Stardate 20021215.1904

(On Screen): Hoo boy. Cheese and Rices. Good Lord. Holy Shit!!!

The purpose of Boston Review's New Democracy Forum is to foster politically engaged, intellectually honest, and morally serious debate about fundamental issues of the day -- both on and off the agenda of conventional politics -- and to say something about how we might better address them.

Welcome to the nexus, the center of the Tranzi brain trust. The good news is that the writing is lucid. The bad news is that the thought processes are not. Socialism and pacifism are axiomatically correct. Self interest is always evil. Nationalism is evil. Capitalism is evil. Large corporations are evil. Inequality is evil. People, left to themselves, will do the wrong thing, and in any case they're all being brainwashed.

Any other position is either politically disengaged, intellectually dishonest, or morally frivolous, apparently.

Reclaiming the commons: "The commons refers to that vast range of resources that the American people collectively own, but which are rapidly being enclosed: privatized, traded in the market, and abused. The process of converting the American commons into market resources can accurately be described as enclosure because, like the movement to enclose common lands in eighteenth-century England, it involves the private appropriation of collectively owned resources. Such enclosures are troubling because they disproportionately benefit the corporate class and effectively deprive ordinary citizens of access to resources that they legally or morally own."

Hoo boy.

Is the Internet really a blessing for democracy? "I do so by emphasizing one of the most striking powers provided by emerging technologies: the growing power of consumers to "filter" what they see. As a result of the Internet and other technological developments, many people are increasingly engaged in a process of personalization that limits their exposure to topics and points of view of their own choosing. They filter in, and they also filter out, with unprecedented powers of precision."

The internet lets people choose what they want to read, which means that they can't have the right answer forced down their throats. Instead, they'll think for themselves and make up their own minds, and they'll come to the wrong conclusion.

Oh, man.

A Basic Income for All: "Entering the new millennium, I submit for discussion a proposal for the improvement of the human condition: namely, that everyone should be paid a universal basic income (UBI), at a level sufficient for subsistence. ... a basic income would serve as a powerful instrument of social justice: it would promote real freedom for all by providing the material resources that people need to pursue their aims. At the same time, it would help to solve the policy dilemmas of poverty and unemployment, and serve ideals associated with both the feminist and green movements."

Holy shit.

What should be done for those who have been left behind? "To speak less metaphorically, we must provide those who now live [in the inner city ghettos of the US] with the economic means to move into middle- or upper-class neighborhoods. Such a voluntary relocation strategy would: eliminate the spatial mismatch between jobs and residence, by allowing the jobless to move closer to where the jobs exist; break up the concentration of impoverished, single-parent households, by enabling ghetto residents to move to safer neighborhoods where there is more of a mix of economic classes and family structures; and enhance access to intermediate institutions, such as schools and churches, that are not so heavily burdened as those of the ghetto and that might have more of a chance of succeeding."

Ye Gods.

The New Politics of Consumption: "First, consuming is part of the problem. Income (the solution) leads to consumption practices that exacerbate and reproduce class and social inequalities, resulting in-and perhaps even worsening-an unequal distribution of income.'

Oh, boy.

And then I came to this one: Global Action to Prevent War. Published in 1999, it presents a plan which could be implemented in 20-30 years which would prevent any war from ever happening again, or so it is claimed. The solution is easy and very straightforward, and the only thing missing is the political will to implement it.

Or so it is claimed.

It would happen in four steps, summarized in the article as follows:

Phase I. Reduce the incidence of civil and ethnic wars by radically strengthening UN and regional institutions for conflict prevention, peacekeeping, and peace enforcement; and begin to reduce the longer-term risks of major international war by initiating talks on cuts in military spending and arms holdings, production, and trade, by providing full transparency (open information) on these elements of armed forces, and by making a commitment to freeze or reduce them until joint cuts are agreed (or for at least ten years).

Phase II. With stronger peacekeeping institutions in place, reduce the risk of major international war by making substantial worldwide cuts in armed forces and military spending (up to one-third of the largest forces), combined with parallel cuts in arms production and trade, and by referring disputes to the International Court of Justice. At the same time, continue to reduce the frequency and scale of internal wars by further strengthening UN and regional capabilities for conflict resolution, peacekeeping, and peace enforcement and by using the new International Criminal Court; and establish a tax on international financial transactions to support these activities.

Phase III. Building on the improved means of preventing armed conflict developed in Phases I and II, deepen confidence in the international community's ability to prevent international and internal wars by securing a watershed commitment on the part of participating nations (including the major powers) not to deploy their armed forces beyond national borders except in multilateral actions under UN or regional auspices. This will test international institutions while participants still have national means of unilateral military action as a fall-back. At the same time, conduct negotiations on arms cuts and other steps to be taken in Phase IV, when there is full confidence in international peacekeeping institutions.

Phase IV. Complete the process of making international and internal wars rare, brief, and small in scale by permanently transferring to the UN and regional security organizations the authority and capability for armed intervention to prevent or end war by expanding all-volunteer armed forces at the disposal of the UN and its regional counterparts while making another round of deep cuts (up to one-third, compared with today's levels) in national armed forces. The remaining national armed forces, which will be at most one-third the size of today's largest forces, will be limited to national defense of national territory, and will be restructured, if necessary, to focus exclusively on this role.

All you have to do is to ignore 2000 years of accumulated knowledge about why wars really happen, and just pretend that all of it is wrong. This plan is based on a huge number of assumptions which are deeply flawed, and if even one of them is wrong then the program collapses.

It assumes that wars only happen between nations and that major acts of violence are only implemented with forces which are traditionally armed. (18 months later that was disproved.)

It assumes that wars can only be fought with big weapons. (al Qaeda proved otherwise last year.)

It assumes that everyone in the world is actually interested in peace and willing to cooperate with a process which would lead to peace.

It assumes that all conflicts can be solved with negotiation. It assumes that in any major international disagreement that there is some sort of middle ground where a settlement could be placed that would sufficiently mollify both sides so that neither would be inspired to conflict. In other words, it assumes that it is actually possible to solve all problems without resort to war.

It assumes that the primary reason that wars happen is because there are armies. If you eliminate the armies, then you eliminate war.

It assumes that the UN can be converted into something resembling a world government which will rule the world with justice and equity.

And so, it postulates a situation where the nations of the world reduce their armies substantially, and where an international force reporting to the UN would be created which would be sufficiently powerful to defeat any remaining military force in any given nation if need be.

And if this happened, and if the resulting world government or world military came under the control of some sort of dictatorial power, it would not be possible to ever overthrow it, and the world would sink into a global abyss ruled by an evil dictator and his heirs which might last decades or centuries. I'd rather not place the entire world's eggs in a single basket, if I can in any way avoid it. I would rather not have the entire world become Myanmar, or North Korea, or Zimbabwe. I would rather not have the most powerful military force in the world be commanded by an international organization which might well be dominated by voices similar to those.

But that fear assumes that this proposal actually happens. In practice, this proposal has about as much chance of actually going into effect as I do of being elected Chancellor of Germany. For one thing, it presumes that no one will hold out, or hide things, or in any way cheat. Given the success of the attempt to try to discover concealed weapons in Iraq, the idea that a similar level of disarmament could be implemented worldwide would seem the slightest bit idealistic. (Not to mention the "success" of the Washington Naval Disarmament Conference.)

Its biggest flaw is the presumption that mediation will always be able to solve disagreements. Reality is not so tractible. There have been and will be cases of armed political movements whose goals which are mutually exclusive and where the goals are held to be of the highest possible importance, such that compromise is impossible. In such a case, it is not possible for both sides to win, or to view the result as acceptable. Both sides can lose, but only one side can win. There is no middle ground.

A reductionist synthetic example of that: if Christians, Hindus, Moslems and Jews all want to build a church on the same holy site and would consider the presence of any other church there as being sacrilege, then the only outcome that is equal is for no one to build a church at all; but in that case, everyone considers themself a loser. The only consolation is that no one else won, either, but it's not enough.

That kind of disagreement actually happens all the time in history, and it's one of the big reasons why wars happen. One of the common reasons for it is conflicting claims to the same territory. Kashmir is a good example of that, as is the problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians. (For many Palestinians, the only acceptable outcome is the complete eradication of Israel and reclamation of the entire boundaries of the territory as it existed before 1948.)

Meanwhile, Germany and France have traded Alsace back and forth a couple of times, and the borders of Poland have changed once or twice per century for as far back as we have written records of Poland even existing (back through the Duchy of Warsaw, and even earlier).

You also have situations where ethnic tensions and cultural conflicts have such deep roots that no mutually satisfactory solution seems possible. Greeks and Turks have hated one another since the time of Alexander the Great, with each at various times conquering and ruling the other. There's the conflict between Serbs and Croats, and between Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. Some of those things are based on enmity going back hundreds of years.

And there are charismatic madmen, who may gain substantial temporal power in hopes of achieving goals no rational person could support. al Qaeda wants a resumption of Arab rule over Andalusia. al Qaeda also won't take "no" for an answer. If it happens, it will come as a rather rude surprise to the people of Spain who live there now, in as much as Arab rule over Andalusia ended in the 15th century.

One of the problems here is in trying to ajudicate between varying historical claims to various geographic locations. There are parts of Russia and Poland where German is the primary spoken language. There are a substantial number of Russians living in Estonia. There are Africans in Brazil, Dutchmen in South Africa, Chinese in Indonesia, and a hell of a lot of Europeans in North America. How far back does a territorial claim go? When does any legal claim become moot? Does California belong to the US? Should it be returned to Mexico? Or to the tribes?

Historically, the original settlers in Andalusia were probably from Carthage, which itself was a Phoenician trading colony. Would that give modern Lebanon (which was once Phoenicia) a legal claim to Seville?

Some places have changed hands many times. Gdansk is a good example of that. It's a seaport on the Baltic coast of Poland which may have been founded earlier than 970, but historically it was known as Danzig. In 1793 it was given to Prussia. Napoleon "liberated" it in 1807, but it was returned to Prussia in 1815, and was incorporated with the rest of Prussia into Germany by Bismarck. It was considered part of Germany until the Treaty of Versailles, which gave it to Poland.

But before that, it went through many hands. It was independent (a "free city") for a while, but for several centuries it was part of the Hanseatic League. If there were a dispute of sovereignty over Gdansk, how would something like the International Court of Justice (or some similar international tribunal) adjudicate the claims? The Hanseatic League was German, and Prussia ruled Danzig longer than Poland has. Should it be given back to Germany if Germany asks?

That, of course, pales by comparison to the problem of Jerusalem.

As a practical matter, these kinds of questions can't be settled by any kind of court, and as a further practical matter, unless you start granting joint-sovereignty to all kinds of places, someone is going to be dissatisfied with the results.

It would be really peachy if win-win were always possible. But in too many cases it is fore-ordained by the goals of the disputants that at least one of them must lose, in their own opinion, and if the issue is sufficiently important to them that they won't give it up, in that case the only way a solution can be imposed on them is by force.

That, at its simplest and most reductionist level, is why wars happen. It's because the issue is viewed as critical by both sides and because neither side can, or will, compromise, and because their goals are mutually exclusive. Any imposed solution in such a case will leave at least one side sullen and bitter, biding their time until they can try to open the issue again, and some such cases have simmered for centuries.

War is diplomacy by other means and wars are fought when one side decides that diplomacy cannot succeed. When the issue is considered critical and the goals are mutually exclusive and non-negotiable, eventually people will die for those causes.

In a very few cases, the sides eventually grow out of it. I do not expect France and Germany to fight another war over Alsace, for example. But every such case I know of where this has happened, part of the reason why was that one side gave up its ambitions because it had lost some sort of armed conflict. The reason Germany and France aren't at each other's throats over Alsace is because Germany was defeated in 1945 and has been militarily occupied ever since, and has had its martial and nationalist culture forcibly changed. Peace between France and Germany was not a triumph of diplomacy; it was dearly bought in blood. By the same token, I think we can assume that the Sudetenland is now firmly part of the Czech Republic.

Even if I am a rational postmodernist man, living in a rational postmodern transnational state, with no designs on anyone else's territory, the possibility still exists that someone else somewhere else may for some unknown and possibly irrational reason come to have designs on my nation or parts of it. This plan tacitly acknowledges this by stating that the various principalities of the world should be permitted to retain sufficient force to defend their own territories, but to pledge never to operate militarily outside their own territories, and indeed to destroy anything which would give them that ability.

So if an enemy invades your homeland with a substantial military force, then once you've somehow or other managed to force them back out again, you're not permitted to follow that up with a counter-invasion. You have to let him get away, lick his wounds, build up his army, and try again. Eventually he'll succeed, and your nation will no longer exist.

But even that assumes that the only kind of war that matters is between large armed forces belonging to nations. The folly of that concept was clearly demonstrated last year when it was shown that not all kinds of attacks can be dealt with in conventional military terms. If someone operates a terrorist war against you, making periodic devastating attacks mounted from lawless territory, then if you follow the terms of this treaty all you can do is to sustain the damage, bury your dead, wait for the next blow to fall, and hope like hell that you can somehow or other convince the UN to do something about it. You're not permitted to pursue Pancho Villa into Mexico, and you're not permitted to go into Afghanistan after al Qaeda. You're never permitted to take war to your enemies so as to prevent them from taking the war to you, or to pursue nationless organizations bent on violence against you.

I'm not willing to gamble my nation's future on that. And I sure as hell am not willing to gamble on the creation of an international military force beholden to no single nation which is more powerful than those of the nations, which might come to be controlled by this century's equivalent of Napoleon or Stalin or Temujin or Attila.

What bothers me about this article is not that it was published, in the sense of me worrying about distribution of ideas I dislike. I approve of that, actually. If I never encounter ideas I dislike, I'm going to become extremely worried.

What bothers me about it is that the person who wrote it, and the movements he seems to represent (for these ideas have wide currency) are trying to deal with a problem without any clear indication that they truly understand what the problem is. It disturbs me that people who seem to be as intelligent and well educated as this can be so deeply misguided.

The articles which answered this one in 1999 did not seem to take it to task for the total disconnect it has with reality. And it's clear that there are those out there who are thinking in these kinds of terms even today, as indicated by something I saw yesterday on Little Green Footballs. The proponents of this concept have not been disillusioned by the clear demonstration last year of their impracticality.

It seems that in the UK, the local committee for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has gone to court to try to prevent the UK from participating in any attack on Iraq without formal UN authorization.

Given that one of the reasons why we're eventually going to go in there is that Iraq has been attempting to develop nuclear weapons and has not given up that ambition despite the most fervent international efforts short of war, it's hard to see why the UKCND would take that position, if one assumes that its real goal is, well, nuclear disarmament. But once one realizes that the CND is one of the many NGOs (which this article praises effusively) which are expected to league together for the overall goal of stopping war, then you realize that what they're trying to do is to stop all warfare, one war at a time. If you stop each war when it happens, then you don't have any wars, right? And the way you stop a war is by preventing at least one side from actually fighting it, right? And if you can do that, then you get peace on earth and good will to all men.

What's missing from that calculation is any acknowledgement that sometimes you have to fight a small war to prevent a big one, and that ignoring a small danger lets it grow. No one ever put out a forest fire by preaching to the wilderness about how much nicer unburnt trees are.

It's all platitudes. It's all grand principles. It doesn't take any details into account; it ignores the grubby reality of the Prisoner's Dilemma and the fact that in some conflicts there's no middle ground. It ignores the fact that there do exist men who are evil or deluded. It's high minded, but it's so high that it's in the stratosphere and can't actually see the ground. It's based on a projected idea of how the world should be, rather than on any kind of pragmatic evaluation of how things actually are.

It's a marvelous proposition, marred only by a single flaw: it can't possibly work.