Author Archives: Lila

Majority of Church-Going Protestants in US Support State Torture?

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Some interesting findings from surveys of cross-cultural attitudes to torture cited at Will Grigg’s Pro Libertate blog:

“a country in which a bare majority, according to a recent global survey, opposes state torture.

That survey found that Americans are much likelier to support government-inflicted torture than citizens of Communist China, and marginally more indulgent of the practice than the residents of Muslim Indonesia and Muslim/socialist Egypt. Support for torture is also more widespread among Americans than among Iranians.…..

…A survey taken earlier this year documented that a majority (54 percent) of people who attend church at least once a week support torture.

Perhaps the most arresting discovery was that more than sixty percent of white, evangelical Protestants condone the practice. Torture advocates of this theological persuasion profess a “personal relationship” with Jesus Christ. That relationship must be, at best, a distant and superficial one…”

My Comment

I take Grigg’s point, but I’ve put a question mark next to this post’s heading, not because I find it implausible but because I’m always a bit skeptical of public surveys, especially, cross-cultural ones, unless they’re very extensive and prolonged. And conducted by people who have tremendous international experience. In this case, the survey of the church-goers apparently had its defects:

The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.

It Was All Fake for Decades, Says Madoff COO

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From The Guardian, UK:

Frank DiPascali, a loyal lieutenant who worked for Madoff Investment Securities for 33 years, admitted he helped the fraudster run a $65bn (£39bn) pyramid scheme from the early 1990s to 2008.

……DiPascali, 52, faces a notional maximum sentence of 125 years in prison. But he has agreed to co-operate with prosecutors in return for more lenient treatment, in a deal which victims hope will lead to more Madoff conspirators being unmasked.

One of the firm’s longest serving employees, DiPascali joined Madoff Investment Securities as a high school leaver in 1975. He told the court that by the early 1990s, he knew that purported investments on behalf of thousands of clients were fake. “No purchases or sales of securities were actually taking place,” said DiPascali. “It was all fake, it was fictitious. It was wrong, and I knew it was wrong at the time.”

My Comment:

Check back on my posts on Madoff. You’ll see this blog was one of the first to say the Madoff fraud was obviously old, and dated way back before 2005. We think it was fraudulent from the get go. In fact, we think Madoff is taking the fall for many other people, for whatever reason.

Bit by damning bit, we’re going to find out that a LOT of people knew. You can’t run a racket like this without nearly everyone near you either knowing or suspecting something’s amiss.

We’re on record calling DC a den of thieves. We never said it was a den of morons. There were plenty of smart people there who caught on to what was going on. Why didn’t they speak up? We know Henry Markopoulous did, even though he was afraid for his family. So what about the rest?

Which powerful, well-organized group of insiders overawed them?

Media Reports Raise Fears of Indo-Chinese Water Wars

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While Chinese government officials apparently deny it, the Indian media is seriously discussing reports about China’s diversion of the River Brahmaputra (on which India, Bangladesh and China depend).

Here’s a piece from the Hindu Business Online

“China’s attempt to divert the Brahmaputra has reared its head again. The Chinese are apparently eyeing about 40 billion cubic metres, out of the annual average inflow of 71.4 billion, of the Brahmaputra’s waters. The river skirts China’s borders before dipping into India and Bangladesh. China has a serious need to feed water to its north-west territory, the Gobi Desert, which contains almost half the country’s total landmass, but only seven per cent of its freshwater. The Gobi occupies an area of 13,00,000 sq.km making it one of the largest deserts in the world. Desertification of Gobi since 1950s has expanded it by 52,000 sq.km and it is now just 160 km from Beijing. It is said to expand by 3 km per year.…….
What does this diversion mean for India? The move by the Chinese Government will put almost 40 per cent of India’s hydel potential in trouble…”

Do-Gooding Dimwit?

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Meddling and ignorant idealism is never a power for good, as this recent turn of events in Burma illustrates:

It is a remarkable irony that an unknown American, who presumably wanted to champion Suu Kyi’s democratic cause, was the catalyst for her latest troubles. But so go the unintended consequences of political inexperience. “Burma’s pro-democracy movement has long been an attraction for fantasists, fanatics and adventure tourists,” writes Aung Zaw, editor of the respected online news magazine the Irrawaddy, sho covers Burma from neighboring Thailand. “Did John William Yettaw consider the consequences [of his swim]? Did he think for a minute that he would do more harm than good? Probably not.”

One of Suu Kyi’s lawyers branded Yettaw a “wretched American.” Inside the country, it can be easy to spot the foreign idealists masquerading as, say, tourists or teachers, who have made it their mission to change Burma…… As Aung Zaw noted in the Irrawaddy, two British activists who were convicted for staging separate political protests in Burma in 1999 were both released early after serving only a fraction of their jail sentences. Good news for them. But Burmese can hardly expect the same treatment. If Suu Kyi is convicted — and Burmese courts have a frighteningly high conviction rate — few expect the Lady to taste freedom anytime soon. “

More here at Time.

My Comment

Idealists? I wonder. A large number of these do-gooders aren’t idealists so much as vain, self-important no talents, who gain a passing glory by linking themselves to ‘mass movements’ or ‘popular leaders’. In their own countries, they’re nobodies. But in a third-world country, their US citizenship, racial membership in the ‘ruling class,’ and the relative strength of their currency, gives them a status that their own accomplishments cannot. It goes to their head. Pretty soon, they fancy themselves saviors. They interfere, stir up trouble, and then conveniently leave, letting the ‘natives’ take the rap for their arrogant intervention…

On the other hand, there’s something remarkably “stagey” about the whole incident. And when I note that Gordon Brown – he who sold off Britain’s gold at the bottom of gold prices and has now presided over the bankruptcy of its banking system — seems to be throwing righteous and media-genic fits over the Burmese junta’s response, I have to wonder.

I think about Bill Clinton’s miraculous intervention on behalf of the two journalists in North Korea….and in a world of simulation and media myth-making, I have to file this under “What really did happen?”

Travel Like a Libertarian….

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A new piece with some travel tips at Lew Rockwell.

Here’s the opening:

“A while ago I wrote an article suggesting that for some libertarians it might be time to run.

I still think it is. But I also think your journey abroad should be reasoned and carefully planned, or it could leave you worse off, not better. Run smart, not stupid.

To help you do that, here are some things I’ve learned from years of going back and forth across the world. I’ve grouped them under four headings that express fundamental elements of a libertarian stance in the world.

Connectivity (the free market is all about communicating and persuading)
Security (libertarians should take the initiative in defending themselves)
Simplicity (less always makes for more independence)
Flexibility (don’t resist change; it’s the essence of the free market)

Some Bovine Humor

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“United States: You have two cows. The government pays you subsidies not to milk your cows. Imports of dairy products from South America increase.

China: You have two cows. The government takes both cows and shoots you.

Iraq: You have two cows. They end up in Guantanamo Bay, but receive excellent medical care.

India: You have two cows. You worship them.

Poland: You have two bulls. You get killed trying to milk them.

Russia: You have two cows. You drink vodka and see four cows.

Argentina: You have two cows. Néstor and Cristina Kirchner take the milk and export it. They tax you 44%, leaving you without enough money to cover production costs. Too bad! On the plus side Cristina is able to pay for Botox injections and pays off some political cronies.”

From Good Morning Buenos Aires.

Renouncing America in India (Comment added)

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Jeff Knaebel tore up his US passport out of hatred for the state and became a stateless person wandering through the villages in India. In case you’re thinking he must be some kind of hippy, Knaebel is a former CEO of a company and an engineer trained at Cornell University.

“The one actual, real and direct action that I could take was to break the paper chains that were holding me as a slave to the Empire. I tore up my U.S. passport at the Gandhi Samadhi, Rajghat, New Delhi. Rather than arrest me, the Indian police told me that I was free to roam anywhere in India, and to call them for help if I ran into any trouble.

The great Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, “Man is moral choice.” This is what I have been calling the Law of Moral Causation. By unilateral renunciation of my citizenship, I chose to assert my responsibility by denying that the U.S. government could act in my name and on my behalf.

Here is the quotation of a freedom fighter in Mexico which seems equally relevant to the India of today:

“Why is it necessary to kill and to die so that you should listen to Ramona, seated here beside me, tell you that Indian women want to live, want to study, want hospitals, want medicines, want schools, want food, want respect, want justice, want dignity? ~ Insurgente Marcos to President of Mexico Salinas after the cease fire in Chiapas, San Cristobal de las Casas, February 1994 (Our Word Is Our Weapon, Seven Stories Press).

I plan to continue to present to the State and to humanity the question of whether we are ready to permit a peace-loving man to exist and to move about freely, without tracking tags and permission-to-exist documents. Or have we been so thoroughly conditioned that everyone except third world villagers and tribal people is destined to live in the big surveillance sheep pens constructed by states all over the world.

Hat-tip to Lew Rockwell for running the article on his site.

My Comment

Bravo for the gesture.  But as an Indian by birth I must say I wouldn’t advise any expat Indian to try this. The Indian police will treat you very differently from a vellakara (this is Tamil for ‘white man’ ).  A friend of mine, a graduate of one of the Indian Institutes of Technology, spent the year after his graduation roaming India, minus “English language privilege” – i.e. he pretended he didn’t speak it. He said he saw a side of India he hadn’t experienced until then.

Besides, the cynic in me wants to know –  did Knaebel dispose of his assets before this gesture….or after? And if so, how? I’m sorry if my questions seem derisive. They’re meant respectfully.

I feel the same way about some…some... elements in the “patriot” movement.

Did civil liberties and the police state work them up so much when George Bush was in power? Is it civil liberties or the thought of an African-American president that incenses some people?

I’d say in a few cases it’s the latter….


Activism: Jewish Voices for Peace Needs Your Support

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From Jewish Voices for Peace:

“Upset about the inclusion of a film about Rachel Corrie at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Koret–one of California’s largest Jewish foundations–issued a statement calling movie sponsors Jewish Voice for Peace and the American Friends Service Committee (yes, pacifist Quakers) “virulently anti-Israel, anti-Semitic groups.”

We need your support to counteract these lies.
Jewish Voice for Peace is an organization that includes Israelis, Jewish educators, rabbis, Holocaust survivors and their children and grandchildren. We’ve written extensively about the issue of anti-Semitism, and our members are an essential part of a burgeoning Jewish cultural and spiritual renaissance……. What changed? Why now?
And how is the backlash here linked to the backlash against pro-democracy activists in Israel?
We think it’s because now, the world’s attention is on settlements, and for the first time in recent memory, a US administration is creating pressure on Israel. That means that this is a historic opportunity and that we need your financial support to take full advantage of this moment….”

Please go to the Jewish Voices for Peace website.
 to help.