Cyber War I, Acknowledging the Risk

12/21/2014

Cyber War I, Acknowledging the Risk  (with time link subsequent to this writing in addenda)

A couple of young men who were proud of living life in a marijuana induced haze decide to push the edge of international norms by making a comedy about the assassination of a world leader.  One guy, Seth Rogan, was a hit with what is known the "stoner set," which represents an increasing number of those who are thrown into adulthood with few decent job prospects and little chance of making it against the competition of robotics and cheap labor, mostly from Asian countries.  "Stoner" as I use it does not necessarily mean getting stoned, rather it is a sensibility, a way of life.  All they have to deflect an unpleasant future is taking nothing seriously -- the more absurd the joke the better, as reality would be too depressing. 

Some within the film company, Sony Pictures, tried to get them to tone the movie down, "at least don't kill the guy, or fictionalize the character."  But Rogan, who was the director as well as the star, insisted that they make the murder that of an actual living man, the dictator of twenty five million people who are under his absolute control in North Korea, Kim Jong un.  No major film maker has ever before produced a fictional account of a murder of a living national leader.  Sony Pictures never showed any concern with the international or domestic consequences of infuriating this dictator, who is descended from two men in the same position who have never hesitated to impose immense suffering on their population in the name of maintaining power.  Not only did Mr. Rogan claim that the justification, the overriding consideration of deciding to make this film, was not the possible escalation of hostilities, but that the "film was funny."  Ironically, this same sentiment was repeated by the CEO of Sony International, Michael Lynton, in a much more polished presentation even after the escalation of tension between the U.S. and North Korea had begun. 

By the time Lynton told his story in a half hour interview with Fareed Zakaria this Sunday morning, a narrative very different than described above had started to crystallize.  Rather than irresponsible individuals producing a film that breached international norms, we have these "stoners" and the company that approved the film transformed into avatars of liberty, courageously expanding the frontiers of freedom of speech.

(At this point, a week after writing this I link this article from the Washington Post after the film has been released.  It  makes the case that the film actually has the potential to do this, to achieve which I claimed to be the justification of Sony for making the film, actually goad the U.S. to see the film's message of "absurdity" of the film being part of the oppressive regime.  It's an interesting analysis that to the degree that it does change policy, both in this country and in North Korea, could change the place of this film in shaping world events for the better)

 Within a few short days, beginning with President Obama's expressed admiration for this trivialization of assassination along with his personal determination of guilt for the hack and then pronouncement of punishment against N.Korea, the impossible happened -- a unification of liberals and conservatives in a call to arms against the country of North Korea. 

Obama's statement at his news conference last week was absurd on its face.  After joking how he personally likes Seth Rogen,  he continued: " We cannot have a society in which some dictators someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States because if somebody is able to intimidate us out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing once they see a documentary that they don't like or news reports that they don't like"  

In reality, there have been numerous documentaries on national television just this year that describe in great detail the oppression of the North Korean regime, and that government has never expressed any objection, much less attempted to censor them.  While the President called this film "satire," if such a production were produced in this country with him as a target, especially if by those deemed among our enemies, there is little doubt that those responsible would face prosecution, as have such as Ed Snowden, who exemplifies the actual fate of those who really do advance freedom of speech. This freedom has never been absolute even in this country, with falsely crying fire, pornography and fighting words being well known exceptions.  (Here's Snoden's inside knowledge of just how vulnerable this country is to a cyber attack)

If there are unique elements of this cyber attack against Sony, it is not the extent of damage, but that it created a political opportunity -- one of a nature that has led to tragedy throughout history.  Domestic distress, such as the expanding wealth divide that carries over to inequality of  justice, is baked into our society, with no foreseeable fix available.  Just as 9-11 united our country behind the previous administration, even allowing a war to change a regime that had nothing to do with the attack, so rage against a common enemy is a sure way to bring a country together, to rally around the flag with immediate adulation of the leader.   As the guns of August 2014 were being prepared, few from the combatant countries could imagine the horrible carnage of what they all were told would be a short decisive victory.

We are moving ever closer to such a calamity, with any voice of reason being drowned out by the laugh track augmented sound of crowds indulging in mindless guffaws over the funny man with the bad haircut being murdered.  The conclusion from the CEO of Sony saying that 90% of even the most secure corporations are vulnerable to the devastating hack that started all this is simply ignored.  The threat that President Obama made did not define the method of retribution, but it is either traditional weapons or cyber attacks.  Kim Jong un, even before this escalation, has missiles -- perhaps with poison gas or nuclear warheads -- on hair trigger aimed at South Korea, with American forces there as a buffer -- both countries that he technically is at war with.  As the threat level increases, there is a greater danger of accidental launch.  And even if the U.S. were to make a pre-emptory strike, a few missiles would probably be launched with great carnage to the South; as our attack would certainly not injure the dictator, rather it would kill large numbers of his people who are his virtual prisoners. 

The other option is we choose to use cyber warfare, as was done against Iran to cause damage to their nuclear enrichment operation.  It did slow them down, yet no country is more advanced, and therefore more vulnerable than the U.S.A.  This Wall Street Journal article quotes Keith Alexander, head of U.S. Cyber Command:  "Chinese military and commercial cyber theft ($400 billion of F-35 designs) amount to “the greatest transfer of wealth in history,”  With our department of defense, NSA, major newspapers and all financial institutions and corporations vulnerable, I suggest that the only thing that is preventing a world-wide catastrophe is that it is not in anyone's interest to cause such a collapse. 

Barack Obama chose this enemy carefully.  To actually acknowledge the deep causes of this "stoner mentality" that drove this breach of norms of international comity would require that he take this  problem seriously, rather than divert attention by further demonetization  of this new national enemy.  We had been negotiating with Kim Jong-un attempting to find a way to liberate his people, which may have been a long haul, something like that we endured with Cuba's nontraditional leader Fidel Castro.  Our civilization is only here today because the national leaders of that showdown, the Cuban Missile Crisis, had the courage to back away rather than rouse their people to a catastrophic war.  Both Khrushchev and Kennedy knew what the choices were, and did not seek political gain from it.

President Obama chooses to throw the dice with our entire civilization.  The cyber world, from our home computers to smart phones that encompasses every part of our life is now a vital system that is vulnerable. The technology grew much faster than concerns for robustness and reliability could keep up with. Obama's narrative, and that of the CEO of Sony, is a mutually advantageous self serving distortion. Our country is now starting to acknowledge that the invasion of Iraq was a terrible mistake that left a vacuum filled by ISIL, the most barbaric movement since the Nazi era.  And just as Hitler ordered an extended futile last ditch defense of Berlin against the entreaties of his generals to surrender,  there is no evidence that Kim Jong un would be any more concerned with the death of millions of his minions. 

Seth Rogan and Sony Pictures made a profit-motivated decision to poke his finger in the eye of this perverse individual, and when this dictator responded to this trivialization of his assassination by damaging the corporation that produced it the President of the United States chose to turn such crude arrogation of national policy into heroism.   Obama, and those of this country of both left and right, are buying into this disastrous narrative -- which is now taking on a life of its own.  Perhaps it will just fizzle out and calmer voices will prevail.  But history shows otherwise, as the assassination in Serbia almost exactly a hundred years ago illustrates.  Both that one causing an actual death, and the current one making such a death into a joke are now starting to have the same effect.  Like then,  the temptation to escalate hatred rather than promote  rational engagement is "trending."  We are now more connected than ever, enhancing the speed of the contagion of this new brew, stoner mentality mixed with patriotic rage.  

No one could ever have predicted the historical sequelae of that assassination a hundred years ago,  which was a bloody 20th century of wars and suffering that need not have been.  And like today, if someone had made such a prediction, the chance of it being attended to would have been slim. So, ignore the gloomy man shouting from the wings, and turn up the laugh track;  as long as its funny, what else matters.

Al Rodbell
Encinitas CA
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Addenda:

Only days after the News conference described and discussed above,  the Internet system of the DPRK, was disabled for about half a day.  The reporting confirmed that the people do not have access to the international internet, having less than one millionth of the URL addresses than the United States.  This gives credence to those professionals who claim that they did not have the resources to have perpetrated the original Sony hack.
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This article from ABC News on the day after the above essay was written describes how two thirds of the world service of Youtube was disrupted for most of a day by the attempt to close a single video in Pakistan.  It concludes with this paragraph from an authority in the field:  "To be honest, there's not a single thing preventing this from happening to E-Trade, or Bank of America, or the FBI, or the White House,........."
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A Movie Studio, How About the National Grid, describes just the extent of the disaster that could be inflicted upon us if  attacks through the internet, already happening discretely among government actors, ever became overt.  This is what our President's response brings us closer to. 
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Additional essays on this subject, including early survey on Dailykos, can be found on my main website AlRodbell.com  
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Eight days after this essay was written the N.Y. Times Editorial acknowledges this danger: Deterring Cyber Attacks from North Korea

Did you know that Bruce Dern slept with Eleanor Roosevelt

'Did you know that Bruce Dern slept with Eleanor Roosevelt'

That's what the guy at the tennis courts said today while we were talking about the new film he stared in, "Nebraska."  I've been playing with Arty for many years and he often brings up a range of subjects that he would enjoy talking about, sometimes to the point of having to remind him that we were here to play tennis not to have a seminar.  He invariably had done some thinking on these subjects, so when he said this about the actor Bruce Dern,  a film star that many people admire, most of us were incredulous.  One woman mentioned the difference in age, and Arty said, "Yes, there was a considerable age discrepancy between the two which makes it even more surprising, and also shocking.  He said that Dern actually wrote about the incident, even going into details of her uncovered legs next to him lying in bed they shared.

This was "Eleanor Roosevelt," probably the closest this country has to a secular saint.  She was the heart of her husbands Presidency, the one who would arrange for Marian Anderson to sing at the D.C. mall after the Daughters of the American Revolution had rebuffed her because of her race.  It was she who got a hearing by the President with American Rabbis whose people were facing annihilation during the war.  In her later years she was a key figure in creating the United Nations and then being America's first Ambassador to this body.  We know about the abuse that she took from political enemies and her difficult marriage that she endured with quiet dignity.  

Since Arty mentioned that Dern's disclosure was on Wikipedia,  I immediately researched it when I got home and, sure enough, here's the link and the entire ugly disrespectful story of this shameful incident that Dern divulged on the Tavis Smiley program on PBS:

Dern responding: Yeah, right. Then (My Father) he went on to become Roosevelt’s first secretary of war, in the first Cabinet, and he died while he was in office. My family used to go visit the Roosevelts up at Hyde Park, where they were outside of New York.

One year they were visiting and little Brucie got to go with them, and I was riding a bicycle in the afternoon, and ran into a tree and hit my head and had a concussion.

In those days when you had a concussion they laid you down with your head on a pillow and then strapped your head across the pillow so you couldn’t move it to the side or forward or anything.

When I kind of came to, I guess it was late at night, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and as I rolled my head to the side, I saw this lady’s legs. They were kind of veiny, and had a nightgown down to about here with little kind of tacky slippers. (Laughter)

I didn’t understand. As I slowly came up and started looking up to where the woman’s face was, she had a book in her lap, and she looked like this (makes face) and had that Roosevelt bite. I realized, my God, it’s the president’s wife. (Laughter)

O.K, the Arty from the tennis court I described is me,  Al the blogger, who told everyone in feigned seriousness about Bruce and Eleanor, accentuating and always using the exact wording that they had "Slept Together." with everyone taking it for the euphemism for  "having sex" which is a euphemism for "fucking."  The reason that I did it was not so much for the silly joke, but to illustrate something that I take quite seriously,  how the expansion of euphemisms, unlike in this example, can actually degrade our society in more ways than we know.

Those reading this will always know when "sleep with" is the euphemism or when it can mean what Dern described from the context.  So, I tricked those on the courts by my expression and tone of voice.  Yet, in decades to come, for example if there is a document about crowded tenements where the term is used not only for a married couple to define their sexual intimacy, but for other situations, such as guests who could often outnumber beds, there will be ambiguity.

Sexuality has long been a taboo subject that required euphemisms to protect the kiddies and to identify one as being cultured.  I'm told that the word "pregnant" had been expressed as "with child" even though the latter term could describe having a living post fetus one as well.  We got over that taboo, but we seem to have developed many more without any real push-back.  Now, the motive is not to protect children from learning too soon about their species' carnal nature, but to protect anyone who could be insulted by a description that defines them in an unflattering way.  

Enforcement of this degradation of language is usually informal, but in a recent case it was by federal legislation.  Mental retardation is a congenital condition that like deafness or intersex genetalia creates challenges for the child and family.  Congress went so far as to mandate that all federal documents elide the term "mental retardation" and replace it with "intellectual disability."  This represents the trend in linguistic obfuscation which is replacing precise words with those that are less specific.  One can become intellectually disabled by trauma at any age, or by extreme social deprivation.  Thus use of a specific term for a congenital condition is actually made illegal in some legal contexts.  (this objection is mentioned in this official document, but they ultimately ignored it)  I ask the reader to consider whether this increases or decreases the pain of those so afflicted.

Unfortunately, this movement has been incorporated into a commonly used term with all of the defects of linguistic imprecision that this essay is condemning, "Political Correctness."   The phrase, with it's own abbreviation, "PC" turns this into a partisan issue by depicting it as a liberal quirk, or just another aspect of our world that is as inevitable as power breeding corruption. 

This "Linguistic Degradation"  LD (c)*  is predicated on the absurd conceit that by eliminating words that describe difficult problems we make them go away.  I explored this in my article, "Negro, the word, gets a reprieve," (link below) but I fear the reprieve will be short.   Another example has never been discussed that I know of;  it is how housing for the poor has been renamed "affordable housing."  Under this seemingly harmless linguistic legerdemain the harm isn't immediate, yet it has created confusion and now even the acceptance of the absurd consequences of a California state law that manages to require adverse zoning under the illusion of providing housing for the poor.  For those interested, this article describes the confusion of a local city council member caused by the new meaning of "affordable."

I lured readers into this article by a ploy of exposure of a sexual affair by a woman whom I have great personal admiration, even affection.  I would only do it because I believe that Eleanor would approve of my goals.  She did what she could to create a better world, in this country and beyond.  She didn't shy away from facing life as it existed --including bigotry against Negros, hatred towards Jews and indifference towards the poor.  Pretending that eliminating words that accurately allow addressing the complex challenges of our world is a movement that deserves to be challenged.

I only wish it were being done so by those with more clout than I.
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*"Linguistic Destruction"  and "LD"  Copyright ©  (2014) under Creative Commons (CC)

Addenda:

My article, "Negro, the word, gets a reprieve"  and why it should.

A P.O.V on "The Interview" an off the cuff declaration of war against N.Korea

12/17/14

OpEd Submission to LA Times.  (Not Accepted)

The LA Times has a running theme,"Company Town," which is an acknowledgement that much of the paper's audience is connected to this industry.  There is an irony in the term, in that it has historically applied to blue collar industries far removed from international, even civilization shaping, impact. This unfolding story has yet to find a simple identifying phrase IE, "The Dreyfus Affair" or "The Cuban Missile Crisis."  Let's try a few provisional ones:  The Interview, Sony Hack, North Korea Blackmail, Sony capitulation, U.S. President escalation, and possibly known by the last chapter, International Cyber Warfare cripples world economy. 

As events unfold, various narratives vie for acceptance, as which prevails affects the course of actual events.  Hollywood has been at this this since its inception.  "Birth of a Nation" was a blockbuster, a breakthrough in technology and artistry, which could have been the headline of the local paper; but it also promoted the most vicious racism of southern states for a half century.  It took time for films to engage in the great debate in this country on taking sides in the developing fascism of the late 1930s, perhaps caused by the major studios not wanting to appear biased by the Jewish ethnicity of owners and often Marxist philosophy of writers.

As "The Interview" story continues it has transformed from what is agreed by critics to be about a third rate farce into a defense of the Western world's most cherished principle, most expansive in our country, that of unfettered freedom of expression.  Yet, lost in the play-by-play reporting is the larger implications of how this will affect our world. Kim Jong un, while not killed, has been transformed into a caricature, one defined by the Sony decision makers whose single interest was a profitable film that promotes the "franchise" of "Stoner sensibility."  Our vaunted freedom of expression is really not as unfettered as advertised; as a comedy about the gang rape of a woman head of state would probably never be "green lit,"

With President Obama's ominous threat against a country possessing both traditional WMD and a capacity to begin a cyber war - where it is our country that is the most vulnerable - we are about to enter uncharted waters. Part of the "stoner mentality" that the film epitomized is that laughter is the ultimate reality, a modern solipsism to avoid actual consequences of inaction,  which as it becomes the dominant cultural norm of the most powerful country, at the very least "attention must be paid."    --------------
12/31/14

To the Letters Editor: LA Times

 

In response to this article:   A Sony Insider, Not N.Korea,  likely responsible for the hack"

Objectively, from the perspective of the DPRK, the government of North Korea, these words of the Commander in Chief of this country that we will"... respond proportionately ... in a place and time and manner that we choose," placed them in imminent* threat of attack by the worlds most powerful country - predicated on a computer breach of a private company that evidence, in doubt then, now shows they did not initiate.  The war mania became widespread, including this newspaper that ignored the President unilaterally taking the world closer to the brink of cyber warfare.  Based on our own standards, military action against us by North Korea would be justified.

The focus of your coverage was the effect on Sony Pictures and the movie industry, fulfilling your role of covering the "Company Town" of Hollywood.  Sadly, this entailed a lack of incisive coverage of the  broader prospective of this unfolding incident that is incumbent on one of our few remaining responsible newspapers.  

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*"Imminent" has been redefined by the CIA as a threat that could be implemented without further action that is observable by the target - This link summarizes the meaning in the context of the U.S. legitimizing a drone attack,  "the memo “redefines the word imminence in a way that deprives the word of its ordinary meaning.”

"Is the prayer for me working?" wonders the atheist

The holiday season has always been tough for me.   During my childhood it meant that all the kids in the neighborhood would come out on Christmas morning with their gifts, and I had nothing to say.  It's not that we lived in a wealthy neighborhood, not by a long shot.  It was a row of working class apartments built only a year before we moved there in 1941, just adjacent to the Jim Crow demarcation that separated us from the colored people of the Ivy City neighborhood of D.C.

I remember when Henry greeted me with pride brandishing his gift, which was a baseball glove, old and a bit tattered.  He told me that it was a glove that was used by one of the Senators, our local team that was the origin of the ditty, "Washington, first in war, first in peace and last in the American League. "  I suspected that it was just an old glove that his dad was able to afford, but I didn't say a word.  I was amazed that he was proud of his gift, with no sense of disappointment with him or his father. 

We were Jewish, an exception from all those wealthy evil Jewish bankers who control the world, as we weren't even up to those first generation Jews who made that first step towards the American dream by opening a store.  My dad drove a cab to his full time job of being a baker, which was fine for this neighborhood of clerks, and other blue collar positions.  Only later did this become a problem, when we moved to a small house in a better area, and the Diamond Cab became an insignia of shame.

Fast forward to today, from the child who felt especially isolated by the Christmas Carols proclaiming the new born king of Israel we all had to sing at school, to the brightly lit trees and presents of the other kids to now.......(Did you all enjoy the trip?)

Just yesterday, I was invited to lunch at our local senior center, only to see a bevy of kids, maybe about my age when Henry showed off his glove.  They were from the nearby Catholic School to entertain us with seasonal music.  At the table were John D. a dynamic man who lived most of his life in N.Y.C. as I did, as a teacher of the disabled, with a second job as a printer.  He's a devout Catholic, and when the food is served, with deference to me, he says, "I would like to start with a prayer....with he does ending with "and I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ." And I join him in saying "Amen." 

It turned out before I had ever attended one of these lunches, they had recited both the Pledge of Allegiance, and sung "God bless America."  People objected so no more pledge, but the song is sometimes sung, with no sense of it being anything official.  At my table is a women born around 1930 to an upper class family in Tehran who shares her memories of that era, of her family being officially Muslim, but only going to a Mosque when someone was sick to pray and make contributions, as she says since doctors couldn't do much in those days.  She now is a firm atheist, expressing her displeasure of those who equate being a Christian with morality, even to her own daughter who does missionary work in Africa, being retired from or M.D. profession.

As the kids were singing, starting with fun songs like Frosty the Snowman, but including some to those like "Little Town of Bethlehem"  I realized I was enjoying this, that those days of having to sing these songs to a King who my family did not acknowledge was gone, and I had the sensation that knowing these words, singing along, having the kids watch my lips to pick up on some of the words, made feel a part of this occasion, rather than embattled. 

Later that day, my wife was part of small group of musicians in the lobby of an auditorium where her band was giving their annual seasonal concert.  As I was relaxing listening to the music, watching the people arrive, some making a contribution others not, but all greeted warmly, I started to feel a glow, a mellowness that was rare for me. I felt it was directly connected with the words of their music, the feeling of salvation that was there at the end of the long road, that was no longer in the misty distant future -- and that salvation was in the form of an icon, a presence that had reality by the belief of all of those who felt his comforting presence.

In the midst of this feeling, I remembered a year ago at a memorial service for Cheryl  the wife of a friend Tom Cantor, who I have to introduce at this point. Tom was born into a Jewish family whose father was the music critic for Time Magazine.  When he fell in love with Cheryl, his family told him if he marries out to the religion he will be ostracized and the funding for his graduate studies in bio-chemistry will be cut off.  He married her, left school, and out of desperation, used what he had already learn to start a small business in their garage producing medical antibodies.  

His business prospered, so when I met him the little start had expanded to facilities in Mexico, Ethiopia and the being largest employer of Santee California.  What also happened is Cheryl's faith was infectious, and Tom became a believer.  That's a bit of an understatement, as I happened to first meet him when I had attended an open house at the 10,000 square foot Creation Museum he had founded.  He and I are both outgoing Jews, manifestations of some of the same genes and deep cultural roots that allow our tribe to engage easily, to turn tragedy into something else, exemplified by Sid Caesar and maybe Sigmund Freud.     

I felt a human connection, while also realizing that he didn't need any more friends, but certainly wanted to bring another soul to Christ.  When he offered to take me on a personal tour to his facility across the border in Tecate, I accepted.  I did a video story on the trip that you can read, but only after you finish this.  But by the end, when I made it clear it was no sale, he used his trump card, "You probably think that when you die it will just be oblivion, but it's not that way. It  will be eternity in Hell" which he describe rather graphically.  I wondered for a minute whether I would be dumped on the side of the road, but he eventually "seemed" to accept that Al wasn't going to be one of his converts. 

We kept in touch on and off, and I even went to one more museum open house where I was treated sort of like an honored guest, even though he wouldn't go through with allowing me to give the atheist viewpoint to his gathering.  Then a couple years later at the reception after Cheryl's memorial service,  I found out he had not quite given up on me.  I was making small talk to someone, when to my surprise his response to my introducing myself was, "Oh, sure, I know you, we pray for you every week."  Tom confirmed that I am on that short list of those receiving this intervention. 

This came back to me last night, when the connection between the dozens of people praying for my salvation and my feeling the warmth of the moment that allowed me to feel a part of something, just because.  Tom never describes the crisis in his youth that brought this brilliant personable Jewish young man to believe in not only Jesus Christ, but the literal truth of the ancient pre-science explanations of existence.  He gains no extraneous benefits from his endeavors, expending much of his wealth on such proselytizing -- or saving souls as he sees it.

One thing that the praying for me confirms is the sincerity of his beliefs. While I would guess most devout believer develop some doubts along the way, Tom has none.  It's only an accident that I found out about his personal prayers, and far from resenting it, I feel grateful, an appreciation that this man has placed me on his list to attempt to save from eternal damnation.  There was no postcard or email telling me about this,  and I almost didn't come to the memorial and certainly didn't have to introduce myself to one of the prayer group. 

So did the prayer work, and the feeling of belonging to the community of Christ that I was savoring last night confirm his existence?  I could give my answer for this day, but will it be the same as I age another year, another decade?  This more important question I can't possibly answer, because what I can confirm is that everything changes with aging, whether for the better or for the worse.  What I do know is that I am more comfortable with who I am than I have ever been.  It is possible to both reject some of Tom's actions, but also understand him, and enjoy his friendship, not as measured by time spend together but by what he wants to give me according to his lights, not mine.

For me, his real gift is understanding, of him and of myself.  It good to feel that there is someone praying for me, whether I deserve it not.  Must I reject such comfort merely because it is not part of my rational world, which does not provide this, and I don't think ever can.  No, not any more.  I can relax and enjoy it, whether it's the prayer or just a mellowness that I will savor.     






 

Incompatibility between Islam and Democracy (In Progress)

12/09/2014

I question the format of this essay, as it's really an outline for a syllabus, a way of approaching how with the increase in advanced technology do we grapple with primitive forces, religious absolutism that can underlie a barbarism that our enlightened mentality can't understand.  Right now the question is whether Islam is inherently so narrow,  so removed from secularism or more enlightened belief systems that we can't defeat the current manifestation, ISIS, the Islamic Caliphate, and still bestow it with all the protections and privileges that this country provides for all under the rubric of "religion."  I will include articles and books that are diametrically opposed to my thesis in the addendum.

This essay refers first to this article (called diaries)  on Dailykos titled, ISIS is Islam, so say the new apostates,   The general attitude of that website has been to castigate those who opposed Islam, such as promoting constitutional prohibitions against Sharia Law -- depicting this as being the work of bigoted narrow minded conservatives.   This was the nature of the first comments that followed my diary, to the point of placing a marker that the essay should be removed from the site.  Reading the comments will give some idea of how this writer was accused of being a bigot, originally with no attempt by those who were part of the Muslim group to address the substantive issues that I made.  Some of the comments did become substantive later on.  After reading the Dailykos article, the theme will continue here.

This essay you are now reading includes the Dailykos essay linked above, along with ancillary material that is still being developed. Part of this presentation is a hesitancy among the Dailykos readers to give support of my diary by official recommends which could be traced to their user name, which may have personal identification.  It could well have been actual fear, as criticism of Islam can be considered an action that must be revenged.  The Fatwah against Salman Rushdie did result in the murder of at least one person, his editor in Japan.  The outrage against the short anti-Islam film "The Innocence of Muslims" did result in at least fifty deaths.

In considering the religion of Islam, it must be viewed as a practice- a social movement, but also it's theology- that which scholars within the religion explain are its principles:  The following is from such a source, a colloquy of such Islamic theology Al-Islam org. 
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The western powers have some cards up their sleeves that are very readily used against any country that they do not like--cards of human rights, democracy, and minority rights.

Take, for example, the case of the Branch Davidian cult and its leader David Koresh in Waco, Texas. It was a minority religious group. The US government forces put them under siege for 51 days, and finally, on August 17, 1993, their whole compound was burnt down; 95 lives were lost. The US government presented it simply as a "law and order" issue: that a group had piled up arms and ammunitions illegally, and, therefore, the government was justified in taking the extreme action.

 The US public as well as the international community --with all its propaganda apparatus of human rights, democracy and minority rights-- readily accepted that justification. Now if this same case had taken place in Iran with some Bahā'is or in Egypt with some Coptic Christians --that a minority religious group committed illegal action and the government took appropriate action to enforce its laws-- I am absolutely certain that the so-called international community and its media, the UNO, and the human rights organizations would have portrayed the issue as a Muslim country persecuting its non-Muslim minority!

What I mean to say is that if you hear that a member of a minority has been prosecuted in Iran, it does not automatically mean that it is because he is a non-Muslim. It could be that he has committed a crime and has therefore been convicted of that crime. Many groups try to gain political mileage out of such cases; they would exploit it and present it as a violation of human/minority rights.

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This statement conveys the distorted understanding of the United States, our culture and perhaps the entire enlightenment enterprise represented by this statement as being factual:  "The US public as well as the international community --with all its propaganda apparatus of human rights, democracy and minority rights-- readily accepted that justification (for burning the Branch Davidian Compound"

Not only was the raid and slaughter of the Branch Davidians condemned by most Americans, it was similarly refuted broadly by all who are allowed to think about the place of religion, government and freedom of conscience.  This Muslim scholars above could not even accept this reality.  To me this shows that these Muslim intellectuals are so imbued with the concept of  religious authoritarianism such as exists in the Muslim community, that they could not believe that individuals in the West found the destruction of this sect to be abhorrent.
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The following is from a comment from Dailykos comment section that confirms the reality of the consequences of apostasy:

Muslim teaching in most countries is that: 1) the father's religion (not the mother's) determines that of his children, 2) that a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim unless he converts to Islam, and that 3) converting away from Islam is a crime -- apostasy (punishable by jail, lashings, or death in some countries). This is not a new interpretation, and it is not associated only with terrorist groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda.

This 1978 (original Arabic Document)  by the head of the Fatwa Council at Al Azhar University in Egypt (founded in the 10th century, c.970 AD). Al Azahr has long been widely regarded as one of the highest centers of Islamic teaching in the world. The ruling speaks for itself:

   In the Name of Allah the Most Beneficient the Most Merciful.
    Al-Azhr
    Council of Fatawa.
    This question was presented by Mr. Ahmed Darwish and brought forward by [name obscured] who is of German nationality.
    A man whose religion was Islam and his nationality is Egyptian married a German Christian and the couple agreed that the husband would join the Christian faith and doctrine.
    1) What is the Islamic ruling in relation to this man? What are the punishments prescribed for this act?
    2) Are his children considered Muslim or Christian?     The Answer:
    All praise is to Allah, the Lord of the Universe and salutations on the leader of the righteous, our master Muhammed, his family and all of his companions.
    Thereafter:
    This man has committed apostasy; he must be given a chance to repent and if he does not then he must be killed according to Shariah.
    As far as his children are concerned, as long as they are children they are considered Muslim, but after they reach the age of puberty, then if they remain with Islam they are Muslim, but if they leave Islam and they do not repent they must be killed and Allah knows best.
    Seal of Al-Azhr
    Head of the Fatawa Council of Al-Azhar.
    Abdullah al-Mishadd (عبد الله المشد‎)
    23rd September 1978.

 ----------------------
As we see the failure of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt and the growth of ISIS,  it is time to look at what Islam means, going beyond the current simplistic view that all religions are beyond criticism of their essential meaning.  The following is an  excerpts are from a scholar of Islamic Studies, Adibah Binti Abdul Rahim, of The International Islamic University Malaysia present the issue clearly.

The Impact of Secularism on Religious Beliefs and Practices  Broken Link

Conclusion (of the article being quoted)

Islam is not compatible with the idea of secularism despite the numerous attempts to reconcile them. We cannot compromise with secular ways and institutions as it will lead to a dilution of Islam in all fields of activity. Muslims should have a full consciousness of their traditions, values, and beliefs in order to free themselves from the dangerous infiltration of  secular and alien influences. They do not need to look for secularism as inspiration for progress and development since Islam itself endorses progress and development within certain limits. Islam also enjoins the use of reason. However, it is considered secondary to Divine guidance, unlike secularism, which gives no importance to Divine guidance; instead it emphasizes on human reason and self-interest as supreme values.

Secularism is completely unfit for Muslim life. It denounces the objective of Islam that is to purify the soul as well as to reform society. In fact, the Qur’Én provides many verses that emphasize the relationship of religion with state and society. Unlike Christianity which has defined for the church a certain domain, that of the salvation of the soul, Islam legislates matters of state and social relations. It leaves human reason and experience to lay down specific institutions, theories, and laws for the Islamic state within its determined philosophy, ideals, criteria, and objectives. Although the Qur’Én does not directly ordain a state for Muslims and does not mention in detail a constitution for an Islamic state, that does not mean that there is no relationship between religion and state. The Qur’Én prescribes certain religious duties, which cannot be fulfilled without the establishment of an
Islamic state....

I want to insert this column written in 2002 by arch conservative Pat Buchanan.  It is laying out the argument whether Islam is inherently brutal, something expressed most famously right after 9-11 by Rev. Franklyn Graham and opposed by President George W. Bush.  Has the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate, ISIS changed the equation? As this country considers engaging in a long war with ISIS, the Islamic Caliphate, it seems appropriate to  evaluate whether this violent organization is legitimately an outgrowth of Islam.  The very thought of criminalizing any religion or ideology is anathema to the liberal enlighten sensibilities yet it has been done before.  Here is the link  from the Wikipedia article on the Smith Act, which did exactly this during the Second World War and the Cold War that followed.  The ideologies that underlies of our enemies,, fascism and communism, and the promulgation of them were made a federal crime.  It was deemed that, even though ideological opposites, were both  incompatible with American democracy.

It behooves us to ask whether this applies to one of the world's largest religions,  and then, as we did during earlier times, choose the path that is right for our times.
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This is a review of "Fields of Blood" by Karen Armstrong, that comes to a different conclusion than this essay, that "religions" contain both elements of comity and of violence, and that geo-political forces determine how they will be skewed.   She could very well be right in principle, in the long view.  Yet, there are decisions to be made in this era, this decade, that may have to be more pragmatic, based on the survival of one's country and culture.  One need not assume that Islam is uniquely and intransigently violent to conclude that it must be combated based on strategic ends. 

"Birdman" a personal reaction and something else

12/15/2014

 I wrote the review below, "Personal review of Birdman" a few weeks ago, but only sent it to one man.  We worked together three decades ago in a printing company where our "executive positions" allowed us plenty of time for private conversation.  His real life work is in the theater, writing and directing with his only reward being participation in this art.

 Recent revelations about how the film has been promoted now take precedence over my personal review.  Once a film is "in the can",  after the producers, writers, actors, directors and editors have created their opus, it is now under the control of marketing.  Their goal is to build an audience that will make the investment profitable.

For most "spectaculars," exactly the type of movie that "Birdman" contrasted with theater -- whether live or on film that affects the viewer in meaningful unique ways, these special-effects laden thrillers  can be promoted in any way without damage; as they are made to provide escape, and nothing more.  "Birdman" is different.  It is both powerful and subtle;  an experience that must unfold before the eyes of the individual in the audience.  This powerful subtlety is fragile.  It can be destroyed by including the final scene in the trailer, which is exactly what the company did.

But the last decision of marketers is the most telling.  Winning awards from festivals is a key to box office success.  It turns out that most of these are in categories such as Drama, Musicals or Documentaries, with some getting more entries than others.  So they made the decision to enter this film in the category of "Comedy"  because of less competition.  There are some laughs in the film, but no laugh lines.  It was the laughter that is part of living, even during the most tragic poignant moments.  The writer-director was not comfortable with this categorization, but did not protest.  

Those who expect a comedy may find one in this film, but it is by reducing a work of art to something quite different.  Perhaps if this ploy works, it can increase funding for such gems, knowing that audience will not be limited to those who frequent art houses.  Yep, maybe that's the silver lining.  But, for those who read this, go out and see this film without reading another review.  Take a chance; it may just be a meaningless few hours of noise and dumb jokes, but then again.......  Here's my own review that I guess you should only read after you see the film:

Personal review of "Birdman" A film you should know about......

For details I suggest this link on IMBD,  where you can get a synopsis, summary and every detail about it.   This is not a review, it's sharing with my readers what this meant to me.   I won't even give it a rating, or tell someone they should see it, since for many it will just be a mess of shouting, joking, fantasy and confusion.

For me the film broke through to my core, only possible because at any moment I didn't know what the movie was doing, or where it was going, or how to put a label on it, or understand the people who populated it.  This could be seen as looking at three realities -- blockbuster movies, Broadway dramatic theater, and that plane of existence that we call real life.

The film draws you in using all three modalities, skillfully blended so the shifts are not delineated; rather we are pulled across boundaries by the honesty of those people who have chosen to be actors.  I wonder about those critics who described the film as a comedy, as such a genre, such formulaic interactions designed to bring laughter are not in evidence.  I was drawn into uncharted territory. 

It will grab you or it won't. (BTW, don't watch the trailer as I'm told it destroys the suspense)  Here's a scene when one of the four actresses in the drama in previews is distraught over the crudeness of one of the men in the play, and later, tearfully in her dressing room she confides: "I'm pathetic.  I've always dreamed of being a Broadway actress since I was a little kid, but now I'm here. I'm not a Broadway actress I'm still....just.a little kid.   I just need somebody to tell me I made it.   And then gently, her friend responds simply,"You made it."

Only a week ago learning of the death of an unusual man who I played tennis with wrote this which came to mind as I watched that scene:

One morning when we were partners and I missed a shot, he was playing the stern authority, so with a firm chastising tone called out, "Al, you are a bad boy."

He didn't know, nor did I, that those words would reach to the core of my being.  I couldn't continue on, as I was too deeply hurt, even though intellectually I knew that he was just being Fritz.  So, I turned to him, and said with sincerity, "Fritz, you made me feel bad, please tell me that I'm a good boy."   And without skipping a beat, with the same sincerity, he proclaimed, "Al, you are a good boy."
And then, instantly, I was O.K.

"Birdman" is both the interplay of personal stories, yet also a statement of our times, a truth that only can be expressed by the greatest of art.  This is a movie about how movies are an escape from a reality that is all encompassing,  how true theater can liberate us from the unseen constraints of our existence, that no one escapes from for more than a brief moment.

Or for some of us in just the right frame of mind,  it will last for the two hours experiencing this amazing work.


 

The municipal pension time bomb - only thing uncertain is how long the fuse

Here's the key paragraphs from a  NY Times article from 11/12/14 on how even with bankruptcy settlement in Detroit, the Pension Risks Linger

Last month, the president of the Society of Actuaries, Errol Cramer, sent a letter to the Actuarial Standards Board expressing concern over “a misperception” on the part of the public. People have the idea, he said, that actuarial funding schedules were designed to produce enough money to pay for the pensions, “which they are not.”

All those eye-glazing board meetings, the bewildering calculations, the talk of “required contributions” and research on whether cities are paying them or not — those things have apparently confused the public into thinking that as long as an actuary follows the standards, and a city or state follows the actuary’s advice, a solvent public pension system will be the result.

Not So!

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Here was my comment I submitted on line: 

In California, like most states and cities, probably all of them for reasons I will describe, the projected rate of return on pension funds is at the 6 to 7% level. 

With the Fed giving money to banks at 0%,  safe insured investments now pay far less than 1%,  throwing those retiring with  a million dollar nest egg into poverty.

This has caused assets, such as real estate and stocks to balloon in value, great for the investing class, but bubbles do burst.  Houses  become unaffordable, as will rents, so eventually there will be a collapse of our "neoliberal" economic system - how and when I can't predict.

Because all city employees are remunerated based on this illusory system, the city that pays what is affordable will not get competent staff or police, which is the immediate problem.  When police are paid what a city can truly afford, in the NY City attempt in the 80s, they found ways to issue trivial citations to the vulnerable to increase O.T. to make a reasonable wage- resulting in great injustices.

Government unions have consequences such as these, yet now they are the bedrock of the Democratic Party, which is as close as we come to a party representing the have-nots.   And Ironically, if you buy this explanation, it is the Democrats who have ended up promoting policies that require asset bubbles that make homes unaffordable and ruin those with only nest eggs to retire on.

Detroit was the canary, but were are all down in the mine with them.

AlRodbell.com

I'll add this here, as I was out of space on my Times comment:  This is a problem that is at the least at the national level, and maybe beyond.  Voters can be mislead, and such obfuscation to some degree is required to get elected, which is a type of race to the bottom.  We want optimists, and don't care too much about the pits are falling into by ignoring reality.

The NY Times article boils down to a reality that our defective democratic system has fostered policies that if done by private companies or investment entities would land them in Jail, well it would have, but that's another story.  No one could win an election by telling the public that it must cut benefits to all government employees or raise taxes dramatically.  He/she would be competing with candidates who deny the underlying reality, and will claim that the projections of returns are realistic.

Of course there could be one national bailout by the U.S. Government, as we did to private companies in 2008, and then those cities that were realistic would have denied their citizens the services of the best employees.  Yet, such a bailout will be vast, and there will be winners and losers.  But this will all happen in the future, so we don't have to worry about it now, do we?

Note: 

One more thing since I started to write my comment above and this essay, is the list of comments that appear in the N.Y. Times, which is, of course, a liberal newspaper.  There is overwhelming anger for Municipal Unions that have "extorted" such budget breaking non- competitive total compensation.

 

With Liberty and Justice for few, a very few- A book review

" Soylent Green - here today"

This is a "grabber" title for a review of Matt Taibbi's book, "Divide-American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap."   For those who want more traditional reviews of this book, that I consider one of the most incisive, erudite, readable and yes, even in a dark way- entertaining books of our day, we have them in abundance: Some are listed here from right to left:  The Wall Street Journal, N.Y. Times and then even an early one here in the Democratic party website  Dailykos.

I was struck with the similarity between the Soylent Green fiction and Taibbi's depiction of today's America. That distopian future 2022 society's useless takers were "only" slaughtered and used as protein for food while for the  unfortunate vulnerable group in today's America, their fate could be worse.  They feed the wealthy in a different way, by spending most of their lives in jails and prisons with intolerable (but not publicized) conditions, their numbers doubled over the last few decades even as crime rates have been halved.  These now often privatized prisons become the source of steady jobs for their towns, and vast profits for investors.  Unionized prison guards can do pretty well in some states also, so have no interest in decreasing the numbers of those incarcerated.  Soylent Green was food for survival, the Prison Industrial Complex, fuel for prosperity.  

That science fiction book year of 2022, like our country today was divided between the ultra-rich and the useless, the old, the poor.  This includes those whose lives began at the very bottom, usually Black children born into families with no father, no network of those with secure livable incomes, and immersed into a culture of violence, at home as well on the streets.  Taibbi has a knack for just the right personal illustrations of a larger process.  Describing a ten year old kid who was snatched up by a police officer in East New York for stoning a abandoned car window, an older observer mentioned how, "when I was a kid they would have taken him home to his mother, now they are written up and they have a record."  Thus a criminal identity is formed, which is seen by a harried court system as a presumption that the apprehended is guilty of whatever described by the arresting officer.  No time for overstressed judges to listen to an explanation, but push that guilty plea for time served (no explanation of future consequences) and move right along.

This is a video Taibbi's  interview with Jon Stewart where he shares his own journey of learning how bad things really are. Here's the second part.   While his 400 page book is additive with multiple vivid examples of the rich being immune while the poor don't have a chance -- in spite of his detailed explication, his very writing of this meaningful book (a very civil act) rather than chaining himself to a federal courthouse has the inevitable subtle byproduct of  acknowledging that this is the unchangeable structure of American society in this first part of the 21st century. 

Inherently, for those who watch his interview with Stewart, Tiabbi has to pull his punches.  He has to share ironic amusement at his observations and not come off as an angry incensed man, and always wear a bemused smile. One comment he made to Stewart in part 2 that "I see you are already asleep"  illustrates the problem, that sustaining anger at something so pervasive as what he describes is not  only difficult but highly stressful.  The conversation has an effect of explaining away of his accusations under Stewart's friendly questions.   Thus, the revolutionary becomes the sociologist.   

Stewart brings up the irony of  "Moral Hazard" being given for government not making home owners whole after the sub-prime collapse,  yet this hazard disintegrates when bailing out the prime perpetrators who fomented this.  (after all these years the Feds are just allowing those underwater to get new lower rate mortgages)  Jon finished by saying "I can't wait to see all the terrible things "they" will say about you, because they will."  Actually, after searching for such criticism of his book, including National Review (with no review at all) I did find this one from the ultra right wing "Weekly Standard," where the reviewer shows no evidence of having read the book and just castigates him for earlier work.  I have found no serious substantive refutation of any facts or conclusions of this book in any review.

If the Weekly Standard, had reviewed the book, it could have advanced their anti-Democratic party agenda, since the primary individual that Taibbi attributes responsibility for most of the travesties he describes is none other than William Jefferson Clinton.  Clinton unleashed both pincers of this gross attack on justice in our society, damning the most destitute matched by immunity for the other extreme.  Most tragic, as Clinton did this to gain votes from Republican strongholds,  Wall Street and anti-black bigots, he won election but deprived this country of a populist party. 

Taibbi only briefly touches on the power and culpability of the Federal Reserve system, as unlike every other defect that could potentially be reversed by legislation or executive implementation, the Federal Reserve has absolute independence.  This institution, a fourth branch of government, could be seen as basic cause of the mentality toward the financial elite he decries. since it defines the structure of our economic system.  It is based on unlimited created fiat money, the Keynesian consensus, but funnelled through avaricious powerful and often sociopathic financial elites -- who often are members of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve.

He provides a specific example of self dealing by the Fed, where a sweetheart deal was made between this institution and a bank led by a sitting member of its board.  It was unreported at the time, as the Fed operates in secrecy- only with required disclosures months after action is taken.  While President Obama could not get even a fraction of  the extra trillion for economic stimulus through Congress, the Fed, without any approval of any elected body, created the funds to allow banks to get no-interest money for a rare kind of stimulus.  It gave banks the ability to float relatively cheap mortgages to pump up the real estate -- banking industry - with the profit distributed to mainly top executives and then shareholders.  This impoverished retirees living on the income from low risk revenue sources that now were undercut by free loans to banks by the Fed.  This created a new definition of the ultra rich, now measured by wealth in the billions,  who, unlike Tiabbi and his readers, like things exactly the way they are.  


The root cause of degradation of life for impoverished African Americans of this book, for me often worse than death itself,  is the law the Clinton ran on and signed, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). That law precipitated an unanticipated change that turned out to be profound.  Over the last couple of decades, while crime has halved, it fostered treatment of those in dire need to not only less support, but makes what is provided a landmine for criminalized "error" -- contributing to the doubling of our prison population.   Caseworkers who used to attempt to help those in dire need have largely been replaced by "fraud investigators" where any mistake, even by the government agency's overpayment, could lead to jail time and a destroyed life.

It was Clinton, as most of know who ended the Glass Stieagall Act and eliminated or cut funds for monitoring Wall Street companies.  His most clear payback was that Goldman Sachs became his largest contributor in 1996.  Taibbi is no kinder to our current President and his attorney General.  His critique of Holder is interesting, as it points to his long stint as a corporate lawyer, as others in his position have been.  He sees that as supporting a common cultural identity to those at the very top of financial firms, so that the very idea of threatening them with real punishment, the sound of gates closing to their life of enjoyment of wealth and family shall never happen.  So they manage to insulate these "masters of the universe" from clear responsibility of crimes such as money laundering of sex traffickers and Drug Cartels, and destroying lives of those who thought they were home owners.

And that leads to the ultimate meaning of this book for me, that it shows how the root problem is not who happens to be the President or Attorney General, since the attitude that the financial elite are only committing "white collar crimes" has been internalized in our society.  Even if some future idealized administration of a Bernie Sander or Elizabeth Warren would criminally prosecute these "banksters" an individual juror, or appeals court majority could find a loophole to save these solid citizens from the kind of pain that only those who receive a few thousand dollars in food stamps deserve. 

This is the tragic message of this brilliant book, that brings to mind the sign over Dante's Inferno, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Yet, I can't really do that myself.  So I  write this article that will probably hardly be read.  And, I have to continue my local political quests in some form, even though the chances of having any effect are nil.  What I have learned is why so few choose to stand up in public to voice objection to what is described here.  That which is doable  behind a keyboard in the privacy of one's own home takes on a different quality as a sole voice in an official public setting.  This explains why anger simmers for years, decades even, until there is that spark, and then the unleashed anger is unfocused, leading to a reaction that only reinforces the original cause of outrage.   But I guess this is another story for another time. 

 I'll end with the hypothetical future of that young man described in this book that I mentioned earlier, who years later after a sole uncorroborated "eye witness" in a short trial was convicted, only aided by a harried public defender who just didn't  have the resources to mount a meaningful defense.  He could do no more than that first lawyer who convinced him as a kid to cop a guilty plea after the two months of "time served" because he couldn't raise the thousand dollars bail.  It could be that he is really guilty this time of this third offense he is now serving life for, but the chain of events, the unwritten laws that made avoiding this existence all but impossible were not of his making.  He was born onto a conveyor belt, that we have created and perpetuated; its nature made evident for this man when the uniformed officer dragged him away in cuffs for throwing stones at a wrecked car in a junk yard.
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Addendum:

A problem of this important non-fiction book is a lack of an index, or even a detailed description of each chapter.   I have this rough effort below, but the comprehensive index along with annotations should be provided by the publisher on line which I have recommended to them.

Brief chapter descriptions:

Introduction

1- Unintended Consequences
Describes a deputy AG, Eric Holders memo under Clinton to consider the ancillary damages to employees and stockholders when prosecuting major corporations.  How this ballooned to provide legitimization for the gross criminality of Wall Street preceding the 2008 meltdown.

2- Frisk and Stop
  First pass at showing the excesses of police action against N.Y.C. black youth

3- The Man who couldn't stand up
  More on the excesses of cops, the assembly line imitation of justice for petty crimes, and how a minimum penalty of community service can destroy the life of an overstressed mother with several jobs.  This compared to the ability of the wealthy elite to summons masses of upright citizens to get off with no personal punishment -  no matter the harm of his actions.

4-The Greatest Bank Robbery You Never Heard Of
   Detailed and personalized story of how Lehman Brothers didn't go bankrupt, as widely reported.  The executives joined the purchaser Barclays and negotiated millions in salaries, while the shareholders and purchasers of bogus instruments were the ones to get not even the proverbial pennies on the dollar.

5-  Border Trouble Part 1
    This is a different theme, as it describes the misery of those who come across the border of Mexico without documentation.  It goes into details including the exact laws and ICE regulations.  How police wait at streets where these people must drive their cars to their jobs, and a missing light (real or claimed) leads to arrest and the end of a mother ever seeing her citizen children. 

6- Border Trouble Part 2
   A self contained story of the open flagrant inside information that can be manufactured for "short raids"  Describing the special crudeness of those out to destroy companies that must be smashed by any means.  (This is the only part of the book, where some of the details of this ugliness could have been cut short)   Taibi gives a nod to his one hero in this book, the N.Y. then AG, Eliot Spitzer who had the guts to go after these guys with the contempt they deserved.  I guess it was just an accident that someone happen to notice his tryst in that D.C hotel that ended his career!

7- Little Frauds
   Describes the effect of Clinton's "Welfare Reform"  All it took was a mistake by the welfare department to send a few hundred dollars extra, to be a crime that caused a woman the loss of her children and personal collapse.

8-Big Frauds
   Uses the example of one woman, Linda Almonte, who reported the fraud of Robo Signing first discovered in the sub-prime context.  It is also prevalent in collection of debts by major banks, in her case Chase, of unconscionable, sometimes non existing, credit card debt.   Clear, lucid, and tragic.

9- Collateral Consequences
    Starts with a real life story of a young  man who is mugged then arrested by plain clothed police,  He is let off,  but it caused PTSD, the real thing.  I know how fragile we are, as over fifty years ago something like that happened to me, and for weeks I spun around in defense at the sound of  footsteps behind me.  The summary of the book is completed with Taibbi expressing clearly the rationale for special protection of the Wall Street elite,  and then demolishing it.

A call from Sasha

November 1, 2014

A call from Sasha

We keep our land line for unknown reasons, mostly out of habit.  It's set to ring twice, then the answering machine picks up with the message, "This is Al and Rena, We are not at home, so please leave a message."  and then almost always there is silence.  The robo dialer at the other end may have been set to move on to the next, hopefully live response, or the human dialer optimized his/her effort by hanging up on messages. 

Today, having just come back from a walk around the neighborhood enhanced by something rare in this Southern California town, the brisk feeling of Fall in the air, I was upbeat.  Last night was also a rare event, as we went down to Main Street, where we found an empty table at the diner right next to the lady who was giving out Halloween candy.  There were throngs of children with their parents walking by, the little ones being picked up to reach her big basket and say the magic words, "trick or treat." The lady, Sally,  would say, "you can take one of the candies," and if the child forgot, the mother would remind her to tell the lady, "thank you."

For a few minutes when Sally had to take a break she asked me to take her place, and I had the honor of being the giver of goodies.  The ages were varied.  There was a very small smiling package dressed like a bee, complete with wings, whose Mom told how only two month previously she was still part of her own body (well those weren't her words, but that was the case)  "If this kid can hold a piece of candy at about 60 days since birth, what will she be doing at five or maybe seventeen?, I thought  When they returned after walking the length of this event, maybe an hour later I noted, to the crowd,  "She is now about point one percent older than when she just passed buy."  And Mom responded with a smile, "and she's heavier too."

Then there was a stunning thin young woman whose costume dress and high heels made her look unusually tall.  As she reached over for her candy.  She told Sally with a smile, "It's O.K. I'm only seventeen."  It was maybe an hour and a half we were there, and then the children started to thin out.  Fun is fun, but they can only take so much.  Towards the end, as the kids were mostly gone, a final act was a man in a long trench coat skulking down the street.  He stopped, and picking out victims,  with  a villainous laugh flashed opened the coat,  exposing a two foot long sequined parody of what could give the average guy either great pleasure or serious inconvenience.  At the same moment there appeared two young women who could have been aspiring actresses dressed in police outfits.  I did my best to get out my video camera and arrange a confrontation, but they the flasher and cops had gone in different directions.  But the fun of it all lingered, as it was time to take our leave and head back home.

Now, after a peaceful night sleep and our walk,  I decided to picked up the phone rather than let the answering machine do its job; at first there was silence, so I said "hello" a few times.  A youngish voice with an African American tinge responded, with a hello to make contact and then a short canned introduction from her sales pitch.  For some reason, I responded by asking her name, and when she told me, I asked her with an upbeat, "how you doing this morning?"  She said hesitantly, "pretty good."  and I came back with, "you would feel better if you got a few leads from these calls."

She started to loosen up a bit, and said how she sure would.   I knew the drill, as her job was to get the name of prospects for the closers to follow up on;  she would get a few bucks for this alone, and if an actual big ticket sale were made she would get even more.  The down side, as I remembered from a week spent doing her job in a "boiler room" in New York city office building  a half century ago, if you didn't get your quota, your desk will be given to the next poor soul  who would handle the abuse to make a few bucks.

So Sasha and I had something in common, when I asked her about the responses she was getting from these cold calls; "not to good"  she said.  "Do, you get a lot of angry people?"   She told me a bit plaintively that it seems like it's more and more so.  I felt a connection, and closed with something like, "Well, hang in there, I know it's tough."  And then with a faint smile through the phone, she said,  "Thank you.  You just made my morning."

Sorry, I didn't get to tell her that she also just made mine. 

Building on academic epistemology

October 6, 2014

 Here's the link to an article that prompted this comment:  The Unlevel Knowing Field: An Engagement with Dotson’s Third-Order Epistemic Oppression, Alison Bailey.
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When I started to read this article, I was preparing to attempt a technical critique of the conceptual approach as uni-dimensional, that of high power being the unstated characteristic of those who oppress those with less.  I was assuming good faith by the writer, that this bias was an error that I may presume to influence.

Among the references was # 5 described in the text as :  Or, consider columnist George Will’s recent claim that women cry rape so that they get “special privileged survivor status.”[5]
These cases illustrate how the epistemic agency of knowers is compromised by a credibility deficit.  If we think about epistemic credibility as a resource, then it is a resource that is unevenly distributed along gendered and racialized lines.

I double checked the article and while this paraphrase may be the writers conclusion, but it was not what the article said.  The quote, meaning exact phrase as written, does not exist in the article.  This is not an error, but rather evidence that rather than an epistemic community following precise norms of discourse, there is an ideological element  that allows breaches of such clear academic norms as precision of quotations as long as it is advances the consensus of the group.

The quote reflected an article focusing on the individual woman, while the actual  article was focused on a movement codified by federal law, translated into university regulations. (the extensive comments were balanced and analytical) It happened to have great validity in my view, and yet was so demeaned by the this writer, Dr. Baily, that she felt safe to debase Mr. Will's precise criticism as being a slur on the weaker gender.  Ironically, among the readership of this article only someone outside of academia, myself, bothered to note the inaccurate quotation.

The distortion of this article is that it is based on a proffered truism that epistemic knowledge is an accretion provided by formal education so that the apex must be of those with certification of having mastered this at the highest level.  It ignores the possibility that a bi-product of such advanced knowledge may be a worldview that like all such "true believing" communities is defined by a self interest that may transcend the pecuniary.  The writer and the readers of this academic site are comfortable in a distortion of George Will's article, since he is among the group that is not respected, Thus confirmation bias is built into the dialog, when the actual words of the enemy do not suffice, no one of the "true believers" will challenge a minor distortion of a quotation.  The message in a given article by "the enemy" is comfortably used to solidity one's membership in a value system that is assumed to be  "progressive" tacitly understood as moving to an idealized perfection that is only impeded by conservatives. 

Epistemic "blindness" is universal, and not a product of "oppression" which is a value laden concept that implies a movement of good against evil, and erroneously exclusively equates the "power to oppress" as being such "evil."  I conclude with my own hyperbole, which is that the world view of this article contains a fatal flaw, one that is no more enlightened than that which underlies the most "regressive" movements in the history of civilization.  As a most relevant example, while this "enlightened progressivism" currently espouses the celebration of same gender sexuality, it ignores serious investigation of the underlying reasons why other subcultures, African American men for instance and Muslim cultures for another, find it abhorrent.  The reality that for the male of the species sexuality has a large element of expression of dominance, with concomitant oppression of the more subordinate, and that this is hard wired into our primate brain is not evaluated, much less acknowledged. .  The tools of sociology, ethology and neuroscience that could investigate and possibly support this view are quietly suppressed to the point that this conversation does not even exist.  Thus, a perfect example epistemic blindness among the academic social and power elite.  

Academic evaluation of how we know, how we think, "epistemology" -- is worthy endeavor that deserves society's support as a vital function that has been entrusted in the institution of academia.  This should impart an obligation to its avatars to be alert to their own biases, and then to transcend them. Just as "Nature abhors a vacuum," "Humans abhor isolation from a community"  and doing violence to reason is a small price for us to pay to avoid this fate. If every social science is to become simply another cult masked in the very pseudo-precision of its arcane terminology, the loss will be much greater than to its practitioners, but to us all.

On Conflating Jiahadists with Islam, (Comment in NY Times)

Full letter sent in response to a viral email listing all the Muslims in Obama's administration.  This is described in comment in the Public Editor's article of 10/30//14 .  It shows how individuals can help defuse irrational anger generated by the mass media.

Interesting.

I checked out the second person on the list, Mohammed Elibiary.  He's no longer involved with Homeland Security Agency as described here.  This article lays out an indictment of his being someone who should never have been part of the U.S. Government

I tried to check whether being on the HSA advisory board was only an honorary position, but even so, his promoting of the worse excesses of Islam would be unacceptable.  On the other hand, while the Koran does contain the seeds of violence against outsiders, so do the holy books of Christianity and Judaism.  This email is valuable since it points out that our principle of religious freedom must never be a cover for the most extreme aspects of religion. 

This presents a challenge to citizens and elected officials alike. We have to ask whether Mr. Elibiary is a mole who is infiltrating our government to promote terrorism or trying to build a bridge between moderate Muslims and our larger society.  First one has to believe the existence of such a thing as "moderate Muslims" and if this is not possible then we must respond by a type of "inquisition" to demand that all such people renounce this religion. This would mean a radical change, at the least repealing our first Amendment ensuring free expression of religion.  In my view this is dangerous, as this was imposed on my ethnic group over the centuries from 15th century Spain to more recently in Germany.

This official document describes Mr. Elibiary as attempting to build a bridge and promote moderate Islam, as described in this award from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an organization that one may assume has a grasp on the background and activities of this individual.  These are difficult times, yet in my view ignoring the multifaceted nature of religious or secular ideologies may not provide the security that we all desire..

Al Rodbell

Coming down from a very low political high

To my few, but valued, regular readers, I've been away.  Not actually traveling but sucked into the vortex of the political intrigue of my city.  I was appointed to be a member of the Traffic and Public Safety Commission, which was given expansive powers to fight crime and interact with the police and fire departments.  I even set up a new website,Focus on Encinitas- where I tried to locate my various, rants, exposes and critical analyses.   This essay is transitional, writing about that period as I am coming out of it, trying to re-enter the broader world and disengaging from the various conflicts focused on this city that had consumed me for the last half year.

Correspondence with Peak Democracy

 July 5, 2014

The following is an email that addresses two problematic actions by the City of Encinitas.  My hope is that P.D. Peak Democracy will be responsive to address their defects, and by doing use their tools  to bring wider scrutiny to P.V., the purchase of Pacific View.  One other point is that both they and the city will retain residents email information.  While they promise preservation of our privacy, this L.A. Times article explains how this is becoming impossible.

 

July 5, 2014

To: Corporate Management Peak Democracy (PD)
Michael A. Cohen

As a resident of Encinitas California, I have written in opposition to our city's contract with you, with several articles available on AlRodbell.blogspot.com   This link is to the article in the Encinitas Advocate, with my critique of elements of your product as an appended comment.  We live in an era when all powerful entities, public and private, are coming under scrutiny, and usually this uncovers serious issues, examples being GM, VA Medical Care and NSA activities.  You have gotten a pass in the adoption process by this city, based on trust, without the Reagan codicil, which is to "verify."

Given the insufficiency of the vetting by the city, you are now our partners, so let me make a pointed suggestion.  The city is about to finalize by inaction the contract to purchase property known as Pacific View.  The use of this ten million dollar purchase has never been defined further than a vague one of being a "center for the arts."  There has been no general input by the broad electorate of this city on the purchase, it being driven by a campaign that activated less than 2% of residents. The opposition, such as appeared in this letter to the editor of the printed edition of the July 4th "Encinitas Advocate" has not been conveyed to the taxpayers of the city, a problem that your "Open Town Hall" claims to redress. This is a timely and appropriate issue that could be addressed by a survey such as those that you provide.  But, before this has credence, there are specific requirements that have not appropriately been implemented.

One of the many questions that were never asked when you won over the Encinitas staff, refers to auditing of the responses to your surveys.  As of now the raw metadata and content goes directly to your company, to first be evaluated and possibly modified (clause 7.3), only then to be made available to city government and forum participants after such vetting by PD.  While you have promoted the benefits of this procedure, deflecting challenges such as mine with "this is only advisory, and not a referendum" this is understating the seriousness of the potential for manipulation of public sentiment. 

This can be addressed by shared access to raw data from forum participants by interested parties other than PD or exclusively city officials.  An open forum, the essence of your advertised product, must have this quality to avoid accusations such as mine that they could become a vehicle for institutional propaganda-the very antithesis of an "Open Town Hall." 

I look forward to your response

Al Rodbell

July 8, 2014

I received a this response to the email from Peak Democracy the evening of July 6th

Hello Mr. Rodbell,

Thank you for contacting us here at Peak Democracy

.

The topics that appear on the City of Encinitas E-Townhall are selected by the City of Encinitas. If you would like, we could forward your suggestion about a topic on Pacific View to our liaison at the City or you may contact them directly with your suggestion.

To respond to your other concerns we never modify statements without the consent of the statement author, and make all public data available immediately. In fact, you may view that data by going to any topic and downloading reports of the on-forum statements at any time.

Additionally we do not share users' contact information with anyone without their consent in accordance to our privacy policy.

Please do let us know if there is anything we may assist you with.

Cheers,

Rob

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My response was:

Rob,

Yes, I understand that you do currently have a procedure in place for handling problematic comments that does seem reasonable.  However clause 7.3 is still part of your Terms of Service, and does allow what it says, which is modify user's input. This allows you do this even if it is not your current practice This is the agreement that most publishers impose for submissions of letters to the editor that is not acceptable to many, thus skewing the demographic of respondents.  The current wording should be replaced with a specific separate section that defines your procedure, such as: 

Comments on Open Town Hall are publicly posted based on standards determined by the municipality.  If they do not conform to such standards based on various criteria such comments will be returned to writer while held in a non public file temporarily.  The comment may be revised. resubmitted or deleted by writer. 

This statement in your response is contradictory, " we make all public data available immediately."  In fact, you may view that data by going to any topic and downloading reports of the on-forum statements at any time."

If you do vet comments, then there must be a time lag between user posting and it being on the forum, so how can it be available immediately?

Please give provide me with the name of the your Encinitas Liaison as you offered.

Regards

Al Rodbell  

Unlike other utilities purchased to enhance the city's website which only convey information this relationship with Peak Democracy is potentially insidious, as it is sending emails and then receiving comments that have the implied stamp of being official.  The right of modification must be eliminated in the user agreement which other venues such as Disqus, the largest internet forum company in the world, does not include in their terms of service.  Disqus has potential defects described on the Wikipedia article about the service, but these issues are in the open.   this utility provides the functionality advertised by Peak Democracy without the control by them that PD demands.  As for their claims of privacy, this article from the Stanford University Legal-Internet project explains why this is not possible.