Unplugging Rights of Birth

Two unabashedly giddy Palestinian children toy with a massive padlock that hangs from a bulky steel gate. The boy, about six years old, throws his younger sister a nonchalant gaze as he removes the lock. The two pass through the gate, which is placed between an eight-meter high section of concrete security barrier and a seemingly endless stretch of barbed wire fencing.

The upbeat youngsters emerge on the other side of the barrier to welcome a group of eight Jewish Americans and their guides to Mas'ha, the village from which the forlorn abode is now cut off. The IDF strategically rendered their grandfather's house isolated on a small slice of land between the separation barrier and the exterior fence of the Jewish settlement of Elqana. The children's grandfather, Hani Amer, has entrusted his grandchildren with the keys to the village.

This curious group of Western visitors cannot fathom the arrangement. Two unsuspecting youths hold the keys to a fence between civilizations.

"These kids are living in a literal cage, yet they're so good-natured. It's hard to believe that so much money and energy are wasted barricading one family between concrete and steel," said Aviva, one of the participants on Birthright Unplugged's February 2007 trip.

Alas, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every ostensible right of birth, there are those who seek to deny the validity of such a birthright.

In an age of soaring Jewish philanthropy directed towards programs that bring young Diaspora Jews to Israel, there is a contest brewing. A freshly minted iconoclastic organization aims to undo the near monopoly that Birthright Israel has achieved in the homeland exploration industry.

Founded in 2005, Birthright Unplugged has pulled the rug out from under the comfortable, Zionist, and impressionable young souls who venture to the Holy Land. Through educational trips to Palestinian villages hemmed in by the separation barrier, discussions with nonviolent Palestinian activists, and workshops with refugees on both sides of the Green Line, this group explores the humanitarian costs of Israel's existence.

"We aim to promote awareness of global power inequalities," says Dunya Alwan, one of Birthright Unplugged's two founders, who is a veteran Iraqi-American human rights activist of mixed Jewish and Muslim parentage.

In addition to exposing the quotidian reality of military occupation, the organization also strives to consume only Palestinian-made goods, as a part of a broader divestment effort.

The organization's six-day trips are geared towards Jewish-American young adults with leftist tendencies, who have already been exposed to the conventional, pro-Israeli narrative. "Birthright Unplugged is like a counter-weight to a plethora of Birthright groups that offer little to no information from the Arab perspective," said Mike, another BU participant.

Like Mike, many other Birthright Unplugged participants join up with the group after first doing the free 10-day Birthright trip. Birthright Unplugged currently costs $350, which covers meals, lodgings, transportation, and information sessions.

Birthright Unplugged is up against the mammoth Taglit-Birthright umbrella institution, which has sponsored over 120,000 trips to Israel for 18 to 26 year-olds from 51 countries since 1999.

Unplugged is also partially subsidized by private Jewish philanthropists, who sustain the group’s ongoing social justice work in the territories. "Jewish people often face obstacles of fear and lack of knowledge, which can deter them from pursuing this kind of experience on their own," declares the group's mission statement.

While intended to reinforce the core Jewish value of tzedukah, some suggest that Birthright Unplugged is anti-Zionist propaganda.

Hannah Mermelstein, the other co-founder of BU, said that Birthright Unplugged does not pretend to tell the whole story.

“We expose people to narratives that have mostly been hidden from them in Jewish communities and by western media,” said Hannah. “Hebrew School and Birthright Israel are unfortunately not the only ways to get an unreflective pro-Israel perspective, so we are a counterweight not only to those forces but to all the forces that work to silence Palestinian voices.”

Unsurprisingly, Birthright Unplugged has received a cease-and-desist letter from Birthright involving alleged copyright infringements on the "Birthright" name.

Another notable controversy raged between the two Birthrights in 2006, when a 26 year-old California resident was pulled from her Birthright trip after Birthright learned that she was planning to stay on for a Birthright Unplugged tour.

The so-called "birthlefters" are part of a burgeoning alternative tourism industry that took off right after the start of the 2nd Intifada in 2000, as internationals flocked to the territories to show solidarity and gather information about the treatment of Palestinians.

The February 2007 BU trip's participants seem to agree that even the more progressive Birthright trips exist in somewhat of a bubble, promulgating a tightly controlled narrative on Israeli history and culture. BU extends the Birthright narrative beyond 1967 into today's murky postmodern situation, which Birthright generally doesn't address in either the ideological or geographical dimensions. However, some of the BU participants noted that their particular Birthright trips had done a decent job of including divergent perspectives in educational sessions.

Birthright itself declined comment for this article.

Another major Birthright Unplugged point of contention is that Palestinian refugees are not afforded any birthright of ancestral homeland exploration.

“This hypocrisy is precisely the issue we are trying to address with our programs, both symbolically and practically,” says Hannah. “We want to “unplug” the concept of a Jewish birthright while “re-plugging” the concept of a Palestinian birthright to their land. We reject the notion of a “birthright,” as embodied in Jewish-only fully funded trips to Israel. Israel has ignored the internationally recognized right of return for refugees but has created a “Law of Return,” which extends citizenship benefits to any person of Jewish heritage, excluding millions of Palestinians born in the land that has become Israel.”

Meanwhile, “Birthlefters” are loath to hear accusations that they refuse to praise Israel or to condemn terrorism.

For its part, Birthright Unplugged states that it always makes clear to Palestinian hosts that its groups consist almost entirely of American Jews, and the hosts appear comfortable with this fact.

"I don't even know what to tell my parents about my experience. I wasn't even supposed to ride public buses in Israel," said Nova, a February 2007 participant who says that BU was an eye-opener.

The group is warmly welcomed to villages such as Haris, in the Salfit region of the northern West Bank, where dozens of Palestinian children greet them salutations of "Hello, shalom, how are you?"

While it is apparent that the majority of Palestinian hosts are delighted to bring these particular American Jews into their communities, perhaps it is difficult for some Palestinians to differentiate between the actions of individual Jews and the actions of the Israeli government.

The February 2007 trip's itinerary included a sojourn with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and a meeting with a top aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Birthright Unplugged's connections with local groups allow the participants to stay overnight in Palestinian homes and explore refugee camps such as Dheisheh, just outside Bethlehem.

On day 5 of the February trip, Hannah recounted passionately how many Israeli settlers have seized old IDF outposts, where electricity and water lines are already established. Traveling northward on Highway 60 towards the Za'atara checkpoint, the group discussed the phenomenon of economic settlements in the northern West Bank and how many Israelis have been attracted by the bedroom communities in and around Ariel. Cheap homes, easy access on Highway 5 to Tel Aviv, and looser business regulations have swelled the settler population in the Salfit region.

From the bottom of the hill, Ariel appears more kempt than the Palestinian towns surrounding it and is identifiable by the white rooftop water tanks, yellow streetlights, and characteristically reddish roofs. This settlement is part of the Israeli plan to control a vital high-altitude ridge twenty-two kilometers into the West Bank at approximately the same latitude where Israel is at its skinniest - a mere seventeen kilometers. This part of biblical Samaria is also perched atop one of the most plentiful aquifers in the region.

The group notices how the scramble for geopolitical domination is nearing completion. An extensive system of permitting, land confiscation, and checkpoints cloisters Arab populations in discrete villages, typically identifiable by flat-roofed cinder-block homes, white-lit streets, black rooftop water tanks, and neon-green lit minarets.

The participants react to the segregation with incredulity. Yet, the group is informed of how the Israeli occupation sometimes meant better services for the Palestinians, while now the Palestinian Authority barely manages to stay afloat. The group finds that in many cases, there is currently a complete lack of basic government services.

"You'll learn that with occupation; there aren't many rules involved," said Aviva, a participant from Winnipeg, who also did Birthright prior to doing Birthright Unplugged. She recounts the profound effect that the wall, checkpoints, and tear gas in Hebron have had on her impressions of the conflict. Aviva browses through the Arabic phrasebook included in her trip folder, amongst maps, articles, and brochures that highlight the activist group's program.

Birthright Unplugged always travels with Palestinian transport and believes that this is the safest way to conduct explorations in the West Bank. Driving by a Sonal gas station adjacent to the Palestinian village of Yatma, the group discusses how a suicide bomber blew himself up there in 2002, killing 3 soldiers. Consequently, Palestinians can no longer fill up their tanks there. The group next discusses how some roadblocks have been removed in an easing of civilian hardships.

Next on the itinerary is a jaunt in the village of Biddya to enjoy a delectable meal and conduct a cultural exchange of music and dance. The participants revel in the opportunity to hear traditional Arab melodies. During the festivities, one participant picked up his phone and said "Shabbat shalom," resulting in some awkwardness with the otherwise matronly and effusive hostess.

Saria, a Los Angeles native on the trip, said, "I honestly feel more comfortable on this side of the Green Line."

She says that this feeling was reinforced by the testimony of Issa Suf, a nonviolent activist shot by the IDF in 2001 during the 2nd Intifada. As his eldest son reaches into a sack affixed to the bottom of his wheelchair to pull out a toy car, Mr. Suf painstakingly rattles off the horrific details of the shooting.

"I don't think the suffering has served anyone," says Mr. Suf. "Justice and equality are for all human beings. We also need to end the semantic warfare that renders all who oppose Israeli policies 'anti-Semites' and 'terrorists.' It's impossible to found a Palestinian state with the shape of this wall…neither side can clap with merely one hand."

The group also has the opportunity to stay overnight at the International Women's Peace Service house in Haris. Anna Meltzer, one of the group's leaders, says that they are "perceived not as settlers but as internationals who are both observing and aiding Palestinians." She added, "We are also more palatable helpers as females since the soldiers perceive us as less threatening. We can also relate successfully to both Palestinian men and women."

One BU participant asked if IWPS would be open to settler-Palestinian peace mediation. Ms. Meltzer responded that such a role would be endearing but that IWPS would always be deferential to the Palestinian host community's desires.

"We have no relations with the settlers, and Israel continues to take more, more, and more," says Hani Amer, the Palestinian grandfather whose home is now trapped between the concrete wall and metal fence. He moved there in 1973, and the settlers arrived shortly thereafter, in 1978. Though he is cut off from both his village of Mas'ha and his olive grove, he will not leave. “I feel like I'm walking around in a foreign land," he says.

Ironically enough, he says the army is content with his possession of the key for the gate adjacent to the separation wall, which allows him to enter his village. "Regardless of whether my actual government is British, Jordanian, or Israeli, I'm connected to this land, which is purely Palestinian. I am Palestinian. I don't care what color my passport is. I will stay on my land regardless of whether it formally becomes Israeli."

It is likely that his land, though behind the Green Line, will indeed be annexed by Israel as part of a permanent peace deal, since it is located on the Israeli side of the fence.

Hani’s translator, Ra'ad, discusses how Palestinians must pay for both demolition fees and permits when their homes are destroyed by the IDF. Since Hani holds a permit on his land, this fate is unlikely to befall him. Yet, the IDF has already demolished a chicken shack, sunroom, and greenhouse that he built without permit.

During the BU group's final talk, amidst news of riots on the Temple Mount over alleged Israeli attempts to destroy Islamic holy sites, Simcha suggests the establishment of "3rd temple of peace in order to build a pluralistic framework for justice and end the al-Aqsa troubles."

Dunya concludes the talk with some advice about how to use the knowledge gained from Birthright Unplugged. She says, "The international community is a valuable means of support for the Palestinians." Dunya adds, "We must learn to take responsibility for harms done to people and for the harsh inequalities that exist. With the soldiers protecting settlers and allowing them to oppress Palestinians with impunity, there is a gross imbalance here."

Birthright Unplugged is charged with the challenge of human rights documentation, despite the temptations of disaster tourism and quasi-humanitarian voyeurism.

Reflections on Holy Land

This soil is cherished. The land upon which I am situated has inspired some of the most divisive conflict in human history. From the Knights of Templar and King Solomon to Canaanites and Hyksos, this turf has instigated bestial battle after senseless battle. What we refer to as Semites are likely a blend of Semitic, Persian, Greek, Roman, Turkic, and North African peoples. The illusory notion that pure blood lines tracing back to some frozen, classical era of national glory is far-fetched at best. However, the nationalistic spell is quite potent for all those who claim to be pure descendants of the land's true occupants. And, while the various peoples have varying levels of justification for their practical and/or ancestral-religious claims to the land, ultimately some utilitarian justice must be attained in order quell the irrational and fantastic sense of holy war that swells ethnic egos, fans sectarian strife, and results in a land that becames violent and thusly much less sacred.

Facts on the ground are a popularly imagined way of sizing up the current situation in the context of who lives where, who has to deal with which problems, and where sensible borders lie. While there is rampant unpopularity of the Israeli dream throughout the world, this national-mythological dream is no less genuine or beneficient than the american dream or the european dream, both of which are also dreams founded on western principles, on the backs of slaves/ssubaltern people, in the colonial process of usurpation and eventually permanent attempts at territorial reclamation on behalf of the conquered folks.

Walls that divide civilizations are convenient so that people understand where they are safest, most comfortable, most useful. Even so, ideas we have about permanence and the objective basis for territorial acquisition, settlement, and negotiation are far from eternal. People tend to remember the immediacy of suffering best. And, in the Israeli-Arab conflict, the crucial periods of intense national suffering occurred a mere three years apart. Full-on justification for the Israeli nation-state arose from the ashes of World War II as a combination of Western guilt and Jewish-Zionist redemption forged the possibility of an ethnic-religious homeland. A mere three years later, the Palestinians underwent what they refer to as the "catastrophe" - Nakba. Whereas Israelis refer to this triumphant occasion as "liberation" or "independence." The dualism inherent in this act of passing on "genocide credit" lives on.

The cycles of violence and dim hopes of permanent peace rage on. While a viable economic and geographic unit exists within Israeli borders, the outlying satelite communities of Palestine, which remain halfway under Israeli rule in a semi-Apartheid arrangement, languish and devolve into chaos. Heaps of rubble, omnipresent checkpoints, dug out trenches, ancient fridges contrast with fresh skyscrapers, booming hi-tech, serene beaches, and most of all, the ability to wield POWER. The ability to force submission, arbitrarily enforce law, and create a relationship where colonial oppression gradually rots the once glorious Zionist enterprise. The result is a post-Zionist reality in which naivete has been shattered. The growing threat of political dissolution on both sides leads to a swollen yet broken fantasy in which corruption and complacency prevent the pragmatic discussion of future potential. What can the present tell us about the complex landscape into which we venture?

Am I even a credible observer if I'm not committed to living in this mess? Are my ideals and/or objectivity not possible if I'm not actually from here and/or planning to remain here for the long term? I have a complex about becoming an ideological crusader or a naive intellectual dabbler who refuses to admit where vested interest lies. Is objective evaluation of the circumstances possible given my background? Perhaps most parties in this conflict are not interested in anything more than a subjective account of reality. Scholarly/journalistic accounts of what's truly transpiring might not be attractive for most people who, on a daily basis, must accept the bare facts on the ground. No simple answers are waiting under a mattress in Gaza. No reality is possible other than that which can actually be fostered, nourished, and developed. There is not yet a will, a collective ambition, or a unified mentality on either side that could result in what has formally and colloquially been referred to as "lasting peace."

No one could possibly know what this place will actually look like in 100 years. It would have been impossible three times over to predict one hundred years ago during the final years of Ottoman occupation what would befall this land just 100 years later. It's rather doubtful that the same blue Stars of David will be majestically flying over this land a century down the road. History has sped up exponentially, and fantasy is a hell of a drug.

Ratio - Their Deaths:Our Deaths

The inspiration for this blog entry is the disparity between death and death. By that, I mean the multiple by which we multiply the number of Western deaths to determine the number of enemy deaths that we demand to avenge the quantity of our deaths. Sometimes the ratio is approximately 4:1 when calculating the Israeli and Palestinian deaths during the height of the intifada. During much of the looming wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the ratio is perhaps 10:1. If one were to calculate the number of deaths on September 11th and subsequently the number that have been the direct result of subsequent American military agitation, the ratio would approach 30:1 A similar number might arise when assessing death tolls during American intervention in Southeast Asia one generation ago.

History tells us that the winners end up recording their version of the action. The thin red line between justice and atrocity easily disappears amidst the fog of war. What is patently obvious about American military superiority during this ostensibly unipolar era is that military planners exact justice based on some premeditated multiple. I cannot be sure of who performs these calculations, but it's obvious that some defense hawk must be churning out stats that justify a hugely disproportionate number of civilian casualties on the other side. Determinists might have you believe that more Iraqis die because of the Arab culture of death. Because Arab Muslims, as faithful followers of Allah, must believe that jihad is the path to salvation. That life is not worth living unless it is sacrified for divine justice and the pursuit of holy struggle. Is this the real reason why more Arabs die in Iraq than Americans? Or, is it because America demands submission to its awesome power and exacts justice based on supposed supremacy and military might, rather than based on liberal democratic principles of human equality and fairness.

For what reason does the arbiter of global legal balance and harmony create a system in which the world cop and superpower kills far more than is deserved? This ratio derives from an intuitive understanding about true global hierarchies and relations of power. Liberal internationalism is a myth in a world order where cops and robbers are interchangeable. Cowboys commit highway robbery of the Indians, all the while masquerading as warriors of God. Crusaders abiding by sacred creeds delude themselves into thinking that they are entitled to kill by a certain multiple of their own dead. Perhaps this ratio is computed by figuring out an acceptable economic value for their own losses.

By this logic, it would seem that perhaps there is some way to measure how much a single human being is worth to his/her society. Given the reality that Western societies have achieved a relatively high standard of living (GDP per capita) as compared with the rest of the world, maybe Western society values human lives more merely as a result of their earning potential. Is this commensurable value the true source of the supposedly advanced Western code of morality? Did the West not value humans as much when per capita lifetime earning potential was so much less? I would say NO - societies did not value individual human lives when life was naturally ended so much easier and faster. Before the advent of complex Western medicine and the strictures of predictable Western society, it could not be guaranteed that one human life would produce a predetermined amount of economic value for his/her society. However, given the developed state of the Western world today, we readily supply a numerical figure for how much is lost when a person dies. This value is understood in explicit terms by military planners, estate attorneys, life insurance assessors, and politicians. Military and civilian deaths have a specific economic variable attached to them that is a function of individual productivity and lifespan. Though I am not terribly knowledgeable about the life insurance business, it seems that such computations are essential in that arena.

Therefore, I can safely conclude that America values a single human life more than a much poorer country due to the fact that an average American has a relatively high productive capacity across his lifespan. This earning potential amounts to approximately $30,000(per year)x40years=$1,200,000. This is about 19 times the lifetime earning potential of an average citizen of Iraq, where the yearly earning potential and GDP per capita are about 1/16 those of America and where life expectancy is indeed a few years less. $1,800(per year)x35years=$63,000. 1.2 million is 19 times this Iraqi lifetime individual earning potential. Thus, perhaps it follows that the death ratio in wartime is around 19:1.

I am not at all advocating this sytem of death ratio computation. I myself do not adhere to brutish and reductionist systems of value that do not account for true human, ecological, and cultural costs. The numbers above are mere observations about perceived differences in the death tolls on both sides of various international conflicts. I cannot prove the origin of these explicit comparisons in the cloistered bunkers of military planners. However, these disparities are real and are a function of perceived differences in military supremacy and also, I believe, of disparities in the realizable economic value of individual human lives. Thus, such numbers appear evidence of my cynical attitude about power projection upon the rest of the world. However, these death ratios have a solid basis in military history and will surely continue to characterize military relations for the foreseeable future.

Katrina's Supremely Eminent Domain

There seem to be a few irrefutable truths that emerge from the Gulf Coast's experiences with the cataclysmic 2005 hurricane season. The most drastic shift in the societal balance of the New Orleans metropolitan region derives from the impossibility of resuming the erstwhile pattern of residential settlement. Given the utter destruction of areas such as the Lower Ninth Ward and the Route 23 corridor down south into the deepest reaches of the boggish Cajun-flavored bayou, it's become clearer that governmental authorities need to step in to prevent building in areas where further human habitation would be too costly. Such a prohibitive cost precludes the cultural or social contribution that continued community presence would offer to the region. At some point, the economic and practical pricetag of shoring up marshlands that have been degraded reaches the point of no return. The levee system has always been minimally comprehensive. It's just that a fully responsible government would insall a levee network that is far more foolproof and impregnable. The flood protection that existed pre-Katrina was no match for a beastly storm, and there's no reason to believe that local, state, or federal government will ever cough up enough funds to construct a system that would protect neighborhoods - whether wealthy or poor, black or white.

Controversies over land use reflect general patterns of sociological conflict between classes who have divergent ideas about how best to organize communities productively. In contemporary American society, there seem to be two opposite phenoms that characterize neighborhood change: gentrification and ghettoization. The first connotes increase in property value, decreasing crime rates, and domestication of chaotic neighborhood elements. The second suggests a decrease in property values, increasing crime rates, and the decline in neighborhood orderliness, generally associated in American cities with the influx of minority or immigrant groups. These contrasting movements are occurring simultaneously in America in different parts of every single city. While some neighborhoods are "going downhill" and "turning bad," yet others are "getting fixed up" or "developed." It seems like people sometimes perceive that cities are either proceeding in one way or the other. This is not the case. There is simultaneous movement in both directions. Certain neighborhoods are being vacated at alarming rates and are doomed to years of dilapidation and not-so-benign-neglect, leading to a state of under-development or regression. At the same time, many other neighborhoods in the same city may face rapid evolution.
These assumptions about "getting better" or "getting worse" exist aside a league of other variables that measure the health of cities, including educational opportunities, job availability, green space, and transportation efficiency. There are thus multiple ways of measuring the constantly evolving truths of urban life. No subjective evaluation is possible for urban fabrics in which competing classes and institutions vie for resources, and each demographic segment is not even wholly classifiable as benefitting from certain patterns of development.

New Orleans and Baltimore are the two primary cases that I'm envisioning as I explore the ramifications of urban geographic shifts. New Orleans, for one, was characterized by the severe indigence and urban blight of many predominantly African-American communities. While it is indeed presumptuous of me, as an outsider, to apply my scholarly understanding of urban change to concrete realities of habitation and development, I nonetheless am in a position to evaluate incipient changes in standard of living and quality of community interaction. The problem, which I do not pretend to be able to solve, hinges upon what most people would consider the worst neighborhoods of these two urban polities. The two examples are the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans and the MidEast section of Baltimore. While the conditions of renewal, population transfer, and so-called progress are different in both cases, there are similar fears and aspirations emerging from the clashing camps. The pro-renewal folks cite the ameliorated land use, public good, and progress. Those opposing the gentrification talk about the government-sanctioned destruction of a robust community, inadequate compensation for property owners, and the lamentable transfer of land to more powerfual socioeconomic agents.

While the New Orleans example does not involve the explicit use of eminent domain, the same justifications and methods are employed as in the legally sanctioned imposition of land use statutes. In the MidEast section of Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Hospital has convinced Baltimore City's quasi-governmental economic arm (the Baltimore Development Corporation) to incur the powers of eminent domain in commandeering 10 square blocks of raw ghetto and mostly abandoned blocks of rowhouses for use by nascent biotech research interests. Following the logic of the Supreme Court's ruling about the use of eminent domain in New London, CT, a host of American cities instantly applied this principle to their crusade to seize blocs of subaltern communtities for use by more powerful interests. Again, these processes occur simultaneously to stable, middle-class neighborhood "seizure" by lower class groups. Perhaps there is some metric that demonstrates the overall rate of progress in a city and suggests which way a city is moving in an ostensibly zero-sum development game. Is it ultimately productive, whatever that adjective entails, to destroy the most depressed neighborhoods in order to fulfill broader social goals? Some might argue that sense of community is the only thing that these neighborhoods still possess and that therefore it is not advisable to strip folks of their pride and communal sensibilities. On the other hand, why preserve ghettos that are some of the most perilous and scarred zones in America, for residents and passers-by alike?

Is there an objective arrow of development that captures the transformation of urban space? I don't believe that there is a generalized, simplistic, and objective evaluation of progress, when such an equation would aim to grasp an array of postmodern factors that involve multiple subjectivites and divergent intrepretations of value and public good. Yet, a few eternal political truths remain, as far as I'm concerend. The "less desirable" groups who are displaced by EmDo and gentrification deserve decent housing conditions. This can be achieved by illiberal policies that transcend the market's ability to optimize neighborhood arrangements. The free market usually does not provide profitable opportunities for betterment of heavily minority districts within racially and socioeconomically stratified cities.

Lastly, there are normative questions that attempt to address who exactly ought to live in certain places. Should decisions about residential location and community displacement be made by means of the general will, by nominally democratically-elected councils, or by capitalist elites? Who bears the right to occupy land, either in America or beyond. Psychological attachment to land is indeed a complex phenomenon that involves psychogeographic considerations that delve deep into history and multifaceted community relations. Consideration of public good as it relates to eminent domain must include concurrent articulation of the opposite and simultaneous social processes. This means that we all must realize that "there goes the neighborhood" is a reality for folks at both ends of the spectrum. It is not merely the downtrodden or merely the wealthy who triumph in the perennial exchange of land and population across the urban landscape.

Popping America's Bubble Economy

Most laypeople are not aware of the precarious state of the American economy. While I won't pretend that my prescience derives from some supernatural ability to foretell economic fate, I am nearly certain that my economic prescriptions will materialize at some point in the near future, rendering much of our standard of living gains worthless. There are six major economic bubbles that are set to pop, essentially simultaneously: the national debt bubble, the trade deficit bubble, the dollar bubble, the consumer debt bubble, the stock market bubble, and the real estate bubble. Each of these bubbles is intimately related to the others, through a complex web of currency, credit, and international financial flows.

Bubble #1

The national debt bubble will reach 10 trillion dollars in a few short years. This absolutely phenomenal level of indebtedness is a deep abyss from which our federal government might not be able to emerge. While in fact, there are many other countries that have a higher ratio of national debt to annual GDP, no country has an absolute debt burden of our size. If a corporation or household managed to run up this kind of debt with blatant disregard for fiscal fundamentals, its credit rating would plummet and lenders would never continually throw good money after bad. Beginning in the 80's, Reaganomics unleashed a sort of deficit spending that relied on a set of economic assumptions that ultimately seem similar to Keynesian principles but were indeed initiated by supply-side beliefs about the importance of cutting income taxes on the wealthy, increasing military spending, and running up huge deficits to stimulate investment and consumer spending. The national debt is indeed astronomical. It served to pave the way for incredibly unprecedented economic growth and stock market expansion through the 80's and 90's, but this created a huge bubble. Real incomes did not rise, but a tremendous influx in foreign capital created a credit environment where spending was facilitated and an illusion of prosperity was fostered.

Bubble #2

The trade deficit bubble is of similarly exorbitant proportions. Like the national debt owed by the federal government, the trade deficit is indicative of the reckless policies of our economic stewards that has encouraged borrowing from eager foreign lenders who believe that extending cheap credit to us will continue to feed our consumerist vices. We contine to receive extremely cheap foreign goods, oil, and credit in exchange for what? The U.S. offers foreign investors a reliable, longterm investment haven. Well, at least it has for several decades, but it is dubious whether the current rate of debt increase will cause investors to tremble and shake in their shoes. They are starting to realize that our creditworthiness is in jeopardy and that America is not producing enough to deserve its affluent standard of living. Ultimately the annual disparity between how much we produce and how much we purchase will not be tenable. The rest of the world, lead by China and Japan, will demand that we repay our debts in the form of our cheapened assets, which will have become so cheap due to the decline in the dollar's value. That repayment will have been necessary due to our illusory belief that we can receive something for nothing. It is true that we have provided a bedrock of stability for international markets and military protection for the system of dollar hegemony. However, we are spoiled by the export-driven economies of East Asia, who have selfishly convinced themselves that lending us mad money to buy their goods is prudent. It was prudent for a while, but now the bubble has become insurmountable.

Bubble #3

The dollar bubble is such that our currency has become overvalued, especially with regard to how much oil, consumer goods, and other currencies we can buy. Although the dollar has clearly been sliding since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there is still much of correction that has yet to be made. Foreign governments have been propping up the dollar with massive purchases of dollar reserves for their central banks. Japan and China have accumulated trillions of dollars in their vaults in order to protect their dependence on the dollar, all the while becoming even more addicted to dollar hegemony. However, they will only be willing to suffer so long under the yoke of a sinking dollar and a faltering American economy that is unabashedly lacking in economic fundamentals, instead addicted to unadulterated consumption at rates never before witnessed in the history of mankind. As the dollar slides, the day becomes nearer that the American government will default on its debt, forcing hordes of foreign investors to sell off their American assets. Real estate, stocks, and bonds denominated in a declining dollar will appear less and less attractive. American interest rates will need to climb sky high in order to offset the outflow of foreign investment. There will be a massive realignment of global economic power, as Chinese and European purchasing power are readjusted. Our cheap credit will have been erased, and we will be forced to pay down our debts, albeit with devalued dollars and at extremely high interest rates. As the Chinese currency appreciates, Chinese consumers will begin to attain the level of consumption to which they are duly entitled. As stated above, oil, consumer goods, and credit are artificially cheap for Americans at the present time. As a result of a huge imbalance, this state of affairs has lingered for quite some time, allowing for an expansionary American economy that has only been able to keep interest rates down with a consistently massive influx of foreign capital. Domestic lenders would never have been willing to risk this much. However, foreign investors have plunged into dollar hegemony not due to their love of America but as a result of the perceived safety and prosperity of American economic conditions. However, due to gross fiscal mismanagement of the federal government and due to reckless monetary policies that encouraged the extension of absurd amounts of credit, the dollar bubble will pop without remorse. This will drain Americans of huge quantities of wealth, even if it will encourage huge growth in our export and tourism sector. We will be relatively much poorer with regards to our ability to consume foreign goods, travel, and most importantly, oil. Once the dollar falls, energy prices will rise to levels never previously encountered. The artificially happy-go-lucky American economy will be terrestrial once more. And American consumers and investors will be bound by the same constraints that limit all other economic actors across the world. No longer will printing limitless currency be an option for increasing the money supply and extending credit in reaction to the influx of foreign capital. We will be straitjacketed by a new era of exorbitant interest rates, inflationary macroeconomic conditions, and a dreadfully depressed populace whose beloved dollar is relatively powerless.

Bubble #4

The consumer credit bubble has resulted in consumption of otherwordly proportions. Never before has such a mass of human beings been able to "afford" such an incredible level of personal consumption of flat screens, SUVs, Gucci bags, and trips to Cancun. Household savings have never been so doomed, and household debt has never been this astronomical. Americans themselves are not so much at fault, for their economic shepherds have led them astray. The demons of advertising and the barons of industry have successfully attained leadership over a mass of powerless individuals who will consume at the behest of the rulers. The very small increases in actual income are overshadowed by magnificent growth in ability to possess material wealth. Due to the American ability to print dollars and foreign willingness to continue the cycle of trade deficits, the system has propagated itself for quite a while. However, as personal credit card debt and bankruptcy levels reach for the fiscal skies, the system will implode. Foreigners will not sit idly by as America cannot pay back its debts to the rest of the world.

Bubble #5

The stock market has not grown appreciably since 2000, when the internet bubble finished bursting. However, over the course of the 80s and 90s, the market far outstripped the traditional ratio of stock price to earnings. The PE disparities are doomed to implode as well, for this sort of valuation cannot hold in the long term. Although I'm skeptical of attempts to break down all economic activity and transactions into a set of rational choices and scientific fundamentals, I see that the stock market does not reflect the true health and wealth of most companies. Once the dollar slide accelerates and consumption takes a dive, the market will bear the brunt of the slide. The reality of zero growth since the 2000 tech bubble collapse and the PE ratio curse doom the stock market to dip downwards sometime in the near future.

Bubble #6

Real estate prices have climbed 80% in less than a decade, while real income growth has been negligible. The housing market has been booming for these years, with explosive growth in new home sales until this past year. Most cities in the country have experienced a tremendous upswing in housing costs, rendering housing unaffordable for people with average incomes. Due to the reality that incomes have not risen appreciably, it is evident that, without a rise in household savings, it is utterly impossible for Americans to afford such a rise in housing costs without incurring gargantuan debt. Unless it is merely the top third of Americans who are buying new homes and making significantly more per annum (which is a distinct possibility given increasing income disparities and the Bush tax cut program), it would seem that housing prices are far beyond their true economic value. This inflated housing environment is a temporary arrangement. It cannot be sustained. Income growth is mere pennies, mortgage foreclosures are occurring like never before, and borrowers are losing their financial hats as their adjustable rate mortgages become less affordable with inevitably increasing interest rates.

True Inflation, GDP, Unemployment

Although I don't have the hard data to support these assertions, it is empirically obvious that true inflation is much higher than officially reported in the financial media. Due to the through-the-roof increase in housing costs, health insurance premiums, and tuition rates, it would seem that inflation really is far higher than the 2-3% that is attributed to our economy these days. Assuming that true inflation is is around 7%, then real interest rates have been even lower than conventionally understood. Interest rates were kept far too low for such a long time that the economy overheated, rendering Americans in debt up to their boob jobs and collagen lips. Moreover, assuming a much higher rate of inflation, true GDP growth is actually much lower than reported. This is in keeping with the assumption that recent economic conditions have not resulted in betterment of economic fundamentals. Rather, the artificial economic growth created by voodoo economics, unfettered military spending, and abandonment of the welfare state have produced a thoroughly neoliberal and deregulated society where economic indicators do not reflect true economic wellbeing. Even more damning than the misleading inflation figures are the unemployment figures, which declare American unemployment rates to be about half the average European rate. The reason for this is that we only count those who are in the labor force. Persons who have given up looking for a job are thusly considered discouraged workers and are not tallied in the official unemployment rate. True unemployment is probably around 12% or so. True urban unemployment in many places is somewhere between one third and one half of the adult working-age popualation. The official numbers thus don't give us a clear view of what is actually happening in the economy.

Implications for Our Standard of Living

As these 6 bubbles eventually pop, we must be accustomed to increasing foreign ownership of American real estate and corporations. As the value of assets denominated in dollars falls, foreigners (especially Europeans, East Asians, and Middle Easterners) will buy up huge sections of the American economy. I realize that many of these assumptions about the future depend on a relatively simplistic understanding of economic variable but the question of empirical proof cannot be challenged. The true economic fundamentals indicate that our currency will fall and we will be forced to pay off our debts at very high interest rates with dollars that are worth less and less. We will be able to afford much less of what the rest of the world produces, yet it is to be hoped that this realignment produces economic conidtions that correlate with actual economic value. Yet, it is difficult not to confound what ought to happen with what I believe will happen. Do I or other economic agents have a vested interest in hedging for a particular macroeconomic outcome? Are these predictions merely realizable if more people start to believe them and start acting as if they are already true? These questions relate to epistemological debates within economics that are rather complex. Either way, I harbor a significant amount of certainty vis-a-vis the decline of the dollar and the onslaught of euro omnipotence. American consumers will be put in their place due to their consistent endorsement of political and economic leaders who led them astray. They have not listened to the true economic prophets who warned them against such limitless consumption and orgiastic materialism. The human and social costs of the bubbles bursting will be vast. Yet, it is hoped that the realignment will result in increased power of the citizenry over the American government and the financial institutions to which it is inextricably linked: the Fed, IMF, and World Bank. These unaccountable entities need to be brough to justice for their reckless endangerment of American standard of living. Hallelujah!

RIP Saddam Hussein

One of the most reviled men in recent history is now dead. His once-dignified existence has been rapidly terminated by Iraqi executioners just prior to the start of the Muslim holiday Eid and just before the end of the Gregorian calendar year. James Brown, Gerald Ford, and Saddam Hussein all dead in one week. That's a helluva dead cast of characters in such a short period of time. I'm more in mourning for Mr. Brown than either of the other two folks, but I've definitely spent some time pondering the implications of the passings of all three famous gentlemen.

The death of a political leader is most certainly welcomed by people who suffered under his yoke. Saddam directly caused the deaths of upwards of one hundred thousand people, although George W. Bush could now be said to have commanded military campaigns that have resulted in even more murders. Yet, Bush's murders are not of his own countrymen, so perhaps that is more palatable for people to swallow. The club of murderous gentlemen has swelled its ranks in the past century, with the advance of arms technologies that make swift killing a facile task. The great paradox of modern life is the simultaneous development of medical technologies that prolong life and of potent weapons that are capable of cutting short an immensely high number of lives. The modern availability of guns, bombs, and the exponentially increasing population densities have led to deathly conflicts in parts of the world that never possibly could have been this violent prior to the arrival of killing tools. We now have tools that facilitate living and tools that facilitate dying.


Over time philosophers and poets have suggested that nearly omnipotent entities were dead in order to call attention to their ephemerality or incipient demise. When Nietzsche proclaimed that God was dead, he meant that this was true merely due to the perception that people no longer feared him and thus his existence was not so relevant. Nas has declared the death of hip-hop due to similar causes. Folks don't lend credence to the power of hip-hop and have instead ushered in its decline. But, the question begs itself: are such proclamations indicative of the desire on the part of these proclaimers to kill or conversely to revitalize the entities that whose survival they lament.

God certainly isn't yet dead, since upwards of 90% of Americans believe in him. The deity's credit rating may have been downgraded through the years, but his existence is still honored by countless mortals. Similarly, hip-hop appears not to have disappeared, even if its quality has been degraded since its golden age in the mid-90s. Hip-hop glory has been eroded, no doubt. But as a creed and arbiter of cultural moeurs, this mammoth is far from deceased.

On the other hand, Saddam the paranoid totalitarian dictator has kicked the bucket. His New Year has been ruined by masked Iraqi executioners. Leagues of Shiites and Kurds are ecstatic. Gerald Ford is also dead and gone. As a result of this American Presidential death, we have a federal day of remembrance on Tuesday with no mail service and closed financial markets. I wonder if Iraq will honor its felled leader with a similar day of mourning and closures. All I know is that James Brown contributed more joy and funkiness to the world than either of these political clowns. His funeral procession involved four darling white horses, an ivory white carriage, and a 24-karat gold coffin. This is a man's man's world, for sure, and these dead men are being commiserated the world over. However, it's no longer just dead white men that we commemorate. I'm fairly certain that Saddam won't be resurrected anytime soon, but we can expect hip-hop to rise from the dead sometime around Easter. I got my Limewire prepped for that revival.

back to the old school 2x

the savory sf loin

PHEVs on the Horizon

The next hot shit to hit the street will be PHEVs. Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles combine the best of both worlds: electric car world and hybrid car world. These puppies are essentially souped up hybrid electric/internal combustion engines with an extra lithium ion battery that gets plugged into a 120volt outlet. That means you can plug it into anywhere, preferably at night when the overall demand on the electric grid is low and power is cheap. This killer combo means that total carbon dioxide emissions will be almost half of what they are with straight internal combustion engines. MPG can reach 90 to 100. That's amost 5 score miles to the gallon at an equivalent cost of what amounts to about 1$/gallon. That's strictly unfathomable, right? Today, I hath seen such glory with my own eyes. The deadly PHEV is here to stay, and eventually this whip will be able to handle flex-fuel, i.e., some combo fuel of gasoline, biodiesel, and ethanol.

The county government of Fairfax VA had the environmental wherewithal and the unexpected prescience to order hybrid vehicles in 2002. However, this uncanny sense of ecological responsibility was not cashed in for a PHEV until several weeks ago, when Hymotion in Toronto shipped the folks down in Fairfax their brand new battery pack to slap down in the trunk of one of the fleet's 2004 Priuses. The car takes about 3-4 hours to charge up, and the charge will last about 30 some miles, after which the hybrid engine will take over completely. There is a manual switch that can take you back and forth, but the engine automatically goes on from electric only when there is significant giddy up needed. The car has the performance of any other Prius, low long-term maintenance costs, and becomes greener and greener as it ages. The theory goes that as the grid becomes more and more replete with renewable energy in the future, the plug-in takes advantage of these green changes as well.

PHEVs are going to be the viable way we transport ourselves in private motor vehicles in the medium to long term. Eventually, we will most like have the hydrogen distribution system and cheap hydrogen fuel cell technology to power our cars like so. But, in the meantime, get used to the concept of a PHEV. Though they cost around 15k to equip if you've already got a hybrid on hand, the price of the battery kit is decreasingly rapidly. The battery technology will continue to improve immensely, as one automaker after the other begins to commit to plug-in hybrids. GM has already promised to release a Saturn Vue PHEV, and "Who Killer the Electric Car" inspired New York State to order the electric conversion of 600 vehicles in its hybrid fleet. One day, fleets of PHEVs will power buildings and machinery in the event of electrical outages. If you want serious fuel mileage and a smoothe electric ride, get your body electric on down to the PHEV paradise. Fight the Axis of Carbon with your zip zap zooom.

World War IV Rumbles Onward

I must give credit to the neocons (and certain paleocons such as Huntington) for recognizing the onslaught of World War IV. Commentators most frequently compare this World War to World War II, due to the supposed similarities between fascism and Islamo-fascism, among other things. In the buildup of the American empire over the course of the past 100 years, each successive World War has served to bring in enemy nations from the cold, domesticate them, and therefore ensure their dutiful participation in the Empire (as termed by Hardt and Negri) in the political, economic, and military spheres. American military basing went from being limited to the Caribbean and near Pacific to becoming a globally present phenom that has taken root from Djibouti to Jalalabad. The World War IV in which we are now embroiled has become the dominant paradigm with which to conceptualize global affairs. Perhaps we have fanned the flames of war by means of bellicose semantics, yet whether normatively good or bad, the war is here regardless.

Recent declarations by outgoing Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan buttress this point. He emphasized the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the morass of events within the Middle East. Though internationalists and leftists typically don't employ the same semantics as reactionary folks in qualifying the world they perceive, it has become evident that that clash between the West and Islam is truly of gargantuan proportions. For one, as I heard Colin Powell declare in Baltimore a few days ago, the United States was in need of a new enemy at the end of the Cold War. Without the Communists to orientalize and stigmatize, the American yearning for global domination needed an outlet. Out of a bipolar system in which American alliances often formed with those who were sworn enemies in the prior World War (Germans, Japanese) emerged a new World War IV alignment in which old pals overnight became transformed into mortal archnemeses. American World War III funding to the Taliban and Iraqi Baathists was intended to further American anti-Soviet agitation. The Soviets were the primary enemy in World War III, although Communists located everywhere else in the world, whether within America itself or in Vietnam, Korea, and Angola, were considered enemies.

The Cold War was thus the World War from which World War IV emerges. World War III has not completely subsided. World Wars in this postmodern epoch do not contain a clear-cut beginning or end because of the multi-layered nature of violent conflict and its sociological bases. There are World War III enemies that still gnaw away at American imperial might (Cuba, North Korea). The last vestiges of World War III won't be settled for some time now. Most notably, the superpower rivalry between the US and the USSR did not end in full reconciliaton and amity. Far from it, Russia is currently very adamantly opposed (understandably so) to the continuing American policy of encirclement, which has brought Western troops to Russia's doorstep in Estonia, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, and beyond. The West will continue to enjoy only limited support from Russia in its attempts to rollback Iranian, Palestinian, and Chinese military potential.

World War IV's deep roots lie in Israeli independence, which itself was a process very similar to many other nationalist movements across the world ranging from Ghana to Slovenia. However, the Arab world couldn't stomach the imperialist foot of the West all the way up its hind quarters. Yet, World War IV did not really get heated until 1973's oil embargo. Amidst staggeringly high oil prices, it continued to escalate during the Islamic Revolution in 1979 Iran. Still World War III was raging, through the heightened pace of the arms race during Reagan's massive increase in defense expeditures, which led to the creation of massive American public debt. World War III came to a close as Communist regimes throughout Eastern Europe lost steam, and the Soviet puppet states in turn led to the Soviet Union's own demise. The 90's were solidified as an upbeat decade during which American hegemony expanded, and the lack of a significant external threat permitted some political hacks to declare that the end of history had been reached. Such was wishful thinking, as men with big guns eventually get tired of holding up their guns if they never get to fire them. Thus, the new Pearl Harbor occurred on a dreadful day in 2001. World War IV only then became the dominant paradigm for explaining the alignment of nation-states, as the "terrorist" soon replaced what had been known as the "communist." Straussian ideology had found its new emnity that could be employed to catalyze national action and mobilize the masses to redirect their hope, dreams, and fears. The catastrophic events of September 11th allowed for a subsequent shift in focus, and the big guns were soon drawn.

Anti-American regimes were soon replaced in Afghanistan and Iraq by puppet states, despite protracted violent strife in both of those nations. While much of Europe rested contentedly on its laurels, the Anglo-American coalition (plus a few others like Denmark and Tonga, which actually withdrew its 45 troops in 2004) took on the white man's burden. The Yankees gladly accepted their role as world policemen, and a fresh balance of power surfaced. World War IV, as the second postmodern World War, does not feature simplistic and and isolated battles between clearly defined nation-states. Rather, complex ideological and supranational agents carry out their plans on many different levels through a sophisticated system of financial, diplomatic, and military strategery. Actors are not bound by loyalty to constantly shifting national identities. Populaces often do not wish to fight on the same side of this World War as their governments. Such is the case in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Egypt, countries whose Sunni Muslim governments are theoretically on the American side of World War IV. The US contributes billions of dollars to the development of economic and political infrastructures in these nations, yet millions of people that reside therein swear each day to destroy America.

Therefore, in explaining the role of critical geopolitics in evaluating today's alignment of countries, we must realize that arbitrary borders between states and illusions of sovereignty make impossible the conventional ways of establishing truths about violent conflict. The dualism inherent in the traditional dichotomy of victory and defeat does not explain why nations, transnations, or supranations make war these days. Winners do not win wars like they used to. Protracted struggles entail that both sides must compute whether death toll, financial loss, and social destruction amount to sufficient negative "externalities" or "blowback" to turn off the war machine. A minority of citizens supports the actual and ongoing violent struggle, yet hordes of believers have lent tacit approval to various social, ideological, and professional programs that necessitate their complicity in carrying out jihad - on both sides. War is big business. Religion is for sale. Fundamentalist guerilla fighters govern better than governments.

This line of thought will be followed up at a later date. For now, it suffices to generalize by saying that Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezb'allah, al-Qaeda are on one site of World War IV and the U.S., Israel, EU, and a number of Middle Eastern regimes are on the other. A more nuanced picture will emerge graphically later.

The conclusion of this line of thought is that the West is ultimately going to place international keepers of the peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors at those points where no peace agreement has been cemented. By establishing a network of internationally-sanctioned Israeli insulation from Arabs, the Western security forces are shoring up the borders of their imperial space. Perhaps it is ultimately Europe's responsibility to physically protect Israel from the Arab aggressors? Is this the ultimate result of the Holocaust? American soldiers are in a position to fight on the brutal colonial frontier, where coveted geopolitical resources such as oil are at stake, while Europeans will be the guardians of peace.

The split between people and their governments is ever-lasting. Populist-Islamist forces vs. Capitalist-western-oriented regimes creates a looming Civil War within the Arab world in which the West is intervening. In fact, it is rather an imperial war, but the West merely has learned how to commission Arab manpower and assets in order to fight for the West. Given the current dichotomy, Baathist government, while nasty and brutish, doesn't seem that horrible. Are Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism more palatable than medieval Islamism or Islamo-fascism? Are Islamist governments even sincere? Or is religion just twisted to provide a form of systematic propaganda for despotic and anachronistic governmental methods of population control? Is Islamism more xenophobic and/or backward than medieval Christian rule? Bush, though revolting and rather ayatollesque, is a pawn submerged in a struggle amongst forces far stronger than himself. Though the Arab-Muslim world is divisively split and seemingly backward, it's more advanced that medieval Europe was during its intra-European Civil Wars, which raged on for decades. The intra-Arab Civil War has just begun. Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq are zones are peril. It's time to plant some olive trees.

Wire on Tap

Drugs get transacted. Buyers and sellers develop an extensive system of exchanging product for capital. The industry thrives, while the city ails. Addicts, runners, snitches, and bystanders get stomped by industry head honchos, who patrol the streets of the ghetto with full impunity. Their eyes are lit up with the knowledge that their code of behavior is more robust than the official rule of law. Cops attempt to rollback the prevailing urban pharmaceutical system of distrubution with the courts, zero tolerance, aggressive enforcement tactics. But to no avail. This is the world inhabited by the Wire, HBO's stellar program that just concluded its fourth season.

Authenticity is the province of this show, as its writer and director were born and bred on Baltimore's police, journalism, and urban mayhem. There is substantial reason to believe that the show expertly captures the gritty reality of a vast segment of Baltimorean cultural and economic life. The dealers are case studies in diehard entrepreneurialism, their egos stroked by a city whose fiends soak up a constant supply of chemical sustenance. The drug kingpins in the Wire are depicted as masters of their domain who generally are inclined to knock off relatively undeserving interlopers. Stringer, the Barksdales, and Omar consist of the business elite in the show's capitalizing upper echelons. Their drive to accumulate wealth is egged on by the mouths of the hungry and hopeless habitual drug users, who number around 50,000 in today's Baltimore.

That's in a city of about 640,000 folks. A city on the population rebound from it's lowpoint in 2000. An urban unit that suffers from the highest per capita murder rate of any American city with a population over 250,000. Averaging between 250 and 300 murders yearly, Baltimore's murder rate remains stagnant at about 6 times New York's. Believe it or not, Baltimore was the largest American city after NYC until 1870.

In this context, the Wire portrays B-more as a city on the edge. Though so far I've not watched past the first season, the show depicts my hometown as a battlefield. The cops try desperately to pursue justice the best ways they know how, without trampling on too many civil liberties but also without full respect for the rights of the criminals. Clearly, in the Machiavellian world of the drug trade, the cops can't be too bothered by the letter of the law. Clearly, the dealers aren't bound by anything more than a primitive Stop Snitching ethic that supposedly governs their actions - until they too face the Prisoner's Dilemma head on and must rat to save their own skin.

Is the show excessively negative in its depiction of a criminal culture that seems to overshadow the more promising aspects of city life? What does the show owe the city in terms of positive reinforcement of viable role models or upright citizens? The show does not delude viewers into thinking that the drug trade is all gravy. And neither does it suggest that police work is sacred. To the contrary, no one truly ends up on top in the Sisyphean challenge of preserving a semblance of urban order. Cops need to cooperate with the dealers to whom they have access. The way they pit certain players against others that get played reiterates the idea that anyone is liable to "get got" at almost any time. The brutish tendencies of both sides in the drug war belie the best intentions of certain cops to earn an honest living and of the few dealers that seek to minimize the collateral damage of their daily peddling and gun-toting.

The Wire treats enterntainment as a profane pursuit. Whereas some cop shows profess to contain sacrosanct messages about public policy or social redemption, this particular one steers clear of moralizing. The nightly reality of Baltimore's thug culture is straight fucked up. There's no denying the deadly characteristics of a street game that, while increasing the inner city GDP by a significant multiple, renders decrepit vast expanses of the city and creates an entrenched cycle of violent engagement between urban security forces, opposing drug gangs, and the dreaded snitches that bridge the gap in this civil war of sorts. Government soldiers cannot be entrusted with the authority to enforce laws on an equal basis. Gangsters produce an endearing culture of criminal glorification with regards to the urban other. Historically accurate fiction gives us the impression that we are privy to these social universes that are far removed from our own. The Wire has got me on tap.

The War on Carbon

Either you're with us or you're against us. This is a battle to the death between good and evil. The simple binarisms carry over beautifully into this campaign. This is another war on a noun, but it is brought to you by rather different folks who inculcated you in the other wars on nouns. This war hath no clear beginning nor end. That is, unless the first act of war was the commencement of the Industrial Revolution...and then the endgame would be the day when the earth turns into an overheated hellhouse where we all burn up and die. The War on Carbon is upon us. Aiding or abetting in the conspiracy to commit acts of Carbonism are punishable by death. Carbonism is a crime tantamount to treason.

A Convenient Truth: Carbonism is akin to Communism


Essentially, committing Carbonism entails the decision to perfidiously turn against one's country. All Carbonist offenses are deemed sinful, unAmerican, and thoroughly unpatriotic. Such disregard for the national wellbeing will not be tolerated in a society where full-blooded patriots and God-fearing folk must swear allegiance to the anti-Carbonist crusade and root out any Carbonist who hides among us. In fact, your neighbor might be harboring Carbonists. Your next door neighbor might be the most unrepentant Carbonist ever to step foot on American soil. If you see something, say something! You shall report your neighbor to the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that this traitor is doomed to a life of misery for Carbonist crimes against the environment and thus against humanity. Failure to abide by Western civilization's environmental creed is something only illegal aliens or lesser races would consider. Carbonists have pledged their loyalties to the God of pollution, waste, and profligacy. Even some holy roller figures have recently been implicated in Carbonist scandals that involved homosexual prostitution, crank, and illicit conspiracy to destroy the moral fabric of the nation.

The Axis of Carbon

Carbonism in all its forms has been decreed to violate the principles behind our Constitution. Carbonism that relates to either power plants, motor vehicles, or domiciles can never be differentiated. Carbonist-related activity, especially if it initiated in a state-sponsored Carbonist network, must be rooted out once and for all. Once a Carbonist, always a Carbonist. Carbonism is beyond unconstitutional. It's subhuman, for God's sake! Never again will we tolerate such levels of Carbon in our stratosphere! The time has come for us to realize that the current clash of civilizations between Carbonists and true Westerners must be won before it is lost! Carbonist agitation has reached dangerously high levels. Although all of us once consented to the funding of Carbonist infrastructures in a number of societies, we've reached a national consensus that this support for fundamentalist Carbonism was a mistake. We allied with the Carbonists back then merely to ensure victory over the last noun that we summarily defeated.
Carbonism Threatens Your Children!

Carbonists deserve to be stripped of their citizenship, civil liberties, and financial assets. In the event that any vacancies arise at Guantanamo Bay, Carbonists ought to serve out their life sentences amongst the most vile convicts of other wars on nouns. Carbonists are the worst type of enemy combatant. They deserve no legal representation and certainly no right to habeas corpus. Carbonists and all Carbonist sympathizers deserve to be stripped fully of their dignity, for they have attempted to ensure that the Axis of Carbon will triumph over freedom and democracy.

Carbo-Fascism is Primitive and non-Western

All fundamentalist Carbonists attempt to overthrow the Western belief in the rule of law. They actually value death more than life. Indeed, they believe that engaging in lifelong pursuit of maximum carbon emission will result in one's ascendance to heaven, where there will be hordes of virgins waiting to please even the most extremist Carbonist. Carbo-Fascism is the work of the heathen who has forsaken the tenets of Western ideology in favor of a fundamentalist crusade to overheat this earth, in effect turning our planet into a greenhouse.

Greenism is the Antidote to Carbonism

Greenists will soon defeat all Carbonist insurgents and their allies. Carbonists have been reported to threaten a number of capitals in certain regions of the world. However, the true will of the people shall prevail. The Western way of life will triumph over this demonstrable evil. Carbonist regimes will be punished to the fullest, and unrepentant Carbonists will pay the price for their willful destruction of our habitats and our sanity. This earth cannot bear the brunt of Carbonist bombings and brutality. Carbonist supporters claim to follow an elite of freedom fighters. However, no rational human being actually wants to live in a society run by Carbonist crusaders, but the debased Carbo-Fascists continue to swindle ordinary people into supporting their evil deeds. End the reign of Carbon before it's too late! Behold, the doctrine of Carbonism is the most dire threat this civilization has ever faced. The Carbon menace is upon us, and the time is now to take up arms against anyone suspected of being involved in Carbonist-related behavior. Anti-Carbonists of the world, unite! The Carbonists shall not be allowed to take from us our freedom and our way of life. We will win the War on Carbon no matter the cost. Set their Carbonist smokestacks ablaze, and usurp their Carbonist fuels. Carbonism has been on the rise for far too long. We must reverse the tide of Carbonist expansion to ensure that our children enjoy freedom from Carbonist oppression. The War on Carbon must be fought on all fronts. The Carbonist hates you because he knows he's up against truth and morality. Fear not, we will not cease the War on Carbon until each and every last Carbonist is brought to justice.

United Nations = Global Government

For better or for ill, the United Nations forms the basis of what has become the global tier of government in the modern age. Although the levels are government in this supposedly globalized society are usually said to be local, state, and federal, there is no reason why we ought to stop at the federal level when we conceive of what political layers of hierarchy are ruling over our lives. While the global level of government is not nearly as powerful as it will be some time down the road, it surely took centuries before the nation-state system became the dominant organizational form of political relations between people. But, at this juncture in political evolution, it seems clear that nation-states have indeed ceded power to a superior level of governmental might.

This becomes undeniably true upon comprehension of a foundational infrastructure that takes root on another plane. Introducing the world government, which, having been dominated by the Western neocolonial interests since its inception, is augmented semiotically by the merger-cum-emergence of two disparate loci of power that inhere seminally beyond the pale. Planar ascendance becomes the overarching focus of political discourse, as the anachronistic planar arrangements are cast out for a new round of infectiously legitimate but nihilistically ontological precepts...Without forecasting the complete submersion of inferior levels of government under the global mantra, it does seem however necessary to explain the extent of globally active governing bodies.

The IMF, World Bank, and WTO are some of the more invidious world bodies that exert a tremendous amount of control over the monetary, economic, and financial systems that regulate the flow of goods and currency throughout the world. In the financial realm, though these bodies control and govern in unprecedented ways, multinational corporations have proven that, in the financial sphere, the world government is still relatively weak - especially when compared with the powers of the multinationals, as well as central/national banks.

In terms of military prowess, the global government is decidedly even weaker than on the economic front. Though the UN Security Council is endowed with certain rights under international law that supposedly leave the bottom line military issues to be resolved by this body, most nations ultimately will act unilaterally if they so deem necessary. I believe, like one notorious Sam has suggested, that the optimal UN fighting force should be composed of professional soldiers who are paid by the global body politic and are not explicitly or publicly tied to any nation-state. While they would not be considered mercs, they run the risk of being treated as such. In order to combat this tendency, it seems that UN member countries should donate a number of soldiers to this international force that is proportional to their national populations. The force would be 6 million strong if countries contributed a mere .1% of their populations to this force. The soldiers would not serve as representatives of their nations; they would honor the sovereignty of the UN command structure.

In the human rights and ecological discourses, which are dominated largely by non-governmental organizations, the world government is rather strong. Its capacity to impose quasi-Western standards upon the rest of the world is even resisted by nations that do not yet pass muster in the house of the world government. Next, I see that in the social and cultural spheres, localized production will reign supreme, and peoples that do not wield the most economic or military advantage will nonetheless often incur tremendous cultural dominion over their spheres of influence. Cultural memes are often spreading like wildfire across the globe and creating empires of which treasury ministries, military chiefs, and parochial diplomats are unaware. There are innumerable ways of measuring progress, of redefining progress, and of re-evaluating what preference orders filter into the list of global governmental priorities. Social, ecological, and cultural goods will be incorporated into the Pax Suprema that replaces imperialist and coloniast discourses, even if these former discourses pretend already to represent peace and freedom in the current era.

Yet, critical geopolitics demands that we explain how this normative plan becomes a reality. Is the above prescription a recipe for disaster in that it does not account for basic human nature and the Prisoner's Dilemma? Will nations and other units that currently control resources at different levels not be willing to forsake these powers in order to fulfill some universalist directive? Does this cosmopolitan, globalizing plan smack of conspiratorial schemes to foment a so-called new world order? Do these goals appear to entertain fraudulently revolutionary or phony messianic views of how the future will be capable of resolving the current material problems facing our world? Perhaps there are fundamental rules of the geopolitical universe that I have ignored in this outline. If so, then now is the time to develop pragmatic solutions to the material dilemmas that plague our planet. It is also necessary to break the stranglehold that ideology has achieved over our linguistic discourses. Maybe this plan for united world government will be fruitless if it too falls for the same ideological traps that befall my ideological opponents. I have tried not to rely on idealized assumptions about resource accumulation or the entrenched domination of capital in how we measure our lives.

So, all this definitely does not mean that I am in favor of the neoliberal turn, which has been one of the most dominant forces in the establishment of global authority over human life. I seek progressive government that allows for a high degree of regional and local autonomy in the decision-making proces. I support open, democratic governance where it is possible to attain such a level of understanding between governors and governed. However, I am not quixotically supportive of efforts to spread the gospel of democratic peace to the vast majority of the world that is so-called underdeveloped. I find that the buzzwords of freedom and democracy are generally pseudonyms for economic prosperity and/or cultural-racial superiority. Spreading American-style democracy and thus achieving American-ushered neoconservative global domination & neoliberal economic control is disingenuous and ill-advised. While Western geopolitical might has indeed reached critical mass in attaining dominion over much of the earth, and while most socioeconomic systems inherently seek merely to reproduce themselves, I find that it is best to limit the strength of any of the various imperial traditions that attempt to secure control over the global government. Perhaps this is naive to think that we could simply throw out the old assumptions about the Old World of foreign policy realism and the bottom line of hard power.

It is indeed idealistic to seek the creation of a new, progressive bottom line that emphasizes peace, justice, and tolerance. Yet, we must be ambitious about what objectives we strive to fulfill. The domination of the world is currently accomplished by globalizing influences that tend to monopolize access to credit, exert military force in unjust ways, and leave world bodies (corporations, NGO's, and the UN Security Council!) unaccountable to the people over which they rule. Perhaps my yearnings are horrifically populist or naively simplistic, in hoping that the masses might somehow be able to attain a greater degree of sovereignty over the decisions that regulate how they are fed, where they work, and who their leviathan is. Or, conversely, libertarians might scream that they desire not to have any sort of global tier of government which would supersede even the American federal government in its capacity to regulate, tax, and control. I too am skeptical about unifying this world under a massive bureaucracy that would control so many details of our lives. I harbor doubts about this global government's ability to promote the sort of governance that I imagine is possible. If I can't even get a federal government in this country of which I approve, why do I expect that I would appreciate the decisions made by my global regime du jour? Because I consider myself an alter-mondialist. We ought to aim for a constantly evolving system of alter-globalization. Un otro mundo es possible.

The answers are so complex that I will leave discussion of most of these topics to another time. However, i do know that uniting the consciences of the world under the umbrella of world government is perhaps a visible and realizable goal for the body we now know as the United Nations. This organ is poised to project itself boldly into primacy in terms of its role in the formation of a globally governing regime. This regime, we shall say, is beyond the 2006 conception of regime. A new sort of hegemonic force will be unsheathed as the World Government supersedes the Federal government, La Republique, and the Crown. At the moment when Emperors and Dukes, Amazonian Chiefs and Chechen Lords, all bow down to the same sovereign, so to speak, of the world government food chain, the world will have evolved beyond the myopic competition of empires and the clash of civilizations. This supernational approaches high quality of control over the mass of population groups in the process of accumulating a sufficient quantity of capital that is requisite for this level of political transfer between the aggressively uppity national governments and the World Government. Fear not the Talibanisation of federal structures, both within the traditionally-defined Islamic world and without. The subaltern governments would indeed experience gross fragmentation under the strain of a more sturdy planar People’s Palace from the top. At the supreme level of world government, this project of post-immodernity brings together a planar and hierarchical structure that results in the extension of layers of control exercised by the internationalist refusenik compadres over sinister nationalist apparachiks.