SURGIN' GENERAL

by the Sandwichman

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main purpose of the Iraq "surge" was clearly to place extra U.S. troops in Iraq so when some of those extras were eventually withdrawn it could be hailed as a "troop reduction". This is like a merchant raising the price on an item and then putting it "on sale" for the regular price. Does Bush and his apparatus think the American people are that stupid? Are the American people that stupid?

A Tale of Two Unions

California has two very active unions -- the Nurses and the Prison Guards -- each uses a different form of politics and a different form of "caring." The nurses have done heroic work in forcing Governor Arnold to allow for sufficient staffing of hospitals. They have won significant political victories.

The prison guards have been very successful in calling for more staffing as well -- often by forcing the state to lock up more people. Those who resist passing such laws are charged as soft on crime. They have also been very successful in blackmailing the state into giving them more money. Here they go again.

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/376533.html

PREGENITAL POLYMORPHOUS EROTICISM

by the Sandwichman

In Eros and Civilization, Herbert Marcuse quotes Barbara Lantos, "Play is an aim in itself, work is the agent of self-preservation." He concludes from this that, "it is the purpose and not the content which marks an activity as play or work.... For example, if work were accompanied by a reactivation of pregenital polymorphous eroticism, it would tend to become gratifying in itself without losing its work conent."

The key to such a libidinal work relation, according to Roheim (cited by Marcuse) is a "general maternal attitude as the dominant trend of a culture." "Consequently," Marcuse explains, "it is considered as a feature of primitive societies rather than as a possibility of mature civilization. Margaret Mead's interpretation of the Arapesh culture is enteirly focused on this attitude:

To the Arapesh, the world is a garden that must be tilled, not for one’s self, not in pride and boasting, not for hoarding and usury, but that the yams and the dogs and the pigs and most of all the children may grow. From this whole attitude flow many of the other Arapesh traits, the lack of conflict between the old and the young, the lack of any expectation of jealousy or envy, the emphasis upon co-operation.

Sandwichman conjectures that -- contrary to the assumption of the psychoanaltic literature (according to Marcuse) -- Mead's account of the Arapesh is a feature of her mature civilization. Whether or not it actually depicts Arapesh culture is a matter of luck, personality (Mead's) and perception. In other words, not only is there a possibility, but the general maternal attitude toward the world-as-a-garden is a persistent utopian motif in modern civilization. The pregenital polymorphous eroticism is all around us already. We just have to tune in to it.

HAS THE IRAQ WAR BEEN ALL ABOUT OIL?

For many intelligent and well-informed people I know the answer to this question is an obvious "yes." However, I beg to differ. Certainly oil has been important. At a very high level the answer is "yes," to the extent the Iraq war has been the extension/sequel of the (first) Persian Gulf War. That was clearly all about oil, propaganda to the contrary. If Kuwait did not have the Burgan pool, then the world's second largest, with Saddam's conquest of Kuwait setting him up for an easy run to Saudi Arabia's al Ghawar, the world's largest pool of oil, George H.W. Bush would not have given a hoot about him invading Kuwait. So, if this war is finishing the business of that one, it's ultimate cause is all about oil and keeping it from falling under the control of perceived enemies, although of course after the first war, Saddam was in his box and not going to get those fields. I would also accept that Cheney seems to have long been heavily motivated by the oil factor, even if it is just as petty as feathering his own nest at Halliburton or for cronies like the Hunt brothers, with Bush having some of this from his own past as a Texas oil man, as well as his dad's old interests. And we know that Cheney was in on that report from the late 1990s going on about Iraq as the major possible source of new supply that could be tapped in the 21st century. So, Cheney clearly has been the major voice of the oil interest in all this, despite him also being a front for the broader military-industrial complex, and also having pet peeves about Saddam shooting at the US planes that flew over the no-fly zone, as reported in one of the Woodward books.

However, I see at least three other things going on in terms of actually initiating the war. One was the faction of Likud-oriented neocons, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Abrams being probably the most important in the making of the war. Their interest was securing Israel from Saddam making nukes or funding Palestinian parents of suicide bombers. Those who claim that the US backing Israel is somehow linked to the US wanting to control oil in the Persian Gulf are out of touch with history and the long struggle in the State Department between the pro-Israeli faction and the old oil-oriented "Arabists." Of course this group of neocons clearly made an alliance of convenience with the Cheney oil faction, but their interests were not fundamentally identical, except in both supporting war in Iraq. Then there is the faction that wanted a nice excuse for big funding for the military-industrial complex. Rumsfeld was a leader of this group. Then we get to arguments more tied to Bush himself, the crucial "Decider" here after all, despite all of Cheney's influence and machinations. One motive for him was political. Having a war in Iraq after the escape of bin Laden at Tora Bora allowed for distracting from disagreements over domestic policy and provided a way for demonizing the Dems, which worked in the 2002 elections and even again in 2004 (as long as a majority of the US population continued to believe the lie that Saddam was linked to 9/11), although this game finally fell apart in 2006. And finally there was all that psychological garbage with his dad, showing he was the real man who could "finish the job" and all that, and wanting to "get" Saddam after he tried to assassinate the old man, although clearly Cheney played to that particular aspect.

There is one other element of this that is rarely addressed by those who say "it is all about oil." That is, what were they going to do with the oil if they got it (which, of course, the war has failed to do so far anyway, even if the Oil Ministry building in Baghdad was secured right away)? Now if it was crude money in Cheney's pockets through Halliburtoon, that is one thing. But from Bush's perspective it is more difficult. His motive presumably was to get re-elected more than just making money from the oil industry. For that he needed presumably to increase oil production from the Gulf, thereby keeping oil prices down and pleasing the SUV-driving voters. However, the oil companies presumably preferred reduced prodcution, which increases their profits (and is what has happened, although I do not think that is what Bush either planned or hoped for). There was always this contradiction that is never resolved or explained in this explanation: would control lead to more or less production? So, bottom line: oil was important, but it was not everything in the war in Iraq.

Public Employees for Privatization

The Sacramento Bee reports the giant California Public Employees' Retirement System is planning to use some of its money to invest in infrastructure, which is, of course, privatized infrastructure.

http://www.sacbee.com/103/v-print/story/371759.html

I wish that I could savor the irony of public employees financing privatization, but I guess I should learn to expect that sort of thing.

Martin Feldstein

Martin Feldstein just resigned as head of the National Bureau of Economic Research a couple of weeks before the release of my new book, The Confiscation of American Prosperity.

http://www.amazon.com/Confiscation-American-Prosperity-Right-Wing-Depression/dp/0230600468/ref=sr_1_5/103-0846498-1105414?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175802382&sr=1-5

I devote a large part of one of my later chapters to exploring the history of the Bureau and the career of Martin Feldstein.

THE NEW KURDISH OIL LAW

Another item covered in Ben Lando's http://www.iraqoilreport.com that has been almost completely unnoticed in the MSM is that on August 6, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) passed an oil law, in sharp contrast with the central Iraqi government, which has so far failed to do so. In the wake of its passage, the KRG is apparently making a deal with Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, which the Oil Minister of Iraq, Ali Shahristani, is threatening to declare illegal because it does not apparently contain a provision for sharing revenues with the central government, although the KRG has issued a statement saying that it is in principle willing to do so, especially if no oil deals are allowed in the Kirkuk region, containing the second biggest pool of oil in Iraq, and which the KRG is hoping a referendum will hand over to the KRG.

Actually, the KRG has since May 2006 cut deals with five oil companies, most of them wildcatter operations not from the US, with the first (and the first to start production) being DNO from Norway, with the others from Canada and Turkey. The early prospects have been favorable, with "gushers" reported coming in from parts of Iraqi Kurdistan in the fields operated by DNO, and the KRG apparently hoping to have 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) going by the end of this year and 2 million bpd in five years, out their own pipeline through Turkey (assuming that taking Kirkuk does not anger the Turks too much, who are worried about the Turkmen population there). Reportedly the DNO contract gives the company 10-30% of the revenues as profits, with the rest going to the KRG, and none to the central Iraqi government.

So, this may be the economic beginning of the "ground-up" partition of Iraq that seems to be going on more widely. The SIIC in the south is pushing for a separate entity there, which region has the largest oil pool. And the tribal Sunni sheiks in al-Anbar are getting armed by the US (which arming could have been done without the surge). Today they fight al-Qaeda in Iraq (which Juan Cole has long claimed would have happened sooner if US troops had completely withdrawn sometime ago, and their move to do so predated the surge), but tomorrow they will be able to fight an increasingly Shi'i-dominated central government, especially if the other regions take all the oil revenues for themselves. leaving nothing for the Sunni Arabs in the center, who remain alienated by the ongoing de-Baathification Commission, led by Chalabi.

Left vs. Right Brains: a new twist

[from Jim]

[Does this study say that the reason why some people become more conservative with age is brain rot? that hardly explains quick changes, such as that of David Horowitz.

[what do such studies say about Marxist brains?]

From the Los Angeles Times

Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain

Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives
literally think differently, researchers show.

By Denise Gellene
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 10, 2007

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that
liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives
because of how their brains work.

In a simple experiment reported today in the journal Nature
Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that
political orientation is related to differences in how the brain
processes information.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to
be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals
are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits
are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday
decisions.

The results show "there are two cognitive styles -- a liberal style
and a conservative style," said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni,
who was not connected to the latest research.

Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very
liberal" to "very conservative." They were instructed to tap a
keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from
tapping when they saw a W.

M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning
participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a
letter.

Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded
activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that
detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a
more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more
brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they
saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally
accurate in recognizing M.

Researchers got the same results when they repeated the experiment in
reverse, asking another set of participants to tap when a W appeared.



Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

Latest Trade Data

Much has been made of the continuing strength of US exports and the decline in the so-called "non-oil" trade deficit, but Brad Setser, as usual, hits the nail squarely:

"The same forces propelling Chinese export growth – the weak dollar and still-strong global economy – are also propelling US export growth. Those same forces are also a key reason why oil is high. Take away strong global growth and both US export growth and the price of oil would be lower."

Incidentally, OPEC is puzzling over the effect that financial turmoil will have on the demand for oil, but the oil funds themselves play an important role in propping up the markets. Not that anyone knows the real numbers, of course.

conspiracy theorists cross the line

[This kind of stuff is banned on pen-l, the progressive economists' discussion list, but I think it's important.]

Sept. 11, 2007 / New York Times.

A Sept. 11 Photo Brings Out the Conspiracy Theorists

By SEAN D. HAMILL

SHANKSVILLE, Pa., Sept. 7 — Valencia M. McClatchey thought she was doing the right thing when she gave the F.B.I. a copy of her photo of the mushroom-shaped cloud that rose over the hill outside her home after United Flight 93 crashed in a field here on Sept. 11, 2001.

And, after it became apparent that hers was the only known picture of that ominous gray cloud — and the first taken after Flight 93 crashed — Mrs. McClatchey thought she was still doing the right thing when she gave copies to people who asked for them, and let newspapers and television stations use it.

But fame for the photo has had an unexpected cost for the photographer.

“Every time I’ve done any stories it goes online and all these conspiracy theorists start up and they call me and harass me,” said Mrs. McClatchey, 51, who runs her own real estate company.

In online postings, critics have ripped apart every element of the photo and Mrs. McClatchey’s life. They accuse her of faking the photo, of profiteering from it and of being part of a conspiracy to cover up that the government shot down Flight 93.

They claim the mushroom cloud is from an ordnance blast, not a jet crashing; the cloud is the wrong color for burning jet fuel; the cloud is too small and in the wrong position.

They have posted her personal e-mail address, phone numbers and street address online. One Canadian “9/11 debunker” surreptitiously taped a phone conversation with her, questioning her about the photo, and then uploaded it to his Web site.

“It’s just gotten so bad, I’m just fed up with it,” Mrs. McClatchey said. “This thing has become too much of a distraction in my life. I have a husband and a new business to deal with, too.”

The photo is considered legitimate by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Smithsonian Institution, which used the photo in an exhibition on Sept. 11; and the Flight 93 National Memorial, which has used the photo in pamphlets.

“We have no reason to doubt it,” said Special Agent Bill Crowley, a spokesman for the Pittsburgh F.B.I. office, which oversaw evidence collection in Shanksville.

Along with the rest of the nation, Mrs. McClatchey was watching the coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington when she was shaken from her couch by a blast just over a mile away. She grabbed her new digital camera and took just one picture from her front porch.

The photo shows a sloping green farm field with a brilliant red barn in the foreground. Hovering above the barn in a brilliant blue sky is an ominous dark gray mushroom cloud. Mrs. McClatchey titled the photo “The End of Serenity.”

Barbara Black, acting site manager for the Flight 93 memorial, said, “What makes the image so powerful is that it’s this serene scene in Pennsylvania, this typical red barn, green trees, and then this terrible cloud above it that changed our life here forever.”

At the temporary memorial site, Flight 93 “ambassadors,” local residents who volunteer to tell visitors what happened here, always start the story by showing people Mrs. McClatchey’s photo.

From the beginning, Mrs. McClatchey said, she tried to use the photograph to help remember the 40 passengers on Flight 93. She sells copies to people and lets them choose whether $18 of the $20 fee goes to the Flight 93 National Memorial or the Heroic Choices organization (formerly the Todd Beamer Foundation).

To ensure that she controlled distribution of the photograph, in January 2002 she copyrighted it. To “protect the integrity of the photo,” Mrs. McClatchey said, she filed suit in 2005 against The Associated Press, saying that it violated her copyright by distributing the photo to its clients as part of an article. The lawsuit is pending.

Mrs. McClatchey’s neighbors here defended her against the accusations of the people they called the “Internet crazies.”

The McClatcheys “are as good neighbors as you could possibly have,” said Robert Musser, who owns the red barn that is so prominent in Mrs. McClatchey’s photo.

To accommodate visitors who will show up on Sept. 11 to recreate the picture, and who eventually find their way to the Mussers’ 94-year-old barn, they have tried to spruce it up this past week, adding a touch of paint. They plan to spend thousands in the near future to shore up the foundation on one side so the barn will endure for years to come.

“Here this barn could fall down, and it’s in the picture that’s so famous,” said Mr. Musser’s wife, Phyllis. “We have to do something.”

M. de Tocqueville,

I recently re-read *Democracy in America* with some political theorists, criminologists, and philosophers. I was struck by the following passage, which I haven't seen anybody make much of in the years since. It is a fascinating turning-of-the tables on the public-choice crowd (anachronistically, I mean):


I have no doubt that the democratic institutions of the United States, joined to the physical constitution of the country, are the cause (not the direct, as is so often asserted, but the indirect cause) of the prodigious commercial activity of the inhabitants. It is not engendered by the laws, but it proceeds from habits acquired through participation in making the laws.

D-I-Y POP-UP GUIDE TO JOY IN WORK IIB

by the Sandwichman

The "problem of leisure"

Eric Gill defined the problem of leisure in the following terms: "In former times, such culture as men attained as the product of their working life. Now culture, if it is to be attained at all, is a product of leisure."

Gill also defined the relationship between work and leisure as a political problem. "It is the problem of freedom and slavery. For the freeman does what he wishes when he is at work -- but the slave, when he is working, does what he is compelled to do. And the slave is only happy when he is not working -- but the freeman, as it says in the Book of Ecclesiastes, 'has joy in his work and this is his portion.'"

A coup in the US future

From today's New York TIMES:

>>September 10, 2007

Americans Feel Military Is Best at Ending the War

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and MEGAN THEE

Americans trust military commanders far more than the Bush administration or Congress to bring the war in Iraq to a successful end, and while most favor a withdrawal of American troops beginning next year, they suggested they were open to doing so at a measured pace, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. ...

The poll found that both Congress, whose approval rating now stands at its lowest level since Democrats took control from the Republicans last year, and Mr. Bush enter the debate with little public confidence in their ability to deal with Iraq. Only 5 percent of Americans — a strikingly low number for a sitting president’s handling of such a dominant issue — said they most trusted the Bush administration to resolve the war, the poll found. Asked to choose among the administration, Congress and military commanders, 21 percent said they would most trust Congress and 68 percent expressed most trust in military commanders.<<

COMMENT: if these numbers continue and start to apply to more and more issues in US politics, we should expect a military coup d'etat in the future (in a decade or two?) After all, neoliberalism and especially the Bush 2 version of that disease have messed up the economy and made it almost impossible for the "loyal opposition" (the Dems) to do better. The country's becoming more and more like Latin America, so it may come a time when a golpe del estado is a normal event.
Jim

HARRISONBURG KURDS -- UPDATE

This is dragging over a thread from the former Maxspeak, where postings about the case of four Kurdish men in Harrisonburg, Virginia who were targeted heavily for technical violations of transferring money to their relatives back in Iraq, helped stimulate local media attention and then public outcry, and then their release with only suspended sentences, an actual favorable outcome due to blogging effort.

Anyway, I attended a picnic this afternoon put on by the Kurdish community of Harrisonburg. The current situation is that the FBI appears to be exacting its subtle revenge on the four men. All four wish to become citizens, but all of their paperwork seems to be stalled at the FBI, even though their offenses were strictly administrative. One needs a green card and is on hold for his app, two have green cards and are on hold for their exam, and one had (and passed) his exam before all the garbage blew up. He was told two days ago that he should have become a citizen in April, 2004, but the FBI refuses to send back his paperwork. Apparently four years is the record for the FBI to sit on somebody's paperwork like this. Some more action may be needed on this matter, and apparently some letters are about to be written in support of these men.

Brad DeLong on productivity

Brad DeLong made an interesting point about my earlier message here about productivity.

http://delong.typepad.com/delong_economics_only/2007/09/productivity-an.html

http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2007/09/mysterious-productivity-lead-of-us.html

He said that the Chinese (using my earlier example) are making the shoes for five dollars because they have not yet developed brands to market them for themselves. When they do, the US GDP will go down accordingly.

This process seems to be already beginning. The idea behind the expectation of the future success of US intellectual property economy was people in the United States would do the high-value work while leaving the country to others.

I'm reminded of an exchange between Boswell and Samuel Johnson:

"Very little business appeared to be going forward in Lichfield. I found however two strange manufactures for so inland a place, sail-cloth and streamers for ships: and I observed them making some saddle-cloths, and dressing sheep skins: but upon the whole, the busy hand of industry seemed to be quite slackened. "Surely, Sir, (said I,) you are an idle set of people."

"Sir (said Johnson) "We are a City of Philosophers: we work with our Heads, and make the Boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands."

But already, South Korea seems to be making great progress in design work, supposedly the domain of the brilliant people in the United States who honed their minds on the complexities of Paris Hilton and cage fighting.

How long will it be before Chinese brands win a reputation for quality? Some older people may recall when Japanese cars were considered junk.