Robert Reich's Reason : A Terse Review

Amazon.com: Books: Reason : Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America

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I've just finished Robert Reich's book "Reason". With a title like that (Coulter's "Treason" without the "T") I couldn't resist the impulse buy.

It's a quick and fun read. The bottom line is that Reich is trying to resurrect (recreate?) both the American Liberal (meaning something close to what The Economist means by Liberal -- the 19th century enlightened rationalist) and the Democratic Party as the party of Liberalism.

His key points are:

1. Evangelicals and right wing white conservatives have a fairly severe hang-up about anything to do with human sexuality coupled with a less public fear of "immigrant invasion" as well.

2. Neocons shares some of the same sexual hang-ups, so they were able to forge a solid alliance with the evangelicals. They express outrage about many things, but the outrage outrage is readily reducible to sex and taxes.

3. Neocons are still reacting to the 1960s, where they missed out on the orgies. The "Left" of the 60s has disappeared, but the Neocons keep trying to resurrect the Hippie corpse.

4. The Right's language of outrage can be smoothly and properly applied to the excesses of Wall Street, the scamming of the naive investor (pension and mutual funds), and the epidemic corruption of American politics.

5. The Evangelical/Neocons are now harvesting the fruits of a 20 year program to advance their agenda at every level of government and social organizations, with funding from amoral, shortsighted, egomaniac billionaires with sexual hang-ups.

6. The Evangelical-Neocons justify their actions by recreating Spencer's Social Darwinism -- last popular in the 19th century Gilded Age. By their "Values" Wealth is the best measure of Virtue (either God's Virtue or the Market's Virtue -- depending personal preference). Thus a wealthy man is by definition virtuous and to be applauded, and a poor man is by definition sinful and ought to be ignored (or euthanized). The means by which one acquires wealth, whether by birth, industry, talent, luck or theft is irrelevant. (Credit to my wife, Dr. E.L., for noting the irony of Evangelical Social Darwinism.)

7. The Democratic Party is in awful shape; fractious and demoralized. Democrats come together briefly for Presidential elections then fall apart. The Unions have no future. The Party must be reinvented.

8. Traditional (respectable) conservatives (John McCain, Gerald Ford, even GB I, etc) are in even worse shape than the Democratic party.

9. There's no "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" -- but there might as well be. The action of individuals advancing their own interests without regard to ethics or a sustainable future, combined with the Puritanical obsessions of the social conservatives and the consolidation of the media around right wing owners, has produced the functional equivalent of the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy".

10. The US will always be a two party system -- barring radical change to the constitution. Change must occur within the structure of the two parties.

11. Globalization, on balance, is a very good thing for the world and for American security and prosperity. Protectionism would be a disaster, and, in any event, what globalization did not displace technology would.

11. The middle class of the late 20th century is disappearing. Symbolic analysts (aka knowledge workers) are becoming the only true middle class. Manufacturing is disappearing in the US, and manufacturing workers are being forced into the service economy. Service economy wages are stagnant due to increasing competition, and overall non-symbolic-analyst workers are moving into the lower class (near-poverty or poverty wages. This group lives on the edge of disaster.

12. Progressive taxation is just -- "equal pain" rather than "equal proportion".

13. The best way to deal with the stresses of globalization and especially with the stresses induced by technological transformation, is training and education -- not redistribution of income.

14. Early education and training is the answer to most social problems, with the right training and education almost everyone can have a good future in an American with a strong moral core and honest government. (Implicit in much of Reich's writing is an assumption that environment is the main determinant of human behavior, and altering environment is the key to improving people's behavior and improving social justice.)

What do I agree with?

Items number 1-12 with a major caveat on item #10 (globalization). I think Reich underestimates the "threat" of outsourcing to his vaunted symbolic-analysts. In contrast to manufacturing, this group is threatened much more by outsourcing than by the direct effects of technological transformation.

What do I disagree with?

Items 13 and 14; specifically the unstated but implicit thesis that a human is almost entirely the product of his environment.

Ironically Reich is indeed the product of his environment here -- when he went through college it was utterly forbidden to raise the possibility that human capacities and behaviors were constrained by genetics, biology, or anything but the post-natal environment. Reich is persisting in the 19th century belief that humans are fundamentally malleable -- at least when young.

Most of the research of the past 10-20 years points to a more complex picture. Temperament appears to be almost entirely genetically determined, but temperament can be altered by medications -- a form of environmental influence. Character, arguably of greater import than temperament, can be influenced by the post-natal environment.

Genetics and intrauterine environment appear to set "upper levels" for most human potentials, but on the other hand few people really push the limits of their potential. Training cannot restore lost sight, but training can allow a blind person to read. An Aspergergian is unlikely to be the life of the party, but Apsergians may train to "fake" many social interactions.

And yet ... all the work and cross-training in the world would never have made me a concert pianist or an NFL linebacker. (Of course with the "right" course of drugs perhaps the latter might have been attainable ...)

The making of a person is complex, and technologies are shifting the nature-nurture borders, but the evidence is strong that humans are not endlessly malleable. This is an increasing problem, because 21st century America rewards a fairly narrow range of workers. In the new-world, many of the old-middle class may not have a happy home -- no matter how hard they retrain. In a fundamental way, many Americans may be "disabled" for the modern workplace.

Reich should not be so quick to write-off redistributive solutions. We will need some creative thinking to produce a healthy American when the true "disability" rate starts to top 30%.

Otherwise -- a great book. Highly recommended.

Sad days at the NYT

The New York Times > Week in Review > The Public Editor: Weapons of Mass Destruction? Or Mass Distraction?

Readers were never told that Chalabi's niece was hired in January 2003 to work in The Times's Kuwait bureau. She remained there until May of that year.

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I've read Raines fascinating but self-serving essay on the Times (The Atlantic). The coverage of Iraq adds a new angle. Personally I've been frustrated by the awful job the Times has done with Al Gore, with the Bush election, and with the Bush regime since then. Krugman, DeLong and others have pointed to a desire within the Times to cultivate relations with the ruling party.

It's a fairly consistent picture of a troubled newspaper.

Abuse of civilians by occupying forces -- same old, same old

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Military: Army Is Investigating Reports of Assaults and Thefts by G.I.'s Against Iraqi Civilians

WASHINGTON, May 30 — The Army is investigating at least two dozen cases in which American soldiers are accused of assaulting civilian Iraqis or stealing their money, jewelry and other property during raids, patrols and house-to-house searches, senior Defense Department officials said Sunday.

In some instances, investigators say, soldiers were reported to have stolen cash from Iraqis they stopped at roadside checkpoints, apparently under the pretext of confiscating money from suspected insurgents or their financial backers.

The Army's Criminal Investigation Command is also examining at least six cases in which soldiers on missions reportedly kicked, punched or beat civilian Iraqis, or fired their weapons near the Iraqis to scare or intimidate them.

Those statistics and broad descriptions are included in an internal summary prepared earlier this month by the investigation command at the request of senior Army officials who are struggling to understand the scope of mistreatment and potential crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq beyond the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and other Army-run detention sites.

... The Army has acknowledged it is investigating 37 deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan involving prisoners in American custody. Other confidential Army documents have chronicled a widespread pattern of abuse involving prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan that implicates more military units than previously known.

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I read of this last year, during a time when Iraqi's were blogging pretty actively. It sounded like theft of liquor, household goods, money, etc was pretty common. Sometimes there was internal conflict; some officers and soldiers forced others to return stolen goods.

I suspect by historical standards our forces aren't doing badly, but the standards of occupying forces are pretty low. If we'd had enough forces in place, with appropriate force protection, rest, supply and troop rotation, I think we'd have done a lot better.

On the erosion of privacy in the Reign of George the Feckless

Department of Justice brief, Opposition to Northwestern's Motion to Quash Subpoena, Nat'l Abortion Fed'n v. Ashcroft, No. 04 C 0055 (N.D. III)

There is no federal common law physician-patient privilege… In light of modern medical practice and third party payors, individuals no longer possess a reasonable expectation that their histories will remain completely confidential.'

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I wrote about this in May of 1996, about 8 years ago today.

If you know enough, it's not that hard to build a nuclear bomb -- less the fissile material

Report Urges Tighter Nuclear Controls (washingtonpost.com)

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. wondered aloud one day in 2002 whether someone could build an atomic weapon from parts available on the open market. His audience, the leaders of the government's nuclear laboratories, said it could be done.

Then do it, the Delaware Democrat, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, instructed the scientists in a confidential session. A few months later, they returned to the soundproof Senate meeting room with a workable nuclear weapon, missing only the fissile material.

'It was bigger than a breadbox and smaller than a dump truck, but they were able to get it in,' Biden said in a recent speech. The scientists 'explained how -- literally off the shelf, without doing anything illegal -- they actually constructed this device.'

The relative ease with which U.S. scientists built an explosive nuclear weapon illustrates the need to secure plutonium and highly enriched uranium scattered in armories and research sites around the world, a pair of Harvard University researchers argue in a new study that contends the Bush administration is not doing enough.

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A SUV bomb that levels a city. This isn't all that new. I recall reading in the NYT a year or two ago that even smaller weapons were no longer extraordinarily difficult to construct, though for smaller weapons I gather the parts are not so easily obtained.

Technology marches on. Today it takes experts a bit of time. Five years from now it takes lesser experts less time. Ten years from now it's a high school project. How well can we do locking up all fissile material?

Then one day a fusion bomb becomes relatively easy to build.

Bush is fighting yesterday's wars with yesterday's methods.

A hero for Iraq?

U.N. Closes In on Choice To Lead Iraq (washingtonpost.com)

Shahristani, who has a doctorate in nuclear chemistry from the University of Toronto, served as chief scientific adviser to Iraq's atomic energy commission until 1979, when Hussein became president. When he refused to shift from nuclear energy to nuclear weaponry, he was jailed. For most of a decade, he was in Abu Ghraib prison, much of it in solitary confinement. He escaped in 1991 and fled with his wife and three children to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and, eventually, Iran, where he worked with Iraqi refugees. He later moved to Britain, where he was a visiting university professor.

But unlike other exiles, Shahristani was not active in opposition parties, choosing instead to focus on humanitarian aid projects. He does, however, have a critical connection: He is close to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's most powerful Shiite cleric, whose support is essential for the viability of an interim government.

Shahristani, who has described himself as an adviser to Sistani, said he has met with the ayatollah several times since the fall of Hussein's government. Shahristani said Sistani has played a 'very, very constructive' role in Iraq over the past year. Iraqi officials familiar with Brahimi's mission said Shahristani's lack of political affiliation could be an asset, allowing him to serve as a bridge between various factions.

Shahristani crossed into Iraq two days before Hussein fell to deliver aid to the city of Karbala. Since then, he has divided his time between Karbala and the southern port of Basra, working on humanitarian projects in both places.

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If this guy is for real, maybe he could run for President in the US when he's finished his stint in Iraq.

If he does take the job from hell, Bush should transfer his secret service detail to Shahristani and make do with second stringers.

Is it only from Hell that heroes come?

Rumsfeld and the Chalabi raid

Mark A. R. Kleiman: Chalabi quiz answer

... The most embarassing element of the Chalabi raid is that Secretary Rumsfeld denied any advance knowledge of it, apparently truthfully. As Thomas and Hosenball tell the story in Newsweek, the rage in the uniformed ranks against the DoD top civilian leadership is so profound that the commanders on the ground in Baghdad didn't bother to buck the decision up the line before going along with Paul Bremer's decision to conduct the raid.

If you didn't pick the correct answer, consider finding a handbook of military science and looking in the index under 'Command, chain of.' If the possibility that the uniformed folks have decided to disregard the wishes of the SecDef doesn't send chills down your spine, then try a political science textbook under 'Military, civilian control of.'

Zip-Linq cable for CLIE TJ-27 sync and USB charging

Google Search

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I bought the cable (two of 'em) from PC Connection. They charge my TJ-27 quite nicely.

Slaying the digital messen ger...

NEWS.com.au | Rumsfeld bans camera phones (May 23, 2004)

MOBILE phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, The Business newspaper reported today.

Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.

'Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq,' it said, adding that a 'total ban throughout the US military' is in the works.

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When the story first broke I predicted that a ban on digital cameras would be the major outcome.

Bush and bicycles

CNN.com - Bush falls on bike ride - May 22, 2004

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The picture of Bush post-bike fall, boarding his plane, is the only one I've seen that doesn't make my teeth itch. He actually looks like a human being.

He was on a 17 mile back country ride. One suspects this is not his first outing on a bike, but this is the first anyone's heard of it. Bike riding is "fey" and suspect in Texan culture, and in southern culture in general. I doubt that many Bush voters have been on a bicycle as an adult.

So this is actually interesting. Interesting because Bush turns out to have a minor dark secret, and interesting that his campaign decided to go public now. It wasn't staged, but I suspect Rove is on the lookout for anything that "humanizes" a (legitimately) demonized figure. Bush's base is so solid it won't hurt to expose more some predilections that the Bush base might consider peculiar or worrisome.

Iran wins the Nobel Prize of Spycraft

New York City - World News

... Chalabi had long been the favorite of the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Intelligence sources say Chalabi himself has passed on sensitive U.S. intelligence to the Iranians.

Patrick Lang, former director of the intelligence agency's Middle East branch, said he had been told by colleagues in the intelligence community that Chalabi's U.S.-funded program to provide information about weapons of mass destruction and insurgents was effectively an Iranian intelligence operation. 'They [the Iranians] knew exactly what we were up to,' he said.

He described it [Iran's black op] as 'one of the most sophisticated and successful intelligence operations in history.'

'I'm a spook. I appreciate good work. This was good work,' he said.

An intelligence agency spokesman would not discuss questions about his agency's internal conclusions about the alleged Iranian operation. But he said some of its information had been helpful to the U.S. 'Some of the information was great, especially as it pertained to arresting high value targets and on force protection issues,' he said. 'And some of the information wasn't so great.

...n 1995, for instance, Khidhir Hamza, who had once worked in Iraq's nuclear program and whose claims that Iraq had continued a massive bomb program in the 1990s are now largely discredited, gave UN nuclear inspectors what appeared to be explosive documents about Iraq's program. Hamza, who fled Iraq in 1994, teamed up with Chalabi after his escape.

The documents, which referred to results of experiments on enriched uranium in the bomb's core, were almost flawless, according to Andrew Cockburn's recent account of the event in the political newsletter CounterPunch.

But the inspectors were troubled by one minor matter: Some of the techinical descriptions used terms that would only be used by an Iranian. They determined that the original copy had been written in Farsi by an Iranian scientist and then translated into Arabic.

And the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded the documents were fraudulent.'

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I'm sure Iran provided great Intel on the individuals they needed to eliminate. Old, old civilizations are very good at the great game, and Persia is among the very oldest. Americans, it appears, are naifs.

Next we'll realize that Syria also excels at spycraft.

Eventually someone will chase down France's involvement. Did they try to warn the US that Iran was playing us for a fool? I suspect they might have, and that they were ignored. Same goes for the AEA -- I bet they were concerned about what Chalabi was up to.

Does Rumsfeld ever wonder where he went wrong? Nyah.

Chalabi -- you can't buy allies like this ...

CBS News | Ahmad Chalabi's Fall From Grace | May 21, 2004 20:25:02

Senior U.S. officials have told 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl that they have evidence Chalabi has been passing highly classified U.S. intelligence to Iran. The evidence shows that Chalabi personally gave Iranian intelligence officers information so sensitive that if revealed it could, quote, 'get Americans killed.' The evidence is said to be 'rock solid.'

On Friday, Stahl reported that senior intelligence officials stress the information Ahmad Chalibi is alleged to have passed on to Iran is of such a seriously sensitive nature, the result of full disclosure could be highly damaging to U.S. security. The information involves secrets that were held by only a handful of very senior U.S. officials, says Stahl.

Meanwhile, Stahl reports that 'grave concerns' about the true nature of Chalabi's relationship with Iran started after the U.S. obtained 'undeniable intelligence' that Chalabi met with a senior Iranian intelligence, a 'nefarious figure from the dark side of the regime - an individual with a direct hand in covert operations directed against the United States.'

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I bet CBS doesn't get any questions at the next Bush news conference.

Presumably Chalabi blew the cover on US spies in Iran.

So what's with 60 Minutes? Are these guys planning to go into new careers?

Opera and Theater post-Iraq

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: May 16, 2004 - May 22, 2004 Archives

Who could miss the duet between Chalabi and Ali Khamenei in which the dark secret is revealed or Richard Perle's haunting, despairing aria at the beginning of the final act, in which this hawk of hawks, friend of Israel, swordsman against terror, and deacon in the high church of moral clarity confronts the shattering truth that he's played the cat's paw for what the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to this just-released article from Newsday, has determined was (horribile dictu!) actually a front for Iranian intelligence.

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Satire from the Onion, plays about Abu Ghraib, opera on Chalabi. Bush is doing far more for the arts than the "liberal" NEA ever could.

Chalabi entered MIT at age 16 and has a PhD in math. He's also drawn to intrigue, manipulation and power. He out-IQs Cheney, Bush et al by at least 30 points. What an extraordinary character. Kudos to Iran for a double hitter -- removing their great enemy in Iraq and helping the US shoot itself in the foot, knee and abdomen.

In an internet world, it's easy to get sloppy with information

Body Glove Technology Accessories

I had to track down the manufacturer's site to learn that body glove cell phone covers come with a belt clip. The generic description, provided by the manufacturer, omits that key informaton.

Implantable RFIDs for nightclub VIPs

Boing Boing: Implantable RFIDs for nightclub VIPs

Club kids who want VIP status at the popular Baja Beach Club in Barcelona can now get implanted with a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. For 25 euro, customers can have an Applied Digital Solutions VeriChip, the size of a grain of rice, injected into his or her upper arm. Makes it easier to run a tab.

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I wonder if this is true, but it will happen for real sooner or later. Kids, with their odd aesthetics, will go first.

I used to defend privacy, but it was a losing fight. Now I'm a charter member of the 'Transparent Society'. Next will come my chip. Although maybe I'm too old ...