Rouille

Letter to the Editor
by Sharon Underwood, Sunday, April 30, 2000
from the Valley News (White River Junction, VT/Hanover, NH)

As the mother of a gay son, I've seen firsthand how cruel and misguided people can be.

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people.

I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda "could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving...to be better human beings than we are?"

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

posted by Jerome a Paris # 14:14 (0) comments

30.5.04

A policy against terrorism

We really, really need to take a hard look at our energy policies.

Our (again, "we" in here means the West, led by the US) oil policies have been supply-driven: get the oil out of the ground and onto the markets.

Early on, it was easy, the US was the largest producer and the biggest exporter. Then production elsewhere started; BigOil took care of it and kept most of the revenues. Then the producing countries started to ask for a share of the pie, in many cases nationalised their industry, or forced a much more favorable (for them) sharing of the pie. As they exercised a bigger control on the industry locally, it was decided to try to exert influence over these governments in more or less subtle ways.
The result has been pretty pathetic: a series of corrupt, unpopular governments, cut off from their population. They would try to buy off the population in good oil revenue years, but this is addictive; when you are given money, you get used to it and you are unhappy if it stops. If oil prices go down, the economy goes south and the population is pissed. As they have not had to work for a living previously, nothing can replace the missing goodies. In the meantime, the elite is obviously, sometimes obcenely wealthy with money with a distinct US smell...

The population associates corruption with the West and with any economic downturn. The only people providing social services and care are the religious guys; they also provide a visible contrast in morality and ethics, and they are a safe way to be involved in a movement indirectly critical of the corrupt regime.
The Israel-Palestine issue only inflames things further (this with the complicity of the regimes, happy to divert attention from theit own domestic problems and responsibilities)

All these tendencies are starkest in SA and can explain the rise of AQ.

To fight Islamic terrorism, we need to cut off these links.

1) We do not need friendly regimes to get the oil. They need to export it and they WILL sell it at the market price. "Enemy" providers are often the most reliable, see the Soviet Union in the 70s and 80s. They do not have money to do the necessary investments; this can be provided by the West and will allow some participation for our own industries and companies.

2) as a consequence, we do not need to support all these corrupt regimes. All we should care about is stability, where we can actually help (by opening markets, preventing international conflicts, offering help) and who knows what they will get to internally (maybe even democracy?!)

3) the next step is that Islam should stop being the sole political opposition within these countries. With the current situation, this is of course easier said than done. The situation in SA, as discussed in the above posts, show that religion and power are intertwined in ways that are not easy to describe and will not be easy to undo.

4) altogether, we should interfere less. I am not sure that it has been very useful in the end. Some of the biggest suppliers, like Iran and Russia, are quite hostile to outside intervention/investment/involvement in their energy industries, and yet they are amongst the most reliable exporters

5) on the other hand, we should get international cooperation on track, with much more constraining procedures regarding money laundering, weapons proliferation. This sounds unlikely today, but it would work.

5) to get back to our domestic energy policy. We need to find strategic safety in lessening our dependency on oil. It's not wise politically, it's extremely expensive in military terms, and it's not even good ecologically speaking. Let's spend the same amounts of money on clean forms of energy (I'm involved in wind now, so I push that, but everything else should be developed: biofuels, solar, more hydro, etc - and simple energy savings. I'll keep nuclear (which I also favor) for another discussion...)

6) muscular intervention in Israel/Palestine would also be required. Tell Israel that their policies (especially the land grabs and the permanent show and use of force) are not viable; Tell the Palestinians to focus on improving their lifes instead of trying to drag Israel down with them (invest in education, stop considering suicide bombers as heroes - they are not). Tell the Arab countries to get on with the fact that Israel is and will be there. Tell all to focus on the very long term perspective of Euro-Mediterranean Union (America beware, Africa will be ours too, so could South America!)

I think this would actually be a decent policy against terrorism...

posted by Jerome a Paris # 23:22 (0) comments

It would be a great thing to see Al-Qaeda taking over Saudi Arabia or Pakistan

May I be a bit provocative?

It would be a great thing to see Al-Qaeda taking over Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

Why?

- They have to run things, not break them. terrorism does not sound so good anymore.

- They are in control, so they have something to lose. Terrorists, especially the kind willing to get killed, have nothing to lose. If they have something to lose, we have leverage.

- They have to run a whole country. Any kind of ideology makes it hard to do that. Quickly, realists take over. See Iran 198x; see the USA 2004.

- They run a country. We know how to deter countries and their leaders. Invade them and change the leadership. In the past year, that competence of the US army has not been put in doubt...

- They have nuclear bombs. Deterrence works. See above point.

- They own the oil. So what? They need to sell it. Market rules apply. Western companies have NOT been involved in Saudi oil production for a while anyway.

And the huge plus: their population see that religous theocracy is not very good at running a country (the current regimes are NOT selling themselves as Islamists, despite the application of a strong version of Islam). Islamism is finally deconsidered in the eyes of the population. Again, see Iran.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 11:40 (0) comments

29.5.04

On France

France is a strange country in that, contrary to the opinion of most (including in France), it is probably a much less statist economy than many others. I'll give you some examples:

- Taxes (actually taxes are quite low, but social security fees are very high) are nominally high, but you have many schemes to avoid them;

- French bosses are the best paid worldwide after the US as a ratio to the average worker;

- Big French companies are amongst the most successful in the world; they are usually amongst the wolrd leaders in most sectors (see Total, L'Oréal, Renault, Carrefour, EADS (of course we claim it as French!), Sanofi-Aventis, Lafarge, Michelin, BNP, etc); they are as nimble as any other. Did you know that during the 90s recession, French companies shed employees at the exact same speed as American companies? (it takes more paperwork, but it can be done)

- French administration can be frustrating at times (oh yes!) but it still works pretty well. The State is not seen with as much suspicion as in the US, which means that it can recruit good people who are not ashamed of working there; it is able to plan long term. For instance, some of the land for recently built freeways in the Paris suburbs was reserved 40 years ago. People in government expected then that they might be needed and preempted the land (same thing for Roissy airport, which is the only airport in Western Europe with all the land for expansion it will ever need, all preempted 35 years ago).

- many of the problems mostly come from a noisy core of over-protected people that have a grip on some much-needed good or service which they leverage to their advantage. The archetype of this is the railways people, whose strikes are highly visible and most of the time very effective, and which have made the French railways, although technically wonderful, a financial basket case. The main groups are well-placed civil servants as well as the older, well-unionised members of large companies. What has then happened is that the flexibility of the economy is borne only by the rest, i.e. the young, the old, women, immigrants and employees of smaller companies, instead of being spread around. (Large companies, as well as public services such as the post office, rarely fire people but do not hire anymore; they take temp workers, subcontract, etc, i.e. things that are easily reversible). This is a vicious circle: the protected group see that their kids have trouble finding jobs and need their help, so they fight even harder for their privileges. And the sad thing is that they are right, because if you lose them, you fall off into the second category without much hope of coming back. French govenrments of the past 30 years have not been good at changing this - or even at explianing it.

- despite all this, France created (proportionally of course) as many jobs as the US in the second half of the 90s. As the only large European country with significant population growth, it needs to create more jobs to keep the unemployment rate stable, and it mostly has;

- "libéral" is a dirty word in France - and of course, it means the exact opposite of what it does in the US (it means something like "libertarian" in the US) and nobody can claim to support it. Leftist opinions ("gauchistes") are extraordinarily strong in France, and you cannot do anything against that common wisdom (that capitalism is bad, etc). So the French administration, has done libéralisme by stealth, without public backing and without the public's knowledge. (A bit like Europe has been built: "we know better", with the twist that, being French, we usually actually do! (I jest, but to be honest with you, a good part of me does believe that)) So our economy looks statist but is not completely so - and it still works...

- And the high taxes that are being paid are put to good use (good roads, cheap energy, reasonably good education and healthcare) - which go a long way to explain the above point (that it still works).

- Plus, anyway, we don't care what you think. We have the only Eiffel Tower, the only Mona Lisa and the best wines around... That's probably what annoys the US the most - we really don't care if they're not happy with us.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 21:51 (0) comments

Winners and losers of the Iraq war

I'd like to add one winner to today's mess: Europe, and more precisely Old Europe.

I'll flesh it out later, but the basics are:

- economically. Don't forget the other Bush mess: the US economy is on a totally unsustainable path. The dot-com bubble, instead of bursting, has been replaced by a debt/real estate bubble. This one cannot not burst, because there is nothing to replace it. Interest rates are at the lowest they can go (and will soon go up); private indebtedness is at all time highs (see a previous Billmon post on this, by the way). So you will have a nasty economic crisis in the coming months, a couple of years at most. I see two easy triggers for that: a crash of the dollar or an oil crisis - or both.
Now Europe will obviously suffer if the US goes into a recession, but not so much. Europe's economy is actually quite balanced: its trade is not significantly off balance, its debt position is mostly reasonable and domestic engines (consumption and investment), while not in a great shape, are okay and mostly independent from the US situation. Europe is a lot less dependent on oil than the US, and can rely on some nearby producers (North Africa, Russia) should things turn nasty. (Now that obviously needs to be qualified and/or explained more, but this is not the place for it)

- politically. The Iraq adventure shows (if that was ever needed) that military might does not work against terrorism. We'll have to go back to the wishy-washy, winmpy instruments of international cooperation, diplomacy, bridge building, etc... Europe, especially Old Europe comes out of this crisis with a lot more legitimacy in this respect, which could be put to use. (Now I'm not being naive and saying that France is better than the US in terms of realpolitik and pursuit of its "grandeur", but the point is, France's policy can be improved and channeled by influence from the other Europeans). The world sees the US making war when Europe is bringing into the fold Central European countries (including quite a bit of investment and "nation-building" stuff like the acquis communautaire, is thinking hard about Turkey and is busy building bridges to the Mediterranean countries).
Go back and read Robert Kagan's "Of Power and Paradise". His basic point was that Europe's institutional, peaceful, talkingshop approach to problems, while nice, was hopelessly naive because it worked only as a free-ride on the US military which did all the dirty work of power politics. Well, power politics without the soft power has shown what it can do in all its splendor; maybe the world will be more willing to listen really hard to europe's soft whispers of international rules and economic cooperation.

(Kagan has btw become one of the most vocal critics of Bushco)

So Europe has legitimacy. Can it use it with one voice? If you have followed the debates on the European Constitution, the biggest stumbling blocks until last year where the sharing of power between the "big bigs" (basically Germany and to some extent France) and the "smaller bigs" Poland and Spain). With the change of government in Spain, they are suddenly back in Old Europe, and Poland has not unreasonably decided not to fight this alone. And suddenly the spotlight is on Britain's "red lines", with Blair and Straw, having promised a referendum, suddenly fighting for "national rights" as hard as your average Tory Eurosceptic... We all know where all such fights used to end (with the European train moving forward, the Brits sulking, finally coming around and joining without having influenced how it was actually done). But now, the question "in or out" to the UK (and "in" meaning in the Old Europe version of the EU) is the inevitable outcome of this latest debate.
Either way, Europe will speak in a much louder voice, because it will have a single voice. We all have to hope that the UK voice will be part of the choir, but we'll see.
Russia will NOT be part of the Europe bloc. They do not believe in soft power, and they only have nuisance capacity. Russia does not understand Brussels. Europe-Russia relationships will be mostly limited to the partnership in the natural gas business (where there is strong bilateral co-dependency) and ad hoc discussions on other topics.

- oil stuff. The ironic outcome of the current situation is that BOTH the US and China are shown to be highly vulnerable. The US is in the mess we know, has no available military for a bit of time, but what's left is smack where it worries China most: near the oil fields and on the maritime routes it needs more and more. Yes, China is suddenly discovering - and showing to the whole world - its growing dependency on international trade flows, especially for raw materials and obviously including oil. On top of that, China holds a lot of US debt, which is a double edged sword (the US needs them to keep on holding - and buying - the stuff, but can also devalue the stuff easily). So it's a classic standoff, but neither can do anything crazy or stupid...
Russia and Iran are benefiting from higher prices, but, as always, this is not such a good thing for them in the long run: it allows those in power to avoid needed reforms (why bother when you can buy social peace and prosperity with the oil windfall) and it just postpones problems (until the next price drop, when the population has just gotten used to the new improved standards of consumption and does not want to give them up).
And I am not so sure that having a very, very chaotic neighbor is such a good thing for Iran...

So Europe is no better than it was, it's just that it is not weakened like the others have been. Will it do anything about it? Will ir try to take over from the US. No, of course not. Europe knows that it needs the US. It just wants to be taken seriously and, maybe, maybe, listened to.
War? Been there, done that (quite thoroughly). Colonies? Been there, done that (quite thoroughly as well)... So there is no moral superiority, just the hope that the US can avoid the mistakes that have been done many, many times before.

I think that Europe will bend over backwards to help a new US president who is serious about international law, real cooperation, etc... This will obviously require a strong enough domestic consensus in the US to overcome the hard right's visceral opposition to theses things, which means, once again, that the Democrats must win EVERYTHING (WH, Senate and Congress). Otherwise, there will be no possible agreement, things will muddle along and Europe will just stay on the sidelines until the reality (economic, politic and strategic) washes through in the US.
But being the only stable place in an uncertain world is not such a great thing anyway. Plus, who knows, if AQ are smart enough, they will attack Europe, not the US, before the November election. This would give a boost to Bush while maybe pushing the Europeans to do stupid things of their own...

posted by Jerome a Paris # 13:54 (1) comments

26.5.04

Iraq Future US Options - some Thoughts

QUOTE

Posted by Bernhard (mailto:Bernhard.Horstmann@epost.de) May 25, 2004
11:29 AM

Iraq Future US Options - some Thoughts
(why Kerry will not leave Iraq)

There are quite some positives if the US can stay in Iraq:
- Control (directly or indirectly) of a decent chunk of oil - in a
few years enough to control the swing producer of last resort
- Military (projected) control of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria
through Air Force stationed in Iraq and some few heavy brigades (even
if these can not actually take land, a renewed Iraqi army under US
control could do)
- Through oil control and power projection on the neighbor countries
comes indirect pressure of all countries that depend on Middle East
oil - the main candidates to be pressured are Japan and China

There is quite a price to pay to stay in Iraq:
- there is no way the US can stay in the cities and in direct control
of the government
- the troops thereby will have to be moved to huge posts in the
desert towards the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia (makes
for very unhappy troops)
- the "lines of communication", i.e. the roads to these posts will be
nasty to maintain. The line through Israel and Jordan opens the US to
Israeli blackmail, the line through the Gulf and Kuweit can be
endangered by any Gulf state through Silkworm rockets
- In money the project will cost more than $50 billion per year

Even though the pricetag is high, the strategic advantage that could
be gained is really great.
The US people (in a majority) do not want to scarifice their
lifestyle for peace of mind. If there is a HMMV needed for ever
Hummer - so it be. Any president to demand this, will not be
reelected.
The mood in the US is not yet one of isolationism and given the
steadily rising dependency of the US on other countries will not rise
until a mayor change in the psycological background takes place.

So Kerry will look at the strategic advantage he will neglect the
cost (they are longterm), he will look at the chances to be reelected
and if nothing extrodinary shocking and mood changing happens, he
will try to find a "compromise" with the Iraqis and keep a division
in the desert without realy caring what happens to the Iraqi people.

Sad story - but the neocons did win this one

UNQUOTE

I found this an interesting post, because it shows how terribly pessimistic we have all become, and how our expectations have been lowered, following almost three years of impending doom.

Bernhard's points are valid, but they describe a situation of de facto preparation for World War III. As I wrote in previous posts on Billmon (which can be found here), physical control of the oil matters only in a situation of war, when the usual rules of commerce do not apply.

The strange thing is that this scenario is "positive" in the sense that the correct strategic long term threat to the US is correctly identified: China. Iraq has nothing to do with Islamic terrorism in that scenario, it's all about oil and a future confrontation with energy-hungry China. 9/11 is just a convenient excuse. But while the enemy is correctly identified, the tools to "fight" it are typical of the neo-cons and their zero-sum games: prepare for military confrontation. In that context, democracy, soft power, international law are just nuisances or worse, signs of "weakness".

If Kerry comes out of the zero-sum game mindset, things can and will improve. The problem, to the annoyance of many of you, is that he CANNOT make that case publicly, because he would be accused of "weakness", lack of resolve, etc... So at this point we do not know if he intends to come out of that scenario or not. But we have to hope he will (change the mindset). As has been written before, I think the Europeans really will make extra big efforts to help Kerry succeed. We all know that Iraq is a disaster for everybody, which now (that it has been created) needs to be addressed. It just does not seem possible to do anything with Bush and his crew around.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 17:17 (0) comments

Why do people dislike America?

Why do people dislike America?

This is a text written by Matthew Maly, an Ukrainian-american who has extremely interesting views on Russia, the US and the institutions and culture of both. I highly recommend his site.

Johnson's Russia List #6593, 9 December 2002

From an article that appeared in the JRL a few days ago, we learned that according to the survey of 44 countries done by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, "the United States is falling out of favor in 19 of 27 countries where a trend could be identified". As could be expected, this trend reflects anxiety over a possible war with Iraq and the resulting animosity of the Muslim countries. Yet, while the survey indeed found that the dislike of America was greatest in the Muslim countries (from 59 to 75%), citizens of Canada, France Britain, and Germany were also not all that keen on the US. What could be the reasons for that? Why did 67 percent of Germans and 71 percent of the French say that to spread American ideas and customs would be "bad"?

America has pioneered a new social technology: it increasingly advocates win/win as the best possible mode of human interaction. Other countries are still firmly based on a win/lose or even on a lose/lose. Win/lose is best if you are a winner, because a win is not as sweet if there is no loser. In England and France, where the notion of class is still very strong, the upper classes correctly think that in a win/win society they would find it much harder to maintain control and would lose their privileges. On the other hand, many in England and France proudly identify themselves with lower classes, workers, peasants, or shopkeepers, and keep to their stature in life. By contrast, in America a farmer's child would think nothing of applying, and being accepted, to Harvard.

Thus, when America proclaims a win/win foreign policy, it is being misunderstood in Europe as Europe is not yet a win/win continent. Europeans try to build a society that is stable and mutually considerate, but not by any means equal. A Norwegian King is known to ride a bus with simple workers, but it does not mean that the King pretends to be a worker, or that the workers are under any illusion that they are equal to the King. On the contrary, the difference in status is so obvious that there is no longer a need for a crown or a gilded carriage, as everyone understands their respective position. Doormen are treated without overt disrespect, but are not invited to the table. Thus, Europeans tend to suspect that America, the world's only superpower, is indicating, with varying degrees of politeness, to service personnel where their work stations would be, in the America's palace, using NATO as sort of a trade union of Palace Attendants and Guards. On that score, Europeans are almost certainly mistaken: there indeed is a catch, and a very cruel one, but it lies elsewhere.

Other countries, such as Russia, continue to be based on a lose/lose mode of social interaction. The benefits of lose/lose are even greater than that of win/lose as lose/lose takes away from all the parties to the interaction all responsibility of developing themselves. If there is no way to win, everyone can declare himself a winner. I am a former Soviet citizen, and when my sister was born, my father found (and long did he search!), bought, and boiled a chicken. Now, that was THE meal of my life; and yes, I have since been to Four Seasons. The Pew survey pointedly stated that "when it comes to conditions at home, Uzbeks and the Vietnamese were the happiest of all", with 69% of respondents pronouncing themselves satisfied. Well, this is so because these particular respondents are alive, and they are well aware that they could have been dead or could still die if their admiration for the regime is not seen as adequate. It is a shame that Iraq was not included in the survey, as 107% of Iraqi citizens will publicly state that everything in their country is magnificent, though some of them would be torn between, "magnificent" and "exceptionally magnificent".

Since you probably found the previous sentence funny, let me quote you another survey: 80% of Russians approve of Putin and 30% of Russians cannot afford basic food. Do these figures clash? No, they don't: they point to satisfaction-in-failure that is a major benefit of a lose/lose interaction. When you are out of work you find satisfaction in not having to shave every day. Now we know why Harvard freshmen are no less anxious and depressed than Calcutta beggars.

Win/win does have its benefits, but we must keep in mind that it is a personally taxing form of interaction: you must be ready for the rapid pace of development and growth because if you are not a winner you do not really belong. In an American mall you usually see a lot of prosperous people, but you also see a few people who wear sweat clothes, talk to themselves, and clearly are out of their element. To such people, living in a win/win society turned out to be a curse: in Russia, they would have belonged as here being a dropout is sort of being middle class while not drinking vodka at lunch is seen as an aberration.

The social technology of win/win is vulnerable to being misunderstood and misinterpreted because it is much too sophisticated for most people and because, being a mode of interaction of winners, it creates millions of those who are not invited to interact, millions of hopeless losers who seemingly do not exist and do not seem to matter. America's version of win/win increasingly divides the world on the manipulators and the manipulated, and the manipulators are few. Michael Jackson sings "I'm Bad" and pretends to be a member of a gang or urban thugs. But he is not "bad": all that is happening is that his company has just sold you a twenty dollar CD, a lifestyle of hopelessly confused and easily controllable jailhouse material, and made you spend hours shaking to the tune of atrocious "music" that takes away your ability to perceive and contemplate reality, that is, if you had any.

America's lifestyle is fine, provided you have a profession and do not get hooked on drugs, soap operas, food, or the New York Times. If you can earn an honest living AND avoid becoming addicted to many disguised versions of McDonald's that seek to shape you into a controllable and predictable vegetable, America is indeed the best place on earth. For a few million people living there, America has worked very well, indeed, but those are very strong and very purposeful people, probably educated more by their grandmothers than by American TV.

Since America is run by winners, while millions of America's losers are nothing but stupefied cartoon characters just waiting for their favorite TV show to start, American elite appears to have made a fateful mistake of assuming that win/win could be a lifestyle of choice for every country. This mistake was made easier by America's genuinely welcoming attitude towards winners and manipulators from other nations. If an Afghan Foreign Minister tells Americans that he will be able to build a genuine democracy in Afghanistan (for a few billions of dollars, that is), Americans are all too happy to believe him and fail to notice that the Minister speaks fluent English, which is a rarity among the Afghan herdsmen.

Democracy is not "bad" in any way, but it does require maturity and skill. Cars are not "bad" either, but maturity of an adult and a skill of a license holder are required to drive one. In America, we do not sell beer to anyone younger than 21, but we expect Afghanistan to instantaneously build a democratic state. Americans may well be naive enough to believe that this is possible, but the world is not so naive. Ordinary Afghans know that even though a kitchen is warmer and brighter than a chicken coop, a chicken appears in the kitchen only as an ingredient for a soup.

America is seen as championing the following horrifying notion: "Every person must appear (appear - note that well - as it is not necessary to actually be, and this is how the Manipulators rule the world), to be trustworthy, honest, successful, politically correct, presentable, democratically-minded, and naturally pro-American. Now, whom to appoint as honest is for Dan Rather's handlers to decide. Bin Laden also once was an Unsung Hero of Afghan Resistance.

America aggressively demands that people who could only be killers and thieves simply because they happen to occupy a particular seat of power in their, not a win/win oriented, country, appear if not honest and respectable, then at least "nice enough" for a TV picture. Average citizens of the countries in question correctly perceive this demand as disregarding their current situation, tradition, and history and see America's posture as disingenuous and threatening.

Take the raging "Who is Chubais?" debate. First, it is being said, in all seriousness, that Chubais actually may have been a crook. But who did you want him to be, considering the position he was occupying, in a country he was occupying it in? Why does a quest for a beautiful dreamy virgin with whom to hold hands while reciting romantic poetry guide so many men as they visit a bordello? And then it works the other way around: OK, here is a beautiful romantic virgin who has been working in this whorehouse for the last five years, but why would she want to hold hands with you, you stinking ugly goat? And indeed, when Russia was paying 150% per month on its GKOs, Chubais was a hero, but when it all came tumbling down we discovered that Chubais failed to tell the world's leading economists that this orgy was unsustainable. They did not know, you see, being so naive and trusting. Those who claim that Chubais was "bad" must make sure that their work is not being used to claim that the Harvard Institute for International Development was not all that bad, just a bit too nice and hopeful to subject things to doubt. I repeat, people feel that this is disingenuous and think that America has grown much too slick for so powerful a country.

Regardless of the conclusions of the UN inspectors, America will soon declare war on Iraq. American government is virtual, powerful, fast, and absolutely uncontrolled. This government will be through vaporizing a few hundred thousand shish kebob sellers and olive growers by the time the citizens that are supposed to be controlling it reach the third track of their Britney Spears record. Thousands of Iraqi peasants will be no more while Juicy Fruit chewing gum is still sweet in American mouth. What for?

President Bush's stated (I insist on this important word) objective of removing Saddam and his henchmen is an honorable one. I agree that tortures and killings of innocent people are an intolerable affront to the entire human race. Moreover, I think that it is a great advance, a revolution, to insist that all people have a right to live free from horrors of a dictatorship. This stance shows that the concept of non-interference into internal affairs of other states, whatever they may be, is outdated and is a product of a win/lose mentality that assumes that a state would only interfere to subjugate and plunder.

If America champions justice and good government, and not just because gory murders happened to clash with a plastic, Barbie Doll notion of "nice", it is all to the better. But Desert Storm stopped short of removing Saddam from power, and I felt horribly betrayed. I felt that Americans killed thousands of Iraqis for a reason that was not good enough; quite possibly, killed more Iraqis than were ever killed by Saddam. I noted that President Bush did not apologize for ten additional years of Saddam that his father could and should have saved Iraqis from. Bush said that America is a friend of Iraqi people, but the leaflets we drop on Iraqi frontline troops, i.e. on people who are not good enough to be protected by Saddam, are threatening and insulting. Ordinary Iraqis now have reasons to suspect that America's declared friendship is not genuine, and that they may yet again be caught in the middle.

But why would Canadians, of all people, be suspect of America's motives and why did wealthy, English-speaking Saudis play such a prominent role in the September 11 terrorist attack? Win/win is the way, but America's prevailing version of it is not. The world wisely does not accept the American definition of "winning": it does not want to see Rocky-76 or attend the "One trillion Big Macs sold" celebration.

American artists are increasingly unwilling to open their hearts to the world: there is no Mona Lisa smile in a Jackson Pollock painting and a blood-soaked heart that beats in Rocky5 is violent and kitschy. Hollywood is not making Tarkovsky or Ryazanov movies, and when America does make a film about real people, such as American Beauty, it usually shows America as phony and threatening, a place where real people can't live. Just compare the Russian and the American version of Winnie the Pooh: Russian Winnie is kind and wise, while the American one is a crook dead set on getting the honey. Why is it that real America is so much kinder and wiser than the pop culture that it tries to impose on the world?

America may be fine as long as it gets to handpick its enemies and as long as it picks someone as vile as Saddam. But the real enemy of America is not Saddam: it is the world that is alarmed that America may use force to impose the fake and violent vision of human existence, the vision that hides and misrepresents the true face of America.

Let us define aggression as deliberate policy that causes grave damage to another country. The case has been made that environmental policy of certain countries, including America, amounts to aggression. And how would we define an imposition on another country of a political system that causes grave damage to it? Certainly, that would be an aggression. Unfortunately, imposition of democracy on an authoritarian and/or underdeveloped country may well qualify as aggression. Russian experience since 1991 can only be described as a catastrophe, and playing "democracy" with gullible and confused population had much to do with it.

Another type of aggression is exemplified by the worldwide expansion of MTV. America is sophisticated enough, rich enough, or absent-minded enough to accept MTV as part of its culture and disregard the losses that are caused by it. But please allow other countries to be of the opinion that fourteen year olds were not born to shake and should not be imitating the cultural depth and the irreverence of the ghetto culture. I mean it, motherfucka!

The more sophisticated America becomes in its presentation the emptier it appears, and this is horrifying. Seen from the inside, America is fundamentally healthy and fair, and its tremendous creative potential is a proof of that. Thanks to the people whose creative energies America did everything to liberate and protect, America is very strong militarily and economically, but since the outside world sees America as frightfully empty, this strength comes off as very threatening. People of the world are thinking that America tries to force them to listen exclusively to Britney Spears, to take their language and thinking away, and, boy, this is, like, sick or something.

Now the source of the world's distrust of America becomes clear: there are two wars going on simultaneously, with one war disguising and masking the other. One is the war of lose/lose with win/win, the so-called war on terrorism, or the coming attempt to remove Saddam from power. The other war is America being seen as imposing its plastic version of win/win on the world that, even though it may not be ready for the genuine win/win, senses that the American version of win/win would mean the end of human civilization. America should not be seen as fighting the world's culture, traditions, and the objective realities that exist in various human societies. America must present to the world a considerably more genuine and realistic version of win/win, lest it be seen as worshipping a wrong Madonna and fighting on her side against the world.

Like no other country, America for most of its history has tried to have Truth and Justice on its side, not just strength. Why is it that in a recent Russian movie Brat-2 a Russian says to American, "Ne v sile bog, a v pravde" (God is in Truth not in Violence)? Why is America now seen as imposing on the world artificial emotions, retouched images, and engineered sounds?

National Security Advisor Rice has stated that America is a "special country", and she is absolutely right. America gives opportunities to all and effectively defends the rights of its citizens; in a final analysis, it is the citizens' fault that so many of them self-destruct and submit to brainwashing. Americans can be as successful, as secure, as honest, as caring, as magnanimous as they wish - there is no impediment and no fear, no coercion or shame. And that makes America special. America stands for win/win, and that is why America is an object of hatred of the lose/lose crowd.

But being a citizen of a special country can mean only one thing: all of us must now be as good as we can be because we have already been credited as being "special". Ms. Rice should have known that in the 20th century several countries declared themselves as "special": Communist Russia, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan. If being a citizen of a "special country" means that individually Americans no longer need to be moral, that they can trample other countries underfoot and wreck havoc, if we can now line our own pockets while ostensibly being on a mission of assistance - then I would term Ms. Rice's assertion as extremely dangerous. It is too convenient to assume that an Arabic-speaking bearded guy in a turban is THE enemy. For Americans, it is sometimes better to remember the expression, "We have met the enemy, and it is us."

posted by Jerome a Paris # 17:15 (6) comments

1,001 uses for Bush

1,001 uses for Bush
By Arnaldo Jabor

There's a good side to Bush: he has 1,001 uses. Bush is good because he shows us the hypocrisy that was hiding under the "democratic globalization" marketing.
Bush teaches us that political systems are slower than changes in social and economic life. Bush shows us the need to reform civil society; it has become clear that democracy is abstract in the face of the invincible brutality of things. Bush reminds us things have desires of their own. Bombs want to go off, cannons yearn to fire. A 500bil budget craves being used.

Bush, by means of so many mistakes and authoritarianism, may reawaken the hunger for democracy in America. Bush reminds us that the Right is very alive and that multilateralism only existed for America while she needed Europe, during the Cold War. With the end of bipolarity, the USSR finished, they stood absolute, arrogant, and unilateral.
Bush reminds us stupidity is way stronger than reason.
Bush shows us the hole is deeper.

With Bush we are realizing it is the Iraqis dying, and the crazy soldiers performing pornographic torture, who are defending the return of an international democratic multilateralism.

Bush teaches us the Truth of America, with no veils — teaches that democracy has to react inside there, because half the population wants hamburger, root beer and authoritarian war.

Bush makes us hate the Republicans' stupidity. Bush has taught us the West is much more fragile than we thought. Bush learned everything with Osama, his Lord and Master, whom he obeys blindly. By the way, Osama would vote for Bush, who just profits him with his (Bush's) mistakes. Bush shows us the lunatic fringe of America may become the majority. Bush wants it. Bush teaches that the politics of reason no longer moves the wheel of society. Through him, we learn that Fascism is stupidity in power.

With Bush we understand that, before ideologies, there is the mental disease that begets them. Be it the Communist omnipotence of "paradise", be it the neoliberal idiocy of "end of History", be it the Fascist lust for death to ravage cultural and political differences.

Bush teaches us there will never be a harmonic, Platonic world — something Machiavelli had already foreseen — and our dreams of eternal peace are unachievable. Bush wants to convince us that Kant was a dumbass. That Hobbes is the one who had the feel of things. Kant was quite naive in his dreams of universal government, and Hobbes was certainly closer to today's world.

Bush shows us the Iraq War is just the reflex of a broader war against the West, waged by him and his cohorts.

Bush shows us that Americans envy Europe and believe their conciliatory, political maturity to be a flaw of weak people, with no will to fight. He tells us Europe wants to tame the "Leviathan" with words and ideas.
But, on the other hand, Bush is living proof of the impossibility to impose democracy and freedom through the force of arms. You can't win the hearts and minds of a country with explosions and gunfire.

Bush showed that sexual issues are stronger than war in America. That neurosis and religious repression are stronger than the Enlightenment. Nobody thinks of impeaching him, he who is destroying his country's prestige and threatening the West, not to speak of creating millions of man-bombs. On the flip side, Clinton happened to bang the girl and almost got kicked out.

Bush showed that politics today is ruled by the financial bourgeois. No trace of the former "greatness" of liberal ideology.

Bush is not a person. He's an end product. Centuries of Puritanism, and years of the neocon gang, made him their speaker. Bush is a businessman. No, wait: he's a middleman for the oil industry.
Bush wants to create a new "American way of life" — the wrong way. He wants to revert everything that was won in the 60s and 70s, civil rights, liberties for minorities.

Bush teaches us the main enemy is no longer the old cigar smoking "bourgeois"; the enemy today is a business method, it's the capitalism of speculation and financial flows.
Bush teaches the new Lefts that they have to change their goals and methods. Before, the Left thought of unity. Today, it's the fundamentalist Right and turbo-capitalism who want "unity", dreaming of a world ruled by one single megabusiness, World Inc. Before, the Left searched for the "absolute"; today, they wish for the relative. Bush teaches us we can no longer fight with just the weapons of the old nation-state.

Bush is helping to awaken civil society from its dream of dependence; it has to organize more and more to jump-start the jammed machine of States and governments. However, the terrible evidence of Bush's errors may make the West better.

Bush, along with Osama, teaches that religion is not the opium of the people — it's the bomb of the people. Bush is the red alert that says: if America becomes populist and authoritarian, adopting the "politics of fear", anything may happen. Including the end of the world.

(this is a translation from someone at Democratic Underground in their Editorials thread.)

posted by Jerome a Paris # 16:36 (0) comments

Some info about me

As you may have realised, I'm French - and worse, a Parisian (who think of the "provinciaux" what the French think of the rest of the world...).

I am not anti-American, although this is (sadly) a real trait of many French, explained in my view by jealousy, i.e. the US is playing in the world the role that really belongs to the French. Both our countries have been built on similar idealistic and messianic values, a sense of mission to "civilise" the world, and a strong tradition of immigration - but the US is now much bigger and consequently wields a much larger influence on world affairs.

I am definitely anti- the current administration, which I think is making a mistake of historic proportions by giving up on the values of the Western world by endorsing torture, despising the UN, ignoring the existing (still insufficient, but growing) body of international law and spurning allies.
The US had the extraordinary opportunity to lead by example following 9/11, by showing that, even in the face of terrible adversity, they would react by sticking to their values (which are also Europe's values), show restraint, and ultimately prevail in an uncontestable way - by pushing for and enforcing international rules applies to all, including the US. Instead, we had "might is right", we have spite and arrogance, we have Abu Ghraib, and we have a worrying "Likudisation" of the country. Nothing new in the history of mankind - but that's precisely my point: this was an opportunity to change the world for the better. Europe would have gone along gladly, Russia, China and most of the rest of the world would have stayed out of the way. Now, we have China noting, with glee I am sure, the precedent set by this administration's behavior.

Anyway, back to me. Married, 3 young kids (my contribution to solving the looming pensions crisis!), a banker working in the energy sector (oil & renewables, an interesting combination - I'll try to post more about both if anybody is interested --- shameless attempt to be encouraged on ---). Very pro-European (I was born in Strasbourg, on the German border, home of the Europen Parliament, the Council of Europe and the European court of Human Rights). Anti-religion as an institution. Avid science fiction reader (I heartily recommend Lois MacMaster Bujold). Very aware (probably from all these trips to the Soviet Union and Russia) of the thin line between liberal and autocratic worlds and the ease with which the dark side of human nature can come to the fore ("the price of liberty is eternal vigilance"). And generally a contrarian.

Definitely not a frog or snail eater, and a fan of new world (especially Australia and California) red wines, as well as, with the right friends, a good bottle of very cold vodka.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 16:06 (2) comments

19.5.04

Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings

By Michael Isikoff
Investigative Correspondent
Newsweek

Updated: 9:14 a.m. ET May 19, 2004May 17 - The White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for "war crimes" as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush administration

The concern about possible future prosecution for war crimes—and that it might even apply to Bush adminstration officials themselves— is contained in a crucial portion of an internal January 25, 2002, memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales obtained by NEWSWEEK. It urges President George Bush declare the war in Afghanistan, including the detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, exempt from the provisions of the Geneva Convention.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 17:55 (0) comments

Army General Says U.S. Has 75 Prison Abuse Cases

Army Gen. John Abizaid, who is responsible for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee there were systemic problems at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, where U.S. personnel took photographs of detainees being abused and sexually humiliated that have shocked and angered Americans and fueled anti-American anger overseas.

"The total number of detainee abuse cases that have been investigated since I believe the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan is around 75," Abizaid told the committee.

He said the army was still investigating several homicides in Afghanistan that went as far back as December 2002 and which needed to be resolved quickly.

"Abuse has happened in Afghanistan, it's happened in Iraq, it's happened at various places. I think the question before us: is there a systemic abuse problem with regard to interrogation that exists in the Central Command area of operations," Abizaid said.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 17:35 (0) comments

17.5.04

The French experience with terrorism

Maybe something can be learnt from the French experience with Islamic terrorism. As you may remember, there were two big waves of bombings, in 1986 and 1995. In each case, you had bombs in metros, restaurants, large stores, with each time a few people killed and several dozen injured, about once or twice a week for two or three months, most of it in Paris.

The first time, the interior minister famously claimed that "we would terrorize the terrorists" (that was after bombing n°2 of 10 or so). This did not work...
What did work was painstaking police work, understanding the network, infliltrating them, doing quiet diplomacy to kill off support from other countries. In both cases, ALL the terrorists were arrested. In the second case, it was significantly faster and one of the terrorists was killed before he could do a new bombing. (Ironically, the only terrorist not in jail in France today is the financier of the network, held in the UK because UK courts judged that his rights would not be protected by the savage French... 9/11 was not sufficient to change that).

The lesson, in any case, is that police work DOES work (and remember, back then, international cooperation was even worse than now). no need to invade Algeria, to bomb Lybia or whatever else could have been "desirable".
And everybody knows it even today. All the bomb plots that have been foiled in the past two years were so because of good ol'fashioned police work, not thanks to military action (I'll caveat with the possible value of military intelligence in that context...) - and note that the European govenrments have fully cooperated with the US on the law enforcement side, even at the worst times of the Iraq spat... Some people have kept their eyes on the ball, even in the US.

The point is that with police work, we are within the usual norms of a democratic society and we do not need to compromise our values. We fight back and do not give up our soul to do so.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 21:16 (0) comments

16.5.04

Hot showers

I've been visiting the Soviet Union and Russia since 1987, i.e. when it was still the "Evil Empire". and that name was actually very exact. The people were incredibly friendly and nice in private, but the system was really nasty. Back then, and even now, I felt a distinct relief when my plane would take off from Moscow to take me back home, because I was away from the clutches of the local authorities, the potentiality of arbitrariness had disappeared. This may sound paranoid, but it was true. Most of the time, nothing ever happened to you, but it could, people knew it, and acted accordingly. Fear, permanent bureaucratic CYA-ism and lack of trust were prevalent. One major consequence was that people lived in the present, because there could very well be no future the next day. They would concentrate on enjoying the moment and spending time much more intensely with their friends and close relatives. For human relations, it was great, but for the economy it was not so good ( "you pretend to pay us and we pretend to work" was a pretty accurate summary) and after the breakdown of the system it was a catastrophe - no investment, no trust in institutions, and a field day for predators of all kinds.

I was quite young on that first trip (still a teenager), and I've never forgotten the vivid impressions from then. Civilisation is but a giant illusion: basically, it exists because all of us pretend that it does, and act accordingly. Other systems are similarly based on the illusion of their omnipotence and irrepleceability (sp?). As soon as facts do not coincide with that illusion, everybody switches back very quickly to survival mode (in Hobbes' Leviathan style) and things get nasty very quickly - you live day-to-day, looting is prevalent, people take security in their own hands very quickly, you trust no one.
The Soviet Union was the Leviathan - a nasty tyrant, with the monopoly of violence, propped up by everybody against their individual will. Russia was then for a few years man without the Leviathan, and it was terryfing: no tyrant, but no other way to organise relations and to channel violence. People retreated to the most basic principles and were totally vulnerable to violence from any source, which duly appeared, in the form of extorsionists, bureaucrats-turned-racketeers and so forth. Now these "mafias" and other organised violent groups have coalesced and structured again and Putin has pretty much recaptured the monopoly of violence for the State - and while it looks bad from the West's point of view, it is a real progress for ordinary Russians, which is why he is so popular. Security is the first liberty. (This lesson is fully applicable to Iraq today).

I often think about these past 15 years in Russia whenever I take a hot shower. Hot water, for some reason, is the embodiment of civilisation in my mind, and I enjoy this luxury every single day, thinking that any tear in the fabric of our Western world could bring this down and tragically make hot water disappear from normal daily life. (Of course, the paradox is that hot water is one of the few things that were never put in jeopardy in Russia's recent history!)

For further thoughts on this, I can recommend two great French science-fiction books dealing with that them:
René Barjavel "Ravage" (Can't find a translation in English)
Robert Merle "Malevil" (same title, trans. by D. Coltman in English)

My point is not to depress you all, but to remind you of the luck we have in living in the Western world, with its openness, its (relative) freedom and its (imperfect) ability to contain evil within man and improve itself.

If you look at all the big ideologies like communism, anarchy, etc... they basically are utopian and are premised on an ideal version of man. If man was good, fair, etc..., communism would indeed be easy to get to work - and would indeed be better for mankind, taking into account the public interest. The problem is that any system would work if man was perfect - capitalism, aristocracy, enlightened dictature, etc... but man IS NOT perfect.
Man is complex, with a real capacity for evil, and a basic tendency to be lazy and selfish - and these are good survival traits!
Democracy - checks and balances - and capitalism - based on the rule of law, with a strong State to enforce them fairly - work because they are built on realistic assumtions about man, not on an idealised vision, and structure their institutions accordingly - the main goal being to not allow impunity (see a previous post above in this respect) and to protect each and all form the nastiest instincts of the others.
Of course, it's never perfect, and people still do bad stuff and worse, still get away with stuff, but it is meant to be a self correcting system, and, for the most part, it does work. However, it works only if most people do believe that it works, trust their institutions and trigger them when necessary to correct any deviation or excess.
Religion usually starts from a similar premise (man is imperfect) and provides rules and institutions that can work. However, the injection of absolutes into politics makes it a sometimes very blunt - and easily corrupted - instrument to channel human behaviour.

Anyway, I don't even remember my initial point - is it "enjoy your showers"? In a sense, yes: do enjoy life every day, and remember that we live in a system which we all contribute to create and should defend.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 23:13 (0) comments

Impunity is always the biggest danger.

If people in power get the impression that they can get away with whatever crime or misdemeanor they're doing, they will do the crime/misdemeanor again and again.
The "getting away" will include (1) framing the debate beforehand, (2) using every tool/pressure to prevent the story from coming out, and (3) every legal procedure to avoid any formal culpability if it gets to the judicial system.

In the US, 9/11 was seen as an amazing opportunity to push very far and very hard a very nasty political agenda (step 1):
(i) push the "might is right" logic at a time when the population felt justifiably "wronged" by the attack
(ii) get rid of many "troublesome" checks and balances of the system under the pretext of the WoT, with a shaken US public not willing to question their leadership in a perceived time of national crisis
(iii) include in the WoT many neocon goals that have only a tangential link to it (they involve Arabs of some kind)
(iv) paint any critics as objective supporters of terrorists, appeasers and so forth.

Bad stuff, especially so much of it, especially when it affects many countries around the world in matters of life and death, usually comes out eventually, and it duly did here. (coming out means not the actual facts, which have been known long to those who care, but a format impossible to ignore by Joe Public - this time it was particularly spectacular).

We now are in phase 2 of the getting away with it - preventing the full story to come out; Thankfully, American democracy still works and the focus of the media is on real stuff, and we'll hopefully get to phase 3.

Phase 3 is the hardest part, because these guys will fight back and can afford the best and nastiest lawyers, if it gets to that. We'll see. But apart form legal punishment, there is a political price which can be imposed on them.

As someone mentioned earlier, the Bush administration only understands force. If they are not thoroughly destroyed (i.e. both discredited and sent away), they will keep on polluting the political landscape. This means that they must lose ALL the elections in November, not just the WH. Nothing short of a major political swing will be sufficient. If they can also be brought to justice, so much the better, but the political defeat is the first step.

A Kerry win will give the positive signal that (enough) Americans do not condone what has happened, but only a victory in Congress will give him the actual means to really do something about the current mess, and to really discredit the bush/neocon version of the Republicans.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 16:46 (0) comments

15.5.04

mass transit in cities

Regarding public transport, please go see this very enlightening post from Kevin Drum about the book Edge City, by Joel Garreau.

A few extracts:

And finally, a series of laws that helps explain the lack of mass transit in edge cities and why this will never change. Note that "FAR" stands for "Floor-to-Area Ratio," the ratio of the total floorspace of a building to the area of the land the building is on. It's basically a measure of population density.
- The level of density at which automobile congestion starts becoming noticeable in edge city: 0.25 FAR.
- The level of density at which it is necessary to construct parking garages instead of parking lots because you have run out of land: 0.4 FAR.
- The level of density at which traffic jams become a major political issue in edge city: 1.0 FAR.
- The level of density beyond which few edge cities ever get: 1.5 FAR.
- The level of density at which light rail transit starts making economic sense: 2.0 FAR.
- The level of density of a typical old downtown: 5.0 FAR.
The density-gap corollary to the laws of density: Edge cities always develop to the point where they become dense enough to make people crazy with the traffic, but rarely, if ever, do they get dense enough to support the rail alternative to automobile traffic.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 20:36 (0) comments

energy economics

There is a fundamental shift in the economics of oil (and gas): the expensive part is not the actual production, it's the transportation of the energy.

For oil to get to your car form the field, it goes on pipelines (that's where the transportation cost lies), on a tanker, again in a pipe to the refinery, then by pipe or rail to be distributed.
gas goes from the field to power plants, big industrial users or retail distribution networks through the pipe network or via the LNG chain: pipe, liquefaction, LNG tanker, regasification (transportation cost includes all these), pipe.

The first stage of transport has interesting political and strategic dynamics, in many ways different from production.

(i) without transportation, there is no production, so anybody with real control over anything in the production-and-transportation chain effectively has veto rights on the production.

(ii) the correlate of this is that you have to spend all the money upfront to build the whole production-and-transportation chain before you get one cent in income. This means that being able to finance all of it is vital. The bankers (that's me) (or the oil companies which have spare cash, damn them) effectively also have veto rights. That means that the Western corporate world controls access, except for countries or companies that are strong enough or smart enough to pay for their own investments.

(iii) with easily accessible resources declining, you have to go for the less accessible potential production areas - and you have to bring the oil or gas back through more and more exotic situations:
(a) more difficult terrain;
(b) more difficult countries (poor, inexperienced, corrupt,...)
(c) ecologically sensitive zones, with vigilant NGOs
(d) borders, with third party countries involvement (including countries which do not have reserves but see the potential to earn cash).

Anybody with physical, legal or other control of any of these, or who can make bad publicity about it, needs to be engaged, brought on board and satisfied.

Building a pipeline or a LNG plant has therefore become a hugely complex endeavor where you have to accomodate the (often contradictory) wishes of many different parties - and you have to make sure that everybody will be happy for A LONG TIME, because you investment will typically require 10 years to pay off. It's a mixture of industrial issues, project economics, domestic politics and international diplomacy. It's not easy, and in practice, only the big oil majors can do it (ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Total, ChevronTexaco and a couple others), and most of the time they create consortia to be stronger.

To summarise: transportation is becoming the most important part of the business, it requires a lot of upfront money, and it requires that you piss nobody significant off. Only the West can do it, which opens interesting co-dependency issues...

Energy is not a black-and white, "you're with us or against us business". We're all in it together (and that "we" includes most of the planet). It would actually be quite ironic to see this quintessentially oil-buddies-administration be brought back to reality by the real world constraints of the international business.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 16:09 (1) comments

2$/gallon?

We've been living in Europe with prices above 1EUR/litre (4$/gallon) for close to 20 years (with some ups and downs, but not that much).

- the thing is that when taxes are 80% of the price of gas, the changes in the price of oil have a much more subdued impact

- a middle sized country like France has more tax income than Saudi Arabia from oil (strange but true)

- the worst is that, even at these prices, and even with heavily subsidised and efficient (from the consumer's point of view, I mean: fast, frequant and comfortable, not efficiently-run!) railways, it it STILL CHEAPER to travel by car in many cases. (the fuel bill per kilometer is pretty much the same in the US and Europe because the cars here are smaller and more fuel-efficient, even though we drive faster).

We WILL adapt easily to higher oil prices. We'll grumble but go on. Some politicians may be kicked out, but not to much effect. We'll worry more about MPG, energy savings, etc... but get on with our lifes. The car industry will make further steps towards lesser oil-dependence, such as the hybrid engines and eventually fuel cells, which will move the problem to electricity production, where it is easier to diversify sources.

On the international stage, higher oil prices are useful because they bring into play non-Persian oil and energy sources:

(i) energy savings,

(ii) deep offshore (North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, Africa) ,

(iii) Canadian oil sands

(iv) switch to electricity from gas, coal, nuclear, wind.

All of these (except for natural gas) are produced domestically, from reliable sources (Canada, Australia or diverse Third World countries) or require high technology and lots of investments, things that we fully control.

BTW do not dismiss wind out of hand; I work in that sector (more precisely, I finance this sector, in a real private-owned investment bank) and it WILL be the big energy story of the next 10 years. It's no longer an industry for hippies or other dreamers. It's a 10b$ high-tech industry (it's aerospace - blades, mechanical/electric gear - gearboxes, generators and construciton - lot's of good jobs, all at home). I'll write more on the subject later.

China will actually have a hell of a lot more trouble adapting their industry-driven economic model to much higher oil prices; Look for trouble there first form the oil crisis...

... and remember the famous quote from an earlier Saudi minister of oil: "the stone age did not end for lack of stone"

posted by Jerome a Paris # 15:11 (0) comments

14.5.04

Another view on Sadr (from Tacitus)

Amy Ridenour received an illuminating e-mail from Army Spc. Joe Roche, who is on the front lines in the fight against Sadr and his mafia. Starting in April 2003, the U.S. began strategizing on how to deal with Sadr, and they set four primary goals, excerpted below:

Goal one: His so-called Mahdi Army militia is fighting alone. We are out defeating them day and night, and all the time we find them exposed and vulnerable. The people of Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf are not supporting him. His forces are isolated.

Goal two: His one-time powerbase, Sadr City in Baghdad, has been lost. Sadr has been exiled from there, and we have him on the run. He is trying to cloak his presence and activities in Najaf and Kut as planned, but that is damage control on his part. Yes we confront pockets of his followers. Just a couple days ago, I had to maneuver around such a crowd of 300 in Sadr City. The point is, though, we operate in Sadr City, and his followers are merely trying to raise the lost cause of his. It is perhaps better to understand why he is able to mobilize groups like this by seeing him as a mafia leader who is just sacrificing his own people in a mad last plunge to grab onto power. He is no different from any other thug in the world who manipulates and betrays his followers for his own lost cause. The critical thing to see, however, is that in Baghdad, Sadr is gone. He has been effectively exiled and we are destroying his one-time properties of power and abuse there.

Goal three: Other Shia leaders are breaking from him now in large numbers. The overall Shia leader of Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has left Sadr's call for jihad and uprising to flounder on deaf ears. Bremmer and Gen. Abizaid stunned the overall Shia community by negotiating a calm in Fallujah. That has tail-spinned Sadr and his efforts to intimidate Iraq's Shia leaders. They see the US hand is strong, and that therefore they are making a mistake in kowtowing to Sadr's terror and violence.
Sadr is now running scared in Najaf. This is great. The Iraqi people of Najaf are offended by this Baghdad thug coming to their city and trying to hijack them into conflict with us. His militias have moved into Karbala too, and the same sentiment is being expressed by the people there. Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia are occupiers of those cities, and are insulting the most sacred sites of Shia Islam daily in their actions. Sadr's forces have stockpiled weapons in mosques and schools, and he continuously is going into the Imam Ali Mosque to call for jihad against us. This is offending Iraq's Shia leaders very much, and the Shia people are not following.

Our units, in fact, are operating w/in 500 meters of the most sacred Shia religious sites in these cities, and you should notice that the local people are not resisting. This is what the pessimists amongst you are preventing you from understanding. Something like this would have been impossible before Sadr and his militia thugs went into there to hijack Iraqi Shia Islam. The people of Najaf and Karbala know we are not there to conquer and occupying the religious sites; we are there to liberate them from this would-be tyrant who is trying to hijack them. His uprising has been contained, despite Sadr's desperate efforts to expand.

Goal four: Now Sadr's patrons and mentor in Iran are breaking from him. Grand Ayatollah Hossain Kazzam Haeri in Qom, Iran, is no longer backing him and has instead made it clear that Sadr's uprising is not sanctioned. Haeri is his mentor, and was a close intimate to Sadr's respectable father. The Teheran Times has run stories that are largely exaggerated, but still are making clear that Sadr's uprising is counter to Iranian interests and does not have the support of even one of Iran's grand statesman, Hashemi Rafsanjani.

In lieu of this, Sadr has exploded increasingly desperate and offensive. On Friday, he offended perhaps the whole Muslim world when he issued a fatwa (a religious edict) that if his forces in Basra capture a female British soldier, they can keep her as a slave. And as I pointed out already, his militia thugs in Najaf and Karbala are keeping weapons in mosques and schools.

In this, quite frankly, Sadr has done it to himself. He has compelled his would-be supporters amongst Iran's hard-liners to break from him and to put distance between Iran's interests and Sadr's uprising. Along with this, Shiites all over Iraq are breaking from Sadr and ignoring his frantic calls for jihad and slave-taking. Sadr has been abandoned.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 16:38 (0) comments

Miscellanous Oil & Iraq issues

Comments posted on Billmon's blog

- the Afghan pipe. First of all, it would be a natural gas pipe, not an oil pipe, so it's a totally different market. Trust me, this pipe will NEVER be built, for the simple reason that it is not financeable:

(i) there is no creditworthy market on the other side - and it is the buyers of the commodity that ultimately pay for the pipe investment. India or Pakistan are not good risks.

(ii) the gas would come from existing Centrla Asian fields already in production - and already linked to markets via the fromer Soviet pipes. The fact that Russia does not give them good terms on the pipes they control does not mean that they could not, which means that the new pipe would not be competitive (you cannot compete with an already built and paid for infrastructure unless there is demande for more capacity, which there is NOT in that region).

- Caspian oil and the Georigan pipe. Just a quibble: the pipe (called BTC - Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) is currently under construction and will come onstream early next year. Its financing was put in place early this year, with World Bank, EBRD, several Export Credit Agencies and 15 international banks.
The view of journalists and pundits on Caspian reserves has varied much more than the actual reserve estimates... It's one of the major "oil provinces" around the world which are both outside the Persian Gulf, accessible to Western oil majors (along with the Gulf of Guinea offshore Western Africa) and with significant reserves (at least for 20-30 years), so it will be developped and yes, it is important strategically.

- Peak Oil. It's real, but I'm inclined to think that we'll manage to keep on pushing it further away again and again. Better technology, better use of existing fields (for instance, 50% of the "new" reserves of the big oil majors in recent years actually comes from reassessments of existing fields), a few more discoveries in underexplored regions (the whole Former Soviet Union, for one). Plus, the inevitable (in my eyes) increase in oil prices will make more fields viable and new technologies (oil sands, GTL) economic at such new prices, thus pushing further away the decline.
Of course, in the very long term, this is not viable, but this does give us a few more decades to develop renewable energy, fusion or other yet-unknown technologies.

- Natural gas. IS NOT DEAD. We have a lot more of it than we have oil. (When I say we, I mean Russia and Iran, actually, which jointly have 70%).
The problem of oil, as opposed to other energy sources, is that it is needed for transport and petrochemicals. If we manage to switch to fuel-cells or electric cars, then the problem of transportation becomes one of electricity generation, where many different sources can be used (gas, coal, nuclear, renewables), where the West is much less dependent on the Middle East overall.

- an obvious point (at the risk of starting a "SUV thread": our biggest reserves are in energy savings. The US needs to tax oil as it is taxed in Europe. As a kid in the 70s, I remember hearing that there would be riots when gas prices would reach 25c/gallon (they were at 10c or so then). Prices in Europe are at approx. 5$/gallon and there have been no riots...

posted by Jerome a Paris # 15:52 (0) comments

Oil in Iraq

The thing to remember about oil is that what's important is not usually (the exception is during times of warfare, when ships are actually sunk or so forth) the control of oil but the control of the oil rent, i.e. the difference between the low production cost and the high(er) market price.

Let me explain: oil will be sold, at the market price. This is true for Iraq, Iran, Russia, etc... They NEED to sell the oil. Where the oil goes physically is unimportant because the market is worldwide - it really is one of the most liquid markets you can find.
The only conflict is on the rent. Since the 50s, with the nationalisation of many countries' production capacity and/or the negotiation of PSAs (production sharing agreements), most of that rent goes to the producing country. The big oil companies (whether US, European, or otherwise) get a share of the production ("cost oil") to cover their investments plus a decent return (usually in the 15-20% range) at "normal" oil prices (i.e. 20$/barrel). The excess ("profit oil"), after paying off investments and/or if prices are higher, is shared, with most of it going to the country (usually close to 90% at the marginal rate).
So, either you take the rent, by selling iraqi oil to US interests (which amounts today to stealing Iraq's assets) or you are not in a very different situation from before. As far as I know, the rent is currently controlled by the IGC / CPA but meant to be used inside Iraq. I do not know how much is allocated to Halliburton & co, but this is a question about sovereignty (who controls the budget) and not really about oil (although of course the existence of oil makes the amount at stake bigger).
You will notice that you never hear about Exxon or other BigOil in Iraq. They're NOT there. They make 20-30 year investments, and the only way to make a return is over the long term, which means to have legal contracts with a legitimate contracting authority, which does not exist in Iraq today. (This will actually be a good test of Iraq's actual sovereignty - when big contracts are signed with an international oil company).

Oil prices are going up today because nobody anticipated Chinese demand, plus a risk premium for possible bombings on oil installations in Saudi Arabia or similar.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 00:16 (0) comments

13.5.04

Bush 2004 Campaign Pledges To Restore Honor And Dignity To White House

BOSTON - Addressing guests at a $2,000-a-plate fundraiser, George W. Bush pledged Monday that, if re-elected in November, he and running mate Dick Cheney will "restore honor and dignity to the White House."
"After years of false statements and empty promises, it's time for big changes in Washington," Bush said. "We need a president who will finally stand up and fight against the lies and corruption. It's time to renew the faith the people once had in the White House. If elected, I pledge to usher in a new era of integrity inside the Oval Office."
Bush told the crowd that, if given the opportunity, he would work to reestablish the goodwill of the American people "from the very first hour of the very first day" of his second term.
"The people have spoken," Bush said. "They said they want change. They said it's time to clean up Washington. They're tired of politics as usual. They're tired of the pursuit of self-interest that has gripped Washington. They want to see an end to partisan bickering and closed-door decision-making. If I'm elected, I'll make sure that the American people can once again place their trust in the White House."
Bush said the soaring national debt and the lengthy war in Iraq have shaken Americans' faith in the highest levels of government.
"A credibility gap has opened between the Oval Office and America," Bush said. "The public hears talk, but they don't see any result. But if you choose me as your next president, the promises I make in my inaugural address will actually mean something. The president of this country will be held accountable for his promises, starting Jan. 20 of next year."

posted by Jerome a Paris # 22:54 (1) comments

Study Says Bush used 27 different rationales for war in Iraq

"If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to war in Iraq, that�s because there have been quite a few � 27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002, according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of President George W. Bush.
The study also finds that the Bush administration switched its focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein early on � only five months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States."

There is a link to the actual study in the link.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 22:48 (0) comments

7.5.04

Oil and China

Initially (and rightly in my view) seen as the main strategic threat of the USA by the Bush administration, China has been overshadowed since 9/11 by the priority given to the War on Terror (and China has been extra careful to remain discreet on the international scene during this period). This cannot last.

The strong growth of the Chinese economy under the rigid control of the Communist Party apparatus and a fixed currency peg is showing strains on many fronts, most notably the inflation, which threaten to spill into the world economy. The even stronger growth of Chinese imports of commodities and raw materials is having a devastating impact on the world prices of these goods and rapidly having a strategic impact for developped economies. In particular, the significance of the fact that China has overtaken Japan as the second largest importer of crude oil cannot be overstated.

China now worries about the Middle East, about shipping lanes, about oil reserves and is headed towards a direct clash with the US on all these subjects. Is this the best time for the US to be militarily overstretched? Is it the best time to be losing the good will of the entire planet?

The frustration of the Chinese following the little-known Kashagan episode is not publicized but is quite real. The Chinese tried to purchase a stake in that oil field in the Kazakhstan part of the Caspian Sea, the largest discovered in the last 30 years, but were prevented from doing so by the existing – Western – shareholders which all exercised their preemption rights to do so despite intense Chinese pressure (especially on Shell, which has a significant presence in China). Kashagan is the largest undeveloped oil field outside of the Persian Gulf area and a pipeline to China would have been a viable option. This oil (between 1 and 2 mb/d, or 20 to 40% of China's current imports) will now go West in a few years' time.

For the time being, China has a real incentive to cooperate with the US but it is not clear how long this will last and when the hard economic realities of international trade will cut through the fog of "War on terror". But what better time to push your interests than when your adversary has other worries, especially self-inflicted ones for which you cannot be blamed?

posted by Jerome a Paris # 18:18 (0) comments

Quand assistera t-on vraiment à l’extinction des dinosaures?

La France possède le triste privilège d’être l’un des derniers pays au monde à être dirigé par un « dinosaure », à savoir un homme politique arrivé au pouvoir au cours de la deuxième moitié du Xxe siècle et qui ne l’a plus quitté depuis. Parmi les tristes spécimens que l’on peut identifier, notons Fidel Castro, Muhammar Khadafi ou Yasser Arafat. Jacques Chirac, qui fut ministre pour la première fois en 1967, est un membre d’honneur de cette confrérie de dirigeants dont conquérir et conserver le pouvoir est à peu près la seule compétence, aux dépens évidemment de leurs concitoyens.
Circonstance atténuante pour Jacques Chirac : il a été régulièrement élu et réélu et ses concitoyens portent une lourde part de responsabilité pour sa présence continue au pouvoir. Rendons lui donc cette qualité : il sait mener des campagnes électorales adaptées à son époque (libéral en 1986, social-populiste en 1995, sécuritaire en 2002, pour ne parler que des principales), et capables de faire oublier aux Français qu’il a été totalement incapable de gérer le pouvoir chaque fois qu’il l’ a eu, et qu’il a à chaque fois désavoué deux ans plus tard (1976-78, 1986-88, 1995-97, 2002-04).

Qu’est ce qui explique cet attachement irrationnel des Français pour un homme aussi manifestement incapable à assumer le pouvoir – et dont une bonne majorité s’accorde à dire qu’il devrait être en prison ? La médiocrité générale des alternatives ? La nostalgie du passé ? La pitié ou la lassitude envers un homme dont on sentait bien qu’il ne renoncerait pas tant qu’il n’aurait pas obtenu les postes suprêmes ? Le sentiment que cela n’a de toute façon pas d’importance ? Ou le plaisir particulièrement français de faire chier le monde ?

Prenons garde tout de même à ne pas être le dernier pays dirigé par un dinosaure !

posted by Jerome a Paris # 18:10 (0) comments

When will dinosaurs really be extinct ?

France has the sad privilege to be one of the last countries in the world to be ruled by a “dinosaur”, i.e. a political leader which rose to power in the early part of the second half of last century and has not left that place since. Amongst the sad specimens of that race, one can include Fidel Castro, Muhammar Khadafi or Yassir Arafat. Jacques Chirac, who was a Cabinet member for the first time in 1967 under de Gaulle, can rightfully claim to be a full member of that select club whose main (and only) competence is to grab power and keep it, on the back of the general populace.

To be fair to Chirac, he has been consistently – and mostly fairly - elected and reelected in his various posts, and the French thus bear a heavy responsibility for his continued presence in power. The man is clearly a gifted campaigner, able to run campaigns well suited to the mood of the day (as a Thatcherite in 1986, as a social populist in 1995, on a law and order platform in 2002) and able to make the French people forget that he has been utterly ineffective each time he has actually been in power – and that he has each time been voted out two years later (1976-78, 1986-88, 1995-97, 2002-04*).

How to explain this apparently irrational love of the French for such a manifestly incompetent politician – whom a majority agree should be in jail (this will be the subject of another post)? The mediocrity of the alternatives? Nostalgia for a long-lost (and presumably glorious) past? Pity for a man who made it clear that he would not give up until he reached the supreme job? The feeling that it is not so important? Or the peculiarly French trait to stick it up to others (including other Frenchmen)?

Maybe we should at least care to make sure that we are not the last country with a dinosaur…

* in March 2004, the right was routed in local elections; this reflected the population's annoyance with Chirac and his government, led by Raffarin. As the right still controls the majority in Parliament (in principle until 2007), he stays in power, but his legitimacy has been severely weakened.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 18:05 (0) comments

La théorie du vaccin

Pourquoi les islamistes ont ils le vent en poupe depuis une vingtaine d’années ? Ma théorie est que la pratique de la religion et des discours religieux a constitué la seule forme de liberté et d’expression tolérée par les régimes autocratiques du Moyen-Orient. Les islamistes en sont venus à constituer la seule opposition à ces régimes totalement déconsidérés (et avec raison) auprès de la population, ce qui leur a donné une forte légitimité politique (outre leur pouvoir spirituel). Cela a été de plus renforcé par le travail social sur le terrain, auprès d’une population frappée par misère et chômage grandissants.

Le seul moyen de déconsidérer les islamistes auprès de la population arabe est de montrer qu’ils seraient encore plus inaptes que les dirigeants en place. Cela ne peut malheureusement être fait qu’en les laissant exercer le pouvoir. L’exemple iranien est frappant : la théocratie en place est totalement décrédibilisée, perçue comme une dictature oppressante et la majorité de la population souhaite s’en débarrasser. L’idée de confier le pouvoir aux autorités religieuses n’est pas une proposition gagnante dans ce pays, et ne le sera pas pour longtemps.

Le risque de cette « solution » est que le remède soit pire que le mal, c’est-à-dire que le régime islamique en place soit dangereux, tant pour sa population que pour l’Occident (par exemple en soutenant les terroristes). En ce qui concerne la population, c’est un argument légitime (doit on les condamner à 25 années ou plus de misère pour les « guérir » ?), quoi que les exemples parallèles de l’Algérie (ou le coup d’Etat des militaires contre les islamistes légitimement élus en 1991 a été suivi d’une guerre civile qui a fait des dizaines de milliers de morts, sans aucune perspective nouvelle aujourd’hui) et de l’Iran (qui n’a pas vraiment fait pire que ses voisins) incitent à penser qu’il doit être fortement atténué.
Vis-à-vis de l’Ouest, il faut noter qu’un Etat, même islamiste, est un acteur international avec un minimum de rationalité (à commencer par le désir de survivre) peut être contenu et/ou dissuadé par les méthodes classiques de la diplomatie. L’argument qu’il faut empêcher les principaux pays producteurs de pétrole d’être soumis à des pouvoirs hostiles peut à mon avis également être contré : ces pays ont autant, si ce n’est plus, besoin d’exporter leur pétrole que nous de l’importer et les relations commerciales s’établiront en conséquence. L’Iran (comme à son époque l’Union Soviétique) a été un fournisseur fiable de pétrole pendant ces 25 dernières années.
En ce qui concerne le soutien au terrorisme, on peut également noter que l’Iran a pour l’essentiel soutenu les terroristes anti-israéliens. Sans excuser d’aucune sorte ce soutien, il faut bien noter que le pays a pris soin de ne pas provoquer directement les Etats-Unis sur ce sujet, preuve que la dissuasion marchait (dans un contexte pré 9/11), et force est de constater que l’absence de solution politique au conflit israélo-palestinien (incluant l’ensemble des pays arabes et impliquant naturellement leur reconnaissance d’Israël) explique (encore une fois, pour être clair, sans les justifier) le soutien aux crimes des terroristes palestiniens.

Donc, laissons ces pays passer par une phase de théocratie islamiste, ils en guériront on peut l’espérer assez vite et seront alors beaucoup plus ouverts envers l’Occident.

posted by Jerome a Paris # 18:04 (0) comments