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Patrick Lawrence: Will Biden Provoke War with China?
by Moderator June 3, 2022 August 10, 2022
13 Comments on Patrick Lawrence: Will Biden Provoke War with China?
Host Robert Scheer speaks with veteran foreign correspondent Patrick Lawrence on his criticisms of provocative US and NATO policies — and his subsequent ban by Twitter.
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Patrick Lawrence.
"We are the provocateurs" — offered as a condemnation of current US foreign policy — might seem the sort of untutored comment attributed by establishment pundits to the "fake news" environment of the internet. Indeed, recent columns written by veteran foreign correspondent Patrick Lawrence condemning the expansion of NATO and President Biden's promise of military support for Taiwan against China – a radical shift in U.S. policy — has resulted in his being ejected from Twitter, a verdict increasingly visited upon those who dare to dissent from the conventional wisdom.
But Lawrence is a seasoned foreign correspondent who covered world politics for the legendary International Herald Tribune and other major news outlets for more than three decades. The author of two much-honored books "Someone Else's Century-East and West in a Post Western World," and "Time No Longer: America After the American Century," a finalist for an LA Times Book Award, predicted the decline of American hegemony and the challenge of a sharp rise in the power of China. It is a shift in power, Lawrence tells Scheer, that America is determined to resist with aggressive policies that endanger the peace of the world through the hubris of our unbridled national chauvinism.
As Lawrence puts it in the Scheer Intelligence podcast, "One of the main things I came back from my 29 years in Asia, one of the main truths that I had in my suitcase when I arrived back in the United States" (is) "we need to see societies as they understand themselves. It is not necessary for us to approve. I don't think they would even care if we did or not, but it is necessary for us to understand them on their own terms."
Finally, Lawrence finds it alarming that the US currently seeks to wall in the rising power of other nations rather than opening the door to different centers of influence, which was promised with the creation of the UN at the end of WW II: "Historically the stated American intent in 1945 was to bring along the world into a grand era of prosperity, material well being, raise up the underdeveloped nations." But now, Lawrence argues, America is threatened by "the rise of China, the rise of India, Pakistan, Brazil, the South Africans…aren't we supposed to be applauding this as exactly what we wanted to see and what we set out to engender seven decades and some ago? Think about that. The reality is we can't handle it. We just can't imagine a world that rests on anything even remotely resembling parity."
Host: Robert Scheer
Producer: Joshua Scheer
Robert Scheer:
All right. Let's get started here. Okay. Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence, where, as with the Central Intelligence Agency, we try to learn, or at least I do anyway, I can't speak for them, but the intelligence comes from my guests. And in this case, it's someone who was a journalist for 30 years, International Herald Tribune and other publications, Patrick Lawrence. He was born Patrick Lawrence Smith. I mentioned that only because he wrote two very important books that I know about, but I didn't know he wrote them because they're under the label Patrick Smith, if you should want to go check them out. One was written in 2010 called Somebody Else's Century: East and west in a Post-West World. And then I think it was two years later, he wrote a book about America having to adjust to a world in which the East is now going to be the dominant force.
And I think this is the important takeaway from the whole Ukraine-Russian invasion story that is the focus of so much news now. Because on the eve of this, and Patrick has written for a number of journals, including the Consortium News and others. I post them on my own website Scheer Post. But one of the points he's made in his columns, and here's a guy who for 30 years covered much of the world and knows a lot about India, China, Japan, the three subjects of his East Takes Over book.
But he reminds us in his columns that Russia made a deal with China and India about a multipolar world before their most recent invasion of Ukraine. And that really the big change here… I'll let you take it over now. But the big shift really might be that this is no longer a cold war one between Russia and the US, a basically white man's game, but now we're in the other. And we're in a multipolar world whether we like it or not. And China and India alone, which represent well over two billion people, close to pushing three billion at some point, that much of the world is not even honoring the sanctions that have been posed by the European Union. So why don't you just give us your overview and from your 30 years out there covering this world.
Patrick Lawrence:
Well, Bob, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to join you after so many years following your stuff. I'm glad you mentioned very generously mentioned those two books. The second of them is called Time No Longer and Yale brought it out. I note that one because in it, I made the argument that America had a very considerable choice in front of it. And that was how to manage its own _ relative decline against the emergence of other powers of notably China, the Russian Federation, India, and so on, right? The rise of the Non-West. I consider parity between the West and Non-West an absolutely unstoppable imperative of the 21st century, whether we like it or approve of it or not. And my thought in that book was we can do this gracefully. We can do it with imagination, a certain courage, wisdom, cleverness greeting a new global landscape with anticipation, enthusiasm indeed. Or we can do it jealously, messily, defensively, and the world will be in for another, unfortunately, long interim of disorder. And in that book, I said, "You know, I think we have 25 years starting from the September 11th tragedies in 2001," just sticking my neck out a little. I said, "I think we have about 25 years to make this decision." And we're now 21 years into that period and we have emphatically made that decision. We are not going to do this gracefully. We are going to do it with the utmost resistance. And our foreign policies are, are not going to have anything to do with constructive sentiments or intent.
A dear friend, no longer with us used to say, "Our foreign policy is based on being the spoiler. We're going to be the spoiler. We're going to spoil things like a settlement in the Korean peninsula, et cetera right now." Now I think we're down to being the provocateur. We are going to provoke tension, potential conflict, danger in those areas where we think we stand to we, our leadership. In those areas where our leadership judges, it can prolong American primacy a little bit longer. And that's what I think we're watching in Ukraine. And it's a two front cold war this time. So regrettable, even the phrase, cold war two. It's a two front cold war. And we're talking this morning about the out the Eastern front, let's call it, with China, Taiwan being the center of gravity this time.
Well, the conceit of American culture. And that is the best way to describe it, I think, is that we own this thing called freedom, self-determination, democracy. And once again, we always seem to be looking for the good war. When will World War II come back? We forget, of course, we resisted entering the good war until Russia had basically, the old Soviet union had basically broken Hitler's power.
But leaving that aside, we've been looking. And Vietnam was going to be the good war. We were against Communist serenity, that didn't work out. Iraq was going to be the good war. We were against terrorism, that didn't work out. And we now think in the Ukraine, you can almost get a giddiness about it, we got a good war. We're fighting on the side of these Ukrainians for their freedom against, we don't call it the Soviet Union, it's not a communist country anymore.
But I think the real target is we'd like to take on China. And we'd like to take on China, not because it's a military threat, but because we can't stand the idea, in fact, these people who are still written by a communist party, actually turned out to be more effective capitalists in the modern period than any other country. But that's probably not the way you look at, I read your book, I reread it last night. By the way, I was at the LA Times Book Festival when they gave you a more recent book, you were a finalist for the best nonfiction, as I recall. I didn't know it was you, because again, you had this name, Smith, so people want out for it.
How delightful you remember that, Bob.
You bet. I was there. But I should say shout out, credit to my wife. Narda Zacchino, who used to be the associate editor, she founded the book festival. So I've gone to every one of them. But anyway, your thesis, it seems to me, is unmistakably clear. Kipling pointed it out, you've got to come to grips with the East. And you've written the book on India and China and japan is wonderful because it's complex. It understands that these are three very different countries. Asia is a very complex place. And what you are against is this idiotic thinking that we own the franchise for freedom, self-determination and so forth. And you've taken in that book, three very different countries, Japan, India and China, three countries that have been at war with each other, quite viciously, and you show complexity as the name of the game. And it's basically an argument for accepting a multipolar world.
And what I found really ominous recently, aside from all of the putting arms and everything, the great arms race over Ukraine will be like Vietnam. I think you said in one of your columns, "We'll fight until the last Ukrainian." But also there's this arrogance that Biden could go to Asia and say, "We are now going to build a new wall against China." And then you wrote a column that he actually broke with American policy and said, "We will militarily prevent you from reclaiming Taiwan."
So we're at an incredibly dangerous moment. We're talking about not just Russia being nuclear armed, China of course is, and has more of an ability to fight back. So why don't you kind of give us where we are? We're at a very dangerous moment that, as far as I can see, the headline is really US is the provocateur. That's going to be hard for many liberal folks to accept. They think virtue is with Biden now. And it reminded me of Martin Luther King, at one point, he lost the New York Times. They attacked him editorially a year before he died at Riverside Church when Martin Luther King said, "I can't talk about nonviolence in the ghetto or in the world when my own government is the major purveyor of violence in the world today." And if we look at the arms industry and where we're shipping arms, that's the US government now, but you used the word provocateur. So why don't we deal with that?
Okay. You prompt me to remember an absolutely delightful tweet somebody sent out. I'm now censored from Twitter, but while I was still able to read it, somebody said.
You mean that as a joke, you don't mean you were actually censored?
Patrick Lawrence :
Yeah. My account's been banished.
It has?
Yeah. It was called, My Name Was The Flautist. I had a nice number of followers, but-
Wait a minute. You were like Donald Trump, you're banned from Twitter?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, my goodness.
Just disgraceful. Anyway.
Well, wait a minute. You're not a new news person. You worked for the International Herald Tribune and other highly respected organizations for 30 years. You reported for war zones. You weren't in China during the cultural revolution, but you went there, I think in 1980. You've been in India. You've interviewed a lot of these important leaders and so forth. And you are banned from Twitter?
You're banned from Twitter. And we don't know that's an assault on individual freedom?
The people doing this censoring, they have no sense of history. They have no regard for experience, what modest wisdom one may have accumulated along the way. No. The cutting edge question, they've been at this for a long time. They came after me and numerous others or some others anyway. The Ukraine war has proved the cutting edge question. They judged the democratic party in concert with Silicon Valley. Everybody has to stay right on side as we wage this proxy war. YouTube has erased something like 9,000 videos containing questioning the Orthodox version of the war and why it started and all that. So it's sort of full tilt, full tilt campaign now and I got hit. Anyway…
Well, let me just say, since I get almost no traffic from Twitter, you're welcome to write for ScheerPost. And maybe I should specialize in publishing people who have been banned on Twitter, maybe …
Refugees.
Well, that's the new literary badge of honor.
Well go on.
You need a motto, Bob, like, give me your tired, your beleaguered, your censored …
I'm making a joke of it, but it's pretty frightening. The fact that, well, okay, it's not officially the government doing it, but my goodness, when you have a monopoly, a cartel, would do we feel better if Putin got a cartel in Russia to ban you? That's the only thing he is missing, then we couldn't call the tyranny, right?
The government is not doing it de jure but it is doing it de facto because it's pressuring Silicon Valley to act. It's this very, quite legible phenomenon.
As long as we define you now, or Twitter has, as this dangerous radical, I still would like to get your vision.
Yeah. Let's go back to the question.
Where we are now in the world.
Because like it or not, there are these billions of people who live in countries that are not honoring our sanctions and do not… India and China, two systems that by the way, India used to be the great bastion of democracy in the hopes of the US for Asia. And then we had Communist China that we wouldn't allow to be in the UN and wouldn't recognize. But now you've got these two countries that have actually had waged or shot at each other and yet we are uniting them and we are uniting them with Russia, something communism wasn't able to do. There was no Soviet dispute. The Chinese Communist and the Russia's Communist shooting at each other, that started even before the communist revolution. But now we are managing to unite India, China, Russia and India and China are buying the oil that we are preventing Russia from selling in Europe. So the world has actually confirmed your prediction in your book, in your excellent book.
I keep bringing it up because I only finished rereading it about three hours ago. It's an easy read. It's 200 pages. And I do want to recommend that, even more than your book about the United States. So if somebody wants more information, it's called Somebody Else's Century: East and West in a Post-Western World. So let's get to that point.
All right. I go back to that delightful tweet I was going to tell you about it. It was during those weeks when Secretary Blinken and others in the administration were trying to recruit China to join the sanctions against Russia. And at the very least not aid Russia as it seeks to transcend them one way or the other. And somebody sent out this tweet saying, "Dear China, please help us subvert Russia. So then we can concentrate on you."
Yeah. And that is a story. Because if you look at the project for new American century, the NeoCons, who now seem to have occupied the Biden state department quite effectively, China was really their target.
We never accepted the idea that we would have a world or peace or a multipolar world. They were after China. And the fact that Chinese are very good capitalists made them even more of a threat.
Yeah. Now look, Russia, post-Soviet Union Russia, it has its work to do by way of development, urban, rural divides, so on. Manufacturing sector is not what one would want it to be. But China's another sort of story. And think they're plainly extremely gifted by way of technological innovation and applications and so forth, common East Asian story. And the very size of the place, it's very plain that China already a regional power is rapidly emerging as a global power. And I think in Washington some while ago, I think they identified China as the main "threat" or the main country we are going to insist is a threat. I put it that way because China is in no way a threat of this kind, or we consistently misread its intentions. It's very unfortunate.
Yeah. The main issue in Washington policy cleaks is not the Russian Federation, it's China. That's our long term, or again, our perceived long term threat. And I urge your listeners at this point to watch very carefully because we are reliving a moment that last came to us 70 odd years ago. All right. And I'm talking about the origins of the Cold War. This is very blurred in history in most of the books. But I think if you study what happened carefully and with a proper degree of disinterest and discernment, you will understand that the standard story that the Soviet Union started the Cold War is just wrong. We provoked the Cold War. I'm happy to say that on your program. So there's the question of causality.
There's the question of causality, responsibility, agency, chronology. Those are important words in our context today, and I urge all of us to sort of bear witness here and recognize with history in mind, the history I just mentioned in mind. These questions of causality, responsibility and the chronology of events, we are provoking this friction with China for our own purposes. And the standard American understanding of China now has been bent way, way out of shape. China's intentions are nothing like what our policy people and media assigned to them. They are not looking for an open conflict. They are not looking to push America back to the coast of California. They simply want to play a role in their region that is commensurate with their emergence as a power.
Let me stop you with that sentence because I know what you just said. And also I read, and I generally have people on this show who I want people to read their books or watch their documentary, I'll be honest about that. But you really wrote a very, very important book, and I'm not putting down your more recent book, but that Somebody Else's Century: East and West in a Post-Western World, that includes India's century, Japan's century and you can throw Brazil century and a lot of other countries out there. And what I loved about your book is I know something about China. I was a fellow in the Center for Chinese Studies back in 1963. I actually was in China during the cultural revolution, one of the few observers there, and I saw China swing all the way over to anarchy and irrationality and really quite a bit of violence.
And what I loved about your writing and that book, and it applies to India and Japan and anywhere else you might write, you have a kind of Graham Greene wisdom of recognizing that life is not the way we like to order it, it has its own rhythms. And he's sort of the poet for my money of anti-imperialism and spirit, Graham Greene. He was about Mexico. He was about Vietnam, his books and so forth. And your book has that texture.
You don't give China or India or Japan a pass. You talk about their struggles with tradition, identity, how complex it is, how there are no easy answers. You just made a couple of statements on this program that might suggest to listeners that you have a simplistic view, but that would be wrong. You actually have a very complex view of China, India, Japan, and the rest of the world. And you earned this complex view by 30, 40 years of being a reporter out there. I have to remind people, this is not some armchair intellectual spouting. You paid your dues. You were out there schlepping around interviewing people, where you were in war zones and so forth. So why don't you tell us about what you learned in the field and why you've come to this conclusion?
Well, thanks, Bob. You're very generous about that book and I have to be grateful for that. I'm reaching a copy across the way here. Because in all honesty I continue to think it's the best thing I ever wrote, but I've never really been willing to rely on that judgment entirely because I was the happiest I've ever been when I wrote it and maybe that colors my judgment.
Look, I have made a commitment to listeners of this show that I will not discuss a book without reading it from beginning to end, even if that means staying up the night before I do the interview, which happened last night. And in this case it was a reread, but I think people have to take ideas seriously. They have to take books seriously. They can't just skim them. They can't just look for the bloodlines or what have you. And what you are writing, your journalism, is really all about is nothing more dangerous or radical in terms of being banned from their Twitter account, nothing more dangerous than acknowledgement of complexity. Complexity. And people always go to war first by denying complexity. There's no hope of negotiation. There's no hope of compromise. And that's where we are now.
Even Biden had to walk it back and say, "Oh no, no, we're not for regime change in Russia." After his Secretary of Defense had said we want to destroy their ability to protect themselves. Yeah, lots of luck with that. They happen to have these nuclear weapons, which we gifted the world with. And so, but I'm trying to get a little energy into this because I feel you're being a little too blase about it.
We're talking about the possible end of all human life. That's what these nuclear weapons represent. And it's not just Russia. It's Pakistan, it's India, it's China, it's Israel. There are a lot of weapons out there and it doesn't take more than a what? Couple a dozen of them to destroy most of what we think is life on the planet. And they're there and they have the delivery systems. And we want to put a guy like Putin… First, we say he's crazy or psychological or has a death wish or whatever. And then we want to put his back up against the wall. And we've talked about all of his generals and advisors as being war criminals. And then we expect them to be rational and meet us at the negotiating table. It don't work that way.
Bob, if you think about this historically, the stated American intent in 1945 was to bring along the world into a grand era of prosperity, material wellbeing, raise up the underdeveloped nations, the impoverished and all that. I don't need to go on. And if you think about what's going on now with that little thought of this historical thought, you have to say, "Wait a minute, the rise of China," which has brought hundreds and hundreds of millions of people out of poverty just in the last few decades, "the rise of China, the rise of India, Pakistan, Brazil, the South Africans, and so on and so on, aren't we supposed to be applauding this as exactly what we wanted to see and what we set out to engender seven decades and some ago?"
Think about that. The reality is we can't handle it. We just can't imagine a world that rests on anything even remotely resembling the parity. One of the things you just mentioned, it quite struck me is Putin must be insane. I love some of this stuff. It's so bitterly amusing. Putin must be insane. His generals aren't telling him what's going on, et cetera, et cetera, it goes on. The Russian people don't like him, they're against the war. Parenthesis, he's got an 80% plus approval rate at this point. And Xi, Xi is power man. He's a tyrant, et cetera, et cetera.
The point is we cannot allow these leaders any attribute of rational thinking. We cannot permit, we cannot our let our minds in on the idea that these people are acting in a rational way in the interests of their countries. That's what I think we're watching and reading about every day with these caricatures of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and other such leaders. I'll make a qualification here. I do not approve of Narendra Modi and what he is doing to India. This Hindu nationalist stuff, I wrote about it in the book we're mentioning called Hindutva-
But your approval is not the critical thing.
No, it doesn't mean anything.
Robert Scheer :
The critical understanding I got of India, and I share your biases, I favor secular democracy. I'm a narrow man. I thought India would lead us to enlightenment, and I believed in all the non-alignment and so forth. But the fact is what's threatening about India now, China now, and ultimately any country in the world is not their failure to their own people. We love them when they're totalitarian and oppressive.
In fact, our big issue with China is that we'd like them to keep the wage rates down. Apple doesn't want unions in the United States. They certainly don't want real unions in China. We like Chinese totalitarianism when it gives us phony unions, when workers can't organize. That's not the issue. The issue is whether it's India or China or any other place in the world, if they decide that they get to also make world history, that they get to decorate the world and find places where work for them and things that work for them and including grand concepts of freedom and so forth and bring their own sensitivity about religion or after all we claim the right to define democracy but we were the biggest slave owners.
And we didn't let women even vote until 1920 for God's sake. We're talking about women's rights in the world and we didn't have them in our great flowering of democracy, let alone racial equality. And we endorse-
You know, Bob-
My goodness. There's an arrogance to this and I'm not here to defend the Indian government now. What I am here is to defend plurality and the easy condemnation of any choices any of these governments make.
Yeah. You caught me out a little there, Bob. I do not approve of Hindutva, I think it's a terrible blight on one of the most wonderful countries in the world for all its diversity and so forth. But you make a very sound point. I fell into a trap I often urge others to avoid. It doesn't really matter what I think of Modi. That's the business of the Indian electorate and it's more importantly, this must apply to the discourse concerning Russia and China. I don't quite know what I think of Vladimir Putin on the domestic side. But that's none of my business.
That's the business of the Russian people. Ditto China. This goes back to, I love your reference to Nehru, I'm right with you on that generation of larger than life leaders after the war Nehru, my four N's: Naru, Nasser, [inaudible 00:34:54]. And then all the others are Bens and Mosaddegh and Lumumba, et cetera. What a visionary generation. And Joe on lies five principles. If you listen to what the Chinese are saying now, they're actually quoting those principles. The internal affairs of other countries are not to be intervened upon.
And I mentioned this point now, I'll finish up my remark. When we are judging Russia and the war in Ukraine and so on and so forth, it is simply no good referencing whatever goes on in Russia by way of the press or civil rights or NGOs or any of that. It is simply not pertinent. Parentheses, the late Stephen Cohen used to remind me, the press in Russia is far more diverse in its opinions than ours.
Or it was until this war. That's the whole problem with war. Whether it's the United States or Russia or anywhere else, as the Orwell pointed out, whether it's an invented war or real war, you're going to lose freedom. And that's true of imperialism as well. This was the whole warning of our founders. They contradicted it right away by being an imperialist regard to Native Americans and people of color and so forth, but the fact of matter is you can't be an imperial power and be enlightened and democratic. War makes idiots of us all. War makes barbarians of us all. That's the lesson of human history.
Now look, back in 1898 with the Spanish American war, that was the moment when America declared itself and an empire. And you had people like Twain, the Anti-Imperialist League and all that. The truth of that time was very, very stark and it is no less pertinent today. You can either have an empire abroad or you can have democracy at home, but you cannot have both. That's it. And we are living the truth of that. Look at us domestically. It's a very sad story, isn't it? I don't wish to be any grimmer than the reality around us, but that's the truth of it, right?
It's also the lesson of the Western experience. You go back to Aristotle. When Aristotle advised Alexander to be a ruthless emperor to the rest of the world, treat them as brutes and beasts and vegetables, and yet be kind to all the Greeks. That was the prescription. And that's the problem we're having with China now. We refused to accept that the one point… When I was in the Center for Chinese Studies, there were between four and 500 million Chinese, probably closer to 500 million. This was 1963.
The conventional wisdom in our circles, the experts, was that China could never develop, had no petroleum, the land was exhausted and over population would doom them. China has stood this on its head and they now have almost a billion more people and they've done incredibly well by those people. So the real issue is, are those people brutes, vegetables as Aristotle would've talked about them, beasts? Or are they deserving of the same rights as Athenians or people living in New York or California, or Alabama or Texas? And that is the real issue. And whether it's coming out of Trump or out of Biden, we basically have a view of the people living in China, India, and elsewhere as an undifferentiated mass, not really worthy of respect for their intellect, their experience. And as you point out in your book, by the way, I have found from our thousands of Chinese students we have here at USC where I teach, they actually have a better and clearer and smarter understanding of the United States than the average American student has of China.
Oh, without any doubt. Americans don't need to understand other people, other people need to understand us. But that's because of the power balance.
Tell us about that. That's the real message of your book. I am so irritated. I'm so upset that a man of your knowledge could be banned from Twitter. I just don't get it. Why does that not enrage? Where are our press organizations? Where is P? Are you a member of PEN that's supposed to protect writers.
Are you kidding me? Not on your life given what PEN's made of itself.
I was honored by PEN one year. So was Chris Hedges. What's going on? Where are the human rights organization? You're a press person, a long distinguished establishment career and you can be banned from Twitter and we talk about freedom?
Yeah. Listen, PEN's gone the way of the ACLU and all these other institutions. It's just not what it was. LBJ once said in his colorful way, since your program is fun for the whole family, I'll put it politely. "You're either outside the tent urinating in or inside the tent urinating out." And in my judgment, people in our profession have been given a choice. I think this choice was coming at us for many, many, many years, but I think it's become, since 2001, I don't think there's any place to hide anymore. You've got to be either inside the tent putting out the orthodoxy, or you've got to be outside the tent taking care of the ethics and standards that used to govern our profession and no longer do.
I've been very flattering up to this point, but bite your tongue because that's not even good career advice to a young journalist now.
Yeah, actually.
Because the fact is the center will not hold. It is in disarray. We didn't create Donald Trump with our honest reporting. A failed system created Donald Trump. The failure of liberal democracy created Donald Trump. The failure to solve problems of immigration, of income inequality, of racism, of gender inequality. That's what created a boom like Donald Trump. And then they want to blame critical reporters on the left side of things. That's garbage. And so your advice is wrong because the tent will not stand up. And the fact is we are in disarray now.
It's a good point.
It's a good point. Good take.
So go pitch your own tent, invent your own journalism. I don't know, we could end it on that, but we have not… I want to go a little longer because people still will not understand that you have done your homework. That's what I wanted to come out of this. That's why I chased you down to do this podcast.
Well, let me return to-
Yeah, go give us the homework.
Let me return to the point-
You've talked to these leaders. You were there. Tell us what you learned on the streets.
I want to return to a point we slightly lost a minute ago, and that is the nature of these non-Western societies we're talking about. Okay? You're quite right about America. We have the monopoly on democracy and liberties and so on and so forth. Yes, that's our credo, our creed, but it causes us to… It prevents us from seeing other people clearly. And as I said in I think the column that brought us together, if there's one thing people in the 21st century demands of our diplomats and statesmen, stateswomen, and the rest of us too, journalists, certainly, it is learning to see and understand the perspectives of others, how the world looks from their point of view.
We just have no gift for this, we Americans, primarily because… There's geography and so on, but primarily because we haven't had to. Now, let me go to another point here. A wonderful Bengali scholar named Partha Chatterjee, he teaches in Calcutta some of the year, at least last I followed him, spent a semester, a year at Columbia, published a book in the nineties, a book of essays called The Politics of the Governed. And he made a very provocative point. I certainly saw this as I walked around India, China, to an extent it applies to Japan, indeed. And it's this, legitimacy in our time does not necessarily any longer derive from participatory democratic processes and institutions. It derives from the provision of various services and social values, security, safety, education, clean water, and so on and so forth. Right? When I first read that, it was first published in Delhi by a very small press, and I that's where I read it, I said, "I have a somewhat Western sensibility, this idea, I find it quite disturbing."
What's going to happen to our notions of democracy? But I looked around and I said, "Do I have a right to hold the Indian population to that standard? Look at this country, look at the deprivation and the underdevelopment. They're coming along nicely, but look at what a long way they have to go." The same applies in China. So what are we talking about here? We are talking about different a sort of civilizational standards, different idea of what a just society looks like and how it functions.
And I think that's one of the main things I came back from my 29 years in Asia, that's one of the main truths I had in my suitcase when I arrived back in the States. We need to see societies as they understand themselves. It is not necessary for us to approve. I don't think they would even care if we did or not, but it is necessary for us to understand them on their own terms. I would add one thing. I also returned understanding that being a Westerner or a non-Westerner is not a matter of the color of one's skin or the shape of one's eyes or how often one eats rice. It's a question of one's sensibility, one's consciousness, one's understanding of who one is in relation to the society where one lives.
You faded out there for a minute, but go ahead… You said it was a question of the society where… It was actually a very poetic statement. Maybe it got recorded. Let me just throw one thing in here, though. We don't want… We're not innocent about this. Just as I was thinking, one of my first trips to Asia was when I got Paul Krassner who was editing The Realist magazine and he made a lot of money off posters that said, well, I guess we are NPR, so F communism, and they sold like hot cakes. They were red, white, and blue banners. And you put them up in your dorm and your dorm advisor couldn't say, "Take that down," because you could accuse him of being a communist. It was absolutely brilliant, the F-U-C-K communism posters.
He had some money, so he bought me a ticket to Vietnam, and that's how I went there in 1964. And anyway, I bribed my way into an area where there was some combat with the Vietcong and the Delta. And then my driver abandoned me there as a journalist, you will appreciate that happens. And suddenly it was nightfall, and all the people who were talking to me faded away. And suddenly there was a firefight and I was alone. And believe it or not, I actually found refuge in one of these… Graham Green described something that it was left over from the French Indochina war. There were wooden towers that maintained security, so I climbed up into this one that was there. And there were a couple of other guys, Vietnamese people, taking refuge in there. They were annoyed as hell that I joined them, but they didn't kick me out.
And I had a night of absolute fear to contemplate what the hell was I doing there, what was my government doing there, what do we really know about these people? And in reading your book, what I found so powerful was your description of Western mischief. You go back to the Portuguese adventurers, you go back to the Spanish, you go back to the Opium War, you go back the intrusion by the West on the East. We're not innocent bystanders. We helped create the mess of China and India, we Westerners, with our wisdom, and we messed up their history terribly. I was in Cambodia when it was a pleasant, wonderful place, wonderful king and so forth. And then what happened? Millions are killed and we extend the war and all of the nightmare, the terrible things we've done.
And in your book, one is introduced to this East, not as a place of innocence, the Beatles going there to find virtue in India, but as a wasteland, as a plundered land, as a deliberately divided area. And a lot of what plays out now that we're getting from India, we get it from Japan, we get it from China, is their reaction to grievances that in large measure have to do with Western behavior.
And right now, think about the arrogance of Joe Biden, who when he is informed and alert, has endorsed these American adventures going there to lecture how to put a new… What, he wants to put a wall. Now, let me end on that because your book denounces walls in a very poetic way, and what we are about now is building walls. We want a wall against Russia. We want a wall against China. And you remind us in your book, it was Ronald Reagan who said, tear down that wall. It was Gorbachev who responded. And we now want to build walls. That's what NATO is about.
So let's end on that. Tell us where you think we're headed.
Yeah. Mr. Biden, don't build that wall, right? He's building it as quickly as we can. Look, my take on this is the rest of the world… The West is becoming progressively more isolated. He who would isolate is becoming more isolated. The countries that have signed on for these sanctions number, I think, 25. The countries that have declined to sign on to them number 160. And I think what the rest of the world is telling us, if I may, the non-West, the global South, what have you, is that they don't want a world where these walls exist. They paid rather dearly. We tend to miss this. The non-Western world paid very dearly for Cold War I, in terms of stunted development. The aspirations expressed by that wonderful group of leaders we were mentioning earlier, Nauru and so on, were nearly extinguished. Societies did not rise the way they aspired to. They paid materially, in spirit, et cetera. And what happened after the wall came down was these very same aspirations arose once again.
We don't want to be aligned with America or the Soviet Union. We just want to be Nigerians or Tanzanians or Venezuelans, or what have you. And that's what the world wants again. I mentioned earlier America's assumption, post Cold War assumption of a role as spoiler and now provocateur. It's really very sad, not to say tragic, Bob, that this is exactly the world we are… Once again, just as we did in the late forties, this is the world our leaders are attempting to prevent from coming into being.
And I want to close with a pitch here, because I don't think you are simplistic in any way. I don't think you're indifferent to the disaster of war. I think you've witnessed it, and you know the price we paid. So I just want to make that clear. I'm not here to bait you, and I do urge people, I think if you want to pick up one book to try to understand the East, pick up Somebody Else's Century. It was written 12 years ago, but it's very fresh right now. It's a very well written. Somebody Else's Century: East and West in a Post-Western World. And I think one way or another, we are going to be certainly in a multipolar world, in which just as a matter of energy and intellect and population, it's going to be Eastern-centered. So I want to say check out Patrick Lawrence. The author is Patrick Lawrence Smith. That's another story we'll visit in another discussion, but I want to say, it reeks of complexity in the best sense. It's thoughtful. It's great work. And I just want to end on that note.
I want to thank Christopher Ho and Laura Kondourajian, the producers of the show at KCRW, for doing a great job. Joshua Scheer is the executive producer, puts it all together and holds it together. And I want to thank the J … I always get this wrong. The JKW Foundation, which is in the memory of Jean Stein, a terrific journalist, for providing us with some funding. See you next week with another edition of Scheer Intelligence.
Tags: bien cold war featured foreign correspondent imperialism multipolar world Patrick Lawrence putin robert scheer russia russia ukraine war scheer intelligence ukraine unipolar world united nations war wwii
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Leadership, Rick Rahim
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Rick Rahim is a dynamic leader and an accomplished executive. But our true asset lies in the depth and quality of our management team.
Rick has assembled a very talented executive staff capable of managing and growing our daily operations. Moreover, Rick has networked extensively at the highest levels of business and politics.
Rick relies heavily on his relationships with more than a dozen multimillionaires who sit on his informal advisory board. This board consists of accomplished executives from both the public and private sectors. These same individuals offer Rick a large pool of available funds for projects of almost any size.
Rick has been a serial entrepreneur for 20+ years. In the early nineties, he founded a large limousine company in the Washington, DC area. He sold that company and founded a nationwide voicemail/telecommunications company that also thrived. Upon exiting that business, Rick bought a marina in a local resort town. He tripled that business and sold it three years later.
In 1997, Rick started yet another company - this time marketing cellular telephones. Within a year, the company was one of the largest in the Mid Atlantic. Within four years, it was a nationwide company grossing $5 million per month. All told, Rick's marketing efforts directly contributed approximately one hundred million dollars in revenue to the major cellular providers including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
In 2001, Rick founded VMC Satellite. Over the course of four years, VMC grew to become the premier online retailer of satellite TV for DISH Network. Through his innovative recruiting and marketing, Rick grew an organization of 240,000 affiliate marketers all over the globe who sold DISH Network on a commission basis. During the same four years, VMC Satellite provided several billion dollars in revenue to DISH Network as a result of Rick's creative and efficient marketing.
In April, 2005, VMC Satellite was acquired by InPhonic, a public company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Rick sold the company for $23.3 million in cash and stock. Rick was also retained as President of the Satellite TV Division of InPhonic to enable a smooth transition and continued profitability of the company he founded. Almost a year later, with his performance targets met, Rick was able to retire from full-time employment at InPhonic.
Not a man to rest on his laurels, Rick got right back to work. Today, Rick's many companies collectively employ over 351 people in 13 locations in 7 states; and generate many millions of dollars per year in revenue.
In addition to overseeing BusinessVentures.com and its related business interests, Rick currently sits on the boards of multiple organizations. Rick has been recognized as an expert in business and statistical analysis by numerous federal and state courts. He has provided testimony as an expert witness in multiple high-dollar civil cases.
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EastGroup reports earnings increase
EastGroup is reporting increases in funds from operations and property net operating income.
EastGroup reports earnings increase EastGroup is reporting increases in funds from operations and property net operating income. Check out this story on clarionledger.com: http://on.thec-l.com/1mSHt5m
The Clarion-Ledger, The Clarion-Ledger Published 5:00 p.m. CT July 17, 2014
Jackson-based EastGroup Properties Inc. is reporting increases in funds from operations and property net operating income for the second quarter, ended June 30, compared to the same period last year.
Funds from operations were $26.3 million, or 84 cents per share, compared to $23.9 million, or 80 cents per share — a 5 percent increase. The property net operating income increased by $2.92 million, or 8.3 percent — $1.45 million from newly developed properties, $912,000 from 2013 and 2014 acquisitions and $634,000 from same property operations.
For the six months ended June 30, funds from operations were $1.66 per share compared to $1.56 per share for the same period of 2013, a 6.4 percent increase. Property net operating income increased by $6.09 million, or 8.7 percent.
Read or Share this story: http://on.thec-l.com/1mSHt5m


With nearly four months now passed since the celebration of Madison's most visible holiday, evaluations and retrospectives on the event are coming out of the woodwork. While a sober documentary was released two weeks ago that told the story of the city's new approach and its outcome, a mere two days later another videographer served up a different dish on the parties. Described as "an attempt at remembering a great night," the video looks at the revelry through the bleary eyes of a reveler, complete with the apropos House of Pain and All American Rejects soundtrack.
The four-and-a-half-minute highlights reel follows below.
More information about the annual scene can be found in Madison Halloween coverage on The Daily Page.
If you have a video by, of or about Madison and Madisonians, please consider adding it to the Isthmus YouTube group or send a message.


Thank you to Simon & Schuster for supplying this book to me through Netgalley. This is about Lily, a beautiful daschund who develops a brain tumour. But we don't refer to it as a tumour. We call it an octopus. Lily's owner is desperate to help Lily beat this Octopus because he's so close with Lily and can't imagine losing her. I've already read this book and am writing up a review for it soon. I absolutely loved it! It's such a heart-warming tale for all animal lovers, but it's also exceptionally well written! A favourite of mine for 2016.
Thanks to Text Publishing for supplying this book to me through Netgalley. Sid and Cassie are sisters who live in different countries and aren't as close anymore, so they start writing letters to each other to better keep in touch. And out comes their marriage problems, parenting woes, and all the concerns they've had and been too afraid to tell the other. I've posted my review already and thought it was a lovely read.
I picked up a copy of The Sidekicks earlier this month at a book event, and I finished it in one sitting. This book is about three school students who are dealing with the loss of their friend, and it is painfully raw. The characters are all very different and yet they mould well together and they work to find themselves again after the sudden death. I really enjoyed this book!
This is the first book in a fantastic new YA/fantasy series by Amy Tintera. I borrowed an early copy off a friend and read it within a couple of days. The main character is feisty, daring, bold and courageous. She impersonates a princess to seek revenge on the royal family because they murdered her parents and kidnapped her sister, and the story unfolds at a rapid pace!
I bought this book earlier this month after its release and have since read it and posted a review on the blog. Yellow is about a young girl who is struggling to fit in. Her friends bully her, her father has left them, and her mother is an alcoholic. And then she meets a ghost who was murdered 20 years earlier, and she seems to be the only person who can hear him. This is a really compelling debut novel!
This is another book I bought upon release date after hearing so much about it on social media. Imagine Aladdin set in a dystopian world, and you'll understand the setting of Rebel of the Sands. The main character is a fantastic shooter, and she's desperate to escape her no-hope town and find a better life. Action and adventure ensues.
I've had this on my bookshelf ever since Steven Carroll won the Prime Minister's Literary Award last year. He's a wonderful writer, and A World of Other People is about a couple whose lives intersect multiple times but who tragically part ways every time. Steven has done a marvellous job of telling their story.
I bought this one at a Lifeline bookfest a few weeks ago and I've just started reading it. It's beautiful. It sheds light on a piece of American history that is often forgotten, and the writer is extremely talented. The characters are wonderfully real and painfully flawed.
And in case you missed it, here is a list (with links) of reviews that I've posted on Jess Just Reads this month!
I've seen Rebel of the Sands ALL over the place. I still have to pick up a copy, though!


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Torture and Myth, Part One
Posted in: Human Rights
The recent brouhaha about the Senate torture report—so brief, so predictable, and so unsatisfying—reminded me once again about the tenacity of civic myths, those symbolically potent and reassuringly simple morality tales we tell ourselves as we shape and reshape our national identity.
Most of us recognize that these tales are only casually connected to the truth. Myth-making transforms someone like Rosa Parks from flesh and blood to national symbol. She relinquishes her personal humanity and dons a hero's mask in order to play her part in a carefully orchestrated national performance.
Myth is thus truth burnished to a brightness, durability, and perfection not found in nature. The myth becomes our representation of the past—not entirely the truth, and sometimes dangerously removed from it, but certainly not a lie.
And the most important myth of the post-9/11 era goes something like this: in moments of crisis, the United States loses its moral bearings, needlessly sacrifices liberty for security, and engages in behavior that cannot be squared with its true values. Eventually the nation regrets this course and vows to do better next time, but not before great damage is done.
I have elsewhere described this as the myth of deviation and redemption. The great danger of this myth is its stubborn attachment to the passive voice. Bad things just seem to happen. Madness simply descends upon us like darkness, unbidden and unstoppable, and the country is collectively overcome.
The myth of deviation and redemption perfectly captures the response of the Obama Administration—and most members of the national media—to the torture report. Mistakes were made, bad things happened, but that was a long time ago. We're better now, we've redeemed ourselves. End of lesson.
Perhaps this myth fits other moments of American history. It does not, however, remotely describe the American embrace of state-sanctioned torture.
The Forgotten Origins of the Torture Debate
Though 9/11 was only a long decade ago, we have already begun the transformative process of erasing history. Looking back, we are encouraged to believe Americans immediately rushed to embrace torture in the terrifying aftermath of 9/11. Why? Because that sort of thing just seems to happen in moments of crisis. Except that it didn't.
Certainly, Americans were terrified immediately after the attacks, and understandably so. Beginning the afternoon of September 11 and continuing without pause for months, virtually every organ that could claim a role in shaping American thought reported endlessly on the likelihood of another attack. Every media outlet that addressed itself to serious questions of the day joined in trying to predict when and where the next shoe would drop.
In one early account, bin Laden had reached an agreement with "organized crime figures in Chechnya" to pay $30 million in cash and two tons of opium in exchange for twenty nuclear warheads, which he planned to convert into "suitcase nukes." In late September, Time magazine said "the idea that weapons of mass destruction might be trained on the U.S.—not by such rogue nations as Iraq but by rogues like Osama bin Laden—suddenly seems a lot less unthinkable. Ordinary Americans are waking up in the middle of the night with nightmares about poisoned water supplies and miniature nuclear weapons set off in city streets."
One reason for Americans' nightmares was the sensationalistic coverage by the national press. The public was bombarded with talk of biological and chemical warfare. Nearly every news program explored the issue in great detail, always focusing on the most frightening aspects. David Ensor, a correspondent for CNN, said that agents made from anthrax "produce fever, stomach pain, then, a horrific death."
ABC's Good Morning America opened its coverage of biological and chemical weapons with a warning by Diane Sawyer that parents might want their children to leave the room. Then she asked, "Should you buy a gas mask?" The same day, biological terrorism was apparently NBC News's theme for the day. Reports on Today, Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Dateline NBC, and the MSNBC and CNBC cable networks all devoted themselves to the story. Many Americans began "to stock up on gas masks, handguns and bottled water." The CBS program 48 Hours said gas masks were "flying off the shelves."
Then the anthrax attacks began. Suspicion at the highest levels of government immediately, but wrongly, focused on al Qaeda or Iraq. In October, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO), emerging from a meeting with the president, was asked whether al Qaeda was behind the anthrax attacks. "I don't think there's a way to prove that," he said, "but I think we all suspect that." Vice President Cheney said the nation should act on that suspicion.
With the public overwrought, pollsters began to probe the depth of American fear. In a survey taken in October 2001, with a follow-up in March 2002, 86 percent of respondents reported they were very or somewhat concerned that the United States would suffer another attack, while 84 percent were equally concerned the attack would come from biological or chemical weapons. And more than two-thirds reported being very or somewhat concerned that they, a friend, or a relative would be "the victim of a future terrorist attack in the United States."
It was in this desperate period—when fear was at its absolute peak and the likelihood of a catastrophic attack was believed overwhelmingly high—that the idea of torture first appeared in the national debate.
Americans Just Said No
In late October unnamed FBI agents complained to the Washington Post that four suspects held in New York had refused to talk. All the blandishments traditionally used to loosen the tongues of suspects had come to naught, and the FBI was growing frustrated. "We are known for humanitarian treatment, so basically we are stuck," complained one agent. Another wondered aloud about employing unspecified "pressure tactics."
Prior to this account, discussion of torture had been entirely hypothetical. But the Post story, reprinted around the country, immediately made the matter concrete and forced the country to confront one question: should the suspects be tortured?
Overwhelmingly, the answer was no. Fox News took up the question immediately after the Post article appeared. Fox anchor Jon Scott interviewed Eric Haney, a founding member of the army special operations unit, Delta Force.
Scott asked whether "maybe a little strong arm tactic might be useful to get some info we need?" "It doesn't work," Haney answered. "Doesn't produce the information that you need to gain from the people and it's always counterproductive."
Bill O'Reilly, the influential Fox News host, also interviewed Haney. He asked what Haney would do if the four suspects were in his custody. Haney's response was telling: some people just won't talk. "They're rare and they're few," but they exist, and no interrogation technique works on all prisoners all the time.
Rounding out the interview, O'Reilly linked torture to American exceptionalism, pointing out that "other countries use torture, and they take eyes out and they maim and they use electricity and all of that. But the United States, even in a terror war, will not do any of that?" "No, sir," Haney answered. "We absolutely will not."
Without question, however, the most important of the elite critiques came from the federal government. Even before the Post article appeared, Attorney General John Ashcroft was interviewed on the television news program Nightline, where Ted Koppel asked whether the FBI might subject people "to any stressful interrogation." (This was before we knew the CIA would be given this responsibility). Ashcroft was unequivocal.
We don't want anyone to be subjected to interrogation that would violate their rights. And I mean by that, we don't want to extort any kind of confession. We don't believe extorted confessions are reliable. We think that when you force someone . . . they're likely to tell you something that's not true. Things that aren't true aren't valuable to us. We don't engage in those kinds of practices. . . . We'll not be driven to abandon our freedoms by those who would seek to destroy them.
After the Post article, Ashcroft and the FBI immediately repudiated the unnamed agents who suggested that "pressure tactics" were under consideration. At a moment when the federal government was the most trusted voice in American society, torture was apparently not an option.
Yet some were not so sure. Newsweek's Jonathan Alter penned a column in November titled, ""Time to Think About Torture." "In this autumn of anger," he mused, "even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to . . . torture." Nothing as uncivilized as "cattle prods or rubber hoses, at least not here in the United States, but something . . . ." (The melodramatic italics and ellipsis are Alter's.) Alter helpfully proposed "psychological torture, like tapes of dying rabbits or high decibel rap." But he also suggested "deportation to Saudi Arabia, the land of beheadings."
Three days after Alter's article, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz titled "Is There a Torturous Road to Justice?" Dershowitz proposed his now famous "torture warrant" in the so-called ticking time bomb scenario. It was the first post-9/11 attempt at what many thought could not be done, and what many others believed should not be tried: to reconcile torture with American values.
Dershowitz was widely condemned for his proposal, especially from the Right. Writing in the conservative Washington Times, for instance, Jed Babbin, a former deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration, said, "The war has changed so much in all of us, but it still shocks me to find myself on Alan Dershowitz's left, on any subject."
Likening Dershowitz to Torquemada, the infamous torturer of the Spanish Inquisition, Babbin expressed amazement that anyone would propose something as sadistic as needles beneath the nails, as Dershowitz had done. "Why stop there? Why not thumbscrews, the lash and the hundred other ways we can inflict pain without killing? One reason, and one reason only. We are Americans, and we will not torture people, even to save lives. This is one of the things that distinguishes us from our enemy."
Many expressed the fear that torture is a virus, and once introduced into the body of the law it would spread and multiply. Intelligence officers would find new occasions for its use that were close enough to the ticking bomb. As the circle of what is "close enough" grew steadily larger, the practice would become regularized and the exceptional would become routine.
In that way, as conservative icon William F. Buckley put it in National Review, "torture breaks the spiritual back of the law." Far better, therefore, to insist that it remain illegal and to trust that in genuinely extraordinary circumstances—should they ever arise—the officer who tortured would not be punished.
At the same time that the public was digesting and debating this elite discourse, pollsters began to weigh in. On October 5 and 6, 2001, Gallup, CNN, and USA Today conducted the first post-9/11 poll on torture. If the United States "thought it was necessary to combat terrorism," would respondents be willing for the government to "torture known terrorists if [the terrorists] know details about future terrorist attacks in the U.S.?"
In a classic glass-half-full-or-half-empty moment, 45 percent of Americans supported torture under these circumstances, 53 percent opposed it, and 2 percent had no opinion. Under one view, the poll revealed an astonishing degree of support for a policy that only three weeks earlier had been unthinkable.
Yet given the unprecedented level of fear gripping American society at that moment (the polling started the day after the public announcement that a person had been poisoned by anthrax, and ended immediately after he died) perhaps the more noteworthy fact is that over half the population still opposed torture.
That fewer than half the respondents supported torture is even more significant given the way the question was worded. Social scientists have long known that polling data is extremely sensitive to variations in wording. Here the wording was critical. Respondents were asked to assume that the person to be tortured was a "known terrorist," that he knew "details about future terrorist attacks in the U.S.," and that the federal government had concluded his torture "was necessary."
This phrasing all but forced people to imagine the worst-case scenario, and signaled that the most trusted voice in American society at that moment—that of the federal government—had already concluded that torture was congenial to American values. Yet support was still below 50 percent.
This more nuanced reading is supported by the results of another poll done the following month. In November, the Christian Science Monitor phrased the question somewhat differently, asking respondents whether they could "envision a scenario in the war against terrorism in which [they] would support . . . [the] torture of suspects held in the U.S. or abroad."
While the threat environment was essentially the same, this question did not direct respondents to assume the prisoner was a known terrorist with information about future attacks whose torture had been determined necessary by the government. Support for torture dropped significantly. Only 32 percent favored it, 66 percent opposed it, and 2 percent had no opinion.
Then, in March 2002, when the sense of threat had diminished modestly, Fox News asked respondents if they could support torture "to obtain information that would protect the United States from a terrorist attack" and save "innocent lives." Even when it was framed this way, fewer than one in four people supported torture, and nearly two-thirds opposed it.
Torture remained decidedly unpopular for the duration of Bush's tenure. In late 2005, for instance, Americans agreed almost four to one that U.S. officials had tortured prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere, and nearly two thirds said that the use of torture against people suspected of involvement in terrorism was "unacceptable."
There matters stood when President Obama took office. On January 22, 2009, Obama issued an executive order that ended the enhanced interrogation program and ordered CIA operatives to forgo coercive interrogations. At the time, polls showed substantial support for his move. An ABC/Washington Post poll in January 2009 showed that nearly 60 percent of Americans supported a ban on torture "no matter what the circumstances." A Gallup/USA Today poll taken in January and February that same year found that nearly three in four respondents favored a ban on coercive interrogations.
And even when the question was deliberately framed so as to maximize support for torture—as in a January 2009 Fox News poll that asked whether, "in extreme circumstances," the CIA should be allowed to use "enhanced interrogation techniques, or even torture, to obtain information from prisoners that might protect the United States from terrorist attacks"—more people opposed it than supported it.
Thus, contrary to the myth of deviation and redemption, bad things did not "just happen." For more than 7 years after the attacks, including the first fraught months when the great majority of Americans believed they or their loved ones were likely to be the victims of a terrorist attack, elites and the mass public opposed torture, and support for it was consistently quite low.
Today, It's Another Story
Yet more recently, when the risk of another attack in this country and the fear that it may befall have both become negligible, support for torture has reached record highs. A 2011 poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press revealed that more than seven in ten Republicans think torture is often or sometimes justified "in order to gain important information"; only 13 percent take the position that torture is never acceptable. The numbers for self-identified conservatives are similar.
Moreover, support for torture is not confined to Republicans and conservatives. The same poll found that more than half the independents and nearly half the Democrats believe torture is often or sometimes justified, while less than a third consider it completely off limits. Compared with the results of an identical poll in 2004, support for torture has increased dramatically, and across the board.
And how that came to pass—how torture became a preferred policy option even as the ostensible justification for it steadily receded—is the subject of Part Two.
Posted in: Human Rights, Philosophy and Ethics, Politics
3 responses to "Torture and Myth, Part One"
shanen says:
Interesting article, but it left out one of the most powerful counterarguments against torture. If your enemy knows you use it, then they can use it against you. They can actually set up a trap for their so-called high-value targets to use after they've been subjected to enough torture to "prove" the revealed bait is legitimate.
I hope the next part of the article goes into the NSA abuses part of the American tragedy, the story of how we lost Benjamin Franklin's legacy… If the British had an NSA monitoring all of the phone traffic in those days, Paul Revere never would have made his famous ride. The British would have identified him as a locus of communication and imprisoned him before that. There actually were two riders sounding the alarm that night, but only Paul Revere knew the right people, but if the British had known that first, he would have been disappeared and the British troops would have had no problems that day.
musings2 says:
Thanks for the reminder of how the coup went down. I had forgotten some of the details, but never the terror.
Part Two please! The suspense is torture..


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Designing a 3D Map for First Responders
EAST students at Batesville High School Charter 3D designed a map of their school for first responders to use in order to respond to potential emergency events.
School safety has become a top priority for many communities across the country, and EAST students at Batesville High School Charter are working with their School Resource Officer to help first responders if an emergency ever happens at the school.
Boston Hall and Keaton Douglas are working together on creating a 3D-modeled map of Batesville High School Charter that is completely to scale, in order to give first responders a clear idea of the school's layout before entering to tackle an emergency.
"I did a similar project when I was in EAST at the junior high school, and when I noticed the high school didn't have a 3D map, I decided to make one here," Boston said.
The team constantly consults with their SRO in order to identify what is exactly needed in order to make the 3D model helpful to him and other first responders.
"He made sure that we capture every door and every window so that every exit and entry point in the school is highlighted," Boston said.
The duo uses a tape measure in order to calculate the dimensions of the school, all the way down to every classroom. Once they collect that data, they are able to replicate the area in SketchUp, a software used exclusively for 3D modeling. Not every design has been smooth sailing for the pair, however.
"There have been a few challenges when it comes to using SketchUp," Keaton said. "We have a curved wall that is full of windows at the school, and we are still struggling with how to model that. Problems like that feel more advanced than what we are qualified to do at the moment."
Even though the project hasn't been easy, Boston has a special appreciation for the challenge as 3D design has been a major interest of his for years.
"I've always been interested in SketchUp, 3D design and CAD designs," Boston said. "That's what I've worked with for my entire EAST career. I don't really know anything but that."
Boston and Keaton hope to finish the project before EAST Conference so they can share their work with their peers, and while they both are getting set to graduate in the spring, facilitator Lori Campbell says she wants to expand this project in the future to include all schools within the Batesville School District.
"[Batesville School District] has a big push for safety," Lori said. "Once this is done, it can go really far into our community for our school board and parents to see and appreciate how it makes our students safer. I think it's probably something we could be asked to do for all seven of our schools within the district."
While Boston and Keaton work on the 3D design, Colton Scott, a freshman who has two years of experience in EAST, is working on creating a 360-degree virtual tour in conjunction with the project.
Colton says he is using the Unity game development engine to create the experience and is optimizing it to be used through virtual reality headsets.
"I've had to learn a lot about UI (User Interface) design and how to make it a seamless experience for the user," Colton said. "I've had to do a lot of troubleshooting as I've learned more about Unity, but I think the end product will be helpful for others to learn the layout of our school."
Boston and Keaton are both seniors who will be graduating in May. Boston says he is going to pursue a career as a lineman while Keaton is going to study in order to become a physical therapist.


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EP: "Hornswoggled" by The Trav Cats
on July 14th, 2019 at 20:21
Posted In: CD, Reviews, Chinners
Once upon a time in a dark corner of 'ampshire were a band of the most hard-drinking, womanising; music-making roughnecks who made a name for themselves touring around the music festivals of the South, emptying barrels of cider in their wake. Their music took influence from legends of the past combining Skiffle with Punk, adding a bit of Rockabilly along with some more modern styles. The band have made cracking tracks over the years that have become firm festival favourites, including the autobiographical "We're Not A Band"; a good old fashioned howler of a tune "Wolfman Of The Ol'Bull Bush" and possibly the best drinking song this side of the Solent 'Special Brew'
At the end of 2016 drummer "Crazy Uncle Gray G" gave the band notice that he was taking some time out to go travelling and it seemed like things were going to quieten down in the Trav Cat camp. The Cats started spreading their musical wings in other directions and Lee was kept busy feeding his chickens. Crazy Uncle Gray G (The Old Codger) was struck down with sciatic nerve issues before he could honour his last gigs, them Trav Cats had to think quick – and so, in steps drummer Liam Blundell, local friend and fan of the band. After learning 30 songs in the space of a one week and playing a blinding couple of shows, it was clear them cats weren't going anywhere. Who needs that cowboy hat wearing Crazy Uncle Gray G anyway?!
With a new lease of purpose going into 2017, the Trav Cats knew some new music was needed to keep up their momentum. Also in that time band members Darrell Swainston, Chris Bravery and Liam all had babies due within 6 months of each other. (There's something about the synchronicity of fertility with the men in that part of the world). Darrell found this very exciting and uncertain moment of first-time fatherhood intensely inspiring when coming to writing the new Trav Cat release. The emotional exercise definitely made the right connections within his brain, that had laid somewhat dormant since the last Trav Cat release.
The result of this reproductive cycle was a brand new 7 track EP called "Hornswoggled", named after a word that Mark Hamill recently used to describe how he felt about the narrative treatment his Luke Skywalker character received in the recent Star Wars films. As you will hear the band have certainly not stood still, they have evolved and tried to push their boundaries in making new sounds and something very different from anything that they have created before.
The EP kicks off with a bit of Jaw Harp at the start of opening number "Joey Coconoah"; a rootsy blues number about a man who suffered an accident at work, couldnít pay his bills and very soon found himself in trouble with the law. The tune features the band's typically infectious rhythms; as well as a guest vocal courtesy of an American friend James Weston from Noblesville, Indiana. They met this gravel-voiced bastion of cool while he was compËre for the Bredy Farm festivals in Burton Bradstock. It features a Louisiana Bayou feel to it and you can imagine this playing as you are sat on your rocking chair on the porch, overlooking the swamps while chomping on your crawfish stew.
The next tune "Michael Fish Hands" is a nod to the BBC weatherman and a ridiculous, gibberish metaphor about clairvoyant weather forecasters trying to predict our futures. Their forecast could just predict the doom and gloom bad weather would bring at a Summer festival or any event. The song has a really infectious feel to it with some nicely rolling Mandolin and some great vocal harmonies. "The Ballad Of Les Elvin" is pushing the envelope and really sounds nothing like this band have produced before. Some new sounds and textures; with a rockabilly percussion backbone, a tune that takes a few listens before it all really comes together. The lyrics are actually ripped from a Eulogy about the life and times of Local legend Les Elvin, written by one of his best mates Jim Worsley. Les Elvin also happens to be Lee Mellor, Trav Cat bassist's step-Dad.
"Dissecting Frogs features some more Cajun influence; this time with a happy-sounding accordion, with the band trying to create a real carnival feel it. Darrell explains "the song is about coming of age, intimacy and vulnerability". Though I also early on didnít want to explain too much about the song, with E.B Whiteís quote in mind ìexplaining a joke is like dissecting a frog", you understand it better but the frog dies in the process.î On Track five Chris Bravery ably takes over on vocals as this tune delves head-on into a political debate; the song is short, punchy and to the point. It musically takes a strong influence from the distorted acoustic rumble of Neutral Milk Hotel's "King of carrot flowers parts 2 & 3".
One of the best offerings on this collection is "Carlito's Burrito Challenge" and true Trav Cats fashion it has a large slice of humour at the heart of it. Darrell explains "I went on a stag do to 2000 Trees festival and beforehand the best man asked me if I could write a little song for the groom that I could perform in one of the open mic areas. Once it came to the festival the best man had forgotten all about it (no doubt alcohol had something to do with that) and I had totally chickened out on the idea. It wasnít quite ready so I picked it up again when I realised how suited it was to the Trav cats. So itís just an ode to a great friend, relating his thoughtful nature to the preparation of a delicious burrito." It's a toe-tapping classic and I'm sure it will become a live favourite at this Summer's festivals.
For the final number, the Travs let their hair down with a radical Country reworking of Lady Ga Ga's "Bad Romance", stomping all over with their own individual skiffle style and yet more humour. This year the Trav Cats celebrate their tenth anniversary together and in that time they have more than anything else had so much fun playing together and making new friends wherever they go. While music is at the heart of what they do, the band is so much more than a band; they are an extended family. Anyone who buys a CD or puts on a t-Shirt is considered part of that extended family and are welcomed without any prejudice. The band here show they are happy to evolve, trying new styles and bringing in new influences to their songs. While it is nice to hear the band's studio work, it's so much better to get out and see them live as their unforgettable live shows bring so much more to their songs than you get on this EP.
Joey Coconoah
Michael Fish Hands
The Ballad of Lee Elvin
Dissecting Frogs
Carlito's Burrito
Bad Romance (Lady GaGa Cover)
The Trav Cats Are…
Darrell Swainston: Vocals, Guitar, Mandolin, Accordion
Chris Bravery: Vocals, Guitar, Banjo
Lee Mellor: Double Bass
Liam Blundell: Drums
Mike Wilson: Harmonica, Washboard
Phil Ramshaw: Washboard, Monkey Stick
Crazy Uncle Gray G: Percussion
https://grah53.wixsite.com/travcats
https://www.facebook.com/Travcats-1970281809904893
Words & Picture by David Chinery (Chinners).


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This famous church of Goa Velha was originally built in 1583 but was abandoned for fear of its collapse. The present church, named after the Patron St. Andrew, the Apostle, was built in 1868 in a different place at the same village.
The most remarkable feature of this church is the Procession of All Saints, the only such procession besides Rome, when 31 statues of the saints are taken in a procession on the 5th Monday of Lent around the whole village covering some 2-km distance. In the beginning, the number of statues was 65. The statues were taken from the Monastery of the Capuchos at Pilar in 1835 after the extinction of this religious order.


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R-CALF USA: Long-Range Plan, part 4
Carrie Stadheim
cstadheim@tsln-fre.com
Billings, Mont. – R-CALF USA's December launching of the cattle industry's first-ever "Cattle Industry Long Range Plan," coincides with the convening of a new Congress and a new Administration this month. Whether the plan serves as a roadmap for Congress' new agenda or President-elect Biden's new agenda will, according to R-CALF USA, be decided by the nation's cattle producers themselves.
The plan contains objectives never before offered for the benefit of the cattle industry's hundreds of thousands of independent U.S. cattle producers, both large and small. Its departure from previously combined cattle and beef industry plans is revealed by its primary focus directed towards cattle and cattle producers, not towards beef and beef packers.
For example, the new plan departs from previous plans by calling for growth in both domestic and export demand for beef that is specifically produced from USA born and raised cattle. It then calls for improving "cattle-sector" profitability specifically for U.S. cattle farmers and ranchers. It also expressly calls for intensifying efforts to preserve and protect the liberties and freedoms of independent U.S. cattle producers. And it uniquely calls for elevating the cattle industry's role in assuring U.S. consumers an uninterrupted supply of U.S. produced beef.
"If the new Congress and new Administration are looking for a new strategy to strengthen the domestic food supply chain while simultaneously revitalizing Rural America, that new strategy is right here in the new cattle industry plan," said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard.
Bullard said the new plan has already been shared with the Biden Agriculture Transition Team, members of Congress, and with select state governors.
"Whether this plan is actually taken up by Washington, D.C. policymakers is entirely dependent on whether the hundreds of thousands of independent U.S. cattle producers will take it upon themselves to send this plan to their respective congressional delegations and tell them this should be America's new direction," he added.
–R-CALF USA


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Today is the feature plugin decision deadline: Responsive Preview and Selective Refresh will be merged.
Next Wednesday (Feb 17) is the deadline for merge for these, with beta scheduled for the week after, on Feb 24.
Reminder: once beta ships, no more enhancements can be committed, so anything that is left or close to finished needs to be shored up in the next two weeks. Enhancements mile-stoned for 4.5 need attention to make it into the release in time.
Any help triaging the 4.5 milestone is definitely appreciated.
The REST API team's proposal is to merge the four main endpoints when they are ready, and they are not ready for 4.5. As such, no endpoints are targeted for WordPress 4.5. A summary of last week's chat is on make/core: leave feedback there or in the #core-restapi Slack channel.
@markoheijnen made some interesting progress on generating thumbnails of PDFs in the media library and could use some feedback if you're interested #31050.
Plan is enforcing HTTPS on a per-feature basis (eg. enqueued assets, post content, redirects, canonical, links).
HTTPS-by-default on install will be something to aim for for 4.6, but we'll see what happens over this next week.
Pushed out the new version of the Customize Partial Refresh plugin. Needs testing!
Introduces a framework for registering partials (refreshable regions) with complete rewrites of nav menu partial refresh and re-implementation of widget partial refresh to use the new framework.
Going to write a Make Core post about it, documenting the API.
15 tickets on the 4.5 milestone. Hoping to establish readiness for these over the next week and get some stuff in.
Going to start focusing more multisite related energy toward the REST API's site (and meta) endpoints.
No updates this week: planning to get paste shortcuts in and work on mce views.
@georgestephanis For what it's worth, while I do think Application Passwords is pretty much ready for 4.5, I'm not sure how much sense it makes to consider merging it into core prior to the REST API endpoints.


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As new deals are found during the week they will be posted in the Publix Matchups & Deals category. Please make sure that you check there frequently to see if any new coupons have surfaced for the ad. All deals found at regular Publix Supermarkets can be found at Publix GreenWise markets if the items are carried there.