Living in Provence

A Breathe of Fresh Air

2009-08-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill justification for the release of convicted terrorist al Megrahi is a defining moment for personal morality.

His decision is clearly open to criticism but it is not flawed fundamentally. If one denies compassion one denies one's own humanity. In speaking for justice and compassion, he certainly spoke for me.

Thorough video coverage of the Justice Secretary's statement and questions from the Holyrood (Scottish Parliament) are available on YouTube: Kenny MacAskill's Statement

In a strange way, the Scottish Justice Secretary's defense on grounds of personal morality and humanity, not on some abstract community standard, was refreshing to say the least, and a reminder of what I miss and long for in a "community of faith".

First Scarcities

2008-12-21T02:00:00.000-08:00

The first scarcity is not economic, but sensory. We cannot possibly know, which is to say, we cannot possibly "be conscious" of everything that comes our way.

Because we lack understanding we clothe ourselves in limitations. Our limitations become the reality of our lives, the circumscriptions of our thought.

A second scarcity, is a scarcity of direction, of knowing what to do with what we have. Essential to the growth process, our needs become fuller, more complex, until one day we find that less is more.

Some people believe we are fallen, that our limitations reflect upon a separation from an earlier, purer condition, that somehow the cause of this condition was an error committed in the infancy of the human race and for which we must continually atone.

I think not. I think rather, that we fail to rise to our full potential as sensory humans. Too often it seems that humanity prefers a shared story of failure to the solitary struggle in the present.

Life as Mystery

2008-12-02T01:47:00.000-08:00

TAO Walker, a native American visionary who speaks and writes eloquently of the Tiyoshpaye Way and the Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth (www.sacredconversations.fr), in speaking about "jumping off a moving train with the doors welded shut" writes

...“speed” is relative, as Einstein “proved”, and [as we] free wild natural human beings have known all along.

Einstein may have proven mathematically what was already known to universal consciousness. And this knowledge may advance Man's understanding of his condition, his environment and the universe. That however, does not and should not in any way diminish the poetic fact of universal consciousness.

As my father might have said, that and a nickle would get you on the Staten Island ferry. What could it possibly mean that "speed is relative"?

That this should be known to "universal consciousness" reminds me that "science" and "knowledge" are not things in themselves, but building blocks in a world view that embraces progress and perfectibility.

Another "MUST" read, this one harking back to the Savings & Loan bailout

2008-09-19T01:09:00.000-07:00

See : A Nation of Village Idiots

What will it take for America's middle classes to finally understand their own interests? or even, to speak with one voice?

There is nothing wrong with the creation of wealth.

What is wrong, is that in the name of "free market capitalism" we lie down and pretend to be rugs for the selfish men and women who not only understand their self-interests but define these in terms of personal wealth, pleasure and aggrandisement.

Our own interests would be better served helping our neighbors, educating our children and sweeping before our own front doors.

Must reading...

2008-09-17T00:53:00.000-07:00

A Debate Worthy of a Great Nation in Trouble

Public goods and laissez-faire capitalism

2008-09-16T23:47:00.000-07:00

"Laissez-faire capitalism" our father would say, "is about economic freedom".

My only problem with this is that it is "simplistic" and like all things simple, there is a hitch. "Freedom" has a cost even if that cost is not economic.

How does one count the cost of freedom if it is not economic? Could it be a matter of personal sacrifice, a curtailment of personal freedoms in exchange for a public good? What is a public good?

A public good is a shared space produced through negociated concensus. A public good, should not, in theory, be available for purchase. It often is however, and herein lies the problem.

A public good can either be preserved (a typically "conservative" idea) or it can be enhanced (typically a liberal, "progressive" idea).

The first cost of the public good is the "social cost" of maintaining a commons: personal freedoms are exchanged for "access" rights to the commons, and "access" has no price. The "cost" of freedom then, is the "value of public access".

If there is a value inherent in man, it is the value created through freedom and choice. What are my choices if a neighbor or family member suffers from a want that I might somehow mitigate? What could possibly be the value of my freedom then?

While Americans, and before them, Europeans were out pursuing manifest destiny and "national exception", amassing wealth through capitalistic enterprise, ensuring our survival as a species of humanity, the rest of the world could only watch and concede superior force.

Today the momentum is shifting.

Trust, mistrust, worldview, teleos... so many words of justification.

The American Commons In One Morning's Readings

2008-09-16T22:58:00.000-07:00

In one morning's readings I read about how Carly Fiorina disparaged the candidates' ability to run a large multinational like Hewlett Packard saying that running a large multinational is not like being President. She's one to talk: she was ousted by Hewlett Packard in 2005 and she has never served as President. What is she doing giving advice?

I also read about U.S. bail-outs for under regulated corporate behemoths like AIG, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, about the acquisition of the banking and real estate assets of the failed Lehman Brothers or the acquisition of Merrill Lynch by BankAmerica.

Such a whirlwind of destruction... Here truly is the collapse of a house of cards, a fantasy of unfettered exuberance and unregulated greed. And here also lies the problem.

I do not subscribe to the idea that greed is a "mortal sin" visiting the wrath of God upon humans, but a selfishness that is endemic to liberal, unregulated capitalism and a selfishness that has cheapened the American commons. It is in fact, the same selfishness that creates inequality at home and in the world.

As far as my personal freedoms are concerned, I wholly subscribe to the idea that that government is best that governs least. But there is a cost to such freedom, and that cost lies in regulating the commons; The role of government lies in, must lie in regulating the commons for the greater good.

The dangers of democracy. Are we ready for the Internet?

2008-09-15T03:30:00.001-07:00

See Warning Sounded on Web's Future

We live in frightening times, in times when decisions affecting the lives of millions are made based on circus contests in which rhetorical artifice trumps the art of rhetoric, in which form trumps content in an endless volley of statement and repartee.

Literacy in the internet world means so much more than multisyllabic intonation, it means filtering and verification, ideas which of themselves, imply focus and values.

Occupy the High Ground!

2008-09-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

For heaven's sake, Barrack, occupy the high ground!

Attacking McCain and his lapdog, the talented, beautiful and clueless Sarah Palin, concedes the impression that they are setting the agenda.

Impressions matter. If you are not careful you will find yourself all too soon debating the issues framed by the republicans. Stick to your guns. A strategy of attacking the McCain-Palin ticket on their terms "ignores" the fact that the American people have spoken countless times through opinion poles, saying that the 2008 election is about fairness and equity, about America's standing in the world, about productivity, responsibility and self-sufficiency.

Do not let yourself be derailed by the rhetorical tricks and distractions of a well heeled public relations machine.

We are the moral majority. We opposed an immoral, opportunistic war that has visited misery on thousands of homes and families. We support fair trade and rightfully earned personal wealth.

Come on. Repeat with me: WE ARE THE MORAL MAJORITY.

A Little Humor, Please!

2008-07-12T03:06:00.000-07:00

This morning's readings brought Colbert King's OpEd column in the Washington Post, "Jesse Jackson's Unkindest Cut", (July 12, 2008, A14) to my attention.

As a born and bred WASP and refugee of the New Orleans battle front (see below), I desperately wanted a black man to address the, you know, virility issue. When Colbert refused to go there [he dismissed this, "setting aside all of the highbrow speculation about the deeper meaning of (Jackson's) words" adding "This whole thing is silly."], I wasn't sure I would read any further.

Well I would have been wrong.

I was wrong. Virility is a matter of self-image (just as attractiveness may be for others) and matters only in so far as one's behavior is motivated by and reflects self-confidence. Self-confidence is the deeper issue and is a matter for family and friends. So, after ironizing about Jesse Jackson's remarks and the media establishment's prudishness regarding race relations and penchant to sanitize denial (my own words) with the politically correct, Colbert concludes:

There's only one aspect of this episode that still concentrates the mind. Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) angrily denounced his father's comment, saying in part: "I thoroughly reject and repudiate his ugly rhetoric. He should keep hope alive and any personal attacks and insults to himself."

Now there's a bright and courageous young man who, given his father's predilections, could do with an iron jock strap

After thinking this through, perhaps it is Jesse Jackson, Sr. who should wear the iron jock strap.

A Sacred Conversation on Race

2008-05-21T01:01:00.000-07:00

These thoughts were submitted to the United Church of Christ news blog, in response to Pastor Chuck Currie's comments, "Danville Church Tackles Tough Subject of Race". For another example of dialogue, have a look at the Philadelphia Enquirer article, "In Pursuit of a Quieter Discourse on Race" (Enquirer, May 19, 2008).

The UCC initiative to openly discuss the "legacy problem" is timely and indeed, welcome.

I left New Orleans in 1995 and moved my family to France (partly because my wife is French and her family needed her...) but also, and in large part because the racial healing dialogue had all but dried up in that city: the city had fallen to mediocrity, abandoned by middle class whites who went elsewhere for work, and before them motivated blacks who fled the segregated south for the promising West Coast.

My family and I made repeated efforts to reach out and to integrate (you can read parts of our story on my blog Living in Provence) but in the end all was for nought. There was little or anything we could do to change or influence the outcome of a process determined, many would say, from the day Europeans first settled the lower Mississippi.

But the problem goes beyond simply understanding (and that, for some "red state" Americans, could be quite a challenge!). It is as much a matter of re-establishing intra-community, indeed inter-faith trust.

Regardless of skin color, of one's personal standard for beauty or attitude toward body odors and functions, regardless of how one tolerates relationships, there will always be the perception of fairness or in the case of race relations, unfairness. And until we can squarely confront the issue of fairness and say we have done our best, the problems of "otherness" will persist.

Otherness can be and should be a blessing. Otherness is the essence of diversity. Unfortunately, in the legacy cultures of the deep south, otherness is all too frequently a source of insecurity and a threat to one's self-image.

Until we can get over these problems, a "sacred conversation" cannot take place. It is not about "divine intervention" or even about "God's plan", it is about trust, acceptance and self-confidence.

I follow these issues from afar but I am truly heartened by the courage of Jeremiah Wright (my great-grandmother was born a "Wright"), the collective intelligence that has been guiding Barack Obama's bid for presidential power and the UCC for enlarging the debate.

It is not, should not be about electibility

2008-05-04T01:43:00.000-07:00

In the "money driven" world of national politics where in November a "winner will take all", the choice of who to support is both a practical and pragmatic issue. Nobody wants to bet on the wrong horse.

Betting is a matter of risk assessment, of course. But if ever there was a time to "take the plunge" and risk your vote, or your tax deductible contribution, now is that time. The sooner the better, so long as you can sustain (the donations) through November.

Barack Obama, indeed, national healing needs your support.

Of course, "national healing" refers to the black-white dichotomy, the open debate between dominant and dominated cultures, to borrow language from Reverend Wright's April 28th National Press Club address (for full transcript see National Press Club).

National healing however, is also about re-cycling urban wastelands and the people relegated by exclusion to live their lives in such environments.

"National healing" is not about handouts or about subsidizing indigent populations. It is about dealing with problems of urban "governance" and social marginalization. It is about the need to mobilize national support for the integration of urban populations and the cities that provide minimum public services into the American mainstream.

The black-white dichotomy and the problems of deficient metropolitan governance were exacerbated in New Orleans where legacy patterns of behavior constituted de facto social and racial preferences. The process of social marginalization works the same in other cities as increasing concentrations of poverty produce a long term trend toward mediocrity.

America's wealth is the product of an abundance of natural resources skillfully transformed by a motivated, youthful populations striving for the "American Dream". Not everybody achieves that dream however, and in material terms, most do not.

The Obama campaign is, to this observer, about conceiving the American Dream in terms other than "material wealth". It is about preserving and promoting our urban centers as efficient producers of the national wealth and about integrating urban populations into the American mainstream.

Our great cities must not be allowed to fall to mediocrity.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright: expanding the national debate

2008-05-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

As a white person and descendant of pioneer Americans (my Presbyterian relatives arrived from Scotland in 1704), I am heartened by the resonance of the debate sparked by Rev. Wright.

I left the United States in 1995 partly out of family obligations (my spouse is French) and partly because after 25 years, I had no future in New Orleans.

My wife and I were frequent "congregants" at Pastor Paul Morton's Greater St. Stephen's Baptist Church, and "worked" hard at cultivating "cross-cultural friendships", especially where our children were concerned. But after 25 years in the City that Care Forgot" it became apparent that economically and socially we had no future in that city. Legacy "behaviors", the unspoken behaviors that perpetuate class and racial distinctions were not about to change and no single person could challenge the status quo. Mediocrity ruled.

I can say with conviction that the black church is different but that "different" does not mean "deficient". The thoughtful defense of Jeremiah Wright's ministry advanced by John Petty in his blog "Hurt Feelings All Around" is welcome indeed.

The Obama candidacy and the Obama-Wright debate are truly what we need to awaken from the deep moral sleep brought upon us by great wealth and the industrial transformation of our natural resources, but also by the complacency of a Western world grateful to have been saved twice during the XXth century from total self-annihilation.

For an interesting take on these issues and a book "preview", readers might have a look at the Boston Globe article by Charles Derber and Yale Magrass(*) which appeared in yesterday's Boston Globe, "The 'Wright problem' belongs to America".

(*) Charles Derber and Yale Magrass are the authors of Morality Wars: How Empires, the Born Again, and the Politically Correct Do Evil in the Name of Good)

The problem with Obama

2008-04-30T00:20:00.000-07:00

It has become evident to me, as it must to any socially conscious American who lives or has lived in one of our major urban areas, that Mr. Obama's blackness is a problem, but not in the usual way. He is an attractive man fully qualified to "steer the ship of state" and represent America before humanity's highest authorities. Obama's problem rather, is that his core constituency and political base is the urban disadvantaged. The support of rural black and small town voters is almost incidental, secondary.

The traditional American political cleavage -- upstate versus downstate, urban versus rural -- may now be characterized, which is not to say, caricatured, as red-state/blue-state: states with a high percentage of urban voters versus states with a predominantly rural and small town mentality.

This became apparent to me in reviewing county polling results between Clinton and Obama in the Pennsylvania primary and should be apparent again in Indiana and probably North Carolina.

The question for me then, is, "is America ready to elect a 'big city' candidate, one who is a reflection of globalization? Or will we continue ignoring the world and our role (indeed, our responsibilities) in shaping its course to focus on our own personal destinies and our local communities?

The question for the democrats then, should be which coalition has a greater chance of winning the 2008 general elections: the feminist, social-democrats or a healing coalition of urban blacks and middle class whites frustrated with the status quo?

Beyond electoral politics, the question for Americans might be, how can we redefine our attitudes and expectations to account for the reasonable expectations of America's underclasses?

If John Kerry was not electable why would Barack Obama be any more so?

UN Peace-keepers or Collective Coercion

2007-08-04T01:28:00.001-07:00

My good friend Glen Kendall writes in a June 23 entry to his blog, Viewpoint from Abroad that America is somehow shirking its responsibilities with respect to its funding of United Nations peace keeping efforts. While I do not disagree, I wonder if the question is properly raised as to what America's responsibility should be.

In my view the problem with United Nations peace keeping lies not so much in the lack of physical resources, but in the self-evident contradictions of a "world order" in which nations participate "at leisure". While I agree wholeheartedly that America should assume its responsibilities, I see a couple of problems.

First, there is the matter of accountability. UN peace-keepers act as proxies for a "collective authority". I wish it were otherwise, but so long as a single nation (Russia, China the United States, South Africa, India, Brazil...) remains "above the law", the "collective" remains an "authority" in name only. We cannot have an effective peace-keeping force if their authority is the whim of the current consensus.

The second problem is one of credibility. In our lifetimes the international community has acted a dozen times and more to suppress open strife. Almost always these actions have been motived by self-interest (Korea, Dominican Republic, Chile, Panama, Grenada, Nicaragua, Kuwait...) and much less frequently, as a concerted international effort. Indeed, one of these "concerted efforts" has been the discreditable effort to maintain peace in the Middle East.

Not only might one suspect the International Community's "motives" for mobilizing a peace-keeping force, but one has to wonder also about such a force's effectiveness as a force, given the standards of passive-defensive, non-lethal engagement to which they are held.

The UN peace-keeper issue is more than a problem of funding, it is a fundamental political problem and a problem of legitimate authority.

A 21st Century Awakening

2007-07-24T00:04:00.001-07:00

Of all the subjects available for discussion and involvement, perhaps the most interesting is the "great awakening". Certainly China existed before the Cultural Revolution and it will certainly exist long after you and I have moved on.

Yet here are 1.3 billion people - young people, mothers, fathers, educators, scientists, consumers - awakening to consciousness. As interesting as this would be in any event, in the case of China it is all the more remarkable because the Chinese are playing by our rules, mimicking Western social forms, making their own mistakes, learning from ours'.

This awakening is unselfconscious. It is full of itself and confident, a youthful coming to maturity of a society whose cultural conventions and ethos represent many thousands of generations of refinement.

This great awakening might be apprehended as a mirror of Western society and a unique opportunity to see ourselves in a new light. There are perhaps as many ways to tell a story as their are stories to tell. But for those who listen and observe, the Chinese awakening is a catalog of new forms by which to measure our own sense of accountability.

Background for this article is taken from an MSN article,
What do Chinese Teens Want?". If you are reading this post, you might like to explore MSN's use of multimedia (multiple media types) in reporting on Chinese consumerism. Also, the video segment "Rapping Over Opera" makes a number of interesting inter-cultural points.

Claude & Jacqueline Barbaud avec Françoise & Peter suite au baptême de Liam (26 mai 2007)

2007-07-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

Moving on

2007-07-20T00:47:00.000-07:00

Paul Rogers' article in today's issue of Open Democracy, Pakistan's Peril, is a vivid reminder if ever we needed one that life moves on and that there is no advantage to finally settling the moral issues surrounding Bush the Younger.

It is in fact, of little interest that we are "on the ground in Iraq". What seems to matter is that once extracted from the ground war in Iraq, we must redeploy. Most have not thought beyond the issue of withdrawal to consider what to do with standing forces of over 1 million men and women. Do we need such a force?

If we are committed genuinely to a course of peace and ethical behaviour, would we need a standing army to secure energy supplies and guaranty access to natural resources?

America's survival requires that we learn whatever lessons we can from the last 7 years, indeed, from the last fifty years, in order to avoid a repeat of these errors. And whatever these human errors--cronyism, special interest, zealotry--they must ultimately be placed in the context of the infinite and unforgiving.

Let us work for a more just society at home and more fairness in our relations with our neighbours. Let us rid ourselves of prescriptive notions that our truths are universal truths, that there should be a universally accepted standard for appropriate and inappropriate behaviour.

multi-tasking and local responsibility

2007-07-16T03:39:00.000-07:00

The Huffington Post persists in calling attention to the antics of the United States Senator from Louisiana, David Vitter, ironizing on his ability to multi-task, that is, attend to personal affairs while representing his constituents. The scroll reads: "Multitasking: Vitter received calls from DC Madam during House votes".

This is not and should not be of any interest outside of the State of Louisiana.

Louisiana has the representation is deserves. And what America thinks of Louisiana's delegation to Congress is of little interest and immaterial. With time, the social system that makes Louisiana function as a cohesive polity will prove itself or be replaced. That's the way it works.

What I would like to know however, is how Louisiana is reacting to the Senator's new clothes and whether the State will retun Mr. Vitter to the United States Senate in 2010.

Economic Misinformation and the French Election

2007-04-27T05:16:00.000-07:00

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) recently produced a convincing analysis and alternative view of the stakes in France's run-off elections. You will find the article, “Economic Misinformation plays a Major Role in French Election” on-line at www.cepr.net.

I have long felt that there was little sense in comparing U.S. and French income figures, largely because French productivity is higher for the most part. His employment analysis for males in the 15-24 age bracket however, had escaped me and of course, makes perfect sense. I wondered how Mark's mathematics-of-unemployment calculation would hold for other segments of the population…?

I wonder whether Mark Weisbrot's evaluation of the Sarkozy measures were correct, or even, if correct, whether they fairly represent the economic issues currently debated here in France.

What Sarkozy is promoting is labor market flexibility, not a redistribution of wealth as claimed by Mr. Weisbrot. (While the difference may be semantic, no French politician would get very far on a platform of “wealth redistribution”.) But the difference is important. Despite having created a viable society in which an educated population aggressively defends and promotes their social and economic rights, France sufferes from "immobilisme", a self-inflicted inertia.

The Socialists (a better characterization of Ségolène Royal's “left of center” group) preach "job security" and “redistribution” through job guarantees. Consumer stimulus may be well and good except they do not say how they would create such jobs or even what self-financing "public service" such employees could provide. In the process, the Socialists manage to avoid meaningful discussion of just how they would address the main cause of labor market inertia: the high cost of job creation (45% employer social security contributions) and labor laws that favor employment security over measures to increase disposable income.

There are other issues, to be sure, including important matters of public finance and community empowerment, of the reduction and redeployment of a civil service that continues to have a very high level of redundancy and functional overlap, and finally, the reform of higher education.

In my own opinion, and, I think, in the opinion of a majority of French voters, society needs a good shaking. The Youth riots of 2005 are not at the center of national debate, and the threat of force to contain and redress what are fundamentally social issues troubles me (and the French electorate) considerably, but these are not at issue here. Rather, the culture of social entitlements mixed with a profoundly cautious national ethos produce a deadly mix which stifles private initiative and places a unreasonably high cost on innovation.

Cultural Hegemony and "Buying the War"

2007-04-26T01:36:00.000-07:00

I am writing from the vantage of not having seen Bill Moyers' documentary, Buying the War. I have however, read several reviews and feel confident in predicting that the documentary probably does not go very far in asking how the rest of the English speaking world got caught up in the rush to war.

The answer I believe, has to do with the power of an idea, the "American ideal", America's youthful charisma and America's extraordinary economic power. In the English-speaking world there was a lot of pressure to go along. The English language press, wherever found, was “in orbit” around U.S.-centric media sources. The farther one got from the media sources, the less convincing the arguments.

This was not the case for French media, who, while acquainted with U.S. journalistic practices, managed to maintain their distance. France has a long colonial history and enjoys good relations in Arabic speaking and Mediterranean circles, a background that gave French media some perspective on the drumbeat for war and continues to give the French an advantage on the “human side” of multilateral negociations.

Cultural hegemony will continue to be a problem for America so long as we restrict our thought models to people who look and behave like ourselves, who are native English speakers and citizens of the United States. America’s failure in Iraq (as before in Vietnam) could be taken as a lesson in humility to be accepted gratefully.

Maybe during the Cold War we were unprepared to learn our lesson and take the medicine. There is no excuse not to do so now.

Ours has not been a failure of “will” or of “material means”, but of “governance” and “reason”. We can only be the better for learning such lessons.

Public Service, Equity and Merit

2007-04-25T02:09:00.000-07:00

I've had enough Bush bashing.

The world of political comment, the blogosphere is humming. It is comforting to know that we Americans, wherever we may be and whatever our political pursuasion, are reclaiming the center of the party of Abraham Lincoln. It may be too late however, to redeem the "silent majority". Indeed, that great rhetorical invention and group with which my own father so identified, that silent majority has been too long silent. But that is another story..., or is it?

The issue is no longer "get rid of Bush". A far more pressing issue is to know what lessons we might learn from the mistakes and complacency of the past eight years.

Three lessons appear critical to me. I will deal with each separately over the next few posts.

1) Take the money out of politics. Politics is about community relationships and a shared commitment to the organization of "public services". Money in politics only begets more money in an endless spiral of influence mongering. Such "influence mongering" is all the more destabilizing when the "civil service" are constrained by short term considerations and serve at executive pleasure.

2) Equity is a core value in any republican democracy. The basic rules of fairness dictate that every man, woman and child should live in equity, in fairness according to his or her just merits. This is a basic tenant of a tolerant, free society and is totally discredited when large portions of society cannot afford access to education, health or legal services. The principle of equitable acces to public services needs to be safeguarded.

3) Recognize and reward achievement. Achievement is personal merit earned by dint of hard work and ingenuity. Our system fails when we confuse "ability to pay" (priviledge) with personal achievement. The two are not related and we all know the difference.

As we reflect upon our responsibility in choosing a course for the United States, let us reflect upon these things and let these become a mantra for 2008: public service, equity and merit.

Wolfowitz has got to go

2007-04-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

This is hardly a post about "living in Provence" except that I understand Wolfowitz (and Richard Pearl and perhaps others of the unlamented "neo-convirate") are neighbors here in meridional France, a land of exile if ever there was one... This post rather, is about ethics and governance.

While headlines of the world press shouted for Wolfowitz' head, sweet revenge for the arrogance and "impunity" of the discredited Bush administration, a more quiet headline appeared in environmental journals and blogs. One manifestation of that headline reads, Vast Forests with Trees each Worth £4,000 Sold for a Few Bags of Sugar, another, in the New Scientist reads, Protected Congo Forest is Logged Regardless.

The story of how the world's forestry reserves are managed leads directly to the World Bank, to the financing of economic development and the governance of the world's financial institutions. It would not be wise, nor indeed would it be justified to link World Bank practices to unethical exploitation of the developing world.

But in a world of political spin and perception, the United States' questionable motives in pursuing regime change in Iraq cannot but reflect on the neo-conservative values (the French would say, incorrectly, I believe, the "neo-liberal values") of one of the chief architects of the Iraq mess and now party to an affair of questionable ethics.

The moral blame resulting directly from the arrogance and impunity of Bush administration governing practices needs to be addressed. And Wolfowitz, as an inside member of that organization, should be considered expendable.

Serbian State Failure

2007-02-27T02:02:00.000-08:00

Today's Daily Globe and Mail headlines shout "Genocide Ruling Angers Bosnian Muslims" and so perhaps everybody should, shout and be angry that is. But this would be too easy and fails to consider several important distinctions in detail.

Was Serbian state "negligence" willful genocide, wilfully perpetrated by a state upon a helpless minority? or was it merely another example of a "failure of authority" or what we have come to recognize as "state failure"?

One cannot "sue" a State without the State's permission. Nor can one sue a Milosovic or a Hussein without implicating the whole of the civil apparatus that supported them and countenanced their actions. On the other hand, if you focus on the individual you can effectively hold harmless civil society and the political classes.

This is apparently what has happened.

The political classes of the Serbian Republic have accepted European comity. They have recognized European collective authority and cooperated. They have shown themselves to be responsible civil society. It would seem fair and expedient then, to recognize Serbian civil society as a force for stability and continuity and lay responsibility for the genocide at the feet of those whose failure of leadership led to such excess.

A Look in the Mirror: It is time for a closer look at our elites

2007-02-25T02:25:00.000-08:00

Noam Chomsky advocates radical self-criticism.

How refreshing. Where else can one get a good look in the mirror?

Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org), earlier this month (Feb. 16, 2007), published an interview with Noam Chomsky (Chomsky on Iran, Iraq and the Rest of the World")(FPIF, February 16 2007) in which the enfant terrible and critic of the American foreign policy establishment reviews a wide range of subjects, interests and strategic choices available to players on the world stage. Chomsky's insight is right on and so close to home that such reading should be required of all Americans considering a political choice of governing elites.

We in France are also preparing a full slate of elections. This year we will elect a President, both houses of the legislature and 36,373 municipal councils... talk about participative democracy! As citizens of France we are keenly aware of the need to evaluate our elites in the face of rapidly changing energy, security and social considerations. Our criteria are the hopes and desires we hold for ourselves and for our children, our friends and neighbors, all within a larger European, Mediterranean and hemispheric context.

I suspect we will evaluate our elites on their energy and environmental policies, on their approach to social and fiscal discipline, to law and order and to job creation. As we consider the individual or group to whom we would delegate authority, we consider their respect for the values we hold as our own: compassion, fortitude, perseverance, diligence.

In Europe this is an exercise in interconnectedness, not unlike the process getting underway in America. European interconnectedness however, is rooted in the landscape and extends beyond the limits of a confederation of European states, to the steppes of Asia, to Middleastern desertlands and to sub-saharan Africa. These people with their own hopes and aspirations are at our doorstep, how can we refuse them? What choice do we have?

It is only fitting that our national elites -- whether they be French, English, Spanish, Latin- or Anglo-American -- act in our interests. The difficult question though, is how are these interests defined? Should we look at ourselves in the mirror and say uncritically, "I like what I see", and define our interests as a continuation of the status quo? What do we see when we look in the mirror? A society that measures success on the ability to consume? This is perhaps Life. But is it responsible?

I think not. This is how we wound up with an oil and gas lobby, and a special interest White House with an out-of-control war establishment. At what cost energy sufficiency? And why should somebody else pay that price? We cannot afford, indeed, the world will not tolerate another round of complacent partisanship in America.