GOP Corruption = Bait and Switch Principles

Ezra Klein writes in his article "Derek Khanna wants you to be able to unlock your cellphone" about how a fellow named Derek Khanna got fired for delving too deeply in current GOP stated principles. He wrote a paper on how “current U.S. copyright law is based on three myths,” which are:

1. 'that “the purpose of copyright is to compensate the creator of the content,”
2. that “copyright is the free market at work,” and
3. that “the current copyright legal regime leads to the greatest innovation and productivity.
4. Source: and http://www.scribd.com/doc/113633834/Republican-Study-Committee-Intellectual-Property-Brief

And he proceeded to demolish these myths. Which at first got him enthusiastic report, until the lobbyists started reading carefully. He got fired for his paper. He was actually showing the corruption and poor constitution of the implementation of copyright law, which is based on a constitutional requirement that the law encourage at least two of those myths to be realities.

Now he's leading a fight within the Republican party to regain the Soul of the Conservative movement. And his enemy? The Republican party. Ezra Klein summarizes the quandary well:

Khanna had unwittingly stumbled into a deep fissure in today’s Republican Party. The party sees itself as the champion of private enterprise. But which private enterprises? The ones that exist today? Or the ones that might exist tomorrow?

If Republicans were really about "laissez faire" as sold to most of us, they would not be for monopolies and grants of title of any kind; and they'd agree with Democrats about the importance of a level playing field. But if they are about supporting the current government of business and it's establishments and power; then shutting up and marginalizing Derek Khanna is important. I have little respect for Republicans because I like and agree with free market principles, when scoped to the areas where they are supposed to apply, and when those principles are articulated clearly, as Khanna does, and not corruptly. The problem is not simply ideological, it is about corruption and power. As Ezra says:

There’s a difference between being the party of free markets and the party of existing businesses. Excessively tough copyright law is good for big businesses with large legal departments but bad for new businesses that can’t afford a lawyer. And while Khanna, like many young conservative thinkers, believes in free markets, the Republican Party is heavily funded by big businesses.

And the fact is, that the Republican party, and most of it's tea-bagging insurgents, are about the party, not only of existing businesses, but about a hierarchy of businesses with tyrannical and oppressive power. Hence, Khanna is no longer working for them. He took the bait too seriously and got trapped by the switch.

References:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/09/derek-khanna-wants-you-to-be-able-to-unlock-your-cell-phone/

https://twitter.com/ezraklein

@ezraklein loved your article so much I referred to it in my blog:holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/03/gop-co…

— Christopher H Holte (@CHHolte) March 10, 2013

More evidence of US - And Vatican! - involvement in Dirty Wars

A New article in Counterpunchdetails the involvement f the USA and Vatican in the dirty wars of the 1970s and that the underlying policy is still dynamic, specifically in Brazil, but also throughout the USA. The article details efforts to fight Liberation Theology, persons who were “SYMPATHETIC BUT NOT WEDDED TO LIBERATION THEOLOGY," "linked with Liberation Theology," and which in practice meant anyone who was even remotely associated with persons involved in liberation theology, including a good percentage of Jews in those countries, liberals, and folks who took Pope John's Vatican II seriously. Ultimately a hit list including half the Catholics in the Americas and most of the Jews, as born out by the terror of the dirty wars that tried to implement those policies, in Argentina between 1978 and 1984 and longer in other countries. The article also demonstrates that, while they no longer kidnap, disappear, torture, murder, and then hide the bodies, there is still an active campaign against "liberation theology" which apparently involves the Catholic Church's effort to role back Vatican II using the radicals of "Liberation Theology" -- which was radical, as an excuse.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/05/us-still-fighting-threat-of-liberation-theology/

Fear Itself

I was thinking about the moral quandary of "Dancing with the Devil" while reading a review of a book titled "Fear Itself; The New Deal and the Dark Origins of our Time" by Ira Katznelson and reviewed by Robert G. Kaiser. That book delves into the uneasy relationship that the people pursuing the new Deal had with Southern Racists, Fascists, and the Communist Joseph Stalin. I'm not suspicious about the book because it is well researched, but it also is part of an effort to rewrite history, and is funded by people whose purpose is to defame and degrade the memory of the New Deal. It chronicles just how much liberal efforts were distorted by and clouded by racism, and the need to accommodate Southern racists such as Senator Theadore Bilbo of Mississippi, who was a particularly virulent racist. It also highlights the USA flirtation with Mussolini, and the flight of Italo Balbo across the USA in 1933. All interesting and worth reading to fill in gaps in one's general knowledge; if one also reads other sources.

The book is worth reading, but it is important to note that the alliance between liberals and populists who included deeply socially conservative Southerners, dates to Woodrow Wilson, who came to office by adopting the plank of the progressives, but also when he came to office fired black postal workers and instituted Jim Crow in the Government. The fear also dates back to before 1933, way back, and is why anti-immigration laws were enacted in 1922.

For example, our involvement in World War I didn't play on our fears of Europeans, but of Mexicans; British spies and the Anglo-American press played up hamm handed efforts by the Prussians to instigate the Mexicans to wage a third Front in the American Southwest. Our involvement in Europe was directly related to our response to Pancho Villa and his terrorist raids on the USA side of the border. And that in turn reflected "Missionary Diplomacy" and the US effort to turn the rest of the Americas into a neo-colonial zone of influence dating back to McKinley [a republican]. And probably back to our first war with Mexico in 1848. Fear has always been a bi-partisan and profitable enterprise.

Interestingly the relatively progressive reviewer thinks that Katznelson is a liberal because of some comments he made about the Taft Hartley act. This doesn't really show that Katznelson is a liberal, but it does show how dominating the debate can shift the argument. Katznelson seems liberal because we don't know our history. So this book should be read critically, but it should also be read.

Dancing with the Devil under the pale moonlight

In the earlier version of the batman movie, the one where Jack Nicholson plays a convincing psycho "Joker"; Before he kills his victims the Joker would recite sometimes "have you ever danced with the Devil under the pale blue moon." This became a theme of the movie that was illustrated later in the movie when he forces Batman's love interest to dance with him while he is going postal on a Galla type party. I still see that metaphor as the moral quandary we all face. Whether we want to or not we are all dancing with the devil in our moral lives.

Morality is wrestling with choices. It is easy to pick morality out of a book, but even there the choices are stark. Is it really ethical to skewer a couple having sex for "worshipping Ba'al?" Did God really say to the Mormons that they were justified in attacking settlers passing through their territory on the way to California, because those settlers were "Amalek?" We can throw metaphysical Ink Pots at the devil, but that doesn't defeat evil. Evil manifests as delusion, illusion, and moral blinders on even great people. Those who give into their evil natures are often less evil in effect than the vegetarian new age Hitlers of the world, but are still evil. We all have to dance with the devil, at least until we see through our partners and recognize what we are dancing with -- and then we have choices that aren't always easy.

Delicious Cherries that Glow in the Dark

Delicious cherries that glow in the dark.
Eat them and you'll feel sickly, but maybe you won't die.
The poison will eat at you, make your muscles ache,
and if it's enough, you'll get nauseous and your hair will fall out.
But more likely, you'll just be entered in a sweepstakes;
for who will die of cancer in a few years.

I see them laughing and I shed some tears,
the cherries are delicious, but they don't know what they are doing.
It seems so easy, to take the money and run.
But the tears don't flow, until the consequences come.
It seems theoretical, statistical disease,
Until it is you on chemotherapy. 

By

Christopher H. Holte, 2/22/2013

Referring to:

http://enenews.com/american-students-featured-fukushima-propaganda-film-cherries-delicious-nuclear-power-plant-brought-together-fukushima-unchanged-day-video

Whale Song

Whale song

The world remembers,
and it sings it's song,
cries it's cries,
rising and falling; the whale song.
They hear it in space, they hear it in the sea.
Slow down the songs of mice,
and they hear it in the hay.
The whale song, and the chirping of birds,
speaks across universes, and makes a grand chorus.

Only humans are deaf.
They might hear, but they don't listen.
They hunt the whales across the seas.
and poison the birds falling off the trees.
Oh the deafness of this race.
that dreams of crossing outer space.
But if we don't learn to listen soon.
Will silently fall into evolutionary doom.

But the song of a content planet will be restored.
and nature will come back with singing adored.
The angels sing on high.
and as it is in heaven it is on earth.
and when I rest in my dusty home.
my bones turning to ashes,
and my life at an end.
I only hope I hear the whale sound at last.
No longer deaf, but merged with Universe.

Christopher H. Holte

Selfish Optimization and Tyranny

There is a relationship between corruption and tyranny. And what it is is "selfish optimization". Selfish optimization is when a system is optimized for the owners or the governors. This usually results in dysfunction, stove pipes, mis-allocation of resources, and both legal corruption and illegal corruption. It is also a manifestation of Tyranny as defined by John Locke who referred to the use of power for "private, separate advantage." Many of our problems come from selfishly optimized systems that are constituted with poor quality governments.

I've seen a lot of this in my IT work, but it is also a problem in the world around us at every level. Requirements gathering is essentially about setting the boundaries of a system. It's goals (finish line), and the capabilities needed to reach those goals. Bad requirements result in bad systems, but bad systems are usually the result of requirements that are poorly optimized, resulting in poorly functioning systems.

Selfish optimization is enabled by; excessive hierarchy -- giving those at the top of a totem pole too much power; Misallocation of ownership (or power over) resources which leads to excessive power over those resources and feeds back into even more misallocation and dysfunction as those with power deal with the consequences of their earlier misallocations and folks are pushed out of the system or oppressed by it.