David Brooks hits another one out of the ballpark in his article about Mitt Romney: The Crowd Pleaser.

In the article, Brooks talks about how Mitt Romney rarely talks about his roots, where he comes from, or his family history. Mitt never had an industry that he fell in love with, choosing instead to invest in diverse industries and to specialize in “management of management.” Mitt seems to be pure marketing and sales, and many people, including conservative pundits, think that maybe that’s all there is to him.

But outside of the political talk, I found interesting Brooks’s discussion of David Riesman’s “The Lonely Crowd.” I hadn’t heard of the book, but this was very interesting:

The agricultural economy nurtured tradition-directed individuals. People lived according to the ancient cycles, customs and beliefs. Children grew up and performed the same roles as their parents.

The industrial era favored the inner-directed personality type. The inner-directed person was guided by a set of strong internal convictions, like Victorian morality. The inner-directed person was a hardy pioneer, the stolid engineer or the resilient steelworker — working on physical things. This person was often rigid, but also steadfast.

The other-directed personality type emerges in a service or information age economy. In this sort of economy, most workers are not working with physical things; they are manipulating people. The other-directed person becomes adept at pleasing others, at selling him or herself.

There’s probably a great deal of truth in this. A few weeks ago, I blogged about What Cultures Value, saying that Koreans value diligence and consistency among other things, while Americans value entrepreneurship and salesmanship. This might make sense in Riesman’s/Brooks’s context, as America is mostly a service economy these days, while Korean remains an industrial powerhouse.

This looks like an interesting book. It even has its own Wikipedia entry, which says:

Riesman’s book argues that although other-directed individuals are crucial for the smooth functioning of the modern organization, the value of autonomy is compromised. The Lonely Crowd also argues that society dominated by the other-directed faces profound deficiencies in leadership, individual self-knowledge, and human potential.

(pic from here)

No related posts.

The NY Times had a great article on Apple and why Apple employs so few people in the U.S.: Apple, America, and the Squeezed Middle Class. We’ve talked about Tyler Cowan’s Great Stagnation and how Google, Twitter, and Facebook don’t need lots of bodies to make their products, but Apple, a company that manufactures electronic components, does need lots of people. They just don’t hire them here. Apple made $400,000 per employee last year, in large part because they outsource their work overseas. Apple says that the labor costs aren’t the major reason for outsourcing, that there are other logistical reasons for centralizing their work in Asia. But when Foxconn, the company that assembles iPhones, pays many of its workers $17 a day, it’s a bit hard to believe that labor costs don’t play a role.

Check this out:

The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day. When one Apple executive arrived during a shift change, his car was stuck in a river of employees streaming past. “The scale is unimaginable,” he said.

And that’s the hard part about all this. If we assume that labor costs aren’t that big of a deal (I don’t believe this, but let’s accept it for the sake of argument), it’s still hard to expect Americans to leave their families and occupy dorms where they work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, and are on call if anything needs immediate attention. I’ve heard some Chinese calling Americans “lazy” for not wanting to do this, but is that really fair? Does it make sense for people used to living in the middle class to sacrifice everything for their company, living apart from their families and lives outside of work?

Akrypti from 8Asians posted this excellent piece a while ago on Chinese factories, and I agree that these megacompanies are making life better in China. These jobs are better than many others in the region, so it’s hard to accuse Apple of exploiting Chinese if the Chinese want these jobs. Instead, I think these companies are exploiting Americans. Their intellectual property and physical resources are protected by the American government and military, which is funded by American taxpayers, many of whom are denied employment by these companies which either subcontract out their work to countries with lower standards of living or only hire H1B visa holders. One might even well argue that their robust sales come from the fact that they are American companies.

As for Americans, I’m sure some people will read this and point to a defect in American culture, a kind of middle class entitlement that Americans seem to have. I agree with these people that many Americans do feel entitled (see AM/AF Couple’s excellent comment here), but I also think it’s perfectly fair to ask American companies to hire Americans who pay taxes into a system that makes their work possible.

I think the best response I’ve seen to this whole “lazy American” complaint is here, where a blogger responds to the marine in the picture below:

The blogger Max Udargo writes:

Do you really want the bar set this high?  Do you really want to live in a society where just getting by requires a person to hold down two jobs and work 60 to 70 hours a week?  Is that your idea of the American Dream?

Do you really want to spend the rest of your life working two jobs and 60 to 70 hours a week?  Do you think you can?  Because, let me tell you, kid, that’s not going to be as easy when you’re 50 as it was when you were 20.

And what happens if you get sick?  You say you don’t have health insurance, but since you’re a veteran I assume you have some government-provided health care through the VA system.  I know my father, a Vietnam-era veteran of the Air Force, still gets most of his medical needs met through the VA, but I don’t know what your situation is.  But even if you have access to health care, it doesn’t mean disease or injury might not interfere with your ability to put in those 60- to 70-hour work weeks.

And that’s the issue with American “entitlement.” One feels spoiled by asking for decent working conditions, but do we really want to live in a world where a person is forced to give his entire life for pure survival? And is it really fair for companies to rely on the protection of the American government paid for by American workers who can no longer get jobs because American companies won’t hire them? As Ha Joon Chang mentions in 23 Things, capital has a nationality. These companies won’t relocate–they know that their livelihood is dependent on being in America. While the rich are buying off the government with their lobbyists, it should be still possible to form a voting block that can deliver justice to the American people.

Related posts:

1. Everyone Wants To Live Like Americans
2. California Apologizes to Chinese Americans
3. IR on the Decline

To learn more, go here. With the SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) bill, the U.S. Attorney General could target an entire web site and shut it down based on allegations of copyright infringement.  It could take place with our without a trial. This bill has been mostly supported by the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (PIPA targets the domain name service providers.)

Today, Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, and other internet companies have protested. Wikipedia, for example, has blacked out the site (causing some pretty funny conversations between American grade school students who can’t do their schoolwork without Wiki and think that Wikipedia is protesting against the use of soap.).

I encourage you all to do some research into SOPA and PIPA and to write your elected officials. You can look up your elected officials at the main Wiki page, or you can look up your Congressperson or Senator.

(pic from here)

Related posts:

1. Republicans Block Child Nutrition Bill

Thanks, Notty, for sending the video above. This makes me mad. Everyone needs to watch it.

I’ve spoken with some people in tech, and at the high end, these H1B visas do benefit the U.S. as American companies can hire people from the India Institute of Technology and get the cream of the crop. We do get some top workers who help with our innovation.

On the other hand, companies are also trimming their payroll by getting H1B visas on the cheap, and sometimes (as evident from the American Express case in the video) they’re just trying to cut their costs and taking advantage of “free trade” laws in order to do so. I was surprised when Dan Rather revealed that the law says that American companies don’t need to prove that they have tried to fill a position in the U.S (around 7:50). That’s the problem with politics–the politicians are saying we need more Americans in STEM subjects, but meanwhile the same politicians have created laws designed to benefit corporations at the expense of the American worker. American companies don’t hire many of the STEM people that we already have. I’ve spoken with a few tech managers recently, and they all tell me the same thing–it’s rare for American companies these days to hire American tech people. In every batch of new recruits, the vast majority of hires are H1B visa holders from India.

I feel bad for these unemployed people. You can tell in the video that they’re trying hard not to sound prejudiced, but when the law discriminates against American workers who have paid taxes into creating and supporting this system, it’s hard not to be angry. The government-industrial complex has waged war against the American worker, and the American worker is losing. Mitt Romney believes that corporations are people, which could presage an even greater future power discrepancy between the ruling class and the middle class.

By the way–has anyone here been to India? Is it good living? What I’m thinking is that perhaps there’s a way to create an idea around this–retirement centers for Americans in India. If it’s possible to live like a king or queen on $10k a year in India, perhaps it’s possible to live like a normal person forever with a $50k 401(k) account. India is a democratic country where English is the official language, and the weather is warm. The temples are beautiful, and there are yoga teachers all around, so there would be no shortage of recreational activities. Plus the healthcare facilities are excellent and more affordable (American-trained doctors). Maybe that could be an option for some people. Kinda sucks to have to move because of bad and prejudicial “free trade” laws, but it’s always good to have a backup plan. Maybe the government could pay for these retirement centers as a kind of severance package for the older Americans they use and dispose of.

Related posts:

1. Koro: New Language Discovered in India
2. Democratic Capitalism vs. State Capitalism
3. 71,400 jobs

This article has been on my mind for the past two months: Advice on Life’s Graying Edge on Finishing With No Regrets. And it was only written two days ago! I was thinking about it even before it was written. Basically, it’s an article that talks about the Cornell University Legacy Project, which has interviews with elderly people on their advice for living well. Bookmark this site:

http://legacyproject.human.cornell.edu/

From the NY Times article:

On marriage:“A satisfying marriage that lasts a lifetime is more likely to result when partners are fundamentally similar and share the same basic values and goals. Although romantic love initially brings most couples together, what keeps them together is an abiding friendship, an ability to communicate, a willingness to give and take, and a commitment to the institution of marriage as well as to each other.”

On career: “the near-universal view was summed up by an 83-year-old former athlete who worked for decades as an athletic coach and recruiter: “The most important thing is to be involved in a profession that you absolutely love, and that you look forward to going to work to every day.” “

On parenting: “Most important, the elders said, is to spend more time with your children, even if you must sacrifice to do so. “

There’s lots more.

Also, check out this post: 5 Regrets of the Dying. It sounds like the common theme is that many felt they weren’t true to themselves. It’s hard because being true to yourself often does result in making less money, but it sounds like most people towards the end of their lives would give up the cash for the experience, which is similar to something Tony Hsieh said about valuing experiences over things.

Related posts:

1. Life Without Fear
2. Life Sentences for 14 Year Olds

Overall Hoang said that racism didn’t prevent him from doing anything he wanted to do. He didn’t struggle like Danny Chen did (see the article in #3 below). He was a knife combat instructor in the Marines, and he’d probably be one of the last people I’d voluntarily mess with. I imagine few people in general would want to mess with him–that racist Vietnam vet would probably be dead from constipation with Hoang’s boot up his ass if the commanders didn’t separate them. Still, you shouldn’t have to be at the top in order to be free from racial harassment.

2. Also check out this awesome podcast here, in which Kwong Eng and Lt. Dan Choi talk about racism in the military, in light of the events surrounding the Danny Chen incident. I like the podcast because it addresses the culture of the military, and it’s good to hear it from the perspective of Dan Choi, who was a West Point graduate who was eventually discharged because of his sexual orientation. As Choi mentions, there are few Asians in the military, and it has to increase.

3. Check out this NY Magazine article on the life of Danny Chen. It’s especially sad given that despite his weakness, he was determined to make it work. The racists who hazed him punished him for his desire to serve the country.

By the way, these racists are going to get off pretty lightly, regardless of what happens. According to this article:

According to the Army, the soldiers charged are 1st Lt. Daniel J. Schwartz, Staff Sgt. Blaine G. Dugas, Staff Sgt. Andrew J. Van Bockel, Sgt. Adam M. Holcomb, Sgt. Jeffrey T. Hurst, Spc. Thomas P. Curtis, Spc. Ryan J. Offutt and Sgt. Travis F. Carden.

VanBockel, Holcomb, Hurst, Curtis and Offutt are charged with involuntary manslaughter, negligent homicide and assault and battery.

Under military law, involuntary manslaughter carries up to 10 years in prison and negligent homicide carries up to three years.

Three years for negligent homicide, 10 years for involuntary manslaughter? It’s a slap on the wrist for breaking down a fellow soldier and endangering the country. But at least we can fight for them to bring the trial here and to give Danny Chen a fair trial.

Related posts:

1. The Death of Private Danny Chen
2. The Trial of Danny Chen’s Abusers: In the U.S. or Afghanistan? / Killing a Man with his own tongue
3. Edison Chen breaks his silence

Su Zhen Chen (right), mother of Pvt. Danny Chen

Thanks, American Girl, for sending this MSNBC article: Slain Chinese-American GI’s family wants soldiers tried in U.S. As you know, we’ve been following this case, in which Chinese American soldier Danny Chen was hazed by his army comrades. He eventually either killed himself or was killed by his colleagues. Eight soldiers have been charged in his death, with the most serious charges being manslaughter and negligent homicide against five of these soldiers. It appears that this is the first time manslaughter and negligent homicide charges have arisen from hazing in the U.S. military.

Check out the article. It’s pretty serious stuff:

OuYang said investigators found that Chen was:

– Subjected to an excessive number of exercises: push-ups, situps, flusher kicks, runs and sprints carrying sand bags.

– Made to crawl with all his equipment across gravel.

– Placed in a simulated sitting position while soldiers used their knees to strike his leg.

– Had rocks thrown at him to simulate incoming artillery rounds.

– Subjected to racial slurs, such as gook, dragon lady and chink.

– Made to perform push-ups with mouthfuls of water that he wasn’t able to spit out or swallow.

– Required to perform excessive work details and guard duty.

– Within two to three weeks of his death, soldiers were asked to put up a new tent. He was ordered to wear a green hard hat and give directions to other soldiers in Chinese on how to set up the tent, OuYang said.

On Sept. 27, about a week before his death, Chen was assaulted by a sergeant, OuYang said, citing investigators. The sergeant allegedly dragged him out of his bed over 50 meters of gravel to the shower trailer and told him, “You broke the hot water pump.” Chen had bruises and cuts on his back, OuYang said, quoting investigators.

“Investigators found evidence that the platoon sergeant and the platoon leader — the top two leaders of this platoon — were aware of the Sept. 27 attack and chose not to report it,” OuYang said.

I can’t imagine how being pelted with rocks or being forced to do pushups with water in your mouth can be a good thing. And to be racially harassed and ordered to speak Chinese on top of this. It’s becoming more and more evident that these soldiers abused him with the full force of racist history behind them. Keep in mind that this is taking place in Afghanistan. It’s not just a training camp for practice for war–he was already IN the war, serving active duty as a soldier, in Afghanistan.

I hope the family gets their wish to have the trial in the United States, and I hope it’s public. I don’t know the legal ramifications (will it be a civilian trial? do the same laws of manslaughter apply when Americans commit involuntary manslaughter against other Americans on the battlefield?), but I think it will be good for civilians to hear what happened to Danny Chen. After all, major issues like this affect the social and political health of our country–how can Asian Americans get equal treatment if we’re dissuaded from serving in the armed forces through coordinated violence? Let’s hope Danny Chen gets justice.

Part II (11:15 pm): Here’s more from the NY Times:

At a news conference, family members and their supporters said Private Chen had been mistreated virtually every day of his six-week stint in Afghanistan. They said he had been called a “gook,” a “chink” and “dragon lady.” He was also forced to wear a green helmet and shout orders in Chinese, to a battalion that had no other Chinese-American soldiers, they said.

Killing a soldier with his own tongue. He was forced to make a mockery of his own culture, his own heritage. I’m not sure about military rules, but I think they could punish him for insubordination if he didn’t follow. The man was forced to mock himself and make himself a buffoon in front of his non-Chinese American peers while they laughed at the poor Chinese American, whose “crime” was to love his country enough to defend it. I think this should be considered a hate crime.

It looks like this will be a trial by court martial. I’d feel more comfortable with a civilian jury, but I guess the military should take care of its business to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Related posts:

1. The Death of Private Danny Chen
2. Frugality on Trial
3. Military Hazing and Race and Religion

Gordon Hirabayashi

Gordon Hirayabayashi, one of three resisters to the Japanese American internment, has died at 93. It was announced by Jay Hirabayashi, his son, who also said that his mother Esther, from whom Gordon was divorced, died the same day, about ten hours later. See the NY Times obituary here. Check this out:

When the West Coast curfew was imposed, ordering people of Japanese background to be home by 8 p.m., Mr. Hirabayashi ignored it. When the internment directive was put in place, he refused to register at a processing center and was jailed.

Contending that the government’s actions were racially discriminatory, Mr. Hirabayashi proved unyielding. He refused to post $500 bail because he would have been transferred to an internment camp while awaiting trial. He remained in jail from May 1942 until October of that year, when his case was heard before a federal jury in Seattle.

Found guilty of violating both the curfew and internment orders, he was sentenced to concurrent three-month prison terms. While his appeal was pending, he remained at the local jail for an additional four months, then was released and sent to Spokane, Wash., to work on plans to relocate internees when they were finally released.

Keep in mind that this was in 1942, twenty years before the big civil rights movements of the 1960′s! If this isn’t badass, I don’t know what is. He fought this battle to the end and won.

R.I.P. Gordon Hirabayashi.

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1. Writer of New Malcolm X Biography Dies Three Days Before Publication
2. Superbowl 44: Saints win!
3. William Hohri, Rest in Peace

(Thanks to Raguel for submitting the following article. I know there has been a lot of talk about the NDAA, and I thought it would be good to discuss it. Hope everyone is having a good holiday! –B.)

Hello guys, let me first make a short introduction. My name is Raguel and I follow this blog quite a bit. I was asked to write an article about the NDAA 2012 Bill and have decided to step out of my comfort zone and do so because there seems to be very little written elsewhere about it.

First, a disclaimer. I am a layman and what I present to you is a mere layman’s opinion. I am no expert in the American constitution or laws and legal proceedings. Some of the assumptions and assertions I make in this article could certainly be plain mistaken, and if at any point I am, I hope nobody hesitates to point it out. My goal in writing this article is to get people talking about something I think they should be aware of.

I was searching the internet for information on the onerous and controversial Stop Online Piracy Act when I chanced upon something that literally made my jaw drop: the NDAA Bill for 2012 seems to contain several very startling provisions that some have said subjects American citizens to indefinite detention without trial by the military, as well as facilitates the transfer of “covered persons” to any foreign country whatsoever in echoes of the W. Bush era of out-sourching torture. What shocked me was that this Bill had been rushed through both houses of Congress under the cover of a media blackout so the public by and large did not even know it was under consideration. Only after this bill had been voted in by both houses of Congress last week did there appear the stirrings of discontent in mainstream media, but even so, organisations such as the ACLU had reported on this bill as early as last month without it ever being picked up on by the legions of reporters and journalists covering politics in the Capitol.

Upon investigation, the NDAA Bills appeared to me to be by tradition little more than budgeting requests as well as clarifications on operational matters the national security apparatus may undertake. Really mundane stuff. Hundreds of pages long, lots of spreadsheets and numbers, lots of legalese and procedures that I can’t give an arse about since I’m not even remotely involved in that world, nor do I have a liking for clerical minutae.

I provide to you a link to the reconciled version of the bill as the versions that were proposed and then approved by both houses of Congress are slightly different. Here is a link to the final draft of the bill awaiting the President’s signature.

This Bill is 1844 pages long, so go ahead and download a copy as trying to browse it on the web may take some time. Next, I direct you specifically to Sub Title D on Counter-Terrorism that starts on page 653, and the provisions 1021 to 1034 in that section. (There are provisions dealing specifically with the detainees at Guantanamo Bay too, but lets talk about that later)

So, after you’ve seen and read through these provisions with your own eyes and had time to interpret or divine its meaning for yourself, perhaps you’d like some additional opinions, in which case although the NDAA 2012 bill hardly makes the front pages of the mainstream media, can still be found via some simple searches of “NDAA 2012” via google or some other search engine.

Then when you’ve had some idea of what these provisions are about, let’s discuss it!

Here are my issues with these provisions:

1. The labeling of a “covered person” to specifically apply to “Al-Qaeda” seems idiosyncratically self-limiting to me. At face value it gives the impression that this provision will henceforth apply to Al-Qaeda and ONLY Al-Qaeda and their supporters. However this would not be the case once this bill is made law. The intention of sub-section D is to prevent terrorists from committing atrocities. Al-Qaeda is definitely not the only terrorist faction in the world that may want to harm the United States or its citizens. In the event of a future development whereby a non Al-Qaeda terrorist is detained, the courts will decide that the spirit of the law should be followed, rather than just its letter. I assert that the definition of a “covered person” thus applies more broadly than to just “Al-Qaeda”. However if this is the case, why not use the term “terrorist”, or other equally broad words like “saboteur”, “spy” or “infiltrator”? Using such words will bring up the question of what qualifies a person to be determined to be a spy, terrorist, saboteur or infiltrator, and thus essentially what qualifies them for detention. Use of “Al-Qaeda” to denote a “covered person” on the other hand appears to be a specific definition but will in reality be broadened once this bill becomes law. I thus assert that built into these provisions on counter-terrorism is an illusory specificity that is in fact a loophole to allow the broadening of scope as to what a “covered person” is, and thus to whom this law applies to.

2. These provisions also specifically apply to supporters of “covered persons”.

3. Amendments made to the provisions in the senate version of the bill and finalised in the reconciled version specifically state that these provisions do not (a) expand upon or limit the powers of the president, and that (b) the requirement for military jurisdiction will not be construed to affect the existing framework of civil law enforcement or counter-terrorism/ counter-intelligence for “covered persons” falling within the jurisdiction of civil laws within the boundaries of the United States of America, and that this protection includes American citizens as well as lawfully resident aliens (all of this is on page 655 of the bill). So, are American citizens and lawful residents free from the “dispositions of war” as prescribed by Sub-Title D?

4. Mr Tung Yin in this article brings up several issues with this bill, and asserts among other things that the NDAA’s provisions on detention are unnecessary because they already maintain the status quo, as in it does not do anything that is not already being done. I do recommend reading Mr Tung Yin’s article in full if you have the time as he does write a full analysis of the provisions in the bill and how they may affect Americans. Next, Mr Benjamin Wittes in conjunction with Mr Robert Chesney in this article explains at some length the nuances regarding whether this bill expands the president’s detention authority, authorizes the indefinite detention without trial of citizens, and mandates military detention of “covered persons”, as claimed by those opposed to the specific provisions.

5. According to Wittes and Chesney, the answer to all these questions is both yes AND no. Could an American citizen be detained indefinitely without trial by a military tribunal instead of a court of law? Does the military have jurisdiction over an American citizen? No… and yes! How could a bill seemingly allow for two mutually antagonistic outcomes? How does it protect the right of American citizens to due process while at the same time allow for the possibility of revoking it?

6. The main reasoning is this: the George W. Bush administration has already used the “Authorisation For Use of Military Force against Terrorists” bill passed by Congress in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 to claim the authority of the president to use the military to detain terrorists indefinitely under the rules of war, and in eleven years the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of this claim in two cases. In my opinion, this exhibits the difficulty with which it would be to give the military jurisdiction over American civilians, as without legislature, each and every individual case would have to be deliberated upon, and even then military jurisdiction would only be favored in exceptional cases in which the civilian option is deemed not suitable. However, these two rulings in favor of the claim do set a legal precedent that guides the judgement of courts in considering future cases. This answers the first part of the question as to how this Bill seemingly does not increase or limit powers or apply to American citizens or not and henceforth and so on. It doesn’t just because it has already been done before, no matter how controversial those judgements may be, pregnant as they are with implications for future cases, and thus unpopular enough for every such decision to be vigorously challenged on grounds of constitutionality.

7. I follow with a quote from Wittes and Chesney: “The codification of detention authority in statute is a significant development, not because it enables anything that Congress had previously forbidden but because it puts the legislature squarely behind a set of policies on which it had always retained a kind of strategic ambiguity–a tolerance for detention without a clear endorsement of it of the sort that would make members accountable. Congress has now given that endorsement, and that is no small thing.”

8. I read that as saying that the provisions in this bill provide the legislative basis for the OPTION of applying military jurisdiction, indefinite detention without trial and transfer to foreign countries or “foreign entities” (all prescribed under the “dispositions of war” alongside the civil court option).

9. Here are the exact words regarding the OPTIONS these provisions in the NDAA 2012 bill specifically allow for. Page 654, Disposition Under Law of War:

1.Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of hostilities authorised by the Authorisation for Use of Military Force.

2.Trial under chapter 47A of title 10, United States Code (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (title VXIII of Public Law 111-84))

3.Transfer for trial by an alternative court or competent tribunal having lawful jurisdiction. (*According to Wittes and Chesney this would mean to include the US Federal Court System*)

4.Transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity. (*I presume, also to places that allow for rigorous torture and for that specific purpose, like under the W. Bush era*)

10. In my humble, legally uneducated layman’s opinion, the language and structure in Sub-Title D of this bill was deliberately written in a way that would be deceptive to a layman unfamiliar with legal jargon and its traditions and process of interpretations. The provisions say a “covered person” is specifically Al-Qaeda, but this specification is so idiosyncratically self-limiting the scope of a covered person will surely expand to fit the intent of the bill, instead of being constrained to its letter. It says provisions will not be construed to affect existing law covering United States citizens, but existing law has already had a precedent for its use. The section regarding American citizens being exempt from the prescribed “dispositions” appears under Section 1022 MILITARY CUSTODY FOR FOREIGN AL-QAEDA TERRORISTS.

The final version of the bill contains amendments and additions not present in the initial draft that was passed by the House of Representatives. In the Senate version the “requirement” to use the prescribed “dispositions” has been changed into an option. That may not be a complete, unconstitutional and illegal repeal of the Bill of Rights, but to me, it is certainly an erosion, now that the precedent and legislature has been set for it to be applicable in one instance but not another.

In closing my rather clumsy attempt at bringing this issue to the fore, I would like to explain why I believe this is a grave matter that will have portent for our future. The history of the last century saw many great tragedies befall mankind, some so devastating that they have left wounds and marks so black and so deep on our collective conscience that they may never completely heal. Millions perished and civilisations stood on the brink of annihilation. Great cruelties and mass atrocities were committed, memories of which still echo and haunt us to this day. Events of the last century and even this new one has given us ample opportunity to contemplate mankind’s cruelty to one another.

Some lessons can be learned from the history of the antagonists in the last World War. In Japan, a country that had modernised its industry and education and with aspirations to join the international community as an equal was disappointed by institutional Western racism in international relations. Elements of its covert actions agencies, some of which had operated in Korea and the mainland of China well before the 1900s, began infiltrating key positions of influence within Japanese society. The Imperial Japanese Army was slowly and systematically sold on the idea of Japanese racial superiority vis a vis their immediate neighbors, and the idea began to form that Japan had a manifest destiny to occupy and replace the corrupt and impotent governments of their neighbors in Korea and mainland China, the latter of which was de facto controlled by warlords and pockets of Western enclaves competing with one another for access to raw materials and closed markets at the expense of the native people, who were driven low into poverty and human degradation. The civilian government of Imperial Japan was then systematically subordinated by the military and covert agencies by a process of blackmail, intimidation, and assassination. By the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 the movement of reformists and intellectuals that saw common cause with their neighbors and had wanted to lift each other out of poverty via education and political empowerment of the masses had been effectively snuffed out. Total warfare would be ceaselessly propagandised to the Japanese people, the warrior ideal ceaselessly promoted to at once police its own citizens and to also inform them on how to treat the peoples of occupied nations.

Across the world in Germany, the destiny of that nation was similarly tied to its history. Driven by the competition for resources between the colonial European powers that exerted a stranglehold on the rest of the world, a vigorous attempt to expand its power and influence had backfired on Imperial Germany, and its ambition as well as large swathes of Europe were brought to ruin and destitution. So many men died that populations in Europe would be suppressed for years. Fertile farmlands that had once fed millions had been poisoned with chemicals and sown with bombs, shrapnel and bone fragments from millions of human bodies smashed apart by high explosives. The victors of the Great War rebuilt themselves on war reparations designed to punish and humiliate an entire people, and the Germans languished for years as pariahs. What comes next is well known. Much has been written about Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, yet people to this day struggle to understand this period of time in history. Much of the mystery centres around how it was that Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party could have gotten such support from the German population to wage his wars and then inflict terror on a scale almost unheard of before. Superficial discourse on this topic centres around the appeal of National Socialism’s tenets and ideals and also their methods of propaganda. In my opinion the truth was more prosaic. Adolf Hitler had gained absolute power and turned the democratic but fraught Weimar Republic into a one party state by legislating more and more powers for himself and his party, step by step. These powers once given could not be revoked. Membership in the Nazi party and its apparatus opened up access to positions of power and influence within German society and this was much sought after. A political army was formed that functioned first as a paramilitary, then as a tool to quash dissent and opposition by force and repression. Later these paramilitary forces functioned as parallels to the normal police, intelligence and armed forces, their only purpose to ensure that the state apparatus would toe the line of the ruling party in all aspects. The Nazis had created a state within the state in Germany, a government to control the actual government. Thus comes the answer to the question as to how Nazism had gained such political supremacy and fervor within Germany: all opposition and dissent to it had simply been eliminated via a fourteen year process of assassination, disappearances, torture, and intimidation.

We are familiar with how the story ends for both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The end of one struggle in the end became the beginning for another one. The price paid in blood by even the victors was very steep. Total war had evolved a step further into a global conflict that killed millions and could bring even the mightiest civilisations to the brink of extinction.

At the end of that struggle and as the truths of the Nazi regime were laid bare in the ruins of Europe we had cause to do some soul searching. It was only natural that humanity as a whole swore “never again” and came to the understanding that a cycle of violence and inhumanity towards fellow human beings threatened to mire and extinguish our very species. Fifty nations of the world signed this charter and that number has since grown to a hundred and ninety three. This document was written and evolved in the process to build a common, universal understanding of human rights and dignity for all of Earth’s people. Although non-binding, these ideals do serve to guide our conscience and hopefully inform our actions in our dealings with one another.

Yet this common understanding had precedent even two hundred years before when a people saw the chance in a new world to live free from the dominion of lords and nobles. They were informed by the natural development of the idea that the best industries and ambitions of mankind could only be realised from a people guaranteed liberty and a life with dignity, and emancipated to decide on the things most important to them. This was the idea of a government of the people, whose leaders were of the people and from them, as opposed to rulers who were set above and apart from them. The American militias gambled everything to fight the British Empire to a standstill and in the end won their freedom. A Constitution was formed and a Bill of Rights introduced in order to set in law the mechanisms and understanding necessary to protect this ideal of a government for all time, as a gift to future generations.

So when I first heard the rumblings of news that the Bill of Rights was under attack in the land of its own formulation, I was very disheartened. I remember the lessons of past history and I ask myself, what would make America different from all those other nations that had gone down the wrong path? Where would be the difference? Would it lie in the strength and wisdom of its leaders? Would it arise from some magical quality and virtue of its people simply just being “American”? Or would the difference stem from the people’s understanding of the political ideals of their nation, and accepting the responsibility of safeguarding their own liberties and standing up for their rights instead of leaving it to others? Would this difference come from the people ensuring that their leaders NEVER step beyond the boundaries of authority invested in them, nor erode the fundamental ideals of their country?

Now I truly end my article that has continued on for perhaps a bit too long. I do not pretend to understand everything I have talked about, you should not mistake anything I have written as fact, legal or historical. They are opinion and memory only. Please correct me in any mistakes or errors you may find.

This thing of ours is too precious to be left in the hands of just lawyers, politicans and judges. It is impossible to have an understanding of everything in this wide world, but we can still try to learn as much and as deeply as we can about issues that affect us all.

It has been an honor to call this issue to your attention, and I wish you all Merry Christmas and happy holidays

(pic from here)

Related posts:

1. Self Defense?
2. National Asian American Survey
3. Healthcare Passes

Diane asked me to post this story: Soldier’s Death Raises Suspicions in Chinatown. It’s sad. Private Danny Chen died of a gunshot wound, and the army is saying that it may have been a suicide, even though many people don’t believe he was suicidal. There is evidence that Chen was racially harassed while serving. They are conducting an investigation into his death.

The article says:

For decades, Asian-Americans have had an uneasy relationship with the military, enlisting at lower rates than other ethnic groups.

Many Asian-American families have emphasized higher education and white-collar occupations, rather than the armed services, as a way to get ahead in America, experts say. The dearth of high-profile Asian-Americans in the upper echelons of the military may have also discouraged enlistment.

There’s probably a lot of truth here. Hopefully the investigation will be thorough and accurate.

Related posts:

1. Death of a Pitchman
2. Edison Chen breaks his silence
3. Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda Calls for Death Penalty