta. The best thing would be to bring in the money in cash and hook up with a NGO who can distribute it directly to the places where it’s most needed. I was in Bangkok during the disaster but some friends went to buy rice and gave it straight to the people on the street. That’s also a way to do it. I’m going back to Yangon tomorrow with lots of candles and purification tablets.”

A Thai friend and I bought tickets for Rangoon a month ago. Hmmmm.

Oaxaca’s Radio Wars

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Oaxaca’s Radio Wars
By Charles Mostoller
Despite assassinations, community radio is spreading throughout southern Mexico. “Some people think that we are too young to be informed, but what they should know is that we are too young to die.”

These were the fateful words of Felicitas Martinez Sanchez and Teresa Bautista Merino, two indigenous Triqui radio broadcasters who were assassinated in southern Oaxaca on April 7th.

The two girls, aged 20 and 24, had worked for the recently inaugurated Radio Triqui, “The Voice that Breaks the Silence”, in the autonomous Triqui municipality of San Juan Copala. Read More