Madoff on trial

We are all wealthy investors who expected 10 percent returns through a shadowy, no-questions-asked patronage scheme now!

Despots of a lesser god

"So what are we going to do about capitalism, anyway?"

The visionaries at the helm wring their hands.

"Maybe it's not enough to produce for the sake of production; maybe economic growth shouldn't trump all other concerns."

"We need a less selfish capitalism; we need to think about others -- not least of all our children, our world."

All I want to know is whether our leadership caste -- whatever the ideology -- is ready to surrender their coercive advantages -- the state which confiscates your freedom; the employer who denies your livelihood -- and, by doing so, enter into an equal relationship with those they claim to lead.

It is only democracy that can diffuse such power. Let's talk about that, dude: not all the wonderful things you have in store for humanity, if only we should remain under your tutelage.

"The people who own the country ought to govern it"*

BusinessWeek:

Business is marshaling its forces. The target is the aggressive domestic agenda laid out in President Barack Obama's first budget.

You might remember this as the aggressive domestic agenda that President Barack Obama hinted at when he was still Senator Barack Obama.

We've had an election in the time since, but, for the high priests of industry, that was just a formality.


* John Jay, President of the Continental Congress and first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

Obama confirms support for unionization bill

The Wall Street Journal:

Many companies have said the [Employee Free Choice Act], likely to be introduced in coming weeks by congressional Democrats, would add to their costs while hurting their ability to boost productivity and keep their work forces flexible enough to respond to changing markets. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has said it will spend at least $10 million this year fighting it.

Yeah, it's a funny thing about productivity. It's gone up substantially since the 1970's. And yet wages have remained what is called "stagnant" -- they have stayed the same, adjusted for inflation -- or in some cases even declined.

What this means is that while companies produce more, grow more, and earn more over time, employees do not share in these gains: they are stuck at 1970's-era purchasing power. This doesn't stop people from living their lives; it just makes them more dependent on various forms of credit to do so. We take out bigger and bigger loans to own a home or go to college; increasingly we rely on credit cards to pay for medical, food, and other basic expenses.

The grim irony of the situation is that, having denied the American working class any sensible, non-speculative means to support itself (for example, taking home a livable wage vs. playing the stock market and investing in real estate bubbles), the captains of industry and finance who engineered this swindle now find themselves for want of able consumers! Hence the grand economic kablooey in which we presently reside -- to paraphrase the great IOZ.

True to form, what cannot be gleaned from the wallet of the cash-poor American is put upon government to extract from cash-poor Americans as a whole. This means cutting "entitlement" spending like Social Security and Medicare, not to mention basic public services, as well as borrowing heavily against the national debt -- all in order to preserve a tax scheme favored by the rich.

President Obama seems to comprehend the offending dynamic -- to a degree that he is even willing to risk "political World War III" with business to confront it. This is significant: presidents are only supposed to make campaign promises, not live up to them. This is provoking considerable anxiety on behalf of the thieving classes, who daily wish upon a shining star that Obama's fealty for them be made true. However, if Obama is committed to seeing working people take greater control of their own lives -- in the workplace and elsewhere -- then there promises to be a slow reshuffling of Wall Street's affections for him.

Lifting millions of readers out of reality

I'm constantly reading accounts of corporate globalization that extrapolate from a single anecdote a metaphor for entire nations.

Take, for example, this:

Tucked away behind a busy street in south Mumbai stands a smart, clean, and modern apartment block.

In it, lives the Vas family. Austine, 40, and his wife, Philomena, 35. They are typical of India's burgeoning middle class - a group which has exploded in size over the past fifteen years and is responsible for driving what economists call the 'new India'.

I've never read any of Tom Friedman's books, but I'm willing to bet that shit like this comprises 95% of them -- prompting a reviewer of "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" to chide its author that "the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data.'"

Nonetheless, the approach may be the best on offer for the business press, which has some stake in selling the "social benefits" attached to making money hand over fist in desperate societies. After all, nobody wants to believe they are motivated solely for that reason!

Still, every once in a while some numbers slip through the cracks that make your head spin:

Since economic reforms kicked off in 1991, the share of Indians employed in the informal sector — where they are not covered by stringent, socialist-era labor laws from the time of the cold war — has grown steadily to more than 90 percent, according to a recent government-commissioned report.

Among them, the report found, nearly three-fourths lived on less than 20 cents a day and had virtually no safety net.

Now, I don't know what a "stringent, socialist-era labor law" entails, but if it includes "virtually" some safety net, then it is probably the kind of policy that the other 90% of the Indian workforce would like to have; as opposed to the Empty Stomach Program, which helps drive what economists call the "new India."

25 random things that don't concern me; # 12. Worrying about the French

Roger Cohen:

Still, the $3.6 trillion Obama budget made me a little queasy. There is a touch of France in its “étatisme” — the state as all-embracing solution rather than problem — and there’s more than a touch of France in the bash-the-rich righteousness with which the new president cast his plans as “a threat to the status quo in Washington.”

I always take note when any part of the US aristocracy goads me into wholesale prejudice against the customs of another people, or the practices of their ruling class.

Yes, let's worry about the French, who actually have a health care system.

The quash heard round the world

The Economist:

Or perhaps, the yakuza—Japan’s organised-crime groups that date from the 17th century—are getting squeezed. For most of the post-war period they operated openly: tolerated by the public, used by politicians and protected by police. Crime will happen anyway, went the argument, so better to know whom to call when it crosses the line. In the 1950s ministers and industrialists relied on the mobsters and nationalist groups to quash unions and socialists. The gangs upheld classic Japanese virtues of manliness and loyalty—and paid for mistakes by slicing off one of their fingers in atonement.

Quashing unions and socialists seems to be a favored pastime in much of modern history. When the Nazis first took power, they quashed unions and socialists. This earned Hitler the reputation of a "moderate," at least around the US Department of State: he kept the unions and socialists, and their fellow travelers, in line. After Hitler was defeated, partly with the help of unions and socialists, the first order of business for the US was to beat them back -- notably, with the assistance of former Nazi officers, who knew a thing or two on the subject. This carried into civil war in Greece, and was exported to Latin America, where government sponsored violence against labor organizations continues to this day. McCarthyism was our domestic contribution to this trend.

In fact, quashing unions and socialists is a necessary part of every healthy industrial oligarchy. When the Bolsheviks first took power, they quashed unions and socialists. This is particularly ironic in view of the fact that the Russian communists did this in the name of "socialism": The Party which took control of the Russian government claimed to "speak on behalf" of the Russian working class; therefore, to oppose government policy was to oppose the workers -- even if it was the workers who comprised the opposition. Quash!

So even in Japan, the preference at the top is for organized crime over organized labor. Perhaps this reveals something about the history of American unions as well.

I submit there is something very basic and universal about the threat posed by ordinary people who presume to organize their work lives in ways that suit them, not their bosses, best.

Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism; 1938:

[T]he point of attack in the political struggle lies, not in the legislative bodies, but in the people. Political rights do not originate in parliaments, they are, rather, forced upon parliaments from without. And even their enactment into law has for a long time been no guarantee of their security.

Just as the employers always try to nullify every concession they had made to labour as soon as opportunity offered, as soon as any signs of weakness were observable in the workers' organizations, so governments also are always inclined to restrict or to abrogate completely rights and freedoms that have been achieved if they imagine that the people will put up no resistance. Even in those countries where such things as freedom of the press, right of assembly, right of combination, and the like, have long existed governments are constantly trying to restrict those rights or to reinterpret them by judicial hair-splitting.

Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace. Where this is not the case, there is no help in any parliamentary Opposition or any Platonic appeals to the constitution. One compels respect from others when he knows how to defend his dignity as a human being. This is not only true in private life, it has always been the same in political life as well.

My first captive audience meeting

Last week I attended what is referred to as a "captive audience meeting" -- when your employer gives you the benefit of their views on unions. What I took from the experience is that my employer's views on this subject are not favorable.

The meeting was run by our store manager, and held in a conference room with fewer than ten employees in attendance. It began with a history lesson about how in the days when the bosses did not treat their subjects nicely, unions played some useful role in protecting workers. Today, employers -- for example, ours! -- treat people very well, and, besides, "there are laws" which protect employees on the job. So unions have outlived their purpose, now that employers and the government have taken up their cause.

A graph was presented showing the rate of union decline since 1983, and a figure was cited about only 7% of the US workforce being unionized, versus 93%. Clearly, "most Americans don't choose unions."

This declining unionization rate, so the story goes, has prompted American labor unions -- "for-profit businesses," we were told -- to push the Employee Free Choice Act as a way for their "salespeople" to break back into the market. I would say the portrayal of union organizers as conspiratorial, self-interested outsiders made a definite impression on the audience, leading as it did to a discussion of the extent to which employees might be deputized by management to oust any potential offenders from store property.

It is hard to gauge the persuasiveness of the event on the group as a whole, for one thing because there is no incentive to challenge one's employer openly in such instances. To all appearances, framing the issue as one which pits the work community as a whole against meddlesome outsiders who make empty promises in order to lock in dues money seems effective. It would seem that a science has evolved out of the business of union-busting, and it is being implemented to good effect by employers across the country.

American "socialism"

The New York Times:

“Americans are just genetically opposed to socialism,” said Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group headed by Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader.

In fact, Americans, like all human beings, are just genetically opposed to being screwed. Because this can come in many different forms, and be called by many different names, it is important to be able to identify potential threats by their content, not just their label.

"Socialism," in the sense that is most commonly used in the US, usually implies government intervention in the economy. In fact, US capitalism is heavily socialized by definition; the government intervenes in the economy all the time. A major reason why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were required to purchase all mortgages under $400,000 is because private lending institutions wanted to do more business, rather than hold a limited number of loans. As is often the case, government intervention is advocated by influential groups to help them protect and pursue their own interests. In most societies, large economic actors tend to be the most influential.

There are no large economic actors under capitalism who maintain a principled commitment to the "free-market," or, non-government intervention in the economy. Self-interested institutions will always favor government subsidies and protections for themselves, and what is called "market-discipline" for everyone else. This amounts to a government which acts defensively on behalf of the most powerful, while preaching "personal responsibility" to the weak. This is why the government steps in immediately to bail out bankers, while simultaneously wringing its hands about doing anything for the average person, because that might be "socialism." One has influence; the other does not -- unless sufficiently organized.

This brings us to the only meaningful distinction between what is praised as "capitalism" and what is pilloried as "socialism": capitalism means socialism for the rich. Because socialism implies that public money might be used for public purposes (health care, education, infrastructure, the environment), it takes on the character of an expletive. Because capitalism, or "free-markets" or "democracy" or whatever coded language is used, refers to public money directed toward private profit, it is wrapped in an American flag and hand delivered to baby Jesus in a manger. From the perspective of wealth and power, it is a sacred thing, to be conflated with other sacred things, until the average person can't distinguish one from the other.

When it comes to Israel, Obama can't talk about race

For all its interest in speaking openly about race, the Obama administration is backing out of a UN conference on racism due to a draft resolution which characterizes Israel's illegal policies toward the Palestinians as having a racial dimension.

It's worth noting that UN conferences on racism, like UN conferences on anything, are not binding. At best, these events raise issues in a public way, and put pressure on governments to live up to their professed ideals.

But they do no compel governments to do anything. If the Obama administration does not like what, for example, the Arab states have to say about Israel, it is free to remain unpersuaded. Presumably it is this understanding that informs Obama's confidence on diplomatic talks with other nations -- though apparently not in this case.

The likely reason is that the Israeli state is so handicapped by its favorite crutch -- that criticism of the government equals anti-semitism -- that Obama has to pick his battles very carefully. Any kind of workable two-state solution is going to be extremely difficult to extract from the Israelis (though if the US stopped providing billions of dollars in military aid per year, it might prove easier -- but this is not likely to happen), so alienating their political class from the start probably seems counterproductive.

Nevertheless, it is useful for Americans to understand how US relations with Israel limit their ability to engage with the world community on important issues such as race.

When the enemy of your enemy is not your friend



Look at how this high-profile Obama supporter makes several true statements to the horror of his corporate hosts. Note how the hosts conflate their studied conformity to the status quo with "being informed." It's terrible being burned for defending the least controversial position -- particularly when your career teeters on the valiant defense of such things. Did you hear Scarborough reads the New York Times? In that case, he must have been right about Iraq all along!*

But before we give this nifty Democrat a high-five, bear in mind that this is same guy that helped the acid-throwing women haters take over Afghanistan, because it was viewed as beneficial to America -- well, to policy makers who believed themselves to be in a protracted war with global communism -- at the time. Planes have flown into buildings in the time since, and our official position is now to drive a wedge between two branches of women hating because the Taliban portion is viewed as detrimental to America -- or, to the policy makers who believe themselves to be in a protracted war with global terrorism -- at least compared with the non-Taliban, drug gang chieftans.

And if that isn't a recipe for success then I don't know what the expression "world leader" means!

So the lesson here may be that just because someone in power says things we agree with doesn't mean they speak for us in general, or categorically deserve our support.

*The New York Times was not right about Iraqi WMDs, the original pretext for war. They got most of their information from a single, self-interested source.

Go to college or join a union?

CEPR:

"For women, joining a union makes as much sense as going to college," said John Schmitt, a Senior Economist at CEPR and the author of the study. "All else equal, joining a union raises a woman's wage as much as a full-year of college, and a union raises the chances a woman has health insurance by more than earning a four-year college degree."

What strikes me in this case is that women are more likely to have health care by demanding it from employers (something unions -- whatever their quality -- generally facilitate) than by jumping through professional hoops in order to make themselves sufficiently appealing to the boss.

A lot of the "business" of higher education is geared towards making people afraid that they don't have the skills necessary "to make it in today's economy," which is another way of saying you are inadequate by employer standards, vaguely defined. And yet here we have blue collar women who have decided their employers are inadequate by their standards -- because families need health care, among other things -- and who are organizing around shared concerns in a way that threatens the bottom line.

One can infer from this the comparative benefits of begging alone vs. fighting together.

Class war

Dean Baker:

I was just at a White House conference listening to a lot of people talking about cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits for retirees. How can the same government that hands tens of billions of dollars to Citi's shareholders and top executives cut key benefits for the retirees? Why aren't the news reports calling attention to this massive give away to some of the nation's richest people?

Coming from Dean, this is likely a rhetorical question. But in case anyone is curious, the answer is that bankers are part of a class which administers the economic wealth of the country, whereas "retirees" -- and the public at large -- are not. One can guess which of the two have more influence over politicians, and why the government rallies to the defense of one group at the expense of the other.

As far as the "news reports" -- well, who owns the news? Retirees?

It's worth bearing in mind that what people do not own, they do not control. This holds true for both resources and government.

Dictators and "democrats"

The only difference I have found between nations called "dictatorships" and nations called "democracies" is that the democracies have a mechanism for settling grievances between competing elites, whereas dictatorships do not.

A dictatorship will view any challenge as illegitimate, and murder or imprison the challengers accordingly. A democracy will permit challenges that are endorsed by some portion of its ruling class. It will not permit challenges which are not endorsed by some portion of its ruling class. Hence presidential candidates which have only popular, but not institutional, support are acknowledged to have no real chance.

Of course, this is not real democracy. It is the "democracy" of different groups within a single class, to the exclusion of other classes. It is a democracy of those who monopolize economic power, and compete -- albeit in a civilized way -- for state power.

A more accurate name for this might be "polyoligarchy." But because enlisting public support (for example, through political parties) is part of how elite groups establish their supremacy, "democracy" is an easier sell.

Obama's housing plan

Back when housing prices were expected to go up forever, home ownership was pushed by everybody. Lenders pushed adjustable rate mortgages to get everyone through the door, knowing that the government-backed mortgage agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were legally obliged to buy up all mortgages under $417,000. The primary mortgage lenders made their money on commission -- and it didn't matter to banks or investors that the borrowers might not be able to pay: the ever-increasing value of homes made the whole enterprise profitable.

Suffice it to say, the scheme is no longer profitable. People who bought high-risk mortgages -- notably, on the advice of those selling them -- have since watched their home values plummet, and additionally are more likely to now be unemployed. As as result, many people can't afford their homes, and are being thrown out. The financial industry seems to favor this outcome, with notable personalities like Rick Santelli of CNBC arguing that mortgage contracts are sacred under any and all circumstances, even if this means that families are thrown into the street. "Not everybody needs to be a homeowner" is the tune that Wall Street has taught itself to sing now that there are no more royalties to be had from its predecessor.

The Obama plan has dedicated a small portion ($75 billion out of $750 billion) of the bank bailout TARP funds to create an incentive for banks to renegotiate the terms of mortgage contracts so that people can afford to pay them in light of the mostly unanticipated collapse of the entire world economy. There are still significant details missing as to how the government intends to compel lenders to renegotiate on terms that are more favorable to borrowers, but the move is a step in the right direction.

Cartoon controversy

I'm waiting for all the US newspapers which "bravely" reprinted the Muhammed-as-terrorist cartoons under the banner of "freedom of speech" to now do the same for the Obama-as-chimp illustration.

Surely if US editors aren't afraid of offending large groups of people in other countries, they shouldn't shy away from offending large groups of readers and advertisers in their own communities! Don't let those Obama supporters intimidate you! Freedom of speech must be upheld!

-- -- --

This is a good example of how racism is defended as "freedom of speech" only when the consequences take place in somebody else's community. Newspapers certainly have the right to offend whoever they want, but freedom of speech does not protect them from the economic consequences of offending their own communities. This is why newspapers do not purposely print material that is offensive merely because they can: they want to remain in business.

Why I will never fear growing old



The most successful old people are the ones that shift their interests outside of themselves throughout life. People can get away with being self-consumed when they are younger, but nothing demonstrates the bankruptcy of this path better than age, as people inevitably give up their physical advantages.

There are few things more tragic to me than the cases where those physical assets have not been replaced by other qualities. These people are left with no other way to interface with life, and end up staring blankly at TV screens, complaining about their failing bodies to whatever poor souls they might otherwise enjoy reciprocal relationships with.

It's very important to choose in advance the kind of person we want to become, bearing in mind life's constraints, rather than denying the inevitable, acting surprised and embittered when it comes. This guy offers an alternative.

-- -- --

I would add to this the observation that if we spend most of our lives trying to become people who are primarily useful to our employers, what will we have to offer each other when we are no longer employed? This is especially important to consider for those of us in industries that conflict on some level with our personal values.

Stimulus vs. bank bailout

Someone asked me today what I thought about the stimulus package. I said I thought there needed to be some kind of stimulus package, but that this is different from the bank bailout, which is being managed by the Treasury Department. The two are frequently confused.

The stimulus package, being a product of Congress, is a mixed bag of give-aways to various constituencies, as one would expect from that process. The overall point is to encourage spending. Many economists warn that the stimulus is not big enough to adequately do this, however, given the scale of the recession.

But the real problem lies with the banking system. Banks have accumulated large quantities of bad debt that nobody knows how to value. The government's approach so far as been to let bankers prescribe their own medicine -- namely, writing enormous checks to themselves at taxpayer expense. While this has kept bank managers employed at compensation levels which they endorse, it has not led to the kind of lending activity necessary for economic recovery.

Obama's economic team, most of whom hail from Wall Street, have argued against bank nationalization (direct government takeover that would wipe out bad assets and permit wholesale restructuring ) mainly on ideological grounds that governments do not make good bankers. But that argument has become increasingly untenable in the face of continued private sector failures, with even the likes of Alan Greenspan acknowledging the likely necessity of such a move.

Black mystery month

So if Richard Wright was supported by the Federal Writers' Project when writing "Native Son," does this not make it a real book?

Why high-school dropouts should write for The Atlantic



Dean Baker suffers Megan McArdle on whether government jobs count as "employment."

Living proof that common sense is often the first casualty of higher education.

21st century Chavism

While the Chavez referendum victory may place too much emphasis on the importance of the Venezuelan leader, it's worth bearing in mind that it was a referendum victory. One can debate the merits of term limits; presumably, Venezuelans already have. But absent any evidence of electoral fraud, it is highly presumptuous for North Americans to claim to know what is best for any country that is not their own.

I'm sympathetic to the claim that Hugo Chavez is something of an autocrat. And yet, coming from the country that most recently distinguished itself with the reign of George Bush, this preoccupation seems misplaced. The sad truth is that every national leader is an autocrat. That is the point of having national leaders: they take upon themselves the tasks that might otherwise be administered by the people themselves.

The Invisible Sham

The Wall Street Journal:

"[I]t is not markets that have failed but governments, which did not fulfill their role of the "visible hand" -- creating and guaranteeing market rules. Weak regulation of the banking sector and extensive lending, encouraged by governments, are examples of this failure."

Western commentators are fond of saying "socialism failed," but now I think I know what they mean. If government is identified as the glue that binds the economy, then everybody is going to want a piece of the action. The problem is that ordinary people are part of "everybody" -- and they outnumber everyone else. So self-proclaimed "socialist" states have had to protect elite constituencies without the advantage of a narrative that can deflect popular energies into "safe" activities -- like boycotting government. This is why, in those countries, class antagonisms have been maintained by force, and not very successfully over the long term.

On the other hand, the market economy offers the kind of ideological cover required for the government to protect elite interests without raising the ire of the population, who are told that the government is incompetent -- so they shouldn't expect it to do anything for them; they should put their faith in "market-based solutions," which is just another name for government by, and for, the rich. When government by the rich fails -- and fails spectacularly -- the blame is inevitably placed on the government, as an independent actor, and not the rich, who were writing the very rules which precipitated disaster. See above.

Secret admirers

Dear Fascism,

Will U Be Mine?

XO,

The Israeli electorate

Remembering good jobs

Once we realize that employment can be married to public need -- that Americans can be paid to build and maintain a sustainable, high-tech 21st century infrastructure; as well as provide the kinds of services communities require -- then the low-wage, crap benefits, hawking-of-superfluous-consumer-junk-for-the- enrichment-of-our-employers-model of "work" can appear profoundly inefficient and wasteful on many levels.

This is why Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele is adamant that government jobs aren't really "jobs" -- they are merely "work." It is incumbent upon business to keep their monopoly on "job creation" lest people remember they can create whatever kind of good-paying jobs they want -- and towards whatever end -- on their own.

Democrats favor shooting people from airplanes

If it is wrong for one politician to shoot wolves from an airplane, then it is wrong for another politician to shoot kids from an airplane.

I understand it is harder for Democrats to be racist against wolves, but there you have it.

Related: Bill Moyers on bombing

Something that is not incredible

Paul Krugman:

It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive.

This is not incredible. Without large scale public pressure and publicly-endorsed solutions -- like what the Socialist Party embodied in the 1930's -- politicians are merely taking their cues from business, as usual. When it comes to economic matters, that is the only protocol they know. It doesn't matter that business got us into this mess in the first place; no one else is stepping up, politically, as a viable challenger. This means the same people who engineered disaster are being tapped to engineer recovery, objectionable as this may be.

While it is true there are many smart people with excellent solutions to the crisis, a handful of economists, scholars, and journalists does not a political constituency make. This is one of my central gripes with liberalism, with its emphasis on professional excellence as a route to both personal success and "progressive influence" over the society. In the end what you get are affluent smart people on NPR who expect the political class to adopt their solutions on the basis of merit, as if this is the basis of anything in Washington DC.

Just as economic policy designed by Wall Street will inevitably be policy for Wall Street, policy designed by the public is the only hope of an answer for longstanding public needs. But that requires democracy, and we are a long way from it.

Moving the island

While it may be tempting to read Republican protest over executive pay caps as just another example of Bush-inspired political incompetence, in fact I think they see no other option.

Much as Ben Linus rebuked Charles Widmore for "changing the rules," congressional Republicans flail as the very premise of government as they understand it -- to facilitate the prerogatives of business at the taxpayer's expense -- is challenged, however lamely. Because they have never known anything else, Republicans can't help but register distress, even if it makes them appear ridiculous to the rest of the population, who maintain an attitude that government intervention in the public interest is "normal."

Higher callings

Management at my industrial gig is threatening layoffs and/or firing for anybody who does not stay in their good graces -- as narrowly interpreted by them at any given moment. In a kaleidoscope world of ever-shifting rules, the reading of tea-leaves usually brings bad news to the poor.

I have imagined several choice retorts, but this is my favorite so far: "Hey, buddy, I'm just here to make other people wealthy."

The remark satisfies two important criteria. The first is that it is true, in the scheme of things. The second is that many managers don't recognize what is true, in the scheme of things, because their rewards are organized in the other direction. So saying anything about work-life that underscores the transient value of people, fundamentally, is likely to produce cognitive dissonance in those most invested with its mission.

And that means I don't get in trouble for saying it.

Only one question remains: with or without Shrek 2 cat eyes?

Auto bailout for whom?

Oye Vey

A colleague of mine is excited about a news item he saw on the 700 Club which argued that the problem with the US auto industry -- versus the foreign companies in, say, Alabama -- is unions.

In fact, what the 700 Club is arguing for is national healthcare. The difference between a company like Toyota and a company like General Motors is that Japanese National Health Insurance picks up the medical and retiree tab for Toyota's workers in Japan, whereas GM has been legally and contractually obliged to do this itself. This puts US firms who employ Americans at a disadvantage with companies from other industrialized nations, who do not have the same "legacy costs."

Of course, you can always blame the people who show up for work everyday for expecting that they would have some way to survive after 30 years of creating wealth for an employer. That is easy: working people do not own news outlets. They only have unions.

Bail louts

Bank of America, in a recent meeting with business groups, noted that the Employee Free Choice Act -- the pending labor legislation that would make it easier for workers to form unions without employer interference -- "would be a de facto wage and benefit increase" which would bolster the "spending power of lower income consumers."

Or, as Home Depot co-founder, Bernie Marcus, called it, "the demise of a civilization."

Fannie frayed

The question I would like to ask every Republican who argues that government meddling in the economy precipitated the end of prosperity as they knew it is: On whose behalf was the government meddling, anyway?

It's worth recalling that the many "poor people who couldn't afford to buy a home" only earned this title after Wall Street discovered that housing prices do not, in fact, go up forever. As long as they were, the "poor people who couldn't afford to buy a home" were affectionately known as "structured investment vehicles," and getting the government to facilitate their creation was very big business.

Macrofraud begets microlending

There is an industrial precedent, occasionally observed, in which a company will pay top-rates to employees in order to undercut their economic incentive for unionization. Because the company knows that the price of unionization typically includes yielding some control of the workplace to employees, they prefer to bear the economic cost. It might be said that the wealthy and the powerful will sometimes part with their wealth if it best ensures the preservation their power.

-- -- --

Many of the world's great social challenges derive from the fact that people are forcibly deprived of a means to address them, and this is because power -- both political and economic -- is monopolized in the hands of minority classes which governments are erected to defend.

It has long been argued by the socialist tradition that the productive wealth on which every modern society relies -- industry and resources -- should come under the democratic discretion of their populations, and not be the exclusive possession of specialized classes who manage them "free" of public input (thus "free-enterprise") for narrow self-gain.

On some level, this is generally recognized by the average person, and goes far in explaining the lasting appeal of socialist ideals, particularly among social movements, but also, and paradoxically, among the many national governments which seek to either contain, or draw legitimacy from, their significance. These ideals remain significant because capitalism is incapable of meeting the basic human needs, physical and emotional, of considerable portions of humanity, whatever wonders it may generate for the well-positioned few.

Because the practical application of socialism, or, the democratic management of economic life, cannot be reconciled with monopolization in the same realm, governmental force is inevitably summoned on behalf of the owners of productive wealth to "protect individual property rights" -- which is to say, protect the right of certain individuals to derive property benefits against everyone else -- when such "rights" are jeopardized. The wealthy and the powerful have no intention to surrender their wealth or their power. This inevitably leads to conflict everywhere monopoly and human beings attempt to coexist, with famine and calamity awaiting in the cases where human beings are afforded the least means of self-defense.

-- -- --

The monopolization of the world and its resources, with its impressive gains for the few, subsequently becomes the template by which every problem it has created is presumed to be solved. In short, we have reached a point in which the aching needs of humanity are not so easily ignored; in many cases, they even disrupt the business of profit-making. Governments, being forever in the service of their owners, prove ineffectual in uprooting hunger, famine and disease, because these are not their mandates.

So it is that the beneficiaries of world suffering come to address the world with their solutions to end suffering, having already made their money. Bill Gates had nowhere else to go, and little more to conquer in the technology field, so, like a Jordan retiring from one sport to master another, Gates, like so many social frauds before him, embellishes his power by giving away some portion of his wealth, and at a volume which ensures no one will miss the significance. He will likely save many thousands of lives -- maybe many more -- under the banner of what he calls "creative capitalism," whereby the robbers of public wealth parlay their theft into a self-aggrandizing campaign to save the same wretched souls they have swindled.

Micolending and microfinance fall into a similar category: potentially lifesaving in waters where the practice of swimming has been prohibited.

This is what a marketing gimmick looks like

The story goes that Obama told "feminists" that he is a feminist, but my question is: did he tell anyone else? The man ran as a chalkboard, as I recall.

The real offense is that there are people -- men and women -- who are much more deserving, frankly. Obama may sign the Lilly Ledbetter Act into law, but that's only because many others laid the groundwork.

Western journalists respond warmly to Obama interview

According to the Financial Times, "[t]he Arab world responded positively ... to Barack Obama’s surprise interview with an Arabic language television channel..."

The is undeniably true, especially when the "Arab world" is comprised of:

• "a senior Arab official"


• "a state department spokesman"

• the editor of a Saudi Arabian newspaper


• no Predator drones were available for comment
  

Meanwhile, the most popular Arabic language news outlet, Al Jazeera, has not reported on the interview. Perhaps they "feel some kind of way" on the heels of Gaza, which they, unlike the Western press, actually covered.

Where do workers' rights come from?

Every American likes to say to himself or herself, "I've got my rights." It's natural to suppose that our constitutional rights travel with us wherever we go.

But this answer is, unfortunately, wrong. The Constitution protects us only from actions by the state, that is, the government. It does not protect us from private employers. If you work for a government, city, state, or federal, you can claim constitutional rights to freedom of speech, to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, to due process, to equality before the law. However, in the private sector the employer had no legal obligation to respect your constitutional rights....

One source of rights in the private sector is the union and the collective bargaining agreement. At this writing, only 7.5% of private sector workers are in a unionized workplace. If you are one of them, it's a good idea to know your contract backward and forward, and to carry a copy on your person at all times....

A second source of rights in the private sector is federal law. These rights were created by struggle. For instance, the struggle for the eight-hour day gained national prominence in 1886, when a sizable portion of the entire labor movement took part in a political strike on its behalf. The international labor holiday, May Day, was one result. Time and a half pay for more than 40 hours of labor in a week was finally recognized by Congress more than fifty years later in the Fair Labor Standards Act (the Wages and Hours Act) of 1938.

-- Labor Law for the Rank & Filer, by Staughton Lynd and Daniel Gross

Oblammy!

Obama explains to the Muslim world that he "cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians," while rocketing their villages because of "suspected" criminal activity.

So our first black president observes a conventional policy toward people of color who are suspected of a crime.

Vote every day

One of the reasons why I do not admire heads of state is that their job inevitably entails harming those groups which have the least amount of influence over them. In the case of an American president who happens to be black, this will mean harming the black community because it is weaker, comparatively, to the historically-favored groups which monopolize political and economic power.

While it is true that this class has changed "colors" over the years -- most recently by sponsoring an African-American for president -- their operational aims, as expressed by the policies they advance, have not. The gains that African-Americans have made throughout American history -- including their gradual admittance to elite institutions -- were never achieved from the top-down; they were accomplished through large-scale organized resistance around specific goals that created kind of pressure on government necessary to influence it.

The Obama presidency may spring from these accomplishments, but that does not mean it will advance or even sustain them. This will depend entirely on which groups wield the greatest domestic power. For example, this week another multi-billion dollar government give-away will be negotiated. Wall Street is at the table, having heavily bankrolled the Obama administration's electoral campaign and inaugural bonanza. They also staff his economic team. Where does the "African-American" community factor into this, given their obvious economic need, particularly when it comes to jobs, health-care and education? Are they even at the table? Do they register any input at the cabinet level? What about working people generally? It should not be difficult to see how those who are excluded from a process are less likely to benefit from its finished product.

Any group dedicated to change needs to vote everyday. Business groups and other influential lobbies understand this, which is why they have people working full-time on Capitol Hill and in the White House, while the rest of us are working full-time (usually for them, incidentally) just to live from week-to-week. It is the winning formula which makes the electoral process largely irrelevant: elect whoever you want; policy will remain a day-to-day affair from which the public is mostly excluded. This only changes when the public organizes around its concerns in ways that can compete with other organized lobbies.

One nation united

There is a habit I practice in the Teamsters union whenever I hear the word "unity." If it comes from the people I work with, I grant it a positive spin, because it has no real utility for us except in confrontation with management. If a manager decides on a stupid rule which makes the operation less safe, less efficient, or both, the best kind of response is collective; what individual workers lack in authority, they make up for in numbers.

However, whenever I hear the word "unity" coming from the mouth of union "leadership," I take it with a substantial grain of salt: 9 times out of 10, it is little more than a call for obedience. Because Teamster members are largely excluded from the national decisions that affect them, to be "united" around Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.'s agenda means that he makes up an agenda, and we follow it -- period. In other words, the union hierarchy appropriates the normally positive concept of "unity" for its own purposes, deploying the term in a way that is very different from the association lent to it by average members, in order to manipulate them.

Well, holy bjeezus: If the same phenomenon wasn't in highest-gear over the past several days at the federal level.

Obama: Hope and expectations

Kind sir: Can you spare some change™?

As I like to say, one of the advantages to keeping a large-enough beard is that you will never be mistaken for an investment banker.

Wall Street has taken a pummeling in the court of public opinion as of late, firstly by bursting its economic marbles all over the altar of the free market, and secondly by making sure nobody is passed over in the blood-letting required to have them returned. Even the hyper-wealthy have been burned, which speaks to the urgency of the crisis; after all, capitalism requires its defenders.

Perhaps it was an act of contrition, then, that found American bankers throwing their -- shall we say, "our"? -- money behind the candidate of change in such large quantities. According to Public Citizen, Barack Obama's inaugural march to Mecca cost $35.3 million, about 80% of it paid for by some of your best friends and mine, including:

• Louis Susman, vice chairman of Citigroup Corporate and Investment Banking and managing director, vice chairman of investment banking, Citigroup ($300,000);

• Mark Gilbert, senior executive, Lehman Brothers ($185,000);

• Robert Wolf, chairman and CEO, UBS Americas ($100,000);

• Jennifer Scully, vice president, private wealth management, Goldman Sachs ($100,000);

• Bruce Heyman, managing director of the Private Wealth Management Group, Midwest region, Goldman Sachs ($50,000);

• Kobi Brinson, senior vice president and assistant general counsel, Wachovia ($35,000)

On the other hand, it's possible that when the stakes get too high, throwing a big party while keeping a white-knuckled grip on "togetherness" is the only way to keep the poor from strangling the rich. Don't get me wrong: We're all Americans. Some of us are just more likely to be stimulated by our government than others.

Fulfilling the scheme

People who want change attend a party with those most opposed to change, both celebrating the same person for their own reasons.

The difference is that, after today, the people who want change will go home, and the interests opposed to change will stay in DC.

Howard Zinn: War and Social Justice



Howard Zinn on Obama, socialism, and making the United States a humanitarian rather than a military superpower.

Dispatch from The Angry Arab News Service

When a beleaguered and defenseless people receives supplies and weapons, it is called smuggling, and when a terrorist conquering state receives massive WMDs, it is called "military aid."

-- As'ad AbuKhalil

Epitaph for my youth



This officially marks the end to a chapter in my life.

Things that are cool

Somebody recently told me that they were "cool" with the war in Afghanistan, and that they "had no problem" with the first Gulf War either. I suggested that this is true of many American liberals, because it does not affect them: It is easy to be "cool" with things when you are insulated from their costs.

Somebody recently told me about veterinarian research she was doing which involved putting sheep in an agitator, shaking vigorously, and then measuring bone density over time. I asked: "And the sheep are cool with this?"

-- -- --

In business, decision-making that negatively affects others is sometimes called "making the hard choices." Managers who make the hard choices are held in high-esteem by those who benefit from the costs imposed on others. A good manager is someone who keeps the cost of paying people to do productive work low enough that investors and executive managers can derive the maximum value out of work that they do not perform. The people who do the necessary work make enough money to live, if they are lucky; however, in the world's wealthiest nation they aren't that lucky: most working people live indebted to other businesses in order to pay their bills, which can include food, fuel and medical costs -- to say nothing of education or anything else. The advantage to business is that most of the population has no other means to survive except to "rent" themselves to employers who absorb most of the value of their work.

Naturally, nobody is "cool" with this arrangement except those who either inherit its advantages, or who, by one means or another, manage to erect a long enough ladder between themselves and the lowest classes that they no longer bear the primary costs of the exchange -- namely, the economic costs. At this point one may be "okay" with things, because there is refuge to be taken in the small comforts of say, home ownership, and one can parlay some modicum of respectability from this. In fact, this is referred to as the "American dream" -- "working hard" so as to become useful enough to the bosses that they grant you the means to rent a home from the banks they own so that you can one day pay property taxes to the government they run. There is no higher calling for the average American.

Children overwhelm Egyptian doctors

Egyptian doctors report being overwhelmed with Palestinian children arriving into their care with bullet wounds to the head.

The official Israeli position is that any Gazan casualities are the fault of Hamas because they operate in the territory, thus rendering everyone a "human shield."

-- -- --

Considering the minimal casualties sustained by Israeli ground forces, it would appear Israel has used its "blame Hamas" approach to justify the indiscriminate killing of civilians in order to best protect its own forces -- an important part of sustaining domestic support for the operation. It has also maintained a ban on all foreign news reporting from within the Gaza strip.

Career profile '09: Senior Fellow for Muddled Eastern Studies

The Council on Foreign Relations hosted a "media conference call" on Gaza which, after an hour of blab about high-level Israel/Obama administration considerations, finally got to a question about the motivations of Hamas.

The answer was revealing in that it was at first incoherent:

Daniel Senor:

Look, there's the sort of stated objectives, or the short-term objectives that Hamas has -- or officials within Hamas have talked about, which include loosening the ease of entry from Gaza into Israel and back and forth, and ease within movement within the territories broadly, and there are a number of these various issues.

Presumably what Senor is trying to say is that Hamas would like an end to the economic blockade which has prevented food, fuel and medical supplies from entering Gaza for months. I would dare say this "irks" them. You see, because it is difficult for human beings to remain alive without such things, it is reasonable that they would factor into the "objectives" of Hamas, whether stated, short-term, "official" or whatever. Yet, this seems difficult for an adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies to accept at face value.

At this point Senor shifts gears and attributes what is an Israeli preoccupation with "deterrence" to Israel's adversaries in the region. Personally, I have only ever heard the Israeli government speak at length on the topic of "deterrence" -- or the idea that Israel must remain so scary to everybody that no one would ever dare to challenge it.

It's worth noting that the track record on this is not so good. Israel routinely kills large numbers of people, assassinates resistance leaders and their families, kidnaps random people and detains them indefinitely -- and yet these groups never tire of needling Israel! It's almost as if people just aren't happy unless they enjoy the same rights of representation and self-determination as everyone else! They don't like being accepted at foreign universities only to the be prohibited from attending because somebody else's government won't let them leave! They prefer eating food to starvation, etc. You know, normal human stuff. But again, not so easy to understand for experts who have close ties to state policy in the US.

-- -- --

Common sense must be one of the first casualties of subscribing to a "war on terror" narrative when looking at the world. Anybody whose career is premised on a steady diet of government-sanctioned falsehoods is going to look uncomprehendingly at ordinary people, whose motivations are much less complex. Hamas is not a difficult organization to understand, insofar as you are not receiving a paycheck to analyze them on behalf of the United States or Israeli government. Under such conditions, the truth is rarely useful, except in hindsight.

Success in Gaza

Gaza is a case where the numbers really tell the whole story: 1,138 people dead in order to defend against a threat which killed less than 10 (4 Israelis died as a result of friendly fire). If that seems "necessary," then human beings have very little value -- or, rather, some have exponentially more value than others.

But to frame the issue this way is misleading. Israel's actions in Gaza have increased the threat to vulnerable populations everywhere -- in particular Jewish communities in Europe -- who are now the likely targets of those aggrieved by the Jewish state's attack on defenseless, trapped civilians. Israel may be able to claim military success against the region's weakest population, but it will also be claiming a victory for anti-Semitism in the years to come.

All modern governments exist to insulate privileged minority interests against the preferences their general populations. Israel is no exception. Israeli policy is not designed to benefit "Jews" or even average Israeli citizens; were this the case, the internationally prescribed solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict could have been implemented decades ago, and the granting of basic human rights to Palestinians -- which is really the heart of the story -- would have obviated radical groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. But the benefits derived from maintaining a conflict against a far weaker enemy portrayed as the second-coming of Hitler has a political utility that conforms nicely to the nation-state model: A population that is afraid is much easier to control and looks to its governors for protection.

The United States has helped maintain Israel's illegal occupation by providing the kind of military support which renders international law irrelevant. Israel and the US may be international criminals, but there is no one available to bring them to justice. The arrangement has given American defense manufacturers a bottomless market in supplying a country that is perpetually at war -- paid for by the generosity of the American taxpayer, as all defense projects inevitably are. It has also given the US a foothold in a resource-rich, politically unstable part of the world, though policy hawks have increasingly come to question how useful Israel really is to American "interests" given how much trouble it causes, and how little utility it extends.

The Great Leap Backwards

Somebody identified as the "secretary of labor" authored a piece in the Wall Street Journal today which aptly summarizes the legislative and policy goals of the US Chamber of Commerce and other business lobbies for the next four years.

The writer argues forcefully against "special-interest groups that purport to have worker's interests at heart," because these groups do not share the business goal of making US workers "more competitive in the world-wide economy."

On the other hand, if the "special-interest groups that purport to have worker's interests at heart" can persuade you to accept the going rate for Chinese peasants living under political dictatorship, then maybe they really do have your interests at heart: If every American would imbibe the twin-elixir of poverty and repression, the US might become the next China, and we'd finally be able to steal jobs from everybody else. Cool, man!

Also of note are past achievements of what is described as the "Labor Department": the reclassification of cheeseburger assembly as "manufacturing" work (giving a much needed boost to a lagging industrial sector); and the fact that "[t]oday we have record-low workplace injury, illness and fatality rates."

The bearable lightness of unbeing

"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich."

-- Peter Ustinov

What is Hamas?

Endgame



With the death toll in Gaza quickly approaching the 1000 mark, and Israeli casualties hovering around 13, the necessity of Israel's latest campaign is becoming clearer by the day: They really want Hamas to gain control of the West Bank and Gaza. Then the peace plan can be scrapped for the beginning of an Obama administration, because Obama knows better than to negotiate with terrorists.

Playing doctor on TV

Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General.

Consider his 2003 TIME piece where he asked the hard question: Since Prozac is so great, why aren't we all taking it?

Gupta makes a strong argument in favor of Prozac -- after all, even veterinarians have made it "the number one choice for dogs with the blues."

Of course, nothing's perfect. Some doctors may hesitate to mandate Prozac, in spite of its potential to make everyone feel "better than well." For instance, it might create disincentives for confronting life's challenges -- or it might hurt kids. But in the end, nobody really knows. It's so much speculation.

What we do know is how great Prozac works for millions of Americans. Maybe you shouldn't use a prescription drug to solve all of your problems -- but don't let this discourage you from taking prescription drugs to solve some of your problems!

Yes, this is just a small sample of the kind of hard-hitting medical journalism offered up by Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Historical amnesia and Gaza

Stupid is as the nation state does

Israel's assault on Gaza seems like one of the least complicated conflicts in recent memory. A government is bombarding people in a confined space because they exhibit the kinds of anti-social tendencies which come from being condemned to a confined space.

In the narrative of the strong, the burden falls, predictably, on the weak. The strong claim they have no choice but to massacre the weak, because just look at how the weak behave! Rather than make good use of their confinement, they commit crime! They preach hatred, they hide weapons, they lash out at whatever is in their reach! Would you tolerate someone putting your children in harm's way? Of course, you would not. The behavior cannot be tolerated!

It must be a law of history, however, that what the powerful can tolerate is inversely proportional to what the powerful want to tolerate. This is illustrated splendidly by the manner of idiocy which says a small amount of death must be confronted with a massive escalation of death. In fact, small amounts of death -- even large amounts of death -- are tolerated by governments all the time in situations where there is a cost assigned to addressing them. That is to say, a political or economic cost. But human costs are not prohibitive alone: if the Israeli government was in the business of protecting Israeli lives, would it confront the deaths of 15 Israelis in 8 years time (the cost of tolerating Hamas rockets) by starting a war that would likely produce just as many casualties if not more in the space of several weeks? No: it would it negotiate terms that would reduce rocket fire -- just as it has under other circumstances in the past. But that would incur a cost for the Israeli political class -- and costs are meant to be borne by ordinary citizens, not their leaders. Lest we forget the meaning of patriotism.

The United States only has one Israeli advocate at a time

Obama has Tzipi Livni to say about 500+ dead in Gaza. This does not make him a bad guy. It just makes him the incoming President of the United States.

American politicians do not speak out in defense of Palestinians because there is no powerful, organized Palestinian constituency which might provide some incentive for doing so. On the other hand, the American Jewish community is large, wealthy, and influential. My impression is that they also tend to be rather reactionary when it comes to Israeli policy: you do not criticize it. You do not criticize it because of the Holocaust, but you also don't criticize it because you "aren't there" and therefore have no right. This must have been a piece of social engineering dreamed up by the Israeli state, and passed on to American Jews via intermediaries based here. It's my only explanation for how these American Jewish groups -- and I don't know if they are the majority, but they seem like it -- are so willing to back Israeli policy so uncritically. There is far more diversity of thought in Israel on these subjects than there is in the US.

Anyway, this is why I do not care about politicians, even black presidents of the United States. They are important to me to the degree that they are important to ordinary people -- but that only speaks to how impressed I am by ordinary people. They have no intrinsic value otherwise; as I say, they are mere barometers of what is happening within their societies. US politicians love Israel because they love winning elections, and they are not going to do that by antagonizing the groups best positioned to assist them. They are never free to do what is right except by coincidence.

Night in Gaza

Israel invades Gaza and the US blocks diplomacy at the UN. The powerful do not need to make concessions to the weak: they have a free hand to impose their political preferences, whatever the human costs.

There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, says Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni -- which is interesting considering the "humanitarian crisis" which existed before Israel started bombing the population. Perhaps the crisis is being addressed through the gradual depopulation of the territories. I eagerly await Elie Wiesel's parachuting on to the scene to remind us all of the lessons of the Holocaust. If I recall correctly, one of them relates to organized state violence against defenseless populations, and, like, "speaking out" against this, or something. Maybe I completely misunderstood the moral of Night, or a significant part of why "remembering the Holocaust" is important, but one might think these lessons applicable in other contexts -- even one in which a Jewish state is pursuing its politics at the cost of an entire community.

Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before

There are a few things that seem to characterize Israel's wars of late.

The first is that Israel describes its operations as defensive. In the summer of 2006, Israel responded to the kidnapping of two soldiers by bombing all of Lebanon. The ensuing conflict would claim the lives of over 1000 innocent Lebanese, and 43 Israelis. A popular slogan at the time, "Israel cannot afford to lose a single war" was offered up in response to international calls for a ceasefire. It was also claimed that Hezbollah's offensive arsenal (mostly Chinese-made, World War II-style Katyusha rockets) posed an "existential threat" to Israel, and could not be tolerated. Rather than negotiate with Hezbollah on a prisoner exchange, Israel decided to "defend" itself against this "existential threat" by opting for open warfare, thus ensuring that it would be on the receiving end of a barrage of Katyusha attacks.

A second element which characterizes recent Israeli military campaigns is that the official aims seem transparently implausible. Just as it was difficult to see how Israel would ever "defeat" Hezbollah without blowing up everyone in Lebanon, it is hard to understand how Israeli war planners expect to topple Hamas without killing most residents of Gaza in the process. To this end they are already enjoying success: in several days of bombardment, Israel has killed over 400 Palestinians; in constrast, 4 Israelis have died. But again, this has neither weakened Hamas nor slowed the rate of rocket fire into Israel -- in this case comprised of the rudimentary Qassam rocket. (Ending rocket fire into Israel is another stated goal of the offensive, though that is about as likely as banishing rock-throwing or the thinking of bad thoughts about Israel: as long as people have access to basic materials -- sugar propels the Qassam, for example -- and believe themselves to be in intolerable conditions, they will find means to attack Israel.)

For these reasons, it might be said that an additional feature of Israel's recent wars has been their tendency to undermine the credibility of official Israeli claims. It is hard to argue on behalf of a "defensive" war when one's capacity to inflict casualties is 100 times greater than that of one's adversary. It is also hard to make defensive claims when you are initiating open-ended warfare, and maintaining it single-handedly; in other words, when your preference is for military conflict, versus other alternatives. Also, one's ability to make sound evaluations on matters of "existence" must be called into question when "existence" is claimed to be threatened, the "threat" goes unaddressed, and one continues to "exist" with no greater difficulty than before.

My private view is that nothing is being accomplished in Israel's recent military campaigns, unless you consider the deaths of large numbers of people an "accomplishment." That is clearly the most significant achievement of Israel's methods thus far. In addition to this, the ruling Kadima party is enjoying a boost in the polls prior to election day.

In the 2006 Lebanon war, Israel killed and wounded thousands of Lebanese; it strengthened Hezbollah within the society; it left Hezbollah's rocket-launching capacity intact; and it ultimately agreed to negotiate a prisoner swap -- something it could have done from day one, precluding everything else that came after.

In the present case, Israel has attacked a much weaker, mostly defenseless, population. It will likely kill large numbers of people, a big percentage of these children -- normal when bombing urban areas. It is not likely to dislodge Hamas.

Because of the vulnerability of the people in Gaza, reaction in the Arab world promises to be acute. This has the potential of destabilizing corrupt Arab regimes allied with the West. In any event, it will doubtless supply the motivation for future attacks on Israel and allies of Israel. It will increase the attractiveness of radical Islam for many, at least to the degree that this is perceived as a viable way of attacking Israeli and other western targets.

A basic commitment to human life requires opposition to policies which put it at risk. In this case, pressuring Israel to end its campaign would reduce casualties in this conflict by 99%. That gives some indication of where the focus should be.