View from the Mountain

Trust, a casualty of modern life?

Living a life without trust would be a huge challenge.  I don't think even the most wired and connected individual can survive without trusting a few real people. 

Still finding a real person to trust is a lot harder now that families are scattered around the world.  I've never thought of trust as a national trend, but Sebastian Mallaby's article, "The Decline Of Trust," in today's  Washington Post makes some interesting points about the decline of trust in today society, in both business and government.

And the absence of trust can feed on itself. Leaders function under stifling oversight; this causes them to perform sluggishly, so trust continues to stagnate. But occasionally there is a chance to escape this trap: A shock causes trust to rise, leaders have a chance to lead and there's an opportunity to boost trust still further.

We've recently had a double opportunity. The boom of the 1990s boosted trust in business; the 2001 terrorist attacks boosted trust in government. But CEOs and politicians abused these gifts with scandals and incompetence. Such is the cost of corporate malfeasance and the Iraq war: Precious social capital is destroyed by leaders' avarice and hubris.

I often found it strange that my former employer, Apple Computer, would bring in high level management people from outside the company and trust their opinion far more than employees who had been working for the company.    I don't know if the  steadily declining trust that Apple showed it employees is mirrored at other companies, but I am sure that the lack of trust hindered productivity in Apple field teams.

Mallaby also talks about the Internet encouraging "acerbic negativity."  On the one hand Mallaby might be right if you let yourself listen to only certain parts of the Internet.

However, I would make the argument that new communication techniques arising from the Internet actually encourage building new webs of trust.  While there are parts of the Internet, like anncoulter.com, that I'll likely avoid, there are lots of other communities where I can find kindred spirits.

As someone who doesn't like large government, but believes that if we are going to have government it should be good government, there aren't any political parties locally where I really feel at home.  Yet through contact established from my Internet presences, I've met a number of people with similar beliefs.

Most of us who regularly post have communities of readers who have self selected to the point that  our audience cares about many of the same things that we do.  I trust  the opinions of many of my regular blog friends more than I do any politician.  I value their opinions as highly as I do some well known pundits.

So while Sebastian Mallaby might be right to indict part of the modern world, there are many on line communities where modern technologies are driving new levels of trust and cooperation.  Besides blogs, you cannot  discount the social changes happening through instant messaging and on line communities.

Technology hasn't created a virtual southern village yet, but I have a confidence in new ways of communicating that will bring us closer together rather than drive us farther apart. 

I don't believe we'll end up a nation of people listening only to their individual iPods or screaming at the rest of the world from our blogs.

Repudiating our founding ideas

Those who are willing to endorse torture supposedly to protect our way of life are without any doubt the worst kind of cowards.  If we descend to the level of those willing to torture in a misguided attempt to gain information, then we have become exactly what we sought to defeat.

Anyone who studies colonial history knows that our country was founded not to take away rights but to protect rights.  I really have a hard time believing that we are even having this debate.

Have we as people become such cowards that we are willing to destroy the rights of others for a false sense of security?  Perhaps most people don't understand the simple fact that when you destroy the rights of others, you are in effect destroying your own rights.  If you give government the power to do whatever it wants including torturing others, then government can decide to torture you if they so chose.  It's only a small step once we're justified and legalized torture.

I'm proud of those GOP Senators who are willing to put what is right above party allegiance.  I know that I will vote against any politician who votes to authorize torture.  I'll continue voting against them the rest of my life because torture is wrong. Legalizing torture will be a stain on our country that won't be easily washed away.  Nothing makes torture right.  If our fear mongering politicians can't figure that out, then they don't deserve to represent us in government. 

Paul Krugman has a well thought out piece, "King of Pain,"  on this issue in today's NY Times.  I encourage you to read it and to write to your politicians.

The central drive of the Bush administration — more fundamental than any particular policy — has been the effort to eliminate all limits on the president’s power. Torture, I believe, appeals to the president and the vice president precisely because it’s a violation of both law and tradition. By making an illegal and immoral practice a key element of U.S. policy, they’re asserting their right to do whatever they claim is necessary...

Mr. Bush would have us believe that the difference between him and those opposing him on this issue is that he’s willing to do what’s necessary to protect America, and they aren’t. But the record says otherwise.

The fact is that for all his talk of being a “war president,” Mr. Bush has been conspicuously unwilling to ask Americans to make sacrifices on behalf of the cause...

Only now, five years after 9/11, has Mr. Bush finally found some things he wants us to sacrifice. And those things turn out to be our principles and our self-respect.

It's time the American people distanced themselves from torture.  Even the discussion of legalizing torture doesn't belong in our houses of government.  If the current politicians don't have the courage to stand up to the administration on torture, we need to find some who do.

Update-

Another article on the subject, "Torture Is Torture," by Eugene Robinson in the September 19 Washington Post.

It is not possible for our elected representatives to hold any sort of honorable "debate" over torture. Bush says he is waging a "struggle for civilization," but civilized nations do not debate slavery or genocide, and they don't debate torture, either. This spectacle insults and dishonors every American.

There is one ray of encouragement: the crystal-clear evidence that the men and women of our armed forces want no part of torturing anybody.

 

Beyond your fears

We live in an incredibly wide open country.  Aside from the miles upon miles of relatively open ocean shoreline, we have our border Canada which is practically wide open.  Given all this opportunity on one hand and the difficulty of flying these days, you end up wondering whether we're safer or someone is just trying to give us the illusion of safety.

John Tierney has an interesting piece in the NY Times this morning.  It's called, "Waiting for Al Qaeda," and in the article he quotes John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University who has recently written an article for  Foreign Affairs.

There are plenty of fighters willing to use terrorist tactics locally during civil wars and insurrections, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya or Kashmir. But it’s harder to recruit competent warriors to fight abroad, and harder for them to operate in orderly countries where the citizenry and the authorities both want to stop them.

“Outside of Afghanistan and Iraq,” Mueller says, “the number of people killed around the world since Sept. 11 by groups in sympathy with Al Qaeda is not that high. These are horrible and disgusting deaths, but they’re not a sign of a diabolically effective organization. The total is less than the number of Americans who drowned in bathtubs during this period.”

It's interesting to look at terrorism from this perspective.  I guess if we didn't need to be protected quite as much we wouldn't need all the illegal wiretapping and secret prisons.  Weak leaders always need something to rally people against. 

It's the great leaders that can take people beyonds their fears  and help them achieve something great.  The idea that we turn our society into one great bunker doesn't appeal a whole lot to me.  I like Tierney's final closing points.

Compared with past threats — like Communist sociopaths with nuclear arsenals — Al Qaeda’s terrorists are a minor problem. They certainly don’t justify the hyperbolic warnings that America’s “existence” or “way of life” is in jeopardy, or that America must transform the Middle East in order to survive.

There undoubtedly will be more terrorist attacks, either from Al Qaeda or others, just as there were before 2001. Terrorists might strike Monday. There will always be homicidal zealots like Mohamed Atta or Timothy McVeigh, and some of them will succeed, terribly. But this is not a new era. The terrorist threat is still small. It’s the terrorism industry that got big.

Terrorism is also a great way to distract voters from issues where our politicians just can't seem to figure out what to do, like health care and social security.  We all know there are terrorist threats, but they shouldn't be the only thing on our minds.  Of course our politicians have one other main concern, their re-election.

Collective Wisdom

Every morning I get up and go through a remarkably similar routine no matter where I am.  Usually while drinking those first cups of coffee, I'll quickly check my email.  Then I'll start the fast scan that I do of the morning papers when I'm not rushing out.  By the time I've had my third cup of coffee and sometimes before then, the day's intelligence reports are starting to arrive.

I communicate regularly with two of my former college roommates, some former co-workers, and a few folks in the blogoshere.  I like to think that not much slips through our collective eyes.  We don't agree on the answers to everything, but most of the time we agree on the problems, and respectfully listen to each other's ideas.

We pass around everything from editorials and comic strips to movies and off beat perspectives on the news.  Often we are even able to separate the weather channel hype from the real weather by comparing notes.

Perhaps because we all grew up understanding the importance of critical thinking,  we may well know more about what's going on in the world than our government.  Actually let me rephrase that.  We may not be collecting as much intelligence as the government, but we're applying some serious common sense and critical thought to what we read and see.  Through a broader number of sources with many that don't necessarily just reaffirm what we're already thinking, we have a shot at a better understanding of the events taking place.  We have no vested interest in the news turning out one way or the other.  We end up being skeptical of the news and specially anything the politicians tell us.  We have no illusions about drawing inspiration from the greedy bandits that have taken over the country.  We're just trying to get some perspective on the world and what we need to do to survive.

This morning when I the picture to the left of the smoke from the Norfolk and Southern rail yards in Roanoke, I couldn't help but think of the smokescreen that the current administration is trying to lay down before the fall elections.

My coastal NJ dwelling former roomie sent me an article, "Conditions for civil war exist in Iraq: Pentagon."   After reading it, I happened to catch "Through Our Enemies' Eyes," by William M. Arkin in today's Washington Post.

It happens to confirm what I thought I heard earlier in the week, that Vice President Dick Cheney is now equating the battle with the "terrorists" in Iraq with the war against the Nazis.  I'm not exactly sure that there is much parallel between fighting terrorists and Nazis or Communists.  Actually it seems that Iraq is more of keeping Iraqis from killing each other than it is fighting a grand war to save civilization from terrorism. That would would seem to be confirmed by what the Pentagon report has to say.

Violence between minority Sunnis, who controlled Iraq under former President Saddam Hussein, and the majority Shi'ites, who are asserting themselves after decades of oppression, now defines the conflict, it stated.

Sectarian violence is spreading north, outside of Baghdad into Diyala province and oil-rich Kirkuk, it said. Death squads, sometimes with "rogue elements" of U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces, are heavily responsible for the sectarian violence, including execution-style killings, it said.

Let me see if I understand this.  We took down the sectarian government of Saddam Hussein and unleashed a religious war between two sects, and this is what Vice President Cheney calls, "a battle for the future of civilization?"  It appears to me that this is just another chapter of the same destructive battle that has been going on in the Middle East for ages.  While it is obvious that some terrorists have been involved because of the opportunity presented by sending our troops into a war that cannot be won, it should be even more obvious that this war isn't accomplishing any of its ever changing goals except perhaps to give the current administration a way to frighten voters into keeping them in office.

Then there was the speech of Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.  It brought this comment from William M. Arkin in his post, "Rumsfeld's Enemy: It's Us."

....the secretary wove an elaborate picture of an enemy made up of terrorists, morally misguided Westerners, disagreeable military strategists, and a cynical news media...

Either Rumsfeld has delivered one of the most important speeches of the modern era, or he's gone crazy.

I think the latter, not just because I think the secretary is wrong on his intellectual characterization of terrorism, and not just because he is wrong about the media and its intentions, and not because he is so pugnacious, or because he has been wrong so many times before. 

Rumsfeld is so wrong about America.  His use of World War I history and the specter of fascism and appeasement, and his argument about moral weakness or even treason in any who oppose him, is not only polarizing but ineffective in provoking debate and discussion about the proper course this country must take to "fight" terrorism.

I don't think there is any moral weakness in America. Perhaps we have a nearly fatally flawed electoral process that allows sound bites and voters with blinders on to elect the worst administration in modern history, but Americans are figuring out the hollowness of the rhetoric.  The collective intelligence of the electorate will swing the pendulum back in the other directions.  Fear mongering can only keep people in power so long.  I respect William Arkin's description of how Bin Laden sees us.

That is not how the terrorists see it.  They see many things since 9/11, and in our actions, as signs of weakness, and of their power.   

After his survival at Tora Bora, Osama Bin Laden said: "If all the forces of world evil could not achieve their goals on a one square mile area against a small number of mujahedeen … how can these evil forces triumph over the Muslim world?"

Wouldn't focusing on the real perpetrators of 9/11 made a lot more sense than looking for WMD that didn't exist or trying to create democracy where sectarian violence is part of the culture.  It's really too bad the current administration can't make use of the collective wisdom of others. It helps all the rest of us get through the day.  I guess it is pretty hard when you seem destined until your last day in power to believe that you've been right about everything.  Then of course if only one person is right, I guess we might as well starting calling President Bush, King George.

 

 

A shift in power

Sebastian Mallaby has an article, "A New Brand of Power," in today's Washington Post.  In it he talks about how a company's "brand" may well be worth more than it's bricks and mortar.  He goes on to postulate that corporations are now tackling problems that government fears to tackle.

He points out some examples, including Starbucks providing health benefits to part time employees and Walmart trying to reduce their energy consumption and become a greener company.

It may well be that we have entered a new age.  Government seems to be uninterested in regulating corporations on a number of levels so the only pressure for corporations to change is when their brand is in danger. 

What an interesting twist, governments have given away so much power, corporations are assuming the mantel of power and responsibility.

Unfortunately a lot of harm can take place because compliance is uneven, and corporations are really accountable to no one other than their stockholders.  While Apple Computer may make the super cool iPods, just because they're  making cool stuff doesn't mean they'll be doing other things that we as consumers might want them to do.  I recently wrote a post on my other blog, Applepeels, which details some of the corporate management style that I saw at Apple.  When it comes to measuring organizations for cronyism, my money would be Apple if we put them against FEMA.  I don't trust these guys to make decisions beyond  the product they ship.

There's much potential for good among corporations, but I don't think we should be putting our faith in corporate organizations that can and do as they please with little or no real accountability to us.

I hope our government improves from it recent dismal performance.  It takes more than a few giant companies worrying about their brands to fix the problems that we face.  We have a history of government that can rise to the challenge.  We will get past this bunch of incompetents.

I would also worry that with the number of brands shrinking we might have less choice in the world, but I thing the smaller and more agile world of small business is likely the place where most of our innovation will come from in the future.  That's a good thing, since small business is much more responsive to the communities where they are located.

Beyond on this political power shift, there are other serious things to worry about.  No only is our educational system not up to snuff, but we have also lost the Bratwurst eating record.  This is a sad day in Wisconsin.  You can check out the article, "Japanese man eats record 58 brats in Wisconsin contest," in SJ Mercury News.