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New Polity has a new home!!!!

Dear New Polity readers,

We're moving house. My brother Jacob (see picture) is part of that gnostic inner circle of cultists that know how to speak directly to computers. Through his mysterious ways and inscrutable wisdom he has brought newpolity.com into existence.

How? I don't know.

Why? Are you serious? I'm not going to ask why! Look at him!!!!

All future post and comments will be showing up on newpolity.com rather than on thenewpolity.blogspot.com.

Thanks,

Ezra Full Post

He's a sub-sonic Ashkenazi Barry White

Now, Kissinger is one of those guys that's almost impossible to hate on a really visceral level. Yeah, you have the folks that want him to stand trial for war crimes. Fair enough. But how could you really hate that face... seriously. Try it. I dare you. Still hatin'? Okay, now the voice... Yeah. You're feelin' it now. You're liberal and you hate him, but face it, he's a sub-sonic Ashkenazi Barry White.

and...


In last weeks International Herald Tribune - that ubiquitous comfort blanket for Americans that have wondered of into the wider world - the inimitable Henry Kissinger gave his take on the contradictions of the modern global economy.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/29/opinion/edkissinger.php
It's like this: Speculative capital turns the normal business cycle into an unending series of economic/humanitarian crises. These crises damage nationalist economic interests - that Kissingerian for labor and industries that can't compete under a free trade regime. The threatened interests lash back and attempt to restrict trade. "The debate over trade policy in the U.S. presidential campaign is a case in point."

With each financial crisis, governments have to decrease their social legislation because of budget constraints and the imperative to stay competitive in the global market (capital doesn't like paying taxes to support layabouts). "In periods of economic distress, these trends are magnified."

This cycle of crises and race to the bottom on social legislation further deepens the divide between those who get the boon of global capitalism and those that are left in its dust. And...

"If there are perennial losers, they will turn to their familiar political institutions for relief. They will not be mollified by the valid proposition that the benefits of global growth far outstrip its costs."

This sets up and interesting pair of problems: (1) We have a world economic system that has delivered unprecidented levels of per capita growth, but somehow manages to lower the overall quality of life for many. (2) The real business cycle - though high growth - is increasingly downed out and disrupted by speculative bubbles

Bottomline: The world economy is producing more stuff (that's the technical term), but, paradoxically, the economic lives of the majority of the world population are less stable and, in many cases, less affluent. So what's going on?

To a reader of Marx, which I think it's safe to say Kissinger is, this is a familiar story. Increasing wealth and competition in the global economy are accompanied (paradoxically) with greater and greater levels of economic distress. "Capitalist production seeks continually to overcome these immanent barriers, but overcomes them only by means which again place these barriers in its way and on a more formidable scale." (Capital V3, P3, Ch15.2)

Kissinger is dead right when it come to what's gone wrong - it's speculative capital. "While each crisis had a different trigger, their common features have been profligate speculation and systemic under-appreciation of risk." He also identifies part of the more fundamental problem; an absense of leaders willing to take a long-term perspective on the political effect of our global economic order. "The next administration should establish a bipartisan commission at the highest level to study what constitutes an indispensable strategic U.S. industrial and technological base and the measures to preserve it."

I was going to write a straight forward analysis of Kissingers article - which I broadly agree with - but everytime I sit down to write that hardcore analysis I end up with 1000 words on speculative capital or North-South global relations. So I've given up the fight, and I am now planning to write the first in a series of 4 succiquent articles onf the global economy:

(1) Speculative Capital: "Speculative capital is the inversion of capital, rather than aiding production it undermines it. Thus, it is against human flourishing, which comes through real capital and real work, not bets."
(2) Long-term Capital: "Roads, fiber-optics, education, civic virtue, research centers..."
(3) Inequality National and Global: "Why do poor countries remain poor and rich countries get richer?"
(4) Democracy and Economics: "Not by force of arms are civilizations held together, but by subtle threads of moral and intellectual principle."

I hope you'll come back to read more...
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The Guardian's take on the Hillary: "abrasive, self-absorbed, selfish, delusional, emasculating and extortionate"

Michael Tomasky of the Guardian gave an interesting description of the real politik of Hillary's speech last night.

Here is the link for your enjoyment...
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_tomasky/2008/06/no_shame_no_gain.html

"She held a rhetorical knife to Obama's throat and said, in not so many words: I'm still calling some shots, buddy. You offer me the vice-presidency, or I walk away. But she has also forced Obama into a situation whereby if he chooses her now, he looks weak. So that's the choice she is hoping to impose on the nominee: don't choose me, and Bill and I will subtly work to see that you lose; choose me, and look like a weakling who can't lead the party without the Clintons after all."

Full Post

The Old Right meets the New Left

I just wanted to direct folks to this article (When the Left was Right http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_05_19/article.html) from the American Conservative (Pat Buchanan's magazine). Bill Kauffman goes into an interesting exploration of the philosophical kinship and brief entente between the New Left and the Old Right (shorthand for a conservative who looks to Kirk, Hegel and Burke rather than Kristol and Reagan-Bush). Nothing ever came of this momentary warming of relations (the New Left turned violently anti-state and the Old Right completely lost the party), but I think it's timely since we're approaching at an election that completely inverts most of the conventional Left-Right dichotomies. And on an academic level, we're at a moment where the mainstream of political philosophy - egalitarian liberalism - is being increasingly challenged by a strange but holy alliance of Thomist Catholics and Anglicans, left-wing Hegelians, neo-Marxists, and Orthodox theologians.

The big question is still whether the ideological affinities between these two groups can be turned into a political alliance. Personally I think that Obama can be the candidate to make that happen, but we'll see. At the very least he has the American Conservative on his side...

(And if you're wonder why Bacevich of The American Conservative is endorsing Obama over McCain click here.) Full Post

Same-Sex Marriages in California

The California Supreme Court decided on May 16th to that it was unconstitutional to maintain separate legal categories for domestic partnerships (same-sex) and civil marriages (male-female).

For those of you who are blissfully unfamiliar with California gender politics, the Court's decision finally overturned the California electorate's long-standing preference for granting identical rights to gay couples and straight couples... while maintaining a tattered linguistic distinction between the two. In fact, Californians are so committed to fudging this issue that they passed a voter initiative (Prop 22) saying that California does not acknowledge out-of-state or out-of-country same-sex unions. And they passed this initiative in the very same year that they gave California's extremely progressive Democratic Party a 25% margin in the Assembly. So in my book, May 16th was a day to be proud of our Supreme Court's wisdom and willingness to flout democracy in the name of good jurisprudence. The fact is, sometimes people want to have contradictory or ambiguous law out of an unwillingness to make hard decisions. On some level we want to give with one hand and take with the other. A good Supreme Court - like California's - guards the rule of law and, ultimately, democracy by not allowing us to do that.

Now, I've been told that my opinions on this subject are in no small part due to the fact that I don't actually have a family. But by the same token, if I took the opposite position I'd be hearing a variation of the same refrain. That is; "You don't know enough same-sex families." or "You've never had a gay lover and three adopted children." But rather than start a gay-family (sorry guys) and a straight-family (hello April!) and then wait for an informed opinion to emerge, I'm going to see if I can write convincingly on the subject with no experience of having either. Hopefully that doesn't offend...


I want to make three points concerning the effects of the In re Marriage cases: (1) it has no effect on the substantive family issues, (2) it holds no interest from a religious perspective, and (3) it upholds the kind of liberal separation of Church and State that the Church needs in order to remain free.

'Separate but Equal'

(1) In light of our state's constitution, Prop 22 and the California Family Code, which defines marriage as between a man and a women, are clear cases of arbitrary discrimination. In the court's words, 'both opposite-sex and same-sex couples are granted the right to enter into an officially recognized family relationship that affords all of the significant legal rights and obligations traditionally associated under state law with the institution of marriage, but under which the union of an opposite-sex couple is officially designated a “marriage” whereas the union of a same-sex couple is officially designated a “domestic partnership.”'

Once you've granted same-sex couples the right to adopt, the substance of the marriage-issue is exhausted. It would asinine to grant same-sex couples the ability to start a family and then turn around and systematically undermine the dignity and respect with which that family is held (see 'separate but equal').

Do you want a guy who excommunicated all of Geneva for not letting him excommunicate people giving you advice on marriage?

(2) The Court's decision - despite fears that it will suddenly alter God's policy on marriage - will not. I know we have a lot of non-Christian readers and friends, but they will surely follow along hypothetically with the proposition that "IF there is a God, THEN he doesn't conform his will to the California Supreme Court's". (Despite the fact that the CA SC is the most followed state court in the land GO CALIFORNIA!!!!!) So, as most Christians define marriage - something between God, a man and a women - this linguistic shift will have precisely no effect on the sacrament of marriage.

From the historical perspective (not to mention theological) civil and sacramental arenas have always been either opposed or at the very least, detached. John Calvin created civil marriage in the Marriage Ordinance of Geneva to express the theological position that marriage is a civil contract, not a sacrament relationship. In other words, Calvin changed the marriage triad from God-Man-Woman, to State-Man-Woman, (in his opinion God was pretty much disgusted with the whole sexy thing.) This transformation conformed to the central motifs of Enlightenment intellectual thought - disenchantment of religious institutions and the commodification of relationships.

Thus, the creation of civil marriage made explicit the unromantic truth implicit in marriage during Calvin's time. Calvin simply hastened marriage's regression to a mere contractual relationship between two individuals for the purposes of procreation, property and economic production. With the advent of civil marriage, the higher significance of marriage as an icon of spiritual truths, a sacrament and the ruling metaphor of the New Testament, receded behind it's economic and juridical meanings. It is unsurprising then that following Calvin's "contribution" to the institution of marriage, divorce ceased to be a non-starter. What previously would have been seen as blaspheming suddenly became, in Protestant countries, a part of the normative structure of marriage. The profaning of a sacrament is re-imagined as a business deal gone bad. (Pre-Reformation divorce was normally reserved for spiritual reasons like unfaithfulness, after the Reformation the reasoning becomes economic, i.e. impotence, accident, infertility...etc.)

Now this is all a long way of saying that those of us that believe in marriage as sacrament should stop obsessing over this issue since nothing can change marriage in the sense that matters to us. Marriage as a sacrament can only be further undermined by linking it to the institution of civil marriage; these institutions may look similar but at bottom they are in completely different universes. (What's far worse is that in the interest of Christianizing our government, Christian "culture warriors" have aided and abetted one of the most immoral administrations in recent memory. )

So it is fair to say that from the perspective of the Churches that still recognize marriage as a spiritual practice (the Orthodox, the Catholics...etc.) this is a complete non-issue. Civil marriage was irrelevant from the start and the California Supreme Court deciding what sound we make with our mouths when we talk about same-sex marriages just makes it hilariously irrelevant. No one can force the Church to recognize a marriage.

Culture War v. Cultural Liberalism

(3) The decision reflects the kind of jurisprudence that will keep Americans free to practice their faith without interference from the state.

The really clever thing about our country and why it functions so smoothly is that it isn't a democracy. We have a constitution which defines the rules that democracy must play by. (I would be tangential to argue for this here, but I think it's clear that we wouldn't want unmitigated democracy.)

One of those rules (thank god) is that the government - regardless of democracy - cannot establish privileges that are delimited to a particular community. Granting heterosexual couples extra privileges or recognition is a clear example of illegitimate discrimination based on both gender and creed. So the four judges had the right to maintain the principles of our state constitution by opening up marriage - and the privileges that go along with it - to homosexuals. If people want it to be otherwise, they can change the constitution (we'll be voting on just that in Nov.).

We have a choice in how we handle contentious cultural issues like this, we can choose a clash of cultures or cultural liberalism. Culture war: Christians, and presumably others, should attempt to give their beliefs concerning society the weight of law. Cultural liberalism: In the simplest formulation - if what you are doing does not harm any one, the government should not prevent it.

Personally I think that all creeds, including my own, are safer in a liberal society. Yes, our beliefs won't be officially seconded by the state, but we will be allowed to do what we personally believe is right and to carry on our cultural traditions - like marriage - in the manner that we see fit. Once we define the situation as a culture war, then we are in a scenario where losing is a disaster and any win is empty. That is; if we lose, we have established the idea that the cultural "winner" gets to enforce their personal code through the mechanism of the state. If we win, what have we achieved? It's not going to change anyone's heart, it's not going to significantly change how people constitute their families, it's not going to change the culture, it merely deprives homosexual partners of certain legal rights and symbolic support enjoyed by heterosexual couples. Full Post

So... who's the electable one? (Dispatch from Oregon)

One of Clinton's major talking points has been that "Obama is unelectable" or the more nuanced "Obama can't win the states that a Democrat must win to succeed in November", i.e. PA, OH, and FL. Now on the basis of these three states - Clinton is the more electable (Clinton: +10, +8.5, +8)(Obama: +5, -1, -1). The lie of this argument is that Nov. 2008 is not Nov. 2004 or 2000.

I was trawling through the last month of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com ... as one does... and found some interesting changes in the electoral map.

(1) Obama opens up the West (CO and NV) and the Mid-Atlantic (VA and NC). Something that Clinton is utter incapable of doing - those states all go into her "can't win" basket. From the historical perspective, that would be the first time a Democrat had won the Old Dominion since they ran on a segregationist platform. (That's not actually true, LBJ won it in '64 and Truman won in '48. But I think anyone reading this will agree that it doesn't count if you (a) ran against Old Goldy or (b) won a World War.)

(2) Clinton opens up the West (CA and WA) - to the GOP - and loosens the Democrat's grip on the Great Lakes States (MN, WI, and MI).
...
Did that sink in?
...
I'm not saying that McCain will win CA, MN or WA, but the suggestion passes the "laugh-test"... which should make the Democrats sweat - not to mention allocate campaign funds. So win or lose, that's a win for the Republican Party.


Without further ado, here are the maps...


Clinton - McCain:
http://monarch.tamu.edu/~smrs/21201214.gif

Obama - McCain;
http://monarch.tamu.edu/~smrs/21091415.gif Full Post

A Reply to "Comcasticular Cancer"

What I've written below isn't really a rebuttal to Jake's post - Comcasticular Cancer - even though it reads a bit like one. Think of the two article as one "choose-your-own-adventure" story. ("choose-your-own-adventure" = "choose-how-the-Telecoms-will-abuse-their-market-concentration")

(1a) "Where does metering end up?" - Jake.

Currently ISPs have no way of making more money for providing more of that delicious internet stuff. Add metering and they will have an incentive to invest in abundance and compete to deliver more of the good for less of the green... like every other commodity business.

(1b) "At that cost, it's easy to imagine media such as music and video will once again be primarily obtained in physical form." - Jake.

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the cost of putting together a book and getting it on a shelf - the printing, the shipping, the staffing, the tatoo-removal for the staffing... is much more expense per unit of physical media, than for virtual media. Yet the difference between the cost that Joe Consumer will pay fom Harry Potter and that Scary-Bald-Guy-Who-Always-Dies-At-The-End-And-The-Returns-In-The-Next-Book On Tape at Borders, and the price I will pay for that recording on iTunes is pretty much the same. Thus, it's likely that content providers and purveyors of copyrighted material will pay the ISP to go fast and not cost you more - i.e. making one-on-one deals with the ISPs to make their downloads cheaper for internet users.

Needless to say... that's horrible. That's like the worst thing that could conceivably happen. Stephen King - the master of horror himself - sipping wholesome chamomile tea on his favorite floral pattern love-seat in his picturesque Bangor, Maine estate - couldn't think of a worse thing to have happen. This outcome would grant the Telecos the ability to...

(a) extract rents from all the businesses that use high-speed internet to serve their customers
and...
(b) choose winners in those downstream markets. (i.e. You get the service that ponies up the most cash to ATT, rather than the service that could have provided the best product.)

(2-6) The question is 'Is there effective competition or competition regulation in the ISP market?'

If the answer is no on both accounts, then Jacob's completely right; collaboration is going to get prohibitively expensive - or their will be a "Google-Docs" style solution for very large pieces of data. If the Federal Trade Commission does its job - preventing collusion and structuring the industry so that it achieves dynamic efficiency - then that won't happen. The price of internet services will fall and ISPs will rush to provide more bandwidth.

Conclusion

Competition... well... I don't want to say it's never going to happen, but how much do you trust the FCC and FTC to do the right thing?

Not much?

Me neither.

So we can't count on competition (due to the past behavior of both the regulators and the companies themselves.) And there's no other way - that I can see - to make the Telecos invest in internet infrastructure as quickly as would be best (i.e. keep us competitive with the rest of the world) while maintaining a situation wherein the internet's potential for collaboration and economic democratization is nurtured.

So what do we do?

(1) Treat the internet as critical national infrastructure and have the US taxpayer fund the deployment of big old fat lines to every house in America.
(2) See #1...

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Concept Experiment #1: Romance

Let us take as an assumption that Romance (or, the Romantic Person) does conceptually, or as a conceptual disposition, what any other disposition cannot: it believes in likeness above difference. It believes, before even speaking, that its temperament is mirrored in the external universe- that the harmony of its spirit is already manifest, already active. This is a given. Richard P. Feynman, the physicist, says: “[t]here is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics… [t]he question is, of course, is it going to be possible to amalgamate everything, and merely discover that this world represents different aspects of one thing?” Here I think we could also consider Hegel. A symbol is two things being thrown together. A logical proposition is two things being thrown together that we normally throw together. A metaphor is two unlike things being thrown together to create new truth and meaning.

It must be true that there is more likeness in things than difference (most of the universe being composed of hydrogen and helium), and so it is vital for both the retention of culture and the preservation of human intelligence to place a higher value on activities and insights which reconcile concepts and experience of concepts, or, the measuring of concepts up against singular, personal experience. Of course, I am speaking here of poetry.

Romance, despite some popular trends of thought, is not dead; it’s merely being smothered by consumerism and sterilized by scientists. Romance is not in a location- though it can be, of course; some rocky crag or mossy creek bed can contain a certain quantity of appeal. It is not in a profession- though jumping from planes and spying on mistresses may perhaps illicit the romantic impulse. It is not in a manner of expression or attire- a bon vivant persona- a certain swagger in the hips. It is not in lavish expense- it is not in the briefcase encrusted with diamonds- it is not in the wind or the unattained other, even, though he or she may appear the quintessence of beauty. Romance of the most gorgeous kind, I think, is found in the inner eye- as a choice of perspective- it colors, from itself, the universe as hopeful-as freshly born- the morning whispers, to a romantic temperament, the fresh insight of pillow-cased hills and undulating curtains. It does not matter what these things are made of, or even, we could expect, what they “truly are” in one sense or another from some other perspective. Romance should not be measured against correspondence- it is a new possibility in which we ourselves might correspond. It is no more deceptive than ideas themselves. Romance is not an idea proper, it is a method of approach.

If we admit that there is always choice- a kind of intentional flavoring- to perception- then it seems there is nothing whatsoever wrong with choosing to witness the romantic possibility of the world- no more wrong than “seeing” quarks and atoms, or imposing a gradient of mathematics over the visible world and certainly not less useful!
In a way, allowing things to always appear as they might yet be is the only realistic disposition- particularly since we admit that change generates so much of our experience from its’ invisible belly- that we ourselves are, to use a well-worn expression, “subject to change”- change occurs to us, we are inside change- ripening with it, at the same moment, like a blushing apple- filling with it, cracking at our very own tired old seams- leaking the unknown thrill of yet-unseen projects and persons. Once we accept this, singular reference, while useful, pales in comparison to metaphor- the creation of which, claims Aristotle, is “ . . . a mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances” (Poetics and Rhetoric). Philosophy distancing itself from Poetry is like Romeo distancing himself from Juliet.

That change defines us is no new insight- though it never ceases to frighten us into our sad, sterile corners. We cling to our singular identities- we analyze our reflection against what we claim to have already seen in ourselves- thus dogmatism and intolerance. The absurdity of this position- that we are always behind and ahead of ourselves makes life no less meaningful. Romance, then, is the attitude of always meaning more- of expecting and hoping, of suspending altogether the tongue-twisted rhetoric of skepticism and silencing the churning ills of disbelief. The best Romance believes all things- not just the normative, stereotyped things- not just hearts and chocolates, but real, human things- the freckles, the cellulite, the barbed wire, the Civil War- believes and believes and makes it new again with a flair for something better. The light blends fantastically in the dark inner iris- pulsing out in a thousand dimensions, refusing to submit to monadic reference. And, of course, as romance chooses, we choose romance- not as a force of nature, but as a gentle sloping path in the woods, bending into breathtaking horizons… Bauchelard claims that “The metaphor is~ an origin, the origin of an image which acts directly, immediately.” In living towards limitlessness, Romance affirms the natural relationship- the natural potential- of one person to a very, very complicated universe. Full Post

Comcasticular Cancer

Comcast is chewing the cud and considering metering their broadband service. While this business model is very common around the world, they'll be one of the first major US providers if they go through with it as planned.

Some... *ahem* EFF... have suggested metering as a net neutrality compromise since it is a way for ISPs to raise profits, control Bit Torrent (P2P) usage, and keep the internet "neutral". But this is not really the case when you dive in to the specifics. The EFF, for all its good, I believe is wildly mistaken in discussing metering as a possible solution to Comcast's under-handed dealings.

So who loses under a metered system most of all? People in low socioeconomic areas, artists, entrepreneurs, video and audio streaming services, small businesses, and pretty much anyone who does anything of substance on the internet.

Com'on, let's dance...

(1) Where does metering end up? Comcast's 250GB test seems like a lot (and actually Comcast currently bans users at about 90GB) - and it is by today's standards. In a year or two with increasing storage and transfer rates, not so much. I'm guessing they are testing the waters of public opinion and eventually settle on a range similar limit to other per-byte ISPs (500mb-100GB). In most places, 5-20GB is considered "normal use" and that isn't very much playing room for your average web surfer these days. Even worse, $40 US gets you about 5-10GB per month in Australia. It could within reason (especially if you look around the world) reach the point where $40/mo buys the ability to only check your email and do basic web browsing (~5GB). At that cost, it's easy to imagine media such as music and video will once again be primarily obtained in physical form. Just like the internet never happened. Take that, Al Gore. Own stock in Borders Books? Maybe you should. It's cheap right now.

(2) Metering reduces ability to collaborate. If a user is working with a video crew in NY and I'm in LA, transferring video or music tracks or whatever back and forth would be extremely expensive. One 1 minute of 1080p HD video is about 8GB uncompressed. Using a standard consumer HD camcorder, a minute is about 4GB. It's cheaper to overnight hard drives around, but clearly prohibitively expensive for people trying to film an amateur video. Even a 3-minute music track in an audio program can easily be more than a few gigabytes in size.

(3) Metering reduces legal use of P2P services. Believe it or not, Bit Torrent is extremely important as a commercial tool for software deployment because it allows companies with little or no server infrastructures to propagate their software without paying the high server costs required. For an example on the art and entertainment side of things, Nine Inch Nails just released an album for free over Bit Torrent. There is an 80mb mp3 version, a 250mb CD-quality version, and a 1.2GB studio quality version (higher quality than CD). Only Richie Rich would want to seed (share) files if the meter is running, so the 1.2GB version would be next to impossible to release for free and musicians and enthusiasts would miss out on being able to remix and use neat stuff like 24/96 recordings. Same goes for movie releases by any amateur director or videographer.

(4) Metering reduces ability to share. How do you get your videos, audio, pictures, or any other data out there if every time you send it to someone it goes on the meter. Messaging or emailing someone a file is out of the question since you would need to transfer the file many times to get it to numerous people. You'll need storage online so you only have to upload it once - and that is a serious investment.

(5) The end of the beginning of the era video streaming and rentals. A video to YouTube is currently 250-300kps with talk of increasing size and quality in the foreseeable future. That's around a gigabyte per hour of YouTube. If you watch streaming much, you might want to go back to cable. And that's really low quality video even by internet streaming standards. Other video services, such as Hulu use much higher quality video. And AppleTVs and Xbox Video are even higher still - with an HD moves tanking in at as much as 7GB (btw, sent to you quickly via Bit Torrent technology - see #3). So you can see the dilemma. Own any Netflix stock?

(6) Disenfranchisement of various socioeconomic groups. I'm going to tread lightly here, but it's a subject close to Net Neutrality as well. So let's try a couple vague examples: let's say you are a bright kid who wants to start a web service out of your house - maybe sending singing video-grams. Nope. Can't. Not enough money for all that bandwidth. How about working on a new studio album for internet release. Sorry. Can't download those audio packs or virtual instruments or samples. And can't share your raw music with people because Bit Torrent is too expensive and MySpace has too many restrictions. Forget about doing anything on your own terms or at least without ads for dating services all over your content.

I'm not going to get into these, but here are additional items to think about:

• Gigabytes do not stay constant. Phones can get away with metered minutes, because a minute is a minute no matter what and just as useful for communication now as it was 500 years ago. However a gigabyte becomes less and less useful every day. The cost of a gigabyte of storage drops around 50-75% every year. And in general, 3.5" hard drives double in capacity about every 1-2 years in recent history. Will the cost of metered internet keep up with this? Maybe, but doesn't seem likely.

• RIAA, MIAA, and Comcast sandwich. Metering really, really serves the RIAA and MIAA since music and video sharing will be obliterated. But it also harms legal and hobby uses of multimedia.

• Future uses of the internet are unknown. What other high-bandwidth but awesome technologies will never be produced due to high consumer cost?

• How expensive is bandwidth at cost for Comcast? Rough estimates put it in the fraction of a penny per gigabyte. Clearly clever and funny advertising is major overhead, though.

• The final quagmire. Take a peek at Australia's meter internet implementation: http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/bc/?action=search. Full Post

Congress' Cheap Date: A Father-Son Conversation

Some extended thoughts on international trade, from an e-mail exchange. (I'm the verbose one, my conservative dad is the foil.)

Feel free to ignore...

Dad,

The definition of a free trade agreement with 2^nd and 3^rd World countries: We give you our jobs; in return we get cheaper junk that sells for pennies at Walmart – perfect product for our now-unemployed population.

[The extension of this: We can’t afford to wean ourselves off of free trade agreements once they go into effect, because our Middle America population (including those now-unemployed) can no longer afford the higher price of the old Made-in-USA product. Camera pans to Bob, a retired or laid-off steel worker in Cleveland, who says, “My Colombian socks are only 99 cents a pair at the Dollar Store. I can’t pay $3 a pair!” Politicians then rally around Bob.]

Meanwhile our ever-patriotic American companies make greater profits on Wall Street by outsourcing our jobs. So, um, I think there’s some trickle-down to Middle America from that revenue, right? It’s just not trickle-down of jobs. It’s trickle-down other stuff – products that are more in line with your reduced-income family…

Slowly more cynical,

Matt

---------------

If only economics was as simple as a 30 second sound bit by a politician from any party. And while Wall Street and self-indulgent corporations are easy targets, I find it interesting that unions are rarely subject to the same criticisms.

Dad

---------------

I don’t think econ is that simple either. But it makes for a good point. The point in his quote being that, in Colombia, fighting for worker’s rights is a deadly proposition. (Side note: I loathe unions in a developed industry in a developed country. However they are VERY essential for the bourgeoning economies in the 2^nd and 3^rd World, where the employers have carte blanche when it comes to employee treatment.)

Before Annie went into labor, I was having an interesting conversation with Ezra. We were talking about international trade and “American” multi-national companies. I have been in a bit of a philosophical conundrum since listening to Pat Buchanan’s book on CD. Everything on it I either very much agreed with or very much disagreed with, except one issue. As you know, he’s virulently pro-American and populist in a blue collar sort of way. The one issue he brought up, which I hadn’t thought about, was the idea of questioning our support (financial/political/tax-wise/etc.) of American companies when they do not always act in ways that benefit America.

While I’m not ready to go protest in Flint, Michigan, there is something that Buchanan said that struck a cord. I guess for me it started with the realization that, oh yeah, the government has hundreds of ways in which is tries to benefit corporations. These benefits, mostly in the forms of specific legislation, are a GOOD thing. However they should be offered only to companies that prove themselves GOOD to America – rather than to any “American” company that happens to have an HQ in the States and a big enough lobbying arm to get it’s needs met in government.

My basic change in philosophy is this: Instead of giving benefit to any company that had it’s start in America, we should give benefit to companies that give benefit to America. Since this is a philosophy, it must be grounded in practical application. This is where I hit a rut. How do you quantify a company that is “good” to America and one that is not? The simple answer is to give NO benefit to any company. But that doesn’t make sense. As a government of the American people, the government SHOULD try to give some competitive advantage to American companies. That’s nationalism. But right now we’re in a situation where the standard of what qualifies as an “American” company is so blurred that, for example, we could give heaps of benefit to a company that does all it’s manufacturing outside our borders and only “benefits” the American public through a) stock dividends and b) the selling of cheaper goods to the American public. (Is B really a benefit?)

Matt

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Got to run for plane so I'll read this later, but if you can find it, there was an interesting article on the President of Peru and what he's done with the Peruvian economy. Saturday's WSJ.

Dad

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Interesting interview with the Pres of Peru. Sounds like they are heading in a direction that any 2^nd or 3^rd World country should try to follow. I think this is a perfectly wise and logical direction for a country in such a position. And personally I like the idea of an economic conservative who came from a liberal background. It makes me think he’d be close to my ideal: true compassionate conservatism.

But how does Peruvian progress bode for America? I mean it feels good to see/help desperately poor people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps; but America can by NO MEANS compete with Peru in any sector that Peru is capable of creating an industry in: textiles, manufacturing, agriculture, etc. So is what’s good for Peru good for America?

I guess the good ole neo-Smithian argument would be: Let America focus on the industries that it can dominate in. And let Peru become competitive in the industries it can compete in.

My difficulty with this idea is that there is too much of America – too many people, too much bounty in the land. What I mean by that is, if we only focus on, for example, white collar jobs, technology, entertainment, etc., (our industries where we have a clear competitive advantage), we can’t possibly a) employ our entire population and b) use our natural resources to their greatest advantage. I’m imagining a future where, there are enough Perus around the world that we no longer can afford to grow any of our own crops. [This reality has already hit for Midwestern agriculture. I’m waiting for it to hit the Central Valley, now that Mexico and Chile are giving us all those delicious, CHEAPER fruits.]

The important distinction I need to make at this juncture is: I’m not saying we blindly support all dying industries. However there are some industries that it makes sense for us to support – those which make America less reliant on foreign powers, and those which capitalize on our bounteous natural resources.

A perfect example is agriculture in the Midwest (and I argue ag in the Central Valley too, within the next 20 years). While a true free markets believer cringes at farm subsidies (“Inefficiency!!”), what do we do with the entire middle of our country otherwise? Just let it grow back into the plains? Tell everyone in every small town to move to Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Minneapolis, or Rust Belt cities? We would be squandering millions of acres of our land, just because Peru has a lower cost of living. Then what happens if/when Peru’s economy implodes or Peru decides it hates us and won’t sell to us?

There are other natural-resources-related industries where this is increasingly apparent: oil, natural gas, mining. Imagine if we managed to wean ourselves off of foreign oil? A pipe dream, I know - pun intended. But it could happen if we use basic economics: decrease our demand (invest in clean technology, public transportation, fuel economy) and increase our supply (drill in Alaska more, invest in turning the Midwest shale into oil, invest in ocean exploration, reopen the oil drills in Oildale).

In all of these industries we have to decide: Take the Smithian stance and let other countries produce it for us, thereby increasing our dependence on OPEC, etc.; or take the Buchanan stance and always do what’s makes America less dependent on foreign powers.

As I’m prone to do, I believe the middle stance is best: Be open to trade, but always with an eye on what’s TRULY best for America. (I say “truly” because “cheaper goods” is not justification enough.) I envision a foreign policy where we always ask: Is this trade overall better for America? How are we balancing our independence with our interest in these imported goods?

Right now our materialism has got the best of us. With foreign trade we let free markets rule. A Chinese importer can bring us an even cheaper widget and we just say, “Good. It’s cheaper. We’ll take it.” [A whole side conversation could be had about the quality of the product (e.g. leaded toys, tainted pet food, pesticides on produce) and the quality of production (e.g. child labor in Dongguan , mining disasters in rural China).] Added to that, we have some large economically-depressed regions across the country where people can now only afford the cheapest good – the “Walmart products” in shorthand.

So there’s my mini-essay. What are your thought?

Matt

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9 Theses on Art, by C.M. Djordjevic

Reference:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1950/ten-theses.htm

With thanks to R. D. Sherman for timely and helpful criticism.

For Ludwig

(1) Art is always and in all circumstances enmeshed in the fabric of ideas around it. Therefore, all contemporary art- it can be assumed, be it pro or contra, knowingly or not- is a reaction to Marxist theory. Without Adorno, there would be no contemporary music. Without Lukas no contemporary prose. Without Greenburg no contemporary painting.
(2) That the fundamental thesis of Marx is a challenge to all art hitherto in existence. Art was taken as a description of a description. 'The point however is to change it [the world]' The question 'what is art?' is a question of the function of art and it becomes fully articulated at this point in history
(3) That for Hegel and Marx a clear articulation of the necessary structure of the world, its logik, is possible independently of the conditions of the world such as practices, contingencies, etc.. And that this means that freedom is either (a) an act that seeks to negate this logik- though this negation is itself a futile gesture against the totalizing effect of the system (b) an act that accept one's place within the logik of the system. Either world-negation or self-negation.
(4) That negation is either of human agency completely; Cage's 4'33. Silence becomes 'the voice' of music. All human tampering with the now-ness of now is to be deliberately, systematically and completely removed from art. Art is what the world is without the demonic intrusion of supposed human free agency:: or the art is merely a product of the creator's will to create; Nietzsche, of course, falls into this. But the person who best represents it is Andy Warhol. Art is art because I (and this I is the only meaningful element in the equation) have elevated this- Brillo Boxes- to art.
(5) That the truth of art is a direct product of human will- be it the will-to-refrain or the will-to-assert
(6) That a truly creative act- from the point of view of the artist- must be measured by the amount of arbitrariness within the act. For Warhol, to create an artwork means to arbitrarily take an object- the more absurd the better- and raise it to 'artistic status' and that for Cage to create artwork is to arbitrarily define some random process or thing as art. Creation is ONLY and SOLELY understood in terms of the arbitrariness. Thus the true 'radicalness' of modern art. It challenges nothing by challenging everything
(7) That these theses, applied rigorously, systematically remove art from anything but a strange pattern of social and economic criteria. 4'33 is music because it is 'played' in a context, Brillo Boxes are sculpture because they are in a museum. This renders art as mere epiphenomena, completely vacuous of any claims on truth or meaning and forces art to be mere self-indulgence.
(8) That the fundamental idea behind these theses is that a logik of creation is articulable prior to the act of creation. We can know what art is and is not before we have encountered it. That the theses are seeking a Socratic definition of art and that when this definition is over-turned, the negation of the definition becomes the fundamental truth- everything is art or nothing is art because we are unable to define the logik of art.
(9) That the truth of art cannot be articulated independent of the process of engaging with the art. That the true insight of Marx is that art is NOT a description of the world. Nor is it an engagement with the logik of the world- be this logik economic or spirit. True art shows a profound understanding- indeed I'd argue the only truly adiquit one of faith- 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the proof of things not seen.' In art we see the Kingdom of G-d. Creative ex nihlo, not mere potential into actual. And this ex nihlo must be experienced to be understood: I and thou.. 'For behold, I am making the World anew.'

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Clinton wins imaginary popular vote!

Clinton is now claiming that she's winning the popular vote. Now I know some of you might be saying to yourselves; "Wait a second! I just went on RealClearPolitics.com and Clinton's still down by more than half a million votes."

Don't feel bad, a lot of people have the same crazy misconception that the popular vote is derived by adding up all the votes cast in certified primaries.

This is how the popular vote is actually counted:

(1) Take the popular vote from all the primaries recognized by the DNC. (Obama: 14,751,703, Clinton: 14,141,255)

(2) Add in Florida - where both candidates pledged not to campaign.

(3) Add in Michigan - where Obama wasn't even on the ballot.

(4) And now the fun part:

take out votes cast in Iowa

Washington

Maine

and Nevada.


And then you get Clinton: 15,116,688 Obama: 14,993,833.

It all makes perfect sense if you think about it... Full Post

A Critical Thinker who wasn't Paralyzed by his Critical Thinking

In his recommendation to ratify the newly-written Constitution (see "crazy hippy kids"), September 17, 1787, Ben Franklin writes:

...I believe that... [the new constitutional form of government] can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other...

On the whole, Sir, I can not help expressing a Wish, that every Member of the Convention, who may still have Objections to it, would with me on this occasion doubt a little of his own Infallibility, and to make manifest our Unanimity, put his Name to this Instrument.



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Why the FCC is a laughing-stock and why we should be crying

In the wake of the FCC's Hearing held at Stanford last Thursday, and Chairman Martin's testimony yesterday before the Senate, it's hard to be muster much hope for the future of the internet. Symptoms of of accelerating decline - from a free-wheeling barely-legal commonwealth to something more like network TV - are beginning to appear. These sores are made all the more painful in light of the promise that the internet seems to hold - if it remains a public good and not private property - to put the power to express, organize productive activities and waste time at work into the hands of the many.


The Bad

I'm saying things are bad because of what I saw last Thursday at the hearing. Comcast, as some off you may know, promised not to block or degrade traffic on its internet service. This was back in 2006. Another interesting thing happened that same year...

Comcast started blocking and degrading P2P traffic.

This isn't just bad. It's really bad. P2P is a technology that allows innovative individuals to provide services on the internet that used to be impossible without server farms and deals with companies that optimize internet load times - two things that are extremely expensive. P2P allows all the users that love the widget that you invented to provide the processing power and bandwidth that our imaginary widget needs to function. It's like a co-op. SO when Comcast blocks P2P services that provide innovators a way to compete with Comcast... that's very serious.


Jason Devitt put the threat quite succinctly in his testimony:

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Net Neutrality: The Coming Battle

“Now we face a constitutive choice with the Internet—a choice between closed networks where the network operators control the user experience and open networks that are controlled by end users. This is an issue in which you must engage, not just because you are innovators and business people, but because you are citizens.

If I see what’s happening accurately, I believe we will have an opportunity, before very long, to decide this issue of Internet Freedom. It will be a major fight, with powerful forces on the other side. We’ll all have to work—and much as I know folks out here like to keep their focus on all the good entrepreneurial things they are doing, they—you—are going to have to focus on this issue, focus on Washington, and put your commitment and your resources into making sure the decision comes out right. Without that kind of participation, we will likely lose. With it, we have a real shot to win.”

Commissioner Copps openning statement @ the April 17th FCC En Banc Hearing on Net Neutrality

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Exporting violence and exploitation, Importing really cheap tube socks

"Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., [discussing the House Democrat obstruction of a free-trade agreement with Columbia] cited figures that in the first 12 weeks of this year, 17 trade unionists in Colombia were assassinated. 'When it comes to issues like human rights, I refuse to be a cheap date,' he said."

McGovern went on to say that the President would at least have to buy him dinner and listen to his legislative dreams before he would be willing to undermine human rights. (Not really.)
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Not with a bang but with a whimper...

First things first... Clinton showed that she can attack without looking mean or sounding shrill. And Obama that... well... I heard he was great at Harvard Mock Trial.

Whatever you want to say about Obama’s performance in tonight’s debate – awkward, lackluster, masochistic, punching-bag-esque… - it faithfully delivered the point that he’s manically pursued throughout the campaign. Namely:

I’m not playing your game.

Obama’s rhetoric – lampooned by Clinton as just a little too beautiful, just a little too authentic – operates on the level of what’s good in us, not what we fear or what our parochial views incline us toward. The latest conflagration over Barack’s San Francisco remarks is the Obama style writ large. Instead of knocking back a shot or donning a hard-hat for a photo-shoot, he addressed Pennsylvania seriously… foot-in-mouth serious, but serious nonetheless.

So, back to the debate, it shouldn’t surprise that Obama didn’t make the big political counter-punches on Hillary’s authenticity that the situation demanded. When the moderators brought up Hillary's serial misspeak on Bosnia, Clinton offered up that she hadn't gotten much sleep (possibility due to 3:00am phone-calls?) Obama did nothing to pursue her on the fact that she didn't just 'misspeak', she did it on at least three occasions. When Hillary was waxing poetic on her working-class roots, Obama didn't hit back with the fact that she grew up in privileged circumstances in an affluent Chicago suburb.

He gave his answers, not the right answers. When questioned on the “bitterness” comment, he described communities in this country that lost their economic raison d’etre 30 years ago and have lingered on since then fed on the Democratic Party’s starvation diet of empty populism; communities that have fallen back on those traditions that still give there togetherness meaning, religion and guns. When questioned on his… er… outspoken Minister, he repeated his old line. The Church had a profoundly positive ministry and he does not support the views of Rev. Wright.

Lame.

Obama also talked about transcending these issues and about how they were side shows. Good point, but this time his words truly fell short of his message. It’s all fine and good to talk about transcendence, but you need to show us that new world if you want to shatter the old paradigm. He did that in his “Major Speech on Race”, but today, he choked.

The trouble with attempting such a gambit in a debate is that transcendence takes time. It takes a speech like the one he delivered in Philly after the Rev. Wright issue turned into a media orgy, or his religion speech in 2006, or his 2004 Convention speech, or his “Yes, We Can” speech...etc. He’s used these speeches to move us beyond the sound bite and thus succeed in inverted Hillary’s attacks into a symbol of her own Rovian campaign tactics. His strong, non-violent responses have turned people irresistibly back to the image of Hillary as the Machiavellian attacker (no disrespect to Mackie).

But in the final analysis he just couldn’t get there; he needed to have more than weak excuses and repetition of previous remarks – however true those remarks were – to turn the momentum of Clinton’s aggression back upon her.

Obama needed to take the elitism remarks as an opportunity to say “I take you seriously.” To say “I’m talking to you like an adult rather than trying to manipulate you with images of shooters and hard-hat photo shoots.”

He needed to use the “he wouldn’t have been my pastor” attack to say “Rev. Wright was the pastor of my community, a community that I love and have chosen to work through.”

To say “We can’t wait for perfection or the mythic leader we agree with completely before we put our shoulders to the wheel. Just as we can’t wait for America to be the America want and to have the leaders she needs before we pull together to make her truly beautiful.”

Why not? This is what the left has always needed – less “American baaaahd” and more commitment to America as a common project.

Obama doesn’t need to retreat into the old manipulative language of politics to win. He needs to go deeper into his strength: speaking to me and you like we are adults. If he wins this nomination, I hope he will look back on this debate and remember that what America needs – though perhaps she has not learn to want it yet – is an end to condescending sound-bite, image politics (the rhetoric of domination.)

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