Kick Ass Democracy

"Kick ass! If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!"
— George W. Bush, during a White House videoconference call, April 6, 2004

Gotta love the hypocrisy of the Shrub's "vision" of democracy. Americans were going to force democracy down the throats of Middle Eastern countries, like Iraq and Iran, and if they didn't like it, Americans were going to "kill them" and "wipe them out" rather than accept that there could be multiple points of view that (gasp) might be voted on to see what the people there wanted.

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 53

It's been some time since I read the Tao Te Ching; however, today, someone wrote a comment at Daily Kos regarding Chapter 53. Here are several translations of this particular chapter:

The great Way is easy,
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centered within the Tao.

When rich speculators prosper
While farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn-
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.
S. Mitchell

"Once started on the great [lax] highway, if I had but little knowledge I should, in walking on a broad way, fear getting off the road.
On the main path (dao), I would avoid the by-paths.
Some dao main path is easy to walk [or drift] on, but safe and easy.
All the same people are fond, men love by-paths, love even small by-paths:
The by-path courts are spick-and-span.
And the fields go untilled, nay, exceedingly weedy.
They're content to let their fields run to weed.
All the while granaries stand quite empty and some exceedingly empty.
They have elegant, in clothes and gown to wear, some furnished with patterns and embroideries,
Some carry sharp weapons, glut themselves with drink and foods enjoyed beyond limit,
And wealth and treasures are accumulated in excess, owning far more than they can handle and use.
This is to [molest] the world towards brigandage, it's robbery as extravagance.
In the end they're splitting with wealth and possessions.
Wealth splits, tends to.
This cannot be a highway of dao (the way)."
Tormond Byrd

If I were suddenly to become known, and (put into a position to) conduct (a government) according to the Great Tao, what I should be most afraid of would be a boastful display.

The great Tao (or way) is very level and easy; but people love the by-ways.

Their court(-yards and buildings) shall be well kept, but their fields shall be ill-cultivated, and their granaries very empty. They shall wear elegant and ornamented robes, carry a sharp sword at their girdle, pamper themselves in eating and drinking, and have a superabundance of property and wealth;--such (princes) may be called robbers and boasters. This is contrary to the Tao surely!
J. Legge

What strikes me about this chapter is how closely it resembles today's conservative politics. The rich live in clean, sparkling homes, while robbing the livelihoods of the working class (the other 98%), leaving the farmlands untilled and granaries empty (akin to today's rape of corporate assets and theft from employees, such as their pension plans and federal entitlements). They dress well and own far more than they will ever need in today's life, yet live behind "sharp weapons" (the security forces in gated communities). Regardless of how your religious/philosophical beliefs run, they do not follow the dao.

It just goes to show that, despite 2400 years since the writing of the Tao Te Ching, the more things change...

Sour Grapes

"Just because a couple of people on the Supreme Court declare something to be 'constitutional' does not make it so."
— Rand Paul

And this guy's a Senator? Back to civics class for him!

"It's well known that Roberts, unfortunately for him, has suffered from epileptic seizures. Therefore he has been on medication. Neurologists will tell you that medication used for seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, can introduce mental slowing, forgetfulness and other cognitive problems. And if you look at Roberts' writings you can see the cognitive disassociation in what he is saying."
— radio host Michael Savage

Gee, that condition never seemed to worry the reds when Roberts voted in their favor.

HT: Doonesbury

Chomsky on Climate Change and Nixonian Environmentalism

Noam Chomsky interview, on Slate:

"Sticking with social and political change, what is going on with climate-change denial in the United States?"

"The Republican party now has its catechism of things you have to repeat in lockstep, kind of like the old Communist party. One of them is denying climate change."

"Why is it happening?"

"It happens that there's a huge propaganda offensive carried out by the major business lobbies, the energy associations, and so on. It's no secret, they're trying to convince people that the science is unreliable, that it's a liberal hoax. Those who want to be funded by business and energy associations and so on might be led into repeating this catechism. Or maybe they actually believe it.

"The Republican-dominated House of Representatives is now dismantling measures of control over environmental destruction that were instituted by Richard Nixon. That shows you how far to the right they have gone. Today Nixon would be a flaming radical and Dwight D. Eisenhower would be off the spectrum. Even Ronald Reagan would be on the left somewhere. These are interesting, important things happening in the richest and most powerful country in the world that we should be very much concerned about."

Climate change denial is simply greed writ large. Acknowledging that the climate is changing - and it is (that proof is incontrovertible) - means that business models will need to be changed and profits will almost certainly go down (at least in the short run). But these changes will need to be made anyway, if only because of the dwindling reserves of non-renewable energy sources, like oil, so it would be best to make the changes now. Companies would rather be reactionary, though, instead of obtaining the first mover advantages they could get for the future.

Read the full interview here: Everything Was a Problem and We Did Not Understand a Thing

President Obama Asks to See Betty White's Long Form Birth Certificate

President Obama at least has a sense of humor. ;)

Dear Betty,

You look so fantastic and full of energy. I can't believe you're 90 years old. In fact, I don't believe it. That's why I'm writing to ask if you will be willing to produce a copy of your long form birth certificate. Thanks, and Happy Birthday, no matter how old you are.

Cowardly Editors

What is Time magazine's American editors afraid of? Cowards!

H.T.: Crooks & Liars

Update: As was out on Izzy Mo's Facebook wall, this nonsense of cowardly editorship at Time is nothing new. Just within the past few months, Time has used different covers for the American edition than what it has used for the rest of the world. In both of these situations, the International covers deal with substantive issues that, apparently, Time's editors feel would hurt delicate American sensitivities. The issues in question are Travels Through Islam (August 8, 2011; American cover topic: "Chore Wars") and Why the U.S. Will Never Save Afghanistan (October 24, 2011; American cover topic: "The Return of the Silent Majority"). Now I will admit, the last topic there (Silent Majority) is about the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is worthy of being a cover story. But the other three Time covers for that week (on Afghanistan) is also very important for Americans to read, especially when they need to wake up to the fact that the Afghanistan War has cost them so much in terms of blood and treasure.

I Am Not Moving

"Hypocrisy has its own elegant symmetry."

Tea Party Gives Boehner a Budget Headache

I'm a little late in getting this video posted, but I think it's a good representation of how the Teabaggers are coming across internationally: like immature and reckless babies. From NMAtv in Taiwan.

US Foreign Aid

A high school friend has started a spirited conversation on his Facebook wall with the following statement:

Before our "leaders" in Washington (and I use that term loosely) raise the debt ceiling, here's a thought: Let's stop all the aid money to foreign countries. It's time we kept it for ourselves, at least for awhile.

My response (slightly modified from the original):

I understand [this] sentiment over foreign aid; what he's saying is nothing new. I remember people making the same argument when I first went to college in the early 80s. So I went to the university library to look up the numbers and realized then that the occasional furor over foreign aid was never going to resolve issues with the federal budget. For example, in FY2009 (the last year for numbers that I've seen) total US foreign aid was just under $45 billion. Sounds like a lot. But out of the entire FY 2009 US budget ($3.1 trillion), it makes up only 1.45%. Foreign aid is really the proverbial drop in the bucket, and always has been.

The problem with trying to remove foreign aid is that it magnifies certain problems in other countries and limits the US government's ability to influence foreign policy. Foreign aid is split into two basic categories, military and economic assistance. Remove military assistance, for example, and all those "lily pads" the US military has set up in other countries will be closed by the local governments. Military assistance is often viewed by other countries as a form of rent for the US's military presence in that country. Remove economic assistance and you've begun to destabilize other countries,' economically and socially, often to the US's detriment (e.g., narcotics control and anti-terrorism efforts are classified under foreign aid). Remove any foreign aid, and you've lost a political poker chip, perhaps permanently. Countries won't necessarily do the US's bidding, especially if foreign aid has been removed. (The presence of foreign aid at least acts as a "leash" to help regulate what other countries do.)

Personally, I would prefer to look elsewhere for solutions to solving the budget. For example, the US spent $687 billion on the US military in 2010. The second ranked country, for military expenditure, was China at $114 billion. In fact, the US outspent countries 2 through 21 combined. Secondly, Americans are going to have to realize that US tax rates are low compared to other countries; Americans are under-taxed. According to one economic study, as a percentage of GDP, the US pulled in 25.6% of tax revenues (in 2003), whereas the G7 countries other than the US pulled in 33.9% and the OECD countries other than the G7 countries pulled in 34.7%. If you want the federal government to get its fiscal house in order, you're going to need to pay higher taxes.

[I want to add that I do understand that cutting the US military budget will bring about its own set of consequences, just as cutting the US foreign aid budget would. However, given the size of the military budget's bloat, it's an obvious place to start cutting back. When even the Teabaggers recognize the need to cut back on military spending...]

Republicans

I posted this on my Facebook page, which has already infuriated one woman I know who's a Republican... so it must be good. :) (Actually, I know it is. ;) ) From WTF Is It Now?!?:

Why Aren't Democrats Doing Health Care?

Last week, I published a comment about the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) that discussed the MB's social services to Egyptians and wondered why the Democratic Party in the United States wasn't doing something similar:

I see groups like the MB, CAIR, MAS, etc., as organizations working for the greater good of humanity. The Democratic party in the US could learn a thing or two from the MB and their feet-on-the-ground social services. (Americans need health care? Why haven't the Democrats started up free or low-cost clinics for these people? Don't they think these people won't remember on election day?)

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from the Muslim American Society (MAS) featuring an article in the Gainesville Sun that was originally published on February 9th. The article is about a free medical clinic that the Gainesville Muslim community is setting up (opening on the 26th) that will provide primary and preventative medicine, insha'allah, to adults and children, regardless of race, religion or ethnicity. The clinic is being run by volunteers and paid for through donations.

Now, rhetorical questions I would ask of my fellow Democrats are: Do you think this clinic will become popular with the local community? Do you think the Muslim community in Gainesville will benefit from a PR-perspective by opening this clinic? Do you think the Democratic Party, which is much better funded than a small group of Muslims, would benefit with electoral support if they were to help fund/run these types of clinics nationwide? (Even if these clinics were not run or funded directly by the DNC, they could be run through a foundation created by the DNC, as Singapore's dominant political party, the People's Action Party (PAP), does with their charitable foundation.)

After Egypt, Who's Next?

Two weeks ago, I had posted on my Facebook wall a link to Dr. James Hamilton's blog post, Geopolitical Unrest and World Oil Markets. In that post Dr. Hamilton (of the University of California, San Diego) showed that there is a possible inverse relationship between a country's oil production and that country's political instability. Meaning, those countries with low levels of oil production were among the first to revolt, whereas countries with high oil production have shown greater stability. The implication is that the lack of petrodollars had not provided enough of a political safety net for the governments to cover their weak economies.

Hamilton's brief analysis covers (in the order of increasing oil production as a percentage of the world total) Lebanon (0.0%), Tunisia (0.1%), Yemen (0.3%), Sudan (0.6%), Egypt (0.8%), Libya (2.1%), Algeria (2.5%), Iraq (2.7%), Iran (4.9%), and Saudi Arabia (11.7%).

Now, if Hamilton's thesis is correct, then Egypt appears to be the last of the "low-hanging fruit" to have undergone political unrest. Theoretically, then, Libya and/or Algeria should be the next to revolt.

The potential problem with this analysis is that it doesn't explain all of the recent events in the Middle East and North Africa or the lack thereof. For example, Lebanon and Sudan have had long-standing government instability; that they should be undergoing problems now (such as the collapse of the government in Lebanon or the recent referendum in Sudan to split the country into two) are not terribly surprising given these countries' histories.

Likewise, I suspect that some countries that should have gone into turmoil may have had their chance but won't either because their societies are too stable (Morocco? Oman?) or because the state's security apparatus is too strong (Syria?).

What the professor also didn't mention was that Iran, which is second only to Saudi Arabia in oil production, already had its instability in the Green Movement protests of June 2009 that were quashed. I'm not expecting another major uprising in Iran (a la Tahrir Square) anytime soon.

What I think the protests really point out is that standards of living matter. Even more so than a lack of democracy, the economic corruption that pervades certain countries' economies is ultimately the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak. I say this with not only the Arab revolts currently going on in mind, but also the dissolution of the Communist bloc in Eastern Europe in 1989, which underwent similar revolutions for similar reasons. Republicans in the United States, who seem hell bent on trying to lower American standards of living, should take note of the potential consequences for their actions.

Chinese Calculus

"The Chinese are kicking our butts in everything. If this was China, do you think the Chinese would have called off the game? People would have been marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing calculus on the way down."
— PA governor Ed Rendell, on postponement of Eagles game due to blizzard

Because Americans can't walk in a snow storm and do calculus at the same time. ;)

Shouts Banish Doubts

Shouts Banish Doubts

An interesting article on doubt and advocacy: the more one doubts, the more one advocates his or her position in an effort to convince one's self in the rightness of his or her beliefs. The case example is the tea baggers:

If confidence in one’s core tenets becomes shaky, a common response is to proselytize all the more vigorously. The apparent reason ... is that advocacy on behalf of one’s beliefs helps banish any uncomfortable lack of certainty. “Although it is natural to assume that a persistent and enthusiastic advocate of a belief is brimming with confidence ... the advocacy might in fact signal that the individual is boiling over with doubt.”

Why It's Time to Panic

If you didn't figure out that last year's uproar over the health care reform law was motivated by greed, this graph will set you straight. The piece of the pie with respect to health care in the United States (taken by hospitals, doctors, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, among others) has grown so big as a percentage of US GDP, it should come as no surprise why those with vested interests tried to keep health care reform from becoming a reality.

Remember that elections count and that the GOP not only wants to repeal health care reform, but replace it with something that won't help individuals and families. The GOP isn't interested in your welfare; they're interested in corporations' welfare. Vote for the Democrats this November.

HT: The Incidental Economist

Mosques and Suraus

There has been some discussion on the Internet regarding the Park 51 community center (aka the "Ground Zero Mosque") as to whether the prayer space in the community center will be a mosque or not. This question has devolved into one even more basic: what is the difference between a mosque and a prayer space, such as one might find in a building that is not considered to be a mosque? This is my answer:

The distinction is somewhat hazy, but there is some distinction between mosques and other places in which we Muslims pray. Generally speaking, mosques are capable of holding more than 40 people (the minimum number of Muslims required for jumu'ah, the Friday congregational prayers), have a mihrab (the central niche that points the direction toward Makkah) and minbar (the pulpit from which the sermon is spoken from during jumu'ah), and normally performs all prayers with an imam present, including jumu'ah.

Here in SE Asia, we call a non-mosque facility a surau. A surau differs from a mosque in that it usually cannot fit 40 or more people in the facility*, may or may not have a mihrab, never has a minbar, and has no imams attached to the facility. They are used only for individual prayers and never for congregational prayers. (If two or more people happen to be at the surau at the same time, they may choose to pray together, but that's not considered congregational prayer.)

The Park51 facility may or may not be a mosque; it would at the very least be a surau. The key question from a Muslim perspective is, will jumu'ah be done there with the imam physically present? If yes, then it would be a mosque; if no, then it's only a surau.

* I've used several suraus over the years, the smallest of which was located in an Ikea store here in Singapore. That surau was big enough to fit in four people praying together at the absolute maximum.

Sam Seder: Mosque at Ground Zero: That's Bull$#|+

Are You Smarter Than Erick Erickson?

HT: The Bonddad Blog

Are Muslims Organized to Resist Bigotry?

There was an interesting comment over at Daily Kos on a diary that discussed the Cordoba House community center and mosque (the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"). Here is the original comment:

I wish Muslims were organized to resist bigotry
I don't think they realized the importance of political engagement or are simply unprepared to deal with this level of discrimination that came after 9/11. It is time they learned from the civil rights movements and get very active. The fact this bigotry is tolerated demonstrates how much bigotry our media is willing to propagate at the expense of those who don't loudly resist.

And this is my response:

It's not that Muslims aren't organized to resist bigotry or that we don't realize the importance of political engagement. On the contrary, there are several organizations that engage in both of these aspects every day, including CAIR and MAS among others. Could these organizations do a better job than they are now? I'm sure they would say "yes," along with a request for more manpower and money.

But let's be realistic here: the real issue is not the Muslim community's level of organization vis-a-vis bigotry, it's the level of bigotry among non-Muslims. And the real problem there is that these types of attitudes, once set, rarely change. There are a number of Islamophobes here at Kos who one might think would change their opinions and attitudes toward Islam and Muslims after participating in so many discussions on these topics, but I have yet to see any evidence that those attitudes have changed at all. They have had the opportunity to learn about Islam and the Muslim world, they have discussed Islam and the Muslim world with a number of different Muslims here at Kos, but there is no change. They continue to sputter in their rage against Islam.

If the 2008 presidential campaign and the Obama presidency have shown anything, it is that racism never died out. The success of the civil rights movement may have caused racists to lower their profile in the 70s and 80s, but their attitudes never went away. They were the true sleeper cells within American society. Muslims have been doing their part to resist bigotry and to organize politically, but I don't ever expect Islamophobia to ever go away in American society. For that to happen, American would need to revert en masse to Islam. Not that that couldn't happen; it's done so with a number of different cultures before, but I'm not holding my breath until that time.

Is Sarah Palin Gunning for 2012?

This is a rather humorous news article about Sarah Palin, I believe from Taiwan. On the one hand, the news presented orally (see the translation below) is straight-forward and non-partisan. However, the animation on screen mocks Palin and her family mercilessly from start to finish. I particularly liked the "notes" scribbled on Palin's hands: "abstinence," "small government" and "obama sucks" on her left hand, and "drill, baby, drill," "Dutch have dikes" and "Norwegians = Dutch sorta" on her right hand.

Sarah Palin was a virtual unknown, even in the US, when John McCain picked her as his vice-presidential running mate in August 2008.

But after parting ways with McCain, Palin has since become the standard bearer of the Republican Party and the conservative right in the United States.

Her opinions are sought after by a highly respected broadcast news organization.

Her family life is the subject of much fascination. There have been rumors her daughter and future son-in-law could feature in a reality TV show.

With her rising political profile, Sarah Palin has waded into New York City politics and in the process, invented new words. She compares herself to William Shakespeare.

She has used her popularity to raise US$1.3 million so far this year for her political action committee, SarahPAC.

This fund-raising largess has raised speculation that Sarah Palin could be preparing to run against President Barack Obama in 2012.

If she wins, that would indicate the American people have "refudiated" Barack Obama and chosen conservative values.