The Fourth Wave

by Dennis Green

We are entering a new era of technology. We’re moving beyond the PC and the Mac to SuperSmart Phones and Tablet computers, all of which work with the touch screen and gesture OS, and offer “Facetime” video conferencing, thousands of apps, and will soon include 3-D screens with super-high resolution, above 300 pixels per square inch. And multi-tasking.

A new operating system, with 200 new features, including multi-tasking, will be available free to iPad and iPhone owners in the Fall.

What’s so significant about all this? Well, for one thing, people will soon be carrying these new “mini-computers” with them at all times, with access to the internet, emailing, social networking, gaming, and all the rest. That mobility changes our lives, and could not have been imagined 30 years ago when the first desktop personal computers became available.

From GPS to Google Earth to The Wall Street Journal to an app that you can use to point your SuperSmart Phone at a radio and it will tell you the name of the song that’s playing, as well as the artist and recording company. There are 225,000 apps available for the iPhone and already over 100,000 designed specifically for the iPad. About half of all apps are free, and very few cost more than a few dollars.

In terms of high-speed internet and Wi-Fi availability, the U.S. ranks 18^th among industrialized nations. Americans without SuperSmart phones or tablets are being left even further behind. And Microsoft — once the dominant player in personal computing technology — is absent or at the back of the pack in all these new innovations. Its tablet computer was a failure, its cell phone has a tiny market share, Bing doesn’t seriously threaten Google, and even Windows 7 has been problematic. Microsoft will not be a player in the Fourth Wave.

Interviews with Steve Jobs reveal that he serves not only as CEO but also as Product & Design Manager. And he had set out originally to develop a tablet computer before a SuperSmart phone, but when he saw the potential of the tablet OS, the touch screen, the gesture sensor and multiple applications, he immediately put the tablet on the shelf and put his teams of engineers to work adapting those features to the iPhone, which easily dominates the SuperSmart phone market.

Once the iPhone was launched, Jobs put his engineers back to work on the tablet computer, and just this year the iPad was launched and sold three million units in its first 60 days. While it will not entirely replace the laptop and netbook, it provides a whole new computing experience in many locations where we might not bring one of those devices. Or places where the tablet is simply more convenient, like on board an airliner, for example, or in a Starbucks.

Meanwhile, the apps themselves change the way we do things. Texting, Tweating and chatting on Facebook change the way we communicate. It seems odd now to think back to a time when the only way we could communicate at all across any distance was by talking on the telephone, and one tied to a landline at that! Remember phone booths?

Stuck in dialysis for three hours at a stretch three times a week, I would go nuts without my iPad. On it, I can email, compose poetry and essays, scan the Net, use all the latest news apps — including Newsweek, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal — or just entertain myself with the many apps designed for that, from musical instruments played by touch to an app that shows me the Tokyo skyline, live at any time of day.

Next time you’re stuck in an airport, or in line outside the Apple store, or waiting for a Giants game or a concert to begin, let’s just hope you’ve got your mobile device with you too.

©2010 Dennis Green

Obama's Vietnam

by Dennis Green

I listen to Leon Panetta, head of our CIA, on ABC’s This Week and it’s obvious, as the old French saying goes, that his ass is sucking air. Panetta presides over one of the weakest and most discredited intelligence agencies in the world. The CIA could have foreseen and prevented 9/11 and didn’t. It hasn’t anticipated and prevented the attack on Fort Hood, the Detroit Bomber, the Times Square Bomber, or come anywhere close to finding Osama bin Laden.

“He’s somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan,” Panetta says, and then adds, “We haven’t had any certain location intelligence on him since the early 2000’s.” Wow! America, the most powerful nation in the world, and we can’t even find one terrorist, lost track of him almost ten years ago, and with all those satellites, all that money, all those agents, no results. Failure.

Panetta also reminds me of the national leaders lying to us during the Vietnam War. He attempts to assert that we are having success against the Taliban in Afghanistan, but other reports, (Face the Nation), make it clear that we are failing in that effort too. He can’t even explain precisely how the Taliban is a threat to the security of the United States, except to say that “They are willing to harbor Al Qaeda, who are still trying to attack us here.”

Neither Panetta, nor Obama, nor Clinton, nor anyone else can explain how North Korea or Iran pose a threat to our security. Even if they acquire nuclear weapons, so what? The Soviet Union had more warheads than we did, and the “Mutually Assured Destruction” clause prevented both sides from using them. If either Iran or North Korea launched a missile in our direction, we would retaliate with hundreds of our own long-range missiles, and wipe them off the face of the earth. Suicide bombers with suitcase nukes? Don’t make me laugh.

Just as our invasion of Iraq was totally unjustified, based on lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction, our entire involvement in the Middle East lies on a platform of lies and exaggerations. Incompetence made 9/11 possible, and we can only hope those agencies responsible for our security are now on their toes. But if Obama perpetuates the conflict in Afghanistan, especially using the strategy of Counter-Insurgency, he is doomed to become another LBJ.

Using a “Counter-Terrorism” strategy instead, however, has one big disadvantage to our Military. It doesn’t require 150,000 troops on the ground. Perhaps as few as 10,000, and a more efficient use of drones and the occasional commando attack on Al Qaeda across the border into Pakistan. Illegal? So what? If we can invade Iraq, we can certainly penetrate Pakistan from time to time.

But our Military needs and wants a full-scale force deployed in Afghanistan to retain the kind of power they have during wartime. Are we, as Obama said, “A nation at war?” Doubtful. Except for those Jarheads and Special Forces, Navy SEALS, Blackhawks and others, nobody knows and nobody cares, except to wonder why we spend all those trillions and all those lives. For oil? For Israel? Certainly not for the U.S. of A.

Panetta explains how “excellent” the CIA has become, since the bad old days when it couldn’t find its own ass with both hands. And again, he is about as convincing as General Westmoreland explaining how much we were winning “Hearts & Minds” in Vietnam by burning hooches. Yep.

One of the reasons Americans have lost faith in their own government is the pathetic War in Afghanistan. And the more President Obama ties his destiny to outcomes there, the more miserable and forsaken that destiny will be.

©2010 Dennis Green

The 2//3 Rule

by Dennis Green

This year, California voters and legislators have an opportunity to make some very significant choices. There’s the race for Governor, the legalization of Marijuana, and perhaps most importantly, for the legislators, a choice between “Feed the Beast” or “Starve It.” The perception of runaway government could easily stop here.

It’s been stopped in its tracks in the U.S. Senate, where the two-thirds rule has become the norm. With the increased use of the filibuster, by both parties, it now takes a supermajority of 60 votes in the Senate to get anything done. Considering the mischief that body is usually up to, I believe that’s a very good thing.

The use of the parcel tax initiative to get around the will of the people in California to limit property taxes with Prop. 13, is compromised by the requirement of a 2/3 majority voter approval. That compromise has not prevented the passing of a bundle of parcel taxes in Alameda, including five for the public schools, to supplement the $80 million a year they receive from regular property taxes.

But that 2/3 majority also saved us from Measure E, the most recent, and most horrendous demand from the schools, to preserve their status quo while unemployment, foreclosures, defaults and deficits characterize this recession for the rest of us. Even so, only 35% of registered voters said “Yes on E,” but with a turnout of barely 50%, one more percentage point, a democratic minority of 36% could have put it in force.

That means, with a 50% passage, only 26% of registered voters could pass any initiative. We’ll see how that plays out in Sacramento and then express our own views in November.

Legislators can vote for the “Passing the Budget on Time” initiative, which would eliminate the 2/3 requirement for all California initiatives, or for the “Stop Hidden Taxes” initiative, which would impose the 2/3 requirement on virtually all state and local government fiscal initiatives. I know how I’m telling my representatives to vote.

Much of the anger toward government — coming not from just the Tea Party but from those of us who see its bureaucracies as bloated and overpaid and in cahoots with multinational corporations — is the perception that civil servants hardly serve, and haven’t taken the hits from the recession that workers in the private sector have.

Much of the money from the $800 Billion Stimulus package have gone to saving the jobs of teachers, police and fire, or creating many new public service positions. The problem with that: product and manufacturing innovation, creating new value, happens only in the private sector. In the public sector, only “services” are provided, often of a dubious nature. Many taxpayers don’t benefit from such public services at all.

Moreover, those public payrolls are bloated. Fire and police unions resist layoffs, or the closing of precincts or fire stations of doubtful usage. Reading the local fire report or police blotter, we see many activities that hardly justify those generous salaries and retirement benefits. In Alameda, police and fire personnel can retire at age 50 with 75% of their final year’s salary, often over $100,000.

Liberals say “Raise taxes,” or “Do away with Prop. 13,” and those sentiments make me loath to be in their camp on those or other issues. Nor am I in sympathy with so-called “conservatives,” who defend hundreds of billions of wasted tax dollars in “Defense” spending. I’m just an old tax resister. Curmudgeon? Or Wise Old Tribal Elder…?

But when I see how our government spends the billions it already gets, I’m glad the 2/3 majority rule is a possible hedge against them taking even more.

©2010 Dennis Green

No One There Gets Out Alive

by Dennis Green

A group of mothers of a squad of young men serving in Iraq gets together for the first time. Only one of the men is still alive, and he is brain-damaged and severely compromised. One of the mothers says, “My other boy escaped the war uninjured and came back alive. But the person he was when he went off to fight never did come back. In a sense, that boy also died.”

And I realize that there are no survivors of war. And I’m not even sure any longer that any of us survive our stateside combat situations. With every major loss, or setback, illness or injury, a piece of us dies too. And yet, I can still sense the presence, inside me, of my old self, who has never really changed at all. It’s the same self as the one I could feel inside me when I was five years old. “Me TOO!” he shouts, and jumps up and down with joy.

But war must be the most horrible experience of all. The closest I’ve ever come is resisting the National Guard during war protests in Isla Vista following the murders of those four students at Kent State. (“Four dead in Ohio!” as CSNY sang…) And even in those campus and street protests there were moments of sheer terror.

And I realize a lot of the clothing I’ve bought in the last five years has a certain military flair about it — shirts and jackets with epaulets, camo patterns, (both dramatic camo or faint and subtle versions, in jungle green and desert gray or brown…), snaps and belts and zippers. I also sometimes tuck my pants cuffs into the tops of my boots, which themselves have a military look, the overall effect quite soldierly.

Commentators tell us that we’re completely oblivious to the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I think that’s bull, that in reality we are depressingly, if unconsciously, aware of it all the time. That awareness, the pain of that awareness, has crept into our fashions, where cultural awareness lurks but reigns supreme, at least for a dandy like me.

Even those many graphic skulls are an echo of the battlefield, not some worldwide plague. And war is NOT a worldwide plague. Some nations, like Cuba, are positively peaceful.

Citizens of a nation at war, let alone one seemingly at perpetual war, also suffer a terrible toll. Knowing that we pay taxes to support the war, that our neighbors’ children go off to fight there, maybe die or come back injured or changed utterly and not for the better, that innocent civilians in those far-off lands are dying too…does NOT enrich our karma, or our lives… unless, that is, we manufacture weapons of destruction.

It seems that for my nearly 70 years of life, America has been at war more of those years than we’ve been at peace. WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq. My God in Heaven! We have a warlike nature.

So we are either a most belligerent people, or we really are the “Peacekeepers” we keep telling ourselves we are. Of course, on the wild wild Western frontier, the Colt .45 was called The Peace Maker too.

Genetics. I suspect that the more violent a nation’s history is, the more likely the violent and belligerent are to survive, and come to dominate the gene pool. “Everybody OUT of the pool!” It’s a wicked place to be.

If I go live on another planet, another dimension, I only hope I’m among a more peaceful breed of creatures. Bonobos perhaps.

©2010 Dennis Green

Roll Away the Stone!

by Dennis Green

General McChrystal revisited. A close examination of the Rolling Stone article, (I subscribe!), reveals that it’s about a lot more than loose lips, but rather a huge failure of policy. Counter-Insurgency, (COIN), may have worked to some degree in Iraq, but it isn’t working in Afghanistan at all. McChrystal was fast losing the support of President Karzai, Ambassador Hollbroke, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, and even his own men.

COIN assumes a large degree of nation-building parallel to the armed combat pushing the Taliban our of certain villages and regions. That requires a strong and respected central government, a clear distinction between civilians and the enemy, and an ability to protect those civilians from intimidation and slaughter by the enemy, and also by our own troops. Avoiding that “collateral damage,” McChrystal’s own fighters claim, is impossible in Afghanistan. “So all a Taliban fighter has to do is lay down his gun, and he’s an innocent civilian and we can’t fire on him or defend ourselves!” says one.

If you roll away the Rolling Stone, you get a view of that war that you won’t see on TV, especially on Fox Noose. The article reveals a bitter division between command and fighting force that we haven’t seen since the worst days of Vietnam. The twisted logic of our presence there also alienates the American public from the conflict in ways we haven’t seen since ‘Nam either.

I can just imagine…well, I don’t have to…I can hear their voices in this article, what it feels like to be risking your life in an unpopular war hampered by an unworkable policy and a strategy that puts you out there, vulnerable to attack by IED or sniper, not being able to tell the enemy from the friend…strike that…having no friends, but surrounded by suspicious and hostile villagers who may not shoot you…may not harbor those who will…no win, no “victory” possible, just more stalemate.

During the last half of the 70s, most of the 80s and 90s, the U.S. military was frustrated by the failure of Vietnam. This frustration shows in McChrystal’s voice as he chaffs against those who disagree with him. In fact, as the reporter for Rolling Stone and his editors say, the General had the opportunity to review the article before its publication, for fact-checking. He knew exactly what was in it and how it would be received. He is quoted as saying he wanted to “send a message” back to Washington with its content.

He had sent messages before — with a speech in London, for example, during Obama’s period of assessment, calling for 40,000 more troops and a confirmation of his policy, preempting his Commander-in-Chief. He had been warned, and obviously ignored the warning. But the issue here is more than a Top General with very poor judgment. It is a question of why in the hell are we there at all, and especially pursuing a doomed strategy.

There are no Sunnis in Afghanistan, as there are in Iraq. Afghanistan is a failed state that was easily, after the Soviet defeat, taken over by an Islamic Extremist party, the Taliban, easily pushed aside by our invasion, but barely kept contained as an insurgency.

The alternative is a “Counter-Terrorist” strategy that contains and winnows away at Al Qaeda with drones, keeps very few troops on the ground defending the borders, and lets the Afghanis decide how to deal with the Taliban.

The right wing here claims that it’s the deadline for the beginning of withdrawal that makes the COIN policy unworkable. That shows the same fundamental misunderstanding of Afgani culture, society and politics that General McChrystal displayed. And even his own troops saw through that myth.

©2010 Dennis Green

Mutiny on the Bounty

by Dennis Green

In some Third World countries, military coups against a civilian government are still common. In America, the balance of power between the military establishment and civilian government has always been contentious, going back to General/President Washington’s support for the Federalist Papers, which encouraged a powerful central government and a very strong military, versus Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, James Monroe and the other Anti-Federalists, who didn’t want so much power vested in a potential “monarchy.”

Chain of Command is vested in America in the hands of a civilian Commander in Chief managing the military, but that scheme of things, settled in our Constitution, is being challenged. It’s not just General McChrystal who is out of bounds, but the entire Military/Industrial Complex. And the threat to our democracy is very real.

Many Americans want us out of Afghanistan, not just Iraq, and I’m one of them. But after long deliberation, President Obama was persuaded, or pressured by the Generals, to commit more troops in a Surge in Afghanistan instead of getting out now. All reports are that the Anti-Terrorist campaign against Al Qaeda is fairly successful, the Anti-Insurgency campaign to unite and stabilize Afghanistan championed by McChrystal is a dismal failure.

Afghan President Karzai has threatened to join the Taliban, and has been at times alienated from Ambassador Holbrooke and Vice President Biden, both of whom were targets of McChrystal’s unfortunate insubordination during combat operations in the field. The story in Rolling Stone reveals that the General encouraged the same insubordinate spirit among his own subordinates toward civilian oversight.

Combat encourages a certain “Hot Dog” spirit among troops in the field. Moreover, 7,000 casualties in ten years make Afghanistan a nightmare of frustration for the warriors serving there. Up against a deadline for troop withdrawal, a failing strategy, a hostile or indifferent U.S. public, it is understandable that such sentiments would arise. But a General who broke military code sets a precedent for rebellious, even treasonous attitudes that our democracy cannot tolerate.

So now, it’s even more important that we get out of Afghanistan. Obama should shorten the time-table he imposed on the Generals. That country and culture does not lend itself to the so-called “Anti-Insurgency” strategy developed by General Petreus and pursued by McChrystal. Even more so than Iraq, it is a tribal country ruled by village and regional war lords that never have and never will be faithful and loyal to a strong central government. Even our allies know that, and are leaving.

None of our Generals make any sense when they say that we must make a “long-time commitment” of twenty years or more to Afghanistan. You hear in their voices a narrow, military perspective that is neither strategic nor tactical, but merely self-serving. “War is Job One!” they seem to be saying.

“No, it’s not!” we citizens reply. “Freedom is Job One, and that means freedom from the kind of foolishness that got us into the Middle East up to our asses in the first place.” We’re fighting for oil, and neither Chevron nor BP is picking up the tab. As for Israel, after 50 years of maximum U.S. support, let them fend for themselves.

Mutinous thoughts, I know. But Mutiny is as Mutiny does. I cannot be loyal to a government that is controlled by a powerful military in cahoots with arms manufacturers and such mercenary units as Blackwater or Halliburton. Even General/President Washington warned us against a standing military, as General/President Eisenhower warned us against the burgeoning military/industrial complex. They should know.

©2010 Dennis Green

Measure E Fails

by Dennis Green

At this hour, with only a few hundred votes left to be counted, Alameda voters have apparently rejected Measure E, the school parcel tax which would have given this island city some of the highest school taxes in the Bay Area, if not the nation. They would have cost homeowners $659 a year, and commercial property owners as much as $9,500 per year per parcel. It would have raised $14 million per year for eight years, on top of $80 million per year going to the schools from regular property taxes.

I’ve already taken down my “No on E” yard sign. For one thing, it’s not polite to gloat, and for another, I expect a vicious and violent backlash from sore losers who exhibited such behavior during the campaign. Yard signs opposing the new tax have been stolen or defaced. Merchants displaying “No on E” window signs have been threatened with boycotts. One immigrant store owner was cursed and told to “go back where you came from.”

These Gestapo tactics were meant to intimidate opponents of the school tax in the most bitter, divisive and undemocratic campaign conducted in this town in recent memory. Regardless of the final outcome, bad feelings are likely to linger for many months.

And so will school parcel taxes. In a “Heads I win/Tails you lose” strategy, the defeat of Measure E will leave in place two previous taxes, Measures A & H, until the end of 2012. Opponents expect AUSD to come at us again before they expire, with yet another parcel tax proposal. Funds leftover from the Measure H campaign already constitute a potential war chest for just such an effort.

Just a few months ago, Alameda voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot initiative granting an Orange County developer, SunCal, exclusive rights to impose their plan on Alameda Point, site of the former Naval Air Station, without adequate compensation to the City. We voted 85% to 15% against the proposal.

Yet, SunCal has persisted in its negotiations with City “leaders” to proceed with nearly the very same plan — with only very modest changes to get around the ordinance limiting the size of new housing — in a brazen denial of voter’s clear message. So the precedent is there for the school district to do the same.

I have been very active and vociferous in the opposition to Measure E, writing many articles for publication in local newspapers and online news sites, as well as my own blog. And for exercising my Second Amendment freedom of speech rights, I have been called a “curmudgeon,” “pathetic” and “misguided.” As if I have no right to my opinion.

And that opinion is far better informed than most of the yahoos who have been insulting me. I have fourteen years experience as a classroom teacher, have thoroughly researched the need for Reform in America’s public education system, as well as finding data which refutes the claims that all our parcel taxes have produced “excellence” in our schools.

If anything, this campaign has kept my adrenalin levels fairly high, and that’s probably a good thing. Simultaneously fighting kidney failure and dialysis, the political knife fight has kept me on my toes, provided a useful distraction from the illness, and given me a deep sense of satisfaction in articulating my own views.

Now, we’ll see if all the doomsday scenarios come true, if half the schools are closed, 70 teachers laid off, and those remaining so discouraged by the voters clear message that they either slack off in their teaching or move to a more affluent district with higher pay rates, like Orinda.

©2010 Dennis Green