Initial thoughts on the Iraq Debate Workshop and Mesopotamian Debating Tournament--with more to come

Here's the real foundational stuff about the opening up of debate in Iraq, and an attempt to articulate how it relates to the concerns and values I took with me to Duhok:


Call this a World Debate Party, call it replacing weapons with words, but this is the vision concerning the role of debate education in building peaceful societies.

There has to be a general orientation towards verbalizing disagreements, conflict resolution, adjudicated verbal conflict, a tradition of debate at every level of social and political interaction--and I would contend economic interaction as well. We must place one another in situations of reciprocal discourse and judgement and agree to abide by one another's transparent and honest norms. We must debate about the norms themselves.

This project is generally egalitarian, at least moderately redistributive, and requires thinking about how other people think, which means it requires a massive campaign of public participation whenever it's done. I have my own beliefs about the economy and, in the spirit of deliberation, I have elected to bracket them at least concerning whether some kind of market distribution is desirable. In this instance, I am concerned about the way we communicate our problems and objections to one another, although the ability to communicate in this way is inevitably limited and contextualized by economic relations. But we should talk about that too.

This project is culturally respectful, but unapologetically universal--we understand we all have differences, but every culture communicates, and every culture has a culture of debate--although it's sometimes hidden and sometimes exclusively controlled by elites. Our desire to be Prometheus, stealing the fire of debate and simply offering it (we offer debate far more than we teach it) is really our only form of cultural arrogance, and we think it's a forgivable one. We think everyone should have the ability and be afforded the respect to speak and participate in public discourse. Believe it or not, there are some academics who accuse us of trying to impose a "liberal" model of discourse on the world in order to grease the skids for U.S. and Eurocentric hegemony. Far better, they believe, to leave repressive hierarchical societies on their own...or, I guess, to simply invade them, since such an academic-political strategy of "leaving people alone" has never been able to articulate a theory of how we inevtably communicate with these cultures.

I think the fear of universalism can be taken too far, and usually is.  Fear of being imposing means we eventually fear looking for commonalities with other people. It also mistakingly identifies all members of a "culture" (eg all Americans) with the interests of their ruling classes. My interests in Iraq were not Dick Cheney's interests, and we need to be capable of articulating that when we talk about engaging other countries.

The profound experiences I had communicating with these Iraqi students about violence, death, war, and security made me realize --once again, and in a real way this time-- that we have cut off ordinary Iraqi or Afghani citizens from the discussion about the invasions and occupations of their countries. That they are the people we on the progressive side need to be listening to the most. And we can't be afraid to listen to the people who wanted America to invade--there weren't many of them, but they were not all greedy death merchants. We have to articulate an alternative foreign policy, and the first step in doing that is communication with those affected most by our foreign policy. That's a progressive project, and it will produce inevitably progressive conclusions.

Christmas Question

So... Santa Claus: socialist redistributor of wealth, or tyrannical, elf-exploiting boss?

In either case, happy holidays everyone.  Lots to come on the blog and other venues in the coming days.  For now, peace and solidarity!

no public health insurance for you!

After days of secret talks, it looks as if the Democrats are giving in on a government-run public option. "In place of a government-run plan," Associated Press reports, "officials said the Democrats had tentatively settled on a private insurance arrangement to be supervised by the federal agency that oversees the system through which lawmakers purchase coverage. Additionally, the tentative deal calls for Medicare to be opened to uninsured Americans beginning at age 55..."

According to Reuters, "Democratic Senate sources said the substitute proposal would create a non-profit plan operated by private insurers but administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which supervises health coverage for federal workers."

Except that we've been down this road before. Non-profit cooperatives are to a "robust" public option as a handshake is to a passionate kiss. As McJoan at Daily Kos points out, (citing Politico) private emails among insurance company lobbysists are declaring victory based on this outcome. 

The bill without a public option is little more than a big ol' wet kiss to the insurance industry, a gift of some $600 billion and millions of new subscribers. Sure, they'll have a few more hoops to jump through to figure out how to dump people and deny their claims, but they'll still be able to do it. There are bits and pieces in the legislation that will help control costs, but without a program that expressly challenges the status quo of employer-based private insurance, it can't be called "reform."

If the insurance companies come out of this declaring victory, it's not reform.

60+ percent public support is not enough to overcome corporate opposition. We may have won a few table scraps, but it looks like we've lost the most significant part of the battle. This is a failure of democratic deliberation brought about by the intervention of corporate resources --nothing more and nothing less.

This outcome was made possible because Obama himself, and even many "liberal" democrats, fundamentally believe that a world where the rich get better care than the poor is an acceptable world--one not worth the effort and risk of a foundational attack.  Obama admitted such an outcome was inevitable long ago when he said the market culture of America rendered single payer inappropriate.  "Obama’s case against single-payer," writes Alan Nasser, "frames health-care priorities in the language of atomic individualism. Hence, the range of possible outcomes is determined for the worse before discussion begins." 

thought for the day

Relief from poverty, financial support, debt forgiveness, microloans, work programs, and the like are not "charity" or "handouts." Those terms connote that nothing was earned in exchange. Government-mediated material support is a return on the surplus value generated from generations of work --paid and unpaid-- from American workers: laborers, immigrants, the indentured, low-wage workers yesterday and today, all of whose labor generated trillions of dollars in uncompensated value to the success stories used as advertising for the American Dream. That's why we all deserve health coverage. It's why we deserve decent shelter, and a chance to keep houses we may be in danger of losing. It's why food, health care, shelter and education are human rights rather than crumbs of privilege. Ultimately, it will be our right to demand those social goods and acquire them by all available and ethical means. Because we're not talking about stealing or getting something for nothing. We're talking about getting what's rightfully ours.

...because we really don't care about them

In some ways, Glenn Greenwald's column the day after Obama's Afghanistan speech refutes some of the unstated premises of my post below.  But it also highlights some of the conclusions, I think:

While Obama's speech last night largely comported to what his aides spent days anonymously previewing, there was one (pleasantly) unexpected aspect: he commendably dispensed with the propagandistic pretext that we are fighting in Afghanistan in order to deliver freedom and democracy to that country and to improve the plight of Afghan women. Many Democrats (the self-proclaimed "liberal hawks") love to support American wars on the self-righteous ground that we're going to drop enough Freedom Bombs to liberate millions and invade other countries in order to re-make other peoples' cultures for their own good. In order to maximize support for his escalation, Obama -- like Bush so often did -- could easily have relied on that appeal to our national narcissism and exploited justifiable disgust for the Taliban in order to manipulate "liberal hawks" into supporting this war on human rights grounds. During the build-up to the speech, it was predicted by several influential Obama advisers that he would do exactly that. Indeed, when announcing his prior Afghanistan escalation in March, Obama played up the humanitarian rationale for this war.

But there was almost none of that in last night's speech. As Ben Smith correctly notes, Obama did not even mention -- let alone hype -- the issue of women's rights in Afghanistan. There were no grandiose claims that the justness of the war derives from our desire to defeat evil, tyrannical extremists and replace them with more humane and democratic leaders. To the contrary, he was commendably blunt that our true goal is not to improve the lives of Afghan citizens but rather: "Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda." There were no promises to guarantee freedom and human rights to the Afghan people. To the contrary, he explicitly rejected a mission of broad nation-building "because it sets goals that are beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost and what we need to achieve to secure our interests"; he said he "refuse[d] to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, or our interests"; and even vowed to incorporate the convertible factions of the Taliban into the government.
Not only did he refrain from those manipulative appeals, he made explicitly clear that we are in Afghanistan to serve our own interests (as he perceives them), not to build a better nation for Afghans. Nation-building, he said, goes "beyond ... what we need to achieve to secure our interests" and "go beyond our responsibility." We're there to serve our interests and do nothing else. That should throw cold water on all on the preening fantasies of all but the blindest and most naive "liberal war supporters" that we're there to help the Afghan people.

But Greenwald goes on to concisely point out that making Afghanistan and its people better off isn't even likely to be an unintended consequence of our occupation.  This, of course, means that the defeat of Al Qaeda will spur more enemies to eradicate in the future.  Business is business.

Christmas Song for Teabaggers and Free Marketers

It's true: Christmas is just a bunch of socialist hooey.  It's time for the Randians, libertarians, traditional Republicans, and atomistic individualists among us to reclaim their true voice, and celebrate the anti-Christmas:



I HATE PEOPLE

From "Scrooge"
(Leslie Bricusse)

Scavengers and sycophants and flatterers
and fools
Pharisees and parasites and hypocrites
and ghouls
Calculating swindlers, prevaricating frauds
Perpetrating evil as they roam the earth
in hordes
Feeding on their fellow men
Reaping rich rewards
Contaminating everything they see
Corrupting honest me like me
Humbug! Poppycock! Balderdash! Bah!
I hate people! I hate people!
People are despicable creatures
Loathesome inexplicable creatures
Good-for-nothing kickable creatures
I hate people! I abhor them!
When I see the indolent classes
Sitting on their indolent asses
Gulping ale from indolent glasses
I hate people! I detest them! I deplore them!
Fools who have no money spend it
Get in debt then try to end it
Beg me on their knees befriend them
Knowing I have cash to lend them
Soft-hearted me! Hard-working me!
Clean-living, thrifty and kind as can be!
Situations like this are of interest to me
I hate people! I loathe people! I despise and abominate people!
Life is full of cretinous wretches
Earning what their sweatiness fetches
Empty minds whose pettiness stretches
Further than I can see
Little wonder I hate people
And I don't care if they hate me!

Thanks to my friend Marina Gipps for reminding me that this song existed!  Happy Holidays!

Lack of consultation with Afghan local leaders continues cycle of war and waste

The solvency deficit incurred by a military surge in Afghanistan is, above all, material. Obama's commitment to continue to prioritize firepower and bloodletting is an embrace of excess, designed to demonstrate the will to be wasteful. This, Team Obama hopes, will placate several layers of the polis.  Whatever their motivations, the surge probably will not work, and whatever does get spun as eventual success or stability in the long run will end up being far more wasteful than alternatives would have been.

Nicholas Kristof has a pretty effective piece in today's NYT comparing Obama to both LBJ, who inherited and escalated in Vietnam, and Gorbachev, who did the same in Afghanistan (the connotation of the latter being uncomfortable for both Obama and the history of U.S. policy in Afghanistan). By ignoring the opportunity to deliberate with the people of Afghanistan, Obama perpetuates the role of ignorant conqueror, and at a huge material cost.

“To me, what was most concerning is that there was never any consultation with the Afghan shura, the tribal elders,” said Greg Mortenson, whose extraordinary work building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan was chronicled in “Three Cups of Tea” and his new book, “From Stones to Schools.” “It was all decided on the basis of congressmen and generals speaking up, with nobody consulting Afghan elders. One of the elders’ messages is we don’t need firepower, we need brainpower. They want schools, health facilities, but not necessarily more physical troops.”
For the cost of deploying one soldier for one year, it is possible to build about 20 schools.

Kristof lists several more development projects which could have served as more effective anti-insurgent tools than boots on the ground. Notable among them is the National Solidarity Programme, which builds up things like drinking water infrastructure, weaving and other small production projects, and schools. When people are educated (by their standards--yes, emancipation can be both universal and local), they tend to stop believing in reactionary ideologies. When they're occupied--saturated, as they are about to be--with foreign troops, their lives and economies and intellectual histories don't develop, and hatred grows. Even if there's some argument for the need to defend these projects, the United States and other nations could do so effectively, and a case for such defense-oriented guardianship would be more palatable to a war-weary public than a poorly defined dump of troops. But that would fail to satisfy this urgency for destructive excess Team Obama feels the need to demonstrate, to prove a kind of toughness, placate the political id, and keep defense contractors happy.

Meanwhile, Kristof reports, George Rupp says that, for the cost of supporting one U.S. soldier, you can build National Solidarity Programme projects in 20 villages. Think.

Dear Liars:

Despite your best efforts, the millions of dollars you've wasted on PR campaigns and shout-down-zombie-shock-troops, as of today, "60 percent of Americans believe a public option should be included in final healthcare legislation."  

So even though the public might not get one, it won't be because you've successfully brainwashed the country.  It might be because you've shoved large amounts of cash down the open throats of a few of our elected representatives.  In that case, when you claim that "the people have spoken," you're talking out your ass. 

See?

If Michelle Malkin has seen this by now, undoubtedly she's somewhere furiously typing a screed blaming the administration for it.  

Quote of the Day

"Don’t know what the big deal is about the imposters who crashed the White House for one night. What about the imposters who crashed the White House for 8 years?"

~Will Durst, via Facebook.  Quick, to the point, and you wonder why you didn't think of it. 

Honduran "Elections" Not Even Clean Enough to Qualify for Int'l Monitoring...

Upside Down World, an independent, reader-supported press site covering Latin America, reports that the Honduran elections have been marred by "a climate of harassment, violence, and violation of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly". Groups such as Amnesty International are decrying police shootings and restrictions on assembly, including "a decree prohibiting gatherings of more than four people." Police are refusing to provide names or details of arrests. Allegations include

...a crackdown on a peaceful march in San Pedro Sula where marchers were tear-gassed, beaten, and detained. Authorities also shot a man in the head at a checkpoint on the eve of the elections, and raided the offices and homes of various civil society groups, including a Quaker agricultural cooperative. Opposition broadcasters had their signals jammed, and the authorities threatened criminal charges for anyone advocating a boycott of the election.

Because going after the Quakers is always a good touch.  Thus, it is no surprise that "all of the major organizations that observe international elections, including the Organization of American States, European Union, and the Carter Center, had refused to send observer delegations to this election." When Carter won't even monitor your elections, son, you're in some trouble.

Belén Fernández reports live from Honduras:

The Virtual Observer section did not include an option to watch oral cellular phone transmission of electoral data, which was the process that had been hyped by the TSE and the Honduran media as enabling rapid determination of the next president and that was based on the distribution of 20,000 specially-purchased phones to electoral tables around the country. Rapidity was less of a priority among other organs of the Honduran state such as the National Congress, which had postponed consideration of Zelaya’s restitution until December and thus underscored the illegitimacy of the elections; as for the effectiveness of cellular transmissions of critical data, this was called into question by the frequency with which Honduran cell phone communications were reduced to such phrases as: “Can you hear me?” ... As for TSE magistrate [Enrique] Ortez’ proclamation that the countries of the world had the moral obligation to recognize the Honduran electoral process, it would seem that moral obligations might also be assigned to electoral magistrates claiming to speak for 7 million Hondurans.

 The U.S. State Department "welcomed Honduras' presidential election as a necessary and 'important step forward' for the country, but said that more needs to be done to achieve reconciliation." 

quote of the week

"People in France live longer than Americans and dress like really cool hipsters in their old age. If that's Socialism...I'm there..." - Marina Gipps

The Horton Principle

I enjoy the work of Kansas City Star columnist Yael T. Abouhalkah, and I have to hand it to him; I had thought I might have beaten other people to the punch on thinking (and posting) "Willie Horton" when told of Maurice Clemmons, granted clemency by Mike Huckabee and now a person of interest in the ambush murder of four police officers in a coffee shop south of Seattle, Washington.  
But I think Abouhalkah overstates his impact scenario...

But, if Huckabee pardoned a man who went on to kill four cops, this will be a lot worse than the Willie Horton incident of the 1988 presidential campaign. Huckabee's credentials to lead the Republican party to victory in 2012 would evaporate if Clemmons indeed is the killer in the Washington case.

Indeed, sure, let's wait and see whether it costs Huckabee like it did Michael Dukakis in 1988; Dukakis approved a furlough program that allowed a convicted murderer, Willie Horton, to commit assault, armed robbery and rape while on a weekend furlough. Lee Atwater (the guy Karl Rove wishes he could be) coordinated a campaign that made Willie Horton a household word (and, eventually, a verb, as in, to "Willie Horton" a political opponent). Like Horton, Maurice Clemmons is African American, which makes it more likely that this would be thrown at Huckabee in the primaries than the general election (although Clinton's people didn't seem to have a problem throwing a little racism around in 2008).

But it's also entirely possible this will go nowhere.  Yep, I said go nowhere.  "The rules," whatever they may be, of two-party bourgeois politics do not preclude the exploitation of shame and failure, and they certainly preclude nuanced distinctions that could vindicate a clemency gone wrong.  But the fact remains that some candidates can do bad things--costly when other pols do them--and come out okay.  These perpetually enacted inconsistencies seem to favor the GOP.  Bush the Younger enjoyed the highs of cocaine, maryjane, and alcohol, and everyone knew it; but more than a few politicians to W's left have been brought down by a joint or two.  Theocrats, in particular, have their own rules governing redemption, guaranteeing a pass to their men (invariably men) who commit personal or policy transgressions. 

So while what Clemmons allegedly did (he is presumed innocent, another principle the mainstream media will abandon where he is concerned) is far worse than what Horton did, and while in a fair, consistent, deliberatively ethical world this would be clear, applied accordingly to the decision calculus of voters and opinion-makers, the capriciousness (a meanspirited capriciousness, if that's possible) of American politics leaves this cowboy doubtful. 

Hat tip, as they say (I find the term awkward) to Meg for alerting me to this story.

Supermax!

I have to say, understanding the context of these remarks, and having grown up on the Wasatch Front, well, go Max.  Don't hold back, man...

BYU senior quarterback Max Hall may have known he'd face a reprimand from the league for violating the rule on sportsmanship, but after throwing the winning touchdown pass in BYU's 26-23 overtime win over Utah, he apparently did not care.

Hall didn't hold back his contempt for the opponent.
"I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them — I hate everything about them," said Hall.
"I hate their program. I hate their fans. I hate everything. So, it feel good to send those guys home. They didn't deserve it. It was our time, and it was our time to win. We deserved it. We played as hard as we could tonight, and it felt really good to send them home and to get them out of here, so it is a game I'll always remember."
A year ago, Hall lost a fumble and threw five interceptions in a loss at Utah. Since that date, he's been the brunt of criticism from both fan bases and media.
On Saturday, Hall avoided throwing an interception but did throw two touchdowns. His 12 completions against the Utes was a career low.

Saturday, speaking to a room full of reporters, he was asked to elaborate on why he has issues with Utah. "Do you really want me to go into it? I think the whole university and their fans and organization is classless. They threw beer on my family and stuff last year and did a whole bunch of nasty things. I don't respect them, and they deserve to lose."

Pre-Kurdistan 1

On December 10, I'll be on a plane, beginning a journey with lots of stops and transfers, culminating in a 3-hour ground journey from Erbil to Duhok on the 12th, to begin a week of lecturing and coaching debate at the Iraq Debate Academy and Mesopotamia Debating Tournament.

This incredible opportunity results from my fortune of knowing three people, all of whom will be in Duhok with me during this important week: Muhammad A. Ahmad, who was in a lab I co-directed at the 2007 Asian Debate Institute in Seoul; Jason Jarvis, director of that institute and a longtime academic colleague, and Alfred Snider III, one of the great debate coaches and a significant force in the internationalization of academic debate. After returning to Kurdistan from his education in Korea, Muhammad formed Iraq Debate, whose mission, in their own words, is the following:

1. Iraq Debate’s mission is to promote debate culture among Iraqis, especially Students across the universities and schools, to provide them with the modern concepts of analysis and communication skills so that they can meet the challenges which face Iraq. Iraq's challenges and diversity means that it can and should be a leader in Debate Education and Research.
2. Promoting the value of Education.
3. Showing Iraq's unique cultures and civilization to the world.
4. Promoting a sense of community.
5. Promoting Peace through dialogue and understanding.

The organization has already begun international travel and has received favorable media coverage--although (all my friends in the media take note) it needs plenty more.

I am indescribably excited about this teaching and learning opportunity, particularly as it occurs on the tail-end of my career in academia and academic debate. I'm excited to visit Kurdistan because the Kurdish people are heroes who have been through a lot. More importantly, the peoples of Iraq, regardless of how we in the west feel about the means by which they were liberated from Saddam Hussein, deserve engagement by non-governmental organizations devoted to critical thinking and pluralism. It may fall short of many of my absolutist notions of social justice, but communication, even in a context soiled by occupation and geopolitical games, is better than killing. And I happen to think Jurgen Habermas is right in believing that the conditions of genuine argumentation are the conditions of solidarity (my words, not Jurgen's, but I know he'd agree).

Kurdistan is an autonomous region of Iraq, although it is much more than simply that.

Iraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan Region is an autonomous, federally recognized region of Iraq. It borders Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria to the west and the rest of Iraq to the south. Its capital is the city of Erbil, known in Kurdish as Hewlêr. The establishment of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq dates back to the March 1970 autonomy agreement between the Kurdish opposition and the Iraqi government after years of heavy fighting. Kurdistan is a parliamentary democracy with a national assembly that consists of 111 seats. The current president is Massoud Barzani who was elected during the Iraqi Kurdistan 2005 elections that are held every four years. The three governorates of Duhok, Arbil and Sulaymania accumulate a territory of around 40,000 square kilometers and a population between 4 and 6.5 million. Disputes remain between the central Iraqi government and the Kurdish government about predominantly Kurdish territories outside the current borders of Iraqi Kurdistan, e.g. Kirkuk.

I hope to learn a great deal more about both Kurdistan and Iraq in the coming weeks.

I am overwhelmed by the thought of jumping into the cradle of civilization. The last flying leg of my journey will be Amman, Jordan to Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan. Erbil's Citadel is 8,000 years old, and is one of the longest (if not the longest) continuously inhabited structures in the world.

The mound has been formed by successive layers of settlements: Assyrian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Persian and Greek. In 331 BC, Alexander the Great defeated the Persian King Darius the Great in a battle which was fought thirty kilometres north of Arbil. The area of the Citadel is over ten hectares; the population is about 5400, only a fifth of whom are descendents of original families.

The new international airport terminal where we'll land, in Erbil, has been long-anticipated. We'll see what it's like.

Joe's Trippin' gave two pieces of financial advice concerning Kurdistan:

Iraqis (at least the Kurds) are shockingly honest about pricing. There isn't much need to bargain. There is only one ATM in Arbil that works only half the time. Brings cash! [sic]

And I found some more good advice about transportation, given that I'll need to take a few (incredibly inexpensive) taxi rides...

Taxis seem to only travel on roads controlled by Kurdish forces. There are LOTS of security checkpoints, probably 10 or more on a 3 hour journey, usually before and after towns. You have nothing to fear at these checkpoints, in fact you should be grateful for them keeping Iraqi Kurdistan safe from terrorists. At some the soldier will just wave the taxi through, but at most ID will be checked. Have your passport ready. At some checkpoints, they'll want to check on foreigners more carefully, and you may end up being questioned by the head official. Just be honest and open and you should be fine. But, if they're suspicious of you, it helps to have a local Kurdish contact who can vouch for you. ... Dohuk - Erbil: 20,000 dinar ($16) per person. 80,000 dinar per car. Approx 3 hours. The road goes close to Mosul, but doesn't actually pass through. Apparently the road is controlled by Kurdish forces, but a few soldiers I saw had Iraqi flags on their shoulders...

Wow, overwhelmed and excited to be going here...I will be blogging, recording spots for the Shared Sacrifice podcast, and communicating using any and all means I have access to during this groundbreaking trip. Speech is universal, argument is universal, talking is building, and peace. Dear readers, I hope you will follow my journey wherever you are.