Modern America

Some days it seems like the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and anything we try to do will just make things worse.  (There are assumptions in that statement, such as that it's bad for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.  Let's not digress into whether these things are good or bad at the moment.)


I do, however, keep remembering that history often winds up surprising us.  That just when it seems like the powers-that-be have gained some sort of lock on control, the unexpected happens.  Consider how ruling families in Europe regained control after Napoleon, only to lose it again almost 100 years later.  Or the labor movement, which somehow managed to create a 40 hr workweek (with 1.5 pay for overtime) even though the odds seemed stacked against them.  You could make a similar story regarding Tammany Hall, and other situations where the powerful seem to have everything in their favor.


So all hope is not lost, even when things seem darkest.  A reminder I feel I need to make, particularly in this day and age.


I bring this up because the America I know and love seems threatened by a variety of factors.  This is probably not a controversial statement, as survey after survey shows that Americans are unhappy with the direction we are going.  What makes my statement different, I think, is that I disagree on what those threats are.  It's not Islam, it's not our growing diversity, it's not gay marriage.  It's not globalization, or immigration, or the loss of manufacturing jobs in and of itself (though all of those things contribute to the hard times faced by many in America today.)


I have had a fascination with history, with what helps a nation rise or makes a nation fall, in part because I feel America is at a crucial point right now.  The decisions we make now can hasten or halt our decline.


Again, on the generic level, I think a lot of people agree with me here.  It's the specifics that differ.  I think I'll do a couple posts to discuss those specifics, with the caveat that I'm by no means a professional historian.  These are just some thoughts or trends I've noticed in the course of reading up on things, and should not be considered rigorous by any means.

The Establishment, News Sources, Difference Making

I had planned one other follow up post - mainly to explain why I said the Establishment suffered from groupthink.

My thoughts have gone in a different direction, however.  If there's one thing I've struggled with in making a life in the civilian world, it's that I know at least a little bit of what's going on in the rest of the world.  I can't turn a blind eye, can't pretend it isn't happening. 

I feel out of step, because so many others are focused on daily living...and yet I'm hunting up articles on the Yazidi or reading up on modern slavery. 

I suppose it does tie in to groupthink, at least a little bit.  See...I've noticed that my news sources have different topics and serve different purposes.  Facebook tends to cover what the average person is really thinking, even if it's some quick little meme.

I like memeorandum just to keep tabs on the major news media, even though a lot of it never shows up on facebook and only matters to the few news wonks (like myself) who follow this sort of thing.

And I originally had some feeds going to Google Reader, when Google Reader went away I wound up transferring them to Digg. I select ones that are thought provoking, that force me to consider another point of view.  Or they're just fun bits of history that introduce me to things I never knew. :)  They do not always reflect my own views, but they're worth reading.  So here's a sample of articles I found and saved, whether through my own feeds or through the Digg engine.  Some of these are long and dry, not well suited to the quick memes we see on Facebook or the short tweats on twitter.  They're more substantive, thought-provoking, and often touch on issues that I think are deeply important.  And so I find myself wondering, when all this other stuff is going on, why the news is so full of 'issues' that seem so trivial and unimportant.

Some of these, btw, seem truly concerning.  Like Chicago's Homan Square, where people are detained in violation of everything I'd ever heard about the legal process. 

So anyways.  I'm rather disturbed by how often I find an article that truly seems important, and it comes to be via Digg or Facebook and hardly makes a blip on the mainstream news.  I've heard the phrase 'echo chamber', and I've unfortunately come to conclude it's pretty apt.  I keep tabs on what they say, but I don't think they're truly covering the important issues of our time.  Which is pretty disturbing, when you think about it.

Yet I don't feel I have much to do with that.  I'm not in a position to make any of it change.  I'm more concerned with finding a way to get involved, to do something about the things I am aware of...and hopefully, do something in a way that lets me keep paying my mortgage.

Command Climate, Ethics, and Hillary's E-mails.

When I was a  young officer, my battery commander and our staff were preparing for a couple of weeks training out in the field.  In the Army, one of our axioms is "train as you fight".  The more realistic training, the better.  Yet our commander took this rule and tried to argue that we should use signals and radio channels the way we would really fight.  The problem is that those channels are restricted use in peace time, and really not something we should be using.  I remember watching as he refused to accept 'no' for an answer and insisted that there had to be a way.  (I didn't envy the young soldier who had to tell him it couldn't be done.)

The thing is, our commander was doing what our entire culture says a leader should do.  He was driven.  A hard charger.  No excuses.  Take no prisoners. (And it was utterly stupid.  Of all things to be driven over, this?!?)

I brought this up because we, as leaders, are responsible for creating the work environment.  We put pressure on our subordinates to get things done, or find a way, or make it happen.  Which is all well and good, in that it can push people out of their ruts and lead to some truly amazing and creative things.  The dark side of this, however, is that if you're not careful you will pressure people to do things that are illegal, immoral, unethical...or just plain shortsighted because in pursuing your stated goal they may make choices that undermine your ultimate vision.

My company recently did it's annual ethics training, and I kind of liked a couple of the scenarios.  In one the boss set a goal (meet a sales target) and said find a way.  The boss refused to accept no for an answer and put considerable pressure on the employees to make it happen.  In order to do so, the employees started considering some pretty shady things.  Like calling up customers to ask them to purchase enough material to make their sales goal, with the understanding that they would return it.  This distorts the true picture of how that product is selling, all to meet an (often arbitrary) goal.

I brought this all up because I felt I needed to explain a few more things from my previous post.  I don't know what the FBI investigation will find, but I don't honestly expect them to say that Hillary knowingly released classified information.  What I expect is that they'll find some staffer who got told to give her information (which happened to be classified, and had to be sent to her private e-mail on her private server so she could access it on her blackberry), who knew it was classified, and got told to find a way.  Given the training we all go through when handling classified material, I expect that staffer should have known better.  And I expect they felt stuck between what their class said to do and what their boss wanted.  So they made it happen.

This is part of the concern I have when I say she, and the Establishment, lives in a bubble.  When you don't know what you are asking of your people, when you accept no excuses and refuse to hear people out in an attempt to drive them further, when you don't set limits or necessarily even try to understand what they will do when you say find a way, you create an environment that is rife with the potential for illegal, immoral, and unethical behavior.

The Presidential Race Part II - Clinton

The Democratic primaries concern me a bit more than Trump, mostly because Trump probably doesn't have enough support to actually win.  (Seems crazy how, over and over again, the political parties seem to be doing their best to lose the election.  Poll after poll shows Hillary is viewed unfavorably by many people.  Not just 'not liked', but actively disliked.  She could have been easy to beat, if the Republicans had put out a decent candidate.  Instead we get Trump?!?)


Again, full disclosure. I have never been a Hillary fan.  I hadn't rabidly disliked her the way some Republicans do.  It's funny, but when she first ran for President part of me disliked the idea of her candidacy simply because I didn't want to deal with that level of drama again.  She has so many enemies that any action will probably get drowned out in 'scandals'.  I know it's not fair to hold it against her, but if she stays in the political limelight Republicans will continue to look for issues (like Benghazi, or Whitewater, or whatever).  I find it somewhat ironic that I say this, because I find the classified e-mails on her server a real problem.  You can see my previous post if you want more detail. 


So.  I studied political science in college, and one of my classes explored psychology in politics.  The professor felt the easiest way to identify whether personality made a difference was to look at presidential candidates.  When I assess a political candidate, I try to consider the whole person.  It's not enough to know what issues they stand for, I want to know how they make decisions in general.  What their likely reactions are.  After all, politicians regularly deal with the unexpected.  How they will handle a Cuban Missile Crisis matters as much as whether or not they support free trade.  (Besides, the President can't create legislation all on their own.  Whatever agenda they have has to get through Congress first, so in a sense the character and personality of the President matters even more than their political agenda).


So, for example, back in 2000 I vaguely recall reading an article about Gore.  It basically said he was obsessed with reading all the details of every report.  Which sounds kind of impressive, except I imagine the President is so busy that he wouldn't have time for that...I want someone who knows how to build a great team and delegate, not someone who will get bogged down trying to understand everything first. 


George W. Bush had a team.  I don't really want to call it 'great', though I suppose it's very typical of elite opinion.  Probably not enough diversity of thought, and not enough safeguards against groupthink. 


So anyways.  Since I used to have a security clearance and worked in a SCIF I've been following the Hillary e-mail scandal pretty closely.  And part of what disturbs me is a sense that her staff really does feel they are above it all.  The NSA rejected a request for a secure smartphone, so she and her staff just decided to find a way around it to get what they want. 


I feel like she lives in a bubble, her staff supports her in that bubble, and it means that she's probably not in touch enough to make good decisions.  She's got some sort of feedback loop encouraging her to do whatever she wants, and nobody who can put a brake on it and say 'wait a minute, should we really be doing that?" 


I also have the ironic feeling that she really does represent the establishment.  Ironic because (as per my undergraduate political science classes) I remember that Bill Clinton campaigned as a political outsider.  I even remember someone suggesting that this hurt him, in that he probably should have had a little more experience before getting elected President.  Not in the sense of 'he needed more familiarity with legislation'...but in the sense that Washington DC, from what I can tell, runs off relationships.  And an outsider doesn't have those relationships, doesn't know who to talk to in order to get things done.  So Bill, as an outsider, was a little less effective because he didn't know who was who.  (That's what I remember from class, at least.)


Hillary's gone to the extreme other end.  She probably knows who is who for everything.  This is one of their campaign points, basically saying that she'll be able to get things done.  Yet in the process I feel she's lost any objectivity she might have had.  She's an über establishment candidate.  Which wouldn't be so bad if I didn't feel like the establishment had a serious case of groupthink.


They (and Hillary) live in a bubble of their own making, and don't even know it.

The Presidential Race Part I - Trump

I can't even begin to describe how disappointed I am in America.  I actually want to focus more on the Democratic primaries, but I figured I (like so many others) have to talk about Trump first.




Full disclosure - I've never been a fan of him.  Even when he was 'just' a wealthy celebrity, he seemed overblown and kind of ridiculous.  I also don't consider someone with four bankruptcies an example of good business acumen.  But whatever, clearly there are others who think differently.




As a celebrity, I was quite content to ignore his existence as much as possible. As a potential future president?!?  Not so much. There's one issue that captures in a nutshell why I'm concerned.




Let's start with a few facts.  The Berlin Wall was around 96 miles long and divided Berlin for 28 years.  In that time about 5,000 people successfully crossed the border despite the wall.  They crossed by "digging long tunnels under the Wall, waiting for favorable winds and taking a hot air balloon, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralights and, in one instance, simply driving a sports car at full speed through the basic, initial fortifications. When a metal beam was placed at checkpoints to prevent this kind of defection, up to four people (two in the front seats and possibly two in the boot) drove under the bar in a sports car that had been modified to allow the roof and windscreen to come away when it made contact with the beam. They lay flat and kept driving forward. The East Germans then built zig-zagging roads at checkpoints. The sewer system predated the Wall, and some people escaped through the sewers, in a number of cases with assistance from the Unternehmen Reisebüro."(see Wikipedia article)



The Israeli West Bank barrier will be more than 272 miles long.  Israel also struggles to identify and prevent people from sneaking across the border.  Again, determined people will find a way - over, under or through.  There's a rather healthy debate about how effective this is, you can read up on it if you're interested.  Note as well, though, that the Israeli wall involves much more than just a wall.  You also have to have people patrolling along the wall in order to catch the various attempts to cross it.




Now, let's look at our own borders.  Note that I said "borders", plural.  I've lived near the Mexican border, and I heard from the border patrol there that they also get a number of illegal immigrants crossing through the Canadian border.  A wall only built on the Mexican side will probably just mean more people try crossing on the Canadian side.  If you truly believe a wall is necessary then you need to build it across both borders (and most likely you'll need to beef up the coast guard, as well).




So anyways.  Our border with Mexico is around 1,989 miles long.  That's over 20 times the size of the Berlin wall.  If and when the Israeli wall is complete, our Mexican border is still 7 times as long as that!




And Canada is far longer - 5,525 miles long!  That's twenty times as long as the Israeli/Palestinian wall, and 57 times the size of the Berlin wall.




So what does that mean?  Well, obviously if it's costing the Israelis over $2 billion to build a wall, it will cost us at least $14 billion to build the Mexican wall in a similar fashion (a lot depends on how much you're willing to spend to make it secure.  If you don't have enough security to prevent people from crossing over than you're wasting your money in the first place.) 


$14 billion, minimum, just for the Mexican side alone.  Add in the Canadian side and we're talking $54 billion.  Assuming similar costs, which is a big assumption as the terrain varies greatly.


I've driven somewhat close to the border, btw.  From Sierra Vista, AZ to San Diego, CA.  Or El Paso, TX.  And on one memorable occasion I've driven from Sierra Vista to Houston.  I can tell you from personal experience that it's a lot of empty desert.  A whole lot of nothing.


Which means that you also have to budget for regular stations, ones close enough to provide some sort of quick reaction force.  It will do you absolutely no good to have a sensor go off telling you that someone just tunneled under the wall or went over the wall or what-have-you if it takes two hours before someone checks it out.


Israel is small enough and well populated enough that it's probably not too hard to do so there...but how many people are you willing to pay to live along the 700+ miles between El Paso and Houston? 


The reason I bring this up is that I think ANY politician claiming they will build a wall between the US and Mexico to be disingenuous.  A wall on the border of Mexico, all by itself, will not stop illegal immigration.  It's almost a joke to say that it will, and if it's not going to be effective if it's a waste of money.  If you're serious about being effective, it would be a very expensive, resource intensive endeavor that will require more money than you'd think. 


Arguments to build a wall sound more like a way to make people feel like we're doing something.  Even if that something isn't particularly effective.  I think anyone arguing for such a wall is either feeding people what they want to hear or really doesn't know what they're talking about.

Danubia, Identity, Questions Without Answers, and More

I picked up a book called Danubia last week.  It's been kind of fun.  The author is a bit quirky, I'm not sure I'd agree with his assessment of places he's visited.  I also am pretty sure he's glossing over the history tremendously, but I think he had to in order to fit it into a short and readable book.

I enjoy coming across places I've actually been, courtesy of a trip I took along the Danube back in 2011.  Bratislava?  Melk Abbey?  Budapest? Prague?  It adds something to know I've been to the places he's talking about.  Plus I learned about things I just flat out didn't know.  (Bear moats?!?  That was a thing?!?)

But that's not why I'm writing a post now.  I'm writing...because books like this make me realize just how little I actually know about history.  That, and I wonder about how we all form our own identities.  Why didn't the Hapsburg lands ever become Hapsburgia?

To start it off right, though, I suppose I ought to sum up some of what I've already learned.

I went to a pretty decent school in the US, and I'm only beginning to realize just how little it actually covered.  Not, I think, because our classes are bad.  It's just...there's a lot of history to cover.  And some of it just doesn't seem relevant to us.  I met a German woman who had come over to the States on a cultural exchange, and she pointed out that in Germany you can't study German history without learning a lot about European history as well.  It's too connected.  Here, however, we can have a whole year dedicated to US history and hardly touch on anything else.  In retrospect, our history focused mostly on England, France, Spain, and maybe a little bit about the rest of Europe when we studied World War I and II.  (So yes - most Americans don't realize just how much Russia helped win World War II.  We just know that the Cold War started before it had completely finished.)

I'm exaggerating.  Slightly.  I did learn a bit about the Moors, and Spain, but that was because my high school Spanish class showed us a clip from a move on El Cid.

If I went into all the things I've learned about history since, this post would get too long...and probably bore even more than most.  So I'll focus more on Europe.

I took a class in college on European history from 1815 to the present.  I remember realizing just how much colonialism was to blame, as almost every hot spot in the world was tied to the mess left behind.

After 9/11 I delved more into Middle Eastern history.  A chance remark about central Europe (and my own trip to Afghanistan) had me looking at some of the history there, as well.  I'm about halfway through the Baburnama, for example.  And read a book a few years back discussing the history After Tamerlane.

The things I've learned have come in drips and drabs, as curiosity has struck.  I might read up on the last empress of China, pick up a book on Pablo Escobar, whatever strikes my fancy.

So to bring this to a point - I didn't realize until that trip to the Danube just how little I knew about the Holy Roman Empire under the Hapsburgs.  I vaguely knew about Charlemagne, though I associated him with France more than Germany.  I knew that Hitler called his empire the Third Reich because it was supposed to be the third empire...but I was kind of fuzzy on which ones he was referring to and when.

I recognized the Hapsburg name, mostly as an aristocratic family that married into a lot of families.  I had no idea that Phillip II was a Hapsburg, and notionally controlled the Netherlands, until I was reading up on it for something else.  (The Netherlands were controlled by Spain?  Really?  Except it wasn't really Spain at the time, was it?)

Yes, I also vaguely remember hearing that nationalism didn't matter, that nobility often did not come from the same background as their subjects, and that it took a while to get the European nations we know today.  Spain wasn't always Spain, and it wasn't just the wedding of Ferdinand and Isabella that united them.  The history of Sicily just plain astounds me.  The Athenians tried invading?  Vikings? Wth?!?  Southern Italy for that matter, as well.

I knew that Germany and Italy took longer to become 'a nation' than the rest of Europe.

I knew about the Hundred Years' war between France and England, though I didn't realize how much of it was tied to the fact that the English king was also a vassal to the French king in his secondary role.  Made it sound less like the clash of competing nationalities and more like some sort of family quarrel.

I also read an excellent book that described how France formed a national identity, and was shocked to realize how much village patois and differences challenged that.  Right up until World War I, even.  Their obsession with keeping the French language pure suddenly made some sort of sense, at least.

So anyways.  I've picked up little bits of history here and there, and somehow never really understood the role of the Hapsburgs...and the history played out on the frontier between their empire and the Ottoman empire.

And it kind of fascinates me to ask - why didn't their lands ever form a nation and identity like Spain, Germany, France, etc?  What is this magical formula that creates a sense of identity, as a people?  Why did Portugal end up it's own separate country with it's own separate language, whereas Catalonia didn't?

You can ask this question about practically every country today.  When did Americans stop being colonials?  Stop caring more about being Virginian, or from Maryland, and start thinking of themselves as American?

I ask these questions, knowing there's an entire iceberg underneath, and a ton of academics who are already exploring those questions.  There's good and bad, you see, to having that sort of identity.  The sense of nationhood that can bring everyone together is the exact same thing used to persecute the 'other'.  Those who are 'not like us'.

Somewhere along the way our ideas of what was acceptable changed, too.  We're horrified now by actions that, honestly, are exactly what rulers in the far distant past did.

It seems like the usual conflict between centrifugal and centripetal social forces.  There's advantages to acting as one large country, there's strength in numbers and resources.  And there are disadvantages, particularly if one group is trying to impose on or control another.  (As nationalism took root, many groups that are minorities in one country start to feel like they will always be second class citizens unless they can have their own country.  So there's pressure to create Catalonia, Kurdistan, to 'balkanize' a region, etc. and so on and so forth.)

It's enough to make you think we should just give everyone their own nation...except history is so full of migrations and conquest that it's practically impossible to sort everyone out.

Which means practically every major nation has to figure out how to lead a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic state.

A multi-cultural, multi-ethnic state like the Hapsburgs...except look what happened to them.

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

I just finished reading the latest Vorkosigan book (science fiction), and find myself unwilling to do anything more than think about what I just read.  I love her characterization - they're so strong, vivid, and well rounded.  I also love that she puts the 'science' in science fiction.  Science fiction is wonderful for imagining what might be.  For example - what would it be like if you could decide to have children at the age of 76, after the death of your spouse?  And what would it do to your already grown, adult children?

There are times where I honestly wish I were a writer, and could create such interesting worlds.

But that's not what has me unwilling to start reading another book, or to start my Saturday errands.

Lois McMaster Bujold has this great ability to touch on the darkest aspects of life, and make it somehow come into the light, and humanize us.  I just re-read the entire series, you see.  The earlier books were more action oriented, which is part of what drew me to them when I was younger, I think.  When she wrote Memory I remember being shocked at first.  The pacing was so slow, it was less-action packed.  And then it turned around and became my favorite Vorkosigan book so far.  (Re-reading them all, now, makes me realize how much I was anxious to get through those previous action-packed adventures and get on to the more recent stuff.) 

Memory became a favorite in part because that's when the main character truly came into his own.  Took all the skills he'd been learning in the previous books and brought them into the world he belonged to...the one with family, friends, and acquaintances.  The one he was making his home.  It wasn't fast-paced, it wasn't action packed.  Most of the action was taking place internally, inside his own head.  It was - growth.

There are times I wish the real world were more like a book, because that sort of incandescent fulfillment of yourself seems so rare.  Or maybe it's just that authors can skip through the long and boring slow bits, so that all we really notice are the moments where things come to fruition.

It's the kind of thing that makes me wonder.  If God created such amazing people - and I think we all are amazing, in a way - why is it so hard to create a world where we can all reach our full potential?