Why is power so attractive? The cliche that with power comes mighty responsibility does not help us to determine what it is about power that is so alluring. A working class assault charge is liable to be punished more severely than a case of corporate fraud. Where is all the talk of responsibility then? Sure, Reagan admitted that the Iran Contra Scandal "happened under his watch," but this is just a rhetorical trick to include himself in the same group as john doe sitting on a couch, watching Reagan on TV: they're both just "watching." When in reality, Reagan is on top of the pyramid, throwing El Salvadoreans (among others) off the top. Bush admitted that the relief funds to Hurricane Katrina were too slow, but soon enough, Brown was scapegoated for the breakdown. Power is attractive for the very fact you can escape responsibility by accepting it.
The United States, pummeled by the damages of a record-breaking hurricane year, will see its global dominance threatened by China in the next few years. To contain the Chinese "threat," they have instigated numerous "colour revolutions" such as those in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgistan. Bush has lavished heavy helpings of praise on Kazakhstan for their pro-American stance, but it remains a tightly controlled state ruled by a party that in all likelihood rigged the last election (one opposing seat? I doubt that somehow). The media is mostly owned by the President's daughter. If Bush is such a champion of democracy, why does he laud Kazakhstan? It's because containing the Chinese by expanding the American sphere of influence in Central Asia is more important than democracy. It's about a struggle for power. To dress up this ugly struggle in the lace-fringed velvet bodice of a power sharing ideology like democracy is crass.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
Brain Machine Interface and other Military Shenanigans
Much of this is based on an article I read in Walrus magazine.
A research project at Duke University has aimed to join thought to action in a very literal sense in recent years. A few months ago, a lab monkey moved a robotic arm in a lab 1000km away just by thinking about doing it. This technology, called Brain Machine Interface, would make it possible for people to control military machinery, such as tanks, from abroad just through thought alone. Another piece of military hardware being developed by the military right now hearkens back to the Reagan Era, when he was pushing "Star Wars." Space will definitely be indispensible to war in the new millenium. This hardware has been given the name "rods from God," and it consists of tungsten bolts that can be dropped from space with unerring precision on even small targets anywhere on the planet with destructive impact.
In the 1960s, the CIA conducted experiments with subjects who watched tv and films. They found that moving images produced a shift between left-brain and right-brain activity, inducing a chemical trance that suppresses judgement and heightens suggestibility. In other words, the audience of moving images were very often inculcated with the message and values of the programming. While this research might be invalidated by the century-long exposure to moving images, the fifty years of exposure to tv, and the related increase in visual literacy, several recent meetings between Hollywood magnates and the Pentagon confirm that many in power maintain a belief in the results of these studies.
In 1995, Hollywood and the Pentagon met to discuss allowing the Pentagon access to technology of digital manipulation that would allow them to fabricate news stories. A hypothetical case might portray an important leader of Iran spouting anti-American rhetoric in the same speech he openly proclaimed Iran's intention to pursue a vigorous nuclear weapons program. With such invented news coverage, they could mobilize support for various military interventions. Such programs advocated by the Pentagon fall under the purview of "Psyops" or psychological operatives, several of whom already work for CNN. One psyop plan included the projection of a huge holographic image of Allah over Baghdad that urged Iraqis to overthrow Hussein. But the problem of how they would visually depict Allah siderailed the project.
In 2003, several top Hollywood directors again met with the Pentagon, and this time the deal was that the government offered the directors access to military technology such as F-18s in exchange for editorial control of the films. According to insiders, they don't suggest changes some of the time, they always demand changes. They have done this in coordination with the release of video games that involve the player in a virtual version of the war in Iraq to recruit new soldiers for the war, and to retain the ones they already have.
A research project at Duke University has aimed to join thought to action in a very literal sense in recent years. A few months ago, a lab monkey moved a robotic arm in a lab 1000km away just by thinking about doing it. This technology, called Brain Machine Interface, would make it possible for people to control military machinery, such as tanks, from abroad just through thought alone. Another piece of military hardware being developed by the military right now hearkens back to the Reagan Era, when he was pushing "Star Wars." Space will definitely be indispensible to war in the new millenium. This hardware has been given the name "rods from God," and it consists of tungsten bolts that can be dropped from space with unerring precision on even small targets anywhere on the planet with destructive impact.
In the 1960s, the CIA conducted experiments with subjects who watched tv and films. They found that moving images produced a shift between left-brain and right-brain activity, inducing a chemical trance that suppresses judgement and heightens suggestibility. In other words, the audience of moving images were very often inculcated with the message and values of the programming. While this research might be invalidated by the century-long exposure to moving images, the fifty years of exposure to tv, and the related increase in visual literacy, several recent meetings between Hollywood magnates and the Pentagon confirm that many in power maintain a belief in the results of these studies.
In 1995, Hollywood and the Pentagon met to discuss allowing the Pentagon access to technology of digital manipulation that would allow them to fabricate news stories. A hypothetical case might portray an important leader of Iran spouting anti-American rhetoric in the same speech he openly proclaimed Iran's intention to pursue a vigorous nuclear weapons program. With such invented news coverage, they could mobilize support for various military interventions. Such programs advocated by the Pentagon fall under the purview of "Psyops" or psychological operatives, several of whom already work for CNN. One psyop plan included the projection of a huge holographic image of Allah over Baghdad that urged Iraqis to overthrow Hussein. But the problem of how they would visually depict Allah siderailed the project.
In 2003, several top Hollywood directors again met with the Pentagon, and this time the deal was that the government offered the directors access to military technology such as F-18s in exchange for editorial control of the films. According to insiders, they don't suggest changes some of the time, they always demand changes. They have done this in coordination with the release of video games that involve the player in a virtual version of the war in Iraq to recruit new soldiers for the war, and to retain the ones they already have.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Former Police Chief Advocates Legalization of all Drugs
Former Chief of Police in Seattle Norm Stamper wrote an opinion/editorial piece in the Los Angeles Times in support of not simply the decriminalization of marijuana, but the outright legalization of all drugs. He contends that the unrecognized casualties of the War against Drugs are the taxpayers. A huge percentage of prisoners have graced the space behind bars because of drug charges, and the United States has the largest prison population of any nation in the world.
Besides the nearly 69 billion dollars these often non-violent offenders cost taxpayers each year that would be saved, revenue from the regulation, sanitation, and sale of such drugs would be generated. Needless to say, the drugs would also be safer if they were regulated, and the violent organized crime that sprouts out of drug trafficking might undergo drastic reduction. Stamper believes that society would be safer and more secure if these drugs were legalized, regulated, and if we treated drug abuse medically rather than criminally.
Mr. Stamper points out the contradictions of allowing tobacco and alcohol, both undeniably drugs, to be legal and regulated, but prohibiting other drugs. He cites his experience as a police officer as what lead him to his conclusions, after becoming tired of arresting potheads who he did not believe belonged in prison. Non-violent criminals might indeed become violent because of their exposure to a violent prison culture, if simply by reason of self-defense. It's a slippery slope from self-defense in prison to offense out of prison.
Mr. Stamper has been engaged in a speaking tour on this topic, and at one of his talks recently the police chief of one of the largest cities in the United States approached him and told Norm that he agreed with him. When asked if Mr. Stamper could quote him on that, the chief replied "What, do you think I'm crazy?"
Obviously, free speech is relative. It is not uncommon to experience circumstances where we feel uncomfortable speaking our minds. While I am undecided about the efficacy of the outright legalization of all drugs, I applaud Mr. Stamper for having the courage to speak his mind considering the political climate of the United States.
Besides the nearly 69 billion dollars these often non-violent offenders cost taxpayers each year that would be saved, revenue from the regulation, sanitation, and sale of such drugs would be generated. Needless to say, the drugs would also be safer if they were regulated, and the violent organized crime that sprouts out of drug trafficking might undergo drastic reduction. Stamper believes that society would be safer and more secure if these drugs were legalized, regulated, and if we treated drug abuse medically rather than criminally.
Mr. Stamper points out the contradictions of allowing tobacco and alcohol, both undeniably drugs, to be legal and regulated, but prohibiting other drugs. He cites his experience as a police officer as what lead him to his conclusions, after becoming tired of arresting potheads who he did not believe belonged in prison. Non-violent criminals might indeed become violent because of their exposure to a violent prison culture, if simply by reason of self-defense. It's a slippery slope from self-defense in prison to offense out of prison.
Mr. Stamper has been engaged in a speaking tour on this topic, and at one of his talks recently the police chief of one of the largest cities in the United States approached him and told Norm that he agreed with him. When asked if Mr. Stamper could quote him on that, the chief replied "What, do you think I'm crazy?"
Obviously, free speech is relative. It is not uncommon to experience circumstances where we feel uncomfortable speaking our minds. While I am undecided about the efficacy of the outright legalization of all drugs, I applaud Mr. Stamper for having the courage to speak his mind considering the political climate of the United States.
Friday, November 25, 2005
A Diatribe on Homosexuality
I really don't understand what gets people's knickers in a knot regarding homosexual marriages. Love between two men or women is as natural as an oak tree. There is an island off of the coast of California where 80% of the sea gulls exhibit homosexual behaviour. I think it might have to do with regional overpopulation. While it's not necessarily useful to look to animals to support our own behaviour, this seems to be a common tactic, especially in debates about the ethics of meat-eating. Regardless, this observation of animal behaviour does help us understand ourselves better because humans I truly think are not above and beyond the pale of the rest of the animal kingdom. You can learn a lot about yourself by affirming what you are not, and the animal as "other" likewise teaches us what it means to be human. But I am not here to beat you over the head!
Before the nineteenth century, when the word homosexual was coined, and the development of psychiatry constructed the "being" of the homosexual, homosexual behaviour was common and often not even prone to much social scorn. Shipboard life in the Early Modern Period (i.e. the Renaissance) was an environment where only men interacted with one another. Homosexual behaviour on ships, both the sex and/or the emotional attachment, was the norm, not the exception. Many excellent books have been written on this topic. King James, who oversaw the compilation of the bible still widely used today, was a flaming queer. There are also speculations that such important writers and thinkers as Billie Shakespeare and Sigmund Freud had the occasional sodomitical encounter.
Speaking of the bible, although it is often marshalled in arguments against homosexuality, it is far from clear on the matter. David loved Jonathan "with a love beyond that of woman." The Sodom and Gomorrah story is more a condemnation of homosexual rape than homosexual love and partnership. In this story a crowd of men shows up at Lot's door, demanding to "know" (biblespeak for "to have sex with") his guest, who is an angel in disguise (male). That they were all so smitten with an angel perhaps is understandable . But regardless, their action is one of aggression towards a foreigner, rather than a loving act between two people. I read the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah as God's punishment of this attempted gang-rape; it's a condemnation of aggressive xenophobia, not homosexuality. Later in the story, Lot's daughters have sex with him to repopulate the devastated area!!! Hmmm, incest ok, but homosexuality bad? I wonder....
While I am in a homosexual relationship, I do not pretend to speak for the whole queer community. We are a diverse bunch. Some queers criticize the attempt to legalize gay marriage because marriage is a bourgeois institution in the first place, but I am all for it. Give me universal enfranchisement or give me death.
Before the nineteenth century, when the word homosexual was coined, and the development of psychiatry constructed the "being" of the homosexual, homosexual behaviour was common and often not even prone to much social scorn. Shipboard life in the Early Modern Period (i.e. the Renaissance) was an environment where only men interacted with one another. Homosexual behaviour on ships, both the sex and/or the emotional attachment, was the norm, not the exception. Many excellent books have been written on this topic. King James, who oversaw the compilation of the bible still widely used today, was a flaming queer. There are also speculations that such important writers and thinkers as Billie Shakespeare and Sigmund Freud had the occasional sodomitical encounter.
Speaking of the bible, although it is often marshalled in arguments against homosexuality, it is far from clear on the matter. David loved Jonathan "with a love beyond that of woman." The Sodom and Gomorrah story is more a condemnation of homosexual rape than homosexual love and partnership. In this story a crowd of men shows up at Lot's door, demanding to "know" (biblespeak for "to have sex with") his guest, who is an angel in disguise (male). That they were all so smitten with an angel perhaps is understandable . But regardless, their action is one of aggression towards a foreigner, rather than a loving act between two people. I read the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah as God's punishment of this attempted gang-rape; it's a condemnation of aggressive xenophobia, not homosexuality. Later in the story, Lot's daughters have sex with him to repopulate the devastated area!!! Hmmm, incest ok, but homosexuality bad? I wonder....
While I am in a homosexual relationship, I do not pretend to speak for the whole queer community. We are a diverse bunch. Some queers criticize the attempt to legalize gay marriage because marriage is a bourgeois institution in the first place, but I am all for it. Give me universal enfranchisement or give me death.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
There's Less War Now than thirty years ago
Does life get any more ironic? Despite what many people think, there is less violent crime, less wars, and less casualties of war in the last ten years than in the previous decades of the last century. So says a study featured in one of Canada's national newspapers. Go figure! Civil liberties are being infringed everywhere for the sake of "security," torture all of a sudden becomes "necessary" to maintain security, and all the while there is less terrorism overall now than in the eighties! The only category of violence that rose according to the authors of this study is significant incidents of terrorism. I'd love to ask them what they consider an "insignificant" incident of terrorism!
Surprisingly, it was the UK who was involved in the most foreign conflicts, followed by France and then the USA.
There is a lot of doom and gloom in the newspapers, so it's time to tell yourself that it will be ok. Go out and do something nice for someone you think deserves it! You'll feel better, I swear.
Surprisingly, it was the UK who was involved in the most foreign conflicts, followed by France and then the USA.
There is a lot of doom and gloom in the newspapers, so it's time to tell yourself that it will be ok. Go out and do something nice for someone you think deserves it! You'll feel better, I swear.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Genetic Testing for Potential Employees
Although this is more of an issue in the United States than in Canada because of our different healthcare systems, I think this merited a comment for all the blogaholics. Some employers in the US are trying to gain access to potential employees' genetic information so they can weed out people who will develop incapacitating diseases such as Parkinsons'. This is partly to protect themselves from large health insurance costs. Well, in a country that has no public healthcare system, what do they expect these folks to do if all businesses eventually become able to access this information to remain competitive? The callousness that this implies is outrageous!
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Is Petroleum Really a Fossil Fuel?
We have come to depend on petroleum for nearly everything. The globalization of the economy depends upon the so-called fossil fuels to transport goods all around the world. But it is not just fuel used in the transportation sector, it is ubiquitous; the petrochemical industries (responsible for the manufacture & development of plastics), the energy sector, the pharmaceutical industry (guess what the gel-capsules are made of), and even the food industry all depend upon petroleum and/or natural gas. We would not be able to grow the amount of food needed to feed even a quarter of the world's population without the natural gas used in fertilizers.
Petroleum and Natural Gas have become levers in international politics. Wars are fought over it; the burning of these fuels contributes to climate change that has many a scientist, politician, and citizen sprouting gooseflesh when they ponder the repercussions; indigenous rights are violated by oil corporations ravaging their lands. Proof of this consists of the war in Iraq, and the recent softwood-lumber dispute between Canada and the United States. After violating the NAFTA treaty by imposing heavy tariffs on imported lumber from Canada, the United States has been found in contempt of that treaty by an independent agency. Yet they still refuse to retract the tariffs. Canada is now threatening to cut back its oil sales to the United States, and our leaders are investigating selling more to China and India. With the second largest reserves in the world, Canada is sitting pretty, although the way reserves are calculated has recently come under fire by geologists.
A strange anomaly in petroleum science however, is the generally accepted view of petroleum as being organic in origin. This view contends that petroleum originates when biological matter decomposes, especially in locales such as large river deltas, where peat swamps form. However, decades ago a group of Soviet scientists determined that hydrocarbons, the molecules that make up petroleum, cannot form in such geologically shallow environments. Using thermodynamics, they concluded that the formation of hydrocarbons requires pressure found only in deeper enviroments, such as the earth's mantle, where no biological matter likely ends up according to present tectonic theory. Russia and China are currently the only countries using this science to look for new reserves, and Russia has recently found huge new reserves near the Caspian Sea. This may indicate a long-term shift of power from the United States to China and Russia.
Petroleum and Natural Gas have become levers in international politics. Wars are fought over it; the burning of these fuels contributes to climate change that has many a scientist, politician, and citizen sprouting gooseflesh when they ponder the repercussions; indigenous rights are violated by oil corporations ravaging their lands. Proof of this consists of the war in Iraq, and the recent softwood-lumber dispute between Canada and the United States. After violating the NAFTA treaty by imposing heavy tariffs on imported lumber from Canada, the United States has been found in contempt of that treaty by an independent agency. Yet they still refuse to retract the tariffs. Canada is now threatening to cut back its oil sales to the United States, and our leaders are investigating selling more to China and India. With the second largest reserves in the world, Canada is sitting pretty, although the way reserves are calculated has recently come under fire by geologists.
A strange anomaly in petroleum science however, is the generally accepted view of petroleum as being organic in origin. This view contends that petroleum originates when biological matter decomposes, especially in locales such as large river deltas, where peat swamps form. However, decades ago a group of Soviet scientists determined that hydrocarbons, the molecules that make up petroleum, cannot form in such geologically shallow environments. Using thermodynamics, they concluded that the formation of hydrocarbons requires pressure found only in deeper enviroments, such as the earth's mantle, where no biological matter likely ends up according to present tectonic theory. Russia and China are currently the only countries using this science to look for new reserves, and Russia has recently found huge new reserves near the Caspian Sea. This may indicate a long-term shift of power from the United States to China and Russia.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Political Scandals in Canada: Are they really Scandalous?
A number of scandals have recently revealed the skeletons in the closets of federal, provincial, and municipal offices. On the federal level, the Gomery inquiry has eviscerated the sponsorship scandal, an insidious affair of back-scratching that involved the misuse and misdirection of funds for the promotion of federal Liberal politics in Quebec. The attempt to bring criminal charges against Alfonso Gagliano, the minister who administrated the sponsorship program, might be shunted by Justice Gomery's report itself, as Gagliano's lawyers argue that the public report circumvents his right to a fair, unbiased trial.
The prosecution of public figures, whether celebrities such as Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson, or political figures such as Gagliano and more recently Greg Sorbara, Dalton McGuinty's Minister of Finance in the Ontario Government, has sewn a knot in the ideology of equality before the law believed to be integral to Western Democracies (for lack of a better term). The cult of personality involved in celebrity-worship, so encouraged in grocery-store checkout tabloids, makes it extremely difficult for these people to be treated like any John Doe in the eyes of the law. Add to that the income disparity that enables such celebrities and political leaders to hire the best possible lawyers, and this equality evapourates.
Such lawyers have the resources to identify the angles from which to defend their probably ignominious clients, such as the public nature of Gomery's report obliterating Gagliano's chance at a fair trial. The Gomery inquiry was convened to investigate an alleged case of injustice, and yet the result of its machinations might end up protecting him behind a shield of impunity. Members of the cadres that occupy the upper echelon of our society are probably well aware of these thorns in the rose of equality before the law, and they are also probably aware of their dramatically better chances of misbehaving with impunity. Is it any wonder that corruption seems so widespread in these cadres?
Canada does not even have an Ethics Commissioner independent of the government. Such an environment does not only inhibit the prevention of corruption, it fosters corruption. Meanwhile, it is a common complaint to those skeptical of aid granted to Africa through government channels that many African governments are corrupt, and the aid money rarely reaches the people who need it. Paul Martin refused to pledge the 7% GDP to foreign aid advocated by Bob Geldof during the recent Live 8 concerts. When the image of someone in the mirror is ugly, the person looking into it almost instinctively calls his neighbours ugly. Call it projection, call it displaced self-preservation, it all smells like a refusal to take responsibility for one's actions.
Granted, the administration costs of such aid efforts often suck up most of the money donated. That does not change the fact that those who advocate refusing aid on the grounds of governmental corruption in Africa enact a colonial paradigm of projection. Certainly some of these governments are corrupt. But that does not excuse those in the west from washing their hands of the whole affair on this pretext. Why not increase government funding of non-governmental aid agencies in ailing countries such as Niger and Malawi?
Stories of corruption resemble the Greek monster Hydra as they are reported in the news; cut one head off, and two more grow in its place. Yet another example of late is David Dingwall, CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint. He ran up an expense account of nearly a million dollars in this position. The Liberals defended him by advocating similar privileges for Crown CEOs and private sector CEOs. This is inconsistent with McGuinty's recent decision to maintain the separation of church and state in the matter of faith-based arbitration in family law, which was only provoked by a group of moderate muslims who tried to institute Sharia-based arbitrations in such matters. Free-market democracy is a religion; hence George Bush and Tony Blair's "mission" in the middle east (although there are other motives for this mission, such as oil and a fundamentalist Christian mission). It has its own rituals, such as shopping, its own codes of behaviour and rules. Its "clergy" is actively involved in converting those whose souls have not already been saved. Separation of church and state in this case would mandate that Crown CEOs not resemble private sector CEOs in the matter of expense accounts.
The word scandal has connotations of an exception, a transgression to the rule of propriety and morality. As scandal after scandal has shown its ugly face in the news media, the exception seems to become the rule. The truly scandalous thing about all the recent scandals is that perhaps they are not scandalous. They are the modus operandi of the status quo. Perhaps, like the proliferation of reality shows on television that ostensibly deconstruct the boundary between public and private and ensure we don't mind our privacy being invaded by security agencies, all the news about scandals makes them less objectionable by habituating us to them. Bombarded by these stories we consign ourselves to resignation; what should be anger devolves into a cool, distant cynicism.
copyright: Trevor Cunnington
A number of scandals have recently revealed the skeletons in the closets of federal, provincial, and municipal offices. On the federal level, the Gomery inquiry has eviscerated the sponsorship scandal, an insidious affair of back-scratching that involved the misuse and misdirection of funds for the promotion of federal Liberal politics in Quebec. The attempt to bring criminal charges against Alfonso Gagliano, the minister who administrated the sponsorship program, might be shunted by Justice Gomery's report itself, as Gagliano's lawyers argue that the public report circumvents his right to a fair, unbiased trial.
The prosecution of public figures, whether celebrities such as Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson, or political figures such as Gagliano and more recently Greg Sorbara, Dalton McGuinty's Minister of Finance in the Ontario Government, has sewn a knot in the ideology of equality before the law believed to be integral to Western Democracies (for lack of a better term). The cult of personality involved in celebrity-worship, so encouraged in grocery-store checkout tabloids, makes it extremely difficult for these people to be treated like any John Doe in the eyes of the law. Add to that the income disparity that enables such celebrities and political leaders to hire the best possible lawyers, and this equality evapourates.
Such lawyers have the resources to identify the angles from which to defend their probably ignominious clients, such as the public nature of Gomery's report obliterating Gagliano's chance at a fair trial. The Gomery inquiry was convened to investigate an alleged case of injustice, and yet the result of its machinations might end up protecting him behind a shield of impunity. Members of the cadres that occupy the upper echelon of our society are probably well aware of these thorns in the rose of equality before the law, and they are also probably aware of their dramatically better chances of misbehaving with impunity. Is it any wonder that corruption seems so widespread in these cadres?
Canada does not even have an Ethics Commissioner independent of the government. Such an environment does not only inhibit the prevention of corruption, it fosters corruption. Meanwhile, it is a common complaint to those skeptical of aid granted to Africa through government channels that many African governments are corrupt, and the aid money rarely reaches the people who need it. Paul Martin refused to pledge the 7% GDP to foreign aid advocated by Bob Geldof during the recent Live 8 concerts. When the image of someone in the mirror is ugly, the person looking into it almost instinctively calls his neighbours ugly. Call it projection, call it displaced self-preservation, it all smells like a refusal to take responsibility for one's actions.
Granted, the administration costs of such aid efforts often suck up most of the money donated. That does not change the fact that those who advocate refusing aid on the grounds of governmental corruption in Africa enact a colonial paradigm of projection. Certainly some of these governments are corrupt. But that does not excuse those in the west from washing their hands of the whole affair on this pretext. Why not increase government funding of non-governmental aid agencies in ailing countries such as Niger and Malawi?
Stories of corruption resemble the Greek monster Hydra as they are reported in the news; cut one head off, and two more grow in its place. Yet another example of late is David Dingwall, CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint. He ran up an expense account of nearly a million dollars in this position. The Liberals defended him by advocating similar privileges for Crown CEOs and private sector CEOs. This is inconsistent with McGuinty's recent decision to maintain the separation of church and state in the matter of faith-based arbitration in family law, which was only provoked by a group of moderate muslims who tried to institute Sharia-based arbitrations in such matters. Free-market democracy is a religion; hence George Bush and Tony Blair's "mission" in the middle east (although there are other motives for this mission, such as oil and a fundamentalist Christian mission). It has its own rituals, such as shopping, its own codes of behaviour and rules. Its "clergy" is actively involved in converting those whose souls have not already been saved. Separation of church and state in this case would mandate that Crown CEOs not resemble private sector CEOs in the matter of expense accounts.
The word scandal has connotations of an exception, a transgression to the rule of propriety and morality. As scandal after scandal has shown its ugly face in the news media, the exception seems to become the rule. The truly scandalous thing about all the recent scandals is that perhaps they are not scandalous. They are the modus operandi of the status quo. Perhaps, like the proliferation of reality shows on television that ostensibly deconstruct the boundary between public and private and ensure we don't mind our privacy being invaded by security agencies, all the news about scandals makes them less objectionable by habituating us to them. Bombarded by these stories we consign ourselves to resignation; what should be anger devolves into a cool, distant cynicism.
copyright: Trevor Cunnington
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