This is the kind of thing that makes you cynical about politics. Every time a California State bond measure comes up, it is this sort of thing that keeps me from voting for it. Maybe I'm the only one who is exercised about this, but if the following is true, I do not understand why this is not a huge scandal:
Remember when we all voted on the State Lottery in in 1984? Do you remember what the appeal of it was? Apart from a one in a billion chance to be rich, the primary sales pitch was that it would provide extra money for the schools without raising taxes. Am I the only one who remembers that? Am I the only one who wonders, in light of that, why the schools are still continually starved of money? Even if I am, here's what I understand happened:
When the Lottery was passed, somewhere between the ballot and the budget, the money that the Lottery was projected to raise was extracted from the State schools budget and (presumably) blown on other stuff! Welfare perhaps? Maybe making sure illegal aliens have all the benefits they're entitled to? Whatever, the effect was that there was no net additional revenue for the schools. And this was almost the entire argument for voting for it in the first place. To make it worse, the Lottery money came with the attached string that it could only be used for "educational purposes", meaning not on facilities. So the old school budget could be used as appropriate, but it was supplanted with money that was "earmarked", to borrow a term currently in vogue. Am I the only one who remembers the constant lament over the condition of school buildings over the past 25 or so years? Gee, I wonder why. Clearly there's no extra money now, but think of all the money that was supposed to go to the schools during the flush times and all the repair, updating, and construction that our students would now have the benefit of.
So how does Sacramento get away all these years clearly and cynically subverting the wishes and intent of the voters without so much as a peep from anyone? If there wasn't the constant moaning and wailing about how badly the schools need money, I suppose it wouldn't be as bad; but, in view of all the school fundraising drives, ballot initiatives, etc, we've seen over the years, isn't anyone else the least bit worked up over what clearly looks like the torpedoing of the solution?
If I'm wrong about this, I sure would appreciate someone setting me straight.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
A Brief History of PANIC
I am reminded of 17th Century King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden's flagship Vasa. I
n those days, the more cannon a ship carried, the more powerful she was. This being Adolphus' flagship, she had cannon in every available spot. While the addition of each cannon made sense on its own as it made the ship more powerful, the aggregate of them made it unstable, and the whole mess went to the bottom in a light breeze 5 minutes after launch in August, 1628. This is a pretty good metaphor for government intervention in the economy.
The Short Version:
I'm no economist, but Karl Marx was right about one thing: "Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction", though not for the reasons Marx thought. If you want to see how Capitalism devours itself, look at the history of the United States. Briefly, the advance of living standards makes the population less and less tolerant of hardship, and makes them look more and more to the government to smooth out the economic ups and downs (especially the latter) that are a necessary part of Capitalism. With each government intervention and its accompanying new bureaucracy, regulations, and taxes, a bit of the advantages of Capitalism that created the prosperity is surrendered. This is an insidious process mind you, and each government intervention, each new law, each new tax, each government infusion of capital in exchange for partial control of the company, is seen as logical and necessary at the time in view of the then-impending inconvenience or calamity (which always looks worse at the time than it does in retrospect); however, taken in aggregate over time, there is a relentless drift toward government control by which the country, in exchange for having avoided or minimized prior recessions, progressively surrenders the prospect of greater and greater prosperity.
The Rest:
In the early days of this country people were happy to put food on the table and live to 60. Such luxuries as indoor plumbing, vacations, private bedrooms, savings accounts, a box full of toys for a kid, multiple outfits and pairs of shoes, and other stuff that most Americans today take for granted, were unknown to 99% of the population -- and I'm not even counting stuff that technological developments have made possible. The infant mortality rate was horrendous by today's standards, which is the major reason couples had so many children -- that and the
re just wasn't that much else to do for entertainment. The vast majority of people never traveled more than 30 miles from their birthplace during their lifetime. Generally, expectations by today's standards were exceptionally low. If this is at odds with what you thought, it is important to understand that the vast majority of history is written by and about the upper classes, and does not reflect the condition of 95%+ of the populace -- one thing that makes Tocqueville so unique and interesting. One cause of the notion of the "good old days" is the misapplication of the condition of the few to the many.
History has pretty much proven that Capitalism is the best economic engine for achieving prosperity. It's not perfect, and that's where it runs into trouble. Throughout US history there have been repeated recessions and depressions -- 1792, 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1921, 1929, 1958, 1974, 1980, 1990, 2001, and [ahem] 2008. You will notice a pattern of one occurring about every 20 years, give or take, except that the frequency is greater later. We could discuss each of them, but suffice for now to say that, while the immediate causes of each varied, they generally involved the lack of availability of credit. Sound familiar? The 1837 one was really serious and unfairly tarnished the Presidency of Martin Van Buren, but most people don't remember it . . . or Martin.
The basic point is that, prior to the Great Depression, they generally lasted 2-4 years, the exception being 1837, which the economy didn't really come out of until 1843.
But the most important lesson is that recovery from all of them preceding the one in 1929 was driven by the private sector. The stock market crash of 1929 was the first that elicited massive government intervention in a vain attempt to end, or at least mitigate it. And, son-of-a-gun, that was the longest one of the bunch. Coincidence? Historians and economists (including FDR's Treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau) now generally agree that the massive government spending programs did little to end the Great Depression. We can thank the Japanese on 12/7/41 for that.
In the days when people didn't even have indoor plumbing and they were actually self-reliant, there was the expectation that if they wanted to improve their lives, they would have to do it -- the government wasn't going to do it for them. People in the cities and countryside had no expectation that the government would help them out in the event of natural disasters, crop failures, financial hardship, or pretty much anything else. The Federal government didn't help re-build Chicago after the spasm of Mrs O'Leary's cow, Galveston after the 1900 hurricane, San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire, not to mention countless other smaller disasters. Can you imagine the havoc wrought by Civil War battles waged on private property (which most were)? Those property owners were on their own. The general attitude was that the more government stayed out of the way, the better. In fact, the US has historically enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the world (indoor toilets or not), and the single biggest reason is the historically unfettered capitalist system it enjoys . . . or used to.
I suppose it's human nature that, as prosperity increases and sight is progressively lost of the relative hard times of our ancestors, standards naturally rise and our tolerance for hardship decreases. The size of government grew considerably as a result of the Civil War -- the first military draft, the first income tax, and a general expansion which, in the heat of the moment, was deemed necessary. After the Civil War the economy was still largely unregulated and boomed with industrialization, westward expansion, etc. By the 1880's industrialization had created distasteful by-products such as child labor and bad working conditions for low wages. There had always been this sort of thing, but by now the populace was well-off enough that they no longer wanted to put up with it . . . even tho these conditions were largely borne by recent immigrants happily fleeing even grimmer ones and (by their standards) happy just to have a shot at the American Dream. So we began to have laws establishing labor standards (wasn't any longer good enough that if the workers didn't like it they could quit and take another job), anti-trust laws, etc.
By the time the 1920's rolled around and folks had a taste of unprecedented prosperity, there was no way they could tolerate the slide into Depression that ensued. While one cannot objectively fault FDR for most of what he did to help alleviate the suffering, it was ineffective in ending the Depression, and there is no doubt that the growth of government, regulation, and the birth of the nanny state had a long-term dampening effect on free, entreprenurial enterprise. The lesson is that we are better off taking our medicine and getting over it, than paying the long-term negative economic price.
Among the alphabet agencies creating by the New Deal were the FHA and FNMA (Fannie Mae), the purpose of which was to allow people to buy homes who otherwise couldn't qualify. The reason they couldn't qualify is that bankers, lending the money their depositors had entrusted to them, didn't find them to be a good credit risk. Hello? This was really the beginning of the credit economy and the problems we're having today. Thru FHA and FNMA the taxpayers, in effect, guaranteed those less-than-credit-worthy loans and, with several steps in between, it is now the taxpayers who are being whacked by them. "Big Government" essentially absolved the lenders of the risk as an inducement to them to make loans they wouldn't otherwise make, thus
throwing the controls of the free market out of whack. I discuss the current crisis elsewhere, but this was the ultimate root . . . just like the Japanese kicking the Europeans out of Japan in 1621 was the ultimate root of the Pearl Harbor attack (see my article "The Other Reasons Japan Lost the War"). As Abe Maslow postulated, as standards rise, problems needing attention that have always existed, now appear serious enough to be addressed, mostly for lack of comparison with the previously-solved ones. Current examples that come to mind are "affordable health care for all" (the affordability problems with health care began with the government intervention of Lyndon Johnson), elimination of poverty, and "a college education for all" (a dumb goal on several levels). At some point, this implied pursuit of perfection becomes counter-productive. The US is past that point.
The United States has morphed into something approaching what the Founders would consider a nanny-state, where the Federal Government is expected to make everything nice -- hurricane in New Orleans, fires, floods -- heck, if you wake up with a hangnail you can probably get a Federal Disaster Declaration. In fact, the Founders would wonder why we think we have any problems, except that the taxes and regulations that result from a sprawling Federal government, which has its tentacles into every aspect of life for the ostensible purpose of eliminating the risk we run by being alive and driving to zero every perceived imperfection, are like a wet blanket on entrepreneurship, investment, risk, and free enterprise generally. After all if, having risked it all to produce that new invention and the thing actually succeeds, you're going to have to give half of what you make to the government to coddle those who have risked nothing, why bother?
As I pointed out earlier, I'm not sure that this progression is avoidable. For one thing, when the crisis arises, it always seems much more serious and “unprecedented” than it does in retrospect, and the addition of yet another cannon seems an obvious remedy; secondly, the politicians must be seen as "doing something about it". The notion of letting the system work itself out is anathema to them, as they must be in a position to take credit when the crisis ends (which it probably would sooner without them), in addition to which the public no longer has the patience to let the system work. It isn't clear to me that the public understands that the eventual price for the instant gratification of government tinkering with the Golden Egg is the death of the Goose.
n those days, the more cannon a ship carried, the more powerful she was. This being Adolphus' flagship, she had cannon in every available spot. While the addition of each cannon made sense on its own as it made the ship more powerful, the aggregate of them made it unstable, and the whole mess went to the bottom in a light breeze 5 minutes after launch in August, 1628. This is a pretty good metaphor for government intervention in the economy.The Short Version:
I'm no economist, but Karl Marx was right about one thing: "Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction", though not for the reasons Marx thought. If you want to see how Capitalism devours itself, look at the history of the United States. Briefly, the advance of living standards makes the population less and less tolerant of hardship, and makes them look more and more to the government to smooth out the economic ups and downs (especially the latter) that are a necessary part of Capitalism. With each government intervention and its accompanying new bureaucracy, regulations, and taxes, a bit of the advantages of Capitalism that created the prosperity is surrendered. This is an insidious process mind you, and each government intervention, each new law, each new tax, each government infusion of capital in exchange for partial control of the company, is seen as logical and necessary at the time in view of the then-impending inconvenience or calamity (which always looks worse at the time than it does in retrospect); however, taken in aggregate over time, there is a relentless drift toward government control by which the country, in exchange for having avoided or minimized prior recessions, progressively surrenders the prospect of greater and greater prosperity.
The Rest:
In the early days of this country people were happy to put food on the table and live to 60. Such luxuries as indoor plumbing, vacations, private bedrooms, savings accounts, a box full of toys for a kid, multiple outfits and pairs of shoes, and other stuff that most Americans today take for granted, were unknown to 99% of the population -- and I'm not even counting stuff that technological developments have made possible. The infant mortality rate was horrendous by today's standards, which is the major reason couples had so many children -- that and the
re just wasn't that much else to do for entertainment. The vast majority of people never traveled more than 30 miles from their birthplace during their lifetime. Generally, expectations by today's standards were exceptionally low. If this is at odds with what you thought, it is important to understand that the vast majority of history is written by and about the upper classes, and does not reflect the condition of 95%+ of the populace -- one thing that makes Tocqueville so unique and interesting. One cause of the notion of the "good old days" is the misapplication of the condition of the few to the many.History has pretty much proven that Capitalism is the best economic engine for achieving prosperity. It's not perfect, and that's where it runs into trouble. Throughout US history there have been repeated recessions and depressions -- 1792, 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1921, 1929, 1958, 1974, 1980, 1990, 2001, and [ahem] 2008. You will notice a pattern of one occurring about every 20 years, give or take, except that the frequency is greater later. We could discuss each of them, but suffice for now to say that, while the immediate causes of each varied, they generally involved the lack of availability of credit. Sound familiar? The 1837 one was really serious and unfairly tarnished the Presidency of Martin Van Buren, but most people don't remember it . . . or Martin.
The basic point is that, prior to the Great Depression, they generally lasted 2-4 years, the exception being 1837, which the economy didn't really come out of until 1843.
But the most important lesson is that recovery from all of them preceding the one in 1929 was driven by the private sector. The stock market crash of 1929 was the first that elicited massive government intervention in a vain attempt to end, or at least mitigate it. And, son-of-a-gun, that was the longest one of the bunch. Coincidence? Historians and economists (including FDR's Treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau) now generally agree that the massive government spending programs did little to end the Great Depression. We can thank the Japanese on 12/7/41 for that.In the days when people didn't even have indoor plumbing and they were actually self-reliant, there was the expectation that if they wanted to improve their lives, they would have to do it -- the government wasn't going to do it for them. People in the cities and countryside had no expectation that the government would help them out in the event of natural disasters, crop failures, financial hardship, or pretty much anything else. The Federal government didn't help re-build Chicago after the spasm of Mrs O'Leary's cow, Galveston after the 1900 hurricane, San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire, not to mention countless other smaller disasters. Can you imagine the havoc wrought by Civil War battles waged on private property (which most were)? Those property owners were on their own. The general attitude was that the more government stayed out of the way, the better. In fact, the US has historically enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the world (indoor toilets or not), and the single biggest reason is the historically unfettered capitalist system it enjoys . . . or used to.
I suppose it's human nature that, as prosperity increases and sight is progressively lost of the relative hard times of our ancestors, standards naturally rise and our tolerance for hardship decreases. The size of government grew considerably as a result of the Civil War -- the first military draft, the first income tax, and a general expansion which, in the heat of the moment, was deemed necessary. After the Civil War the economy was still largely unregulated and boomed with industrialization, westward expansion, etc. By the 1880's industrialization had created distasteful by-products such as child labor and bad working conditions for low wages. There had always been this sort of thing, but by now the populace was well-off enough that they no longer wanted to put up with it . . . even tho these conditions were largely borne by recent immigrants happily fleeing even grimmer ones and (by their standards) happy just to have a shot at the American Dream. So we began to have laws establishing labor standards (wasn't any longer good enough that if the workers didn't like it they could quit and take another job), anti-trust laws, etc.
By the time the 1920's rolled around and folks had a taste of unprecedented prosperity, there was no way they could tolerate the slide into Depression that ensued. While one cannot objectively fault FDR for most of what he did to help alleviate the suffering, it was ineffective in ending the Depression, and there is no doubt that the growth of government, regulation, and the birth of the nanny state had a long-term dampening effect on free, entreprenurial enterprise. The lesson is that we are better off taking our medicine and getting over it, than paying the long-term negative economic price.
Among the alphabet agencies creating by the New Deal were the FHA and FNMA (Fannie Mae), the purpose of which was to allow people to buy homes who otherwise couldn't qualify. The reason they couldn't qualify is that bankers, lending the money their depositors had entrusted to them, didn't find them to be a good credit risk. Hello? This was really the beginning of the credit economy and the problems we're having today. Thru FHA and FNMA the taxpayers, in effect, guaranteed those less-than-credit-worthy loans and, with several steps in between, it is now the taxpayers who are being whacked by them. "Big Government" essentially absolved the lenders of the risk as an inducement to them to make loans they wouldn't otherwise make, thus
throwing the controls of the free market out of whack. I discuss the current crisis elsewhere, but this was the ultimate root . . . just like the Japanese kicking the Europeans out of Japan in 1621 was the ultimate root of the Pearl Harbor attack (see my article "The Other Reasons Japan Lost the War"). As Abe Maslow postulated, as standards rise, problems needing attention that have always existed, now appear serious enough to be addressed, mostly for lack of comparison with the previously-solved ones. Current examples that come to mind are "affordable health care for all" (the affordability problems with health care began with the government intervention of Lyndon Johnson), elimination of poverty, and "a college education for all" (a dumb goal on several levels). At some point, this implied pursuit of perfection becomes counter-productive. The US is past that point.The United States has morphed into something approaching what the Founders would consider a nanny-state, where the Federal Government is expected to make everything nice -- hurricane in New Orleans, fires, floods -- heck, if you wake up with a hangnail you can probably get a Federal Disaster Declaration. In fact, the Founders would wonder why we think we have any problems, except that the taxes and regulations that result from a sprawling Federal government, which has its tentacles into every aspect of life for the ostensible purpose of eliminating the risk we run by being alive and driving to zero every perceived imperfection, are like a wet blanket on entrepreneurship, investment, risk, and free enterprise generally. After all if, having risked it all to produce that new invention and the thing actually succeeds, you're going to have to give half of what you make to the government to coddle those who have risked nothing, why bother?
As I pointed out earlier, I'm not sure that this progression is avoidable. For one thing, when the crisis arises, it always seems much more serious and “unprecedented” than it does in retrospect, and the addition of yet another cannon seems an obvious remedy; secondly, the politicians must be seen as "doing something about it". The notion of letting the system work itself out is anathema to them, as they must be in a position to take credit when the crisis ends (which it probably would sooner without them), in addition to which the public no longer has the patience to let the system work. It isn't clear to me that the public understands that the eventual price for the instant gratification of government tinkering with the Golden Egg is the death of the Goose.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The Basic Problem With the Media
It has become painfully apparent over the past 30 or so years, but especially in the last 20, that the electronic news business has lost whatever objectivity it might once have had, and has simply become a ratings- and revenue-driven business. This is fine for most of show business but, like it or not, most Americans (and I'm not talking about those who really keep up on current events, but rather those who just watch the TV news) get their news from TV. Since it is TV, advertising is a (perhaps the) major source of revenue and, since advertisers pay based upon the ratings a show receives, increased ratings become the goal of the news operation.
Ratings are enhanced by being first with the information (accuracy is secondary) and having physically attractive news readers (aka Anchors) and reporters. The evidence is overwhelming that physical attractiveness and sonorous voice are the #1 and 2 criteria TV news requires to be "on air". This results in a heavy skew toward younger "talent" since (and I know I'm going to get in trouble for stating the obvious) most people, in general, find younger people more attractive than older ones. I'm sorry, but it's true and you know it.
Again, as a general proposition, younger people simply have had less life experience than older ones and generally know less which, I am convinced, is the root cause behind their generally liberal slant. This, of course, is why college campuses tend to be such liberal places -- you've got a huge population of young people with simply no life experience and very little understanding of the world. A lot of things in life seem soluble (poverty, war, crime, etc) to those without a lot of general knowledge to understand beyond what they see. "If we [that would be the government] just give poor people a minimum standard of living, if we just would not become involved in wars, if we just would try to understand why criminals do what they do and get them help, just give everyone free health insurance, these problems would go away." See my forthcoming article on Abe Maslow for the sociology of this.
But back to the media: I don't think it's subject to debate that the media in general have a heavy liberal slant, and largely for the above reasons, in my opinion. They, of course, don't think so because a) they socialize with each other and it's all they see, so it's "middle of the road" to them, b) the few conservatives that slip thru have learned to keep their heads down, and c) it's not their self-interest to admit their liberalism, even if they did recognize it, as it calls into question the validity of their product. One recent survey found that 83% of the "mainstream media" identified themselves as Democrats. This cannot be by chance.
I've been kind of a news junkie since high school (45 years ago), and have been increasingly distressed by the general naivete and lack of general knowledge of those who give the news on TV -- they simply don't seem to have any general understanding of almost any subject they are reporting on. They mispronounce common names and places and generally don't seem to have the least understanding of the background on any of the stories they report, other th
an what might be currently in the news. There are, of course, exceptions -- the late Hal Fishman in LA stands out -- and I'm sure there are others, but they are just that -- the rare exception.
Hal Fishman -- a clear example of hired for brains, not looks (note Supermarine Spitfire in background)
Ratings are enhanced by being first with the information (accuracy is secondary) and having physically attractive news readers (aka Anchors) and reporters. The evidence is overwhelming that physical attractiveness and sonorous voice are the #1 and 2 criteria TV news requires to be "on air". This results in a heavy skew toward younger "talent" since (and I know I'm going to get in trouble for stating the obvious) most people, in general, find younger people more attractive than older ones. I'm sorry, but it's true and you know it.
Again, as a general proposition, younger people simply have had less life experience than older ones and generally know less which, I am convinced, is the root cause behind their generally liberal slant. This, of course, is why college campuses tend to be such liberal places -- you've got a huge population of young people with simply no life experience and very little understanding of the world. A lot of things in life seem soluble (poverty, war, crime, etc) to those without a lot of general knowledge to understand beyond what they see. "If we [that would be the government] just give poor people a minimum standard of living, if we just would not become involved in wars, if we just would try to understand why criminals do what they do and get them help, just give everyone free health insurance, these problems would go away." See my forthcoming article on Abe Maslow for the sociology of this.
But back to the media: I don't think it's subject to debate that the media in general have a heavy liberal slant, and largely for the above reasons, in my opinion. They, of course, don't think so because a) they socialize with each other and it's all they see, so it's "middle of the road" to them, b) the few conservatives that slip thru have learned to keep their heads down, and c) it's not their self-interest to admit their liberalism, even if they did recognize it, as it calls into question the validity of their product. One recent survey found that 83% of the "mainstream media" identified themselves as Democrats. This cannot be by chance.
I've been kind of a news junkie since high school (45 years ago), and have been increasingly distressed by the general naivete and lack of general knowledge of those who give the news on TV -- they simply don't seem to have any general understanding of almost any subject they are reporting on. They mispronounce common names and places and generally don't seem to have the least understanding of the background on any of the stories they report, other th
an what might be currently in the news. There are, of course, exceptions -- the late Hal Fishman in LA stands out -- and I'm sure there are others, but they are just that -- the rare exception.Hal Fishman -- a clear example of hired for brains, not looks (note Supermarine Spitfire in background)
I draw these conclusions, by the way, from their lack of knowledge on subjects I happen to know something about (military history, music, and real estate), and assume that that ignorance must extend across the rest of what they report. I really do think the primary reason is that outlined above. So why does this matter?
Let's take the Iraq War as a prominent, recent example: wouldn't you think that some general knowledge of the subject being reported on, especially one as important as the Iraq War, might rate a reporter with some understanding of the military going in? After all, they seem to find a doctor to report on medical matters, a "meteorologist" to do the weather, etc, but the media apparently could not find one reporter to send to Iraq who had ever been in the military, or had the least understanding of it or military history, past conflicts, etc, that would allow him to provide the slightest context for what he was reporting. This is not surprising, given that the type of person who would enroll in J-school is about as diametrically opposite from one who would enlist in the military as it is possible to imagine.
With no other source, the American public is forced to see (and judge) the war thru the eyes young reporters starting at the very bottom of the learning curve (or older ones starting there), reporters who have no idea what they're looking at, no idea whether what they just witnessed is a major engagement or a minor skirmish, no understanding of what responsibility the "expert" they interview has (was that a colonel or a corporal? Not that the reporter would know the difference), no understanding of how casualties, tactics, civilian casualties, or pretty much anything else compares to previous wars. To someone who has never seen warfare, it's horrible beyond anything in their life experience -- especially some coddled young snot fresh out of some Ivy League journalism school. Warfare is, indeed, terrible, but it's a fact of human existence. The repeated characterizations of this particular War as "costly" and with "many casualties" are disproved by historical comparisons to other wars which, as noted above, are well beyond the knowledge of these reporters.
So the perception of the Iraq War, molded as it was by reporters wholly unqualified to report on it, is a negative one. What a surprise. Objectively, and leaving aside for a moment the undebatable issue of whether or not the War was justified, this was the least costly war in US history in terms of US lives lost per day, easily surpassing the previous standard, the Spanish American War.
On a related note (and I say this as a Marine Corps veteran), the insistence of most of the media (and especially talk show hosts, including conservative ones) on referring to anyone who serves in the military as a "hero" is distressing, and demeans the valor of those whose deeds were truly heroic. While I respect the heck out of anyone who has served in the military, there is a huge leap between simply being in the military and "hero", as anyone who has "served" would tell you. I have no doubt that the military is a big mystery to most reporters and talk show hosts, which adds to their aura in reporters' eyes. Guys like John Basilone, Col Maurice Holmes, and Jackson Pharris were heroes. If you're in the media, look them up.
I think I understand at least part of what's behind it: most of the media today cut their teeth when service in the military was either very unfashionable or voluntary, and almost none of them have seen the inside of a military uniform. Given the outstanding performance of the US military in recent wars, and the graphic depictions of what they endure now being brought to us courtesy of new technology and that very media, I believe there is an underlying guilt in the media at not having served when it was "their time"; so they attempt to atone by obsequiously conferring the title "hero" upon anyone who actually served. All it does in the mind of anyone familiar with the military is expose the reporter's ignorance of the subject. So please don't refer to me as a "hero". Anyone familiar with my time in the Corps will know I was anything but.
Let's take the Iraq War as a prominent, recent example: wouldn't you think that some general knowledge of the subject being reported on, especially one as important as the Iraq War, might rate a reporter with some understanding of the military going in? After all, they seem to find a doctor to report on medical matters, a "meteorologist" to do the weather, etc, but the media apparently could not find one reporter to send to Iraq who had ever been in the military, or had the least understanding of it or military history, past conflicts, etc, that would allow him to provide the slightest context for what he was reporting. This is not surprising, given that the type of person who would enroll in J-school is about as diametrically opposite from one who would enlist in the military as it is possible to imagine.
With no other source, the American public is forced to see (and judge) the war thru the eyes young reporters starting at the very bottom of the learning curve (or older ones starting there), reporters who have no idea what they're looking at, no idea whether what they just witnessed is a major engagement or a minor skirmish, no understanding of what responsibility the "expert" they interview has (was that a colonel or a corporal? Not that the reporter would know the difference), no understanding of how casualties, tactics, civilian casualties, or pretty much anything else compares to previous wars. To someone who has never seen warfare, it's horrible beyond anything in their life experience -- especially some coddled young snot fresh out of some Ivy League journalism school. Warfare is, indeed, terrible, but it's a fact of human existence. The repeated characterizations of this particular War as "costly" and with "many casualties" are disproved by historical comparisons to other wars which, as noted above, are well beyond the knowledge of these reporters.
So the perception of the Iraq War, molded as it was by reporters wholly unqualified to report on it, is a negative one. What a surprise. Objectively, and leaving aside for a moment the undebatable issue of whether or not the War was justified, this was the least costly war in US history in terms of US lives lost per day, easily surpassing the previous standard, the Spanish American War.
On a related note (and I say this as a Marine Corps veteran), the insistence of most of the media (and especially talk show hosts, including conservative ones) on referring to anyone who serves in the military as a "hero" is distressing, and demeans the valor of those whose deeds were truly heroic. While I respect the heck out of anyone who has served in the military, there is a huge leap between simply being in the military and "hero", as anyone who has "served" would tell you. I have no doubt that the military is a big mystery to most reporters and talk show hosts, which adds to their aura in reporters' eyes. Guys like John Basilone, Col Maurice Holmes, and Jackson Pharris were heroes. If you're in the media, look them up.
I think I understand at least part of what's behind it: most of the media today cut their teeth when service in the military was either very unfashionable or voluntary, and almost none of them have seen the inside of a military uniform. Given the outstanding performance of the US military in recent wars, and the graphic depictions of what they endure now being brought to us courtesy of new technology and that very media, I believe there is an underlying guilt in the media at not having served when it was "their time"; so they attempt to atone by obsequiously conferring the title "hero" upon anyone who actually served. All it does in the mind of anyone familiar with the military is expose the reporter's ignorance of the subject. So please don't refer to me as a "hero". Anyone familiar with my time in the Corps will know I was anything but.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Detention Camps for Japanese-Americans
While the commonly held public view of the Government "relocation" of those of Japanese ancestry in the early months of WW 2 is that it was a "disgrace" and "a stain on our national history", some familiarity with the actual facts surrounding the decision might change a few minds:
While classified information for 50 years following the end of WW 2, it is now commonly known that, in the months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack, US cryptanalysts had been working feverishly on breaking the Japanese codes. By the time of the attack they were pretty good at "traffic analysis" (origination of the messages and what it indicated about ship m
ovements) and could read much of the diplomatic "Purple" code (which is how FDR and Hull had read the final 14 part message before Nomura and Kurusu showed up post-attack -- they were actually able to translate it faster than the Japanese embassy staff!). And no, the US didn't know the Pearl Harbor attack was coming.
Nomura & Kurusu leaving meeting with Cordell Hull 11/27/41
Once that attack had taken place, there began a no-holds-barred effort to penetrate the Japanese naval codes, specifically JN-25. The success of this effort was magnificently demonstrated in the US anticipation of the Japanese invasion of Australia (Battle of Coral Sea), the US victory at Midway, the shootdown of Admiral Yamamoto over Bougainville in late 1943, and countless other "incredible victories", especially in the early days when the Japanese should have been mopping the floor with the Americans. In short the US knew, primarily due to having broken the Japanese codes, roughly when and where the next Japanese moves would come and were therefore able to concentrate their meager forces where they would do the most good. It was similar to the advantage that radar gave Britain during the Battle of Britain. Without being able to read the Japanese codes, Hawaii would almost certainly have been taken and occupied, forcing the US Navy back to the West Coast of the US, with less than salutary implications for the duration of the War and for US casualties.
So what does this have to do with Detention Camps? Once war was declared and the US really cracked down on breaking the codes, they came across a series of messages from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy and Consulates in the US requesting that, in the event of war with the United States, they "seek out and recruit" 1st and 2nd generation Japanese with loyalty to the homeland to conduct espionage and sabotage activities against US defense industries, especially on the West Coast. There was some evidence of success based upon those messages. Keeping in mind that, at this point, France had surrendered, Germany controlled the rest of the continent and looked ready to conquer Russia, Britain was on her knees, Singapore was doomed, and the Japanese were running rampant thru SE Asia with seemingly nothing to stop them from taking Australia, it was clear that everything possible had to be done to win a war that, at that moment, looked pretty bleak.
For obvious reasons, the War Department could not publicize their knowledge of the recruitment effort by the Japanese, as any indication that the US was reading their codes would have resulted in their immediate change, with the attendant dire consequences for the US. Changing codes would have been relatively easy for the Japanese at this stage, but nearly impossible later in the war, as it involved physically transporting new code books across a vast (mostly ocean) empire which, by 1944, the US basically controlled. I'll betchya Mahan never thought of that one.
Alfred Thayer Mahan
The amount of damage a few "cells" could have inflicted on US War production on the West Coast is incalculable, along with the feared Japanese invasion of it. In the heat of the moment, there simply was not the luxury of observing all the niceties of interviewing each of the 100,000+ Japanese-Americans to ferret out who had been recruited or might be. Obviously the Japanese diplomatic staffs had burned everything. Thus Executive Order #9066, and the reason the Administration couldn't explain what was really behind it. The knee-jerk reaction of those since who knew little of the details was that "hysteria" and "racism" were the primary causes; while the former certainly contributed, given the above, it is hard to credit the latter.
This was one of those pre-emptive acts which can be hindsighted to death (like the Iraq War of recent years) -- sure, the 442nd's heroism is achingly poignant in view of the situation, and sure there apparently were no Japanese-Americans who conducted sabotage just like there were no WMD when the troops arrived in Baghdad; but this is the crassest kind of hindsight. One must look at these decisions in the context of what was known when they had to be made and what the consequences were likely to be of doing nothing. In my view, the correct decision was made in both cases.
Less defensible was the confiscation of legitimately owned property of Japanese-Americans with little or no compensation. I am proud to say that my father, Cpt Cliff Graham, USMC, who was a Japanese language specialist during the war (he translated intercepts, interviewed prisoners, etc) worked hard after the War to help returning internees regain their property.
While classified information for 50 years following the end of WW 2, it is now commonly known that, in the months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack, US cryptanalysts had been working feverishly on breaking the Japanese codes. By the time of the attack they were pretty good at "traffic analysis" (origination of the messages and what it indicated about ship m
ovements) and could read much of the diplomatic "Purple" code (which is how FDR and Hull had read the final 14 part message before Nomura and Kurusu showed up post-attack -- they were actually able to translate it faster than the Japanese embassy staff!). And no, the US didn't know the Pearl Harbor attack was coming.Nomura & Kurusu leaving meeting with Cordell Hull 11/27/41
Once that attack had taken place, there began a no-holds-barred effort to penetrate the Japanese naval codes, specifically JN-25. The success of this effort was magnificently demonstrated in the US anticipation of the Japanese invasion of Australia (Battle of Coral Sea), the US victory at Midway, the shootdown of Admiral Yamamoto over Bougainville in late 1943, and countless other "incredible victories", especially in the early days when the Japanese should have been mopping the floor with the Americans. In short the US knew, primarily due to having broken the Japanese codes, roughly when and where the next Japanese moves would come and were therefore able to concentrate their meager forces where they would do the most good. It was similar to the advantage that radar gave Britain during the Battle of Britain. Without being able to read the Japanese codes, Hawaii would almost certainly have been taken and occupied, forcing the US Navy back to the West Coast of the US, with less than salutary implications for the duration of the War and for US casualties.
So what does this have to do with Detention Camps? Once war was declared and the US really cracked down on breaking the codes, they came across a series of messages from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy and Consulates in the US requesting that, in the event of war with the United States, they "seek out and recruit" 1st and 2nd generation Japanese with loyalty to the homeland to conduct espionage and sabotage activities against US defense industries, especially on the West Coast. There was some evidence of success based upon those messages. Keeping in mind that, at this point, France had surrendered, Germany controlled the rest of the continent and looked ready to conquer Russia, Britain was on her knees, Singapore was doomed, and the Japanese were running rampant thru SE Asia with seemingly nothing to stop them from taking Australia, it was clear that everything possible had to be done to win a war that, at that moment, looked pretty bleak.
For obvious reasons, the War Department could not publicize their knowledge of the recruitment effort by the Japanese, as any indication that the US was reading their codes would have resulted in their immediate change, with the attendant dire consequences for the US. Changing codes would have been relatively easy for the Japanese at this stage, but nearly impossible later in the war, as it involved physically transporting new code books across a vast (mostly ocean) empire which, by 1944, the US basically controlled. I'll betchya Mahan never thought of that one.
Alfred Thayer Mahan
The amount of damage a few "cells" could have inflicted on US War production on the West Coast is incalculable, along with the feared Japanese invasion of it. In the heat of the moment, there simply was not the luxury of observing all the niceties of interviewing each of the 100,000+ Japanese-Americans to ferret out who had been recruited or might be. Obviously the Japanese diplomatic staffs had burned everything. Thus Executive Order #9066, and the reason the Administration couldn't explain what was really behind it. The knee-jerk reaction of those since who knew little of the details was that "hysteria" and "racism" were the primary causes; while the former certainly contributed, given the above, it is hard to credit the latter.
This was one of those pre-emptive acts which can be hindsighted to death (like the Iraq War of recent years) -- sure, the 442nd's heroism is achingly poignant in view of the situation, and sure there apparently were no Japanese-Americans who conducted sabotage just like there were no WMD when the troops arrived in Baghdad; but this is the crassest kind of hindsight. One must look at these decisions in the context of what was known when they had to be made and what the consequences were likely to be of doing nothing. In my view, the correct decision was made in both cases.
Less defensible was the confiscation of legitimately owned property of Japanese-Americans with little or no compensation. I am proud to say that my father, Cpt Cliff Graham, USMC, who was a Japanese language specialist during the war (he translated intercepts, interviewed prisoners, etc) worked hard after the War to help returning internees regain their property.
The Iraq War In Perspective
As a military historian of 40-odd years, I have a view of this perhaps more informed by history than some. In that regard, I have an appreciation for pre-emption and for the dangers of hindsight some others may not have:
Pre-emption: If ever there was a clear cut case for pre-emption, the Iraq War was it. This was clearer-cut than Midway, Agincourt, or the 6-day War, and it's and right up there with the British fireships set against the Armada in the Veldt. Here was a case of a clearly demonstrated aggressor with the expressed desire and apparent means to wreak havoc in a very sensitive part of the world. Everyone in a position to know agreed that he had the means, aka WMD, and Congress voted overwhelmingly to take whatever steps were necessary to bring him to bay. Battle of Agincourt
Pre-emption is a difficult proposition, partially for the reason that the overt act which would provide the cause of action and unite the country is, by definition, pre-empted and does not therefore occur. To those not paying full attention, this can look like un-provoked aggression.
Another issue I think not fully appreciated by those who haven't studied this stu
ff, is the problematic and inexact nature of intelligence. The Pearl Harbor attack is a pretty good illustration of this: there was strong indication that something was afoot during late-November early-December 1941, but an attack on Hawaii was pretty far down the list of possibilities. Wouldn't it have been better to have caught the Japanese Fleet with their pants down in the North Pacific than to lose the Pacific Fleet and 2200+ guys? FDR chose to absorb the first punch rather than take the heat for taking the country to war "unprovoked". George W Bush, to his [apparently future] credit, chose the opposite path.
Which brings us to Hindsight 1.0: In the classic sense, it's painfully easy to judge historical events in light of later ones. The criticism of the Iraq war via the fact that WMD was not found in Iraq is a classic example of this kind cheap hindsight. Yes, the "inspectors" didn't find WMD, but that didn't mean they weren't there, especially in view of Hussein's obfuscation ante. As noted earlier, intelligence is inexact and frequently contains conflicting information. Ask the Marines at Tarawa, the Persians at Salamis, the Romans in the Teutoburg Forest, Nagumo at Midway, Custer at the Little Bighorn, or any opponent of the Germans in the Ardennes -- there is truly an endless list of examples where intelligence turned out to be wrong.
As Hugh Trevor-Roper observed, "history is not the study of what happened. It is the study of what happened in the context of what might have happened". The intelligence officer has the very difficult job of sifting thru unlimited bits of information trying to figure out which is valid and fits a pattern prior to the event occuring. I do not think the average person appreciates the enormity of this task. The focus tends to be on the times when they "got it wrong". I would challenge any of these Monday moring quarterbacks to stand in the intelligence officer's shoes and "get it right".
Hindsight 2.0: Knowing what course was tried and didn't work out. This confers the huge advantage on the critic of having to pick only from other seemingly logical choices, while eliminating the one chosen, even tho that may have been the most logical course at the time. Historians do this all the time, whether they realize it or not. The myriad critics of the Japanese at the Battle of Midway fault Yamamoto for not having the Main Body nearer where th
e main battle occurred, not waiting until either Shokaku or Zuikaku could be re-fit and included, sending Hosogaya off to the Aleutians, and on and on. Such criticism demands a level of prescience on the part of Yamamoto and Nagumo that is simply super-human. I won't get into it here, but there were very good reasons for the choices Yamamoto made, based upon Imperial Navy battle history during the previous 45 years, and the hard realities confronting him in June of 1942. Yamamoto didn't have the advantage of later critics employing Hindsight 1.0: knowing what a major role air power would play in future warfare and what an unpredictably minor role Mahanian big-gun tactics, the then-recently adopted Bible of naval warfare, would be relegated to.
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder made the observation clear to any student of military hist
ory: no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. The Japanese were certainly an extreme example of this (see my paper "The Other Reasons Japan Lost the War"), but any armed conflict provides illustrations, including the War in Iraq. It is simply impossible to foresee everything that's going to happen, how the enemy will react, and every piece of equipment that will be needed, let alone get it produced and in the field. The critics of everything from the post-war unrest to the lack of "up-armored Humvees" clearly had no understanding of this, but focused on such shortcomings to the exclusion of all that went as planned. They (probably unwittingly) had the advantage of Hindsight 2.0: knowing what course was tried and didn't work out, at least as smoothly as those "experts" sitting at their computer keyboards thought they should have. Moltke the Elder
Pre-emption: If ever there was a clear cut case for pre-emption, the Iraq War was it. This was clearer-cut than Midway, Agincourt, or the 6-day War, and it's and right up there with the British fireships set against the Armada in the Veldt. Here was a case of a clearly demonstrated aggressor with the expressed desire and apparent means to wreak havoc in a very sensitive part of the world. Everyone in a position to know agreed that he had the means, aka WMD, and Congress voted overwhelmingly to take whatever steps were necessary to bring him to bay. Battle of Agincourt
Pre-emption is a difficult proposition, partially for the reason that the overt act which would provide the cause of action and unite the country is, by definition, pre-empted and does not therefore occur. To those not paying full attention, this can look like un-provoked aggression.
Another issue I think not fully appreciated by those who haven't studied this stu
ff, is the problematic and inexact nature of intelligence. The Pearl Harbor attack is a pretty good illustration of this: there was strong indication that something was afoot during late-November early-December 1941, but an attack on Hawaii was pretty far down the list of possibilities. Wouldn't it have been better to have caught the Japanese Fleet with their pants down in the North Pacific than to lose the Pacific Fleet and 2200+ guys? FDR chose to absorb the first punch rather than take the heat for taking the country to war "unprovoked". George W Bush, to his [apparently future] credit, chose the opposite path.Which brings us to Hindsight 1.0: In the classic sense, it's painfully easy to judge historical events in light of later ones. The criticism of the Iraq war via the fact that WMD was not found in Iraq is a classic example of this kind cheap hindsight. Yes, the "inspectors" didn't find WMD, but that didn't mean they weren't there, especially in view of Hussein's obfuscation ante. As noted earlier, intelligence is inexact and frequently contains conflicting information. Ask the Marines at Tarawa, the Persians at Salamis, the Romans in the Teutoburg Forest, Nagumo at Midway, Custer at the Little Bighorn, or any opponent of the Germans in the Ardennes -- there is truly an endless list of examples where intelligence turned out to be wrong.
As Hugh Trevor-Roper observed, "history is not the study of what happened. It is the study of what happened in the context of what might have happened". The intelligence officer has the very difficult job of sifting thru unlimited bits of information trying to figure out which is valid and fits a pattern prior to the event occuring. I do not think the average person appreciates the enormity of this task. The focus tends to be on the times when they "got it wrong". I would challenge any of these Monday moring quarterbacks to stand in the intelligence officer's shoes and "get it right".
Hindsight 2.0: Knowing what course was tried and didn't work out. This confers the huge advantage on the critic of having to pick only from other seemingly logical choices, while eliminating the one chosen, even tho that may have been the most logical course at the time. Historians do this all the time, whether they realize it or not. The myriad critics of the Japanese at the Battle of Midway fault Yamamoto for not having the Main Body nearer where th
e main battle occurred, not waiting until either Shokaku or Zuikaku could be re-fit and included, sending Hosogaya off to the Aleutians, and on and on. Such criticism demands a level of prescience on the part of Yamamoto and Nagumo that is simply super-human. I won't get into it here, but there were very good reasons for the choices Yamamoto made, based upon Imperial Navy battle history during the previous 45 years, and the hard realities confronting him in June of 1942. Yamamoto didn't have the advantage of later critics employing Hindsight 1.0: knowing what a major role air power would play in future warfare and what an unpredictably minor role Mahanian big-gun tactics, the then-recently adopted Bible of naval warfare, would be relegated to.Helmuth von Moltke the Elder made the observation clear to any student of military hist
ory: no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. The Japanese were certainly an extreme example of this (see my paper "The Other Reasons Japan Lost the War"), but any armed conflict provides illustrations, including the War in Iraq. It is simply impossible to foresee everything that's going to happen, how the enemy will react, and every piece of equipment that will be needed, let alone get it produced and in the field. The critics of everything from the post-war unrest to the lack of "up-armored Humvees" clearly had no understanding of this, but focused on such shortcomings to the exclusion of all that went as planned. They (probably unwittingly) had the advantage of Hindsight 2.0: knowing what course was tried and didn't work out, at least as smoothly as those "experts" sitting at their computer keyboards thought they should have. Moltke the ElderHindsight 2.1: The "What-If". I don't mind these exercises when they are undertaken for intellectual stimulation and fun (if the South had won the Civil War, the Japanese Mid
way, etc). However, the idea that the historian can predict with any accuracy what would have happened had a now more attractive choice been made (the one actually made having been eliminated via Hindsight 2.0) is highly problematic. I am not a lot of things, and a mathematician is among them, but there must be some law that says that the predictability of events decreases exponentially with each step away from the last known event. What if General Pickett hadn't been ordered to have his division charge across the field? All we really know is, probably, that he still would have had his division, Armistead and Garnett by the next day. The idea that Lee would have won the battle is a huge leap based upon a series of assumptions which rapidly become less and less valid, based as they are upon previous dubious assumptions. General Pickett
way, etc). However, the idea that the historian can predict with any accuracy what would have happened had a now more attractive choice been made (the one actually made having been eliminated via Hindsight 2.0) is highly problematic. I am not a lot of things, and a mathematician is among them, but there must be some law that says that the predictability of events decreases exponentially with each step away from the last known event. What if General Pickett hadn't been ordered to have his division charge across the field? All we really know is, probably, that he still would have had his division, Armistead and Garnett by the next day. The idea that Lee would have won the battle is a huge leap based upon a series of assumptions which rapidly become less and less valid, based as they are upon previous dubious assumptions. General PickettHindsight 3.0: Knowing the result and being able to pick out later what led to it, along with Hindsight 3.1: Not understanding how those on the spot could have been so blind, and Hindsight 3.2: parading forth as a genius anyone who appears to have predicted it, notwithstanding that it may have been the only time he was right. This is my favorite because it is so common and those engaging in it seem not to realize it. The investigations into the Pearl Harbor attack are historically the most glaring examples of this. I'm sorry, but NO ONE outside Japan thought the Japanese had the ability to attack Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. There are countless histories of the attack condeming Kimmel, Short, and others for not, in light of information they had or should have had, knowing when and where the attack was coming. And Hector Bywater is inevitably dredged up as having predicted it, yadda, yadda. Well, ya know what? A lot of stuff was predicted that didn't come true, and those having to call the shots at the time had to sift thru all those bits of intelligence without knowing which would be relevant and without knowing the future. It is extremely easy for any reasonably focused historian to cherry-pick bits of evidence that, taken to together and to the exclusion of all conflicting and now clearly irrelevant contemporary information, appear to form an unmistakable pattern leading to the known event. The contemporary decision maker doesn't have that advantage. There is a delightfully obsequious parody of this in Act II Scene 7 of The Mikado involving Pooh Bah, Koko, and Pitti Sing.
The criticism of the failure to find WMD's in Iraq is the most recent example of Hindsight 3.0,1,and 2. Prior to the invasion, Saddam was acting to any rational, observant person like someone with something to hide, dancing the inspectors all over the desert, flouting 17 or so UN Resolutions, etc, etc. Under Clinton, it was beginning to look like a replay of Hitler vs the League of Nations. To Bush's everlasting credit, clearly the right thing was done at the time in invading. Later criticism that everything didn't go exactly as planned is just real cheap.
Hindsight 4.0: Examining only those things that did not work out and condemning those who had to make the decisions that led to them, while other things that potentially had similiar problems, but happened to work out, are not examined. It just seems logical to me that, to be valid, criticism of errors (clear in hindsight) that led to an unfavorable outcome ought to be offset by credit for those that developed favorably. Problem is that the stuff that worked out despite the same sorts of errors having been made is harder to spot later and doesn't get the critic the (cheap) ink because it all worked out.
One of the truer observations about military history is that armies are always prepared to fight the last war. The above are some of the reasons: armies beat themselves up over what went wrong in the previous war and take steps to remedy it. The difficulty of predicting what will be important in the next war is borne out by the inevitable unpreparedness of armies to fight it.
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