A telling poll about the "Occupy Wall St. Movement"

I wrote previously about the ridiculous demands posted by the "Occupy the Wall St." protesters, as well as about the incoherence of the "Tent City" protests. Here is some statistics about the former. The main lesson is: although facebook and twitter have made it easier to bring a large number of people together for a protest, they do not substitute for intellegence and the serious political ideas, withiout which any protest is doomed to failure.

About Gilad Shalit

There is general rejoicing in Israel due to a deal to free Gilad Shalit, who have been held captive for more than five by a Hamas-affiliated organizatuion in Gaza. This, however, is a kind of situation when one gets a strange feeling from the fact that some obvious questions are persistently evaded by the news sources, the commentators, and the public:

1. Isn't it a bit early to rejoice before the deal has gone through?

2. Does the government have any information about Shalit's physical condition? The report says that he has been moved to Cairo, but I shiver from the thought that his family and everyone else are assuming that he is alive and well without rally knowing it...

3. I would like to point out something that is commonly overlooked in the debate about exchanging Palestinian held in Israeli jails for kidnapped soldiers. It is commongly stated that such exchanges are motivated by moral and emotional arguments, whereas "logically" Israel endangers its own citizens by releasing the accomplished terrorists, and showing that blackmail works. This "logic" misses the important point: the ability fo Israel to defend itself is determined not only by the number of the enemy fighters, but also, more importantly, by the Israeli soldiers's willingness to fight for their country. Giving the soldiers credible promise that the country will to its utmost effort to protect them is the only way to convince them that this country is worth fighting for.

Will Obama attack Iran?

A few thoughts about the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in the United States:

1. The Iranian activity calls for many paralles with the Iranian hostage crisis that led to the fall of the Carter presiency. The similarity of the Obama's and Carter's foreign policies might be the explanation forthe Iranian intrasurgence.

2. On the other hand, this may be continuation of the Obama's "a la George Bush" policy to boost his national security credentials, in order to improve his re-election chances. The previous steps included the assassination fo Bin Laden (the documentary about which is likely to be released a month before the presidential elections) and the recent assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki.

3. Finally, this might be a pretext for attacking Iran, which makes sense as from the pre-election point of view, as well as due to the recent reports that Iran has passed or about to pass the "point of no return" in its race to building a nuclear weapon.

The main myth about the Arab-Israeli conflict

The main myth about the Arab-Israeli conflict, propagated by politicians, media and the intellectuals alike, is that it is a conflict only between Israel and the Palestinians. Here is the most recent such claim by a distinguished Israeli writer, who argues that dividing "the Land of Israel" into two states is a moral imperative.

Unfortunately, dividing the Land of Israel solves only half of the problem: it absolves Israelis from their part of the responsibility for the Palestinian problem, but it does not solve the problem that the Palestinians face. There are Palestinians living in Jordan (under non-Palestinian monarchy), in Syria (under a non-Palestinian dictator), and in Lebanon (where they were only recently granted the rights equating them to foreign workers) - a peace accord between Israel and Palestinians will do little to address the aspirations of those Palestinians (the majority) who are not on the territories controlled by Israel. And against whom the Arab politicians will direct the anger of the Palestinian people? - take your guess.

The problem is that the Middle East in its political development is about 100 years behind the Europe, and, as long as most of it remains monarchic/totalitarian, the Palestinians will be people without a true state. Ironically, the Arab leaders deny teh Palestinian people the same right that they deny to the Jewish people - the right for self-determination in their historical homeland.
 
Sadly, Arab Spring failed to change this state of affairs (for Europe it took two world wars.) And as long as the archaic monarchic/dictatorial order persist in the Middle East, the Arab politicians interested in holding their power, as well as the Western politicians concerned about their influence in the Middle East, will perpetuate the myth that the Palestinian problem can be resolved at the expense of Israel only.

I am not as good a writer as A. B. Yehoshua, but I think my past analysis is more logical... and I don't think Arab Spring has modified it significantly:  here and here.

Demands of the "Occupy Wall St. Movement"

I pointed recently that the failure of the Arab revolutions and other popular protests (such as the "Tent city") to cause any meaningful changes is due to their neglect of the basic principles, formulated by the classical revolutionary philosophers:
" Lenin’s theory was turned on its head. The Russian leader postulated that a victorious revolution required a structured and disciplined political party, robust leadership, and a clear program."

The ridiculous demands suggested by participants of the "Occupy Wall St. Movement" demonstrate similar lack of any competent leadership or clear understanding of the problems that caused the protests and the possible ways to resolve them:
"Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy."

US congress raises taxes...

...on China. Indeed, the Senate is about to impose tariffs on the goods imported from China (i.e. a tax on Chinese produce sold in the US.)

The economists typically oppose such restrictions on the free trade, since such restrictions result in domestic consumer having to pay higher prices. The question is however complicated, with many strong arguments for protectionism, nicely summarized in Chapter 9 of Greg Mankiw's economics textbook. The argument used here is "The jobs argument", as well as "The infant industry argument", as some of the economists pointed out that "losing manufacturing meant losing our [US] edge in innovation."

The preservation of the manufacturing has been a hot topic lately, due to the apparently quick surge from the recession by the countries with a strong manufacturing base, most notably Germany.

The emphasis on manufacturing explains why the higher tariffs have bi-partisan support: while it is usually the Democrats who favor higher taxes and oppose free trade/free market, it is the Republicans who are most concerned about the manufacturing and the workers employed in the private industry.

Lessons of history

Each generation believes that it lives through the greatest economic crisis and the greatest political upheavals in the history of the mankind. The young people feel so excited about rebelling against "the system" that they think it unnecessary to learn from the past... the past, however, contains many mistakes that could be evaded, if we did not ignore it:

Arab revolutions... of 1960-70s:
"In the days well before social media and 24/7 television, Gamal Abdel Nasser, a young Egyptian army officer, captivated the imagination of millions of Arabs, prompting displays of popular exhilaration that would withstand comparison with anything witnessed today. The Baath Party took power in Syria and Iraq, promising the restoration of dignity and championing freedom and modernity; a triumphant national liberation movement marched to victory in Algeria; a socialist republic was established in South Yemen; and the odd blend that was Muammar Qaddafi came to power in Libya.

At the time, many people were moved by the illegitimacy and inefficacy of state institutions; rampant corruption and inequitable distribution of wealth; the concentration of power in the hands of parasitic elites; revulsion with subservience to former and current colonial masters; and humiliation, epitomized above all by the Palestinian catastrophe and the inability to redress it. Slogans from that era celebrated independence, Arab unity, freedom, dignity, and socialism."

Historical precedents are not the only place to learn from - one can also benefit from the theoretical analyses by the prominent past revolutionaries - something that was ignored not only by the true revolutionaries in Egypt and Tunisia, but also by the seemingly educated and politically liberated Israelis protesting in Tel Aviv in August:
" Lenin’s theory was turned on its head. The Russian leader postulated that a victorious revolution required a structured and disciplined political party, robust leadership, and a clear program."