About a hundred years or so ago, when ostrich feathers were still prized (and worth more than gold) for their decorative powers, there existed a group of ostrich farmers in southern Africa who prided themselves with their ostrich farming skills. So, in order keep their 'special' knowledge within their small community (its a supply & demand thing), they married within the community.
Soon they found that their offsprings included many idiots that they were more than a bit embarassed to be seen in public. So, they built 'ostrich palaces' which had large basements where they kept their idiot children from the public eye. But they cannot keep the children there for too long without having to withstand their complaints & restlessness. So the
families let their idiots out of their ostrich palaces and take walks in the streets with their maids on Sunday afternoons just after the town folks had their afternoon prayers. The thinking is that at that hour most town folks will be resting at home, and less people will get to know of their idiot children.
But what they didn't know is that people do get to know and that hour was then known as the 'hour of the idiots'.
The moral of this real story is this: whatever they do or think, there is always a time when idiots will show their true selves. One just has to wait for 'their hour'.
The attached news article is one such example from my country:
Malaysia moots cross-cultural circumcision
By Jonathan Kent BBC, Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia is to consider using mass circumcision ceremonies to promote racial harmony.
Circumcision is a rite of passage for young Muslim boys, and in Malaysia it is common for the ceremony to become an event with dozens, or even hundreds of boys being circumcised together.
Now the prime minister's religious affairs adviser has suggested that circumcision can bring Malaysians of all races and religions together.
Dr Abdul Hamid Othman said that with the growing popularity of circumcision among the country's non-Muslim minorities - who see it as good hygienic practice - they too could be invited to join in the celebrations with their Muslim friends.
He believes the idea could promote better race relations and he wants to see a nationwide circumcision ceremony organised.
Just over half of Malaysia's population is Muslim, mainly members of the ethnic Malay community, while the country's Chinese, Tamil and tribal peoples follow a variety of other faiths.
The government has been exploring ways of stopping the different groups from drifting apart, including the introduction of a national service scheme which begins in February.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Let's Toll the Bell
It is always an honour to Toll the Bell for the Hour of the Finest, for the ones in flesh that deliver what many of us can only hope.
US court rules Guantanamo detainees should be allowed lawyers (19/12/2003)
WASHINGTON (AFP) A US federal appeals court, in a setback for the Bush administration, ruled that detainees at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be allowed access to lawyers and US courts.
The 2-1 ruling delivered by the San Francisco-based US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was the second blow delivered Thursday to legal maneuvers by the administration of President George W. Bush in its "war on terror."
Earlier in the day, a federal appeals court in New York ruled that Bush did not have the right to detain Jose Padilla, an American citizen seized on US soil, as an "enemy combatant" and ordered his release within 30 days.
The San Francisco-based appeals court issued its ruling in a case filed by Belaid Gherebi on behalf of his brother, Faren, a Libyan who is being held without charge at Guantanamo along with hundreds of other men captured in the US "war on terror."
The court was harshly critical of the detention of the prisoners at Guantanamo without charge or the protections of the Geneva Convention.
"Even in times of national emergency -- indeed, particularly in such times -- it is the obligation of the Judicial Branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the Executive Branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike," said Justice Steven Reinhardt, writing for the majority.
"We simply cannot accept the government's position that the Executive Branch possesses the unchecked authority to imprison indefinitely any persons, foreign citizens included, on territory under the sole jurisdiction and control of the United States, without permitting such prisoners recourse of any kind to any judicial forum, or even access to counsel," Reinhardt said.
"In our view, the government's position is inconsistent with fundamental tenets of American jurisprudence and raises most serious concerns under international law," the justice said.
"Under the government's theory, it is free to imprison Gherebi indefinitely along with hundreds of other citizens of foreign countries, friendly nations among them, and to do with Gherebi and these detainees as it will, when it pleases, without any compliance with any rule of law of any kind, without permitting him to consult counsel and without acknowledging any judicial forum in which its actions may be challenged," he added.
"To our knowledge, prior to the current detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, the US government has never before asserted such a grave and startling proposition," he said. "It is the first time that the government has announced such an extraordinary set of principles -- a position so extreme that it raises the gravest concerns under both American and international law."
Some 660 prisoners are being held at Guantanamo Bay. Most of them were captured in Afghanistan when the
United States toppled the Taliban regime and routed al-Qaeda's network, responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The ruling by the 9th Circuit Court was the first by any court affirming that Guantanamo detainees should be allowed access to lawyers and to the US judicial system, but is likely to be supplanted by a US Supreme Court ruling expected soon.
The Supreme Court agreed last month to hear a similar case.
Reed Brody, legal counsel for Human Rights Watch, welcomed the ruling by the 9th Circuit.
"The Bush Administration thought that by holding the detainees on Guantanamo, it could keep them out of the reach of the Constitution and the courts," he said. "Guantanamo has become America's shame.
"Today's decision is a great victory for the rule of law because it says that even these prisoners must have access to the courts," Brody said.
US court rules Guantanamo detainees should be allowed lawyers (19/12/2003)
WASHINGTON (AFP) A US federal appeals court, in a setback for the Bush administration, ruled that detainees at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be allowed access to lawyers and US courts.
The 2-1 ruling delivered by the San Francisco-based US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was the second blow delivered Thursday to legal maneuvers by the administration of President George W. Bush in its "war on terror."
Earlier in the day, a federal appeals court in New York ruled that Bush did not have the right to detain Jose Padilla, an American citizen seized on US soil, as an "enemy combatant" and ordered his release within 30 days.
The San Francisco-based appeals court issued its ruling in a case filed by Belaid Gherebi on behalf of his brother, Faren, a Libyan who is being held without charge at Guantanamo along with hundreds of other men captured in the US "war on terror."
The court was harshly critical of the detention of the prisoners at Guantanamo without charge or the protections of the Geneva Convention.
"Even in times of national emergency -- indeed, particularly in such times -- it is the obligation of the Judicial Branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the Executive Branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike," said Justice Steven Reinhardt, writing for the majority.
"We simply cannot accept the government's position that the Executive Branch possesses the unchecked authority to imprison indefinitely any persons, foreign citizens included, on territory under the sole jurisdiction and control of the United States, without permitting such prisoners recourse of any kind to any judicial forum, or even access to counsel," Reinhardt said.
"In our view, the government's position is inconsistent with fundamental tenets of American jurisprudence and raises most serious concerns under international law," the justice said.
"Under the government's theory, it is free to imprison Gherebi indefinitely along with hundreds of other citizens of foreign countries, friendly nations among them, and to do with Gherebi and these detainees as it will, when it pleases, without any compliance with any rule of law of any kind, without permitting him to consult counsel and without acknowledging any judicial forum in which its actions may be challenged," he added.
"To our knowledge, prior to the current detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, the US government has never before asserted such a grave and startling proposition," he said. "It is the first time that the government has announced such an extraordinary set of principles -- a position so extreme that it raises the gravest concerns under both American and international law."
Some 660 prisoners are being held at Guantanamo Bay. Most of them were captured in Afghanistan when the
United States toppled the Taliban regime and routed al-Qaeda's network, responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The ruling by the 9th Circuit Court was the first by any court affirming that Guantanamo detainees should be allowed access to lawyers and to the US judicial system, but is likely to be supplanted by a US Supreme Court ruling expected soon.
The Supreme Court agreed last month to hear a similar case.
Reed Brody, legal counsel for Human Rights Watch, welcomed the ruling by the 9th Circuit.
"The Bush Administration thought that by holding the detainees on Guantanamo, it could keep them out of the reach of the Constitution and the courts," he said. "Guantanamo has become America's shame.
"Today's decision is a great victory for the rule of law because it says that even these prisoners must have access to the courts," Brody said.
Thursday, December 11, 2003
The Day the World Calls the Biggest Bluff in History
As many pseudo-economists among us know, money is just a piece of paper we hold in our wallet or more likely a number in a computer hard disk. They are worth what we think they are worth because there are enough people around who believe the same. Of course, paper money has its advantages. The most obvious is efficiency in trade exchange. Which explains why it is 'so popular' and every government wants to issue its own currency. But it takes no brain for one to also appreciate that it takes little to issue a piece of paper or to buy a hard disk. In fact, it costs the US government a few cents to issue a Dollar. Of course, it would be lesser for all those who counterfeit it.
And so, for centuries men in high places of power had been building up and taking advantage of this phenomenon known as Seignorage. The logic is that as long as there are enough fools out there that believe that my dollar is really worth a dollar, I can continue printing and exchanging one piece of my paper for a real tangible product. (For example, if the shoemaker from China is stupid enough to sell me his shoe for a piece of my paper so be it. Who do you think is the happier?) But the more credible ones learnt over time that you can bluff everyone some of the time but not forever (for money to work you cannot bluff only some people, hor, must be able to bluff most or all of them.). So, to ‘backup’ their credibility they used to commit themselves to delivering a specified amount of something of real tangible value like gold every time a holder of their paper wishes to ‘call on them’. But it is part of human greed that all of them will try to stretch their luck a bit (hey, that’s easy ‘money’ man, no need to really work) and issue more than they can really backup with real gold, and hope only a few really calls on them. Of course, if you have a big stick and is in desperation you can always whack any small guy that tries to do so and avoid delivering your gold (so Saddam, now do you really want your oil paid in Euro?).
And it is with this knowledge that there are some smart men that will think of ways to make money out of these greedy issuers. And so we hear of stories where certain people will induce and help governments to print more and more money for a fee or a share of the money issued. But these fellas are smarter that we folks. Very soon after that, they actually call on the issuers for the gold they are committed to deliver (while we all stupidly held on to the papers or our bank statements) and they tuck away those gold bars in a safe somewhere and wait for the day when that currency crashes due to ‘over expansion of money supply’ (economic jargon, but it essentially means ‘when the bluff gets too big’). These people are generally known as ‘financiers’ or ‘bankers’ (everything has to sound nice to customers, otherwise how to sell them crap?).
Quiz 1: where is 80% of the world’s known gold reserves held? Wonder why and how it got there?
Clue 1: No, not Fort Knox you old parrot. Fort Knox is for issuer type people. If you haven’t figured out by now, issuer types tend to lose gold not gather them!
Clue 2: In WWII the Japanese Army has special units specially assigned to seek out the richest families in occupied territories to get at their gold, the colonialists demanded gold for the opium they sold to the Chinese and they give themselves long term mining contracts before they leave their colonies (Iraq, does this sound like Bush-it again?)
Quiz 2: who are the top issuers and financiers in history?
Quiz 3: when do you know people are beginning to call their bluffs?
Hey, I don’t have answers to these questions. I am just another conspiracy theorist selling another quack! Only fools will buy such stories....
p.s. but if you do think I may have a point and has an idea on what to do to protect my wealth, pls let me know. I am still scratching my head on this one. Thanks in advance.
Background to Seignorage
The economic phenomenon Seignorage is well known to many economists but not all. I first learnt about Seignorage from an economist friend only a few years ago during the Asian Financial Crisis (which started in 1997 just after HK’s return to China) when the US seems to be booming along happily. Those were the times when I saw on TV the supreme arrogance of the IMF chief standing hands folded and over the shoulders of Suharto as the latter signed away whatever he had to in a desperate attempt to stay in power, of a certain cowboy US vice president Al Gore insulting his Malaysian hosts in front of their international guests, and of the international media (international only because enough fools around the globe parrot after them) gleefully writing about the end of the Asian miracle and their widespread KKN (Korrupsi, Kolusi, Nepostisme in Indon) as the cause of the crisis.
At that time, the Dow Jones was trading at an average P/E ratio of 40 while the Asian markets were trading below 10! My simpleton logic told me that people should be buying into Asia instead of running away. Dumbfounded, I decided to ask an economist friend of mine (Liew holds a master degree on Economics from the US, was my classmate from primary one and worked for a stock broking house at that time but later joined the Monetary Authority of Singapore).
His reply was that the Americans were different and their management are disciplined enough to cut losses when an investment gets bad. That’s why people are willing to pay a ‘premium’ for their stocks.
I disagreed with him and said that I do not believe the Americans are any different from anyone else in the world (I had the advantage of having worked in JP Morgan and saw how they operated). I suspect it has something to do with the US Dollar which gave them an advantage but could not explain it.
Later when I read that the Arabs and other countries contributed US$90 billion to the US for the Iraq war of 1990 for weapons that the US had already paid for, and realized that the Asian Crisis happened a few months after HK’s return to China (property prices in HK dropped 60% then thanks to the British policies before that), I also wondered if they also figured in the picture.
At that point in time I sensed that Liew saw that I might have a point but he also could not explain it. But a few months later he sent me an e-mail on the topic of ‘seignorage’ and said that that may be what I was looking for. Obviously he was bothered enough by my views to do some research.
However, that incident bothered me. It seemed that even supposedly ‘experts’ on economics may not really understand how the world really works. The reasons that Liew gave me initially were based on the concept of ‘some people are better than others, that’s why their stock markets commands better value’. Although it was clearly a subjective and somewhat ‘racist’ view, even professional economists like Liew seem happy enough to use it to explain something they clearly do not understand. To be fair, they were just following after the international media which were then saying that the Asian Crisis was caused by KKN.
That to me was a real life example of the power of the media and the folly of the human race. Thinking outside the box and independent thoughts are indeed rare.
And so, for centuries men in high places of power had been building up and taking advantage of this phenomenon known as Seignorage. The logic is that as long as there are enough fools out there that believe that my dollar is really worth a dollar, I can continue printing and exchanging one piece of my paper for a real tangible product. (For example, if the shoemaker from China is stupid enough to sell me his shoe for a piece of my paper so be it. Who do you think is the happier?) But the more credible ones learnt over time that you can bluff everyone some of the time but not forever (for money to work you cannot bluff only some people, hor, must be able to bluff most or all of them.). So, to ‘backup’ their credibility they used to commit themselves to delivering a specified amount of something of real tangible value like gold every time a holder of their paper wishes to ‘call on them’. But it is part of human greed that all of them will try to stretch their luck a bit (hey, that’s easy ‘money’ man, no need to really work) and issue more than they can really backup with real gold, and hope only a few really calls on them. Of course, if you have a big stick and is in desperation you can always whack any small guy that tries to do so and avoid delivering your gold (so Saddam, now do you really want your oil paid in Euro?).
And it is with this knowledge that there are some smart men that will think of ways to make money out of these greedy issuers. And so we hear of stories where certain people will induce and help governments to print more and more money for a fee or a share of the money issued. But these fellas are smarter that we folks. Very soon after that, they actually call on the issuers for the gold they are committed to deliver (while we all stupidly held on to the papers or our bank statements) and they tuck away those gold bars in a safe somewhere and wait for the day when that currency crashes due to ‘over expansion of money supply’ (economic jargon, but it essentially means ‘when the bluff gets too big’). These people are generally known as ‘financiers’ or ‘bankers’ (everything has to sound nice to customers, otherwise how to sell them crap?).
Quiz 1: where is 80% of the world’s known gold reserves held? Wonder why and how it got there?
Clue 1: No, not Fort Knox you old parrot. Fort Knox is for issuer type people. If you haven’t figured out by now, issuer types tend to lose gold not gather them!
Clue 2: In WWII the Japanese Army has special units specially assigned to seek out the richest families in occupied territories to get at their gold, the colonialists demanded gold for the opium they sold to the Chinese and they give themselves long term mining contracts before they leave their colonies (Iraq, does this sound like Bush-it again?)
Quiz 2: who are the top issuers and financiers in history?
Quiz 3: when do you know people are beginning to call their bluffs?
Hey, I don’t have answers to these questions. I am just another conspiracy theorist selling another quack! Only fools will buy such stories....
p.s. but if you do think I may have a point and has an idea on what to do to protect my wealth, pls let me know. I am still scratching my head on this one. Thanks in advance.
Background to Seignorage
The economic phenomenon Seignorage is well known to many economists but not all. I first learnt about Seignorage from an economist friend only a few years ago during the Asian Financial Crisis (which started in 1997 just after HK’s return to China) when the US seems to be booming along happily. Those were the times when I saw on TV the supreme arrogance of the IMF chief standing hands folded and over the shoulders of Suharto as the latter signed away whatever he had to in a desperate attempt to stay in power, of a certain cowboy US vice president Al Gore insulting his Malaysian hosts in front of their international guests, and of the international media (international only because enough fools around the globe parrot after them) gleefully writing about the end of the Asian miracle and their widespread KKN (Korrupsi, Kolusi, Nepostisme in Indon) as the cause of the crisis.
At that time, the Dow Jones was trading at an average P/E ratio of 40 while the Asian markets were trading below 10! My simpleton logic told me that people should be buying into Asia instead of running away. Dumbfounded, I decided to ask an economist friend of mine (Liew holds a master degree on Economics from the US, was my classmate from primary one and worked for a stock broking house at that time but later joined the Monetary Authority of Singapore).
His reply was that the Americans were different and their management are disciplined enough to cut losses when an investment gets bad. That’s why people are willing to pay a ‘premium’ for their stocks.
I disagreed with him and said that I do not believe the Americans are any different from anyone else in the world (I had the advantage of having worked in JP Morgan and saw how they operated). I suspect it has something to do with the US Dollar which gave them an advantage but could not explain it.
Later when I read that the Arabs and other countries contributed US$90 billion to the US for the Iraq war of 1990 for weapons that the US had already paid for, and realized that the Asian Crisis happened a few months after HK’s return to China (property prices in HK dropped 60% then thanks to the British policies before that), I also wondered if they also figured in the picture.
At that point in time I sensed that Liew saw that I might have a point but he also could not explain it. But a few months later he sent me an e-mail on the topic of ‘seignorage’ and said that that may be what I was looking for. Obviously he was bothered enough by my views to do some research.
However, that incident bothered me. It seemed that even supposedly ‘experts’ on economics may not really understand how the world really works. The reasons that Liew gave me initially were based on the concept of ‘some people are better than others, that’s why their stock markets commands better value’. Although it was clearly a subjective and somewhat ‘racist’ view, even professional economists like Liew seem happy enough to use it to explain something they clearly do not understand. To be fair, they were just following after the international media which were then saying that the Asian Crisis was caused by KKN.
That to me was a real life example of the power of the media and the folly of the human race. Thinking outside the box and independent thoughts are indeed rare.
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Why It's Time for Me to Go Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho
A long time ago, some ancestors of man discovered that it is more efficient to stay put at one place and grow their own food rather than to live a life of nomadic hunters/pickers/scavengers. They also realised that a few natural elements are important to the success of this change in life style and strategy - fertile soil, water and sunlight. (Hey, you may think that this is basic stuffs but there are kids and probably their parents who think their veggies come from the local supermarket).
One of the best places to find fertile soil and lots of water is obviously the banks of a river or lake (but no river no lake hor). The only ones that cannot see that were the blind ones or their mental equivalents. That explains why all great civilisations blossomed along the banks of great rivers. But great rivers overflow almost every year and change course from time to time, thus stories of great floods. And great floods destroy crops (those precious crops!) and people have to try save as much things as possible. So it is not difficult to understand why floods became such a great concern to our ancestors. However, different ancestors of man took different outlooks on this important issue:
1. Some decided to write stories about great floods and heroes to encourage selfless conduct in time of floods, and left everything else to fate/faith. As time goes by, the more 'creative' of this type made the themes grander. Like saying that such selfless conduct is in the service of god and will be rewarded with the promise of eternal life.
2. But there are more practical others who figured that this perennial problem can be managed through the building of canals, embankments, reservoirs etc. That way there is less need to ‘stretch’ things the way the previous approach did.
Now, it does not take much brain to see which approach took more brains but then you can take your time while we move on to where this part of this story is so relevant to this time of the year. And it has to do with the Sun.
As mentioned earlier, many of our ancestors realised that the Sun is a very important element to life. In fact, they realised very early in their agricultural life that without the Sun, nothing grows. Well, almost. Unless you are a bacteria but that's another story, or a Singaporean graduate I know who said that 'trees may then switch to eating meat'! (No prize for guessing which faith he belongs to.)
People in the northern hemisphere noticed that sometimes the sun 'goes away'. When that happens everything gets covered with snow, nothing grows and most animals went away with the Sun (in fact their forefathers used to do that too but they have forgotten about it since they chose to settle at a fixed location). So we can imagine ancestors of ours would be very interested in the movement of this great giver of life, the Sun. And it was probably an annual ritual for them to watch anxiously as the Sun moved south in case it would not return (probably because the they thought the earth was flat and the Sun might just fall off, like the popes did until the likes of Copernicus came up with a smarter alternative. But hey, we are talking about people before them. So, we can excuse the pope-like ones for the time being.)
But people also noticed that the sun always return after a while. And when that happens, everything seems to spring back to life - flowers bloom, crops grow, birds and animals return to feed on them. And food is plentiful. For those that have the concept of the calendar, it was noticed that the Sun always makes its ‘u-turn’ during a 2-3 days period of a particular time in the year. (For those of us that remember some science lessons from school, the u-turn period is known scientifically as the winter solstice.) So the ancients ‘tagged’ that few days as special days worthy of great joy (more like relief) and celebrations. Which explain why all great cultures in the northern hemisphere (no matter what their colour and belief are) celebrate the day when the sun makes its u-turn. The Chinese have their own name for this celebration and so do the Indians, Romans and so on. And so this appreciation for the value and importance of the Sun went on for many thousands of years until the present day. Which also explain why the Sun god is such an important entity in many cultures.
But as in all great stories there are always interesting twists and one happened to this story about 2,000 years ago. I shall relate this one with some ambiguity just for the heck of it, and to avoid offending some sensitive souls (their supreme blessings not withstanding).
When the Romans first gained fancy on a certain new concept then, it was decided by someone that they should celebrate the birth of their ‘idol’ which they claimed as the ‘son of god’ as a sign of regard. At first, it was decided that that day should take place sometime in the early months of each year. But the powers that be found that no matter what they did, they could not make that day beat the celebrations conducted for the day when the Sun makes its u-turn! (not surprising if all around you were mostly practical farmers but don’t give those powers that be too much credit, hor) So, in a classic example of the saying that if you cannot beat ‘em join them, those powers decided that they might as well move the day of celebrating the birth of their idol to the same time as the celebrations of the Sun. That way, they figured, they can ensure maximum revelry for the new event they wanted to celebrate. And so history records that they literally commandeered the 'day of the Sun' as the 'day of the Son' (cute pun, hor?).
Not interesting enough? Then did you hear the story of how a certain small place where I live ‘commandeered’ the same celebration for other reasons. They now celebrate this event for a full 2 months! And as opposed to remembering the importance of the Sun, they are only interested in shopping, presents, and the money it makes for them.
So, now you see why I always go ho, ho, ho, ho with amusement around this time of the year?
One of the best places to find fertile soil and lots of water is obviously the banks of a river or lake (but no river no lake hor). The only ones that cannot see that were the blind ones or their mental equivalents. That explains why all great civilisations blossomed along the banks of great rivers. But great rivers overflow almost every year and change course from time to time, thus stories of great floods. And great floods destroy crops (those precious crops!) and people have to try save as much things as possible. So it is not difficult to understand why floods became such a great concern to our ancestors. However, different ancestors of man took different outlooks on this important issue:
1. Some decided to write stories about great floods and heroes to encourage selfless conduct in time of floods, and left everything else to fate/faith. As time goes by, the more 'creative' of this type made the themes grander. Like saying that such selfless conduct is in the service of god and will be rewarded with the promise of eternal life.
2. But there are more practical others who figured that this perennial problem can be managed through the building of canals, embankments, reservoirs etc. That way there is less need to ‘stretch’ things the way the previous approach did.
Now, it does not take much brain to see which approach took more brains but then you can take your time while we move on to where this part of this story is so relevant to this time of the year. And it has to do with the Sun.
As mentioned earlier, many of our ancestors realised that the Sun is a very important element to life. In fact, they realised very early in their agricultural life that without the Sun, nothing grows. Well, almost. Unless you are a bacteria but that's another story, or a Singaporean graduate I know who said that 'trees may then switch to eating meat'! (No prize for guessing which faith he belongs to.)
People in the northern hemisphere noticed that sometimes the sun 'goes away'. When that happens everything gets covered with snow, nothing grows and most animals went away with the Sun (in fact their forefathers used to do that too but they have forgotten about it since they chose to settle at a fixed location). So we can imagine ancestors of ours would be very interested in the movement of this great giver of life, the Sun. And it was probably an annual ritual for them to watch anxiously as the Sun moved south in case it would not return (probably because the they thought the earth was flat and the Sun might just fall off, like the popes did until the likes of Copernicus came up with a smarter alternative. But hey, we are talking about people before them. So, we can excuse the pope-like ones for the time being.)
But people also noticed that the sun always return after a while. And when that happens, everything seems to spring back to life - flowers bloom, crops grow, birds and animals return to feed on them. And food is plentiful. For those that have the concept of the calendar, it was noticed that the Sun always makes its ‘u-turn’ during a 2-3 days period of a particular time in the year. (For those of us that remember some science lessons from school, the u-turn period is known scientifically as the winter solstice.) So the ancients ‘tagged’ that few days as special days worthy of great joy (more like relief) and celebrations. Which explain why all great cultures in the northern hemisphere (no matter what their colour and belief are) celebrate the day when the sun makes its u-turn. The Chinese have their own name for this celebration and so do the Indians, Romans and so on. And so this appreciation for the value and importance of the Sun went on for many thousands of years until the present day. Which also explain why the Sun god is such an important entity in many cultures.
But as in all great stories there are always interesting twists and one happened to this story about 2,000 years ago. I shall relate this one with some ambiguity just for the heck of it, and to avoid offending some sensitive souls (their supreme blessings not withstanding).
When the Romans first gained fancy on a certain new concept then, it was decided by someone that they should celebrate the birth of their ‘idol’ which they claimed as the ‘son of god’ as a sign of regard. At first, it was decided that that day should take place sometime in the early months of each year. But the powers that be found that no matter what they did, they could not make that day beat the celebrations conducted for the day when the Sun makes its u-turn! (not surprising if all around you were mostly practical farmers but don’t give those powers that be too much credit, hor) So, in a classic example of the saying that if you cannot beat ‘em join them, those powers decided that they might as well move the day of celebrating the birth of their idol to the same time as the celebrations of the Sun. That way, they figured, they can ensure maximum revelry for the new event they wanted to celebrate. And so history records that they literally commandeered the 'day of the Sun' as the 'day of the Son' (cute pun, hor?).
Not interesting enough? Then did you hear the story of how a certain small place where I live ‘commandeered’ the same celebration for other reasons. They now celebrate this event for a full 2 months! And as opposed to remembering the importance of the Sun, they are only interested in shopping, presents, and the money it makes for them.
So, now you see why I always go ho, ho, ho, ho with amusement around this time of the year?
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
A Future Man-made for Messrs Gilgamesh and Noah?
The ancient Sumerians that lived in present day Iraq (about 4,500 years ago) came up with a story about a hero by the name of Gilgamesh (thus the Epic of Gilgamesh). In that story, Gilgamesh attained eternal life after being instructed by a higher being to save all the animals from an impending great flood.
Now that story is very similar to the one about Noah's Ark (the latter probably a plagiarised version of the former). Similar stories of great floods were also found in old Egypt.
What do you expect ancient people to do but to talk about great floods? They have to live near great rivers to survive (remember, man need water every day and there were no steel pipes & taps then, hor) and great rivers come with great floods! Or is that suppose to be surprising?
So I also believe in great floods. But the part about flooding the whole world and saving all animals in a boat was less believable. How could those fellas catch and accommodate so many animals onto a boat I wondered. Firstly their stories said nothing of the number of animals involved - did those ancient ignorants that thought that the world was flat really know how many types of animals there were? (if they knew they probably would not have dared to write those stories, so don't underestimate the power of ignorance). Then how did they managed to get the animals to trust them with their lives? How did those boats sail round the world so quickly if it was such a big flood? Or did God talk to the animals and gave them superpowers to get to a pick up point (like the size of Australia?) for the convenience of our heroes? Blah, blah, blah....
But that was until I saw the report below. Now, I strongly believe that in the future, with man's help, some great soul in future should be able to fit all the surviving animals on this planet into one boat and ride out that coming great flood. And all he has to do is go to a local zoo....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3237726.stm
(this BBC reports on the dwindling numbers of monkeys, chimps and orang utans due to encroachment by man)
Now that story is very similar to the one about Noah's Ark (the latter probably a plagiarised version of the former). Similar stories of great floods were also found in old Egypt.
What do you expect ancient people to do but to talk about great floods? They have to live near great rivers to survive (remember, man need water every day and there were no steel pipes & taps then, hor) and great rivers come with great floods! Or is that suppose to be surprising?
So I also believe in great floods. But the part about flooding the whole world and saving all animals in a boat was less believable. How could those fellas catch and accommodate so many animals onto a boat I wondered. Firstly their stories said nothing of the number of animals involved - did those ancient ignorants that thought that the world was flat really know how many types of animals there were? (if they knew they probably would not have dared to write those stories, so don't underestimate the power of ignorance). Then how did they managed to get the animals to trust them with their lives? How did those boats sail round the world so quickly if it was such a big flood? Or did God talk to the animals and gave them superpowers to get to a pick up point (like the size of Australia?) for the convenience of our heroes? Blah, blah, blah....
But that was until I saw the report below. Now, I strongly believe that in the future, with man's help, some great soul in future should be able to fit all the surviving animals on this planet into one boat and ride out that coming great flood. And all he has to do is go to a local zoo....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3237726.stm
(this BBC reports on the dwindling numbers of monkeys, chimps and orang utans due to encroachment by man)
Friday, October 31, 2003
A Different White Elephant a Generation Later?
Years ago a senior politician in Singapore known as LKY went on television to talk about how quickly things can change for a nation as its fortune declines. As example, he cited the case of Britain. Specifically, he noted (I assumed it must have intrigued him) that in a generation or so, the British had turned from the gentlemen he knew when he studied in England to the brutes he see in soccer hooliganism nowadays.
LKY was only partly correct. But whole people could not have changed so quickly, hor? It was not that the British had 'ceased to be gentlemen'. The more probable explanation is that during LKY's 'good old days' in England the not so gentlemanly types were not in London but elsewhere 'serving their queen and country'. Now that there is no more 'empire where the sun doesn't set' left to settle their brutes, they had settled on their own soccer stadiums. Just read the below report.
Now you see if LKY's white elephant is really so different over the course of one generation...
Natasha Walter
Saturday July 5, 2003
The Guardian
Our boys, their rapists? We need a public inquiry
In Kenya, the British army stands accused of systematic abuses
Imagine that half a dozen German women had just claimed they had been gang-raped by British soldiers who were stationed in their country on exercise. Imagine that even when the women had reported the rapes the soldiers had been allowed to fly home and the incident was never investigated. Imagine that a few months later another such incident took place. If such accusations were being made against British soldiers by European women, and if the women's stories were backed up by hospital and police records and compelling testimony from the traumatised young women, then the media would have gone into a frenzy - demanding to know how British soldiers could go on the rampage, and why officers were covering up for them.
Far from just a few cases, we are currently seeing hundreds of women coming forward to claim that they have been raped by British soldiers. Six hundred and fifty women who say that they were raped over the past 30 years - the most recent incident took place last year - have just been granted legal aid to bring a case for compensation against the British army. But these women aren't from Europe; they come from pastoralist communities in the highlands of Kenya. For the past 50 years their land has been used by thousands of British soldiers who go out to Africa for a few weeks or months at a time to practise desert and mountain warfare.
The mere fact that they are in Africa seems to have ensured that these women's claims have sparked little fury in comparison to what would have occurred if the same had happened on any other continent. A racist view that black women do not have the same rights or the same sensibilities as other women still seems to influence us in Britain, far more than we like to admit. But it shouldn't need to be stated that the trauma these women have suffered goes just as deep as it would with any other women in any other part of the world. I went out to Kenya when the first women began
to put their claims to a British solicitor, and although I spoke only to a small number of them, I will never forget their tales of emotional and physical pain.
If we do allow ourselves to take these allegations seriously, then they must change the way we look at the British army. When I first reported on the women's claims for this newspaper back in March, the armed forces were just going into action in Iraq. From that moment on, we have faced a barrage of exhortation from politicians and the media to get behind our boys. In contrast to the troops of other countries, we are told, British soldiers are always disciplined, and always respectful towards local people. We have been shown charming pictures of British soldiers giving sweets to children and putting themselves at risk by going around without their helmets. Their bravery, we are told, is matched only by their gentlemanly behaviour.
Are we allowing this spurt of patriotism to blind us to the gravity of the accusations coming out of Kenya? Their nature and number suggest that rapes were not simply being committed by a few soldiers going on a brutal spree for a few days.
More than half of the alleged attacks were gang rapes, and many of them were carried out in a systematic manner by groups of soldiers hunting down women at watering holes or in pasture grounds. I spoke to one woman who said that she was caught up in an attack in which at least 12 soldiers raped six women. One woman told me of another incident in which two soldiers raped her in turn, while another soldier looked on silently, holding the others' guns.
If these rapes did go on for so long and in such numbers, then the whole scandal could not have continued without officers deliberately turning a blind eye. Documentary evidence of reports made to army officers in Kenya is now coming to light, including letters written by local chiefs and local government officers that are dated as far back as 1977.
I have spoken to Masai chiefs who attended a meeting with senior army officers in 1983 at which the rapes were discussed and the officers promised to take steps to prevent them; I have also spoken to a Kenyan man who remembered reporting a rape as recently as 1998 to a major at a British army camp. No action, however, was ever taken to investigate or discipline any soldiers.
The suggestion that a culture of impunity reached throughout the army from the bottom to the very top can be put into the wider context of the history of the British army in Kenya. Only now is the real story being told of the atrocities carried out by the British against fighters for Kenyan independence in the Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s.
Although full investigations have, up to now, been thwarted by Kenyan and British authorities, veterans of that struggle are now preparing to launch their own action for compensation against the British government. Their allegations against British authorities include tales of starvation, beatings, forced labour, torture, and also claims by Kikuyu women that they were systematically raped by British soldiers as punishment for their people's involvement in the independence uprising.
The legacy of this brutal colonialism clearly infects the behaviour of the British army in Kenya to this day. If you are simply incredulous at the very idea that the British soldiers could still get away with raping Kenyan women without immediate disciplinary action being taken, you might want to consider other aspects of the way the army behaved while on exercise in these areas. Although the area that I visited is actually owned by the Masai people, the British army never paid them directly (money went instead to the Kenyan government) for the privilege of taking over part of their precious grazing land every year, but they would treat the land as if it were their own. Sometimes they would divert the water supply from local settlements for the army camps, so that Kenyan children went thirsty while British soldiers drank freely.
And then there is the fact that for decades these soldiers left their unexploded ordnance on grazing grounds so that ordinary people, including children, could stumble on them and be maimed and even killed. A £4.5m compensation settlement was winkled out of the Ministry of Defence only last year for those people who were injured or bereaved in such incidents, when at last our government realised that it could not get away with allowing black children to be blown up by its bombs in peacetime.
Amnesty International has now called for an independent inquiry to be held into these hundreds of allegations of rape. Indeed, although the Ministry of Defence has recently sent a few members of the Royal Military Police to start an investigation, a more public and more accountable inquiry is essential. The scale and gravity of these alleged crimes suggest that this goes way beyond the wild behaviour of a few soldiers. As one of the Kenyan women I met said to me of the men who raped her: "They have brought shame on all the British people."
LKY was only partly correct. But whole people could not have changed so quickly, hor? It was not that the British had 'ceased to be gentlemen'. The more probable explanation is that during LKY's 'good old days' in England the not so gentlemanly types were not in London but elsewhere 'serving their queen and country'. Now that there is no more 'empire where the sun doesn't set' left to settle their brutes, they had settled on their own soccer stadiums. Just read the below report.
Now you see if LKY's white elephant is really so different over the course of one generation...
Natasha Walter
Saturday July 5, 2003
The Guardian
Our boys, their rapists? We need a public inquiry
In Kenya, the British army stands accused of systematic abuses
Imagine that half a dozen German women had just claimed they had been gang-raped by British soldiers who were stationed in their country on exercise. Imagine that even when the women had reported the rapes the soldiers had been allowed to fly home and the incident was never investigated. Imagine that a few months later another such incident took place. If such accusations were being made against British soldiers by European women, and if the women's stories were backed up by hospital and police records and compelling testimony from the traumatised young women, then the media would have gone into a frenzy - demanding to know how British soldiers could go on the rampage, and why officers were covering up for them.
Far from just a few cases, we are currently seeing hundreds of women coming forward to claim that they have been raped by British soldiers. Six hundred and fifty women who say that they were raped over the past 30 years - the most recent incident took place last year - have just been granted legal aid to bring a case for compensation against the British army. But these women aren't from Europe; they come from pastoralist communities in the highlands of Kenya. For the past 50 years their land has been used by thousands of British soldiers who go out to Africa for a few weeks or months at a time to practise desert and mountain warfare.
The mere fact that they are in Africa seems to have ensured that these women's claims have sparked little fury in comparison to what would have occurred if the same had happened on any other continent. A racist view that black women do not have the same rights or the same sensibilities as other women still seems to influence us in Britain, far more than we like to admit. But it shouldn't need to be stated that the trauma these women have suffered goes just as deep as it would with any other women in any other part of the world. I went out to Kenya when the first women began
to put their claims to a British solicitor, and although I spoke only to a small number of them, I will never forget their tales of emotional and physical pain.
If we do allow ourselves to take these allegations seriously, then they must change the way we look at the British army. When I first reported on the women's claims for this newspaper back in March, the armed forces were just going into action in Iraq. From that moment on, we have faced a barrage of exhortation from politicians and the media to get behind our boys. In contrast to the troops of other countries, we are told, British soldiers are always disciplined, and always respectful towards local people. We have been shown charming pictures of British soldiers giving sweets to children and putting themselves at risk by going around without their helmets. Their bravery, we are told, is matched only by their gentlemanly behaviour.
Are we allowing this spurt of patriotism to blind us to the gravity of the accusations coming out of Kenya? Their nature and number suggest that rapes were not simply being committed by a few soldiers going on a brutal spree for a few days.
More than half of the alleged attacks were gang rapes, and many of them were carried out in a systematic manner by groups of soldiers hunting down women at watering holes or in pasture grounds. I spoke to one woman who said that she was caught up in an attack in which at least 12 soldiers raped six women. One woman told me of another incident in which two soldiers raped her in turn, while another soldier looked on silently, holding the others' guns.
If these rapes did go on for so long and in such numbers, then the whole scandal could not have continued without officers deliberately turning a blind eye. Documentary evidence of reports made to army officers in Kenya is now coming to light, including letters written by local chiefs and local government officers that are dated as far back as 1977.
I have spoken to Masai chiefs who attended a meeting with senior army officers in 1983 at which the rapes were discussed and the officers promised to take steps to prevent them; I have also spoken to a Kenyan man who remembered reporting a rape as recently as 1998 to a major at a British army camp. No action, however, was ever taken to investigate or discipline any soldiers.
The suggestion that a culture of impunity reached throughout the army from the bottom to the very top can be put into the wider context of the history of the British army in Kenya. Only now is the real story being told of the atrocities carried out by the British against fighters for Kenyan independence in the Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s.
Although full investigations have, up to now, been thwarted by Kenyan and British authorities, veterans of that struggle are now preparing to launch their own action for compensation against the British government. Their allegations against British authorities include tales of starvation, beatings, forced labour, torture, and also claims by Kikuyu women that they were systematically raped by British soldiers as punishment for their people's involvement in the independence uprising.
The legacy of this brutal colonialism clearly infects the behaviour of the British army in Kenya to this day. If you are simply incredulous at the very idea that the British soldiers could still get away with raping Kenyan women without immediate disciplinary action being taken, you might want to consider other aspects of the way the army behaved while on exercise in these areas. Although the area that I visited is actually owned by the Masai people, the British army never paid them directly (money went instead to the Kenyan government) for the privilege of taking over part of their precious grazing land every year, but they would treat the land as if it were their own. Sometimes they would divert the water supply from local settlements for the army camps, so that Kenyan children went thirsty while British soldiers drank freely.
And then there is the fact that for decades these soldiers left their unexploded ordnance on grazing grounds so that ordinary people, including children, could stumble on them and be maimed and even killed. A £4.5m compensation settlement was winkled out of the Ministry of Defence only last year for those people who were injured or bereaved in such incidents, when at last our government realised that it could not get away with allowing black children to be blown up by its bombs in peacetime.
Amnesty International has now called for an independent inquiry to be held into these hundreds of allegations of rape. Indeed, although the Ministry of Defence has recently sent a few members of the Royal Military Police to start an investigation, a more public and more accountable inquiry is essential. The scale and gravity of these alleged crimes suggest that this goes way beyond the wild behaviour of a few soldiers. As one of the Kenyan women I met said to me of the men who raped her: "They have brought shame on all the British people."
Quiz: What does the African saying "The Hour of the Idiots" Mean?
Specially for those with eyesight & other problems that are still trying to figure out their white elephant.
WASHINGTON (AFP) Firms doing US government-funded business in Iraq and Afghanistan donated more to President George W. Bush's 2000 election campaign than they gave any other politician in the past 12 years, said a new study.
Researchers at Washington-based watchdog group the Center for Public Integrity said US contractors with multibillion-dollar contracts to rebuild the war-torn countries also enjoyed influential military and political connections.
The report did not accuse the firms or US agencies of corruption. It detailed more than 500,000 dollars in donations to Bush's 2000 campaign coffer from 70-plus US firms and individual contractors now active in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The same donors have garnered up to eight billion dollars in reconstruction business, the report said.
Many deals were not put out to tender as contract-issuing agencies -- chiefly, the Pentagon, State Department and US Agency for International Development -- said needs were too urgent to allow for time-consuming competitive bids, the report said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the agency had yet to review the report in detail but rejected key findings and the implication of impropriety.
"People in senior positions have no influence over the decision (to award a contract). The decisions are made by career procurement officials," Boucher told reporters.
"There's a separation, a wall, between them and political-level questions when they're doing the contracts, and the contracts are evaluated for technical merit as well as for the lowest cost."
Contrary to the report, key Iraq contracts were open to competitive bidding, he added.
For example, 10 firms were invited to compete for a contract ultimately awarded to California-based construction giant Bechtel Group Inc. after it and six others vied for the deal, Boucher said.
The contract to restore Iraqi utilities, telecommunications and transport infrastructure, schools and hospitals was valued at just over one billion dollars.
According to the Center report, Bechtel and other contract recipients have been well-connected.
"Nearly every one of the 10 largest contracts awarded for Iraq and Afghanistan went to companies employing former high-ranking government officials or individuals with close ties to those agencies or Congress," the study said.
"Dozens of lower-profile, but well-connected, companies shared in the reconstruction bounty," it added.
Halliburton Co. -- the oil services titan once headed by now Vice President Richard Cheney -- scooped up the biggest contract: 2.3 billion dollars for its Kellogg, Brown and Root unit to support the US military and rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure, the report said.
Halliburton chairman Dave Lesar, responding on Wednesday to lawmakers' allegations the company was overcharging for gasoline imported into Iraq, said criticism of its work there was "less about Halliburton and more about external political issues."
The company won the Iraq contract on the strength of a long track record, not its political connections, he added.
Bechtel chief executive Riley Bechtel serves on the President's Export Council, which advises Bush on trade issues, the report said. George Schultz, who served as Secretary of State under then president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, sits on the company's board of directors.
Like Halliburton, Bechtel said its connections had nothing to do with winning contracts.
"We do engage in the political process, as do most companies in the United States," the company said on its Web site.
"We have legitimate policy interests and positions on matters before Congress, and we express them in many ways, including support for elected officials who support those positions."
"We do not expect or receive political favors or government contracts as a result of those contributions," it added.
WASHINGTON (AFP) Firms doing US government-funded business in Iraq and Afghanistan donated more to President George W. Bush's 2000 election campaign than they gave any other politician in the past 12 years, said a new study.
Researchers at Washington-based watchdog group the Center for Public Integrity said US contractors with multibillion-dollar contracts to rebuild the war-torn countries also enjoyed influential military and political connections.
The report did not accuse the firms or US agencies of corruption. It detailed more than 500,000 dollars in donations to Bush's 2000 campaign coffer from 70-plus US firms and individual contractors now active in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The same donors have garnered up to eight billion dollars in reconstruction business, the report said.
Many deals were not put out to tender as contract-issuing agencies -- chiefly, the Pentagon, State Department and US Agency for International Development -- said needs were too urgent to allow for time-consuming competitive bids, the report said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the agency had yet to review the report in detail but rejected key findings and the implication of impropriety.
"People in senior positions have no influence over the decision (to award a contract). The decisions are made by career procurement officials," Boucher told reporters.
"There's a separation, a wall, between them and political-level questions when they're doing the contracts, and the contracts are evaluated for technical merit as well as for the lowest cost."
Contrary to the report, key Iraq contracts were open to competitive bidding, he added.
For example, 10 firms were invited to compete for a contract ultimately awarded to California-based construction giant Bechtel Group Inc. after it and six others vied for the deal, Boucher said.
The contract to restore Iraqi utilities, telecommunications and transport infrastructure, schools and hospitals was valued at just over one billion dollars.
According to the Center report, Bechtel and other contract recipients have been well-connected.
"Nearly every one of the 10 largest contracts awarded for Iraq and Afghanistan went to companies employing former high-ranking government officials or individuals with close ties to those agencies or Congress," the study said.
"Dozens of lower-profile, but well-connected, companies shared in the reconstruction bounty," it added.
Halliburton Co. -- the oil services titan once headed by now Vice President Richard Cheney -- scooped up the biggest contract: 2.3 billion dollars for its Kellogg, Brown and Root unit to support the US military and rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure, the report said.
Halliburton chairman Dave Lesar, responding on Wednesday to lawmakers' allegations the company was overcharging for gasoline imported into Iraq, said criticism of its work there was "less about Halliburton and more about external political issues."
The company won the Iraq contract on the strength of a long track record, not its political connections, he added.
Bechtel chief executive Riley Bechtel serves on the President's Export Council, which advises Bush on trade issues, the report said. George Schultz, who served as Secretary of State under then president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, sits on the company's board of directors.
Like Halliburton, Bechtel said its connections had nothing to do with winning contracts.
"We do engage in the political process, as do most companies in the United States," the company said on its Web site.
"We have legitimate policy interests and positions on matters before Congress, and we express them in many ways, including support for elected officials who support those positions."
"We do not expect or receive political favors or government contracts as a result of those contributions," it added.
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Masters of Economy of Scale or Big Time Blood Suckers?
Pls read this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3220619.stm
Those that believe that big MNCs really add value to the world through economy of scale, can try explaining how they think they can charge 80+ times the price for AIDS drugs compared to that charged by this Indian company runned by a Muslim? And they call him a 'pushy drug dealer'!
Or is this just a first world way of screwing all others (even when they are down)?
And you know why a big time capitalist rep like Clinton has to 'broker a deal' for this pushy drug dealer? Compassion for the sick, greed management for the MNCs, or just free market at work? Or you have a better explanation?
Dedicated to those that try to make a difference like the Muslim man in this article.
p.s. some folks told me that the reason why they follow a certain book is that those who do so 'turn out to be good' and others that do not do so 'failed to see the light'. I assume that meant other books are not as good - if not why say that one special, hor?
So I try a simple logic: there are 1.5 billion Muslims - out, another 2.5 billion Buddhist/Hindus - out. OK, hurray! GOOD enough. At least 4 billion 'did not turn out to be good' or 'cannot see the light' ones. Now you see how the remaining minority should all feel damn special? By just counting the bulk of the world out?
If you are a Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu, we can always start another different line of thought for the same end.
If all these fellas disagree on their own special logic, we can always sort it out by reducing the number of the others, hor? In the end we shall all end up better off.
OK, I was only joking. Everything I said above is hog wash. Of course. Unless, you are one of Bush's general, or JI's chief honcho. All 'em good people.
Three years ago Yusuf K Hamied, head of Indian drugs company Cipla, stunned a European Commission medical meeting in Brussels by offering to sell anti-Aids drugs at a fraction of the going rate.
He announced that he could sell a three-drug anti-retroviral combination for around $800 per patient per year. Big brand-name pharmaceutical companies were then selling their Aids drugs at $12,000 per patient per year. The following year, in 2001, Dr Hamied declared he was ready to sell the drugs even more cheaply - at about $300 per patient per year.
Last week, Dr Hamied won a major victory when former US president Bill Clinton brokered a deal whereby four companies making cheap, generic Aids drugs could begin supplying to millions of people in developing countries.
One of them is Cipla, India's third largest drug company. It is now offering to sell a three-drug anti-Aids cocktail for $140 per patient per year "subject to some conditions".
'Generic drugs are now respectable'
The generic drug company, set up by Dr Hamied's father in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1935, makes some 800 drugs - 20 of them anti-Aids ones - and exports to around 140 countries. It is legal in India to copy a drug designed abroad and sell it in the market - as long as the company can prove that it used a different manufacturing process. Dr Hamied says the Clinton Foundation's endeavour has given a greatly-needed shot in the arm to generic drugs. "Generic drug companies, especially from India, have now got respectability, quality and trust," he told BBC News Online from Frankfurt where was attending a pharmaceutical fair. "Multinationals have been running us down for years. Now there's international recognition of our quality and service."
Last year Cipla won the approval of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to market the Aids drugs whenever local governments allow their sale.
`Pushy drug dealer'
The Cambridge-educated Dr Hamied, 67, has been described as a "pushy drug dealer" and a "generic drugs maverick". He feels that his three-year battle for cheaper Aids drugs for poorer nations has had a multiplier effect.
"The fact that the MNCs have reduced prices [of their Aids drugs] from $12,000 to three to four times the present prices of generic companies proves that their conscience has been pricked," says Dr Hamied. "Remember, most of the Aids drugs were not originally invented by these companies - they are mostly in-license products."
But offering to supply cheap Aids drugs is only half the battle. Mr Clinton hopes that up to two million people will have received the cut-price drugs by 2008. But Dr Hamied says governments around the world need to take major initiatives to fund the purchase of cheaper drugs. "It just does not start and finish with the supply of drugs. There's medicare and continuing tests that cost money," he said.
Free offerings
"Supplying cheap drugs in isolation will not solve the problem." He singled out the governments of Brazil and Uganda as being pro-active in controlling the spread of the disease in their countries.
Cipla has registered its anti-Aids drugs in 65 countries, and is already supplying to 59 of them. The company already supplies one drug - to stop mother-to-child transmission - free of charge. Cipla has also offered free technology to make anti-Aids drugs "to state-owned companies in all Third World countries", says Dr Hamied. But he is not very happy with the way the Indian Government has moved to tackle Aids. India has an estimated four million cases of HIV.
Dr Hamied wants lower duties on imported raw materials for the drugs, government distribution and slashing of local taxes to make the drugs still cheaper. "We need more action than words in India today," said Dr Hamied.
Those that believe that big MNCs really add value to the world through economy of scale, can try explaining how they think they can charge 80+ times the price for AIDS drugs compared to that charged by this Indian company runned by a Muslim? And they call him a 'pushy drug dealer'!
Or is this just a first world way of screwing all others (even when they are down)?
And you know why a big time capitalist rep like Clinton has to 'broker a deal' for this pushy drug dealer? Compassion for the sick, greed management for the MNCs, or just free market at work? Or you have a better explanation?
Dedicated to those that try to make a difference like the Muslim man in this article.
p.s. some folks told me that the reason why they follow a certain book is that those who do so 'turn out to be good' and others that do not do so 'failed to see the light'. I assume that meant other books are not as good - if not why say that one special, hor?
So I try a simple logic: there are 1.5 billion Muslims - out, another 2.5 billion Buddhist/Hindus - out. OK, hurray! GOOD enough. At least 4 billion 'did not turn out to be good' or 'cannot see the light' ones. Now you see how the remaining minority should all feel damn special? By just counting the bulk of the world out?
If you are a Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu, we can always start another different line of thought for the same end.
If all these fellas disagree on their own special logic, we can always sort it out by reducing the number of the others, hor? In the end we shall all end up better off.
OK, I was only joking. Everything I said above is hog wash. Of course. Unless, you are one of Bush's general, or JI's chief honcho. All 'em good people.
Three years ago Yusuf K Hamied, head of Indian drugs company Cipla, stunned a European Commission medical meeting in Brussels by offering to sell anti-Aids drugs at a fraction of the going rate.
He announced that he could sell a three-drug anti-retroviral combination for around $800 per patient per year. Big brand-name pharmaceutical companies were then selling their Aids drugs at $12,000 per patient per year. The following year, in 2001, Dr Hamied declared he was ready to sell the drugs even more cheaply - at about $300 per patient per year.
Last week, Dr Hamied won a major victory when former US president Bill Clinton brokered a deal whereby four companies making cheap, generic Aids drugs could begin supplying to millions of people in developing countries.
One of them is Cipla, India's third largest drug company. It is now offering to sell a three-drug anti-Aids cocktail for $140 per patient per year "subject to some conditions".
'Generic drugs are now respectable'
The generic drug company, set up by Dr Hamied's father in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1935, makes some 800 drugs - 20 of them anti-Aids ones - and exports to around 140 countries. It is legal in India to copy a drug designed abroad and sell it in the market - as long as the company can prove that it used a different manufacturing process. Dr Hamied says the Clinton Foundation's endeavour has given a greatly-needed shot in the arm to generic drugs. "Generic drug companies, especially from India, have now got respectability, quality and trust," he told BBC News Online from Frankfurt where was attending a pharmaceutical fair. "Multinationals have been running us down for years. Now there's international recognition of our quality and service."
Last year Cipla won the approval of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to market the Aids drugs whenever local governments allow their sale.
`Pushy drug dealer'
The Cambridge-educated Dr Hamied, 67, has been described as a "pushy drug dealer" and a "generic drugs maverick". He feels that his three-year battle for cheaper Aids drugs for poorer nations has had a multiplier effect.
"The fact that the MNCs have reduced prices [of their Aids drugs] from $12,000 to three to four times the present prices of generic companies proves that their conscience has been pricked," says Dr Hamied. "Remember, most of the Aids drugs were not originally invented by these companies - they are mostly in-license products."
But offering to supply cheap Aids drugs is only half the battle. Mr Clinton hopes that up to two million people will have received the cut-price drugs by 2008. But Dr Hamied says governments around the world need to take major initiatives to fund the purchase of cheaper drugs. "It just does not start and finish with the supply of drugs. There's medicare and continuing tests that cost money," he said.
Free offerings
"Supplying cheap drugs in isolation will not solve the problem." He singled out the governments of Brazil and Uganda as being pro-active in controlling the spread of the disease in their countries.
Cipla has registered its anti-Aids drugs in 65 countries, and is already supplying to 59 of them. The company already supplies one drug - to stop mother-to-child transmission - free of charge. Cipla has also offered free technology to make anti-Aids drugs "to state-owned companies in all Third World countries", says Dr Hamied. But he is not very happy with the way the Indian Government has moved to tackle Aids. India has an estimated four million cases of HIV.
Dr Hamied wants lower duties on imported raw materials for the drugs, government distribution and slashing of local taxes to make the drugs still cheaper. "We need more action than words in India today," said Dr Hamied.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Do You Really Want to Know?
Attached link is for those interested in the really big things that are happening around us. Analysis from all round the world by some top experts.
Perhaps we will better appreciate JFK's saying "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."
Er, actually JFK left out one part: "Many people don't see things or see things as they are not and say why not say why not and not why."
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/crisis/index.htm#deficit
Perhaps we will better appreciate JFK's saying "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."
Er, actually JFK left out one part: "Many people don't see things or see things as they are not and say why not say why not and not why."
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/crisis/index.htm#deficit
Monday, October 20, 2003
View of Another Blind Man
If this man's writings (below is just a sample) don't make sense to you, it is more likely you are blinder than him. You know how I can tell?
In memory of Edward Said.
Rgds
CCK
Imperial Arrogance and the Vile Stereotyping of Arabs
By EDWARD SAID
The great modern empires have never been held together only by military power. Britain ruled the vast territories of India with only a few thousand colonial officers and a few more thousand troops, many of them Indian. France did the same in North Africa and Indochina, the Dutch in Indonesia, the Portuguese and Belgians in Africa. The key element was imperial perspective, that way of looking at a distant foreign reality by subordinating it in one's gaze, constructing its history from one's own point of view, seeing its people as subjects whose fate can be decided by what distant administrators think is best for them. From such willful perspectives ideas develop, including the theory that imperialism is a benign and necessary thing.
For a while this worked, as many local leaders believed--mistakenly--that cooperating with the imperial authority was the only way. But because the dialectic between the imperial perspective and the local one is adversarial and impermanent, at some point the conflict between ruler and ruled becomes uncontainable and breaks out into colonial war, as happened in Algeria and India. We are still a long way from that moment in American rule over the Arab and Muslim world because, over the last century, pacification through unpopular local rulers has so far worked.
At least since World War II, American strategic interests in the Middle East have been, first, to ensure supplies of oil and, second, to guarantee at enormous cost the strength and domination of Israel over its neighbors.
Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and
liberate. These ideas are by no means shared by the people who inhabit that empire, but that hasn't prevented the U.S. propaganda and policy apparatus from imposing its imperial perspective on Americans, whose sources of information about Arabs and Islam are woefully inadequate.
Several generations of Americans have come to see the Arab world mainly as a dangerous place, where terrorism and religious fanaticism are spawned and where a gratuitous anti-Americanism is inculcated in the young by evil clerics who are anti-democratic and virulently anti-Semitic.
In the U.S., "Arabists" are under attack. Simply to speak Arabic or to have some sympathetic acquaintance with the vast Arab cultural tradition has been made to seem a threat to Israel. The media runs the vilest racist stereotypes about Arabs--see, for example, a piece by Cynthia Ozick in the Wall Street Journal in which she speaks of Palestinians as having "reared children unlike any other children, removed from ordinary norms and behaviors" and of Palestinian culture as "the life force traduced, cultism raised to a sinister spiritualism."
Americans are sufficiently blind that when a Middle Eastern leader emerges whom our leaders like--the shah of Iran or Anwar Sadat--it is assumed that he is a visionary who does things our way not because he understands the game of imperial power (which is to survive by humoring the regnant authority) but because he is moved by principles that we share.
Almost a quarter of a century after his assassination, Sadat is a forgotten and unpopular man in his own country because most Egyptians regard him as having served the U.S. first, not Egypt. The same is true of the shah in Iran. That Sadat and the shah were followed in power by rulers who are less palatable to the U.S. indicates not that Arabs are fanatics, but that the distortions of imperialism produce further distortions, inducing extreme forms of resistance and political self-assertion.
The Palestinians are considered to have reformed themselves by allowing Mahmoud Abbas, rather than the terrible Yasser Arafat, to be their leader. But "reform" is a matter of imperial interpretation. Israel and the U.S. regard Arafat as an obstacle to the settlement they wish to impose on the Palestinians, a settlement that would obliterate Palestinian demands and allow Israel to claim, falsely, that it has atoned for its "original sin."
Never mind that Arafat--whom I have criticized for years in the Arabic and Western media--is still universally regarded as the legitimate Palestinian leader. He was legally elected and has a level of popular support that no other Palestinian approaches, least of all Abbas, a bureaucrat and longtime Arafat subordinate. And never mind that there is now a coherent Palestinian opposition, the Independent National Initiative; it gets no attention because the U.S. and the Israeli establishment wish for a compliant interlocutor who is in no position to make trouble. As to whether the Abbas arrangement can work, that is put off to another day. This is shortsightedness indeed--the blind arrogance of the imperial gaze. The same pattern is repeated in the official U.S. view of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the other Arab states.
Underlying this perspective is a long-standing view--the Orientalist view--that denies Arabs their right to national self-determination because they are considered incapable of logic, unable to tell the truth and fundamentally murderous.
Since Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, there has been an uninterrupted imperial presence based on these premises throughout the Arab world, producing untold misery--and some benefits, it is true. But so accustomed have Americans become to their own ignorance and the blandishments of U.S. advisors like Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, who have directed their venom against the Arabs in every possible way, that we somehow think that what we do is correct because "that's the way the Arabs are." That this happens also to be an Israeli dogma shared uncritically by the neo-conservatives who are at the heart of the Bush administration simply adds fuel to the fire.
We are in for many more years of turmoil and misery in the Middle East, where one of the main problems is, to put it as plainly as possible, U.S. power. What the U.S. refuses to see clearly it can hardly hope to remedy.
In memory of Edward Said.
Rgds
CCK
Imperial Arrogance and the Vile Stereotyping of Arabs
By EDWARD SAID
The great modern empires have never been held together only by military power. Britain ruled the vast territories of India with only a few thousand colonial officers and a few more thousand troops, many of them Indian. France did the same in North Africa and Indochina, the Dutch in Indonesia, the Portuguese and Belgians in Africa. The key element was imperial perspective, that way of looking at a distant foreign reality by subordinating it in one's gaze, constructing its history from one's own point of view, seeing its people as subjects whose fate can be decided by what distant administrators think is best for them. From such willful perspectives ideas develop, including the theory that imperialism is a benign and necessary thing.
For a while this worked, as many local leaders believed--mistakenly--that cooperating with the imperial authority was the only way. But because the dialectic between the imperial perspective and the local one is adversarial and impermanent, at some point the conflict between ruler and ruled becomes uncontainable and breaks out into colonial war, as happened in Algeria and India. We are still a long way from that moment in American rule over the Arab and Muslim world because, over the last century, pacification through unpopular local rulers has so far worked.
At least since World War II, American strategic interests in the Middle East have been, first, to ensure supplies of oil and, second, to guarantee at enormous cost the strength and domination of Israel over its neighbors.
Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and
liberate. These ideas are by no means shared by the people who inhabit that empire, but that hasn't prevented the U.S. propaganda and policy apparatus from imposing its imperial perspective on Americans, whose sources of information about Arabs and Islam are woefully inadequate.
Several generations of Americans have come to see the Arab world mainly as a dangerous place, where terrorism and religious fanaticism are spawned and where a gratuitous anti-Americanism is inculcated in the young by evil clerics who are anti-democratic and virulently anti-Semitic.
In the U.S., "Arabists" are under attack. Simply to speak Arabic or to have some sympathetic acquaintance with the vast Arab cultural tradition has been made to seem a threat to Israel. The media runs the vilest racist stereotypes about Arabs--see, for example, a piece by Cynthia Ozick in the Wall Street Journal in which she speaks of Palestinians as having "reared children unlike any other children, removed from ordinary norms and behaviors" and of Palestinian culture as "the life force traduced, cultism raised to a sinister spiritualism."
Americans are sufficiently blind that when a Middle Eastern leader emerges whom our leaders like--the shah of Iran or Anwar Sadat--it is assumed that he is a visionary who does things our way not because he understands the game of imperial power (which is to survive by humoring the regnant authority) but because he is moved by principles that we share.
Almost a quarter of a century after his assassination, Sadat is a forgotten and unpopular man in his own country because most Egyptians regard him as having served the U.S. first, not Egypt. The same is true of the shah in Iran. That Sadat and the shah were followed in power by rulers who are less palatable to the U.S. indicates not that Arabs are fanatics, but that the distortions of imperialism produce further distortions, inducing extreme forms of resistance and political self-assertion.
The Palestinians are considered to have reformed themselves by allowing Mahmoud Abbas, rather than the terrible Yasser Arafat, to be their leader. But "reform" is a matter of imperial interpretation. Israel and the U.S. regard Arafat as an obstacle to the settlement they wish to impose on the Palestinians, a settlement that would obliterate Palestinian demands and allow Israel to claim, falsely, that it has atoned for its "original sin."
Never mind that Arafat--whom I have criticized for years in the Arabic and Western media--is still universally regarded as the legitimate Palestinian leader. He was legally elected and has a level of popular support that no other Palestinian approaches, least of all Abbas, a bureaucrat and longtime Arafat subordinate. And never mind that there is now a coherent Palestinian opposition, the Independent National Initiative; it gets no attention because the U.S. and the Israeli establishment wish for a compliant interlocutor who is in no position to make trouble. As to whether the Abbas arrangement can work, that is put off to another day. This is shortsightedness indeed--the blind arrogance of the imperial gaze. The same pattern is repeated in the official U.S. view of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the other Arab states.
Underlying this perspective is a long-standing view--the Orientalist view--that denies Arabs their right to national self-determination because they are considered incapable of logic, unable to tell the truth and fundamentally murderous.
Since Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, there has been an uninterrupted imperial presence based on these premises throughout the Arab world, producing untold misery--and some benefits, it is true. But so accustomed have Americans become to their own ignorance and the blandishments of U.S. advisors like Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, who have directed their venom against the Arabs in every possible way, that we somehow think that what we do is correct because "that's the way the Arabs are." That this happens also to be an Israeli dogma shared uncritically by the neo-conservatives who are at the heart of the Bush administration simply adds fuel to the fire.
We are in for many more years of turmoil and misery in the Middle East, where one of the main problems is, to put it as plainly as possible, U.S. power. What the U.S. refuses to see clearly it can hardly hope to remedy.
Saturday, October 18, 2003
Did you know? And a Little Mind Game
Did you know that Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer (the American assigned by Bush to 'rule free Iraq') had approved laws that allow 100 per cent foreign ownership of all Iraqi state assets apart from natural resources?
Do you know what that means? If your answer to any of above is no, do you know why that's the case?
Do you know what Joseph Stiglitz says about that? Who is he? Mr Stiglitz was former economic adviser to Bill Clinton, World Bank chief economist, and Nobel prize winner for economics. Enough credentials?
Find out what people like him has to say and you will discover a whole new world out there. To help you convince yourself, here's a little mind exercise for all:
Remember the story of the elephant and the 5 blind men? Let's extend that story a bit and wonder what will happen if those 5 fellas were lazy fellas and have no sense of curiosity and lack the ability to analyse data from multiple sources. What a field day we will then have hah?
You laughing by now? Ok let's have some more fun.
Let's further assume that these fellas are cocksure that their views of an elephant is correct, and start telling themselves that what the others were telling them are pure hogwash (some call it conspiracy theories but there are other terms u can get off a cheap dictionary). What do you think will then happen?
OK, you are not likely to be laughing by now but let's try to look ahead a bit shall we?
Let's then assume that these 5 fellas have children of their own (assumed to be also blind for our mental exercise & hey it's not too unrealistic, u never heard of genetics?) and they believe only in home education (hey, papa & mama knows best what), what then happens?
Well, don't ask me what I think. How do you know I am not like one of those fellas in our little exercise?
But I can tell you this: I am cocksure I am not God-like.
Do you know what that means? If your answer to any of above is no, do you know why that's the case?
Do you know what Joseph Stiglitz says about that? Who is he? Mr Stiglitz was former economic adviser to Bill Clinton, World Bank chief economist, and Nobel prize winner for economics. Enough credentials?
Find out what people like him has to say and you will discover a whole new world out there. To help you convince yourself, here's a little mind exercise for all:
Remember the story of the elephant and the 5 blind men? Let's extend that story a bit and wonder what will happen if those 5 fellas were lazy fellas and have no sense of curiosity and lack the ability to analyse data from multiple sources. What a field day we will then have hah?
You laughing by now? Ok let's have some more fun.
Let's further assume that these fellas are cocksure that their views of an elephant is correct, and start telling themselves that what the others were telling them are pure hogwash (some call it conspiracy theories but there are other terms u can get off a cheap dictionary). What do you think will then happen?
OK, you are not likely to be laughing by now but let's try to look ahead a bit shall we?
Let's then assume that these 5 fellas have children of their own (assumed to be also blind for our mental exercise & hey it's not too unrealistic, u never heard of genetics?) and they believe only in home education (hey, papa & mama knows best what), what then happens?
Well, don't ask me what I think. How do you know I am not like one of those fellas in our little exercise?
But I can tell you this: I am cocksure I am not God-like.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Always Yesterday
I noticed that Li Ling has a very good memory and can remember many things that had happened. Many times she would talk about something that I would have forgotten had she not brought it up. When I could not remember something she would say “you remember? Yesterday we did such and such a thing?”
For her the past is always ‘yesterday’. I’m still trying to teach her other words like “last week” or “the last time”.
For her the past is always ‘yesterday’. I’m still trying to teach her other words like “last week” or “the last time”.
Moo Kim Seng & Others
Mom called last night to say that he died yesterday. He must be ninety or so. He was already a retiree when I stayed with them when I was 6 or 7. When mom visited them sometime back he looked alright despite having gone through some surgery. In addition, his wife “Jit Jeh’ is also having difficulty walking and is now chair bound. When I visited him the last Chinese new year, I remembered his daughter, sis Choo, saying that he loved to eat biscuits. Thought of buying him some in the next visit but never had the chance.
When I was in primary 1, the Moos invited me to stay with them during the long school holidays. Moo Kim Seng would bring me along with him to the nearby Ampang lake to fish – that’s where I learnt fishing. And when they needed to buy something from the nearby shops, they will send me to do it but with the instruction to buy myself some titbits with the spare change.
Also, Cousin Yin’s husband died in Taiping recently of cancer. He was in KL for operation to remove the cancer but the doctors did not proceed as they found that the whole body was already ‘infected’. So they just ‘sewed’ him backup and he died soon after. He was bald headed since many years ago and weared a wig in public. I wonder if that was related to the cancer that eventually took his life – may be his diet had something to do with both?
Yin Zhang’s mom is in KL to have her cataract removed.
When I was in primary 1, the Moos invited me to stay with them during the long school holidays. Moo Kim Seng would bring me along with him to the nearby Ampang lake to fish – that’s where I learnt fishing. And when they needed to buy something from the nearby shops, they will send me to do it but with the instruction to buy myself some titbits with the spare change.
Also, Cousin Yin’s husband died in Taiping recently of cancer. He was in KL for operation to remove the cancer but the doctors did not proceed as they found that the whole body was already ‘infected’. So they just ‘sewed’ him backup and he died soon after. He was bald headed since many years ago and weared a wig in public. I wonder if that was related to the cancer that eventually took his life – may be his diet had something to do with both?
Yin Zhang’s mom is in KL to have her cataract removed.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Citizenship in New Superpower
By the act of reading the article at the below link, you shall forthwith be a citizen of the Second Superpower on Earth. May whatever, whatever you like, bless you.
http://cyber.law.harvard.epeopledu//jmoore/secondsuperpower.html
This service is provided free of charge. For those who believe that only money determines what is valuable or useful, consider this: you got your brain for free.
Er, may be that is not a very good example.... OK, Einstein's brain was free! So was Gandhi's and Mother Teresa's...
I know, George Bush got his for free too but he never quite bought the idea. In fact, he sold it for some cheap money and have to resort to asking for his god'sblessings daily to make up for the resultant shortfall. You think the Supergiver will buy it? And for free?
The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head
James F. Moore
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
jmoore@cyber.law.harvard.edu
Monday, March 31, 2003
Available as PDF
Jim Moore's Weblog
As the United States government becomes more belligerent in using its power in the world, many people are longing for a “second superpower” that can keep the US in check. Indeed, many people desire a superpower that speaks for the interests of planetary society, for long-term well-being, and that encourages broad participation in the democratic process. Where can the world find such a second superpower? No nation or group of nations seems able to play this role, although the European Union sometimes seeks to, working in concert with a variety of institutions in the field of international law, including the United Nations. But even the common might of the European nations is barely a match for the current power of the United States.
There is an emerging second superpower, but it is not a nation. Instead, it is a new form of international player, constituted by the “will of the people” in a global social movement. The beautiful but deeply agitated face of this second superpower is the worldwide peace campaign, but the body of the movement is made up of millions of people concerned with a broad agenda that includes social development, environmentalism, health, and human rights. This movement has a surprisingly agile and muscular body of citizen activists who identify their interests with world society as a whole—and who recognize that at a fundamental level we are all one. These are people who are attempting to take into account the needs and dreams of all 6.3 billion people in the world—and not just the members of one or another nation. Consider the members of Amnesty International who write letters on behalf of prisoners of conscience, and the millions of Americans who are participating in email actions against the war in Iraq. Or the physicians who contribute their time to Doctors Without Borders/ Medecins Sans Frontieres.
While some of the leaders have become highly visible, what is perhaps most interesting about this global movement is that it is not really directed by visible leaders, but, as we will see, by the collective, emergent action of its millions of participants. Surveys suggest that at least 30 million people in the United States identify themselves this way—approximately 10% of the US population. The percentage in Europe is undoubtedly higher. The global membership in Asia, South America, Africa and India, while much lower in percentage of the total population, is growing quickly with the spread of the Internet. What makes these numbers important is the new cyberspace-enabled interconnection among the members. This body has a beautiful mind. Web connections enable a kind of near-instantaneous, mass improvisation of activist initiatives. For example, the political activist group Moveon.org, which specializes in rapid response campaigns, has an email list of more than two million members. During the 2002 elections, Moveon.org raised more than $700,000 in a few days for a candidate’s campaign for the US senate. It has raised thousands of dollars for media ads for peace—and it is now amassing a worldwide network of media activists dedicated to keeping the mass media honest by identifying bias and confronting local broadcasters.
New forms of communication and commentary are being invented continuously. Slashdot and other news sites present high quality peer-reviewed commentary by involving large numbers of members of the web community in recommending and rating items. Text messaging on mobile phones, or texting, is now the medium of choice for communicating with thousands of demonstrators simultaneously during mass protests. Instant messaging turns out to be one of the most popular methods for staying connected in the developing world, because it requires only a bit of bandwidth, and provides an intimate sense of connection across time and space. The current enthusiasm for blogging is changing the way that people relate to publication, as it allows realtime dialogue about world events as bloggers log in daily to share their insights. Meta-blogging sites crawl across thousands of blogs, identifying popular links, noting emergent topics, and providing an instantaneous summary of the global consciousness of the second superpower.
The Internet and other interactive media continue to penetrate more and more deeply all world society, and provide a means for instantaneous personal dialogue and communication across the globe. The collective power of texting, blogging, instant messaging, and email across millions of actors cannot be overestimated. Like a mind constituted of millions of inter-networked neurons, the social movement is capable of astonishingly rapid and sometimes subtle community consciousness and action.
Thus the new superpower demonstrates a new form of “emergent democracy” that differs from the participative democracy of the US government. Where political participation in the United States is exercised mainly through rare exercises of voting, participation in the second superpower movement occurs continuously through participation in a variety of web-enabled initiatives. And where deliberation in the first superpower is done primarily by a few elected or appointed officials, deliberation in the second superpower is done by each individual—making sense of events, communicating with others, and deciding whether and how to join in community actions. Finally, where participation in democracy in the first superpower feels remote to most citizens, the emergent democracy of the second superpower is alive with touching and being touched by each other, as the community works to create wisdom and to take action.
How does the second superpower take action? Not from the top, but from the bottom. That is, it is the strength of the US government that it can centrally collect taxes, and then spend, for example, $1.2 billion on 1,200 cruise missiles in the first day of the war against Iraq. By contrast, it is the strength of the second superpower that it could mobilize hundreds of small groups of activists to shut down city centers across the United States on that same first day of the war. And that millions of citizens worldwide would take to their streets to rally. The symbol of the first superpower is the eagle—an awesome predator that rules from the skies, preying on mice and small animals. Perhaps the best symbol for the second superpower would be a community of ants. Ants rule from below. And while I may be awed seeing eagles in flight, when ants invade my kitchen they command my attention.
In the same sense as the ants, the continual distributed action of the members of the second superpower can, I believe, be expected to eventually prevail. Distributed mass behavior, expressed in rallying, in voting, in picketing, in exposing corruption, and in purchases from particular companies, all have a profound effect on the nature of future society. More effect, I would argue, than the devastating but unsustainable effect of bombs and other forms of coercion.
Deliberation in the first superpower is relatively formal—dictated by the US constitution and by years of legislation, adjudicating, and precedent. The realpolitik of decision making in the first superpower—as opposed to what is taught in civics class—centers around lobbying and campaign contributions by moneyed special interests—big oil, the military-industrial complex, big agriculture, and big drugs—to mention only a few. In many cases, what are acted upon are issues for which some group is willing to spend lavishly. By contrast, it is difficult in the US government system to champion policy goals that have broad, long-term value for many citizens, such as environment, poverty reduction and third world development, women’s rights, human rights, health care for all. By contrast, these are precisely the issues to which the second superpower tends to address its attention.
Deliberation in the second superpower is evolving rapidly in both cultural and technological terms. It is difficult to know its present state, and impossible to see its future. But one can say certain things. It is stunning how quickly the community can act—especially when compared to government systems. The Internet, in combination with traditional press and television and radio media, creates a kind of “media space” of global dialogue. Ideas arise in the global media space. Some of them catch hold and are disseminated widely. Their dissemination, like the beat of dance music spreading across a sea of dancers, becomes a pattern across the community. Some members of the community study these patterns, and write about some of them. This has the effect of both amplifying the patterns and facilitating community reflection on the topics highlighted. A new form of deliberation happens. A variety of what we might call “action agents” sits figuratively astride the community, with mechanisms designed to turn a given social movement into specific kinds of action in the world. For example, fundraisers send out mass appeals, with direct mail or the Internet, and if they are tapping into a live issue, they can raise money very quickly. This money in turn can be used to support activities consistent with an emerging mission.
The process is not without its flaws and weaknesses. For example, the central role of the mass media—with its alleged biases and distortions—is a real issue. Much news of the war comes to members of the second superpower from CNN, Fox, and the New York Times, despite the availability of alternative sources. The study of the nature and limits of this big mind is just beginning, and we don’t know its strengths and weaknesses as well as we do those of more traditional democracy. Perhaps governance is the wrong way to frame this study. Rather, what we are embarked on is a kind of experimental neurology, as our communication tools continue to evolve and to rewire the processes by which the community does its shared thinking and feeling. One of the more interesting questions posed to political scientists studying the second superpower is to what extent the community’s long-term orientation and freedom from special interests is reinforced by the peer-to-peer nature of web-centered ways of communicating—and whether these tendencies can be intentionally fostered through the design of the technology.
Which brings us to the most important point: the vital role of the individual. The shared, collective mind of the second superpower is made up of many individual human minds—your mind and my mind—together we create the movement. In traditional democracy our minds don’t matter much—what matters are the minds of those with power of position, and the minds of those that staff and lobby them. In the emergent democracy of the second superpower, each of our minds matters a lot. For example, any one of us can launch an idea. Any one of us can write a blog, send out an email, create a list. Not every idea will take hold in the big mind of the second superpower—but the one that eventually catches fire is started by an individual. And in the peer-oriented world of the second superpower, many more of us have the opportunity to craft submissions, and take a shot.
The contrast goes deeper. In traditional democracy, sense-making moves from top to bottom. “The President must know more than he is saying” goes the thinking of a loyal but passive member of the first superpower. But this form of democracy was established in the 18th century, when education and information were both scarce resources. Now, in more and more of the world, people are well educated and informed. As such, they prefer to make up their own minds. Top-down sense-making is out of touch with modern people.
The second superpower, emerging in the 21st century, depends upon educated informed members. In the community of the second superpower each of us is responsible for our own sense-making. We seek as much data—raw facts, direct experience—as we can, and then we make up our own minds. Even the current fascination with “reality television” speaks to this desire: we prefer to watch our fellows, and decide ourselves “what’s the story” rather than watching actors and actresses play out a story written by someone else. The same, increasingly, is true of the political stage—hence the attractiveness of participation in the second superpower to individuals.
Now the response of many readers will be that this is a wishful fantasy. What, you say, is the demonstrated success of this second superpower? After all, George Bush was almost single-handedly able to make war on Iraq, and the global protest movement was in the end only able to slow him down. Where was the second superpower?
The answer is that the second superpower is not currently able to match the first. On the other hand, the situation may be more promising than we realize. Most important is that the establishment of international institutions and international rule of law has created a venue in which the second superpower can join with sympathetic nations to successfully confront the United States. Consider the international effort to ban landmines. Landmines are cheap, deadly, and often used against agrarian groups because they make working the fields lethal, and sew quite literally the seeds of starvation. In the 1990s a coalition of NGOs coordinated by Jody Williams, Bobby Muller and others managed to put this issue at the top of the international agenda, and promote the establishment of the treaty banning their use. For this, the groups involved were awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. While the United States has so far refused to sign the treaty, it has been highly isolated on the issue and there is still hope that some future congress and president will do so.
At the Kyoto meetings on global climate change, a group of NGOs coordinated by Nancy Keat of the World Resources Institute joined with developing nations to block the interests of the United States and its ally, big oil. The only way for the United States to avoid being checkmated was to leave the game entirely. In the World Trade Organization, the second superpower famously shut down the Seattle meeting in 1999, and later helped to force a special “development round” focused on the needs of poor countries. That round is currently underway—and while the United States and others are seeking to subvert the second superpower agenda, the best they have achieved to date is stalemate.
And finally, while George Bush was indeed able to go to war with Iraq, the only way he could do so was to ignore international law and split with the United Nations. Had he stayed within the system of international institutions, his aims likely would have been frustrated. The French and the Germans who led the attempt to stop him could not, I believe, have done what they did without the strength of public opinion prodding them—the second superpower in action.
Now we all know that the Bush administration has decided to undermine, in many cases, the system of international law. Some argue that by pulling out, the administration has fatally damaged the international system, and ushered in a new era where the United States determines the rules—hub and spoke style—through bilateral deals with other nations. The result, some will say, is that the second superpower no longer has a venue in which to meet the first effectively. In my view this is an overly pessimistic assessment—albeit one that members of the second superpower need to take seriously and strive to render false by our success in supporting international institutions.
International law and institutions are not going away. Too many parties want and need them. First, individuals around the world are becoming more globally aware, and more interested in international institutions. Global media, travel, and immigration all contribute to citizens being aware of the benefits of consistent approaches to everything from passport control to human rights. It is striking, for example, that up until the final days before the war, a majority of the US population wanted the president to deal with Iraq in concert with the United Nations. Second, business organizations want global rule of law. Global trade is now central to a vast majority of businesses and almost all nations—and such trade requires rules administered by multilateral bodies. Third, most nations want a global legal system. In particular, European nations, wary of war, outclassed in one-on-one power confrontations with the United States, have become strongly committed to a post-national world. They are pouring collective national resources of enormous magnitude into continuously strengthening the international system.
The key problem facing international institutions is that they have few ways to enforce their will on a recalcitrant US government. And this is where the second superpower is a part of the solution. Enforcement has many dimensions. When the United States opts to avoid or undermine international institutions, the second superpower can harass and embarrass it with demonstrations and public education campaigns. The second superpower can put pressure on politicians around the world to stiffen their resolve to confront the US government in any ways possible. And the second superpower can also target US politicians and work to remove at the polls those who support the administration’s undercutting of international law.
Longer term, we must press for a direct voice for the second superpower in international institutions, so that we are not always forced to work through nations. This means, as a practical matter, a voice for citizens, and for NGOs and “civil society” organizations. For example, the Access Initiative of the World Resources Institute is working to give citizens’ groups the ability to influence environmental decisions made by international organizations such as the World Bank. The Digital Opportunity Task Force of the G8 group of nations included a formal role for civil society organizations, as does the United Nations Information and Communications Technology Task Force.
Overall, what can be said for the prospects of the second superpower? With its mind enhanced by Internet connective tissue, and international law as a venue to work with others for progressive action, the second superpower is starting to demonstrate its potential. But there is much to do. How do we assure that it continues to gain in strength? And at least as important, how do we continue to develop the mind of the second superpower, so that it maximizes wisdom and goodwill? The future, as they say, is in our hands. We need to join together to help the second superpower, itself, grow stronger.
First, we need to become conscious of the “mental processes” in which we are involved as members of the second superpower, and explore how to make our individual sense-making and collective action more and more effective. This of course means challenging and improving the mass media, and supporting more interactive and less biased alternatives. But more ambitiously, we will need to develop a kind of meta-discipline, an organizational psychology of our community, to explore the nature of our web-enabled, person-centered, global governance and communication processes, and continue to improve them.
Second, and ironically, the future of the second superpower depends to a great extent on social freedoms in part determined by the first superpower. It is the traditional freedoms—freedom of the press, of assembly, of speech—that have enabled the second superpower to take root and grow. Indeed, the Internet itself was constructed by the US government, and the government could theoretically still step in to restrict its freedoms. So we need to pay close attention to freedom in society, and especially to freedom of the Internet. There are many moves afoot to censor the web, to close down access, and to restrict privacy and free assembly in cyberspace. While we generally associate web censorship with countries like China or Saudi Arabia, tighter control of the web is also being explored in the United States and Europe. The officials of the first superpower are promoting these ideas in the name of preventing terrorism, but they also prevent the open peer-to-peer communication that is at the heart of the second superpower. We need to insist on an open web, an open cyberspace, around the globe, because that is the essential medium in which the second superpower lives.
Third, we must carefully consider how best to support international institutions, so that they collectively form a setting in which our power can be exercised. Perhaps too often we attack institutions like the World Bank that might, under the right conditions, actually become partners with us in dealing with the first superpower. International institutions must become deeply more transparent, accessible to the public, and less amenable to special interests, while remaining strong enough to provide a secure context in which our views can be expressed.
And finally, we must work on ourselves and our community. We will dialogue with our neighbors, knowing that the collective wisdom of the second superpower is grounded in the individual wisdom within each of us. We must remind ourselves that daily we make personal choices about the world we create for ourselves and our descendants. We do not have to create a world where differences are resolved by war. It is not our destiny to live in a world of destruction, tedium, and tragedy. We will create a world of peace.
http://cyber.law.harvard.epeopledu//jmoore/secondsuperpower.html
This service is provided free of charge. For those who believe that only money determines what is valuable or useful, consider this: you got your brain for free.
Er, may be that is not a very good example.... OK, Einstein's brain was free! So was Gandhi's and Mother Teresa's...
I know, George Bush got his for free too but he never quite bought the idea. In fact, he sold it for some cheap money and have to resort to asking for his god'sblessings daily to make up for the resultant shortfall. You think the Supergiver will buy it? And for free?
The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head
James F. Moore
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
jmoore@cyber.law.harvard.edu
Monday, March 31, 2003
Available as PDF
Jim Moore's Weblog
As the United States government becomes more belligerent in using its power in the world, many people are longing for a “second superpower” that can keep the US in check. Indeed, many people desire a superpower that speaks for the interests of planetary society, for long-term well-being, and that encourages broad participation in the democratic process. Where can the world find such a second superpower? No nation or group of nations seems able to play this role, although the European Union sometimes seeks to, working in concert with a variety of institutions in the field of international law, including the United Nations. But even the common might of the European nations is barely a match for the current power of the United States.
There is an emerging second superpower, but it is not a nation. Instead, it is a new form of international player, constituted by the “will of the people” in a global social movement. The beautiful but deeply agitated face of this second superpower is the worldwide peace campaign, but the body of the movement is made up of millions of people concerned with a broad agenda that includes social development, environmentalism, health, and human rights. This movement has a surprisingly agile and muscular body of citizen activists who identify their interests with world society as a whole—and who recognize that at a fundamental level we are all one. These are people who are attempting to take into account the needs and dreams of all 6.3 billion people in the world—and not just the members of one or another nation. Consider the members of Amnesty International who write letters on behalf of prisoners of conscience, and the millions of Americans who are participating in email actions against the war in Iraq. Or the physicians who contribute their time to Doctors Without Borders/ Medecins Sans Frontieres.
While some of the leaders have become highly visible, what is perhaps most interesting about this global movement is that it is not really directed by visible leaders, but, as we will see, by the collective, emergent action of its millions of participants. Surveys suggest that at least 30 million people in the United States identify themselves this way—approximately 10% of the US population. The percentage in Europe is undoubtedly higher. The global membership in Asia, South America, Africa and India, while much lower in percentage of the total population, is growing quickly with the spread of the Internet. What makes these numbers important is the new cyberspace-enabled interconnection among the members. This body has a beautiful mind. Web connections enable a kind of near-instantaneous, mass improvisation of activist initiatives. For example, the political activist group Moveon.org, which specializes in rapid response campaigns, has an email list of more than two million members. During the 2002 elections, Moveon.org raised more than $700,000 in a few days for a candidate’s campaign for the US senate. It has raised thousands of dollars for media ads for peace—and it is now amassing a worldwide network of media activists dedicated to keeping the mass media honest by identifying bias and confronting local broadcasters.
New forms of communication and commentary are being invented continuously. Slashdot and other news sites present high quality peer-reviewed commentary by involving large numbers of members of the web community in recommending and rating items. Text messaging on mobile phones, or texting, is now the medium of choice for communicating with thousands of demonstrators simultaneously during mass protests. Instant messaging turns out to be one of the most popular methods for staying connected in the developing world, because it requires only a bit of bandwidth, and provides an intimate sense of connection across time and space. The current enthusiasm for blogging is changing the way that people relate to publication, as it allows realtime dialogue about world events as bloggers log in daily to share their insights. Meta-blogging sites crawl across thousands of blogs, identifying popular links, noting emergent topics, and providing an instantaneous summary of the global consciousness of the second superpower.
The Internet and other interactive media continue to penetrate more and more deeply all world society, and provide a means for instantaneous personal dialogue and communication across the globe. The collective power of texting, blogging, instant messaging, and email across millions of actors cannot be overestimated. Like a mind constituted of millions of inter-networked neurons, the social movement is capable of astonishingly rapid and sometimes subtle community consciousness and action.
Thus the new superpower demonstrates a new form of “emergent democracy” that differs from the participative democracy of the US government. Where political participation in the United States is exercised mainly through rare exercises of voting, participation in the second superpower movement occurs continuously through participation in a variety of web-enabled initiatives. And where deliberation in the first superpower is done primarily by a few elected or appointed officials, deliberation in the second superpower is done by each individual—making sense of events, communicating with others, and deciding whether and how to join in community actions. Finally, where participation in democracy in the first superpower feels remote to most citizens, the emergent democracy of the second superpower is alive with touching and being touched by each other, as the community works to create wisdom and to take action.
How does the second superpower take action? Not from the top, but from the bottom. That is, it is the strength of the US government that it can centrally collect taxes, and then spend, for example, $1.2 billion on 1,200 cruise missiles in the first day of the war against Iraq. By contrast, it is the strength of the second superpower that it could mobilize hundreds of small groups of activists to shut down city centers across the United States on that same first day of the war. And that millions of citizens worldwide would take to their streets to rally. The symbol of the first superpower is the eagle—an awesome predator that rules from the skies, preying on mice and small animals. Perhaps the best symbol for the second superpower would be a community of ants. Ants rule from below. And while I may be awed seeing eagles in flight, when ants invade my kitchen they command my attention.
In the same sense as the ants, the continual distributed action of the members of the second superpower can, I believe, be expected to eventually prevail. Distributed mass behavior, expressed in rallying, in voting, in picketing, in exposing corruption, and in purchases from particular companies, all have a profound effect on the nature of future society. More effect, I would argue, than the devastating but unsustainable effect of bombs and other forms of coercion.
Deliberation in the first superpower is relatively formal—dictated by the US constitution and by years of legislation, adjudicating, and precedent. The realpolitik of decision making in the first superpower—as opposed to what is taught in civics class—centers around lobbying and campaign contributions by moneyed special interests—big oil, the military-industrial complex, big agriculture, and big drugs—to mention only a few. In many cases, what are acted upon are issues for which some group is willing to spend lavishly. By contrast, it is difficult in the US government system to champion policy goals that have broad, long-term value for many citizens, such as environment, poverty reduction and third world development, women’s rights, human rights, health care for all. By contrast, these are precisely the issues to which the second superpower tends to address its attention.
Deliberation in the second superpower is evolving rapidly in both cultural and technological terms. It is difficult to know its present state, and impossible to see its future. But one can say certain things. It is stunning how quickly the community can act—especially when compared to government systems. The Internet, in combination with traditional press and television and radio media, creates a kind of “media space” of global dialogue. Ideas arise in the global media space. Some of them catch hold and are disseminated widely. Their dissemination, like the beat of dance music spreading across a sea of dancers, becomes a pattern across the community. Some members of the community study these patterns, and write about some of them. This has the effect of both amplifying the patterns and facilitating community reflection on the topics highlighted. A new form of deliberation happens. A variety of what we might call “action agents” sits figuratively astride the community, with mechanisms designed to turn a given social movement into specific kinds of action in the world. For example, fundraisers send out mass appeals, with direct mail or the Internet, and if they are tapping into a live issue, they can raise money very quickly. This money in turn can be used to support activities consistent with an emerging mission.
The process is not without its flaws and weaknesses. For example, the central role of the mass media—with its alleged biases and distortions—is a real issue. Much news of the war comes to members of the second superpower from CNN, Fox, and the New York Times, despite the availability of alternative sources. The study of the nature and limits of this big mind is just beginning, and we don’t know its strengths and weaknesses as well as we do those of more traditional democracy. Perhaps governance is the wrong way to frame this study. Rather, what we are embarked on is a kind of experimental neurology, as our communication tools continue to evolve and to rewire the processes by which the community does its shared thinking and feeling. One of the more interesting questions posed to political scientists studying the second superpower is to what extent the community’s long-term orientation and freedom from special interests is reinforced by the peer-to-peer nature of web-centered ways of communicating—and whether these tendencies can be intentionally fostered through the design of the technology.
Which brings us to the most important point: the vital role of the individual. The shared, collective mind of the second superpower is made up of many individual human minds—your mind and my mind—together we create the movement. In traditional democracy our minds don’t matter much—what matters are the minds of those with power of position, and the minds of those that staff and lobby them. In the emergent democracy of the second superpower, each of our minds matters a lot. For example, any one of us can launch an idea. Any one of us can write a blog, send out an email, create a list. Not every idea will take hold in the big mind of the second superpower—but the one that eventually catches fire is started by an individual. And in the peer-oriented world of the second superpower, many more of us have the opportunity to craft submissions, and take a shot.
The contrast goes deeper. In traditional democracy, sense-making moves from top to bottom. “The President must know more than he is saying” goes the thinking of a loyal but passive member of the first superpower. But this form of democracy was established in the 18th century, when education and information were both scarce resources. Now, in more and more of the world, people are well educated and informed. As such, they prefer to make up their own minds. Top-down sense-making is out of touch with modern people.
The second superpower, emerging in the 21st century, depends upon educated informed members. In the community of the second superpower each of us is responsible for our own sense-making. We seek as much data—raw facts, direct experience—as we can, and then we make up our own minds. Even the current fascination with “reality television” speaks to this desire: we prefer to watch our fellows, and decide ourselves “what’s the story” rather than watching actors and actresses play out a story written by someone else. The same, increasingly, is true of the political stage—hence the attractiveness of participation in the second superpower to individuals.
Now the response of many readers will be that this is a wishful fantasy. What, you say, is the demonstrated success of this second superpower? After all, George Bush was almost single-handedly able to make war on Iraq, and the global protest movement was in the end only able to slow him down. Where was the second superpower?
The answer is that the second superpower is not currently able to match the first. On the other hand, the situation may be more promising than we realize. Most important is that the establishment of international institutions and international rule of law has created a venue in which the second superpower can join with sympathetic nations to successfully confront the United States. Consider the international effort to ban landmines. Landmines are cheap, deadly, and often used against agrarian groups because they make working the fields lethal, and sew quite literally the seeds of starvation. In the 1990s a coalition of NGOs coordinated by Jody Williams, Bobby Muller and others managed to put this issue at the top of the international agenda, and promote the establishment of the treaty banning their use. For this, the groups involved were awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. While the United States has so far refused to sign the treaty, it has been highly isolated on the issue and there is still hope that some future congress and president will do so.
At the Kyoto meetings on global climate change, a group of NGOs coordinated by Nancy Keat of the World Resources Institute joined with developing nations to block the interests of the United States and its ally, big oil. The only way for the United States to avoid being checkmated was to leave the game entirely. In the World Trade Organization, the second superpower famously shut down the Seattle meeting in 1999, and later helped to force a special “development round” focused on the needs of poor countries. That round is currently underway—and while the United States and others are seeking to subvert the second superpower agenda, the best they have achieved to date is stalemate.
And finally, while George Bush was indeed able to go to war with Iraq, the only way he could do so was to ignore international law and split with the United Nations. Had he stayed within the system of international institutions, his aims likely would have been frustrated. The French and the Germans who led the attempt to stop him could not, I believe, have done what they did without the strength of public opinion prodding them—the second superpower in action.
Now we all know that the Bush administration has decided to undermine, in many cases, the system of international law. Some argue that by pulling out, the administration has fatally damaged the international system, and ushered in a new era where the United States determines the rules—hub and spoke style—through bilateral deals with other nations. The result, some will say, is that the second superpower no longer has a venue in which to meet the first effectively. In my view this is an overly pessimistic assessment—albeit one that members of the second superpower need to take seriously and strive to render false by our success in supporting international institutions.
International law and institutions are not going away. Too many parties want and need them. First, individuals around the world are becoming more globally aware, and more interested in international institutions. Global media, travel, and immigration all contribute to citizens being aware of the benefits of consistent approaches to everything from passport control to human rights. It is striking, for example, that up until the final days before the war, a majority of the US population wanted the president to deal with Iraq in concert with the United Nations. Second, business organizations want global rule of law. Global trade is now central to a vast majority of businesses and almost all nations—and such trade requires rules administered by multilateral bodies. Third, most nations want a global legal system. In particular, European nations, wary of war, outclassed in one-on-one power confrontations with the United States, have become strongly committed to a post-national world. They are pouring collective national resources of enormous magnitude into continuously strengthening the international system.
The key problem facing international institutions is that they have few ways to enforce their will on a recalcitrant US government. And this is where the second superpower is a part of the solution. Enforcement has many dimensions. When the United States opts to avoid or undermine international institutions, the second superpower can harass and embarrass it with demonstrations and public education campaigns. The second superpower can put pressure on politicians around the world to stiffen their resolve to confront the US government in any ways possible. And the second superpower can also target US politicians and work to remove at the polls those who support the administration’s undercutting of international law.
Longer term, we must press for a direct voice for the second superpower in international institutions, so that we are not always forced to work through nations. This means, as a practical matter, a voice for citizens, and for NGOs and “civil society” organizations. For example, the Access Initiative of the World Resources Institute is working to give citizens’ groups the ability to influence environmental decisions made by international organizations such as the World Bank. The Digital Opportunity Task Force of the G8 group of nations included a formal role for civil society organizations, as does the United Nations Information and Communications Technology Task Force.
Overall, what can be said for the prospects of the second superpower? With its mind enhanced by Internet connective tissue, and international law as a venue to work with others for progressive action, the second superpower is starting to demonstrate its potential. But there is much to do. How do we assure that it continues to gain in strength? And at least as important, how do we continue to develop the mind of the second superpower, so that it maximizes wisdom and goodwill? The future, as they say, is in our hands. We need to join together to help the second superpower, itself, grow stronger.
First, we need to become conscious of the “mental processes” in which we are involved as members of the second superpower, and explore how to make our individual sense-making and collective action more and more effective. This of course means challenging and improving the mass media, and supporting more interactive and less biased alternatives. But more ambitiously, we will need to develop a kind of meta-discipline, an organizational psychology of our community, to explore the nature of our web-enabled, person-centered, global governance and communication processes, and continue to improve them.
Second, and ironically, the future of the second superpower depends to a great extent on social freedoms in part determined by the first superpower. It is the traditional freedoms—freedom of the press, of assembly, of speech—that have enabled the second superpower to take root and grow. Indeed, the Internet itself was constructed by the US government, and the government could theoretically still step in to restrict its freedoms. So we need to pay close attention to freedom in society, and especially to freedom of the Internet. There are many moves afoot to censor the web, to close down access, and to restrict privacy and free assembly in cyberspace. While we generally associate web censorship with countries like China or Saudi Arabia, tighter control of the web is also being explored in the United States and Europe. The officials of the first superpower are promoting these ideas in the name of preventing terrorism, but they also prevent the open peer-to-peer communication that is at the heart of the second superpower. We need to insist on an open web, an open cyberspace, around the globe, because that is the essential medium in which the second superpower lives.
Third, we must carefully consider how best to support international institutions, so that they collectively form a setting in which our power can be exercised. Perhaps too often we attack institutions like the World Bank that might, under the right conditions, actually become partners with us in dealing with the first superpower. International institutions must become deeply more transparent, accessible to the public, and less amenable to special interests, while remaining strong enough to provide a secure context in which our views can be expressed.
And finally, we must work on ourselves and our community. We will dialogue with our neighbors, knowing that the collective wisdom of the second superpower is grounded in the individual wisdom within each of us. We must remind ourselves that daily we make personal choices about the world we create for ourselves and our descendants. We do not have to create a world where differences are resolved by war. It is not our destiny to live in a world of destruction, tedium, and tragedy. We will create a world of peace.
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
What Freedom & Whose Truth?
Freedom has no meaning to anyone if what one reads, sees or hears about is decided by someone else - whether it is an Arab government or an American individual or business. True freedom is when an individual gets access to as broad a perspective as possible and has the right to analyse the information presented, and make a judgement for himself. The true believers of freedom in the US, which include many of its founding fathers, would be the first to agree with this.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6704148&BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=222087&rfi=6
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6704148&BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=222087&rfi=6
Thursday, October 18, 2001
11 Letters
Received some mails (see bottom) talking about things relating to September 11 that were made up of 11 letters. So I decided to join in with this writing: 11 verses, each line with 11 letters:
11 Letters Mail
1. WTC bombings
Or 11 September.
Osama terror?
Where's proof?
US didn't show.
But all's sure.
Or are scared
(see Pakistan).
2. Why US picked?
And not other?
As an example,
your country
Switzerland?
US deserve it?
US arrogance?
Or was it just
blind terror?
Islam's abuse?
3. So who's right?
Islamic nuts
and Talebans?
Bush's Junior
and Israelis?
4. But who Cares?
Anyhow whack.
Retaliation.
Then crusade.
Then another
eye for an eye.
Afghanistan,
many will die.
5. Osama speaks:
Planes storm
keeps on till
Israel is out
of Palestine.
6. America says:
Rocket storm
will not stop.
No mid ground.
You're either
with us or not.
7. Now the US get
anthrax mail.
Osama repeat?
Al Qaeda guys
so fantastic?
Resourceful?
Or is that all?
8. Say my friend:
Everything's
in God's Hands.
All's so grand.
9. Ask my friend:
How shall the
insanity end?
Perhaps till
all lives' end?
10. So do nothing?
As we pretend,
everything's
In God's Hands?
11. But I wouldn't
let's pretend.
Me & my friends,
a Gandhi said
we are a part
of the change
we wish to see.
Just 11 letters.....
At 14:55 17-10-2001 +0800, you wrote:
Shoot, I should have known it too.
The "US Arrogance" I was talking about has 11 letters!
The biggest example of that arrogance and a root cause of the bombing :
"Palestinian" also has 11 letters!
"So I was right" has 11 letters too......
(Below mail about number 11 appearing in things related to Sept 11 incident, and response from a person by name of Dave)
EE LIN KHOO
10/17/2001 03:13 PM
Subject: eleven letters!
Best Regards
Khoo Ee Lin
DID : (65) 882-1246
Fax : (65) 882-1762
168 Robinson Road #15-00 Capital Tower Singapore 068912
Email : eelin.khoo@jpmorgan.com
This is funny!! (read all the way to the bottom :)
I don't know who David is, but his response is hilarious!!!
Original letter:
The date of the attack: 9/11 - 9 + 1 + 1 = 11
September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11
After September 11th there are 111 days left to the end of the year.
119 is the area code to Iraq/Iran. 1 + 1 + 9 = 11
Twin Towers - standing side by side, looks like the number 11
The first plane to hit the towers was Flight 11
More.......
State of New York - The 11th State added to the Union
New York City - 11 Letters
Afghanistan - 11 Letters
The Pentagon - 11 Letters
Ramzi Yousef - 11 Letters (convicted or orchestrating the attack on the WTC in 1993)
Flight 11 - 92 on board - 9 + 2 = 11
Flight 77 - 65 on board - 6 + 5 = 11
(Dave's response)
Oh my God! How worried should I be?
There are 11 letters in the name "David Pawson!"
I'm going into hiding NOW. See you in a few weeks.
Wait a sec ... just realized "YOU CAN'T HIDE" also has 11 letters!
What am I gonna do? Help me!!! The terrorists are after me! ME! I can't believe it!
Oh crap, there must be someplace on the planet Earth I could hide!
But no .. PLANET EARTH" has 11 letters, too!
Maybe Nostradamus can help me. But dare I trust him? There are 11 letters in "NOSTRADAMUS."
I know, the Red Cross can help. No they can't... 11 letters in "THE RED CROSS," can't trust them.
I would rely on self-defense, but "SELF-DEFENSE" has 11 letters in it, too!
Can someone help? Anyone? If so, send me email. No, don't... "SEND ME EMAIL" has 11 letters....
Will this never end? I'm going insane! "GOING INSANE???" Eleven letters!!
Nooooooooooo!!!!!! I guess I'll die alone, even though
"I'LL DIE ALONE" has 11 letters.....
Oh my God, I just realized that America is doomed!
Our Independence Day is July 4th ... 7/4 ... 7+4=11!
~Dave
PS. "IT'S BULLSHIT" has 11 letters also.
11 Letters Mail
1. WTC bombings
Or 11 September.
Osama terror?
Where's proof?
US didn't show.
But all's sure.
Or are scared
(see Pakistan).
2. Why US picked?
And not other?
As an example,
your country
Switzerland?
US deserve it?
US arrogance?
Or was it just
blind terror?
Islam's abuse?
3. So who's right?
Islamic nuts
and Talebans?
Bush's Junior
and Israelis?
4. But who Cares?
Anyhow whack.
Retaliation.
Then crusade.
Then another
eye for an eye.
Afghanistan,
many will die.
5. Osama speaks:
Planes storm
keeps on till
Israel is out
of Palestine.
6. America says:
Rocket storm
will not stop.
No mid ground.
You're either
with us or not.
7. Now the US get
anthrax mail.
Osama repeat?
Al Qaeda guys
so fantastic?
Resourceful?
Or is that all?
8. Say my friend:
Everything's
in God's Hands.
All's so grand.
9. Ask my friend:
How shall the
insanity end?
Perhaps till
all lives' end?
10. So do nothing?
As we pretend,
everything's
In God's Hands?
11. But I wouldn't
let's pretend.
Me & my friends,
a Gandhi said
we are a part
of the change
we wish to see.
Just 11 letters.....
At 14:55 17-10-2001 +0800, you wrote:
Shoot, I should have known it too.
The "US Arrogance" I was talking about has 11 letters!
The biggest example of that arrogance and a root cause of the bombing :
"Palestinian" also has 11 letters!
"So I was right" has 11 letters too......
(Below mail about number 11 appearing in things related to Sept 11 incident, and response from a person by name of Dave)
EE LIN KHOO
10/17/2001 03:13 PM
Subject: eleven letters!
Best Regards
Khoo Ee Lin
DID : (65) 882-1246
Fax : (65) 882-1762
168 Robinson Road #15-00 Capital Tower Singapore 068912
Email : eelin.khoo@jpmorgan.com
This is funny!! (read all the way to the bottom :)
I don't know who David is, but his response is hilarious!!!
Original letter:
The date of the attack: 9/11 - 9 + 1 + 1 = 11
September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11
After September 11th there are 111 days left to the end of the year.
119 is the area code to Iraq/Iran. 1 + 1 + 9 = 11
Twin Towers - standing side by side, looks like the number 11
The first plane to hit the towers was Flight 11
More.......
State of New York - The 11th State added to the Union
New York City - 11 Letters
Afghanistan - 11 Letters
The Pentagon - 11 Letters
Ramzi Yousef - 11 Letters (convicted or orchestrating the attack on the WTC in 1993)
Flight 11 - 92 on board - 9 + 2 = 11
Flight 77 - 65 on board - 6 + 5 = 11
(Dave's response)
Oh my God! How worried should I be?
There are 11 letters in the name "David Pawson!"
I'm going into hiding NOW. See you in a few weeks.
Wait a sec ... just realized "YOU CAN'T HIDE" also has 11 letters!
What am I gonna do? Help me!!! The terrorists are after me! ME! I can't believe it!
Oh crap, there must be someplace on the planet Earth I could hide!
But no .. PLANET EARTH" has 11 letters, too!
Maybe Nostradamus can help me. But dare I trust him? There are 11 letters in "NOSTRADAMUS."
I know, the Red Cross can help. No they can't... 11 letters in "THE RED CROSS," can't trust them.
I would rely on self-defense, but "SELF-DEFENSE" has 11 letters in it, too!
Can someone help? Anyone? If so, send me email. No, don't... "SEND ME EMAIL" has 11 letters....
Will this never end? I'm going insane! "GOING INSANE???" Eleven letters!!
Nooooooooooo!!!!!! I guess I'll die alone, even though
"I'LL DIE ALONE" has 11 letters.....
Oh my God, I just realized that America is doomed!
Our Independence Day is July 4th ... 7/4 ... 7+4=11!
~Dave
PS. "IT'S BULLSHIT" has 11 letters also.
Saturday, October 13, 2001
Why the Chicken Crossed the Road on Sept 11
Saw a chain mail on 'Why the Chicken Crossed the Road' (see bottom) and decided to contribute a new one with September 11 as backdrop.
Forget about those old chicken stories. We have new chickens on the loose and can start a new set......
BUSH JR.
It's war. No, it's crusade. No, no, I meant it's war against terrorism (sorry papa, I screwed up). They're either with civilisation or they are with terrorism. So they had to cross the road. I call it infinite justice. No, I call it enduring freedom (shit, again!)
BLAIR
We were with them from the beginning and we will cross the road to be with them till the end.
OSAMA
They're either with Islam or they are with arrogance/hegemony. So they crossed. And the storm of chickens shall continue till those other chickens are out of Palestine.
PLO
We do not want to give any chicken any reason for anything....
(PLO tried to stay clear of the whole incident to avoid being linked to/as 'terrorists')
RUSSIA
Those chickens can use my side of the road to launch attacks on chickens on the other side as long as they let my chickens whack other chickens on my side of the road...
(US used to criticise Russian actions against Chechen muslim separatists. Now Russia wants US to support their Chechen actions if the Americans want Russian support in return)
CHINA
We have chickens too and those chickens should not cross anymore roads to whack other chickens.
(China pleaded for restrain, to no avail)
INDIA
We also have chickens on our side of the road and those chickens should help us whack our chickens too.
(India used opportunity to get US support against Kashmiri muslim separatists)
SAUDI
We are not letting any chicken use our coops to fly over any road to get to any chicken on the other side. We think the world should review its road system.
(When they realised the Americans intended to use Sept 11 as excuse to attack Iraq, the Saudis said they will not allow the US to use their bases in Saudi for that purpose)
NATO
We hereby invoke Article 5 of our alliance whereby an attack against one chicken is considered an attack on all chickens.
ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISTS
Any road that crosses any chicken's path is a crossing to all chickens and shall be considered a Holy Crossing. Then it is the sacred duty of all chickens from all over the world to cross it. (you see any difference between this chicken speak and NATO's chicken talk?)
UN & SINGAPORE
According to the UN Charter and UN Resolution 2468 every chicken have a right to self-defence. So they have a right to cross the road to whack chickens on the other side. What about UN Charter and UN Resolution 1357 on self-determination & sovereignty? They don't apply to some types of chickens.
MUSHARAF
We tried our best to convince those chickens not to cross the road but they did not listen. Now they deserve whatever happens on the other side of the road. For me, I am just chicken all the way.
(Pakistan which supported the Talebans claimed that they tried to convince them not to go against the Americans)
SADDAM HUSSEIN
The mother of all bad chickens had just been whacked by some good chickens that crossed the road, and will soon cross all roads to roast innocent chickens like us. We should come together to build the mother of all roads to stop it from crossing....
(Soon after Sept 11 the US tried to 'link' Iraq in various ways to Osama, and later used those lies as excuses to invade Iraq)
HOWARD
Those chickens whacking chickens shows how dangerous a world we live in. What Australia need is an experienced chicken that knows what to do. That's why we stopped that shipload of chickens from coming in.
Elect me and I make sure no chickens cross over to Australia.
(Australian election took place soon after Sept 11, and after Australia turned away a ship load of refugees from Middle East or Afghanistan)
INDONESIA
It is the chicken's right to cross the road. That's because they think those chickens on the other side whacked their fellow chickens. They have made it known to us that they are only going after those chickens that did it and not all chickens. So we are not taking sides.
(Indonesia was trying to explain why Sept 11 happened)
MALAYSIA
We are not aware of any of our chickens crossing that road. If they have proof that our chickens were involved, they can let us know. We will conduct our own investigations and take the necessary actions.
We have always been tough on chickens crossing roads.
(There were reports saying that some Malaysians have links with perpetrators of Sept 11)
(Original mail received)
To: kianwing.sam@cypress.com.sg, cheng_chee_khiaw@jpmorgan.com, lim_christopher@jpmorgan.com, James_Chong@yahoo.com
Subject: FW: Why the chicken crossed the road....what they all said
Question - Why did the chicken cross the road?
KINDERGARTEN TEACHER:
To get to the other side.
ARISTOTLE:
It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.
RONALD REAGAN:
I forget.
ARTHUR ANDERSEN CONSULTANT:
Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Andersen, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), Andersen helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework.
RICHARD M. NIXON:
The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road.
JERRY SEINFELD:
Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway?"
BILL GATES:
I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.
MAHATHIR:
You know, I am tired of all this..'apa-nama' chicken-chicken bisnes....the foreign powers should stop intervening in our domestic affairs and just leave our chickens alone..... if they want to...'apa nama' cross the road, they should be allowed to cross the road .. Malaysia is a democratic country, we let our chickens do whatever they want to do.... as long as they don't threaten the Malay unity and try to topple the government...and if they plan to do so...we won't hesitate to use the ISA...
ABDULLAH BADAWI:
Ini semua adalah khabar angin sahaja...jangan percaya khabar - khabar angin ini semua...biasalah ini adalah taktik pembangkang untuk memecah belahkan perpaduan ayam - ayam semua...jangan percaya..jangan percaya....
SAMY VELLU :
ayyooyoo...belakang cerita lain kali, kalu itu ayam mau pigi jalan-jalan,beritau sama saya juga, saya bolley buat lebbey banyak toll........
COLONEL SANDERS:
I missed one?
BILL CLINTON :
I've had so many chicks, I can't remember...
Forget about those old chicken stories. We have new chickens on the loose and can start a new set......
BUSH JR.
It's war. No, it's crusade. No, no, I meant it's war against terrorism (sorry papa, I screwed up). They're either with civilisation or they are with terrorism. So they had to cross the road. I call it infinite justice. No, I call it enduring freedom (shit, again!)
BLAIR
We were with them from the beginning and we will cross the road to be with them till the end.
OSAMA
They're either with Islam or they are with arrogance/hegemony. So they crossed. And the storm of chickens shall continue till those other chickens are out of Palestine.
PLO
We do not want to give any chicken any reason for anything....
(PLO tried to stay clear of the whole incident to avoid being linked to/as 'terrorists')
RUSSIA
Those chickens can use my side of the road to launch attacks on chickens on the other side as long as they let my chickens whack other chickens on my side of the road...
(US used to criticise Russian actions against Chechen muslim separatists. Now Russia wants US to support their Chechen actions if the Americans want Russian support in return)
CHINA
We have chickens too and those chickens should not cross anymore roads to whack other chickens.
(China pleaded for restrain, to no avail)
INDIA
We also have chickens on our side of the road and those chickens should help us whack our chickens too.
(India used opportunity to get US support against Kashmiri muslim separatists)
SAUDI
We are not letting any chicken use our coops to fly over any road to get to any chicken on the other side. We think the world should review its road system.
(When they realised the Americans intended to use Sept 11 as excuse to attack Iraq, the Saudis said they will not allow the US to use their bases in Saudi for that purpose)
NATO
We hereby invoke Article 5 of our alliance whereby an attack against one chicken is considered an attack on all chickens.
ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISTS
Any road that crosses any chicken's path is a crossing to all chickens and shall be considered a Holy Crossing. Then it is the sacred duty of all chickens from all over the world to cross it. (you see any difference between this chicken speak and NATO's chicken talk?)
UN & SINGAPORE
According to the UN Charter and UN Resolution 2468 every chicken have a right to self-defence. So they have a right to cross the road to whack chickens on the other side. What about UN Charter and UN Resolution 1357 on self-determination & sovereignty? They don't apply to some types of chickens.
MUSHARAF
We tried our best to convince those chickens not to cross the road but they did not listen. Now they deserve whatever happens on the other side of the road. For me, I am just chicken all the way.
(Pakistan which supported the Talebans claimed that they tried to convince them not to go against the Americans)
SADDAM HUSSEIN
The mother of all bad chickens had just been whacked by some good chickens that crossed the road, and will soon cross all roads to roast innocent chickens like us. We should come together to build the mother of all roads to stop it from crossing....
(Soon after Sept 11 the US tried to 'link' Iraq in various ways to Osama, and later used those lies as excuses to invade Iraq)
HOWARD
Those chickens whacking chickens shows how dangerous a world we live in. What Australia need is an experienced chicken that knows what to do. That's why we stopped that shipload of chickens from coming in.
Elect me and I make sure no chickens cross over to Australia.
(Australian election took place soon after Sept 11, and after Australia turned away a ship load of refugees from Middle East or Afghanistan)
INDONESIA
It is the chicken's right to cross the road. That's because they think those chickens on the other side whacked their fellow chickens. They have made it known to us that they are only going after those chickens that did it and not all chickens. So we are not taking sides.
(Indonesia was trying to explain why Sept 11 happened)
MALAYSIA
We are not aware of any of our chickens crossing that road. If they have proof that our chickens were involved, they can let us know. We will conduct our own investigations and take the necessary actions.
We have always been tough on chickens crossing roads.
(There were reports saying that some Malaysians have links with perpetrators of Sept 11)
(Original mail received)
To: kianwing.sam@cypress.com.sg, cheng_chee_khiaw@jpmorgan.com, lim_christopher@jpmorgan.com, James_Chong@yahoo.com
Subject: FW: Why the chicken crossed the road....what they all said
Question - Why did the chicken cross the road?
KINDERGARTEN TEACHER:
To get to the other side.
ARISTOTLE:
It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.
RONALD REAGAN:
I forget.
ARTHUR ANDERSEN CONSULTANT:
Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Andersen, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), Andersen helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework.
RICHARD M. NIXON:
The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road.
JERRY SEINFELD:
Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway?"
BILL GATES:
I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.
MAHATHIR:
You know, I am tired of all this..'apa-nama' chicken-chicken bisnes....the foreign powers should stop intervening in our domestic affairs and just leave our chickens alone..... if they want to...'apa nama' cross the road, they should be allowed to cross the road .. Malaysia is a democratic country, we let our chickens do whatever they want to do.... as long as they don't threaten the Malay unity and try to topple the government...and if they plan to do so...we won't hesitate to use the ISA...
ABDULLAH BADAWI:
Ini semua adalah khabar angin sahaja...jangan percaya khabar - khabar angin ini semua...biasalah ini adalah taktik pembangkang untuk memecah belahkan perpaduan ayam - ayam semua...jangan percaya..jangan percaya....
SAMY VELLU :
ayyooyoo...belakang cerita lain kali, kalu itu ayam mau pigi jalan-jalan,beritau sama saya juga, saya bolley buat lebbey banyak toll........
COLONEL SANDERS:
I missed one?
BILL CLINTON :
I've had so many chicks, I can't remember...
Monday, October 01, 2001
Much Ado About Churchill
A few days after Sept 11, I saw the following quote in JP Morgan's 'Technology Industry Daily', and suspect someone was trying to make a point on how America should respond to the attack. So I wrote back to the 'editor'. Resulting exchange follows....
Hi Arthur,
It is scary to think what happens when people do take recommendations like your 'quote of the day' to heart. Did it occur to you to ask who did or will follow that maxim? Last week's event looked like a tremendous whack by any measure. Unless you believe only Americans and British can do that. So please don't encourage extremism to anybody. The world need sense and moderation more than Rambo-like behaviours.....
Quote for the day
"If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time--a tremendous whack."
- Winston Churchill
From: Arthur Iger on 09/21/2001 07:47 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
The quote was meant by Churchill as a guide to public speakers, not as a recommendation for how to pursue a war.
I think that Bush did a good job in his speech of laying out American war aims -- these included taking on only terrorists and the governments that harbor them. I believe that they didn't include massive reflexive bombing as in Vietnam, or symbolic scuds or knocking down pharmaceutical plants as in the Clinton administration. In WWII there was a demonization of the Japanese and German people. One of the great things about America now is that it is multi-ethnic, and they vote, so there isn't really a group that can be scapegoated.
Most other enemies that we've fought have been after stuff. With the communists, it was about the struggle for which system can provide the fastest route to economic development and the fairest distribution of the goods created. In WWII, it was largely about territory and markets. This time, the fight's about cultural values. The terrorists want to get rid of market economies and go back to rule by the priest class. They don't want additional territory and they don't want additional goods and they don't want to take material goods away from their subjects. They're very reactionary. I'm not sure that there's a middle road to dealing with a group that has no demands.
art
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Churchill's greatest speeches as his use for Britain came only after the war had started. He had another quote along the same line when the US entered WWII : "Germany's fate is sealed. Italy's fate is sealed. Japan will be thrashed. The rest will just be subdued by the use of overwhelming force". Churchill did not make such statements as guide to public speakers. Many such Churchillians still exist in your part of the world and they play their hands as do others in the current war/crusade/infinite justice/revenge/retaliation (from Bush's repertoire). Ignorance applied/assumed is as dangerous as arrogance.
Interesting summary of the values involved in the carnage last week. And what power wielders want (money, markets, territory and influence) although some can be satisfied with less (only influence). So I would agree with it to some extent. Especially if we don't bother to understand why the terrorists got to believe what they believe in in the first place. Why the US and not say Finland, Belgium, Germany or Japan. Or the contributions of especially the US and Britain to the state of affairs in the Islamic world centred in the Middle East (remember also oil?). Or that Judaism, Islam and Christianity have many similarities (so the 2 sides are not that different compared to say Hinduism/Buddhism). Or that the US is a great democracy only within the US and only quite recently if we count the 'coloreds'. Democracy ceased to exist the moment governments run an empire (Robert Taft). I'm sure people will understand what their demands are if they really bother to listen or had democracy in mind e.g. Palestine. But that's more complicated or less palatable for many to discuss/imagine.
There is always a middle ground as long as people are willing to accomodate each other - live and let live, and face up to the truths. But then that's not consistent with a superpower's image of itself.
Rgds
CCK
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
My comments in italics below.
From: Arthur Iger on 09/24/2001 09:33 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Chee-Khiaw,
Whatever the issues, I think that blowing up innocent civilians isn't the route to resolving them. Anticipating your response, I would agree that the U.S's frequent use of its overwhelming military power against civilian targets isn't a model for how to resolve conflicts.
[CCK: Agree but when will people, especially the very arrogant ones not on the less fortunate end, hear the things I talk about below if it is only words?]
One of your other points, the need for a middle ground. I'm not sure that there's a middle ground acceptable to both parties. There's a fundamental conflict of values. I also wonder if the Saudi arabs who seem to be leading this terrorist gang really represent the wishes of the Arab or Afghan people. So a middle ground with out-of-the-box extremists isn't what the US should be seeking. It's hard to say what most people want in these middle eastern countries because none of them are run by a representative democracy.
[CCK: You are right that the few that did this is probably in the minority. Like you said, you will never how wide support for those bombers really is (not for their method but their underlying sentiments). Especially so, when Bush goes round dictating how the world should react ('you are either with us or you are with the other side' as if the world is in such easy black and white). The only reason why the US gets its way and ended up convinced that the world is as simple as that is because it got used to threatening others in many ways.
And the question is why they do it. Why not earlier. Why not someone else. There are structural problems in the current world system that many rich people led by the Americans do not think has any fault because they have head start and advantages (including wealth from the colonial days that ended only 50 years ago - a short time in human history). There are people elsewhere not as extreme as those bombers who think otherwise. It is more than values. It has also to do with basic needs, respect and self-esteem of many less fortunate people/countries. The arrogant conduct of your country and disregard of what others think/feel/need should be looked at. It also has still to convince everyone that Osama is the and only guy involved. Getting the real perpetrators is acceptable but not to ignore the underlying causes for that carnage including why the US government was caught totally off guard. The latter are not of focus to the general American public because of how the US government had managed it e.g. declaring 'war', 'crusade' etc. Americans are not as 'free' as they think.]
One of the interesting aspects of this conflict is that the US is totally unprepared for this fight. Its military and intelligence services are designed to fight a WWII style army. Missions have been added, not taken away. Using stealth fighters and smart bombs against tents and caves in the desert isn't going to "get" the enemy. The Bush administration shows no willingness to think beyond adding missions. In the end, unless force structures are seriously rethought, the cost for this fight will be unnecessarily overwhelming.
[CCK: The US is unprepared because it thought it can get away with its ways and no one will dare mess with it. It is fear not truth that's behind some of the acquiescence and respect for the US. Some countries could probably have warned the US but did not. How can we all know for sure they didn't know?]
Civilian structures are designed for efficiency and not control. It will be interesting to see if the US can remake itself in the face of this new threat and still remain a free and vibrant society and economy.
[CCK: Power, influence, bullying, efficiency and state of the economy are not God chosen measures of greatness or truths. If you can find them in the Bible let me know. Compassion, caring, sharing and living together are in all religions. Not only within man-made borders but wider. No God I know of talk about creating borders or flags. But many free people are not free enough to think of things that way.]
art
From: Arthur Iger on 09/25/2001 08:28 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Chee-Khiaw,
I think that countries act rationally in their self-interest. After WWII, the U.S. was afraid of both another depression and of Communism. So it helped rebuild Europe with the Marshall plan -- not for altruistic reasons, but because it realized that the collapse of trade after WWI led to WWII. The US approach to open access to its markets has led to the incredible prosperity that many countries now enjoy. The ideological fight with the communists also led to open markets -- which allowed developing countries to join with the US in the benefits of prosperity.
Capitalism helps create prosperity, but it also changes the power structure within a society. Traditional feudal and theocratic classes lose power to commercial classes. This change is very threatening to traditional societies and their power structures. The challenge for many countries is to adapt capitalism in ways that maintain their unique cultural identity.
In the US, many people believe that capitalism is inextricably linked to individualism and freedom of speech. Many emerging countries don't agree and want to maintain tighter control. Whether it's due to a self serving desire by the ruling party to maintain control of the levers of power , or a genuine nationalism, depends on your perspective. In my view, in the long run, governments always govern with the consent of the governed.
As to US bullying, most countries have a vested interest in continuing the current system that has brought them much prosperity. That's why they go along with the US. There's an old expression, "When the US sneezes, the world catches a cold." No government that wants to stay in power will risk their country catching a cold.
art
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Arthur,
We are getting much closer to the underlying problems but again we are less than honest with ourselves.
WWI and WWII were fights for more resources (including oil, thus current middle east) and markets/territories where the likes of Britain/France had more of versus the likes of Germany and Japan. The US and Russia did not have that problem and refused to join in for some time (until attacked). If they thought that their trade were restricted the US or Russia would have been the ones initiating war. The other reason for WWII was the punitive war reparations applied on the Germans after WWI. US and Britain decided after WWII that it is better to share the world with those countries than Russia and because they realised that Germany and Japan are not countries they can afford to humiliate for long without pushing them to 'the other side'. Other smaller ones are different matter (according to the likes of Churchill).
Free trade was never a problem for the world. In fact, the world is less free now than a 100, 200 or 1,000 years ago. Then most people could go to most parts of the world to live or work without 'permits' or 'green cards'. A look at the history of the US would show that. Although as we all know, that US 'freedom' also came with quite a bit of slaughtering and slavery of others (that's also not new).
You are right that self interest is the underlying problem (not easy even for the ones enjoying it to say that). That's selfishness not selflessness. That's another way of saying that one has less consideration for others. Another aspect of arrogance. Hardly a virtue in any culture or religion. And if that is the case, one can assume that one should expect some reaction at some point in time if one pushes too far. It is rational. Custer's Last Stand (or rather his Last Attempt at Humiliating Others Somemore), WWII, MacArthur's Korea and now WTC in their own ways are just a few examples.
Rgds
CCK
p.s. Capitalism has a long existence (well before the US discovered it). You may perhaps be thinking about the 'capitalism' of those counter-arguing with the likes of Marx. That's an awfully short history! Freedom (from colonialism, slavery, feudalism etc.), equality and science/technology not capitalism perhaps have greater contribution to the prosperity we see the last 100 years. Again, that should be manifest in US history alone.
From: Arthur Iger on 09/27/2001 09:46 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Chee-Khiaw,
The concepts of arrogance/humility that you refer to exist in the west, but my guess is that they are more important and meaningful in eastern cultures. Harmony is another value that I believe is more important in eastern cultures.
art
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Arthur,
All the concepts that I refer to exist everywhere on Earth. Easterners are no different from westerners if we take away the prejudices, arrogance, selfishness & greed. The whites of many western cultures generally live in great harmony with each other. I assume that is important or meaningful for them. Though it may not be so great if we include other 'colours'. I suspect they don't think the latter is important or meaningful.
That is not to say that those behaviours do not exist in the East either. I saw those behaviors when Singapore was starting out as a poor nation and saw it grow as Singapore got richer by the year. That's partly how I arrive at my views. I thought the Asian Financial Crisis was good for Singapore. It brings them back down to Earth. But then I also saw the Americans celebrating their 'irrational exuberance' and 'free market system'.
Many countries West and East, North and South (poor as they may be) take great care to look after all their people of all races. Spain/Portugal could have been like Britain. They ruled the high seas before the Brits got out of the Channel. But they have much better acceptance of blacks in their life and were the first European countries to have black soccer players. They may not be the richest but you will find greater harmony and less killings there. The bombers did not miss them out by accident.
Some of the greatest killings/dyings in this world were results of poverty and lack of basic education - things taken for granted by many among us the 'fortunate'. Some of us takes things too far when we behave arrogantly towards these 'less fortunate'/'able' people (quotes used because they involved some prejudices). These are great challenges being faced by the world outside the rich countries that WTO or 'globalisation' does not address. We lie to ourselves sometimes. For e.g. that 'capitalism' or 'prayers' will somehow make the world better. But how does a family of 5 or 6 living on less than US$20 a month has the capital or blessing to do anything? Not to say to get an ROE of >15% demanded by 'investors' (later quotes used because something else is hiding behind those terms). That is the income of more than half the people in this world. Unless you don't live in the same world as me. Or you don't care.
Arrogance appears when one focus and succeeds in one's greed to gather greater wealth/power/etc. especially if at the expense of others. It usually makes people feel good to be ahead of others materially.
Humility and harmony will come if we bother to be aware and care about the problems of the others esp the 'less fortunate'/'able'. No matter what colour (as long as one is less tinted by it) or part of the world you come from. Try either of the above on your kids or grandchildren and see for yourself.
I don't make money from all my views/comments. No great ROE to show at yearend. Just trying to do my little part in creating some awareness, and more humility/harmony. All of us should/can. Definitely should not do otherwise. And we don't have to learn from Churchill. The world had seen more enlightened and better teachers.
Rgds
CCK
From: Arthur Iger on 09/28/2001 10:10 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
cc:
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Chee-Khiaw,
I think that we are different, to a degree. Somewhere I read that there are studies of brain development that are linked to language and culture.
I wish that I could find the reference. I recall it as a legitimate source, though that might not be the case and I may be mis-remembering what I read. Nonetheless, it seems intuitively correct. Just as the brain of a person who is born blind or deaf, for example, develops heightened awareness with his/her other senses, a brain nourished by a certain language or culture will grow in different ways. Brains grow in response to stimuli in the environment. Is it a major factor? I don't know.
But I use the point to justify the point about people being different. Americans, generally, will be disgusted by the thought of eating an insect, but other cultures see them as treats.
art
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Arthur,
Would be interested in how you conclude that your source is 'legitimate'. And not view it as a possible attempt at justifying some arrogance. Like claiming 'supremacy' of humans versus other organisms by taking brain size into consideration (even then only certain parts of the head).
Like you said, one's senses can get heightened when one uses them i.e. they grow if used. Otherwise if not. They were not born with predetermined developmental paths. Like you said, one's mind grow with stimuli. So, did Americans stimulate their minds by putting themselves in the shoes of the Palestinians, Iraqis, Africans, Vietnamese, Koreans or Afghans? In the shoes of the poorest of the world instead of brandishing their wealth and power, or exhorting the virtues of their 'capitalism' and 'free market'?
Language and culture can probably determine to a certain extent one's thinking process and prejudices/etc.
Environments (including governments, media, religious authorities etc.) probably also determine one's behaviour & outlook. When practiced in extreme or with subtlety they can in fact manipulate esp. those less aware. Those terrorists are probable examples, so are all of us.
So may ignorance play a part (e.g. the Sikh American killed because he 'looked Afghan'). I bet half of Americans do not know what 'Sikh' is before that. What a display of great freedom in that case - ignorance and arrogance taken freely!
You may think genes also play a part. Who knows for sure? Hitler thought so. America disagreed then.
Before Jesse Owens, many might think that only whites run fast. Mostly they and the Japanese took part in the Olympics! The latter would at best be a wonder for the ignorant, and because of great cultures for the arrogant. The truth?
Before Tiger Woods or Vijay Singh only whites win golf tournaments. Genes? Neither Africans, Indians nor Thais used to win golf tournaments - so genes cannot be the reason. The more likely truth is that before that the likes of Tiger Woods or Vijay Singh were likely to be cleaning someone else's barns just to survive.
Many relatives of your forefathers would probably be horrified with eating the first turkeys the Indians brought along. I hope you look at your Thanksgiving Day the way I do - an appreciation of the goodwill shown by the native and non-native people that partook in those first celebrations, not your God that those natives did not believe in (as many Thanksgiving Day proclamations have it).
Many people will not put the above that way to their children. Americans included for I find no 'legitimate' reason why they should not. They are just a few examples of how those in power and arrogance hijacks and corrupts the truth.
It takes awareness of all the above, some fair history and the desire to understand others' situations (putting one in someone else's shoe in your language) to get a balanced view of this world. Formulating an internal comprehension of how things really work and not what others tell us how they work. That means to discover the world bigger than one's own - another way of saying not to be selfish/arrogant. Read not what you are told or what your neighbour says. Discover what you are not told or your neighbor doesn't know. There are a lot of truths hidden from people both subtlely and otherwise. And not many want to or can break out of that unreal world. The flat world before Copernicus is a good example. The 'free market and capitalism are answers to everything' when the world is not truly free is another.
Which is why one should not have those behaviors I mentioned.
Which is why one should get to know as many languages and cultures as possible, and not read them from a narrow set of sources. So what did the Chinese, Iraqis, Belgians, Icelanders or Indonesians said about lessons from WTC? They are too irrelevant for Americans to bother about?
With awareness and the desire to really understand our world, I am certain you will arrive at similar views. Hopefully it also brings humility, moderation and compassion. Not just because it makes one feel good. But because one will then see the terrible results of doing otherwise.
Rgds
CCK
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Arthur, My comments in italics. Rgds CCK
From: Arthur Iger on 10/01/2001 06:35 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Chee-Khiaw,
My Thanksgiving holiday thoughts generally go to being thankful that America took in my parents and my sister when they were on the run from the Nazis. (I know that a lot of others didn't get in and died in the death camps as a result).
[CCK: Many people died in Palestine, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan and elsewhere too. Many millions of them remain poor and homeless today. They will probably die that way without us talking about them. I sympathise with them all. I also sometimes wonder why Jews seem to be enmeshed in the most extreme of situations: doing really well in certain environments like capitalism where greed plays such a key role, and the worst of modern conflicts where hatred/arrogance are so prominent. Perhaps they are all accidents or someone did not 'work' hard enough.]
I'm thankful for the richness of the land, its openness to immigrants, and its ability to reward those who are willing to work hard. (I'm also aware that there's a lot more work to be done.).
[CCK: If that's the case, why do the likes of Woods, Jordan, Powell or Rice appear only 200 years after the creation of the US? It is and was not as simple as that.]
Anyone can leave America who thinks that they can get a better deal somewhere else. (So far, more people want in than want out.)
[CCK: That's a very arrogant way of saying things considering my questions above. That sounds like the beginning of all the exoduses familiar to your forefathers. And you seem to think you can decide things for America! That may perhaps be the case but I don't think many in free America are aware of it.]
I am sorry that America is seen as arrogant in many quarters. America is a great power and, whatever the reality, that's how great powers are perceived.
[CCK: In many eyes Nazi Germany was a great power too. If sorry is all we end with, then we do great injustice to the many who died before us.]
Thanks for your thoughts,
art
Hi Arthur,
It is scary to think what happens when people do take recommendations like your 'quote of the day' to heart. Did it occur to you to ask who did or will follow that maxim? Last week's event looked like a tremendous whack by any measure. Unless you believe only Americans and British can do that. So please don't encourage extremism to anybody. The world need sense and moderation more than Rambo-like behaviours.....
Quote for the day
"If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time--a tremendous whack."
- Winston Churchill
From: Arthur Iger on 09/21/2001 07:47 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
The quote was meant by Churchill as a guide to public speakers, not as a recommendation for how to pursue a war.
I think that Bush did a good job in his speech of laying out American war aims -- these included taking on only terrorists and the governments that harbor them. I believe that they didn't include massive reflexive bombing as in Vietnam, or symbolic scuds or knocking down pharmaceutical plants as in the Clinton administration. In WWII there was a demonization of the Japanese and German people. One of the great things about America now is that it is multi-ethnic, and they vote, so there isn't really a group that can be scapegoated.
Most other enemies that we've fought have been after stuff. With the communists, it was about the struggle for which system can provide the fastest route to economic development and the fairest distribution of the goods created. In WWII, it was largely about territory and markets. This time, the fight's about cultural values. The terrorists want to get rid of market economies and go back to rule by the priest class. They don't want additional territory and they don't want additional goods and they don't want to take material goods away from their subjects. They're very reactionary. I'm not sure that there's a middle road to dealing with a group that has no demands.
art
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Churchill's greatest speeches as his use for Britain came only after the war had started. He had another quote along the same line when the US entered WWII : "Germany's fate is sealed. Italy's fate is sealed. Japan will be thrashed. The rest will just be subdued by the use of overwhelming force". Churchill did not make such statements as guide to public speakers. Many such Churchillians still exist in your part of the world and they play their hands as do others in the current war/crusade/infinite justice/revenge/retaliation (from Bush's repertoire). Ignorance applied/assumed is as dangerous as arrogance.
Interesting summary of the values involved in the carnage last week. And what power wielders want (money, markets, territory and influence) although some can be satisfied with less (only influence). So I would agree with it to some extent. Especially if we don't bother to understand why the terrorists got to believe what they believe in in the first place. Why the US and not say Finland, Belgium, Germany or Japan. Or the contributions of especially the US and Britain to the state of affairs in the Islamic world centred in the Middle East (remember also oil?). Or that Judaism, Islam and Christianity have many similarities (so the 2 sides are not that different compared to say Hinduism/Buddhism). Or that the US is a great democracy only within the US and only quite recently if we count the 'coloreds'. Democracy ceased to exist the moment governments run an empire (Robert Taft). I'm sure people will understand what their demands are if they really bother to listen or had democracy in mind e.g. Palestine. But that's more complicated or less palatable for many to discuss/imagine.
There is always a middle ground as long as people are willing to accomodate each other - live and let live, and face up to the truths. But then that's not consistent with a superpower's image of itself.
Rgds
CCK
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
My comments in italics below.
From: Arthur Iger on 09/24/2001 09:33 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Chee-Khiaw,
Whatever the issues, I think that blowing up innocent civilians isn't the route to resolving them. Anticipating your response, I would agree that the U.S's frequent use of its overwhelming military power against civilian targets isn't a model for how to resolve conflicts.
[CCK: Agree but when will people, especially the very arrogant ones not on the less fortunate end, hear the things I talk about below if it is only words?]
One of your other points, the need for a middle ground. I'm not sure that there's a middle ground acceptable to both parties. There's a fundamental conflict of values. I also wonder if the Saudi arabs who seem to be leading this terrorist gang really represent the wishes of the Arab or Afghan people. So a middle ground with out-of-the-box extremists isn't what the US should be seeking. It's hard to say what most people want in these middle eastern countries because none of them are run by a representative democracy.
[CCK: You are right that the few that did this is probably in the minority. Like you said, you will never how wide support for those bombers really is (not for their method but their underlying sentiments). Especially so, when Bush goes round dictating how the world should react ('you are either with us or you are with the other side' as if the world is in such easy black and white). The only reason why the US gets its way and ended up convinced that the world is as simple as that is because it got used to threatening others in many ways.
And the question is why they do it. Why not earlier. Why not someone else. There are structural problems in the current world system that many rich people led by the Americans do not think has any fault because they have head start and advantages (including wealth from the colonial days that ended only 50 years ago - a short time in human history). There are people elsewhere not as extreme as those bombers who think otherwise. It is more than values. It has also to do with basic needs, respect and self-esteem of many less fortunate people/countries. The arrogant conduct of your country and disregard of what others think/feel/need should be looked at. It also has still to convince everyone that Osama is the and only guy involved. Getting the real perpetrators is acceptable but not to ignore the underlying causes for that carnage including why the US government was caught totally off guard. The latter are not of focus to the general American public because of how the US government had managed it e.g. declaring 'war', 'crusade' etc. Americans are not as 'free' as they think.]
One of the interesting aspects of this conflict is that the US is totally unprepared for this fight. Its military and intelligence services are designed to fight a WWII style army. Missions have been added, not taken away. Using stealth fighters and smart bombs against tents and caves in the desert isn't going to "get" the enemy. The Bush administration shows no willingness to think beyond adding missions. In the end, unless force structures are seriously rethought, the cost for this fight will be unnecessarily overwhelming.
[CCK: The US is unprepared because it thought it can get away with its ways and no one will dare mess with it. It is fear not truth that's behind some of the acquiescence and respect for the US. Some countries could probably have warned the US but did not. How can we all know for sure they didn't know?]
Civilian structures are designed for efficiency and not control. It will be interesting to see if the US can remake itself in the face of this new threat and still remain a free and vibrant society and economy.
[CCK: Power, influence, bullying, efficiency and state of the economy are not God chosen measures of greatness or truths. If you can find them in the Bible let me know. Compassion, caring, sharing and living together are in all religions. Not only within man-made borders but wider. No God I know of talk about creating borders or flags. But many free people are not free enough to think of things that way.]
art
From: Arthur Iger on 09/25/2001 08:28 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Chee-Khiaw,
I think that countries act rationally in their self-interest. After WWII, the U.S. was afraid of both another depression and of Communism. So it helped rebuild Europe with the Marshall plan -- not for altruistic reasons, but because it realized that the collapse of trade after WWI led to WWII. The US approach to open access to its markets has led to the incredible prosperity that many countries now enjoy. The ideological fight with the communists also led to open markets -- which allowed developing countries to join with the US in the benefits of prosperity.
Capitalism helps create prosperity, but it also changes the power structure within a society. Traditional feudal and theocratic classes lose power to commercial classes. This change is very threatening to traditional societies and their power structures. The challenge for many countries is to adapt capitalism in ways that maintain their unique cultural identity.
In the US, many people believe that capitalism is inextricably linked to individualism and freedom of speech. Many emerging countries don't agree and want to maintain tighter control. Whether it's due to a self serving desire by the ruling party to maintain control of the levers of power , or a genuine nationalism, depends on your perspective. In my view, in the long run, governments always govern with the consent of the governed.
As to US bullying, most countries have a vested interest in continuing the current system that has brought them much prosperity. That's why they go along with the US. There's an old expression, "When the US sneezes, the world catches a cold." No government that wants to stay in power will risk their country catching a cold.
art
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Arthur,
We are getting much closer to the underlying problems but again we are less than honest with ourselves.
WWI and WWII were fights for more resources (including oil, thus current middle east) and markets/territories where the likes of Britain/France had more of versus the likes of Germany and Japan. The US and Russia did not have that problem and refused to join in for some time (until attacked). If they thought that their trade were restricted the US or Russia would have been the ones initiating war. The other reason for WWII was the punitive war reparations applied on the Germans after WWI. US and Britain decided after WWII that it is better to share the world with those countries than Russia and because they realised that Germany and Japan are not countries they can afford to humiliate for long without pushing them to 'the other side'. Other smaller ones are different matter (according to the likes of Churchill).
Free trade was never a problem for the world. In fact, the world is less free now than a 100, 200 or 1,000 years ago. Then most people could go to most parts of the world to live or work without 'permits' or 'green cards'. A look at the history of the US would show that. Although as we all know, that US 'freedom' also came with quite a bit of slaughtering and slavery of others (that's also not new).
You are right that self interest is the underlying problem (not easy even for the ones enjoying it to say that). That's selfishness not selflessness. That's another way of saying that one has less consideration for others. Another aspect of arrogance. Hardly a virtue in any culture or religion. And if that is the case, one can assume that one should expect some reaction at some point in time if one pushes too far. It is rational. Custer's Last Stand (or rather his Last Attempt at Humiliating Others Somemore), WWII, MacArthur's Korea and now WTC in their own ways are just a few examples.
Rgds
CCK
p.s. Capitalism has a long existence (well before the US discovered it). You may perhaps be thinking about the 'capitalism' of those counter-arguing with the likes of Marx. That's an awfully short history! Freedom (from colonialism, slavery, feudalism etc.), equality and science/technology not capitalism perhaps have greater contribution to the prosperity we see the last 100 years. Again, that should be manifest in US history alone.
From: Arthur Iger on 09/27/2001 09:46 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Chee-Khiaw,
The concepts of arrogance/humility that you refer to exist in the west, but my guess is that they are more important and meaningful in eastern cultures. Harmony is another value that I believe is more important in eastern cultures.
art
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Arthur,
All the concepts that I refer to exist everywhere on Earth. Easterners are no different from westerners if we take away the prejudices, arrogance, selfishness & greed. The whites of many western cultures generally live in great harmony with each other. I assume that is important or meaningful for them. Though it may not be so great if we include other 'colours'. I suspect they don't think the latter is important or meaningful.
That is not to say that those behaviours do not exist in the East either. I saw those behaviors when Singapore was starting out as a poor nation and saw it grow as Singapore got richer by the year. That's partly how I arrive at my views. I thought the Asian Financial Crisis was good for Singapore. It brings them back down to Earth. But then I also saw the Americans celebrating their 'irrational exuberance' and 'free market system'.
Many countries West and East, North and South (poor as they may be) take great care to look after all their people of all races. Spain/Portugal could have been like Britain. They ruled the high seas before the Brits got out of the Channel. But they have much better acceptance of blacks in their life and were the first European countries to have black soccer players. They may not be the richest but you will find greater harmony and less killings there. The bombers did not miss them out by accident.
Some of the greatest killings/dyings in this world were results of poverty and lack of basic education - things taken for granted by many among us the 'fortunate'. Some of us takes things too far when we behave arrogantly towards these 'less fortunate'/'able' people (quotes used because they involved some prejudices). These are great challenges being faced by the world outside the rich countries that WTO or 'globalisation' does not address. We lie to ourselves sometimes. For e.g. that 'capitalism' or 'prayers' will somehow make the world better. But how does a family of 5 or 6 living on less than US$20 a month has the capital or blessing to do anything? Not to say to get an ROE of >15% demanded by 'investors' (later quotes used because something else is hiding behind those terms). That is the income of more than half the people in this world. Unless you don't live in the same world as me. Or you don't care.
Arrogance appears when one focus and succeeds in one's greed to gather greater wealth/power/etc. especially if at the expense of others. It usually makes people feel good to be ahead of others materially.
Humility and harmony will come if we bother to be aware and care about the problems of the others esp the 'less fortunate'/'able'. No matter what colour (as long as one is less tinted by it) or part of the world you come from. Try either of the above on your kids or grandchildren and see for yourself.
I don't make money from all my views/comments. No great ROE to show at yearend. Just trying to do my little part in creating some awareness, and more humility/harmony. All of us should/can. Definitely should not do otherwise. And we don't have to learn from Churchill. The world had seen more enlightened and better teachers.
Rgds
CCK
From: Arthur Iger on 09/28/2001 10:10 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
cc:
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Chee-Khiaw,
I think that we are different, to a degree. Somewhere I read that there are studies of brain development that are linked to language and culture.
I wish that I could find the reference. I recall it as a legitimate source, though that might not be the case and I may be mis-remembering what I read. Nonetheless, it seems intuitively correct. Just as the brain of a person who is born blind or deaf, for example, develops heightened awareness with his/her other senses, a brain nourished by a certain language or culture will grow in different ways. Brains grow in response to stimuli in the environment. Is it a major factor? I don't know.
But I use the point to justify the point about people being different. Americans, generally, will be disgusted by the thought of eating an insect, but other cultures see them as treats.
art
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Arthur,
Would be interested in how you conclude that your source is 'legitimate'. And not view it as a possible attempt at justifying some arrogance. Like claiming 'supremacy' of humans versus other organisms by taking brain size into consideration (even then only certain parts of the head).
Like you said, one's senses can get heightened when one uses them i.e. they grow if used. Otherwise if not. They were not born with predetermined developmental paths. Like you said, one's mind grow with stimuli. So, did Americans stimulate their minds by putting themselves in the shoes of the Palestinians, Iraqis, Africans, Vietnamese, Koreans or Afghans? In the shoes of the poorest of the world instead of brandishing their wealth and power, or exhorting the virtues of their 'capitalism' and 'free market'?
Language and culture can probably determine to a certain extent one's thinking process and prejudices/etc.
Environments (including governments, media, religious authorities etc.) probably also determine one's behaviour & outlook. When practiced in extreme or with subtlety they can in fact manipulate esp. those less aware. Those terrorists are probable examples, so are all of us.
So may ignorance play a part (e.g. the Sikh American killed because he 'looked Afghan'). I bet half of Americans do not know what 'Sikh' is before that. What a display of great freedom in that case - ignorance and arrogance taken freely!
You may think genes also play a part. Who knows for sure? Hitler thought so. America disagreed then.
Before Jesse Owens, many might think that only whites run fast. Mostly they and the Japanese took part in the Olympics! The latter would at best be a wonder for the ignorant, and because of great cultures for the arrogant. The truth?
Before Tiger Woods or Vijay Singh only whites win golf tournaments. Genes? Neither Africans, Indians nor Thais used to win golf tournaments - so genes cannot be the reason. The more likely truth is that before that the likes of Tiger Woods or Vijay Singh were likely to be cleaning someone else's barns just to survive.
Many relatives of your forefathers would probably be horrified with eating the first turkeys the Indians brought along. I hope you look at your Thanksgiving Day the way I do - an appreciation of the goodwill shown by the native and non-native people that partook in those first celebrations, not your God that those natives did not believe in (as many Thanksgiving Day proclamations have it).
Many people will not put the above that way to their children. Americans included for I find no 'legitimate' reason why they should not. They are just a few examples of how those in power and arrogance hijacks and corrupts the truth.
It takes awareness of all the above, some fair history and the desire to understand others' situations (putting one in someone else's shoe in your language) to get a balanced view of this world. Formulating an internal comprehension of how things really work and not what others tell us how they work. That means to discover the world bigger than one's own - another way of saying not to be selfish/arrogant. Read not what you are told or what your neighbour says. Discover what you are not told or your neighbor doesn't know. There are a lot of truths hidden from people both subtlely and otherwise. And not many want to or can break out of that unreal world. The flat world before Copernicus is a good example. The 'free market and capitalism are answers to everything' when the world is not truly free is another.
Which is why one should not have those behaviors I mentioned.
Which is why one should get to know as many languages and cultures as possible, and not read them from a narrow set of sources. So what did the Chinese, Iraqis, Belgians, Icelanders or Indonesians said about lessons from WTC? They are too irrelevant for Americans to bother about?
With awareness and the desire to really understand our world, I am certain you will arrive at similar views. Hopefully it also brings humility, moderation and compassion. Not just because it makes one feel good. But because one will then see the terrible results of doing otherwise.
Rgds
CCK
To: Arthur Iger@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Arthur, My comments in italics. Rgds CCK
From: Arthur Iger on 10/01/2001 06:35 AM EDT
To: Chee-Khiaw Cheng@JPMORGAN
Subject: Re: Churchill's Contribution
Chee-Khiaw,
My Thanksgiving holiday thoughts generally go to being thankful that America took in my parents and my sister when they were on the run from the Nazis. (I know that a lot of others didn't get in and died in the death camps as a result).
[CCK: Many people died in Palestine, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan and elsewhere too. Many millions of them remain poor and homeless today. They will probably die that way without us talking about them. I sympathise with them all. I also sometimes wonder why Jews seem to be enmeshed in the most extreme of situations: doing really well in certain environments like capitalism where greed plays such a key role, and the worst of modern conflicts where hatred/arrogance are so prominent. Perhaps they are all accidents or someone did not 'work' hard enough.]
I'm thankful for the richness of the land, its openness to immigrants, and its ability to reward those who are willing to work hard. (I'm also aware that there's a lot more work to be done.).
[CCK: If that's the case, why do the likes of Woods, Jordan, Powell or Rice appear only 200 years after the creation of the US? It is and was not as simple as that.]
Anyone can leave America who thinks that they can get a better deal somewhere else. (So far, more people want in than want out.)
[CCK: That's a very arrogant way of saying things considering my questions above. That sounds like the beginning of all the exoduses familiar to your forefathers. And you seem to think you can decide things for America! That may perhaps be the case but I don't think many in free America are aware of it.]
I am sorry that America is seen as arrogant in many quarters. America is a great power and, whatever the reality, that's how great powers are perceived.
[CCK: In many eyes Nazi Germany was a great power too. If sorry is all we end with, then we do great injustice to the many who died before us.]
Thanks for your thoughts,
art
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