Principles

In a long-overdue move, today a Congressional panel approved a measure which labels the massacre of Armenian civilians by the military forces of the Ottoman Empire as “genocide.” Proposals to apply this term to the atrocity committed nearly a century ago have been punted down the line from one Congress to the next for many years now. The wholesale massacre of civilians by a military force is inexcusable under any circumstances, and the fact that it has taken Congress this long to call the act by its true name is shameful and sad.

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The pro-vaccine crowd has grown increasingly intolerant of the very idea of defending their position. Instead they have resorted to name-calling, accusing vaccine doubters of being “anti-science,” and lumping vaccine doubters together with Creationists as irrational and superstitious. The present harsh rhetoric of the pro-vaccine crowd in the media actually makes me even more suspicious than I might have been already.

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In the book, I offered two possible solutions for the conflict between Israel and Palestine.  One possibility I suggested was the complete social and political unification of the entire territory of Israel and Palestine; and the other was the much vaunted “Two State Solution.”

The present military action in the Gaza Strip has forced me to spend some time evaluating my position and as a result I no longer consider one of those ideas to be a viable possibility.

Not A Solution

The “Two State Solution” is not a solution at all. 

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In chapter 6 “Basic Rights” under section 6.2.1 “Habeas Corpus” I briefly mention the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian who was abducted in New York and taken to Syria, where he was tortured and detained without any legal justification.  Since then Arar has been cleared by the Canadian government of any connection to terrorism.  His appeal of his case is still pending in US court, after having been twice declined on the basis that simply hearing his case would pose a threat to United States national security.

Today Arar was the guest on Fresh Air with Terry Gross on National Public Radio.  His story is shocking, compelling, and horrifying to people who believe in basic human rights.  For anyone who missed it, this interview is well worth a listen.
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In section 3.2.2.1 of Principles for a Self-Directed Society, I discuss the potential threat posed to the United States homeland by Russian military might. I outline a defensive strategy to deter invasion, and refer to the principle of mutually assured destruction in determining why a first-strike nuclear attack is not in Russia’s best perceived self-interest.

Throughout the book I assert that in instances of conflict that does not occur on United States soil, it is the responsibility of international organizations (not their individual member nations) to intervene.
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Just briefly: in chapter 3 of Principles for a Self-Directed Society I state, as many others have, that the war in Iraq has strengthened our enemies and increased terrorism worldwide, and that our continued occupation of Iraq can only cause continuing instability there.

Last week it became apparent that the Iraqi government has reached the same conclusion. In order to make our occupation "legal," the elected Iraqi leadership must pass new status of forces legislation essentially inviting us to stay before the United Nations Security Council extension of the mandate of multinational forces expires on December 31, 2008.

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In my book Principles for a Self-Directed Society, section 6.3.2.1 “Big Brother Really Is Watching You,” I discuss legislation which was then pending:  the FISA Amendments Act, which has received much publicity in the media.  The legislation was intended to hugely broaden Presidential powers by essentially signing off after the fact on an illegal warrantless wiretap program which the Bush administration had already been conducting for years. The FISA Amendments Act is an extension of a previous bill which did just that for a limited time; but the new bill also reforms the system that was established by the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in several ways. The aspect of the legislation which has received the most attention in the media is the retroactive immunity it provides to telecommunications companies which participated in the illegal warrantless surveillance program; yet although this provision may be the most obviously odious, it is hardly the most sinister part of the bill. According to Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the bill “allow[s] the government to apply for wiretaps after beginning surveillance and [to] continue monitoring Americans’ phone calls and e-mail messages [even] if the FISA court rejects the application.” (Emphasis added.)

I would like to remind America that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution specifically prohibits the government from conducting any search without a warrant based on probable cause.
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In section 8.2.10 “Public Utilities” I advocate using public money to buy the nation’s energy companies because I believe publicly owned utilities would be more cost-effective than privately-owned, for-profit utilities. It’s simple math: publicly owned utilities only have to break even, whereas privately owned utilities have to make a profit. Given that making a profit means charging their customers more money, I would rather buy my electricity and natural gas from a publicly owned utility, a sentiment compounded by the Enron fiasco.

Here in Portland Oregon, our local utility, PGE, was an Enron subsidiary which, like its parent company, screwed over both its customers and its employees in several creative ways. Most diabolical was their scheme to collect millions of dollars in “taxes” from the ratepayers: money which they kept as profit, or passed on to Enron as profit, but which never was paid as tax by the company, which instead quite literally got away with only paying the $10 minimum state tax.
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In section 4.2.1 of Principles for a Self-Directed Society, I summarize some of the effects and implications of global climate change, including the 2007/08 United Nations Human Development Report, which concluded that more than 260 million people were adversely affected by climate change related disasters in the first four years of the 21st century alone; and that the only way to prevent long term exponential worsening of the situation is for industrialized nations to make painfully drastic reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions. I then considered an extreme worst-case climate change scenario report, written by private contractors for the Department of Defense. However, that report has been disavowed by the Pentagon; and although it is scientifically not unimaginable, as the report demonstrates with several examples of historical climatological events, most people find the concept of abrupt climate shift to be too much like science fiction, and hopefully it will stay that way.
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Writing Principles for a Self-Directed Society was an ongoing process for a long time. Having sent the book to the printers, I still feel there are more questions that should have been addressed. The most important of these is, what about Afghanistan?

I state in 3.2.3 Defending the Homeland that my other long-term proposals regarding the restructuring of the armed forces cannot be pursued until after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been brought to a conclusion. However, nowhere in the book do I propose a plan for bringing the Afghanistan conflict to a resolution.
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