Democracy: quote of the day

"Democracy is about majority rule, not majoritarian tyranny."

"Gandhi won't leave India", Gopalkrishna Gandhi, New York Times, 2017-08-14

We do have to be careful even about the phrase “majority rule”.  Does the majority rule about climate change?  If the majority is purple people do they get to rule that all orange people should leave the country?

“Majority rules” should be limited to the majority elects those who govern, not to each and every rule that a government makes.  And in our last election, a minority of those who voted determine who would become president.

Consider also that many corporations want to eliminate many rules that “the majority” made: rules about safety, rules about pollution, rules about…

Trump to stop immigration from Italy?

Donald Trump wants to stop immigration of “terrorists" from Muslim countries and stop immigration of “rapists" from Mexico.  Why not stop the immigration of leg-breaking mobsters from Itaiy?  See “46 alleged East Coast mobsters indicted”, John Riley, Newsday, reprinted in Duluth News Tribune, 2016-08-05 at http://www3.forumnewspaper.com/olive/Tablet/DNT/SharedArticle.aspx?href=DNT%2F2016%2F08%2F05&id=Ar00501.

Guess who stopped them?  Immigrants!  The U.S. Attorney is Preet Bharara, born in India.  The head of the New York FBI office is Diego Rodriguez, born in Columbia.

World Getting Better? Depends

I finally finished Charles Kenny's "Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding – And How We Can Improve the World Even More".  We bought the book when he spoke at the "Confronting Global Poverty" lecture Series of the Alworth Center for Peace and Justice at St. Scholastica in Duluth on Nov. 13, 2012.  You can watch his lecture here.

Many were disappointed in his talk and book because they thought he was painting a rosier picture than reality.  Kenny's thesis is that we should concern ourselves less with increasing GDP and look more at quality of life measures.

These include health, longevity, education, child mortality, and family size.  He claims that throughout the world with a couple of notorious exceptions, the first four measures are getting greater and the last less.  Rather than look at the number of roads and dams, we should look at how people are living day-to-day and what they and we can do to improve daily life.

For an example of a low-tech solution that improved the lives of trash pickers in India, see "Out of India's Trash Heaps, More Than a Shred of Dignity", Sarika Bansal, New York Times, 2013-06-12 .  Do read some of the comments.

The fallacy of Buy American

Once again the cry "Buy American" is heard from high and low places.  One was Chip Cravaack, R-MN8, putting a statement into a transportation bill that the steel used in highways should be American-made.

A little aside I can't resist.  Aren't the Republicans the one who are all for free markets and no government intervention?  Shouldn't the free market decide the best quality for the lowest price?  Not some government bureaucrat or politician?

I try to buy American and buy local, but in general this is only a preference, not an iron-clad rule.  We buy local produce when it is available.  I love my made-in-Minnesota Red Wing work boots and some of my made-in-America yard equipment.  For decades I wore 36-30 Levis and then they suddenly became too long.  It wasn't me that changed; I found the 30-inch inseam was actually over 31 inches!  Could that have been because Levi Strauss outsourced the making of Levis and that somebody didn't make a proper conversion to metric?

On the other hand we own one American vehicle and one Japanese vehicle, each bought for specific reasons, not the country of manufacture.  Can you find an American-made digital camera?  Same for most computers and related stuff.  The software might be made anywhere.  I prefer a French music-composing program to a Minnesota program.  Do you know anyplace in the U.S., other than Hawaii or greenhouses where bananas are grown?  Would you rather have chicory than coffee?

On the other hand, we should be grateful that many other countries aren't pushing too strongly on Buy English or Buy German, and surprise, Buy Chinese.

Personally, I'm very glad that in the 60s and 70s European governments weren't pushing very hard to buy only European computers.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to live in Europe for six years maintaining software for Univac computers made in Minnesota.  Our customers included Lufthansa, the French Army, and the Swedish Police.

Minnesota doesn't make many computers now-a-days, but many medical devices are designed and made in Minnesota.  If we don't buy goods from other countries, should they buy our medical devices?

Farmers in the U.S. are glad that they have a big export market for all kinds of agricultural products, from grains to meat.  Although India still has many import restrictions "Indian Consumers already buy almonds and grapes from California, and apples by the truckload from Washington." Adam Belz, "Minnesota looks for a bigger taste of India", Star Tribune, 2012-07-19

The military-industrial complex is probably very glad that military establishments around the world aren't restricted  by Buy Nationally policies.  Even the most militarily-oriented Congress couldn't raise enough taxes to buy all the weapons that the U.S. military-industrial complex could produce.  So, those countries buying U.S. military hardware have to raise funds to purchase the hardware.  To do that, they have to sell goods and services outside their own countries, for example, oil!

One of the most interesting news items is the direction of parts for wind turbines passing through the Duluth Harbor.  Big blades are coming from Europe to U.S. destinations.  Big blades are going out to many other countries, the latest being Brazil.  Probably each set of blades had different features that met the requirements of the buyers.

And then there is the name game.  Some years ago a U.S. city was considering buying a piece of heavy equipment.  The city council favored Caterpillar over Kubota because the later was an American name.  Surprise!  The Caterpillar was made in Japan and the Kubota was made in the U.S.

It isn't easy being a free-marketer and a protectionist at the same time.

Iran - Questions for American hawks

First, a little history.  In 1914 the Archduke Frantz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo, Serbia.  The Austrian government gave an ultimatum to Serbia, of which Serbia agreed to most terms except allowing Austrian police to participate in the investigation of the assassination.  Rather than negotiate, Austria attacked Serbia.  The consequences were as bad as all the participants believed they would be and worse.  We are still living with those consequences nearly a century later.

Now many demands are being made of Iran concerning its nuclear ambitions.  Many in the U.S. and Israel are ready to go to war against Iran if those demands aren't met.  Have these hawks considered ALL the possible effects of such a war?

Let's ask some "trivial" questions first.

Many of these hawks want low taxes.  If taxes are low and kept low, where is the money to come from to wage a new war?

Many of these hawks want low oil prices.  If Iran is attacked, what will happen to oil prices?

Many of these hawks want to protect the unborn.  If Iran is attacked, how many unborn children will die?  Do you really think only soldiers will die in any modern war?

Now let's look at some more global issues.

If Saudi Arabia feels threatened by Iranian nuclear ambitions, shouldn't Saudi Arabia be the country to act?  After all, the U.S. has sold them many, many advanced military aircraft.  Shouldn't Saudi pilots be able to operate these aircraft efficiently and effectively?  If not, why sell the aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the first place?

If the U.S. attacks Iran, this will be the third Muslim country the U.S. has invaded in a generation.  What will be the reaction be of many Muslims throughout the world?  Will there be a rush of Mujahideen to Iran?  What side will various Muslim governments take?

Will a U.S. attack on Iran bring about the fall of many pro-U.S. Muslim governments.  If so, which side will the new governments take?  If the government of an oil-producing nation falls, will the new government continue or cease oil deliveries to the U.S. or to European countries?

What will the reaction of Pakistan be to an attack on Iran?  Will the current generals do nothing?  Will they be replaced in a coup by more hawkish officers?  Officers who will be quite willing to aim nuclear weapons at U.S. forces or even U.S. territory?

There are more Muslims living in India than in Pakistan.  Would Indian Muslims stage a coup and join in resisting a U.S. attack on Iran?  India also has nuclear weapons.

What side will Russia and China take?

If Iran is attacked, what will North Korea's reaction be?  It has been unpredictable and is not known for acting in its long-term interests.

I think it is safe to say that if the U.S. (or Israel) attacks Iran, many people will die who have nothing to do with the current Iranian government or its nuclear programs.  Also, I think it is safe to say that the negative repercussions of an attack will last for at least two generations and maybe even a century.

Meanwhile, for over two generations the U.S. has called the largest offensive military force in the world "defense".  At the same time. those who have been the biggest proponents of the military have done their best to sabotage a true defense - energy independence.  They have opposed many efforts for alternative fuels and for greater energy efficiency.

"When will they ever learn?"  "The answer is blowin' in the wind."  They didn't.

Contrasting counters to radical Islam

The January-February issue of Utne Reader has two articles about wildly contrasting ideas about countering radical Islam.

The first is "Jihad Against Islam, America's right wing is on a witch hunt, and they're tying Muslims to the stake" by Robert Steinback, from Intelligence Report, a publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

It is a summary of how a large number of people in the U.S. believe that all Muslims are sympathetic to Al-Qaeda and that "mainstream Islam advocates violence against non-Muslims". Much of this is being fueled by a "coterie of core activists". Max Blumenthal called it "the Great Islamophobic Crusade." Their complaint about the Islamic center near the World Trade Center gained support from Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. The assumption of these modern Crusaders is that the likes of Osama Bin Laden are interpreting the Koran correctly.

The second is "Bollywood's Soft Power, India's hugely popular films wage a cultural war on extremism" by Shikha Dalmia. The article was original published in The Daily. The Utne article is excerpted from Reason, a libertarian magazine.

Bollywood is "India's flamboyant film industry", and its films are shown all over Asia from Indonesia to Dubai. Dalmia likens the effect of Bollywood to extremism to the effect of rock and roll on the demise of the Soviet Union. It wasn't Reagan that brought down the Berlin Wall but the Beatles, and "Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged to Paul McCartney that the Beatles paved the way for perestroika and glasnost".

Bollywood's allure is that it is based on Eastern values and that the actors look like the viewers. Some countries like Dubai embrace Bollywood. Others that are trying to control all aspects of life, like Pakistan, "are trying to purge Bollywood from their soil". The harder they try to limit Bollywood, the greater its popularity.

BTW, Bollywood's "three highest-grossing male leads are Muslims".

These two articles illustrate the old saw about catching more flies with honey than vinegar. And you would think that the intellectuals in the anti-Islam jihad would have learned that all the vinegar (and money and lives) that have been sloshed around in the name of defense of the U.S. would have caught on by now to the fallacy of their approach.

To my Ukrainian reader

If you know Yuri from Kiev who was a graduate student at Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio in 1960-1962, please say hello. Probably you don't know him, but it is surprising how often there is a connection. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

I still remember translating English to English between him and a graduate student from India.

Congress and the Chamber of Commerce gave the Chinese my lunch!

Somewhere Thomas Friedman wrote about other countries are going to be eating our lunch because we are standing pat on education or technology. Here is one way it is happening.

Congress and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been dragging their feet on global warming and clean energy. The Chamber has claimed that doing something and investing in green energy will cost jobs.

Guess what? The foot dragging is costing jobs. China is already outstripping the U.S. in lower and lower cost of producing solar cells, wind turbines, and so on. Not just because of lower labor costs, but because of scale and improving products and techniques. Already several U.S. green energy companies have moved production to China, and the largest Chinese solar company has a large contract with the U.S. government.

See "The new arms race", Robert Kennedy Jr., Huffington Post, 2009-11-19, "The New Sputnik", Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 2009-09-27, and "Who has the right priorities?", a blog of mine in February.

I think China is putting up a big smoke screen, pardon the pun, about being a developing country that needs the dirty energy to catch up to the developed countries. The Chamber has fallen right into the Chinese trap. The Chinese are going to develop right past us while we hobble ourselves with old technology.

Thanks, Congress and the Chamber, for giving away our lunch.

I didn't have a clue about a clueless movie

Last night we watched "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World". We kept wondering just what was going on as it went along. My wife gave up half way through, but I stuck it out to the end, wondering why I kept watching.

It was only when it was over that I realized it was poking fun at people who are clueless, including the star and writer, Albert Brooks. Brooks, the character, tries very hard to move his shtick of poking fun at comedy to a land that never saw that kind of comedy. His Indian assistant thinks very highly of him; others completely misinterpret his actions, including governments.

Only two characters criticize Brooks' style in the light of what most comedians do, but even these two characters seem clueless in other circumstances. Only one character really seems to know what he is doing, and his motives are rather sinister geopolitically. Clue: the Pakistani "comedians" didn't seem to be comedians to me.

Unfortunately, it is only on reflection that I understood the movie. Others didn't seem to have the patience. It grossed less than ten percent of its cost. I realized the film was about all kinds of cluelessness in many cultures. People act on their biases rather than getting to know others. That realization almost makes me want to watch it again with that understanding.

If you would like to read more about "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World", see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433116/ and read some of the user comments.

Seeking healthcare around the world

Abigail Zuger, M.D., wrote an interesting review of "The Healing of America" by T. R. Reid. He had a chronic shoulder problem for which he sought medical advice around the world. The advice ranged from thousands of dollars for shoulder replacement in the U.S., outright refusal in Britain because it was not serious enough, and relief in India for $42.85 out of pocket per night.

The book is on order at the Duluth Public Library and already has four reserves.

The world's largest democracy tries terrorists in open court

The surviving Mumbai terrorist has confessed in open court with reporters present. The trial will proceed to make sure all the facts are revealed publicly. See "Mumbai Attacker's Trial Will Proceed", New York Times, 2009-07-23.

Meanwhile, in the world's second largest democracy, suspected terrorists are held for years without a civil trial.

Will India break up its "two-party system"?

The Washington Post has an interesting article about independent candidates running for Parliament in India. Many professionals are getting fed up with the corruption and dynasties in Indian politics and are giving up professional careers to run for Parliament. See "In India, a Grass-Roots Shift: New Parties Compete in Election as Mumbai Attacks Spur Greater Political Engagement"

Who has the right priorities?

Thomas Friedman is writing from New Delhi where he is attending a climate conference. Two young women asked him if he would like a ride in their car - an electric car augmented with solar panels. Read his column, "Yes, They Could, So They Did" for more, especially about how there are many people involved in unconventional thinking.

But what inspired this blog and its title is his quote about his ride through New Delhi:

"We head off down Panchsheel Marg, one of New Delhi’s main streets. The ladies want to show me something. The U.S. Embassy and the Chinese Embassy are both located on Panchsheel, directly across from each other. They asked me to check out the rooftops of each embassy. What do I notice? Let’s see ... The U.S. Embassy’s roof is loaded with antennae and listening gear. The Chinese Embassy’s roof is loaded with ... new Chinese-made solar hot-water heaters."

The 20th Century is often called the American Century. The 21st Century is going to be the Asian Century, not because the Asian powers have sophisticated military equipment, but because many Asians are working to solve everyday problems in sophisticated ways, which can often be quite simple.

See also, "Is the Asian Century coming?" and "More on a possible Asian Century"

War in Iraq may lead to relative U.S. decline

I just read Thomas Friedman's "Iraq Through China's Lens" in today's New York Times. He points out that in a major speech Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, talked about economic progress made and economic, political, and environment challenges to be faced. On the other hand, Friedman wrote, the U.S. is focused on the war in Iraq.

It's time for many to reread Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000.

Kennedy's thesis is that the great powers rise and fall relative to each other, even if a power's economy and military is growing, others may be growing faster. Considering how fast China and India are growing relative to the U.S., the U.S. is squandering much of its resources in Iraq and will "fall" further behind China and India.

See also my articles Is the Asian Century coming? and More on a Possible Asian Century.