Death and Dystopic Vision

Posted on January 4, 2008 by Thanos

A diatribe against the paranoid delusions of Hollywood.

Death and Dystopic Vision

Hollywood producers, directors, writers are full of fear. They are born and bred in a media environment full of fatalistic visions seething fear and paranoia. Most of them believe that no matter what, we are all doomed anyway. They completely understand M Night Shyamalan movie The Village because they live in that village.

History denies that we are doomed by any problem or conflict, since most great problems to date have been overcome, but Hollywood still holds to doom and nihilism like a dear but vampiric friend.

Jason always rises again, pinhead is indestructible, and all movies of the future are post-apocalyptic dystopic visions of anarchy and tyranny taken to extremes. (e.g. Soylent Green, Escape from New York, The Terminator, Logan’s Run, The Running Man, etc. – before you point out Star Wars I will remind you that wasn’t made in Hollywood, and Spielberg and Disney movies are not really Hollywood product either.)

Over time throughout the world everything has on average gotten better for all people. On average across all of the world today people are healthier, live longer lives, have more free time, and get better education. Yes, there are pitfalls, times and places when evil takes root and grows at times like now. Reason, liberty, technology, and common sense always overcome evil in the end and it’s not a fairy tale for it has happened time after time.

The Chechs in Prague in 1968 must have thought it was the end of all time, and for a few brave souls who loved freedom more than life it was. The remaining Chechs persisted, and over time evil wore away against the steady wash of free ideas from afar, and the evil of the Soviet Empire has since fallen to dust.

The trials of the murderous communists who created the killing fields of Cambodia had barely started when the perpetrators died. The Holocaust the Jews faced in Europe during the second world war was overcome by the might of righteous anger and freedom.

Given time and persistent opposition, not continuous appeasement, even radical and extreme Islam will fade. We must of course confront it – like the monster in the closet much of its myth will fade and the fear will go as the light of reason shines upon it.

Reason isn’t a tool Hollywood uses to light their visions, instead they illuminate their vision with inky dinks focused at the next car chase or semi-nude woman. This is a dangerous vision, one that presents a false America to the gullible across the globe, and one that savages the societal perceptions of our children. Dictators and tyrants world-wide are known for taking snippets from Hollywood movies and projecting them to their people as the “real America”.

To movie makers the exception is the rule so we have movies chock full of explosions, car chases, gunshots and murder aplenty, all set against a backdrop of bars, ghettos, gang-violence, and prisons. Parading through that are the evil protagonists, the bad guys; who almost invariably turn out to be the authorities, the government, or capitalist institutions we trust.

So when movies portray our government, our schools, our courts, and our institutions as the bad guys because Hollywood’s creative typists are too unimaginative or too fearful to use real protagonists, what’s the world to think? What do our children think?

Think on this: other than in movies and on TV, when was the last time you saw a gun drawn or pointed at someone in anger, much less fired? If you are an officer of the law or in the military then you might have, but if you are an average American it’s unlikely that you have seen such a thing in person. Think again: when have you seen a car blow up? When have you seen a car chase outside of the news or movies? When was the last time you saw a bad cop? Again, in Hollywood it’s the exception that rules.

A very long time ago I remember watching a movie that was a parody of teenage slasher horror movies. The only scenes from it that I remember are the ones where a bearded wild-eyed man would enter in from screen right and say in a sepulchral, knowing voice “We’re doomed. We are all doomed!” He makes this entrance several times in the movie, once even catching a speeding van in the rain while peddling furiously on a bicycle to utter his dire warning in a side window and each time he appeared it was ludicrously humorous.

That is how I think of the extreme left, the extreme right, and that is how I think of Hollywood. Underneath it all they think that we can’t defeat Terrorism, they believe that we are all doomed. They each want you to hide in their village, and let the evil in the woods tell us what to wear, what to think, whether that’s a color to avoid, or whether it’s a chador on all women. Underneath it all they think you have to be bad to defeat bad. They think you should worry about your own government, your neighbors, and everything else under the sun. Instead you should be enjoying life, and should be entertained with bright visions of our future rather than dark evil views of the worst case scenarios. It’s easier to write the latter, and harder to write the former – but it’s the former that is really closer to reality.

The right is exemplified by Ron Paul, he’s like that wild-eyed man peddling furiously just to tell us that no matter what we are all doomed. The left has settled down from their panicked days of 2006-2008 but even they still have their loons of doom.

It’s time to put the fear aside; we’ve had a full decade of doom and in reality the future is bright — but only if we put the fears, the wild eyes, and the hand wringing aside for reason.

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Immigration Retrospective

Posted on January 3, 2008 by Thanos

In May of ’06 I wrote this article on the immigration bill before Congress, and some of the things I worried about did come true. Immigration reform and fiscal carelessness became the two key issues that destroyed the marriage that Karl Rove built. More to come on that later, for now the immigration article.

“The line between good and evil runs through every human heart.” –Solzhenitsyn

Now that the Immigration bill is in committee and the senate has left the house to take the heat it’s time to assess best and worst-case scenarios. It’s unlikely at all that the amnesty program or “path to citizenship” will survive through the conference, but let’s for the moment assume it could get through and call that worst-case.

 What would best-case be then? That would be the straight house bill, with stricter border enforcement, and fines for business’ hiring illegal immigrants. Somewhere in the middle would be the house bill with an inclusion of a guest worker program.

All three solutions are problematic, and like any course taken each will present fresh challenges.

The electorate’s choice according to poll indications is for strict enforcement first  — however that full, strict enforcement would take significantly greater resources and taxes than we can contribute at just the federal level over the next 20 years. If local governments contribute to the effort the task becomes much less herculean, however there are some local governments which will fight this tooth and nail.

The middle course addresses the coming shortfall in workers as the baby-boomers retire, however what will be needed are more skilled, educated workers and fewer unskilled and uneducated workers. If clear measures are not taken to ensure that, then any guest worker program could cause more pain than worth. The solution of choice should not be to import poverty and dependency but should instead be to import valued workers who contribute much more than they burden. Otherwise the proposition doesn’t make sense for the US.

The last course of amnesty would prove disastrous to Republican control of the federal legislature, and would open the gates to further immigration law abuse. The american public is firmly opposed to this course.

Now for the worst news. None of these paths are sufficient to cure the problem. None of them will prevent us from meeting back on the same subject in five to ten years. This is a clear case where the Federal government is insufficient to the cause. Without state, city, and county support of the federal law, this bill becomes worthless paper as much as the last law was.

It is clearly in the citizen’s self-interest to ensure that measures are taken at all levels of goverment if we are to truly grapple and defeat this problem. It will take time, and concerted action by city, county, and state governments to deal with the current crop of Illegals. It will take all levels of government, process, and funding mechanisms between agencies to ensure continous enforcement over time.

If you want a secure, safe, country where opportunity is open to immigrants who purposefully choose to become American, then you need to continue to focus on all levels of government with this issue for the next two years. It is a bellweather issue, it is an issue that will last beyond the ‘08 elections, and it will have defining characteristics for all political parties.

One key thing to keep in mind: All Draconian measures will backfire. If harsh measures are taken against employers across the country all at once, then it would be a large blow to the economy, and many shareholder pocketbooks. This is the larger demon behind the curtain, the elephant in the room nobody speaks of. So penalties and measures against business’ employing illegals cannot crush them, however they must be enough to sting severely.

Beyond that lies the looming birth-rate gap — we are not replacing our population fast enough to fullfill the needs of the retirees we will have in a few years. I am not talking about the specious straw-man of immigrants contributing to social security. I refer instead to the large-scale maintenance needs of our physical infrastructure, and the new infrastructure needed to care for a large population of retirees.

If penalties against business are too harsh, then you will also find local law officials and municipalities unwilling to enforce the laws — besides the potential to impact local economies, they also have potential to lessen campaign contributions. If the penalties sting without maiming then they become enforceable.

Here’s why just walling the border will not work in and of itself, and why city, county, and state police and government agencies must help.

If treatment of the illegals is too harsh this will backfire as well. Many who feel firm now will quail before the hordes of MSM and liberal deportation horror stories to come. For make no mistake, in many cases enforcing this will drive a wedge into one of conservativism’s key values: Family Unity. Some families will be torn apart. The father or mother will be deported — so whatever the outcome of the conference committee two major conservative values will clash. With that said I refer you back to the quote at the start, and remind you that in the end all problems are solvable if one factor is patience, and the other persistence.

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Vacation Comes Again, Aussiegirl on Immigration

Posted on January 2, 2008 by Thanos

The next couple of weeks I will be on vacation, and somewhat incommunicado where I am going. So you will be getting a replay of articles that I’ve written through the time I’ve blogged, somewhat of a best of. I will be back the second or third week of January.

Here’s one of my favorite bloggers, who now is deceased. If you haven’t read Aussiegirl’s blog, I do recommend that you visit. Her friends and family keep it going as a memorial to her.

From May 2006:

Aussiegirl points out the tough new French Immigration legistlation. Will it take a thousand cars burning a night here in America before we wake up like they did? I certainly hope we aren’t as foolish as the French.

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Fear and Loathing in the Media

Posted on January 1, 2008 by Thanos

Since I wrote this, we’ve had the TNR / Scott Beachamp scandal, the false stringer from Iraq (Jamil Hussein, Bilal Hussein, take your pick,) Randi Rhodes fake mugging, and other journo slime revealed.

Americans witness the New York Times, Reuters, and CBS news with bemused horror, leviathans trapped in the primordal ooze of last century’s worldview while the nimble furry predators of the internet savage their dieing carcasses.

Death throes are always hideous but fascinating in a macabre way – while the media leviathans seem cornered many a hunter is fond of the maxim: a beast is most dangerous when it’s cornered. 

In today’s world of fragmenting journalism markets and shrinking news leviathans, it pays to scare thus the saying “if it bleeds it leads.”

Fear, Yellow journalism, sloth, and political ideology have combined to the point where you can no longer trust the Mainstream. Many will argue that it’s been that way a long time, however it’s grown worse lately.

Yesterday’s example of Reuter’s doctoring photos to make the scenes of damage from Beirut appear worse than they are is only the latest example.

This is because modern reporters are lazy ideologue sheep, easy tools for propagandists who know the bars they hang out at and who are willing to buy them a drink. Yes, that’s right — I am saying that most reporters are tools: drink-sluts who can be twisted very easily to any view by party aparatchniks. They are also lazy sods who know they can spend a bit more time at the bar rather than wearing out shoe leather or researching if they just take the handout the person buying the drink is pushing.

The problem with this is that we are at war, and the guy buying the drinks doesn’t have US interests in mind, the guy buying the drinks is aligned with murdering terrorists nowadays.

Once they’ve been fed the facts, the angle, the forged document, photo, or evidence the gullible sheep run back to the pen to bleat. Meanwhile the wolves grin.

The bleating sheep starts with the framing. In the old days who, what, when, where, were usually all in the first paragraph of most news stories. Now the first three paragraphs of many pieces are set up to tell you the “why” before any facts are presented, and “why” is subjective and emminently frameable.

Old school journalist’s believed in four things: research, shoe-leather, truth, and the five W’s – who, what, when, where, why. That was called realism, facts were presented from most important to least (imagine that, realism from a news agency!) In today’s mainstream the anti-establishment radicals of the sixties are now ensconced as the establishment, and the five W’s have been pared down to four, with Why becoming predominant.

Since “why” is always subjective to any observer, the “why” reporters come up with differs greatly from the “why” that an average person would reason from the base facts of any given story. The truth is also relative to today’s reporters, after all if you can’t deconstruct the story from the viewpoint of murdering terrorists, then you just aren’t morally relativistic enough to be a reporter and you’ll never get that pulitzer until you learn how.

So we have framing – framing gets you your Pulitzer, it gets you notice from your peers, and it now takes up the first three paragraphs of most stories to the detriment of real facts.

Framing is all about shaping and influencing the reader’s take on “why” by painting a gritty, angled view before presenting bare facts. It’s putting sheep’s clothing on wolves, it’s painting the media’s harlots. Framing is the modern reporter’s raison d’ etre –framing is the silk from sow’s ears.

My first encounter with this was in the form of a yellow journalism piece from McClatchey’s Sacramento Bee back in the 80’s. The piece was written with two things in mind: to fan the flames of environmental anti-nuclear fears, and to sell more papers.

The headline screamed something like “Nuclear Device Lost in Valley.” Everyone reading it assumed the worst of course, and the writer framed the story in terms of shutting down the local nuke plant, put in some anti-nuclear false factoids, and only by paging to three “continued in section x” continuations could you get to the final paragraph in the very back of the paper. In that final paragraph you found that it was a medical X-ray machine that had fallen off the back of a truck.

A perfect example of where this road leads modern reporters is the sad tale of Jayson Blair, now in rehabilitation. Then again, he could be out of rehabilitation now that his book is out, here’s a telling paragraph from the Publisher’s Weekly review of “Burning Down My Master’s House ” by Jayson Blair:

Public relations people, Blair reports,substituted theater tickets, free meals and drinks and, sometimes, even sex for mentions. Journalists at The Times were considered to have a weak spot for sex. Most startling, though, are Blair’s accusations of shoddy journalistic practices condoned by Times management. The message was clear: getting it right was not as important as getting it fast. He contends that the Times allowed star reporters to slap their byline on stories written in part or wholly by stringers and freelancers, and he exposes what he calls “toe-touch” reporting: A toe-touch was a popular and sanctioned way at the newspaper to get a dateline on a story by reporting and writing it in one location, then flying in simply so you could put the name of the city where the news was happening at the top of the story. It is hard to imagine how many thousands of dollars are spent on “toe-touch datelines” each month at The Times. Blair also accuses the newspaper of “no-touch” reporting. 

In “toe-touch” reporting from Iraq the reporter is whisked from green-zone to stage-set by local stringer or photog who just might happen to have a gilt framed photo of Osama or Sadr hanging above his bed at home, in “no touch” reporting he never leaves the hotel bar in the green zone, but just dutifully writes down everything the stringer says.

To wrap this up, below is a paragraph from Journalism.org that demonstrates the struggles that modern journalists have with the concept of objectivism, and it’s the bow that should seal the framing of this opinion piece nicely:

The point has some important implications. One is that the impartial voice employed by many news organizations, that familiar, supposedly neutral style of newswriting, is not a fundamental principle of journalism. Rather, it is an often helpful device news organizations use to highlight that they are trying to produce something obtained by objective methods. The second implication is that this neutral voice, without a discipline of verification, creates a veneer covering something hollow. Journalists who select sources to express what is really their own point of view, and them use the neutral voice to make it seem objective, are engaged in a form of deception. This damages the credibility of the whole profession by making it seem unprincipled, dishonest, and biased. This is an important caution in an age when the standards of the press are so in doubt.

The real point is that framing only belongs in opinion pieces, but never in news stories. Doctored photos are good as political satire, but not as photojournalism. Fake documents are perfect for The ONION, but not for Sixty Minutes.

One day the struggling leviathans might get that figured out, but until they do there’s a nation full of fact checkers out here and in the end we are all smarter than the average journalist.

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Elections 2008

Posted on December 31, 2007 by Thanos

This was written prior to the elections in 2006, it still holds true for 2008.

As we run into the stretch for the Mid-terms both parties have studies, the media has studies, and the pundits have studies all saying that x, y, or z will or should be uppermost on voter’s minds as they head to polls in November. However all of these organizations have the intent of making their the issues uppermost in voter’s minds. In other words it’s galactic-scale spin that speeds up as we draw closer to the election.

This is my attempt to clarify — most things in life nowadays are never simplex. There isn’t a silver bullet issue that will win for either party, no matter how many pundits will try to convince you that one simplex problem cost so-and-so their seat, or got so-and-so their seat.

The world is more than complex today, it’s multiplex. Issues influence each other, and when you come to an election cycle there are so many spinning constellations of political philosophies migrating together that it’s like Galaxies Colliding.  What comes out the other side and why is nearly impossible to predict or to backtrack on after the fact. Unless of course you are Karl Rove.

Using this multiplex theory, it’s easy to see why disentangling the war in Iraq from the war on Terror is an impossible task, just as trying to pry gas prices lose from Future Energy Policy and past Environmental Policy is a loser as well. There are too many stars, planets, and gas clouds spinning into each other to sort those out for the average voter.

So when it comes to this election here are some key nuclei of the multiplex universe:

  1. Local Issues: if there are large ones this will influence outcomes.
  2. GWOT
  3. Future Energy and Environmental Policy
  4. Immigration / protecting the borders
  5. Healthcare?

These appear to be the nuclei of the galaxies colliding in November, notice how they all cross over and influence each other. Also take note that if the stars are larger and brighter in your LOCAL galaxy, the gravity of the situation in the other three are not going to influence you as much as the sooth-sayers with their galacto-scan pundit-hats  might have you believe. If you look behind the curtain of the pundits who profess to influence somewhere between one eigth to one sixth of the electorate, you will see they have their scopes focused on a warped mirror reflecting some alternate, mythic universe.

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Snowprints

Posted on December 30, 2007 by Thanos

snowprints.jpgSoon my wife and I will be making prints like this in sand instead of snow.

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Jaish e Muhammed Commander Killed

Posted on December 29, 2007 by Thanos

Police and the Indian 44th Rashtriya Rifles killed a JeM commander in a sweep of Ladkigam Drubgam. The sweep came after intelligence indicated the presence of Jaish e Muhammed in the village, and during the ensuing firefight the JeM commander, Abdul Gani Dar, son of Habibullah Dar of Frisipora Pulwama, was killed.

From Etalaat.net

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Baitullah Mehsud Denies Assasination

Posted on December 29, 2007 by Thanos

UPDATE: Let’s get the record and chronology straight — first a lot of press people are getting things wrong. Baitullah Mehsud is self-declared Taliban, of the Pakistani, not Afghan flavor. He is loosely aligned with Al Qaeda, and agrees with them on things, and there seems to be mutual support on occasions.

They are not however welded at the hip, and it’s wrong to call him Al Qaeda. At one point last summer, Baitullah led the tribal alliance of the Mehsuds to expel AQ “foreign fighters” from his region in South Waziristan. At other points there seems to have been mutual support and jobs for each other. This was notable in multiple indicators of both Mehsud and Al Qaeda involvement at the Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid.

Baitullah now leads the combined groups of Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek e Taliban. This was announced earlier this month. He’s denying culpability, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is claiming credit for the assasination. I find it hard to believe that he had zero involvement as he does have contacts and traffic with Lashkar e Jhangvi, a group under the Harkut ul Jamiyaat Islami (HuJI) umbrella that’s high on the suspect list for this. JI and HuJI have declared allegiance directly to AQ in October, Baitullah has not directly declared allegiance that I have seen. (Someone please correct me here if I missed that.)

Bill Roggio has come up with the best acronmyn for these knit together but disparate groups: Al Qaeda and Aligned Movements, or AQAM.  

As I was suspecting he would, Baitullah Mehsud has denied involvement in the assasination of Benazir Bhutto. There are four probable reasons:

  1. He’s in a delicate position – open alliance with AQ would sap from his regional support.
  2. It keeps the conspiracy theorists humming, feeding political intrigue and dissension.
  3. To protect himself – the backlash from this against the culprit once found will be terrific.
  4. Or maybe he just didn’t do it.

It’s unlikely that he had zero involvement, the message intercept posted yesterday had names in it, and places. While the government could fake this, it’s doubtful that they would use real names and places if they contrived it because those can be checked.

As the new leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban Baitullah’s in charge of a fractious alliance of Pakistani Taliban groups, some who aren’t going to like the way this has unfolded, and who aren’t fond of being directly allied with Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda made clear claim of ordering this action — Baitullah having performed the assasination under their orders would show a definite alliance, which is something that Baitullah can’t afford in South Waziristan where antipathy towards the foreigners, including Al Qaeda, is still high.

Fueling political intrigue seems to be behind the denial judging from the statement of the spokesperson for Baitullah:

In a telephone conversation with Kyodo News, Baitullah Mehsud’s spokesman Maulvi Umar said that Bhutto was killed for political considerations.

“Benazir Bhutto was assassinated clearly by people who wanted to gain politically from her death. This is the work of (intelligence) agencies and the Pakistani government,” he said.

Maulvi Umar said the Pakistani government is blaming Mehsud to bring the Pakistani Taliban into disrepute in Pakistan and crush their growing power.

He said the Pakistani Taliban shared the grief of the people of Pakistan and the world at large at the assassination of Bhutto.

I find the “Taliban sharing the grief of the people” bit to be well… bullshit. Baitullah has directly threatened to assasinate Benazir in the past, and he’s still on my suspect list.

More at Pat Dollard’s

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Will Al Qaeda also Murder Cricket in Pakistan?

Posted on December 29, 2007 by Thanos

australian-cricket2.jpgThe Australian Cricket team is considering canceling their tour of Pakistan in March, which will effectively cancel three tests and five one-day games. From Malaysia Sun:

Melbourne, Dec.29 : The Australian cricket team is almost certain to cancel a tour of Pakistan this March.

Cricket Australia said it was monitoring the situation, but stark warnings posted on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website yesterday strongly advised against visits.

“We continue to receive a stream of credible reports indicating terrorists are in the advanced stages of planning attacks. These attacks could target Western or Australian interests and individuals and places frequented by foreigners,” The Australian quoted the Foreign Office advisory, as saying.

Australia is due to leave in mid-March to play three Tests and five one-day games.

Players have expressed reservations about the tour even before the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Test batsman Michael Clarke said he would leave the decision to the Australian Cricketers Association and Cricket Australia.

“We are out of our depths, it’s something we probably shouldn’t even comment on because we don’t know enough about it, or I certainly don’t know enough about it,” The Australian quoted Clarke, as saying.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said yesterday his Government would provide advice to the cricketers.

“Our first and foremost concern, like Cricket Australia’s, is the safety and security of the Australian cricket team and we will be providing, through the Government, every source of information necessary for Cricket Australia to be making an informed judgment about the future of that particular tour,” he said.

More at IHT — it’s not just Australia worried.

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All Parties Committee to Discuss Pakistani Elections

Posted on December 29, 2007 by Thanos

The government has decided to host an all party committee meeting to discuss how the upcoming elections should be held. I would wager that they are wanting postponement, and to give PPP some grace to put forth a new candidate for Prime Minister.

Above and beyond that one attendee at the discussion stated that it regardless of the problems in the wake of Benazir’s assasination that it would be impossible to call emergency rule again. This is a wise choice, it would be the exact thing that Al Qaeda was trying to provoke. From Dawn:

ISLAMABAD, Dec 27: The government has decided not to re-impose emergency in the country and instead call an All Parties Conference (APC) to decide about the elections, scheduled to be held on Jan 8, sources told Dawn on Thursday.

They said the decision in this respect was taken at a high-level meeting presided over by President Pervez Musharraf. Sources said the president has asked Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro to immediately hold an APC to seek the consent of all political parties in the country on the issue.

It was decided in the meeting that whatever the decision would be taken by the APC about the elections would be welcomed by the government.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz who also attended the meeting gave detail about the decision taken in it, saying there was no possibility to again impose emergency in the country. “Despite severe reaction of the people on the sad demise of Benazir Bhutto there is no possibility of imposition of emergency again in the country,” he added.

Asked whether the option of postponement of election was discussed in the meeting, he said, it was not come under discussion.

For several reasons the party leaders and stalwarts of the Pakistani People’s Party need to get the party and their people under control. While it is a terrible event, the longer the rage and frustration runs the more property and infrastructure gets destroyed. It is like an earthquake made of angry people, and it must subside.

If it does not the rest of Pakistan will judge that the PPP is out of control, and perhaps not fit to govern. The leaders must regain charge, get a message out to stop the violence, burning, and looting.

The Election Commission will also be meeting Monday to see what steps are next, the PPP needs to come up with a plan, they can’t do that if everyone is still raging.

From Malaysia Sun:

Islamabad, Dec 29 : The Election Commission (EC) of Pakistan is convening an emergency meeting on Monday, suggesting the possibility of the January 8 parliamentary elections being postponed.

According to a report, the prevailing law and order situation has prevented the EC from sending poll materials across the country.

The law and order situation has worsened following the assassination of Benazir Bhutoo in Rawalpinidi. Supporters of Bhutto have gone a violent rampage across the country since her death on Thursday.

Eight offices of the EC were burnt in Sindh Province and all election materials was destroyed, The News reported.

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