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Saturday, Feb 24, 2007

Militaristic Authoritarianism

The Santa Cruz Sentinel carried OpEd columns by Amy Goodman and David Brooks today. They offer starkly different world views, and help paint a picture of what's at stake in the upcoming elections.

Goodman writes about a topic that a few bloggers have commented upon, and that I have been thinking about how best to articulate. Goodman saves me the trouble by pointing out concisely: Clinton does not want the anti-war vote.

The key Clinton quotation, from an appearance at Dover, N. H., is this:

If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from. But for me, the most important thing now is trying to end this war.

Yes, Ms. Clinton, there are indeed others to choose from. Thanks for pointing that out. That same inability to perform self-examination (in her case the inability to recognize that being misled was an eggregious error) plays a huge role in the pathology of G. W. Bush.

Dick and Dubya never make mistakes! Having never made a mistake, they don't have to change! Ever! This is not a club that Clinton should be eager to join.

Goodman also points out Clinton's militarism, as exemplified by her speech to AIPAC about those evil Persians.

Meanwhile David Brooks has advice for GOP aspirants to the presidency [scroll down], including this gem:

You need to lead the party to a new definition of Republicanism. This is a Republicanism that can provide safety, order and authority, so people can feel secure enough to pursue their dreams. This doesn’t mean championing a big government. It means championing a strong government that can do the jobs it is supposed to do.

Lord knows I won't feel secure enough to pursue my dreams until Dick Cheney has me by the short hairs. This canticle to authoritarianism follows on the heals of his previous column, Human Nature Redux, in which, with no apparent awareness of irony, he said:

Iraq has revealed what human beings do without a strong order-imposing state.

Actually, the unjustified invasion of Iraq shows what can happen when citizens, and some of their elected representatives, cede entirely too much power to a head of state. Perhaps what Brooks has in mind is the vision given in this entry to Conservapedia, the rising new starlet of wingnut intertube idiocy:

1984 was a book by George Orwell. 1984 describes an alternate history in which Oceania (Australia) is at war with Eurasia. It is a utopian book because it talks about a place where everyone is watched over by Big Brother, who makes sure people are doing what they are supposed to.

The protagonist is Winston Smith. Thre is something about rats at the end, but it is confusing. The end is probably supposed to be ambigous.

The results of militaristic authoritarianism are not ambiguous. Franco's Spain, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, Pinochet's Chile, Argentina under the generals, and many, many other examples show what happens when a country goes down that path. Violence, degradation, and the crushing of unorthodoxy are inevitable results. While we're not as bad off as any of those countries were, Brooks advocates tickling the dragon by making authoritarianism a virtue. Meanwhile, Clinton argues for greater competency in the execution of militaristic policies.

Patience is a Virtue

I've gotten through 7/8ths or so of the CDs around the house, and I'm up to 21k tracks on the computer. Since I'm ripping at low compression, I can fit maybe 60% of that at any one time on the big iPod. So I spent some time grooming my play list down, and down again, and down again to get things to fit. (The 1 TB portable MP3 player can't come soon enough for me.)

I just did a sync for the first time in a couple of weeks, and I was mightly pissed off at Apple. Itunes would get started, and then just go unresponsive. I'd wait and wait, and then kill it and start over. This went on several times, and included some pretty long wait periods to see if it would resolve on its own.

Finally I decided to start a sync, walk away, and go to bed. This morning ... success.

Note to Steve Jobs: when your app is busy for a loooooooooooooooooo ... oooooooooooooooooooooooo ...oooooooooooooooooooooooo ...oooooooooooooooooooooooo ...oooooooooooooooooooooooong time, you might want to do a couple of things: progress bar, and chit chat with the OS every so often. Just a thought.

- mark 2-24-2007 7:18 pm [link] [add a comment]

Friday, Feb 23, 2007

Nice One

From the Merc ...

Giuliani for mayor -- of Baghdad

Instead of raising money and campaigning for the 2008 GOP nomination now, Rudy Giuliani should volunteer to serve as the mayor of Baghdad and bring order and safety to that troubled city. That would validate his claim to be an effective crisis manager and earn him the trust of not only the GOP voters in the primary but also the electorate-at-large in the general election. Instead, Giuliani has unfortunately joined the chorus of GOP presidential aspirants, including Sen. John McCain, who are all promising more of the Bush era by trying to milk the Sept. 11 tragedy for their political benefit, including justifying a misguided detour to Iraq in the war on terror.

Rameysh Ramdas
San Jose

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