All posts by Steve Stern

Eye in the Sky

War

Eye in the Sky

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. Joseph Stalin

Michele and I saw Eye in the Sky the other night and we both were a little rattled by the realism of it. It is the kind of movie that seems very true even though it pushes the boundaries of what is possible right now. Eye in the Sky takes place in a small city in Kenya, two places in England, Las Vegas, Hawaii, an arms-trade conference in Singapore, a ping-pong match in Beijing and they are all connected; in real-time . It is the war of the future, now, and it is about how each of the players, up and down the Chain of Command, sees the world through their own lens. It is about how seemingly connected we are, and how isolated.

I have read reviews that refer to this as a study in morals, but it isn’t. The moral question was decided at an earlier time at a level higher than any of the players in this movie. As an aside, in Objective Troy, a Terrorist, a President and the Rise of the Drone, a book about drone warfare that I have not read – but have read a review – the author, Scott Shane, in talking about how the President has reserved the authority to kill when it involves a terrorist’s family, quotes Obama, “It turns out that I am really good at killing people.” End aside.

The movie does not make judgements, but it does make it very clear that the Drone War – for lack of a better name – has consequences. The pilots flying these Predator drones are safe in Nevada and the targets, in this movie, are unsafe in a house in Nairobi, Kenya but, unlike a F-16 carpet bombing a site, these pilots are connected to their targets. The two person crews, a pilot and sensor a operator, know who the targets are, they have been watching from a drone that has been hanging around the target area. Everybody up the Chain of Command knows who the targets are. Counter intuitively, this is warfare at it’s most intimate.

Eye in the Sky, the movie, is terrific. Helen Mirren is the star and the center of the action, a tough – one could even say battle-hardened – Army Colonel, Katherine Powell, who is trying to manage the situation both up and down the chain of command. Above her is Lieutenant General Frank Benson, played by Alan Rickman in his last role. Barkhad Abdi, the bad captain in Captain Phillips, plays a good guy here and Breaking Bad’s Jesse Pinkman – Aaron Paul – is the drone pilot. I recommend Eye in the Sky to anybody who is interested in what is happening right now, all over the world.

 

Things the government does great

Uncategorized

Rest stopsI refer to myself as a Liberal Libertarian even though I know that it often gives people the wrong impression (or, maybe although I hope not, because it gives people the wrong impression). The operative word is Liberal, mostly because Libertarian has been roont by the Conservatives. Yes, I think we have way too many laws, some that are put there by well-meaning people and many more that  are put there, not for the general good, but to protect special interests, still, government does lots of great things and almost all of these great things wouldn’t be without government.

Because I am Bernie guy, I write about stuff that doesn’t work vs. stuff that does work in a different relationship than I actually feel. Most stuff does work so, instead of only writing about problems, I want to write about stuff that does work.

Over the last couple of years, California has replaced or rebuilt all of the roadside rest areas and they are terrific. I think that there are a couple on I5 that are the same but most rest area are one of a kind and site specific. The one above is on Highway 46, about half way between 101 and I5. It is knockout. Rest stops-3 Rest stops-4

Deconstructing a joke

Politics

JokeWill Taylor posted this a couple of days ago with a comment that said A little simplistic, but pretty much spot on!! Both Michele and I laughed out loud when we first saw it. But we both had some improvements. Who should I vote for bothered me, shouldn’t it be whom because it is the object of for? We tried Whom should I vote for and that didn’t sound right, then For whom should I vote? and we knew we were going in the wrong direction. We ended up both agreeing that the top line should remain unchanged.

Michele wanted to change Are women people? to something dealing with abortion but we both agreed Are women people? covers that and is funnier, so it stayed. And so it went, every line we thought about changing didn’t work as well as the original. In the end, we decided that the joke was best just as it is; no question mark in the title question, Kasich’s name running off the page, the whole thing shot at a slight angle with the binding showing, it is all perfect.

(BTW, the picture has my © on it because I ran it through my Lightroom, but, although I wish it were, this is not my chart.)

 

The trouble with Trump

Americana, Politics

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 We shouldn’t have ever gone into Iraq and we shouldn’t there now. It’s just a mess. We’ve spent hundreds of millions that could have been used on infrastructure and schools. Donald Trump on the Iraq war

I have written alot on defending people who are Trump supporters and, by inference, defending Trump. I don’t have too much of a problem with most of what Trump says he will do when if he is elected President, but I do have a big problem with his character and his judgement. Most of the positions he is criticized for are really no worse than, say, Jeb! and he is way better than Cruz – who now seems to be the Republican Establishment candidate of choice – on almost everything (I know, I know, those are pretty low bars). Yes, he is way, way, overboard on immigration but immigration is a real problem that nobody on the Republican side seems to be willing to address in any meaningful and feasible way and the alleged moderate, John Kasich, is just about as bad telling the Feds he doesn’t want any Syrians in his state.

The problem with Trump isn’t his positions or lack of detailed plans, it is his tolerance, even promotion, of violence as a legitimate response to something he doesn’t like. It is his intolerance of dissent. Years ago, I took a backpacking medicine course, and the most important thing I remember was “When something happens, spread calm.” Trump is the opposite, he promotes upset. He promotes thuggery and discord. At his rallies, when trouble arises, he escalates the situation. When a fifteen year girl gets pepper sprayed, or a guy being escorted out of a rally gets coldcocked, he celebrates it. When he doesn’t like what a person does, he belittles them. It is effective as a campaign tactic but I suspect it would be much less effective when trying to build alliances.

Trump is a businessman, how good, I don’t really know although I am pretty sure he is better than average. However, being successful at business does not translate into being successful at governing. Warren Harding and Herbert Hoover were both very successful in business but were unsuccessful as Presidents. Harry Truman, who is on everybody’s short list of successful Presidents, went into politics because he went bankrupt in business. As a businessman, when a deal goes sour or becomes too difficult, Trump could walk away or declare bankruptcy, that is not an option when running the country and certainly promoting violence isn’t.

Driving down the fault thinking about stupid

Around home, Politics, Uncategorized

StupidRunning down the San Andreas Fault, driving past Tres Pinos, through the Bitterwater Valley, on Highway 25, passing small ranches, most of them very poor, I remembered a facebook conversation in which I was peripherally involved. This is Red California, politically closer to rural Oregon or Texas than nearby Silicon Valley or San Francisco, and many of the locals are probably voting for Trump and one of the facebook writers said that anybody who voted for Trump was stupid. The problem is that dismissing Trump voters as stupid is counterproductive, it doesn’t build understanding, it makes them the other, not even worth understanding. The writer is really saying, “I don’t understand so they must be stupid”. When Curious Cindie says, “I wonder why people would want to vote for Trump.”, and Liberal Larry answers “Because they are stupid.”, nobody learns anything. I expect that from Conservatives, but when Liberals do it, I am bothered because I want to maintain the fiction that all Liberals are curious creatures and open to new input, new ideas, I want to believe that being willing to explore other points of view is the essence of Liberalism.

But, and this really should be the lead, even if they are stupid, that is not why they are voting for Trump. These voters are voting for Trump because their American dream has vaporized. They have been betrayed by the Republicans – and by the Democrats which is why many of the Trump voters are ex-Democrats,  but that is another story – who have told them that the various Trade Agreements would bring prosperity, who have told them that rich people getting richer will make them more prosperous when the money trickles down, who have told them they will stop the immigration of cheap competitive labor, who have told them “Vote for us and we will solve your problems”. They have been told that everybody has the same chance to to become successful – if only the Democrats would get out of the way – but as I pass the small Bitterwater-Tully Elementary School, it is obvious that is not true. If anything, these Trump voters would be stupid if they still believed the Establishment line.

Rubbing salt in the wound, the Liberal Elite, and I am part of that elite, dismiss them as White Trash. Of course they are stupid, White Trash are stupid almost by definition, and that their poverty, unlike Black voters, is obviously their own fault. They are dismissed and marginalized, clinging to their guns and religion to quote Obama who I think said it in an understanding way. These are the people who the system has most failed. Blue collar labor and small businesses used to be a way into the middle class, now it is increasingly a dead-end. When Romney, with his air of superiority, says they should vote for Jeb! or Rubio, he is assuming that the Trump voters have goals that are in alliance with the Establishment goals and that those voters will change their vote once they realize that Trump is not promoting those goals. When even more voters are driven to Trump, the Establishment is shocked. “What is wrong with those people?” they ask, when the real question is “What is wrong with us, that we lost their vote that used to be so reliable.” San Andreas

Driving by a small, abandoned, oil drilling operation, I thought how emblematic it was of one of the reasons people are pissed at the government and their party Establishments. In 1916, the government passed a bill that allowed oil companies to write off dry holes and other costs, in an effort to protect small drillers that were taking big risks. That has now morphed into tax breaks for yuge oil companies, $700 million per year for Chevron, for example, while small companies have been virtually wiped out. This has happened because big oil companies make big political contributions: Chevron contributed $2,122,682 to Congressional campaigns in 2014 to continue with the Chevron example and spent $8,280,000 on lobbying. Trump says that he is self funding – which is not entirely accurate but still very powerful – and will not be influenced by political contributions and lobbying. That is very appealing to his supporters (it is very apealling to me as a Bernie supporter). 

Driving along, I realized I was in the same mental loop I have been in so many times before. It is inconceivable that Trump will get the nomination, he is crass, impulsive, and every party elite is against him and it is inconceivable that he won’t get it, every attack only makes him stronger, and he is a master at campaigning in this new, chaotic, internet-centric world. Hang on, it is going to be a bumpy ride.