Reflections  

Senator from Pluto — The AP summarized Hillary Clinton's latest proposal in this way: "Every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 'baby bond' from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home. . . . Clinton said such an account program would help people get back to the tradition of savings that she remembers as a child, and has become harder to accomplish in the face of rising college and housing costs."

So, according to Hillary, the best way to get back to learning how to save is for the government to hand you $5,000. Remind me, what planet is she from? — Michael Schein

Read her the RIAA act — A federal jury in Minnesota recently handed the major record labels a $222,000 verdict against a single mother accused of file swapping. While she was initially accused of making 1,702 songs available through the Kazaa network, the Recording Industry Association of America focused on only 24 songs during the trial.

The jury awarded $9,250 in statutory damages for each of the 24 songs. The crucial point is that, under the judge's interpretation of U.S. copyright law, the RIAA wasn't required to prove that Kazaa users actually downloaded songs from Thomas' computer. All the RIAA needed to do is claim that Thomas left the songs in a publicly accessible directory where they could have been downloaded. That's a big difference.

So were the damages justified? If you don't believe in copyright law at all, it's a meaningless question. (It's like asking an abolitionist how many lashes a slave should receive for misbehavior, and insisting that "none" is not an option.)

But, if you do agree with the premise of copyright law, it's reasonable to say that the amount of damages awarded should be related to any harm committed. If the defendant shared those 24 songs with one person and the songs are valued at a dollar each, then this is a case for small claims court — not a full-blown federal jury trial with depositions, expert witness testimony, and forensic examinations.

Unfortunately, the vast expansion of federal copyright law — with a truly worrying set of new criminal penalties — over the last decade has abandoned any sense of proportionality. It's an example of rent-seeking and special-interest politicking at their finest; and it's led to bizarre outcomes like this.

Congress shows no sign of reining the copyright juggernaut that clueless (or simply corrupt) politicians have created over the years, which means we'll see more laws, more lawsuits, and more file traders abandoning easily-monitored networks like Kazaa and turning to anonymous, encrypted ones where they can happily share files without worrying very much about the RIAA at all. — Declan McCullagh

Don't get carried away — With Myanmar in turmoil, Western democracy-lovers are celebrating. With Buddhist monks at the forefront, it is difficult to avoid feeling romantic. How deeply spiritual Burmese must be for so many of them to become monks!

Alas, that would be a very narrow view. The current turmoil in Myanmar has its roots not in love for liberty but in the increasing costs of living. A visitor to Myanmar doesn't take too long to realize that becoming a monk is perhaps the second best profession in Myanmar (after working for the military). Myanmar is littered with religious places, though it is difficult to see much sign of spirituality. In one monastery, when I was visiting the country, I was taken to a living room where the incense was burning, but on the TV; the monks were running a semi-pornographic film, while smoking cigarettes.

Not that I have anything against pornography or smoking, but having romantic notions about Burmese spirituality certainly feels a bit far-fetched. Neither should it be forgotten that, behind the calm exterior, Burmese are an extremely fractious society, with various regions harboring animosity against one another. People of Indian and Nepalese origin are easy scapegoats for any crimes.

If democracy arrives in Burma, will it sustain itself? And if it does, is Burma going to be a freer society than it is now? I seriously doubt it. — Jayant Bhandari

Gorey details — The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and Al Gore. Some will no doubt assume that this demonstrates the veracity of Gore's apocalyptic slideshow "An Inconvenient Truth." It does no such thing.

The Nobel Peace Prize has only a tenuous connection to peace or even accomplishment, as a cursory perusal of past recipients will verify. The pantheon includes many great individuals (to name just one, Norman Borlaug), but it also has plenty of worthless clowns who managed to tickle the committee's fancy (to name just one, Kofi Annan) and at least a few truly despicable individuals (again I'll name just one, Yasser Arafat). The pantheon also permanently excludes many individuals who have, by any objective standard, actually earned the laurel (once again limiting myself to a single example, Mahatma Gandhi).

As regards Gore's slideshow, however, a more telling point is that his co-recipients' assessment of the problems posed by global warming is not even close to his. This is because the IPCC, despite being formed by the UN, has competent scientists working to reach accurate conclusions. In keeping with the pattern set earlier, I will give only a single example: Gore claims that sea levels will rise by 20 feet this century; the IPCC expects a rise of a single foot (but allows that a two-foot rise is within the realm of plausibility).

Does this mean that next time someone claims that "An Inconvenient Truth" is scientifically justified (or even plausible) you'll be able to put them in their place? Of course not. Faith is subject to neither logic nor reason, and environmentalists who are both willing and able to actually think already know that Gore's take on global warming is mostly hot air. — Mark Rand

Yakko's choice — Once again, "the whole world is watching" television images of horrific abuse by an Asian military junta. Once again, Americans are confronted with the vexing choice of a response to this crisis.

The choice is this: what do we call this place? Myanmar? Or Burma? Is it always going to be known by America's schoolchildren as "Myanmar, formerly known as Burma?" U.S. officialdom, which refuses to dignify the "Burmese" junta by referring to their state as "Myanmar," did this very same prissy semantic mummery with another nearby and tortured country in the 1980s. You say Kampuchea, I say Cambodia, let's call the whole thing off.

This is important. We absolutely have to get this worked out before the neocons find some vital national interest (perhaps a few million barrels of vital national interest under the Bay of Bengal) that requires military intervention. We know from previous Asian adventures that the American people deserve to know what to call a place, as well as where exactly it is located, before their sons and daughters go to fight and die there. So, why not just call the nation in question MyanmarformerlyknownasBurma? Certainly that's not much harder to say than Burkino Faso. Or Lesotho. Or Islamic Republic of Iran. — Brien Bartels

Phony outrage — The falsity of mainstream political debate grows.

In early October, American talk radio was concentrating on self-centered controversies. Notably, Sens. Harry Reid and Tom Harkin took time to denounce talk radio host Rush Limbaugh from the floor of the U.S. Capitol — during business hours. Reid (the Senate Majority Leader) was angry that Limbaugh had called certain veterans opposed to the war in Iraq "phony soldiers." He called for the corporation that distributes Limbaugh's program to take action; and he produced a document signed by some 40 colleagues condemning the radio host.

Harkin followed with a sarcastic reference to Limbaugh's history of dependency on prescription pain medication.

In a minor-league version of that dispute, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors condemned the lesser-known talk radio host Michael Savage (whose program originates in the Bay Area) for using "hate speech" about illegal immigrants. Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval made fascistic threats like: "This attempt to vilify Latino-Americans will not be tolerated."

Yah, Herr Supervizor!

Both Limbaugh and Savage responded, as any cynic would predict, by turning up the intensity of their rhetoric. The standard model of policy-makers floating above the din of commentators and pundits has disintegrated. Elected politicians used to believe that the best way to deal with their media critics was to ignore them or dismiss them as trivial; now, politicians believe they can rally core supporters by engaging in crude back-and-forth with . . . paid entertainers.

This is a sign of poor judgment on the elected officials' parts. The main reason: media characters like Limbaugh and his many imitators (whether on the Right or Left) live by the feud. Traditionally, these feuds were with other entertainers; and that can be a hollow thing. But a feud with an elected official is a publicity bonanza for a pundit. At least one Capitol Hill staffer recognized this, insisting that the Senate would not answer Reid's calls for action — because to do so would only give Limbaugh "the kind of attention he craves."

Does Reid care? Probably not. Why not? Because there's more than just bad judgment afoot in these recent controversies.

As establishment politicians flee actual political beliefs for focus-group-tested platitudes, they lack the philosophical basis to engage in real debate. And, as these pols run campaigns designed not to offend (rather than to achieve), they sound and act increasingly alike. No matter what their nominal party affiliation.

So, there's a certain kind of savvy in battling with the popular media's cartoonish stars. For Reid, Harkin, Sandoval, et al., mixing it up with a cartoon is a shorthand way for identifying themselves. It doesn't take an advanced degree from the Kennedy School to know that Rush Limbaugh supports the president and the Iraq war. So, by bashing Limbaugh, Reid and his fellows position themselves against all of that.

But there's a hollowness — maybe a greater hollowness — to the Senate Majority Leader feuding with a man who's paid to make funny noises and say outrageous things.

One way that people define themselves is by the enemies they make. If you pick fights with cartoon characters, you become a cartoon character yourself.

As unlikely as it is for me to say this: Reid and Harkin's behavior isn't becoming of their offices. If they're going to "mix it up" with opponents, they should focus on others who have real positions of power — Bush, Cheney, Rice, etc. — and leave the class clowns in their corner. — Jim Walsh

Yankee come home — Barely a week after Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker visited Washington to extol the progress of the surge, a tragic but revealing incident occurred in Baghdad. Private security guards from Blackwater USA killed several Iraqi civilians after a U.S. diplomatic convoy they were protecting supposedly came under fire.

After the incident, the Iraqi government moved to ban Blackwater from its soil. It turned out, though, that it lacked the power to do this. Before we handed the Iraqis back their sovereignty in 2005, the U.S. occupation authority promulgated an order giving the security companies immunity from Iraqi law. Neither the "sovereign" Iraqi government nor the United States has rescinded that U.S. decree. Further complicating the situation was the fact that Ambassador Crocker had publicly praised Blackwater just a few days before the shootings occurred.

What is revealing about this? First, it shows that the U.S. armed forces are not capable of handling Iraq on their own. There are some 30,000 private security personnel in Iraq, representing almost 15% of the Coalition's total armed forces. Considering the limited and fragile successes achieved by the surge, one shudders to think what might happen if some or all of these hired guns had to depart the country. The continued occupation of Iraq would be impossible without them. (The Iraqi government admitted on Sept. 23 that the departure of Blackwater would create a "security vacuum" in Baghdad.)

The incident further highlights the fact that Iraq is a neocolonial enterprise, rather than a war of liberation. That the Iraqis cannot legally dismiss Blackwater from their territory speaks volumes. The American forces in Iraq contain a high percentage of mercenaries (contractors and noncitizen soldiers) — a hallmark of colonialist ventures. Then there is the matter of the occupiers' deplorable treatment of the civilian population.

Although the circumstances remain cloudy, it appears Blackwater's personnel may have fired on the Iraqi civilians without provocation. If so, it wasn't the first time. Last Christmas Eve, a drunken Blackwater employee killed an Iraqi (a bodyguard of one of Iraq's vice presidents) in the Green Zone. He was allowed to leave the country without further investigation. There have been other incidents involving both contractors and uniformed U.S. personnel. Four U.S. Army soldiers pled guilty this year to charges stemming from the 2006 incident at Mahmudiyah. There, U.S. troops murdered an Iraqi family in order to facilitate the rape of a 14-year old girl.

Total civilian deaths since the war started are unknown; the lowest figure that has been put forward is 70,000. While the majority of these died at the hands of other Iraqis or foreign jihadis, the occupiers' hands are dirty, too. It is not enough to say that the vast majority of our troops have behaved honorably. The fact remains that the nation's honor has been sullied by repeated brutalities committed by U.S. personnel — uniformed as well as contractors.

What is truly puzzling is why the U.S. feels it needs to practice neocolonialism in the Middle East. The richest country on earth can well afford to buy the Middle East's oil, and those who sit on that oil are happy to sell it to us, at least so long as we refrain from interfering in their affairs. Yet we go on interfering. The overthrow of a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953, the 1983 Lebanon intervention (which led to the deaths of 241 U.S. Marines, soldiers, and sailors in the Beirut barracks), the 2003 invasion of Iraq — how have these strengthened our security or improved our standing in the region and the world? I wish the U.S. government had a reasonable answer to that question. — Jon Harrison

Giuliani: "Excuse Me, I Think That's My Phone" NEW YORK — Rudy Giuliani interrupted a major cellphone call from his wife, Judith, in New York yesterday to deliver a speech outlining his foreign policy to the Council on Foreign Relations. The former New York City mayor was right in the middle of the call, in which he pledged to pick up some hot dog buns and nonfat vanilla yogurt on the way home, when he said, "Oops, excuse me, dear, I think there's a large group of people in front of me and they may want me to say something. It'll only take a minute." Giuliani, leading polls for the Republican nomination, then quickly summed up his approach to foreign policy, carefully distancing himself from the Bush administration's policies while not openly breaking with them by declaring, "I can invade more countries than Bush can and alienate more people around the world than Bush ever did and if foreign leaders want to criticize me for that they are just going to have to wait while I take a phone call from my wife." He then quickly returned to his cellphone and apologized profusely to Judith for the rude interruption, remarking, "Sweetie-pie, I'm really sorry, don't be mad, it'll never happen again . . . yes, I promise." It turns out, however, that this wasn't the first time Giuliani interrupted an important phone conversation with his wife to give a speech. In late September he was in the middle of a long call to Judith outlining his position on the dripping showerhead in the bathroom when he suddenly broke off to deliver an address to the Council of Former Giuliani Wives and Their Dependents and Lawyers, an organization with roughly 1,500 members headquartered on Park Avenue in Manhattan a few doors down from the Council on Foreign Relations. Giuliani's campaign slogan — "As I Was Saying, You Have My Undivided Attention" — seems to be playing well with voters in the remoter rural areas of Iowa and New Hampshire, where erratic cell-phone service has so far prevented him from taking any calls. — Eric Kenning

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