Two new posts are up, one at The Homefront and one at Outlaw Politics (new is stretching it a bit, The Homefront post was done nearly a week ago). I should also add that if anyone is interested in doing a guest post (any subject will do, irrelevant or irreverent as it may be), feel free to leave a comment on one of the posts on this base page to let us know.

-the ambassador

In addition to the two recent posts on the Outlaw Politics page, there are also two new poems in the Surrational Rhetoric section. Look for more in the upcoming weeks, as well as various book reviews that will show up once we get a few guest writers to agree to humor us.

-the ambassador

I put up a follow-up post to the colonel's original post on Outlaw Politics - Vision, Ideology and SUVs. It continues his discussion of images and ideologies.

-the ambassador

Check out my new post "What we see and how we look" in the Outlaw Politcs blog. Let me know what you think.

-the colonel

Expansion

The NarodnaCollective is going to undergo a bit of a change (must be some kind of contagious, these days). I suppose an expansion is more like it. In short, if you look to the right side of the screen, there is a new list titled "Contents." After a bit of discussion, the colonel and I decided that we would branch out a little.

So from now on, there will be separate blogs for separate subjects - i.e. one for political philosophy, one for domestic public policy, one for foreign policy, one for poetry, etc. We're hoping to have guest writers join in on some of our discussions as well - and, as always, anyone is invited to offer opinions on or generally eviscerate the things we say.

-the ambassador

Truth of Happiness

Upon reading the ambassadors recent post about happiness, I couldn't help but think of the Buddhist word "metta," which roughly translates as love, or lovingkindness.
In Sharon Salzbergs book Lovingkindness she discusses not only metta and how it differences from passionate love and especially from desire, but also about practices of metta. She suggests certain phrases to repeat to oneself while meditating. They start with wishing happiness and peace et cetera for oneself, and move on the wish these things for your friends, aquaintances and eventually enemies.
I'm trying not to be overly verbose with this post, I plan to move onto Ideologies of a Visual Culture shortly for my next post, but I felt what the ambassador said was enlightening and must be acknowledged. So I will try to sum up what Salzberg says quickly, I do suggest people read it however.
Anyway, Buddhism also has a strong understanding of the oneness of everything, and it seems that if we attain happiness for ourselves we can some how share that happiness with the rest of the world.
Important to keep in mind is that metta is not desire. It seems that desire leads to material things and as the ambassador was saying, that is far from an eternal happiness.
Lastly, I want to draw attention to ignorance being bliss and see if I can combine a Taoist thought with a Buddhist thought.
The Tao Te Ching repeated tells us that the enlightened one is least versed in text book type knowledge (if you will, cutting many corners here). It is through a lack of structured learning and knowledge that one becomes a "sage."
Metta tells us that happiness will not come from desire and objects or even activities that last a short while, but instead will come through an understanding of impermanence and unconditional love for everything.

-the colonel

Symbolic Distortion

In a previous post - Finding the Symbolic - I said that communalism could be a way to re-establish symbolic distance into society. However, I never said what it was that corrupted or collapsed this symbolic distance in the first place. Todd McGowan, in The End of Dissatisfaction?, says that we have a command to enjoy in today's society, rather than the previous society of prohibition (which provided a barrier to enjoyment). So today, he says, the symbolic distance has collapsed.

I, on the other hand, would tend to agree with the likes of Slavoj Zizek and Karl Marx, who say that "the moment all commodities are exhangeable against money . . . all other commodities [other than money] undergo a 'transubstantiation' and start to function as the appearance of the universal Value embodied in money . . . (For They Know Not What They Do, pg. 21" It is not, then, a collapse of the symbolic but rather a distortion or corruption of it that we see occurring today. So part of what creates this is that we focus almost solely on the exchange value of an object today, losing the symbolic barrier that would allow an object to hold actual meaning for us.

-the ambassador

Ignorance Really Is Bliss

Something has struck me in the last few days, as a result of a few things converging: first and foremost, I've been re-reading the most recent posts the colonel and I have put up. Secondly, a comment was made on one of my posts about Truth/truth, and why we believed it could actually exist - which went especially well with the Lao Tzu quote the colonel ended one of his posts with, and the ideas he put forth in the same post.

My realization was this: perhaps what I was describing was not a universal at all, but was instead my personal conception of the universal. As Kierkegaard put it in Fear and Trembling, "the single individual is the particular that has its telos in the universal, and the individual's ethical task is always to express himself in this, to abrogate his particularity so as to become the universal." Perhaps there was no Truth (in a universal sense) at all. I'm inclined to believe that it was, in fact, merely personal truth. Striving for Peace or happiness or enlightenment or whatever you may call it is a personal struggle - though that doesn't mean, necessarily, that it is an isolated one.

All of this, in turn, led me to ask how I define happiness. What would it even mean for someone to be personally happy? In a book I read recently entitled The High Price of Materialism, Tim Kasser seems to believe that happiness in today's society is equated to materialistic values (which is to say the acquisition of wealth, possessions and prestige). This becomes a problem because it structures both how happiness is defined and the shape an attempt to attain it must take. The disconnect is that happiness now seems to be a consumer good - it is something you can buy as long as you have the money for it, and the catch here is that you always need more money to buy more happiness since any happiness or satisfaction derived from purely materialistic triumphs is ephemeral at best. It is no longer the qualitative symbolic happiness that matters. Instead, we value only the quantitative amount of happiness we can purchase - which is always inadequate.

To wrap things up: Maybe ignorance really is bliss. What if the way to happiness is precisely by not knowing what it is or how to get there? Maybe what I should be doing here, for myself and for anyone else who cares to follow the occasionally lucid ramblings I put up, is defining what happiness is not. To try and say what it is would be to make the exact same mistake that materialism makes: it structures not only how happiness is defined, but also structures how you would get there.

-the ambassador

Primary Truth

How do you crave?
To be, or to exist
not at all.
My mind often desires
to stretch itself
out to its full length,
as I wish to
reform my very core
into a shape
entirely unrecognizable.
In this separation
do I connect myself
to something apart,
or is it insensible –
a wasteful endeavor?
It could be salvation,
the one action
that can bring
the Mariana Trench
to the surface
where I will stare at it
as one would a mirror;
externalizing the self,
eternalizing the flesh.

-the ambassador

Exclusive vs. Elusive Truth

I agree with much of what the colonel said in his last post. I was especially struck by his assertion that we must strive for what the truth is while simultaneously recognizing that we are most likely wrong.

This is correct - truth, in the cosmological sense in which we've been discussing it, is most likely ultimately elusive. I disagree, however, that these truths are beyond our minds. While it is true that we have self-imposed constraints on our minds, the idea is not to stop there. Instead, I would say that we need to work on removing some of these constraints.

It is through methods such as the taoist path or buddhist meditation that we can learn to begin to "think outside the box," as it were. Truth is not exclusive, however elusive it might be. What we must do is find the particular path that will lead us to our own particular truth.

This is why the concepts of Out There, the Peace, and the Fear are not a religion, they are simply a way of conceptualizing the universe. It is not about getting to some ill-defined heaven, or even about any kind of afterlife. As such, it is not about "eternal reward," but happiness in the here and now.

-the ambassador

The world is so small today
What if we didn't know what we know?
We could ask, what's out there?
Now we think we know what's out there
Do we?
Stay on our shores and maintain peace
Or stay on our shores and hoard peace
Look at the moon
The fingers chase the moon
Each from their own shore


I forget what this is from, but I will find out and post it at a later date.

-the colonel

Certainly what the ambassador was getting at in his last post was important. He used Rousseau to point out that we cannot truly look at anything objectively. (I suppose this is really just the way I interpretted what he said, none the less...) Rousseau uses his discussion of the state of nature to draw this conclusion. He says we can never imagine what the state of nature was like because we already have ideas of what it should be (basically).

I think this applies to all aspects of life, including the Peace, Fear, Tao and all intangible things we have been discussing. (I would like to take this time to point out that the path is not by any means an actual path in the physical or even mental state. 'Path' is a rough translation of 'tao' and should be thought of more as our relationship to the universe around us.)

Objects have different meanings to different cultures. Even colors have different meanings, such as black being worn for a death in the west while is is worn for a wedding in other parts of the world. This may seem like a major digression, but bare with me - hopefully it shall come full circle.

Like these different symbolic meanings from culture to culture, the aspect of reality that we started this discourse on, are subject to different meanings based upon people's own interpretations and the interpretations of those around them.

How easy it would be then, to say, "Alas, there is no answer - there is no truth!"

This statement would be nothing more than a naive sentiment and absurd excuse to free ones mind of tiresome intellect.

We will never know the Peace, the Fear, the Tao. We will only know that they are. Perhaps that is the only, absolute, truth.

We must acknowledge them, and even try to define them as we are doing here. Ultimately, however, we must keep in mind that they are far beyond the self imposed constraints of our mind.

There must then be an acceptance (by each of us) that we are, not possibly, but probably wrong.

"Those who know do not say. Those who say do not know." - Lao Tzu ("the Old Boy), Tao Te Ching

-the colonel

Outside Looking In

I ended my last post on the thought that actions springing from the Fear move us further away from inner peace and, more generally, the Peace. But this concept (the Peace) has been entirely unreachable for me up to this point. I haven't even really begun to see what it would entail, and today I think I began to understand why.

Rousseau wrote that it is impossible to know what the true state of nature is, because to ask any question about it is to necessarily distance ourselves from it. By looking at the state of nature from outside it, we automatically impose some ideas that we hold to be normal. However, those same norms in the state of nature could very well be abnormal.

To bring this back to a discussion of the Peace, I'm starting to believe that it is impossible to truly know what the Peace entails. To ask any questions about it is to recognize that we are not there yet, and this recognition brings with it the same conditions that a similar recognition of being outside a state of nature brings. We can only know, I suppose, that the Peace is completely outside our current existence, to the point that we cannot even begin to conceptualize it.

Moving beyond this, the Peace is then something to strive for precisely because it removes us from the conditions of physical existence. There are no shortcuts to the Peace, and even the idea of a path (which the colonel and I have been discussing) is inadequate because it indicates logical start and end points. This is not to say, however, that the taoist path itself is inadequate. Instead it is entirely useful in terms of moving toward the Peace because it offers ways of attaining and honing your inner peace.

-the ambassador

Finding the Symbolic

I would agree with the colonel on the point that inner peace is a way to close the gap between people. Relations between people should be based on mutual trust, and if you are prone to distrust even yourself then you are far less likely to trust others.

However, I do not think that communalism has to follow inner peace, or vice versa. Communalism is a step in and of itself out of a society based on separating individuals and into one based on individuals acting collectively and self-sufficiently on a small scale. A couple things of real value would come out of this:

We could stop depending on the system to take care of our needs and start depending on each other. This, in turn, would bring the idea of a symbolic relationship back into the norm. When the symbolic is re-established (and this may sound oxymoronic on its surface, but Lacanian psychoanalysis tends to back it up - more on that later) some symbolic distance is created between individual subjects, and relationships of real meaning and intimacy become possible again. This is not to say that they aren't possible now, they are simply less likely.

In answer to the colonel's last few questions, I would affirm that yes, the Fear is inherently negative, and it is also entirely unavoidable. While it may not necessarily drive us toward the Peace, attaining inner peace will help block the effects of the Fear.

I found an example of what I would call manifestation of the Fear today while reading an introductory book on Buddhism. They are, in Buddhism, the "three bad roots" which all bad actions spring from. Greed, hatred and delusion are all particular manifestations of the Fear. Actions based on these things, in the specific cosmology I'm contextualizing it in, would bring one further away from inner peace and Peace itself.

Anyway, my brain session is being interrupted by an appointment.
Until next time,
-the ambassador

The ambassador asks about distance at the end of his last post. This is an interesting question in a time when "the world is getting smaller" and "the world is at your finger tips" are such common beliefs, or at least sayings. Call me a Luddite if you will, but I must say one way in which to shorten this distance might be to kill our computers.

Even now as I say this I am on a computer, in a sense shortening the distance between the ambassador and I. But we are not actually coming any closer. In fact it seems like ages since I have actually communicated with the ambassador without some medium between us.

We cannot of course kill our computers (besides them not actually having a life to take) it would be taking a step back in the development of culture, which seems impossible. This is obviously a very tangile cure for what I think is an intangible distance.

To answer in an intangible way (a more truthful way at that) I say that inner peace is the way to close the gap between people. At this point, it is imperitive to draw a distinction between an individuals self interest and an individuals path. I do not have a distinct definition of the two yet, but one is based on societal values, the other is based on a greater truth, perhaps the Peace.

I do think communalism should be a goal. I do not beleive inner peace will be found through communalism however. In fact I beleive the opposite. Through inner peace the individual will realize that communalism is essential to the Tao/Out There/Peace.

If one is at peace with onself, one will be at peace with his surroundings. The search for acceptance in far lands will cease to exist.

Finally, I am intrigued by the Fear. The ambassador says that the Fear is, I assume, inherently negative. Is it something we should avoid? Or is it an unavoidable force that perhaps drives us toward the Peace?

-the colonel

Paths, Peace and Community

In response to the colonel's last post, I'm going to see if I can flesh out the intertwinings and divergences of my cosmology with taoism.

The idea of the Path, which I had not considered before, is entirely helpful in understanding Out There. I am not sure, due to my unfamiliarity with taoist thought, if the Path is a singular term meant to offer guidance to all, or more uniquely shaped depending on the subject. When applied to my ideas, however, I believe that it is the latter. The Path is singular to an individual. In a previous brainstorm that I never got around to posting, I wrote that one must align themselves with "the cosmic whole" - I had yet to develop a concept of Out There - in order to know inner peace. This is not to preach homogeneity, however, there are myriad paths (and some non-paths) that lead to the Peace.

I do believe in a flow of energy akin to yin and yang, and to these ideas I would attach no "good" or "evil" labels. They are, instead, simply positive and negative in the mathematical sense, not morally or ethically. This is where I diverge from taoism, though. The Fear is indeed negative, and not mathematically. The Fear produces reactions in those it affects which can be destructive both to the particular subject and to humanity as a whole. While it may not necessarily be evil, it is most certainly dangerous.

I have started to think that one of the ways in which subjects today might reach the Peace, or at least inner peace, is through a sense of community like the one the colonel hinted at toward the end of his post. Politically speaking, I find myself more and more drawn to communalism - which is to say, relatively small societies based on self-sufficiency and mutual respect among their inhabitants.

In answer to the question ending the colonel's post, I would say there are actually two answers. The first is, simply, yes, there is a difference. Inner peace is individual, Peace itself cannot in any way be individual. On the other hand - no. They are not different. I gave some thought to this, and in the sense that each subject is a microcosm of Out There, inner peace for an individual can represent the Peace on a larger scale. I'm sure that sometime in the future I'll have to qualify this again, but for now it'll do.

Finally, going back to the idea of communalism - is it possible? Is a shift of society to living in smaller, close-knit and self sufficient communities still doable given the massive distance between subjects in today's world? I had a conversation about this the other day, and the only answer I could get was that it was "easier said than done." Well, fucking right it is. But take a look at the history of mother earth tell me that we've only ever done what is easy. It would be ridiculous to believe that we always take the easy way out - that view, in my humble opinion, is a result of the distance we feel between ourselves and others. We are essentially self-interested, but that doesn't mean that the terms of the conversation cannot be changed to rip the self-interested door off its hinges and clear the way to believing in ourselves - with an emphasis on "our" - again.

So. What creates this distance? Is there any way to remedy it?

-the ambassador

The ambassador alludes (perhaps subconsciously) to concepts that are similar to many religions. I eagerly saw the relationship between what he said and Taoism for I have recently immersed myself in the Tao Te Ching and other writings on the background of Taoism.

It would be premature for me to align the ambassadors thoughts too closely to Taoism because it seems that his recent muse temporarily took refuge some place other than his explored mind before it reached completion.

However, due to the restraints on my own mind, will attempt to follow his musing from the perspective of an aspiring Taoist.

The Tao, which means path, is kin to the concept of Out There. It is the path that leads us through Out There in search, or perhaps in avoidance, of the Peace and the Fear.

The Peace and the Fear are kin to the concept of yin and yang. These are the two opposing forces of Out There that are always in harmony. The most common understanding of yin and yang is the balance between good and evil in the universe. That, however, is just the tip of the ice berg, so to speak.

The yin and yang are like energy - they can neither be created nor destroyed. They will always exist and must always exist. They are mutaully arising and inseperable. They are not, however, necessarily good or evil and although the word fear has a certain connotation of something dangerous or, evil, I do not think that the ambassador necessarily means the Fear is inherently a bad thing.

Taoism offers a two conecpts: Te (the power) and Wu-wei (inaction). Both concepts introduce the idea of sharing and/or attaining what the ambassador might call the Peace. One is predominently individualistic while the other is communistic (clearly not the political theory of communism, rather the idea of bettering the community).

Is there a difference between inner peace and the Peace?

-the colonel

I, alone, cannot know Peace

I'm going to attempt to put up some posts on my philosophical musings, which will be a mix of literary insensibility and an actual try for truth. For those of you who can bear with me, well done; for those of you who cannot, don't worry too much, I often can't follow myself. Dialectically speaking, of course. Anyway, here goes:

It had been quite some time since I last put effort into clearing my mind. It is a rewiring of the brain, or, to be precise, a process of self-performed (as in performative, not performance) lobotomy. Although I was only under for seven minutes in this most recent attempt (and took nearly 45 minutes just to prepare), I have started to remember why I first tried to find the center of this labyrinth I call a mind.

The Peace. The Fear. Out There. Three concepts I have, quite literally, stumbled upon while meandering among the cells I call home. Out There is simply the whole. Not one of us escapes the confines (although that is a terrible word for it, there is absolutely nothing confining about Out There - there are only self- and societally-imposed constraints) of Out There.

Also contained within Out There are two things: The Peace and the Fear. The Peace is something I have yet to fully wrap my feeble mind around, but I do feel confident that I'm inching ever closer. If I don't accidentally trip a wire leading to a massive implosion, I am sure I will someday know the Peace.

The Fear, on the other hand, is something we all know all too well. It is what concrete fears spring from - and as such is difficult to delineate into a single coherent concept. The Fear evolves, as we do, but it is far more adept at doing so. It is, in fact, able to manifest itself in particular ways for each and every one of us. Much of how the Fear works is dependent on each individual's genetics (in other words, some of the Fear is bred into us), but it is also affected by environmental input.

The Peace, it would seem to me, is not particular to any one of us. It is instead reachable only through the combined efforts of all. Inner peace, a separate and yet intimately connected idea, is necessary before the Peace can be attained. There are many impostors of both inner peace and the Peace itself - though when it is reached, all else that came before will pale in comparison.

-the ambassador

Can you have your cake and eat it too?

The recent debate was not much more than John McCain proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the recent Rolling Stone profile of McCain's absurdly spoiled life and pathetic attempted to be as great a man as his father and grandfather was absolutely true. He was rude, arrogant, angry and downright stupid.
McCain looked like a man struggling for life in the face of the gallows - spuing idiotic lies and being so ambiguish it was enough to make an iron stomach churn in nausea.
Barack Obama, although intelligent, on the ball and well spoken as usual, came off as a man who knew he had won. His shit eating grin suggested to the viewer, "Hey, it's in the bag, let's have some fun!" Well Obama, Americans do love an underdog so let's not celebrate prematurely.
This would be a concern if the republican candidate was at least somewhat better at playing the game of politics than McCain who has ridden his familial military history to where he is today.
Despite polls that show citizens believe McCain has been airing more negative ads, he tried to claim that Obama has spent more moeny than anytime in history on negative campaigns (two minutes later he claimed since Nixon, but that's neither here nor there).
McCain is the man guilty of spewing slander. His supporters are actually afraid of an Obama presidency because he is an "A-rab." Even when one thinks McCain has thrown enough mud, he digs a little deeper to make an indirect accusation that Obama is a socialist, saying Obama wants to "spread the wealth around" by taxing the rich and giving to the poor.
Good for Barack Robinhood Obama!
We shan't place the entirety of blame of the weathered shoulders of McCain however. He is jsut an effect of the societal problem at hand, which is that of a deep rooted fear of socialism dating back to the days of McCarthy.
I say to this, America, can we have it both ways?
As the ambassador pointed out recently, the $700 billion bailout is precisely socialism for the rich. By the way, both candidates supported the bailout. Therefore is McCain...oh no, can I say it? a socialist?
The bailout plan is clearly a move to allow the government to step in and control the "free market." Can we have it both ways? To one minute practice socialism and another denounce the idea based on a 1950's mentality of fear of the Soviets? For McCain to one minute throw a lifeline to to the rish who fucked up in the first place, and then try to smear Obama's reputation by suggesting he is a socialist?
At least Obama is consistent, socialist or not.
Perhaps that is the only way for us to be truly free however. Maybe that is the one hint of hope in our system, that ability to fuse many political ideologies in order to make our own twisted logic work.

Georgia and Press Freedom

Just to follow up on my previous post "Know Your Friends," there was a good article in the New York Times today, News Media Feel Limits to Georgia's Democracy. Although Georgia has the support of both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates and has been pictured as the essential "good guy" in region of instability, the lack of a truly free press is, well, troubling to say the least.

John Mill wrote that a free press is essential to a free society. All ideas deserve to be voiced, even if they come from the lunatic fringe. A country lacking freedom of the press, then, is a country lacking real democracy. Maybe we should be less supportive of regimes called "semiauthoritarian" by experts, and more open to the possibility that yes, even our "friends" can do wrong.

The Great Divide

I would just like to add one thing to the commentary on the bailout by the colonel. This is, essentially, socialism - for the rich. I've never been an opponent of socialism in and of itself, but this is the most nefarious kind, and should not go unquestioned. Some food for thought: Washington is willing to dish out $700 billion for the rich on Wall Street - just think about how many times over the people of New Orleans could have been saved from Hurricane Katrina by $700 billion, or even a fraction of it.

-the ambassador

Thirty Years Unseen

The motto of deregulation that has been the undertone of the financial industry for the past 30 years has been proven a) not to work and b) a mirage.
Financial institutions are facing serious trouble. Bad assets are slowly crumbling the powerhouses on Wall Street. People are losing money on the stock market and the foreclosure rate is scary.
Clearly "deregulation" has failed. The government however, has jumped in. Proving that deregulation was not so much in use for the benefit of the country but more for the benefit of big business, news flash right? Big business will continue to have the benefit of the doubt, even after failing miserably.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke in conjunction with the Bush administration have proposed a $700 billion dollar bailout. The proposition was for the government to buy the bad assets that are plaguing Wall Street.
Being the money huungry force that Wall Street is, lobbyists for the financial industry are already trying to find ways to cover all forms of troubled investments, not just bad morgages, according to the NY Times.
Something must be done.
Simply bailing out the financial industry is like giving them a carte blanc to start all over again carefree, make ridiculous sums of money and when they screw up, the good ol' boys in Washington will bail them out.
Congress said that to pass the bill suggested by the administration, it must meet three requirements: limit executive compensation, reduce foreclosures (help average Americans) and make the comptroller general and Government Accountability Office monitor future procedings.
This is a noble idea, but it has a couple flaws.
First, something has to be done and we all know the George Bush is arrogant enough to veto a bill if he doesn't get want he wants. Tacking on special requirements will slow the process, forcing Congress to remain stagnate like it has been since Democrats took over. If the Democrats want to help people, they should really take small steps toward a larger reform. One bill cannot save the market, make regulation policies and save people from foreclosure.
The second problem, and most alarming, is how will the government pay for their newly acquired $700 billion in bad assets?
Taxes.
Probably not taxes on financial institutions considering the majority of tax revenue comes from the "average American," and certainly not from those who can afford to pay more taxes if John McCain is elected. The burden of the $700 billion will fall squarely on the middle and working class of society.
What happened to lesson we all learned in elementary school about being responsible for our own actions?
Thanks Washington, glad to see your doing your job and protecting the interests of the American people.

-The Colonel

2008 Presidential Politics re: 1972

In an Op-Ed piece today in the New York Times, David Brooks makes the argument that the way to win the presidential election this year is to be the weirder candidate - the one that surprises voters the most. He talks about how Obama, throughout the primary season, was the weird candidate - he ran an essentially unconventional campaign using the internet in ways not seen before (and in ways that the Dean campaign of '04 attempted, but fell short on). He was running a campaign of change. Now, however, it seems that his platform of outright "change in Washingtonian politics" has regressed into "change from a Republican president to a Democrat." The rub is, that's simply not change. At least, it's not change in the fundamental sense that Obama stressed so much during the primaries.

Unfortunately, someone has latched onto this idea of fundamental change in the way things are done in Washington - and it's coming from the presidential candidate of the same party as the current president. McCain is, quite suddenly, the Change Man. It seems to be working, as some polls show him gaining an edge on Obama.

Mr. Brooks gets all of this, and points it out in his column. He does leave out something, though: this has happened before. In the 1972 presidential campaign, George McGovern ran a wildly successful primary season that saw him transform from the fringe candidate who happened to be popular with the youth vote into the darling of Democrats in America. He beat out a more widely known candidate (Hubert Humphrey) on a platform of - you guessed it - change. Fundamental change in the way business is done in Washington. After securing the Democratic nomination for president, however, he subsequently attempted to unite the party by playing nice with other Democrats who, not long before, had been derisive of his entire campaign. He also chose an entirely mainstream senator as a vice president - a moderate - alienating much of the more liberal new voters who got him the nomination in the first place. By reneging on his promises of real and fundamental change he allowed Nixon, the Republican incumbent, to make a few smart moves and take the election in a landslide.

Obama, with his choice of Senator Biden as vice president, has made the exact same mistake. The election season has sounded and felt familiar, but previous to reading the Brooks column this afternoon I hadn't realized why. Anyone can promise change when it is safe to do so. Few can deliver on it when doing so means taking a political risk - even when not doing so constitutes a bigger (albeit seldom recognized) risk.

-The Ambassador

Know Your Friends

Alright. There's been quite a length of time since the Colonel and I last posted anything up here, but now that the school year is soon to begin I thought I would get back into the swing of things with some comments on a recent development in world affairs. It's been a topic both on and off the campaign trail, though the implications are obviously much farther reaching than that.

Earlier this month, Georgia invaded South Ossetia. Of course, since Georgia (under President Saakashvili) has doubled it's troop commitment in Iraq, they have been staunchly supported by the Bush administration and almost every right-winger here in the states - much like the dictatorship of Musharraf was supported in Pakistan due to his vocal support for the war on terror. Before we jump to conclusions about the uncalled-for aggression on the part of the Russians, we should perhaps examine more closely our relationship to this "democracy."

Saakashvili took office in early 2004, vowing to bring Georgian economics into the modern world and to stop corruption. While he has undoubtedly helped the Georgian economy leap forward with his devotion to free markets - and corruption with government has visibly decreased - there are still unanswered questions as to some of his decisions. Saakashvili's human rights record is, at best, questionable. Soon after ascending to the office of the president, he claimed that massive coordinated prison riots were being set up by criminal masterminds and therefore ordered a "shoot to kill" in the event of anything that remotely resembled instigation of riots in the prison system. In his inaugural statement, according to his own website, he stated that it was time for the government to be afraid of the people. He also has declared a state of emergency and ordered police force on relatively small political protests, leading to denunciations from organizations inside and outside Georgia.

Up until extremely recently, Saakashvili has supported a "diplomatic resolution" to the South Ossetia question. It was, however, Georgia that invaded South Ossetia, triggering the military response of Russia. As Mikhail Gorbachev pointed out in an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, Russia didn't need to do this to "assert dominance" in the region, as some western officials and pundits have claimed. Much of South Ossetia was under attack long before the Russians arrived.

Unfortunately (and though I hate to agree so heavily with Gorbachev . . . he was far too friendly with Reagan), this issue has been painted as black and white in the western media. Instead, it is intensely multi-faceted, with at least as many sides as the still-poorly-understood relations between various religious sects ethnicities in the Middle East and South Asia.

As far as the presidential campaign goes here in the states, Mr. McCain has advocated for the removal of Russia from the G8, while Mr. Obama has been somewhat more cautious. Mr. McCain's proposal is, frankly, ridiculous. If his idea of diplomacy is a knee-jerk reaction to cut ties when this kind of situation arises, how will he react to even more subtly shaded relationships in other parts of the world? It doesn't exactly inspire optimism.

The Cold War is over. Russia knows this, and recent actions in no way indicate a return to "a desire to rebuild the empire." It is the U.S. that has so far failed to treat Russia as potential partner, and without the recognition of this possibility (however distant), no real progress will be made.

-The Ambassador

Blood Nationalism

The new voter ID laws proposed in Missouri are, for starters, unconstitutional. They put unfair demands on voters to provide identification that they may not be able to obtain due to economic factors or other mitigating circumstances. Although a similar law has already been upheld in Indiana by the Supreme Court, this in no way proves its constitutionality. A biased and partisan Supreme Court does not follow the spirit of the constitution and certainly doesn't work in the way it was meant to. The Missouri secretary of state himself says that the law could disenfranchise up to 240,000 legitimate voters in a state that has historically been crucially relevant in presidential elections. Many of these voters are the poor and already disenfranchised, which is to say: they'll probably be voting Democrat come November. Or, at least, they will be if they aren't unlawfully barred from doing so. In an election year where the chances for a Republican win look so slim, is it any surprise that these actions are being taken? It shouldn't be.

However, there is an even more frightening side to all of this. By placing ever stricter limitations on who can and cannot vote, we are also limiting more and more who can be labeled a citizen, a member of the nation. What happens to groups within a democracy that have no voice? Who do they turn to? The last time this kind of limitation on voting occurred, it was under a system of laws called Jim Crow. These laws have no place in the U.S., or any country calling itself a democracy. Although, when you think about it, what do you call a country that has as its president a man who lost the popular vote but was bumped into office regardless due to the decision of a Supreme Court staffed by his own father? I'm not sure, but I don't think the term is "democracy."

-The Ambassador

A follow-up and A new identity

I said I would post a new entry everyday...and by that I meant every week day comrades. Anyway I am a man of my word.

First of all, I want to announce the new name by which my partner is enlightening the world will now by known as (provided he is accepting of it). David will hanceforth be known as Ambassador. The decision was made after much deliberation and discussion, which I fear puts me on the brink of schizophrenia. However, in response to that, I think it is fair to say that, if not for intelligent debate (discussion), no matter what level of sanity it poses, what would there be? Not a whole lot.

Now I'd like to say a few more things about stem cells.

Although I raised concerns with my last entry, I do not want anyone to think that I am somehow condemning stem cell (and genetic, for I have learned recently how closely they are tied to one another) research. I think it is also important for people to understand what it is and how it works, so I urge everyone to read up on it. NIH.gov does a decent job giving the basic information.

The U.S. government will spend approximately $80 million this year funding research institutes as part of the ENCODE program. The goal of ENCODE is to use the information they learned by decoding the human genome to make progress in health related fields. The hope is to cure such diseases as alzheimers and cancer, among others.

At first glance, $80 million seems like a ton of money. It is in fact a ton of money. But lets keep in mind who we are talking about. For a country the has an $11 trillion GDP, a $3.1 billion proposed budget and has spent alomost $600 billion in Iraq over the past 5 years, $80 million is nothing. The San Fransisco Chronicle published an interesting story regarding Iraq war spending, check it out here http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/09/INEMVEVHK.DTL .

Regards,

Colonel

So the other day, I was generously given the chance to sit in the breezy hallway outside Lecture Center Seven at SUNY Albany and talk to a professor of microbiology. His title to be more precise is "Assitant Professor" which suprisingly does not mean at all what it sounds like. He is in fact the director of UAlbany's School of Public Health, and a lead researcher at the Gen*NYS*is Center for Excellence in Cancer Research. He told me that he approaches his research on a genomic level...meaning he plays around with the "regulatory code" trying to figure out how and why certain proteins binding in the replication of DNA can effect and cause mutations in genes, ultimately leading to cancer.

Fascinating stuff, really. I have no idea what most of what he said meant, but i did get the jist of it. Basically, we are really really really close to understanding the human genome so well that we will be able to pin point mutations that will cause cancer and other such diseases.

On the bright side, this is great. This knowledge will eventually lead to cures for cancer or whatever disease of your choice. But don't get the champagne out too fast. This ability to detect people's predisposition to developing diseases is a very very scary thought. This knowledge, in the wrong hands, could have consequences that will go beyond the simple issue of employment. I mean really, what company is going to hire someone who has a mutation on the seventh chromosome (completely chosen at random and there is no scientific basis for my choice, but it is to make a general point) which we know will lead to the development of lung cancer roughly at age 40? Probably not many.

This is not too terrible of a concern, however, because of the stringent doctor-patient confidentiality codes. For example, I know a woman who had cancer 10 years ago and was job searching five years ago. She was able to go through the job hunting process without telling her possible future employers that she was a cancer survivor. We'll see where all that goes. It seems now-a-days you can get just about anything on the internet.

The real scare is eugenics. Who is to say that it won't become law for everyone to have genetic testing done? You could argue the cost will prevent this from ever happening, but already it is only a few thousand dollars and anyone who is curious enough (and has a decent pocket book) can have their own genome mapped.

You may be saying that I am a lunatic, and I am, but not on the eugenics score. I advise anyone who does not beleive eugenics is still practiced in the United States go to Google and search "Norplant" and "eugenics." Nor plant is a drug, well more like a device, that is implanted in women that prevents them from getting pregnant for 5-7 years.

Anyway, if you do indeed Google this, you will see stories about state legislatures trying to pass laws suggesting that women on welfare also go on Norplant. There is also a somewhat famous story (and I hesitate to say famous because I had never heard about it until the afore mentioned researcher told me about it) in which a young woman in Alabama was charged with child abuse. She was a single mother of 5 and lived in poverty. The judge gave her the option of choosing to go to jail, or go on Norplant.

Stem cells have the potential to be life saving, but unless the knowledge is used responsibly, we could be in serious trouble, as my microbiologist researcher told me, "There will be human cloning, without a doubt, and I don't know if the ends justify the means."

Until tomorrow,
Colonel Brian

p.s. - sorry Dave I have yet to think of a good name, but one is on the way, I swear

reflection

To mist Dave, the elitist drunken political theorist whom I respect and addorn:

i had a blog post all written out right? like free hand pre-computer style. when i went to sign in to our blog, i had completely forgotten the email address we use for signing in. the password is unforgettable, and ingenious i might add, nicely done.

however, this dilemma caused me to retrace my cyber steps over the past, shit i dont know...approximately 2 or 3 months, and i eventually found an email of interest. it was from none other than DAVE (well since i dont know if we use last names around here...) ********* all in capitals, i said "alas, my search is complete, this email shall hold all the information i am seeking." well, it didn't.

instead this email opened my eyes to the excitement, the absolute bliss and passion that we shared when creating this blog. it was an email in which you called me "colonel" (which i fucking love and have yet to counter that with a name as remarkable for you) and you were telling me about your first entry. you sounded (if thats possible via email) excited and i know i was excited when i read it. the point is, what happened? absolutely nothing. we have done shit since the day this motherfucker first took off.

we sit back and criticize all of those around us. as deserving of criticism as they are, we are no better. we are wastes of human intellect, something which, i beleive, we both value immensely. we need to get our heads back into this.

that being said. i vow to post a blog everyday from now until we take our trip, which i feel is inevitable, every single fucking day. Though i may be drunk right now, hold me to this shit because i t hink we have something here and i think we could bring upon this sedate society a change that is not only inevitable, but absolutely necessary.

until tomorrow (and i promise i will have a post up within 24 hours...and a sweet nickname for Dave),

Colonel Brian

A Step Forward

The first real elections since a military coup in 1999 took place in Pakistan yesterday, a step forward for a country that has lost credibility due to the actions of its leader. Since that coup in 1999, Pervez Musharraf has acted as both the head of the military and the president of the country. In that time, his actions have lost him the popular support of the people of Pakistan as well as that of many leaders from around the world. The United States (and more specifically the administration), on the other hand, has chosen to stand by Mr. Musharraf through his myriad human rights violations and clear disdain for democracy.
While this support has been mostly based on the idea that Mr. Musharraf is an integral ally in the fight against terrorism, it seems that Mr. Musharraf has had a difficult time stopping not only terrorist activities in his own country (despite at least $1 billion a year in military aid), but he has also had trouble with other forms of discontent. On May 12th, 2007, the city of Karachi saw protests of the suspension of the Chief Justice of Pakistan that left many dead and even more injured. The judge who had been dismissed was "reinstated" by the Supreme Court, was dismissed again in November, and remains under house arrest. Furthermore, the New York Times noted today that there was actually a rise in terror activity in Pakistan throughout 2007, which seems to contradict the ideas behind the administrations staunch support of the Pakistani leader.
The Times said that "ten people were killed and 70 injured around the country," during the night before and the day of the elections, but the popular discontent centered on Mr. Musharraf showed strongly anyway. Early reports have shown big gains (around 110 seats in a parliament of 272) for the Pakistan Peoples' Party, as well as around 100 seats for the Pakistan Muslim League-N. Both of these parties were headed by former prime ministers until Dec. 27th, 2007, when Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples' Party, was assassinated at a rally.
Though these elections are a step forward, they are not the end of the process. There is still anti-american sentiment in Pakistan (with good reason). Perhaps the most sensible idea to have been put forward in mainstream politics has come from Senator Joseph Biden Jr., who says that we need to focus less on military aid and more on economic development aid. We need to help average Pakistanis gain some stability in their everyday lives, and stop focusing so much aid so directly on attacks on terrorists and terrorist activities. The rest, as they say, will take care of itself (ah, if only it were actually that easy).

-Dave

A few things I forgot to mention...

As for education, there is a great example of an unorthodox school in Atlanta Georgia (of all places..). It is a school that welcome refugees rfom other countries at the same time as courting the affluent (and probably liberal minded) citizens of the same area. I'll get back to this with the name, but the book I learned about it in is called "What is What." Check it out.

Also, with Mr. Edwards out of the Democratic race for the nomination, it is quit entertaining watching Hillary and Barack dance around trying to be friends with one another while trying to point out their many flaws.

Farewell good sirs and madams

Brian

Sir,

In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Speaker of the House NancyPelosi hit the nail on the head when she said "Huge deficits. An endlesswar. I don't know what else he has to offer."
She was, of course speaking of President Bush's State of the Union speech which he delivered Monday night. Her words are exactly what so manyAmericans think. Is it even worth watching when nothing new will be said and certainly nothing will be accomplished?
The obvious answer is yes, in fact it is most important to watch the president speak, there is nothing more disheartening than the ignorant fool who criticizes without having anything to back it up. However, there is a grander message in this disdainful outlook on the presidents speech. That he is washed up. It's over for Mr. Bush. We are a forward looking society and have our eyes on the next president. One who will lead us to economic stability, fairer education, health care reform and a cleaner environment.
Mr. Bush of course mentioned these difficult issues in his speech. However, he devoted the majority of the speech addressing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These endless, ruthless tales of misguidance. When the rest of the country is putting the economy at the top of their list of concerns, why is it that Mr. Bush continues to try and put fear intoAmerican families in order to gain support for his war on oil?
Mr. Bush boasted about the tax relief agreement the Whitehouse and Congress recently came to, which is good, but as many economists have said, it is too little too late.The economy is not the only thing that Mr. Bush failed to adequatelyaddress. Health care and education do not seem to be important issues in his mind, regardless of the fact that the United States is becoming inferior to other developed countries in both areas. Rather than giving money to some to be used to pay for private education, perhaps we shouldtry to make our public schools more appealing to the upper and middleclass. Or as Mr. Bloomerge has done in New York City, try a kind of charter school. As Mr. Bush tried to boast of the accomplishments of the No Child Left Behind bill and ask for more support of it in the future, itwas difficult not to think of the uninsured children that, although they may not be being left behind by our low educational standards, they are indeed being left in the dust when their parents cannot afford the proper medical care they need.
It is important to remember that, as was mentioned before, Mr. Bush is on his way out. So, Dave, Mr. Bush is the one being left behind. As are the people who have his same antiquated train of thought. What we are doing is clearly not working, we must (and we will) find a way that will change the course our country is on.
Don't let the Democrats dupe you however. They are merely friendly advocates for the devil. The better of two evils perhaps, but nonetheless, spineless thoughtless parasites living off our support. It's time for us to wake up and force our political leaders to make the necessary changes the will benefit all of us, not just the rich.
As for Mr. Bush i think he is a waste of intelligent thought and I refuse to mention him this blog ever again. From this point forward, Mr. Bush is off limits, I refuse to waste my readers time by discussing a man who is merely a puppet going out of style. Have a nice life Mr. Bush.

Regards,
Brian

Who's Been Left Behind?

Mr. Bush,


You started with a semi-discrete reference to the war in Iraq while referring more broadly to the war on terror. I refuse to capitalize any of the words referring to the various wars the U.S. conducts because rarely do they breach the line of legitimacy. As you speak of the results in the hard data that lead one to dream of success, the mass grave you dig to bury those who give their lives to the misguided dream of democracy in all nations now grows ever larger. You somehow connect this to the patrolling of our borders, which you clearly hope will lead to better national security. Making giant jumps on topics like these is dangerous and brings to mind the comments made by Mike Huckabee when he made the connection between terrorism and immigration through our porous borders in his campaign speeches in Iowa.
Reacting to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a former Pakistani prime minister, Huckabee said that "it's interesting that there are more Pakistanis who have illegally crossed the border than of any other nationality except for those immediately south of our border." He seemed to believe that a large number of Pakistani immigrants had entered into America illegally in 2007, even though the Border Patrol of the United States said that it had only apprehended a few illegal Pakistani immigrants in 2007. The Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Immigration Statistics did not put Pakistan on the list of the top ten sources of illegal immigrants. The Pew Hispanic Center, which is a "fact-tank" based in Washington, D.C., says that 81% of illegal immigrants are of Latin American origin. Sorry, Mr. Huckabee. Maybe you should stick to touting that evangelical baptist charm of yours.
As a minor point, Mr. Bush, you comment that the state of the union is "confident and strong." When Ben Bernanke has to make the largest one-day cut ever in the federal interest rates, a .75 percent drop to 3.5% just to make sure that the stock market doesn't crash due to declining domestic and foreign investment, America is not at all confident, and the argument is still undecided on whether or not you could call it strong.
I will give you credit on one count, Mr. Bush. You are one stubborn son of a bitch. You say that "we must continue to give our homeland security and law enforcement personnel every tool they need to defend us. And one of those essential tools is the Patriot Act . . ." The 4th amendment of the United States constitution states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." I'm not sure it could get much more explicit than that, but it is obvious that the founders of this nation meant for us to have privacy. Whatever you may say to defend it, whatever scrap of ill-founded logic you may use to justify it, Mr. Bush, the Patriot Act is an affront to the liberties given to us by the men who began this great political experiment we call a democracy.
I will give you a pass on the economy, Mr. Bush, at least for now. I can't say whether or not we are in the beginnings of a recession, at the moment, because not even the most talented of economists can say that. But I will say that tax cuts for the sake of tax cuts (that is to say, for the sake of earning favor with those who always want to see tax cuts) are hardly ever the answer to economic problems. I hope that your economic stimulus plan gives money to those who will put it into savings accounts and the stock market, and that we won't see the immediate effects of the plan. It is the long term that America should worry about, and the way to ensure your survival in a long-term capitalist country is to ensure that you have capital in the future.
Your stubbornness is shown once again as you defend the No Child Left Behind Act, which has hindered the education of students in America since the day it was passed. Schools are required to test students based on state-wide exams in order to receive federal funding. This leads to a low standard in education, with teachers being urged to bring students to the state-wide testing level, and not beyond. States, in general, have opted for the least expensive and one of the least efficient methods of testing students, which is to say that many have adopted standardized multiple choice testing. Rethinking Schools, a website based out of Milwaukee, notes that Philadelphia fourth graders actually end up reading less books due to the act, which is logical because teachers will be forced to teach only the books that appear most regularly on standardized tests. In addition, Maryland schools actually spent 20% less time on social studies in 2002 due to the passage of the NCLB Act. In a nation that is increasingly more diverse with each passing year, and in a world that grows smaller and thus increases cultural interaction by the second, wouldn't it make more sense for individuals to be able to interact with different cultures more easily? Wouldn't that be more useful than knowing a predetermined fact about a predetermined book on tests that show very little, if anything at all, about the true potential of an individual? Just some food for thought as you enter the last year of your maimed and impotent presidency, Mr. Bush.

Regards,
Dave