Internet Gurus Flock to Harvard Conference

May 15, 2008

Before the Internet changed everything, the Berkman Center was there. Founded as a different kind of research lab about ten years ago, Harvard Law School's unusual project – blending think tank freedom with academic rigor – is celebrating its first big anniversary this week. The sold-out conference features celebrities in the world of Internet culture, like professors Yochai Benkler and Jonathan Zittrain, and actual celebrities catapulted by Internet culture, like Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales, named one of the world's most influential people by Time magazine.

Jonathan Zittrain, nicknamed Jay-Z by techies in attendance, kicked things off by explaining his new book, "The Future of the Internet; And How to Stop It." As more web appliances restrict user choice, like iPhones, he warned that people will have less power to impact the web. That's because these popular "tethered appliances" can only be modified by their parent companies. Zittrain argues that the web will foster less innovation under this system, freezing the current landscape and reducing the prospect for "generative" developments.

Networked politics was a hot topic in several sessions. Jesse Dylan, who directed "Yes We Can," the music video drawing lyrics from a speech by Barack Obama, spoke about how the creators were surprised by the viral success of the project. (I spoke on the same panel, about the youth vote in 2008.) Another presenter discussed a fascinating April study of the Iranian blogosphere, mapped by link patterns and topic areas:

Running Out of History

May 12, 2008

Already climate change--in the form of a changing pattern of global rainfall--seems to be affecting the planet in significant ways. Take the massive, almost decade-long drought in Australia's wheat-growing heartland, which has been a significant factor in sending flour prices, and so bread prices, soaring globally, leading to desperation and food riots across the planet.

A report from the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia makes clear that, despite recent heavy rains in the eastern Australian breadbasket, years of above normal rainfall would be needed "to remove the very long-term [water] deficits" in the region. The report then adds this ominous note: "The combination of record heat and widespread drought during the past five to 10 years over large parts of southern and eastern Australia is without historical precedent and is, at least partly, a result of climate change."

Think a bit about that phrase -- "without historical precedent." Except when it comes to technological invention, it hasn't been much part of our lives these last many centuries. Without historical precedent. Brace yourselves, it's about to become a commonplace in our vocabulary. The southeastern United States, for instance, was, for the last couple of years, locked in a drought -- which is finally easing -- "without historical precedent." In other words, there was nothing (repeat, nothing) in the historical record that provided a guide to what might happen next.

Who Really Lost the Cold War?

May 8, 2008

These days, the price of oil seems ever on the rise. A barrel of crude broke another barrier Wednesday -- $123 -- on international markets, and the talk is now of the sort of "superspike" in pricing (only yesterday unimaginable) that might break the $200 a barrel ceiling "within two years." And that would be without a full-scale American air assault on Iran, after which all bets would be off.

Considering that, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, oil was still in the $20 a barrel price range, this is no small measure of what the Bush administration years have really accomplished. Today, it's hard even to remember not 9/11, but 11/9--November 9, 1989--the day that the Berlin Wall fell, signaling that, soon enough, after its seventy-odd year life, that Reaganesque Evil Empire, the Soviet Union, was heading for the door. In 1991, it disappeared from the face of the Earth without a whimper. Until almost the last moment, top officials in Washington assumed it would go on forever; and, when it was gone, most of them couldn't, at first, believe it. Soon enough, however, the event was hailed as the greatest of American triumphs--"victory" not just in the Cold War, but at a level never before seen. Finally, for the first time in history, there was but a single superpower on the planet.

At the dawn of a new century, the administration of George Bush the younger, packed with implacable former Cold Warriors, came to power still infused with that sense of global triumphalism and planning to rollback what was left of the old Soviet Union, an impoverished Russia, into an early grave.

The Next War

May 7, 2008

Remember when the globe's imperial policeman, its New Rome, was going to wield its unsurpassed military power by moving from country to country, using lightning strikes and shock-and-awe tactics? We're talking about the now-unimaginably distant past of perhaps 2002-2003. Afghanistan had been "liberated" in a matter of weeks; "regime change" in Iraq was going to be a "cakewalk," and it would be followed by the reordering of what the neoconservatives liked to refer to as "the Greater Middle East." No one who mattered was talking about protracted guerrilla warfare; nor was there anything being said about counterinsurgency (nor, as in the Powell Doctrine, about exits either). The U.S. military was going to go into Iraq fast and hard, be victorious in short order, and then, of course, we would stay. We would, in fact, be welcomed with open arms by natives so eternally grateful that they would practically beg us to garrison their countries.

Every one of those assumptions about the new American way of war was absurd, even then. At the very least, the problem should have been obvious once American generals reached Baghdad and sat down at a marble table in one of Saddam Hussein's overwrought palaces, grinning for a victory snapshot -- without any evidence of a defeated enemy on the other side of the table to sign a set of surrender documents. If this were a normal campaign and an obvious imperial triumph, then where was the other side? Where were those we had defeated? The next thing you knew, the Americans were printing up packs of cards with the faces of most of Saddam's missing cronies on them.

Well, that was then. By now, fierce versions of guerrilla war have migrated to the narrow streets of the poorest districts of Baghdad and, in Afghanistan, are moving ever closer to the Afghan capital, Kabul. U.S. troops are, at present, in block by block fighting in Baghdad's vast Shiite Sadr City slum and they're wheeling in the Abrams tanks and calling in helicopters, Hellfire-missile-armed drones, and jets for help in brutal urban warfare as the bodies pile higher.

How Does Hillary Clinton Feel About the White Racist Vote?

May 5, 2008

If you haven't already, check out my colleague Betsy Reed's compelling account of how Hillary Clinton's campaign has deployed the racist playbook of the right against Barack Obama. As Betsy argues, Clinton has positioned herself to take advantage of the feeding frenzy around Rev. Wright, and her surrogates have portrayed "the black candidate" as less American, less patriotic and most importantly in what is now a race for superdelegates, less electable.

It's that last word--electable--that really rankles me because it imputes "electability" to the candidates themselves. It's as if "electability" were a personal quality--like integrity, compassion or in more biologized accounts, say, blonde hair--that candidates possess in varying degrees. All of this is absurd since "electability" is wholly determined by the voters, usually. (In 2000, George W. Bush didn't possess "electability" so much as he was gifted it by the Supreme Court.)

Now, in order to convince superdelegates to buck the will of the majority of Democratic primary voters, Hillary Clinton is arguing that she's the more "electable" candidate, and some of her surrogates are suggesting that Obama is not "electable" against John McCain. But just what is it about Hillary that makes her more "electable" than Barack? From reading the Clinton campaign's material, you'd never know it has anything to do with her race. Instead, they talk in euphemisms and codes. In a memo titled "HRC Strongest Against McCain," Clinton strategist Harold Ickes points to her superior polling in "swing states" and among "swing voting blocs" like "Catholics," as well as Obama's rising "unfavorables." Departed advisor Mark Penn has said that the working class is "a critical vote" that superdelegates should consider because "these are voters who in the past have gone either way in the general election."

Obama: Stop Hearting Republican Ideas

April 28, 2008

The last two months have been rough for Barack Obama. He's been left-baited, race-baited, red-baited and tarred as an "elitist." Perhaps that's why he finally consented, after 772 days of holding out, to be interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News. It was a strong move from a defensive position, and Obama gave an agile performance on the whole, deftly parrying Wallace's efforts to nail him on Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers and the infamous oft-missing American flag pin. But what's up with Obama's shout-out to Republican ideas?

Pressing Obama on his credentials as a "uniter" and measuring his record against the alleged bi-partisanship of John McCain, Wallace asked: "As a president, can you name a hot button issue where you would be willing to cross Democratic party line[s] and say you know what, Republicans have a better idea here?"

Obama's response: "Well, I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea...on issues of regulation, I think that back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, a lot of the way we regulated industry was top down command and control. We're going to tell businesses exactly how to do things. And I think that the Republican party...came with the notion that you know what, if you simply set some guidelines, some rules and incentives for businesses, let them figure out how they're going to for example reduce pollution."

Pentagon Propaganda & Antiwar Analysts (Updated)

April 21, 2008

The Sunday Times' article detailing the massive, secret coordinated campaign by the Pentagon and all the leading television news channels to sell and defend the administration's Iraq policy is a critical piece of investigative journalism. David Barstow provided meticulous and aggressive reporting, even referencing how The Times'amplified Pentagon "surrogates" without sufficient disclosure for readers. The Times also deserves credit, both for running the lengthy piece and suing the government to obtain related documents. (Read the whole thing here, or try this YouTube excerpt.)

The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel is urging Congress to investigate the program exposed by the article:

In its rigorous documentation of the relationship between the government, the networks and retired military analysts, the lineaments of the corrosive structure and impact of a new military-media-industrial complex are exposed. This corrupt complex demands investigation by all relevant Congressional committees...

Glenn Greenwald, who has written extensively about the media's pro-war bias and undisclosed conflicts of interest, flags the galling (non)-response of several news organizations, near the end of the article:

McCain's Medical Records: Why the Delay?

April 20, 2008

The mainstream media ask Obama why he doesn't wear a flag pin, but they aren't asking McCain why he doesn't release his medical records. McCain, who would be the oldest man ever elected president, had surgery for melanoma, a potentially fatal skin cancer, eight years ago - the scar is still prominent on his face. He has promised several times to release the records, but each release has been postponed.

It makes you wonder: is there something in McCain's medical records that he doesn't want you to know?

The McCain campaign's explanation: his doctors are too busy. "The reason for the delay is because they want to gather all his doctors for a press conference to answer reporters' questions," CNN reported, "and May is the soonest that can be done." Three doctors are expected to answer questions, according to the Arizona Republic.

NYT Investigation Exposes Pentagon Pimps & Propaganda Operation

April 20, 2008

If you thought the US media had hit a new low with last week's ABC Debate Debacle, read Sunday's New York Times's 10,000 (plus) word cover story, "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand."

Using 8000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records, accessed through suing the Pentagon, the NYT report exposes the Pentagon's propaganda machine, its control over access and information, and its selling of the "war on terror" --beginning with the buildup to the Iraq war. As someone posting here put it, Goebbels would be proud.

This was an all out effort at the highest levels of the Bush Administration, continuing to this day, to dupe, mislead and lie to the American people-- using propaganda dressed up and cherry-picked as independent military analysis. As one participant described it, " it was psyops on steroids."

The 'Obamican' Phenomenon

April 18, 2008

In early April I visited the political battleground of suburban Philadelphia to interview a bunch of former Republicans who'd registered as Democrats to vote for Barack Obama in the April 22 primary. These interviews formed the basis of my latest Nation article, "Pennsylvania's 'Obamicans.'"

The story is largely set in Doylestown, one of Philly's oldest and most picturesque exurbs. It's a swing town in a swing area in a crucial swing state. As such, the political trends in Doylestown and the rest of Bucks County are pretty indicative of what's going on throughout Pennsylvania and the rest of the country.

The article is subscription-only on our website (so become a subscriber!), but I'm posting an edited excerpt below for the loyal readers of this blog.