If the English had been the first settlers in what is now New York, it wouldn't have been in New York at all. It would have been somewhere up the Atlantic coast, or inland. The English didn't know how to build on a swamp--but the Dutch did. Lower Manhattan must have looked somnething like home to the first Dutch settlers: flat, a bit on the damp or wet side, right at sea level. They knew how to build on such land--had been doing so for quite some time. So they started building on Manhattan.
What are the least energy efficient machines in the world? Beef cattle, of course. Grain-fed cattle consume about 10,000 times as much energy as we get from their meat. Let's quit raising beef cattle, and give the grain to hungry people.
I live these days in a socialist country. And like most socialist countries, Germany shamelessly provides numerous social services to its people. In addition to such evil things as good health care, good schools, serious recycling services, excellent and speedy rail transportation, and clean safe cities, Deutsche Telecom charges me $6 a month for unlimited calls to anywhere in Western Europe, Canada, and the United States. My basic telephone and internet bill is $30 a month--and my long distance calls to North America--even if I talk all day every day--cost me an additional $6 a month. Isn't that terrible? Just think how much profit is not being made!
President Obama's trip to the G-20 in London and the NATO summit in Strasbourg and Baden-Baden was a giant stimulus package for the United States economy. Well, if you believe that what we need to do to get us out of our economic woes is spend as much as we can, that's what the trip was. He arrived in London with 500 aides and cooks and bodyguards. He had five fully-equipped command helicopters--four of them to be flown as decoys every time he used the fifth, and a three-ton armor-plated limousine. Rumors from London said that Washington also flew in a large hotel and two army barracks buildings to house the 500 people.
This morning in Saarbruecken I saw a car with a surprising model name: "Prestige." I didn't see the make, however. I can't believe that a European auto company would name one of its models "Prestige"--but an American-made car could easily be named such, and quite appropriately. America is fond of "prestige," and things that are "prestigious." From the time of the Romans until the 1930s, prestige had to do with "trickery" and "deceit." The Latin root was praestigium. John Stuart Mill wrote that Napoleon's success was all a matter of prestige; W. E. Gladstone, the 19th century British prime minister, referred to "that vile thing called prestige" as the opposite of honor. But then, thanks to the advertising industry mostly, Americans turned prestige into something supposedly good, and everybody wanted prestige. The once-great University of Michigan became a "prestigious" university during the presidency of Harold Shapiro, who loved the word the way he loved money. . . . I wonder if the car called "Prestige" is made by General Motors or maybe Chrysler? Has anybody else seen one?
zondag 5 april 2009
vrijdag 3 april 2009
WAR WAR WAR WAR
According to President Obama,the rest of the world must take up the burden USers have shouldered for so many years: the burden of spending. With USers less and less able or willing to spend, the world's economy can't grow.
Of course, a very large portion of USer spending does anything but grow the economy in any but the most simplistic terms. Economists have known for years that the greatest returns on governmental spending come from investment in health care and education--and the US governments do very little of either. Instead, the US government spends massive amounts of money on the military--though any decent economist knows that military spending actually has a negative effect on economic growth.
The first six years of my life--from December of 1935 until December of 1941--the US was not at war. That's the longest period of warlessness I have known in 73 years.
The US was involved in World War II from 1941-1945, and in ther Korean War from 1950-1954. In 1958 we invaded Lebanon, but only got to stay for three months; we managed to destroy all of Beirut's streets, however, and a good deal of the port facility, which we had to rebuild. In 1962 we started training CIA infiltrators into North Vietnam, and began military operations in 1964. When we got out of Vietnam in 1974, we tried a little bit of war, invading North Korean to rescue some US Navy patrol boats that had strayed into North Korean waters: that was Gerald Ford's attempt at war. In 1978-79, while our European allies were trying to arrange a peaceful end to the take-over of the US Embassy in Iran (with its 49 or 51 CIA operatives held captive), Jimmy Carter stupidly tried to invade Iran; luckily, his attempt to start a war was foiled by US military technology--our helicopters crashed in the desert before they reached Teheran. From 1981 to 1989 Ronald Reagan waged his war against Nicaragua, and actually won a little war against Grenada. In 1989 George the First made war against Panama and his former good buddy Manuel Noreiga; then in 1991 he attacked Iraq. Bill Clinton bombed Iraq right at the start of his presidency in
1993, and then sent troops to Somalia and bombed the Balkans fiercely. We had a brief lull in war-making then--our longest since the end of World War II--until George the Second invaded Irag again, and Afghanistan. President Obama doesn't seem ready to end either of those wars of aggression, so we can probably expect to continue being at war through at least 2012, probably longer.
Since 1941 the US has been at war almost constantly. But war is our way of thinking, or dealing with anything. That's all we understand. We have also had a Cold War, a War on Poverty, and a War on Terror.
After the end of World War II, military personnel went back to wearing their dress uniforms in public. They weren't allowed off their bases in combat gear. But for the current wars--Iraq II and Afghanistan--the rules have changed: military personnel always wear their combat gear in public; even the military bands marching in New Orleans' Mardi Gras parades dress in camouflage outfits and boots. That keeps us conscious of our being at war. It makes us remember who and what we are: a warrior state, always ready to shoot and bomb anybody and everybody, always eager to go to war, in need of wars to distract us from the troubles inside our own borders.
If we could quit fighting wars, our economic situation would be a lot better. We would have money to spend on health care and education, on homes for the homeless and food for the hungry. We don't need to ask the rest of the world to start spending more; we just need to quit throwing all our money away attacking other countries, starting wars, buying weapons. We need to quit being belligerent--and stupid.
Of course, a very large portion of USer spending does anything but grow the economy in any but the most simplistic terms. Economists have known for years that the greatest returns on governmental spending come from investment in health care and education--and the US governments do very little of either. Instead, the US government spends massive amounts of money on the military--though any decent economist knows that military spending actually has a negative effect on economic growth.
The first six years of my life--from December of 1935 until December of 1941--the US was not at war. That's the longest period of warlessness I have known in 73 years.
The US was involved in World War II from 1941-1945, and in ther Korean War from 1950-1954. In 1958 we invaded Lebanon, but only got to stay for three months; we managed to destroy all of Beirut's streets, however, and a good deal of the port facility, which we had to rebuild. In 1962 we started training CIA infiltrators into North Vietnam, and began military operations in 1964. When we got out of Vietnam in 1974, we tried a little bit of war, invading North Korean to rescue some US Navy patrol boats that had strayed into North Korean waters: that was Gerald Ford's attempt at war. In 1978-79, while our European allies were trying to arrange a peaceful end to the take-over of the US Embassy in Iran (with its 49 or 51 CIA operatives held captive), Jimmy Carter stupidly tried to invade Iran; luckily, his attempt to start a war was foiled by US military technology--our helicopters crashed in the desert before they reached Teheran. From 1981 to 1989 Ronald Reagan waged his war against Nicaragua, and actually won a little war against Grenada. In 1989 George the First made war against Panama and his former good buddy Manuel Noreiga; then in 1991 he attacked Iraq. Bill Clinton bombed Iraq right at the start of his presidency in
1993, and then sent troops to Somalia and bombed the Balkans fiercely. We had a brief lull in war-making then--our longest since the end of World War II--until George the Second invaded Irag again, and Afghanistan. President Obama doesn't seem ready to end either of those wars of aggression, so we can probably expect to continue being at war through at least 2012, probably longer.
Since 1941 the US has been at war almost constantly. But war is our way of thinking, or dealing with anything. That's all we understand. We have also had a Cold War, a War on Poverty, and a War on Terror.
After the end of World War II, military personnel went back to wearing their dress uniforms in public. They weren't allowed off their bases in combat gear. But for the current wars--Iraq II and Afghanistan--the rules have changed: military personnel always wear their combat gear in public; even the military bands marching in New Orleans' Mardi Gras parades dress in camouflage outfits and boots. That keeps us conscious of our being at war. It makes us remember who and what we are: a warrior state, always ready to shoot and bomb anybody and everybody, always eager to go to war, in need of wars to distract us from the troubles inside our own borders.
If we could quit fighting wars, our economic situation would be a lot better. We would have money to spend on health care and education, on homes for the homeless and food for the hungry. We don't need to ask the rest of the world to start spending more; we just need to quit throwing all our money away attacking other countries, starting wars, buying weapons. We need to quit being belligerent--and stupid.
WHERE YOUR RETIREMENT FUNDS GO
After a recent botched transaction with TIAA-CREF, which manages retirement savings for academics, I decided to complain. Looking for someone to complain to, I found Mr. Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., the president of TIAA-CREF. With him, I found his contract with TIAA-CREF, and discovered that he takes home a good bit of my money every month. So I wrote to him both about the problem I had had transferring $25,000from TIAA-CREF to my bank account and about the greater problem of his transferring $11,000,000 a year from TIAA-CREF to his bank account. The following is my letter to Mr. Ferguson.
3 April 2009
Mr. Roger W. Ferguson, Jr.
730 3rd Avenue
New York, New York 10017
Dear Mr. Ferguson,
I am an emeritus professor of English at the University of Michigan, and an emeritus professor of Humanities at Bellarmine University. I am currently teaching as an unpaid guest professor at the Universität des Saarlandes in Germany.
I am writing to you about the disastrous service I have recently received from your CREF division. Before I get to that, however, let me discuss briefly another topic.
In searching for your name and address I came across your contract with TIAA-CREF. I see that we—teachers, for the most part—are paying you $11,000,000 a year in “total compensation.” That’s a lot of money: more than any human being could possibly need, even if he were greedy and had a thousand children.
Your $1,000,000 a year salary is more than most college and university professors will earn in twenty years of dedicated work.
You will receive not less than $5,000,000 a year as a Long Term Performance Award—beginning at the end of your first year! That’s quite remarkable—and unnecessary. As it is my money that is paying you this nonsensical and offensively large this “Award” I object.
You will also receive a $5,000,000 a year Transitional Award. What is the transition you are making? From being wealthy to being obscenely, anti-socially wealthy?
I couldn’t find figures about your Retirement pay, though I am certain it will be considerably more than the retirement income of any professor who has invested in TIAA-CREF.
In a world full of poor people, homeless people, hungry people, the payment of such compensation and the acceptance of such compensation are both disgusting and immoral.
If you object to my calling you immoral for your greediness, you may explain to me why I should refrain from identifying you as such publicly. Otherwise, I will do so, to the best of my ability.
Now: to the matter about which I initially intended to write. This matter is, of course, related to the matter of your personal greed, particularly since the new TIAA-CREF sloganises itself as dedicated to “Financial Services for the Greater Good.”
On 12 March I spoke to three people—Maier, Wright, and Galvan—about transferring $25,000 of my money from CREF to my New Orleans bank. I was told the electronic transfer would take eight to ten days. (Remarkably fast electrons at TIAA-CREF; maybe you could donate a few dollars to upgrade them?)
When I telephoned TIAA-CREF on 30 March to find out why the $25,000 had not been transferred to my bank, I spoke with Gene Merchant from 5:00 p.m. to 5:28 p.m. EDT. He informed me that a check had been sent to my New Orleans address. He also noted that the order he was looking at indicated the money was supposed to be transferred to my New Orleans bank account.
He volunteered to void the check—I am currently in Germany, as I mentioned above—and have the money sent to my bank within another ten days. I said that such a slow response by TIAA-CREF to its own mistake was unacceptable.
Mr. Merchant then told me he would “escalate” the matter to the “escalation team.” Jargon. Garbage. Who got paid how much for inventing the “escalation team”?
The “escalator” assigned to me was Mr. Bob Ziegler. At 5:00 p.m. EDT on 31 March I telephoned him—he had not telephoned me, as I had been told he would—and was answered by a machine. On 1 April Mr. Ziegler telephoned me, to say that within two to three days the $25,000 transfer I had ordered on 12 March would actually be made. (More fast electrons. Maybe another contribution?)
I asked Mr. Ziegler for the address of a superior to whom I could complain. He told me I could write to Mr. Greg Ryan in Charlotte, N.C., or to Ms. Karen Green at something called strangely the “ IPS Individual Group” at “Financial Services for the Greater Good” in Denver.
I chose to write to you instead. Perhaps you can earn a few of the many dollars you are paid to teach your employees not to make mistakes, your escalators to do something better than escalate, and your electrons to work more quickly.
I don’t like incompetence—three weeks for an electronic transfer of funds--though I must note that it is much, much less offensive than greed.
Sincerely yours,
Bert G. Hornback
3 April 2009
Mr. Roger W. Ferguson, Jr.
730 3rd Avenue
New York, New York 10017
Dear Mr. Ferguson,
I am an emeritus professor of English at the University of Michigan, and an emeritus professor of Humanities at Bellarmine University. I am currently teaching as an unpaid guest professor at the Universität des Saarlandes in Germany.
I am writing to you about the disastrous service I have recently received from your CREF division. Before I get to that, however, let me discuss briefly another topic.
In searching for your name and address I came across your contract with TIAA-CREF. I see that we—teachers, for the most part—are paying you $11,000,000 a year in “total compensation.” That’s a lot of money: more than any human being could possibly need, even if he were greedy and had a thousand children.
Your $1,000,000 a year salary is more than most college and university professors will earn in twenty years of dedicated work.
You will receive not less than $5,000,000 a year as a Long Term Performance Award—beginning at the end of your first year! That’s quite remarkable—and unnecessary. As it is my money that is paying you this nonsensical and offensively large this “Award” I object.
You will also receive a $5,000,000 a year Transitional Award. What is the transition you are making? From being wealthy to being obscenely, anti-socially wealthy?
I couldn’t find figures about your Retirement pay, though I am certain it will be considerably more than the retirement income of any professor who has invested in TIAA-CREF.
In a world full of poor people, homeless people, hungry people, the payment of such compensation and the acceptance of such compensation are both disgusting and immoral.
If you object to my calling you immoral for your greediness, you may explain to me why I should refrain from identifying you as such publicly. Otherwise, I will do so, to the best of my ability.
Now: to the matter about which I initially intended to write. This matter is, of course, related to the matter of your personal greed, particularly since the new TIAA-CREF sloganises itself as dedicated to “Financial Services for the Greater Good.”
On 12 March I spoke to three people—Maier, Wright, and Galvan—about transferring $25,000 of my money from CREF to my New Orleans bank. I was told the electronic transfer would take eight to ten days. (Remarkably fast electrons at TIAA-CREF; maybe you could donate a few dollars to upgrade them?)
When I telephoned TIAA-CREF on 30 March to find out why the $25,000 had not been transferred to my bank, I spoke with Gene Merchant from 5:00 p.m. to 5:28 p.m. EDT. He informed me that a check had been sent to my New Orleans address. He also noted that the order he was looking at indicated the money was supposed to be transferred to my New Orleans bank account.
He volunteered to void the check—I am currently in Germany, as I mentioned above—and have the money sent to my bank within another ten days. I said that such a slow response by TIAA-CREF to its own mistake was unacceptable.
Mr. Merchant then told me he would “escalate” the matter to the “escalation team.” Jargon. Garbage. Who got paid how much for inventing the “escalation team”?
The “escalator” assigned to me was Mr. Bob Ziegler. At 5:00 p.m. EDT on 31 March I telephoned him—he had not telephoned me, as I had been told he would—and was answered by a machine. On 1 April Mr. Ziegler telephoned me, to say that within two to three days the $25,000 transfer I had ordered on 12 March would actually be made. (More fast electrons. Maybe another contribution?)
I asked Mr. Ziegler for the address of a superior to whom I could complain. He told me I could write to Mr. Greg Ryan in Charlotte, N.C., or to Ms. Karen Green at something called strangely the “ IPS Individual Group” at “Financial Services for the Greater Good” in Denver.
I chose to write to you instead. Perhaps you can earn a few of the many dollars you are paid to teach your employees not to make mistakes, your escalators to do something better than escalate, and your electrons to work more quickly.
I don’t like incompetence—three weeks for an electronic transfer of funds--though I must note that it is much, much less offensive than greed.
Sincerely yours,
Bert G. Hornback
dinsdag 10 februari 2009
OYSTERS AND OSTRICHES
Oysters have been around a long time. Longer than ostriches.
For the ancient Greeks, an oyster was an OSTREON. The general word for shellfish was OSTRAKINOS, which then became the word for an earthenware pot or dish, an OSTRAKON. When the Athenians ostracized someone, they voted him out of the city, writing his name on fragments of earthenware pots which they used as ballots.
The OST- root also appears in the Greek word for bone, OSTEON, which is also the word for a rock, or the stone of a fruit. The ancient Sanskrit word behind OSTEON is ASTHI, or ASTHNAS: bone. For the Greeks, OSTEINOS says made of bone; an OSTARION is a little bone. And OSXE is the word for scrotum.
The OST- or OS- root for bone and rock and the stone of a fruit, an earthenware pot or dish, a shellfish and specifically an oyster, is a root meaning something hard. OSXE, the Greek for scrotum, is perhaps derived from the same root, but if so only secondarily: OSXE is more likely related to the SCRO- root that is used in the Latin word SCROTUM, the pouch or sack for the testicles.
According to eytmologists, an ostrich also gets its name from ancient Greek. For the Romans, AVISTRUTHIO or simply STRUTHIO was a large grey bird, which took its name from the Greek STROUTHION, and the earlier STROUTHOS. Actually, the ostrich was a MEGASTROUTHOS for the Greeks; the STROUTHOS was a sparrow. And a MEGASTROUTHOS was also called a STROUTHIOCAMELOS.
But a case—erroneous, but a case nonetheless—can be made, etymologically, for ostriches being related to oysters, not sparrows. Ostriches are large grey birds, whose bodies are shaped much like giant oysters—giant oysters with long necks and long, skinny legs. The ostrich might just as well get its name from an oyster as from a sparrow. Visually, ostriches are much more like giant oysters than giant sparrows, in shape and color. And if the Greek OSXE does derive from the OS root, making scrota related to oysters, the Greeks could just as easily have seen ostriches as related to oysters.
A Special Report from the
Speculative Etymology Section of the
Center for the Advancement of Peripheral Thought
Oysters have been around a long time. Longer than ostriches.
For the ancient Greeks, an oyster was an OSTREON. The general word for shellfish was OSTRAKINOS, which then became the word for an earthenware pot or dish, an OSTRAKON. When the Athenians ostracized someone, they voted him out of the city, writing his name on fragments of earthenware pots which they used as ballots.
The OST- root also appears in the Greek word for bone, OSTEON, which is also the word for a rock, or the stone of a fruit. The ancient Sanskrit word behind OSTEON is ASTHI, or ASTHNAS: bone. For the Greeks, OSTEINOS says made of bone; an OSTARION is a little bone. And OSXE is the word for scrotum.
The OST- or OS- root for bone and rock and the stone of a fruit, an earthenware pot or dish, a shellfish and specifically an oyster, is a root meaning something hard. OSXE, the Greek for scrotum, is perhaps derived from the same root, but if so only secondarily: OSXE is more likely related to the SCRO- root that is used in the Latin word SCROTUM, the pouch or sack for the testicles.
According to eytmologists, an ostrich also gets its name from ancient Greek. For the Romans, AVISTRUTHIO or simply STRUTHIO was a large grey bird, which took its name from the Greek STROUTHION, and the earlier STROUTHOS. Actually, the ostrich was a MEGASTROUTHOS for the Greeks; the STROUTHOS was a sparrow. And a MEGASTROUTHOS was also called a STROUTHIOCAMELOS.
But a case—erroneous, but a case nonetheless—can be made, etymologically, for ostriches being related to oysters, not sparrows. Ostriches are large grey birds, whose bodies are shaped much like giant oysters—giant oysters with long necks and long, skinny legs. The ostrich might just as well get its name from an oyster as from a sparrow. Visually, ostriches are much more like giant oysters than giant sparrows, in shape and color. And if the Greek OSXE does derive from the OS root, making scrota related to oysters, the Greeks could just as easily have seen ostriches as related to oysters.
A Special Report from the
Speculative Etymology Section of the
Center for the Advancement of Peripheral Thought
SHAME ON THE PRESIDENT
Shame on President Obama. The world watches as the Obama administration hides kidnapping and torture behind the screen of "state secrets."
The whole world is aghast at the news of the CIA's seven years of torturing Binyam Mohamed, a British subject and citizen, and the Bush administration's blackmailing of the British government to keep them quiet about the torture. And now Obama wants to continue such shameful and criminal activities.
Shame on President Obama. Shame on our country.
Bert Hornback
The whole world is aghast at the news of the CIA's seven years of torturing Binyam Mohamed, a British subject and citizen, and the Bush administration's blackmailing of the British government to keep them quiet about the torture. And now Obama wants to continue such shameful and criminal activities.
Shame on President Obama. Shame on our country.
Bert Hornback
vrijdag 6 februari 2009
WORDS: ABOUT WAR, GAY RIGHTS, AND ABORTION
WORDS: ABOUT WAR, GAY RIGHTS, AND ABORTION
Americans need to learn that "bi-partisan" isn't necessarily good. Nor is "compromise” --as popularly understood--good, unless by a lucky accident. And "tolerance" isn't good, unless we are talking about tolerating cold weather or a toothache, or (if we are being generous) tolerating fools.
If half of us are racists and half of us aren't, will "bi-partisanship" work as a way of insuring equal rights? Of course not. Likewise, President Obama's inauguration "compromise" on gay rights was absurd. Either gays have equal rights with everybody else, or they are discriminated against and abused as second-class citizens. Having a anti-gay rights bigot and a gay bishop both pray to presumably the same god for him and for us is ludicrously bi-partisan, and demonstrates how idiotic our idea of compromise is.
If partisans on both sides can agree on something, then that something has bi-partisan support. If we reach a compromise on an issue, that means we agree on a course that we think is the right one--which may not be down-the-middle at all! A compromise is an agreement: the word says that those who compromise "promise together"--for the future. (I don't make "promises" about the past; that makes no sense.) We can achieve a compromise on how to end our war in Iraq, by agreeing on how to withdraw U.S. troops; but we can't have a compromise that is half-way between war and no war.
The Clinton "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military was a false compromise. It denied gay rights: it kept gays second class citizens. If the "don't ask, don't tell" policy had applied to all troops, heterosexual as well as homosexual, it would have been a decent if meaningless compromise.
Abortion is currently legal for the most part in the United States. Some people argue that abortion is murder, however. Is Roe v. Wade a compromise solution? No. It rejects the argument that abortion is murder, and accepts the argument for a woman's right to abort a foetus. The question was not decided by putting a woman's right to control of her own body above or ahead of the prohibition against murder; rather, it decided that abortion is not murder.
The U. S. Supreme Court made that decision without establishing precisely what determines whether or not a foetus is a living human child. Under U.S. law, if a court can't determine that a person has committed a crime--murder, for example--the accused must be acquitted: thus, if we don't know that a human child has been murdered we can't judge abortion to be murder. If the foetus is a human child, however, killing it intentionally is murder.
When we acquit the accused murderer because we cannot be certain of his guilt, we make our decision in order to avoid punishing the innocent. "Reasonable doubt" is the cut-off point: proof of guilt must be "beyond reasonable doubt." Can the reverse argument be made in the case of abortion? If the foetus is "beyond reasonable doubt" not a human child, the abortion is legal; but if there is a reasonable possibility that it is a human child, must its right to life be protected?
Our laws have as their first purpose the protection of the innocent, and from this derives the secondary purpose of punishing the guilty. In the case of abortion, however, there are further moral complications. The first is that, prior to Roe v. Wade, it was possible for all Americans except the poor to get safe abortions without fear of prosecution; all they had to do was find a doctor who would perform the operation. The poor could get abortions in back alleys, or abort themselves, but often died as a result. The law against abortion was, on the face of it, discriminatory. The second complication in trying to regulate abortion is that our society doesn't mandate proper care for children: once children are born, they may starve to death or be homeless or grow up uncared for and uneducated for life--and no laws have been broken. If we are to protect the rights of the unborn, shouldn't we also acknowledge that, once born, children have rights too?
We need to stop the partisan shouting of the "pro life" and "pro choice" advocates, and think our way through to an honest compromise: a way forward, to a proper future which will not require some of us to "tolerate" abortion that may be murder, and will not "tolerate" child neglect in any form in our society.
Americans need to learn that "bi-partisan" isn't necessarily good. Nor is "compromise” --as popularly understood--good, unless by a lucky accident. And "tolerance" isn't good, unless we are talking about tolerating cold weather or a toothache, or (if we are being generous) tolerating fools.
If half of us are racists and half of us aren't, will "bi-partisanship" work as a way of insuring equal rights? Of course not. Likewise, President Obama's inauguration "compromise" on gay rights was absurd. Either gays have equal rights with everybody else, or they are discriminated against and abused as second-class citizens. Having a anti-gay rights bigot and a gay bishop both pray to presumably the same god for him and for us is ludicrously bi-partisan, and demonstrates how idiotic our idea of compromise is.
If partisans on both sides can agree on something, then that something has bi-partisan support. If we reach a compromise on an issue, that means we agree on a course that we think is the right one--which may not be down-the-middle at all! A compromise is an agreement: the word says that those who compromise "promise together"--for the future. (I don't make "promises" about the past; that makes no sense.) We can achieve a compromise on how to end our war in Iraq, by agreeing on how to withdraw U.S. troops; but we can't have a compromise that is half-way between war and no war.
The Clinton "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military was a false compromise. It denied gay rights: it kept gays second class citizens. If the "don't ask, don't tell" policy had applied to all troops, heterosexual as well as homosexual, it would have been a decent if meaningless compromise.
Abortion is currently legal for the most part in the United States. Some people argue that abortion is murder, however. Is Roe v. Wade a compromise solution? No. It rejects the argument that abortion is murder, and accepts the argument for a woman's right to abort a foetus. The question was not decided by putting a woman's right to control of her own body above or ahead of the prohibition against murder; rather, it decided that abortion is not murder.
The U. S. Supreme Court made that decision without establishing precisely what determines whether or not a foetus is a living human child. Under U.S. law, if a court can't determine that a person has committed a crime--murder, for example--the accused must be acquitted: thus, if we don't know that a human child has been murdered we can't judge abortion to be murder. If the foetus is a human child, however, killing it intentionally is murder.
When we acquit the accused murderer because we cannot be certain of his guilt, we make our decision in order to avoid punishing the innocent. "Reasonable doubt" is the cut-off point: proof of guilt must be "beyond reasonable doubt." Can the reverse argument be made in the case of abortion? If the foetus is "beyond reasonable doubt" not a human child, the abortion is legal; but if there is a reasonable possibility that it is a human child, must its right to life be protected?
Our laws have as their first purpose the protection of the innocent, and from this derives the secondary purpose of punishing the guilty. In the case of abortion, however, there are further moral complications. The first is that, prior to Roe v. Wade, it was possible for all Americans except the poor to get safe abortions without fear of prosecution; all they had to do was find a doctor who would perform the operation. The poor could get abortions in back alleys, or abort themselves, but often died as a result. The law against abortion was, on the face of it, discriminatory. The second complication in trying to regulate abortion is that our society doesn't mandate proper care for children: once children are born, they may starve to death or be homeless or grow up uncared for and uneducated for life--and no laws have been broken. If we are to protect the rights of the unborn, shouldn't we also acknowledge that, once born, children have rights too?
We need to stop the partisan shouting of the "pro life" and "pro choice" advocates, and think our way through to an honest compromise: a way forward, to a proper future which will not require some of us to "tolerate" abortion that may be murder, and will not "tolerate" child neglect in any form in our society.
JUSTICE
How can the United States talk about "justice" How can American citizens talk about "justice"? The only kind of justice that exists in the United States is that which is radically modified by "liberty," the doctrine of irresponsible self-righteousness.
Our government suspends the right of habeas corpus, does away with the presumption of innocence until proven guilty; it condones torture, practices state kidnappings and "disappearances," and blackmails our supposed allies to keep quiet about our torturing their citizens. It starts illegal wars of aggression, and supplies obscene weapons--I'm thinking of phosphorus bombs, designed to burn, maim, and kill people indiscriminately--to vicious, uncivilised Israelis.
(The phosphorus bombs that the United States gives the Israeli army to use against Palestinians are not designed for use against military targets. They don't destroy buildings or guns; they aren't aimed at combatants. They are dropped, to explode before they hit the ground; upon detonation, they spew hundreds of large burning phosphorus pellets through the air. Phosphorus burns flesh--and keeps burning flesh, and keeps burning flesh. Of anybody: children, for example, as well as women and men and maybe even a few militants.)
Now, with the closing of the United States' main Concentration Camp at Guantanamo imminent, many Americans are complaining: they want "justice," they say, thining about the bombing of the USS Cole and the destruction of the World Trade Center. But Americans don't want justice; they want revenge. And revenge is not a worthy motive for anything.
After torturing people for six years, we have no right even to use the word justice. Only if the torturers--from the president down to the lowly scum who gave the direct orders and the craven creatures who carried them out--are brought to justice for their crimes can those who have been tortured ever be accused of crimes, and probably not even then: they have already been punished--illegally, inhumanely, and unjustly.
Americans can't ask for what they call "justice," and they can't be allowed further acts of vengeance. Rather, America must be brought to justice for its crimes.
Our government suspends the right of habeas corpus, does away with the presumption of innocence until proven guilty; it condones torture, practices state kidnappings and "disappearances," and blackmails our supposed allies to keep quiet about our torturing their citizens. It starts illegal wars of aggression, and supplies obscene weapons--I'm thinking of phosphorus bombs, designed to burn, maim, and kill people indiscriminately--to vicious, uncivilised Israelis.
(The phosphorus bombs that the United States gives the Israeli army to use against Palestinians are not designed for use against military targets. They don't destroy buildings or guns; they aren't aimed at combatants. They are dropped, to explode before they hit the ground; upon detonation, they spew hundreds of large burning phosphorus pellets through the air. Phosphorus burns flesh--and keeps burning flesh, and keeps burning flesh. Of anybody: children, for example, as well as women and men and maybe even a few militants.)
Now, with the closing of the United States' main Concentration Camp at Guantanamo imminent, many Americans are complaining: they want "justice," they say, thining about the bombing of the USS Cole and the destruction of the World Trade Center. But Americans don't want justice; they want revenge. And revenge is not a worthy motive for anything.
After torturing people for six years, we have no right even to use the word justice. Only if the torturers--from the president down to the lowly scum who gave the direct orders and the craven creatures who carried them out--are brought to justice for their crimes can those who have been tortured ever be accused of crimes, and probably not even then: they have already been punished--illegally, inhumanely, and unjustly.
Americans can't ask for what they call "justice," and they can't be allowed further acts of vengeance. Rather, America must be brought to justice for its crimes.
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