You know all these so-called "tort reform" laws legislators are trying to pass? How 'bout our supposed representatives throw some weight behind legislation that limits doctors' incomes? Don't fuck'n let some shitbird pull down middle six figures and then try to limit their own liability for malpractice.
And try this logic on for size: the reason malpractice settlements are so large is because the market rate for pain and suffering is so hefty. The medical establishment charges that much to fix a broken arm or treat a stroke. Doctors and pharmaceutical companies can pull down a thousand dollars a month to treat chronic migraines. So one of them fucks up my back or removes my tonsils by mistake, the award should reflect the stakes.
The following is a quote from the book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch. The book covers the history, execution, and after-effects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. I don't know if it's the best book on the subject, but I can say that it's an amazingly good book and an astonishingly quick read.
The passage I'm posting here (and I'll apologize for any typographical errors—I had to transcribe the thing by hand, and I'm not the world's best typist) describes the author's conversation with Yoweri Museveni, the President of Uganda, and his take on the attitude of Western sponsor states (like the United States) toward multiparty elections and "cosmetic democracy" in undeveloped client states (like Iraq). Given the current situation in Iraq—the mounting attacks by Sunni groups and the withdrawal of Sunni political parties from the ballot—the passage is more than relevant. It borders on prescience.
Toward the end of the war in the Congo, when Kabila's victory appeared inevitable, The New York Times ran an editorial headed "Tyranny or Democracy in Zaire?" –as if those were the only two political possibilities, and whatever was not one must be the other. Museveni, like many of his contemporaries among the leaders of what might be called post-colonial Africa, sought a middle ground on which to build the foundations for a sustainable democratic order. Because he refused to allow multiparty politics in Uganda, many Western pundits were inclined to join with his Ugandan critics in withholding admiration for his successes. But he argued that until corruption was brought under control, until a middle class with strong political and economic interests developed, and until there was a coherent national public debate, political parties were bound to devolve into tribal factions or financial rackets, and to remain an affair of elites struggling for power, if not a cause of actual civil war.Museveni called his regime a "no-party democracy," based on "movement politics," and he explained that parties are "uni-ideological," whereas a movement like his National Resistance Movement or the Rwandese Patriotic Front is "multi-ideological," open to a polyphony of sensibilities and interests. "Socialists are in our movement, capitalists are in our movement, feudalists—like the kings here in Uganda—are members of our movement," he said. The movement was officially open to everyone, and "anybody who wants" could stand for election. Although Museveni, like most African leaders of his generation, was often described as a former Marxist guerilla, he was a staunch promoter of free enterprise, and he had come to favor the formation of political groupings along class lines, in order to produce "horizontal polarization," as opposed to the "vertical polarization" of tribalism or regionalism. "That's why we say, in the short run, let political competition not be based on groups, let it be based on individuals," he told me, adding, "We are not likely to have healthy groups. We are likely go have unhealthy groups. So why take the risk?"
Museveni's complaint was with what might be called cosmetic democracy, in which elections held for elections' sake at the behest of "donor governments" sustain feeble or corrupt powers in politically damaged societies. "If I have got a heart problem and I try to appear healthy, then I will just die," Museveni told me. We were speaking of the way the West, having won the Cold War and lost its simple template for distinguishing bad guys from good guys around the world, had found a new political religion in promoting multiparty elections (at least in economically dependent countries where Chinese is not widely spoken). Museveni described this policy sas "not only meddling but meddling on the basis of ignorance and, of course, some arrogance also." He said "These people seem to say that the developed parts of the world and the undeveloped parts of the world can all be managed uniformly. Politically this is their line, and I think this is really rubbish—to be charitable. It's not possible to manage radically different societies in a uniform way. Yes, there are some essentials which should be common, like universal suffrage, one person one vote, by secret ballot, a free press, separation of powers. These should be common factors, but not the exact form. The forms should be according to the situations."
December 27, 2004
Senator Patty Murray
173 Russell Senate Bldg.
Washington DC 20510
Dear Senator Murray:
In light of the recent disaster in South Asia, please consider asking for an emergency spending bill adequate for the immediate repair and restoration of basic services to that region, including but not limited to: drinking water, sewer facilities (infrastructure and treatment), hospital services, the repair of roads and telecommunications facilities, and mitigation of chemical and sewage spills resulting from the earthquake and subsequent tidal waves.
The United States has declared that the internal workings of other countries are a matter of our national security. Given that policy, and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars for a string of military interventions around the globe, it seems incumbent upon us to invest in the health and well being of the survivors of this tragedy. If the United States intends to act as the world's conscience, then let us also see to its safety.
Sincerely,
Joshua Norton
I saw this movie called The Battle of Algiers last week and there's a great scene in the film where some reporters are asking a French colonel if he used torture in the interrogation of Algerian terrorists. The colonel responds that yes, he did use torture—that using torture is the price of continuing to occupy Algeria as a colonial power and that if the people of France object to the use of torture they need to reevaluate their commitment to the continued occupation of Algeria. One of the things that's interesting about the scene is that the colonel's position is that he would gladly go home tomorrow if the French government recalled him, but that as long as they've charged him with maintaining control of Algiers, he's going to have to use torture.
Compare that to this business here.
I get the impression sometimes that, in the '50s and '60s, most Europeans and Americans honestly believed the paternalistic propaganda of the old colonial system, so their treatment of colonized territories was blatantly imperialistic and often inhumane in that way; punishment being an unfortunate necessity in pursuit of discipline. But then the whole post-WWII "four freedoms" thing really took off, and the attitude of the people changed—but the attitude of governments stayed the same. Colonialism was never about anything other than money, and the people who made money off it then make money off it now. Only now they periodically trot out a new rationale for the global empire so they can just keep doing business as usual. And instead of changing their methods they just keep working from the same playbook, and making up new lies to cover the old tactics.
Though this business of "stopping terrorism" may work out to be the ultimate heuristic bugbear, since terrorism, as a collection of methods, has always been the only viable model for a small poorly funded group to fight a large well funded army.
You know what? I hope Christine Gregoire loses in the recount. She's a cheap political hack with a pro-big-business agenda that will be terrible for the state economy and for the government. I hope that the Democratic legislature will have the nerve to keep Rossi in check, but really I think it's six of one half dozen of the other. It's not like Gregoire's going to spend less time fucking the tax payers than Rossi would; the difference is in which segment of private industry is going to get the pay-off.
Fuck 'em both. Ron Sims was the only candidate in this race worth voting for. If we can't have him then at least let's not have another embarrassment like Locke.
Has anyone else been tracking this thing the Washington Post published today?
Evidently the Post has accused the U.S. of war crimes. According to documents released in response to a lawsuit by the ACLU, the official story, that the torture at Abu Ghraib prison was an isolated incident carried out by low-ranking reservists is—not to put too fine a point on it—bullshit.
According to the new documents, incidents of prisoner abuse were already happening at Guantanamo Bay prison in 2002, and they continued in Iraq even after the Abu Ghraib incident went public. The documents even include a quote from an FBI agents report about a conversation he had with Guantanamo's commander, Maj. Gen. Geoffry D. Miller, who defended the use of interrogation techniques the FBI regarded as illegal on the grounds that the military "has their marching orders from the Secretary of Defense."
General Miller has testified under oath that dogs were never used to intimidate prisoners at Guantanamo, as authorized by Donald Rumsfeld in December 2002; the FBI papers show otherwise. The newly released documents catalog the systematic abuse of detainees that also included beatings, chokings, prolonged sleep deprivation and humiliations such as being wrapped in an Israeli flag. Mock executions and torture by electric shock were also carried out.