It seems Howard Dean is indeed working to restructure the democratic party from within. And meeting with heavy resistance. Interesting to read about. Reading about what he’s doing makes me vascilate between “Why are you doing things this way?” And “Way to go Dean!”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/magazine/01dean.html
A lazy man’s story about cutting his own CO2 production:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/garden/05green.html
This gives me some hope for the army, they’re talking about completely reforming the organization, and taking this on, not as a traditional conventional land war, but as a counter insurgency struggle, like it is. The particular lessons drawn are especially encouraging. Maybe we’re not totally screwed. It seems to me success at anything is not generally “alot more of whatever we’ve been doing, no matter how it’s going.” It’s a matter of examining what you’ve done, what’s worked, and what hasn’t, and reforming the techniques when needed. It sounds like that may be happening. Or maybe it’s more spin, but that’s not generally what I expect from our armed services (perhaps I’m naive). Would
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/washington/05doctrine.html
David Brooks says something not-entirely-unreasonable about the Foley controversy thing. He outlines the tensions moderately well, though, of course, his biases, which I unsurprisingly disagree with, run throughout the conversation. He talks about how it’s a cultural conflict. And how there’s a “was anyone hurt? No? Okay, nothing to get too worked up about then.” crowd, which I firmly belong in. And another part which is an “Oh my god, this is destroying the fabric of society.” crowd. It does require times select, but it’s worth the read.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/opinion/05brooks.html
Maybe I’m strange for thinking this way, but I don’t always think “was anyone hurt?” is the line by which to judge things. I think that’s a hard line, past which the judgement gets easy, but I also think there is a grey area before that line. In which rests such things as “abuse of power”, where people aren’t necessarily hurt by the specific instances, but in which the potential for people to be hurt is great.
It’s kind of like objecting to warrant-less wiretaps: if all they’re listening to are bad guys, nothing wrong is being done, right? It’s the same logic.
How many victims never say anything because they were victimized by someone in power whose word is more likely to accepted? What Foley did was an abuse of power of this sort, in my opinion. It may be the case that everyone he exchanged these notes with was fully willing – but he still shouldn’t have been doing it in the first place, because the people in question might not have felt comfortable saying “no” to him.
Which is a good point.
A superior making unwanted sexual advances on an employee is called sexual harassment. The power dynamics are all wrong.
I don’t believe that he’s a pedophile or that it’s news big enough to be on the front page every day, but it was still wrong to do.