2014-11-25
Small-time Chico Esperto
Well, I am happy they are prosecuting Jose Socrates because it may be a sign of a mature democracy. On the other hand, the key offending item seems to be a 3 million euro apartment he is renting in Paris (for post-graduate education), which is relative peanuts… For a different perspective, this will just show future Portuguese prime-ministers that they have to accept gifts from lobbyists in the ways of more sophisticated democracies: e.g. 750.000$ speaking fees after leaving office, gifts for presidential libraries, Schroeder becoming a Gazprom employee after supporting the Nord Stream pipeline as prime minister, Aznar becoming a member of the board of directors at the News Corp empire, Blair with a net worth of 60 million pounds after leaving the government, accept to become the president of the EU (like tax-haven Juncker and our own Barroso for services well done in support of Bush/Blair’s war). I think Jose Socrates may have just been a naïve, small-time crook in such company.
2013-12-09
Just the facts ma'am
Tenho pena que muitas vezes a esquerda em Portugal seja tão emocional. É bastante mais semelhante com a direita americana, nesse aspeto. Há uma certa aversão aos factos, e depois, quando constatados com os factos, um cinismo e mesmo desonestidade intelectual.
O caso dos últimos dias tem sido sobre a votação do governo Português na ONU em 1987 sobre a África do Sul e o Apartheid. Nessa altura Cavaco Silva era primeiro-ministro e Mário Soares era presidente da República. Daniel de Oliveira no Expresso lançou chamas das fagulhas de Ana Gomes, dizendo: "[Cavaco Silva] que desalinhou com quase todo o mundo no momento em que Mandela precisava da nossa voz, vir, neste momento, falar da coragem política, da estatura moral e das lições de humanidade de Mandela". Isto depois de definir a situação de 1987 como restrita a uma votação de uma resolução na ONU "que incluía um apelo para a libertação incondicional de Mandela" em que Portugal, Juntamente com Reino Unido e EUA, votou contra. Os outros países Europeus abstiveram-se. Inúmeros outros blogues subescreveram sem olhar aos factos.
Claro que os factos vieram ao de cima, e afinal havia várias moções nesta votação, tendo Portugal votado contra a A(a que Daniel de Oliveira mencionava), mas a favor da G, que também exigia "libertação incondicional de Mandela ". Hoje, Daniel de Oliveira defende-se contra-atacando cinicamente, mas nunca justificando que o que disse inicialmente estava errado: o governo Portugês, ao contrário da implicação do seu primeiro texto, votou favoravelmente a favor do fim imediato do Apartheid e da libertação de Mandela.
De facto, Daniel Oliveira está a ser cínico. O que estava em causa é a afirmação inicial dele, de que Cavaco votou contra a libertação de Mandela. Isso é factualmente errado, não é uma questão de opinião. Também é um facto que as resoluções A e G são essencialmente idênticas com a exceção do recurso à luta armada. Em tudo o resto são idênticas: condenação e exigência de fim do Apartheid, bem como a libertação imediata de Mandela e de todos os presos políticos. Naturalmente as pessoas agora podem dizer que o recurso à luta armada era razoável. Isso é já uma questão de opinião e podemos concordar ou não. Os EUA, R.U. e Portugal acharam que não (penso no caso de Portugal por causa da comunidade Portuguesa lá), muitos outros países acharam que sim, que o ANC tinha direito à luta armada. Os outros países europeus não acharam nada com a sua abstenção, isto é, deram o sim e o não à luta armada. O mesmo fez Mário Soares que não fez na altura nenhuma comunicação pública sobre o assunto.
Infelizmente, quando se entra em discussão com certos blogues de esquerda, quando os factos são postos na mesa, e estamos já fora da opinião, os comentários a esse respeito são omitidos.
O caso dos últimos dias tem sido sobre a votação do governo Português na ONU em 1987 sobre a África do Sul e o Apartheid. Nessa altura Cavaco Silva era primeiro-ministro e Mário Soares era presidente da República. Daniel de Oliveira no Expresso lançou chamas das fagulhas de Ana Gomes, dizendo: "[Cavaco Silva] que desalinhou com quase todo o mundo no momento em que Mandela precisava da nossa voz, vir, neste momento, falar da coragem política, da estatura moral e das lições de humanidade de Mandela". Isto depois de definir a situação de 1987 como restrita a uma votação de uma resolução na ONU "que incluía um apelo para a libertação incondicional de Mandela" em que Portugal, Juntamente com Reino Unido e EUA, votou contra. Os outros países Europeus abstiveram-se. Inúmeros outros blogues subescreveram sem olhar aos factos.
Claro que os factos vieram ao de cima, e afinal havia várias moções nesta votação, tendo Portugal votado contra a A(a que Daniel de Oliveira mencionava), mas a favor da G, que também exigia "libertação incondicional de Mandela ". Hoje, Daniel de Oliveira defende-se contra-atacando cinicamente, mas nunca justificando que o que disse inicialmente estava errado: o governo Portugês, ao contrário da implicação do seu primeiro texto, votou favoravelmente a favor do fim imediato do Apartheid e da libertação de Mandela.
De facto, Daniel Oliveira está a ser cínico. O que estava em causa é a afirmação inicial dele, de que Cavaco votou contra a libertação de Mandela. Isso é factualmente errado, não é uma questão de opinião. Também é um facto que as resoluções A e G são essencialmente idênticas com a exceção do recurso à luta armada. Em tudo o resto são idênticas: condenação e exigência de fim do Apartheid, bem como a libertação imediata de Mandela e de todos os presos políticos. Naturalmente as pessoas agora podem dizer que o recurso à luta armada era razoável. Isso é já uma questão de opinião e podemos concordar ou não. Os EUA, R.U. e Portugal acharam que não (penso no caso de Portugal por causa da comunidade Portuguesa lá), muitos outros países acharam que sim, que o ANC tinha direito à luta armada. Os outros países europeus não acharam nada com a sua abstenção, isto é, deram o sim e o não à luta armada. O mesmo fez Mário Soares que não fez na altura nenhuma comunicação pública sobre o assunto.
Infelizmente, quando se entra em discussão com certos blogues de esquerda, quando os factos são postos na mesa, e estamos já fora da opinião, os comentários a esse respeito são omitidos.
2013-10-21
Clepto vs. Skatacracia
Alguém duvida do resultado do jogo cleptocracia angolana vs. skatacracia portuguesa? Quanto tempo até a "Justiça" desistir da investigação aos cleptocratas angolanos? Ainda bem que o primeiro de Dezembro já não é feriado. Começa a ser uma brincadeira de mau gosto celebrar a independência do país... Em vez do pânico óbvio dos nossos governantes (os skatacratas) face às declarações de Eduardo dos Santos, a primeira declaração de resposta deveria ser que nenhuma potência estrangeira pode interferir com o processo de justiça nacional. Naturalmente que Angola tem toda a razão quando reage contra o sistemático abuso do "segredo" de justiça em Portugal, mas exigir o encerramento das investigações em curso é inadmissível. A resposta Portuguesa, custe o que custar, deve ser clara a esse respeito. Há um limite para o que se pode vender.
Labels: Angola, Politics, Portugal
2013-05-06
Coreografia Política e o Centralão
JPP em "O MATERIAL TEM SEMPRE RAZÃO" insurge-se com a coreografia política do desacordo Portas-Passos que, argumenta, é pre-arranjada e não tem sentido de responsabilidade. Sou de duas opiniões a este respeito... Por um lado concordo que tudo é uma grande coreografia política---o que não é Kabuki na política? Mas por outro lado acho que em Portugal não estamos muito habituados a governos de coligação. Desacordo entre lideres de partidos envolvidos em coligações governamentais são muito comuns e salutares: ver Inglaterra agora sobre o assunto da integração europeia, ou governos alemães e belgas anteriores, ou Israel e Itália... Sempre gostei de governos de coligação por ainda assim oferecerem algum controlo ao nepotismo partidário. Neste caso, talvez seja ingénuo, mas acho que há realmente desacordo e que Portas é de facto um travão a Gaspar, que não é mau.
O PSD sempre tenta ridicularizar Portas/CDS, mas mesmo assim estamos melhor com esta diversidade partidária, do que unicamente com o Centralão. Aliás, é o centralão (i.e. PSD + PS) que deve ser responsabilizado pelo estado da nação. Em todos os governos recentes, estes dois partidos---e apenas estes dois---foram os partidos maioritários de onde vieram todos os primeiros-ministros e todos os presidentes (desde Eanes) que tivemos. Ora, em ulltíma análise, para o bem e para o mal, são eles que têm que ser responsabilizados pelo estado da nação. Dado que o estado é lastimável (intervenção estrangeira, desemprego, competitividade, etc.) ambos estes partidos deveriam ser castigados pelo eleitorado Português para os obrigar a uma regeneração (como aconteceu na Islândia e na Irlanda). Nomeadamente, algo que os obrigasse a restringir a sua dependência do fluxo aparentemente inesgotável de "talento" que jorra do esgoto que são as "jotas". Mas a conversa continua sempre como se houvesse alternativa ideológica e deontológica no centralão; como se se o PS fosse para o poder agora algo seria muito diferente... Qualquer coisa que provoque uma regeneração a sério deste centralão, cujo impacto em Portugal parece ser bem negativo como mostram os dados, seria muito bem vindo.
O PSD sempre tenta ridicularizar Portas/CDS, mas mesmo assim estamos melhor com esta diversidade partidária, do que unicamente com o Centralão. Aliás, é o centralão (i.e. PSD + PS) que deve ser responsabilizado pelo estado da nação. Em todos os governos recentes, estes dois partidos---e apenas estes dois---foram os partidos maioritários de onde vieram todos os primeiros-ministros e todos os presidentes (desde Eanes) que tivemos. Ora, em ulltíma análise, para o bem e para o mal, são eles que têm que ser responsabilizados pelo estado da nação. Dado que o estado é lastimável (intervenção estrangeira, desemprego, competitividade, etc.) ambos estes partidos deveriam ser castigados pelo eleitorado Português para os obrigar a uma regeneração (como aconteceu na Islândia e na Irlanda). Nomeadamente, algo que os obrigasse a restringir a sua dependência do fluxo aparentemente inesgotável de "talento" que jorra do esgoto que são as "jotas". Mas a conversa continua sempre como se houvesse alternativa ideológica e deontológica no centralão; como se se o PS fosse para o poder agora algo seria muito diferente... Qualquer coisa que provoque uma regeneração a sério deste centralão, cujo impacto em Portugal parece ser bem negativo como mostram os dados, seria muito bem vindo.
2012-10-16
Advocating a floating turd for president...
How soul-less liar becomes "craftsmen". Conservatives are really masters of the Orwellian double-speak. In summary, Brooks advocates for president someone who can say one thing to be elected, and do another to govern, plain and simple. So, who best for a president than a total flip-flopper who says whatever is needed at a particular time? In Portugal, we call people like this "floating turds"---as in how a turd floats along with the ocean waves...
And , BTW, Brooks is completely disingenuous on this article: As if Obama did not "craft" Republican ideas to attempt bipartisanship (Romneycare, a debt reduction plan with Boehner that included mostly cuts and modest revenue increases, etc. etc.)
And , BTW, Brooks is completely disingenuous on this article: As if Obama did not "craft" Republican ideas to attempt bipartisanship (Romneycare, a debt reduction plan with Boehner that included mostly cuts and modest revenue increases, etc. etc.)
Labels: Politics
2009-03-30
Sexualidade
Continuo a concordar com Gore Vidal que insiste que homossexual não é um substantivo. Uma pessoa não é homo ou hetero. Os actos sexuais é que podem ser adjectivados dessa forma. A identidade pessoal não deriva do comportamento sexual. Uma pessoa pode participar exclusivamente em actos sexuais de um ou de outro tipo---ou não. As combinações físicas e emocionais são essencialmente ilimitadas, mas isso não define a identidade da pessoa. (Uma pessoa pode até sentir-se exclusivamente atraída fisicamente e emocionalmente por pessoas do sexo oposto, mas não gostar de todos os actos sexuais heterossexuais, e até ter prazer físico com alguns actos homossexuais). Não interessa também para nada se as causas do interesse sexual são genéticas, culturais, epigenéticas, de desenvolvimento etc. Todas essas causas não são em geral facilmente separáveis para qualquer atributo físico ou de comportamento. "you can be what you want to be", como diz Billy Bragg em baixo.
A meu ver deve-se chegar à liberdade sexual lutando pelos direitos de todos os indivíduos, independentemente das práticas sexuais concretas. Quando se cria as dicotomias, supostamente reflectindo identidades, como homo/hetero faz-se uma manipulação emocional à sociedade que é nefasta. Imaginem um jovem adolescente que sente uma quantidade e novidade enorme de impulsos sexuais. A nova aproximação de política de indentidade gay/hetero continua a forçar o tal adolescente a restringir todos os seus impulsos a um ou outro lado da suposta dicotomia de identidade. O novidade é apenas que agora se aceita moralmente ambos os lados da dicotomia. Mas a manipulação e controlo emocional é a mesma: o individuo tem que se definir perante a sociedade como pertencendo a um ou noutro lado.
Para se atingir uma liberdade sexual plena, a própria dicotomia tem que ser erradicada. Isto passa por se deitar fora todos esses conceitos ou mitos urbanos ridículos como "gaydar", bem como a "identidade gay" associada. Toda a definição de identidades baseada na sexualidade, ou mesmo no género e na raça, não passa de uma "fodamental" (no sentido de McGinn) imposta a todos nós. Continuo um grande liberal também neste assunto: a liberdade em todos os aspectos deve derivar dos direitos de todos os indivíduos, e não de grupos culturais, por mais oprimidos que esses grupos tenham sido.
A meu ver deve-se chegar à liberdade sexual lutando pelos direitos de todos os indivíduos, independentemente das práticas sexuais concretas. Quando se cria as dicotomias, supostamente reflectindo identidades, como homo/hetero faz-se uma manipulação emocional à sociedade que é nefasta. Imaginem um jovem adolescente que sente uma quantidade e novidade enorme de impulsos sexuais. A nova aproximação de política de indentidade gay/hetero continua a forçar o tal adolescente a restringir todos os seus impulsos a um ou outro lado da suposta dicotomia de identidade. O novidade é apenas que agora se aceita moralmente ambos os lados da dicotomia. Mas a manipulação e controlo emocional é a mesma: o individuo tem que se definir perante a sociedade como pertencendo a um ou noutro lado.
Para se atingir uma liberdade sexual plena, a própria dicotomia tem que ser erradicada. Isto passa por se deitar fora todos esses conceitos ou mitos urbanos ridículos como "gaydar", bem como a "identidade gay" associada. Toda a definição de identidades baseada na sexualidade, ou mesmo no género e na raça, não passa de uma "fodamental" (no sentido de McGinn) imposta a todos nós. Continuo um grande liberal também neste assunto: a liberdade em todos os aspectos deve derivar dos direitos de todos os indivíduos, e não de grupos culturais, por mais oprimidos que esses grupos tenham sido.
Labels: Politics, sexcrime, sexualidade
2009-01-20
8 years of our assent
"We've gotten really good at living with things during the Bush Years, at tolerating the intolerable. And while this may sound like another tip of the hat to the incredible resilience of the American people, it's not: Resilience, after all, is not what's required in crisis when the crisis is partly of your own making. Responsibility is. We have heard of the Tech Bubble of the Clinton Years, the Housing Bubble of George W. Bush. Well, the bubble that we're living in now — still — is the bubble that's all our own. It's the Moral Bubble, and it will not be pricked until we take responsibility not just for the forty-third president's actions but for our inaction — for all the agreements we've made without awareness, for all the awareness we've come to without vigilance, for all the times we've touched the easy, insulating button of our assent."
Excerpt from the wonderful piece by Tom Junod on Esquire Magazine: What the Hell Just Happened?
8 years of the gangster presidency, was a very, very long time indeed:
We gotta have peace!
Excerpt from the wonderful piece by Tom Junod on Esquire Magazine: What the Hell Just Happened?
8 years of the gangster presidency, was a very, very long time indeed:
We gotta have peace!
Curtis Mayfield
2008-11-05
Welcome to the XXI Century
The 21st century finally arrived to the United States last night. But like all things in this country, it arrived in full force and better than anywhere else. This country truly has the most impressive ability to regenerate. Even Indiana went Obama! So let's leave the reactionary vision of Bush behind as a Millenium anxiety hickup; he truly was the Y2K bug. We thought it would be a computer bug, but it was the last shoutout of the old century. The rest of the World has moved to the XXI century, some in better ways than others. So let's hail the new century in America, and hope that Obama will push the whole World to a truly interconnected and peaceful vision of the future. Below, the way I feel today, in music and image.
P.S. I can't help remembering a line from one of my favortive movies of all time: Bullworth with Warren Beatty and Halle Berry. This is a line from the senator Bullworth in the movie: "All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody 'til they're all the same color."
Man Of War -The Sunburst Band
Can You Feel The Force? - The Real Thing
P.S. I can't help remembering a line from one of my favortive movies of all time: Bullworth with Warren Beatty and Halle Berry. This is a line from the senator Bullworth in the movie: "All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody 'til they're all the same color."
Labels: Barack Obama, Disco, George W. Bush, Politics, XXI century
2008-10-11
Politicamente diferente nos dois continentes
Bob Herbert explica porque sou de esquerda nos EUA e Roger Cohen explica porque sou de direita na Europa. Não sou eu que sou esquizofrénico, os Republicanos são mesmo ou gangsters ou nitwits, e os "progues", como diz o meu amigo Olmy, são mesmo insuportavelmente relativistas---com a sua mania de acharem que totalitaristas e populistas de meia-tigela são melhores que os amaricanos democráticos.
Qual o espectaculo mais deprimente?
Qual o espectaculo mais deprimente?
2008-09-05
Resentment or the unbearable cycle of Nitzchean master and slave dynamics
Hey City Zen! I love the eastern city elite! Paul Krugman does it again: The Resentment Strategy.
The worst side of religion is how it so often gets enamored with bitchy righteousness on high pulpits made of nothing but resentment and self-pity. That would be fine, if the faith-saved but theologically-challenged didn't try so hard to change how others live, and in the process kill our, what is the word...? (see Samantha Bee below)?
The worst side of religion is how it so often gets enamored with bitchy righteousness on high pulpits made of nothing but resentment and self-pity. That would be fine, if the faith-saved but theologically-challenged didn't try so hard to change how others live, and in the process kill our, what is the word...? (see Samantha Bee below)?
2008-08-19
Liberal magnet of the week
You have to live in the Midwest to fully appreciate this---at least I didn't get it until I moved here...
2008-05-26
Love Resurrection
As I get ready to hop the pond for the long and needed summer in Portugal, I have been reflecting on how weird and difficult the past year was. I am tired of the endless primary season in the U.S. Seven years of George Bush and three years in academia have turned me into a cynic---something I never was even when living in New York. The inbred Portuguese academia and politics did not help either.
This week I read a wonderfully written article by Charles Pierce in Esquire Magazine, which sums up perfectly how I am feeling about politics in the US. This is one of the best articles of its kind I have read since the heyday of Gore Vidal in Vanity Fair and Esquire itself. One of my biggest pleasures is still subscribing to about 20 magazines... Charles Pierce is brilliant in this piece; like him, I want so much to be convinced by Barack Obama, but I am not ready yet to buy the wholesale "absolution without confession, without penance" of those guilty of the current state of affairs. As he writes: "The catastrophe that is the administration of George W. Bush is not unprecedented. It was merely inevitable. The people of the United States have been accessorial in the murder of their country." If you want to see how, read the article.
I am equally cynical about academia, but the colleagues who make me feel that way---most of them---are not worth the time I am not using for research to write this.
I am equally cynical about Portugal, but I'll write about that in Portuguese once I am there.
There is a Zen in all of this, and as usual, it gets here in musical form. Two weeks ago, I had the accidental pleasure of travelling together with Bobby McFerrin (on an oh so short hop) between Barcelona and Lisbon. The man is such a ray of sunshine on all of us. Music comes out of his every pore. Out of nowehere, he sings about luggage being hauled into the plane or the color of the chair. I had such a great time, and managed to see him live from the second row the next day. Pure Zen. Pure City Zen, as I have to go to Barcelona and Lisbon to catch this guy.
But this experience moved me to make the mix CD below for my wife, and that I now share here. It marks a slow reconnect with myself. I am embarking on a Love Resurrection. I am going to reconnect to all the things that I love. My family, my friends, my own research and low tolerance for bullshit. Today I wore a "War is Over: If you Want It" Lennon/Ono T-Shirt in a cafeteria on the most redneck part of Bloomington, with a smile in my face; most people smiled back. Two weeks ago I reconnected with a good old friend in Barcelona, and it was even better. This month I published four papers on topics I care about and allowed no compromise. This morning I jumped on the trampoline with my kids, in our underwear, in the uptight Midwest---I am still laughing. I can barely wait to be with my mother, brother and nephews this summer. No academic committee is worth your attention if you don't share the vision. No grant is worth not making love to your wife.
The mix CD is about all that. I have moved on to more upbeat stuff since mixing it; I will post a sequel later . A hint: I am discovering the Disco-Bowie of "Young Americans", from a time so very similar to this.
So enjoy the mix CD. username: apollo , password: thediscoking
This week I read a wonderfully written article by Charles Pierce in Esquire Magazine, which sums up perfectly how I am feeling about politics in the US. This is one of the best articles of its kind I have read since the heyday of Gore Vidal in Vanity Fair and Esquire itself. One of my biggest pleasures is still subscribing to about 20 magazines... Charles Pierce is brilliant in this piece; like him, I want so much to be convinced by Barack Obama, but I am not ready yet to buy the wholesale "absolution without confession, without penance" of those guilty of the current state of affairs. As he writes: "The catastrophe that is the administration of George W. Bush is not unprecedented. It was merely inevitable. The people of the United States have been accessorial in the murder of their country." If you want to see how, read the article.
I am equally cynical about academia, but the colleagues who make me feel that way---most of them---are not worth the time I am not using for research to write this.
I am equally cynical about Portugal, but I'll write about that in Portuguese once I am there.
There is a Zen in all of this, and as usual, it gets here in musical form. Two weeks ago, I had the accidental pleasure of travelling together with Bobby McFerrin (on an oh so short hop) between Barcelona and Lisbon. The man is such a ray of sunshine on all of us. Music comes out of his every pore. Out of nowehere, he sings about luggage being hauled into the plane or the color of the chair. I had such a great time, and managed to see him live from the second row the next day. Pure Zen. Pure City Zen, as I have to go to Barcelona and Lisbon to catch this guy.
But this experience moved me to make the mix CD below for my wife, and that I now share here. It marks a slow reconnect with myself. I am embarking on a Love Resurrection. I am going to reconnect to all the things that I love. My family, my friends, my own research and low tolerance for bullshit. Today I wore a "War is Over: If you Want It" Lennon/Ono T-Shirt in a cafeteria on the most redneck part of Bloomington, with a smile in my face; most people smiled back. Two weeks ago I reconnected with a good old friend in Barcelona, and it was even better. This month I published four papers on topics I care about and allowed no compromise. This morning I jumped on the trampoline with my kids, in our underwear, in the uptight Midwest---I am still laughing. I can barely wait to be with my mother, brother and nephews this summer. No academic committee is worth your attention if you don't share the vision. No grant is worth not making love to your wife.
The mix CD is about all that. I have moved on to more upbeat stuff since mixing it; I will post a sequel later . A hint: I am discovering the Disco-Bowie of "Young Americans", from a time so very similar to this.
So enjoy the mix CD. username: apollo , password: thediscoking
Labels: Academia, Barack Obama, Bobby McFerrin, Love, Musis, Politics
2007-09-26
Message to Maureen Dowd
You should really try to address the issues raised on the vanity fair piece about the hit job on Al Gore you participated in.
I'd rather have a lactating male U.S. president than the grotesque gangster in chief we have now. You owe us a much deeper and serious analysis of the incoming election. Your frivolous, "bush-monologues" are just not funny anymore. Not with the Euro at 1.42 to the dollar; not with all the money-grabbing; not with all the death. Indeed, your pieces on Gore, Dean, and Obama read now much more like insidious hit jobs. I hope that you at least get well paid for "selling the Bush".
I'd rather have a lactating male U.S. president than the grotesque gangster in chief we have now. You owe us a much deeper and serious analysis of the incoming election. Your frivolous, "bush-monologues" are just not funny anymore. Not with the Euro at 1.42 to the dollar; not with all the money-grabbing; not with all the death. Indeed, your pieces on Gore, Dean, and Obama read now much more like insidious hit jobs. I hope that you at least get well paid for "selling the Bush".
Labels: Politics
2007-02-25
Competition vs. Stealth Money-grabbing
Scientists and computer geeks are supposed to be the most rational of people, but it never ceases to amaze me how quickly they drop factual rationality for computer platform evangelising. Nothing bores me more than hearing people I admire go on and on about the superiority of Apple computers versus PCs, Linux over Windows, etc. For the record, I have used (and still do) all of those platforms. They are tools that serve often different purposes. Since I don't evangelize about hammers and refrigerators, I tend not do it about computers either.
Beyond bored, I get disappointed when intelligent people spend so much time and effort criticizing Bill Gates. True, I think Steve Jobs is much more evil than Gates--- much more more secretive, competitive, scheming, childish, and much less generous, etc. But that is not why I get disappointed.
All these IT leaders---Gates, Jobs, Page, Brin, Bezos, Ellison, Berners-Lee, Torvalds, Zennstroem and the like---have transformed our lives in creative ways. They have produced amazing technology and visions that have transformed humanity in very positive ways, for the most part. That they are highly competitive, we should not be surprised. What propels them is probably a heavy dose of competition and creativity, but this is what should be at the core of healthy capitalist democracies.
What makes me angry is that while people, intelligent people, discuss these guys ad nauseum, the truly evil characters go about their stealth business without competing or inventing anything memorable or even useful. Indeed, their business model is simply to pocket as much of our tax-payer money as possible by infiltrating relevant government agencies---without much accountability at all. According to Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele on a recent Vanity Fair article, the taxes of those making less than 100K$ in the US (90% of American tax payers) go straight to contractors! Moreover, now that we seem to have reached the pinnacle of the era of the military-industrial(-counterterrorism) complex, many if not most of the huge government contracts are not subject to any competitive bidding (see also this NY Times Editorial).
Indeed, when we realize that the budget of a company like Lockheed Martin, which abandoned most of its competitive private sector business for government contracts, is larger than that of the department of Energy or Justice, or that the budget of SAIC, which does nothing but government contracts, is "larger than that of the departments of Labor, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development combined", we see that a huge amount of the US economy has nothing to do with competition. These gigantic government contractors don't get contracts because they create something innovative or create any industrial innovation. No, they get rich via an insidious inbreeding between government agencies and companies. They are stealth operators that do not even attempt to compete with their products on a global scale or contribute to technological creativity.
Without competition and creativity, evolution stops. So does a true capitalist democracy. So what I want to know is why do intelligent people spend so much time discussing genuinely creative and competitive people like Jobs and Gates, and no one ever hears about the masters of the stealth business? Why not discuss the CEO's of SAIC, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, CACI, and the like instead? After all, unlike Apple or Microsoft, the business model of government contractors (especially the "behemoths that are doing 90 or 95 percent of their business with the government") is simply to take in as much tax-payer money as possible---so we should care much more. Moreover, as their role in the build-up to the war attests, their business interests are not necessarily in tune with our security. Who cares about Vista and OS X?
In the age of the military-industrial-counterterrorism complex, anti-trust laws seem so 20th century. What we need now are anti-leech laws. We should start with a law forbidding companies from making more than 50% of their revenue from the government. If this is a capitalist society, let them compete---in the free market of products and services, not on government lobbies.
Further Reading:
Washington's $8 Billion Shadow by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Vanity Fair.
In Washington, Contractors Take On Biggest Role Ever by SCOTT SHANE AND RON NIXON, NY Times.
Government Inside Out, NY Times.
Addendum: Why Have So Many U.S. Attorneys Been Fired? It Looks a Lot Like Politics
Beyond bored, I get disappointed when intelligent people spend so much time and effort criticizing Bill Gates. True, I think Steve Jobs is much more evil than Gates--- much more more secretive, competitive, scheming, childish, and much less generous, etc. But that is not why I get disappointed.
All these IT leaders---Gates, Jobs, Page, Brin, Bezos, Ellison, Berners-Lee, Torvalds, Zennstroem and the like---have transformed our lives in creative ways. They have produced amazing technology and visions that have transformed humanity in very positive ways, for the most part. That they are highly competitive, we should not be surprised. What propels them is probably a heavy dose of competition and creativity, but this is what should be at the core of healthy capitalist democracies.
What makes me angry is that while people, intelligent people, discuss these guys ad nauseum, the truly evil characters go about their stealth business without competing or inventing anything memorable or even useful. Indeed, their business model is simply to pocket as much of our tax-payer money as possible by infiltrating relevant government agencies---without much accountability at all. According to Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele on a recent Vanity Fair article, the taxes of those making less than 100K$ in the US (90% of American tax payers) go straight to contractors! Moreover, now that we seem to have reached the pinnacle of the era of the military-industrial(-counterterrorism) complex, many if not most of the huge government contracts are not subject to any competitive bidding (see also this NY Times Editorial).
Indeed, when we realize that the budget of a company like Lockheed Martin, which abandoned most of its competitive private sector business for government contracts, is larger than that of the department of Energy or Justice, or that the budget of SAIC, which does nothing but government contracts, is "larger than that of the departments of Labor, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development combined", we see that a huge amount of the US economy has nothing to do with competition. These gigantic government contractors don't get contracts because they create something innovative or create any industrial innovation. No, they get rich via an insidious inbreeding between government agencies and companies. They are stealth operators that do not even attempt to compete with their products on a global scale or contribute to technological creativity.
Without competition and creativity, evolution stops. So does a true capitalist democracy. So what I want to know is why do intelligent people spend so much time discussing genuinely creative and competitive people like Jobs and Gates, and no one ever hears about the masters of the stealth business? Why not discuss the CEO's of SAIC, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, CACI, and the like instead? After all, unlike Apple or Microsoft, the business model of government contractors (especially the "behemoths that are doing 90 or 95 percent of their business with the government") is simply to take in as much tax-payer money as possible---so we should care much more. Moreover, as their role in the build-up to the war attests, their business interests are not necessarily in tune with our security. Who cares about Vista and OS X?
In the age of the military-industrial-counterterrorism complex, anti-trust laws seem so 20th century. What we need now are anti-leech laws. We should start with a law forbidding companies from making more than 50% of their revenue from the government. If this is a capitalist society, let them compete---in the free market of products and services, not on government lobbies.
Further Reading:
Washington's $8 Billion Shadow by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Vanity Fair.
In Washington, Contractors Take On Biggest Role Ever by SCOTT SHANE AND RON NIXON, NY Times.
Government Inside Out, NY Times.
Addendum: Why Have So Many U.S. Attorneys Been Fired? It Looks a Lot Like Politics
Labels: Politics
