The Taylor and Francis Group announced today that it will be reissuing Food Fights: International Regimes and the Politics of Agricultural Trade Disputes by Renee Marlin-Bennett. Food Fights was originally published in 1993 by Gordon and Breach, a firm acquired by Taylor and Francis. The reissue will be in the Routledge Revivals Series. The book will be available in hardback and eBook formats, with paperback forthcoming.
The richly theoretical and empirical study of overlapping and interpenetrating trade regimes and the manifestation of norm conflicts among those regimes in agricultural trade disputes is widely held (by Marlin-Bennett) to be the best early example of what later came to be termed "constructivism." Marlin-Bennett's work is most closely aligned with the Onufian approach to rule-based constructivism.
Shamefully ignored by the scholarly community when it was initially released, Food Fights is now expected to appear on every doctoral general examination reading list in political science and international relations. This will be the "must know" book that every scholar will have read or will have pretended to read.
It might be rumored that Taylor and Francis is in negotiation with Spark Notes, which might be expressing interest in producing a study guide version of Food Fights. (Or then maybe not.)
International relations scholars should watch for the forthcoming August 2009 release of Food Fights: International Regimes and the Politics of Agricultural Trade Disputes. An anonymous source (probably Marlin-Bennett) confirms that the last one to read the book will be a rotten egg.
(But the anonymous source agrees that it's OK to skip the inferential statistics chapter.)
Asked for a comment, Marlin-Bennett said that she was pleased that her book once again has a chance of being noticed by the scholarly community. (Of course, hell might also freeze over.) Questioned about the asterisk that appeared above her head as she made this reply, the author heaved a somewhat histrionic sigh. "Taylor & Francis's reissue means that I can't just give it away on the Internet. If I could just scan it and post it on line, then more scholars would end up reading bits (so to speak) of Food Fights in their students' plagiarized term papers. Some non-zero proportion of their profs would Google text strings from the term paper and -- oila! -- they would discover this absolutely brilliant (if I say so myself) text."
Informa PLC, the parent company of Taylor and Francis, declined 1.89% today on the London Stock Exchange. It is rumored that proceeds from sales of the soon-to-be reissued Marlin-Bennett classic will increase Informa's profitability significantly (or marginally, or not at all, or might actually lose them a few cents).
Marlin-Bennett's second book, Knowlege Power: Intellectual Property, Information, and Privacy (Lynne Reinner Publishers), actually deals with copyright, the public domain, and how information might be sequestered rather than made more available by intellectual property rules.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Revolution Will Be Twittered - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
The Revolution Will Be Twittered - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
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The current violent protests in Iran -- aside from offering the hopeful possibility of a significant change in Iran's government -- are interesting because they provide a small window into how people use information & communications technologies (ICTs) for political action. As Iranians keep Twittering and using whatever other ICTs have not yet been blocked or corrupted by one of the sides, it seems that the connectivity provided by these technologies makes an important difference to the ability of people to join forces with the like-minded and act.
The Obama campaign also used ICTs to get people to join forces with the like-minded and act.
So, are Iranians using ICTs like Americans? Are we witnessing the birth of democratic action in Iran? The end of centralized control? Do ICTs infect populations with democratic zeal?
I think the evidence is clear that ICTs enable increased political participation. I'm just not sure about equating political participation with democratic political participation.
Shared via AddThis
The current violent protests in Iran -- aside from offering the hopeful possibility of a significant change in Iran's government -- are interesting because they provide a small window into how people use information & communications technologies (ICTs) for political action. As Iranians keep Twittering and using whatever other ICTs have not yet been blocked or corrupted by one of the sides, it seems that the connectivity provided by these technologies makes an important difference to the ability of people to join forces with the like-minded and act.
The Obama campaign also used ICTs to get people to join forces with the like-minded and act.
So, are Iranians using ICTs like Americans? Are we witnessing the birth of democratic action in Iran? The end of centralized control? Do ICTs infect populations with democratic zeal?
I think the evidence is clear that ICTs enable increased political participation. I'm just not sure about equating political participation with democratic political participation.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Update to Using the DMCA Backwards . . .
Filing a DMCA complaint seems to have had one interesting effect: Taylor & Francis finally answered an email I sent. The representative claims that his editorial colleagues will look for my book contract in their archives and they'll get back to me when they find it.
So, how long do you think that will take? In 1992 those records were all on paper.
So, how long do you think that will take? In 1992 those records were all on paper.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Backwards
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed to help publishers of music and print media have a way to protect themselves against the onslaught of piracy on the Internet. (The industry is alarmist about this problem, to say the least.) The DMCA requires that Internet Service Providers and websites take down allegedly infringing material when they receive a complaint from the putative copyright holder. The alleged infringer can issue a counter complaint, but the immediate response of the ISP or the website must be take down first, consider counter complaint second.
Remember: The purpose of this was to prevent works from escaping into cyberspace. Publishers want to restrict access to "their" materials.
I just used the DMCA backwards. I want my work -- my first book, Food Fights: International Regimes and the Politics of Agricultural Trade Disputes -- to be more widely available. I'm not sure whether I want to charge potential purchasers a couple of bucks for a digital copy or just give it away for free, but I do know that I want to use the Web to get more readers. Right now, it's in a grand total of 185 libraries worldwide, and 7 copies are available from Amazon partners. A sorry fate! And, darn it, it was a good book. Constructivist before constructivism. But I digress.
Way back in 1993, my book was published by Gordon and Breach, which no longer exists. G&B was bought by Taylor and Francis. Over the years I have tried to contact T&F. No response. By now the contract has expired, and the copyright has reverted to me. When I saw earlier this year that Google Books had a preview of my book with a link to T&F, I realized that T&F was infringing on my copyright. To add insult to injury, when you click on the link to T&F, the T&F website tells you that this book is no longer available.
I sent T&F an email saying that they no longer held copyright on my book and that they had no right to post my book on Google Books. No response.
From my perspective, T&F is actively preventing access to my copyrighted material. Since Taylor & Francis control the Google Books website with my book on it, I cannot take control of my book on Google Books. Worse, T&F only allows a preview and is not making the book available in digital format. I want to take advantage of low cost (or free!) distribution of e-copies via the web to get my book out there.
So I filed a DMCA complaint with Google Books. Now I'll wait and see what happens. If Google Books takes that page away from T&F (as it should), then I should be able to submit the book myself.
And of course I'm snickering, because my second book (copyright still in the great care of a much better publisher, the superlative Lynne Rienner) is on intellectual property.
Remember: The purpose of this was to prevent works from escaping into cyberspace. Publishers want to restrict access to "their" materials.
I just used the DMCA backwards. I want my work -- my first book, Food Fights: International Regimes and the Politics of Agricultural Trade Disputes -- to be more widely available. I'm not sure whether I want to charge potential purchasers a couple of bucks for a digital copy or just give it away for free, but I do know that I want to use the Web to get more readers. Right now, it's in a grand total of 185 libraries worldwide, and 7 copies are available from Amazon partners. A sorry fate! And, darn it, it was a good book. Constructivist before constructivism. But I digress.
Way back in 1993, my book was published by Gordon and Breach, which no longer exists. G&B was bought by Taylor and Francis. Over the years I have tried to contact T&F. No response. By now the contract has expired, and the copyright has reverted to me. When I saw earlier this year that Google Books had a preview of my book with a link to T&F, I realized that T&F was infringing on my copyright. To add insult to injury, when you click on the link to T&F, the T&F website tells you that this book is no longer available.
I sent T&F an email saying that they no longer held copyright on my book and that they had no right to post my book on Google Books. No response.
From my perspective, T&F is actively preventing access to my copyrighted material. Since Taylor & Francis control the Google Books website with my book on it, I cannot take control of my book on Google Books. Worse, T&F only allows a preview and is not making the book available in digital format. I want to take advantage of low cost (or free!) distribution of e-copies via the web to get my book out there.
So I filed a DMCA complaint with Google Books. Now I'll wait and see what happens. If Google Books takes that page away from T&F (as it should), then I should be able to submit the book myself.
And of course I'm snickering, because my second book (copyright still in the great care of a much better publisher, the superlative Lynne Rienner) is on intellectual property.
Friday, June 5, 2009
The Orange County I didn't know
The Other Orange County . . .
I think of this blog as a way to comment about the stuff I know about – global political economy – but I also know about, or thought I knew about Orange County, California. Now that I’ve spent the day reading Orange County: A Personal History by Gustavo Arellano I know a lot more. What follows is a bunch of fairly random ruminations.
I picked up the book in the Baltimore County Public Library. It was on one of the display tables as a special librarian’s pick. Who could resist? A book about the homecounty found by serendipity.
Gustavo – I’m going to tutear him since his personality really comes through in this book and I do feel like I know him now and I am a lot older than he is– grew up in Anaheim. That’s seven miles and a world apart from where I grew up in the Sunny Hills (read: Money Hills) neighborhood of Fullerton. The story of Orange County that Gustavo tells is the story of Mexican immigrants and their children and the Orange County they faced. In most ways it’s very, very different from the Orange County of privilege that I knew, but there were some similarities. To be a Jew in Christian Orange County (at least back then) was to be an outsider, too.
I always wanted to know more about the lives of the kids the bus picked up and dropped off in the Fullerton barrio on the way to Ladera Vista Junior High for seventh grade. I don’t remember any of those kids being in my classes, except for Spanish. (Were they all tracked out of honors classes?) They spoke Spanish fluently but in the very particular colloquial dialect of the barrio. I remember the girl who was confused by the vocabulary word for cake, postre. In her family, they referred to queque. I have to say that these children scared me a bit. We didn’t know them, and we had to squeeze three to a seat with them. They weren’t bad, just boisterous in a way that we – or at least I – wasn’t. I remember wanting to talk to them, to make friends, but I never did. We lived in different worlds. But even that limited contact ended the following year when a new junior high opened closer to my neighborhood. No more drives through the barrio.
A major theme of this book is that the Anglos’ fear of Mexicans is misguided at best and racist at worst. Gustavo thumbs his nose at the gabachos (the Anglo-Americans) who are worried about the “influx” of Mexicans, the hysterics who rail against the “illegals.” The book starts with “I’ve seen the Mexican future of this country, the coming of the Reconquista – and it’s absolutely banal.” Too bad, gabacho! You lost. Deal with it.
And the truth is that there really isn’t much to deal with – and that’s what the Anglo-Americans don’t seem to understand. Mexicans want to earn a living, save money, buy stuff. Just like gabachos. Big shock. Their kids want to get college degrees – and do so – so that their lives are easier than their parents’. Gee, are those brown folks getting uppity? No. They’re just being Americans.
I know someone who still lives in Orange County. An otherwise extremely intelligent woman, she unfortunately tends to believe every piece of anti-immigrant balderdash and claptrap that comes her way. (The Internet: The Source of All Knowledge.) The e-mails she forwards to me highlight the kind of stupidity that Gustavo points out. Among the inflammatory assertions:
“The illegals are overrunning the hospitals and making everyone’s medical bills soar.” (Uh, illegals work in jobs that don’t have health insurance. The lack of universal health insurance means that low income workers don’t have enough money to go to private physicians and end up in emergency rooms.)
“Illegals come to this country to have babies so that their children will be American citizens.” (Some do. I would if I were desperately poor and saw the opportunity to give my children a better life.)
“The children of these illegals are overrunning the school system and costing California too much money.” (Many if not most undocumented workers are employed using false social security cards. Their taxes are deducted from their salaries. They are paying for schools just like legal workers. Their children have as much right to schooling as other taxpayers’ children. And how good would it be for society if California decided to stop allowing these children to get an education. Would that be good for society???)
“Why don’t they learn English? Why don’t their children learn English?” (The answer to the first question is that adults find it very hard to learn new languages. Given the difficulties of making a living, if they can get by in Yiddish or Spanish or whatever, there’s little incentive to learn English. I never had a conversation with my Bubbie and Papa because they never learned English, despite the fact that they came to the US in the early part of the 20th Century. And as for the children not learning English, that’s simply not true. Gustavo and his many cousins are proof of that.)
It’s not just crazy conservative Republicans in Orange County who have this opinion. The above-mentioned person is actually very liberal in her political beliefs. And Gustavo once faced an angry crowd of Democrats who articulated those biased and unsupported assertions. Anglo-Americans are scared of these brown people (who actually come in a wide range of skin tones), some of whom speak a language they don’t understand.
But as Gustavo notes, Orange County has a history for extreme conservatism. In fact the very first time I voted was in a primary election. The poll worker thought there was some mistake since I was registered as a Democrat.
In the chapter entitled, “Where All the Good Idiot Republicans Go to Die,” Gustavo reports on the stupidities of Congressman William Dannemeyer, State Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle, State Senator John Seymour, State Senator John Briggs, Congressman James Utt, Congressman John Schmitz, State Assemblyman Mickey Conroy, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and Congressman Bob Dornan. I want to add another whopper to the ones listed. (Read the book – pp. 83-85. It would be really, really funny if it weren’t so scary.)
As Gustavo notes, Orange County has been and continues to be a very Christian place. In those early days of the 1960s, Jews were few and far between in Orange County. In our first year in Orange County, my mother went to the market (Lucky's?) to do her Passover shopping -- pick up the matzah, etc. She asked the clerk where the Passover foods were. "What's a Passover?" he replied. (That wasn’t evil, just ignorant.)
Here’s another story, as told to me by my mother, a witness. In the 1960s, a representative of James Utt attended a pre-election, “learn about the candidates” meeting at our synagogue, Temple Beth Emet of Anaheim. At that meeting the representative declared, speaking for Utt, presumably, that “White Anglo Saxon Christians were more equal than other people.” (That was evil.) The assembled other people were not impressed.
In my senior year of high school (1976-77), one of my classmates, a girl I had known since elementary school, asked me why the Jews killed Christ.
My cousin worked at Knott’s Berry Farm, but had to hide the fact that he was Jewish because Old Man Knott didn’t hire Jews.
Anti-semitism coincided hand-in-hand with anti-Mexican and anti-Black and anti-anyone-not-white sentiment. For many years neither Knott’s Berry Farm nor Disneyland hired kids for their “casts” who didn’t fit their wholesome (read: Anglo Christian) image.
Gustavo documents a lot of the hateful racism he and other Mexicans have been and are being subjected to in Orange County. He touches a bit on the racism experienced by African-Americans and describes the legal fight of Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln Mulkey, African-Americans who wanted to rent an apartment in Orange County and were denied because of their race. (The California Supreme Court ultimately upheld their right to housing.)
That reminded me of an incident that happened in the 1960s or early 1970s. The doorbell rang. My father answered the door and spoke for a moment or two with the person who rang. Then he slammed the door. His face was beet-red in anger. My mother told me later (he was too upset to talk) that the doorbell ringer was bringing around a petition to prevent a Black family from buying the house down the street. My parents had absolutely no problem with African Americans in the neighborhood. They did have a problem with racists. Eventually the largest house in the neighborhood, which we all dubbed the Sunny Hills Hilton, was bought by an African American family. I don’t know if they had any problems with neighbors. They certainly did not have any from us.
Another odd Orange County trait is wanting to be like Mexico but not really wanting Mexicans. Many city names and street names are Spanish (La Palma, Hermosa St.), but as my high school Spanish teacher often complained (and as Gustavo notes), too often the names are just wrong: Mission Viejo ought to be Misión Veija. Buena Park should be Buen Parque or Parque Bueno. Your adjectivos y nombres need to agree.
Also, the respect for things Mexican and Mexicans in Mexico was taught in the schools. We all were introduced to Mexican culture and Spanish language in fourth and fifth grade. (In sixth grade, we were allowed to choose a foreign language. I continued with Spanish.) I remember El Señor Pill who came to the school on Tuesdays (Hoy es martes. Mañana es miécoles. Ayer fue lunes.) From him we learned about prickly pear cactus, chocolate, los estados de México (my report was on Sonora), bailes (the boys hated that), and las posadas. The idea was not to teach us about our neighbors down the road, but rather about those people across the border. I actually found it all quite interesting, but it didn’t help me at all to understand those girls who had to squish on to my seat on the bus and ate queque with their families.
The only down side of this book is that Gustavo comes across as something of a chiquillo mocoso metido a grande – a runny nosed kid pretending to be big. (I learned that in a dialog we had to memorize en la clase de español. There was some value to those diálogos after all.) When he says that other reporters in the OC Weekly newsroom complained about his excellent productivity, I wonder whether they really complained about an immaturity. And we learn in the book about the sad state of his love life, something I would have been happy to know less about.
But the book is a good read, especially for those of us from Orange County. I recommend it highly.
I think of this blog as a way to comment about the stuff I know about – global political economy – but I also know about, or thought I knew about Orange County, California. Now that I’ve spent the day reading Orange County: A Personal History by Gustavo Arellano I know a lot more. What follows is a bunch of fairly random ruminations.
I picked up the book in the Baltimore County Public Library. It was on one of the display tables as a special librarian’s pick. Who could resist? A book about the homecounty found by serendipity.
Gustavo – I’m going to tutear him since his personality really comes through in this book and I do feel like I know him now and I am a lot older than he is– grew up in Anaheim. That’s seven miles and a world apart from where I grew up in the Sunny Hills (read: Money Hills) neighborhood of Fullerton. The story of Orange County that Gustavo tells is the story of Mexican immigrants and their children and the Orange County they faced. In most ways it’s very, very different from the Orange County of privilege that I knew, but there were some similarities. To be a Jew in Christian Orange County (at least back then) was to be an outsider, too.
I always wanted to know more about the lives of the kids the bus picked up and dropped off in the Fullerton barrio on the way to Ladera Vista Junior High for seventh grade. I don’t remember any of those kids being in my classes, except for Spanish. (Were they all tracked out of honors classes?) They spoke Spanish fluently but in the very particular colloquial dialect of the barrio. I remember the girl who was confused by the vocabulary word for cake, postre. In her family, they referred to queque. I have to say that these children scared me a bit. We didn’t know them, and we had to squeeze three to a seat with them. They weren’t bad, just boisterous in a way that we – or at least I – wasn’t. I remember wanting to talk to them, to make friends, but I never did. We lived in different worlds. But even that limited contact ended the following year when a new junior high opened closer to my neighborhood. No more drives through the barrio.
A major theme of this book is that the Anglos’ fear of Mexicans is misguided at best and racist at worst. Gustavo thumbs his nose at the gabachos (the Anglo-Americans) who are worried about the “influx” of Mexicans, the hysterics who rail against the “illegals.” The book starts with “I’ve seen the Mexican future of this country, the coming of the Reconquista – and it’s absolutely banal.” Too bad, gabacho! You lost. Deal with it.
And the truth is that there really isn’t much to deal with – and that’s what the Anglo-Americans don’t seem to understand. Mexicans want to earn a living, save money, buy stuff. Just like gabachos. Big shock. Their kids want to get college degrees – and do so – so that their lives are easier than their parents’. Gee, are those brown folks getting uppity? No. They’re just being Americans.
I know someone who still lives in Orange County. An otherwise extremely intelligent woman, she unfortunately tends to believe every piece of anti-immigrant balderdash and claptrap that comes her way. (The Internet: The Source of All Knowledge.) The e-mails she forwards to me highlight the kind of stupidity that Gustavo points out. Among the inflammatory assertions:
“The illegals are overrunning the hospitals and making everyone’s medical bills soar.” (Uh, illegals work in jobs that don’t have health insurance. The lack of universal health insurance means that low income workers don’t have enough money to go to private physicians and end up in emergency rooms.)
“Illegals come to this country to have babies so that their children will be American citizens.” (Some do. I would if I were desperately poor and saw the opportunity to give my children a better life.)
“The children of these illegals are overrunning the school system and costing California too much money.” (Many if not most undocumented workers are employed using false social security cards. Their taxes are deducted from their salaries. They are paying for schools just like legal workers. Their children have as much right to schooling as other taxpayers’ children. And how good would it be for society if California decided to stop allowing these children to get an education. Would that be good for society???)
“Why don’t they learn English? Why don’t their children learn English?” (The answer to the first question is that adults find it very hard to learn new languages. Given the difficulties of making a living, if they can get by in Yiddish or Spanish or whatever, there’s little incentive to learn English. I never had a conversation with my Bubbie and Papa because they never learned English, despite the fact that they came to the US in the early part of the 20th Century. And as for the children not learning English, that’s simply not true. Gustavo and his many cousins are proof of that.)
It’s not just crazy conservative Republicans in Orange County who have this opinion. The above-mentioned person is actually very liberal in her political beliefs. And Gustavo once faced an angry crowd of Democrats who articulated those biased and unsupported assertions. Anglo-Americans are scared of these brown people (who actually come in a wide range of skin tones), some of whom speak a language they don’t understand.
But as Gustavo notes, Orange County has a history for extreme conservatism. In fact the very first time I voted was in a primary election. The poll worker thought there was some mistake since I was registered as a Democrat.
In the chapter entitled, “Where All the Good Idiot Republicans Go to Die,” Gustavo reports on the stupidities of Congressman William Dannemeyer, State Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle, State Senator John Seymour, State Senator John Briggs, Congressman James Utt, Congressman John Schmitz, State Assemblyman Mickey Conroy, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and Congressman Bob Dornan. I want to add another whopper to the ones listed. (Read the book – pp. 83-85. It would be really, really funny if it weren’t so scary.)
As Gustavo notes, Orange County has been and continues to be a very Christian place. In those early days of the 1960s, Jews were few and far between in Orange County. In our first year in Orange County, my mother went to the market (Lucky's?) to do her Passover shopping -- pick up the matzah, etc. She asked the clerk where the Passover foods were. "What's a Passover?" he replied. (That wasn’t evil, just ignorant.)
Here’s another story, as told to me by my mother, a witness. In the 1960s, a representative of James Utt attended a pre-election, “learn about the candidates” meeting at our synagogue, Temple Beth Emet of Anaheim. At that meeting the representative declared, speaking for Utt, presumably, that “White Anglo Saxon Christians were more equal than other people.” (That was evil.) The assembled other people were not impressed.
In my senior year of high school (1976-77), one of my classmates, a girl I had known since elementary school, asked me why the Jews killed Christ.
My cousin worked at Knott’s Berry Farm, but had to hide the fact that he was Jewish because Old Man Knott didn’t hire Jews.
Anti-semitism coincided hand-in-hand with anti-Mexican and anti-Black and anti-anyone-not-white sentiment. For many years neither Knott’s Berry Farm nor Disneyland hired kids for their “casts” who didn’t fit their wholesome (read: Anglo Christian) image.
Gustavo documents a lot of the hateful racism he and other Mexicans have been and are being subjected to in Orange County. He touches a bit on the racism experienced by African-Americans and describes the legal fight of Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln Mulkey, African-Americans who wanted to rent an apartment in Orange County and were denied because of their race. (The California Supreme Court ultimately upheld their right to housing.)
That reminded me of an incident that happened in the 1960s or early 1970s. The doorbell rang. My father answered the door and spoke for a moment or two with the person who rang. Then he slammed the door. His face was beet-red in anger. My mother told me later (he was too upset to talk) that the doorbell ringer was bringing around a petition to prevent a Black family from buying the house down the street. My parents had absolutely no problem with African Americans in the neighborhood. They did have a problem with racists. Eventually the largest house in the neighborhood, which we all dubbed the Sunny Hills Hilton, was bought by an African American family. I don’t know if they had any problems with neighbors. They certainly did not have any from us.
Another odd Orange County trait is wanting to be like Mexico but not really wanting Mexicans. Many city names and street names are Spanish (La Palma, Hermosa St.), but as my high school Spanish teacher often complained (and as Gustavo notes), too often the names are just wrong: Mission Viejo ought to be Misión Veija. Buena Park should be Buen Parque or Parque Bueno. Your adjectivos y nombres need to agree.
Also, the respect for things Mexican and Mexicans in Mexico was taught in the schools. We all were introduced to Mexican culture and Spanish language in fourth and fifth grade. (In sixth grade, we were allowed to choose a foreign language. I continued with Spanish.) I remember El Señor Pill who came to the school on Tuesdays (Hoy es martes. Mañana es miécoles. Ayer fue lunes.) From him we learned about prickly pear cactus, chocolate, los estados de México (my report was on Sonora), bailes (the boys hated that), and las posadas. The idea was not to teach us about our neighbors down the road, but rather about those people across the border. I actually found it all quite interesting, but it didn’t help me at all to understand those girls who had to squish on to my seat on the bus and ate queque with their families.
The only down side of this book is that Gustavo comes across as something of a chiquillo mocoso metido a grande – a runny nosed kid pretending to be big. (I learned that in a dialog we had to memorize en la clase de español. There was some value to those diálogos after all.) When he says that other reporters in the OC Weekly newsroom complained about his excellent productivity, I wonder whether they really complained about an immaturity. And we learn in the book about the sad state of his love life, something I would have been happy to know less about.
But the book is a good read, especially for those of us from Orange County. I recommend it highly.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Let's get the government out of the marriage business . . .
1. What does the government get out having people be married?
A husband and wife, living together and caring for each other and possibly for their children is a social unit that is likely marked by a degree of stability: people living together (even if not in the same place) can rely on each other to weather the minor irritations of daily life and can lean on each other for support when crises of more tragic magnitude come along. Affection makes this association a pleasant one: people want to help those they love. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services,
A focus on the most rigorous recent evidence reveals that marriage has positive effects on certain health-related outcomes. These studies find, for example, that marriage improves certain mental health outcomes, reduces the use of some high-cost health services (such as nursing home care), and increases the likelihood of having health insurance coverage. In addition, an emerging literature suggests that growing up with married parents is associated with better health as an adult. Marriage has mixed effects on health behaviors — leading to healthier behaviors in some cases (reduced heavy drinking) and less healthy behaviors in others (weight gain). For other key health outcomes — in particular, measures of specific physical health conditions-the effects of marriage remain largely unaddressed by rigorous research (Source).
Even discounting some of these claims (this report was, after all, written during the Bush II Administration), it seems likely that marriage provides some health and social benefits that are likely to save the government money.
2. What incentives does the government provide to encourage being married (and discourage not marrying or divorcing)?
The government provides incentives directly as a result of marriage (joint tax filing; social security for spouses, etc.), plus it provides legal protections for spouses in other settings (allowing family leave to care for an ill spouse and securing the right to visit a spouse in the hospital, for example). A list of marriage benefits provided by the government and laws benefiting married people can be found athere.
3. How does the focus on marriage result in the government missing some significant opportunities to benefit from the commitment of adults to each other?
By creating incentives for marriage rather than for the commitment of adults to each other, the government mistakes a private religious sacrament for a public contract that has a positive social value. In the United States, the state should not pretend to any religious aim, but only to what provides a secular benefit to the state. The aims of the state should be limited to reducing public costs by having adults and children in living conditions that are conducive to their wellbeing. A formal relationship of contractually binding commitment among adults to care for each other fulfills the state’s aim. Marriage, a fundamentally religious arrangement, can be that kind of formal relationship, but it need not be the only kind.
Two sisters – never married, divorced, or widowed – who choose to make a formal commitment to care for each other and live together provide a benefit to the community and to the government. As they grow old together, the likelihood that they would need significant government services is lower than for similarly situated people without such a relationship. They should be allowed to file taxes jointly and have other benefits if they take on a formal commitment above and beyond what is normally expected of sisters.
These two sisters, a heterosexual couple, and a gay couple provide the same kind of benefit to the state and should be rewarded with the same kind of incentives to form formal commitments and to maintain them. The bar for entry into any kind of a government-recognized and rewarded formal commitment should be high, as should the bar for exit (dissolution of the commitment).
From what I have read, I believe that there is sufficient evidence out there for the benefits of paired committed relationships to make this claim about how such relationships are good for the state and society. (Anyone out there have citations?) A provocative question, one that requires empirical evidence to evaluate, would be that committed relationships of more that two people (a polygamous marriage would be an example) could provide the same kind of positive benefits to state and society as a relationship between two people. On the one hand, my bias is to see polygamous relationships as inherently bad for women: one woman is always going to be the less favorite and she will be the one who is in the weaker position vis-à-vis the others. On the other hand, I don’t recall seeing any credible studies of the social dynamics of polygamous relationships. But whether formally committed relationships among more than two adults count as something the government ought to reward with incentives for entering into that contract and disincentives for exiting should not rest on how well or poorly the relationship corresponds to the majority’s belief about the sanctity of marriage as being “between one man and one woman.” Instead we ought to take an evidence-based approach: Do such relationships create a net benefit for state and society?
4. What should our state governments in the United States do about marriage?
In a word: nothing. Leave marriage to the church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or whatever self-organizing group wants to create what they call a marriage.
The government should be in the business of encouraging adults to commit formally to care for each other and any children that come of their relationship. These commitments should be real contractually binding – the committers must promise to support each other financially and care for each other’s physical and emotional wellbeing. If this is to be a relationship in which children do or may play a role, the committers must promise to jointly raise and care for those children. It would be advisable to require witnesses who know the committers to come forth and swear that they believe that the committers are mature enough to make this commitment and that the committers are making the commitment in full cognizance of their responsibilities to each other and to the community. Only after a serious, state approved contract would committers be granted the privileges the state now reserves for the married. And like today’s marriage, the state would require significant efforts to be undertaken to dissolve the commitment.
Such a policy change would place marriage back in the hands of clergy. Whether a clergyman performs gay marriages is going to depend on his or her faith. That’s fine. Anyone can shop around for an appropriate officiant. Some formal committers will have only the state commitment (two sisters being an obvious example); others will have both a formal commitment and a marriage. It’s even possible that some will want a marriage without a formal commitment. Perhaps the difficulty of dissolving a formal commitment would be enough to dissuade these hypothetical people. That would be fine by me: the state should only give those benefits to people who are truly committed to caring for each other for the long haul.
5. Concluding comment
Our current policy in the majority of states of the Union is that the government rewards people for having a religiously approved sexual relationship with a person of the opposite sex. Why? The government should instead reward people for being in committed relations that provide benefits to state and society. It’s the commitment to care for one another that matters to the government. Such commitments should be rewarded with government provided and protected benefits; such commitments should be hard to enter and hard to dissolve. Getting the government out of the marriage business would be good for committed people and good for society.
1. What does the government get out having people be married?
A husband and wife, living together and caring for each other and possibly for their children is a social unit that is likely marked by a degree of stability: people living together (even if not in the same place) can rely on each other to weather the minor irritations of daily life and can lean on each other for support when crises of more tragic magnitude come along. Affection makes this association a pleasant one: people want to help those they love. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services,
A focus on the most rigorous recent evidence reveals that marriage has positive effects on certain health-related outcomes. These studies find, for example, that marriage improves certain mental health outcomes, reduces the use of some high-cost health services (such as nursing home care), and increases the likelihood of having health insurance coverage. In addition, an emerging literature suggests that growing up with married parents is associated with better health as an adult. Marriage has mixed effects on health behaviors — leading to healthier behaviors in some cases (reduced heavy drinking) and less healthy behaviors in others (weight gain). For other key health outcomes — in particular, measures of specific physical health conditions-the effects of marriage remain largely unaddressed by rigorous research (Source).
Even discounting some of these claims (this report was, after all, written during the Bush II Administration), it seems likely that marriage provides some health and social benefits that are likely to save the government money.
2. What incentives does the government provide to encourage being married (and discourage not marrying or divorcing)?
The government provides incentives directly as a result of marriage (joint tax filing; social security for spouses, etc.), plus it provides legal protections for spouses in other settings (allowing family leave to care for an ill spouse and securing the right to visit a spouse in the hospital, for example). A list of marriage benefits provided by the government and laws benefiting married people can be found at
3. How does the focus on marriage result in the government missing some significant opportunities to benefit from the commitment of adults to each other?
By creating incentives for marriage rather than for the commitment of adults to each other, the government mistakes a private religious sacrament for a public contract that has a positive social value. In the United States, the state should not pretend to any religious aim, but only to what provides a secular benefit to the state. The aims of the state should be limited to reducing public costs by having adults and children in living conditions that are conducive to their wellbeing. A formal relationship of contractually binding commitment among adults to care for each other fulfills the state’s aim. Marriage, a fundamentally religious arrangement, can be that kind of formal relationship, but it need not be the only kind.
Two sisters – never married, divorced, or widowed – who choose to make a formal commitment to care for each other and live together provide a benefit to the community and to the government. As they grow old together, the likelihood that they would need significant government services is lower than for similarly situated people without such a relationship. They should be allowed to file taxes jointly and have other benefits if they take on a formal commitment above and beyond what is normally expected of sisters.
These two sisters, a heterosexual couple, and a gay couple provide the same kind of benefit to the state and should be rewarded with the same kind of incentives to form formal commitments and to maintain them. The bar for entry into any kind of a government-recognized and rewarded formal commitment should be high, as should the bar for exit (dissolution of the commitment).
From what I have read, I believe that there is sufficient evidence out there for the benefits of paired committed relationships to make this claim about how such relationships are good for the state and society. (Anyone out there have citations?) A provocative question, one that requires empirical evidence to evaluate, would be that committed relationships of more that two people (a polygamous marriage would be an example) could provide the same kind of positive benefits to state and society as a relationship between two people. On the one hand, my bias is to see polygamous relationships as inherently bad for women: one woman is always going to be the less favorite and she will be the one who is in the weaker position vis-à-vis the others. On the other hand, I don’t recall seeing any credible studies of the social dynamics of polygamous relationships. But whether formally committed relationships among more than two adults count as something the government ought to reward with incentives for entering into that contract and disincentives for exiting should not rest on how well or poorly the relationship corresponds to the majority’s belief about the sanctity of marriage as being “between one man and one woman.” Instead we ought to take an evidence-based approach: Do such relationships create a net benefit for state and society?
4. What should our state governments in the United States do about marriage?
In a word: nothing. Leave marriage to the church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or whatever self-organizing group wants to create what they call a marriage.
The government should be in the business of encouraging adults to commit formally to care for each other and any children that come of their relationship. These commitments should be real contractually binding – the committers must promise to support each other financially and care for each other’s physical and emotional wellbeing. If this is to be a relationship in which children do or may play a role, the committers must promise to jointly raise and care for those children. It would be advisable to require witnesses who know the committers to come forth and swear that they believe that the committers are mature enough to make this commitment and that the committers are making the commitment in full cognizance of their responsibilities to each other and to the community. Only after a serious, state approved contract would committers be granted the privileges the state now reserves for the married. And like today’s marriage, the state would require significant efforts to be undertaken to dissolve the commitment.
Such a policy change would place marriage back in the hands of clergy. Whether a clergyman performs gay marriages is going to depend on his or her faith. That’s fine. Anyone can shop around for an appropriate officiant. Some formal committers will have only the state commitment (two sisters being an obvious example); others will have both a formal commitment and a marriage. It’s even possible that some will want a marriage without a formal commitment. Perhaps the difficulty of dissolving a formal commitment would be enough to dissuade these hypothetical people. That would be fine by me: the state should only give those benefits to people who are truly committed to caring for each other for the long haul.
5. Concluding comment
Our current policy in the majority of states of the Union is that the government rewards people for having a religiously approved sexual relationship with a person of the opposite sex. Why? The government should instead reward people for being in committed relations that provide benefits to state and society. It’s the commitment to care for one another that matters to the government. Such commitments should be rewarded with government provided and protected benefits; such commitments should be hard to enter and hard to dissolve. Getting the government out of the marriage business would be good for committed people and good for society.
Friday, March 13, 2009
March 13 (Reuters) - Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg all sought ways on Friday to fend off a global crackdown on tax evasion by making concessions on bank secrecy. . .
The three countries agreed to fully adhere to the OECD's Model Tax Convention's Article 26. . .
The changes go some way towards more cooperation with foreign tax authorities, even though they still fall short of the G20's and EU's key demand -- automatically sharing foreigners' account information.
I was just talking about the issue of banking secrecy in my Transborder Flows course on Wednesday. The subject was money laundering, and the issue of tax evasion overlaps. With both money laundering and tax evasion, the perpetrators want to park their gains in someplace safe and private.
I’m assuming that threatened “global crackdown on tax evasion” would be the kind of blacklist that was successful in getting non-compliant countries and territories to become compliant with the anti-money laundering/counter-terrorist financing provisions of the Financial Action Task Force’s Recommendations.
None of the countries that had been placed on the list of Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) remain on that list. No new countries or territories have been added to the list since 2001. Does that mean that we’ve made great strides in international cooperation to fight money laundering and terrorist financing? I don’t think so.
J.C. Sharman (2008) provides an interesting analysis of the way FATF used discursive power to compel compliance: direct coercion (If you don’t comply, we’ll place you on the NCCT list and then you’ll be subject to financial shunning), mimicry (We’ll help you develop institutional practices and expertise to comply just like we do), and competition (You better be even better at complying than that other country because companies will make investment decisions based on who complies best). Sharman finds that “the costs [of complying with FATF rules] substantially outweighed the benefits for each country” (639). Furthermore, “there has been little evidence of [AML] policy effectiveness. This is true whether effectiveness is taken in absolute terms, as success in disrupting criminal finance and the underlying illicit activities, or in terms of cost-effectiveness, that is whether the regulation produces benefits for society greater than the costs of the regulation itself. This latter approach is advanced by the OECD as constituting best international practice in assessing regulation” (641).
So, we have a situation in which compliance is now widespread but effective mechanisms of action are pretty much wholly absent. Just because you cross the t’s and dot the i’s on the legislation doesn’t mean that you’ll have an effective means of combating money laundering and terrorist financing. Instead, and ironically, having the system in place absolves you from the responsibility of it not working: But we’re doing everything you told us to do!
A big part of the problem, I think, is that the prescribed mechanisms for fighting money laundering and terrorist financing don’t work all that well. Sure, they catch incompetent criminals (like Elliott Spitzer) who are too dumb to outwit the fairly predictable computer algorithms that pop up suspicious account activity. But it would not be too hard to get around those rules. And it would be fairly easy for bad guys to coerce or bribe bank tellers, car dealers, and others to not file reports that could trigger police inquiry.
Another problem is that the implementing the recommendations requires a substantial commitment of funds. Though the rules might be on the books, and minimal implementation might have been undertaken, making these flawed rules work probably requires a more sustained allocation of cash than many countries can or are willing to expend.
And finally, the rules may not fit the cultural context in which they are imposed. The mimicry of rules that fit the US and the UK can create a cultural disconnect that undercuts the legitimacy of those rules.
Are there lessons to be learned from the AML/CTF story for the extension of the regime governing secret bank accounts and international collaboration on the prosecution of tax evaders? Perhaps. One huge difference is that with Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Austria as the targets of the OECD efforts, the disparity of power isn’t that great – not at all like what you saw when FATF ganged up on Sao Tome and Principe.
But still, here are the potential problems:
- The tax evasion detection rules simply might not work all that well. There are so many available ways to hide money that requiring banks to give account information might be insufficient for really finding the bad guys.
- Although these three countries certainly have the funds to conduct investigations of suspected tax evaders, the banks themselves might use their resources to litigate and invoke administrative procedures to drag their heels to avoid disclosure.
- This second point might just work because the sympathies of the citizens of these countries may be on the side of the secrecy-seekers. Since these countries, especially Switzerland and Luxembourg, have traditions of bank secrecy, people might simply not believe the new rules are needed, or they might believe that the rules undercut an important national tradition. They may be less willing to be forthcoming about disclosing names and complying with rules that they don’t think are legitimate.
But the extension of a regime on taxation is interesting. The fact that it happens at this time of financial crisis is not surprising. While I don’t like the erosion of privacy – and eliminating this kind of privacy could be said to contribute to that erosion – I don’t really have any sympathy for those people who want to hide their taxable income in offshore, secret accounts. I pay my fair share of taxes. They should too – or be prosecuted. So, good luck to the OECD! I hope that these changes in Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Austria’s policies are not just a sham.
--------------
Sources:
Q+A-Tax havens' moves to avoid blacklist (2009). Reuter’s, March 13, on-line at http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USLD62339020090313
Sharman, JC. 2008. Power and discourse in policy diffusion: Anti-money laundering
in developing states. International Studies Quarterly 52 (3): 635-56
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Facebook's about face
http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/privacy/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=214500795&cid=iwhome_art_Priva_mostpop
Scene 1. Facebook quietly changes its privacy policy to own all our information in perpetuity. Big Shock. (Not.)
Scene 2. Viral protest spreads.
Scene 3. Facebook recants and opens a communal conversation to allow stakeholders to voice their concerns.
So, what's wrong with this play?
1. FB's revised privacy and terms of service statement seemed to state that the company owned any content you posted. I don't think that that was FB's intention, but the clunky writing made that difficult to understand. Subsequent clarifications can be found at http://consumerist.com/5150175/facebooks-new-terms-of-service-we-can-do-anything-we-want-with-your-content-forever.
2. Protesters (not without reason) took the plain-text meaning and panicked that FB was claiming ownership of all their content, in perpetuity. On the other hand, the panicked response certainly got FB's attention!
3. What's ignored here is that "ownership" of information is a squishy concept. To own has three meanings: to have (possess), to be able to use, and to be able to alienate. Concepts of ownership work best with tangible objects. I have a book. I can read my book. I can sell my book or give it away. Some things I can use, but someone else has: I am allowed (by easements) to walk on a certain path, but I don't own that property. Some things I can have and use but I am not allowed to alienate: No ethical physician would remove my heart from my healthy body (killing me in the process) to give it to someone else. I can give away one kidney. I can't give away two.
Owning information is even more complex, however. I cannot both have my heart and give it away. I can, however, have information and give it away. I'm doing that right now with this blog. Legally, I still maintain copyright to the content, but if you learn anything here, it's yours to keep. (And, by the way, following Creative Commons procedures, I give anyone permission to copy the actual words of this blog as long as credit is given to me and as long as it is used only for noncommercial purposes.)
Even more importantly, if you learn something here, there is no way that I can force you to unlearn it.
So, if I own information:
To put this in jargon terms, information is not rivalrous. (You don't use up information when you use it.) If you share it, it is not excludable. (You can't really stop others who have access to your information from sharing that information. Don't believe me? Try telling someone a secret.)
Furthermore, we reasonably have expectations that communication taking place via some kinds of media is protected. If you send a letter in the mail or make a telephone call, the usual expectation is that neither the mail carrier nor the operator will intercept your message. (Patriot Act notwithstanding.) But FB is NOT a private medium of communication.
FB is cross between a billboard and a nosy neighbor. When you post something to FB, you broadcast -- to how many people depends on your privacy settings. But then, they can easily rebroadcast it (without your careful privacy settings) to anyone they want. Or to everyone. And FB keeps that information for its own commercial purposes. When you sign up, you give FB permission to do so -- it's how they stay in business.
No, FB should not use its customers' content without their consent for further distribution and money-making. Any information posted by customers who subsequently delete their accounts should not be circulated or used by FB after the deletion. But it's impossible to get all those FB friends and friends of friends to give up the information received from the now-deleted account.
In that way, content we share on FB is no different from information we share and then later regret having shared. Retrieving one's secrets and embarrassments is as impossible as catching the dandelion seeds carried in the breeze.
PS: More on this topic can be found in my book, Knowledge Power: Intellectual Property, Information, and Privacy, which is available from Lynne Rienner Publishers, at http://www.rienner.com
Scene 1. Facebook quietly changes its privacy policy to own all our information in perpetuity. Big Shock. (Not.)
Scene 2. Viral protest spreads.
Scene 3. Facebook recants and opens a communal conversation to allow stakeholders to voice their concerns.
So, what's wrong with this play?
1. FB's revised privacy and terms of service statement seemed to state that the company owned any content you posted. I don't think that that was FB's intention, but the clunky writing made that difficult to understand. Subsequent clarifications can be found at http://consumerist.com/5150175/facebooks-new-terms-of-service-we-can-do-anything-we-want-with-your-content-forever.
2. Protesters (not without reason) took the plain-text meaning and panicked that FB was claiming ownership of all their content, in perpetuity. On the other hand, the panicked response certainly got FB's attention!
3. What's ignored here is that "ownership" of information is a squishy concept. To own has three meanings: to have (possess), to be able to use, and to be able to alienate. Concepts of ownership work best with tangible objects. I have a book. I can read my book. I can sell my book or give it away. Some things I can use, but someone else has: I am allowed (by easements) to walk on a certain path, but I don't own that property. Some things I can have and use but I am not allowed to alienate: No ethical physician would remove my heart from my healthy body (killing me in the process) to give it to someone else. I can give away one kidney. I can't give away two.
Owning information is even more complex, however. I cannot both have my heart and give it away. I can, however, have information and give it away. I'm doing that right now with this blog. Legally, I still maintain copyright to the content, but if you learn anything here, it's yours to keep. (And, by the way, following Creative Commons procedures, I give anyone permission to copy the actual words of this blog as long as credit is given to me and as long as it is used only for noncommercial purposes.)
Even more importantly, if you learn something here, there is no way that I can force you to unlearn it.
So, if I own information:
* I have it, but once I share it I can no longer control who else has it.
* I can use it, but if I have shared it with you, you can use it too. (Depending on what it is, laws like copyright might prevent you from copying it.)
* I can give it away or sell it, but even if I give it away or sell it, I still have it and can use it.
To put this in jargon terms, information is not rivalrous. (You don't use up information when you use it.) If you share it, it is not excludable. (You can't really stop others who have access to your information from sharing that information. Don't believe me? Try telling someone a secret.)
Furthermore, we reasonably have expectations that communication taking place via some kinds of media is protected. If you send a letter in the mail or make a telephone call, the usual expectation is that neither the mail carrier nor the operator will intercept your message. (Patriot Act notwithstanding.) But FB is NOT a private medium of communication.
FB is cross between a billboard and a nosy neighbor. When you post something to FB, you broadcast -- to how many people depends on your privacy settings. But then, they can easily rebroadcast it (without your careful privacy settings) to anyone they want. Or to everyone. And FB keeps that information for its own commercial purposes. When you sign up, you give FB permission to do so -- it's how they stay in business.
No, FB should not use its customers' content without their consent for further distribution and money-making. Any information posted by customers who subsequently delete their accounts should not be circulated or used by FB after the deletion. But it's impossible to get all those FB friends and friends of friends to give up the information received from the now-deleted account.
In that way, content we share on FB is no different from information we share and then later regret having shared. Retrieving one's secrets and embarrassments is as impossible as catching the dandelion seeds carried in the breeze.
PS: More on this topic can be found in my book, Knowledge Power: Intellectual Property, Information, and Privacy, which is available from Lynne Rienner Publishers, at http://www.rienner.com
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
"If we are not practicing good science, we probably aren’t practicing good democracy. And vice versa"
(Dennis Overbye, New York Times January 27, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/science/27essa.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink).
Discuss.
Ok.
If not A, then probably not B. (An inverse of some assumed statement)
If not B, then probably not A. (A contrapositive of some assumed statement)
Overbye gives the example of China's persecution of a free-thinking scientist as evidence of "if not good science then probably not good democracy." Yes, whenever the state (or the Church) intrudes to place limits of free scientific inquiry, we probably don't have a good democracy. And whenever democracy is poor and the state erodes all those civil liberties we hold dear, it's likely that free investigation in science is limited, as well.
But maybe it also is worthwhile to look at the assumed statement and its converse (leaving out the probabilistic element):
If A then B: If good science then good democracy.
If B then A: If good democracy then good science.
Do these hold true?
Good science is about a good process of scientific inquiry, and not necessarily about getting the right answer. Overbye also seems to be claiming that the habits of mind (to borrow a phrase from my son's teachers) of scientific inquiry -- skepticism, empiricism, etc. -- lead to the same kind of self-critical analytical stance that is necessary for good democratic governance.
In my view, this may be necessary, but it's not sufficient. The key element needed for good democratic governance not included here is empathy. For a democracy to function well, citizens must empathize with others. The strong must be able to put themselves in the metaphorical shoes of the weak, and vice versa. Without empathy, self-interested individuals will end up creating what de Tocqueville referred to as the "tyranny of the majority." And science without empathy can lead to Dr. Mengele.
And then the converse: Do we see good science in good democracies? Sweden and Denmark are good democracies, and they probably have some good science, but they are not known for their leading edge science. This may be a contributory, but not necessary or sufficient condition. Having a strong democracy might help science, but it's not enough.
But I like good democracy, and I like good science. Whether or not one leads to the other, I want both.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
It's time to say something about Gaza
The situation in Israel and Palestine is just so sad that I don't really want to blog about it, but there is so much over-simplification going on that I really think it's time to talk about the complexities. So here goes.
1. Countries that are attacked have a right to defend themselves by attacking back. Hamas lobs rockets into Israel. Israel has a right to defend itself by attacking back.
2. Attacking back should be done in a commensurate way -- not with, for example, force that leads to total annihilation. Whether Israel is attacking back with measured force as opposed to excessive force is unclear.
3. Fighting a just war was a much easier concept when armies lined up opposite each other on battlefields, wore uniforms, and generally separated the civilians from the combatants.
4. Dropping leaflets to warn civilians to get out of harm's way could be a just action, but if the civilians have no where to go, then the humanitarian-inspired effort gets turned on its head and becomes malign.
5. Fighting the terrorist organization that has taken control of Gaza is really hard, but doing so is necessary (but certainly not sufficient) for Israeli national security, at least for the short term.
6. Unfortunately, though, destroying supply tunnels that bring arms into Gaza and weakening the Hamas leadership is likely to have only temporary positive effects for Israel. In the short run, fewer missiles will hit Sderot and Ashkelon. In the long run, the effect my be negative as the military action wins more hearts and minds for Hamas -- not only among the Palestinians, but also in the world at large.
7. Using the civilian population as human shields by intentionally placing military posts, rocket launchers, and other materiel in neighborhoods and in places where there are likely to be a lot of civilians ought to be considered a war crime.
8. "Winning" a war does not necessarily mean that peace has come.
Someone really ought to write "Just War Theory for Guerilla Warfare and Terrorism." Not me, though.
1. Countries that are attacked have a right to defend themselves by attacking back. Hamas lobs rockets into Israel. Israel has a right to defend itself by attacking back.
2. Attacking back should be done in a commensurate way -- not with, for example, force that leads to total annihilation. Whether Israel is attacking back with measured force as opposed to excessive force is unclear.
3. Fighting a just war was a much easier concept when armies lined up opposite each other on battlefields, wore uniforms, and generally separated the civilians from the combatants.
4. Dropping leaflets to warn civilians to get out of harm's way could be a just action, but if the civilians have no where to go, then the humanitarian-inspired effort gets turned on its head and becomes malign.
5. Fighting the terrorist organization that has taken control of Gaza is really hard, but doing so is necessary (but certainly not sufficient) for Israeli national security, at least for the short term.
6. Unfortunately, though, destroying supply tunnels that bring arms into Gaza and weakening the Hamas leadership is likely to have only temporary positive effects for Israel. In the short run, fewer missiles will hit Sderot and Ashkelon. In the long run, the effect my be negative as the military action wins more hearts and minds for Hamas -- not only among the Palestinians, but also in the world at large.
7. Using the civilian population as human shields by intentionally placing military posts, rocket launchers, and other materiel in neighborhoods and in places where there are likely to be a lot of civilians ought to be considered a war crime.
8. "Winning" a war does not necessarily mean that peace has come.
Someone really ought to write "Just War Theory for Guerilla Warfare and Terrorism." Not me, though.
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