Gift Hub

Spitzer and the Security State

Atomized Junior on Eliot Spitzer and what his fall portends:

What elites have to fear is other elites. Elites are insulated from ordinary rules and trouble. They do not fall unless enemies they have manufactured among the powerful tip them to the mob. All this is no more than tempest in a teapot. A theatre in which celebrity is the usual echo or shadow.

A observation (via Laura Rozen's War and Piece) made by Jack M. Balkin in the web log he maintains, The Spitzer Case and the National Surveillance State - Balkinization, that the newly created rules for financial transaction observations under the Patriot act were leveraged against Eliot Spitzer. This as he argues point out the potential danger of such surveillance being continually refined, extended in scope and narrowed in focus until it can be used to target anyone and anything. Protected from observation of its decision process, out of reach of any meaningful oversight, by its National Security status. The only outcome of the confluence of such degrees of power and secrecy is immediate even instantaneous malfeasance corruption and criminality. You damage more than you protect.

The defensive and entranced nature of the security state into which the United States is descending looks towards a coming class of supremely empowered elites who will place themselves with deliberate care at the head of technological and particularly informational apexes, out of which they will declare a protected property. We glide smoothly towards a gilded era of mass society police state.

Managing an Education

Via personal communication from Tom at Improprieties comes this link to an interesting post at How The University Works, on how schools, including colleges and universities, are now being measured, managed and controlled MBA-style. It seems that all sectors of our economy are falling under the spell of what Bill Schambra calls "metrics mania," but at what cost to culture and things of the heart, intellect, and spirit? Meanwhile at Givewell, Elie opines on payday loans and microfinance. How do we measure the good done by philanthropic usery? And how, more generally, do we as citizens cultivate our humanity in a world so well managed by our supervisors, owners, investors, and superiors?

What Am I Bid for Diebold?

Catherine Austin Fitts:

This weekend, mega defense contractor United Technologies announced an offer for Diebold (1) (2) at a 66% premium to the current stock market price. Leading this effort is the board of directors of United Technologies. United Technologies board includes Jamie Gorelick, partner at WilmerHale, who was the former Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration who played such a significant role in promoting prison privatization and was a member of the 911 Commission.

Wikileaks Taken Down By Order of a US Court

BBC:

A controversial website that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents has been taken offline in the US.

Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says.

Here's how the homepage looks now. Background on Wikileaks at Wikipedia. Slashdot reports that Wikileaks also sustained a fire and a denial of service attack. The domain name of Wikileaks is offline, but the site has been mirrored. Fascinating to see the interaction of whistleblowers, courts, and in this case a bank for the ultra-rich allegedly supporting tax evasion and money laundering.

More from Wry Things here.

The Liberal Arts of Leadership: On the Proper Uses of Wealth and Power

What have we lost when the Leader, perhaps an aspirant Emperor, or his right hand man, has read Milton Freidman, Leo Strauss, Carl Schmidt, and Machiavelli, but not Virgil,  Lucretius, Seneca and Cicero? Metrics, hierarchy, efficiency, and results (in short, power) must at some point report to wisdom. Perhaps even Freedom like the horse beneath Marcus Aurelius must be responsive to virtue. Giving Well, Doing Good: Readings for Thoughtful Philanthropists, edited by Amy Kass could be considered ornamental, a book to display on the coffee table at Hudson, under the portraits of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Or, it could be considered the rebuke of an ancient tradition rising up, coming to consciousness. Will the satirists, Juvenal, Martial and Horace, make the cut? They did not make it into the anthology. Maybe Amy's next book will be, Ruling Well: Lessons from the Liberal Arts, the Arts of Freedom. Lessons from Aesop? Citizen! Know your place.

I hope the seeds Amy has cast will fall on fertile ground.  If we are to be ruled by the few, let them be wise.
 

Blackwater, Philanthropy and Dynastic Wealth Planning

Apparently the founder and sole owner of  Blackwater Worldwide, Eric Prince, is a generous man:

Prince serves as vice president of the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation. Salon reports that "between July 2003 and July 2006, the foundation gave at least $670,000 to the Family Research Council and $531,000 to Focus on the Family"^[15] headed by James Dobson. The foundation is also a major donor to Calvin College^[16], a conservative Christian institution in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Prince also serves as a board member of Christian Freedom International, a non-profit group with a mission of helping "Christians who are persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ."

Since 1998, Prince has personally donated over $200,000 to Republican causes.^[17][18][19]Prince is a donor, along with beverage company Bolthouse Farms through the Bolthouse foundation, to the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal group.^[20] Prince had also contributed money to the Green Party of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, though this has been interpreted as an unsuccessful attempt to help Republican candidate Rick Santorum in his race against Democratic challenger Bob Casey.^[21]

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has characterized Prince as one of George W. Bush's "political cronies."^[22] Prince has denied using family clout to obtain contracts for Blackwater.^[23]

The chair of Mitt Romney's  Counter-Terrorism Advisory Council, by the way, is Cofer Black, a former director of the CIA's counter-terrorism center,  now Vice Chairman of Blackwater.   I wonder if any of the players here could use a good Morals Tutor? Probably not, but I could certainly help them pass on their values along with their valuables or to maintain their Family Dynasties for 100 Years or more. Philanthropy helps keep a family at the top of the heap; political power is better; but a private army is the best thing, really.

Subversive Improvements

Dura lex, sed lex.

Signal Fire: A blog for the arts of social change  on "subversive improvements," i.e., illegal action for the public good. Via David Bollier. If philanthropy were ruled illegal, as an unauthorized  interference in the market, and if that decision were upheld by the Supreme Court upon appeal, then I for one will cease and desist. The law is harsh, but it is the law.

Obedience Training from the TSA

Joseph Duemer after his wife's knitting needles are confiscated by the TSA screener:

But of course the point of the regulations is not, as in the nauseating cliché, to “keep us safe.” No, the TSA regulations are intended to keep us obedient. In the most recent entry in his NY Times weblog Jet Lagged, Patrick Smith comes as close as anyone in the media to laying this fact before the public. He does not quite draw the final political conclusion — that obeying the airport screeners is intended to be practice for obeying any absurd regulation — but he gets everything else exactly right. The purpose of having to take your shoes off & go through a search of your belongings is to teach you to swallow your rage. Try this thought experiment: Imagine the whole enterprise transfered to a psychology laboratory & all the passengers turned into rats.

Imagine a train and the TSA Agent asking you and your family to enter:  "You will be safer where you are going." Hope is a virtue too. We hope this is not going to be too bad. We hope they will back off soon. We hope there will not be another crisis, followed by God knows what crackdown now being scoped out in some think tank, and kept in reserve, just in case. Well, there is nothing we can do about it. The pacification of the population is the new normal.  Better to keep our heads down and mouths shut. A person could get hurt. Or on the wrong list. Things happen. Unless you have friends in high places it can be hard to get things straightened out. We all have heard stories of friends. It is better to just do as you are told.  You know, Lucy, the biggest philanthropy buzzword of 2007? You know what is was? Silence.

Exploiting Secret Security Files on The Clintons?

In no way will Homeland Security go down the J. Edgar Hoover route of keeping files on political opponents and using them to extract concessions or political advantage. That would not be sporting:

Though Secret Service records are supposed to be closely held secrets, a source close to the Clintons told me that it is believed that senior Republicans have received regular briefings about movements of the Clintons that might prove embarrassing if released during the general election campaign.

From Robert Parry via a Tiny Revolution.

ACLU? How does one use philanthropy to undo the damage done by a secret surveillance apparatus?

Porto-Freedom-Potties: A 10 Bottom Line Social Venture

Porto-Freedom-Potties are a 10 Bottom Line Social Venture. Count 'em on your fingers: 10 ways to win!

• When citizens protesting the loss of civil liberties are ushered into the designated Ordered Liberty Free Speech Pens, they will have the option of purchasing a Porto-Freedom-Potty that straps conveniently to the left thigh. As such the Porto-Potty provides much needed consumer relief. Win #1.
• The Porto-Freedom Potty makes a big profit, since the consumers are captive. Through the miracle of the pricing mechanism, equating supply and demand, profits are huge. Win #2.
• Porto-Freedom Potties operate on a sweetheart government contract, helping privatize functions that would otherwise require taxes. Win # 3.
• Porto-Freedom-Potties exercises its own right to free speech by making large campaign contributions to the political powers that be. Free speech is good. Win #4.
• Porto-Freedom Potties employs the legislators who made the sweetheart deals when they are out of office. Big savings on unemployment insurance for small businesses, the backbone of America. Win #5.
• Porto-Freedom-Potties are made by prison labor right here in the USA. Wins #6, #7, # 8 and #9. (Forprofit prisons, job skills for inmates from disadvantaged background, more campaign contributions, enhanced support for law and order.)
• Embedded in each Porto-Potty purchase is a $5 dollar donation to American Enterprise Institute. Win # 10 is philanthropy.