"Objective" European Journalism

Comments

# William said on October 25, 2004 2:57 AM:

Europeans call American presidents cowboys when they "shoot first and then ask questions". It is effective, but the conversation is rather one sided. And it makes a lot of people very angry with you.

I was glad to see that the President did wait to strike back after 9/11. I watched the disaster live on TV and it made me very afraid for his reaction. I don't like Bush, but would Kerry have reacted so much differently? It is always easy to sit and judge having the wisdom of hindsight.

Europeans, on the other hand, like to discuss things so much, any crisis will be resolved by the time we stop talking. Ever seen the movie "Life of Brian"? That's us.

I guess you mean Opel (Vauxhaul in the UK). Did you know that General Motors is the owner of Opel?

In Europe, the goverment heavily taxes cars. Somewhere around 50% of the price is tax. Also, the roads in our cities are small because most were build with a carridge in mind. As a result, our cars are less fancy and smaller. And yes, Opel isn't the nicest looking one lately. But I drive a VW Golf SDI (2001), so I guess that makes me bit biased.

# William said on October 25, 2004 10:40 AM:

I recall PJ O'Rourke's classic rant to one of our British European friends:

---

I snapped.

"A John Wayne movie," I said. "That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie - with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something, Mister Limey Poofter? You're right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They're us . WE BE BAD.

"We're the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We're three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother's side. You take your Germany, France and Spain, roll them all together and it won't give us room to park our cars. We're the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d'Antibes. And we've got an American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go."

"You say our country's never been invaded? You're right, little buddy. Because I'd like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who'd have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying Cheerio.' Hell can't hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, f*ck longer and buy more things than you know the names of. I'd rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch."

# William said on October 25, 2004 11:39 AM:

Roland:

I respect what you're saying and I'm definitely not trying to do any Euro bashing here. You have some excellent points and I think that the media often blows stuff up and acts like it speaks for everyone. To that end, I don't disagree with one single thing you've said.


My problem is with a particular segment of Europe and folks that act like the European media is free of bias. Every country has problems and the US certainly has it's share. However I think a lot of European politicians really like to act like problems that they've created are somehow the fault of the US.

Take Opel. Yes, it's owned by GM. But look at the picture I'm talking about in Stern. First, GM is one of the largest PUBLICLY traded companies in the US. Stated simply that means No one person owns it or controls it. The stockholders do. Bush has nothing to do with their decisions - and although politicians can certainly influence business decisions, what has Bush done to affect this? Nothing. Hell Kerry is more against outsourcing than Bush has ever been. But what does Uncle Sam have to do with this issue? What, all 300 million people in America somehow think alike? Look at this election, there's a lot of folks that aren't agreeing here. Hardly a monolith Volkswagen, which you mentioned you drive are a prime example of doing stuff right, Opel isn't. VW's weren't popular here for a LONG time, now everyone's driving them. The same isnt' the case with Opel. If it were, they would be opening factories not closing them. BMW, VW, two name two are expanding because people like their stuff. The same isn't true of Opel, at least I know for sure it's not here in the states. So how is that America's fault? How is that GM's fault? And god forbid how is that Bush's fault?

American presidents don't have that much power. Bush didn't start this war alone. Congress gave it the thumbs up and if they didn't, we wouldn't be there right now. Congress voted on it b/c the American electorate, then as NOW still supports the war. If they didn't, troops would be home tomorrow - this is an election year for heaven's sake and if everyone was pissed off about it, it would change.

There couldn't be a Cowboy president and there never was. There aren't Cowboys here and although there's a few here and there, everyone laughs at them. The difference between Alabama and New York for instance is probably more profound than the differences between Berlin and Paris. This country is very large and people are very different depending on where you go. There is no such thing as this American viewpoint because that's comprised of a lot of viewpoints.

Bush hasn't been able to push through most of his Coutr picks. He hasn't been able to drill in Anwar. He had a lot of trouble getting his people confirmed, and his friend Linda Chavez couldn't get confirmed. Does that sound like what would happen if Bush was half as powerful as people think he is? Hell, the Republicans have been trying to defund the National Endowment for the arts for 12 years now and they ended up INCREASING funding for it every year under Bush. I can think of 50 other things in this same vein - the president isn't that powerful. What about Partial Birth Abortion. Bush wanted it banned, congress wanted it banned - and the courts threw it out. THe same sex marriage ammendment - dead in the water.

Then take something like Kyoto that Bush acted alone on. It went to the senate under Clinton - shot down 95-0. That means out of 100 people, 95 said no. You NEVER see that type of unanimity in Congress - seldomly anyway. That means Bush couldn't do squat about it b/c it's a dead issue. The people said NO very loud and clear. If Bush signed it, it would be just like when Clinton signed it- symbolism - and 95-0 speaks for itself.

And this obsession with interfering in our elections... A English paper was encouraging people to send letters to folks in Ohio and tell them to vote for Kerry. Well, they didn't say Kerry per se but that's what it was. Forget that it was England for a second. Why would anyone care about a letter they got from someone they didn't know in response to a letter campaign. Imagine if the US Papers started advocating to American that we right people in France and recommend that they get rid fo Chirac. I can hear the cries of Imperialism by even thinking about it. What if an American Journalist advocated, even jokingly, Killing Chirac? *COWBOY* comes to mind.

I just think that the European media is by and large, a rather elitist group just like the media everywhere. And I got sick of listening to people over here talk about how objective it is and how much America Sucks. We have some shortcomings. We have done some bad stuff. We make mistakes. But let the European country with no sin cast the first stone. The US isn't to blame for Unemployment in any European country - we simply don't matter that much. If we had that much influence over there, articles like the above wouldn't be being written.

Seriously though Roland, I really do appreciate your post. I understand what you're saying and don't disagree. I just wish more political discussions were civil instead of this insane hyperbole that everything gets into. Just as America is a big diverse place, so is Europe and I definitely wasnt' trying to paint with a big brush ;-)

# William said on October 25, 2004 11:41 AM:

JMW, I like PJ a lot but I think it's important to note that he's a humorist and this was said rather flippantly. I hate all of this Europe vs. US Stuff and I think when two people actually talk, you usually see a lot of this nonsense subside. But let the media start talking and holy crap - the venom starts spewing.

Have you read his latest book, Peace Kills? Absolutely wonderful btw!

# William said on October 25, 2004 12:55 PM:

The right-wingnuts were howling for Clinton's head for years, some of the AM radio jocks making the same call for Hinkley or JWBoothe, and that gets ignored. One european newpaper does something similar, and they get hammered. Wow, what a double standard we have here. David Neiwert at http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/ has been tracking some of it.

I have a question. If you have a friend who has a serious problem with alcohol, would you try talking with them? And when they just won't listen, how long do you keep trying to talk to them? If they got behind the wheel of a car again, would you wrestle them for the keys, or would you, finally, call the cops and turn them in?

Are the euros "good friends" or "interfering bastards" for trying to talk us out of (waging war) driving while drunk? If you've ever had a friend or loved one who had trouble with booze, you would have faced this before. I am always surprised when a drunk loudly claims that they "can handle it." Even though I know better, I am always surprised: I keep thinking that "today/tonight, they will recognize that they can't handle it."

# William said on October 25, 2004 2:06 PM:

My point, Peter, was that the same people would NEVER ever call for the death of say Fidel Castro or Robert Mugabe and would lambaste anyone that did. They can't bring themselves to call folks Terrorists. Also, I've heard a lot of denunciation of that type of crap in regard to Clinton - and I sure as hell don't defend that.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I think I was pretty specific in what my gripe was, and it wasn't the Europeans are criticizing us.

As far as your drinking analogy goes, I don't buy it. There's no case to be made for being an alcoholic. And there are legitimate arguments for going to war with Iraq. But let's say for just a second that the premise that the war on Iraq is completely without merit - the part about this criticism being done out of love, concern etc is silly. To make the analogy complete.... let's say that you have a loved one that's an alcoholic. Let's also say that you yourself are 300 lbs overweight, on the verge of bankruptcy and smoke 40 cigarettes a day. If your concern for the drunk impedes you from looking at your own problems, I don't care how noble it is, it's misplaced. If you can do both, then so be it. But Europe has plenty of problems that somehow don't seem to get the level of disdain that America's do.

And how exactly does berating America and calling people cowboys match the part of your analogy where you wrestle the keys away or call the cops. What they are doing is sitting there pointing at you going "You're nothing but a drunk and a loser" without doing crap about it. I don't remember France for instance doing ANYTHING other than vetoing and bitching. And when we started boycotting things in France, I heard a lot of complaining about that.

Hate Bush all you want. Hate the war on Iraq all you want. Protest if you want or whatever else. No issue there whatsoever. But this blaming America for everything, is BS. There's enought to Blame Bush for that he actually did that going after intellectually dishonest stuff like Opel laying people off just weakens the argument. And if the same dude calling Bush a warmonger and calling for his assisantion albeit jokingly was calling for Casto's head or Mugabe's as well - I never would have written this post. In America under Bush lots of people have protested his policies and mocked him. Michael Moore is free and doing quite well hte last time I looked. I can name 10 people off of the top of my head that are Dead now for simply speaking out against Castro's policies. Name one opposition movie created in Cuba under castro? Just one. There isn't one. But the same folks that get all fired up about Guantanamo seem to ignore the real human rights abuses on the rest of the island. My first step-father's parents and family were all murdered under Castro so please spare me the 'biased american media thing'.

Mugabe? Great guy there. There's so many more examples but I think I made my point. And that's not that i'm pissed someone is bashing Bush - it's the flagrant hypocrisy of it.

# William said on October 25, 2004 2:40 PM:

Bill:

I know. But it's such a great rant, and appropos to the times. :)

I'll get to Peace Kills. I think Republican Party Reptile is next for me...

# William said on October 25, 2004 2:50 PM:

Actually, on the topic of Mugabe:

While France was berating us for not listening to the world, the Frog-in-chief Jacques Chirac invited him over to Paris for a week of wining and dining. While he was under an _international travel ban_, set forth by the UN itself.

Mugabe is one of the most unforgivable men on Earth, and giving him four-star treatment was beyond hypocritical; it was a moral atrocity in and of itself.

# William said on October 25, 2004 3:06 PM:

JMW:

I agree, funny how Castro and Mugabe get cheered at the UN and Bush is the monster. Even if you totally dislike Bush, it's a hard case to make that he's anywhere in the league of these butchers.

Republican Party Reptile is great - highly recommend it.

BTW, why are the French called Frogs? I feel like a dummy b/c I don't know this.

# William said on October 25, 2004 3:11 PM:

Bill: I know. No "USA GOOD, EURO BAD". ;-) But an impressive rant.

Here in the Netherlands politics is so boring, we ended up elected the most boring politician in decades. Maybe he has an opinion, but if he has, I doubt if it is his own.

TV stations, radio station, newspaper and magazine publishers have to produce news every hour, day, week, or month. If not, they cannot sell ads. Your Web log does not. That gives you lots of freedom. When you change your opinion, it is your right. You may loose some readers, but that would hurt yo financially. The traditional media have to sell in order to survive. And to avoid scaring readers to position themselves with respect to other media. For example, one newpaper writes articles from a political left-wing point-of-view, the other more right wing. This way advertising agencies know a bit about the readers as well and tune their messages.

One of the first thing you learn in psychology is that there is the scientific way of observing and the regular way of observing. When two football teams play a match, the supporters of both teams see a totally different match. Your affiliation blurs your vision.

With this in mind, I don't think there exists such a thing as an 'objective' point of view.

The simple fact that we Euros can affort to be 'objective' is that we don't have to go to the voting booth. Starting a shouting match for one candidate is silly because we are not part of the game.

And who wants to be 'objective'? Boring.

# William said on October 25, 2004 7:34 PM:

Roland:

I've got to get over to the Netherlands. It seems like EVERYONE I've talked to from there is cool. It's about 60/40 (Cool/Asshole) w/ Germans i've known and about 70/30 with the French. As far as my fellow Americans, well, it's probably 80/20 but I've known a lot more Americans and the ones that are assholes are unequalled.

But enough international politics for now.... I've got to attend to getting my new Mac and Linux box talking. I've got Red hat on it now but I think I need to put suse on their b/c I'm a dumb a33 for one thing and the examples I have are for suse.

# William said on October 25, 2004 8:04 PM:

I'm an equal oportunity hater. I hate Bush, but I hate Kerry too, I hate the European and American press. They are all spinning everything madly one way or the other to suit their needs and nobody covers it all accurately or fairly. What America and Europe both need is a good case of hate. Hatred enough of the way things are spun to change it so we get accurate information. Until we all get a good case of hate and do something about it we will keep getting fed the news equivalent of wagging the dog. So let's all join hands and hate together. Because the opposite of Love isn't Hate, the opposite of Love is Apathy, and Apathy kills. It our Apathy to the way things are currently that allow these things to stay this way. None of us are without blame. Americans or Europeans.

# William said on October 25, 2004 8:38 PM:

Andy:

A fucking men brother. If you asked me three weeks ago, I'd respond that I don't like either Kerry or Bush but I wouldn't use Hate. But this sh1t that's going on is pissing me off and both sides are guilty. Gore acted like a pussy in 2000 because the genius never took civics in school and didn't realize that the electoral vote is all that matters - and amen to that. The founding fathers wouldn't spit on either of these two if they were alive. But this shit with vote tampering - it's never been this bad. I don't want the courts deciding my vote. And honestly fuck people who are too stupid to vote. That whole thing was a crock of shit and no there will be 5 fucking states going through it. 10,000 Lawyers?

I hate the press for sure - they are all a bunch of lying elitist swine. And yes, that includes the 'objective' European press. I'm tired of Americans being dumb asses and I'm tired of Europeans acting like America is the only source of problems in the world.

So I'm with you, hate is cool. I hate Apathy and ignorance. I hate people that care more about Survivor or bullshit reality shows than they do about their kids education. I hate long meetings when I have to piss really bad. I hate people that are willing to go on tv and make fools out of themselves because they need sympathy. I hate it when I feel like I have to take a dump but can't. I hate people that sue other people. I hate narcissits. I hate stubbing my toe. I hate those two fuckers that tortured that baby seal in San Diego. I hate waiting behind people who think it's 'cool' to act tough with counter people. I hate people that dont' tip or give waiters/waitresses a hard time. I hate flat diet coke. I hate the fact i can't buy Percocet at the convenience store. I hate people that think it's funny to spell Microsoft with a $ sign in it. I hate VB programmers that don't use Option Strict. I hate dynamic SQL. I hate everyone in Hollywood. I hate anyone that thinks Sociology is a real major. I hate public schools and compulsory education. I hate social security and capital gains taxes. I hate preachers, particularly ones with terrible hair pieces, that use God to achieve their own ends. I really hate protest marchers and those anti-globalism bastards. I hate hippies and people that don't bath regularly. I hate fat people that claim they can't help it. I hate guys that talk about how much they love their kids and then don't do anything that matter to back it up. I hate all political activists and TV Pundits. I hate dial up internet.

Dude, this is too fun. We need to start a 100 things I hate list and pass it on

# William said on October 25, 2004 9:30 PM:

The french are called frogs I think because they like frog legs? I think that's the only distinction, that and they smell like a swamp? Just guessing.

I love you Bill, really. I've been meaning to post some stuff I've been seeing and I plan on doing it soon but I'll probably be slapped silly because of it. I'm a little scathing about some very touchy subjects, but I think it's time to air our dirty laundry. America isn't perfect, but then again no country on this planet is, period.

There's that whole Bible verse that talks about don't complain about the splinter in your friends eye when you have a log in yours. You should remove the log from your eye before even attempting to comment about the splinter in someone elses. Humanity tends to do this as a whole, whether it's Americans or Europeans, Africans or Australians. It's funny that a verse 2000+ years is applicable today but it truly shows that the writers of the Bible had at least a small clue about the human condition. One can take solice knowing that when someone comments or says something about your splinter/log, that they're usually with one far bigger than yours that they're trying to ignore. It doesn't make it right, but it gives you .00001 points of comfort until you realize that it's really sad that either of us have anything in our eyes. We should be working together to get them out, not try to push them in deeper. Que sera sera I suppose.

# William said on October 25, 2004 10:37 PM:

Hey Jeremy:

There's a book I bought recently called Anti-Americanism http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1893554856/qid=1098757060/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-8887834-0347149?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 by Jean Francois Revel (who's a proud Frenchman). The book's premise is that America is far from Perfect and has a lot of problems, but there's a reason dictators everywhere hate us. One of his points for instance is that many European intellectuals are pissed off that their respective countries used to be superpowers and the US got a free ride. However it's not because we were lucky per se but because they spent a good part of the 20th century murdering each other while the US played nice with it's neighbors. He mentions slavery which the US constantly gets lambasted for. Yes, it was inexcusable and very very wrong. But we also fought a Civil War over it. How many wealthy Germans in comparison risked everything they had to stand up to Hitler in defense of the Jews? Was American slavery worse then the Holocaust? Was it closer in proximity to today? Both are ugly blemishes on each respective country but there's a bit of hypocrisy in Germans berating the US over slavery while ignoring their own indescretions. And as far as the 'current effects' of each - the Jew Haters in Germany certainly have a bigger following than the Klu Klux Clan or similar group. He's even Harder on France because he's French and he doesn't like what's happening to his country. Plus, he's old enough to remember that were it not for the United States he'd be speaking German today instead of French.

He makes a ton of really great points and he's not saying that the US is perfect by any means, just that Europe has a lot of problems it's not addressing and opportunists like Chirac are all too willing to flame anti-Americanism to detract attention. On the charge of Imperialism he had a wonderful point. America, for four years stood alone in the world as a Nuclear Superpower. That means we literally could have kicked ANYONE's ass for 4 straight years and destroyed their country by the time they even got their ships or planes in close enough proximity to even remotely cause damage to the mainland. What did we do in those four years? Rebuild war ravished Europe with our own citizen's money - most of which was never paid back nor even attempted to be paid back. Germany protested our troops constantly under Reagan, yet every time any talk of withdrawing our troops comes up, they get very upset about it.

Finally, you mention the Bible. Well, I'm a devout Christian and simultaneously a pretty harsh critic of modern religion. I was born, raised and educated Catholic. I doubt my Grandparents would even talk to me if for instance, I married someone that wasn't Catholic. Yet I'm embarassed to be a Catholic because of the atrocities that have been commmitted recently. And I can't think of a religion out there that isn't run by Pharisees and hypocrites. With that said, I firmly believe in the divinty of Christ think that most of the New Testament is a great way to live one's life, even if you weren't to believe in God or Christ. I'm pretty fond of the "Ye without sin cast the first stone" as well. I can't imagine a time where such a mindset would ever not apply. And the sad fact of the matter is that those with Logs in their eyes are the ones quickest to point out those with Splinters. Unfortunately that's often perpetuated by Church leaders but it's a common trait for humanity.

# William said on October 25, 2004 10:45 PM:

Finland paid back 100% of the money the US lent it after WWII to rebuild. It is the only European country to ever do so.

# William said on October 26, 2004 12:27 AM:

That's b/c Finland is cool.

He actually brought that up but doesn't really go into Finland. The point of the book was in the context of Anti-Americanism and I think the underlying contention is that there's a really strong correlation of country's who bash America and have since the end of the 19th century and country's have depended on the US extensively both militarily and financially. Here's another interesting thing... The Kyoto treaty was signed by every country in the EU and that was in '97. As of early 2003, not one country had actually ratified it yet two in particular complained up a storm about Bush bowing out of it (conveniently ignoring the 95-0 vote in the Senate which effectively killed it well before Bush did anything). Most of the EU Member states haven't said much about it but two countries in particular have had their media and intellectuals trash Bush and the US because of it. Yet for something this important, 6 years passed before they ratified anything and most have yet to do anything even remotely meaningful in terms of implementing it. If I remember correctly, France isn't supposed to have it implemented until 2012. But the politicians and media of most EU member states haven't had that much to say about the US's policy if anything at all. Again Finland is a prime example.

And to be honest, the context the author mentions isn't that Europe owes the US or should give us a free pass on whatever because we helped them out. It's just that the loudest US bashing comes from two countries that have benefitted the most from the US's existence.

# William said on October 26, 2004 11:09 PM:

I like Andy's comment on being "an equal opportunity hater". What a refreshing idea! I've run into so many people who think they don't like Kerry, so they love Bush, or more commonly, I hate Bush, so I love Kerry. Why do you have to love Kerry just because you hate Bush???? I'm sorry, I don't see that those two things are mutually exclusive....

(P.S. Bill actually made that comment to me earlier, but it was so well phrased, I figured I'd give it a little air time on his blog :-)

# William said on October 27, 2004 6:15 AM:

I don't like Andy's comment on being an "equal opportunity hater", and I don't think that PJ O'Rourke is funny any more. We're controlled because we think we can just find fault in any alternative to the existing society, and what PJ O'Rourke is talking about includes the use of depleted uranium munitions, to keep America "on top". These munitions cause horrific birth defects which are epidemic in southern Iraq.

Hate to be so negative. Actually, I think you guys are ready for a hard left candidate, as long as he isn't a millionaire. We're fish, swimming in a sea in which the only thing that matters is money and power, and as programmers we're refs or scorekeepers at best.

# William said on October 27, 2004 11:52 PM:

Hey Edward, glad you're back ;-). Are you still in France?

Anyway, I think Andy's comment was really advocating hate per se, but simply that some times both end of the spectrum on an argument can suck a33.

I wasn't aware of O'Rourke's comments but they sound pretty rough. However the guy writes a lot of stuff satirically so I'm not sure how serious he was. It's weird about him b/c I just finished reading his new book, Peace Kills, about a month ago - it was incidentally, located in the Humor section of Barnes and noble not the politics section. Anyway, I think it'd be more aptly titled "Things are pretty much the same everywhere" because that's the overriding tone I got from it. I really found the piece on Israel interesting. The Jewish guide he was travelling with blamed most all of the problems on the Orthodox Jews and his friend, the Palestinian blamed most of the problems on Arafat. The Orthodox Jews according to the Jewish guy, refuse to bend on their position(s) and invariably fuel a lot of the trouble with the Palestiniains (although he wasn't saying there wouldn't be 'any' trouble were it not for them, just not 'serious' trouble). On the other hand, the Palestinian guy was really pissed off at Arafact because, according to him, It's not the Jew's fault that no one has any money any more. It's not the Jews fault that no one wants to tour here any more. Considering the title of the book, the analysis is hardly what I'd refer to as hawkish. The only bad thing about the book is that when I was reading it, I had two people make snide comments to me out of the blue for simply having the thing. But nukes are nothing but drama so that sucks he's advocating them.

As far as hard left candidates go.... not so sure about that one. As far as money and power, I think that's just the way it is in any society. Someone is going to have money and power in any given society compared to the other folks and I just haven't seen an example of where the guys that control the military holding the money and power makes for a better society. I'd rather be Bill Gates or Larry Ellison than Bush or Kerry or anyone else in power. I think I mentioned this before, but I was a pretty hard core leftist when I was in college. I went to a few war protests over Gulf War I, went to enough legalize pot rallies to make sure I never have a prayer at ever holding public office. I thought Reagan was Satan incarnate. Being a philosophy major, I really believed that there was such thing as a perfect society, and like Plato advocated, taht you needed these Noble Rulers who would tell Noble lies to keep things real. But I also remember going to a few protests where people were talking about how great Castro was. That was pretty hard to reconcile in my mind. And most of the hard left crowd that I met was completely 'above' criticizing a monster like Castro but very willing to criticize anything American - unless of course you were talking about people like Ted Turner who you weren't supposed to criticize because he was one of 'us'. The more people I met the more I started to notice that most of them were rich little punks mooching off of their parents who they pretty much hated were it not for their money They'd blame capitalism for EVERYTHING but seldomly wanted to point those fingers back at themselves and acknowledge their role in why they weren't further along. That got a little hard to take and pretty much marked the end of my career as a leftist. However I'm having a lot of trouble dealing with the right these days too.

And you're comment about being scorekeepers is very true. Since voting is becoming more and more computerized, we're actually going to be the ones that create and monitor the stuff. My company is working extensively with the electronic voting here in S.C. and fortunately, there won't be any disenfrechfrisement (I think that's what Jesse Jackson says all the time) here. But seriously, if the stuff goes closed source, programmers at the respective companies really will yield quite a bit of power and the only people that can really prove wrongdoing, should the subject ever come up, will be other programmers. It's an interesting situation indeed.

# William said on October 28, 2004 10:47 PM:

I am back in Hong Kong.

Whatever the label, we gotta act and I think we were right back in the sixties. We have to give women a lot more power, and we need, in America, a Truth and Reconciliation process to finally resolve what we done and continue to do to Black people.

My Visual Basic students "of color" at DeVry typically didn't get jobs on graduation from their difficult program. They continued as security guards and messengers. At best, they used the completion of the program to show potential employers, of security guards and messengers, that they were willing to play the game of holding down an honest job, and showing up.

This was despite the fact that they mastered the difficult material I threw at them including complex SQL and stored procedures, etc.

It ain't fair, and what pathology (petty hustling, drug use, etc) arises is the same pathology you see in poor whites. I think Clinton's proposal, late in his administration, that we do something about the hostility and the feelings of unfairness, was right on.

MOST of my students of color believed that starting with Reagan, the CIA was authorized to flood black 'hoods with cheap crack cocaine, designed in a lab to be highly addictive, and the facts are that crack hit in the eighties overnight. Whether or not "the Plan" is TRUE, we need as a society to deal with the fact that when black folks get together, they have a separate reality in which they are genuine victims: one that in fact corresponds to historical reality.

Now, I realize this is "social engineering": it would take someone with Castro's cojones to overcome objections to racial reconciliation. However, Larry Lessig (in Code and the Laws of Cyberspace) shows that if you resign from doing social engineering in the large and in the open, where people can object, you still do it, for example, in programming, in the small and invisibly as in the case of election systems.

Indeed, I feel that one of the things that makes programming such a nightmare is that in many companies, you need to figure out not what you want, and not what the real end user wants, but what the powerful players want, and implement this. The problem is that in ethically challenged companies, the Players aren't going to be clear about what they want.

My proposal in the .Net book is a bit of a dodge, since it transforms the programmer into a compiler developer who instead of coding the actual business rules (such as soakTheSmallInvestorForSpareChange) he develops a language and an interface which both empowers the honest end user to make the decisions, and allows the CEO who wants to finagle, to finagle (always assuming that the CEO knows the difference between AndAlso and OrElse, or else he's in hot water).

If the election causes chaos because of automated systems malarkey, Bill, then computer people are going to take a lot of heat.

# William said on October 28, 2004 11:16 PM:

I totally agree with you on Blacks and Women. There is so much racism in this country and much of it parades itself as friendly to Blacks. It's truly a shame - from Social Security, Drug wars to horrendous public schools - it's horrific. Even though I'm not a pro-lifer, I do know many people, MANY, that are completely pro-choice because they are afraid of what would happen if 'they' reproduced more. As a matter of fact, I have a friend (sort of friend) that hates Bush because he won't fund international family planning. Her point which she's made quite clear is that we could have family planned away all of this terrorist nonsense and that Arab population rates are growing much faster than ours which doesn't bode well for 'us' in democracies. She's a bit of an extremist in this regard but the point is that if you're a minority, there isn't really anyone watching out for you in a big picture sense. Jesse Jackson and Sharpton sure aren't - nor is Pat Robertson or Rumsfeld. It's a shame.

Castro however has a great plan for race relations - subjigate the darkies. Actually, it's closer to slavery since you can't leave legally and if you try, you'll probably catch a bullet or meet a great white shark in person. What does on in Cuba is bad enough, but the treatment of dark skinned people is horrifying. Anyone who thinks Slavery is dead in the West just needs to head South and they'll see what real Slavery and oppression are all about.

As far as the automated voting goes - it's just a matter of time. No matter what happens, both sides want to sue preemptively and it's going to be a f**** fiasco. Guaranteed.

# TrackBack said on November 2, 2004 6:46 PM: