Should the Government have Secrets?

-->

It is very naive to think that governments should have no secrets. Here is an example: You negotiate the exchange of one of several American soldiers who are prisoner in a foreign country, and of course you want them back. The foreign country says: "OK, we will give this one back to you on the condition that you never say in public that we tortured him." It is horrible and unpleasant, but what are you going to do? Publish this in the media? What about not only this prisoner, but the other ones?

It is not an unrealistic example. One time, when Franco was still dictator of Spain, the Spanish government promised not to execute a political prisoner on the condition that his lawyers did not publicize the fact that he had been tortured. The lawyers were indignant because it is a disgusting deal and they went to the Press. The prisoner was garroted. What good did that do? It is easy to defend your principles with the life of somebody else.

The best example we know of secret deals happened during the Cuban crisis in 1962. We escaped narrowly a third world war thanks to a deal between the USA and the USSR about the withdrawal of US missiles from Italy and Turkey. If you think that you could have done better, go into politics or work for the State Department: don't blow what your Government does by publishing it to have your name on Facebook. 

If you dislike what your Government does, vote for the other guy next time. Half of the country does not like what the Government does, then it is the turn of the other half to be unhappy about it. We call this democracy, we have no need for traitors.

What the USA did wrong during the Cold War was very public and accepted by everybody at the time, such as favoring fascists over democrats as foreign allies. Maybe we should protest the crimes we know before we protest the conspiracy we don't.

The greatest political mystery

No, it is not whether Sarah Palin will run, though a lot of journalists try to get us excited about it, like they tried with good ol' Trump who made them all look ridiculous, especially Anderson Cooper. Cooper said he was keeping Trump honest. And who is keeping Cooper honest, Donld Trump?
Trump got millions of dollars of free publicity out of his stunt, and it is just what he wanted: it does not matter to him what we think of him.
The greatest mystery to me is this. How come the same politicians, left and right, who appear so obnoxious, even odious on the floor,  appear to be competent, able and responsible in their respective committees?
Just spend 2 hours on C-Span and you will see that it is true. They are good people, left and right, in committees, and then they go posturing and insulting our intelligence in their general assembly.
What is going on?

The Art of the Insult

I am surprised to see our major newspapers accept comments that are not very helpful: "President Bush is an idiot", "President Obama is a fool"...I think that guys who write like this are wife beaters, always steaming. Are newspapers so afraid of losing their non-paying customers that they do not dare letting go of this mud? To me it is like Hitler showing up around the corner: there are consequences to disrepecting democracy.

I was ready to write a piece on how politics degenerates in this country, but then, when I opened my last issue of The New Scientist, I found that the editor had suppressed about one third of the comments on a paper about some obscure acceleration of a satellite.
There is page after page of: "This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed." I found the reading hilarious: how come readers with most probably a college degree dare insulting one another on a subject that nobody understands?
More wife beaters. I should not be surprised: I met racists and wife beaters in any social category.
Insult used to be more poised a few centuries ago. The Prince of Ligne used to say that Casanova would have been handsome, if he had not been so ugly.
Voltaire once removed his hat when a priest crossed his way. He was asked if he was reconciled with God. "We salute each other, he answered, but we are not on speaking terms."

What is the excuse this time?

My neighbor is born in Claxton, a very small rural community in Georgia. This is a recent picture of hers: she is 93 years old and used to make a living as a hairdresser. She comes from a baptist very religious background, still goes to a nearby church every Sunday. She is a firm Republican.
YET
1) Whatever GA was 100 years ago, there is not a hint of racism in her.
2) She says that gay people should be left in peace because it is not their fault and it is nobody's business anyway.
3) She feels that you got to respect your country and your government, even if you disagree with the president.

And I wonder from under which rock crawled these guys who say that President Obama is Satan, that we should not teach in school the real age of the earth and that it is "dangerous" to announce that we want to treat other countries with respect!

Incompetence in democracy

I was puzzled today too: a certain amount of incompetence goes with our electoral system. I asked myself the same question as yesterday about flaming incompetence. I have been following Secretary Geithner on C-Span while he goes from committee to subcommittees in congress. Of course, he has adversaries, of course some representatives or senators are intent on reading their questions and do not listen to his answers, but frankly, there is a significant number of them who visibly do not understand the answers at all. You can see that at the way they try to repeat their question as if Geithner or Bernanke were deaf.
You do not have to know much about government and specially finance to be elected to Washington: it is the idea. It is a very healthy system: I do not want to be governed by an elite of scientists, bankers and philosophers (specially not Aristotle). First, there are just as many racists within Nobel prizes than the rest of us; then there is no more morality: look at the arrest this month of a college professor who planned to rape a five years old girl (he is 62 years old). Third. a lot of the people we elect are extremely competent: they may look stupid in general assembly, but they certainly impress me in most committees.
Except for finance matters. The economy is confusing because it is largely a matter of ideology and because it has its own vocabulary (like normal for a statistician is not normal for a normal person). We all learned quickly what is a toxic asset and a subprime mortgage, but it is more difficult to get through a sentence like this: "The SEC should share the reports that it receives from the funds with the systemic risk regulator, which would then determine whether any hedge funds could pose a systemic threat and should be subjected to the prudential standards outlined above." We get the idea, sort of...who is which?
All I can think of is to tell Mr Geithner and Mr Bernanke: could you please try to have your reports translated in common English without looking paternalistic? It would help you.