The culture of dependency

It's always struck me as hypocritical that many of the people who normally denounce social programs as creating a 'culture of dependency' among the working poor of this country have no problem creating exactly that same culture in Iraq. If a five year time limit for reliance on US government assistance is enough for American citizens, then why should Iraqis get a better deal?

The Italian disease

All soccer in Italy has been suspended until further notice because the hooliganism that has plagued the game in the country for the last few years resulted in the death of a policeman. In many ways, it's surprising there haven't been more deaths.

There was crowd trouble outside a match between Catania and Palermo, the two biggest clubs in Sicily. There was violence outside the stadium when visiting Palermo supporters could not gain admission until halftime. Police used tear gas to break up the protesters. The tear gas drifted into the stadium and was so heavy that the match had to be suspended for half an hour until it could clear up.

After the match, fans continued to fight running battles with police on the streets outside the stadium and around a hundred people were treated for injuries, while dozens with lesser injuries were taken to local hospitals.

Apparently, the 'fans' in question were heavily armed. A 38 year old policeman was attacked, hit in the face by a blunt object and died of his injuries.

These 'fans' are referred in Italy as ultras and often act like criminal gangs to whom the action on the field is almost irrelevant.

Italian soccer authorities continue to try to bury their head in the sand about this disease. The president of Italy's Professional Football League Clubs Antonio Matarrese was idiotic enough to say, "Deaths unfortunately form part of this huge movement which is football (soccer) and which the forces of order are not always able to control."

Soccer may be a passion but it should not be a fatal one. You should be able to attend a match and support your team (assuming you're a real supporter, not an ultra) without risking your life. Soccer should not be gang warfare.

Fortunately, Italy's government is taking the issue more seriously than soccer authorities. Italian prime minister Romano Prodi denounced Materrese's ostrich-like comments as 'unacceptable.'

Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said that stadia will not re-open to fans until existing safety regulations are finally adhered to. Only nine clubs in the entire country meet those critiera. He said that clubs who do not comply will play their games at empty grounds until they do.

He also said that those guilty of hooliganism will be dealt with more harshly by the courts and demanded that clubs end their close relationship with groups of ultras. This will be strongly resisted by the ultras who wield a power at many clubs far more substantial than their numbers but any serious attempt to clean up the Italian game requires such action.

In the 70s and 80s, hooliganism was a huge problem in English soccer. Racism and violence were epidemic in the stands. It was a dark time for the game in England. The problems culminated with the Heysel Stadium disaster in which 39 fans (Italians ironically) were killed as they were charged by Liverpool fans. English clubs were banned from European competitions for six years. Hooliganism was referred to as 'the English disease.'

The Heysel tragedy (along with the Hillsborough disaster, which was related to overcrowding, not hooliganism) caused a top-to-bottom re-examination of the entire structure and operations of soccer in England. But authorities made a concerted effort to make stadia safer and more pleasant. It cost a lot of money and some complain that the atmosphere inside grounds is much more sterile. But as a result, hooliganism and racism has been all but eradicated from English club soccer. Italian authorities will need to show the same firmness if they want comparable results.

I was saddened by the policeman's slaying. I am disgusted that authorities waited this long to tackle the crisis. I am sorry that the season is on hold. My club, A.S. Roma, was trying to catch Inter Milan for the championship. Both teams were playing great soccer and now the season is in limbo. But authorities had no choice. Humanity and civilization dictate that fans don't get killed at sporting events. Any supporter who doesn't accept this doesn't deserve to attend soccer matches.

Going to the dogs

When a famous person pays a visit a small town, it's not uncommon to see the local media go into a tizzy like giggly little schoolgirls swarming Justin Timberlake's limo. Americans may not have a royal family to gawk at so celebrities serve that purpose instead. But the Glens Falls Post-Star acts like even when a minor celebrity is arrested!

Former Phish frontman Trey Anastasio was recently arrested in Whitehall, NY, near the Vermont border, for driving erratically. He was passing through on his way to New York City. He has since been indicted on the charge felony criminal possession of a controlled substance and lesser charges of driving under the influence of drugs and driving with a suspended license, reported the paper.

I had no problem with Anastasio's original arrest being on the front page. But you'd think eventually it would be relegated to the local section at some point like every other drug arrest.

Other figures have been on the front page recently because of their personal problems, like a local town supervisor and our then-Congressman. But these were elected officials with a responsibility to the public, not an aging guitarist that doesn't even live in the paper's circulation area.

The paper's editorial decisions continue to mystify. The charges against the once-moderately famous singer shared a front page with an article on a dog show and a piece on a change in ownership at a local steakhouse.

You had to turn to page A3 to read an article about an important report on man-made global warming and another about how the top American commander in Iraq contradicted the president's assertions that a 21,500 man troop surge was needed to secure Baghdad.

There's nothing wrong with having local news on the front page of a local paper. But can we be spared the tabloidesque soap opera?

Climate change denialist mercenaries

Some conservatives argue that not only is climate change a fiction, but a conspiracy. Governments and the UN have allegedly co-opted nearly every single climate scientist in the world to betray their understanding of the facts and say that climate change is both real and made worse by human activity. No mention of scientists employed by universities, interestingly enough.

Scientists who attend UN conferences can not be objective, it is argued, because their funding depends on the existence of a perceived crisis. (Private-sector have no such conflict of interest, we're to believe). I suppose by this logic, one could argue that any intelligence coming out of the CIA, say about Iran's nuclear program, is inherently discredited because if there were no perceived national security threats, we wouldn't need a CIA.

But while there's no evidence that university or government scientists are distorting their own information, there is evidence that a think tank funded by ExxonMobil is paying scientists $10,000 each (plus travel expenses) to undermine a international climate change report due to come out today. And there have been long standing accusations that the Bush administration is interfering in scientific research for political reasons.

So to recap: despite government pressure, most scientists still find overwhelming evidence of man-aggravated climate change. The principal exceptions: those handsomely paid by Big Oil.

Clarification: Just because climate change skeptics are in a tiny minority doesn't mean they should be completely ignored. Galileo was once in a tiny minority after all. However, I'd be less dubious if the opposition to the human-aggravated global theory were a little more concrete. Much of the opposition I've read about is based on impressions and general history. I am aware that the Earth goes through natural heating and cooling cycles but I have a hard time believe the world's top climate scientists aren't aware of this and haven't taken this into account. Some insist categorically that the effect of climate is being exaggerrated but don't explain why. When fact/research-based arguments are countered only by impressions, the fact/research-based argument is usually going to be seen as more credible. If the fact/research-based research is systematically discredited by a fact-based dismantling, that's a different question. I don't have any problem with this theory being held up to scrutiny, so long as it's substantative scientific scrutiny, not gut feelings or politicoideological objections. Not all climate change skeptics are mercenaries but I'll have a hard time taking seriously any of them who are paid by ExxonMobil.

Volunteers of America

I am an officer and on the board of directors of two non-profit organizations and a volunteer in a third. Every non-profit board member I talk to complains about the same problem: lack of volunteer help. One of the articles of faith in the non-profit world is that volunteerism is on the wane. This is often linked in many people's minds to the demise of a feeling of community, particularly in the suburbs that house an increasing part of the country's population. The perception is fueled by books on the topic like Bowling Alone.

I've always wondered if this was really true. It's been my suspicion that people are still volunteering but there are a lot more non-profit organizations than there used to be. Take (non-school) organizations for kids. The main ones in most places used to be Little League baseball, Pop Warner football and character-building organizations like the Scouts. But as kids' lives have gotten massively overstructured, there are now soccer, basketball, swim team, karate, reading groups, writing groups, youth theatre... the list goes on and on. Many of these are year round activities. Each of these requires volunteers to run them. And that's just organizations for kids.

This piece in The Christian Science Monitor confirms my suspicions. It reports that in 2005, some 29 percent of Americans served as volunteers. This is the highest figure in 30 years.

While 'conventional wisdom' disparages baby boomers as selfish and teens as apathetic, the piece notes that these two groups, along with seniors, are driving the boom in volunteerism. Older teens now volunteer at nearly the same percentage as the population as a whole.

Some attribute this to the fact that the US hasn't had the welfare state of many Western European countries so people have to pitch in for their neighbors to pick up the slack. They contend that social democracy (usually mislabelled 'socialism') infantalizes people and renders them unmotivated to volunteer. Interestingly, social democratic Sweden's volunteerism rate (28 percent) is nearly the same as America's and social democratic Norway's rate (52 percent) is almost double.

But the United States appears to rank second on the list with a 29 percent volunteer rate so maybe Americans aren't quite as selfish as we appear to outsiders... or to ourselves.

The death of a storyteller

The Global Game blog commented on an event I somehow missed: the death of the Ryszard Kapuściński. Kapuściński was one of the world's great storytellers. He wasn't worried about neutrality (sometimes mislabelled objectivity). He wasn't a practitioner of transcription journalism (which is barely journalism at all). He simply followed a story wherever it led him.

Kapuściński's books all make for fantastic reading and are each illuminating in some way. I've read three: The Soccer War, The Shadow of the Sun and Another Day of Life. The first two are disparate collections of reportage while the third is accounts of life in Angola around the time of the country's independence in 1975. Other well-known books of his are Imperium about the demise of the Soviet Union, The Emperor about life in Halie Selaisse's Ethiopia and Shah of Shahs about Iran's last emperor.

Of them, The Shadow of the Sun is my favorite. Its reportages deal entirely with Africa. It offers a portrait of a continent far more nuanced than that portrayed in the mainstream western media. This is due to Kapuściński's style.

Most modern reporters who are primarily concerned with access. Interview a president, interview an opposition politician, through in a pinch of NGO analysis, stir and serve cold. Most western news organizations only cover Africa when there's a crisis. Their journalists fly in, talk to a few head honchos, portray a few of the most desperate people to illustrate the tragic situation (anit can't be uplifting or even nuanced; it's Africa after all) and then fly out as soon as the immediate crisis is over.

The good journalists don't limit themselves to presidents and cabinet ministers and rebel leaders. The best ones tell the story of how current events affect the lives not of the political elites but of the ordinary people. This is the journalism that is truly compelling. But this takes time. And even if they have the journalists with such skills, most news organizations today won't give them the time to produce such meaningful, nuanced work. Big corporate journalism was supposed to liberate reporters by giving them the resources to do stuff like this. Instead, it's made editors and publishers slaves to always increasing profits for stockholders. Tabloid journalism does this more quickly than worthwhile journalism.

Kapuściński was able to do practice substantive journalism and we are the better for it. With his passing, Radio Netherlands' Eric Beauchemin is probably the best practioner of this art: journalism as storytelling. Kapuściński will be missed.

Negotiating the trade seas

Commerce has always been the foundation of international affairs. Most transnational diplomacy is centered around trade. Most wars have to do with access to resources.

European colonialism in Asia and Africa was not about 'the white man's burden' of civilizing the barbarians. It was about improving commercial prospects and access to free or cheap (thanks to forced labor) raw materials for European merchants. Leopold didn't have the Congo raped for his health, you know.

The US government didn't invade Iraq to impose democracy or fight terrorism. It invaded to improve prospects for US companies in the region. Of course, it backfired thanks to the unanticipated (by the Bush administration, not by sensible people) chaos it caused. But still, the government has already spent over $362 billion on Iraq. You can bet your bottom dollar that most of that money ended up in the pockets not of GIs but of corporations. No bonus points for guessing which country's companies got the lion's share of the booty.

In fact, the very first war fought by the independent United States (and most subsequent wars for that matter) was commercial: against the Barbary pirates who were harassing American ships in the Mediterrannean.

The US had no diplomatic relations with China from the time it turned communist in 1949 until the 1970s. But in the last two decades, relations between China and the US have gotten much closer. China remains a repressive dictatorship, but is essentially no longer communist. Iran is also a repressive non-communist dictatorship.

How come US-Chinese relations are comfortable while US-Iranian relations are cold? One has trade at its heart and one does not. Only when trade is not important to a bilateral relationship do other factors like democracy, human rights and the like come into play, almost always as a bludgeon.

This is why the US government relentlessly attacks Iran and North Korea, with whom it has virtually no commercial relationship, but remains allied with comparably dubious regimes like Saudi Arabia and Equatorial Guinea, both of whom have key oil reserves. This is why George W. Bush and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez may trade barbs from now until eternity but they will never impose trade sanctions on the other; the Bush needs Venezuelan oil and Chavez needs American oil money.

This is not new and is not unique to the United States. All countries act this way and have done so since forever. In relations between countries, trade doesn't trump other values. It IS The Value. This is why the increasing influence of non-governmental organizations is so important, as it injects a little pesky morality into the debate.

But trade remains central to global affairs. The BBC World Service has an excellent pair of documentaries on international trade negotiations. Anyone under the delusion that free trade is the goal of such deliberations is in for a serious reailty check. An illuminating look at a world that's as secretive as it is important.

There was a time when I once supported free trade in theory. And I still do in theory, but I've also come to the conclusion that free trade doesn't exist in reality. So it's best to make sure that it's done in the most humane way possible for the most people.

"But wait Brian, there is NAFTA. There is the WTO. There is the EU. These entities are entirely devoted to free trade."

Really?

Free trade means the freedom of unhindered movement of goods and services between countries.

Labor is a commodity. Yet nearly every country closely regulates the labor (people) that can come across into its territory. Free movement of services? Ask Mexican migrant farm workers.

Have you taken a look at the NAFTA treaty? At the WTO's mechanisms? At the EU's regulations? Why does a simple concept like free trade need such immensely complex documents and procedures to define it? Free trade doesn't need rules. Free trade is the absence of rules.

The answer is that free trade really doesn't exist. Free trade is what governments try to extract from the other guy for their nation's corporations. Protectionism is what governments are expected to defend by their workers. Industries wanted to be protected at home so long as they don't lose market access abroad. It's when these two notions collide that conflicts occur.

It's time leave the realm of idelogical fantasyland with regard to the relationship between commerce and foreign policy and start being honest about how trade really functions. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can have a rational discussion on what trade policies best advance the interests of people.

Update: US watchdogs reveal that huge chunks of money destined for Iraq reconstruction have mysteriously vanished.

Imprisoning common sense

Months away from his retirement and his reputation in tatters as a result of his affiliation with the Iraq Aggression, the once widely respected British prime minister Tony Blair seems to have completely lost the plot.

While not nearly as bad as American prisons, jails in Britain are increasingly plagued by problems of overcrowding.

"Full to the bursting point," is how the prime minister described them.

Far from being a point of concern, Blair insisted that the British public should be gleeful about this state of affairs.

Yet Britons didn't seem too gleeful when a convicted child porn user was spared prison because of overcrowding.

This came after Britain's home secretary, who's responsible for the prison system, called on judges to give more lenient sentences to non-violent criminals so that precious prison space could be reserved for the most dangerous elements.

While convicted pedophiles were spared incarceration, the British prisons could find space for a peace campaigner who refused to pay a 50 pound (about US$98) fine and a climate change protester who also refused to pay a fine.

Apparently opponents of wars of aggression and of climate change are considered public threats but child porn users are not.

But rather than building more prisons or reviewing sentencing guidelines to see if they are rational, the Blair government is instead launching even more nanny state regulations.