Dan's blog

An appropriate orientation

2009-10-31T19:26:00.001-07:00

"implacable to the whole system of official values: the ignobility of fashionable life; the infamies of empire; the spuriousness of the church, the vain conceit of the professions; the meannesses and cruelties that go with great success; and every other pompous crime and lying institution of this world."

--- William James, on Tolstoy

The end of the Golden Shield

2009-06-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

The NY Times reports on newly leaked emails from within the Department of Justice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/us/politics/07lawyers.html?_r=1&hp

Discussed further by Glenn Greenwald.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/07/torture_memos/index.html

These leaks further support and strengthen various arguments already made by those calling for accountability, including ourselves --- and of course, the arguments made against other Bush administration officials as well.

In various discussions on Rice's culpability, we have dealt with the possibility that, on trial for war crimes, Rice would point to the "torture memos" for exoneration, as supposedly independent legal advice. In response, we (and the prosecution) would argue that that is not a proper characterization of the facts. We have argued, based on previous revelations, that the memos were written as "get out of jail free" cards. According to reports of National Security Council Principals Committee meetings in 2002, chaired by Rice, the memos were regarded as a "Golden Shield" for officials who feared prosecution. One can even make the case that the relevant lawyers and officials at the Department of Justice were complicit, in a conspiracy to torture.

So, in court, there would be a question to establish which narrative is accurate:

(1) Rice and others request disinterested legal advice; legal advice allows waterboarding etc. In this case, Rice and others might have a viable defence. After all, they are not lawyers, and deference ought to be accorded to the opinions of qualified lawyers within the government.

(2) Rice and others want to perform, have performed, waterboarding etc but need their "golden shield" of legal advice. They want, perhaps expect, administration lawyers in the department of justice to provide all necessary justifications. They request "get out of jail free" cards, crucially involving waterboarding. Despite the clear legal precedents that waterboarding is torture etc, obedient, perhaps complicit, lawyers provide justification. Where the justification is insufficient or not forthcoming, pressure is applied until the requisite degree of legal backing is given. In this case, the defence is not viable. The legal opinions are not in good faith, or created under pressure/duress, or dishonestly, or in complicity to torture. Rice and others (maybe including lawyers) go to jail.

How could a judge or jury choose between these narratives? There are crucial matters of fact that could help distinguish them.

Plainly, words like "golden shield" in Principals Committee meetings support narrative #2. The fact that waterboarding had happened prior to the memos, also. But clearly, much turns upon the communications between lawyers and the principals like Rice. In this regard, these emails are crucial new pieces of evidence. In particular:

A. Chronology and retrospectivity.

If interrogations happen before the legal justifications, that suggests they were written as retrospective justification. In general, lawyers (and the law) abhor retrospectivity. Lawyers do not like to write retrospective justifications, and if they do, they prefer to write them in general terms. Importantly, these emails reveal that the memos, although written in general terms, were effectively retrospective, and were regarded that way.

B. Evidence of pressure/reluctance.

The details of communications between the principals like Rice, and the lawyers, are crucial. The more reluctant lawyers are to provide these justifications, or disagree with them, the more narrative #1 sounds preposterous. As far as the individual lawyers are concerned, the reluctant ones are less likely to be found complicit, although perhaps the more likely their seniors are. These emails are the incarnation of one lawyer's reluctance and reveal extraordinary pressure from the White House, and policy-makers in general.

I should add that Comey's reluctance appears to be on extremely narrow and legally indefensible grounds; he also seems to neglect the mountain of precedent that waterboarding is torture and so on; he seems to be somewhere between gross dereliction of professional duty and complicity in torture. But the point remains.

These are not petty matters. They are crucial findings of fact which would probably be the central issue in a war crimes prosecution. And I think we have crucial evidence here which demolishes any remaining possibility of viability for the "get out of jail free card" defence for Rice and others.

Jeremy and Reyna on CBS!

2009-05-02T19:53:00.000-07:00

Stanford Student Speaks Out On Confronting Rice

http://cbs5.com/politics/condoleezza.rice.confronted.2.999686.html

A follow up to their story from Thursday

Stanford Student Confronts Rice On Interrogations
http://cbs5.com/politics/condoleezza.rice.confronted.2.998771.html

Rice's nonsense on torture

2009-04-30T19:56:00.000-07:00

Oh wow, I only got around to watching this video now, and from some of the comments I thought she must have been making some half-convincing arguments... nope!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijEED_iviTA&feature=channel_page

Well, first we upgrade al Qaeda to tyrants, okay. Then one gets the impression that the US homeland was not attacked in WWII. Those little incidents at Pearl Harbor and on the Aleutian islands are called bombing and occupation, to most people.

Then we are informed that 500,000 deaths in WWII is "no!" Why? Perhaps we should have got the figure correct to the precise soldier?

The problem with the internet is that you can actually find obscure references instantaneously. In this case, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) report on Guantanamo. Turns out, with ten seconds of google:

* the OSCE people were only allowed in on the condition of not actually interviewing any detainees! These same conditions were rejected by other human rights organisations, like Amnesty.

* and, the guy who led the OSCE team, Alain Grignard, with the Belgian federal police, thought detaining prisoners for years with trial was a form of "psychological torture".

http://intelligence-summit.blogspot.com/2006/03/osce-guantanamo-better-than-belgian.html

"Did you know that? Alright, no, well wait a second, if you didn't know that, maybe before you make allegations about Guantanamo, you should read."

But it gets better!

CR: "The ICRC also had access to Guantanamo, and they made no allegations about inerrogations about Guantanamo. What they did say is that they beleived indefinite detention..."

What sort of access did the ICRC have? Does anybody remember? Like, there were some prisoners that were deliberately kept away from the ICRC? And, like, this was such an official policy that it was actually written into the operating manual for the prison, there was an official level given to each prisoner, and the top level were kept away from the ICRC?

In fact, you can read various versions of the manual online.

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Chaplain,_Red_Cross_Muzzled_at_Gitmo_in_2004

In any case, with its access, the ICRC did write a detailed report, which was leaked recently. Perhaps you might actually like to read what the ICRC *did* have to say.

http://www.nybooks.com/icrc-report.pdf

From the introduction, the very first paragraph:

"The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has consistently expressed its grave concern over the humanitarian consequences and legal implications of the practice by the United States (US) authorities of holding persons in undisclosed detention in the context of the fight against terrorism. In particular, the ICRC has underscored the risk of ill-treatment, the lack of contact with the outside world as a result of being held incommunicado, the lack of a legal framework, and the direct effect of such treatment and conditions on the persons held in undisclosed detention and on their families."

It's clearly a glowing report, with sections entitled "Suffocation by water", "Prolonged stress standing", "Beatings by use of a collar", "Beating and kicking", "Confinement in a box", "Prolonged nudity", and so on. And clearly none of this involves any allegations about interrogations, surely.

And here is an example of non-allegations about interrogations, from the summary, section 1, page 5:

"as outlined in Section 4 below, and as concluded by this report, the ICRC clearly considers that the allegations of the fourteen [detainees interviewed] include descriptions of treatment and interrogation techniques --- singly or in combination --- that amounted to torture and/or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

Can't you see there are no allegations about interrogation?

And this is fantastic:

CR: "By definition, if it was authorised by the President, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture."

I didn't know we had monarchists left in this country!

Hmm, I wonder which article of the Convention has the "President said so" defence? Dang, that could have come in handy for Pinochet's lawyers when he was being extradited for torture under the same convention! Pity he didn't notice that provision, having been President of Chile and all, since by definition anything he authorises doesn't violate the convention!

Civilian Casualties in Iraq?

2009-04-28T20:41:00.000-07:00

We have a densely argued discussion of the available evidence andliterature review in footnote number 30 of our open letter:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/antiwar/cgi-bin/mediawiki/index.php?title=Condi_coalition_letter_draft#cite_note-29

(Why does the link for footnote 30 ends in "note-29". I think I blame computer scientists who like to begin counting at 0 rather than 1.)

(If you go there, all the references are hyperlinked, they are not here)

"
See Opinion Research Business and Just Foreign Policy for these estimates. This far exceeds the Iraq Body Count number of around 90,000, which only counts deaths reported by multiple crosschecked media reports: see their information page. The US government has not made any serious study of deaths in Iraq during the war and occupation. Perhaps the closest is Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, Report to Congress by Department of Defense, September 2008, at p.22. However, as noted in the December 2007 version of this report, there are many deaths for which "the Coalition does not have visibility, in particular, murders and deaths in locations where Coalition forces are not present": at p.18. See the Congressional Research Service report Iraqi Civilian Casualties Estimates, Hannah Fischer, January 12, 2009, for some further discussion. The Just Foreign Policy figure is an extrapolation of an epidemiological-style cluster study study published in the prestigious British medial journal The Lancet, which obtained a figure of 426,000-794,000 for the period March 2003 - July 2006: Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy et al., "Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A Cross-Sectional Cluster Sample Survey," The Lancet, October 21, 2006, 368 (9545), pp. 1421-1429. The UK Ministry of Defence's chief scientific advisor called the survey "close to best practice" and "robust": High Death Toll Backed, Newsday, March 27, 2007.
"

The Just Foreign Policy website estimate is currently 1,320,110... it's a rough estimate based on extrapolation from the Lancet study.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

Remarks at dinner

2009-04-27T20:43:00.000-07:00

These are my prepared remarks, what I said was some approximation to these.

Hi, I'm Dan. I'm a grad student here in the mathematics department. Thanks for coming.

We are here today because we're concerned.

We're here today to make a peaceful and nonviolent statement that we are deeply concerned about what's going on at this university, and more broadly what's going on in this country and the world.

I would ask everybody here to treat everybody else, including people who disagree with us, with the respect they are entitled to.

But our concern today is not any ordinary concern. It's a concern that goes to the heart of what it means to live in a humane society.

Some things are so morally abhorrent that no society can condone them and call itself civilized.

Some actions amount to crimes. But some actions go beyond mere crimes.

Such as torture. Such as the waging of aggressive war.

Some actions so shock the conscience, they so strike at the heart of what it means to be human, that we consider them crimes not just against the victim, not just against the law, but against every human being. Torture, war, they ruin the human soul, they break lives, they lessen us all.

And I think what brings us here today is our concern that there is substantial evidence – growing by the day, with every newly released report and memo – that a tenured faculty member here at Stanford has been:

firstly, a principal participant in the planning and propaganda efforts of an aggressive war waged in supreme violation of international law;

and secondly, an explicit authorizer of brutalities which have long been widely understood as torture.

War and torture. Hundreds of thousands, millions of ruined lives. A tenured faculty member. That is the situation which confronts us here today.

* * *

Let me tell you what this is not about.

This is not personal. Maybe, if you live here at Roble, you might take this personally. But I have nothing personal against anybody, here at Stanford, or anywhere; and I hope that you don't either. We are not attacking anyone on a personal basis, but we do want to see accountability where there is evidence of involvement in extremely serious crimes.

Second, this is not about beliefs; this is about actions. If there's a faculty member who makes a statement I disagree with, well, we can respectfully and politely disagree. If there's a faculty member who makes a statement that is shocking and offensive – we might respectfully but not politely disagree. Maybe we might even be moved to protest. Freedom of speech protects unpopular views, as it protects protest; academic freedom protects intellectual inquiry.

But here, today, we are in a different category. We have a professor who did not merely advocate for brutalities like waterboarding – but authorised them. A professor who did not merely cheerlead for war, but was involved in official planning and propaganda efforts of that war, at the highest levels. These are not things to respectfully disagree about. These are not experiences to learn from. These are crimes to be prosecuted.

What do we do, if the authorities are not prosecuting --- whether in US courts, overseas, or internationally?

What does it say about us, about our campus, if we let this pass?

What does it say about us, about our campus, if we ignore the evidence of these monstrous crimes and have a dinner party instead?

* * *

Let's just briefly review some of the evidence.

You probably all know that our professor was National Security Adviser and chair of the National Security Council's Principals Committee. We now know that this committee authorised specific instances of waterboarding – and the discussions there were so detailed they were "almost choreographed". Moreover, our professor was not a passive participant; according to the report, she was "decisive". She told the CIA: "This is your baby. Go do it."

Now, in the last week, a declassified narrative from the Senate Intelligence Committee reveals that our professor became on July 17, 2002, so far as we know, the first high-ranking US official explicitly to authorize the brutal drowning technique known as waterboarding.

Now, torture is a crime under international law, under US law, there's an international treaty about it. It's very clear. There's no defence of protecting national security. There's no defence of intelligence chatter. Read the convention. Article 2 says that "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture". There are some things that, if you are minimally civilized, if you respect minimal human rights, you just don't do. The evidence suggests that it also doesn't work very well, but that's not the point; it's just wrong, and it's a crime.

However, there are these "torture memos". More of these have come out last week. Our professor assures us that everything she authorized was legal, and these memos provide the legal argument. Well, just go and read these memos and see what you think about the reasoning. Don't be afraid of legalese, this stuff speaks for itself.

Take the memo of August 1, 2002, which was released last week. August 2002, just after our professor authorised waterboarding. The conclusion: waterboarding, and all other desired techniques, not torture.

So, how is waterboarding not torture? Well, there might be a bunch of legal precedents that it is, going right back to the Spanish-American war, 1898, but somehow the lawyers didn't find them.

Anyway, the reasoning is pretty good. The statute says that to be torture, waterboarding must "inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering". But you see, waterboarding only – only! -- involves the panic of imminent death from drowning! That's not actual physical pain, you see. Okay, but what about actual physical suffering? The physiological response of drowning seems like physical suffering to me! But no, you see, we are informed, that's not how it works. The phrase "pain and suffering" in the defintion of torture must be understood as a single concept, not "pain", not "suffering", but "pain-and-suffering". So, there's no pain, might be suffering, but there's no "pain-and-suffering". Get it?

And so it goes on.

The requirement in the War Crimes act is for "specific intent". So, says the memo, you have to actually explicitly specifically intend to inflict severe pain or suffering! If you intend anything else, it can't be torture! You just have to believe in good faith of something other than that you are inflicting severe pain or suffering. Your belief doesn't even have to be reasonable. And --- and this is a key point --- your good faith belief that you didn't actually specifically intend to inflict severe pain or suffering can be established by reliance on experts. Like legal advice. Like this very memo.

And this is the way to regard these memos. They were regarded as a "Golden Shield". They were written to get torturers out of jail. And producing fallacious legal arguments, reinterpreting the law to justify conduct that was previously clearly torture, has another name: aiding and abetting torture.

And there's plenty more. Go and read it, I'm just scratching the surface. Especially read the bit about putting someone in a box with insects.

So every time our illustrious professor talks about how everything was assuredly legal, that is the reasoning it's based on. It's ridiculous, it's unbelievably bad, it has been rescinded as an embarrassment, and it is aiding and abetting torture

And, our professor can't claim any ignorance about this. We know from the recently released report of the Senate Armed Services Committee, that through 2002-2003, she was present at several meetings in the White House at which Mr. Yoo, her Berkeley colleague, provided legal advice. So she has heard it. She knows how bad it is. And yet, the evidence is that she was decisive regardless.

* * *

Torture is one thing, and it's terrible. But I'm sorry, my friends, there are worse things in the world than torture. A full-scale war is much, much worse.

War is generally illegal, has been illegal since 1928. It can only be justified, legally, in two circumstances: as self-defence from imminent attack, or with authorisation from the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. That doesn't necessarily make it moral, or good, but makes it legal. That's international law. Very simple. And neither condition was satisfied in the case of Iraq. So it's illegal. It's aggressive war.

And the waging of aggressive war is not just a crime. It's a crime against the world, a crime against humanity, the same crime for which the Nazis were tried at Nuremberg. Countries don't invade other countries in the 21st century. That belongs to a world long past, that belongs in past ages of barbarism.

So the invasion of Iraq is not to be regarded as a mistake, or a blunder, but, to quote the Nuremberg tribunal, it is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." That is the position at international law, reaffirmed ever since.

Well, what is the role of our illustrious professor?

She was one of the "five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq", and central to policy formulation and execution. Here I'm quoting a Congressional Committee and leading reports. She was among the topofficials promoting, planning, and eventually perpetrating the war.

Smoking guns and mushroom clouds. That's our professor.

The Center for Public Integrity has calculated that, overall, the Bush administration made 935 public false statements about the national security threat posed by Iraq. Of those 935, our illustrious professor made 56 false statements.

Aggressive war, and a breathtaking tragedy. Hundreds of thousands have died as a result of the war – by some estimates, well over a million. Over 4 million refugees. Lives broken across an entire region of the planet. A humanitarian catastrophe, and still ongoing.

That's our professor, who's having dinner parties in dormitories.

* * *

In the end, for us here at Stanford, I think it comes down to asking –

What sort of a world do you want to live in? and

What sort of a campus do you want to study in?

The horrors are not over. Violence in Iraq continues. War in Afghanistan escalates. Bombings in Pakistan escalate. Foreign policy goes on with the new President, as it has gone on for a long time, and it is not pretty. Before Iraq and Afghanistan there were interventions, just to name a few – in Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Libya, Grenada, Angola, Guatemala, Iran; the list goes on, and it's bipartisan.

There is plenty to push the President on. And on the question of prosecuting torture, he is possibly wavering, he's been hedging.

He needs some backbone. But we can help to give him some backbone. Imagine what a message a strong stand by Stanford students on campus could send.

Because for us, this is not an abstract question. For us, this question has come home – today, it has come home for dinner.

I think it's important to realise that, in calling for prosecutions, we are not looking for retribution. The most important thing is to make sure that the horrible episodes we have seen – war, torture, aggression, violations of international law – do not happen again. How do you ensure they do not happen again? By letting anybody who is thinking of doing it again know that if they do it again, they will be prosecuted. And how do you ensure that? By prosecuting those who did it this time. The best way to put the past behind us is for people to face accountability now.

It's also the law – article 12 of the Convention Against Torture requires investigations, whenever there is reasonable ground to believe torture has been committed.

But we have to ask ourselves some questions:

How can we change a culture where such a professor considers herself able to invite herself over to dinner, where dozens will sign up adoringly?

Somehow we have to grow up. We have to realise that not every adult around here, not every authority figure, is someone to look up to.

Somehow we have to get people to think about their place in the world, their place at this university, and the place of this university in the world. Considering the role of this university in the power structures of society, what do we want it to be? And how can we make it so?

So I invite you to join with us, work with the coalition that is coming together to work on this issue, to work for justice, for accountability, and for peace.

After all, we all live here. It is the responsibility of all of us.

War Criminals of Tomorrow

2009-04-24T20:47:00.001-07:00

An awesome video by a friend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O2KeDPTh3o

"Condoleezza Rice is back at Stanford University. What does it mean for the Stanford community to accept an alleged war criminal on their campus? What does the pipeline of war criminals to universities mean for students everywhere? Please read about Rice's alleged crimes during the past 8 years: http://www.stanford.edu/group/antiwar/cgi-bin/mediawiki/index.php?title=Condi_coalition_letter_draft and support the movement on Stanford's campus to hold Rice and former Bush administration officials accountable..."

This is your pizza. Go eat it.

2009-04-24T20:47:00.000-07:00

I think this is amazingly good --- at least to my own aesthetics. Just the right mix of seriousness and hilariousness, gravity and spirit, light and heavy, yin and yang.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/antiwar/cgi-bin/mediawiki/images/d/da/NoMoreTorture.png

This is your pizza. Go eat it.

Are you allergic to illegal wars? Do you think torture sucks? Can't stomach a dinner with Rice? Well then, come to our

Dinner for Human Rights and International Law

Condoleezza Rice will be having a dinner with students at Roble at the same day & time. This event is meant to peacefully show to the campus that the Stanford community will not ignore evidence that Condoleezza Rice violated international and domestic laws against aggressive war and torture, and that we must confront our own institutional role in enabling and even honoring this behavior. We want accountability!

Why are we having dinner parties with an authorizer of waterboarding in Roble Hall? History will not judge this kindly.

Articles about torture in today's NY Times

2009-04-22T03:49:00.001-07:00

In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Their Past Use
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22detain.html

Report Gives New Detail on Approval of Brutal Techniques
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22report.html

Obama Won't Bar Inquiry, or Penalty, on Interrogations
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22intel.html

Comments on the Memos

2009-04-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

From one of the memos:
"
In addition to using the confinement boxes alone, you also would like to introduce an insect into one of the boxes with Zubaydah. As we understand it, you plan to inform Zubaydah that you are going to place a stinging insect into the box, but you will actually place a harmless insect in the box, such as a caterpillar. If you do so, to ensure that you are outside the predicate act requirement, you must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain. If, however, you were to place the insect in the box without informing him that you are doing so, then, in order to not commit a predicate act, you should not affirmatively lead him to believe that any insect is present which has a sting that could produce severe pain or suffering or even cause his death. [Redacted section] so long as you take either of the approaches we have described, the insect's placement in the box would not constitute a threat of severe physical pain or suffering to a reasonable person in his position. An individual placed in a box, even an individual with a fear of insects, would not reasonably feel threatened with severe physical pain or suffering if a caterpillar was placed in the box.
"

Some excerpts from the memos:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/04/17/us/politics/20090417-interrogation-techniques.html
The actual memos:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/nytint/docs/justice-department-memos-on-interrogation-techniques/original.pdf

Many further links, quotes, and comments follow, for those who are interested.

1. Choreographing torture

Note in these excerpts how the choreography of interrogations is considered: which techniques can be combined with others, how often they can be done, and so on.

As the NY Times Editorial "The Torturers' Manifesto" points out
(the editorial is good but, as Brian notes, far too late in coming):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/opinion/19sun1.html?th&emc=th
"
To read the four newly released memos... is to take a journey into depravity.

Their language is the precise bureaucratese favored by dungeon masters throughout history. They detail how to fashion a collar for slamming a prisoner against a wall, exactly how many days he can be kept without sleep (11), and what, specifically, he should be told before being locked in a box with an insect — all to stop just short of having a jury decide that these acts violate the laws against torture and abusive treatment of prisoners.
"

Recall the April 2008 ABC News report that disclosed Condoleezza Rice's chairing of NSC Principals Committee meetings, in which she was "decisive" in authorizing brutal interrogation techniques, including authorizing waterboarding of three people in U.S. custody, telling the CIA "This is your baby. Go do it." According to that report, the discussions were so detailed they were "almost choreographed—down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic."

One cannot help but imagine that the "choreography" of interrogations, discussed in the reports of the National Security Council's Principals Committee meetings, which were chaired by Condoleezza Rice, would have been along similar lines as in these memos, and just as barbaric.

2. Official statements and the Nuremberg defense

Statement by Director of National Intelligence (and prima facie war criminal, accessory to Indonesian atrocities in East Timor) Dennis Blair:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/politics/16text-blair.html?ref=politics

Blair essentially invokes the Nuremberg defense --- "just following orders" --- or the recent variant, "just following orders while relying on get-out-of-jail-free legal opinion" --- to argue that interrogator-torturers should not be prosecuted.

But the point of the Nuremberg defense, as we should know, is that it is *not* supposed to be a defense. He misses the entire point that it is the right, indeed duty, of all people, in armed forces or anywhere, to disobey illegal orders. (There is section 1004 of the Detainee Treatment Act, as (lightly) amended by section 8 of the Military Commissions Act, but this is the general principle.) Of course there is also the obvious consideration that those at the top, giving the orders and authorizing any torture, are primarily responsible, and hence much more worthy of prosecution than those performing their orders on the ground.

Statement by Obama:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/politics/16text-obama.html?ref=politics

Obama, law professor and scholar, also invokes this Nuremberg defense as if it were legally and morally clear. The final two paragraphs make explicitly opposite statements; this is a clear hedge, and his well-known position.
"
[N]othing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past... That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.

The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals.
"

However, if the first of these two paragraphs means a commitment not to prosecute, it is a nonsensical position. The laws in which Obama expresses his "unshakeable commitment" obligate his administration to investigate and prosecute war crimes that have occurred in his jurisdiction: not because it is a matter of laying blame for the past, but because those who commit grave crimes must be held accountable for their actions, in order to ensure the rule of law, and in order to ensure that such horrors do not happen again.

3. The obligation to investigate, and amnesty

One such law is Article 12 of the Convention Against Torture, to which the US is a party, and as a properly ratified treaty is the supreme law of the land. Article 12 states that a State Party "shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction."

David Cole, on an interesting NY Times blog, notes the obligation to investigate under the Convention Against Torture:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/the-memos-torture-redefined/

Scott Horton discussed Obama's effectve amnesty (and many other things) on Democracy Now (discussed earlier on some of these email lists):
Obama Releases Bush-Era Memos Authorizing Torture Techniques, Rules Out Prosecuting CIA Interrogators who Carried Them Out
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/17/memos
"
The surprising thing was, of course, the statement that was released alongside of it that there would be no prosecution of CIA agents who relied on these memos in performing their duties. And I'd say that that outcome—most people who've studied this don't expect that there ever would be such prosecution, certainly not of ground-level people at either the CIA or the Department of Defense. But there's some very serious issues about how this is raised, in particular because this amnesty—and that's effectively what it is—is being granted before an investigation of all the facts has been completed. And I think, in terms of proper process, it would be appropriate to lay down the facts to establish them and then make some sort of decision about amnesty.
"

Michael Ratner, from the same NY Times Blog above, on legal advice as get-out-of-jail free card:
"
Torture is torture and all the legal window dressing in the world cannot hide its essence: the infliction of pain and suffering on human beings. If legal advice can protect torturers, no official anywhere can ever be prosecuted. Legal advice then becomes a get out-of-jail free card and will be employed by every petty dictatorship to protect its abusers.

In making the decision not to prosecute, President Obama is acting as jury, judge and prosecutor. It is not his decision to make. Whether or not to prosecute law breakers is not a political decision. Laws were broken and crimes were committed. If we are truly a nation of laws as he is fond of saying, a prosecutor needs to be appointed and the decisions regarding the guilt of those involved in the torture program should be decided in a court of law.
"

Is Obama flouting the law by not proceeding to a prompt and impartial investigation of Yoo, Bybee, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others... including, of course, Condoleezza Rice?

4. Depths of barbarity

"You asked me once, what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world."
--- O'Brien, in George Orwell, 1984

Also on the same NY Times blog mentioned above, Michael Ratner notes that the sadistic use of insects is, literally, straight out of Orwell's room 101 in MiniLove:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/the-memos-torture-redefined/

"There is nothing abstract about the techniques: they are initially focused on one individual and even discuss his psychological weakness in language similar to the novel 1984 — although in this case, it's bugs, not rats."

Scott Horton on the barbarity and the use of healthcare professionals:
"
Well, we're seeing the realization of two famous pieces of literature, aren't we? George Orwell's 1984 with the rat—remember, the rat was selected after psychoanalysis of the subject revealed that he had a fear of rats, so this was being used to terrorize, quite literally, the individual—as well as Terry Gilliam's filming of Brazil, where we know again study of fear was used to drive, to craft special techniques. ... [The memos suggests] that with respect to this prisoner, the diagnosis of psychiatrists and psychologists who had studied his case was that he had an irrational fear of insects. So let's use this fear to unhinge him.

So, the other thing I think we should note, going back here, is this shows the central role played by healthcare professionals in the crafting and implementation of this entire process. It's clear from reading these memoranda that doctors and psychologists are present at every stage along the way, supervising what's going on, but also suggesting and refining the techniques to make them more terrible.
"

And some more from the NY Times editorial:
"
These memos are not an honest attempt to set the legal limits on interrogations, which was the authors' statutory obligation. They were written to provide legal immunity for acts that are clearly illegal, immoral and a violation of this country's most basic values.

It sounds like the plot of a mob film, except the lawyers asking how much their clients can get away with are from the C.I.A. and the lawyers coaching them on how to commit the abuses are from the Justice Department. And it all played out with the blessing of the defense secretary, the attorney general, the intelligence director and, most likely, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
...

These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. Congress should impeach him. And if the administration will not conduct a thorough investigation of these issues, then Congress has a constitutional duty to hold the executive branch accountable. If that means putting Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on the stand, even Dick Cheney, we are sure Americans can handle it.
"

Is there any reason why Condoleezza Rice should not be added to that list, as chair of the Principals Committee of the National Security Council --- their discussions and decisions, so far as we know, right out of the plot of the same mob film? There is one significant difference: the Principals Committee were not just lawyers --- they were actual decision-makers, with all the legal responsibility that entails.

5. Hoover fellows to the rescue

They are out in force! (A concerted effort?)

On the aforementioned NY Times Blog we have Kori Schake making an argument against prosecution, which she is perfectly entitled to do, except it's relevant to us because of her Hoover position. She informs us that applying the rule of law in a democracy is now called "politicization".

Still at the same blog, Kenneth Anderson, also from Hoover, rightly points out that "Congress Knew All Along", including senior Democrats. Unfortunately, he also seems to regard the Nuremberg-plus-get-out-of-jail-free-card defense as "obvious", rather than obviously not a defense, given that Democrats were complicit. It is not at all clear why war crimes become non-prosecutable when the opposition party proves to be (or perhaps, was well known to be) spineless and fails to take a stand against them. Does one decide not to prosecute a Nazi officer because the SPD failed to prevent, or even knew about, or even sympathized with Nazi atrocities? But this argument, ridiculous in principle, is made in such a dismissive fashion that one is not sure whether he actually means it as a matter of principle, or as a matter of prosecutorial discretion.

Such arguments by those we are supposed to look up to on campus speak for themselves. All the more so, when there are faculty on campus against whom there is a prima facie case of war crimes.

One should also note that, in the case of Rice, there is also a prima facie case of participation in the much worse crime of aggressive war, the supreme crime against international law, the same crime for which the Nazis were hanged at Nuremberg. The evidence is overwhelming that she was a principal participant in the planning and propaganda efforts of the war on Iraq, a monstrous crime leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths --- by some estimates, well over a million.

What if such people lived nearby; what if they came to dinner?

Ideology survey

2009-04-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

Extremely interesting statistics.

This is a national survey of 1,000 US adults, a couple weeks ago, 95% confidence interval is +/- 3 percentage points.

Which is a better system - capitalism or socialism?

53% Capitalism
20% Socialism
27% Not sure

That is, pick 1,000 random americans off the street, ask them to choose between capitalism and socialism, and 200 will answer socialism; another 270 will be unsure.

Those 20% hold that belief in spite of a century of capitalist propaganda, in spite of nearly a century of Soviet propaganda that socialism means the USSR, in spite of the opinion being heresy in all respectable circles everywhere in the world, and in spite of no serious model of a desirable functioning socialist system in existence, or possibly even in theory.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/just_53_say_capitalism_better_than_socialism

Also, Bill Blum mentioned in his most recent anti-empire report (also including some discussion of his socialism) an interesting statistic, which has been around for a while.

"In 1987, nearly half of 1,004 Americans surveyed by the Hearst press believed Karl Marx's aphorism: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was to be found in the US Constitution."

http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/aer68.html

Socialists have no seriously worked out alternative, have no elite support, very few serious political parties with significant support, and a deafening chorus unanimous in its condemnation among all the great and the good of the world.

And yet, they have 20% of the population of the most fiercely capitalist nation on earth behind them. Never underestimate the resiliency of the heretical belief in social justice!

Imagine if they got their act together.

On dinner parties and war criminals

2009-04-15T22:27:00.000-07:00

"Oh, your prudery; oh, your squeamish respectability; all the abominations are allowed to *happen*, but no one may mention them. Delicate women must not know anything or say anything about blood and filth... There is nothing indecent about death and killing as far as you are concerned, you well brought up little ladies..."

"[T]he way [respectable] conversation customarily handles a new movement that strives to create a big upheaval: with an expression of prudent doubt and reservation, gentle ridicule, condescending recognition of the noble cause --- and all of that against a background of unmoving, rigid indifference."

--- Bertha von Suttner, 1889

Favourite political axiom ever

2009-03-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

"Maybe one of the principles around which work should be organized is: does it leave people enough time and energy to go home and have sex?"

--- Cynthia Peters, "The Art (and Serendipity) of Kinship"

The Nation Reimagines Socialism

2009-03-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of discussion happening on broad vision at the moment. In particular, the Nation has a whole Forum on "Reimagining Socialism". This looks fantastic. I haven't read everything there yet, but it looks great. There's a lead article by Ehrenreich and Fletcher, and then a whole bunch of articles in response.

Reimagining Socialism: A Nation Forum
By Barbara Ehrenreich & Bill Fletcher Jr.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090323/ehrenreich_fletcher

Ehrenreich and Fletcher mention participatory economics, which I think is something worth thinking about -- in my opinion, it's a leading candidate for what a desirable economy looks like, at least among those I have heard about. Michael Albert, who is one of the people who wrote down this vision, wrote a response to them, but the Nation did not print it.
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20826

The Venezuelan consul also wrote a response, which again the Nation has refused to print, so far as I am aware. In it, she talks about various programmes of the Bolivarian government, and remarks positively about participatory economics.
http://www.zcommunications.org/blog/view/2906

This is precisely the right time for these discussions. It's a pity
there isn't more radical infrastructure in place to take advantage of
the situation and press for radical change.

Keeping the flame alive

2009-03-27T23:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/03/26/18583436.php

Dissecting d'Amato

2009-03-27T23:27:00.000-07:00

A response to a couple of articles in the Socialist Worker, brought to my attention by a friend:

Refusing to be ruled over

How do anarchists see change happening?

I think this is a very interesting discussion. It is a discussion that does not enter the respectable canon, but I think it is important. And, it is a discussion that, in my experience, often takes place in a less than satisfactory fashion. Sadly, this series of articles I find less than satisfactory, although I can understand how existing conditions and the present situation lead to such unsatisfactory discussion. So, I'm happy to offer my thoughts on these questions.

This is long. Apologies if it's too long for you, so feel free not to read -- or to delay reading to some unspecified point in the distant future -- but since it's an advanced question, it needs a bit of time.

1. The question

I see this is an instance of the question: What to do? Assuming we agree that the present economic system is terrible, intolerable, exploitative, inhuman, and destructive of the human body and the human spirit, then what should we do about it? There are several aspects to this question: What do we want instead, and how do we decide what we want? This is the question of vision. What processes should we implement, what is the social trajectory that will lead us towards a better society? This is the question of strategy. What types of actions should we engage in right now, in order to set in motion the social trajectory towards a better society? This is the question of tactics.

These questions are all impossible, I would say. So, you can't answer them, human societies are far too complicated, the best you can do is offer your informed, inevitably feeble, assessment of the situation and engage in this discussion with others, in the hope that together we can find a way forward. It is on this basis that I think we have to proceed for these questions.

2. Definitional problems

Trostkyism and anarchism are two labels that have arisen to particular sets of answers to these questions. They are worth debating between, I would say, though they are most certainly not all the possible answers. But the first problem, and a massive problem, is that it's not clear what the words mean. This is a crucial part of why I consider most discussion of the question, and this set of articles in particular, so unsatisfactory. To have a debate between Trotskyists and anarchists where neither properly defines what their positions mean, is likely going to end up with talking past each other, unfounded denuncations, and is not going to advance socialism or the understanding of the debaters or the audience. This is my experience, and it appears to have happened in this series of articles.

I would say that Trostkyism is much more well-defined than anarchism. Trotskyism is a tradition that traces its origin fairly directly through Marx, Lenin, the Russian revolution, and of course Trotsky. It
has, I would say, some institutional programme that you can point to, some canonical texts, some organizations which claim the label, and so on. For instance, you could say uncontroversially that the International Socialist Organization is Trotskyist, and you can say that the Socialist Worker is a publication that is essentially Trotskyist in orientation. Therefore, there is certainly an interest in the Socialist Worker to promote Trotskyism and critique other
ideologies and visions.

Anarchism is a much more nebulous phenomenon. The origin is much more dispersed and contested, and indeed it may be that there are as many versions of anarchism as there are anarchists. This makes it much harder to pin down what anarchism stands for, what it seeks, what society it envisions, and so on. There are even capitalists who claim the label – "anarcho-capitalists". But such politics are not worth discussing in this context. In my view anarchism is a subset of socialism, just as Trostskyism is a subset of socialism. Within that context, I think there is something of a history which one can point to as the anarchist tradition or heritage: Bakunin, Kropotkin, Proudhon, Rocker, Malatesta, for instance. There are fewer organisations which one can count as anarchist, especially today, but I would include the Spanish CNT, and the IWW, in this tradition. Note d'Amato calls the IWW "syndicalist", rather than "anarchist". This is part of the definitional problem, not one d'Amato addresses in any
satisfactory way, in my opinion.

It follows that d'Amato has a much more difficult task in critiquing "anarchism", whatever that means, than he would have if he were critiquing Trotskyism, purely from the point of view of what the task means. In this sense I sympathize with him. However, this does not excuse him from the responsibility of defining what he is talking about, something he fails to do anywhere near adequately, I would say. Not doing this means running the risk of insulting and marginalizing people who might label themselves anarchist but not fit into his definition. That includes people like me. (Not that I took his article personally!) And this vagueness of "anarchism" makes your task easier, if you are writing a sectarian critique, because it allows you to find straw men to knock down; and at times, to me this is how it reads.

I don't want to spend hours debating definitions about what is and isn't Trotskyist or anarchist. My approach to this definitional problem, broadly, is usually to draw a distinction between two broad historical trends, or tendencies, or philosophies within socialism, and which is about the closest thing one can obtain to a neat categorisation. I usually call them authoritarian and libertarian socialism. Trotskyism is included in the former, anarchism in the latter; and the question of Trotskyism versus anarchism, to me, is in its essence the question of authoritarian and libertarian socialism. Many might disagree with this classification, and no doubt "authoritarian" is a pejorative term, which gives my opinion away immediately, but nonetheless I think there is, more or less, a fairly neat bifurcation.

Authoritarian socialism would include Trotskyists, Maoists, Leninists, Stalinists, Bolsheviks, communist parties, orthodox Marxists, and central planning economists, I would say. In fact, it seems likely that Marx and Lenin are the intellectual root of everything on this side of the bifurcation – Lenin is perhaps the unifying thread to this side, since Marx is claimed by many others. So, instead of the pejorative term "authoritarian", one might prefer "Marxist-Leninist". No doubt there are serious differences between these various tendencies – there have been many splits in socialist and communist parties! -- and no doubt many socialists would question the socialism of the USSR and so on.

Nonetheless, I think, as an intellectual and historical heritage, it is distinct from libertarian socialism, in which I would include anarchists, syndicalists, libertarian municipalism, council communism, "left Marxism", participatory economists, the IWW, and the CNT. Again there are serious differences within all these tendencies, but they all share an orientation fundamentally different from the above.

Note that this is not a complete or neat cleavage of socialism into two parts. "Market socialism" and the Yugoslav example does not fit neatly into either. "Feminist socialism" perhaps straddles both. Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian programme in Venezuela seems to include parts of both visions. It's just a way to talk about the question, which is what you have to do in the social sciences, because social science is not mathematics.

3. Vanguard politics and prefigurative politics

I personally have little interest in the political distinctions between Trotskyists, Maoists, and various other authoritarian socialists; and I would usually critique any of them on a common basis. For one thing, they all advocate a vanguard party seizing power. For another, insofar as they advocate a specific economic vision (and often they do not; Marx did not), it seems to amount to central planning, and this is the historical experience with communism, Yugoslavia aside. I find central planning pretty horrendous on many many grounds which I won't go into here, but very broadly: it's undemocratic, it retains authoritarian structures in the workplace, it produces an elite class of planners and coordinators, it does not give people control over their own lives, it does not lead to the full liberation of human potential. Many, however, follow Marx in not setting out any economic vision, and leaving it to the people themselves after the revolution; this seems to be d'Amato's position, although he is not explicit in these articles. I have serious difficulties with this, as I think vision is essential for serious social change. Moreover, in this context, if the economy is to be left until after the revolution, when the vanguard party has seized control of the state, then I think this is a recipe for disaster, and then the reproduction of authoritarian structures is natural, predictable, and obvious. Anarchists were predicting the course of a revolution led by authoritarian socialists well before the Russian revolution, and on this point history proved them right.

That said, Leninists of various stripes may reply that that is a valid criticism, that Soviet Russia ceased to be socialist at some point (various points possible!) not long after 1917, and so on. They might argue that the vanguard strategy is the only feasible one; they might argue that the vanguard strategy, although it can lead to authoritarianism, need not always do so. To which I would reply, regardless, the risk of authoritarianism seems so great, and so natural, that I would look for a different strategy.

The libertarian approach, on the other hand, is that movements should be "prefigurative", something d'Amato mentions. That is, the structure and organisation of movements for radical social change should prefigure the society they wish to build. They should begin to build a new society within the shell of the old. It follows that any organisations and movements we build should not have authoritarian structures, should not just seek a society based on the values we seek, but express these values, themselves, in their daily workings. I find this point absolutely unarguable, especially today and in the democracies; in the 19th century, or in repressive states, there is more of a need for radical movements to be more conspiratorial, secretive and hence hierarchical and authoritarian. Hence, libertarian movements today involve such structures as affinity groups, councils, collectives, federations, spokescouncils, and so on; and they advocate for such things as worker councils, consumer councils, participatory democracy, participatory economics, and so on. Moreover, prefigurative politics is not unique to libertarian socialism – the history of authoritarian socialism taking power is a case study! Hierarchical, disciplined, centralized, male-dominated, elitist, authoritarian party takes power and imposes hierarchical, disciplined, centralized, male-dominated, elitist, authoritarian state and economy.

The only argument remaining for authoritarian socialists that I can think of (I am trying to be generous), is that non-hierarchical, non-centralized type organisation is ineffective, that movements require strong central direction. That is an argument not based on principle, but based on expediency; and indeed, if we found in practice, empirically (I can think of no way this could be proved one way or the other, theoretically) that society, culture, and human nature were sufficiently lazy, immature, conflict-ridden, or directionless that anti-authoritarian organisation could not succeed, then we might well resign ourselves to centralized, authoritarian
organisation. But if so, that would be very sad, I would say, and we would have to do it with tears in our eyes; personally, I do not believe there is enough historical evidence to throw away the possibility of radical social change based on libertarian, anti-authoritarian organisation, and as long as that is the case we should strongly prefer it. (Even if the historical evidence were overwhelming that anti-authoritarian movements are ineffective, which I think it very much it is not, one could still reject authoritarian organisation on the grounds cited above, and hope for the best.)

Now, d'Amato argues against prefigurative politics, though quite surprisingly to me, he does not make this argument about effectiveness, which would be a valid argument, I would say, just one I would disagree with.

Rather, first, he ridicules prefigurative politics, as if it were self-evidently silly, and equates it to "lifestyle politics". In this, I find it hard to believe he could take his own argument seriously. He describes prefigurative politics pretty much precisely as I just said, except that along with affinity groups and collectives he throws in vegetarianism, and then calls all this a "lifestyle approach". I think there is something serious he is trying to say, which I will get to shortly, but this is really unsatisfactory, quite possibly demeaning to anyone who wants to consider these questions seriously.

There is really some confusion here, I think, and d'Amato is conflating prefigurative ideas in institutions with prefigurative ideas in everyday life. When we talk about prefigurative politics, we are talking about the structures of our organisations, its
decision-making processes, and so on. We are saying these, now, should emulate what we want them to be in the future. This is a point on which authoritarian and libertarian socialists differ. But what we are *not* talking about is pure interpersonal interactions and lifestyle. About this sort of "lifestyle politics", one can argue whether some people put an undue emphasis on it, to the exclusion of other concerns. But that's not what the question of prefigurative politics is about, at least not to me. And in this, I am not sure whether d'Amato is mistaken, or this is a lapse, a serious confusion, or he is being mean, or unthinkingly following the party line, or whatever.

The serious question d'Amato is getting at (rather than the question at hand!) is this question of whether people take "lifestyle politics" too far, and use it as an excuse for not engaging in broad social activism. Here I take "lifestyle politics" to include various things like vegetarianism, ethical consumerism, organic farming, radical self-reliance, drug use, dropping out, the hippie movement, and many other things, potentially. I don't know precisely what he is referring to, but I do not take these to be the same as anarchism, or part of it; they partly overlap with it, surely, as they overlap with many other things, most notably I would say the environmental movement. Obviously, in his mind, anarchism involves some sort of "lifestyle politics", and this surely arises from definitional difficulties. Clearly, the principle of acting in everyday life according to your principles is ethically inarguable; but if this means that one spends too much time thinking about one's own actions for oneself, and not for the rest of society, that could be a problem. But these are just truisms, surely, and I don't think they really bear upon the problem at hand.

He does then go on to make another argument against prefigurative politics, again not on the basis of expediency, but *on principle*:

"One does not expect the plow to prefigure the wheat; nor should we expect our methods of organizing to fight for a better world to prefigure or look exactly like the world we plan to achieve."

This is no doubt true, but it's not what prefigurative politics is about. Prefigurative politics is saying that we should employ methods of organising, not as we expect the world exactly to look like, but as we *think* it *might* look like, and how we *hope* it should look like, according to our best (though surely feeble) judgment. The fact that it's a difficult question doesn't give us an excuse to employ bad organisational structures – and in particular, authoritarian ones, that are arguably bad in principle, as well as likely to lead to bad results in practice. It might be true that prefigurative politics has a tendency towards producing blueprints for the future, which unnecessarily influence the present, and forgetting that the future is always highly uncertain. But this is not what d'Amato says: he shifts the discussion by describing prefigurative politics as organizing "exactly like the world we plan to achieve". Again, I find it hard to believe a serious socialist like d'Amato could take this argument seriously.

Moreover, d'Amato does not address at all the serious problems with *non*-prefigurative politics in Trotskyism, which he does not defend at all. He raises a serious issue, which entails serious criticism of his own position, but then shifts the goalposts, two different ways, and moreover ridicules those who take an opposing view. I'm afraid I find this highly unimpressive, and all too reminiscent of my own experiences with Trotskyism.

4. Consensus

The next argument is about consensus-based decision making. It's true that non-hierarchical organisations often employ consensus procedures for decision-making procedures. A relevant (though cynical-sounding) remark is that this is often done to stop them getting taken over by an authoritarian socialist group which stacks a meeting and forms a majority. He notes various concerns with consensus, which I think are valid concerns. It can lead to long discussions, every individual person can hijack a meeting with their veto, and so on. The question, however, is what form of decision-making procedures are appropriate. It's not at all clear to me that, at least in movement organisations, majority voting is much better. For then 49% of the group can be walked over, marginalised, not taken account of, and so on. In an organisation which is supposed to be composed of members sharing a generally similar outlook and working towards common goals, this is also highly problematic.

However, I would not identify anarchism with consensus decision-making. I would associate anarchism with some radical form of democracy, taking control of one's own life, participation and so on; and this can be expressed in various ways, and often consensus, but not always. For instance, one operative principle I very much like, given by Albert and Hahnel in the context of participatory economics -- which I would say is a libertarian socialist or anarchist economic vision -- is that people should have decision-making power over any decision proportional to the degree they are affected by the decision. That's a vague principle, and not given in the context of activist organisations, but it's clearly not consensus. In activist organisations, consensus is not the only answer, and obstructionism might lead to a looser rule, like some supermajority rule; d'Amato concedes this.

But this is a core question about the sort of society we want to see: What is the appropriate way for people to have a say over decisions that affect them? I think consideration of this question leads inexorably towards a democratic economy, for instance, not only the abolition of private capital, but to workers councils and so on. And, I think it also leads to a rejection of central planning. It's not a precise question, and the answer depends on circumstances; it's certainly not the case that anarchism implies consensus implies bad. Anarchism (and socialism more generally) sometimes might like consensus for certain decisions; consensus might sometimes work or might not. In this, anarchists and Trotskyists confront precisely the same questions; I don't see any necessary dogmatic attachment in either.

5. The Spanish experience and working with the State

D'Amato turns to the Spanish civil war, which is regarded as a high point of anarchism. Indeed, the economic system established in anarhcist-controlled parts of the country throughout the civil war is an extremely interesting episode, and arguably gives great hope for the possibility of establishing an economy not based on exploitation or greed, and neither on central planning and dictatorial direction. Moreover, the Spanish anarchists, though (at least at first) allied with the other socialist groupings against the fascists and other right-wing forces, were eventually turned upon by other authoritarian socialist forces – in particular, the PSUC, as I recall, which was funded by the Soviet Union. So, they were opposed not only by the fascists and the church, not only by the democracies (which refused to support them), but also by the authoritarian socialists. In that
context, the achievements of the anarchist movement in Spain are extremely impressive, in my view, and are completely at odds with d'Amato's declaration that "as soon as [anarchist ideals] began to touch real-life situations, the principles would begin to be abandoned, one by one, grudgingly or otherwise." Perhaps the conclusion is true, but it would be better to say "massacred" rather than "abandoned", whether by authoritarian socialists or by the right.

It's true that the CNT was offered a position in the Spanish government, as a result of their leading role in the armed resistance to fascist forces – as I recall, after the defence of Madrid. This was an extraordinary moment in history, an incredible dilemma for the anarchists. It's true that they declined the offer, as I recall, I think for many reasons, complex and various reasons, but one of them being an opposition to the State itself per se as d'Amato says. It's true that they were heavily criticised for this – but there were many arguments both way. I can't recall all the details at this instance, but I do recall it was a complicated decision. Given the number of different factions and socialisms in the civil war, everything in that period of history was a complicated affair!

But the reverse has happened elsewhere. Proudhon was elected to the French parliament, and wrote about how becoming part of the state changed him, so that he did not even notice the plight of working people, consumed with state duties. The question of what to do is difficult, and it's not an easy one. There are many examples one can turn to, but I certainly don't think that they amount to d'Amato's denunciation as principles which are hastily abandoned. This is not a sectarian question. Any movement has to decide how to interact with the State. Authoritarian socialists have regularly abandoned their principles upon taking power throughout history.

In any case, this is one episode from history, and no doubt it has sectarian value to bring it up, and no doubt it is interesting to imagine how history might have been otherwise. Trotskyists can go on about how to re-run the Russian revolution but avoid it turning bureaucratic; anarchists can go on about how to build a better world and their relationship to the state in the process. My view is that the structure of Trotskyist movements makes the accomplishment of their goals nigh impossible; so that one is left to libertarian structures. How to make that change happen, however, is still an open question, and libertarian approaches are open to a much wider range of strategies, if only because of the nebulousness of their formulation.

What I disagree with most forcefully here, and what I think is self-evidently wrong, is d'Amato's insistence that anarchism will never collaborate with the state. The ideal of the State withering away is a long way off, but I think many socialists, authoritarian and libertarian, favour that ideal, even though it is a distant goal. Moreover, I think all socialists, of any stripe, would be in favour of *extending* the State in the short run, to provide universal health care, social security, and so on. Some libertarian socialists might believe that mass nationalization is the best way to turn industry over to workers' control. Many libertarian socialists talk about seeking "non-reformist reforms". These all seem valid approaches to me; again, the problem is that "anarchism" can mean almost anything, and d'Amato has defined away all these other approaches. The straw man prevails!

I would say that anarchism does have a mistrust and aversion to the State – and indeed to all forms of illegitimate power. I would not say that it is so purist as to never do anything involving the State, at least in the short run.

Most of the rest of the first article is beneath comment, although I'm happy to comment on anything else if you like. Any argument which runs along the lines of "my anarchist friends said this, therefore anarchism is bad", cannot be taken seriously unless the things he's referring to are characteristic of anarchism. How does one respond to the suggestion that anarchism (rather than his anarchist friends), a subset of socialism, dismisses the struggles of working people? It's ridiculous, and best met with a dignified silence.

I cannot see how anyone who has seriously looked at anarchism, anarchist writings, and its history, could conclude that it just amounts to lifestyle choices – but this appears to be what d'Amato concludes, right before contradicting himself by talking about the CNT taking power in Spain.

Most of the new content in the second article is a discussion of Murray Bookchin. It seems that d'Amato, along with Bookchin, criticises "lifestyle anarchism", on grounds that I would agree with. But I haven't read Bookchin, although he is certainly on my many-hundreds-of-books-long reading list. I have read about his economic vision, which sounds not very promising to me; this probably explains why I haven't read his books. I would be happy to discuss it if anybody else has read it. But since I haven't read it, and since my comments are now extremely long, I will not comment any further.

Anyway, although I have strong disagreements with much of the article, and difficulties with the way the article proceeds, I think this is a useful discussion.

Aid for Afghanistan; "non-combat" in Iraq

2009-03-26T23:29:00.000-07:00

Very edifying and informative reports today on Democracy Now about Afghanistan and Iraq.

Afghans Urge Obama to Send Aid, Not Troops, to Afghanistan
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/26/afghans_urge_obama_to_send_aid

Report: Despite Obama's Vow, Combat Brigades Will Stay in Iraq
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/26/report_despite_obamas_vow_combat_brigades

These Colors Won't Run... Afghanistan

2009-03-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

This construction of "run" had never occurred to me before. Rather reminds me of the other construction of "Operation Enduring Freedom", the official name of the invasion of Afghanistan --- to endure means to suffer. And, I saw a similarly subversive and humorous construction recently:

The government official asks, "Do you advocate the overthrow of the US government by force or violence?"

"Hmmm... Well, not violence, so I suppose I have to choose force then."

These Colors Won't Run... Afghanistan
Mar 25, 2009
By Norman Solomon
http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3814

The Herd strikes again

2009-03-25T00:02:00.000-07:00

These have been around for a while now, but still, songs about history, US foreign policy, and war, are always interesting.

The first one in particular is one of the most educational music videos I've ever seen (read the headlines!).

And we you knew you were frauds
But onwards we went to war
Nothing could be said to convince you
We've already seen it before
...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n65x_cSHSHE

I'm a Starship Trooper
This is my letter to dad, transferred from Saigon to Baghdad
and now I'm dead
...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG9773tnvac

Exiles on an inhospitable shore

2009-03-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

"It seems to me that our attitude on religious subjects is one which we ought as far as possible to preach, and which is not the same as that of any of the well-known opponents of Christianity. There is the Voltaire tradition, which makes fun of the whole thing from a common-sense, semi-historical, semi-literary point of view; this, of course, is hopelessly inadequate, because it only gets hold of the accidents and excrescences of historical systems. Then there is the scientific, Darwin-Huxley attitude, which seems to me perfectly true, and quite fatal, if rightly carried out, to all the usual arguments for religion. But it is too external, too coldly critical, too remote from the emotions; moreover, it cannot get to the root of the matter without the help of philosophy. Then there are the philosophers, like Bradley, who keep a shadow of religion, too little for comfort, but quite enough to ruin their systems intellectually. But what we have to do, and what privately we do do, is to treat the religious instinct with profound respect, but to insist that there is no shred or particle of truth in any of the metaphysics it has suggested: to palliate this by trying to bring out the beauty of the world and of life, so far as it exists, and above all to insist upon preserving the seriousness of the religious attitude and its habit of asking ultimate questions. And if good lives are the best thing we know, the loss of religion gives new scope for courage and fortitude, and so may make good lives better than any that there was room for while religion afforded a drug in misfortune.

And often I feel that religion, like the sun, has extinguished the stars of less brilliancy but not less beauty, which shine upon us out of the darkness of a godless universe. The splendour of human life, I feel sure, is greater to those who are not dazzled by the divine radiance; and human comradeship seems to grow more intimate and more tender from the sense that we are all exiles on an inhospitable shore."

--- Bertrand Russell

Shoes ahoy

2009-03-23T23:14:00.000-07:00

Pictures now on the wiki.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/antiwar/cgi-bin/mediawiki/index.php?title=Protest_at_Condoleezza_Rice%27s_inaugural_%22public%22_address

Also linked from the main page antiwar.stanford.edu under "Past events".

The blacklist gets leaked

2009-03-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

Sounds quite stunning if you can get it, but wikileaks has been down every time I've tried to get it though.

Leaked Australian blacklist reveals banned sites
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/leaked-australian-blacklist-reveals-banned-sites/2009/03/19/1237054961100.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/17/1237054787635.html

ACMA's blacklist just got read all over
http://www.crikey.com.au/Media-Arts-and-Sports/20090320-ACMAs-blacklist-just-got-read-all-over.html

Wikileaks to Conroy: We Will Go After You
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/032009-wikileaks-to-conroy-we-will.html?hpg1=bn

The poverty of student life

2009-03-23T00:12:00.000-07:00

"Modern capitalism and its spectacle allot everyone a specific role in a general passivity. The student is no exception to the rule. He has a provisional part to play, a rehearsal for his final role as an element in market society as conservative as the rest. Being a student is a form of initiation. An initiation which echoes the rites of more primitive societies with bizarre precision. It goes on outside of history, cut off from social reality. The student leads a double life, poised between his present status and his future role. The two are absolutely separate, and the journey from one to the other is a mechanical event "in the future." Meanwhile, he basks in a schizophrenic consciousness, withdrawing into his initiation group to hide from that future. Protected from history, the present is a mystic trance."

http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/4

A very interesting essay, much more nuanced than the stuff I tend to read lately. I feel like I am missing a lot of the cultural background of Paris 1966; it's written before 1968, but I'm not sure how much it is before, politically, consciousness-wise, ideology-wise, etc. Without this background and zeitgeist, I find it pretty heavy going, as the arguments are pretty nuanced. At one second he is denouncing general passivity, then subservience to power, then a bohemian lifestyle, then the student's own consumerism of Camus vs Sartre etc. All very insightful, but I find it hard to put such things together to get a picture of the period! Perhaps this is the problem when you read the marginalised voice without knowing what the mainstream ones were saying.

Note how suddenly his view of Berkeley is much less nuanced and sophisticated --- that's probably reciprocal to my own view and understanding of events in France.

I find it a bit over-sophisticated --- in the best French traditions! --- but that may just amount to being over-sophisticated for me, with my lack of knowledge of the period. I also had an impression of bad tactics, since it seemed to denounce pretty much everyone (except a group in Japan I've not heard of before), which is often justified but not always useful. This then gives me an impression also of hypocrisy, since this seems to indicate a sort of sectarianism, over-denunciation and cliquishness which he is himself denouncing.

But this is an essay from another time and another place, so it's hard to judge these things.

In broad terms though I thought is was an excellent critique of "the student", and a very powerful argument at the end --- I found it suddenly much less acidic there, though maybe that's just because I'm more familiar with it --- for workers' councils and so on.

Catch a Cheney

2009-03-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

Coming to NBC: "To Catch a Cheney"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-cohen/coming-to-nbc-to-catch-a_b_167530.html

One can imagine all sorts of applications of this idea... including very locally...

Another relevant regulation

2009-03-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

This is a document I had not seen before.

"As members of the Stanford University community, all faculty, staff, students, members of the Board of Trustees, University Officers and affiliates are responsible for sustaining the highest ethical standards of this institution, and of the broader community in which we function. The University values integrity, honesty and fairness....
"Stanford recognizes that it must earn and maintain a reputation for integrity.... Even the appearance of misconduct or impropriety can be very damaging to the University. Stanford must strive at all times to maintain the highest standards of quality and integrity."
-- http://adminguide.stanford.edu/1.pdf

I guess we've had plenty of discussion of the disciplinary procedures, which (taken literally) limit themselves to "academic" misconduct and (again, if taken literally) would permit serial killers, rapists, and mass murderers, war criminals on campus, as long as they did not plagiarize, harass students or such things.

There is a procedure in this code of conduct, excerpted below. Mind you, it looks like it leads to the same highly flawed disciplinary procedures.

Perhaps there could be a working group to carry it out?

"
9. REPORTING SUSPECTED VIOLATIONS
a. Reporting to Management — Members of the Stanford community should report suspected violations of applicable laws, regulations, government contract and grant requirements or this Code. This reporting should normally be made initially through standard management channels, beginning with the immediate supervisor, instructor or advisor. If for any reason it is not appropriate to report suspected violations to the immediate supervisor (e.g., the suspected violation is by the supervisor) individuals may go to a higher level of management within their school or department.
b. Other Reporting — All violations of laws or regulations should be reported internally to the Institutional Compliance Helpline (compliance@stanford.edu or 650/725-0076) or to the Office of the General Counsel (650/723-9611). Any suspected violations of rules regarding federal funds may also be reported to the Department of Defense Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Hotline at 800/424-9098. In addition, any suspected violations of state or federal statutes, rules or regulations may also be reported to the California Attorney General's whistleblower Hotline at 800/952-5225.
c. Confidentiality — Such reports may be made confidentially, and even anonymously, although the more information given, the easier it is to investigate the reports. Raising such concerns is a service to the University and will not in itself jeopardize employment.
d. Cooperation — All employees are expected to cooperate fully in the investigation of any misconduct.
"