I have concluded that it is the culmination of several problems.  One is the general shift to the Right that has been going on in America for the past 30 years.  On top of this, the general tactic of the American Right is downright frustrating, seemingly on purpose.

First of all, I don’t know how many times I have to point out that Barack Obama is not “far Left” or a “Socialist” or anything extreme in any context.  If one were to go to Political Compass, it’s pretty clear where Obama stands… pretty centered.  He’s more conservative than the Labour Party and as authoritarian as the Conservatives in the UK.  (Less authoritarian than any GOP candidate, aside from Ron Paul.)  Obama has even moved farther right since 2008.  Yet, the Conservatives continue to claim he is a “radical.”  Yes, if Reagan was also a radical.

There is a constant distortion of the issues.  This makes any semblance of a coherent ideology almost impossible. They claim to want a small government, but turn around and want the government to dictate which people can be married.  They want freedom of religion, as long as everyone is a Christian.  They want lower taxes but they want to decrease debt.  They want to “take America back” to a period of unprecedented wealth, but they want to ignore all the tax rates and policies of that time period.  They talk about fairness in tax code, but they don’t want to close loopholes that allow the wealthy to pay lower taxes.

Half of the claims made by the new Right are baseless.  This whole Libertarian, Alex Jones conspiracy nonsense is dangerous… I see what the Libertarian newsletters say… it’s all hyperbole.  The economy is going to collapse and we are going to be living in Mad Max world… so stockpile guns and food.  If that is what you are anticipating, why should you be allowed to make any policy decisions?

My constant defense of President Obama is often taken to be support of President Obama.  This is not the reality.  I criticise this president all the time, but with valid criticisms.  I want to talk about policy, not about if Barack Obama was born in Kenya or is a radical socialist… because that is just hyperbolic distortion.  The only reason I tend to side with Democrats or President Obama is because they are the only legitimate counter to the current Right Wing extremists in America.

What resource has this president nationalised?  The only thing close to socialism this president has done is the Affordable Care Act… which is the most business friendly health care act in the Western world.

A woman testifies that birth control can effectively be used to control uterine cysts… and she is called a “slut” for wanting her health insurance carrier to pay for treatment that some churches disagree with… really?

And then, when people question the president’s nationality, and we ask why… we are told that we are making distortions.  I’m trying my best to find coherent ideology on the Right, and none of it is plain.  None of it is open. Hidden under all these layers of hyperbolic subterfuge is this ideology of supply-side economics… a failed economic ideology… and moral legislation.  Maybe they don’t want us to be able to see it plainly because it resembles fascism so much.

All I know is that when you put all these distortions together, you just get static.  The American Conservative today runs on a platform of white noise.  How do you debate that?

First, I really want to say that I really hope people really just want Zimmerman (the shooter) to have his day in court.  If we just want to go after George Zimmerman in a wave of “street justice,” we are no better than what we accuse Zimmerman of doing.  We should not want “retribution” or “revenge” in the name of “Justice.” None of this will bring back Trayvon Martin.

Also, i really wish the conversation would stop straying from the topic at hand.  I feel the hoodies and the individuality of this instance are overshadowing the true problem here.  Zimmerman shot and killed Martin and was not even charged by the police.  All over America, Black males being murdered seems to illicit much less concern than anyone else being murdered.  Every time a Black male is killed, people have to speak up and point out that he was not a criminal or immoral person.  Why?  The issue at hand is that murder is illegal.  Do we really want to start placing levels of value on person’s murdered?

So, yes, this is bigger than Trayvon.  It’s about everyone in America having equal protection under the law.  It should not matter the colour of a person or their social status as to how much we care about their murder.

The other issue I see in this is the right of George Zimmerman to own a handgun.  Is this what was in the Second Amendment?  I don’t see it.  Many of the defenders of the “Second Amendment” point out the text of the second amendment.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Everyone seems to want to ignore sections of this text.  The NRA types want to ignore the text that says “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state…”  This has nothing to do with George Zimmerman, especially in context of when this amendment was written.  In the 1700′s, the contrast to a militia military was a professional military.  George Zimmerman is not defending the United States from anything.  Neither is someone who wants to shoot deer or rabbits in Montana, nor someone who feels safer from home invasion by having a gun in their nightstand.

The murder of Trayvon Martin brings a culmination of contemporary issues in America to the forefront.  One is definitely the issue of race, which some GOP candidates and pundits want to decry.  The truth is that Trayvon was murdered because he was Black and Zimmerman was not arrested immediately because he shot someone who was Black.  This is not new.  From Henry Louis Gates’  arrest in his own home to the murder of Amadou Diallo, Shawn Bell, and even Emmitt Till, Black males have been being treated as second class citizens in America.

Farther, how many of America’s children need to be shot before we realise where these “gun rights” get us.  Can anyone name me one civilian with a gun that has defended the United States from foreign or domestic threats to the nation since the Civil War?  When looking at gun violence in the United States and comparing it to other modern polities, it only compares to countries like Columbia.  Is that our goal?  To keep shooting each other?

I need to do another draft of this… I recognise that.  I have just been really busy and not writing lately and felt the need to do something on here.

Google

Only, this is pure hyperbole.  What Google is doing is what companies have been doing as long as they have figured out how to do it – target customers/users.  Google provides a ton of free services.  Gmail, Google+, Google Maps, Google Earth, YouTube… the tradeoff is that they want to advertise products to us to pay for these services.

First of all:  Guess what.  Nothing you do on your computer is “private.”  I worked in the IT field for a while.  The general rule is “Do not email something you wouldn’t want your mother to see.”  Because, guess what else.  Someone could probably be reading it.  Unless you work for a top level government agency with extremely high levels of encryption, any number of people could have access to your information.  Farther, the people that manage the service you are using still have access to your email.  Even if you are an agent for the CIA’s Clandestine Operations, the IT people have access to your private email.  How do you think the email gets from your computer to another one?

Second, why do you think anyone gives a shit about what you do?  Are you really that interesting?  Why does anyone care that you were doing cocaine with two transexual prostitutes in a Super 8 on Friday evening?  Because you might get ads for an STD test or Super 8 coupons?  Or because you are embarrassed that people know this about you even though they don’t give a shit about you?

Here’s a tip:  If you don’t want people to know something about you, don’t tell anyone.  It’s not like Google or Facebook or Apple goes into your home and gathers personal information about you when you don’t want them to do so.  They aren’t talking to your former friends and relatives to uncover your past… they are using the information that you typed and put on the internet in the first place.

I also find it rather odd that so many Libertarians and Conservatives don’t see the predicament they are in.  On one hand, they tend to be all involved in “personal freedom” and “individual liberty.”  On the other hand, Google is not a government agency.  It is a private company offering a service.  If people don’t like their terms, they do not have to use the service.  ”Free Market Principles.”  Or only when it suits you?

Let’s be brutally honest.  I really am tired of getting emails about replica rolex watches, Viagra from Canada, discounted lumber, and a plethora of things I will never consume.  I would be delighted to get targeted ads on Karl Marx t-shirts or atheist Children’s books… much more than ads for celebrating the Tea Party Patriots and Rick Santorum.

We live in a society rife with hyperbole.  This is not “big brother.”  This is not an erosion of privacy.  This is Google trying to remain competitive in a capitalist society.

Know your meme

OUTSOURCING JOBS IS GOOD FOR THE AMERICAN ECONOMY!

also

PEOPLE WANT THE BENEFITS OF CAPITALISM WITHOUT ANY CONSEQUENCES!

There.  I said it.

The complaint is that there are not enough jobs in the United States (and many European countries) and companies are sending jobs overseas.  Some things I no longer have to clarify due to the nature of the news cycle.  I had originally broken down how much these jobs pay but so many news stories have broken about the pay rates at Foxconn that this is no longer necessary.

I do believe that many people who have strong opinions about the situation of outsourced labour have a purely emotional response.  It is this drive to resent the “other” and attach negative feelings on outsiders.  When looking at the employment situation many aspects need to be considered.  There is the aspect of Cost of Living (not CPI) and wages, economic theory, international relations, technology… it is terribly complicated.  So, why the insistence that “Outsourcing is the problem” when analysing the employment situation?

Let’s look at this rationally:  Foxconn employees make 31 cents an hour to assemble the iPhone.  They work 12 hours a day, six days a week.  I have heard the argument that American wages would only increase the cost of the product by 26%, but what most of these statements ignore is the situation that allows these phones to be assembled at such a high pace.  When Apple needs new glass for the front of their phone, Corning can supply them with new glass the same day in China… the Corning plant is there, too.  Most of the components are in Shenzen, or close to it.  The cost of shipping components around the world would start increasing costs exponentially.

What many seem to ignore is all the wealth generated for Americans from these products.  How many App Developers are now employed?  Regardless of what many people think, most Apps are not developed by a 14 year old in his bedroom… they are designed by professionals, often teams of professionals.  On top of that, what about all the jobs created by the iPhone itself?  What about the longshoremen that have to unload the shipments?  The truck drivers?  The train operators?  The store employees?  And then there are the repairs of iPhones… and on top of all of that, what about the designers?  Apple’s headquarters are in Cupertino, California.  What about all of the people that work there?

In essence, when people complain about the outsourced jobs… are they asking that the designers be in China and that America produce the “cheap labour” to assemble products?  The truth is… the world changed.  I’ve gone on before about this… how slave labour was more expensive than wage labour.  The antebellum South in the United States was really fighting to stop the world from changing, even though it already did.  They wanted to live in a pre-industrial society… how could they not?  They had invested everything into this pre-industrial plantation system and then the world says, “Oh, that’s too expensive, we found a better way.”

This is not a normative argument I am making.  This isn’t about what I find ethically better.  It’s not a claim of ethics in any way… it’s about economic prosperity.  That said, does the United States want to remain a manufacturer, or a producer?  This is the real decision we are presented with today.

The Fordist model is dead.  Americans need to realise, THEY DON’T NEED YOU TO BUY THEIR PRODUCTS ANYMORE!  There’s a global market now.  They can outsource consumers as well as manufacturers.  The model now is a global model of production and consumption.  If Americans want these production jobs to “come back” to America, that is plausible.

So, when BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Landrover, FIAT, Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, and every other company uses the United States to manufacture their products… all Americans will have employment.  Won’t it be great to make minimum wage to put filaments in flat screens all day?  Maybe if you work really hard, you can save up for four years and buy one of the products you helped put together.

Meanwhile, the engineers and executives of these companies will continue to generate increasing profits to their respective nations.

There is another option.

When a country invests in it’s own infrastructure it can yield a significant return.  That’s why it is called an investment.   We can look at a country like Germany and see a progressive tax rate that is between 0% and 45%.  (I could put a chart of that up, too, but let’s be honest… people who understand already understand.  People who are too daft to comprehend will ignore the chart, too.)  Germany also have government funded Research and Development.  They also have mandatory vacation time, universal health coverage, social safety nets… et al… This isn’t an advertisement for Germany, only a point that outsourcing and taxes are not the problem.  If these variables were the reason for the decline in American employment and wages, it would be seen more significant in countries such as Germany.  Instead, we see the opposite in Germany.  So, why are so many Americans and American politicians touting the governmental system of Somalia?

The truth of the situation with jobs and income in America is really an ugly truth that no one wants to acknowledge.  Instead we keep it under the stairs and ignore it.  Employers are happier than ever with the situation.  Right now, with so many people for every job, employers can select whomever they wish to employ and pay them whatever they wish and the people will thank them.  Meanwhile, incomes for the people on the top continue to grow exponentially.   Why would they want to “solve the job crisis”? They could easily do as much.  It’s like when that uncle that owns a store creates a job for his nephew.  The nephew needs a job and the uncle says, “I can pay him to do… [whatever].”

Like I have stated, this is not a normative claim.  This is not about personal value judgements.  What I see is a situation that will not change until an external variable shifts it.  We have been in this situation before.  (Insert Grapes of Wrath quotes, Mark Twain quotes, references to Robber Barons… et cetera)  Last time, the variable was a mixture of labour riots and World War II.  What is going to change things this time?  Do we have to keep on waiting for the world to change?

The question people need to ask is not, “Who is going to bring back the outsourced jobs to America?” but “Who is going to invest in education and make more American innovators in the economy?”  or “Are we going to let Europe and Asia take over the market in IT jobs, engineers, developers and science technology?”

Germany has cars that automatically avoid accidents when the driver is unable to do so.  They have parking garages that automatically park cars on their own.  We are arguing about bringing more jobs putting cheap phones together and flatscreen televisions?

I haven’t been writing much lately.  This is the second of the year.  Honestly, I feel a mixture of ennui and futility.  As I stated, it is disheartening that no one wishes to actually discuss anything.  Instead, everything is a matter of being correct by default… as if winning a debate made opposing views invalid or supported a specific view.  I wonder if you people think you can make gravity disappear from sheer rhetorical maneuvering.

A great example of this is the current plethora of diamond commercials that have this underlying message that, if you love someone, you need to buy them an expensive gift.  The nuance is there… but it is never too blatant.  (It has been getting more and more blatant every year.)  The overall message is to women:  If you husband/boyfriend/fiance/significant other really loves you, he’ll buy you diamonds… otherwise, he doesn’t love you enough.

One tactic that is driving me crazy, especially during this GOP primary madness, is the nuance.  The Conservatives are becoming masters of it.  I truly believe the ultimate intent is to frustrate any opposition into submission.

The most obvious example of this is the constant harping on the name “Barack Hussein Obama.”  When people say, “President George W. Bush” or “President George Herbert Walker Bush” it is because there are two of them.  Why the insistence on calling President Obama by his full name?  So I don’t get him confused with all the other President Obamas?  (There’s a Luo joke in there but I’ll let it go.)   Or even all the other Barack Obamas?

No.  They have to mention the middle name to infer the Islamic relevance.  As if a name was a true indicator of someone’s allegiances or faith.  Does anyone really believe that every person with an Islamic name is a Muslim?  Or everyone with a Christian name is a Christian?  Is everyone with a Judaic name a Jew?  The nuance is that President Obama is a Muslim, or UnAmerican.  Dance around it all you want… but when you target the American President for having a non-Anglo name and appearance, the implication is one of racism.

We see this in a lot of GOP propaganda, especially as elections draw near.  The concept of the “Welfare Queen” . . . the nuance is there.  I find this happens a lot when people complain about “rap music.”  They talk about hip hop/rap as being pro-drugs, violent, misogynistic, and criminal.  What does that really mean?

Seriously… Is New Order a rap group? What about The Crystal Method?  I could really go down a list of pro-drug groups that are not rappers.  And there are a million examples of every instance listed in almost every genera. I could also name a list of dozens of rap groups that do not endorse this behaviour… from Public Enemy to Talib Kweli to Pharaohe Monch to The Roots…   What is the real problem?  It is the perception that rap music is predominantly Black and that Black people typically indulge in these behaviours.  The truth is that these behaviours and this music is not delineated along racial lines.  (There is a deeper issue as to who controls what music gets mainstream airplay and why any rap music that is not negative seems to be relegated to the underground, but that is for another time.)

The nuance is that Black Americans = criminals, welfare recipients, et al.  But they would not dare come right out and say it, would they?  Why?  I don’t know if we can really definitively say why… we could ask, but who knows if we will get the truth.  Is the truth that they know this is not a supportable claim?  Do they realise that if they come out and say it the opposition could point out why it’s wrong and then they would have to find something new?

This did not seem to stop the Birthers.  They still cling to the insane notion that President Obama is not an American citizen and there’s some dark conspiracy from the 1960s to put a United Kingdom Kenyan national in the presidency of the United States (I’m assuming to control the coffee cartels and avoid dependency on Columbian coffee cartels.)

From now on… there is no need to inform me that the “President Barack Obama” you are referring to is “Barack Hussein Obama” – I’ll assume that this is the Obama being referred to unless otherwise noted.  If you do mention President Obama with his middle initial, I will continue to just simply dismiss you as a racist.  (I do understand that anti-Muslim feelings are not quite the same as racism, but I’m willing to overlook the semantics to move on towards a real discussion, instead of rhetorical maneuvers with racists.)

For more information go here:  http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/2012115121928594335.html

While having a political discussion a bit of time ago, I came upon an instant realisation.  I already understood the concept and was well aware of it but never really felt it was quite so important.  What I realised is that many of these political discussions are being conducted from different perspectives.  While one side is attempting a dialectic, the other side is attempting a debate.

A brief overview, for those not immersed in political science, philosophy, or a similar discipline:

A dialectic is when several parties (2 or more) discuss their perspective and argue their points in a method of persuasion so that everyone involved can work together to uncover the truth.

A debate differs from a dialectic because each party (at least 2 parties) defend their viewpoints aggressively in an attempt to dismiss all other perspectives, or at least gain supremacy of their own perspective.  Typically a debate has a judge and there is often a winner with a prevailing point/perspective.

When I discuss a topic, my perspective is that of the dialectic method.  I welcome challenging viewpoints so that I can consider their merit and adjust my view accordingly.  I defend my perspectives in order to evaluate their own merit.  I’m not trying to “win.”  I’m not trying to make my perspective the only valid perspective.  I’m trying to uncover the truth, for myself and for others.

While both methods demand the members of discussion defend their perspectives, the dialectic and debate differ greatly.  In a basic sense, in a debate everyone is trying to win, but in a dialectic, everyone wins or loses.

Another area that I think is worthy of discussion is the difference between epistemology and ontology, as well as the difference between a positivist and a normative claim.  I think these differences are more dishonest, personally.  I find many people trying to pass normative claims as positivist claims and epistemological claims as ontological claims.  More often, a person counters one with the other.

In a nutshell:

Epistemology is the philosophy of the nature and scope of knowledge.

Ontology is the philosophy of existence.

Is this a steer?

There are many examples that contrast the differences of these claims.  Basically, ontology would say that this photo is a steer, and epistemology would ask how we know this is a steer and what makes it a steer.  To avoid issues of castration and genitals, we could also say:  Ontology says this is a bovine, epistemology asks how come this is a bovine and what makes it a bovine.

Positivism and normative claims are a bit simpler.  Basically, positivism claims that everything is scientific and/or mathematical.  That physical science can explain everything.  Normative claims are more broadly based on how things “ought to be” or how things “should” be.

For this new year, I am going to do my best to maintain the relevant perspective and take the time to separate when appropriate.  If I make a normative claim, I will not insist that it is a positivist claim.  I will not give an epistemological answer to an ontological question.  And I will not debate a point, but rather discuss it from a dialectic perspective.

Herman Cain is not even a legitimate candidate for President.  Neither is Perry or Bachmann.  But all of these people have been very successful in framing Mitt Romney as a reasonable and moderate candidate.  Will he be George Bush III?

OWS is heating up, with no one to guide the counter-hegemonic force… will it continue to grow?  Or is it just a reaction to the current state of affairs?  Personally, I find it is very similar to prewar Europe… especially prewar Germany.  Will the Brown Shirts win again?  How long before the Police and the Tea Party start to legitimize any opposition to their support of cultural dominance?

Is President Obama ever going to do anything from the Left?  Or will he continue to behave like Nixon and still be slandered as a “Far Left Socialist” – even though he is behaving like a classical Conservative?

I’ll try to add more in the near future.

Stay tuned . . .

Tea Party Birther's are not racist?

First, just to be critical, let’s look at the image.  What it is implying is that President Obama is a Kenyan citizen and not a valid president.  The innuendo in the image is quite obvious.  He is wearing a Kufi, which is often considered a Muslim hat, but is predominant in West African heritage (and African Americans).  It says “Africa Kenya” on the “Birth Certificate.”  There are bones on his necklace.  The Obama button is now earth tones, instead of Red, White and Blue.  The imagery is just degrading.

The Kufi is not a “Muslim” hat, but typically West African.  Kenya is in East Africa.  That does not mean they do not wear such adornments in Kenya, only that it is “stereotypical” of the West.  It would be similar to showing a Virginia teenager with a surfboard and a VW Bus.  Farther, the year Obama was born, Kenya was part of the United Kingdom.  The correct name of the country in 1961 was “Colony and Protectorate of Kenya.”  Prior to this, it was just officially called East Africa Protectorate, as part of British East Africa.

Then we get to those bones on the necklace.  This is just racist imagery.  The portrayal of the “African Savage.”  And is he sitting on hay?  I can’t even figure that one out.  How is this not a depiction of racism?  It demeans the character of the President of the United States because of the colour of his skin.  It attempts to invalidate he capabilities simply because he has a West African phenotype.

On Tuesday, a man was convicted in Knoxville, Tennessee of using a firearm with the intent to “create civil disorder.”  This man was incentivised by the ideology that President Obama is not an American born citizen.  People still believe this crap.  Why is this funny?  What year is this?

I have to say, as an American abroad, this is all highly embarrassing.  People from all over the world see this.  The sad twist is that they do not see President Obama as the one spiralling America into decline.  They see a racist population (possibly a minority of the population) doing whatever they can to make conditions so deplorable that the “black guy” gets out of office.  This is not just a British perception, or even just a European perception.  I have heard similar statements from Norwegians, Germans, Argentinians, British, Germans, Mexicans, Indians (South Asian), even Greek and Italians.  It is embarrassing to be compared to such nonsense.  And all this is doing is sliding the level of respect towards the United States downward.

Part of it may be the down side to the recognition that the election of Barack Obama received in the 2008 election.  It was a “Vote heard around the world.”  People rejoiced from Kenya to England to India to Brasil to Argentina to Turkey… it was a monumental step forward.  (I doubt the Chinese rejoiced, or even gave much thought to it.  I’m pretty sure, as a culture, the Chinese did not care much at all.)  The atmosphere of hope and belief in progress was palpable.  Then, the next few years came and went and we all got to see President Obama not be allowed to do anything.  (Best way I could construct that sentence.)  It is evident to everyone watching that the primary reason the President is facing such strong opposition is racism and reactionary fear.  The ideology doesn’t seem much to be opposed to, as President Obama has proposed very little in regard to “Far Left” policy.

Many are happy.  They are glad that the United States appears to have no reason to tell other, developing countries how to “behave.”  Also, the Tea Party has accomplished something fairly impressive:  They are internationally recognised.  People all over the world know who the Tea Party Movement is in America.  They also, pretty evenly, equate them with a reactionary and racist movement.

So, what is the intent of images such as the one above?  To incite violence?  To mock the president?  Or to damage the international integrity of the United States?  Whatever case:  Mission accomplished.

The image also solidifies one more thing:  The conviction that the Tea Party and the GOP are motivated, or at least utilising, racism as a primary motivation.  How can anyone claim that the Birther claims are not racist, when faced with the image above?

How does it feel that the whole world is casting dispersions aspersions and looking at you like a bunch of ignorant hicks?