Things You Really Should Know About

A bomb goes off under an Islamic Center in Florida and nobody cares.

Our First Week of National Health Care

This:



Leads to this:

Glass doors at the Monroe County Democratic Committee in Rochester, N.Y., were also broken by a brick. An attached note read, "Extremism in defense of liberty is not a vice," a quote by the late Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, known for his libertarian views.

Foretold by this:

Rightwing Extremism -

American Citizen Terrorists

It feels like there's a lot of them lately. Is that why the no-fly list doubled since Christmas?

Loss Aversion

Theater people - pay attention to neurology. I have no idea how people expect to create works that mirror the human experience without being at least somewhat invested in how we form that experience.

Anyways, this post comes from The Frontal Cortex (a great blog for this sort of thing), and is actually almost exactly what my next big theatrical project is going to be about. The subject is Loss Aversion:

The two different questions examine identical dilemmas; saving one third of the population is the same as losing two thirds. And yet, doctors reacted very differently depending on how the question was framed. When the possible outcomes were stated in terms of deaths⎯this is the "loss frame"⎯physicians were suddenly eager to take chances. They were so determined to avoid any alternative associated with a loss that they were willing to risk losing everything.

Kahneman and Tversky stumbled upon loss aversion after giving their students a simple survey, which asked whether or not they would accept a variety of different bets. The psychologists noticed that, when people were offered a gamble on the toss of a coin in which they might lose $20, they demanded an average payoff of at least $40 if they won. The pain of a loss was approximately twice as potent as the pleasure generated by a gain. Furthermore, our decisions seemed to be determined by these feelings. As Kahneman and Tversky put it, "In human decision making, losses loom larger than gains."

Think about Loss Aversion, and then think about the 1% Doctrine, from one Richard Cheney:

If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about our response.

Emphasis mine. Oh, and don't forget the rules of Terrorball:

(1) The game lasts until there are no longer any terrorists, and;
(2) If terrorists manage to ever kill or injure or seriously frighten any Americans, they win.

Global Citizenship

So, okay, this isn't arts policy related, but it's on my mind, like the Israel post, but the events of the Christmas bombing attempt have got me thinking about world government (or lack thereof), and its slowly growing necessity.

Part 1 of the Christmas Bombing attempt is the lack of proper screening in airports. Part of the problem is that there aren't strong international standards for airline security. The TSA puts out a series of minimum guidelines, and doesn't accept people who come from countries that refuse to abide by it, but the TSA and Israel have stronger guidelines -- but those stronger guidelines are pointless because other countries don't hold to those stronger guidelines.

Part 2 of the Christmas bombing attempt, the one that really got this for me. It's this little article about Yemen. Projected unemployment of 70%? 45% underage? This is a shitty country, and shitty countries breed terrorists. And terrorists cross border. Because Yemen can't hold up its own people, we ourselves are at greater risk. One day, the social programs we rely on here in the US to help maintain order and relieve suffering (establish justice and promote the general welfare... oh, and ensure domestic tranquility) are going to have to spread to the rest of the world, or this will keep happening.

Israel I: Terrorball

I am an Israeli-American, holding dual citizenship in both countries. This has been nothing but grief for me, both in the narrower sense of my life not being made easier when I tell security people that I was born in Jerusalem, and in the larger sense of the stress and anxiety I have for my extended family which remains in Israel. And I am not Muslim -- I am an American Jewish citizen who has lived here since I was three months old. I cannot imagine how incredibly worse it is for Palestinians, who have to turn on the radio and hear bullshit like "All Young Muslims Should Be Strip Searched."

At any rate, one of the evidences of my heritage is that my mother and I now almost daily get into strongly worded debates over Israel and its future. My mother is a pacifist -- actually more of a pacifist than I am, since she favored immediate withdrawal from both Afghanistan and Iraq, and although I was against the war in Iraq, I believed that it was our responsibility to attempt to guarantee some functional stability before we left -- but she doesn't understand how I am against the Israeli incursion into Gaza.

This debate has been going on and on and in the end, the difference in our beliefs, both in Gaza and in Iraq/Afghanistan, boils down to Terrorball.

My mother is not happy about 1300 people killed in Gaza by Israelis. But from her perspective, how can Israel not respond to rockets falling on her country? Even the Israeli Government admits that in the year leading up to the Gaza War, only a handful of people have been been hurt or killed. The issue my mother is skirting, and which the logical problem at the heart of Terrorball rests on, is the issue of proportionality. More specifically, it deals with the One Percent Doctrine. If there's a 1% chance of terrorism, Cheney says, we have to use force. Irregardless of what the bait is, when it comes to terrorism, we have to respond with force.

Anyways, that's one aspect of the dispiriting personal conversations I've had around Israel. Most of it boils down to the fact that Avigdor Lieberman is the face and power-broker of my country.

On Suicide Bombers

Just a short thought: part of the reason youth in Palestine in particular or Iraq might be willing to give up their lives for a cause is because of the scale of death in their own personal lives. After all, if you surround a human being by so much death and destruction, they're going to come up with some sort of rationale that protects them from mental harm. One being that whoever did this is monstrously evil, two being that it's not so important because the virtuous dead find themselves in a better place, and three being the quickest way back to the ones you've lost and assuring your place among the virtuous dead is to attack whoever did this, the monstrously evil.

Yet another reason why this bombing in Gaza is utterly counterproductive.

Conversationalism + 2008: Palin And The End of the Line

I take the injunction of the AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer and it must be. I have to say it.

Required reading for the post.

Sarah Palin and John McCain have officially embarked on a campaign of discrimination.

Now, I'm not saying it's necessarily a racist campaign; Sarah Palin's remark that Obama "doesn't see America the way we do" could be equally anti-Democrat, anti-Elitist, anti-black, anti-Liberal, etc. The point, however, is that Sarah Palin is claiming to have a monopoly on America.

I want to talk about one of the most crucial point of the Vice Presidential Debate for me. In terms of our culture, and our cultural dialogue, there was a clear choice that was presented at one point. Ifill asked the two about how to turn around the partisanship in Washington.

Here's Joe Biden:

Mike Mansfield, a former leader of the Senate, said to me one day -- he -- I made a criticism of Jesse Helms. He said, "What would you do if I told you Jesse Helms and Dot Helms had adopted a child who had braces and was in real need?" I said, "I'd feel like a jerk."

He said, "Joe, understand one thing. Everyone's sent here for a reason, because there's something in them that their folks like. Don't question their motive."

Here's Sarah Palin:

But the policies and the proposals have got to speak for themselves, also. And, again, voters on November 4th are going to have that choice to either support a ticket that supports policies that create jobs.

You do that by lowering taxes on American workers and on our businesses. And you build up infrastructure, and you rein in government spending, and you make our -- our nation energy independent.

Or you support a ticket that supports policies that will kill jobs by increasing taxes. And that's what the track record shows, is a desire to increase taxes, increase spending, a trillion-dollar spending proposal that's on the table. That's going to hurt our country, and saying no to energy independence. Clear choices on November 4th.

In other words, in terms of bipartisanship, Biden says we shouldn't slander each other's motives, and Sarah Palin says you should pick the party that isn't out to "kill jobs," "hurt the country," and "say no to energy independence."



This is ludicrous.

So, a few days later, seeing that the polls still aren't backing her ridiculous brand of folksy anti-elitism, she has decided to kick it into gear, and make the heart of their campaign an attempt to question Barack Obama's motives. Because yes, clearly, a Hawaiian born Christian who was a civil rights lawyer, a professor, and has been two years in the Senate, doesn't see America the way 'the rest of us' do. He sees it the way terrorists do. Oh, and by the way: nobody has spoken as much about the exceptionalism of America as Barack Obama--it's the heart of his Yes We Can campaign. I wish he'd truck that out.

But this is unacceptable. Whatever McCain or Palin are trying to do, this is an unacceptable move in the campaign. I cannot repeat this enough. This is unacceptable.



I wanted McCain to be the end of the Republican Party as partisan hackery. I wanted him to show that two parties could both decide to stand a little taller and live up to America a little better. Where has McCain gone?


This is unacceptable.

Conversationalism + 2008: How Bin Laden Will Lose The 2008 Election

I was once reading a text that was trying, through belabored logic, to prove that September 11th was a Performance Art piece. Of course, it all depends on what you consider "art" to be. It's hard to define September 11th in a way that is separate from art, but it strains the term "art" to the point of being almost meaningless.

Such an argument belies the dual role of terrorism. From one aspect, the act of terror is artistic (not in the positive sense) in many ways: it is carefully planned, it is loaded with intentional symbolism, and is created more for the benefit of its audience than its actual tactical value. Bin Laden attacked the World Trade Center because it was a symbol that he wanted to attack. Part of the goal (part) was the pain, fear, and sorrow he instilled in every American, which he thought would come closer to achieving his aims. In a way, terrorism is actually closer to propaganda than art (try finding that line).

But there is, of course, a second role of terrorism which is not in any way attached to art: it is an act of destruction. This is actually important for me in distinguishing art from terrorism: art is, on the whole, an act of creation.

I'm saying all this as a way of looking at terrorism as a very flawed mode of communication. It's rather like the point in an argument when the words fall away and someone decides to throw a punch. But in terms of the overall world culture, the point of terrorism is to influence the culture.

How might Bin Laden want to influence our culture? He has many achievable, specific goals as part of his campaign, and between his tapes and his actions he wants them put on the table. But the fundamental success of 9/11 is the key to his first and foremost objective: he wants to be a part of our national dialogue.

If Bin Laden saw his role today in our culture as the be-all and end-all of evil (the way Adolf Hitler was and is), I think he would be happy. We have elevated him to a position wherein his concerns are of concern to us all.

Last weekend, al Qaeda allegedly got back in the game, in terms of bombings. And their allies, the Taliban, are slowly mounting the war in Afghanistan, and gaining ground. The former is terrorism; the latter is guerilla warfare.

What are we talking about this week? Well, the first debate spent a lengthy amount of time talking about Afghanistan and Pakistani sovereignty, but the name "bin Laden" and "al Qaeda" was not a centerpoint of the debate. We were talking tactically; we were not speaking out of fear. And still, the number one issue on America's mind is the economy. Bin Laden is not the biggest threat to Americans: foreclosure is. Bankruptcy is.

What does this mean for Bin Laden? It means that his group returns to being marginalized on the world stage. It means that the United States is free to take action without hushed talk about "emboldening the enemy." It means that our public discourse will be free of the misleading connections of every evil in the world to one super enemy.

This, of course, is why I was horrified the other night when I heard Tony Blair, on The Daily Show, say that all of the terrorists of the world were basically the same forces. More specifically, he said that Hezbollah, Hamas, the Sunni Militias, and the Taliban were all part of the same "forces" at work. To the degree that each of these are Islamic fundamentalist groups, perhaps. But that is where the similarity ends. As Jon Stewart rightly pointed out, each of these groups has predominantly nationalistic goals.

Contrast Hezbollah, for instance, with Al Qaeda in Iraq, or Al Qaeda in Europe. Both of those franchises were started by Islamic fundamentalists who looked to Bin Laden for leadership, and pledged their small fragment of Islamic fundamentalism to Bin Laden's aid. These groups are not growing outside of Afghanistan. Although Islamic Fundamentalism, as an ideology, continues to gain traction, they are not all linked and directed by Bin Laden, as Bin Laden might have dreamed.

There are more empirical links, in terms of weapons and funding. And those include Iran and Syria prominently. But those links also include China and Russia--not for ideological reasons, but for tactical reasons. After all, China may be supporting terrorism abroad, but is against the Islamic guerillas among the Uighurs, they are far less supportive.

Bin Laden will lose this election if he fails to turn the world conversation toward himself. And I have every faith that he will lose this election. I was worried, in the wake of the bombings, that he would come to dominate our national dialogue again, and ruin the chances of addressing the real problems we need to address in this nation. Thankfully, he may have taken lives and destroyed property, but he is losing the war.