Interesting NYT article on how bad customer-service can be:

To listen as Mr. Ferrari tries to cancel his membership is to join him in a wild, horrifying descent into customer-service hell. The AOL representative, self-identified as John, sounds like a native English speaker; he refuses to comply when Mr. Ferrari asks, demands and finally pleads — over and over again — to close his account.

One of the things that always irks me about conventional political wisdom is that red tape, bureaucracy and organizational ineffectiveness are the exclusive province of the State. "That's what you get from government," and the like. The truth is that large business organizations are as bad or worse, and are fundimentally less accountable.

In most cases the actual answer is to increase transparency, which is something that all bureaucrats (State, Business, Non-Profit or otherwise) resist. Gotta be done, though.

Interesting NYT article on how bad customer-service can be:

To listen as Mr. Ferrari tries to cancel his membership is to join him in a wild, horrifying descent into customer-service hell. The AOL representative, self-identified as John, sounds like a native English speaker; he refuses to comply when Mr. Ferrari asks, demands and finally pleads — over and over again — to close his account.

One of the things that always irks me about conventional political wisdom is that red tape, bureaucracy and organizational ineffectiveness are the exclusive province of the State. "That's what you get from government," and the like. The truth is that large business organizations are as bad or worse, and are fundimentally less accountable.

In most cases the actual answer is to increase transparency, which is something that all bureaucrats (State, Business, Non-Profit or otherwise) resist. Gotta be done, though.

From the New Republic via the Political Wire:

"This isn't the first time that Bloomberg has privately flirted with a 2008 bid. But what makes a Bloomberg candidacy look increasingly real is that he has also begun to think about the mechanics of running. New York p.r. eminence Howard Rubenstein recalls Bloomberg putting a price tag on his Oval Office ambition at a dinner party in April: 'I could easily put up half a billion,' the mayor had said, naming a figure over one-third higher than the Bush campaign's spending in 2004."

"Bloomberg has suggested that, if he runs, it would be on a new party line of his own creation. No cold days in Iowa, no small rooms in New Hampshire. He could afford, like Ross Perot, to set up a petition drive to secure ballot status in late 2007 after the Republican and Democratic candidates were clear... Playing to his strengths as a technocrat, he would run on competence and nonpartisan management -- the style, over the substance, of his politics."

I would add that Bloomberg is viable (or "dangerous," depending on how you look at it) also because he's very well-versed in information technology. His fortune was built on providing services we now take for granted as part of the internet to the financial sector as much as 20 years ago. His chief accomplishment as Mayor was implementing 311, a catch-all service number for the city. It's been a rousing success in an otherwise bland/middling (or, to spin it brightly, "competant") term in office.

Assuming he'd take that kind of savvy into his campaign, he'd probably have a fairly sophisticated communications strategy; at least as innovative as Perot's infomercial timeblock buys were in '92. This plus a huge potential war chest would make him viable enough to steer the national debate.

My guess is he probably won't, but somebody might. Assuming neither party produces a nominee who breaks with the status quo, the opportunity will be there to make a splash. Lots of people pretty generally upset with things, looking for alternatives...

No One Is Exempt:

Early reports indicate that soldiers may have raped a woman, burned her body and killed the woman's family in a "crime of opportunity,", the news agency reported, citing an unnamed American official. The A.P. recently had a reporter embedded with the 502nd Infantry Regiment.

Earlier this month, two soldiers from the same unit were abducted while guarding a traffic control point in the town of Yusufiya, and were killed by insurgents. Their mutilated bodies were found along a booby-trapped road, after the American military deployed 8,000 American and Iraqi troops into the area in a search-and-rescue operation that was perhaps the largest of the war so far. A third soldier was killed in Yusufiya at the time of the ambush.

Though it appears the killing of the Iraqi family was unrelated to the Yusifya ambush, the March incident came to light when a soldier felt compelled to report it after the discovery of the bodies of his kidnapped comrades, the Associated Press reported. One soldier has been arrested, and four have had their weapons taken away and are confined to their base in Mahmudiya.

The most dangerous part of that whole "greeted as liberators" schtick and the puffing up of American Exceptionalism during the run up to the invasion is that it obscured the central fucking fact: that war is hell, and no party in the fray can remain above it.

This is why you don't want to have wars of choice.

Billmon:

I mean, the idea that Kos could use his influence, such as it is, to intimidate Left Blogostan into a quivering reign of fear is simply laughable -- a paranoid fantasy that wandered away from Free Republic.com and was adopted by some silly little Ivy League boys who've decided they like how Karl Rove plays the game and want to get in on the fun.

It gets even better. I love me some Billmon.

I've been watching this little wannabe scandal with some amusement. I'm sure it's not fun for Kos and Jerome (and Steve Gillard, who had fake emails printed in his name), and I know it sucks for Matt who had to shut down his email list as a result of all this, but I can't get it up to care.

In fact, I don't think anyone outside the political media establishment cares about this; so I say fuck 'em. I know there are a lot of people trying to play/change that game, and I respect the hell out of that, but really... The future's out here where the people live. At some point you've got to be able to write off those half-bright power-geeks. Keep building your organization (which is made out of people, not pages in The New Republic) and good things will continue to happen.

One big reason Republicans win? They cheat:

"In late 1999, the Choctaw paid ATR $325,000. In a 2005 interview with The Boston Globe, Norquist said that ATR had sent $300,000 of that $325,000 to Citizens Against Legalized Lottery (CALL). Norquist explained that he sent the money to CALL because the Tribe wanted to block gambling competition in Alabama. Out of the Choctaw’s $325,000, ATR apparently kept $25,000 for its services. According to Rogers, Norquist demanded that he receive a management fee for letting ATR be used as a conduit."

That's from the the McCain Report, an investigation into Jack Abramoff's thoroughly crooked dealings with Native American gambling interests. The two parties mentioned here are GOP superconnector Grover Norquist, and Christian Conservative wunderkid Ralph Reed. The exposure of all the various fixes will likely cause many heads to roll.

And seriously, check out the brass fucking balls on Grover, demanding a cut of that money he was laundering for good old Ralph! Seems like on their end of the movement everyone gets a slice.

It's interesting that this report comes from Republican John McCain, but it makes sense. McCain doesn't have much to loose by burning down Ralph Reed and Grover Norquest. There's no real public political cost to exposing other people's corruption.

Still, some might ask, isn't it a faux pas for a 2008 presumtive presidential nominee to backstab two starting players on the movement all-star team? Probably, but in this case it's smart politics. Reed and Norquist would almost certainly support some other nominee than McCain in the upcoming primary season. He's taking out the competition

Also, revenge is sweet:

In 2000, Reed was a consultant and senior advisor to Bush-Cheney 2000, and was widely credited with crafting Bush’s victory over Senator John McCain (R-AZ) in the intensely negative South Carolina primary

Reed was “paid to develop the no-holds-barred -- and winning -- South Carolina primary campaign strategy for Bush against Sen. John McCain, which included phone banks branding McCain as untrustworthy on abortion and for being a little too cozy with gays."

Norquist too:

[Americans for Taxpayer Reform] also funded ads during the 2000 Republican presidential primaries questioning the political agenda of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), and criticizing his push for a campaign finance reform bill. The ad claimed that McCain, who was opposing George W. Bush in the primaries, wanted to make taxpayers pay for political campaigns. The ad also stated that conservative leaders had called McCain's agenda "dangerous, reckless and dishonest.” New Hampshire's GOP chairman called the ads "a disgrace" and a "mischaracterization of John McCain's record and views."

By the way, that "no-holds-barred" primary also included push polling asking questions like, "would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" Payback's a bitch, but this is a guy who was in a POW camp for years. You think he was just going to let you get away with that shit?

McCain is one of the most electable Republicans out there, and he's probably one of the best positioned to benefit from the implosion of the GOP establishment. Interesting to see how the wave of scandal will change the inside-baseball playing field.

"Run the place like Saddam"

He's talking about Iraq, of course, but I'm sure if a bunch of punk teens were out violating curfiew here at home the attitude wouldn't be all that different.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow says, "it's a number." It's also a fuckload of lives. More than I can really comprehend.

Just scroll through the names.

All for a dead-end mission.

John Robb on Musab al-Zarqawi. He traces a career arc which I think has great strategic parallels for those of us who want to effect change through peaceful means as well:

1) Instigate something; prove it's possible
2) Innovate and inspire imitators
3) Become a Strategic Communicator (rather than Commander)

This seems like a potential means for building an insurgent political movement. That it comes from an analysis of real warfare makes me slightly uncomfortable, but it doesn't invalidate the concept.

My man Danny Goldberg quoting some DC weenie named Peter Beinart:

The central question dividing liberals today is whether they believe liberal values are as imperiled by the new totalitarianism rising from the Islamic world as they are by the American right.

Danny rips him up for making a specious argument, and you should read that too but I'm gonna take a different track. I think the choice Beinart puts forward is indeed false and loaded, but even thought it's constructed to make him look "serious" and anyone who disagrees "unhinged," I still think he gets it wrong.

I'm going to take the question seriously. Where's the greater threat to our liberal values? If you're talking about our liberal values here in the USA, then I have to take Beinart's bait and consign myself to the political wilderness: there's not a goddamn chance in fucking hell that radical Islam is a greater threat to the future health of our country and cherished liberal values than the radical far-right Republican administration which currently has total control over our national government.

Terrorists are significantly more malevolent and loathsome than Republicans, but let keep it real: radical Islamic fundamentalists have very little power, and their "totalitarianism" has almost no reach here in the US. They could (and most likely will) continue to blow things up from time to time, but you know what? We can take it. We can lose a few skyscrapers and be fucking fine as a nation.

I lived through it here in New York; we got over it, bitches. We're still going strong. It's not at all that I want this stuff to happen -- Jesus, do I really even have to say that? -- just that I think outside some symbolic framework Islamic totalitarians do not pose a significant threat to our life, liberty or pursuit of happiness.

"Serious" people like Beinart will be quick to point out that the "threat of WMD" cannot be discounted, and it's true that this theoretical threat exists. However, it seems a very remote possibility, and one which is relatively easy to counteract on a number of levels. There is no nuclear-armed terrorist group, and in spite of what Tom Clancy might have you think, it's extremely difficult for anyone, let alone margin-dwelling fundamentalists, to lay hands on nuclear arms or the expertise to make use of them. As for Islamic states, should Iran get the bomb or Musharrif go down and Pakistan's arsenal be in the hands of some band of Mullahs, I fail see why deterrence and containment would work any worse against these people than against, say, Joseph Motherfucking Stalin.

There is another potential threat which comes from the type of systems disruption that John Robb has outlined in his Global Guerrillas website/book. This is more possible in my mind than the WMD boogyman, but it still seems unlikely to me that we will really face this here in "the homeland." There are too few committed jihadis with too small a support network and too little intelligence or capability here to really make anything awful happen. We've got more to worry about from the weather, frankly.

Iraq of course is a whole different kettle of fish. The advances being made in systems disruption techniques there are going to spell trouble for the region for years to come. However, I don't believe that we have much to fear from this sort of activity being transplanted back to the US.

As for the rise of a truly "Totalitarian" threat, those who imagine some kind of unified Islamic Empire spanning from Java to Spain are also probably scared of monsters under their bed. There are too many cultural and religious divisions and too little infrastructure for this to be feasible in the 21st century, and the most effective tactic for terrorists (the aforementioned systems disruption) is not the sort of means which can be used to build and empire; it can only take one down.

That, in a nutshell, is why I don't believe that radical Islam is really much of a threat to our way of life, and why I do believe that the war on Terrorism, such as it is, is a sham. Certainly the rise of hardline Islam is having an impact around the globe, and definitely infringing on the personal liberties of people in other countries. But is this really something we can actively combat? Are we the global cops and the global ACLU? I don't think the world works that way, and I don't think using US military power (which is what we're obliquely talking about here) to project our liberal values is a winning strategy. Stopping genocide? You bet. Protecting allies? Sure. But when it comes to fostering democracy, you don't call in the fucking Marines. They kill people and blow shit up. Just ask 'em.

Another truth is that in most places where radical fundamentalism is taking hold, the existing civil society is largely a failure, and people are turning to Sharia as an alternative to chaos and uncertainty, which take their own toll on liberal values. From an intellectual standpoint, there is some threat here for other countries. Globalization is failing in many places, and fundamentalism (in various forms) is one alternative which is filling the void. Will life in Somalia be better or worse now that the Warlords are out of power? Well, if we bomb and invade it will certainly get worse, but all things being equal it seems likely to be a wash in terms of "our liberal values."

Now to the other possible threat: the far-right here at home.

Compared to terrorists, the far-right and their radical Republican government are far more humane, not bent on annihilation, etc. They are our countrymen after all. However, they wield enormous amounts of power. They're also greedy idiot prejudiced fatbacks... to quote from this Murakami book I'm reading: "Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe."

Call me crazy, but I feel my future is imperiled much more by this powerful political movement and radical leadership which is actively running down the country though their stated intentions, uncontrollable avarice, and undeniable incompetence than I do a small number of religious fanatics with AKs, fertilizer and box-cutters. For what it's worth, I also think we'll whup 'em all in time, and I'm not actually afraid of any of this. But I do know how to weigh threats, and the modern GOP can't fall apart soon enough for my liking. The Big D will make 9/11 look like child's play.

Perhaps this makes me "unserious" in your eyes. That's fine. If you feel conversely, I think you're either a paranoid coward or a fear-monger so high on your sense of self-importance that you're unable to rationally assess reality. Or just plain old dishonest. So there.