a refreshing look at Obama

[Prospero]

Ben is an idealist it seems - full of youthful passion and, just perhaps, a degree of naivety, as Stavros clearly points out. Or perhaps hugely and deeply cynical?

[Stavros]

Anyone who thinks Nelson Mandela is a monster is lacking in political judgement, I wouldn't call it idealism.

[Prospero]

Indeed - though to be fair to ben he didn't name Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi by name. They might transcend Ben's definition of politicians as monster.

[Stavros]

Not according to the comment Ben made.

[Prospero]

Yes - the quote IS dogmatic. No grey areas in Ben's vision of politics or business. Presumably markets in the developing world where poor people barter their few old possessions for enough to eat are also populaled by monsters.

So BEN.... over to you

[Ben]

Anyone who thinks Nelson Mandela is a monster is lacking in political judgement, I wouldn't call it idealism.

One has to separate the person from the office. (Martin Luther King Jr. said that if he entered political life he'd have to compromise his principles.) Even Noam Chomsky, who I admire, was asked if he became President, well, what would he do.
He said that he should be placed under arrest for the crimes that he's going to carry out. I mean, it's impossible not to commit crimes when one is a politician or a business executive. (Well, any oil executive is committing crimes against nature. Same with a forestry executive. Or the coal industry, their executives. Or a mining executive. Or take the entire food industry, their executives. Ya know, in these positions one is a monster. Take, say, McDonald's. A monstrous industry.
Take a look at the entire agricultural industry.
http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may...tart:int=0&-C=

Take, say, Bill Clinton. Is he a nice guy? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know.
But he put in place policies -- like NAFTA, like repealing Glass-Stegall -- that harmed the country, that harmed the majority of the population. And the likes of Clinton know full well that the policies they put in place harm the vast majority of the population.
I mean, Jimmy Carter is quite Saintly. But in assuming the role of President of the U.S., well, he had to be a monster. You can't avoid it. (Well, take a look at Rex Tillerson. CEO and Chairperson of ExxonMobil. He may be the nicest guy in the world. Nice to his kids, his wife, the family pet. But we've got something called global warming.
And in his institutional role, under legal obligation, he can't think about that. He has to ignore that. It's required of him. That's monstrous. But that's the institution.
And global warming might be the death knell of the species. But Tillerson treats it as an externality.
So, there are institutional constraints imposed on him. And it's fully rational. He is serving the company &/or the shareholders. And himself. Again, it's fully rational. That's why it's so scary.

[Ben]

Oh, The Nazi Doctors by Robert J. Lifton is quite good. It shows how even doctors can become absolute monsters. Depending on the circumstances.

[Ben]

[Prospero]

So because some doctors bought into Nazi ideology ALL doctors are corrupt. This is an insane view of the world.

[Stavros]

Well, any oil executive is committing crimes against nature. Same with a forestry executive. Or the coal industry, their executives. Or a mining executive. Or take the entire food industry, their executives. Ya know, in these positions one is a monster. Take, say, McDonald's. A monstrous industry.


Take, say, Bill Clinton. Is he a nice guy? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know.
But he put in place policies -- like NAFTA, like repealing Glass-Stegall -- that harmed the country, that harmed the majority of the population. And the likes of Clinton know full well that the policies they put in place harm the vast majority of the population.

I mean, Jimmy Carter is quite Saintly. But in assuming the role of President of the U.S., well, he had to be a monster. You can't avoid it.

(Well, take a look at Rex Tillerson. CEO and Chairperson of ExxonMobil. He may be the nicest guy in the world. Nice to his kids, his wife, the family pet. But we've got something called global warming.
And in his institutional role, under legal obligation, he can't think about that. He has to ignore that. It's required of him. That's monstrous. But that's the institution.
And global warming might be the death knell of the species. But Tillerson treats it as an externality.
So, there are institutional constraints imposed on him. And it's fully rational. He is serving the company &/or the shareholders. And himself. Again, it's fully rational. That's why it's so scary.

Ben, I think even with more finesse your arguments fall flat and have no impact. To take some of yours in sequence:

1) Crimes against Nature? Nature did not create villages, towns and cities, are all urban settlements that have transformed the earth on which they ae built crimes against nature? Are we all guilty of crimes against nature? But if we are also part of nature doesn't that mean cities are nature in concrete and glass? Do you indict Elephants who flatten grassland, I mean, how do you think the grass and the insects crushed in it feel about Elephants destroying their habitat?

2) Clinton know full well that the policies they put in place harm the vast majority of the population...I think realistically that politicians making policy know some will not benefit from it, it is said to be part of the dilemma inherent in democracy, but any politician who said he was going to harm 'the vast majority' would never get elected, and not twice either. What can be monstrous about the Oslo Peace Accords? Yasir Arafat to many people was a monster, to some others Yitzhak Rabin wasn't much better, yet there was a treaty; Jimmy Carter brought together Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat in an earlier treaty: in the context of the Middle East these treaties were major events, monstrosity seems an inapropriate word to attach to them.

3) The only occasion when Carter sent the US military on an expedition was the ill-fated attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran, otherwise, as far as I recall, he has been the only US President since 1945 not to send US troops to a battlefield; his major blunder, but in retrospect, was Afghanistan. It's not about monstrosities, but looking at his record and making a balanced judgement.

4) Rex Tillerson -the US does not own an oil and gas company; Exxon historically has been its biggest and most successful since Rockefeller's Standard Empire was broken up in 1911 (creating Standard Oil of New Jersey = Exxon) -the company is controlled by its shareholders, and you can become one and vote for Tillerson to be sacked every year if you want. Oil and gas companies are not the worst offenders in environmental degradation or carbon emissions, as I pointed out to you before -they have the money to adapt their installations to reduce emissions, but the key point is that these companies are legally obliged to file detailed reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US, and can be forced to give evidence in Congress -you as a US citizen have the right to challenge all they do, and not to use any of their products, from gasoline to the CD's, DVD's, plastic bags, biros and packaging used on foods that are produced from crude oil and natural gas by the petrochemicals industry.

Criticism where it is due, yes, but to lump everyone under one label, 'Monster' does not make sense.