LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

LFTC - Indx 7/10/09

2 posts: (1) "As Palin Turns"--The Home Front; (2) Global Democracy "Reset"--Us v. Them.

LFTC: "As Palin Turns"

Begin with this gem: It HAD to happen.  An LFTC reader tells me that a caller on Al Sharpton's radio show said that Michael Jackson was--yep, she said it--murdered by--yep, she said this too--SARAH PALIN.  Think of the advance Sarah will get for THAT book.  Weekly Standard reporter Matthew Continetti has a long piece on why Palin resigned.  MC's stuff is always good, so check it out.

In the spirit of giving the other side a fair chance, here is Peggy Noonan's evisceration of Palin today.  My problem with PN's piece, besides its dripping elitist contempt--not normally PN's style--is that much of what she says about Palin apples to President Obama, in, as bridge players say, spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs & no-trump.  Rich Lowry offers as an example of what 44--whom by implication PN prefers in the White House--is doing, e.g., the "rosy apocalypse" economic program--something that Palin would never have signed onto.

Time reports on the real book deal Palin signed--she will write it, too, having majored in journalism.  Time Magazine's in-depth online (and print) cover story styles Palin as a renegade outsider.  It notes the influence of her Alaskan roots, and the cultural divide between Palin and Washington's elite:

...Palin's unconventional step speaks to an ingrained frontier skepticism of authority — even one's own. Given the plunging credibility of institutions and élites, that's a mood that fits the Palin brand. Résumés ain't what they used to be; they count only with people who trust credentials — a dwindling breed. The mathematics Ph.D.s who dreamed up economy-killing derivatives have pretty impressive résumés. The leaders of congressional committees and executive agencies have decades of experience — at wallowing in red ink, mismanaging economic bubbles and botching covert intelligence.

If ever there has been a time to gamble on a flimsy résumé, ever a time for the ultimate outsider, this might be it. "We have so little trust in the character of the people we elected that most of us wouldn't invite them into our homes for dinner, let alone leave our children alone in their care," writes talk-show host Glenn Beck in his book Glenn Beck's Common Sense, a pox-on-all-their-houses fusillade at Washington. Dashed off in a fever of disillusionment with those in power, Beck's book is selling like vampire lit, with more than 1 million copies in print.

Palin monitored the online and other media assaults on her, despite getting advice to ignore it.  She detected the hand of Obama chieftain Rahm Emanuel and an Alaskan surrogate in targeting her.  An added factor in her decision, the article suggests, was sheer boredom, of the "Once you've been to Paris, it is hard to go back to the farm" variety:

Something else might have been eating at Palin too. Call it boredom or impatience: Juneau must seem awfully small compared with the national stage. A state representative from Anchorage, Democrat Mike Doogan, recalls the traditional opening of the legislature on a January day — the same day Obama was sworn in as President. Doogan was chosen to pay a ceremonial visit to the governor to announce that the session had begun. Dressed in his best suit, with a plastic iris in his lapel, he waited in Palin's office as she finished a meeting. "She wasn't particularly happy to see us or interested in anything other than getting the ceremony over as quickly as possible," he says. "And this from a woman who had served cupcakes for my birthday at the mansion just six months earlier." That was the last he saw of the governor in Juneau.

Confined by governance, besieged by targeting, she cast them off, without a clear plan for the future, the authors conclude:

Whatever else we take away from Palin's abrupt announcement that she is quitting, she has proved that her low opinion of government includes even her own powers and prerogatives. As she put it in her farewell speech — the one that began "Hi, Alaska!" — the governor's office is no longer a place for "productive, fulfilled people ... choosing to wisely utilize precious time." A lot of conservative politicians stop wanting smaller government the minute the government is them. Then they discover that they like the trappings, earmarks and junkets, the plums for friends. For Palin, the job offered little more than "lame-duck status — hit the road, draw the paycheck and milk it."

So, bye, Alaska! She made her declaration on Independence Day weekend as a symbol, she says, of her new and exhilarating freedom. She's headed to a bookstore, a television set, a convention hall near you, armed with an anti-résumé. Cut loose from her obligations to her huge and awesome homeland, her message remains quintessentially Alaskan. Where she comes from — the last American frontier — the past is irrelevant, the rules are suspended, and limitations are for losers.

Time reporter Jay Newton-Small iinterviewed Palin this week.  It is well worth a read, but here are some notable excerpts:

Is [Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell now better] because you feel you don't have a mandate anymore?
It's not that. It's that our administration is so stymied and paralyzed because of a political game that has been chosen to be played by critics who have discovered loopholes in the ethics reform that I championed that allows them to continually, continually bombard the state with frivolous ethics-violation charges, with lawsuits, with these fishing expeditions. We win the lawsuits, we win the ethics charges, we win all that — but it comes at such great cost. The distraction, the waste of time and money, the public's time and money — it's insane to continue down this road. And Alaskans who have paid attention to what's going on, they understand that.

Palin added, as part of an answer to a later question on moving forward:

Other governors probably could travel around and campaign for others and speak candidly, using their First Amendment rights to express what they feel about a person, a candidate, a position. I get hit with ethics-violation charges if I do that. I mean, literally, I do. The first day back from the campaign trail, I met with reporters in my office who kind of bombarded me there in the lobby of the office. I answered their questions and I got hit with an ethics complaint, and it cost a lot of money to fight things like that, and that's ridiculous.

At one point during the campaign you said Hillary Clinton whines a little bit too much about being in the public eye. Do you now sort of sympathize with her?
What I said was, it doesn't do her or anybody else any good to whine about the criticism. And that's why I'm trying to make it clear that the criticism, I invite that. But freedom of speech and that invitation to constructively criticize a public servant is a lot different than the allowance to lie, to continually falsely accuse a public servant when they have proven over and over again that they have not done what the accuser is saying they did. It doesn't cost them a dime to continue to accuse. That's a whole different situation. But that's why when I talk about the political potshots that I take or my family takes, we can handle that. I can handle that. I expect it. But there has to be opportunity provided for truth to get out there, and truth isn't getting out there when the political game that's being played right now is going to continue, and it is. When you realize that it doesn't cost them a dime and it's a fun sport for some, you know it's going to continue. I love Alaska too much to put her through this in a lame-duck session.

Two of [President Obama's] big platform issues now are universal health care and your favorite issue, energy, his global-warming plan. What do you think of his positions on both?
His cap-and-trade agenda is a cap-and-tax agenda, and it's going to drive the cost of consumer goods and the cost of energy so extremely high that our nation is going to start exporting even more jobs to China and to other countries that do not have the corporate tax or the equivalent of the corporate tax that the cap-and-trade — I call it cap-and-tax — agenda is going to usher in. What he needs to be understanding is, we have the domestic supplies of energy in America. It's conventional sources — oil, gas, coal, it's nuclear — and we have the renewable sources here in America. But if we're not allowed to drill and develop those conventional sources in this transition period between now and when we can rely more on alternative sources, we're going to become more and more reliant on foreign sources of energy and importing more and more goods because they're going to be cheaper over there to produce, and our country is going to be in a world of hurt. And that, of course, has so much to do with his economic policy in thinking that it's O.K. to borrow money from other countries to fund this government largesse that he's believing in. It doesn't make any sense. We need to develop responsibly our natural resources of energy here. This will provide the jobs here, the true economic stimulus is developing our domestic, safe supplies of energy here, and Alaska is the place to look to contribute.

And health care?
And health care too. I remember certainly on the campaign trail, John McCain and his ideas — basically, bottom line, allowing businesses to afford to pay for health care, to provide health care and to give employees options, and Obama scoffed at that. His campaign thought that that was ridiculous. It's funny now to hear him kind of go to some of John McCain's ideas. John McCain had some good ideas about bolstering the economy through businesses so that families could afford to pay for health care and making sure that no one was falling through the cracks and not receiving health care. One way you do that is to reduce the corporate tax on our small businesses especially in America. You're going to see Obama increase those taxes on small businesses — whether he admits it today or not, he's going to. One thing reporters aren't asking the Administration is — it's such a simple question and people around here in the real world, outside of Washington, D.C., want reporters to ask — President Obama, how are you going to pay for this $1 [trillion] or $2 [trillion] or $3 trillion health-care plan? How are you going to pay off the stimulus package, those borrowed dollars? How are you going to pay for so many things that you are proposing and you are implementing? Americans deserve to know what the plan is to fund these things, health care included.

Palin's Choice: Inside or Outside?  Palin's choice will likely center upon how she judges she can best advance her issues and cultural agenda.  For now, a government position seems unlikely.  Getting elected to the House of Representatives would make her a junior member in an institution run by the opposition party, dictatorially, in which the minority has no power.  Getting into the Senate would make her a junior member in a club, part of a minority (albeit with some power, unlike in the House), and probably, as happened with Hillary, confined by seniority to junior status, not in the top leadership.

Serving in a GOP administration as Energy Secretary would fit her issue knowledge and experience, but a Democratic Congress could target her using the many weapons Congress has, such as investigations, hearings, etc., to cut her down to size and frustrate her tenure.  The Department of Energy, in the event, has been mostly a backwater during its 33 years of existence.  Better is her being appointed to run an energy independence commission, either by a GOP president, or by a think tank to head a high-profile private effort.

More likely, she will try to use her star power to influence issues from outside: raising funds for favored candidates, speaking out, perhaps hosting a radio or, better yet, with her telegenic looks, a TV show.  From outside, she can control the agenda in ways that an inside position rarely enables holders to do.

Bottom Line. Sarah Palin has a future, to be sure.  Speeches and at least one book are already teed up.  It seems to me inconceivable that she will run in 2012, and probably not even in 2016.  In 2020 she will turn 56.  Meanwhile she will, I think, let most of her children grow into young adulthood, hoping they will be less in the gun-sights of those suffering from Palin Derangement Syndrome.

What has been a ten month soap opera, As Palin Turns, comes now to the silver screen.

LFTC - Global Democracy "Reset"

Former WSJ Moscow's bureau chief Claudia Rosett sees Team Obama in Russia and elsewhere abetting the undermining of the democracy agenda promoted by President Bush.  Obama is so busy apologizing for America's past that he skips the good:

[M]issing from Obama's philosophy is the immense role played by the U.S. America stood for decades as a bulwark of freedom. Americans fought real wars in such places as Korea and Vietnam. Americans kept brilliantly alive a philosophy of democratic government and free markets, which offered a beacon to oppressed people of the world, and exported both ideas and inventions that have vastly enriched mankind.

Obama's eagerness to "reset" relations has led him to overlook ominous trends towards highly illiberal pseudo-democracy--including in Russia:

The legitimacy of genuine democracy is hijacked via concepts such as "sovereign democracy" in Russia, "people's democracy" in China and "religious democracy" in Iran--all homes to state-controlled mass media, especially via the outlet of television. This report notes that the notion of democracy, in this murky landscape, becomes "a semantic shell for each authoritarian ruler to fill as he pleases." Is this what America now proposes to converge and collaborate with?

There is a great deal more illuminating detail in these case studies, but they boil down to a warning that despots of the modern world are already quite busy with their own reset of the global system: "Authoritarian regimes are eroding the international rules and standards built up by the democratic world over the past several decades, threatening to export the instability and abuses that their systems engender." In this setting, what the world needs from America is not a reset button, but a rudder.

CR cites a recent Freedom House/RL/RFA study, "Undermining Democracy" (June 2009), which assesses how the governments of China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Venezuela are using sophisticated strategies and tactics to redefine democracy so as to cloak authoritarian rule.  The study notes, chillingly, that for the first time since Freedom House began compiling the state of human rights globally in 1972, civil liberties have declined globally for three consecutive years.

Highlights of this brilliant, disturbing study follow.  (Sorry for formatting problems in transferring .pdf text; I could nto invest hours fixing them.  It is nonetheless readable.)

General Trends & Common Traits.  Smart tyrannies are using modern technologies and practical tactics to strategically advance illiberal ideas with considerable skill and, consequently, success.  They are: (1) redefining democracy to include undemocratic rule; (2) monitoring the Internet to detect dissenters; (3) using foreign aid to help foreign dictatorships; (4) attacking and undermining international organizations that promote liberal democracy; (5) brainwashing their youth.  Rule is by a dedicated cadre.  While citizens have more access to information and more freedom to travel than in earlier times, they are watched.  So long as they do not challenge the authority of the regime they usually are safe.  But if they do, and fail to respond to persuasion or milder forms of coercion, they may face torture or even be killed: "Loyalists are rewarded, enemies are punished, the neutral are neglected or casually abused, and all of these labels are assigned in an arbitrary and capricious manner."

China: Resilient, Sophisticated Authoritarianism.  China is becoming both model and mentor to other illiberal regimes worldwide.  Its own brand of governance combines economic growth and Han (the majority Chinese ethnic group) chauvinism.  It is vulnerable, should economic growth falter, and fears those chasing under dictatorial rule.

The study explains how education is used to manipulate even China's best and brightest youth:

"An important element in this guidance is the selective erasure of history. The disasters of
late Maoism—the Great Leap famine and the Cultural Revolution—left a powerful legacy
that continues to influence Chinese values and public ethics. (Much of this influence comes
in the form of recoil, from extreme asceticism and public idealism to extreme materialism
and public cynicism, for example.) Yet today it remains difficult or impossible to discuss the
Mao era forthrightly in any public context. In the spectacular review of Chinese history that
formed part of the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the world’s
gaze was led across the ancient dynasties to the triumph of the Communist revolution in
1949, only to skip abruptly to “reform and opening” in the late 1970s. The true history of the
Mao era—like the histories of Tibet, Taiwan, World War II, and the CCP itself—is routinely
airbrushed from textbooks and other media, replaced only by names, dates, and manipula-
tive slogans. Young Chinese today may be very well educated in mathematics, engineering,
or foreign languages and yet live with badly warped understandings of their own country’s
past. Even worse, they could remain entirely unaware of how they have been cheated.

"Thoughtwork is performed through language, and the language it employs would be rec-
ognizable to George Orwell. Political pressure on an individual is called help; the violation of rights is described as the protection of rights; the state controls workers through what
are nominally labor unions; suppressing the Uyghur population is called counterterrorism;
authoritarianism is dubbed democracy; real democracy movements are denounced as coun-
terrevolutionary rebellions; and a system of servile courts is hailed as the rule of law. The
language of CCP thoughtwork adheres to the concept of the Big Lie, a gross falsehood that
is repeated without challenge until it is accepted as truth—or something that, for political
purposes, is just as solid as truth. Political power in China depends upon maintaining a cer-
tain moral pose even if everyone involved knows on some level that the pose is hypocritical."

Iran: Clerical Authoritarianism.  The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the most despotic on the planet.  Its insular leadership cadre competes in "apartheid democracy" elections, while the larger public has no access to power.  Iran, lacking China's economic growth engine, pays out an estimated $70 to $100B annually in subsidies to buy off popular discontent.  The official ideology is aimed at remaking Iranian society:

"In keeping with its pseudo-totalitarian nature, the regime has sought to forge a new
Islamic man or woman—pious, loyal, and xenophobic, particularly with respect to the
United States and Israel. It simultaneously tries to foster a discourse of democracy that
borrows structural elements from the Soviet side of the Cold War ideological debate. It
offers what it calls genuine Islamic democracy, arguing that this form of governance protects
the true interests of the underclass (mostazafan). As with Plato’s philosopher kings and the
visionary leaders of Soviet communism, Iran’s benevolent rulers are said to have access
to higher truths that enable them to govern more successfully than the common man. The
most important of these leaders, of course, is the Valiye-Fagih (Guardian Jurist or Supreme
Leader), whose wisdom and legitimacy are both of divine origin. This ideal “democracy”
is set up in opposition to what the regime dismisses as the bogus, bourgeois democracy of the West, where a liberal veneer covers the despotic nature of a system that caters to the
rich (the mostakbarin, or arrogant ones). The Islamic Republic has deftly used pictures and
reports from the war in Iraq to argue that liberal democracy begets chaos. Similarly, offi -
cially controlled media have celebrated the recent financial crisis as the death knell of liberal
democracy, and Russia’s invasion of Georgia has been touted as the last nail in the coffin of
America’s insidious democracy-promotion scheme."

Because Iran is a "bellwether" state in the Mideast, and seeks to spread its brand of Shia tyranny into majority Sunni states, Saudi Arabia (majority Sunni) has entered into a "veritable cold war" to counter Iranian regional influence.

Pakistan: Semi-Authoritarian, Failed State.  Since the state's 1948 bloody birth, the military and democratic elements have been at odds, with clerics joining the anti-democratic forces.  Pakistani society is riven by continuing civil strife:

"The political class in Pakistan is still dominated by the owners of large landed estates,
who are far from consistent democrats. Their participation in the electoral process is essen-
tially aimed at preserving their traditional power of patronage over a largely poor and illit-
erate rural populace. All efforts at land reform based on agricultural efficiency and social
justice have fallen foul of this “feudal” class, who have been able to manipulate the system
to their advantage and ensure their continued dominance of political, economic, and social
life in the countryside. 

"The industrial and business sector in Pakistan owes its emergence and prosperity to state
largesse. Such a “hothouse” entrepreneurial class lacks the political vision and economic inde-
pendence to support democracy, the optimal political infrastructure for the growth of private
commerce. There is no evidence that any signifi cant part of this class has ever resisted military
intervention or dominance of the political agenda. They are clearly wedded to an authoritarian
dispensation, so long as their links to the state are intact and their short-term profi ts are secure.

"The class of mullahs has its own agenda: to ensure that there is no deviation from what
has incrementally become the leitmotif of Pakistan: an Islamic state that is theoretically
founded on the principles enunciated in the Koran and the Sunnah. Starting from General
Zia ul-Haq’s period in power (1977–88), the decade of the 1980s saw a mushroom growth
of madrassas (religious schools or seminaries) funded largely by Saudi donations. When
Pakistan was founded in 1947, there were only 189 madrassas in the country, divided between
various competing schools of Islamic jurisprudence. By 2002, however, there were between
10,000 and 13,000 unregistered madrassas with 1.7 to 1.9 million students. In 2008, one
estimate put the number of madrassas at over 40,000. This bumper crop of religious schools
with a particular ideological bent produced generations of jihadi extremists among the mil-
lions of Afghan refugees on Pakistani soil (from whom the Taliban eventually emerged),
but also among Pakistani youth who undertook such training. Today’s suicide bombers, and
arguably the fl ow of fresh recruits who replace them, owe their origins to these seminaries.

"In addition to traditional Islamic teaching, the madrassa curriculums in question tend to
inculcate a rejection of anything to do with “the West,” and a narrow interpretation of their
school of jurisprudence that tends to strengthen (violent) religious sectarianism.
Given these illiberal forces within the ruling classes, the holding of elections and the
lip service to democracy in Pakistan’s political discourse appear insufficient to nudge the
country toward a state built on genuine democratic principles. A transformation of that kind
would require an unprecedented popular mobilization to shake off the benighted defenders
of the status quo."

Russia: Selective Capitalism and Kleptocracy.  Russia tyranny has taken a distinct shape:

"The core characteristics of Russian authoritarianism in its post-Soviet maturity are
selectively capitalist kleptocracy, the dominance of informal influence groups, decorative
democracy, and illiberal ideology. Together, these elements form an effective mechanism for
maintaining elite control over a disempowered populace."

Russia is a case of popular democratic revolution (1991) hijacked by ruling elites, and approaching foreign policy in 19th century fashion:

"A transition did take place, but it was not to the hoped-for liberal democracy grounded
in a free-market economy and the rule of law. Instead, it was a shift from the failing yet
still functional bureaucratic authoritarianism of the late-Soviet period to a fl ashier, more
footloose authoritarianism that rests on selectively capitalist kleptocracy, the dominance
of informal influence groups, a decorative democracy that is often described as “man-
aged,” and officially encouraged attempts to create a new and profoundly illiberal ideol-
ogy with mass appeal. This system began to take shape under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, matured under Vladimir Putin in the 2000s, and received a tremendous shot in the arm as
oil prices rose and the Kremlin’s coffers swelled. The regime has developed an elaborate
and mostly effective toolbox of repressive and manipulative measures for maintaining
domestic control, a conceptual vocabulary for faking democracy, and a series of strategies
for wielding international influence.

"The world’s democracies must navigate the shoals of this system’s contradictions as
they fashion policies toward Russia along three major axes. The first is the advancement of
common interests. These are few, as Russia’s ruling elite, whatever rhetorical flourishes it
may occasionally adopt for foreign ears, views the world in terms of 19th-century territorial
spheres of influence, approaches international relations as a zero-sum game, and has staked
much of its legitimacy—more than most outside observers seem to realize—on opposition to
an American bogeyman, a “West” that is allegedly bent on Russia’s destruction. The second
axis is a response to the threats Russia poses to its neighbors. These are numerous, ranging
from the encouragement of dictatorial regimes and the export of high-level corruption, to
political meddling and even military intervention in countries deemed by the Kremlin to
have misbehaved. Finally, the third axis is an attempt to mitigate the danger of systemic
failure in Russia itself. This possibility is quite real, and its occurrence will be difficult to
predict or prevent."

The state uses schools and media to inculcate its message:

"The Kremlin deploys the conceptual vocabulary of the new Russia—national renewal, nos-
talgia, anti-Western xenophobia, sovereign democracy—through a sophisticated domestic
communications strategy that marshals both the traditional resources of the state and much-
expanded control over virtually all mainstream mass media.11 This one-two punch, coming
amid a period of rising prosperity after a disastrous decade, has had a significant impact on
popular opinion, and the Kremlin’s message has resonated with its intended recipients.

"The traditional resources of the state include official pronouncements, the restoration of
Soviet symbols, adjustments to school curriculums, the establishment of a ruling party, and
the creation of youth movements. In 2005, Putin stressed in his “state of the nation” address
to parliament that Russia “will decide for itself the pace, terms, and conditions of moving
towards democracy”; he used the same speech to describe the collapse of the Soviet Union
as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. By that time, the familiar
strains of the Soviet national anthem were sounding once again at official gatherings (with
updated words penned by the author of the 1943 and 1977 versions). New history textbooks
and manuals for teachers laud Joseph Stalin, gloss over the murderous legacy of Soviet
communism, and represent the Putin era as a restoration of greatness that is imperiled by the
evil designs of Russia’s enemies. United Russia has a lock on the rubber-stamp parliament
and tentacles throughout the power structure. And a number of youth movements, funded
directly or indirectly by the Kremlin, act as capillaries to bring new blood into the elite,
cudgels to cow opponents, and bullhorns to blare approved messages. While the fate of this
enterprise is now unclear in light of reduced oil prices and a global economic crisis to which
Russia seems particularly vulnerable, it remains a signal accomplishment of the regime.

"Mainstream mass media, from nationwide television stations to major newspapers, are
now either under direct state control or owned by Kremlin-friendly business magnates. Violence against irksome reporters is routine, and a number of critical journalists, of whom
Anna Politkovskaya is the best known abroad, have been murdered with seeming impunity
in recent years. The official message resounds most clearly on television, where dissenting
voices are blacklisted; newspapers enjoy somewhat more freedom, but with the balance
clearly in favor of the Kremlin. Where the state does not have direct control, proxies like
Gazprom-Media, which owns television networks, radio stations, and newspapers, perform a
similar function, although they sometimes allow their holdings a longer leash, as Gazprom-
Media does with radio station Ekho Moskvy.

"The internet at first glance appears to contradict the rule, with independent voices readily
available in some outlets, and even flourishing on blogs. Yet cyberspace is also the focus of
increasing manipulation, with a vast array of Kremlin-funded websites promoting illiberal
ideologies and regime-friendly forces stepping up their ownership of key infrastructure, like
hosting sites for bloggers. And if web-based new media in functioning democracies have
improved access to information and forced mainstream media to become more competi-
tive, docile mainstream media in Russia simply ignore inconvenient online revelations and
discussions, cutting off the cycle of feedback and response that has enlivened the press and
enhanced accountability elsewhere."

Russia's influence is buoyed by petrodollars, and thus susceptible to reversal if oil prices again plummet and stay low.

Venezuela: Petro-Politics and the Promotion of Disorder.  Hugo Chavez has sent petrodollars abroad--frequently, though, without attaching strings, and thus often promoting merely corruption and disorder:

"Since taking power in 1999, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías has managed to con-
vert a frail but nonetheless pluralistic democracy into a semi-authoritarian regime. Certain
freedoms continue to exist, and elections are still held, but the system of checks and balances
has become inoperative. The government rarely negotiates with opposition forces, the state
insists on undermining the autonomy of civil society, the law is invoked mostly to penalize
opponents and never to curtail the government, and the electoral field is uneven, with the
ruling party making use of state resources that are systematically denied to the opposition.

"These conditions are all typical of electoral autocracies. However, the Venezuelan regime
also seems to rely on a practice that is more peculiar to Chavismo, as the Chávez phenom-
enon is commonly known, or at least to a small subset of semi-authoritarian states: the pro-
motion of disorder. Whereas many nondemocratic governments—such as those in Russia,
China, and Saudi Arabia—seek political legitimacy by attempting to deliver order, the rulers
of Venezuela and their ilk do nothing to stop lawlessness. Consequently, ordinary citizens
live in fear of random crime, oppositionists face targeted attacks by thugs, and businesses
are subject to violence by government-sponsored labor groups. This intimidation through
third parties, rather than through direct state pressure alone, helps to discourage collective
action by regime opponents. It also produces discontent, but not among the protected class
of Chavistas."

Chavez uses three tactics to amass power: smash the middle, politicize social services, mobilize "new" voters.  He subsidizes groups lavishly, augments same with off-budget funding, uses the military to consolidate control and censors speech.  Anti-Americanism plus anti-Saudi petro-politics are part of a rogue state along the style of 1961-1989 Cuba.  Social spending abroad is a foreign policy tool aimed at spreading influence and co-opting foreign intellectuals.  Alliances with Iran, Russia and China round out the picture.

By destroying term limits, Chavez eliminated the constitutional safeguard that many Latin American democracies adopted, because of their history of military dictatorship.  Chavez's motto is that of one caudillo (Spanish for "military leader"): "For my friends, everything...for my enemies, the law."

Bottom Line. A sad truism about technology is that it is often value-neutral: It may equally be used by the best and the worst--for noble and evil purposes alike.  The fax machine helped free Eastern Europe in 1989 and Russia in 1991.  A globalized Internet helped liberate Ukraine and Georgia in 2004, and Lebanon in 2005.  Twitter (using the Internet) helped Iranian protesters.

But the tyrants that are in power today have learned from the past.  Sclerotic, clueless tyrannies have been replaced by steely, clued-in regimes.  The post-9/11 script was that, as Bush 43 said, "the day of the dictator is over."  Especially with an America under a President who eschews democracy promotion, a gives only token comfort to dissenters while preferring negotiations over pressure in dealing with tyrants, the day of the dictator, it seems, is far from over.

LFTC - Index 7/9/09

4 posts: (1) Obama's Czars: Who's Counting?--The Home Front; (2) Cyberwar Creams Our Government--Us v. Them; (3) IRAN: Conflict Within, Concern Without--Us v. Them; (4) America's Natural Gas Bonanza--"It's the Earth Stupid!"

LFTC - Obama's Czars: Who's Counting?

The latest count of czars created by the White House is 32--twice the 16 Russian Romanov Dynasty Tsar total for 284 years.  All this in less than six months.  Figure that 32 czars appointed every 162 days carries out for the entire 1,441 days of the Obama administration, and you get, yep, 285 czars--ONE FOR EVERY YEAR OF THE ENTIRE ROMANOV DYNASTY 1633-1917, if we count year zero 1633 in addition to the 284 normal duration tally.

LFTC - Cyberwar Creams Our Government

North Korea is suspected of launching a massive cyberwar strike--"cyber" refers to "cyberspace," a term coined for interconnected computer networks, and now applied to the global Internet.  The cyber-strike disabled computer networks, including the Secret Service, Pentagon, State, Treasury, NASDAQ, and yes, the White House.  Because cyber-attackers often route through remote computers to disguise the origin location they can be hard to trace all the way to the source.  Heritage Foundation national security scholar Peter Brookes assesses the North's cyber-capability.  More than 100 nations have some cyberwar resources.

Cyberspace can be used, broadly speaking, for three types of attacks: (1) attacks that take down communications networks--such as the "denial of service" strikes this week that shut down network connectivity and slowed residual network access to a crawl; (2) attacks that use cyberspace to attack other infrastructures--such as the electric grid, dams; (3) attacks that use cyberspace to send harmful content aimed at vulnerable populations--such as militant Islamist groups seeking to recruit jihadists via Internet website.  N.B., two of three types of cyber-attack don't try to take cyberspace networks down, but rather to keep them working, but then misuse them.

Networks are increasingly accessible, global, programmable and fragile.  Because they are widely accessible, anyone can gain access to the public network given a device and connection capable of doing so.  Because they are global in reach, cyberwar can reach almost anyone, anytime, anywhere; they are susceptible to "cascade failure"--damage at a single node can spread through an entire network.  Because they are programmable, skilled malicious users--hackers, in common parlance--can gain access to network control assets and use the network to inflict vast harm.  And because they are fragile, networks can prove hard to rapidly restore.

Rogue nations can use cyberwar as an added weapon in their arsenal.  Russia did so in attacking Estonia in May 2007.  China spies on us daily.  And now, North Korea, possibly, has joined those ranks.

Bottom Line.  Cyber-attacks are a daily occurrence.  Networks are a Faustian Bargain: On the plus side, they provide vast connectivity to vital services at low cost; on the downside, they are highly vulnerable.  They are thus like leverage in the financial system: lots of fun when working well, lots of pain when not working well, or when not working at all.

LFTC - IRAN: Conflict Within; Concerns Without

A New York Times front-pager reports intensifying conflict inside the regime's leadership cadre.  Forces pressing for representative government are not the only ones facing down the clerical fascist core:

From the beginning, both have vied for an upper hand, and today both are tarnished. In postelection Iran, there is growing unease among many of the nation’s political and clerical elite that the very system of governance they rely on for power and privilege has been stripped of its religious and electoral legitimacy, creating a virtual dictatorship enforced by an emboldened security apparatus, analysts said.

Among the Iranian president’s allies are those who question whether the nation needs elected institutions at all.

Most telling, and arguably most damning, is that many influential religious leaders have not spoken out in support of the beleaguered president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Indeed, even among those who traditionally have supported the government, many have remained quiet or even offered faint but unmistakable criticisms.

According to Iranian news reports, only two of the most senior clerics have congratulated Mr. Ahmadinejad on his re-election, which amounts to a public rebuke in a state based on religion. A conservative prayer leader in the holy city of Qum, Ayatollah Ibrahim Amini, referred to demonstrators as “people” instead of rioters, and a hard-line cleric, Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi, called for national reconciliation.

Some of Iran’s most influential grand ayatollahs, clerics at the very top of the Shiite faith’s hierarchy who have become identified with the reformists, have condemned the results as a fraud and the government’s handling of the protests as brutal. On Saturday, an influential Qum-based clerical association called the new government illegitimate.

But Ali Khamenei & Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and their few clerical allies still control the security apparatus.  The roots of the conflict go back 30 years, and after the Ayatollah Khomeini's death conflict widened, apparently resolved in 2005, but now re-ignited in 2009:

To understand the nature of the conflict, it is essential to look back to the founding of the republic. Ayatollah Khomeini built on two different and often contradictory principles, one of public accountability and one of religious authority. To tie it all together, Ayatollah Khomeini imported a centuries-old religious idea, called velayat-e faqih, or governance of the Islamic jurist. Shiite Muslims believe that they are awaiting the return of the 12th Imam, and under this religious concept the faqih, or supreme leader, serves in his place as a sort of divine deputy.

From the start, there were intense disagreements over how this idea should work. Those conflicts, though, were muted partly by Ayatollah Khomeini’s exalted status, and by a unity forged by an eight-year war with Iraq. When the war ended and Ayatollah Khomeini died, the conflicts erupted. On one side, many clerics once close to Ayatollah Khomeini, including former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, wanted to emphasize the republican aspect of the state without eliminating the special role of the supreme leader. Mohammad Khatami, a midlevel cleric, was elected president on a reform platform.

But Mr. Khatami’s ability to carry out his policies was blocked by hard-liners who saw his vision of Iran as a threat to their interests. Then in 2005, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s election ended the Khatami era. Indeed, in what Iranians saw as a telling gesture, Mr. Ahmadinejad kissed the hand of Ayatollah Khamenei after he was elected. Mr. Ahmadinejad was first elected in a race also shadowed by charges of vote rigging, which were dropped in the name of national unity.

“The events of the June 2009 elections in Iran have largely stripped the Islamic republic of Iran of its republican claim and completed the process that was initiated by the presidential elections of 2005,” said Rasool Nafisi, a professor at Strayer University who follows events in Iran.

Ahmadinejad, for his part, praised Iran's June elections as the "freest" and "healthiest" in the world.  Amir Taheri reports that Iran's embattled leaders are blaming an international conspiracy, with (who else?) the Great Satan at its core.

Hudson Institute President Herb London sees appeasement in "engagement" of Iran by Team Obama, and notes its consequences in the real world:

It appears that engagement is talk and more talk. Even the much discussed stringent sanctions on refined petroleum seem like empty palaver, yet another example of wishful thinking without allied support or emotional muscle.

Of course, this raises the awkward question of what talk ultimately means. If all we offer are words that threaten or encourage, words that offend or endear, but are not backed by serious policy options, the verbal exercise is meaningless.

Some have described “soft power,” diplomatic encouragement, as critical to our interests. But this power is beyond soft when the words aren’t supported with action; it is marshmallow power. You can push it, bend it or discard it, for in the end it doesn’t have any bearing on the actions of an opponent.

To engage is to be involved, interlocked. But the Obama administration is participating in a one-way arrangement. It is asking Iran to comply with our desire. Iranian leaders dictate the nature of these so-called exchanges. If the talk is useful as a cover for the further enrichment of uranium, it continues. If the talk is seen as repudiation for violent police tactics on the street, it is rejected. In the face of this direct exchange, the U.S. is actually without real options.

SecState Hillary stated that more sanctions might be in the offing if Iran negotiations fail.  Times Online columnist Rosemary Righter calls for tough action now, and open support for Iran's democracy movement; she notes that since 1979 some 5 million Iranians have spent jail time (roughly ten times America's incarceration rate).  JCS Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen said time is running out on the Iran nuclear clock; the admiral recently told a Washington think tank that Iran would likely have a nuclear weapon in one to 3 years.  Eli Lake reports that Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu has concluded it is futile to seek Team Obama's permission to attack Iran.  Ace Bush 43 diplomat John Bolton sees a 2009 Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities as an 80-90% proposition (audio 7:48)--this being the logical consequence of failed negotiations and inadequate sanctions.

Bottom Line.  The nuclear clock on Iran is indeed ticking, and there is no reason to think that Israel is counting on either Team Obama success or getting their permission.  As negotiations stand zero real-world chance of succeeding, and as super-strong sanctions are highly unlikely to be acceptable to Europeans, the Israeli Air Force needs to refine its plans.

LFTC - America's Natural Gas Bonanza?

America is sitting on reserves of 2 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas (the website NG video is 6:46), according to T. Boone Pickens.  Natural gas powered buses are in service now--96 percent of Fort Worth's buses run on it, and DC has 164 NG buses.  One garbage truck converted from diesel to NG is the equivalent of taking 325 cars off the road.  There are 10M NG vehicles in the world but only 142,000 in America.  Pickens calls NG a "bridge" fuel until electric power takes over, but says we can free ourselves from foreign oil dependence in 30 years.  Sarah Palin visited Pickens--video (1:00); Boone said Palin knows a lot about energy.

LFTC - Index 7/8/09

6 posts: (1) Palin Auguries: Paying Bills--The Home Front; (2) Mid-Year Economic Auguries: Ill--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (3) Health Care Augury: Nasty NICE--The Home Front; (4) Climate Change Augury: Cooling?--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (5) China Auguries: Turmoil--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (6) Michael Jackson's Ultimate Fans: Fred & Frank--Class & Crass.

LFTC: Palin Auguries: Paying Bills

More detail on why Sarah Palin parted is supplied by an ace political reporter.  John Fund's WSJ piece today fills out the picture of what harassment did to her ability to govern.  If in 9 months since being nominated for VP, Governor Palin was hit with 150 FOIA requests and 15 bogus ethics complaints costing her $500k to date (1 or 2 more are pending), in the remaining 18 months of her term, using simple arithmetic, by staying in office Governor Palin would face 300 more FOIA and at least 30 more ethics complaints costing her at least $1M of money not reimbursed by the state.  Now factor in that Palin must pay with after-tax income and that she will be in the top bracket of Obama Tax Land.

Alaska law does not pick up the tab even when the complaint is baseless and the target exonerated.  Add to that insults directed at even her pre-teen children and you get the picture.  As Fund notes, Palin had been considering resigning for months due to the ethics harassment, even curtailing public appearances because they would trigger harassment. Palin herself is, of course, fair game, but would Letterman have gotten away describing any Democratic female as having that "slutty flight attendant look"?

Bottom Line.  Governors need not commit financial or familial reputational suicide to stay in office.

LFTC - Mid-Year Economic Auguries: Ill

Begin with Robert Samuelson's diagnosis as to why nearly all America's 13,000 economists missed the financial meltdown: (1) few economists study the arcana of financial markets; (2) few economists study inelegant history, instead taking intellectual refuge in elegant mathematical models.  Financial journalist Michael Lewis profiles an AIG exec who played a central role in the financial crash.

A Wall Street Journal editorial looks at the unemployment numbers released last Thursday, and sees an unlovely picture.  The New York Times reports that oil price volatility imperils recovery.  "Black Swan" author Naim Nicholas Taleb sees a depression underway.  In a June 30 speech Janet Yellen, President & CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, sees a long period with stagnant economic growth.

An economics professor looks at mortgage evidence and blames foreclosures, not subprime, for the housing meltdown.  Robert Laubach, senior economist at the Federal Reserve, anticipated in a 2003 paper, New Evidence on the Interest Rate Effects of Deficits and Debt (21 pages), the debt bomb America now faces.

Bottom Line.  "Grren shoots," meet "Rosy Scenario," and have a lovely day.

LFTC - Health Care Augury: Nasty NICE

A Wall Street Journal editorial shows how England's NICE bureaucrats will ration care not so nicely.  WSJ editors write:

The British officials who established NICE in the late 1990s pitched it as a body that would ensure that the government-run National Health System used "best practices" in medicine. As the Guardian reported in 1998: "Health ministers are setting up [NICE], designed to ensure that every treatment, operation, or medicine used is the proven best. It will root out under-performing doctors and useless treatments, spreading best practices everywhere."

What NICE has become in practice is a rationing board. As health costs have exploded in Britain as in most developed countries, NICE has become the heavy that reduces spending by limiting the treatments that 61 million citizens are allowed to receive through the NHS.

WSJ editors add detail on how decisions are made:

We could go on. NICE is the target of frequent protests and lawsuits, and at times under political pressure has reversed or watered-down its rulings. But it has by now established the principle that the only way to control health-care costs is for this panel of medical high priests to dictate limits on certain kinds of care to certain classes of patients.

The NICE board even has a mathematical formula for doing so, based on a "quality adjusted life year." While the guidelines are complex, NICE currently holds that, except in unusual cases, Britain cannot afford to spend more than about $22,000 to extend a life by six months. Why $22,000? It seems to be arbitrary, calculated mainly based on how much the government wants to spend on health care. That figure has remained fairly constant since NICE was established and doesn't adjust for either overall or medical inflation.

Proponents argue that such cost-benefit analysis has to figure into health-care decisions, and that any medical system rations care in some way. And it is true that U.S. private insurers also deny reimbursement for some kinds of care. The core issue is whether those decisions are going to be dictated by the brute force of politics (NICE) or by prices (a private insurance system).

The last six months of life are a particularly difficult moral issue because that is when most health-care spending occurs. But who would you rather have making decisions about whether a treatment is worth the price -- the combination of you, your doctor and a private insurer, or a government board that cuts everyone off at $22,000?

Read the entire editorial for more grim detail.

Then read this New York Times front-pager recounting to-and-fro between interest groups, the White House and 44's HC allies in Congress.  Here is one nugget:

Over the past year, Mr. Baucus, Democrat of Montana, has strong-armed industry groups, warning them not to publicly criticize the process if they want to stay in negotiations.

Mr. Baucus, in turn, has said little about his talks with industry players. On Tuesday, he said only that he was “heartened” by how many groups were supporting the health care overhaul.

Question of the Day: If this is how your friendly federal government conducts negotiations with constituent groups, how much sympathy will you get from HC bureaucrats when seeking coverage?

Bottom Line.  All HC systems ration care, as resources are never infinite and demand is nearly so.  Political rationing will favor constituent groups and those with great political power.  Economic rationing will, if unleavened by remedial assistance to those of limited economic means, allocate care to those with purchasing power.

The difference, though, is that by providing people with subsidies in one form or another, we can augment purchasing power to narrow gaps.  Full economic equality is not affordable anywhere on the planet.  The risk is that Team Obama successfully sells a public system, based upon a leveling down of economic differences.  For levelers, it is better that all be equally poor than that all are more prosperous, with some more prosperous than others.

LFTC - Climate Change Augury: Cooling?

New York City experienced in 2009 its coldest June since 1958.  OK, it's not proof.  But neither was the scorching summer of 1988 proof of global warming, as Al Gore, James Hansen and friends were saying.  Sauce for the global warming goose is sauce for the global cooling gander....

Yet leave us give due process for the climate change crowd.  Here is Tony Blair's "Seven Ways to Build a Cleaner Planet" article.  The seven ways TB proposes:

"The good news is that if we focus on clear, practical, and achievable goals, major reductions can be made in order to ensure that, whatever the precise interim target, the world will fashion a radical new approach within a manageable timeframe. A new report from the Breaking the Climate Deadlock project, a strategic partnership between my office and The Climate Group, shows how major reductions even by 2020 are achievable if we focus action on certain key technologies, deploy policies that have been proven to work, and invest now in developing those future technologies that will take time to mature.

"Perhaps the most interesting fact to emerge is that fully 70 per cent of the reductions needed by 2020 can be achieved by investing in three areas: increasing energy efficiency, reducing deforestation, and use of lower-carbon energy sources, including nuclear and renewables. Implementing just seven proven policies - renewable energy standards (say, feed-in tariffs or renewable portfolio standards); industry efficiency measures; building codes; vehicle efficiency standards; fuel carbon content standards; appliance standards, and policies for reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation - can deliver these reductions.

"All seven policies have already been successfully implemented in countries around the world, but they need scaling up. While cap-and-trade systems or other means of pricing carbon emissions can help provide incentives for businesses to invest in low-carbon solutions, in the short term at least, these seven policy measures - and direct action and investment by governments - are needed to achieve the targets.

"In the longer term, we also need technologies such as carbon capture and storage, expanded nuclear power, and new generations of solar energy, together with the development of technologies whose potential or even existence is still unknown. The important thing for Copenhagen is that decisions are taken now for investments that will yield benefits later.

"For example, the overwhelming majority of new power stations in China and India - necessary to drive the industrialisation that will lift hundreds of millions out of poverty - will be coal-fired. That is just a fact. So developing carbon capture or an alternative that allows coal to become clean energy is essential for meeting the 2050 goal. But we need to invest now, seriously and through global collaboration, so that by 2020 we are in a position to scale up carbon capture or be ready to deploy other alternatives.

"Renaissance of nuclear power will require a big expansion of qualified scientists and engineers. Electric vehicles will need large adjustments to infrastructure. Smart grid systems can enable big savings in emissions, but require a plan for putting them into effect. These measures will take time, but require investment now. Meanwhile, in the short term, low energy lighting and efficient industrial motors may sound obvious, but we are nowhere near using them as extensively as we could."

At least TB is a Smart Green.  He wants nuclear power to play a role, and pushes carbon capture.  Be grateful for small things.

Bottom Line.  Obviously, as noted at the start of this posting, single months do not prove anything--other than having fun at Al Gore's expense.  But we have, as LFTC has noted, seen a cooling decade, after a three-decade warming period.  So as climate change hawks push for trillions of carbon-emission investment as the global economy faces possibly a decade-long funk, perhaps we should hedge our climate expense bets.

LFTC - China Auguries: Turmoil

Pundit David Brooks compares two views of China offered last week at an Aspen Institute confab.  China maven Gordon Chang sees a coming trade war with China, as globalization reverses and the American & Chinese economies decouple.  The salience of trade in China's economy makes President Hu Jintao's decision to depart the G-8 meeting In Italy and return home a sure sign of how serious the ethnic unrest in Xinjiang is viewed in Beijing.

Here are the New York Times Uighur riot report and Wall Street Journal report on the riots.  Radio Free Asia report that Han Chinese started the violence by storming dorms and beating Uighur students.  Here is a France24 video (0;57) report on the violence.  The Guardian's John Gittings sees Uighurs reaching a boiling point over Beijing's ethnic discrimination.  One professor from Shanghai writes in Asia Times that the violence reflects the end of Mao Zedong's vision of class unity preventing ethnic conflict, as the economic gap between Han Chinese and marginalized minorities grows.

Bottom Line.  Han China has no solution for discrimination.  Expect ethnic violence to continue to periodically flare up.

LFTC - Michael Jackson's Ultimate Fans: Fred & Frank

I learned yesterday, from a source who knows vastly more than I do about Michael Jackson, that two of the all-time greats admired Jackson's talent: Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra.  Jackson dedicated his 1988 memoir, Moonwalk, to Astaire.  Herewith the quotes:

“Oh, God! That boy moves in a very exceptional way. That’s the greatest dancer of the century”. - Fred Astaire

“I didn’t want to leave this world without knowing who my descendant was. Thank you Michael!”- Fred Astaire (shortly before his death)

“The only male singer who I’ve seen besides myself and who’s better than me – that is Michael Jackson.” – Frank Sinatra

Bottom Line.  Michael Jackson's life was a ghastly mess, with much that we understandably turn away from.  But the above quotes come from two all-time legends of America's Golden Artistic Era.  Neither was known to dispense praise casually nor were they fond of what came after the era they shaped.  Their work Jackson studied, albeit producing radically different artistic product.  So, MJ was indeed a titanic talent.  My source sent me this 1988 Jackson video (10:15); it shows what Fred & Frank were talking about.  Here is the famous 1984 Billie Jean (4:54).

Michael Jackson's music & dance were not my cup of, shall we say, tea.  But great talent is just that.  Ten days of saturation news coverage I could have done without.  And as I posted on LFTC after MJ died, the murdered Iranian martyr Neda Agha Soltan is potentially vastly more significant, if she catalyzes forces that bring down Iran's revolutionary fascist theocracy.  But talent is talent, and Jackson was TALENT.