Tropes of the Times

Poor Jane Fonda! Despite having been right about the Vietnam war, winning two Oscars, and not getting drunk and uttering any profanity or anti-Semitic remarks in public, she is still constantly put down by liberals. The authors of Freakonomics, Stephan J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, establishment darlings who appear frequently in the Times (so counterintuitively clever) even blamed Jane for the US energy crisis in a piece in the paper´s magazine section this fall (”The Jane Fonda Effect” Sept 16th). Read the essay here.

The authors´thesis is that her flick “The China Syndrome” concerning a possible nuclear plant meltdown–followed fortuitously by the Three Mile Island accident 12 days after its release–halted the US nuclear energy program and therefore is responsible for our high dependence on fossil fuels. (They later note, however, that the US actually generates more electricity from nuclear than any other country!)

These authors don’t indicate that our relative inefficient use of energy, including electricity (poorly insulated buildings, oversized and unnecessary appliances, anemic public transit), as compared with other industrialized countries, might have some bearing on this issue (as part of their denial about the realities of fossil fuel dependency–failure to adhere to Kyoto Protocol and accept global climate change until recently, weak car mileage standards, etc). And Jane didn´t make movies about any of these topics, and so is hardly responsible for them.

Although they are professional economists, when these guys compare the costs of electricity generated by various means, they omit inclusion of any of the external costs (maybe they do that because they are economists!). Although most forms of electric production receive subsidies, the nuclear industry would never have built a single plant (by its own testimony) without the limitations on liability provided by the Federal Price-Anderson law. And there is no viable plan for how to deal with the enormous amounts of radioactive wastes which will be “hot” for unimaginable time periods (the half-life of plutonium is 250,000 years, although the EPA says that disposal sites have to be secure for only 10,000; we are left in the dark, the glowing dark, for the next 240,000 apparently).

According to these authors, being anti-nuke is so yesterday. So who is responsible for the energy concerns being faced in other countries, I wonder? Brigitte Bardot?

Tropes of the times: “We are not liberal”
“We can play ball with the big boys”

The Times carried an editorial on human DNA mapping, occasioned by the announced sequencing of the genome of James Watson, co-discoverer of the double helix (read editorial here; read the Watson “news” piece here).  The thrust of the editorial is that “individual genomic sequencing” gives us ” a clearer idea of who we are.”

Who are we? Only certain very limited aspects of a human’s persona are determined by genetics alone. Some physical characteristics certainly (but even here, an external variable–nutrition–may place a key role.). But what does genetics have to do with a person’s compassion, intelligence, curiosity, affability, etc. Surely Shakespeare has more to teach us about these aspects of being human than James Watson ever can.

The sequencing of one’s own DNA sequence can only be of interest to the very wealthy and very narcissistic among us. And they have to believe in the erroneous idea that genes are determinative of their destiny to want to do it in the first place.

Trope of the Times:  Biology is destiny

Science Times triumphantly announced, in a March 6 piece by Nicholas Wade, that genetics tops history: “Most of history aside, DNA evidence suggests that the English and the Irish have much more in common than they once thought.” Wade, the paper’s mouthpiece for the Central Dogma of biological reductionism and determinism, reports with faux astonishment that despite historians’ claims that the Irish descend from the Celts and the English from “Anglo-Saxons,” genetics finds them highly similar. Of course, Wade himself has 99.9% of his genes identical to those of an Eskimo (no less a Brit or an Irishman) and almost 99% identical to those of a chimpanzee. He ignores the facts that the antagonisms between these two island peoples have clear links to their different languages, contending relgions, patterns of class domination, and the like–none of which can possibly be claimed to be genetic in nature.

Turning to anthropological history, Wade relates successive waves of invaders coming to the islands from the European continent. Misleading and ambiguous statistical phrases in his text (eg, “DNA from invaders accounts for 20% of the gene pool in Wales”) and an accompanying map with arrows of different widths and colors [unfortunately, not shown by the link] are offered to indicate “where British and Irish genes come from”.

Genetic variations amoung humans can only be found in 0.1% of our genome. We are overwhelmingly identical–regardless of skin color, hair texture, height, etc. While subtle tiny variations within this small portion of our genetic material can be used for historical studies, DNA forensics, and paternity disputes, there is probably as much variation within the “Irish” genepool as there is between it and the “British” one.

Trope of the Times: Biology is Destiny (as well as History)

The Times recently reported on a healthcare forum held by Democratic candidates before the SEIU (March 25).  According to the intro paragraph, “Seven Democratic candidates for president promised . . . to guarantee health insurance for all, but they disagreed over how to pay for it and how fast it could be achieved.”

The balance of the story does NOT quote the candidates (other than John Edwards and Bill Richardson) as supporting universal health care, only advocating increments which slowly move in that direction. 

Particularly disingenuous is the paper’s treatment of Hillary Clinton. Referring to the failure of her “proposal for universal coverage in 1994,” she complained that insurance companies were at fault for refusing to cover people with pre-existing conditions, spending alot of money on administration, etc.  However, her proposal then did NOT eliminate insurance companies, but would have channeled all health coverage into 5 mega-insurance firms as reported by the Times during those debates. Indeed, it is doubtful that her plan would have resulted in covering all people, but it was so convoluted that virtually no one understood how it might actually function.

In contrast, the chair of Clinton’s panel that put together the proposal, Ira Magaziner, was quoted then in an interview in the Times as saying that he and others in the group were, of course, in favor of “single-payer” health coverage (ie, the government as insurer–as with Medicare), but the group would not be recommending such an approach because it has been “taken off the table” (presumably by Hillary and Bill).

Such an approach is the one taken by virtually ALL of the other industrialized countries, all of which have universal coverage. It is readily understood by all of their citizens, since it is simple and direct.  The debacle Hillary’s plan led to, as it was torn apart by the industry and could not be readily defended because of its complexity, arguably set back the cause of covering all people in the U.S. by decades.  Somehow, the article in the paper last week indicated none of this.

Trope of the Times:  The “newspaper of record” forgets when it is convenient to do so.

An occasional column, “Observatory,” by Henry Fountain appears episodically in the Times as a kind of supplement to the weekly Science Times Tuesday feature. A recent piece (October 3rd) on the diet of frogs illustrates the paper’s penchant for embracing an extreme form of Darwinistic determination.

The question posed is whether there “is a connection between . . . the size of a territory [a species] covers, and its diet.” One idea, Fountain suggests is that a restricted range should lead to a specialized diet, since there is a smaller variety of foods available in tight quarters. A second is that “selection might come into play” since any adaptation would spread through the restricted population. But the point of the article is to highlight research showing that “the opposite is true. . . . species with the smallest ranges had the most diverse diets. “The explanation offered: “The smaller the range, the more prone a species is to extinction. A small-range species that depends on one food source, then, risks being wiped out if that food source dries up. But one that is a generalist eater can better survive the vagaries of the food supply.”

Well, this explanation is one hypothesis, but it seems to me that Marx’s notion of “the lash of hunger” (used to explain why people take dirty and dangerous jobs) works for other animals as well: a hungry frog will eat the insects that are available. Since a limited range has less of its favorite food, it has to turn to less desirable forms or starve. Isn’t that why concentration camp inmates ate cockroaches?

Why might the Times be so hung up on an extreme form of Darwinism? One explanation might be because the modern liberalism it represents has become ever more closely tied to science in order to distinguish itself from right-wing know-nothingism. Thus, stem cell research — the subject of considerably hyped promises and likely to be very risky for the large numbers of women who will be needed for the industrial production of eggs should it be successful — is contested terrain for political reasons, as the last election showed. The Times is unabashedly in favor of such research, as a hallmark of its view of correct politics, and has yet to publish any serious pieces about the low chances of stem cell work producing disease cures or the risks, costs, and dangers of actually using it.

These science-based “solutions” also divert attention from the possibilities of social causation of societal problems —a useful posture when liberal schemes championed by the Times go awry. this approach also allows the paper to argue for allocation of considerable resources to techno-elites and managers, rather than pursuing more distributed ways of tackling the problems. A persistent theme in the paper is the support of continually expanding research budgets for scientists (a major constituency of the paper), even when a problem might be more amenable to a non-technological fix. (See, for example, “Congressional Budget Delay Stymies Scientific Research,” Jan. 7, 2007; )

For example, the Times has carried pieces arguing that genetically engineered food is necessary to feed a hungry world, despite the obvious fact that hunger exists in societies with an excess of food and a surplus of genetic engineering (such as the US)–because people are too poor to purchase it. Norman Borlaug continues to get accolades while Mao Tse-Tung (a wicked character to be sure) is not acknowledged for having ended far more hunger by his land reform programs than the Green Revolution.

Trope of the Times: Many social and cultural phenomena are the results of scientific laws and we must rely on experts to tackle them.  

Orlando Patterson, Harvard prof and guest columnist for the Times, writes at length to the effect that Christmas is merely “a uniquely American national festival.” (“A Holiday for Us All,” Dec. 23) As a practicing Jew, may I assert the contrary; it is a religious holiday that has been given a place of special privilege in our civic life. That its spiritual elements may have become attenuated does not make it necessarily acceptable to the one-quarter of America that is not Christian.

Patterson notes that Christians co-opted certain practices originally pagan, but this does not divest them of their character as essential hallmarks of that particular religion. After all, just because the swastika is an ancient design element found in the Indian sub-continent and MesoAmerica does not insulate it from embodying the values of the jackboot and the crematoria.
 
No other major religions or cultures decorate pine trees in the winter. As a sociologist, and as a prominent member of a minority community, it is astounding that Patterson would be oblivious to the significance of the Menorah to Jews as a religious artifact.  His essay trivializes it as a possible design element for Christmas tree decor! And this is from a professor who teaches a course on “Ethnicity in Comparative and Historical Perspective.”

All in all, though undoubtedly unintentional, Patterson’s essay offers much offense to non-Christians.

Trope of the Times: “Why can’t we all just get along?”

During the Jewish Holyday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Repentance, a day of fasting, congregations around the world read from the book of Isaiah, where God describes our hunger pains as merely symbolic. The true “fast,” we are told, includes acts of tikkun olam, healing the world.Part of the exhortation notes:”Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”

These words were recited only a few days after the US Congress passed legislation suspending our 800 year old history of habeas corpus– a right dating from the Magna Carta itself, a principle that any prisoner could go to a court and challenge “who has the body and why?” This notion is one of the lodestars of justice. All the three of the major Western religions have a shared spiritual concern for pursuing justice.

But the Administration’s detention program departs radically from such civilized and religious values– “disappearing” people, maintaining secret gulags or “black sites” where an estimated 100 people are being imprisoned, barring lawyers, not requiring trials, eliminating due process, This radical action is a shameful violation of ethical, societal, and spiritual standards, and certainly not, in any way, “conservative”.

Let us consider the outrages in the Arar case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of A Canadian guy snagged by the US as he changed planes in at JFK airport. He was shipped to Syria to be tortured in order to reveal information claimed vital to national security. The present Administration refuses to talk to the Syrian government for constructive ends, such as dealing with the turmoil in Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine; but it is happy to discuss having Syrian officials torture people the US hands over in a process aseptically called “extraordinary rendition”. (What happens in merely ordinary”rendition”, I wonder?)

After almost a year, Arar was released by the Syrians due to Canadian pressure. Anyway, they couldn’t get him to say any thing incriminating. So he is an example of the (maybe many) innocent people in Guantanamo and at the other unknown sites.

But is “innocence” relevant? The Administration claims that all the detainees are evildoers. But isn’t that supposed to be determined by a trial?

The Washington Post recently ran an editorial entitled Tortured by Mistake: The case of Maher Arar shows why the Bush Administration’s secret detention program is wrong. Let us be clear–the Geneva Conventions (and our ethical traditions) do not say that torturing “bad people” is OK. No one is to be tortured. Indeed, the bar against torture exists because of the reprehensibility of the conduct, not the culpability of the victim.

Secondly, the Administration’s secret detention program would be barbaric and illegal even if no torturing occurred within it. This program violates a number of Constitutional norms and ethical standards common in civilized nations–right to a speedy trial, assistance of counsel, right to confront one’s accusers, etc.

We have entered a very dark time. Perhaps Isaiah’s words can help rally people of faith to confront this new totalitarianism. It will take a long and sustained fast, I would predict.

9/11 is the date of several important anniversaries: the 5th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the 33rd anniversary of the military coup against the Allende government in Chile; and the 100th anniversary of the first nonviolence campaign launched by Mohandas K. Gandhi.

The first two of these anniversaries are synonymous with deprivations of civil liberties, the last with their extension. I expect the NY Times will only comment about the first, ignore the second and the last as well.

Gandhi’s first campaign of nonviolent resistance was launched against racist laws in South Africa at a meeting in Johannesburg on September 11, 1906. The term satyagraha or “holding truth” was coined after the Johannesburg meeting to describe resistance and persuasion by means of nonviolence and respect. After success in South Africa, Gandhi applied the developing strategies of nonviolent resistance in India against the British occupation. The struggle in India lasted almost four decades until independence, a time frame wholly alien to the current US obsession with instant gratification.

Of course. the Times covered, but never emphasized, the role of the US in bringing down an elected regime in the South American country with the longest tradition of democratic rule. The Allende era in Chile is pictured as one of chaos, with no discussion of the progress made towards economic equity, social justice, a new deal for indigenous peoples, etc. The Times’ handling of the arrest of Pinochet in London a few years ago was not an occasion for an analysis of the crimes of Latin fascism.

In regard to the anniversary of the “War on Terror,” it is unlikely that the Times will stress the negative effects on our freedoms engendered by authoritarian politicians manipulating the fears of additional attacks. One or two of the columnists will, and maybe even the editorial page, but the “news” coverage is likely to feature photos taken by the staff of the tragedy (remember those endless pages the paper featured of snapshots of the immediate victims?  they haven’t run any on the recent Iraqi innocent dead, I notice). Maybe there’ll be speculation on how his performance five years ago has boosted Rudy Guiliani’s chances of running for President. And maybe we might even get a piece noting the losses of the Bush administration in the courts as its unprecedented authoritarian policies are challenged .

The paper spent almost a week featuring attacks on the intelligence and professional demeanor of the Federal judge who ruled that one of these claimed to be justified by 9/11, the wiretapping without a warrant, was indeed unwarranted. This judge is an Afro-American woman, appointed by a Democratic President. The Times sent its reporters out to ask law professors to comment on the quality of her opinion (in a month which saw much sloppier reasoning by the Supreme Courts of two states on the subject of marriage equality, for which the paper did no law faculty surveys), despite the reality that it is her decision, not her opinion, which will be appealed. As an additional attack, even though no judicial ethics were violated, the Times featured a charge by a right-wing organization that the judge’s service on the Board of a charity was somehow suspect because that organization had made grants to one of the litigant organizations (for public education in completely unrelated fields). Subtext: unqualified affirmative action appointment of a liberal Black bitch out of control.

Tropes of the Times:

We determine what is and is not “the news”
We will feature right-wing views in order to show that we are not “liberal”