[Grovenet] The Iraqi View

Wed Sep 12 08:48:17 PDT 2007

Ha, ha!! 

You wrote: "...I didn't say anything about the political contest of  
democracy vs despotism. "

No, I did. 

You wrote: "...Dictators are not efficient in the long term.  By their
nature they  
have to be short sighted..."

Just like us in a "free" society are "short sighted". I didn't say Dictators
were a better solution, only that they could, under certain circumstances
and for a short time at least, avoid getting mired into inaction and
inefficiency to meet a goal. That's why our President has such broad "war"
powers, of course. Even we freedom-oriented folks recognize that there's a
time when endless discussion can bring our defeat and that we must get with
the program at hand even if we don't agree with it. And we've done that in
the past, even for many years in Vietnam. President Bush is the first
President I know about who managed to panic the American people into acting
as if we were forced into a war with no real war threat in sight. 

You wrote: "Democracy can be an inefficient political system.  Capitalism
can be  
efficient at delivering the lowest valued goods to the most people  
and the highest valued goods to the most wealthy people.  However  
neither is required by its nature to look at spiritual, moral, or  
environmental issues. "

I would  say that democracy is extremely inefficient in the short term and,
as other societies have demonstrated, can be very efficient over the long
term. I think it's interesting how you put "spiritual", "moral", and
"environmental" in the same sentence. The first two are highly subjective
values that resist quantification or measurement.  The third,
"environmental" is a scientific issue that can be quantified. Our problem at
the moment is that we don't understand it very well so we work from a
position of beliefs and guesses ("hypotheses" and "theories" to the
scientist) which tends to cause the sort of association you made in the
minds of most people. But environmental issues can be brought into the realm
of the quantifiable, with sufficient knowledge. I don't expect our
understanding spiritual or moral issues will ever reach that point. 

You wrote: "...Mussolini didn't have any more success with the Italian rail
system  
than any other Italian government.  He just had a better PR telling  
everyone that he had more success."

So you're saying he borrowed a page from our Democratic process: create the
perception of good and the people will call it good? Quite possibly. And  it
brings up a sobering thought:

Was President Bush's dismal failure as the chief executive because of bad PR
or bad decisions compared to other Presidents? For example, what if he had
the communications skills and public image of, say, President Reagan -- who
we called the "Teflon President" -- whose involvement in Iran-Contra failed
to get him censored in the public opinion badly enough to undermine his
position? 

It comes back to a basic premise I hold about myself and others: people are
more concerned with their individual perceptions of reality and what they
believe than they are with objective facts and logical arguments. Logic is
allowed to exist only within the boundaries established by one's personal
beliefs. 

I think that was why the President was able to run amok for so long in Iraq
and here at home. People had the perception that Saddam was somehow
connected with the threat the brought us 9/11. People believed that
attacking Iraq would improve our stature in the world, our safety and
strength as a nation and somehow remove many of the fears we found lingering
after 9/11. 

To the extent those perceptions and beliefs have crumbled, he has lost
popular support. 

Ron D'Eau Claire 

-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of David Morelli
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 10:51 PM
To: Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] The Iraqi View

Ron,

Darn, I thought that we were moving toward a consensus.

You are correct that our Economic system can be tremendously wasteful  
and I may have made a case for an economic system other than  
capitalism, but I didn't say anything about the political contest of  
democracy vs despotism.  Karl Marx may have postulated that economic  
communism required political despotism, but he was wrong in that  
concept.  Democracy does not require capitalism, nor does capitalism  
require democracy.  I will accept that private property and human  
rights can coexist favorably sometimes, but not always.  After all,  
slavery is a property rights issue and a human rights issue.

Dictators are not efficient in the long term.  By their nature they  
have to be short sighted.  Every day they have to prove their power  
through their military displays and through the viciousness of their  
secret police.  They may be able to provide a general state of  
security, but they cannot release the middle class to create broad  
based wealth without allowing for freedom of speech.  So they can  
only have two classes, the government approved wealthy class and the  
broad based poor class.  And even then they have to waste tremendous  
energy keeping competitors from rising from among their own cohorts.

This country is pushing toward the two class system as well.  And to  
remove the middle class will require stronger government control over  
our basic freedoms, using things like the "Patriot Act" and  
centralization of the news industry in the hands of the government  
supported wealthy class.

Democracy can be an inefficient political system.  Capitalism can be  
efficient at delivering the lowest valued goods to the most people  
and the highest valued goods to the most wealthy people.  However  
neither is required by its nature to look at spiritual, moral, or  
environmental issues.  This may be part of the reason that some  
people wish to mix religion and politics.  We have the "Religious  
Right" and "Liberation theology", while other parts of the world have  
Islamist movements.

By the way,
http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/trains.htm

Mussolini didn't have any more success with the Italian rail system  
than any other Italian government.  He just had a better PR telling  
everyone that he had more success.

David

On Sep 11, 2007, at 8:26 PM, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:

> You just made the case of every anti-democratic head of state! And
> it's valid if history says anything. Our sort of "democracy" is  
> exceedingly inefficient and expensive. Historically, we rape  
> resources whether they're cheap labor, minerals, forests or the  
> harvest of the sea. We consume them at a rate far exceeding that of  
> most nations. We spend billions on hammering Iraq where millions of  
> lives  could have been saved in other places and millions of  
> Americans could have been educated and prepared for a significant  
> role in life for the same money.

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