may day

I'd like to remind everyone that Friday, May 1, is, among other things, International Workers' Day—a day commemorating the historic struggle of working people throughout the world.

Show your support for the labour movement and immigration reform by attending May Day marches and rallies in your area.

wtf were they thinking?

From yesterday's New York Times:

An Air Force One lookalike, the backup plane for the one regularly used by the president, flew low over parts of New York and New Jersey on Monday morning, accompanied by two F-16 fighters, so Air Force photographers could take pictures high above the New York harbor.

But the exercise — conducted without any notification to the public — caused momentary panic in some quarters and led to the evacuation of several buildings in Lower Manhattan and Jersey City. By the afternoon, the situation had turned into a political fuse box, with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg saying that he was “furious” that he had not been told in advance about the flyover.

At 4:39 p.m. Monday, the White House issued an apology for the flyover. Louis E. Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, who served in the Clinton administration as secretary of the Army, said in a statement:

Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision. While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it’s clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused.

Smooth move, Louis. Real smooth.

peace out, pontiac

GM has announced that it plans on discontinuing the Pontiac brand. The news has me feeling a bit nostalgic. My first 3 cars were Pontiacs (T-1000, Grand Am, Firebird).

It has also announced a new deal that, if it goes through, would effectively give the U.S. government and the UAW health care trust 89% of GM stock, with the government receiving 50% and the UAW about 38%. The remaining shares would be split between the bondholders (10%) and the average shareholders (1%).

Although unlikely to go through, GM's deal with the government and the UAW would be an interesting scenario to watch in terms of seeing how well a state/worker owned auto company would fare against privately owned companies in the same market.

fu merck

Yet another reason why I'm not a big fan of large, multinational corporations. From the Australian:

AN international drug company made a hit list of doctors who had to be "neutralised" or discredited because they criticised the anti-arthritis drug the pharmaceutical giant produced.

Staff at US company Merck &Co emailed each other about the list of doctors - mainly researchers and academics - who had been negative about the drug Vioxx or Merck and a recommended course of action.

The email, which came out in the Federal Court in Melbourne yesterday as part of a class action against the drug company, included the words "neutralise", "neutralised" or "discredit" against some of the doctors' names.

It is also alleged the company used intimidation tactics against critical researchers, including dropping hints it would stop funding to institutions and claims it interfered with academic appointments.

"We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live," a Merck employee wrote, according to an email excerpt read to the court by Julian Burnside QC, acting for the plaintiff.

Merck & Co and its Australian subsidiary, Merck, Sharpe and Dohme, are being sued for compensation by more than 1000 Australians, who claim they suffered heart attacks or strokes as a result of Vioxx.

The drug was launched in 1999 and at its height of popularity was used by 80 million people worldwide because it did not cause stomach problems as did traditional anti-inflammatory drugs.

It was voluntarily withdrawn from sale in 2004 after concerns were raised that it caused heart attacks and strokes and a clinical trial testing these potential side affects was aborted for safety reasons.

Lead plaintiff Graeme Peterson, 58, claims the drug caused him to have a heart attack in 2003 after he took it for back pain and arthritis every day from May 2001.

Merck last year settled thousands of lawsuits in the US over the effects of Vioxx for $US4.85billion ($7.14 billion) but made no admission of guilt.

The company is fighting the class action in Australia.

The Federal Court was told yesterday that Merck wanted to gain the backing of researchers and doctors - or "opinion leaders" - in the fields of arthritis to help promote the drug to medical professionals when it was launched in 1999.

Mr Burnside said internal emails in April 1999 from Merck staff showed the company was not happy with what some researchers and doctors were saying about the drug.

"It gives you the dark side of the use of key opinion leaders and thought leaders ... if (they) say things you don't like to hear, you have to neutralise them," he said. "It does suggest a certain culture within the organisation about how to deal with your opponents and those who disagree with you."

The court was told that James Fries, professor of medicine at Stanford University, wrote to the then Merck head Ray Gilmartin in October 2000 to complain about the treatment of some of his researchers who had criticised the drug.

"Even worse were allegations of Merck damage control by intimidation," he wrote, according to Mr Burnside.

"This has happened to at least eight (clinical) investigators ... I suppose I was mildly threatened myself but I never have spoken or written on these issues."

Mr Burnside told the court Dr Fries went on to describe instances of intimidation, including one colleague who thought his academic appointment had been jeopardised and another who received phone calls alleging "anti-Merck" bias.

Dr Fries said in the letter that Merck had been systematically playing down the side effects of Vioxx and said the company's behaviour "seriously impinges on academic freedom". The court was also told a rheumatologist on Merck's Australian arthritis advisory board was angry he did not find out about Merck's decision to withdraw Vioxx until an ABC journalist rang to tell him. Mr Burnside said James Bertouch wrote to other members of the board saying he was "extremely disillusioned" with the company.

"In every possible way the company exerted itself to present the impression to the world at large that Vioxx did not provide any increased cardio risk ... when (a) it probably would and (b) it probably did," he wrote, according to Mr Burnside.

Peter Garling, acting for Merck, accused Mr Peterson of not taking the drug Vioxx in the months leading up to his heart attack in December 2003.

He said Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme figures showed he did not fill a Vioxx prescription for the drug in the two months before his heart attack.

Mr Garling put to Mr Peterson during his cross-examination that this was because he had retired from his job as a safety consultant and therefore he did not need to take Vioxx because his back pain lessened.

Mr Peterson denied this meant he was not taking the drug.

"No, I wouldn't accept that at all," he said. "I can remember taking Vioxx regularly."

The trial, before Justice Chris Jessop, continues.

i'm afraid of americans

What really scares me about people is the fact that they can justify almost anything, including the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" to extract information (RELEASED: The Bush Administration's Secret Legal Memos).

Many people say that enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding aren't torture. I think that when it comes to things like waterboarding, however, especially when used in combination with other harsh interrogation methods, it's easy to say that it's not torture when you're not the one undergoing such treatment, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to go through anything like that myself. Nor would I want anyone else to.

I don't have any good arguments to support my opinion besides the fact that I find the intentional infliction of pain and mental anguish deplorable — especially when it's done in secret, without any kind of transparency or accountability whatsoever, and has the potential to cause irreversible damage — but I think that's enough.

I can't say for sure, but I'm reasonably certain that being captured, blindfolded, shipped off to a foreign country and then subjected to things like prolonged psychological abuse and waterboarding would mentally scar me for life. Granted, I'm not a hardened terrorist, I'm a rather 'soft' law-abiding citizen of the United States; but even so, I doubt those people will ever be the same after going through such an experience.

I've listened to both sides of the debate, and while I think that proponents of enhanced interrogation techniques make some good points, I simply can't justify treating another human being like that for any reason. For one thing, it's most likely against the law (Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C of the U.S. Code). And even if it isn't, I don't think it's acceptable, even if lives might theoretically be at stake, and I don't want my government engaging in such activity.

I know that our Founding Fathers weren't perfect, but one of the things I think people like Washington and Adams had right were their views on the treatment of prisoners, which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. details briefly in "America's anti-torture tradition," a 2005 op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times.

Regardless of the rationale or the particular circumstances involved, the fact that American soldiers and intelligence agents were (and possibly still are) torturing prisoners is one of the reasons I'm afraid of Americans.

And the fact that we're not the only ones who do this is one of the reasons I'm afraid of the world.

4/20

Although I haven't heard much about it in the majority in the mainstream media, today marks the 95th anniversary of the Ludlow massacre: a black day in the history of the American labour movement.

happiness is for everyone

While I lack a belief in a creator God, I consider myself a very spiritual person. But this raises the question, Are non-theistic views and spirituality compatible?

I think it depends on what is meant by "spirituality," but in general, I don't see any inherent contradiction between them. For example, Sam Harris, one of the most outspoken atheists in America, has no problem being an atheist while at the same time being open to the fact that people have spiritual experiences. As he wrote in 10 Myths - And 10 Truths - About Atheism:

"There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly. What atheists don’t tend to do is make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about the nature of reality on the basis of such experiences. There is no question that some Christians have transformed their lives for the better by reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. What does this prove? It proves that certain disciplines of attention and codes of conduct can have a profound effect upon the human mind. Do the positive experiences of Christians suggest that Jesus is the sole savior of humanity? Not even remotely — because Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even atheists regularly have similar experiences."

As for the use use of the term "spirituality" itself, he states in The End of Faith that:

"It is difficult to find a word for the human enterprise which aims at happiness directly—at happiness of a sort that can survive the frustrations of all conventional desires. The term "spirituality" seems unavoidable here—and I have used it several times in this book already—but it has many connotations that are, frankly, embarrassing."

So, from this perspective, I don't think there's anything that precludes someone like me, who lacks a theistic worldview, from also being a spiritual person for the simply fact that we all have the ability to have these profoundly emotional experiences, regardless of our religious inclinations.

To me, being a spiritual person is all about finding happiness. The way I see it, happiness isn't just reserved for a select few; happiness is for everyone.

the future of capitalism

I have noticed a lot more discussion about capitalism versus socialism lately, and while I think that this is a good thing in general, I am disheartened by those who hold economic theories more like religious ideologies than models invented by people abstracting their features through various means. As I have said before, I believe that no model is perfect, and all economic and political ideologies are going to be flawed in some way.

One of the main reasons for this is that there is an unstable variable in the whim of the individual—in their ambitions, desires, needs, etc. It is one thing to construct abstract models and theories based upon personal ideals and observations, but it is quite another to put those abstract models and theories into practice on a larger scale. In any model, there is always going to be the possibility that each individual will end up working at cross purposes, and this can lead to things like the negation of social consensus in the case of socialism, or opening the door for exploitation in the case of capitalism, etc.

Modern day capitalism itself has had a long and often troubled history.

As Capitalism for Beginners, a quite humourous comic about the history of capitalism, summarizes, Adam Smith essentially had the idea that the selfish and unrestrained (i.e. free) pursuit of self-interest would improve the general welfare. The idea was that private profit would translate into public benefit. This was the theoretical foundation behind free market capitalism. Unlike the corporate free market model of today, however, Smith himself not only treated high wages as desirable, but high profits as undesirable (Adam Smith on Profits--Paradox Lost and Regained). In the Wealth of Nations, for example, he closes his chapter on the profits of stocks with the statement:

"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people."

This is direct contrast with the likes of Arthur Young, who, as Nathan Rosenberg notes, wrote in his Farmer’s Tour through the East of England that "every one but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor or they will never be industrious; I do not mean, that the poor of England are to be kept like the poor of France, but, the state of the country considered, they must (like all mankind) be in poverty or they will not work." Smith envisioned his version of capitalism supporting a more egalitarian society where everyone benefits from their labour, not just the capitalists and property owners. But a "free" market tends to get hampered by greedy and powerful capitalists in the form of cartels, monopolies and oligopolies, inequality of opportunity and, of course, government interference. And when the Great Depression hit, many people thought that the capitalist system was nearing its final end. This is where James Keynes came in.

As Capitalism for Beginners puts it, although Keynes was often critical of certain aspects of capitalism, his goal was not to replace it with another system such as socialism, but to reform it and make it more inline with Smith's idea of an egalitarian society by recommending a "somewhat comprehensive socialization of investment" (General Theory, 378). He differed from Smith in that he advocated more government involvement in the market because Smith's "invisible hand" (i.e., the self-regulating nature of the marketplace) no longer seemed to work, and he was deeply concerned about the looming long-term deficits in investment, aggregate demand (i.e., the total amount of goods and services demanded in the economy at a given overall price level and in a given time period) and employment. As Keynes famously wrote:

"If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing."

In certain parts of Europe, especially post-war Britain, this economic philosophy led to social-democratic governments that nationalized certain sectors of industry, including health care, and instituted stronger social welfare programs, while in the United States, economists and politicians focused upon Keynes' fiscal policy and monetary policy while ignoring Keynes' "endorsement of more egalitarian redistribution and social control of investment" (Capitalism for Beginners, 106). Nevertheless, there were problems with both approaches, and the simultaneous appearance of inflation and high unemployment (i.e., stagflation) eroded confidence in Keynesian economics, which, thanks to the economic theories of Milton Friedman, gave way to the rise of monetarism (i.e., the idea that the government's only role in the market should be controlling the money supply) in the United States and Britain.

Monetarism had moderate success in the United States in the late 70s-early 80s, where it produced a deep recession but cured double-digit inflation, but less success in Britain, where is also lowered inflation but contributed to a deep recession and mass unemployment (A Critique of the Chicago School of Economics). But it appears that the overall failure of purely monetarist policies to sufficiently stimulate economic growth, combined with the apparent damage done to the global economy caused by the deregulation (i.e., the reduction of government control over business activity) and privatization (i.e., the selling of public assets to private industry) associated with monetarism, has led to a resurgence of Keynesian-style policies.

Today, considering the scale of the current global economic crisis and the vast array of economic policies and systems in play, the question is, What's next? How do we level the playing field? How much government interference is ideal? How can economic growth rates be increased in sustainable way? What mechanisms should to be implemented to keep giant multinational corporations from dominating the market, not to mention political discourse? These are the kinds of questions that continually need to be asked in any capitalist society. Adam Smith struggled with these questions at the end of the 18th century, and 200 years later, we are still struggling with them.

So far I have found some of Socialism's longstanding concerns regarding the drawbacks and weak points of the capitalist system amazingly prescient, especially in regard to commerce and credit, but the fact that most socialists are decidedly biased against it seems to blind them to the potential ability of future generations to solve some of these problems. Perhaps socialism is the next evolution of economics that will lead the world to a wonderful new level of prosperity and cooperation, and then again, perhaps not. But ultimately, I think it all depends on what direction we want to take our global society. Are we ready to see that we are all citizens of the world and work toward a better future together? Or are we still content to pursue our own individual self-interests above all else?

I suspect that Smith was right in that the pursuit of self-interest will improve the general welfare, but only when we realize, as a collective whole, that we are all in this together.

howard zinn: you can't be neutral on a moving train

I just watched a documentary about Howard Zinn called Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train.

It was an excellent documentary (sans Matt Damon's occasional narrations). Zinn has become one of my heroes.

I'd highly recommend it to people interested in American history, especially through a progressive point of view.

way to go, vermont!

From the Associated Press: "Vermont on Tuesday became the fourth state to legalize gay marriage — and the first to do so with a legislature's vote."

Nice. As Bob Dylan would say, "The times they are a-changin'."

way to go, iowa!

According to the New York Times, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled today that a 1998 state law limiting marriage to a man and a woman was unconstitutional. The unanimous decision means that same-sex marriage is now legal in Iowa, making it the first Midwestern state, and the third in the country, to legalize same-sex marriage.

And even if the state of Iowa isn't as progressive as the ruling might imply, I'm heartened by the justices' opinion, which said:

"We have a constitutional duty to ensure equal protection of the law. ... If gay and lesbian people must submit to different treatment without an exceedingly persuasive justification, they are deprived of the benefits of the principle of equal protection upon which the rule of law is founded."

Truer words were never spoken.

duchesse de bourgogne

What a surprising beer. The flavours were crisp and well-pronounced, but conflicting, although not necessarily in a bad way.

Overall, it struck me as fruity, tart and quite acidic, with a hint of sweetness and a sour finish. But it was also refreshing, not unlike sparkling apple cider.

I actually bounced between liking and not liking this beer between each sip. It’s not bad, though, just takes some getting used to.

I’d recommend this beer to people who like crisp, fruity beers, or hard cider, and don’t mind a little sourness or the taste of apple cider vinegar.