Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts

Saturday, July 17, 2021

Journalism, Judges, and Justice: a Neglected American Alliance

The United States, after losing propaganda wars against Russia and China post-Trump, appears to be doubling down on anti-democratic allegations while elevating Asian-Americans into visible positions of power. This hybrid strategy is too little, too late, and will do nothing to alter China's rise to superpower status. 

By now, American politicians and CEOs know their country's institutions are no longer export-ready without substantial advertising and trillions of dollars of government stimulus. To add ballast to the strategies above, they are consolidating media and using government lawyers to prosecute perceived enemies of the state. Such maneuvering, which attempts to combine a Soviet hammer with American marketing and banking expertise, will fail because it brings nothing new. 

No government, irrespective of the political party in power, is really interested in freedom of the press. All democratic governments are keen to control the media by using undemocratic means. -- Preetika Dwivedi

Six corporations already control most of what Americans see, but social media, streaming services, satellite radio, and podcasts represent challenges to crafting a united narrative. As media further consolidates, it can distract you on firmer financial footing, sidelining critical voices by drowning you in options. For example, the American journalist most resembling Edward R. Murrow or Dan Rather is British-born Mehdi Hasan, whom most Americans have never heard of; meanwhile, any American wishing to read America's most honest political commentary would need to turn to the opening letter of Larry Flynt's Hustler magazine. When a semi-mainstream pornographer is a country's most incisive native-born journalist, it is unclear how further media consolidation will assist the role of journalist as the legislature's unofficial fact-finder.

"[I]mperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government." -- Chief Justice Hughes, 299 U.S. 353, 365 (1937)

Regarding "lawfare," the current Democratic Party majority has failed to secure significant jail time against even one alleged bad actor. Republican Steve Bannon's indictment was dismissed. Republicans Paul Manafort and Roger Stone were pardoned. Army lieutenant general Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI but was pardoned. The list of pardoned and/or convicted military personnel is long and, the occupation of Afghanistan having lasted 20 years, includes members under both Democratic and Republican administrations. 

History may not be kind to Clint Allen Lorance, Robert Bales, Jeremy Morlock, Edward Gallagher, or Mathew Golsteyn, but they can always claim they were victims of a corrupt military hierarchy, thus casting doubt on America's justice system. Such doubt means the law, designed to punish the guilty and free the innocent, cannot be wholly trusted, which in turn means American lawyers and judges cannot be trusted or believed. Doubt and legal maneuvering are not new phenomena, but when they have appeared together, the first casualty has been the credibility of the legal branch. In a ternary system where the judiciary supervises the executive and the legislature, it is not difficult to predict rot from one branch spreading everywhere. This, again, is nothing new. The 1995 O.J. Simpson trial foreshadowed issues not only within the criminal justice system, but the entire legal branch, including police departments, just as the Rodney King beating foreshadowed George Floyd's manslaughter. (The result of the upcoming Theranos trial, where a blond-haired, blue-eyed CEO is claiming she was the victim of a brown-skinned svengali, will determine whether California's justice system is capable of reform or irrevocably corrupt.)

Rot is particularly apt to spread where students lack proper civics and history instruction, and Americans who study the My Lai massacre are not taught the following facts: 1) twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader, was convicted; 2) the "day after the verdict, Nixon ordered Calley released from the post stockade and placed under house arrest in the Fort Benning bachelor officer quarters. Appeals would eventually reduce his punishment to time served." 

Why didn't President Nixon pardon Calley outright? The public--including a majority of whom voted--wouldn't have tolerated it, and their political engagement allowed Congress to use impeachment to drive Nixon out of the political arena. In contrast, when a divided Congress impeached Trump, few Americans cared because Trump was already out of office. (Politics may be a show, but it must contain some substance to maintain viewership.) 

Understanding events between Nixon and Biden requires remembering what happened between the American War of Aggression against Vietnam and twenty years of Afghan occupation: the Iraq War and Guantanamo Bay. There, too, justice and judges were feckless. Iraq War criminal Charles Graner served six and a half years of his ten year sentence. Lynndie England, Graner's co-conspirator, served only eighteen months of her three year sentence. As of July 2021, Guantanamo Bay is still open, despite former President Obama's pledge to close it. After the Mahmudiyah rape and killings, justice prevailed against Steven Dale Green, James P. Barker, Paul E. Cortez, Jesse V. Spielman, Bryan L. Howard, and Anthony W. Yribe, which made it all the more disheartening to see political and judicial integrity retreat again during the Afghan occupation. In stable countries, the scales of justice ought not to wobble so much. 

Now would be a good time for Americans to re-evaluate why political parties exist. It is not only to elevate intellectuals onto public platforms so they can compete with others under transparent rules that advance the nation. Ideally, politics is played by people who first and foremost prevent corruption within government itself, thereby gaining credibility to regulate the private sector, including criminals. Without such credibility, China's one-party system will succeed against the more complex, more variegated American system of checks and balances for obvious reasons: more variety is inferior when it allows more rather than less corruption, and when it renders corruption harder to root out. 

When the United States lacked global political competition, its political negligence was understandable. Today, America's political negligence is perplexing as well as unforgivable. After all, every empire eventually expires, but whether systemic corruption is part of its history is entirely up to its people and its politicians. Perhaps, in the end, not all empires are doomed to fail--just ones that make a mockery of their judges and journalists. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat, active member of International Federation of Journalists as of date of publication (July 2021)

Bonus: The war crimes mentioned above are by no means an  exhaustive list. According to CNN, 

"In testimony at an Article 32 hearing -- the military's version of a grand jury or preliminary hearing -- [Colonel] West said the [Iraqi] policeman... was not cooperating with interrogators, so he watched four of his soldiers from the 220th Field Artillery Battalion beat the detainee on the head and body. West said he also threatened to kill [the policeman]. 

Military prosecutors say West followed up on that threat by taking the suspect outside, put him on the ground near a weapons clearing barrel and fired his 9 mm pistol into the barrel. Apparently not knowing where West's gun was aimed, [the Iraqi policeman] cracked and gave information..." 

However, the policeman, Yehiya Kadoori Hamoodi, "said in an interview that he did not [provide any valuable information], because he knew nothing." According to the NYT, "Hamoodi said that he was not sure what he told the Americans, but that it was meaningless information induced by fear and pain." 

"At least one man named by Mr. Hamoodi was taken into custody... and his home was searched. No plans for attacks on Americans or weapons were found. Colonel West testified that he did not know whether 'any corroboration' of a plot was ever found, adding: 'At the time I had to base my decision on the intelligence I received. It's possible that I was wrong about Mr. Hamoodi.'" (Source: NY Times, THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: INTERROGATIONS; How Colonel Risked His Career By Menacing Detainee and Lost, May 27, 2004, by Deborah Sontag) 

95 members of Congress signed a letter to the secretary of the Army supporting the colonel. West was fined 5,000 dollars. He became a Florida Representative and is now Chair of the Texas Republican Party.

"There was a looming sense of doom in America, a perception that established politics had failed. Many pundits had said that--after being motivated and defined for 30 years by the Communist threat--Americans seriously needed to find a new enemy." -- Mark Lawson, The Battle for Room Service (1993) 

After candidate Ross Perot's popularity, the "unnerving burden on President [Bill] Clinton was to restore democratic equilibrium--and confidence in the conventional ballot box--or America might yet be the territory for a populist, anti-political, sinister Mr. Fixit." -- 
Mark Lawson, The Battle for Room Service (1993)

Friday, February 26, 2021

Most Political Debates, Summarized in Two Conversations

The majority of America's political debates can be summarized in just two short conversations:

SCENE ONE

A: "Look at this wide-ranging, comprehensive legislation that will change everything." 

B: "Have you actually read it? This legislation spans several volumes, much of it indecipherable. If it really replaces the existing paradigm, then you're seeing a bonanza for politically-connected players as they swoop in to provide what this legislation requires." 

A: "Under existing legislation, your side benefited because you passed it and your friends and lobbyists doled out contracts based on your understanding of the legislation. Why it is a problem if we do the same thing?"

B: "Well, if it works, we're going to catch hell because it'll look like we didn't know what we were doing before, so I'm going to try to stop it. Then we'll copy the parts we think we can incorporate into our existing framework, take the credit, and let the judges resolve any poorly-worded sections." 

A: "Sounds like you've got a lot of faith in lawyers and litigation, but go ahead and try to stop us. We'll blame you for harming the poor, handicapped, [insert vulnerable group], and the country by not passing this." 

B: "How are you going to fund the legislation? More taxes? Good luck with that." 

A: "We will do exactly what you do--borrow money. We're the federal government. We can borrow as much as we want." 

B: "What's next? Are you going to promise voters a unicorn in every backyard?"

A: "If it wins us the election, why not?" 

SCENE TWO 

A: "We've been getting complaints about [INSERT GOVERNMENT AGENCY]. They are too slow." 

B: "We can centralize the work, but eventually we'll become a sprawling, intractable 
bureaucracy and lose all efficiency we gained pre-consolidation." 

A: "But right now, by spreading the work across different local and state agencies, we're creating unnecessary complexity." 

B: "Sure, but we're also reducing opportunities for centralized corruption and giving residents an easier time contacting local officials, who are more closely situated to the issues." 

A: "That may be true, but decentralization also potentially creates entrenched political fiefdoms because multiple agencies can slow down the work deliberately or claim they are not getting enough credit or recognition. Can't one entrenched city council hold up the entire process if it rejects accountability or if it tacks on additional requirements purely to justify its existence or expansion?" 

B: "Sort of. The more decentralized a government process, the more lawyers are required to navigate the system. In other words, more government complexity reduces personal agency, but also potentially improves the system as it adapts over time while keeping lawyers, judges, and legal associations in the loop." 

A: "So decentralization oftentimes means more lawyers, which either improves efficiency or reduces it based on finding the right lawyer; on the other hand, centralization might makes everything easier by creating a 'one-stop shop' but in doing so, eventually increases the risk of corruption." 

B: "In theory, the smaller the country and the smaller the population, the better centralization works, whereas the larger the country and the more diverse the population, the better decentralization works. This, however, is only a theory. Many other factors are in play, such as inflation, social cohesion, etc." 

END SCENE

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (February 2021)

Bonus: In the spirit of political cartoonist Tom Toles, I'll add the following sidebar to the first scene: "It's almost as if an independent third party could somehow help." 

Saturday, November 21, 2020

Something Wicked This Way Comes?

The United States recently held an election, and results are pending two weeks later. Regardless of the outcome, we must finally admit the American political scene isn’t something others want to emulate—at least not without substantial bribery. No longer confined to smoke-filled rooms with nondescript doors, today’s Pax Americana bribes take place at golf courses, academic institutions, and legislative bodies, culminating in an American national debt of 26 trillion dollars. 

Empire-building requires allies, and allies are apparently becoming more expensive. Though the inscription on the back of U.S. currency states “In God We Trust,” debt appears to be the undisputed binding agent. According to the Institute for International Finance, the coronavirus pandemic increased global debt to 272 trillion American dollars, adding symbiotic ballast to the more honest phrase, “In Debt We Trust.” Like all co-dependent relationships, momentum is key, and any well-traveled American has realized the momentum that made America great after 1991’s fall of the Soviet Union has shifted elsewhere. 

The United States was particularly vulnerable to political slogans due to its inability to recognize propaganda even as groups hardened around selectively-edited truth. (The world would be more decent were recruiting and advertising budgets called by their true name: propaganda.) Future historians will note entrenched divisions but are less apt to recognize its causes—and oh, the causes. Not only are they large, containing multitudes, Walt Whitman’s earlier words ne’er rang truer: “The past and present wilt--I have fill'd them, emptied them…” And for what? Lacking context, the abyss awaits once again, another empire ready to fall. 

My intent is not pessimism, but edification; namely, to show future generations the many-splendored ways a great nation can falter and never recover. Most astoundingly, though sources of political divisions are well-known to many Americans—gerrymandering plus local resistance to unfunded national mandates seeking reform—nothing can be done because once divisions encompass the weight of trillions of units of debt, everyone's interest is to go along. You'd think “going along” would coincide with “getting along,” but as it happens, the inevitable isn’t always certain. That’s our first lesson: knowledge is wonderful, but knowing the right path doesn’t mean anyone will follow you. Knowledge needs credibility to be meaningful in civil society, and credibility’s formula is complex and sometimes impervious to examination. 

We mentioned institutional bribery, but nothing fundamental has changed since at least the 18th century. Samuel Johnson may have said it best: “In civilized society, personal merit will not serve you so much as money will. Sir, you may make the experiment. Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.” Americans would do well to remember governments can increase debt to win friends and placate enemies, but lasting loyalty is hard to find and even harder to buy. Lesson number two: unless institutions ensure they serve values of infinite duration and are able to reverse course when—not if—they go astray, nation-building and globalization are all for naught. 

If money and knowledge mean little in the long run despite their attraction, on what grounds shall we stake our claim? Locating suitable ground is difficult in every era because the future is always fragile. Money--a universal siren song--increases ego and power even if its possessor lacks wisdom and especially when debt is readily available. In this way, the greater the outward success, the more humility, a crucial element of all progress, cries out: Help!  To mitigate prosperity's unctuous byproducts, note the following: everything is incremental unless abject failure occurs. In other words, if you have succeeded, it is because you and your neighbors learned from others’ failures and benefited from time’s accumulative value. Note also that knowledge is neither good nor bad, neither positive nor negative. Its trajectory of success depends entirely on one’s ability to link personal knowledge to institutional knowledge useful to future generations. You have understood our third lesson when you realize it is the same as our second lesson.

Our fourth lesson is two-pronged: history and incentives. Growing up in the United States, I was inundated with the superiority of the Western capitalist system and believed it true not as an inherent economic matter, but because of its ability to absorb immigrants and thus new ideas. At the time, I had not traveled extensively, and I did not understand world history. I had no way of knowing USA’s most recent immigrants were present as a result of foreign policy mistakes and attempted coups rather than organic openness. A short summary may be useful: 

 White residents with Hispanic last names filled Miami, Florida after a failed CIA coup against Cuba’s Fidel Castro, ironically himself from noble Spanish lineage.

Seen in Sintra, Portugal

 Cupertino, California is home to residents who are Taiwanese and not Chinese because they were on the losing side of the Chinese Revolution, which rejected Western corruption. (Malcolm X called the Chinese who fled "Uncle Tom Chinese," i.e., people who betrayed their culture and country in service to American and European hegemony.)

 In southern California, Iranians live in Beverly Hills, California only because Western governments saw value in Iranian oil and natural gas.

 Meanwhile, in northern California, numerous Vietnamese restaurants exist because the Catholic Church, using Joseph McCarthy and Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, successfully lobbied Congress to split north and south Vietnam into de facto Communist and Catholic countries. The two-state attempt was unsuccessful, forcing the United States to re-settle foreign agents, who were conveniently assisted by Catholic nonprofits receiving both taxpayer funding and tax exemptions.

Even America’s Olympic medals appear immoral when considering American Christians (and others once connected with Catholic Spain) were able to breed the strongest Africans because they were convinced of God-given racial differences within a context of global trade of tobacco, sugar, and cotton.

Now we may discuss incentives. Most people view incentives from the back-end—being nudged in a particular direction—rather than the front-end, i.e., marketing and mandates. In USA, one reason I am certain of near-term decline is because politics has been reduced to another marketing gimmick, a show where governments signal importance by reacting decisively to events while protecting image at the expense of authenticity. Some cauldrons should not mix together, and the aforementioned political dynamic places the witches’ recipe firmly in the hands of unaccountable third-parties, with politicians serving a pre-fabricated brew guaranteed to poison. An attorney might cite Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), as the date marketing received a license to overwhelm sense, but marketing, at its root, is merely a promise based on words and images. W.H. Auden, my favorite poet, aptly summarized the age-old conflict inherent in mammalian speech:

Not one of them was capable of lying,
There was not one which knew that it was dying 
Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme 
Assumed responsibility for time. 

Let them leave language to their lonely betters 
Who count some days and long for certain letters; 
We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep: 
Words are for those with promises to keep.

Is a legislator’s time at the podium or media outlet an attempt to effectuate a promise? If so, how can this be possible unless we assume a one-party state or a paradigm lacking checks and balances? 

Is billionaire Warren Buffett an insurance salesman propped up by a banking system further propped up by an unaccountable Federal Reserve? Or has he singlehandedly changed the world by bringing together billionaires in search of the public good? 

Is the Catholic Church’s anti-abortion stance designed to more easily funnel government funding to Catholic-dominated voting districts, or genuine concern about society’s moral failings? 

Does a black American “welfare queen” represent personal failure or the failings of an economic system unable to correct racial segregation? If over 80% of African-American women are overweight because their ancestors were bred like animals by enterprising slave traders, should companies allow certain groups more gym time, or should some people more readily accept a manual labor position? On the flip side, when an African-American athlete proudly salutes the American flag, is he ignorant of his country’s history, or is he an optimist who believes in progress? 

All of the above questions have objectively correct answers, but none ascertainable in our lifetimes. Each answer begins with one of the two interpretations, and then depending on the time of analysis, ends somewhere at the other end. If we are lucky, we muddle in the middle as long as possible. By way of example, imagine the Alpha and the Omega or al'Awwal (الأول) and al'Akhir (الآخر), but in a quantum computing setting involving collective free will: the answer is ever-present and yet always changing. 

Perhaps a more concrete example would be instructive. Consider the now-unified country of Germany, once known as the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) aka the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR). When we discuss Germany, which Germany are we entitled to use for analysis? The future and past are necessarily intertwined, so if we only take today’s Germany, will our analysis be complete? If our analysis is almost always incomplete, then do you now understand the “crucial element” we discussed earlier? 

Yes, the fourth lesson is indeed the same as the second and the third, but you could not see it because marketers and politicians have spent billions of dollars proselytizing the belief everyone can go wherever they like on the al'Awwal (الأول) and al'Akhir (الآخر) timeline—often at a cost exceeding selectively-blind allegiance. In reality, your life involves predetermination as well as free will, a fact evident to those who recognize history was always assigned a seat at your table, whether invited or not. Luckily for Americans, their table may wobble, but it is still vast, it still contains multitudes, and unlike Hong Kong or Singapore, there are many, many empty seats available. 

I will leave the last lesson to baseball player Peter “Yogi” Berra: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” I am uncertain of our specific place in the nation’s timeline, but at this point, whether America’s table continues to wobble until it breaks is an outcome favoring free will over predetermination. In simpler terms, it is, once again, up to the youth, especially the builders, lovers, writers, and artists. Fix the table. There is time still. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (November 2020) 

These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, 
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, 
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing. 

– Walt Whitman 

And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, 
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, 
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, 
And that a kelson of the creation is love... 

– Walt Whitman

The "rise of [American political conservatism in the 1980s] showed that hypocritical nostalgia for a kinder, gentler, more Christian pseudo-past is no less susceptible to manipulation in the interests of corporate commercialism and PR image. Most of us will still take nihilism over neanderthalism." -- David Foster Wallace

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Travel in Muslim Countries: To Go or Not to Go

Most Westerners are inundated with negative images of Muslims, making excursions east of Switzerland seem foolhardy. As a U.S. citizen at an American hotel in Muslim-majority Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I'll offer my own perspective. 
Seen April 2021
First, tourism is a trillion dollar industry, and all significant economic sectors include aggressive competition.
While almost everyone has learned governments use fake news and intelligence operations (aka propaganda) against each other, not many of us realize corporate espionage is just as active. For example, during a major sporting event in the United States, a Chinese company's website went down after one of its commercials aired, depriving it of both revenue and reputation. Was it a case of too much online traffic, or something else? More recently, TD Ameritrade's website became inaccessible shortly after the United States assassinated an Iranian military leader on Iraqi soil. Coincidence? Or part of a proportionate response? 
And what of Huawei's acceptance woes internationally? 
From Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei's Lessons from Battle
Most Americans will never know the details behind such machinations; as a result, they tune out public affairs, leaving the corporate and governmental worlds to persons with more passion than common sense and no guarantee of extraordinary moral fiber. Over time, such disconnect leads to a casual acceptance of almost any kind of news relating to foreign affairs--even if the news has no basis in fact. 

Second, negative news is an effective economic weapon because it is cheaper to issue a press release that biases consumers against foreign products than it is to spend money on positive advertising (aka building a consistent brand). Whatever the proclaimed political platform, every government has the same goal: attracting investors and deposits in order to expand the economy and to lower unemployment. Malaysia in particular has received bad press because its leader, Tun Mahathir Mohamad, is unapologetically pro-Asian, pro-Malay, and nationalistic. 
From A Doctor in the House (MPH Publishing)
Some examples of negative news involve Malaysia's hotel policy prohibiting unmarried couples from staying together. Setting aside the fact that states like Sarawak and Sabah are known to be fiercely independent from authorities in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, people fail to read the fine print: such policies are applicable only to Muslims and no one else. Since no front desk hotel clerk has ever asked me to state my religion, one can see obvious enforcement problems. In fact, none other than Tun Mahathir has said, "Islam does not ask us to find fault in people to the extent that you breach into other people's homes. That is not Islam." Why, then, do such policies exist? 

Here's the short version: after 1945, Europe could not afford to occupy countries east of the Suez, which it had done since Portugal controlled the Straits of Malacca in 1511, signaling Islam's decline in SE Asia. Despite overreaching--even WWII's "winners" had crushing debt--European leaders believed they could successfully resist or co-opt anti-colonial movements threatening private property interests. In one particularly brazen example, the Dutch, intending to stymie independence efforts, seized the future Indonesian president. (See Operation Kraai/Crow.) Though Westerners are taught WWII ended in 1945, in reality, battles continued worldwide over two additional decades to expel European colonists, especially the British. 
As European influence waned, newly independent countries--eager to counter vestiges of colonialism but with little experience building economies--had to discover new ways of governing diverse populations. In Malaysia and other majority-Muslim countries, politicians decided to restrict full benefits of citizenship to those presumed to be loyal to new governments, which in practice often meant Muslims (rather than Buddhist Chinese or Indians). 
By Tun Mahathir Mohamed
At the same time, Islam's reformation of slavery over a thousand years before similar movements in the West; lack of centralized structure (no Holy See); and absence of racial categories made Muslim-majority countries susceptible to hostile foreign infiltration and fraud, generating an ironic outcome: SE Asian governments, some still under European military protection, used anti-colonialism to justify identifying residents with greater specificity, thus mimicking British colonialists' "divide and govern" strategy. 
Later, Tun Mahathir refers to British colonialists' racialized division of labor.
In the United States, few people are willing to accept identity cards disclosing their religion or race, but such cards are common in SE Asia in order to better administer governance, including minimum diversity levels in government-subsidized housing. Mindful of an Animal Farm outcome in which new rulers become as corrupt as old ones, Muslim-majority governments began drafting laws applicable only to Muslims in order to respect non-Muslim minority residents. An unintentional result of using separate systems and/or governmental hiring preferences--whether in Hindu India, Muslim Malaysia, or now politically-Catholic-dominated USA--is that governments ceded the more dynamic private sector to non-majorities (e.g., Punjabis and Sikhs in India; Chinese in Malaysia, etc.), making themselves less relevant. 
Today, when Christian Westerners discuss sharia law, they bypass historical context: namely, that some religious minorities seek independent legal systems to resolve marriage, divorce, child-rearing, and inheritance issues because of Western colonialism's abuses and a rational distrust of legal systems in which Christian governments made and interpreted rules against politically-powerless minorities without input from non-Christians

Let's fast-forward to modern-day Malaysia. The country continues to struggle with corruption, even as its private sector appears healthy and citizens of all races and religions have experienced steady, sustainable improvements in quality of life. Meanwhile, politics in Malaysia--just like in several Western and Christian countries--has become an arena in which to signal moral purity rather than seek effective solutions. 22 years after opposition candidate Anwar Ibrahim was arrested on allegedly pretextual sodomy charges, former PM Najib Razak will face trial for his alleged role in the 1MDB scandal

Such political jousting isn't novel. When Tun Mahathir became president of Malaysia's now-most powerful political party in 1978, Tun Harun Idris had been investigated for corruption and jailed. After Tun Mahathir rose to power, he helped pardon Tun Harun. Lest you believe Muslim-majority countries are unique in using legal maneuvers against political opponents, you may want to review impeachment proceedings (Bill Clinton, Dilma Rousseff, Donald Trump); corruption convictions (Brasil's Luis "Lulu" da Silva, Spain's José Antonio Griñán); politically-motivated detentions without trial (Singapore's Operation Coldstore); FBI investigations before and during USA President Donald Trump's term; and President Trump's military-related pardons, plus dismissed prosecutions, including one where a lieutenant general pled guilty to lying to the FBI. (The only logical reason for such a lie would have been because statements requesting a foreign country not to escalate were code for an eventual quid pro quo that didn't happen only because of the FBI's investigation.) 
From USA's Mueller Report
In 2020, many voters see democratic elections as a game in which the ruling party uses all available tools to crush political opposition so as to cement power over the common purse, a power it wields to reward friends and destroy enemies. Sadly, they're not wrong. The level of incest--figuratively as well as literally--within political families is so prevalent, one has to wonder why voters didn't catch on earlier. See, for example, Belgium's Anciaux and Spaak families; Bolivia's Siles family; Brasil's Bolsonaro family (and many others);

In Brazil, 20,000 families control 80% of the wealth. -- Clark Winter's The Either/Or Investor (2008), hardcover, pp. 123.

Canada's Trudeau family (and many, many others); Colombia's López family... I could continue, but the list is extensive worldwide, and just the "U" countries (U.S., U.K., Uruguay) could fill a novella. (Note: Americans lived under a Bush or Clinton presidency from 1989 to 2009.) All available evidence indicates politicians are merely stand-ins for ruling families (Rockefellers, Gettys, Vanderbilts, Hearsts, Rothschilds, Morgans, etc.) which hearken back to a time when trading houses, along with their private militaries, ruled trade and therefore the world. 
We may know about the House of Bourbon, House of Bonaparte, and House of Saud, but though we're told "Hong" means "fragrant"--marketing so inapplicable to Hong Kong, one wonders if they're even trying anymore--in fact the "Hong" in Hong Kong refers to British trading houses. 

In the first half of the 19th century, the largest single industry in the United States, measured in terms of both market capital and employment, was the enslavement (and the breeding for enslavement) of human beings... Over the course of the period, the industry became concentrated to the point where fewer than 4,000 families (roughly 0.1% of the nation's households) owned about 1/4 of this 'human capital,' and another 390,000 (call it the 9.9%) owned all of the rest. -- Matthew Stewart (2018) 

Once one connects political power, military power, and trade (economic power), politicians are exposed as pretenders to a throne established centuries ago and protected by governmental inefficacy relating to offshore tax shelters that utilize complexity to provide anonymity. Within such a landscape, we can understand 1MDB as a misguided attempt to attract foreign direct investment, plus its corollary: zealous enforcement against the rise of patrons, especially in the informal sector, that might inspire unaccountable competitors. Perhaps we can now see some arrests are publicized to rally a political base; harass supporters of political opponents; gain advantages within a trillion dollar industry; or signal moral superiority by casting opponents as insufficiently religious. Admittedly, such a paradigm brooks no winners except would-be conformists and no prizes but internal rot, but if "all's fair in love and war," why not politics also?  

Native-born citizens and Hollywood aficionados forget America is an idea, not a specific place, and much of America's appeal comes from the eternal idea of refuge (including from political instability). In other centuries "America" was called the New World, and though I do not speak enough languages fluently to tell you more names, considering Justice Sotomayor's dissent in Trump vs. Hawaii (2018), Canada may now be more "American" than its downward neighbor. And so, to those Americans and Christians avoiding Muslim-majority countries because of inconsistent executive enforcement, discrimination on the basis of religion, and criminals run amok, rest assured: the United States has become like every other country, but with superior marketing. Welcome! May your children someday experience sunset gates and glows worldwide. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2020) 

Bonus I: "Tun" is a term of respect placed in front of a distinguished Malay's name. It is similar to "Mahatma." (Gandhi's first name is not Mahatma, but Mohandas.)  

Bonus II: Modern Western politics is in its current miserable state because everyone from Diego Rivera to the Workington Man has realized Western liberal values were mere covers for theft and supplanting of local institutions abroad rather than a sincere attempt to bring Enlightenment to all. -- Matthew Rafat (2019, after Britain's general election)

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Politics and Intelligence

Empires usually fail because of two reasons: 1) distrust between entities acting as checks and balances on the executive branch, which inspires secrecy and eventually an inability to identify problems; and 2) overextension at any cost, both numerical and qualitative, in order to prevent competitors from achieving progress. The second reason is why mainstream media degenerates or remains staid during a superpower's decline. 

Most of us understand media is intertwined with public opinion and therefore elections. In turn, media influence is connected with established political and private entities, usually law enforcement and multinational corporations (e.g., Dutch East India Company or ExxonMobil), because such entities, unlike individual government employees, have no theoretical shelf life and can use their longevity to incur debt, roll over debt, and use funding to gain long-term, reliable sources and conduits of information. In this way, entities are better able to sustain themselves because they can buy loyalty, whereas non-billionaire individuals cannot buy equal influence even if armed with facts and logic. 
James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1
As media and advertising have become inescapable, an escalating amount of content is necessary to fill in the time occupied by new technologies. (Facebook's and Google's revenues indicate how much direct and indirect advertising targets our eyeballs and consumer preferences.) If established players do not occupy the content channels accessible to their residents and supporters, they leave open spaces for competitors--some benign, some domestic, some foreign, some hostile. (Military strategists are familiar with these tactics in the physical realm, though none seem able to push back credibly when overextension appears on the horizon.) 

By now, we all know the gist of Edward Snowden's allegations, but Snowden--as intelligent as he obviously is--was a low-level NSA worker. His aim to avoid the surveillance state is no longer possible for an ordinary person without extreme measures. Experienced intelligence assets and agents determined decades ago that influence must be assisted and co-opted to prevent a devolution of content--i.e., fake news, or what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1978 presciently called the "abyss of human decadence." 

Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people... It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young people's right not to look or not to accept. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1978)

While intellectuals have been keen to recognize the symptoms of a society in decline, they have not understood the causes equally well. Put simply, as entities seek to control an increasing number of content channels, they are forced to hide truths unfavorable to their paymasters. Censorship being disfavored due to its ability to backfire, most leaders choose to ruin their opponent's credibility, their opponent's finances (the LKY method), or, as a last resort, assassinations (e.g., MLK's murder on the one-year anniversary of his Vietnam speech and 1973's Lillehammer affair). To mitigate blowback from the use of such underhanded tactics, the same entities boost persons favorable to their country's image, especially athletes and minorities, so as to avoid situations like USA's 1968 Olympics Black Power salute. Boosting, co-opting, and "soft censorship" require vast amounts of money, thus entrenching entities and billionaires while disfavoring individuals, even if the former lack facts, truth, or logic

This financial requirement, if not managed carefully, eventually renders countries and their residents debt facilitators or obligators foremost, bankers and politicians competing for the title of "Most Creative Cash Flow Consultant." (Witness current negative interest rates.) Such propaganda tactics obfuscate decline because the more such entities succeed, the harder it becomes to identify legitimate complaints and issues. Furthermore, most governments able to access debt/funding overshoot in their attempts to maintain social cohesion, whether co-opting too late (e.g., U.K.'s experience against the IRA and Sinn Fein, Russia's relationship with Chechnya) or boosting individuals and outliers in ways inimical to structural solutions (e.g., affirmative action and racial quotas over tearing down institutional factors supporting segregation). 

As financial burdens--as well as concomitant superficiality, budgetary mismanagement, and economic inequality--increase, the first reason mentioned in the opening sentence gathers strength. Regardless of where blame is directed for declining social cohesion, law enforcement tacitly or overtly gains more discretion to maintain law and order, weakening mechanisms designed to stop extremism. As lawyers and academics realize their participation (and therefore influence) has waned, their attempts to counter executive force are noble; however, at this juncture, the executive branch has already created separate modes of operation in a good faith effort to resolve problems in an efficient manner. To the extent such illegal maneuvers can be traced, it is not difficult to destroy evidence and silence witnesses through the same methods discussed earlier. Yet, the moment disrespect for legal norms protecting individual rights becomes fashionable, a country's power structure has already shifted from the long-term to the short-term, from the credible and sustainable to the out-of-touch and unbelievable. In such a realm, criticism is a threat to operations, weakening a country's desired image and investor confidence. After all, the more all parties believe outstanding debts will be repaid, the more existing parties gain power and are welcomed by all--except those who have studied history properly. 

© Matthew Rafat (February 2020) 

Update: I wanted to follow up on the difference between a Snowden acolyte and higher-level intelligence analyst. Let's say you have evidence a particular app or website is involved in human trafficking. You can try to go to court and ask for a take-down order, but the company would justifiably argue its website has legitimate users, and as a mere facilitator, it is not responsible for illegal activity between its end users. If you follow Snowden, you would also argue such tactics amount to government censorship and government picking and choosing winners.

But Snowden would have no answer to what might happen next: the government, a mega-church, or a billionaire's employees could, even without a backdoor, create fake profiles on the website and tilt the ratio between real users and sock-puppets however it liked. The company, at first, would be delighted because it could show advertising companies its growth. Over time, however, as real users left the website, it would become difficult for anyone involved to maintain credibility.

A more complicated situation would involve a leak of classified information. In such a case, though censorship could occur, the government could also direct all public (aka mainstream) website searches to websites it had created itself or through its subsidiaries' uploads. Many subsidiaries, such as nonprofits, would not have the technological expertise to determine whether they were reviewing altered or real material, or even whether they were being funded by the very government under investigation.

I often say the 21st century's hallmark is the "bad guys" have become the "good guys," and vice-versa. One reason is that unaltered, legitimate data--the underlying basis for truth--is sometimes only available in the dark web or through secret channels. 

Friday, December 13, 2019

Thoughts on Britain's General Election 2019: Greed is Good

I'm disappointed but unsurprised by the U.K.'s general election. Though neither Boris Johnson nor Jeremy Corbyn (Leader of "Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition") are inspirational, it would be a mistake to credit or blame either man for tonight's results. Personally, I don't understand why Labour fielded a candidate who, in 2016, suffered a no confidence vote in which 172 of his 229 fellow Labour MPs opposed him, but that's another topic. Gaffes aside, we must finally admit the public's loss of faith in government's ability to advance public goods. How did we reach this miserable spot, with an out-of-touch millionaire union organizer battling an inept pro-American twat for the mantle of British leadership? I shall offer some clues. 
Voter turnout was between 50 to 75% with an average of 67%, meaning
over 1 out of every 4 British adults has lost faith in their political system,
despite having the numerical power to swing elections.
1. Surveillance Capitalism Tilts the Playing Field against Individual Autonomy and thus Shared Liberal Values

The most surveilled cities in the world are in China, U.S.A., and the U.K. In the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu reportedly said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." (As a European Catholic, he ought to know.) In 2006, Bruce Schneier echoed his sentiments: "Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- with." What, you may ask, does general surveillance have to do with general elections? 

By the time a country has achieved the capability--and insufficient political resistance--to spy on most of its citizens, a security state (aka a police state) is already in place, rendering politics more spectacle than crucible. The most effective propaganda comes from such police states, because the security apparatus controls information, an advantage promoting aligned media operations through which authorities can arrest, frame, sue, and blackmail opponents with impunity. In contrast, non-police states allow lawyers and journalists to gain information on equal footing as private and public security forces, building loyal audiences subject to independent scrutiny. Only the latter dynamic allows voters a reasonable chance at seeing honest, non-biased information. (The truth may be out there, but sometimes it hides well enough to never be found.) What happens to accountability without unbiased information? Politicians and academics, responsible for crafting legislation that protects their fellow residents, receive distorted information, guaranteeing failure. 

Government failures have consequences, of course. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden once asked, "What do you do when the most powerful institutions in society have become the least accountable to society?" To reach a point where his question holds weight, first there has to be "a system that makes the population vulnerable for the benefit of the privileged." One path leading to certain dystopia involves a system of widespread surveillance rendering the general population dependent on biased information, allowing security and intelligence entities to manipulate voters. The British series Black Mirror, in "Waldo Moment," aptly illustrated our current path: a world where selective editing, enough spending on advertisements, and carnival barkers can make anyone honest to appear dishonest--and vice-versa. In such topsy-turvy environments, even the most earnest citizens eventually give up trying to ascertain the truth. After all, the truth is rarely profitable, whereas propaganda is inherently profitable because it is a form of marketing and therefore financed from birth. 

It was not always this way. In the pre-digital-surveillance age, if a government, billionaire, or corporation wanted to tar your reputation, invade your privacy, or remove you from influence, they'd have to physically reveal themselves (e.g., arrest, spying) or leave evidence behind (e.g., a paper trail, a frivolous lawsuit, a body). The existence of a physical trail limited abuses of power as long as lawyers and journalists had the public's credibility and thus attention. Absent such credibility, voters logically favor short-term over long-term results, an environment in which any government spending decision can appear suspicious. Worse yet, distortions tend to multiply because biased information favors groups over individuals in the same way propaganda overwhelms truth; in times of suspicion, humanity's herd instinct seeks safety in numbers, nuance be damned. Meanwhile, the intangibility of the decay caused by dishonesty accelerates entropy as people with resources try to create estuaries apart from the mainstream to better control their flow of information, a tactic that entrenches existing corruption while allowing the Establishment to slander separatists with charges of insufficient patriotism. 

In this manner, modern times have brought invisible and intertwined plagues: the diminution of the individual; the loss of faith in collective action; and greater difficulty achieving mutually-beneficial political changes. Powerful entities can seemingly be stopped only by other large powerful entities--not the ballot box or determined individuals. Within this paradigm, entities able to afford surveillance--or protection from it--can better protect their preferred people, including political players, who are often egotistical fronts distracting from or justifying previous economic and banking decisions. As such, we know about Jamal Khashoggi's murder not because of independent journalism or lawyers but because a state with surveillance and military power comparable to Saudi Arabia disclosed its investigation--presumably after it received approval from an even more powerful state. 

In a world where groups are advantaged a priori over individuals, constant surveillance means supposedly "free," democratic Britain eventually becomes fundamentally similar to so-called repressive, totalitarian China--with almost everyone lacking time, legal knowledge, and translation skills to escape a fishbowl existence where most information is controlled or provided out of context. 

[Bruce Schneier: "If we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness... Too many wrongly characterize the debate as 'security vs. privacy.' The real choice is liberty versus control."]

2. Misinformation Means Democratic Representatives are Less Effective and Less Responsive

If elites and politicians do not receive accurate information, they cannot fix or even identify existing problems, much less future ones, and the public tends to shift allegiance to the executive branch (aka the police and military), who are closer to the ground and who have the necessary technology to gather the best information. 
Meanwhile, in Singapore, a former British colony, the PM is sharing math formulas on Twitter.
There's a reason misinformation affects so-called totalitarian states less: as long as they value technology, which allows efficient tracking of tangible items, they operate from an advantageous starting point by not placing abstract ideals above concrete economic gains. The more government becomes corrupt or inefficient, the more soul-selling becomes logical under a cost-benefit analysis. 

[Meanwhile, in Scotland, where politicians are still respected and respectable: 

"I don’t pretend that every single person who voted SNP yesterday will necessarily support [Scottish] independence, but there has been a strong endorsement in this election of Scotland having a choice over our future; of not having to put up with a Conservative government we didn’t vote for and not having to accept life as a nation outside the EU." -- SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon] 

3.  Personal Gain Trumps Collective Concern as Politicians Become Increasingly Out-of-Touch

The world's economic engine isn't as complicated as it seems. Countries that successfully provided viable alternatives to entrenched interests using immigrants, private sector competitors, and/or uncompromising political leaders (e.g., M. Thatcher) minimized self-serving corruption--as long as they improved consumer access to greater choices. Unfortunately, as technology became essential and the cost of competing in larger markets increased, traditional methods of exacting honesty from corrupt groups dissolved. As I wrote earlier, no matter how true one's outrage, power is now necessary to combat power, and too often, power tends to bargain with itself, making compromises further violating the individual. 

An additional factor explains our amoral political arena. In the post-Thatcher and post-Reagan world, elections are "winner take-all" contests, with losing districts certain to receive less or same government funding at the same time as winning districts receive more. Within countries where government is directly involved in medical care, education, and transportation, elections matter greatly in terms of employment growth and therefore economic success. Not swimming with the tide may mean economic stagnation, and as consumer debt soaks the world, the promise of a dollar means more than the promise of hope, justice, or equality. 


4. Conclusion

To summarize, as power and information consolidate and promote biased information, most people lose faith in public institutions. Consequently, voters are unable to depend on abstract ideals, and whichever candidate convinces a majority they will have more money will usually prevail--even if voters don't tend to understand inflation

Do you have enough clues to solve the mystery yet? 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2019)

Bonus I: "The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn't seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn't know that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber, and, worst of all, corrupt officials." (From 1988, paraphrased, "Terra Nossa: Newsletter of Project Abraço, North Americans in Solidarity with the People of Brazil, Τόμοι 1-7") 

Bonus II: as you can see from the charts below, the British pound increased 3% relative to the US dollar once it was clear the Conservative Party would gain substantial seats. This currency increase helps the British government, which settles debt in USD, as well as British multinational corporations, which have debt denominated in US dollars. Seen one way, though British exports may become more expensive, voting Conservative or creating propaganda in favor of Conservative votes has generated a paper return of billions of pounds. 


Bonus III: Dave Chappelle, playing host of fictional show, "I Know Black People" on Comedy Central.

Chappelle: "How can black people rise and overcome?"

White Contestant: "Get out and vote." [buzz]

Chappelle: "That is incorrect, I'm afraid."


Bonus IV: re: my comment above on gender influencing the election, please see the following graph.