the guy by the door …

How Terrorist Groups End

Of the 648 groups that were active at some point between 1968 and 2006, a total of 268 ended during that period. Another 136 groups splintered, and 244 remained active. As depicted in the figure, the authors found that most ended for one of two reasons: They were penetrated and eliminated by local police and intelligence agencies (40 percent), or they reached a peaceful political accommodation with their government (43 percent). Most terrorist groups that ended because of politics sought narrow policy goals. The narrower the goals, the more likely the group was to achieve them through political accommodation — and thus the more likely the government and terrorists were to reach a negotiated settlement.

More…

Most of today’s Democracy Now! about workers¹: I) layoffs at the newspapers and II) a new book: The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker.

I. The discussion of layoffs at the newspapers raised the question of whether bloggers aka citizen journalists can/will fill the gap. Chris Hedges, senior fellow at the Nation Institute is not optimistic:

I could believe that if there was reporting on the internet. You know, most of the bloggers don’t even pick up a phone, much less go out and report a story. Reporting a story, especially doing an investigative piece, is laborious, expensive, time-consuming.

Linda Jue, Director of New Voices in Independent Journalism and the past president of the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter, on the other hand:

…I am witnessing, actually, in the Bay Area numerous new enterprises starting to come up, being formed actually by journalists, to find new business models that would be—that will sustain very good journalism…

II. The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker. Steven Greenhouse, labor reporter for the New York Times, discusses the plight of workers and the role of contemporary unions. He has some interesting remarks about the “Change to Win” coalition of 5 major unions that left the AFL-CIO.

[More when DN! gets the transcript up.]

¹There is brief mention of more bank failures in the headlines. See next post.

Central bankers and government connected economists have been telling us, for quite some time now, “Everything will be OK if you just don’t look down.” Senator Chuck Schumer sent out a letter warning of the shakiness of IndyMac which has now collapsed. Regulators who were supposed to prevent such collapses are blaming Schumer for causing it.

Another thing you’re not supposed to notice, where will all the billion$ pumped into to the banking system to keep it afloat utimately come from. In the case of IndyMac it’s no mystery - the taxpayers. NPR, has been taking the line that it is that shareholders who will pay. They had an expert from the Wall Street Journal espousing this view. But who ultimately underwrites the FDIC? We’ll see how this shakes out.

In the case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which back half of all of the nations home mortgages, it’s clear that the guarantor is the taxpayer - i.e. you and me.

[Update: July 29, 2008] From DemocracyNow!: 2 More Banks Close as Crisis Widens

In banking news, federal regulators have shut down two banks in California and Nevada. First National Bank of Nevada and the Californian First Heritage Bank were both folded for lacking sufficient capital. The closures come two weeks after the collapse of the California bank IndyMac.

 

An explication of the relationship between Beauty, Sexuality, Marriagability, and Class. I’d love to write it right now, but I have to go guard the library. Read the next post down bbiab.

Jenna, Aggasiz Theater February 2006.

The Vagina Monologues

The Vagina Monologues has been performed on campus a number of times. I assume that all of them were in the Agassiz Theater in the Radcliffe Yard. I just discovered that Professor Juliet Schor, economist and feminist activist performed in 2000. I went in February of 2006. I did not know Jenna would be in it, but I was not surprised. I had met Jenna shortly after her arrival at Harvard at the Harvard Social Forum. She asked if she could interview me for a paper she was working on. I agreed on condition that I get to see the finished product. She seemed so delicate, I was afraid she would break if I even touched her. I was quite surprised when she was quoted in the Crimson. She was introducing Kim Airs, former HUCTW member, secretary to Dean Harry Rosovsky, and proprietor of the Grand Opening sex boutique. Jenna said, “Last year, before this, I thought I was having really good sex,…” At least, that’s what the Crimson says she said.

I was very impressed with the Vagina Monologues. It was highly graphic, but everyone was fully clothed. Most impressive was the comraderie nee sisterhood that permeated the cast and audience flowing seamlessly through the procenium.

The Women’s Center Art Show: More than Skin Deep

I am not free of sexism anymore than I am free of racism, anti-semitism, anti-Islamism, or any other form of xenophobia¹. I am very much a work in progress. I may have a certain vestigial prudery That is, I may have not fully escaped confusion about the relationship between Capitalism, Empire, and Sex. So when I received an invitation to the show, I wondered. I knew Jenna was in it. In fact, her’s was the “centerpiece.” Would she want me there to support her political activism? Or would she discover ways in which she is still a work in progress. That is, would she be creeped out showing a giant picture of her vulva to man in a dead end job who is older than her father? So I wrote to the curator of the exhibit. “By all means come, ” would have been fine. Or to tactfully decline with, possibly a hint about the reason, would have been fine. But what I got was no response at all. I feel that the Woman’s Center, an otherwise nobel effort, failed on that one.

I did realize there most probably are disparate views about how to address the relationship between class and sexuality. The woman HUPD officer, whose name I have temporarily forgotten, probably has a somewhat class bound view of things. Don’t get me wrong. The Center needs a Woman officer and self-defense training is highly recommended. But, the police should not be the major determinant of the sexual mores on campus. Similarly, the issue of rape, which Citizen Harry² regards as the most pressing issue of student life, cannot be solved by appeal to administrative authority.

¹Were I to include the full list it would consume a petabyte of storage on the server. [Canadian blogger jurgen claims this is half the content of all U.S. academic research libraries, but he gives no reference. Maybe j knows.] You may have noticed that Christianity is missing from the list. This is because having been raised in several disparate flavors of the Beast, my uneasiness is not based in ignorance as with those things I named. Based in familiarity, my critique of Christianity is somewhat more animated.

²“Citizen” is the appelation I use to refer to a member of the community who had administrative responsibility and subsequently returned to civilian life. I told Citizen Harry that I did so with love and he said he believed me. The statement about rape is from his book, “Excellence without Soul.”

Coming to a blog near you real soon now. Highlights:

Talk ain’t always cheap.

Maintenance deferred is maintenance denied.

Fixing a hole where the rain gets in.

What’s up with the endowment?

This one’s easy. Way up! 9% in 10 months. Due largely to commodities! Now before you say oil. Wheat, copper, and other commodities are up too. Of course, that may be passed along cost from higher oil. Then there’s food prices which the World Bank says went up 75% due to biofuel. Then there is the debate about how much of the price rises are due to speculation. And a new unexpected weirdness. I agree with Joe Lieberman on something! Large institutional investors, like Harvard, should not be allowed to speculate in energy and food.

And we save how much by de-unionizing labor?

So what are Allied-Barton and Harvard administrators talking about all this time?

The old contract was supposed to expire on June 30, 2008. Like a week ago. Nothing has been heard. BTW, the guards at Harvard Medical School don’t wear Allied-Barton whites. I shall make further inquiries.

Still trying to get caught up on the news. Seymour Hersch, in the New Yorker, reports newly uncovered information about the Presidential Finding¹ to sponsor covert activities in Iran. Because of secrecy, the Finding actually occurred at about the time of and in direct contradiction to the National Intelligence Estimate that discounted the likelihood of an Iranian nuclear weapon. Andrew Cockburn² made a brief report in Counter Punch in early May. [He makes a not entirely whimsical quip about Harvard Fellow³ Robert Rubin's efforts to keep Citigroup afloat amid the subprime mortgage debacle, by borrowing yet more billions from Abu Dhabi [].

Most of the people of the world, including the U.S. Joint Chiefs think invading Iran is a bad idea. But you have Dick Cheney, arguably diminished in power, but is he still a big enough tail to wag the American dog? He still seems to be able to wag the Bush. What if Israeli hardliners launch a pre-emptive attack knowing they can’t win a war by themselves. Will this smaller tail try to wag the Cheney tail in a direction it already wants to go.

The folks at Middle East Strategy at Harvard, more specifically, Chuck Freilich, seem to think the consequences of invading Iran would be small.⁴ Sounds a lot like the runup to Iraq - flowers and chocolates, it’ll pay for itself, shock and awe will eliminate resistance. How’s that worked out? Chuck Freilich, by the way, was Israel’s Deputy National Security Adviser for Foreign Affairs. So there’s that ‘vested interest’ thing again. It’s not about Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. For Israeli hardliners it’s about losing, some years from now, the nuclear monopoly in the region. For Bush-Cheney-Haliburton it’s about control of oil.

I hope to tell you about Bradford Little, highly eccentric but correct. Who’s “entitled” to nuclear weapons?

a) Iran.

b)Israel.

c)United States of America.

d)All of the above.

e)None of the above.

f)Nobody anywhere.

It’s (f). I will show all work, but it will be necessary to attach additional sheets.

¹Yet another way of dunning Congress for money, but because National Security is involved only a handful of “select” Congresspersons need to know the details.

²I’m slowly coming to appreciate the Cockburn clan. I did, like everybody in my generation, read Alexander when he wrote with James Ridgeway in the Village Voice. Just recently, I discovered that Harvard’s Legal Left has it’s very own member of the clan. My only hope is that the Federalists don’t squeeze the rainbow out of her.

³There are Harvard Fellows and there are Harvard Fellows. There are Junior Fellows who are top shelf post docs. There are faculty members who are Senior Fellows. But a Fellow, is a member of The Corporation. Rubin was the Fellow who lent the rest of the Fellows the subprime President recently departed.

⁴Not known for dovishness, former National Security Advisor Zbignew Brezinski in testimony before Congress [English with French subtitles] disagrees with Freilich’s assessment.