dynasty

amnesia the other day, john and i sat with another barfly, talking about politics, discussing the evitability of jeb bush's bid for presidential election and the continuation of the bush dynasty in america.  boring.  i don't think jeb bush's candidacy is as inevitable as my friends would like to believe.  and even if we do see him running in the next republican presidential primary, i'm not sure the bush name will strongly carry either fiscal conservatives or the christian right wing to secure jeb bush a place in the presidential election against a democratic opponent.  not with so many other high-profile republican candidates currently being groomed for the campaign.

the revolving cast of characters in politics sometimes disgusts and dismays me.  america doesn't seem as bad as europe sometimes.  berlusconi finally went to jail - but how many times have we seen him in office?  today i saw this article in le monde in which nicolas sarkozy is called above any political party.  what's happening?  what's he hoping to accomplish in france?  is he hoping to return to office?  in the midst of the confusion in france surrounding the socialists and the economic slump and the power crisis of the european union, i bet france looks back and remembers (perhaps falsely) the stability of sarkozy's time in office.  i say do not become conforted with the false myths of bygone days.  nothing was really that golden.

and it's not just europe: japan just re-elected shinzo abe as prime minister, which at first seemed to be the manifestation of the eternal japanese wish to return to a golden age of politics and national stability.  i will say that abe seems to be making some difference to the japanese economy despite his track record his first term in office, though i should also say that while abe seems to be taking concrete steps to encourage growth, his central bank policies are small and any recent growth in the japanese economy might soon fade without any larger development.

it's not unusal for past american presidents to influence, encourage, and advise in political and diplomatic matters, but they cannot run again.  they take their turn and move on.  or they encourage their families to run for office.

remember when you found yourself really excited about obama?  i never found myself fascinated with him during the election the way the rest of america was, but i want to feel that way about a candidate.  i want to see a candidate run that won't just run on past ideas or family ties or a return to a golden era of politics.  i want one big idea.  at least one big idea.  i want someone committed to changing at least one thing.

acceptance

i felt a hand on my ass, so i turned around and he just grinned at me.  whiskey soda in hand, i smiled because it's been a long time since i've cared how grabby old men can get.  i mean i definitely still have boundaries, they're just not as drawn as they once were. and this behavior may not be completely harmless as there are a lot of men and women in the world who do not deserve to be groped like this, but personally i just don't mind.  it's sort of flattering - some drunk stranger likes the roundness of my bottom enough that he could brazenly put his hand there and squeeze a little.

i should be determined not to become one of these men as i grow older.

and perhaps i am succeeding.  i apparently already look old and i don't remember leering at or groping any young boys recently.  this friend said to me, "how old are you anyway?"

i said, "oh, i'm twenty-eight, actually."  in my head, it's sometimes hard for other to imagine that i'm as old as i am considering how young and fresh of face i still look.

nope.  he said, "ugh.  i thought you were older than that."

my youth must be disappointing, just i have suddenly become disappointed in my evidently rapidly decaying youth.

john refers to my boyfriend and me as "the blands."  we don't party and drink as much as john.  as plenty of other fierce people my age do.  i have never considered myself as particularly cool, though i did point out to john how bland he acted having spent the past six months in sobriety and seclusion within his house.

sunday, i watched a group of people lick droplets of drugs off their hands like salt before a shot of tequila.  i met up with adam.  we ordered pizza and then sat around talking with his roommates.  adam and i had sex.  not bland.  waking up was difficult the next morning - it always is - but i did not feel like crap all day at work.

china laughing

smug, maybe, but who wouldn't be?  china must be just laughing as this snowden affair unfolds.

the thing is, china and the u.s. have known for years that each has been spying on the other's computer networks.  both countries know this has got to be happening.  but you cannot pretend that such a spy program exists then criticize another nation about the invasion of their citizen's privacy and their collusion in cybertheft and espionage.

last week obama met chinese premier xi jinping to ask him to work with him to curb chinese cyber espionage of american companies.  america believes we lose a lot of technology and revenue to china because chinese companies and the chinese government steals it.  the obama administration had the audacity to publicly kind of scold china.  it deserves to be slapped in the face after this recent leak publicly revealed that u.s. is spying on the world.  credibility - obama is losing it fast.

here's the point though: this could all have been out in the open to begin with.  the public reaction to the prism program now has been amplified because of the clandestine aspect of the program.  i would like to consider the program further, talk about it, but honestly, does the prism system do much?  it gathers phone numbers and call durations and connections via social networks of several million people.  the sheer size of that data already begins to obscure the movements of individuals from special observation.  but what does a telephone number or contact name really tell anyone?  a program like this looks for suspicious patterns.  and when patterns emerge from a list of telephone calls, a warrant must still be obtained to investigate the identity and lives of any specific persons.  thomas friedman argues that controlled programs like this may be a compromise that keeps us from giving away more privacy and liberty later should further terrorism occur.

right now, the prism surveillance program does not seem particularly intrusive to me.  but when the government keeps programs like this a secret, i think the country begins to wonder if this glimpse into our clandestine government ends here or extends further.  if a program like this is kept secret, how much more surveillance is there of which we are not even aware?  furthermore, if this program had been made public, if congress had voted to put this program in place for the good of american security, then the president still has a foot hold when he scrutinizes other nations on privacy, espionage, and cyber theft.

perhaps someone could make the argument that certain surveillance, to be effective, must be kept secret.  however, at at certain point our government must balance doing whatever it can for the security of the american people against the protection of our civil liberties.  national security does not mean much if it cannot protect our values and rights as a nation.  transparency is the first step toward that balance.

prism

“If you harness all the capabilities of our nation, you could have a better understanding of foreign threats,” he said. “But what makes it hard is that everyone has an opinion. There’s very little appreciation for the threat, and there are so many special interests, particularly civil liberty groups with privacy concerns. That mix keeps us from getting to the crux of the national issue."

this quote comes from mike mcconnell, former head of the n.s.a and director of national intelligence currently working as vice chairman for booz allen hamilton.  he was commenting on the snowden leaks concerning the secret u.s. surveillance system called prism.

it's the special interests that make america.  it's those special interests we're guarding.  the crux of the national issues shouldn't be security for security's sake, but rather security to guard american rights, particularly the personal autonomy and agency that our culture highly values.

bradley manning does not seem like the brightest bulb.  he released a lot of classified diplomatic cables less revelatory about american diplomatic missions than they were embarrassing to some of the diplomats.  he acted like a teenager, impulsive, and caused a big stink.  at the same time, as with a lot of people who act impulsively, the consequences of his actions will probably be more severe than he deserves. 

the information that edward snowden recently released about secret surveillance programs in the united states is completely different than the information released by manning.  snowden leaked information he genuinely thought the american public needed to know.  he wanted to inform the public about an issue that potentially affects them.  and now we see america actively considering the role of government in their lives, the importance of national security weighed against their own privacy.  after over a decade of hearing the war drums started by president bush, this is a conversation the american public needs to have.





ps: david brooks completely misses the point with snowden.  i think he could have made this argument with manning, but this is completely different.

unhealthy disappointments

ryan said, "it wouldn't be tuesday if you weren't freaking out about health care."

it's not tuesday, but let's talk about it anyway.

some pundits have been lauding the changes currently under way to the american health care system, and i, too, believe that the affordable care act could do a lot of good here and there, in bits and pieces.  but the more i read about it, the more i realize the affordable care act will not actually make healthcare in this country affordable.  here are a few articles from the new york times i've been looking at recently:

reed Abelson writes, "Say goodbye to that $500 deductible insurance plan and the $20 co-payment for a doctor's office visit."  in an effort to avoid the "cadillac tax" of the affordable care act, a penalty on "luxury" health care plans, many insurance plans are scaling back their offerings.  the author writes, "In a way, the changes are right in line with the administration’s plan: To encourage employers to move away from plans that insulate workers from the cost of care and often lead to excessive procedures and tests, and galvanize employers to try to control ever-increasing medical costs."  but my $20 co-pay isn't a luxury for me - it's what makes going to the doctor affordable.  when the point of health care policy is preventative medicine, accessibility and thus the price of health care has to encourage every american to seek medical help.  no one should be discouraged by the price of an appointment.  preventative medicine starts with absolute accessibility.

certainly, patients may be insulted from seeing cost and subjected to excessive medical procedures, but this has not resulted from the luxury of a low deductible or co-payment.  in this litigious age, doctors themselves have been insulted from the cost of medicine.  they have no idea how much their recommendations, prescriptions, and orders cost.  therefore, they have no way to know or incentive to prescribe more cost-effective evaluation and treatment.

here's another essay i dig: "a simpler, better solution."

usually i don't care much the room for debate forums.  these two doctors (david himmelstein and steffie woolhandler) write an opinion that simple, succinct, and scary.  they first simply argue that a single-payer health care system is more simple and efficient.  done.  then they note several disturbing problems with the affordable care act, which has a lot to do with how complicated the act is.  first, this:

"If your income is below $31,321 for a family of four (133 percent of the poverty line), you will get Medicaid (unless you live in a red state that declined the federal assistance, like Texas or Alabama). And “Medicaid” nowadays means a privately run Medicaid H.M.O. But make one dollar more (or if Junior moves out, leaving a family of three) and Medicaid disappears; now you’re shopping for subsidized private insurance in the state-run exchange. That’s not a rare occurrence: 28 million adults cross the 133 percent line annually."

then they note that if you, "[m]ove from 400 percent of poverty to 401 percent, and individual premiums rise $2,303. Can’t quit smoking? Add $3,365."

the rules and exceptions are labyrinthine.  flatly: the affordable care act is far from comprehensive and does little to make health care affordable to average americans.

mandating that all americans pick up health care is pointless if basic health care is still unaffordable.  we can't argue for preventative medicine, medicine that deals with mole hills before they become mountains, then keep access to that out of reach while patting ourselves on the back for insuring the nation.

i had hoped the affordable care act could be obama's greatest legacy, and he has definitely been a fantastic president, but i think this may just be one of america's greatest disappointments.

ars poetica

john thinks journaling must be an addiction.  he will tell you a story about a woman who beat her drug addiction by journaling and now promotes her book that will teach one how to journal.  whether john actually saw this story on oprah or cooked this one up himself, i'll never know.

i have stacks of journals.  piles.  i talked to my mother the other day as she has been going through the library of books i left in alabama when i moved to oregon.  she found a cache of journals among all the other volumes; she told me she'd save them for me.

these journals contain a lot of entries about the purpose of maintaining a journal.  how do i justify this habit?

a part of me believes (perhaps falsely) that in writing this daily monologue, in noting these quotidian details, in indulging this compulsion to record i can glean some meaning from the culmination of events, that i can sort out my thoughts and experiences and emotions and all the rest of this meaningless bullshit and be left with a revelatory web, a pattern i can apply to the future.  i believe in this mathematics of memory.  my memory impacts and affects my experience now which compounds to affect a future present.  memory snowballs and collects like interest.

psychoanalysis breaks apart memory to find the missing mental component or malfunction buried underneath strata of memory and habit.  i think i journal for the same reason: i want to be able to pick apart of the calculus of experience, to understand subsets of memory, trajectories of effect.  that i should think of that man then when i love this man now and how then will i love another?  that china considered itself as center of the world, then a non-aligned, third world, and now again an economic superpower - how then will it be?

honestly, john may be right.  journaling may be just a compulsion.  it doesn't help me predict the future.  it is not a crystal ball.  it's not even an effective psychoanalytic tool considering i continue to fall into the same mental traps year after year.  i've been keeping a journal since the age of fifteen.  what would i do with all that time if i stopped now?

the middle kingdom and the three worlds

"third world" probably doesn't mean what you think it means.  the term originated during the cold war to refer to nations non-aligned with either the capitalist west (nato) or the communist bloc (the ussr.)  many of these third world countries had been former colonies, having found independence and needing to develop economically in the '60s and '70s.  hence popularly "third world" came to describe poor or developing nations.

the west did not consider china a third world country.  rule by the chinese communist party signified soviet alignment to the west.  mao zedong had a different idea: he wanted to lead china was a non-aligned power between the u.s. and the u.s.s.r., despite his communist ideology, calling this his "three worlds theory."

i don't really remember the collapse of the u.s.s.r. - it didn't hold much significance for me at six.  neither did china form an axis of evil with the soviet giant.  i missed the hysterics of reagan.  young children in nineties must have dreamed of china as an alien place of red palaces and toy factories.  we saw the "made in china" sticker everywhere.

china came of age economically at the same time my generation did.  it now has the second largest economic in the world.  furthermore, in the new york times yesterday, an article reviewed the rising military might of china in the pacific, narrowing the capabilities between the u.s. and china.  obama and the joint chiefs of staff have in response this year declared a shift to greater attention militarily to the pacific, particularly as traditional american allies such as japan, south korea, and india continue to find themselves locked in disputes with china over territory.

this military focus only inflames china.  as henry kissinger points out in his book "on china," the middle kingdom has historically considered itself the center of the world, insisting upon tribute from bordering kingdoms, but the ancient imperial mandarins of china dealt with their neighbors diplomatically.  contemporarily china may seem aggressive, but in a constantly changing southeast asia populated by many different peoples and cultures, china attempts to maintain internal stability and beneficial relations with its neighbors in the face of a growing american military presence in the area.

instead of providing constant worry to the chinese government, instead of viewing china in the united states (replacing the u.s.s.r. as the second world,) the u.s. government needs to start supporting chinese diplomacy.  overt u.s. support could temper china's aggressive stance and put china in a place to effectively stabilize the region, including aiding democracy and normalcy in north korea and myanmar.  china needs to become a regional leader and an international leader and can only do so with the support of the united states.

we need to erase the distinction between a capitalist first world and a communist second and acknowledge that whether as a developing nation or non-aligned, china is not a third world country.