Respones and further discussion..

This post is a response to issues raised by Mr. Klein to my last post  on equipping revolutionaries with satellite modems.

Mr. Klein's response:

Interesting idea, but there are a lot of problems with it:

1) Non-Interference/Reciprocity: A whack load of international law is based on the idea of non-interference, i.e. that countries don't mess with events inside other countries' borders. That would be a pretty clear violation of that principle (although under R2P, you could probably justify it if the UNSC approved the action and the leader of the target country were attacking his own people). If you did it anyway, what's to stop other countries from messing with your internal affairs? I mean, Congress even prevented DP World from buying Long Beach's port. How could you complain if Iran started handing out bomb-making manuals in Penn Station?

2) Recipients' risk: People who start/join a revolution are betting on its success to prevent reprisals. Even if you could hand them out secretly, and only to the right people, the recipients would be putting themselves at risk of treason *before* a revolution had even started, so they'd be holding evidence against them without even having a revolution to bet on. It's like depositing your life savings with a bookie before you even know when the race is gonna be or which horses are gonna be in it. You gonna take that bet?

3) Legitimacy: Although I get that it would just be facilitating what people would want to do anyway, that kind of support would make it very easy to portray a revolutionary movement as a foreign puppet show. That never goes down well.

4) Micro-Blowback: Let's drop the assumption that you hand them out only to the 'right' people and those people are able to keep them and stay on the 'right' side. Wouldn't the Taliban in Afghanistan just love to have a (bigger and cheaper) satellite comms network? Even if you hadn't given it to them directly, they could just go house by house and nab the devices from those who did have them, as they already do with cds.

5) International blowback: While distributing the devices would certainly sell better at home than arming them, it's not like the oil rich BFFs and panicky Israel would just stand there impotently cursing your resourcefulness a la Mentos commercial. They're gonna be effin pissed.

From the perspective of the powerful, it's pretty much never a good policy to arm the Helots. It's not always easy to identify what counts as a weapon and who counts as a helot. Discretion is the better part of valor.


Mr. Klein,

While your Mentos reference put a smile on my face (and made me go watch the foo fighters video again), I think I can (relatively easily) sidestep most of your concerns.

First of all, if undertaken by a government, such an operation would obviously have to be covert and risky by nature; points 1, 3 and 5 are totally valid if a government is stupid enough to get caught doing something like this. Perhaps it would be better (as I suggested) to let multinational media conglomerates try something like this. I think that would, at least to a certain extent, eliminate 1, 3, and 5 as issues: it’s not the British government, but rather a BBC reporter handing the things out to protest leaders. While this may influence point 3 the least, Israel and the Saudis would certainly understand they were dealing with a different beast.

This brings up a topic of particular interest to me: How does International Relations Theory deal with the "fourth estate" role of mass media? One thing that has been interesting for me to see is the zeal with which journalists have been charging into these places trying to get a story or an interview (often at great danger to themselves). While these people may just be acting out of careerist self interest (nothing like warzone reporting to boost your stature as a journalist), many seem to feel a responsibility to get images out and help people gain their right of expression. I could totally see a reporter doing something like I proposed spontaneously themselves...or an ambitious news editor coming up with the idea...

I have a few counterarguments for individual points of contention as well:

1) In addition to what I said above, I'm not sure I agree with the non-interference/reciprocity argument at all as it applies to what we might call rouge regimes (outlaw states?). Doing something like this in China would be dangerous for sure, but in almost any other country I can think that we could want to do this in, I don’t really care that they might get pissed off...in fact, those governments have already proven to oppress their people and have often shown official and direct contempt towards democratic values. If the US government gets caught handing out these kinds of devices in Iran, that’s bad, but they're developing nuclear weapons and funding our enemies anyway, so I don’t see how that changes things much. In an already deteriorating place like Libya I'm even less worried about territorial borders (apparently neither are the British or the Germans, as they landed a few warplanes in the desert a few days ago to airlift people out).

Also, I don't much care about an Iranian passing out bomb making material in New York...that kind of information is available online and in thousands of other places, even if it might be harder to get at since 2001 (glad I printed out my copy of the Jolly Roger Cookbook). And its not like the guys in militias are going to have a problem getting guns or explosives in the US. This might be made part of a larger point of democracies that have freedom of expression need to worry less about fringe views than those that heavily restrict access to information.

2) I guess I was more envisioning this as a tool to be given to revolutionaries in actio. The risk in trying to establish sleeper cells of these things is high. In fact, I think the most difficult logistical issue here is to identify who to give the things to: if you give it to an established protester (who might be able to use it most effectively) he's also the one that's going to get arrested first. If you give it to just any old guy, you might not get any quality images.

In cases like Libya or Bahrain(and Iran as well), however, people have already shown that they are willing to risk their lives even without these things; you have an already established revolutionary movement who is going to be hanged anyway. This strategyis designed to make it easier for the condemned to get their message out, not be the reason they get hanged.

3) I'm not sure how powerful arguments from leaders who have already been de-legitimized by their people claiming outside influence have on popular opinion within the country. While I grant you the point, I don’t think I can give it much weight, especially if we modify my proposal as in point 2 above. And again, while the argument of outside influence can still be made if a media organization is handing these things out, such a situation gives western governments at least a sheen of plausible deniability and complicates the sales job of an embattled regime significantly.

4) Two points here. One, I don’t think there is an application for this in places like Afghanistan in the sense that I'm saying. I'm not trying to get poor people internet to help them build a new life, I'm trying to get the pictures of revolution out. And though the Taliban is leading a revolution, it’s not a democratic one: the images or video they would be posting to the net would appeal to a much smaller audience and not affect international public opinion in their direction. Video of decapitating prisoners and cutting off women’s noses isn't exactly going to win them any friends in the world community.

More specifically, I would be surprised if Taliban and Al Qaida leaders (in particular) don’t already have satellite phones, if not versions of exactly these devices.

5) I think I covered this point mostly at the beginning of this post. Again, if a government got caught doing this it would certainly be bad for them...the idea is to not get caught...

How to get the pictures out

So, it seems this whole democratic revolution thing is getting out of hand. First we had Tunisia. Then there was Egypt, which I wrote about here. Now Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, Iraq and other countries are having what we might call civil unrest, ranging from protests to days of rage.

Oh yea, and lets not forget about China and Iran.

It seems that one of the great equalizers between autocratic power and democratic reformer has been the power of the internet to somewhat level the PR and organizational playing field. The point has been made so many times already I feel like I'm beating a dead horse, but sites like Facebook and Twitter have made organizing and publicizing events much easier, even in the face of censorship, disruptions of service (as in Egypt), and journalist brutality. The images (and raw video) that world citizens are now shown on a daily basis have put significant pressure on democratically elected leaders to DO SOMETHING. Individual people are being shown brutal images (and video) of police crackdowns on peaceful demonstrators on their evening news. During dinner. With their kids watching.

The pressure on elected officials to make strong statements, both in condemnation of dictators and in support of revolutionary/resistance movements has been heavy. John McCain and Joe Liebermann (reporting from Cairo) called on Obama to institute a no-fly zone and to provide the resistance "with the arms to defend themselves" in Libya this last weekend. This has obviously put western leaders in a bit of a bind, seeing as how they've been dealing with (or tolerating) these same autocratic regimes for a while now...and that they are still heavily dependent on and working with others (Saudi Arabia in particular). If Obama really were to arm the resistance of Libya, what about the protesters (rebels) in Oman, Bahrain (where the 5th Fleet is stationed), Iraq (really? arm rebels in IRAQ?!), or Saudi Arabia (our oil rich BFFs?).

Being able to post a picture or image online, get it out in circulation without censorship, has not only caused stronger responses by elected leaders and helped protesters organize, it has spawned the copycat phenomenon we see now. Without the spread of pictures of a burning man in a square, and of millions assembling in Tahrir Square just weeks later, the anger and hope of other oppressed peoples (not a big fan of that category, but we'll go with it here) have been awakened. One of the reasons the situation in Libya is so vague is that we are getting few real images or news at all (although we are getting more and more as rebellion forces establish control). One of the first things that Egypt did was shut off the net, and china has been proactively censoring the internet and proactively arresting people posting to blogs trying to organize protests.

Publishing images also strengthens the resolve of protesters as people begin to sense that the world is behind them, that their fight is just and approved of, and that others are paying attention. Protesters in Bahrain, for instance, are worried that the unrest in Libya will "steal their thunder", so to speak. Revolutions are now competing for air time (this puts a grim new spin on the old television journalism addage "if it bleeds, it leads").

This poses the question: How do we get the pictures (and video) out of the country in the face of governmental control of communication networks and the internet?

Answer: Why not pass out some of these? This could be a fun exercise for our intelligence communities: find journalists (or maybe just random people) and give them these things, teach them to use them. Tell them, that when the internet and cell phones (and maybe even landlines) go down, to bust the thing out and start sending pics. Maybe this isn’t a job for the government; maybe news corporations should do it instead. Imagine BBC or CNN or Al Jazeera handing these things out to activists they come across; the company could pay for the transmission and device, but gets the content provided to them by citizen journalists. The things only cost $2,700 a piece, and I'll bet we could get a bulk discount. Obviously the quality of journalism isn’t the issue here: it’s the images we want!

The images of everyday people risking their lives to stand up to authoritarian systems they find unjust in the name of democratic freedom. In your (and everyone's) living room, at dinner time, in front of your kids.

Egypt, Revolution, International Democracy and American Interests

While reading this article I returned to a thought that has been reccuring recently in regard to the current unrest/revolution/democratic freedom movement that has taken place in Egypt over the last 3 weeks. The article gives a brief biography of the new vice-president of Egypt, Omar Suleiman, and how he seems to not only be Mubarak's guy, he's also the CIA's, the state department's, Europe's, the Saudi's AND the Israeli's guy. He's also not very popular with the protesters, seeing as how he has run the intelligence and spy agency since 1993 has has been accused by multiple international organizations of torturing prisoners (including on behalf of the US).

So it seems to me that this isnt really the guy that those who are "pro-democracy" should want. If you are for representative democracy that heeds the will of the people, the last few weeks are about as clear a demonstration that this country wants its leader(s) sacked (I think the images of people fighting with stones, kitchen knives, and pieces of re-bar ripped out of the street are powerful enough).

Unfortunately (or interestingly, from a more objective perspective), Mubarak and Sulieman have entrenched themselves heavily in regional politics and have been major recipients of US and European aid. The Israeli peace process has been based on heavy assistance from Egypt (and thus from Mubarak and his government), and the government there is dependent on Egypt if their blockade of Gaza (and Hamas) is to continue. The Israeli government is heavily invested in the political outcome in Egypt. Let's be clear: the Israeli blockade of Gaza is ridiculous and their government has been acting very badly over the last couple of years. All the more reason for them to prefer the dictator and understudy-to-the-dictator that they know (and can hide behind) to the angry, democratic, and generally anti-isreali mob they don't.

And now we come to the heart of the matter. The fact is, that if the Egyptian people really get a representative democracy, the government of one of the biggest economies, cultural centers, and strongest western allies will become significantly more anti-Isreal and anti-US. One of the main complaints of the protesters is the complicity of Mubarak in the Israeli occupation and the American funding of an oppressive government. And they have every right to be upset! We have been funding an opressive dictator for 30 years! Isreal has been horribly oppressing Palestinians with the help of their government! The situation is reminiscint of the Iranian Revolution (where we had backed the Shah) or a series of Central and South American regimes (where we had also propped up dictators).

So. Morally (ideally), I want to say that the protesters are right, Mubarak and his whole regime need to go, and a real representative democracy should be instated in Egypt. If such a government could become stable we could no longer say that there is only one democracy in the middle east. Given the fact that the military has taken almost a neutral role and kept the security situation reltively stable, and given the relatively strong Egyptian economy, a new regime might get back on its feet sooner than we expect.

Will it be hostile towards Isreal (thus challenging the notion that democracies never go to war) or will it become a second pillar of peaceful secular democracy in the middle east (does Turkey count?) How close will such a government deal with governments like Syria's "president-with emergency powers" and Jordan and Saudi Arabia's "Autocratic Monarchies"? What if we begin to see such revolutions in other countries around the region? How will modern political and philosophical models hold up (of particluar interest to me: John Rawl's non-ideal theory)?

How close will the new Egyptian government want to openly associate itself with the US and Europe? How will the emergence of a representative democracy in one of the most culturally influential countries in the arab speaking world change US foriegn policy? Will congress authorize aid money to a government that is openly or believed to be hostile to Israel and US interests? How stable IS the Egyptian state without the billions of dollars we give them each year?

What about the 2012 presidential elections? I can't wait for someone to accuse Obama of being anti-American for supporting a democratic revolution in Egypt that has endangered the Israeli peace process and embarrassed the Israeli regime.

Still, are the major political and economic powers with interest in the area going to allow a government to form that dramatically changes any of these dynamics? I truly believe that a democratic Egypt will be beneficial in the long run, but I can imagine a very rocky road there. What if a democratic government fails miserably and the security situation in Egypt becomes significantly worse? Again, given the self control and professionalism of the military shown in the last few weeks, I doubt such a situation would happen. But what if the conservative Israeli Government refuses to lift the blockade from their side? Gazan refugees pouring over the Suez? Egyptian tanks in Gaza?

I'm not saying I think this is going to happen, and again I am firmly of the belief that in the case of expanding democracy, short term pain (or chaos) is worth it for long term gain (and stability). But it's certainly an interesting situation that raises a lot of questions, both realpolitikal and philosophical. I guess all we can do is watch and wait.



One thing I do know: if Egypt returns to (relative) stability after elections in september, its going to be a great place to visit by spring next year!

Observations from the Homefront

I noticed that this space was kind of bare over the last few weeks. Let's see if i can entertain you with some new observations from the US of A:

1) American Football is god. It was always on, and it was a constant topic of conversation in Portland, Las Vegas, Boston and New York. Went to an Oregon game in Eugene, bet on college ball in vegas, and watched NFL with Valerie's dad in Boston.

2) Americans have more fun. I don't really know about our canadian friends to the north (help?) but US Americans like to have fun. I don't just mean drinking (lord knows there's enough of that in Germany), but being spontaneous and open to new things and (maybe) weird situations. This creates an atmosphere that on any given night, anything is possible.

3) Going along with the spontaneity thing and anything goes atmosphere is a general lawlessness about the place. I'm not saying that there is a lot of obvious lawbreaking, but things ranging from drinking and driving, doing drugs, hunting, to the way of life, buisness strategy, mental state, and international political actions (especially under G.W.) seem to be governed by a mentality that
a) If there are no rules about something, or they are vague, then you should push the envelope as far as possible.
and,
b) Even if there are specific rules against something, as long as the probability of getting caught is aligned properly with the penalty when caught, you do it anyway (cost-benefit analysis of lawbreaking).

This behavior shocked certain Germans upon arrival in the US...

4) Living in New York is a highwire tightrope act. There is so much going on, and there is this combination of everything happening so fast, being so expensive, and so extreme in every sense of the word, that falling off and getting sucked up is easy. But as long as you can ride the surface of the chaos (or i guess, balance on the tightrope, to use my original metaphor) its a really exhilarating and experience.

5) Man, lotta Hassidic Jews at Coney Island

6) Spanish is becoming more accepted as legitimate second language. More signs, menus in english and spanish. More TV stations, newspapers and radio stations in spanish.

7) One night, standing on a corner in Brooklyn, I had difficulty choosing from eight different types of food for dinner (Mexican, Chineese, Spanish, Southern fried chicken, Pizza, Hotwings and Burgers, Japaneese/sushi, and a deli/sub sandwich place). No Joke. Three nights later, I was in Tuebingen, wracking my brain trying to decide which of two available options i least wanted to eat: Pizza or Doener. I think I would be ok with this tradeoff (since i can get *bad* chineese and burgers at most times as well) if i could just get a decent jewish deli here.

I mean, look at this Sandwich! Thats Turkey, Ham and Roast Beef with Swiss cheese melted over it and ranch dressing, lettuce, tomatoes and onions. Served warm. Called the All-American. Can I get an Amen?

Funny Will Ferrell and Healthcare

"Unfortunately", this video was forwarded to me by Move On, which produced the video. On the other hand, its done by Will Ferrell and is pretty funny..

Yglesias in Germany

Matthew Yglesias is traveling through Germany right now and is writing interesting things about population density, walkable cities, and world war two appeasement politics.

perhaps more interesting for a certein writer for this blog, hes got an interesting post on connections between macro and micro-economic theories and complex systems.

Canary in the Mineshaft?

I’m not a socialist, but I can have a civilized conversation with most socialists. I’m not religious, but I can have a civilized conversation with many religious people. In Canada, I (almost) never attended a demonstration, because I think most issues I care about deserve a more thoughtful response than a fist in the air and a catchy slogan, and the normal process worked pretty well to redress grievances anyway.

I attend demonstrations regularly in Germany, though, because here fascism is not dead. I cannot have an civilized conversation with fascists; a fist in the air is as appropriate a response as any. The point is to make their minority status obvious and seem hopeless and silly. Unfortunately, they’re not very silly or innocuous, and I’m wondering when they’ll cease to be tolerated generally.

People often dismiss my concerns about fascism as exaggerated, as if it’s my personal soap box issue. It might be, but it’s also a significant phenomenon in the real world. There are three nationalist-fascist parties in Germany: the NPD*, the DVU, and the Republikaner (in order of slightly decreasing detestability). There are also Kamaradschaften and Burschenschaften, which are the lower and upper-class versions of radical right-wing fraternities (though a handful are nearly tolerable). Many Germans and other Europeans claim that they’re offensive, sure, but they’re not dangerous. Well, there were nearly 20 000 right-wing crimes last year in Germany alone, of which over 1 000 were violent. The NPD has recently been harassing and threatening other parties’ non-white candidates. Last week, a 22 year-old member of the NPD’s youth wing was caught building a bomb (sorry I couldn’t find an English article about it, but you see the picture of the bomb?). They’re not just dangerous, they have ambitions to be more dangerous. What’s worse is that they just won 5.6% of the vote in Saxony, again beating the threshold to participate in the government, and they only missed the threshold in Thuringia by 7300 votes. These psychopaths are in state governments!

Okay, so they DO exist and they ARE dangerous, so why haven’t they been banned? Well, banning would require judicial proceedings, and in order to initiate these proceedings, the German state would legally have to withdraw all of its moles they have in place to observe the groups secretly. So what’s it gonna take? Here’s a thought experiment: Hizbollah officially sets up shop in a central European country, and one of their youth leaders is caught building bombs. Their members are also convicted of a thousand racially-motivated violent crimes a year. How fast would they be banned? What the hell is the difference? Why are hateful terrorists allowed to continue their work!? When will we realize that this problem is already big enough to be tricky, and it is only getting bigger? Why are these vile f*ckers tolerated!?

*Isn’t it a lovely coincidence that NPD also stands for “Narcissistic Personality Disorder”?

You can lead a horse to water and watch him contently die of thirst.

AF1 makes several good points in his letter about why health care reform is more of a political necessity in the States than just one party’s hobby topic. He’s said before that the Obama administration and the democrats generally need to work harder to sell their ideas on a personal level.

I’m afraid he’s underestimated just how much abuse Americans will demand can tolerate. In response to a woman asking how her brain-damaged husband will get proper care and treatment without health care reform, Sen./Dr. Coburn tells her to ask her neighbours. His reply garnered him applause. Got a brain tumour? Maybe Aunt Bea at the corner store can spot you some aspirin. Paraplegic? Why not ask the scout leader across the street if you can use his son’s soap box racer to get around when he grows out of it?

In Canada, a representative saying anything of the sort would have been chased down, tied up, and given a very stern talking to. In Germany, he probably would have had to announce his resignation before being allowed to leave the hall. But there are segments of the American public clamouring for these values presented with such callous and glib haughtiness. There’s some graffiti near my office that reads “It is not a sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” I think it’s a little strong for southern Germany, but it’s a shoe that might fit better elsewhere.

The Letter (Repost)

This is a re-post of my previous entry with the font issues corrected...

As my wonderful long time readers know, I have a certain member of my family that I occasionally get into arguments with about politics. The arguments usually consist of him forwarding me severe right wing junk mail, with headings like "What will Obama do next?" or "Health Care reform will take your medicare away!" and me sending him e-mails back asking him to please stop sending me things like that.

I've been meaning to write a post about this topic for a while, with a good example, but i had to wait a while till he sent me another. Last night he did. For the sake of brevity, I can't go into the whole details of the exchange we've had over the past 24 hours, but I'll give you a run down: It was late (or early if you prefer) when I got home last night, and upon reading the e-mail (example to follow) i sent him a pretty mean response asking why he sends me this stuff, what HIS opinions were, and pretty much what the hell his problem is (note to self: 3 beer e-mail limit) I went to bed and woke up to find he had already responded, with a sincere e-mail about his veiws of health care reform. His arguments were basically that reform should come in the form of waste reduction and lower taxes, so that more people can get a job and get health care. He asked me (again) if I had read the whole House bill, and that there were provisions in there that would be horrible. He also threw in a good "you don't want illegals getting health care do you?" for shits and giggles.

My mental wits about me again after a shower and some food, I sat down and wrote a response. And thus, i publish here an open letter [with edits for anonymity] to opponents of health care reform as currently being proposed in the US Congress..

First, the e-mail he forwarded:

Statement by the President
________________________________________
I read in Snopes that this is partially true. As a Vet with service connected disability I find this very distastful. By the way, I did not volunteer for the army, I was drafted. Those who did volunteer did not volunteer to go to war, they were ordered by the President of the USA, their commander in chief to go to war.
[Relative]
it's unpardonable. He has the freedom to talk this way because of the soldiers who fought and died for the rights of all Americans!
Statement by the President ??
UNBELIEVABLE
THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENT EVER MADE BY A PUBLIC OFFICIAL LET ALONE BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. AND THIS GUY IS OUR "COMMANDER IN CHIEF". HE IS A DISGRACE.
UNBELIEVABLE PRESIDENT???
HERE IS HIS RESPONSE WHEN HE BACKED OFF FROM HIS DECISION TO LET THE MILITARY PAY FOR THEIR WAR INJURIES.
WHAT AN EMPTY HEADED PERSON HE MUST BE....
Bad press, including major mockery of the plan by comedian Jon Stewart, led to President Obama abandoning his proposal to require veterans carry private health insurance to cover the estimated $540 million annual cost to the federal government of treatment for injuries to military personnel received during their tours on active duty.

The President admitted that he was puzzled by the magnitude of the opposition to his proposal.

"Look, it's an all volunteer force," Obama complained. "Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice? It doesn't compute.." "I thought these were people who were proud to sacrifice for their country, "Obama continued. "I wasn't asking for blood, just money. With the country facing the worst financial crisis in its history, I'd have thought that the patriotic thing to do would be to try to help reduce the nation's deficit. I guess I underestimated the selfishness of some of my fellow Americans."
Please pass this on to every one including every vet and their families whom you know.
How in the world did a person with this mindset become our leader? I didn't vote for him!!!
REMEMBER THIS STATEMENT... "Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice?
If this PERSON thinks he will ever get another vote from an Active Duty, Reserve, National Guard service member or veteran of a military service he ought to think it over. If you or a family member is or has served their country please pass this to them. Please pass this to everyone.
I'm guessing that other than the 20-25 percent hardcore liberals in the US will agree that this is just another example why this is the worst president in American history. Remind everyone over and over how this man thinks, while he bows to the Saudi Arabian king.

WHEW! I think certain cultures would call this treason, especially since there is only one shred of truth to this e-mail...the fact that John Stewart made fun of Obama...
Now, my response:

Dear [Relative],

Thank you for responding to my e-mail so quickly and with your feelings. I want to apologize for the tone of my last email..i was really upset by the junk mail you sent me, and reacted.

Please allow me to respond rationally.

You mention that if the economy was better, then more people would be able to get jobs and therefore health insurance. I think this is exactly the problem with our current system, that our health care is employer based. This creates situations where people hold on to jobs they hate, or work under conditions that they normally wouldn't, just to get health care for their family. You also get situations like now, when during a recession people loose not only their jobs, but also the basic health care services (dental, vaccinations) for their family through no fault of their own. I believe health care should be portable, and completely independent of employer, so that situations like this do not arise, and people feel more free to determine where to work and what to do with their lives. This does not mean that their health care needs to be government run or paid (two different systems mind you). Private insurance that is portable and affordable is fine by me.

This brings me to another point you made. You said that anyone who is sick can go to the emergency room and get care. This is quite true, and a testament to the goodwill of doctors and hospitals. The probelm is, that when (if) that person recovers, they are going to have a bill for multiple tens of thousands of dollars to pay. The price of health care in the US is astronomical, and has no relation to actual costs or work. The reason that those who don't have health care haven't gotten it isn't because they don't want it, but rather it is too expensive for them, or the insurance companies deny them coverage based on pre-existing conditions. If there is one thing that NEEDS to be reformed, its insurace practices of price gouging, denial of service, and revoking coverage when emergencies do happen. The current legislation is designed to do all of these things, regardless of whether we have public or private insurance. I do believe that a strong publicly run insurance agency would do much to help combat abuses by competing with large health insurance companies that often have set up regional monopolies. I also think having the government regulate what hospitals and doctors can charge for service is a good idea: the fact that a person has to pay $170 out of pocket to get his teeth cleaned even when he has insurance (like I did a few years ago) while the dentist is driving a maserati is not only ridiculous, but is at some level immoral (in my eyes). Another way of combating monopolistic behavior by insurance companies would be to induce diversification in the market (similar to what happened to AT&T) and make the health care market much more competitive. To do this, we would STILL need significant government regulation of the health care markets, even if no public plan was offered.

As for the legislation itself, i haven't read the house bill because it makes no sense to read a bill that will be changed (minimum) twice before becoming a law. The various bills being talked about in the Senate are all different than the House bill, and once they get together in committee the final product is going to look completely different than the one you've read. While i think it is important for our legislators to know what they are voting on, I think it is weak to use "Have you read the bill?" as an argument when "the bill" doesn't really exist.

This brings me to my final point, and the one that made (makes) me so upset when you send me these anonymous forwards. I find the general tone of debate in America right now deplorable, and it makes me really sad to see what is happening at the town halls around the country. There is no debate, only screaming, and the people doing the screaming are either misinformed, or afraid and reacting. The organizers of many of the groups have publicly stated that their goal is to disrupt meetings, not to contribute to debate. When someone stands up and begins to scream about the constitution and gun rights (watch this video) during a town hall on health care it gets us nowhere. When people bring firearms and stand outside of meeting places to "demonstrate their rights" it smacks of fascism and intimidation tactics. And when people accuse the president, or members of congress, of being Nazis, i see a sad lack of historical perspective and no chance at a rational conversation about the real issues with health care in America today.

The e-mail you sent me (and the others you have sent me) falls right into this category of fear-mongering and, well, shouting through the ether. First of all, it's an anonymous bulk mail, which claims to quote the president. You said that from Snopes it's partially true, but don't mention WHICH part (is it the part about how John Stewart made fun of the president? 'cause that's his job). I would agree with you and others that if the president said something like this:

"I wasn't asking for blood, just money. With the country facing the worst
financial crisis in its history, I'd have thought that the patriotic thing to
do would be to try to help reduce the nation's deficit. I guess I
underestimated the selfishness of some of my fellow
Americans."
That that would be atrocious. But c'mon, do you really believe that Obama said this? He's not stupid, and even if he THOUGHT these kinds of things (which I do not believe) he would never say something like that on record. "I wasn't asking for blood, just money..." c'mon. These kinds of charges are bogus (see here) and serve to perpetuate lies. There is a similar problem with accusations of "death panels". You were in the insurance buisness for a long time, and certainly know a few things about actuaries. Instead of having private insurance companies make cost effectiveness assessments, the House bill wanted to create a government body that would also serve this function (and would also allow private insurance companies to do their own risk assessments as well) and report of the efficiency of certain health services. Unfortunately, a bunch of screaming about "death panels" got people all riled up and afraid, and now legislators have caved and removed this provision from consideration. This is the tyranny of irrational fear over rational discussion. You mentioned that money could be saved by making the health care system more efficient: its hard to get more efficient if you don't have anyone looking for inefficiencies. Now that this provision has been removed, it will be that much harder to find and isolate effective and cost effective procedures being done across the country.

So, in summary, I believe that the health care system in America is broken and has been for years. I believe that most of the reform needed is in insurance regulation and in making health insurance more portable, affordable, and reliable. Those millions of people that do not have health insurance should have the option to get it at an affordable price, be it private or public insurance. I believe the costs of health care itself, from dental visits to emergency room traumas are obscenely high, and this is due to rampant price gouging and exploitation by hospitals and heath care providers. It's hard to fault them for these profiteering ways, since the system allowed them to get rich this way, but that's why i think the system needs to be changed. There need to be strong controls on what doctors and hospitals can charge. And there need to be protections in the system so that people are not dependent on their employer for family health care.

All of these provisions are in the legislation that is being debated in both houses (see here) and I hope to see some form of these reforms passed...with or without an expansion in government funded (medicare) or run (veterans health care) programs.

Thank you for your thoughts,

Love,

A Fortunate One


Update: sorry about the font issues guys, Blogger is frustrating me...

He makes a good point..

Yglesias again, with a nice point about the way US government works

The Letter

As my wonderful long time readers know, I have a certain member of my family that I occasionally get into arguments with about politics. The arguments usually consist of him forwarding me severe right wing junk mail, with headings like "What will Obama do next?" or "Health Care reform will take your medicare away!" and me sending him e-mails back asking him to please stop sending me things like that.

I've been meaning to write a post about this topic for a while, with a good example, but i had to wait a while till he sent me another. Last night he did. For the sake of brevity, I can't go into the whole details of the exchange we've had over the past 24 hours, but I'll give you a run down: It was late (or early if you prefer) when I got home last night, and upon reading the e-mail (example to follow) i sent him a pretty mean response asking why he sends me this stuff, what HIS opinions were, and pretty much what the hell his problem is (note to self: 3 beer e-mail limit) I went to bed and woke up to find he had already responded, with a sincere e-mail about his veiws of health care reform. His arguments were basically that reform should come in the form of waste reduction and lower taxes, so that more people can get a job and get health care. He asked me (again) if I had read the whole House bill, and that there were provisions in there that would be horrible. He also threw in a good "you don't want illegals getting health care do you?" for shits and giggles.

My mental wits about me again after a shower and some food, I sat down and wrote a response. And thus, i publish here an open letter [with edits for anonymity] to opponents of health care reform as currently being proposed in the US Congress..

First, the e-mail he forwarded:

Statement by the President

---

I read in Snopes that this is partially true. As a Vet with service connected disability I find this very distastful. By the way, I did not volunteer for the army, I was drafted. Those who did volunteer did not volunteer to go to war, they were ordered by the President of the USA, their commander in chief to go to war.

[Relative]

it's unpardonable. He has the freedom to talk this way because of the soldiers who fought and died for the rights of all Americans!

Statement by the President ??

UNBELIEVABLE
THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENT EVER MADE BY A PUBLIC OFFICIAL LET ALONE BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. AND THIS GUY IS OUR "COMMANDER IN CHIEF". HE IS A DISGRACE.
UNBELIEVABLE PRESIDENT???
HERE IS HIS RESPONSE WHEN HE BACKED OFF FROM HIS DECISION TO LET THE MILITARY PAY FOR THEIR WAR INJURIES.
WHAT AN EMPTY HEADED PERSON HE MUST BE....

Bad press, including major mockery of the plan by comedian Jon Stewart, led to President Obama abandoning his proposal to require veterans carry private health insurance to cover the estimated $540 million annual cost to the federal government of treatment for injuries to military personnel received during their tours on active duty.

The President admitted that he was puzzled by the magnitude of the opposition to his proposal.

"Look, it's an all volunteer force," Obama complained. "Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice? It doesn't compute.." "I thought these were people who were proud to sacrifice for their country, "Obama continued. "I wasn't asking for blood, just money. With the country facing the worst financial crisis in its history, I'd have thought that the patriotic thing to do would be to try to help reduce the nation's deficit. I guess I underestimated the selfishness of some of my fellow Americans."
Please pass this on to every one including every vet and their families whom you know.
How in the world did a person with this mindset become our leader? I didn't vote for him!!!
REMEMBER THIS STATEMENT... "Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice?
If this PERSON thinks he will ever get another vote from an Active Duty, Reserve, National Guard service member or veteran of a military service he ought to think it over. If you or a family member is or has served their country please pass this to them. Please pass this to everyone.
I'm guessing that other than the 20-25 percent hardcore liberals in the US will agree that this is just another example why this is the worst president in American history. Remind everyone over and over how this man thinks, while he bows to the Saudi Arabian king.

WHEW! I think certain cultures would call this treason, especially since there is only one shred of truth to this e-mail...the fact that John Stewart made fun of Obama...

Now, my response:

Dear [Relative],

Thank you for responding to my e-mail so quickly and with your feelings. I want to apologize for the tone of my last email..i was really upset by the junk mail you sent me, and reacted.

Please allow me to respond rationally.

You mention that if the economy was better, then more people would be able to get jobs and therefore health insurance. I think this is exactly the problem with our current system, that our health care is employer based. This creates situations where people hold on to jobs they hate, or work under conditions that they normally wouldn't, just to get health care for their family. You also get situations like now, when during a recession people loose not only their jobs, but also the basic health care services (dental, vaccinations) for their family through no fault of their own. I believe health care should be portable, and completely independent of employer, so that situations like this do not arise, and people feel more free to determine where to work and what to do with their lives. This does not mean that their health care needs to be government run or paid (two different systems mind you). Private insurance that is portable and affordable is fine by me.

This brings me to another point you made. You said that anyone who is sick can go to the emergency room and get care. This is quite true, and a testament to the goodwill of doctors and hospitals. The probelm is, that when (if) that person recovers, they are going to have a bill for multiple tens of thousands of dollars to pay. The price of health care in the US is astronomical, and has no relation to actual costs or work. The reason that those who don't have health care haven't gotten it isn't because they don't want it, but rather it is too expensive for them, or the insurance companies deny them coverage based on pre-existing conditions. If there is one thing that NEEDS to be reformed, its insurace practices of price gouging, denial of service, and revoking coverage when emergencies do happen. The current legislation is designed to do all of these things, regardless of whether we have public or private insurance. I do believe that a strong publicly run insurance agency would do much to help combat abuses by competing with large health insurance companies that often have set up regional monopolies. I also think having the government regulate what hospitals and doctors can charge for service is a good idea: the fact that a person has to pay $170 out of pocket to get his teeth cleaned even when he has insurance (like I did a few years ago) while the dentist is driving a maserati is not only ridiculous, but is at some level immoral (in my eyes). Another way of combating monopolistic behavior by insurance companies would be to induce diversification in the market (similar to what happened to AT&T) and make the health care market much more competitive. To do this, we would STILL need significant government regulation of the health care markets, even if no public plan was offered.

As for the legislation itself, i haven't read the house bill because it makes no sense to read a bill that will be changed (minimum) twice before becoming a law. The various bills being talked about in the Senate are all different than the House bill, and once they get together in committee the final product is going to look completely different than the one you've read. While i think it is important for our legislators to know what they are voting on, I think it is weak to use "Have you read the bill?" as an argument when "the bill" doesn't really exist.

This brings me to my final point, and the one that made (makes) me so upset when you send me these anonymous forwards. I find the general tone of debate in America right now deplorable, and it makes me really sad to see what is happening at the town halls around the country. There is no debate, only screaming, and the people doing the screaming are either misinformed, or afraid and reacting. The organizers of many of the groups have publicly stated that their goal is to disrupt meetings, not to contribute to debate. When someone stands up and begins to scream about the constitution and gun rights (watch this video) during a town hall on health care it gets us nowhere. When people bring firearms and stand outside of meeting places to "demonstrate their rights" it smacks of fascism and intimidation tactics. And when people accuse the president, or members of congress, of being Nazis, i see a sad lack of historical perspective and no chance at a rational conversation about the real issues with health care in America today.

The e-mail you sent me (and the others you have sent me) falls right into this category of fear-mongering and, well, shouting through the ether. First of all, it's an anonymous bulk mail, which claims to quote the president. You said that from Snopes it's partially true, but don't mention WHICH part (is it the part about how John Stewart made fun of the president? 'cause that's his job). I would agree with you and others that if the president said something like this:

"I wasn't asking for blood, just money. With the country facing the worst
financial crisis in its history, I'd have thought that the patriotic thing to
do would be to try to help reduce the nation's deficit. I guess I
underestimated the selfishness of some of my fellow
Americans."

That that would be atrocious. But c'mon, do you really believe that Obama said this? He's not stupid, and even if he THOUGHT these kinds of things (which I do not believe) he would never say something like that on record. "I wasn't asking for blood, just money..." c'mon. These kinds of charges are bogus (see here) and serve to perpetuate lies. There is a similar problem with accusations of "death panels". You were in the insurance buisness for a long time, and certainly know a few things about actuaries. Instead of having private insurance companies make cost effectiveness assessments, the House bill wanted to create a government body that would also serve this function (and would also allow private insurance companies to do their own risk assessments as well) and report of the efficiency of certain health services. Unfortunately, a bunch of screaming about "death panels" got people all riled up and afraid, and now legislators have caved and removed this provision from consideration. This is the tyranny of irrational fear over rational discussion. You mentioned that money could be saved by making the health care system more efficient: its hard to get more efficient if you don't have anyone looking for inefficiencies. Now that this provision has been removed, it will be that much harder to find and isolate effective and cost effective procedures being done across the country.

So, in summary, I believe that the health care system in America is broken and has been for years. I believe that most of the reform needed is in insurance regulation and in making health insurance more portable, affordable, and reliable. Those millions of people that do not have health insurance should have the option to get it at an affordable price, be it private or public insurance. I believe the costs of health care itself, from dental visits to emergency room traumas are obscenely high, and this is due to rampant price gouging and exploitation by hospitals and heath care providers. It's hard to fault them for these profiteering ways, since the system allowed them to get rich this way, but that's why i think the system needs to be changed. There need to be strong controls on what doctors and hospitals can charge. And there need to be protections in the system so that people are not dependent on their employer for family health care.

All of these provisions are in the legislation that is being debated in both houses (see here) and I hope to see some form of these reforms passed...with or without an expansion in government funded (medicare) or run (veterans health care) programs.

Thank you for your thoughts,

Love,

A Fortunate One

Update: sorry about the font issues guys, Blogger is frustrating me...

Sci- fi review

I watched “The Day the Earth Stood Still” yesterday, and I was pleasantly surprised. Sci-fi generally is really cool for IR geeks because it often takes some of our favourite topics (destructive weapons, first encounters, environmental catastrophe, weird political systems, etc) and pushes them beyond our conventional limits. The first of Asimov’s Foundation series is perhaps the best example of this. I don’t really want to bitch about Keanu Reeves (is he always trying to be stoic, or does he not understand the script?), who just does his normal Keanu thing, nor do I want to pick out everything the film got wrong (if you want that, go here). The point of most movies, and probably all science fiction movies, is to show possibility rather than actuality. Still, this movie got some things right and left me with a couple of questions. I’m not going to bother flagging what might spoil the movie for you, so if you haven’t watched it and want to, stop now.

1. The first thing that grabbed me is the alien technology. We tend to build things in a nice linear fashion, like good little engineers. We know exactly how the wheels will turn because of how we affixed them to the axle, which is affixed to the drive shaft, which is affixed to the transmission, which is… It’s all “knee-bone connected to the shin-bone”: sequential, predictable, but difficult to scale beyond a certain level of complexity. The aliens in the movie, however, use technology based on cellular automata: it’s based on very small pieces that reproduce themselves and combine unpredictably to produce the desired results. The alien’s space suit is a biological mass grown over his body. The giant robot-centurion-thing can fragment into little nano-bots that will reproduce themselves and attack (mostly inorganic) stuff. Building working technology that operates on complexity rather than linear, one-thing-after-another principles, can be tricky to control but easy enough to design, and it would offer a lot of other benefits, like being able to respond to unanticipated events. Some would say that we’re just getting started with this kind of technology, pointing to the difference between, say, Encyclopaedia Britannica (composed linearly) to Wikipedia (more like swarm intelligence). I’d say that we’ve been using it for a long time inadvertently with market mechanisms determining the allocation of resources among us, but I do think that super-intelligent aliens would be more likely to use complexity than linearity for many purposes. Kudos screenwriters.

2. The aliens seem to have a kind of Gaia-hypothesis, but they seem to apply it to the universe as a whole. This is evident when the alien says he wants to save the Earth (independent of the humans on it), that life-supporting planets are rare and need to be preserved, and especially when he says (cornily) at the kid’s grave that “nothing in the universe ever dies… it is only transformed” (though he did say the other alien who had been here longer would die). In any event, this idea can be expressed intelligently, and I’m going to assume that the aliens’ understanding wasn’t one of the atavistic ideas that the only way to be ecologically aware is to live according to the principles of some esoteric, apocryphal ‘Earth Mother’ or some such nonsense. If they have such an ontology, though, it would be hard to justify destroying humanity. Kind of like with the complex, non-linear technology, you don’t know what will become of us because humanity doesn’t move in straight lines, much to the dismay of historical materialists. By analogy, if you wanted to reclaim some farmland and make it wild again, it wouldn’t do to just plant a few saplings, wait a few days, and then uproot the saplings and give up because the process wasn’t going in the desired direction. The aliens seem to understand the benefits of creative destruction, but they seem oddly confident about their abilities to induce and direct it.

3. Okay, so the aliens wanted to destroy humanity because we’re ruining the planet, they start the process, kill a whackload of us, but Jennifer Connelly and son of the Fresh Prince manage to convince them to change their minds just before it’s too late. How are we as a society supposed to deal with that? After other genocidal rampages, truth and reconciliation commissions are set up, we have trials, or the victors make the vanquished pay. We don’t have the power to compel the aliens to agree to any of this, and I’m not sure what measures would redress our legitimate grievances (‘You made a mistake? You kill a third of humanity, and you think that ‘my bad’ or ‘oops’ makes it all go away?’). But we would have to come to some agreement, because we would still depend on the aliens not to destroy us while we figure out how to go carbon-neutral. How do you bury that hatchet?

Fun flick. Didn’t change my life, but it was a pleasant distraction for 90 minutes. (Kudos too for making a 90 minute movie. They seem to have been out of style for a while and were sadly missed.)

State of constant revolution

Lexington, the editorial section about the US in the Economist, wrote an article last week about the paranoia in American politics (@ AF1: maybe something for grandpa?). They do a decent job of describing the problem phenomena, but they make no attempt to analyze its causes. Let me synthesize what I’ve heard.

When I was a grad student in London (the English one), one of my professors said that America has never really gotten over its revolutionary mentality. Revolutionary governments often (justifiably) fear incursion by foreigners who preferred the ancien regime, and this often makes them paranoid and likely to lash out. Think revolutionary France (pick one, actually), early Bolshevik Russia, Cuba, and in some places, like Iran and North Korea, this revolutionary defensiveness against foreign incursion is practically official ideology.

I never really bought this in America’s case because a) it’s been quite a while since they faced a credible threat of foreign invasion, b) I don’t think many Americans honestly think very much about foreign invasion and c) America has had long periods of relative isolationism. It does make certain amount of sense, though, applied to the States from the inside. Many people do seem terrified that their government has been hijacked somehow by people hell-bent on ruining their ‘more perfect union’ (sic). This isn’t new, either. It seems to be a recurring theme.

So far, this is just reframing the Economist’s description without providing any of my own explanation. My hare-brained theory, though, has to do with a naive image of god and imposing this image where it doesn’t belong. Think about it. Americans speak of their ‘founding fathers’ as if the guys were immaculately conceived. Watch some videos of health care town halls and people ranting about the constitution to get a sense of what I mean. Given that 45% of Americans are young Earth creationists, they must have a very paternalistic and personal view of god. He’s like Geppetto, tinkering away in a workshop for our benefit. They don’t seem to think any less of their founding fathers, ignoring that they were also men of flesh and blood, fallible, political, and vain. Since the first Canadian prime minister once puked in parliament because he was too drunk, we might have a more realistic view of our all too human beginnings as a state.

So I think there might be a swath of Americans worried that their current leaders, whose humanity is obvious by their drinking (GWB), philandering (WJC), smoking (BHO), and admitted drug use (all three) think that the former state of grace and perfection (Eden) has been overtaken by a bunch of frat boys.

I’d love to hear alternative explantions.

This is just gold

Why, oh why, can't we make candy without teaching our children about sex?

Just another reason that the germans are more tolerant that us anglo-saxon puritans..

Whose head belongs on the pike?

The American Justice Dept. has advised reinvestigating some instances of torture, and Slate published an iconoclastic article claiming that restricting the investigation to those who overstepped what the Bush administration deemed legal is almost worse than no investigation at all. I beg to differ.

First, my usual list of caveats: I grant that Obama’s choice not to pursue those who justified and tried to legalize torture by fiat is a move meant to preserve a thinning patina of bipartisanship and his thinning political capital. Clearly, it’s perverse that a leader would have to weigh healthcare reform and torture policy, as if there was a real connection between the two. A world without torture would also be preferable, and we’re not going to get there by protecting those who pushed for it. Protecting the directors of heinous activity also doesn’t set a very good example when trying to cajole Iranian, Burmese, Sudanese, North Korean or other regimes into being more decent to their own citizens and others. Instead, it sends a message of “our country right or wrong”, which is truly a vile form of patriotism that vile people elsewhere are only too eager to copy.

Still, I think that investigating and trying those who overstepped the Bush administration’s own guidelines (and not those who wrote or followed those guidelines) has merit for two reasons and a half reasons.

1. The Bush administration allowed some pretty nasty stuff, including “walling”, “the facial hold”, “wall standing”, sleep deprivation and waterboarding to name a few. Like the techniques used in the medieval inquisitions, many of these techniques are meant to induce whackloads of pain and discomfort without drawing blood or leaving lasting evidence. As I understand it, Holder wants to go after those who exceeded what the White House thought was appropriate, which means these people were doing things I don’t even want to consider. By prosecuting them, you’re at least likely to get the worst of the bunch.

2. The good ol’ Nuremburg defence gets its name because many Nazi war criminals claimed to be “just following orders” at the post-war Nuremburg trials to absolve themselves of guilt. The fourth Nuremburg principle states that this defence won’t fly (#2 could have really interesting implications for this case). Even if you are ordered in a chain of command to commit a crime, it is incumbent on you to refuse and do the right thing. Now, if my superior officer were a conscripted Nazi officer, I’ll grant that he is liable to make mistakes about what is right and wrong. But if the guidelines of right and wrong are coming from the duly appointed Attorney General, Vice President, or the President himself, and if I know that several legislators are aware of these guidelines, can I not assume that they’ve passed a test of legitimacy appropriate to the situation? Investigating and trying those who set the limits also implies that the rules are invalid, and even those who followed the rules are potentially guilty. This totally screws up the distribution of responsibility in a democracy. The intelligence agency isn’t there to make policy, they’re there to execute it. If they can’t trust the guidance coming from their legitimate superiors, where the he!! are they supposed to turn? What then is the proper indicator of acceptable conduct? What responsibility do their duly officiated superiors bear?

2.5 This is only half a reason because it’s instrumental rather than principled. The American armed forces get seemingly immaculate support. Aside from screw ups like My Lai, atrocities get very little press, and the army can do no wrong. “Support the troops” is a very powerful American mantra that can determine whether one is American or (horror!) “unAmerican” (like me, I suppose). The intelligence services, on the other hand, are like the plumbing in your house or the electric system in your car: they work best when you don’t hear about them. Lately, the CIA has taken serious heat for not foreseeing or forestalling terror attacks, for fabricating evidence to support dastardly purposes, and now for using cabinet-sanctioned interrogation techniques. They get beat on for screwing up, but you don’t hear about their successes. Although I disagree with many of the practices and powers of the CIA and their associated institutions, we would have to invest something like it if it didn’t exist. It serves a valuable function that many of us enjoy for next to nothing. Maybe they’d be less keen on throwing strangers into walls and scaring the hell out of people if they got more credit for what they do right.

Leave the garden variety of moral decrepitude alone for now and go after the out and out heinous. There’ll be time for the small-fry later, if there’s still adequate bloodlust to punish them.