Navigation

Tag Archives | Terror

Meet the New Boss ….

By on November 8, 2006 30

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

Let a smile be your umbrellaYesterday’s election brought high points and low. It was a relief to see the unbearable Rick Santorum go down to defeat in Pennsylvania, but not so delightful to see the despicable Elliot Spitzer gain the governorship in New York. On the whole, though, I’m glad to see the Republicans get trounced as they deserve. And divided government is one step closer to no government.

The real question now is whether the newly empowered Democrats will stand up to Bush on questions of war and civil liberties, or whether they will merely take the opportunity to indulge in their usual programs of job destruction (a.k.a. “minimum wage laws”), victim disarmament (a.k.a. “gun control”), etc.

One reason for pessimism is the way the Democrats abjectly rolled over for Bush in the wake of 9/11. Another is the way they’ve been endlessly coy about whether they want to end the war or just fight it better. Still another is this observation that “[m]any of the newly elected Democrats come from the moderate to conservative wing of the party. They are national security hawks in the main and most do not favour a quick withdrawal from Iraq. Many of them are social conservatives and protectionists ….” Oh, goody.

On the other hand, one reason for optimism is that antiwar sentiment nonetheless clearly played a central role in bringing about yesterday’s Democratic victories. Thus the Democrats may have to throw some sort of antiwar bone to their constituents. We’ll see.

In longer-term electoral politics, what I’d really like to see is a Green/Libertarian coalition. The Greens’ ten values are perfectly consistent with libertarianism, though the means chosen to achieve them may not always be. I’m largely in agreement with this piece by Dan Sullivan, though I favour a different solution to the land question – and I also think making agreement on any one solution to the land question a precondition for Green/Libertarian cooperation is strategically self-defeating. (In practical terms the best solution for disagreements over land policy is decentralisation. Kick the disagreement downstairs and tussle over it at the local level; that way no one solution gets imposed on everybody else.) For some other Green/Libertarian proposals see here, here, here, and here. (One approach to Green/Libertarian cooperation that I don’t favour is this one, which I initially thought was a joke – but apparently not.)

From New Caprica to the Negative Zone

By on October 8, 2006 2

The Bush administration has been getting a tough beating (not as tough as it deserves, of course – but still gratifying) in the sf world. Revenge of the Sith and V for Vendetta made some pointed references to Bush policies, while Battlestar Galactica’s first two seasons commented on Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

Spider-man and a Cylon Now Galactica’s third season begins with a situation analogous to the Iraq crisis, as the Cylons who’ve come to impose their conception of order on the human colonists face insurgents and suicide bombers, and joke bitterly about their earlier expectations of being greeted as liberators. (Leoben’s attempt to brainwash Starbuck into loving him recreates the same dynamic on an individual level.) Neither side is presented monolithically: we see the humans disagreeing with one another about the legitimacy of terrorist tactics, while the Cylons likewise disagree with each other about what’s permissible in combating such tactics. But the Bush approach is clearly presented as a disaster – and a predictable disaster.

Equally topical references are to be found in “Civil War,” the event currently engulfing the universe of Marvel Comics, as superheroes fight it out over whether to comply with, help enforce, or disobey the Superhuman Registration Act – a conflict that has set Iron Man against Captain America, Spider-man against Daredevil, and members of the Fantastic Four against one another. (I’ve referred to Captain America’s role in all this in a previous post.) Now come two of the best contributions to this series: the latest issues of Amazing Spider-man and Fantastic Four (issues 535 and 540, respectively – and both, not coincidentally, written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski). Speaking of the special prison that’s been built to incarcerate recalcitrant superheroes (and supervillains too, of course), one character explains:

She [the prisoners’ lawyer] can make all the motions she wants. This is outside the jurisdiction of local and federal courts. This is an act of Congress, signed by the President. Only the Supreme Court can intervene, and I happen to know they won’t.

This place is not on American soil. American laws don’t touch here. American lawyers don’t come here. Once non-registrants come here, they’re legal nonentities. Occupants. Prisoners.

The old quarrel between Hobbesians and Lockeans continues as well. One character argues:

Take away the law and what are we? Savages, up to our necks in blood. That’s why we give the law the authority to take everything away from us if we break it by murdering or kidnapping or – or simply telling powerful men, “Go to hell.”

The law is the law …. I support it because I honestly believe we have to support it, no matter what. [If the law is wrong] then eventually it’ll be changed, in an orderly, lawful way. We can’t just obey the laws we like, or –

While another character counters:

Sometimes the law is wrong. Sometimes the government is wrong. When that happens, you have to stand up and speak out. Even if you’re alone. Especially if you’re alone.

The question you have to ask is not what you have to do to protect me, or your position, or us. The question is – what are the rights and freedoms we say we cherish worth? Because I think they’re worth dying for if necessary.

These two issues are well worth picking up, even if you haven’t been following the series.

Here’s hoping that material like this sets readers and viewers thinking – and not just about the Bush administration, but about government in general.

 

P.S. Outside the sf realm, here’s another great rant from Olbermann.

So Who’s Behind All These Conspiracy Theories?

By on September 17, 2006 6

My 9/11 blog post Five Years After was re-posted on LRC this weekend. The new version is substantially identical to the old one, except that it includes this additional paragraph:

The fifth anniversary was marked by commemorations amounting to an apotheosis of the American State, with endless images of waving flags, and endless posturing. The 9/11 attacks were repeatedly referred to as “the worst terrorist attack in history” (conveniently forgetting Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden …). The president spoke earnestly about children who “still long for the daddies who will never cradle them in their arms” (as though having one’s father killed was something only suffered, never caused, by Americans) and about “fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations” (as though ending lives abroad and destroying freedom here were the natural way to do this). “America did not ask for this war,” he proclaimed innocently, as though the terrorists’ actions were something other than a response to, and in large part a mirror image of, U.S. foreign policy in the years prior to 9/11.

I’ve received surprisingly little hate mail over this LRC post; but many readers have written (I’ve been away from email all weekend and so am just seeing their responses now) to ask me why I seem to accept the official governmental version of what happened, i.e., why I make no reference to the various 9/11 conspiracy theories. CONSPIRATORS!The simple answer is that while I’ve read and watched a number of presentations defending such theories, I’m simply not technically competent to evaluate them. When two purported scientific experts disagree as to whether, for example, a jet fuel fire could be hot enough to melt steel in the manner that is supposed to have occurred, I don’t see that I, who know nothing about jet fuel fires or the melting point of steel, am in any position to decide between them. (Nor, I suspect, are most of the people on either side of the controversy.) 

I accept the official story provisionally, as supported by the preponderance of the evidence I understand, but with no especial conviction. I’ve studied a few conspiracy theories closely enough to form a cautious opinion – for example, I think the official story on the Holocaust is pretty much correct, and that the official story on the JFK assassination is very likely wrong (though I have no one particular alternative theory I’m plumping for on that one) – but I don’t have the time or inclination to investigate every conspiracy theory closely enough to make an informed judgment, particularly if doing so involves mastering details of chemistry and structural engineering.

A word about conspiracy theories: I think there are two kinds of mistakes to make in regard to them.

One kind of mistake is to be overly dismissive of such theories. One often hears people say “oh, I don’t believe in conspiracy theories” – any conspiracy theories, apparently, as though “conspiracy” were a term without referents. But that’s pretty silly, for everybody is committed to recognising some conspiracy theories as true. For example, as conspiracy theorists rightly like to point out, the official story on 9/11 is as much a conspiracy theory as the dissident version; ditto for the Holocaust. The Manhattan Project, too, was a government conspiracy involving massive numbers of people, and yet kept successfully secret from the public in precisely the way that critics of conspiracy theories like to claim is impossible.

The opposite kind of mistake is to be too receptive to conspiracy theories. The core of this mistake is the assumption that the only alternative to conspiracy is coincidence – as when conspiracy theorists refer to their opponents as “coincidence theorists.” Thus when the number of suspicious correlations becomes too high to be plausibly labeled a coincidence, the conspiracy theorist infers deliberate coordination. But given the central role of invisible-hand explanations (both beneficent and maleficent ones – spontaneous order and spontaneous ordure) in social science, any approach to the explanation of historical events that limits itself to coincidence and conspiracy is pretty hard up for categories.

As I’ve written elsewhere:

Conspiracy theories should not necessarily be regarded as inherently suspect. After all, the greater the extent to which power is concentrated in a society, the easier it is to form an effective conspiracy (because the number of people that need to be involved to pull off a major change is smaller); so we should predict that more conspiracies will indeed occur in societies with centralized power. However, it is also true that incentive structures can coordinate human activities in ways that involve no conscious cooperation.
(“Toward a Libertarian Theory of Class,” pp. 331-2n.; in Social Philosophy & Policy 15. no. 2 (Summer 1998), pp. 303-349.)

In any case, as Brad Spangler recently pointed out, even if the official story on 9/11 is true – that is, even on the interpretation most favourable to those in power – the government is still largely to blame for the attacks. Even accepting its own official version, the government helped to provoke those attacks, was powerless to prevent them, and continues to provoke further attacks it would also be powerless to prevent – all the while using the whole cycle as a pretext for foreign wars and domestic oppression. The defendant may have committed crimes to which he hasn’t confessed; but those to which he has confessed are enough to hang him. 

The Short Memory

By on September 12, 2006 4

Hiroshima - 140,000 dead During yesterday’s 9/11 commemoration tv coverage, I heard more than once that the 9/11 attack constituted “the worst terrorist attack in history.” Not the worst on U.S. soil – the worst, period.

And Americans wonder why they’re regarded as ignorant, parochial, and self-righteous throughout the world.

Powered by WordPress. Designed by WooThemes