Notes From the Insurrection

The Wikileaks Revolution

By MAXIMILIAN FORTE

The State. Secrecy. Security. Censorship. Big Brother. Courts. Police. Corporations. Banks. Espionage. Treason. Assassination. Infowar. Field of battle. Troops. Terrorists. Criminals. Hackers. Activists. Danger. Arrest. Imprisonment. Avenge. Retaliation. Defiance. Subversion. Justice. Freedom. Rights. The People.

These are the keywords of a conflict with revolutionary potential. Most of them could be the keywords of any conflict. They happen to be some of the most frequently recurring words one encounters when following the battle between the Wikileaks movement and the state.

This is a conflict, with publicly announced goals, with actual confrontation, where strategies are at play and power is at stake. This may be obvious, but remembering that this is a political process, and should be analyzed as such, may help to prevent some from carting it off into some obscure, minimal sub domain of specialist discourse, like “cyber activism,” “digital politics,” or even “info war.” (Not to worry though, the “social media and digital activism” industry that has been spawned around State Department sponsorship, with all of its gurus and TED talks, will ensure that this diversion of the discussion will in fact take place. Some will be convinced: this is all just about “the Internet,” not about “the real world.”) But this war is not about information. The war is about what people accept as their relationship to a state that has been ardently expanding its power at our expense. It is a long-term war. The Iron Curtain did not fall in 1989; instead it was simply drawn around the entire globe. In somewhat broader terms, we are continuing and hopefully drawing to a conclusion what Immanuel Wallerstein and others called the World Revolution of 1968 (and some of the actors then, are present and fighting once again now, thank you Daniel Ellsberg). In an even longer time frame, we are battling the fact that the Nazis were not so much defeated after World War II, as much as their politics became the template into which our imperial politics were assimilated (whether in terms of mushrooming state propaganda, the accepted use of torture and scientific experimentation on captives, to using weapons against civilian populations, to massive state surveillance). If people keep calling each other Nazis, so frequently, it is precisely because the Nazis have been so successful. And in much greater temporal depth, we are fighting the effects of the rise of the modern state and its profoundly damaging impacts on human social relationships. This is a still unresolved clash between centralized power, a relative novelty in human history, and more egalitarian social forms that dominated the majority of human history for millennia. Now, the state wishes to reduce all of us to an infantile, vulnerable, dependent population—a bunch of thumb-sucking, head-bobbing, burbling toddlers preoccupied with “safety,” requiring the father state to “protect” us.

It is a conflict, but the political arena in which it is fought out is constantly changing shape, widening to be certain. It is not a “game,” as anthropologist F.G. Bailey liked to say, with agreed upon rules and established judges, and predetermined goals and prizes. This is a conflict where the rules of the game (diplomacy, state secrecy) and the game itself (empire) are being directly challenged, with the intention that such games never be played with people again.

It is now a Wikileaks movement about which we have to speak, and a movement that is being targeted by the imperial American state (explicitly: staffers, supporters, donors), comprising at least half a million people, worldwide, of all walks of life. Just as some were having to admit DDOS (distributed denial of service) to their vocabulary, we now have to admit DPOS (distributed provision of service). At last count Wikileaks mirrors set up by supporters now number almost 1,700. The arrest and imprisonment of Julian Assange has dealt a life blow that made the movement become visible as a movement: Wikileaks’ communication with the public via Twitter has not only continued, there are now several individual Wikileaks accounts; the number of cables being released has increased, and seemingly a greater volume at a greater speed; sites that have blocked, censored, or terminated dealings with Wikileaks have been taken down (including PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, Swiss Post, and others), thanks to Operation Avenge Assange led by Anonymous (also connected to Operation Payback and now Operation Leakspin); and, over 500,000 people have demonstrated their support for Wikileaks (you can too). Julian Assange’s role has been critical, but his temporary displacement has not crippled the movement. The movement has flourished. The strategy of the state in trying to silence him has shown the world that what he said all along was true: he is a lightning rod, not the organization.

This is a conflict, Wikileaks is a movement, but what transformation can we expect, and would that transformation be revolutionary? That we have reached a crossroads is clear: never again will the relationship between state power, media, and citizenship be the same. It should be easy enough to agree with Julian Assange who recently stated: “geopolitics will be separated into pre and post cablegate phases;” and Carne Ross, a British diplomat, who wrote: “History may now be dated pre- or post-WikiLeaks.”

Some things can never be the same again. For the state, the over classification of information, and the everyday reliance on secrecy has just been abruptly transformed: it cannot forego documentation; documentation severed from those charged with the application of policy is worthless; word of mouth cannot serve swollen, centralized bureaucracies, especially not the vast U.S. national security apparatus; and, continued engagement in war, undertaking atrocities then kept secret, provokes those with a conscience to leak information. Either the U.S. ceases to use embassies as spy nests, and brings public pronouncements in line with actual actions, or it risks continued leaking and irreparable damage to its “soft power” resources. The state’s excessive monopolization of information has already been damaged beyond repair.

The relationship between states and media will also change dramatically. As Wikileaks blew in through an open window, the whole raison d’être of embedding reporters in military units, and of forcing journalists to play extra nice just to get some inside access to what is, after all, a publicly funded military, has just been blown out the front door. Thirty years of increasingly restrictive control over military and diplomatic information, and the cowing of the corporate media, has reached a climax and now we enter the phase of decline. Now either media report honestly and fully on what they know about what the state is doing in the name of citizens, or they will be swept aside as irrelevant and incompetent, or worse: as private organs of the state. Likewise, with direct access to leaked documents, no longer do journalists need to remain locked into a quasi-blackmail dependency relationship with the state. Critical and investigative journalism—in any country—no longer has a reason for not existing. Journalists, who fail to report on what could and should deeply embarrass the state, will now have to explain and apologize for their failures. Should the U.S. crackdown on Wikileaks under the 1917 Espionage Act, or some variation, it will inevitably have to be applied to mainstream media organizations, keeping in mind that Wikileaks has acted as part of a consortium with media—none of them leaked the documents (someone within the U.S. national security system did that), and all of them are equally pushing the documents. Dismissing Wikileaks’ journalism, the way that State Department spokesmen have, simply on the basis that Assange is an actor with an agenda, and has a political point of view, does not solve the problem: the exact same can and has been said, with an over abundance of evidence, about everything from Fox News to the BBC and Al Jazeera. Perhaps the State Department does not recognize anything as “news media” that is not ultimately owned by a defense contractor and weapons manufacturer, such as NBC, CBS, and Le Figaro.

The political economy of the Web, always an arena for struggle, is now approaching a climax where private ownership and state censorship are being frontally assaulted. China and Iran are revealed as being unexceptional. The State Department’s touting of “Internet Freedom” and “Civil Society 2.0” are exposed as cynical and confirmed as manipulative geopolitical tools—for everyone watching, not just for a select clique of critics. All of us have seen more than the leaks; we have seen a battery of private corporations acting as arms of the state, imposing their non-legal interpretations of what is legal, and following the state in applying harsh extra-legal measures. There is certainly a clash over the horizons of what is possible and acceptable, and the fight for The People’s Web has entered a new phase. This is now a different place. It feels like we are using a new Web.

There has been confrontation, conflict, and open defiance. Those who are diffident about speaking in terms of “revolution,” can at least speak of Wikileaks as a rebellion. Both Julian Assange and Wikileaks supporters in general, are being classed as “terrorists” by prominent right wing speakers and politicians. Even the more “moderate” voices call us “criminals.” There are open calls for assassination. We are their insurgents. For many different and even opposed interests, this will get ugly: brace yourselves.

As a rebellion, some stark realities come into open view, realities that many of us knew existed but that others refused to see. The real “war on terror” is in fact a global counterinsurgency program directed at all of us, not just ten guys in some cave. We live in a regime of global occupation, where psychological warfare, assaults on human rights, and increasingly dictatorial state powers are directed against citizens, not just foreign “enemy combatants.” That is what Wikileaks has revealed, and it is a truly revolutionary revelation because we can never go back to the same sort of dependent and submissive relationship with the state. Many people who support Wikileaks have, for the first time in their lives, experienced direct death threats, but from fellow citizens, voiced with such hate-filled anger that was previously reserved only for “jihadists” (as some thought). The real war was always as much at home as abroad, if not more so.

If by revolution some expect the fall of an entire political and economic system, governments overthrown, and the spawning of a new world socialist order—then they are likely to reject the idea that Wikileaks is a revolution. On the other hand, we live in a very uncertain period where lots of outcomes cannot be foreseen, and Wikileaks may prove to be a critical catalyst in realigning our understanding of world politics, which are not defined by an existential fight against some Other, but a fight against us, by states that fear their own citizens. Where Wikileaks is certainly a revolution can be understood in more proximal terms, dealing with the politics and economics of information and communication, relationships of citizens with the state, relationships between states, and heightened expectations for the promise of democracy. That is not little.



Maximilian Forte is a professor of anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, where he teaches courses in Political Anthropology, political activism and the Web, and the New Imperialism. He is also a columnist for Al Jazeera (Arabic) and writes regularly at Zero Anthropology (http://zeroanthropology.net). He can be reached at max.forte@openanthropology.org.

The New Statesman

What would Jesus do?

by Mehdi Hasan



Conservatives claim Christ as one of their own. But in word and deed, the son of God was much more left-wing than the religious right likes to believe.

Was Jesus Christ a lefty? Philosophers, politicians, theologians and lay members of the various Christian churches have long been divided on the subject. The former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev once declared: "Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind." The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, went further, describing Christ as "the greatest socialist in history". But it's not just Russian ex-communists and Bolivarian socialists who consider Jesus to be a fellow-traveller. Even the Daily Mail sketch-writer Quentin Letts once confessed: "Jesus preached fairness - you could almost call him a lefty."

That conservatives have succeeded in claiming Christ as one of their own in recent years - especially in the US, where the Christian right is in the ascendancy - is a tragedy for the modern left. Throughout history, Jesus's teachings have inspired radical social and political movements: Christian pacifism (think the Quakers, Martin Luther King or Bruce Kent in CND), Christian socialism (Keir Hardie or Tony Benn), liberation theology (in South America) and even "Christian communism". In the words of the 19th-century French utopian philosopher Étienne Cabet, "Communism is Christianity . . . it is pure Christianity, before it was corrupted by Catholicism."

These days, however, the so-called God-botherers tend to be on the right. In his book God's Politics, the US Evangelical pastor Jim Wallis, spiritual adviser to President Obama and Gordon Brown before him, laments the manner in which Jesus's message has been misinterpreted by the warring political tribes, writing of how the right gets Christ wrong, while the left doesn't get him at all.

He reminds his readers that being a Christian is not necessarily the same as being a "right-wing Christian fundamentalist", and that the Bible's focus on social justice and the poor shows that economic life should be organised around the needs of society's weakest and most vulnerable members.

The unemployed son of two asylum-seekers - Joseph and Mary - who fled to Egypt to avoid the genocidal tendencies of King Herod, the Jesus of the Gospels is a bearded, sandal-wearing, unmarried rabbi from Nazareth with all the personal traits of a modern revolutionary. In an essay published in 2007, the Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton noted that the Gospels present Christ as "homeless, propertyless, peripatetic, socially marginal, disdainful of kinfolk, without a trade or occupation, a friend of outcasts and pariahs, averse to material possessions, without fear for his own safety, a thorn in the side of the establishment and a scourge of the rich and powerful". Eagleton added: "Jesus has most of the characteristic features of the revolutionary activist, including celibacy."

Traits of character aside, where would Jesus stand in the main debates of our time, such as war and peace, wealth and taxation, health care and financial reform? To use the formula made popular by Evangelicals in America (often abbreviated to WWJD), "What would Jesus do?" He would do the same as any self-respecting lefty. Here are five reasons why.


1. Jesus the class warrior

From Cuban communists to New Labour social democrats, a belief in redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor is at the core of leftist thinking. The means used to achieve that redistribution, such as higher rates of income tax, are often decried by conservatives as representing the "politics of envy", a misguided Marxist desire for class war.

Jesus, however, went far beyond the 50p top rate of tax or a bonus tax in his zeal for redistribution and his rhetorical attacks on the richest members of society. To see what the "politics of envy" looks like in the Gospels, turn to Mark 10:21-25. Here, Jesus gives a startling answer to a pious Jewish man who has asked him how he can "inherit eternal life".

"21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." 22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. 23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" 24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

Forget taxing the rich until the pips squeak, Denis Healey-style; Jesus declares that the Roman Abramoviches and Donald Trumps of this world will struggle to achieve salvation in the afterlife. Why? "You cannot serve God and wealth," he says (Matthew 6:24). And, according to the epistles, "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10).

Further, Jesus argues that we have a moral obligation to pay taxes. In one of his parables, he heaps praise on a "righteous" tax collector (Luke 18:9-14). Were he alive today, Jesus would be leading the campaign to crack down on tax-dodging billionaires and multinational corporations. Here, in one of the best-known stories from the Gospels (Matthew 22:17-21), he is challenged by the followers of the Pharisees:

17 "Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" 18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the coin used for the tax." And they brought him a denarius. 20 Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?" 21 They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's."

It perhaps offers a fitting slogan for the placards of UK Uncut, the newly formed group protesting against tax avoidance, at its next high-street demo. In recent weeks, UK Uncut has used direct action to shut down stores owned by Vodafone (accused of being let off £6bn in tax) and the coalition government's "cuts tsar", Philip Green (accused of avoiding a £285m bill by transferring ownership of his Arcadia business empire to his wife, who lives in a tax haven, Monaco). Jesus would approve.

On one occasion, despite telling his companions that he is not liable to pay the "temple tax" that is demanded of every Jewish man in Palestine - because the Father does not require it from his own son - Jesus publicly pays the tax (Matthew 17:24-27). As the Scottish theologian and New Testament scholar William Barclay wrote: "Jesus is saying, 'We must pay so as not to set a bad example to others. We must not only do our duty, we must go beyond duty.'"


2. Jesus the banker basher

In March 2009, the windows of the detached stone villa in Edinburgh belonging to the disgraced Fred Goodwin, former chief executive of the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland, were smashed and his Mercedes S600 was vandal­ised. Some complained that the bankers were being made "scapegoats" for the financial crisis. I suspect Jesus might have been tempted to throw the first stone. He had form with "banker bashing", as Mark (11:15-17) testifies:

"15 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; 16 and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 He was teaching and saying, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers."

Tables turned over, wealth scattered, moneymen described as robbers - Christ's "cleansing of the temple" is a blueprint for the direct action against the financial and political elite by left-wing activists today. In Eagleton's words, this was Christ's attack on the "bastion of the ruling class".


3. Jesus the fair-wage campaigner

It isn't a coincidence that the campaign for a “living wage" - the minimum wage required for every worker to earn enough to provide his family with the essentials of life - has been driven by Citizens UK, a collection of urban community and faith groups that includes churches. The Gospels don't quite tell us that Jesus was a trade unionist, but they do suggest he backed a living wage.

Matthew 20:1-16 narrates the "parable of the workers in the vineyard", which tells of five sets of labourers who arrived for work very early in the morning, at 9am, at noon, at 3pm and at 5pm. They are all paid at 6pm and each labourer receives the same amount - one denarius, as agreed to with their employer. Unsurprisingly, those who arrived earlier and did more work complained that they had received the same pay as those who had come later: "These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat." But, for Jesus, the casual labourers who came to work for the landowner in his vineyard had basic needs that had to be satisfied, and those who had come late had been struggling to find work in a laissez-faire market: "No one has hired us," the last labourers tell the landowner. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," in the words of Karl Marx.

According to Jack Mahoney, emeritus professor of moral and social theology at the University of London, this parable allows us to think of the employer "as not being simply a generous, or overgenerous, employer, but in fact as being a just employer", someone who pays "a daily living wage".


4. Jesus the NHS champion

Jesus was a healer. The Gospels contain countless stories in which he helps the blind to see, the deaf to hear and the lame to walk. There is little evidence that he charged for his services, demanded to see an insurance card before offering treatment, or profited from his miraculous ability to bring the dead back to life.

He called on his disciples to do the same, instructing them to go into towns and "cure the sick who are there" (Luke 10:9). Again, there is no discussion of payment or fees or charges. Indeed, throughout his life, in word and deed, Jesus was a champion of universal health care, free at the point of use. He would have been an ardent and passionate defender of the NHS from free-market "reforms".

Take the story of the synagogue leader Jairus and his terminally ill daughter, and that of an unknown, destitute woman who has been haemorrhaging for 12 years and has "spent all that she had" paying physicians (Mark 5:21-43). Jesus heals both the sick daughter and the destitute woman. The linking of these two stories reminds us how sickness and ill-health are universal; we all, regardless of social status or bank balance, need access to health care at some stage in our lives.

The American academic, blogger and Baptist minister Drew Smith explains the political significance of these verses. "In a market-driven system of health care, the unnamed woman would have perhaps gone untreated, but Jairus would have had the health care he needed for his daughter. After all, Jairus is a man of means . . . But in stopping to heal the unnamed woman instead of proceeding to Jairus's house uninterrupted, Jesus also rebuked a system that offered preferential treatment for those like Jairus who have power, status and money."

It is no wonder that in the heated town-hall debates that were held across the US in the run-up to the signing of the Obama administration's health reform bill, which extended health-care coverage to an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans, some liberal activists carried placards proclaiming: "Jesus would have voted Yes".


5. Jesus the anti-war activist

Would Jesus have backed the Iraq war? Or would he have joined the two million anti-war protesters marching through the streets of London in February 2003? How about the war in Afghanistan? Stay the course? Or do a deal with the Taliban and bring the troops home? WWJD?

Jesus's pronouncements on war and peace, action and reaction, confirm his preference for non-violent struggle. "Blessed are the peacemakers," he says, "for they will be called children of God" (Matthew 5:9). And: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also" (Matthew 5:38-39). He also says: "Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Matthew 26:52).

Christian peaceniks point to these verses when challenging the militarism of ostensibly Christian nations such as the US and the UK.

“I want a faith that takes Jesus seriously in foreign policy," says Jim Wallis. "When Jesus says, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' what does that mean? This is what Jesus taught. He doesn't say the 'peace lovers'. Blessed are the peacemakers." Wallis also says: "I think it's not credible to believe that Jesus's command to be peacemakers is best fulfilled by American military supremacy through the imposition of Pax Americana."

In his new memoir, Decision Points, the former US president and born-again Christian George W Bush recalls how he arrived at his decision to approve a request from the CIA to waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 11 September 2001 attacks. "I thought about the 2,973 people stolen from their families by al-Qaeda on 9/11 . . . 'Damn right,' I said." But Jesus, the man once identified by Bush as his favourite political philosopher, has little time for such talk of vengeance and retribution. In Luke 6:27-28, he says: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."

The ex-president is said to have confessed to a group of Palestinian officials that God told him to "fight those terrorists in Afghanistan . . . and end the tyranny in Iraq". Given Jesus's rhetoric on non-violence and "peacemakers", I suspect the voices in Bush's head were not those of God, or his son.

Love your enemies. Renounce your wealth. Pay your taxes. Help the poor. Cure the ill (for free). These are the hallmarks of a left-wing, socialist politics. What Jesus wouldn't do is allow the rich to get richer, give a free pass to the bonus-hungry bankers and invade one foreign country after another. It is difficult to disagree with Wallis when he says: "The politics of Jesus is a problem for the religious right."

Mehdi Hasan is senior editor (politics) of the New Statesman. Read his blog here.

"Un popor de oi naste un guvern de lupi"

Acad. Florin Constantiniu - "Clasa politica postdecembrista este cea mai incompetenta, cea mai lacoma si cea mai aroganta din istoria Romaniei"


20 de ani de la Revolutia romana

La 20 de ani de la marea varsare de sange din decembrie 1989, Romania arata ca un animal bolnav si haituit.

Ne uitam in urma si nu ne vine sa credem ca au trecut doua decenii de sperante zadarnice.

Nimic din ce-am visat nu s-a implinit. In jurul nostru domnesc stagnarea si deziluzia, inceputurile neterminate, politica murdara, cu degetul pe tragaci, manipularea televizata. Lipseste o viziune, un proiect national de salvare.

Lipseste harta viitorului. Trista priveliste n-a cazut din cer. Au creat-o politicienii si romanii insisi.

Cum a fost turcul, asa a fost si pistolul. Nu mai putem sa ne ascundem dupa deget.

Ca o confirmare, academicianul Florin Constantiniu, istoric de prestigiu european, ne pune in fata o oglinda necrutatoare in care, daca avem curajul sa privim, ne vom afla poate izbavirea.

"Din nefericire, sansele imense care se ofereau tarii noastre in decembrie 1989 au fost ratate"


- Cum evaluati, fara menajamente, cele doua decenii de libertate din viata noastra, domnule profesor?

- Ca pe un inaugural ratat. In istoria fiecarui popor exista evenimente cruciale, care inaugureaza o noua etapa in evolutia societatii. Decembrie '89 a fost un astfel de eveniment: crucial, innoitor, fondator.

Din nefericire, sansele imense care se ofereau tarii noastre au fost ratate si, astfel, Romania imparte cu Bulgaria si Albania ultimele locuri din clasamentul tarilor foste comuniste.


- Pentru un individ, 20 de ani inseamna mult, aproape o treime din viata. Ce reprezinta pentru istorici aceeasi perioada?

- Pentru istorici sunt foarte instructive, intr-un astfel de moment, comparatiile cu alte intervale de timp ale istoriei nationale. Iau doua exemple de perioade cu o intindere de doua decenii, ca aceea scursa de la caderea regimului comunist.

Prima: 1859-1878; a doua: 1918-1938. In primul caz, perioada a fost marcata de un progres uluitor: de la Unirea Principatelor (1859), care pune bazele statului roman modern, la castigarea independentei (1877/1878). Politica de reforme a lui Cuza, in primul rand reforma agrara din 1864 si politica de modernizare promovata dupa aceea de Carol I, au facut ca statul roman sa se smulga din inapoierea determinata - in principal - de dominatia otomana, si sa se modernizeze rapid.

Progresele au fost vizibile pe toate planurile: politic, economic, social, cultural. Sa nu uitam ca, in acest interval, apar "Junimea" si Eminescu!

A doua perioada: 1919-1938. Iesita dintr-un razboi pustiitor si lovita de o criza economica de o duritate nemiloasa (1929-1933), Romania a izbutit, totusi, sa inregistreze un remarcabil progres in toate directiile, 1938 fiind anul de varf al Romaniei interbelice.


- Vorbiti de doua perioade exceptionale, domnule profesor! Ce se intampla astazi in Romania se afla la polul opus!

- Intr-adevar. Am ales aceste doua perioade tocmai pentru ca ele sunt cele mai potrivite spre a fi comparate.

In toate cele trei cazuri, avem de-a face cu inaugurale: in 1859, asa cum am spus, se aseaza temelia statului roman modern; in 1918, se desavarseste unitatea nationala a romanilor; la 22 decembrie 1989, se inchide "paranteza" comunista, deschisa in 1945 de ocupantul sovietic, si se reintra pe fagasul dezvoltarii firesti a societatii romanesti.

Veti fi de acord - sper - ca la cea mai sumara comparatie, perioada postdecembrista apare cu o intristatoare saracie de rezultate.

Suntem liberi, este adevarat, dar a progresat in vreo directie Romania ? Sunt, astazi, romanii mai fericiti? Exista un mare ideal national care sa-i mobilizeze pe romani?

In raport cu 1859-1878 si 1918-1938, ultimii 20 de ani nu ne dau decat infime temeiuri de satisfactie si deloc de mandrie.

"Clasa politica s-a aruncat asupra Romaniei cu un singur gand: sa se imbogateasca. A jefuit cum nici hulitii fanarioti n-au facut-o"


- De ce, in ultimii 20 de ani, romanii nu au mai fost in stare sa repete performantele din perioadele pe care le-ati amintit?

- Parerea mea este ca perioadele de progres sunt asigurate de conjugarea eforturilor elitei politice si intelectuale cu angajarea plenara a maselor intr-un proiect national, mobilizator si stimulator.

In 1859, generatia pasoptista (Mihail Kogalniceanu, Ion C. Bratianu), cea mai creatoare generatie a istoriei romanesti, s-a aflat la unison cu societatea moldo-munteana, care voia unirea si independenta. In 1918, generatia Marii Uniri (Ion I. C. Bratianu, Take Ionescu, Nicolae Iorga) s-a aflat la unison cu societatea care voia "Romania Mare" si afirmarea ei pe plan european.

Din 1989, societatea romaneasca a fost profund divizata (vezi "Piata Universitatii"), lipsita de un proiect national si incapabila sa-si mobilizeze resursele pentru a valorifica sansele ce i se ofereau: in primul rand, unirea Republicii Moldova cu Romania . Pe scurt, nici clasa politica, nici societatea romaneasca nu au fost in masura sa asigure inauguralului din decembrie 1989 justificarea imenselor posibilitati oferite de caderea comunismului.

- Cu alte cuvinte, putem vorbi de o "ratare" postcomunista a Romaniei?

- Vorbim de clasa politica si de societatea romaneasca. Cea dintai a intrunit trei superlative: cea mai incompetenta, cea mai lacoma si cea mai aroganta din istoria Romaniei. Lipsita de expertiza, avida de capatuiala si sigura de impunitate, ea s-a aruncat asupra Romaniei cu un singur gand: sa se imbogateasca.

A jefuit cum nici hulitii fanarioti n-au facut-o. Responsabilitatea ei fata de situatia catastrofala a Romaniei este imensa.

Astazi, constatam ca industria este lichidata, agricultura e la pamant, sistemul de sanatate in colaps, invatamantul in criza, individualitatea Romaniei pe plan international disparuta.

Criza economica nu a facut decat sa agraveze relele care au precedat-o.

Incompetenti, guvernantii nu au stiut sa atenueze socul crizei ce ne-a lovit.

Daca Romania profunda se zbate in dificultati si deznadejde, clasa politica prospera.

Case peste case (oameni politici cu patru, cinci, sase locuinte; te intrebi ce vor fi facand in ele), vile in tara si strainatate, masini de lux etc. s-au strans in proprietatea clasei politice.

Stiam ca avutia este rezultatul unei activitati economice. Acum, vedem ca politica este mijlocul cel mai sigur de imbogatire.

"Un popor de oi naste un guvern de lupi"

- Cine este vinovat de aceasta situatie?

- Cred ca principalul vinovat de aceasta situatie este insusi poporul roman!

El ilustreaza perfect observatia ca "un popor de oi naste un guvern de lupi".

Spiritul de demisie, pasivitatea, resemnarea romanilor, au permis clasei politice sa-si bata joc, nepedepsita, de tara.

Lipsit de spirit civic, poporul roman nu a fost capabil, in acesti 20 de ani, sa traga la raspundere clasa politica sau sa "tempereze" setea ei de inavutire. Pe roman nu-l intereseaza situatia generala.

Daca prin fin, nas, cumnat, amic etc., si-a rezolvat pasul lui, restul duca-se stim noi unde!

Mostenirea multiseculara a lui hatar si bacsis a ramas atotputernica.

Cum sa indrepti o tara , cand cetatenii ei se gandesc fiecare la sine si nu la binele comun!?

Astazi, asistam la situatii si mai dramatice. Romanii pleaca - din nevoia de castig - sa lucreze in Spania sau Italia, sa lupte in Afganistan. Energii si vieti se irosesc astfel in beneficii straine.

Nu poti sa-i condamni: mai bine sa lucreze pentru straini, decat pentru noii ciocoi postdecembristi, care ii trateaza cu un dispret suveran.

- Intrarea Romaniei in NATO si UE a fost, totusi, o biruinta postdecembrista.

- Sa fim seriosi! Am intrat in NATO pentru ca SUA, factorul decisiv al Aliantei, au vrut-o.

Aduceti-va aminte ca, in 1997, cand Romania a dus o campanie pe cat de zgomotoasa, pe atat de inutila, SUA ne-au inchis usa la summit-ul de la Madrid. In dorinta de a castiga bunavointa Washingtonului, am incheiat tratatul dezastruos cu Ucraina, fara a obtine nici un folos.

Dupa 11 septembrie 2001, evaluarea americana s-a schimbat radical. In lupta impotriva terorismului islamic, SUA aveau nevoie de noi aliati; in acest context, Romania a devenit membra a NATO. A fost o decizie americana, nu un merit al guvernantilor romani. O situatie similara, si in cazul intrarii in Uniunea Europeana.

Directoratul marilor puteri ale Uniunii a decis extinderea ei in Est. Daca avem un dram de sinceritate, trebuie sa recunoastem ca suntem inca departe de a fi o tara la nivelul standardelor vest-europene, care sunt ale Uniunii.

Directoratul marilor puteri a considerat insa ca este in interesul sau aceasta extindere, si atunci, la gramada - iertati-mi expresia! - am intrat si noi.

"Patriotismul e privit, in anumite cercuri ale intelectualitatii noastre si ale societatii civile, ca o boala rusinoasa"


- Ce-i lipseste Romaniei pentru a fi din nou ceea ce a fost candva?

- O "mare idee", un mare proiect national. Inainte de 1859, a fost Unirea; inainte de 1918, a fost desavarsirea Unirii.

Astazi nu ne mai insufleteste nici un ideal mobilizator. In perioada interbelica, Cioran ar fi vrut ca Bucurestiul sa devina Bizantul sud-estului Europei. Si, fara nici o exagerare patriotarda, ar fi putut deveni.

Astazi nici nu vrem, nici nu putem sa ne afirmam. Economic , Romania a devenit o piata de import.

Nu cunosc vreun produs romanesc vestit la export. Practic, suntem un fel de colonie.

In politica externa, am disparut de pe harta diplomatica a Europei.

In plan cultural, scriitorii romani asteapta, in continuare, Nobelul... In stadiul actual, cred ca sectorul in care Romania ar fi putut sa se manifeste cu sanse de succes era cel cultural-stiintific. Din nefericire, guvernantii postdecembristi si-au batut joc de invatamantul romanesc, supus la tot felul de "reforme" si "programe" inepte si distructive. Daca, din randul elevilor sau studentilor, au iesit elemente de valoare, ele sau au plecat in strainatate sau au disparut in mediocritatea din tara.

Aveam sansele sa fim Bizantul Europei de Sud-Est. Am ramas insa la periferia Europei.


- Mondializarea ameninta structura fiintei nationale. Se poate sustrage Romania acestui carusel mortal?

- Mondializarea este un proces caruia Romania nu i se poate sustrage, dar caruia ii poate rezista. Nu o rezistenta, as spune, de caracter antagonic, ci printr-o afirmare a identitatii nationale.

In Franta, tara cu o atat de veche si stralucita cultura, guvernul a initiat o dezbatere despre identitatea nationala.

La noi, cand cineva abordeaza aceasta problema, se aud imediat voci care il acuza ca este nationalist, nostalgic etc.

Patriotismul e privit, in anumite cercuri ale intelectualitatii noastre si ale societatii civile, ca o boala rusinoasa.

Americanii - ii am in vedere pe cetatenii SUA - ne ofera cel mai frumos exemplu de patriotism.

Noi, care ii copiem in atatea privinte, ramanem indiferenti la minunata lor pilda.

- Mai poate fi patriotismul o valoare in zilele noastre?

- Daca vorbim de un patriotism lucid, da, fara indoiala. Eu unul am aderat la principiul atat de sanatos al "Junimii": "Patriotism in limitele adevarului". Sa-mi iubesc tara si poporul, dar sa nu le ascund niciodata defectele.

Poate este o deformare de istoric, dar cred ca identitatea nationala are o componenta esentiala: memoria istorica.

Traditia se cultiva, in primul rand, prin cunoasterea istoriei.

Cand monumentele istorice se paraginesc si se ruineaza, memoria istorica e pe cale de disparitie.


- Cum credeti ca vor judeca perioada postdecembrista urmasii nostri de peste o suta de ani?

- Peste o suta de ani, cred ca judecata urmasilor si, intre ei, a istoricilor, va fi foarte severa. Anii 1989-2009 vor fi considerati o perioada de declin, clasa politica si poporul roman impartind, in egala masura, responsabilitatea pentru aceasta trista realitate.

Sa dea Dumnezeu ca atunci, peste un secol, Romania sa aiba situatia fericita pe care a ratat-o astazi!

Truthdig - Book Review

America the Material

By Nomi Prins

“A Question of Values” is an alternately sobering and inspiring collection of essays by noted historian and cultural critic Morris Berman. Berman pulls no punches in laying bare the truths about who we are, not just as a nation, but also as individuals wrapped up in the destructive pursuit of material excess. In the unswerving style of his other writings, he rips apart the national illusion of greatness.

The book is divided into four sections: “Lament for America,” “Mind and Body,” “Progress True and False” and “Quo Vadis?” (Where are you going?). Each part examines the American identity from a historical, spiritual, technological and alternative future perspective, respectively. Taken together, they ask the imperative questions: How did we get to this point, and how do we get out? Or will we? (Here being a country caught in a societal malaise of promoting external accumulation over internal compassion.) Taken together, the sections inspect our inner and outer fabric as a nation.

In Section I, the second essay, “Conspiracy vs. Conspiracy in American History,” Berman dissects America’s profound sense of self-importance, a central theme of the entire collection. He discusses how the “post-election euphoria in the United States over Barack Obama was nothing more than a bubble, an illusion, because the lion’s share of the $750 million he collected in campaign contributions” came from Wall Street. Thus, the fact that Obama proceeded to promise to rein in Wall Street’s excesses lay in stark and rather public contrast to his own connections with the banks.

This political sleight of hand is part of a larger problem for which Berman lists four descriptive conspiracies (or fallacies): First, that we are a chosen people (so we get to do whatever we want); second, that America itself is a kind of religion; third, that we must endlessly expand, whether it be geographically or financially; and, lastly, that our national character is composed of extreme individuals going back to our colonization. This he considers to be the main reason why “American history can be seen as the story of a nation consistently choosing individual solutions over collective ones.”

Berman expertly interweaves narrative and analysis, supported by anecdotes, historical fact and a plethora of quotes from historians, philosophers and authors, spanning Plato to Chris Hedges. With an ardent voice and poignant prose, Berman brings us to his conclusion that the only hope for America is to stop believing its own hype—something he doesn’t consider very likely. Ranging from Wall Street bailouts to political delusion, to 9/11 and the Iraq war to the Virginia Tech massacre to the interplay with China, Berman’s lament isn’t for an America that lost its way, but for one that never had a heart, but rather a colossal ego that raids other nations with self-righteous impunity.

The collection also provides a guide not just on what to think, but how to think. In Section II, Berman subtly balances the more dour aspects of the first section with a chattier discourse, relying on a combination of outside sources and his own entertaining life experiences. The section covers the message in certain modern Greek tragedies, like the movie “Damage,” and the very mortal question we all ask ourselves at different points in our lives: If I had to do it all over again, would I do it differently? And if so, would I wind up in the same place anyway? In his essay “Be Here Now,” Berman examines the need to be present in one’s life, because of the rapidity with which it flashes by. As Zen as this sentiment is, coming at the heels of his historical analysis, it centers our own focus, not selfishly, but with self-awareness. For in the end, as Berman writes, “there is no forcing things to make sense: either they do or they don’t, and there is no guarantee that they will.” It’s the thought about them that counts. Or doesn’t.

Section III spans the socially bankrupt practices resulting from endless technological advances, through the disastrous global competition for food and water. If we measure progress by consumption, how can it ever stop until there’s nothing left? According to Berman it can’t, which underscores a phenomenon he dubs “catastrophism.” As he puts it, “it is a fair guess that we shall start doing things differently only when there is no other choice; and even then, we shall undoubtedly cast our efforts in the form of a shiny new and improved hula hoop, the belief system that will finally be the true one, after all of those false starts; the one we should have been following all along.”

In Section IV, Berman brings us full circle in our assessment of national identity, taking us to Asia, a target of Ben Bernanke’s snotty finger-wagging this month. Berman notes the irony that “when Mao Zedong called the United States the paper tiger in the 1950s, everybody laughed.” As we know now, this pronouncement wasn’t so far off base. Our Washington finance chiefs, notably Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Fed Chairman Bernanke, want to keep pumping, printing and devaluing our money to create the illusion of national economic well-being while demanding that China keep its currency strong. And thus America’s national ego carries on, as Berman illustrates.

In “A Question of Values,” Berman not only warns us that America must change or die, but he calls on each of us to stop and imagine the potential of living in a better way. As such, there is also something uplifting about the book; it makes you want to call your parents to see how they are doing, or check in with your friends or your community. You know, be more in touch. Help someone.

When Berman’s last book, “Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire,” came out in 2006, New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani declared it “the kind of book that gives the Left a bad name.” There is no doubt that Berman’s work hits American ideals where it counts, but Kakutani’s kind of knee-jerk rather than introspective response is precisely the reaction that illustrates Berman’s thesis.

If there is anything missing from Berman’s collection, it’s that it offers no pat remedies of the kind that authors tend to stick into the wrap-up chapter. But, it’s the lack of a clearly delineated way out of our collective malaise that is the most honest answer of all. It is the basis of our entire value and priority system that is off. So, the only possible strategy for any kind of national redemption is to reassess our core values and original construction. There’s no easy way to achieve that. Still, any hope of resurrecting ourselves as a nation begins with a keener awareness of who we really are and why, and to that end, Berman’s book of essays will inspire much-needed introspection.

Sex and Relationships

Women Who Like to Be Dominated in Bed: Talking to BDSM Submissives

AlterNet / By Alex Henderson

Submissive kinky women are far from the shrinking violets that BDSM's critics have characterized them as being. Often they're women who know exactly what they want.

Photo Credit: Chilli Photograph

BDSM has come a long way in the last 20 years. A subculture that was once very underground has been infiltrating mainstream American pop culture in a major way since the early 1990s; pop stars like Christina Aguilera, Nine Inch Nails, Madonna and Joan Jett have employed BDSM imagery, and kinky references have popped up in mainstream television programs ranging from “Frasier” to “The Young and the Restless.”

Most college-age adults of the 1960s and '70s had no idea what a dominatrix was; now, it’s hard to find a college student who doesn’t know what a dominatrix is. But as ubiquitous as BDSM has become, there is one area of BDSM that continues to be widely misunderstood: female submission. From the anti-porn school of radical feminism exemplified by Catherine MacKinnon and the late Andrea Dworkin to Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Phyllis Schlafly on the religious right, BDSM’s opponents have often denounced female submission as misogyny taken to the extreme. Even people who are relatively BDSM-friendly may have some wrong ideas about women who volunteer to be tied up and spanked.

But the reality is that submissive kinky women are far from the shrinking violets that BDSM’s critics have characterized them as being, and in many cases, they are women who know exactly what they want in a relationship.

Outside of the BDSM scene, there are many misconceptions about submissive women. Non-kinky individuals might assume that submissive women are passive, indecisive or weak individuals who lack ambition—in other words, the anti-feminists. But spend some time around the BDSM community, and one encounters plenty of submissive women who describe themselves as card-carrying feminists. A female submissive might be a corporate lawyer or an emergency room physician, or she might be signing a major book deal. The fact that she is voluntarily submissive in the dungeon doesn’t mean that she is submissive outside of the dungeon.

One card-carrying feminist who is deeply involved in the BDSM community is New York City-based Susan Wright, founder/president of a sexual rights organization called the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF). Wright, who founded NCSF in 1997, is also a widely published science fiction author and a long-time member of the National Organization for Women (NOW). It was Wright who successfully petitioned NOW to drop its anti-BDSM position—and thanks to Wright, NOW’s official position against BDSM became a thing of the past.

“The common misconceptions about submissive women are that what they are doing is not consensual, that they have been coerced, or that they are doing something that they really don’t want to do,” Wright explained. “That’s a misconception because submissive women know exactly what kinds of partners they want and what they want to do and how they want to play. Submissive women have a fantasy. I think that everybody who is into BDSM has some type of fantasy that they want to fulfill, and that includes submissive women.”

Wright continued: “Being submissive is very compatible with feminism because it is choosing your own form of sexual expression. In the end, sexuality is empowering—and you can empower people in all the diverse ways that they enjoy sexuality. Power exchanges are one of those ways. That’s certainly why I did the SM policy project for the National Organization for Women. I’ve been a NOW member since I was 16, and when I found out that NOW had an anti-sadomasochism stance, I couldn’t understand why. I didn’t believe that feminism and BDSM were at all incompatible.”

Another self-described feminist who is quite active in the BDSM community is California-based Mollena Williams, who has written and lectured about female submission extensively. Williams stressed that there is absolutely no contradiction between the fact that she is openly submissive and the fact that she describes herself as a feminist. She emphasized that being submissive in a BDSM relationship doesn’t mean a woman is going to be submissive in all areas of her life.

“The fact is that in day-to-day life, you can’t walk around being submissive to everyone,” Williams asserted. “You have to make decisions. You can’t be submissive to the person in front of you on the freeway who is driving at 40 miles an hour; you have to make a decision and go around them. So the idea that your submission bleeds into the rest of your life in a way that cripples you is patently untrue. People outside of kink assume that that’s how submissive women live our lives, but it isn’t.”

Williams said that although BDSM is much more visible in mainstream pop culture than it was 30 or 40 years ago, female submission can still be a controversial subject—which is why, she said, a soap opera or sitcom that depicts BDSM in a lighthearted way is more likely to depict a woman as dominant rather than submissive. “Some people have a reaction to BDSM based on the gender involved,” Williams noted. “Seeing a submissive man doesn’t bother them, but seeing a submissive woman does. The idea of a dominatrix is kind of hot and sexy to them, but seeing a submissive female makes them uncomfortable. If you see a man crawling across the floor to a woman and licking her high-heel boots, it’s like, ‘Ooo, that’s a bit naughty.’ But if you get a movie like 9½ Weeks where the female is the submissive, people have a harder time digesting that.”

Because female submission is still widely misunderstood, Williams said, one of her goals has been to help women realize that if they have submission fantasies, there is nothing wrong with that.

Rachel Kramer Bussel has also been doing her part to promote understanding of female submission. Bussel, a widely published sex writer and editor of two books on the subject of female submission has had much to say about her own experiences as a submissive. She said that being submissive is actually a feminist act because a submissive woman and her dominant partners spend a lot of time discussing what does and doesn’t turn her on. Bussel said a dominant/submissive relationship may have more of a feminist component than a vanilla relationship because the woman’s likes and dislikes are discussed in such great detail.

“There’s no reason why a woman’s feminist thoughts or credentials or beliefs should be somehow demoted because she’s sexually submissive,” Bussel said. “If you are a feminist and you tap into that as a submissive, it can be empowering—maybe not in a political way, but in a personal way. Being submissive can be less about kink and more about finding what turns you on—and that discovery process can be empowering. There’s a stereotype that being in a dominant/submissive relationship means that the submissive isn’t figuring out what she wants, but I think that negotiating the terms of the relationship and mutually figuring out what both of you want can be an empowering experience. The process of figuring out what your boundaries are—whether it’s by trial and error or fantasies—can be a confidence-building experience. It’s the opposite of passive, I would say.”

Indeed, a considerable amount of negotiation inevitably occurs in BDSM relationships. The very fact that a submissive is agreeing to be restrained gives the top a considerable amount of responsibility; thus, dominant males who act responsibly go to great lengths to ascertain what a submissive woman does or doesn’t enjoy. A submissive woman, for example, might tell her dom that her fantasies involve being bound, gagged and spanked but not whipped—in which case, she won’t be whipped. A submissive woman might want a lot of bondage but no pain; or, on the other hand, whipping might be a big part of her fantasies. Different submissive women have different fantasies, and Bussel said that dominant men who spend a lot of time hearing intricate, detailed descriptions of a woman’s needs and desires may become better listeners than vanilla men.

“In kinky relationships,” Bussel explained, “there is always going to be some degree of negotiation. There is always going to be some degree of trying to figure out what the other person likes and doesn’t like—and I think that doesn’t always happen in non-kinky relationships. That process of negotiating is healthy for both parties in a relationship, but there isn’t always enough negotiating in non-kinky relationships. I can definitely say that the men that I’ve submitted to are very respectful and are men I would consider feminists. The dominant men I’ve been submissive with have been very respectful of my career and very supportive of me; they’re good guys, for lack of a better word.”

Bussel added: “It’s a huge mistake to assume that submissive women are weak or that men who want to dominate women in the bedroom are sexist pigs. For scenes to work, you have to let go, to some extent, of that organized, take-charge persona. You have to let go of that take-charge aspect of your personality in order for the submissive fantasy to work. But that doesn’t mean that women who are submissive in a relationship or submissive in a fantasy are submissive in all aspects of our lives. There’s a big difference between structural sexism and negotiating power with someone you trust in the bedroom. Giving up power, within boundaries, for X amount of time is not societal sexism. I think that one thing some non-kinky people miss is that a submissive woman isn’t giving up power in her daily life.”

Many BDSM-related articles have tried to shed some light on what submissive males are like both inside and outside of the dungeon—and those men have often been characterized as busy, overworked white-collar professionals who use submission as a way to unwind and escape. When the accountant or IT professional is hogtied, ballgagged and locked in a cage (either by a professional dominatrix or his dominant girlfriend or boyfriend), he is temporarily liberated from all the decision-making and responsibility he faces in his professional life. And similarly, there are submissive women who have so much responsibility working as doctors or attorneys that they need a place in their lives where they can let someone else take charge for once. But Wright said that while some submissive females do fit the profile of the overworked, stressed-out MBA, others could be anything.

“You can find all kinds of women who are submissive,” Wright noted. “You can find the entrepreneurial corporate leaders, and you can find women who want to be stay-at-home housewives. There are so many different kinds of women choosing to be submissive just as there are so many different kinds of women who are heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. And this is a choice that we’re making. It isn’t a consequence of male domination in the past or a consequence of a patriarchal society.”

BDSM has a sizable vocabulary, and three of the most widely used BDSM terms are “top,” “bottom” and “switch.” Male and female dominants are known as “tops,” while male and female submissives (or “subs” for short) are called “bottoms.” And a “switch” is a man or woman who can be either a top or a bottom. There are BDSM women who only want to be dominant or only want to be submissive, but there are also female switches who enjoy being the whip-cracking dominatrix as much as they enjoy being the one getting whipped.

“At least one-third of the people in BDSM switch,” Wright observed. “There are a lot of people out there who want to be a top one night and want to be a bottom another night. Switches might want to be in control some nights but other nights, being submissive is more comforting for them.”

Switching, in fact, even found its way to what is widely regarded as the ultimate tale of female submission: The Story of O (L’Histoire d’O), an erotic novel by the late French author Anne Desclos, a.k.a. Pauline Réage or Dominique Aury, and first published in 1954. Twenty-one years later in 1975, French director Just Jaeckin made a film adaptation starring Corinne Clery as the submissive O and Udo Kier as her dominant lover René. Voluntarily obeying René’s commands, O agrees to be sexually submissive to other men—first to the men at a kinky chateau called Roissy, then to René’s stepbrother Sir Stephen (played by the late Anthony Steel). O ends up falling in love with the very dominant Sir Stephen, who isn't shy about chaining her up and whipping her. But at the very end of the film, O appears to be switching—and the viewer is led to believe that O is finding her inner dominatrix and getting ready to put Sir Stephen on the receiving end of the whip.

It’s safe to say that some of the world’s least homophobic straight men can be found in the BDSM community, where leathermen (kinky gay men known for their leather attire) have long been iconic figures. The Leather Man, a West Village BDSM shop that has been open in New York City since 1965, serves a predominantly gay clientele but has also had its share of loyal heterosexual customers over the years. Leathermen also have a lot of kinky lesbian admirers. That said, BDSM isn’t without lesbian critics—and Williams said while female submission can be controversial among heterosexuals, it can be even more controversial in the lesbian community.

“I can say that in the gay women’s community, submission is an even more difficult choice because you have very radical feminism and you have very big riffs,” Williams explained. “Leathersex and BDSM cause big riffs in the gay women’s community or queer women’s community because you have very radical feminists who say, ‘Not only are you betraying your feminism, but you are also mimicking a male-dominated society. You are mimicking male patterns of abuse.’ But that type of thinking really frustrates me. My response is, ‘Feminism is giving me the right to choose what is right for me, not giving you the right to choose what you think is right for me.’”

And in Williams’ view, most vanilla couples (both gay and straight) have some type of dominant/submissive element to their relationship regardless of what they know or don’t know about BDSM. “OK, let’s say that I walk a couple into a dungeon,” Williams said. “Here’s the whip, here’s the spanking bench. Who would be running the scene? Who would be the top? And 99 percent of the time, they know who has the upper hand in their relationship. Most relationships are like that. They might say, ‘Oh, we don’t do power in that way,’ but it’s still the same result. There is still a top and a bottom in that relationship even if they don’t consider themselves kinky. They haven’t necessarily negotiated that level of awareness, but they got to it somehow in their relationship. I think we have a shortcut in BDSM in that we’re like, ‘OK, that’s what you want. How can we work that out?’”

Williams added that in everyday life outside the dungeon, even the most dominant dungeonmaster has his submissive moments; he submits to a traffic light that has turned red, or he submits to a line at the grocery store. “I think that cognitively, we’re all kind of switches anyway,” Williams observed. “There are times in your life when you’re going to be submissive; there are times in your life when you’re doing to be dominant.”

And as Sir Stephen learned, even O eventually found her inner dominatrix.

Truthdig - Book excerpt

Beyond ‘1984’: New Frontiers of Mass Surveillance
Book excerpt

By Elliot D. Cohen

Does the notion of remote-controlled soldiers—the fully human kind—seem only a sci-fi vision or the product of someone’s paranoid imagination? Guess again: There’s a project in the works as the military and big business join forces to make privacy a thing of the past, according to Elliot D. Cohen, whose new book, “Mass Surveillance and State Control: The Total Information Awareness Project,” is excerpted below.

* * *

Elliot D. Cohen, “Mass Surveillance and State Control,” published 2010, Palgrave Macmillan, reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan.

Surveillance cameras have finite ranges within which they can track a person. However, there are currently other technologies that can be used to track people in real time, which are not constrained by location.


Radio Frequency ID Technologies and Government Surveillance

One such technology is Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) microchips, which can be smaller than a grain of sand. These devices have the capacity to store data, which can be read at a distance by an RFID reader. Like our cell phones, the emerging technology also has GPS capacity and can thus be used to locate and track a person or object carrying the device.

Now RFID chips are also being implanted in human beings, not just human artifacts. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of RFID chips for subcutaneous implantation in patients in hospitals, which could be used by medical staff to access computerized patient information such as the patient’ medical history. The maker of this chip, Verichip, has also lobbied the Department of Defense to embed RFID chips in soldiers to replace the standard “dog tags.” Other human applications include implanting them in children, and even in prisoners.

In fact, the London justice department has begun to explore the idea of using a hypodermic needle to inject such devices into the back of the arms of certain inmates, such as sex offenders, then releasing them from prison, thereby freeing up space in overcrowded British prisons. The prisoners would be tracked by satellite and barred from entering certain “safe” zones such as schools, playgrounds, and former victims’ homes.


An Emerging Internet of Humans

One wave of research concerns the creation of “an internet of things” whereby RFID interfaces are constructed between cyberspace and physical objects, thereby permitting two-way exchanges between online software technologies and databases, on the one end, and objects in the material world, on the other end. Thereby, these objects can be identified, tracked, traced, monitored, and controlled.

The “internet of things” project began as a research project by Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Auto-ID Labs to help the Department of Defense precisely track and control billions of dollars of military inventory; but there is already concern by prominent technology watchdog organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, that the government may also have designs on using such systems for purposes of monitoring and collecting information on peoples’ interests, habits, and activities through the things that they purchase.

Further, since RFID chips have already begun to be embedded in human beings, the progressive development of such a project may come to embrace human beings along with physical objects. Thus, with the advance of an “internet of things,” human beings, like physical inventory, might be “tagged” with an RFID chip and systematically tracked, traced, monitored, and controlled.

Are such possibilities speculative? Yes, but the potential of RFID technologies to become an incredibly oppressive kind of surveillance is not speculative. As was discussed in the preceding chapters, there is now a trend for government to override privacy for the sake of “winning the war on terror.” Viewed in this light, it would be presumptuous to think that such technology would not be so used—at least if government does not depart from its current tendency to abridge the right to privacy in the name of national security.


The DARPA/IBM Global Brain Surveillance Initiative

Going beyond monitoring such aspects of human life as behavior, electronic messaging, and geographical location is the direct monitoring of people’s mental aspects, such as their thoughts, perceptions, and emotions. In December 2008, IBM and collaborators from several major universities were awarded US$4.9 million from DARPA to launch the first phase of its “Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) initiative.” Under this grant, IBM has launched its “cognitive computing initiative” to develop a (literal) “global brain.”

The enormity of this project is glaring. Nonetheless, its intentions seem clear, and they include, among other things, the global monitoring of human beings’ most intimate and personal space: what is going on inside their minds; and then what is going on inside their organizations, their homes, and even their cars.

In 2004, DARPA funded a US$19 million program led by a Duke University neurobiologist, Miguel Nicolelis, in which a monkey was able to control a remote robotic arm hundreds of miles away, through a two-way wireless interaction between the monkey’s cerebral cortex and the robotic arm. DARPA’s military goals for this project included giving combat soldiers the power to remotely control military equipment and weapons at a distance through such brain machine interfaces (BMI). As was mentioned in Chapter 1, another goal of DARPA is to remotely control the soldiers themselves through the use of peripheral devices wirelessly interfacing with their brains, including remotely controlling natural emotions, such as fear, and feelings, such as that of fatigue, in combat situations.

Here, there are profound implications for DARPA/IBM’s cognitive computing initiative to build a “global brain.” If sensors that monitor and control soldiers’ motor and sensory brain activities were “plugged into” a global brain through BMI interfaces, the possibility would emerge of remotely controlling and coordinating an entire army of soldiers by networking their individual brains. … The stored data and supercomputing capabilities could then … give an army a marked, logistical advantage over a nonnetworked opponent. Of course, this advantage would be purchased at the expense of turning human soldiers into military robots plugged into a literal network of remotely controlled fighting machines. There would be little left that would make them distinctively human.

But why limit BMI technology when it could also be used to improve parenting skills; exponentially expand individual intellects and knowledge bases; and eliminate or greatly reduce accidents on the highways, criminal activities, and, of course, “win the war on terror.” In other words, why not make BMI/global brain technologies mainstream?

Truthdig - Film review

‘White Material’: Portrait of the Colonist in a Post-Colonial Land

by Richard Schickel

imdb.com

Isabelle Huppert plays the lead in Claire Denis’ “White Material.”

In a post-colonial, pre-revolutionary African country, the French peacekeepers are pulling out and government troops are contending for control of the rapidly failing nation with a rebel leader known as The Boxer, whose troops are largely child soldiers. Wounded, The Boxer has taken refuge in a coffee plantation owned by the Vials and managed by Maria (a muscular Isabelle Huppert), who is determined to hang on to the acreage despite the increasingly desperate conditions she confronts.

Director Claire Denis’ “White Material” tells her story in a jumpy jumble of narrative leaps that at first annoys and then absorbs the viewer. Another, perhaps lesser, director would probably have done her best to clarify the confusions of this story; instead, Denis embraces them. The predominant image of this film—repeated in a dozen variants—is of a lone woman walking or driving the empty roads of this beautiful, unnamed country, seeking a salvation that is both practical and spiritual.

It is time to harvest her crop and her workers have fled the plantation. Therefore, her first order of business is to replace them. This she briefly manages to do, although her new crew also decamps almost immediately. For allies she is pretty much reduced to a feckless former husband and a “half-baked” son (as someone describes him)—a lad who may merely be afflicted with adolescent angst, but who is more likely on his way to becoming a full-scale nut job.

We never quite understand why saving the plantation is so important to Maria. Yes, the family has lived there for a couple of generations, And, yes, we understand that she cannot imagine any other life for herself. On the other hand, it has been years since they turned a profit on their crop, and the old colonial life style that once sustained them is long gone. To remain in place is to assure an absurd and anonymous extinction—the machete at midnight, the rape by the roadside.

A couple of times Maria reflects on the beauty of the landscape. But that scarcely seems sufficient reason to wage this hopeless fight. She is, we come to see, stubborn simply because that is her nature. Caught up in the practical details of her struggle, she cannot pause to contemplate the larger meaning—if any—of what she is doing. She is, you might say, morally mute. Racing hither and tither, improvising this or that solution to whatever practical problem presents itself, she has no time for irony, let alone long, long thoughts.

Therein lies the rough beauty of this film. The hills may be alive with menace—child soldiers shooting off their guns, rebel and government troops ready to kill for no good reason—but Huppert’s character, as sinewy in spirit as she is in physical appearance, just keeps plowing on. Never once does she openly acknowledge the peril that surrounds her. She seems to feel that if she just keeps busy she is impervious to threat.

Eventually one comes to think she represents that curious sense of exceptionalism that has led to so many modern tragedies—not only in the colonial world, but elsewhere as well. “White Material” never mentions it, but Maria is, in effect, shouldering the White Man’s Burden. She has the energy, the intelligence—and the blindness—to dominate a vastly larger and infinitely more chaotic civil population. But she cannot recognize that it would require only a few—well, yes, “half-baked”—organizing ideas for the restive natives to casually, heedlessly exterminate her.

Her only real option is to run. This was true in Nazi Germany, in Kenya or Rwanda, dozens of other post-colonial contexts as well. But people do not exercise that choice. They think the ugliness must only be temporary. They rely on their pride of place in the pecking order. They are full of an unrecognized hubris. And so they die. The last we see of Maria is her standing alone in open country, at the end of her tether, but perhaps not fully realizing, even then, that she has reached that point.

“White Material” is a difficult, narratively thorny, film. But in Huppert’s uncompromising performance—she never once appears to harbor an abstract or idealistic thought or one that we would feel comfortable sentimentalizing—and in Denis’ refusal to embrace easy, uplifting answers to an insoluble problem, it offers us a portrait of an exemplary, persistent (and, in a certain sense, tragic) figure. For Maria Vial is the victim of a spirit too primitive, too animalistic, to be the avatar of a new, somewhat better society. She will, we are sure, die the victim of blind forces that can only make a bad place even worse—more brutal, more irrational—than it already is.

Truthdig

Reviving the Economy

Posted on Nov 15, 2010 by

Paresh Nath, Cagle Cartoons, The Khaleej Times, UAE

Fake news on Fakebook

Somali Pirates Refuse to Board Carnival Cruise Ships

Fake news by Andy Borowitz


MOGADISHU, Somalia - In yet another public relations setback for the beleaguered cruise ship company, Somali pirates today said they would no longer board Carnival Cruise ships, citing “unsafe working conditions.”

“If Carnival thinks that it’s going to be business as usual between them and the Somali pirates, they need to have their heads examined,” said Somali pirate spokesman Sugule. “We Somali pirates may be bold, but we’re not crazy.”

The pirate said that the recent fire that crippled the giant cruise ship Carnival Splendor “has sent a shiver through the pirate community.”

“We Somali pirates face enough risks without dealing with decks bursting into flames,” he said. “And don’t get me started on the nonfunctioning toilets.”

When asked if the Somali pirates might attempt to board Carnival ships in the future, he responded, “I am telling me hearties that if they were thinking of pillaging a Carnival ship of its booty over the holidays, they should make alternative plans.”

Carol Foyler, a spokesperson for Carnival Cruises, said that the company “would be working overtime to win back the pirates’ trust.” In the meantime, Foyler said, Carnival would be unveiling a new slogan in the weeks to come: “Come for the fun, stay for the raging inferno.”

Bush Publishes ‘I Can Has Prezidensy’

The Borowitz Report has obtained an advance copy of former President George W.[W-aterboarding/W.M.D.] Bush’s memoir, entitled “I Can Has Prezidensy.” Here are some highlights:

—The book contains a “Where’s Waldo?” foldout section with WMDs.

—Bush says the biggest disappointment of his eight years in office was learning there was no Santa Claus.

—The book’s appendix includes a series of connect-the-dot drawings Bush was unable to complete.

—Bush on the unfinished business of his presidency: “I never did learn how that neat story about the goat ended.”

—Bush’s memoir is a quick read, since 95 percent of it has been redacted by Dick Cheney.

—Six months after the book’s publication, there will be an English-language version.


Award-winning humorist, television personality and film actor Andy Borowitz is author of the book “The Republican Playbook.”

© 2010 CREATORS SYNDICATE

Disclaimer: The add-ons to the great American leader's name do not appear in the original article and could be considered as prima-facie evidence for a defamation case... In case this helps the great American justice system's piranha-lawyers, so be it!

Lady Chatterley’s pyrrhic victory

by Dominic Sandbrook

When Penguin Books prevailed in the famed obscenity trial 50 years ago, the result was as much a victory for the free market as for free expression.

One day in November 1960, a man sat down and wrote a letter to the prime minister. "England needs your help," he began, imploring Harold Macmillan to intervene in what he saw as the most flagrant miscarriage of justice in living memory - the acquittal of Penguin Books in the celebrated case of Lady Chatterley's Lover. And contrary to what we might assume today, Macmillan's correspondent was far from alone. Sexual intercourse, Philip Larkin once claimed, began "between the end of the Chatterley ban/ and the Beatles' first LP" - but if it did, many people were dead set against it.

Even as thousands of copies of D H Lawrence's explicit tale of forbidden love were flying off the shelves, there were reports of deep popular dissatisfaction with the verdict. In Edinburgh, one woman bought a copy only to set it on fire on the pavement outside the bookshop; in South Wales, female library assistants demanded their employers' permission to refuse to handle the book. Writing to the Home Office, a "family man and grammar schoolmaster" claimed that his Essex pupils were finding it "impossible to buy 'proper comics' in local shops, their place being taken by sex-filled trash". And from Surrey, a distressed woman wrote to the wife of the home secretary, Rab Butler, explaining that she had a 13-year-old daughter at boarding school and was afraid that "day girls there may introduce this filthy book at only three and sixpence . . . If a mistress protests, girls can reply that a clergyman has said: 'Every Christian should read it.'"

Few accounts of the Chatterley case - which has become a familiar symbol of the social and cultural changes sweeping over Britain half a century ago - find much room for such protests. Even at the time, most opinion-formers saw Penguin's acquittal on charges of breaching the Obscene Publications Act as a victory of freedom over repression. Penguin added a caption on new editions of the novel, proclaiming that the trial at the Old Bailey had been "not just a legal tussle but a conflict of generation and class". Kenneth Tynan claimed that it had been a struggle "between Lawrence's England and Sir Clifford Chatterley's England; between contact and separation; between freedom and control; between love and death". "I feel as if a window has been opened," said Lawrence's stepdaughter Barbara, "and fresh air has blown right through England."

A half-century later, it is hard to recapture the moral climate of a society that still saw fit to ban books and magazines because they were considered likely to "deprave and corrupt" their readers. In fact, the law under which Penguin was prosecuted, the Obscene Publications Act 1959, was itself a symbol of change, introduced by the young Labour MP Roy Jenkins precisely because its crucial loophole, the question of literary merit, would clear the way for books such as Lady Chatterley's Lover. But what seems most obvious, looking back, is how much this was a change driven from the top - or by those on their way there - rather than from the bottom.

Jenkins, though the son of a miner, later became a kind of William Gladstone tribute act. Meanwhile, Gerald Gardiner, who was widely praised for leading Penguin's defence, was the Harrow-educated son of a mining executive and one of the leading lights of what Michael Frayn memorably called the "herbivore" establishment. A pacifist and founder member of CND, Gardiner became Harold Wilson's lord chancellor four years later.

In a sense, therefore, the Chatterley case was less a clash of ideals or classes than one between two different wings of a political and cultural elite: one rooted in old ideas of decency and de­corum, the other in latitude and self-expression. And as in the drugs trial of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, which followed in 1967, most of the press supported the forces of liberation. Yet, thanks to Jenkins's legislation, the Crown had little choice but to prosecute. As the prosecuting counsel, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, told the director of public prosecutions, Sir Theobald Mathew: "If no action is taken in respect of this publication, it will make proceedings against any other novel very difficult."

Even at the time, Griffith-Jones's handling of the prosecution attracted outright mockery. Although the prosecution drew up a long list of potential witnesses who might condemn the novel as obscene, none of them agreed to testify. At one point, it even considered bringing over an American literary critic who had once described the book as "a dreary, sad performance with some passages of unintentional, hilarious low comedy", although it eventually abandoned the idea. Instead, the prosecution team wasted its time before the trial going through the book line by line, noting down obscenities: on page 204, for example, one "bitch goddess of Success", one "fucking", one "shit", one "best bit o' cunt left on earth" and three mentions of "balls".

But Griffith-Jones was not the man to fight this battle. A war hero who was awarded the Military Cross after serving in North Africa and Italy, he had been left high and dry by the tides of cultural change. When he asked what is perhaps the best-known rhetorical question in legal history - "Is it a book you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?" - he guaranteed his own defeat.

By contrast, Gardiner had lined up 35 dis­tinguished witnesses convinced of the novel's literary merit, including Cecil Day-Lewis, E M Forster, Richard Hoggart and Rebecca West. The most widely reported exchange came when the bishop of Woolwich, John Robinson, appeared in the witness box. "What I think is clear," he told the court, "is that what Lawrence is trying to do is to portray the sex relationship as something essentially sacred . . . as in a real sense an act of holy communion." Asked whether it was "a book which, in your view, Christians ought to read", he replied confidently: "Yes, I think it is."

Fifty years later, I doubt there are many readers who wish the verdict had gone the other way. By and large, the days when the state controlled literary publications and private morality are long gone; few of us, barring the most backward-looking, would want things to be different. And predictions that the Chatterley verdict would open the floodgates to a tide of promiscuity proved, in the short term at least, very wide of the mark. Despite the extraordinary sales of Lawrence's novel after the publishers were acquitted - Foyles bookshop sold its first 300 copies in 15 minutes on 10 November, and took orders for 3,000 more - Britain in the 1960s remained a remarkably conservative society. Whatever Larkin may have thought, it was not Lawrence's prose that transformed sex in Britain. It was rising prosperity, individualism and reliable birth control.

But you do not, I think, have to be an arch-reactionary to see that the legacy of the Chatterley case was more ambiguous than the conventional wisdom often suggests. In one sense, Penguin's acquittal was a victory for the free market - a market not just of books, but of words and ideas - over state regulation. Kicking against their elders, the reformers of the 1960s worshipped freedom and self-expression; as they saw it, the old values of collective morality and individual restraint were inappropriate in an age of affluence and mass education.

Perhaps they were. But only a thin line divides self-expression from self-indulgence, and the freedom to flout social convention can easily curdle into the freedom to ignore the rest of society altogether. Sometimes, reading accounts of the case, I even wonder whether somebody ought to speak up for poor old Griffith-Jones. His remark about wives and servants was absurd, but surely, as a war hero who gave sterling service at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, he deserves a better reputation. In his own way, he made a fine representative of a Britain soon to be swept away. It was a Britain with many evils and injustices, certainly, but one from which we could still learn something about the virtue of self-restraint.


“Lady Chatterley's Lover - 50th Anniversary Edition" is published in the Penguin Classics series (£8.99)

The NewStatesman

Computer says "no"

by Michael Brooks


Every November, the Royal Society and the French Académie des sciences give out a prize to a scientist who has discovered how to do something innovative with computers. Naturally, it has to be a useful innovation. The 45 employees at the Department for Work and Pensions who have been disciplined after using their computers for shopping, pornography and "unauthorised downloading" need not apply.

It's not just government employees who abuse their computers. In May 2008, the head of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics warned that City traders were doing it, too. He argued that their lazy acceptance of whatever the computers said would lead to financial disaster.

No one understands "garbage in = garbage out" better than the scientists who have learned that their reputation can be ruined by placing unquestioning trust in the printout. To take a slightly ridiculous example, researchers at the UK's National Physical Laboratory have just fixed a 20-year-old problem in the official computer model of the shape of the outer ear. It was created to define a quality standard for the performance of headphones and mobile phones (you are forgiven for not realising how useful scientists can be). The input scan for the computer model was done at too low a resolution, however, and manufacturers have since been filling in the gaps in ways that reflect best on their brand. It ain't necessarily so, just because the computer says it is.

Innovation in scientific computing has done some wonderful things. It has allowed us to model the heart, giving us insight into how drugs affect cardiac rhythms and how heart attacks develop. It enables us to analyse medical images more accurately, providing earlier diagnosis of cancers. Thanks to computer models, we can see why misfolded protein gives rise to cystic fibrosis and predict the path of dangerous epidemics.

But in every case, the computer's predictions or declarations have to be checked against what scientists can observe happening.

In science, the only credible guide is real-world experiment. Across at the Channel, the French use a slightly different word for "experiment" - expérience. That is no coincidence: it emphasises that scientists learn from trial and realisation. Think, for example, of what the British economist John Maynard Keynes called the "folly and injustice" of the UK government's 1931 plan to beat the recession. The measures, which in effect shut down economic activity, didn't work, and led to the abandonment of the gold standard.

The gold-standard scientific approach - experiment or experience - suggests there is no reason to believe that the same approach to beating recession will work now, either - whatever the printout from the Treasury's computer might say.

Project Syndicate: A world of Ideas

Understanding the Frankenstein Tradition

by Henry I. Miller

PALO ALTO – “It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive... IT’S ALIVE!” So said Dr. Victor Frankenstein when his “creation” was complete. Researchers have long been fascinated with trying to create life, but mainly they have had to settle for crafting variations of living organisms via mutation or other techniques of genetic engineering.

In May, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute, led by Venter himself, synthesized the genome of a bacterium from scratch using chemical building blocks, and inserted it into the cell of a different variety of bacteria. The new genetic information “rebooted” its host cell and got it to function, replicate, and take on the characteristics of the “donor.” In other words, a sort of synthetic organism had been created.

Reactions in the scientific community ranged from “slight novelty” to “looming apocalypse.” The former is more apt: Venter’s creation is evolutionary, not revolutionary.

The goal of “synthetic biology,” as the field is known, is to move microbiology and cell biology closer to the approach of engineering, so that standardized parts can be mixed, matched, and assembled – just as off-the-shelf chassis, engines, transmissions, and so on can be combined to build a hot-rod.

Achieving this goal could offer scientists unprecedented opportunities for innovation, and better enable them to craft bespoke microorganisms and plants that produce pharmaceuticals, clean up toxic wastes, and obtain (or “fix”) nitrogen from the air (obviating the need for chemical fertilizers).

During the past half-century, genetic engineers, using increasingly powerful and precise tools and resources, have achieved breakthroughs that are opening up new opportunities in a broad array of fields. The Venter lab’s achievement builds on similar work that began decades ago. In 1967, a research group from Stanford Medical School and Caltech demonstrated the infectiousness of the genome of a bacterial virus called ΦΧ174, whose DNA had been synthesized with an enzyme using the intact viral DNA as a template, or blueprint. That feat was hailed as “life in a test tube.”

In 2002, a research group at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, created a functional, infectious poliovirus solely from basic, off-the-shelf chemical building blocks. Their only blueprint for engineering the genome was the known sequence of RNA (which comprises the viral genome and is chemically very similar to DNA). Similar to the 1967 experiments, the infectious RNA was synthesized enzymatically. It was able to direct the synthesis of viral proteins in the absence of a natural template. Once again, scientists had, in effect, created life in a test tube.

Venter’s group did much the same thing in the recently reported research, except that they used chemical synthesis instead of enzymes to make the DNA. But some of the hype that surrounded the publication of the ensuing article in the journal Nature was disproportionate.

Along with the Venter paper, Nature published eight commentaries on the significance of the work. The “real” scientists were aware of the incremental nature of the work, and questioned whether the Venter group had created a genuine “synthetic cell,” while the social scientists tended to exaggerate the implications of the work.

Mark Bedau, a professor of philosophy at Reed College, wrote that the technology’s “new powers create new responsibilities. Nobody can be sure about the consequences of making new forms of life, and we must expect the unexpected and the unintended. This calls for fundamental innovations in precautionary thinking and risk analysis.”

But, with increasing sophistication, genetic engineers using old and new techniques have been creating organisms with novel or enhanced properties for decades. Regulations and standards of good practice already effectively address organisms that may be pathogenic or that threaten the natural environment. (If anything, these standards are excessively burdensome.)

On the other hand, Swiss bioengineer Martin Fussenegger correctly observed that the Venter achievement “is a technical advance, not a conceptual one.” Other scientists noted that the organism is really only “semi-synthetic,” because the synthetic DNA (which comprises only about 1% of the dry weight of the cell) was introduced into a normal, or non-synthetic, bacterium.

Understanding the history of synthetic biology is important, because recognizing the correct paradigm has critical implications for how governments regulate it, which in turn affects the potential application and diffusion of the technology. Thirty-five years ago, the US National Institutes of Health adopted overly risk-averse guidelines for research using recombinant DNA, or “genetic engineering,” techniques. Those guidelines, based on what has proved to be an idiosyncratic and largely invalid set of assumptions, sent a powerful message that scientists and the federal government were taking seriously speculative, exaggerated risk scenarios – a message that has afflicted the technology’s development worldwide ever since.

Synthetic biology offers the prospect of powerful new tools for research and development in innumerable fields. But its potential can be fulfilled only if regulatory oversight is based on science, sound risk analysis, and an appreciation of the mistakes of history.


Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist and a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, was the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology at the US Food and Drug Administration. His most recent book is The Frankenfood Myth.


Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.
http://www.project-syndicate.org/