With Zizek, We're All Just Left Joking Around

by Andrew Bast

Originally published in the May issue of The Advocate at the CUNY Graduate Center.

In Defense of Lost Causes by Slavoj Žižek (Verso Books, 2008, 208 pgs.)

Jennifer Anniston is a terrorist. This is how low leftist intellectuals have sunk. Set aside for a moment what a downright silly moniker a leftist intellectual has become and instead consider this: theory-hungry thinkers are now spending $34.95 on a hulking hardcover book — In Defense of Lost Causes — by the rambling, more-intellectual-than-thou Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek. What to expect? Riffing on Hollywood’s The Break-Up, Žižek argues that when Anniston screams at co-star Vince Vaughan, “I don’t want you to wash the dishes — I want you to want to wash the dishes!” this silver-screen trope is more than a spoof on the tedious bickering natural to cohabitation. Žižek writes that it is, “the minimal reflexivity of desire, its ‘terrorist’ demand.” Come again? This is bunk by the bulk, and amid the dissonant yammering that accompanies so much of politics today, the absurdity of In Defense of Lost Causes offers an opportune moment to state outright that, in this ripe political moment, the intellectual culture of the left is lost as a comical farce, and what is most devastating? Everyone just seems to be laughing along.

Where to begin with Žižek? The 59-year-old philosopher lectures and publishes widely. Wearing a furry gray beard and an achingly anguished visage, in conversation he hustles as if unable to get to the next point quickly enough. His books such as Enjoy Your Symptom!, The Sublime Object of Ideology, and The Ticklish Subject, while difficult to categorize, might be deemed postmodern: Lacanian in approach, expansive in scope, and often about film. In a profile, the New Yorker asked, seemingly without a hint of irony, “He may appear to be a serious leftist intellectual, but is it not the case that he is in fact a comedian?” The ostensible topic of In Defense of Lost Causes, however, isn’t so funny: revolutionary terror. At times he cherishes it, at times he dissects it, but all in all, Žižek loses focus, and with it, his case. The book is neither leftist, nor comedy, nor brilliant, but instead a pioneering work in a newfound genre: that of overlearned, underdisciplined, philosophical blogger.

Earlier this semester, Žižek spoke to a sold-out audience at the Graduate Center. Billed as the world’s “most controversial public intellectual,” he packs lecture halls full of graduate students across the country. It would be a dirty fallacy to take Žižek as the intellectual barometer of today’s wider academic scene, but on several levels, his popularity points to symptoms with which few would disagree: the academy’s insularity, reliance on regimented and specialized fields of study, and perversely maniacal obsession with an exclusive, intellectual lexicon. (Do not be fooled, the lot of such pedantic prose makes trade book and newspaper editors cringe.) Put simply: not much of the public is very interested in faddish tropes about Lacan, determinate negation, and the former actress from Friends. The leftist public intellectual, here, has become a joke.

Inflation and Rising Food Prices Lead to Riots in Haiti, Cairo, Next, Revolution?

There is no faster way to make someone angry than to reach into their wallet. To add fuel to the fire, steal the money that would have paid for their dinner, and catastrophe ensues.

A downright frightening facet of the global economic downturn is rising inflation. Some people—wealthy, the middle class in industrialized countries—can deal with the spike in the price, say, of rice. However, most of the world, lest it be forgotten that more than ten billion live on less than $2 a day, cannot simply buy a 36-inch instead of a 42-inch flatscreen television to balance the budget. The proof?

Food riots.

In the streets of Haiti, the most destitute state in the Americas, exactly such a disaster is taking place right now. In Cairo, where corruption had already mangled the bread industry, rising food prices have set off unrest there as well. Both countries are desperately poor; while there are nice hotels in Cairo, more than 74 million Egyptians live on less than $1 a day. People have also gone from wits end to violence in Cameroon and Cote d'Ivoire. Protests have hit Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia and Indonesia.

The venerable World Food Programme of the United Nations, which feeds more than 70 million people every day, is now starved for cash and suppliers. World Bank President Robert Zoellick, after asking rich countries to go above and beyond for another $500 for WFP, said, "While many worry about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs."

Remember that unreasonable bread prices was an instigator of the French Revolution. From "A Popular History of France," by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot, "We could see the French flying over the roads, across fields and through hedges, in such numbers that the sight must have been seen to be believed.  There were in the outskirts of our town and in the neighboring villages, so vast a multitude of knights and men-at-arms tormented with hunger, that it was a matter horrible to see. They gave their arms to get bread."

A riot of desperation may unsettle Port-au-Prince, and Haitians are targeting President René Préval. From the Associated Press, "We heard the speech, but the speech is empty," said student protest organizer Herve Saintiles, 37. "We are going to hold the president responsible for all these problems." Holding officials responsible is one thing, revolution is quite another.

Perhaps the scarcity of resources, as a Malthusian demand of people around the world, has now become one of the defining characteristics of this globalized planet, one that stands in stark contrast to the French aristocracy two centuries ago.

And if revolution came in Cairo, in Port-au-Prince, or in Yaoundé, would we even want to see where it was headed?

UPDATE: Hait's Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis has resigned; Zoellick has said that 33 countries are at risk; Wall Street Journal front page: biofuels "appalling."

[Photo of the 18th-Century France from Gutenberg.]

Prying Apart the Jaws of That Crocodile Phrase: Globalization

Definitions are limiting, and for good reason. After all, when a word comes to mean everything, the truth is that it actually means nothing.

Globalization is the latest victim. Everywhere you turn, it's globalization. Trade policy? Globalization puts Americans out of work. Ecological disaster? Globalization.

This happens for two reasons. First, it's easy. Do you have an idea, are you trying to explain something going on in the world around you? You can either blame it on the terrorists, or sound more civilized and appeal to the catch-all: globalization.

The second reason is that nobody really has any clue as to what's going on. And caught in a torrential downpour of uncertainty—sad wars without end like Darfur and the Congo, two billion people around the world living on less than two bucks a day—otherwise intelligent minds reach for the nearest, biggest, umbrella they can grab: globalization.

Here, then, is a proclamation that we either start spending the time to pry apart the jaws of that crocodile phrase and begin to explain exactly what is going on, or, even better, we come up with original ways to look at the world. Some will be insightful, some will be wrong. But propagating an ambiguous, cloudy term that means so little (another, is the oft-remarked 'international community,' because what in the world is that, other than a cheap generalization?) spits out vapid thoughts, empty ideas, if any at all, and if there's anything the world desperately lacks is just an inkling of which way is up.

Because globalization is really just a synonym for the Internet.

[Photo of protester in downtown Mexico City, 2007, taken by Ana Bast.]

'WHAT THE HELL AMERICA??' So Asked Sergeant Wood . . .

Over the years, several Iraq War veterans have explained to me the same story. How, once they get back stateside, they feel an overwhelming urge to go back. Being home, being safe, wasn't, to reduce a hugely complex sensation to simple terms, the right thing to do.

In the stories, which I also heard from a war photographer that readily explained his bout with post traumatic stress disorder and consequential time spent with his shrink, there seems to be equal parts duty and humanity. As for the former, soldiers have left their own to fight a battle without them: could I be there to save . . . As for the latter, how can I be here, of all places, when the war is going on there?

Humanity chooses entirely arbitrary landmarks with which to commemorate events, and today comes another: 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Considering the way the war is disappearing from popular discourse, perhaps it's wise to take any mention possible.

And in its piece (everybody plans the thousand spot), the Times assembles a collection of heart wrenching notes from soldiers. War is hell, it's been said, and it's true. But sometimes these anecdotes hit close to home, whoever you are. Or, actually, to put it bluntly, they indict.

From 22-year-old Sergeant Ryan Wood's Myspace blog in May of 2007, a month before he was killed by an bomb in his Humvee.

WHAT THE HELL AMERICA??

“What the hell happened?” any intelligent American might ask themselves throughout their day. While the ignorant, dragging themselves to thier closed off cubicle, contemplate the simple things in life such as “fast food tonight?” or “I wonder what motivated Brittany Spears to shave her unsightly, mishaped domepiece?”

To the simpleton, this news might appear “devastating.” I assume not everyone thinks this way, but from my little corner of the earth, Iraq, a spot in the world a majority of Americans could’nt point out on the map, it certainly appears so. This little piece of truly, heart-breaking news captured headlines and apparently American imaginations as FOX news did a two hour, truly enlightening piece of breaking news history. American veiwers watched intently, and impatiently as the pretty colors flashed and the media exposed the inner workings of Brittany’s obviously, deep character. I was amazed, truly dumbfounded wondering how we as Americans have sank so low. To all Americans I have but one phrase that helps me throughout my day of constant dangers and ever present death around the corner, “WHO THE [expletive] CARES!” Wow America, we have truly become a nation of self-absorbed retards. ... This world has serious problems and it’s time for America to start addressing them.

This world has serious problems, no doubt about that.

[Image is the cover of the current issue of The Atlantic, founded in 1857, ostensibly aimed at 'thought leaders.']

Never Mind That, it's Just the War in Iraq

Associated Press Television writer David Bauder files this report; as a television story, Americans are just paying Iraq no mind.

He quotes CNN correspondent Arwa Damon, "It's no big secret that this is a war that everyone has grown tired of . . . Iraqis are aware of it. They think it's a story that people are tired of hearing about." While a year ago the war filled 23 percent of news, today it's just 3 percent.

Violence in Iraq did level off, but rose again this past month. The number of troops has not decreased significantly, nor has spending. What's changed is that there's no audience, no broadcast.

Newspapers and magazines have moved on, too. Richard Pérez Peña summarizes in the Times, "The drop in coverage parallels—and may be explained by—a decline in public interest. Surveys by the Pew Research Center show that more than 50 percent of Americans said they followed events in Iraq 'very closely' in the months just before and after the war began, but that slid to an average of 40 percent in 2006, and has been running below 30 percent since last fall."

It's a confounding situation. The war barrels on in the middle of a desert. The audience dwindles. No change in plans is scheduled. In short, there's no end in sight. Is there a reason for all this?

Al-Qaeda? Iran? Or . . .

With the shuttering title, "A Crude Case For War," the Washington Post takes seriously the question of why Iraq? And why stay? Like a 600-lb. gorilla in the middle of the fetid and stinking room where this war has been shuttered for more than five years, all arrows point to the world's second largest known reserves, with more discovered all the time, and contracts being signed regularly, it's very much about the oil.

Perhaps it began long ago, but this is the point at which the Iraq War becomes—at least it stands center stage, nearly invisible, for all to see who bother to look—hauntingly, the cost of doing business. The country has the privilege to look away, and the thousands tick off, all for . . . ?

Obama's Obligatory Speech on Iraq

There's been so much talk lately about substance. Barack Obama's rousing and inspiring oratories about change, change, change, make people ask, change to what? Take Iraq. When pressed recently on 60 Minutes about withdrawing troops by 2009, Obama didn't flinch. "Absolutely," he said, "I think now is precisely the time."

The decision is weighted with more dire facts than any single man or woman can comprehend, yet it is the single most important question facing the country.

Should he keep his word, what follows would be his 7 p.m. television address, the first Monday evening after he takes office.

"My fellow Americans, I talk to you this January evening with both serious concern as well as great hope. Early in my campaign for the presidency, I often said that I would tell you not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. Now that moment has come.

"I promised you that I would begin withdrawing our troops from Iraq, and I will keep that promise. This decision weighs heavily on me, as it does on you, because once we leave, there will be more violence. There is a chance that the entire region, as it is said, could fall into war. Yet, staying any longer, remaining party to the anguished and centuries-old conflicts that ignite such hatreds is no longer our place.

"The state of our finances at home, in Washington, in your state capital, likely even in your local government, is in disarray. As uncertainty in Iraq and the Middle East escalates with our withdrawal, the price of oil will likely rise, only complicating matters further. What I propose might at first sound counterintuitive. I want to keep budgeting for about 70% of the $160 billion we're spending in Iraq each year. Undoubtedly, this will hurt financially. But where that money goes will put this country on track for another century.

"When John F. Kennedy made his bold declaration in 1961, he said, ‘We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’ And tonight, I declare that in the next decade we will reduce our consumption of oil—across the board—by one half, with a goal of being free from dependence on any kind of oil by the year 2050.

"This is the only way to extricate ourselves from the fiasco of our own creation, and we will do so with apologies and hope for the Iraqi people. Change is a challenging calling. And one from which we no longer have the option of looking away."

Heavy enough?

If this is what it means, and watching John McCain tour Iraq this week, Obama has decisions to make sooner rather than later, for should his position evolve, the progressives, democrats, the left, whatever this discombobulated party calls itself these days, could again cower and end up facing a convention of Republicans waving footwear in the air.

['Obama and the Citizen Press' from flickr.]

Free Markets? Sure, Because Bernanke and the Federal Reserve Can Afford One

Who ever said there's no such thing as a free market? Or, wait. Who ever said there's such a thing as a free market?

The rhetorical play is supposed to be confusing because the economic havoc unfolding these days unearths the conventional wisdom -- a phrase made popular by John Kenneth Galbraith, a Harvard economist who made a career of elucidating the realities underpinning such myths -- that the domestic economy in the US and the ever-emerging markets of the developing world are, to employ that big idea, free.

A brilliant essay in the business section of Sunday's paper by Gretchen Morgenson zeros in on the consequences of regulators gone wild. At the heart of 'free market' thinking is the understanding that economic actors -- buyers, sellers, institutions -- will undoubtedly make bad choices, but bad choices garner no profit, or penalize with a loss, so actors rationally learn from their mistakes, adjust for the next go around, and in a broader sense the market leans toward efficiency and growth.

As much as is free today, as much seems to be rational.

Morgenson aptly points out that the Fed's bailout of investment bank Bear Stearns had to be reluctant; Bear has played the role of renegade shop for a long time. Yet, it seems that the Fed didn't have much choice. It was either bailout the bad guy, or worse.

“As we got through the day, we recognized that at the pace things were going, there could be continued liquidity demands that would outstrip our resources,” Bear chief Alan Schwartz said in a conference call before the weekend. The bank was going to fold.

From Morgenson's reporting, "The Fed has now crossed the line in a very clear way on 'moral hazard,' because they have opened the door to the view that they are required to save almost any institution through non-recourse loans -- except the government doesn't have the money and it destroys the US's reputation as the broadest, deepest, most transparent and properly regulated capital market in the world," so says analyst Josh Rosner of Graham Fisher & Company.

Why is the Fed so reluctantly eager, then? (Reluctant because they know all too well that they are crossing a line, yet eager because they're getting in this dirty game regardless.) All signs point to a precipice toward which nobody wants to take even a single step closer. Practical principles of the free market? Let a bank fall and the rest of Wall Street (and the rest of us, too) will learn our lesson? Anything but.

The bailout reveals that the financial scheme in which so many are mired on the Street can't survive the market realities they have created. Were the Fed not frightened, it would let the system work out the kinks. But these aren't kinks, this is a crisis of confidence, what seems to be the only valuable asset on Wall Street anymore.

Long ago, Karl Polanyi, in his lasting book, "The Great Transformation," crushed the myth that the free-market economy somehow naturally emerged over time. To the contrary, industrialization in Great Britian gave way to a government that very calculatingly created the liberal market. From the beginning, it's never been free.

The rearview mirror is full of the guilty: predatory lenders, overzealous banks, and lest they be forgotten, American citizens who, in a lulled sense of false hope, continued to live beyond their means. The question is: will taxpayers bail out the economy? Likely. In the future, will anything change?

What would a more centrally-planned economy look like in the US, one in which short-term profit motives aren't the central driving force? With so much of the country's future uncertain, it's a discussion worth having.

This market isn't free. Let's start by conceding that. And as long as it's not, perhaps more controls and planning are reforms worth considering. The only problem is that change requires catastrophe.

Africa: US, In; China, In; France, Out.

No continent suffers violence today on the level of Africa. Nor is there a land so massive and so poor. In the past few years, superpowers have ramped up strategies to exploit the land's resources and angle for military superiority. China has been building infrastructure in the south, to be paid in future oil deliveries. At the same time, the US has launched AFRICOM, a centralized military command.

One would think that the European Union would follow suit. Lest we forget that the most powerful nations in Europe a hundred years ago colonized all of Africa, divided the spoils, and left it in tatters after World War II. However, the EU seems to be turning the other way.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy, midway through a trip through the continent has announced sweeping changes in his country's military power in Africa. Lately he's come under fire for France's recent involvement in the Chadian crisis. (Chad is a former French colony.) He said, "Defense agreements must reflect the Africa of today and not yesterday."

France has four bases throughout Africa, some of which are now rumored to be shut down. "It is unthinkable that the French Army should be drawn into domestic conflicts," Sarkozy said.

Western involvement on the continent, even when done with the best intentions, so often seems to be a refashioned colonialism, minus the guns, plus the paternalism. Only, France's move presents the quandary: naming quickly five massive conflicts -- Darfur, Southern Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, and Kenya -- would the continent fare better left to its own devices?

 

The thought exercise may be a worthy one as France retreats, but neither China, nor the US, are going anywhere anytime soon.

[Image: movie poster for L'Afrance, 2001.]

Rub Yourself the Right Way (c/o Nicholas Sarkozy, Carla Bruni, Clinton, Obama, et al.)

Cada uno juzga por su propia condición . . .

What if we set aside for a moment the disillusioned thought that any man or woman campaigning for political office does so with the sole motivation to better the world, and maybe consider, for the same moment, that individuals who endure the grueling and near-lethal process of running for national office commence such farcical journeys for reasons having to do more with themselves than anything else?

And here we have new French president Nicholas Sarkozy.

Nary a year in office, the high-coiffed premier has divorced his second wife, a model and public relations executive, and less than four months later married Carla Bruni, the ravishing pop singer (and former model, what an infatuation!).  In Hollywood, the immense amounts of publicity surrounding such an affair would fly as an obvious stunt to hype an upcoming movie. Surely, in France, this is all about love, even despite the fact that Bruni has a new album due out this fall.

The French are unamused. When Sarkozy joked to a crowd of steel workers in Gandrange about not taking a honeymoon, they booed him. The BBC reports that his popular support is plummeting.

The seemingly selfless candidates running for the presidency of the US also create, among other things, a spectacle. When they cough too much, it makes news. When they look tired, it makes news, in Australia, no less! When they lose control of the tone of their voice, it makes news. When they ... do anything, it makes, well, you get the point.

All for the good of the people? Oops. All for the good of the people.

Speaking of it's all about me, Angelina Jolie was visited Baghdad today, on a mission to draw attention to the Iraqi refugee problem, which the Inquirer reported on yesterday. Should the Inquirer be on the six o'clock news? Well, of course. Barring that chance reality, let it be said that her beautiful, double-baby-bearing belly fixing the war is any day than the celebrities the country spends so much time killing.

Do Sarkozy, H.Rodham, B.Hussein and Angelina all tie up in a single, shiny, bow-ribboned package? In a way, they do. Each is self-indulged beyond comparison. They could talk about themselves over and over and over until you are blue in the face, and then they will go on to the next crowd. What, even so salient being is capable?

The elite goes down better than an elixir, one that few ever have the chance to taste. After all, one cannot practice before an audience of tens, of hundreds, of thousands, of millions, even if you had the audacity to ask. Sarkozy may have stock his big posts with the descendants of 1968 Paris radicals (more power to him), but the reason that the steelworkers booed him is because, and this is not an issue of propriety, responsibility rightfully runs roughshod over leaders. Should self-love trump deep-gut obligation, you'll be made a fool.

(Atop, Bruni.)

Still Few Iraqi Refugees Admitted, Except in Sweden

The Inquirer watched closely last year as the refugee crisis in Iraq spiraled out of control and the US State Department ostensibly redoubled its efforts to start admitting Iraqi refugees into the States.

For some reason, the US still can't manage to allow Iraqis into the country.

According to new numbers from the State Department, to date only 1,400 have been admitted in the last four months. Officials had pledged to process 7,000 by the end of last year. To put this in context, during the intense violence in Iraq last year, at times more than 60,000 Iraqis were fleeing their country every month. In comparison to the US, Sweden has admitted thousands.

 Perhaps the most excruciating reporting on the subject was done a while back by George Packer in a piece for the New Yorker entitled, appropriately, "Betrayed," in which he chronicled the frightening lives former Iraqi employees of US forces now lead.

Packer has since adapted the piece into a play of the same name. He told Gothamist that he, "didn't write the play to draw attention to the issue, which is why I wrote the article. I wrote it to do justice to the Iraqis who I met and to explore their situation more deeply and personally. I mean, it's theater, it's a human story. It's a complicated one about loyalty, hope and disillusionment and I don't expect that it's going to get the attention of anyone in Washington whose attention I've already gotten, without much result. I don't have any illusions it will be a battle cry; I just hope people come see it in order to be made to think and feel more deeply about this human situation."

The human situation, it's clear by the numbers, has been bungled. The State Department reportedly employs charts and graphs and colors to code prospective entrants to the States, what seems to be an array of ways to hold up the process.

To suggest that the tragic holdup owes itself to either budgetary or coordination complications is clearly bunk. Government can be brilliant in creating stoppages, but as was evidenced by the mobilization for war—which included far more complex and involved management maneuvers—no offices dragged their feet.

A truly human situation.

Report: Annan's Room Bugged, 100 Million Affected by Kenyan Violence

[At right: the Rift Valley in Kenya.]

Until the recently disputed elections and ensuring street violence, Kenya held special status on the African continent. The vital role it played in providing stability is all the more evident now that Nairobi and the Rift Valley are embroiled in violent political conflict.

Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan has so far headed the peace negotiations, but a report from South Africa's Independent Newspapers claims that the ranking diplomat's hotel room has been bugged and the peace talks are now "in tatters." Annan's security aides uncovered the spy device. No word on who might have planted it.

At the same time, a substantial report from IRIN explains that, because of the disruptions in Nairobi, more than 100 million people—that is a third of the population of the entire US—could be affected in Sudan, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Considering the thin lifelines staving off conflict in some of these places, that the Rift Valley makes up a 6,000-kilometer fissure in the earth's crust may soon serve as a chilling metaphor.

From the IRIN report:

Southern Sudan, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have experienced shortages of fuel and other essential supplies because of insecurity along the Kenyan section of the Northern Corridor, one of the most important transport routes in Africa. It runs from the Kenyan port of Mombasa westwards through Uganda and the Great Lakes.

Among aid agencies, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) faces the greatest challenge, feeding seven million vulnerable people in East Africa and the Great Lakes.

"WFP is extremely concerned because Kenya is not just supplying Kenya. It's supplying much of east and central Africa, both with commercial trade and food and also humanitarian assistance. It's a very worrying problem," WFP spokesman Peter Smerdon told IRIN.

"We need to feed seven million people every month and that includes 250,000 [internally displaced by the post-election violence] in Kenya on top of our normal caseload. We need a continuous supply line.

"If the roads are closed for a week or two weeks, then we get into real problems. We might have to start postponing food distributions. You could see people [going] hungry if the road network is knocked out for weeks," he said.

Covering more than 1,400km, the Northern Corridor is the largest in Africa, used by 4,000 light vehicles, 1,250 trucks and 400 buses per day. It carries more than 10 million tonnes of cargo a year.

WFP moves more than 1,000 tonnes of food out of Mombasa every day of the year, according to Alistair Cook, the logistics co-ordinator. "WFP has to keep the corridor in operation or else we will lose hundreds of thousands of refugees through starvation," he said.

NEWS BREAK: Super Tuesday, 2008

This is Andrew Bast, reporting for the New York Inquirer ... At eleven o'clock on this mild, dark (unsurprisingly) Tuesday night, of the twenty-four states voting today, few can be decided for either Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Hussein Obama. Neither of the Democratic candidates' middle names are regularly mentioned. Coincidentally, that of the former is hardly (if at all?) mentioned on her website, and of the latter, Hussein pales to hope in Barack's speeches.

Ms. Clinton, in her home (?!) state of New York says on a stage that, All colors, all faiths, and all walks of life ... who aren't in the headlines but are part of America's story ... [waiting] ... tonight in record numbers ... [mention of tornadoes in voting states] ... but tonight is your night, America's night .. and California in a few more minutes ...

Live, the speech sounds conciliatory, yet the woman, as usual, displays her brilliance, politically calculated as it is.

Courtesy of veteran Tom Brokaw, it ought to be mentioned that the stock market dove today as low as it has in a single day in two years [note: fact-check that, because the AP says, it was the Dow's biggest percentage drop in almost a year]. This will be hardly mentioned in tomorrow's news.

To play fair game, the Republican race seems to be just as much up in arms, but any sensible voter today, including many Republicans, as the so-registered boutique firm patent lawyer I met tonight told me, is looking at Obama. The rest won't bother with venturing to the polls. Republican races that deserve attention are not presidential, they're at the state level. (Don't worry, I won't watch, either.) McCain.

Speaking of Barack Hussein Obama ... [10:30 ...]

[Apologies, caught watching Law & Order on channel nine.]

Rumors are aflutter as we approach midnight. The Democratic party allocates delegates according to the percentage of the popular vote, so despite the fact that Idaho was just this minute called for Barack Hussein Obama, even if I kept myself up past midnight and waited for the paper in the morning and then listened to the official accounts tomorrow, I still could very well possibly have no idea whose name will be on the ballot. So it goes.

After some broadcaster-negotiating, Obama goes on at 11:44 and soon riles his Chicago audience into raucous chants of, "USA! USA! USA," and, "Yes we can! Yes we can!" He talks of climate change and genocide. Of his former life as an organizer on the south side of Chicago. Somehow, he looks untired; his voice curls velvetly, in the way of Reagan's best. "We," teleologically as he goes, "are the ones we're waiting for."

Republican candidate Mitt Romney tonight described America's long slide down. A hell of a rhetorically powerful phrase, and frightening, if you read the papers. It sounds like Britain, and, on reflection, like much of the former colonial powers of Europe.

SUPERDELEGATES is the word, or phrase, or constituency that will now echo as an ominous echo in Plato's cave. Unfortunately, the rest of us live in a reflected reality. Electoral politics in the US, for some historical reason that strangely can't be eradicated, plays on elusive pockets of power. The electoral system, in the national election, would be a perfect example; the popular vote does not elect the president. Tonight, should Rodham and Hussein split the vote across the country, ultimately the decision for the Democratic nominee could end up with superdelegates, a group of political party insiders. Thus, the decision is taken away, once again. So it goes.

Oh, and I don't have cable.

[Photo, courtesies made, from TeeRish on flickr. Utility for political reporting? More than the ubiquitous images lately of either candidate.]

New Budget, New Payouts, Same Profiteers, Same War

[At right: five-year charts, tracking roughly since the launch of the Iraq War, stock prices of major Pentagon contractors; from top to bottom: Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon Co., and Northrop Grumman Corp. Charts from Yahoo! Finance.]

Economists discuss the difference between markets and nonmarkets, the latter being a stand-in term for 'government.' Interestingly, both are prone to failure, albeit in different ways.

Markets fail all the time, hence government regulation. The current subprime mortgage crisis and the ensuing radical steps by the Federal Reserve. Governments also fail, but in entirely different ways. One of the main differences is that governments find ways to use up all their money and then justify a budget increase. Case in point: in 2000, George II ran on a conservative platform of smaller government; however, bureaucracy and the billions that fund it have since skyrocketed.

The Pentagon's $515.4 billion request, part of Bush II's $3+ trillion budget for 2009, marks a 30 percent increase in spending for the military since he took office.

This includes neither the $600 billion already spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor the spending for those wars over the projected budget year.

The Times claims, "If [the Pentagon's budget] is approved in full, annual military spending, when adjusted for inflation, will have reached its highest level since World War II." Taking the paper at its word, for perspective, it is worth it to mention that military spending in the US, while still an inordinate amount of money that dwarfs combined military budgets of developed nations around the world many times over, is still less than five percent of the country's gross domestic product, one of the lower points since WWII. Compiling the costs of the Iraq war would bump this up, but not to a point, as a share of the country's economy, to rival past highs.

Perhaps, with a glance at the stock prices to the right, this is good for the economy. After all, government spending pumps in money, and high school economics teaches you that the step in an economic cycle that bridges recession with recovery is war.

Barring the claims of varying candidates for whom you voted today, considering that the Iraq War has drawn on almost six years and currently faces no serious chance of ending, how salient is the suggestion that the postmodern, globalized, [insert your own adjective here], transnational form of capitalism governing the planet makes possible the permanent (for the time being, at least) occupation of a dusty country atop massive amounts of oil reserves. The NewsHour continues with its honor roll of US personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan almost every night, yet as a campaign issue, the war has been bumped almost entirely off the stage.

Is the war, then, the cost of doing business?

Ban Ki-moon on Kenya, Chad, and the Safety of UN Staff Worldwide

What follows are selections from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's press stakeout this morning:

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, I have just briefed the Security Council on the serious developments in Africa. Over the past month, I have been deeply engaged in the evolving situation in Kenya. As I warned at the African Union summit last week, ethnic clashes threaten to escalate out of control. During my visit, I told Kenya's leaders, President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, that they bear a particular political responsibility for the future of Kenya. I stressed to all the Kenyan leaders the need to stop the unacceptable violence and killings and to resolve their differences through dialogue and the democratic process. I also appealed to all the political leaders to think beyond their individual interests or party lines, and to look to the future of Kenya as one country . . .

Turning to the situation in Chad, I am alarmed by the deteriorating security situation in the capital, N'Djamena, and elsewhere. We can no longer guarantee the safety and security of UN staff in Chad and we have evacuated, with the help of the French Government, most of the personnel into neighboring countries, in Cameroon and Gabon. However, a small number of personnel from MINURCAT in N'Djamena, and some other UN agencies, some essential members, are still remaining. We will take necessary measures in close cooperation with the French Government when it is necessary. The United Nations will do its utmost to help resolve the crisis . . .

I urged the Council to act swiftly to help bring this terrible crisis to an end . . . We need our forces in the theater of operations as soon as possible. UNAMID still lacks required aviation and ground transportation—chiefly helicopters. Additional troops will not make up for this shortfall. Countries that called for intervention in Darfur are under a special obligation to deliver on their promises . . .

Before concluding, let me say a few words about the security and safety of United Nations staff and premises. Recent events in Kenya, Chad, Darfur and Algeria serve only to underscore this matter's urgency.

I am therefore setting up, as I already announced in Geneva two weeks ago, an Independent Panel on Safety and Security of UN Personnel and Premises. The panel will be chaired by Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, who possesses vast experience and knowledge of UN operations.

I will also be engaging with Member States in the coming weeks and months to strengthen the security and safety support they are providing to UN staff posted in their countries. Thank you very much.

The French in Chad as Rebels Overrun Ndjamena

Sunday nights at the United Nations Security Council aren't known for four-hour blowout negotiating sessions. Violence in central Africa, however, summoned the fair arbiters of 21st century international peace and security to the horseshoed table yesterday. The region faces nightmarish mahem.

France conquered Chad in 1920, relinquished control in 1960, and yesterday French military swept in to evacuate Westerners as rebels overran the capital city of Ndjamena. Reports now are unclear; it seems as if Chadian president Idriss Déby has fought them off, though, according to the Associated Press, in the city "casualties were believed to be high." After taking fire, the US embassy now stands evacuated and abandoned.

Bloodshed in Ndjamena threatens to bring a bloody cauldron of fighting and murder to a boil. Three different Chadian rebel groups have banded together. As recently as 2006, rebels attempted to topple Déby's government in Ndjamena; since, Deby has gone against the country's constitution and taken a third term as president. Now, the banded rebels, which swear allegiances to distinct clans, charge Deby with corruption and stacking his parliament with his own Zagawa clan. (Zagawas make up less than three percent of Chad's population.)
 
Eastern Chad today houses hundreds of thousands of displaced Darfuris on its border, a remote region that has for years been home to varying forms of unrest. A force of more than 20,000 UN peacekeepers had been scheduled to land in Darfur by the end of 2007, but that didn't happen. Officials have since said that deploying a force by the end of 2008 would be a goal, and more importantly, any effort to calm the situation in Chad first depends on the pacification of Darfur. On Friday Reuters reported that Chad wrote to the Council, "Faced with the aggression orchestrated and strongly supported by Sudan, the Chadian government intends to use its legitimate right of defense by all means at its disposal, including pursing the aggressors into Sudanese territory."

In effect, the border between the two countries is entirely imagined. Roads are dirt, crossings are controlled by rebel groups, not state-paid customs and border control officials. That said, the more this border widens, the more a severe conflict could not only spread but also challenge the sovereignty of Ndjamena and Khartoum, and as it all goes down, put into question the postcolonial borders of both nations.

The wildcard is France. In the past, Paris has come to Chad's rescue, in the strange custom of a former kidnapper protecting out of obligation. Nicolas Sarkozy, the newly-married French president, this time instead offered President Déby a ride out of town. The Chadian president refused. French officials have said that Sudan is backing the Chadian rebels.

The Council released a statement this morning support the government in Ndjamena. Interpretations were being made as to what kind of support the statement authorizes, but French military support could soon be on the table.

UPDATE: France appears to have stepped on on Déby's behalf, and violence in the capital has quieted.