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Heard Nina Totenberg’s piece on Dick Cheney. She is such a masterful narrator that from her piece out comes the relief of a character central to one of the messiest and most divisive period in the U.S. history.

I hate Dick Cheney. He is at a very different level than other politicians I found disagreeable, such as GWB, Gingerich, even Lieberman or Helms. Those characters may be colorful but none is as subversive or conniving as Cheney. He is determined to use his knowledge of the rules and laws of a Republic to turn it into an Empire. If Jefferson were alive today, he surely would say: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of people like Dick Cheney. ”

Rantings aside, I am still not clear on how some of the transgressions instigated by Cheney passed all the institutional checks, most notably, the Congress? Some things may be more complicated than I thought. The other day, I saw Charlie Rose interviewed Michael McConnell, who argued that wiretapping foreigners on American soil is not materially different from bugging by CIA (in foreign land only by law), which is always legal. It strikes me as a reasonable argument. Is this all? If so, how come it is reflected so poorly in the media? Or why would media define it as a wholesale invasion of privacy? Or why that characterization sticked?

Anyway, I am getting the Angler book to find out more.

Denis is kind enough to engage me on an earlier post. It took me days to write replies. Nevertheless, I am pretty happy I was able to wrap my arm around this issue.

I don’t have too many things I can call “labor of love”. This is certainly one of those. After writing the last one, I am so exhausted that I didn’t want to think about it any more.

Anyway, here it is:
Denis

After reading your last email and my previous one, I realized that I did not make myself clear why I brought up those country cases. What I wanted to say is that people are too accustomed to a stylized way to look at things (oppressors vs. liberators, right vs. wrong, etc.), but may have missed some of the obvious questions which, in fact, outline the dynamics of power politics in a way that scientists use to demonstrate invisible forces.

I recognize that I probably went out of my league when I tried to cover too many cases, e.g. Northern Ireland. What is more, although I had a common theme behind all those questions, I did not spell out the theme for you (as I mentioned earlier). Hence, the cases may have appeared as irrelevant or unrelated to each other.

But they are not. The common theme behind all those questions is that what is unfair may not be unjust. What is fair may not be righteous (e.g. European anger). It is a mistake to consider fairness or
righteousness in a vacuum. Once you factor in power relations the real picture is a lot different from a superficial, stylized impression.

To put it more bluntly, I do not believe there is a universal, INVIOLABLE code of conduct. If I am not mistaken, this thinking is what really abhorred you and led you to comment that “I transposed your logic to other contexts in an effort to reveal how frightening your thinking is if you follow it through”.

In fact, I am aware of the heaviness of my logic. I call myself a cynic not because I use it as a “hedge” to defuse the disappointment I feel when real life turns out much darker then I wished for. No. I do believe in my logic. I think that is the gist of our differences. I reject the promise of a Positivist world view. If such a view may be thought of as the legacy of a Continental tradition that began with Comte or Kant, I belong to a different camp—that of the Anglo-American Empiricist/Pragmatist school. I assumed that you are a liberal particularly because I detected the idealist element in your reasoning.

I should really take a pause here for we are now talking more about beliefs than reason. If I offended you by labeling you, I do apologize in advance. But you must believe me when I say I don’t mean “idealism” in a mocking way. When I use the word, I don’t use it in the vernacular sense (i.e. hot-headed hippy). Rather, it is the foundation of an alternative world view.

This being said, I just can’t find myself subscribe to this world view—it is not valid, nor is it operation-able. Not valid in the sense that it is not backed up by real world events. Not operation-able in
the sense that such a world view cannot be translated into substantial, course-altering action.

Let’s begin with the first point. In almost every case we discussed, there is a significant and enduring (if not permanent) gap between what it should/ought to be and what actually happened. This is the
same thing as the fairness-justice difference I mused about earlier. It is one thing if the discrepancies (between an envisioned world and the real one) appear occasionally and randomly. It is another if they
happen all the time. In other words, when the world always turns out dramatically different from what you think it should be, what should you think—”what is wrong with the world” or “what is wrong with my belief”? For example, after the British abolished slavery, some enlightened English wondered aloud why the Americans didn’t follow their example. After the Americans finally assimilated the Indians, they are now offended when Chinese started to compare the Tibetan issue to the Natives. The arguments were similar—we made the mistake, we know we were wrong. But you shouldn’t repeat our mistakes! You see, it is as if there is a Platonic world out there. However, again, when reality repeatedly violates the Ideal, should you still believe in the sanctity of the Ideal?

On the second point, that the idealist belief is not operation-able, I want to stress that I mean “course-altering” operations. In the case where the Taliban decided to blow up Buddhist statues, there was no lack of consensus on “right” or “wrong”. Yet was that consensus alone sufficient to alter the course of history? Then there is an even more extreme example in the cannibalistic Idi Amin, who, despite being nearly universally condemned, died in the hands of time not man. I raise those examples not to upset your senses or to distract from our discussion. Instead, what I am trying to say here is that the moral outrage (or the appeal of the righteousness) **alone** is rather powerless.

Not that I don’t believe one should hold any sort of standard. In fact, I can’t bring myself to say that “humanity” is an empty word. At the same time, however, I realize that such a standard (same as what you mean by “value system”) works only on those who also believe in such a standard and in a relatively limited sphere (geographical as well as cultural) that is also aligned with raw power (not in the sense of delivering physical violence, but the ability to change course of history). Actually, the raw power needs the standard as much as the other way around. Because people inherently seek transcendental meanings in their daily labor, the significance of symbol, ritual and language are often just as powerful. In short, they are symmetrically important and mutually enhancing (think of Weber’s Protestant ethics thesis and Said’s Orientalism. But there is a lot more to that per
sociologists like Dirkheim, Bourdieu and Geertz).

It is because this realization or, more precisely, because I am more sensitive to this power-discourse relationship than to the universality of human rights, that I claimed supporting Tibetan independence is the same as challenging China. When I said “every … is a racist”, I was following Said’s statement which, if I dare to speculate, is modeled after Nietzsche’s claim “God is dead”—it is not about whether God is really dead or not, but a cry to shock the ready (but still wandering) minds into attention.

I also take exception with your characterization of my argument on Tibet: I said the Chinese government is violently suppressive only when it comes to Dalai Lama. I am also disappointed that you, as a Tibetan specialist, didn’t give the Chinese government more credit for its respect of Tibetan culture.

To the first point, I would say that, first, I have read Dalai’s autobiography in Chinese. He is no Desmond Tutu or Nelson Mandela. His view of the world is not lack of ethnic discrimination. Secondly,
because Dalai is the head of a political party that openly advocates Tibetan independence, I consider the tension between Dalai and Beijing not a religious-secular confrontation as widely portrayed in the
Western news media, but a secular power struggle. It is not as if Dalai and Beijing disagree on what is the proper way to prostrate, it is who to prostrate to. I am not saying all power struggles are
equally dirty. But if the world recognizes Beijing’s sovereignty over Tibet, it is Beijing’s prerogative to consolidate political power across the land. If the debate comes down to that the Tibetans choose
theocracy but the Chinese government decide to untie politics and religion by marginalizing Dalai Lama, the West is really in no place to comment on that.

To the second point, I would say Beijing has done what is reasonable for Tibet. You should know that central transfer to Tibet far exceeds resource extraction from Tibet, at least since the 2000s. The notion that China proper is pillaging a resource-rich Tibet is just a slander. I have come across Barry Sautman’s several articles on Beijing’s dealings in Tibet. I don’t know what you think of him, but
he told me things I wasn’t aware before. As a Chinese native now living in the States, I do read China’s defense on its Tibet policy. What Sautman did was to collaborate some of the assertions made by the Chinese government and regular citizens.

If you are a Tibetan specialist, I don’t need to tell you how complicated Sino-Tibetan history has been. The mistrusts, hostilities and conflicts have been there for centuries and, more importantly,
gone both ways. Therefore, today’s ethnic tension and political struggle in Tibet is not unprecedented. It is not like China suddenly decide to invade an innocent Shangri-La where people eat nothing but
organic and practice nothing but yoga. Of course, I don’t believe the other nonsense that Tibetans were slaves to the Lamas prior to 1950. Even if it were true, Han Chinese really have no business to pass judgment, particularly when many contemporary Han Chinese lived no better.

What really happens in Tibet today must be somewhere in between. We don’t know the truth not because we don’t have access to the facts (even the Chinese news lockout cannot prevent cell phone pictures being leaked out on the Internet), but because our perception has been heavily colored by what we like to believe. You keep saying that you are not ardently pro-Tibet. But this is so relative that, as the recipient of this assurance, I still have no idea how far apart we are.

I was infuriated by some of the obvious media lies on Tibet during the height of the tension. You probably have heard (and I saw them myself) that Washington Post used pictures of Nepal police beating up Tibetan protestors as proof of Chinese brutality. CNN cropped a picture where
Tibetan protestors were the aggressors attacking a military truck to tell a complete different story. Many Chinese charged that the Western media conspired to make China look bad. I think that is too simplistic a reading of human nature and the media. Instead, the facts are doctored to tell a more believable story, to construct a more cohesive narrative. In other words, the interaction between the media and the Western public is not as much a “let me tell you”, but “I told you”. Compare the Tibetan story to that of Georgia—the media report on the conflict in that confusingly-named part of the world, at least initially, was a lot more tentative.

Without an opinionated media, the public would be at a loss of how to interpret events happened outside their sphere of senses. But equally true is that, without a readily receptive public, the media would not bother to invest in the effort to tell the story. This is another reason I do not think it is relevant to focus on who is or is not a racist.

I understand your criticism largely lay in my statement’s broad inclusion. I regret if it offended you. After this long contorted effort to explain myself, I hope you can see better where I came from,
or why I chose not to qualify my statement.

It has been exhaustive writing down my thoughts. But I find the experience very rewarding. For that, I want thank you for your participation in this dialogue, for your thoughtfulness and encouragement. I truly feel endebted.

There were two explosions on buses in Kun Ming (??). The news hit NYT first but apparently has been on the news allover China.

Two thoughts go in parallel:

What the hell is going on in China? Is the explosion of riots in periphery harbinger of greater turmoil to come? As Ming Pao (??) suggests,

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????10 ???????2????55???????????????????????????????????????????????????

What is striking is that almost all of those riots happened at political/geographical periphery, with similar grievances and comparable destructive energy. But on the other end, at the center, all is too rosy: Taiwan seems never closer to returning than ever, the Olympics seems destined to be one of the most elaborate shows in Chinese history.

Is this a pattern–a bloating and self-delusional center with a deteriorating periphery–that has been repeated before? This is not a rhetorical question, but a genuine one. In the translation I did for Lavely and R. Bin Wong, they talked about how the Tai Ping Tian Guo was the result of collapsing local administrative capacities. But I wondered what the royal court looked like then? Was it also full of pump and circumstances?

The other thought:

What the hell is going on with Chinese media? Is there a quiet “????“ going on? Listen to this:

20???6?20???????????????????????????????????“??????????”?????“??????????????????”??????

???????????“???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????”

????“3·14?????”???????????????“??”???????????????

“6·28”???????????????????????????
?????????????1??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

And this article is from a magazine (????) that is the “trade journal” of the official media and is, I believe, under direct central control. Read closely, the logic is contorted–it is a stretch to suggest “??????????????????????????“. What is “obvious” to me is that this article is trying to construct a narrative and set a tone.

Is this a sign that some insiders are anxiously but cautiously trying to keep alive the opening after ??? I can’t help but wonder at what level this article is sanctioned? The fact that there was poor/old way of reporting of the 3.14 Tibetan riots suggests the old guards are still out there. Do they not smell out the wickedness in this article? Who in the Central Committee are they going to resort to? How are they going to fight back? Will this fight stay inside the party or spill out to the commercial media as well? Are there going to be a widespread rectification campaign after the Olympics–or even earlier?

I have been following what’s happening in ?? for several days. It is fascinating for the following reasons:
1. What makes a story explosive?
2. How efficient and effective the Net police is
3. The common damage control technique by the Chinese government

The most comprehensive and the closest to the event can be found here: http://xinwenshe.blogspot.com/ (see postings around 6.28.2008 and several days later, including a video posting)

To be explosive, a story has to have an innocent victim, an evil perpetrator, and an open ending. In this case, the victims are innocent or at least powerless: the rape-murder victim, her uncle and mother. The perpetrators are the police and street thugs. And an open ending is clearly an invitation for action.

The Net police is VERY efficient: two days later, there is scant trace left on the Chinese Net. In fact, when I used Baidu.com, it has suggested several keywords, such as: ????, ????, ??????, ????6.28??, ?????, etc. Many of the posting titles are listed there. However, after 14 random clicks on those with negative titles, only three are left. One (http://www.dongkou.com/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=11486) had the original posting deleted but nasty comments remained. Isn’t this interesting?

The damage control seems to be:
1. Physical isolation: the roads cut off, news media shut out and a surge of police force
2. Synchronizing message on the cause: it is a few bad guys (??????) with a large “confused” mob (???????)
3. Stick to the message: today, only one message left, such as: http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2008-07/01/content_8468856.htm

So far, I believe the government has succeeded in putting a lid on the event.

NYT just identified the prostitute Spitzer hired that night. It turns out she was from a broken family, abused drugs, went homeless at times, and moved to NYC hoping to launch a singing career. She is pretty but neither exotic nor classic. Her hands stand out as anti-climatic. Her boss sent her out for $1000 an hour but she couldn’t pay for the rent on her own.

That is all I know about her. But what struck me the most was her own words. Before going to see Spitzer, she was alerted that he might want to do something “unsafe”. Her reply was nonchalant yet embued with I-am-in-control kind of confidence, “Listen dude, you really want the sex?” Today, however, when interviewed by NYT report at the court house, she said only, “I don’t want to be remembered as a monster”.

I don’t know whether I am in a position to feel sorry for her. Nor do I know whether that is what she is looking for. She is only 22 and still calls home when she is in trouble. But her story made me feel like living in a Kafka-nesque world.

Why does NYT has to parade her in front of the public? Because she ruined so much promise for NYT and what it stands for? What recourse does she have to defend herself or even “opt out of the game”? She begs not to be remembered as a monster, but how she’s perceived is already out of her control.

I thought about posting comments on NYT online or even write to their editors. But then again, how different am I from “Kristen” in front of the machine that has no face, no name yet is omnipresent? If NYT doesn’t pick her out, someone else might. All in the name of public’s right to know but actually is out of the public’s desire to know. I feel a chill to the bone.

Tonight’s SNL started with a skit that poked fun at media’s adoration of Obama. It was really fun.

The media’s adoration for Obama is almost naked. Yet everyone in the business carries on as if nothing is wrong. There has been so much talk about media giving the Bush administration a pass prior to the Iraqi War. But by my count, that wasn’t as bad as what I see today. This behavior not only tarnishes the profession, but also does disservice to the candidates and the public.

Therefore, it is great to watch the skit where the media was made fun of. This skit also reminded me of an article I read in New Yorker many years ago, “Standup Guys“.

Before, I thought political comedy as an inherently liberal expression. But that article really changed my mind. Political humor is not about liberalism versus conservatism. It is about the powerless versus the powerful. In other words, political humor lives to expose the poseur of the powerful, particularly the elaborate symbols and rituals created by those in power. To put it simply, it is the little boy that is destined to cry “but the Emporer has no cloth!”

In a liberal society as the U.S., the powerful doesn’t have to be the authorities. It could be the masses (a la de Tocqueville). Unfortunately, even as the message conveyed in a joke is actually true, it is only effective when packaged in humor.

Is this a case of tyranny of lie or impotence of truth?

I am always fascinated by the process how the image of a public figure is shaped up in people’s minds.

It seems like there is this “caricaturization” process: a caricature is apparently an distortion of a character’s real appearance. Yet such a distortion is so sticky, once it enters in one’s mind, it is almost impossible to get rid of.

Is there a similar effect/process in media’s portray of a public figure? Given that most audiences may have never met/interacted with a public figure, how can such an effect/process generate traction in people’s minds? In other words, there has to be a balance between “what people are willing to hear/believe” and “whether the figure is actually more eccentric in certain ways”. But then to what degree can one (i.e. media actors) blur and distort each of the two in the process of creating a public persona?

The following triggered the above thought:
Source: “Anti-Obama Film On the Way”
“Obama is a completely clean slate,” said David Bossie, president of the group. “We will develop the image that we want the people to see. We’re doing the hard work of the research right now. The American people don’t know much about Obama, except that they like his speaking style.”

Just read an article (”Markets Crisis tests Resolve of Fed, Officials”) on yesterday’s WSJ by Greg Ip, Deborah Solomon and David Wessel on recent market volatility.

I remember Karma recommended Ip during our econ class and I have been following him closely ever since. I really enjoyed reading this article: well balanced view on the possible causes/variables of short-term market behavior and non-sensational comments on Fed’s possible moves. Together with a side article “How Does the Fed Inject Money into The Economy? A Primer” this is really a very informative piece of work.

Some of the points these two articles touched upon:
1. Ben Bernanke’s academic interests in the relationship between financial markets and the rest of the economy
2. The difference between a rate cut and a “repo” intervention
3. The prospect of a Sept. 18 rate cut: largely depends on whether the credit crunch will be contained before then
4. The comparison between now and 1998 (after Russia defaulted). The spread between Treasury securities with different (perceived) liquidity as an indicator of risk.
5. The Fed encourages dealers using MBS as repo collaterals in order to save Treasury
6. The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets: their high level of alertness vs. the publicly nonchalant officials
7. For Douglas McArthur, it is “duty, honor, country”. For mandarins in the Fed, it is “growth, inflation and financial stability”.

On a related but separate note: Dow tumbled again today (8/15), down below 13,000. It is just so interesting to see WSJ reports are full of hints of an expected rate cut: “Many market watchers now believe a Fed cut will come later this year, and some – mostly those most closely tied to equities – think there will be an “emergency” cut before the Fed’s September meeting. ” or “Inflation is not the beast”. But NYT is equally adamant about NOT cutting rates: “Though the latest economic readings indicate that growth is steady, they also make a rate cut by the Federal Reserve less likely. ”

Remember Ip in his article mentioned something called “Greenspan put“, referring to Greenspan’s willingness to cover losses from risky investments. Apparently, NYT bought a different type of option.

Why people are addicted to junk news?

On the one hand, it becomes obvious that, if left to free market, the main stream media will sink even lower than it is today. On the other hand, the guarding angels of serious news are somehow incapable of building a profitable business.

This news story prompted this observation, “Brzezinski Makes Noise With Paris Stand“. Basically, a TV personnel, sickened by the dominance of the Paris Hilton story, decided to thred the newscript on the spot. Of course, she became an instant hero among her peers. Yet at the same time, the one show that devoted everything to the Hilton story–including paying her for the story, the Larry King Show, enjoyed trippling audience.

Another related story is the one Ken Auletta wrote on New Yorker, “Promises, Promises”. As persuasive as ever, Auletta made the case that Murdoch cannot be trusted: he will bring the Journal down, down and down.

Yet why the suddenly beloved Journal is in such a predicament? How come NYT or Washington Post has not bought this obvious “low-hanging fruit”? On the other hand, if one really cares about WSJ, the opportunity RM brings to the table is just too tempting to walk away from.

So what is wrong? Is there a model, with only a few exogenous variables, can explain why most people are inherently attracted to vulgarity AND the high-minded are inherently inept in turning knowledge into profit? I am dying to find out …

On today’s NYT web page, there was this striking picture where hundreds of immigrants in the rain waiting to be swore in as citizens. The geometrical pattern of uniformed figures instantly reminded me of Sebastião Salgado’s photo of laborers in Brazilian mines.

I don’t think I can “explain” what I see as common between the two photos–not just visual patterns but the contextual reading, for example. Nevertheless, I have always admired Salgado’s works. If I can afford it, I would devote a wall for his original prints.

Here is a good link of some of his works.