or, Pertaining to a conversation about political philosophy basics, interrupted by a Comcast service interruption

In a strictly unpolitical setting, one of my many online acquaintances recently said something without warning that spurred a fun dialog that we were forced to carry on in private; "OBAMA HAS SPENT MORE IN THE FIRST THREE MONTHS OF HIS PRESIDENCY THAN ALL OTHER PRESIDENTS COMBINED!"
This at once sounded outrageous and impossible to me and a few other people, and not just because of some level of liberal, Democratic, or Obama bias. I asked him to cite a source, and he said simply "public documents." I told him that this was sort of like citing "books" as a source, but he stood by his statement. I take this kind of thing as a challenge since this kind of disagreement, contention over a fact that should be cleared up with a bit of research, is a great opportunity to educate myself or my "opponent."

I tried searching for the original claim, assuming that some conservative columnist or personality was behind perhaps an earlier form of the statement. Strangely, I could only find it on message boards and "crowd sourcing" question/answer services like wikianswers, askyahoo, and whatever, and none of them pointed to an original source (which leads me to believe that it originated from an emailed chain letter or something).
Then I looked up the CBO and historical US Treasury documents, which of course showed how ridiculous the claim was, that the deficit left by G. W. Bush was a few billion under 11 trillion and that the current deficit is a few billion over 11 trillion. I tried to look further at what similar claim could be made that could, with the telephone effect, have become the one that began my research, but could not. The closest I could come was a few graphs that did not look like they used adjusted dollars that compared projected deficits to GWB's deficits. As always, if anyone has any other information on this subject, I'd be delighted to hear it.

So I gave him my report, but first I told him my position: all politicians, anyone who holds or seeks power, should be distrusted and held accountable, but attacking them with incorrect information is more helpful to other corrupt politicians than the common good. My acquaintance had another beef with Obama, that he was "cutting defense spending during a time of war," another weird conservative myth which a bit of research revealed was not true, that Obama's slight increase in defense spending is one of the campaign promises that he kept. He was pretty sure that this wasn't true, but I could provide sources while he could only barely remember hearing something on TV. I attributed his confusion on this issue to the retirement of some programs meant to fight massive conventional wars with military equals, like a united Russia and China (with the addition of alien technology or something). The only specific example I could think of was an increase in small arms purchases offset by the decision to not purchase any more F-117s, which have never been needed anyway [NOTE: I looked this up, and it looks like I was thinking of the F-22 which, pending congressional approval, will leave us with "only" 187]. The point, which I didn't get to explain to him, is that our military was organized to fight wars that are not expected and probably won't ever happen, while it is not organized for the types of wars we are fighting and expect to fight. I also would have made the case that the reason why he was hearing complaints from politicians about the decision to not order more of these was because it will cost some manufacturing jobs in their states and cost them some kickbacks from weapons-industry contractors, so to push back they would try to frame their complaint as Obama being soft on defense.

At this point, after soundly (I think) making the case that the budget has been increased but also funds have been redistributed to recast the military to handle many smaller situations instead of a giant 2-front war with the USSR ("you do know the USSR doesn't exist anymore, right?" "Uh, yeah, that's why it's better to retool to fight the enemies we have instead of the enemy we don't"), I threw him my curveball; "so Obama has definitely not decreased military spending, but he SHOULD cut it in half" to which his response was, "... you don't care about keeping our country safe?" and just before I was disconnected by Comcast (which later denied any service problems and said they would charge 50 bucks if they sent someone to fix it and they didn't find the problem) he said something about how China has enough people to march over us and that their technology is improving.

That's where we get to a fundamental difference between liberal and conservative assumptions, and a really interesting conversation COULD have begun.

The question I wish I had been able to ask was, how safe is someone who has a gun? Provided this person is adequately trained in gun use and gun safety, they're certainly safer in certain specific situations, like maybe in a battle, a bank robbery, a shooting spree, or an attempted rape. But simply having the gun does't necessarily make even a highly trained person safe in these situations, and absolutely does not make them safe in many other more common situations: avoiding high crime areas especially at night, installing security systems on your house, and not being an asshole so your family or neighbors don't kill you are all things that would be far more effective at keeping you alive by preventing life-threatening situations than a gun might be at keeping you safe DURING such situations.

So it is that the liberal will cite a positive reputation around the world and active economic participation as a greater deterrent against state aggression than military power, and in fact, the sheer size of our military (and our nuclear arsenal), coupled with our willingness (eagerness?) throughout recent history to use this force actually emboldens politicians around the world that ride to power on the idea that the U.S. is a dangerous empire. Meanwhile, a conservative will follow the refrain called out since the rise of Mao, that being "soft" was the cause, and that liberals were too soft on communism, soft on terrorism, and soft on defense -- so opposed are they to "soft power" that conservative voices have said "liberals want the enemy to win."

I would have laughed at the idea of a Chinese military invasion, and was preparing to say that nearly every tactician from Sun Tzu and on have said that the worst position for a rational state acting in its own interests is to begin a long and sticky occupation and that China (like North Korea) is too busy ensuring domestic stability through the constant pressure of oppression to survive a long term foreign entanglement and would never attack such an important economic partner. Walmart and the world economy have far more to do with normalization and stability of U.S.-Sino relations than the F-117, F-22, or military capacity in general. Hell, we have Latin America and China has Tibet, all governments are probably evil, but we didn't conquer Russia when Moscow was crippled with confusion by the collapse of the USSR, nor would China suddenly develop a taste for world conquest if we stop buying any more stealth-bombers, nuclear submarines, and amphibious assault tanks.

If we really want safety, we should pursue universal nuclear de-armament, reduce military spending, reassure the world that we would prefer to speak softly and carry a stick (instead of yelling and hitting people with a giant stick), and act as a consistent moral example to follow in foreign and domestic policies.

Best part of yesterday's press conference (barring the hilarity of how craptastic some of the questions are, like "as a former smoker myself, can you tell us how much you smoke?" or whatever) was riiiiight before the end. It went something like this (well, kindof exactly; this is the official transcript after all)

POTUS: All right. Last question. Suzanne.

Q: Thank you. Back to Iran, putting a human face on this. Over the weekend, we saw a shocking video of this woman, Neda, who had been shot in the chest and bled to death. Have you seen this video?

THE PRESIDENT: I have.

Q: What's your reaction?

THE PRESIDENT: It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. And I think that anybody who sees it knows that there's something fundamentally unjust about that.

Q: We also have people on the ground who have been saying that the streets are quieter now and that is because they feel that they're paralyzed by fear -- fear of people gone missing, fear of violence, that perhaps this is a movement that's gone underground or perhaps is dying. Do you have any concern over that?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I have concern about how peaceful demonstrators and people who want their votes counted may be stifled from expressing those concerns. I think, as I said before, there are certain international norms of freedom of speech, freedom of expression --

Q: Then why won't you allow the photos --

THE PRESIDENT: Hold on a second, Helen. That's a different question. (Laughter.) And I think it's important for us to make sure that we let the Iranian people know that we are watching what's happening, that they are not alone in this process. Ultimately, though, what's going to be most important is what happens in Iran. And we've all been struck by the courage of people. And I mentioned this I think in a statement that I made a couple of days ago. Some of you who had been covering my campaigns know this is one of my favorite expressions, was Dr. King's expression that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." We have to believe that ultimately justice will prevail.

All right. Thank you, guys. [Exit stage right]

A hailstorm of big dumb snowballs that Obama danced right through, and then Helen Thomas was like "you ready to play hardball?" and POTUS was like "I'm outta here!" In case you're still reading but you didn't catch what happened there, Helen was ABOUT to ask Obama about the torture photos which, Republicans and Obama agree, should not be released to the public because it would be a recruiting tool for the enemy. Though it could be a subject worth holding up to show that he's willing to work with Republicans and make concessions while the other side of the aisle only fights with him, he recognizes that it's toxic with liberals and libertarians that firmly believe that censorship is the enemy of Democracy and transparency, however egregious, is necessary to foment repercussions, the bedrock of any nation of laws.

As a Liberal, I have to check in with the Daily Show for my talking points, Monday through Thursday. A week or so ago there were a few episodes outlining an inter-show dispute between John Stewart and the people at The Morning Joe over Scarborough and Co.'s agreement to be sponsored by Starbucks. Joe and Mika took issue with what John was insinuating and said that they were just joking and being sarcastic. Since I'm sensitive to the idea that I can be wrong, that I live in a bubble, and that I may unknowingly suffer from confirmation bias, I decided to withhold judgement and not accept John Stewart's word on this issue, but I actually watched a segment of their show (a fun argument with Chris Mathews over health care) and a Starbucks plug is actually their freaking catchphrase!

"Morning Joe, brewed hot by Starbucks." WTF! I thought J. Stewart was just joking, saying that to make fun of their asskissy interview with the Starbucks CEO and the glowing way they talked about the product, but they actually say that? I know it's commercial TV and sponsorship is the way commercial TV has worked since TV was called radio, but damn... they might as well wear the Starbucks logo on their jackets.

Maybe it's all the more troubling after learning about the life and times of I. F. Stone. Stone wouldn't have put a tagline on his commentary like that, he wouldn't be like "This muckraking rag brewed good to the last drop by Folders!" I guess the difference is that he was an actual newsman and the Morning Joe is a hot bucket of opinion, but they present themselves as a serious, moderate, rational, and thoughtfull while they are anything but. They're just one of the many dangerous voices that sculpt the mainstream political opinion.

Back in 2004, CBC did a nationwide poll to find out who was the greatest Canadian of all time. It looks like it was kind-of a big deal, carried out in a style similar to American Idol and with a similar level of popularity. And who won? Tommy Douglas, the father of Canadian government health care. So for all the arguments against such a healthcare system, that it means there will be impossibly long waits for care, that it wouldn't be good enough, or that it would send us down a slippery slope of Stalinistic government, is all AMA insurance company lobbyist bullshit.

That is all

Pixar's Up is the best movie of the year so far, and if not for the unusually exciting titles I know are in the pipeline (like District-9!) I would wager it will be the best movie of the year.

Knowing that the most successful kids movies are the ones parents won't mind seeing again, and perhaps they suspect that being bearable to adults mean kids will like continue to like them as they get older, Pixar has been banking on this more inclusive model. With huge successes in this movie making strategy like The Incredibles and Wall-E, Pixar seems unique to me in that it is a studio with a name that is synonymous with quality films that will not sacrifice wit and grace for slapstick humor and easy plots (full disclosure, I haven't see the toy-commercial that is Cars. What's even greater is that they don't have to do this since the movies are such works of art that people would still see it just to see the product of new computer graphics technologies.

So I'll say it again. This is not a kids movie, but a movie that kids will also enjoy. This movie tackles pride, greed, death, despair, fear, obsession and ageism in a genuinely deep way with a small ensemble of characters who are more unlikely than usual, but never decides to go too far and hit you with an obvious message that screams "I'm a smart movie! I'm a movie about issues! Marvel at this philosophy reference!" No; though this movie's speeches are still accessible, they aren't verbal, they just are.

One of the things that I don't understand about the Modern Conservative ideology is their position on Modern Liberalism. In the same book or even the same breath, a liberal will be insulted for insisting that the government is the solution to every problem and should be given limitless power as a "socialist nanny state," and then bemoan a "blame the government first" attitude. I suppose this is close to the inverse of another confusing Modern Conservative position, that government should be small enough to be drowned in a bathtub but large enough to fight endless multi-front wars, maintain a "community" of intelligence agencies, and keep the largest prison system in the world to count our successes in the drug war.

It makes it difficult to find a foothold from which to begin a real dialog. Reagan said that "the most terrifying nine words in the English language are; I'm from the government and I'm here to help," so he established himself as the white-hat hero who would save us from Government, which is maybe why they trust Reagan even though he insisted you can't trust government. Maybe that's why things like the Iran Contra scandal, among conservatives, falls somewhere on a scale between "much ado about nothing" and a "necessary act in the interest of collective defense."

With the consent of Congress, Harry Truman placed the U.S. under the jurisdiction of International Court of Justice, and the Senate added the stipulation that we could only temporarily rescind the ICJ's jurisdiction 6 months in advance. This 6 month addition was designed to prevent the U.S. from deciding it couldn't be prosecuted if it did something it knew was wrong, which is exactly what happened in Nicaragua v United States on April 6, 1984 (my second birthday!). This was a violation of constitutional law because it usurped the Senate's authority over international treaties. But that's just the tamest example of executive power crushing the spirit of the constitution's separation of powers.

In order to overthrow the Sandinista government, which had itself overthrown the ruthless Somoza dynasty, the U.S. recruited what had been a disparate group of "counter-revolutionaries" who were dissatisfied with the Sandinistas for one reason or another. With some help from Argentina's intelligence service, the Contras were consolidated, centralized, trained, given money and weapons, and even an airstrip in Honduras from which to carry out long range bombings. Since congress blocked this proposed action, this secret war needed an alternative source of funding, which came partially from cocaine sales to the CIA and primarily from weapons sold to Israel as a reimbursement for weapons Israel gave to Iranian moderates (in order to bypass a U.S. trade embargo) in order to fuel the Iran-Iraq war and in order to buy the release of hostages.

I think a big difference between the foreign policy stances of modern conservatism and liberalism comes from the Vietnam War: the Liberal will say the lesson we learned is that we should not enter into unnecessary wars and we lost because we were too ruthless and did not have political support of the people, while the Conservative will say we lost because we didn't fight hard enough and shouldn't have left. If you believe we only lost Vietnam because we left and we only left because of Hippies, Woodstock, and The Weather Underground, then I supposed using domestic propaganda (essentially illegal under the Smith-Mundt act of 1948) under the guise of "white propaganda" to build support for war in Nicaragua is only reasonable, and the foundation of the Office of Public Diplomacy is the natural result.

The OPD was openly run by a fanatically anti-Castro Cuban-American and secretly reported directly to Oliver North, Reagan's National Security Council aide. It used stratagem that had been employed by intelligence agencies in previous successful regime-changes, but with a softer goal of aggressively manipulating public opinion to go to war with Nicaragua. Mirroring the overthrow of Mossedegh in Iran, the OPD manipulated the media, handed to journalists reports of MiG jets or chemical weapons being delivered that cited "unnamed intelligence officials" and were eventually revealed as hoaxes. These reports would be the focus of OPD drafted op-ed pieces and were cited by other organizations in favor of war in Nicaragua as a Cold War battle, like The Young Republicans. Public opinion in favor of war was building, and it probably would have happened if not for a few mistakes, like Oliver North's secretary accidentally transposing a couple digits in his Swiss Bank Account Number, thus wiring 10 million USD to a random guy.

All this insanity is in the public record, and is behind a lot of the pardons at the end of (then VP) Bush 41's presidency. This is also the sort of thing that will get a liberal thinking that the CIA is rarely up to any good and to distrust actions that result in an expansion of executive power or expansion of the role of the U.S. military in foreign affairs. To say someone who knows even just about this historical episode simply "hates America," is outrageous. It takes serious cognitive dissonance to read history and trust that anything the CIA does is legal.

So now Pelosi is saying the CIA lied to her, and some people are offended. It's true that she's a politician, but I'd say it's just as likely that the CIA is lying as a politician.

When Christopher Hitchens did it, it was hard core. He had big military guys in masks, whose identities he'd agreed to keep secret, and he was bound and hooded; he lasted 2 seconds, and decided that waterboarding actually was torture. Hitchens is always serious, and for as big-headed as he is, I doubt he does much half way. On the other hand, Mancow is a radio blowhard I'd never heard of until now with a soft core version in which he lasts 6 seconds.

Anyway, they are both conservatives who support the War on Terror and didn't consider waterboarding to be torture, but changed their minds after experiencing "simulated drowning." Sean Hannity insists waterboarding isn't torture and said he would do it to prove it isn't, but hasn't. We can draw our own conclusions from that

I don't know what's going on with a lot of people, but there seems to be some confusion as to what "freedom of speech" means.

I don't remember the situation, but there was some Obama rally or something, and some "anyone but Obama" Clinton supporters started yelling about something and she was overwhelmingly booed and shouted down. Later someone commented "so much for the party of free speech," as if this was somehow a violation of her rights. Seriously, it would be one thing if she was put in prison, but she was at a private event - it would be like bringing a boom box to a theater production and deciding to listen to Metallica during Shakespeare: the people are there to listen to Shakespeare, not Metallica, and they would be well within their rights to expect a security guard to throw you out.

More recently, I heard that the disgusting energy drink (and I'm pretty sure that's redundant) Rockstar is owned and operated by the wife and son of right-wing AM talk-radio host Michael Savage. This information understandably prompted a boycott of Rockstar because of Savage's numerous inflammatory comments, like that everyone who's gay should get AIDS and die or that women who feed the homeless should just get raped or that 100 million Muslims should die. Some have responded to this, again, by complaining that liberals don't respect freedom of speech. The irony, of course, is that a boycott is protected by the first amendment as "political activity."

Not that any of this is important or noteworthy... it just strikes me that the more a person supports conservative activists, the less likely it is that they've actually read the constitution.

It's bad. Really bad. I pirated some movies.
First it started with movies that aren't available in the U.S. Then it was just the slightly hard to find stuff. Now it's any movie that I haven't seen. I'd still like to own some of the great movies I've seen lately, but I'd rather see them now than wait until I have 20 bucks to throw at a luxury item other than beer.
So if you like off beat movies far from the main stream with a dark twist and sharp story, I highly suggest you see these. Maybe you'll buy one and make up for my stealing.

Kin Dza Dza

   A really awesome low budget sci-fi from mid-80's Russia. It's said that the movie only made it past censorship because the director was the most famous Russian film maker of the day, and given the depth of social commentary mixed with a splash of uncommonly appropriate slapstick humor, it's amazing that this movie exists at all. Aside from a few scenes, the whole thing was filmed in the desert (think Dune) and almost all the props were scavenged from abandoned missile silos. The sparseness of the movie allows you to focus on the desperation of the main characters as they navigate the subjective ridiculousness of Pluk society.
   The story is that two random, every day soviets are walking down the street when they suddenly find themselves on the planet Pluk in the Kin Dza Dza galaxy, where the verbal language consists of almost just one word (they must prefer telepathy), they've turned all their water into fuel (so if you want water you have to get it converted back), they have the technology to instantly go almost anywhere in the universe, and match-heads are like gold. We follow our heroes as they try to make it back home, making things more difficult as they try and take part in the ruthless bargaining style of Pluk.

Primer

   This has got to be my favorite time travel movie of all time. It's another low budget experience (shot for $7,000), but again it was done right, using that "less is more" to an extreme degree. There's even less explanation, which makes everything infinitely more believable. For the first 30 minutes, we catch glimpses of engineers at work, snippets of conversations and flashes of stress, and none of it makes sense. Some people don't like this, but I've always enjoyed watching people work, and you really feel like this is real. The fact that they don't dumb anything down makes it feel like there was a hidden camera in an actual garage-based company. What is it they're building? Well, whatever it was they were trying to build, it ends up being a time machine.
   Then begins all the confusion that time travel probably would bring. What happens if they alter the timeline or talk to one of themselves? What will they do with this amazing discovery? And will they need to try and undo it? If you don't mind a spoiler, take a quick look at this chart that illustrates the chaos they create.

The Machinist

   A psychological thriller in the vein of Fight Club, with the darkness and strange distance that comes with a cinematic depiction of sleep deprivation. When Kathleen and I first saw Christian Bale in this movie as the lead, we both were sure that there was some CG going on and then both groaned in discomfort as we realized that it was real: the dude was CRAZY skinny, and we read later that Bale lost 60 pounds for the role.
   The whole movie was like liquid discomfort, really carrying that creepy feeling you get from looking at a skelletonized person. The audience follows him in his decent into paranoia and we really don't have a clue what's really going on as he scrambles from disaster to accident, until the final revealing twist.

Ravenous

   Guy Pierce plays a union officer in the Mexican-American war who freaked out during a gruesome battle and decided to just pretend to be dead. Though he was able to capture the enemy command because he was thrown into a cart of bodies to be buried later and forgotten, his commander knew that Pierce was a coward and assigned him to a distant camp in the California mountains. This is all explained in the first minute, using excellent editing to tell this back story and foreshadow the cannibalistic developments later.
   Once at the camp and introductions are out of the way, evil stuff happens and everyone dies.
   Some people call it a vampire movie, but it certainly isn't the classic vampire on display here. You get the feeling, probably just because of the antagonist's monologue while trying to recruit the protagonist, that this is somehow a metaphor for the "manifest destiny" that consumed the Americas, conquered hundreds of indigenous nations, and sucked the marrow from the earth. But really it's just fight between good and evil in a compellingly unique format.

People on my side of the economic spectrum have a strong distrust of everything "globalization," so I try and compensate for that bias. Still, I can't get over the fact that a global economy will not follow the same rules of a local economy, and the repercussions of moving an industry to another country are far different from moving to another city or just across town, especially since you can't just hop on a bus and go to China. Sometimes, retraining is just as likely.

So, say a plant in the U.S. closes and moves to Vietnam so they can make their product for cheaper. Even if the company lowers the price of their product to be more competitive, it won't be proportionate with their savings, so they're bound to get a healthy profit. However, as more companies follow suit and move to places where they can pay 12 dollars a day or 1.2 cents a unit (without benefits, obviously), the U.S. loses its ability to buy the goods the company produces. After all, running shoes aren't exactly the "Field of Dreams;" "if you build it, they will come" is not a long term business model. So, as jobs siphon off to countries where they are payed so little that they couldn't possibly afford the products, former consumers are left dependent on initiative, family, good fortune, and the state, unable to consume their favorite luxury goods.

Though I should avoid implying that I think they work against their best interest, since it depends on their interests, which is something I can't possibly know. Does the constant pursuit of higher quarterly profit margins prevent companies from looking into long term systemic repercussions? Or does that aspect of our capitalistic system prevent them from CARING, (since, if you can make a hundred million dollars right now, it doesn't matter what happens later)? Or perhaps it just doesn't matter, since "risk has been socialized" and mega-corporations never have to worry about the things that mortals do, like bankruptcy or death, since the State will always save them.