The Next Hurrah

Imagine there's no telecoms

by emptypockets

This afternoon, on the outskirts of Lima, in a mountain village a mile and a half above sea level, all 46 children and each of their teachers are wired. Their laptops came courtesy of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, and a quarter million other Peruvian children will soon be wired as well, as are children in other pilot programs in Abuja, Nigeria; Villa Cardal, Uruguay; Samkha village, Thailand; Porto Alegre, Brazil; and Khairat, India.

(You can be, too, for $200 and a matching tax-deductible donation to give one to a child somewhere. The give-one-get-one program runs until Dec. 31.)

There are several things to say about this remarkable project, but first let me establish the basics. The OLPC laptops are small, power-efficient laptops built to withstand rugged conditions. Each has a microphone, a camera, a screen that can be viewed in bright daylight or in dark, a small amount of flash memory (no hard drive), and innovative wireless networking capabilities that I'll come back to in a minute.

They are open-source, run linux, and are produced, sold, and distributed by a non-profit academic group as a charitable enterprise -- not by a computer company. From what I can tell, the villages that receive them are poor, but children have clothing, access to clean water, limited electricity (the laptops can be charged from a wide range of voltages, solar panels, or a hand pull), and some educational infrastructure. Rather than sprinkle the laptops throughout the population of developing countries, OLPC is targeting individual villages and saturating them, so that every child in the village has his or her own personal computer to use at school and at home.

A number of criticisms have been leveled against the program, including that the money would be better spent on providing more teachers, and that the program seeks to destroy some natural harmony that exists between poor people and the land (for example, here). With regard to the latter, the ads for the give-one-get-one program, showing a black girl with a laptop perched on her head like a bucket of water, leaves itself particularly open to critique, implying as it does -- to me, anyway -- that the program is targeted to Africa (it's not) and that the recipients are supposed to swap basic resources for new technology and smile.

I'll come back to these two topics -- what you can learn from a computer that you don't learn from a teacher, and whether "living in harmony with nature" is a myth -- in a couple of posts down the road. Right now, though, I'd like to overlook the question of all the good that I think will come out of the project in the future... and look instead at some of the good that, perhaps, already has.

II Religion and Politics, reflections on Chris Hedges

by Sara

While I intend to integrate some of these books, the one in question here is Hedges, "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."

Hedges became known as a NYTimes War Correspondant, Former Yugoslavia and before that Central America.  He had regional paper assignment prior to this, several years with the Christian Science Monitor, and much else.  He spent about 20 years in American war zones. 

Yet in "American Fascists," he presents himself as a child of the Manse, as one who comprehended from his Father's taking up the King message, and who took up the Gay Cause because of the influence of his father, and because his younger brother was Gay, but at Colgate during his student years, that cause was unacceptable.  Hedges also has a doctorate from Harvard Divinity;  In fact for the NYTimes, nothing is more ordinary that to hire an non-ordained Presbyterian with a Harvard Divinity Degree to cover the Middle East.  We need to comprehend the institutional matters here.  American Universities in Cairo and Beruit are both Presbyterian establishments.  They were authorized by the Ottomans, just as the primary schools in Palestine were offered to the Quakers in the 1870's and 1880's.  Likewise, the French were authorized to establish Military Schools, and the Germans, Technical Institutes.

In one sense I see Hedges as the well prepared Presbytertian Missionary moving into the field -- on the other hand, I see him as the hard edged Christian who comes out in hard dissent.  "War is a force that Gives Us Meaning" or to be much more specific, "What Every Person should Know about War" -- essentially a catalogue of what one would see anywhere in combat, -- well these are Hedges reviews of his Times pieces, and his cultural wealth is greater than just Who, What, When, and thus -- eventually, interpretation via "American Fascists."

Hedges generalizes what he experienced in the Middle East, both in Israel and Palestine and Lebanon, in Nicaragua, later in the Gulf War, and then in Bosina and Kosova.  After 20 years of reporting blood and combat, he came to an opposition posture. 

It was a combination of the Middle East and the Balkins that pushed Hedges to revisit his seminary teachings at Harvard.  (He also says it was a fear of eventually being shot).  Whatever, having detailed the lies told to the soldiers before they march out, or even sign up, He wrote a guide to the lies taught. 

So for anyone making their way from the Manse through the best schools, and the Harvard Divinity and then 20 years reporting on blood and gore for the NYTimes.  I hope the return to theology and religious history is a little squared. 

Hedges tells us that much of our public religious conflict in the US is due to a minority -- the ultra Calvinists related to R.J. Rushdoony -- part of a renegade Presbyterian Tradition, thus Hedges assumes the right to critique.  Rushdoony, he sees his teachings and influence as the contemporary source of dominationism, an ideology that has become political, but has also lent itself to be politicized in the name of anti-woman theology, and indeed anti-child theology, and opposition to all modern though since the age of the enlightenment.   

Hedges claims that about a quarter of American Christians have come under the direct or indirect influence of this conjuncture.  He spends much effort on how the Southern Baptists have become seduced, and a number of other smaller denominations, likewise.  He then moves on to a full description of how, at least in Kennedy's Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church near Fort Lauderdale the methods of dominionism have been used. His analysis is both theological and psychological.

He sees what has happened in some (by no means all) American Churches as not at all unlike what he comprehended in Bosnia and Kosovo.  There of course he witnessed heads being put on stakes during ethnic cleansing actions (god, that sounds like a brillo version), by one or another ethnic group.  (Remember supposedly UN Safe and not so safe zones?)  In effect, Hedges does not believe the theology of Falwell, Robertson, Dobson or Kennedy is much different from what he witnessed in Bosnia and Kosovo.  It is eliminationist, and he thinks we should pay attention.  Hedges acknowledges alternatives, but he sees these as fairly weak voices against the blood and gore he has witnessed, and the bullets he has dodged. 

He comes to the concept of Fascist recognizing that the term is a loaded, Western and essentially European and Christian Term, and while he ascribes the intentions to create a Fascist America to a small minority of the actors on the American scene,  He believes they have had too much influence given that the Rushdooney and dominionists have outsized influence given numbers. 

Again -- this is an ongoing series.   

   

Qaddafi gets his reward

by emptypockets

We've extensively covered the story of the six healthcare workers scapegoated by Libya, telling you how they were blamed for an outbreak of HIV in a Libyan hospital, raped, beaten, and tortured in prison, and sentenced to death (here, here, here, and here); how American corporations nevertheless continued to expand trade with Libya, and how political leaders like Hillary Clinton discouraged diplomatic efforts to free the workers (here and here); and, finally, how the EU as a whole, and France in particular, ultimately secured their last-minute release (here).

So it's only fitting that we bring you the final chapter: this week, Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi is in France, receiving his reward: the royal treatment, meetings with national leaders, and a deal for Libya to receive several nuclear reactors from France. Happy International Human Rights Week.

I don't know how to feel about this outcome. Was the visit this week a part of the original package, which included $400 million for the families of HIV-infected children, that Libya extorted from the EU before the medics were released? Or is the visit just what it feels like: a lollipop for the child who stops his tantrum, a $20 tip for the mugger who didn't take your whole wallet?

The most positive light I can see it in is a reference to the old chestnut of game theory known as "The Prisoner's Dilemma," in which a pair of players have the option of cooperating with or exploiting each other -- the rewards are higher if you both cooperate, but attempting to do so runs the risk of exploitation by your partner. The most successful strategy for years (up until a funny trick was discovered in 2004) has been "tit-for-tat" -- start off cooperatively, then do whatever your partner did the last time. If he's good to you, return the favor; if he screws you, screw him back next time.

This translates directly into political games, and is sometimes considered to be one of the guiding principles of cold war strategy. Perhaps France's Sarkozy, unlike the "never cooperate" strategy adopted by Clinton or the "always cooperate" strategy used by American business, is simply practicing "tit-for-tat": regardless of Qaddafi's past, his most recent action was beneficial, so he gets benefits. If Qaddafi acts well in the future, he'll presumably get more rewards; if not, he'll presumably be cut off until the next "turn." One thing to note about this strategy is that it doesn't mean you'll always "win" -- there will be events where your partner screws you -- but, in the end, you come out farther ahead than you would with any other strategy.

Considering that in the mid-1980s Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein appeared to be a well-matched pair of terroristic dictators, and today one has been pulled from a hole and hanged while the other has pitched his tent in the fertile fields of France (and I don't mean that in a dirty way), it would seem that "Prisoner's Dilemma" is a game Qaddafi plays well.

Ring the bells -- survival.

by Sara,

I know it may take a little reading between the lines to understand this parsed news release, (which I copy) of Antioch College alumni having just succeed in buying back their college.   Quality versus whatever market forces, -- Horace Mann lives.  This release is for me a profound cry, and now more effort to make it what it needs to be. Getting this far required 18 million, but we need at least 100 million to make all right.   

Back in the mid 50's, Holiday Magazine did a big spread on Antioch and called it a "Quaker Workcamp in the Woods" -- and I loved that description, even though it was not exactly why I applied and became an Antiochian. But it is why I am An Antiochian.  In those days, we were in the top five colleges in the US in Science PHD's, and I think one of the last of us, till we can revive things, just got a Nobel.

The Steve Schwerner noted as part of the Antioch salvation clan -- Brother of Mickey Schwerner, of Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner, of Philadelphia Mississippi died and got buried in a burned out Ford and a earthen damn for the cause of race matters.  That was in part about Voter Rights, and I hope no one ever forgets Mickey and the others.  And beyond that why we want to save our unique and 155 year old college from Wal-mart-ification of Higher Education.  Oh yea, much more than one who died for Civil Rights -- the point is what kind of education moves folk to the crux of the cultural battles?  to participate and ultimately win victories?

The shame is that Progressive America should have to buy back its institutions from whoever acquired them, or put them into deep debt.  But the clock has been turned, and now is the time to celebrate but demand that change be real, yet never again should the real state of affairs be cloaked in whatever PR.

Newsnight tonight had a thing about the huge Harvard endowment. (Apparently larger than the budget of Belgium).   Yes nice, while Antioch hangs on by tooth and nail.  But the real issue is if Antioch can get tooth and nail together, can we compete with Harvard for the kind of students that should go to Antioch?  Different styles, can we accomodate all of them?  Stephen Gould and Coretta Scott King?  (and Sistersara?)   Please variations on the theme to the future. 

 

ANTIOCH UNIVERSITY

                                                        Immediate Release

                                                              December 11, 2007

YELLOW SPRINGS, OHIO – The Antioch University Board of Trustees announced today that it has approved a resolution instructing Chancellor Toni Murdock to begin exploring the possibility of transferring the ownership of Antioch College to a separate, free-standing liberal arts institution with its own board of trustees.

Under the resolution, the Chancellor will immediately convene “a work group of administrators and others with the expertise and experience necessary to examine the feasibility of such a transfer of the College and to identify the major issues affecting the University's interest in such a transaction.” If feasible, it would be transferred to the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, an independent, Ohio non-profit corporation that has been formed by a group of College alumni, major donors, former trustees and emeritus faculty.

After exploring the feasibility of such a transfer and negotiating with authorized representatives of the new corporation, the Chancellorwill present a draft letter of intent laying out the proposed terms of any such transfer to the University trustees for consideration “as soon as possible but not later than its regularly scheduled meeting set for February 21-23, 2008.” If an agreement is reached that satisfies both parties, the transfer would take effect on July 1, 2008.

“This action taken by the University trustees replaces the Agreements in Principle recently negotiated with the Antioch College Alumni Board of Directors,” said Art Zucker, chair of the University Board of Trustees. “The goal, if feasible, is to reach an agreement that provides the College with a fully independent board exclusively devoted to continuing its financial stability, sustainability and academic excellence.”

Nancy Crow, who helped negotiate the earlier agreement with the trustees as president of the Antioch College Alumni Association, hailed the new development. “We are thrilled to be able to join forces with the leaders of the Antioch College Continuation Corporation,” Crow said. “Their efforts represent what the Alumni Association has been working so diligently to achieve over the past six months. We will coordinate our efforts under the guidance of the new corporation to build on our detailed plan for continuing and enhancing College operations.”

Both parties to the discussion acknowledged that there are a host of issues to be sorted out before any transfer can be considered or approved.  “But this is an exciting and potentially historic moment for the entire University.” said Frances Degen Horowitz, co-chair of the Antioch College Continuation Corporation and president emerita of the City University of New York Graduate Center, who graduated from Antioch College in 1954.  “Working closely with the entire Antioch College community, we are confident that we can raise the necessary resources to stabilize the College and secure its standing as one of the nation’s foremost liberal-arts institutions.”

Horowitz noted that directors of the new corporation have already pledged to contribute more than $7 million by the end of December, 2007, to be held in trust until a transfer is approved. “As we proceed with our negotiations,” she added, “we will need immediate and substantial financial support from alumni and all friends of Antioch College. Working together, we have an unprecedented opportunity to restore the College to its roots and establish a substantial endowment for the College to ensure its long-term sustainability.”

In addition to Horowitz, the Antioch College Continuation Corporation is co-chaired by Eric Bates, deputy managing editor of Rolling Stone magazine, who graduated from Antioch College in 1983. Both Bates and Horowitz are former presidents of the Antioch College Alumni Association and former members of the Antioch University Board of Trustees.

Joining them as directors of the Antioch College Continuation Corporation are seven other graduates of Antioch College:

• Laura Markham (secretary), PhD, clinical psychologist and editor of Your Parenting Solutions; former member of the University Board of Trustees; Antioch ’80    
• David Goodman (treasurer), businessman and principal of North Arrows LLC and e-Solar  Properties LLC; Antioch ’69, Stanford MBA, ‘71
• Catherine Jordan,  president of Achieve Minneapolis and chair of the accreditation task force of the Antioch College Alumni Board of Directors; Antioch ’72
• Steve Schwerner, emeritus Antioch College professor and former Dean of Students; current member of the Antioch College Alumni Board of Directors, Antioch ’60
• Lee Morgan, president of The Antioch Company, Antioch ’66
• Barbara Winslow, associate professor of adolescence social studies and women’s studies at Brooklyn College; former member of the Antioch University Board of Trustees; current member of the Antioch College Alumni Board of Directors; Antioch ’68
• Terry O. Herndon, entrepreneur and businessman; Antioch ’57

The prior Agreements in Principle reached with the Alumni Association in November called for the lifting of the suspension of operations of the College provided that certain financial benchmarks were met. Under the new approach, however, the University will no longer operate the College beyond June 30, 2008.  Any College operations beyond that date would be the sole responsibility of the new corporation. In the event that an agreement is not reached between the parties, the Board has further directed the Chancellor to study and report back to the Board on the feasibility of the University’s own plans to reopen the College after the June 30 suspension of operations.

“The Chancellor is currently studying whether a transfer of operations can be accomplished in a way that protects the interests of the University while also ensuring the viability of the College,” said Zucker. “No final decision has been made by the Board, but we are taking a serious look at the issue and are working closely with directors of the new corporation to afford this endeavor every chance of success.”

Directors of the Antioch College Continuation Corporation expressed enthusiasm for the current state of negotiations. “I joined this endeavor because I believe it represents a significant step forward for Antioch College,” said Steve Schwerner, who worked at Antioch from 1976 to 2003. “If we can reach agreement on a transfer, the College will finally have the autonomy and resources it needs to be able to move forward.”

The George W. of the Wallace family speaks

by Kagro X

Just a quick hit here -- something I'd like to do a bit more of here at TNH, just to do my part to keep the conversation going.

Chris Wallace talked to The Politico, under the oh-so-convincing headline: Wallace: Dems are 'fools' to boycott Fox.

Here's what grabbed my eye (thanks to an assist from Oliver Griswold of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center):

Being the son of legendary newsman Mike Wallace, and in broadcast news for several decades, the Fox host has definitely been able to observe the mainstream media up close for quite some time.

But on his four-year anniversary this week, Wallace said there is something he’s discovered only since joining the Rupert Murdoch-owned network.

“I used to laugh and dismiss this talk about how we were — that there was a liberal bias in the mainstream media,” Wallace said. “But I have to say in the four years I’ve been at Fox, I’ve come to believe that there is a bias.”

Shorter Wallace: "I have to say in the five days I've been in this bank in Stockholm..."

Why is our director of national intelligence letting terrorists roam free?

by emptypockets

Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, writes in an op-ed in this morning's New York Times that FISA, which requires court review of certain kinds of government wiretaps, "slowed -- and sometimes prevented -- our ability to collect timely foreign intelligence." He urges Congress to renew the Protect America Act, a temporary measure passed this year that bypasses FISA, and is due to expire in February.

Having personally transcended outrage, mockery, and scorn, I am going to go ahead and take McConnell at his word.

He writes that FISA has "not kept pace with changes in technology" (FISA was created in response to the illegal government activities of the Nixon administration) and that, under FISA, "our experts were diverted from tracking foreign intelligence threats to writing lengthy justifications to collect information from a person in a foreign country". Bottom line? "The intelligence community should spend its time protecting our nation, not providing privacy protections to foreign terrorists".

Which raises the question -- if they know who the terrorists are, why not go get them? Why is McConnell spending his time fighting political battles in Washington, DC, which even if won, will only let him listen in on phone calls? Why does he want to divert our experts to listening to tapes when they could be out catching bad guys?

I can imagine one reason: monitoring known terrorists may lead to the capture of larger groups of terrorists. But, to me, that stands too great a risk of losing track of them, as occurred with bin Laden. Shouldn't McConnell and the US government capture these terrorists while they can? Why are they playing soft with them?

The other possibility, of course, is that McConnell doesn't actually know yet who the terrorists are, and wants to be able to eavesdrop on lots of private conversations of innocent civilians, with the hopes that that will turn up a handful of terrorists. But that's not what he's saying, and I'm prepared to take him at his word: he knows where they are, he knows who they are. He'd just rather listen in than stop them.

Religion and Politics -- hopefully a series

By Sara

In our times of disorder as to direction and all here at TNH, I propose a series of essays on the matter of Religion and Politics, but limited in the sense that I want to review several highly controversial books of recent pub dates, and I hope that folk will try to keep within the lines, and discuss the books which you have actually read, or the reviews of the books, or at least something that is not just off topic or off the top of the head. 

I have about a dozen books stacked up, read and underlined, and outlined,  that I plan to review, in series.  I have Chris Hedges, "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America" (2006, Free Press), and not really about religion, but about organization, "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy", by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt,  Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007.  Equally about organization, we have Kevin Phillips 2006 work, "American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century" Viking, 2006.  I plan to review "The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege" by Damon Linker. Doubleday, 2006.  I have Michelle Goldberg's "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism"  Norton, 2007 in the stack, and Ray Suarez's fascinating work, "Holy Vote, The Politics of Faith in America" 2006, Harper Collins.  I may deal with Jim Wallis's 2005 offering, "God's Politics: Why the Right gets it Wrong, and the Left doesn't get it",  Harper, 2005, and finally in the current stack -- underlined and with notes is Peter Singer's "President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George Bush," Dutton, 2004. 

Now I have another stack that I will refer to -- books about the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and thereabouts.  This is a history I have followed off and on since Arthur Miller's play of the early 50's, the "Crucible" got my father and grandmother to tell me what was, in fact an eleven generation passed down semi-secret story about an ancestor, Dutch Elwell, who was the last woman to be arrested in the Witch Trials.  I have I suppose a few of her genes.  The new histories of the trials have finally allowed me to recover something of who she was, and recovering her history has always been an objective.  She didn't get stoned or hung, in fact she was released from jail after a few days, as the Governor of Mass had decreed that no more spectral evidence could be introduced in trials.  But she lost in a sense -- she and her husband had to sell the farm, the house and the orchard at Gloucester, along with an interest in the fishing boat, and move first to Rhode Island, and eventually to South Jersey.  Dutch Elwell was no great religious leader or theologian, but she was a target of intolerance, and while my grandmother never attended a play, she did read Miller's script, and approved.  It fit with what she understood from the handi-me-downs of family history.  But in fact Miller wrote the work in the shadow of McCarthyism -- and that is how it was interpreted.  Since then the Salem Phenonema has been through two additional interpretations, the nutty witch stuff was a product of eating rye bread that was infected with a fungus that made people slightly mad, and what is the more recent, the application of demographic methods to both the accusers and the accused really reflects something like PTSD as a result of witnessing the scalping of parents and others during the King Phillips War on the Maine Coast, where many from the Mass. Bay Colony had moved in the decade before the War, and perhaps ten years before the Witch Trials.  In otherwords we have a ton of causes -- 1690's McCarthyism, Rye Bread and PTSD as a result of witnessing bloody massacres.  I still think they have to figure why it was all done 'in the name of God' and under the auspices of the Theocrats of the place.   In the meantime, doggie Elwell, named after Dutch, has come to life and requested a cookie run.  Elwell is a very proud Siberian Husky.  But that earlier Elwell Ancestor, who got jailed in the Salem events yea 13 generation's back, remains an inquisitive spirit.   

But why blog a series on Religion and Politics?  Why read all these books, or at least some of them?  Chris Hedges opens his work with a quote from Pascal;  "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from Religious Conviction."   How does that help us comprehend that grand Morman statement of last week -- or the referenced earlier Kennedy Contribution?  How do we essentially set up Pascal against the demands for religious confession in politics, and then the reviews as to whether it is complete and authentic, and put that against the "no religious test" language of Jefferson, Madison and the other founders?  But that is just the ideal -- reality is quite different.   

Chris Hedges gives us many ways to think about Fascism -- his introduction is a very lengthy quote from Umberto Eco, all of the criteria worth a good meditation, but what caught my attention was material in his last chapter -- Hedges Harvard Ethics Professor, one James Luther Adams (Interesting name for a Harvard Theological Don), had spent much time in Germany in the 30's watching the struggles of Protestants to not renounce the Old Testiment as had been demanded, and to attempt to stay independent from the Nazi Christian Church.  But then during the war he was recruited (by my great interest, George Marshall) to instruct officers designated for the occupation Army.  Testing them, he found these Officers more given to Nazi Attitudes than to American Ideals.  He found little difference between attitudes toward American Blacks and the perception of Nazi attitudes toward Jews -- and among the American Officers, no sensibility that either were really wrong.  He found no sense that a Christian Church should oppose white, gentile supremacy attitudes, and in fact, no attachment to any theology that stood in opposition.  Questioned on Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, they associated more with Nazi dogma than with FDR's various proclamations on war objectives.  Adams concluded that 100% Americanism covered over these blatent attitudes, that it was used as cover, and that it was a reliable measure of something of a fascist tendency buried well into the American psychic, at least at the US Army Officer level in the 1940's.  He sees it as deeply attached to Religion, but Religion mixed with American Culture.  (What difference from some of the current concerns with Boyden and others at the General rank?)   In effect, Hedges is convinced that little has really changed vis a vis the religious-political connection since the formal fascist era (and with the exception of Spain and Portugal) since the 1940's. 

I have questions about this historical construct -- but next post. 

Barbers

by emptypockets

I recall after the September 11th attacks, probably on the 12th or 13th, going for a haircut. I was living in San Francisco at the time and, being originally from the northeast, I remember feeling disconnected, like a great shuffling underground was just out of reach. I was far from family, and California friends didn't feel the way I did. At the barber's, though, something clicked. It was crowded on a midweek afternoon, the TV was turned to CNN, and everyone was quiet and serious. Where coworkers had been chatty, the barber's was meditative.

I revisited those thoughts the other day, at a barber's here in New York. It was a far more normal midweek afternoon, and I was the only customer there until an older guy entered and took the chair beside me. The barber made conversation with him: "How was your Thanksgiving?" "Hm? Oh, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving... hm... not bad..." He was at his sister-in-law's. She's a good cook. "But I'm not having Christmas this year."

The barber let that rattle around the room for a while, and finally gave a nonconfrontational "Okay." Another long pause. "My wife passed away, so that's why." There was the sensation of the little ties that bind human strangers growing tighter. "When did that happen?" "Oh, a long time ago, long time ago..." A bit of a loosening. "June." Tight again.

"Damn, I miss her."

My first thoughts were for the old man and the poignancy of someone lonely but proud, reaching out for human contact but not able to appear to be reaching. My second thoughts were for the other families having a first Christmas without a loved one, or afraid that they will. I thought first of one family I know whose son will be sent soon on his first trip to Iraq, and then, in the abstract, of other families split by the war, and, finally, of families like the old man's, the elderly and infirm. And so, in this little stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I'll stop a bit right now as I go through my usual stressful holiday routines to give thanks that those routines haven't changed, that everyone who is supposed to be near me still is, and I don't have to contemplate a first Christmas "without."

And I think of why others must. I wonder, between that haircut and this one, how many families have been changed by two wars, so many deaths, new economic insecurity, poorer health care, less health research. Personally, I don't have much outrage left. I once derived some comfort from politics and blog posts filled with mockery and scorn, but I feel like I've passed through that and it no longer helps, if it ever really did. What hope and comfort I find now derives from those small vestiges of community, found in odd corners like the barber's, though perhaps increasingly less often.

House and Home -- and a little bit about FDR

By Sara

If the numbers I heard today on NPR about the Mortgage crisis are any where near accurate, 1 in 8 Americans with a Mortgage written in the last five years is vulnerable to loss of house and home.  Now there is a lot of rot in the housing bubble, but the consequences of pushing that number of folk out of house and home is profound.  Atrios has a piece indicating that the problem is mirrored in the car payments arena -- and neither say a thing about the credit card debt. 

What Bush did today is peanuts.  He offered a program that does not consider the reality that housing values will fall by 20-30% over the next year, and that everyone is going to wonder why they should pay for over-valued property.  Those with little equity will walk away from it, and in many developments and neighborhoods that will lead to too many houses on the market, and neighborhood problems. The Bush restrictions on who can get help sound vaguely like one of Hoover's plans in about 1930, which thankfully was never adopted. 

Back in the days of the Great Depression the problem was really quite similar.  People bought into mortgages in the 20's that were 5 year, with a balloon at the end (which was all the real equity).  The expectation was that one could refinance.  After 1929 they realized they could not pay up, and that they really had no equity, and thus no reason not to just walk away from the property.   If you want to do interesting reading, pull a classified ad section at the Library from 30 or 31 and try to comprehend all the listed houses for sale.  It got worse when the banks failed, as in those days they held the paper. 

So what did FDR do?  Well the dear darling did FHA.  Not 5 year mortgages, but 20 year mortgages, fixed rate, with US Government insurance.  They were not available for more expensive homes -- just fairly basic homes.   FHA would not loan or write insurance on anything that was wrong zoned or would not pass inspection.  The preference was totally social -- family housing, and the program broke even -- no loss and no profit to the Government.  Post WWII VA housing rules tracked FHA, and again, they lost no money. 

This solution probably needs revision for the current situation, but the point to be made is that once upon a time we did solve the matter, and we need to credit FDR with the solution.  The adjustable rate mortgages of today are little different from the balloon systems of the past of the late 20's and early 30's period. All interest up front, and real equity only in the late years.  Nothing new has been invented as to how to advantage the scam.   

 

Iran, the NIE, Bush, Cheney and whoo-ha.

by Sara

Hopefully everyone is trying to keep their timelines straight on this one, as I suspect the powers behind the throne have just collapsed any war plans that might have existed.  KO tonight had his opportunity to use the term "Liar" in about ten different versions on his Special Comment segment, and there are, I suspect, many more pieces of this are yet to roll out.  What hasn't been emphasized enough yet, is that when the narrative about WMD fell apart on Iraq -- Bush turned to the rhetoric of "Programs to develop WMD's" as opposed to real WMD's -- and in this instance it seems he pulled the same rhetorical trick -- Iran was not really about actually developing a Nuclear Bomb program -- instead it was about getting the knowledge of how to perhaps develop a nuclear bomb program.  Hopefully someone will tell Bush that most of the necessary knowledge about this has been in Physics textbooks since at least about 1946 or 47 -- and once you master that, then the rest of it is in the peer reviewed journals -- American, British, French, Russian, Chinese, and others over the years.  Progressive Magazine did, after all, publish a rather short article on "how to do it" from open sources back in the late 1970's -- and the Supreme Court said since it was all open source, no problem.  I have a fascinating history I've been reading in recent months on the history of India's Nuclear Project -- something with origins in a study committee Nehru set up in 1946, a year before India became Independent.  By 73, and without any great push, they had a device that would explode.  In the meantime, quite independent of much outside assistance, they had a whole nuclear industry.  All this is illustrative of the bias that "knowledge" is something exclusively American, or Western, and it reminds me of the estimates offered to Truman back in the mid-1940's that the Soviets were so backward, they could not get a Nuclear Weapon before perhaps the mid 50's at the earliest.  Well -- 1949 was a little early given those estimates.  You would think that by this time the notion that science and technology knowledge is exclusively American would have worn off a bit.  Anyhow -- Bush seems to be pushing that idea again as a last ditch cover up. 

The process of outing this NIE is probably going to be one of the most fascinating bits of Bush History.  Eventually we will get the back story, but in the meantime we live in interesting times.  Clearly the various Intelligence Services had some of this information for at least a year, though I would imagine much had to survive confirmation efforts.  A few weeks ago I finished reading "Curveball" by Bob Drogin -- which I recommend highly, precisely because the raw detail is so illuminating.  Drogin sub-titles his book as "Spies, Lies, and the Con Man who Started a War."  In fact, any reasonable validation of Curveball's motivation would have revealed the problems with his Iraq intelligence.  But Curveball did provide the basis for a war against Iraq, precisely because no validation took place, and no efforts to develop corroboration took place.  And most of his evidence was worthless in the end -- no bio moble trailers at all. 

But now we have the odd story that Cheney went to the situation room a couple of weeks ago, and was briefed on the final version of the NIE, and then, in the week between that briefing, and when Bush says he understood the intelligence, they apparently never spoke or consulted.  In the meantime, we have more attacks on "knowledge" as opposed to actual weapons or existant industry that can produce them.  Cheney skipped the Xmas party at the WH with the press and many others, as he is apparently out shooting birds in South Dakota. 

I suspect alienation of affection. 

But others are out of town too while Bush has to try to find simple words to deal with his problem -- Bob Gates is in Iraq and Afghanistan, and my guess is that Gates probably forced the issue on this.  DoD just doesn't want another war right now, and this is how things are done, particularly when a former DCI is heading DoD.   

In one sense this is about Republicans trying to prove they can control the child and do national security.  They could pull it off.  What I want to know is whether the Democrats have an intelligent response to all this.  So far, I don't really hear it.