Deciding to vote, and for whom

Current Affairs ·· More from May 2014

As I was reading Facebook entries on the election, and especially exchanges between supporters of Sanders and people in favor of voting for Hillary Clinton, I began to realize that to some extent they were arguing at cross purposes. In what follows I try to make clear, for myself if for no-one else, what’s going on.

Absolute opposition on moral grounds

Some people flat-out refuse to entertain the thought of voting for Clinton. I think I understand why. Their opposition to her is morally grounded, and it is absolute. They do not, in other words, merely prefer Sanders to Clinton. On moral grounds, they look upon Clinton as someone for whom they cannot vote, regardless of who else is in the running, whether in the primaries or in the general election.

Here’s an analogy. A moral vegetarian doesn’t merely prefer her diet to one that includes meat; she is absolutely opposed to eating meat, and since in general moral grounds override grounds of other sorts, she will—entirely reasonably given the judgment she has made—be wholly unmoved by appeals to practical consequences and so forth; only in the direst of circumstances would she consider eating meat, and then not as in any way approving of that act, but because the imperative, let’s say, of survival has precedence over other moral imperatives.

So too someone who on moral grounds opposed Clinton in the primaries will be, again entirely reasonably, unmoved by appeals to the consequences of Clinton’s being defeated. Quite reasonably too she may be angered by being told that voting for Clinton is preferable to voting for Trump; that is like telling a vegetarian that fish is less “meaty” than raw steak—true, perhaps, but beside the point.

I don’t see any inconsistency in the position I’ve just outlined. It would be reasonable for someone who holds that position to refrain from voting, given the options, or to vote for a third-party candidate. Nevertheless I think a person who holds that position may have grounds (but not, strictly speaking, moral grounds) for voting for Clinton. What those are, I’ll say later.

Preference for Sanders

If you prefer Sanders, on moral grounds, to Clinton, then I assume that on similar grounds you will prefer Clinton to Trump. In that case it’s not apparent why you should not vote for Clinton. The only reason I can think of is to hold that the eventual outcome of Trump’s winning would be better than the eventual outcome of Clinton’s winning. That case has yet to be made—especially as addressed to someone who prefers Sanders to Clinton. What has been offered, as far as I can see, is speculation to the effect that Clinton’s victory would preclude, while Trump’s victory would promote, a takeover of the Democratic party by people who favor Sanders’s views to Clinton’s.

In the face of such an argument, it’s entirely in order to bring forward the likely consequences of a Trump victory (which in my view would result in eight years of Trump or Pence; think of what happened to Kerry in 2004). Proponents of Clinton have laid them out in detail: a Supreme Court much worse than the present one (and even more inclined to go along with Republican efforts to restrict the right to vote), an even more corrupt executive branch (Trump wants to eliminate Civil Service protections, for example), not to mention whatever Trump and a presumably Republican Congress would do to realize his threats against Muslims and immmigrants.

Except for someone convinced that a Trump presidency would be such a disaster as to result in the destruction of the Republican Party and the ushering-in of a Sanders revolution, I think Clinton comes out better; and one should keep in mind that Bush’s presidency, with its disasters, had no such effects—though I’ll admit that the Obama White House did its best to forestall them.

Why vote for Clinton if you’re absolutely opposed to her

I think there’s a pretty good case for being morally opposed to a Clinton presidency. Her embrace of Kissinger, for example, which well represents her neoconservative views (Cold War, really) on foreign affairs; her own acquiescence, about which she has been misleading at best, in the demise of democratic government in Honduras, her strong advocacy of intervention in Libya (which she later referred to as a “work in progress”), her favorable view of TPP (until she was forced to express some misgivings during the primaries)—these and more provide ample moral grounds to oppose her.

The best argument I can think of (that would be persuasive to someone who opposes Clinton on moral grounds) is to consider what the act of voting for her signifies. Does it signify moral approval of her opinions and acts? There is a strong tendency in the US to regard the President as not only the head of the executive branch, and in charge therefore of fulfilling the duties of that branch, but also as the moral leader of the country. Washington and Lincoln are the exemplars; Obama traded strongly on that tendency in his first campaign. If you think that in voting for a presidential candidate you are endorsing that person as the moral leader of the US, then it will be hard to come up with reasons to do so in the face of a strong moral case against that person.

But one can think of voting for a presidential candidate in practical terms, as choosing, from among the realistic options, the one whom you believe will do the best job—best as you conceive it. (I say ”realistic” because voting for a third-party candidate who has only an infinitesimal chance of winning is a different sort of act, resting on different sorts of reasons.) Clinton has already shown that for perhaps entirely self-regarding motives she will veer left; I don’t think the same can be said for Trump.

A vote for Clinton, then, by someone morally opposed to her being elected could, as a sort of speech act, be paraphrased as follows: “Yes, you are preferable to Trump (not for what you have done but for what you, unlike him, probably won’t do and for what you might be persuaded to do). But this preference rests on inferior, pragmatic grounds, not the high moral ground, and on those issues where I am morally opposed to your view I will fight you every inch of the way”.

The Emirate of El Paso and the Austin Free State

Current Affairs ·· More from November 2012

Our New Neighbor to the South!

A petition at whitehouse.gov urging that Texas should secede from the United States has gathered over 100,000 signatures. Following the iron logic of secession, El Paso and Austin have filed petitions to secede from Texas should it secede from the US, and no doubt certain neighborhoods of those cities will file petitions to secede from the secession from the secession.

Texans should really think twice about this. The United States has a tendency to turn the governments of small- to medium-sized oil-rich countries into unstable dictatorships, and then, when it tires of its new playthings, it bombs them. Texas, or rather Texans, would, of course, save a significant amount of money if they no longer paid Federal income tax. But even $389 million doesn’t go very far when one stealth bomber costs a billion.

Veterans Day Poppy

Current Affairs · Society ·· More from September 2012

(In remembrance of, among others, Captain Beefheart.)

It may well be that the conception of well-marked generations got its impetus from the world wars, now usually called One and Two. The first, once simply The Great War, was the war of my grandparents; the second, that of my parents. That distinction was clear, easy to remember, soundly based in events.

Good enough is good enough: on the future of teaching

Academic Affairs · Current Affairs · Society ·· More from July 2012

US Stamp: Mark Hopkins, 1940.
Source: Wikimedia.

There is or was in economics a so-called law known as Gresham’s: bad money drives out good. Another law, of broader application, would have it that good enough dominates best.

The web, and indeed Wikipedia—to which I just happily referred—, illustrates this point. Copying is easy, compiling is easy, finding new information is not so easy, even if that means simply reading journal articles and adding a bit to the existing common store. I have Fuch’s dystrophy, a hereditary disease of the cornea. Naturally I’d like to know all I can about it. I search online, diligently, repeatedly. What I find is the same information (some of it perhaps incorrect) repeated over and over again, often verbatim, from Wikipedia to the Mayo Clinic to NIH. As soon as one tries to investigate specific questions, e.g. about the risk of surgery, one discovers that the web has no answers. I would say that it is broad but shallow; yet even that conveys the wrong impression, since the “breadth” consists largely in repetition of a small core of fact and not obviously untrue speculation.

The information one gleans, with grains of salt for more dubious sources, is for many purposes good enough. Were you a journalist or a student needing two sentences on Fuch’s, you’d have them, quickly and without effort. But it is not much better than good enough. I think that that is a general tendency: the apparent wealth of the (publicly accessible) web belies a widespread poverty.

Good enough drives out best—and even better.

Apply this now to university teaching.

Pundit makes stuff up, is refuted

Current Affairs · NewAPPS · Philosophy of Philosophy ·· More from July 2011

Stanley Fish has recently asserted that “the conclusions reached in philosophical disquisitions do not travel. They do not travel into contexts that are not explicitly philosophical […], and they do not even make their way into the non-philosophical lives of those who hold them”. This is at best a gross overgeneralization; it can be refuted by five minutes’ research online.*

No doubt lots of people will step up to defend the relevance of philosophical conclusions. I want to consider a different issue. Once upon a time when a poobah like Fish issued pronouncements like this, it would have taken time to gather the evidence to refute him. Now it takes almost no time or expense. It seems that by and large the poobahs have yet to catch on, perhaps because for poobahs research is optional. When they pontificate on the day’s events, they mostly rely on their general knowledge. This is owing no doubt to deadline pressures; but it is also characteristic of the role. A well-furnished mind has been, since the days of Cicero at least, a prerequisite of the orator; but even the most well-furnished have lacunæ and lapses, and one suspects that some of our poobahs’ furnishings are sparse.

When I lecture I sometimes find myself veering into topics I haven’t prepared and don’t know much about. I too have to fall back on my general knowledge. I used to be able to count on knowing more than my students on most of the subjects I was likely to veer into. But now they have computers and iPads. If I don’t get a date or name right they can catch it almost immediately. They sometimes do, and sometimes they tell me. I’ve learned two things: one is not to fake it, the other is to take advantage of those computers and iPads—have them do some fact-checking for me. It’s instructive for both of us.

The issue I want to raise is: what becomes of “general knowledge”, or rather the social value of having lots of it, now that anyone with a phone or tablet can simulate the possession of a well-furnished mind? Is the orator’s storehouse obsolete? And if poobah discourse, like the extemporaneous public oratory of Chautauqua days, depends for its effect partly on the impressive marshalling of general knowledge, will it now gradually fade away?

*The issue Fish raises is real enough, and has a long history: for one case, see Miles Burnyeat, “Can the Sceptic Live his Scepticism?”, in Richard Rorty et al (eds.), Philosophy in History (1980) and the subsequent literature.

Wise fool

Current Affairs ·· More from July 2009

Bill Kristol, son of Irving, plays the contrarian in reacting to Sarah Palin’s resignation. In a burst of controlled enthusiasm, he writes:

All in all, it’s going to be a high-wire act. The odds are against her pulling it off. But I wouldn’t bet against it.

—“A Contrarian Take” Weekly Standard 3 Jul 2009

I think we can see why Mr. Kristol has been wrong about so many things. Here he wears his irrationality on his sleeve.

Now I’m not sure that rational choice theory captures the essence of rationality. But I am quite sure that if I estimate the odds of rolling snake eyes at 35 to 1 and then bet even money I’m going to be short of cash before too long.

But just to show that rationality, of whatever cast, does a poor job at predicting behavior, Mr. Kristol has in fact done quite well in the last eight years. Being wrong has paid off. In an irrational culture, it pays to be irrational. Not about everything, of course; what works is well-timed, well-placed stupidity. To be stupid in Kristol’s way takes a lot of smarts.

I forgot—or maybe I never remembered—that Mr. Kristol was Dan Quayle’s chief of staff. Talk about falling upward! Fortunately Steve Schmidt hasn’t forgotten, and he was kind enough to remind Mr. Kristol recently. Unfortunately some say that Schmidt has a “congenital aversion to the truth”—he was lying before he could talk, the little rascal.

We read stuff

Current Affairs · Language ·· More from June 2009

Des mots, toujours des mots

Like English, French has its word-hounds, its mavens, its amateurs vraiment amants. At Le Monde, which is roughly the New York Times of France, two copy-editors divert themselves with Langue sauce piquante. Martine Rousseau & Olivier Houdart comment on matters typo-, ortho-, lexico-, and sometimes autobiographical. One sees in the comments that questions of language boil the blood no less reliably in French as in English.

Confining themselves to the lexicographical, Le Mot du jour () and Le Garde-mots () will augment your vocabulary in daily or semiweekly doses. If there were a French SAT, Le Mot du jour would help you pass it with items like vocifération nitescence (also in Le Garde-mots), and pugnace.

Alain Horvilleur, the author, has published an almanac of words from Le Garde-mots (Jacques André, 2009, 978-2-7570-0088-5).

The specimens at Le Garde-mots are more exotic: panspermie, calotype, gaudepisse (with five synonyms). Learn words like this and they won’t laugh at you next time you hang out at the Luxembourg. Not to your face, anyway.

As long as I’m dealing in words, I may as well mention Wordie, a “social lexicon” where you can create word lists, comment on words, and find images associated with them (this function is iffy).

You’re a reader. At this very moment. (But maybe not now.) Habitual readers tend to like to read about reading and readers. If so, you’ll like Lali. Lali deals mostly in representations of readers reading—paintings, for the most part, but also photographs and sculptures. The text is in French, the images are of no language. Series include: “Anecdotes du libraire” and “À livres ouverts”.

Odium libertatis

Academic Affairs · Current Affairs · Religion ·· More from May 2009

[See Update.] I’m not sure why anyone would expect Liberty University (the late Jerry Falwell’s Collegio Romano) to be even-handed in its treatment of Democrats and Republicans. However much the two parties may resemble one another in their allegiance to corporate interests, on certain matters dear to the heart of the fundamentalist Christians who run the University, Democratic positions are anathema and Republican positions are not.

Since late last year, Democrats on campus have had a club. This month the University withdrew its sponsorship, which means that the club gets no money and cannot use the name or logo of Liberty U in its communications.

An email from Liberty’s VP of student affairs, Mark Hine, to the College Democrats announces that the University has just finished a review of its policy on campus organizations. It then cites what seems to be a section of the Honor Code:

No student club or organization shall be approved, recognized or permitted to meet on campus, advertise, distribute or post materials, or use University facilities if the statements, positions, doctrines, policies, constitutions, bylaws, platforms, activities or events of such club or organization, its parent, affiliate, chapter or similarly named group (even if the similarly named group is not the actual parent, affiliate or chapter) are inconsistent or in conflict with the distinctly Christian mission of the University, the Liberty Way, the Honor Code, or the policies and procedures promulgated by the University.

Hine applies the rule to the case at hand. Because the positions of the Democratic party are “inconsistent or in conflict with the distinctly Christian mission of the University” or with the “Liberty Way”,

We are removing the club from the Liberty website and you will need to cease using Liberty University’s name, including any logo, seal or mark of Liberty University. They are not to be used in any of your publications, electronic or internet, including but not limited to, any website, Facebook, Twitter or any other such publication.

It’s worth noting that though the University’s rule effectively calls for a ban on meetings in University facilites, its action consisted only in denying to the club the use of the University’s name and logo. Nevertheless the implication is that the club, since it meets the conditions of the rule, could have been, and indeed should have been, banned altogether. The tone of the letter is that of a cease-and-desist letter, intended to intimidate.

Once the decision became a target of criticism, Jerry Falwell, Jr. issued a response in which, after complaining about media coverage, he denies that the “Democrat club” was banned:

The students who formed the Democrat club last October are good students. They are pro-life and believe in traditional marriage [in fact those positions are written into the club’s constitution]. They can continue to meet on campus. The only thing that has changed came about as part of a university-wide review of all student organizations for official recognition status. Official recognition carries with it the benefit of using the university name and funds. While this group will not be an officially recognized club, it may still meet on campus.

That’s true but a bit disingenuous. The club may meet, perhaps, but only on the sufferance of the administration: they would be tolerated, like prostitutes in a red-light district. At a later meeting with members of the club, the University offered the club the option of regaining recognition by becoming an affiliate of Democrats for Life of America, which opposes abortion; doing so would bring them into compliance with the rule. As of a few days ago, they were still mulling it over.

The College Republicans think that the Democrats’ club (which began shortly before the 2008 election) provides a welcome opportunity for debate.

Meanwhile, on the 26th, University administrators met again with members of the club. They wanted an apology for what they regarded as false claims made by the club’s president, Brian Diaz, and others to the media, mostly concerning Hine’s email.

The club is going to apologize. My sense is that Diaz and the others, who, as far as I can tell, are against abortion and gay marriage, found themselves in an exposed position—Terry McAuliffe and other Democratic leaders in the state had begun to cite the ban—and needed to back down. For its part the University, represented by Hine and Falwell himself, has done its best to persuade them.

And the moral is…

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has written a letter to the IRS urging that Liberty University’s tax-exempt status be reviewed (they’ve done so before). Liberty University has announced plans to file suit against Americans United. On what basis, I’m not sure.

Not much. Commenters have argued that the University has violated principles of free speech and have raised First Amendment issues. But the University has no obligation to respect principles of free speech, and doesn’t claim to. (People tend to invoke notions of the university as a site of free inquiry, but that is at best a recent and somewhat parochial way of conceiving the institution. Liberty University makes no pretense of being that sort of university; like, say, Oxford University until the 1870s, it promotes free inquiry but only within the faith.) Moreover if TaxProf is right, Liberty’s tax-exempt status is not jeopardized by its action.

The one live issue, mentioned by Ed Brayton, is that the University demands for Christian groups elsewhere the recognition it refuses to the Campus Democrats. Liberty University, or rather an outfit called Liberty Counsel that now operates under the aegis of its law school, has argued—and won—a case in which a campus religious group, Gator Christian Life, was denied official recognition on the grounds that it violated a policy against discrimination on the basis of religious preference.

I don’t think Brayton has much of an argument. The parallel would have been this: suppose Lib U had a clause in its rules governing clubs to the effect that clubs could not discriminate on the basis of political affiliation, and proceeded to deny recognition to the Democratic club on the grounds that they did so discriminate. The Democrats could quite reasonably answer that it is in the nature of political clubs to require of their members that they subscribe to the principles of the club, and thus to discriminate between those who do and those who don’t. The issue raised by Liberty Counsel on behalf of Gator Christian Life isn’t one of free speech, it’s that some anti-discrimination principles are incompatible with some sorts of club. Liberty Counsel argued, successfully, that in the case of Gator Christian Life, the University’s blanket principle of non-discrimination must admit an exception.

Now there may be sorts of club whose raison d’être is so at odds with the principles of a university, or with moral principles generally, that any hint of endorsement would involve the university either in glaring inconsistency (e.g. a club whose purpose was to intimidate professors in the classroom) or moral wrong (a whites-only club). Liberty University takes the Democratic club to have been of this sort, insofar as its recognition by the University would be taken to be an endorsement somehow of the principles of the national Democratic party, principles that the University finds grossly at odds with its “Christian mission” (Falwell and co. tend to say that the pro-choice position is not Christian, but that’s descriptively false and normatively tendentious).

There is, nevertheless, an element of arbitrariness in the University’s action. Not because they have treated the Democratic club differently from the Republican club, but because the Democratic club has explicitly included in its constitution the positions that the University regards as required by its Christian mission. To return to Hines’s letter:

Even though this club may not support the more radical planks of the democratic party, the democratic party is still the parent organization of the club on campus. The Democratic Party Platform is contrary to the mission of LU and to Christian doctrine (supports abortion, federal funding of abortion, advocates repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, promotes the “LGBT” agenda, Hate Crimes, which include sexual orientation and gender identity, socialism, etc). The candidates this club supports uphold the Platform and implement it. The candidates supported are directly contrary to the mission of LU. By using LU or Liberty University and Democrat in the name, the two are associated and the goals of both run in opposite directions.

The passage is not entirely coherent, but the gist is clear. The very name “Liberty University College Democrats” forges a link between the University and the Party, a link which is reinforced by the club’s use of the University’s logo, colors, and so forth. The taint of that link is so great that it cannot be mitigated by any disclaimer the College Democrats might offer.

Forget Liberty University and its peculiar mission for a moment. Try to imagine cases where their position would be plausible. No university would want to appear to endorse genocide: a KKK chapter, even if it disavowed the aims of the national organization, could reasonably be denied support because the association of the university with white supremacism is odious enough to overwhelm any mitigation a disavowal could provide.

Liberty University’s view, then, is that association with the national Democratic party, or more precisely with an organization espousing the positions it finds odious, tinctures it with so great a taint that even at second hand no association can be tolerated.

That is the issue. People seem to want a more sensible basis on which to argue. There isn’t one, not here.

Update: The university has agreed to allow the Campus Democrats to be an “unofficial” club. They can use the University’s name and logo, but they must make it clear that they are not endorsed by the University. The College Republicans will be subject to the same condition. See Steve Benen at Washington Monthly, CNN, and

“We decided to go ahead and implement (the policy) as of today,” Falwell said Monday. “The (College) Republicans have been removed from official status and been moved to the new unofficial status that we just created.” […]
“We just decided, with our religious mission, it’s going to be a nightmare to try to figure out which candidates are in-line with our school’s mission and which ones aren’t. And we feel obligated to take the same approach with the Republican club as we do with the Democrat club.”

Christa Desrets, “Liberty University implements new political club policy”, Lynchburg News & Advance 22 Jun 2009

Sources
• Liberty University College Democrats, Facebook Page [viewed 29 May].
• Liberty University College Democrats, Home Page, [viewed 29 May].
• Ray Reed, “Kaine calls on LU to reconsider Democratic club ban”, Lynchburg News-Advance, 21 May 2009 (updated 4:15 p.m).
• Kevin Bondelli, “Liberty FAIL: Support the Right of Young Democrats to Exist at Liberty University”, Future Majority, 23 May 2009. [Includes the text of the letter sent by Hines to the College Democrats.]
• Dave Thompson, “Democrat club wary of Falwell offer”, Lynchburg News-Advance, 23 May 2009.
• Andrew Cain, “Liberty decision to pull Democratic club unleashes backlash”, News Virginian (Waynesboro), May 23, 2009.
• Jerry Falwell Jr., “Op/Ed: Media Has Misrepresented Controversy Over Club, Falwell Jr. Says”, Lynchburg News-Advance, 24 May 2009.
• Jerry Falwell, Jr, “Media’s misrepresentation of club controversy”, Liberty Journal, May 24, 2009.
• Darrell Laurant, “Shouldn’t be a mystery why Liberty University nixed club”, Lynchburg News-Advance, 24 May 2009.
• Ray Reed, “Liberty University Democratic club working to regain status”, Lynchburg News-Advance, 26 May 2009.
• Ray Reed, “Group asks IRS to review Liberty University’s tax-exempt status”, Lynchburg News-Advance, 27 May 2009.
• Ray Reed, “Falwell seeks apology from Democrats club”, Lynchburg News-Advance, 27 May 2009.
• Angela Hatcher, “Liberty University expects apology from College Democrats”, Lynchburg News-Advance, May 27, 2009.
• Ray Reed, “Liberty University Democratic club to apologize, try to regain status”, Lynchburg News-Advance, May 27, 2009.
• Lee Sandy, “Liberty’s College Democrats are ‘Up-and-Coming’”, Liberty University Champion, Apr 7, 2009.
• University Advancement staff, “LU officials meet with College Democrats”, Liberty University Journal, May 28, 2009.
• Ron Chusid, “Liberty University Bans Democratic Club”, Liberal Values, 23 May 2009.
• Americans United for Separation of Church and State, “IRS Should Review Liberty University’s Tax-Exempt Status For Partisan Politicking, Says Americans United”, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 27 May 2009.
• [ ], “Liberty University as Bob Jones University — Can the IRS Strip Tax-Exempt Status for Revoking Recognition of Democratic Club?”, TaxProf Blog, 25 May 2009.
• Barry Lynn [Americans United], “Letter to Lois G. Lerner [Director Exempt Organizations Division, IRS]”, 27 May 2009.
• University Advancement Staff, “Liberty Counsel to file complaint against Americans United for Separation of Church and State”, Liberty University News & Events, 28 May 2009.
• scarce, “Liberty University bans Democrats”, Crooks and liars, 23 May 2009.
• PZ Myers, “‘Liberty’ University really ought to look at the first word in their name”, Pharyngula, 22 May 2009.
• Ed Brayton, “Liberty University: No Democrats Here!”, Dispatches from the culture wars, May 26, 2009.
• Liberty Counsel, “University Reverses Policy and Allows Religious Clubs to Base Decisions on Religion”, Liberty Counsel, 23 Jan 2009.
• [ ], “Liberty Counsel”, Wikipedia, 29 May 2009.

We read stuff

Current Affairs ·· More from May 2009

War

That Iraq thing is just not working out. Obama wants his own war. The situation in Pakistan is a mortal threat to our security. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, we win yet more hearts and minds, thirty at a time. The future looks bright with our new general.

They torture, we interrogate.

“CIA Torture Program Architect Was Unqualified”. Somehow this doesn’t surprise me. Everybody was either incompetent or corrupt.

Finance

Not everybody was a fool when it came to deregulating the banks.

The pension fund scandal in New York ought to make David Broder happy: it’s a bipartisan effort.

Banks fail stress tests, win lots more money.

We’re having trouble selling bonds.

Climate

For a planet in peril, what could be better than a tepid compromise?

Say goodbye to the Carteret Islands.

Art

Goths galore at Disneyland.

Mother’s a bit tipsy.

“Morgenrot” by Haushka.

Neither death nor taxes

High-speed rail from Vancouver to San Diego!

Will we still need books? Egghead says yes.

Fox’s audience is aging. This would be funnier if I was younger.

What to learn if you want to become a physicist, and what to read.

Calculus book funds fancy house, concert hall.

We read stuff

Current Affairs ·· More from May 2009

Don’t worry: earnings are better than expected. Nothing but blue skies ahead.

Plus ça change

Obama’s new guy in Afghanistan set up a torture camp in Iraq. He denied access to the Red Cross. He was in charge of Iraq’s version of the Phoenix program, the purpose of which was the covert killing of people regarded as “insurgents”. He was part of the coverup of Pat Tillman’s death.

The opium trade in Afganistan is flourishing again. For some reason, Karzai’s brother wants to keep this good news secret.

You get the feeling that other than blowing things up and torturing people, the US Army hasn’t had much to do lately. But they are good at blowing things up.

Of course it doesn’t help that the people in charge don’t have a plan. (“Firing the field commander” is not a plan. It is, however, one of the Stages of Failed Foreign Interventions. In Pakistan, we are still on one of the early steps, roughly the Diem stage, supporting—or coercing—the government in its attempts to eradicate “militants”.)

Even more change

Obama’s new head of the DoJ Environment and Natural Resources Division is a lawyer for GE.

The chairman of the NY Fed, who has now resigned, had an interest in Goldman Sachs. It paid off: the 37,300 shares he bought in December have increased in value by $1.7 million.

Some see a problem. But I thought that abusing offshore tax havens was of the very essence of free trade.

Not corrupt

Joanna Lumley goes to bat for the Gurkhas.

The NYT goes to Toronto. Strange how every town looks like every other town in articles like this.