I can't countenance the habit of using the perverse US system of representing dates to refer to the events that took place in the Eastern USA ten years ago. 9/11 is the 9th of November!
Using 9/11 is as bad as the use of 911 in TV shows so that some Australians don't know to ring 000.
Anyhow, my issue here is with "truthers". The Punch has today run an item in which one truther makes his case.
His case is based on the fact that there have in the past been "false flag operations" defined as "covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities." While I wouldn't accept all the examples given as false flags, the point is conceded. (One I'd dispute is the Reichstag fire - yes the Nazis blamed others but the primary objective was the destruction not the blame shift).
His entire evidence remains the issue of the three towers collapsing at "free fall" speeds, and this is entirely based on one finding of particles that would indicate explosives. That the self-same particles would exist as a consequence of welding the original frames never seems to be considered.
The planes wre indeed taken over by Muslim fundamentalists but they were supposedly duped into doing so, and the real destruction caused by explosives placed by other persons.
The other favourite is the non-release of security video from the Pentagon...but equally there is no counter evidence of anyone saying they didn't see a plane, and there clearly is a fourth plane "missing".
The objective of the operation was supposedly "to propel the US and its allies into war for the sake of profit, oil and empire." If so it has spectacularly failed as the twin wars seem to have done little more than bankrupt the country.
The author rightly notes that the anti-terror laws introduced afterwards are excessive, and certainly there is a case that they should be wound back. But they are a long way from an assault on democracy. A Government fully intent on using such an extreme false flag would have sought even stronger rules.
Finally, as with all conspiracy theories, the real problem lies in just how many people would need to be actively involved in the conspiracy. It is beyond belief that all these people would stay so solid for so long.
The events of Sept 11 were capitalised on by the US hawks - both those in Government and those in the private sector who thought they would benefit. I cannot believe that these people - as evil as I think most of them are - were able to pull off so monumental a false flag operation.
There are two kinds of people the state of consent needs to fear - fundamentalists of all kinds and conspiracy theorists.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Monday, September 12, 2011
Friday, May 06, 2011
Former commies
Gerard Henderson does a good line in questioning the bona fides of former communists. One of his favourite targets is Greens Senator elect Lee Rhiannon.
Today the Oz runs a piece in which Mark Aarons takes a similar shot.
I have no dispute with the many former Communists who erred in their judgement leading up to WWII supporting the Soviet pact with Germany, nor those who looked to Russia and saw nirvana not the gulag. None of us has perfect knowledge.
I do share the concerns of Henderson though about those who won't acknowledge their error.
The ideal of communism is fantastic, the historical analysis of Marx is great (as I've said Bobbitt's is similar) and his economics actually has some valid critiques of what eventually became the orthodoxy. But the practical implementation by terror - starting with Lenin - and its internal inconsistencies are worthy of damnation.
But by the same token, the practice of capitalism in the USA, the harm it inflicts on its poor, the number of its young black male citizens it imprisons, the number of people it executes or cannot keep safe from murder, the absurd rewards paid to people who run the scam known as the financial system and the corruption of its outsourced military means that is a state also worthy of damnation.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Today the Oz runs a piece in which Mark Aarons takes a similar shot.
I have no dispute with the many former Communists who erred in their judgement leading up to WWII supporting the Soviet pact with Germany, nor those who looked to Russia and saw nirvana not the gulag. None of us has perfect knowledge.
I do share the concerns of Henderson though about those who won't acknowledge their error.
The ideal of communism is fantastic, the historical analysis of Marx is great (as I've said Bobbitt's is similar) and his economics actually has some valid critiques of what eventually became the orthodoxy. But the practical implementation by terror - starting with Lenin - and its internal inconsistencies are worthy of damnation.
But by the same token, the practice of capitalism in the USA, the harm it inflicts on its poor, the number of its young black male citizens it imprisons, the number of people it executes or cannot keep safe from murder, the absurd rewards paid to people who run the scam known as the financial system and the corruption of its outsourced military means that is a state also worthy of damnation.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Monday, May 02, 2011
Voting
Democracy and the idea of government by all expressed by a vote has been around since antiquity, but it has formed the backbone of anglophone government since the late 17th century, being mostly refined first in the US and then other countries so that through most of the twentieth century the issue seemed "settled:.
The reality is somewhat different. There has remained a tension between the concepts of representative and direct democracy, the original distinction between the American party labels of Republican and Democrat (respectively).
At the same time electoral systems have been reviewed and reconsidered. The major dimensions for electoral systems are;
1. Whether the executive and legislature are directly elected separately (the US) or whether the latter determines the former (Westminster).
2. Unicameral versus bicameral legislatures, and the nature of selecting the "second" house - e.g. US and Oz have Senates, Australian States only recently moved to election rather than appointment, UK has a hereditary/appointed house, and NZ and Qld have none)
3. The voting system. First past the post, alternative vote (preferrential) or proportional representation. If the latter Hare-Clark or MMP i.e. a party balance "top-up").
4. Compulsion. Whether voting should be compulsory or voluntary.
5. The franchise. The issues of universal adult suffrage have been long resolved, but the definition of "adult" continues to be open for debate - with some in Australia suggesting 16. But there have been others thinking in terms of tightening the franchise (I saw something I now can't find that was proposing an educational qualification). The related issue is electoral district size and how they are drawn.
In the last week three different pieces have popped up on these issues. The Economist last week had a story on the perils of the direct democracy experiments in California. This outlines the problem of allowing individuals to vote directly on issues where they don't have to reconcile the consequences. Direct votes will lower taxes and increase services. Yet this week in diagnosing "what's wrong with America's economy" they note the inability of the representative federal government to reconcile the revenue with the expenditure.
The second issue has been the referendum in the UK over the Alternative Vote. I was bemused to see The Economist discussion which suggested the AV could increase the vote for extreme parties and indeed that PR could be more "stable".
The same article notes that part of the balancing of votes received versus seats includes the redrawing of electoral boundaries that some are concerned about breaking "local" ties. I have noted that very issue in Australia since the reforms that limited the variability in seat sizes to first 20% then later to 10%. With boundaries redrawn every second election and often quite big changes flowing there is a breakdown in the relationship between member and electorate, with more votes being based on party affiliation.
There is an alternative. That is to let seats vary in size but allow an MPs parliamentary vote reflect the size of their electorate. Voting could be done electronically rather than by physical division (fingerprint swipe - press yes or no) and the vote tallied. The system of pairs would need to be replaced by a formalised system of appointment of proxies.
Finally we come to the question of compulsory voting. Lindsay Tanner in his new book Sideshow, has suggested abolishing compulsory voting "thereby reducing the voting base to people who are sufficiently engaged to be less susceptible to cynical marketing strategies and entertaining forms of manipulation."
This sounds fine in principle, except that the voting base is not actually thus reduced. While citizens have the choice to vote, the self same "less engaged" become the target of the campaign to "turn out the vote". politics in the US and UK is no less a sideshow than it is in Australia.
(In fairnes to Tanner he quotes Richard Speed on this point, but Speed's analysis is wrong. By contrasting Obama's election with Gillard's he is not making a reasoned comparison. Secondly, the need for a party in compulsory voting to "look after its base" is just as real - just look at the NSW ALP and Federal Labor and how they bled to the Greens).
If there is indeed a problem here requiring a solution - rather than a mere transitory phase that will self-correct - it is unlikely that it is only to be found by fossicking through the existing collection of democratic forms. It probably requires a deeper conversation about the intention of democracy and what it requires.
I have previously thrown ideas into the mix, including (1)more frequent rather than less frequent elections (2) formalising the idea that one house of parliament exists to create the executive and the other the legislative review body, the latter to be built on national PR so each party's list is the people they will make Ministers.
The latter idea could have some tweaks. These would include some restrictions on candidacy - you must be at least thirty, you need to have already "done something" which can include having been elected to a representational legislature, held an executive position in a corporation or in an association or GO, or achieved a certain "professional" status....
It could include a process whereby all the parties contesting pre-commit to how they will vote in that house on who should form government.
There are lots of possibilities rather than simply recycling the choices considered over the last one hundred years.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
The reality is somewhat different. There has remained a tension between the concepts of representative and direct democracy, the original distinction between the American party labels of Republican and Democrat (respectively).
At the same time electoral systems have been reviewed and reconsidered. The major dimensions for electoral systems are;
1. Whether the executive and legislature are directly elected separately (the US) or whether the latter determines the former (Westminster).
2. Unicameral versus bicameral legislatures, and the nature of selecting the "second" house - e.g. US and Oz have Senates, Australian States only recently moved to election rather than appointment, UK has a hereditary/appointed house, and NZ and Qld have none)
3. The voting system. First past the post, alternative vote (preferrential) or proportional representation. If the latter Hare-Clark or MMP i.e. a party balance "top-up").
4. Compulsion. Whether voting should be compulsory or voluntary.
5. The franchise. The issues of universal adult suffrage have been long resolved, but the definition of "adult" continues to be open for debate - with some in Australia suggesting 16. But there have been others thinking in terms of tightening the franchise (I saw something I now can't find that was proposing an educational qualification). The related issue is electoral district size and how they are drawn.
In the last week three different pieces have popped up on these issues. The Economist last week had a story on the perils of the direct democracy experiments in California. This outlines the problem of allowing individuals to vote directly on issues where they don't have to reconcile the consequences. Direct votes will lower taxes and increase services. Yet this week in diagnosing "what's wrong with America's economy" they note the inability of the representative federal government to reconcile the revenue with the expenditure.
The second issue has been the referendum in the UK over the Alternative Vote. I was bemused to see The Economist discussion which suggested the AV could increase the vote for extreme parties and indeed that PR could be more "stable".
The same article notes that part of the balancing of votes received versus seats includes the redrawing of electoral boundaries that some are concerned about breaking "local" ties. I have noted that very issue in Australia since the reforms that limited the variability in seat sizes to first 20% then later to 10%. With boundaries redrawn every second election and often quite big changes flowing there is a breakdown in the relationship between member and electorate, with more votes being based on party affiliation.
There is an alternative. That is to let seats vary in size but allow an MPs parliamentary vote reflect the size of their electorate. Voting could be done electronically rather than by physical division (fingerprint swipe - press yes or no) and the vote tallied. The system of pairs would need to be replaced by a formalised system of appointment of proxies.
Finally we come to the question of compulsory voting. Lindsay Tanner in his new book Sideshow, has suggested abolishing compulsory voting "thereby reducing the voting base to people who are sufficiently engaged to be less susceptible to cynical marketing strategies and entertaining forms of manipulation."
This sounds fine in principle, except that the voting base is not actually thus reduced. While citizens have the choice to vote, the self same "less engaged" become the target of the campaign to "turn out the vote". politics in the US and UK is no less a sideshow than it is in Australia.
(In fairnes to Tanner he quotes Richard Speed on this point, but Speed's analysis is wrong. By contrasting Obama's election with Gillard's he is not making a reasoned comparison. Secondly, the need for a party in compulsory voting to "look after its base" is just as real - just look at the NSW ALP and Federal Labor and how they bled to the Greens).
If there is indeed a problem here requiring a solution - rather than a mere transitory phase that will self-correct - it is unlikely that it is only to be found by fossicking through the existing collection of democratic forms. It probably requires a deeper conversation about the intention of democracy and what it requires.
I have previously thrown ideas into the mix, including (1)more frequent rather than less frequent elections (2) formalising the idea that one house of parliament exists to create the executive and the other the legislative review body, the latter to be built on national PR so each party's list is the people they will make Ministers.
The latter idea could have some tweaks. These would include some restrictions on candidacy - you must be at least thirty, you need to have already "done something" which can include having been elected to a representational legislature, held an executive position in a corporation or in an association or GO, or achieved a certain "professional" status....
It could include a process whereby all the parties contesting pre-commit to how they will vote in that house on who should form government.
There are lots of possibilities rather than simply recycling the choices considered over the last one hundred years.
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Friday, March 04, 2011
The US Military-Industrial Complex
It is a long time since the structure of American Capitalism was labelled the "US Military-Industrial Complex." It was used by Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell speech as US President in 1961 saying;
we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex
General consensus is that "we" (meaning all of us - not just the US) failed.
The concept was further advanced by J. K. Galbraith in his The New Industrial State
. Galbraith noted that the US was as much a planned economy as the USSR, just the planning was conducted by large corporations.
Yet another Huawei story shows this in operation. Here we have a US embassy official doing his bit to discredit a foreign competing firm.
What is the charge? That the supplier - Huawei - was less than brilliant in following through on a contract.
But let's roll the tape on Senator Conroy's quizzing Telstra at Senate estimates in 2006. He said, in part,
Perhaps I could read to you from a document, a Telstra document marked ‘Commercial-in-confidence’ entitled ‘Alcatel issues’. It is three-pager with an attachment. I will table it. It states:
Summary of Route Causes
In the last 10 years there have been a number of problems with Alcatel projects at Telstra ...
The systematic reasons behind these problems are listed below—
• Knowingly overselling capabilities and timeframes
• Short cuts taken to then deliver sub standard solutions
• Finding clauses in contracts and specifications to avoid obligations rather than delivering working solutions and / or what was sold in the first place.
• Alcatel overcharging Telstra whenever it had the opportunity
• Alcatel Australia inventing specials which then don’t fit in with worldwide Alcatel strategy
increasing the cost of the project and creating a risk Alcatel Australia would exit the project if Telstra did not continue to pay
• Poor software quality and testing—in particular poor exception handling consideration at the
design stage; poor quality processes ie peer review, configuration management and testing
• Poor system integration capability and problems managing projects requiring interfacing to
different components / vendors.
In some respects, issues such as Alcatel’s overselling of their capability in the late 90s were prevalent throughout the whole industry but Alcatel was on the leading edge of this trend.
(The actual document was tabled).
The claims about Huawei being a security threat all seem to be similarly trumped up charges motivated by Western vendors trying to exclude Huawei. To my list in itNews of transgressions by other nations, let's add Ericsson. Why should we trust a vendor from a country that many believe has trumped up charges against an Australian citizen (Julian Assange) to support the US?
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex
General consensus is that "we" (meaning all of us - not just the US) failed.
The concept was further advanced by J. K. Galbraith in his The New Industrial State
. Galbraith noted that the US was as much a planned economy as the USSR, just the planning was conducted by large corporations.Yet another Huawei story shows this in operation. Here we have a US embassy official doing his bit to discredit a foreign competing firm.
What is the charge? That the supplier - Huawei - was less than brilliant in following through on a contract.
But let's roll the tape on Senator Conroy's quizzing Telstra at Senate estimates in 2006. He said, in part,
Perhaps I could read to you from a document, a Telstra document marked ‘Commercial-in-confidence’ entitled ‘Alcatel issues’. It is three-pager with an attachment. I will table it. It states:
Summary of Route Causes
In the last 10 years there have been a number of problems with Alcatel projects at Telstra ...
The systematic reasons behind these problems are listed below—
• Knowingly overselling capabilities and timeframes
• Short cuts taken to then deliver sub standard solutions
• Finding clauses in contracts and specifications to avoid obligations rather than delivering working solutions and / or what was sold in the first place.
• Alcatel overcharging Telstra whenever it had the opportunity
• Alcatel Australia inventing specials which then don’t fit in with worldwide Alcatel strategy
increasing the cost of the project and creating a risk Alcatel Australia would exit the project if Telstra did not continue to pay
• Poor software quality and testing—in particular poor exception handling consideration at the
design stage; poor quality processes ie peer review, configuration management and testing
• Poor system integration capability and problems managing projects requiring interfacing to
different components / vendors.
In some respects, issues such as Alcatel’s overselling of their capability in the late 90s were prevalent throughout the whole industry but Alcatel was on the leading edge of this trend.
(The actual document was tabled).
The claims about Huawei being a security threat all seem to be similarly trumped up charges motivated by Western vendors trying to exclude Huawei. To my list in itNews of transgressions by other nations, let's add Ericsson. Why should we trust a vendor from a country that many believe has trumped up charges against an Australian citizen (Julian Assange) to support the US?
Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est
Monday, March 01, 2010
Ethics, culture and the new world order
I've written a few times about Philip Bobbit and Terror and Consent. He has a really detailed set of theses about the progression of history, the interplay between strategy (as in miltary or external strategy), technology and the constitutional order.
The latest phase he identifies is the "market state". It is a state that follows on from the "nation state" and the change is a consequence of the technologies that won the "long war" for parliamentary democracy (in 1990). Those technologies were nuclear weapons, and high speed communications and information processing.
This phase he maintains creates the need to think differently about strategy and constitutional order and whether a boundary ca be maintained between them. A related theme is the reaction of certain nations to the imposition of other values.
Three stories today highlight these issues.
The first is an item calling on Israel's friends to condemn it for state sponsored terrorism. This addresses ultimately the question of the vexed problem of non-nation international terrorist groups and how nations respond. The former are engaging in a "war" yet the latter are expected to respond within the confines of accepted "constitutional order".
The US to this day regrets that they didn't act like Istrael and "took out" Osama bin Laden when they had the chance before 2001. Perhaps the missing part is creating an appropriate framework for determining when the state action can be invoked, not if.
The second example is a really simple one of the international scope of Gogle, and the report that Google execs have been convicted in Italy over the actions of someone posting a video - subsequently taken down - of a disabled teenager being bulied. This reflects the inability of existing order to address the technology.
We've had our own recent issues with something similar with the approach taken to Facebook, with comments from Qld Premiere Bligh and the five questions posed to Facebook by the Punch.
Meanwhile we have perfctly reasonable "moralising" about the treatment of women in Malaysia. This particular case opens up the absurdity of culturally relative enforceable moral codes, the application of Sharia law to women in Malaysia is as unacceptable as the application of tribal law to Australian indigenies.
The project for a modern secular ethics is becoming more urgent. It has to be secular because it has to apply to all geographies and all religions. It has to accept that individuals have the freedom to hld their own beliefs.
Only with a modern secular ethics can we build a global political philosophy within which a new definition of the role of the individual state can be developed.
The latest phase he identifies is the "market state". It is a state that follows on from the "nation state" and the change is a consequence of the technologies that won the "long war" for parliamentary democracy (in 1990). Those technologies were nuclear weapons, and high speed communications and information processing.
This phase he maintains creates the need to think differently about strategy and constitutional order and whether a boundary ca be maintained between them. A related theme is the reaction of certain nations to the imposition of other values.
Three stories today highlight these issues.
The first is an item calling on Israel's friends to condemn it for state sponsored terrorism. This addresses ultimately the question of the vexed problem of non-nation international terrorist groups and how nations respond. The former are engaging in a "war" yet the latter are expected to respond within the confines of accepted "constitutional order".
The US to this day regrets that they didn't act like Istrael and "took out" Osama bin Laden when they had the chance before 2001. Perhaps the missing part is creating an appropriate framework for determining when the state action can be invoked, not if.
The second example is a really simple one of the international scope of Gogle, and the report that Google execs have been convicted in Italy over the actions of someone posting a video - subsequently taken down - of a disabled teenager being bulied. This reflects the inability of existing order to address the technology.
We've had our own recent issues with something similar with the approach taken to Facebook, with comments from Qld Premiere Bligh and the five questions posed to Facebook by the Punch.
Meanwhile we have perfctly reasonable "moralising" about the treatment of women in Malaysia. This particular case opens up the absurdity of culturally relative enforceable moral codes, the application of Sharia law to women in Malaysia is as unacceptable as the application of tribal law to Australian indigenies.
The project for a modern secular ethics is becoming more urgent. It has to be secular because it has to apply to all geographies and all religions. It has to accept that individuals have the freedom to hld their own beliefs.
Only with a modern secular ethics can we build a global political philosophy within which a new definition of the role of the individual state can be developed.
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