We Now Turn to our Military Correspondent

Well you’ve probably all heard about the pilots who fired their weapons in error and killed some Canadians. We checked in with Justin Gries, our military expert (and my brother). Justin has credentials. He commented;

They need to be prosecuted for not following protocol. Obviously they didn't mean for anybody to die, but they got egotistical and over stepped their bounds. It sets a bad precedent if you don't persecute them. The whole reason ground-air combination forces work is that they are disciplined. Military service is not like the real world; mistakes can cost lives. So mistakes or disobeying of orders must be punished.

So there you have it.

Over at Commondreams

Realism does not seem to be the order of the day over at Commondreams. You have a nice article by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman in which they visit a policy discussion seminar and disrupt it because it fails to sufficiently address corporate crime, corporate welfare, and corporate violence. They relate their experiences in a question and answer session on the magazine.

"Here you have The New America Foundation and the Atlantic Monthly taking money from Shell, and ADM, and Lockheed Martin, The Hartford, and the Nuclear Energy Institute to write about the real state of the union, and you ignore corporate power -- just don't talk about it?

At this point, one of the young New American kids takes the microphone from our hands and won't hand it back.

We pry it from his hands and continue to address Fallows.

In the essay about crime, why do you write nothing about corporate crime and focus solely on street crime, ignoring that corporate crime and violence inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined?

And in the essay on welfare, why do you focus solely on black Americans, and ignore corporate welfare, which costs more than all individual welfare combined?"

The lousy part is that they do have some good points. Corporate crime and corporate welfare are serious issues. But it's clear that these two chaps are far more interested in provoking a response than in changing anybody's minds. The truth is that Mokhiber and Weissman don't think that these people are capable of changes. So why bother? More fun to just fight.

In lighter news, Max Page, writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer, suggests that Democrats unpack the court. Yes, they should interfere with the President's power to appoint people to the court. "Democrats should now stall all new appointments to the Supreme Court, as they come available, in what many still consider an illegitimate Bush presidency." There's no way that scheme could backfire on the Democrats. That scheme just doesn't have the potential to play into the President's hands. And the case he references--President Roosevelt's Court Packing scheme--worked out perfectly for the Democrats.

One Other Thing

The President did tell the bone chilling story of a Scranton, Pennsylvania who was hounded by Pennsylvania malpractice laws, forced to move to Hershey, Pennsylvania. Dan Perkins over at This Modern World picked this up first--clever lad.

Tort Reform - Presidential Style

President Bush has called for the following steps to deal with Medical Malpractice suits.

- Secure the ability of injured patients to get quick, unlimited compensation for their "economic losses," including the loss of ability to provide unpaid services like care for children or parents.
- Ensure that recoveries for non-economic damages do not exceed a reasonable amount ($250,000).
- Reserve punitive damages for cases where they are justified, and limit punitive damages to reasonable amounts.
- Provide for payments of judgments over time rather than in a single lump sum, to ensure that appropriate payments are there when patients need them.
- Ensure that old cases cannot be brought years after an event.
- Reduce the amount that doctors must pay if a plaintiff has received other payments from an insurer to compensate for their losses.
- Provide that defendants pay judgments in proportion to their fault.

This is better than some of the proposals I've seen. There's no provision that allows for the intimidation of those who would bring suit. But this set up does emphasize once again that American Juries are incapable of handing out appropriate damage in these cases. You will also note the lack of mention of Insurance companies in this framework. Unusual that he would choose to leave the insurance companies out, as we all know they play a role in this.

Listening to Political Crap on CNBC last night (the show may not have been called Political Crap, but I was having a hard time sleeping and so may not have been paying proper attention) some dude made the point that Senator Edwards (quoted earlier this week) is a trial lawyer. This bill, which has little chance of passing the Senate, is more of a political shuffle, taking a swipe at Edwards, without having to defend insurance companies (who are not loved much more than lawyers in the US).

Those Stupid Voters

It's interesting to note a real strain of elitism creeping into Conservatism lately. They have always been against elitism--or at least a certain type of elitist. The pointy head intellectual type. But they recently are showing they don't trust the American people.

- Many arguments in favor of tort reform contain the idea that American Juries can no longer be trusted. They often prefer to focus on trial lawyers (unless they happen to be a trial lawyer, like David Limbaugh), but they make it clear that "juries made of people too stupid to get out of jury duty" are irresponsibly giving money away.
- They are taking pot shots at the american working class for not carrying his fair share of the load. You know those lucky duckies who don't pay enough income tax.

Well today Cal Thomas attacks polls. This is nothing new--Republicans have doing this for a little while. And given the news that the Presidents approval numbers have dropped to pre-September 11 figures, perhaps its expected.

Thomas complains that the pollsters are asked questions that they really can't answer because they are stupid and ill-informed. He states, "The first question in the Gallup survey asks, "Based on what you have heard or read, please say whether you favor or oppose each of the following economic proposals."

Heard or read? Heard from whom and read in what? Do we know where the respondents are getting their information? If it is from the broadcast networks, or newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post, the likelihood is they will reflect the bias against Bush's domestic and foreign policies contained in those media." Yep, and if they got their news from unbiased sources like Cal Thomas or Rush Limbaugh they would know better.

He repeats the conservative mantra that Bush is going to do what he believes in, not what the polls tell him. That may be true--but I have no doubt whatsoever that Karl Rove is watching this like a hawk. After all if the polls accurate reflect what the American people think (which is another question entirely), than Bush may not get that second term he wants so badly.

MLK

Lazy article by the Madison Capital Times editorial staff today, published at CommonDreams.org. They spend several paragraphs reminding us of who Martin Luther King Jr. was, and discussing his comments on war and the United States. They then quote him at length. Lazy way to write an article, but still very good. They quote MLK as having said;

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken - the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. ...

Sobering Words

Juries - Are they Good or Evil?

Here is David Limbaugh arguing that American Juries don't know what they are doing.

"We must understand that the problem is not just trial lawyers preying on society -- though more than a few of them are. They can't file suit without willing plaintiffs, and they can't sustain their cases without receptive judges and sympathetic juries.

Sadly, these plaintiffs, judges and juries are simply a reflection of a society that has lost its fundamental appreciation for liberty and is following an inexorable path toward forfeiting all of it."

Interesting that he lets the Lawyers off the hook, considering that the Law is his chosen profession. But here to argue that American Juries can be trusted in matters of life and death, we present David Limbaugh.

"Society has a vital moral interest in punishing wrongdoers (as prescribed by the jury). And can you imagine the wasted effort, energy and agony that went into working up these cases, prosecuting them and deciding them?"

So did you get that? If Juries are going to decide against corporate interests, they can't be trusted. But if they are going to send a man to his death, they must be the deciding word.

New Link

Added a new link along the left there--reload the page if you don't see it--for Eschaton. It's another Blog, but it's pretty well done. Check it out.

I Get Mail

Today I recieved a letter from Dr. Billy Agu of Nigeria. He states, " the process the sum of US$27M (Twenty Seven Million US Dollars only) was found lying in the tatal suspense account after the foreign contractors had been paid their We all agreed that this over-invoiced amount be transferred (for our own use) into a bank account provided by a foreign partner, because we are government workers and the Code of Conduct does not allow us to operate foreign accounts." Apparently the Code of Conduct does allow them to embezzle $27 million, but not to operate foreign bank accounts. I also appreciated that this $27 million was only in US dollars and not in that bizarre foriegn money.

Apparently they've already lost $5,000,000.00 on trying to run this scam, I mean, affect this transfer. The poor dears. So they turned to the one person they knew they could trust. Mean Joe Green. No wait, make that everybody in this office building.

He also warns me against trying to verify any part of his story. "So far, much have been said and due to our sensitive positions, we cannot afford a slip in this transaction neither can we give out identity as regards our respective offices, but whereby cordial relationship is established, smooth operations commences, you will be furnished with details of all you deserves to know."

So all I have to do is give him my bank account and i'll get $22,000,000.00 in it, and then split with the six chums and all will be well. Wait a moment. Commentator-sense tingling! I sense deception! Oh no. Maybe i'd better not get involved.

For those interested in the entire text of the lettter, here it is. For those who have recieve similar letters--it is scam.

Parables

For those who have heard the Parable of the ten men who went to dinner ("Ten guys went to dinner, and they decided to pay their dinner bill. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. So you see if we don't coddle the rich they will leave America and society will collapse."), there's an excellent analysis of it at Politicalstrategy.org.

Here's my version.

"Ten men went to dinner. The first five had the complementary bread and water. The sixth had a side order of fries and water. The Seventh had a small house salad and water. The eigth had a chicken fried steak, some fries and a soda. The ninth had a nice steak and salad, with a glass of wine. The tenth had a five course meal with salad, soup, lobster and steak, desert and coffee.

"When the check came, the tenth picked it up and said, "Well there are ten of us and the bill is $100.00. That will be $10.00 each."

This is of course a terribly flawed parable, but it's no worse than the other one.

Bryant Startles All By Posting on a Non-War Subject

Bryant Gries, an Internet Commentator, took a moment on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 to post on a subject that had little if nothing to do with the forthcoming war with Iraq. He posted a brief discussion of Presidential John Edwards, whom he described as "exceedingly hopeful." Bryant confirmed that he had done little to no research on the Senator, describing him as having hair that is about the same color as Dan Quayle.

This bizarre-non war post concerned itself with a quote the Senator had made in Salon.com. The Senator stated, "I believe people who sit on juries are the same people who decide elections in America. Juries are a microcosm of America. People who don't like juries deciding a case don't like regular Americans. In this country, the power has always been with regular Americans deciding elections. I have enormous respect for regular Americans. They decide elections and I certainly think they should be allowed to settle disputes between Americans." Bryant commented, "I don't know much about the Senator, but I agree with him on this issue. And on his choice of hair color."

Bryant did stress that he was still 100% focused on the war, and would return to posting vaguely worrying depressing posts on the war as soon as possible.

More on the Forthcoming War

The Pentagon wisely decided to leak their war plans to MSNBC today. Apparently they plan on bombing Bahgdad intensively for about a week, then sending in ground troops. They might send in an Army/Marine combined forth across land from Kuwait, or they might have Marines land along the coast of the Persian Gulf, or they might have Marines take advanced positions, using Helicoptors to get them there. They expect the fighting to be largely over within three weeks.

So three weeks to the war, and then three weeks of the war. We'll check back in six weeks and see how these plans go.

The article does contain this potential wrench in the works. "Military officials predicted that the worst of the fighting could be over in two to three weeks, assuming Iraqi President Saddam Hussein doesn’t try to prolong his control by using weapons of mass destruction."

Nothing to worry about. After all we've said repeatedly that we will eliminate him regardless of what he does--what incentive would have have to use them? The kicker is that if and when he uses weapons of mass distruction on American Troops, well, that will in retrospect have justified everything we did to provoke him.

Yeah and Saddam is going to try to "prolong his control" by using weapons of mass distruction. Yep, that's his goal. He's a reckless idiot. Well, he is a reckless idiot--but anybody paying the lease attention should realize that using what he has will be an act of revenge, not control.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
Friedrich Nietzsche

We are entering a brave new world of international diplomacy--a world where we can invade any country we want at any time. I'm sure the world will breath easier.

Are You Experienced?

Oliver North said on Fox News's morning show, as Fox News specialist on the military, that he believes that war between Iraq and the US will officially start within three weeks. He believes that the commitment of troops that the US has made necessitate that.

So get ready.

More on Race

Just read an article by William B. Allen entitled Why Race Atheism Fails. The article begins by saying, "Recurrent nightmares come to notice as opportunities for new dreams." I read that sentence some 10 times before finally giving up. I think it came from a fortune cookie. (Had chinese food today myself; my fortune-"You are given the chance to take part in an exciting adventure.")

Anyway the rest of the article is something about how the Conservatives, believing that race should not matter, don't adaquetly defend themselves when attacked by Liberals. They should instead embrace the label "Black Republicans," by which Allen means, "to pursue an aggressive strategy of calling upon American blacks in the positions of highest visibility and highest influence—not to deal with "black issues" but precisely to deal with the life and death issues of American democracy." It actually makes some sense, as the positions of Condeleeza Rice and Colin Powell demonstrate.

Those Lousy Democratic Senators

Alcohol is bad, apparently. It's legal in this country, and so companies are allowed to manufacture it. But the fact that some companies choose to manufacture it is immoral. And the fact that black Senators and Representatives don't fight against alcohol with every breath they have is proof that they've been bought off with dirty alcohol money. This is the thesis of Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, in their latest article.

They report the horrifying news that Hennikin has committed $250,000.00 to create the Louis Stokes Health Policy Fellows Program to help narrow the gap between the health status of black people and white people. Hennikin also produces alcohol for profit. Some of that alcohol goes into the African American community where it fuels African-American alcoholism. You see the problem? Here is a company making money selling a legal product that some people misuse--of course the African Americans who choose to drink themselves are blameless, it's Hennikens fault. And even if they are willing to pump hundreds of thousands of money into helping African-Americans, that money is dirty and evil.

They complain that promotional material that Henniken puts out discussing this program doesn't focus on the ravages of alcoholism. This just in, Congress has passed the Mokhiber-Weissman resolution requireing all coorporate promotional material to attack he company producing it.

They castigate the Black Senators and Representatives for failing to fight alcohol. Of course there's no point wasting time speculating that perhaps the Congressional Black Caucaus has better things to do than focus on this particular issue. And at any rate, what are they supposed to do? Are Mokhiber-Weissman suggesting we give prohibition another go? Maybe just for black people?

The Film Critic, the Historian, the Pundit, and Democracy

There's an excellent article today at Salon about film criticism. I love Salon. They have great articles, and solid writing. They are broke, unfortunately, and have had to require subscription to see much of the site, particularly politics. So rarely comment on their site. Today however, Charles Taylor, writes an article on the necessity of FIlm Critics. He is responding to an article in Daily Variety, which slammed critics as being elitist and unnecessary. Taylor, as a critic, comes back with a somewhat nebulous argument on the value of criticism. He points out that movie makers would love to get rid of criticism as a bad review could and does hurt movies.

However he also grapples with one of the key problems with film criticism; anybody can do it. He tries to defend the critics, say, "It risks the elitist label to say that critics should know more than their readers about movies, but it's really just common sense. Don't we expect a foreign correspondent to know more about the Middle East or equatorial Africa than the readers do? Do we second-guess our plumbers about our clogged drains, or our doctor about our clogged arteries? But expertise in an area where everyone assumes they are an expert is assumed to be snobbery."

This idea, that anybody can be an expert in films, applies elsewhere. Anybody can be an expert in history for example. I've had historical discussions with people based on half remembered high school classes, stories their grandpa told them, and theories picked up on the internet or elsewhere. It is difficult in those discussions to say, "Well, nothing i've read in the dozens of books i've reviewed, argues that or provides any information to support that position." When argueing with a Historian, he or she would be required to point to evidence, and that gives one a solid point to pound against. But argueing history with a non-historian is often like punching fog--there's nothing solid to latch on to, no proof, just an opinion. And tearing down someones opinion based on your own personal authority does make one feel like a bit of a snob or elitist.

Politics is another area where this problem exists. We are all citizens of the United States, and as such we should all be experts in the politics of the day. But of course many of us aren't. And both parties and their spokesmen have a vested information in obfuscating certain facts. Perhaps we should have a special class of people, designed to study the issues of the day, and present to us their opinions, which we normal people could then follow. We could call them Pundits or Commentators. Wait a minute, we already have Pundits and Commentators. And they obfuscate as much as anybody. So what's the solution? How do we negotiate between the scylla of Expertise and the Charybdis of Democracy? Anybody with a definitive answer, e-mail me.

Incidently, movie critics and commentators aren't picked for their knowledge, however much Mr. Taylor might want to suggest that. They are picked for their ability to present their information well. Either they write well, or they look smart on tv. But you already knew that.