Sleepycatz

Red, White, and Tubes

This week the Communications Workers of America released its report on broadband speeds across America. It’s a sobering document which should serve as an indictment of the entire American telecommunications model. However because their methodology relied upon users running their own speed test, the defenders of the status quo will claim the findings are unreliable. If anything the findings in the report paint a significantly brighter picture then what’s actually occurring.

For nine months the CWA collected bandwidth statistics at speedmatters.org. The results were broken down geographically, first by country:

Then by state:

CWA’s statistics are actually skewed in favor of higher connectivity rates then most people have. Approximately 30% of all Internet subscribers in the US continue to use dialup which is not recorded by this survey. Additionally, the survey relies upon a sophisticated user to participate — this alone skews the sample to broadband adopters.

Overall, the US continues to remain outside of the top 10 industrialized nations in broadband penetration. This statistic is further degraded by the FCC’s definition of broadband service as data transfer services exceeding 200 Kb/s in a single direction — significantly less then the 10 Mb/s - 20 Mb/s symmetrical connectivity becoming the standard throughout Europe and Asia. Furthermore, Americans pay more for their Internet then those in other wired countries: American’s pay about a dollar per 92.4 Kb/s where that some dollar in Europe and Asia averages 1.97 Mb/s - this does not take into account the additional voice and television services provided by the European model.

So why does any of this matter? It is no coincidence that America has dropped in global technology innovation to number two, behind Denmark. Denmark is currently ranked, by the ITU, among the top three countries in broadband adoption. Future and even current economies will depend upon high speed Internet access for growth and innovation. The current US model relies upon major carriers seeking high profit for minor deployments. There is presently no national plan to create a broadband infrastructure; in fact, states which have pursued such plans have been sued and heavily lobbied by large carriers to abandon their ideas.

High speed Internet access has the potential to revolutionize our economy — creating new media and advertising markets and competition. It has the potential tore-invent our entire entertainment industry and change the way in which companies and employees relate to one another. It is, in essence, akin to the industrial revolution in scope and force. Whether or not America chooses to participate in the revolution from the outset, or be left behind, is really a matter of governmental policy and not one of ‘market regulation’ (as corporate supporters would argue). High speed Internet infrastructure needs to be understood as similar to the national highway system. A system which facilitates transportation and commerce. It cannot, and should not, be viewed as a private toll road which benefits the few at the expense of national growth and innovation.

Cheneystan

This week Vice-President Dick Cheney announced that he and his office were not part of the executive branch of our government and were not subject to laws governing it. Cheney’s argument is that since the Vice-President has legislative duties, ie. he presides as the president of the Senate, that he’s cannot be subject to executive branch influences. As he performs executive branch functions, he, therefore, cannot be part of the legislative branch of our government. He seems to be outside of the judicial branch of government as well. Thus, we are left with a single conclusion: Dick Cheney is his own government — perhaps his own country: Cheneystan.

Unfortunately, Cheneystan has showed itself to be a hostile and rogue regime. One which not only flouts international law and treaties, but regularly calls for the destabilization of other nation states. Make no mistake, Cheneystan is a threat to world order and stability. There are well founded allegations that Cheneystan is presently attempting to foment war with Iran and is providing political support for arming Sunni militants in the Middle East.

Cheneystan’s leader is a maniacal and apparently charismatic man. His follows abandon the law and communities to serve his need for power. All evidence suggestes that this man, and his followers, have access to the most dangerous weapons of mass destruction — thermonuclear weapons — and has made it clear that his is not opposed to using them as a first strike option.

America cannot allow such a rogue nation state to hold the rest of the world hostage. We must remove Cheneystan from the international stage. There are those who suggest that diplomacy is the answer. However, diplomatic negotiations may only be conducted among civilized countries which recognize the rule of law and the general authority of such international bodies such as the United Nations. Cheneystan has worked to oppose UN peace efforts throughout the world, and was deeply involved in the Iraq Oil for Food scandal. One cannot negotiate with a madman bent on world chaos.

Others have suggested that Cheneystan’s leader is old and has only a limited time left to control of his nation. While this may be true, this simply makes immediate action more imperative. This unstable leader is more likely to pursue his most unbalanced and radical policies at the end of his term, for the lack even the slightest checks and balances in the Cheneystan regime will embolden him. If the world is not willing to stand up against a nation which foments wars and even calls for the torture of prisoners then what credibility can it have to influence future totalitarian states? No, America has no choice, we must bring Cheneystan back into the international community of law abiding states. We must — using whatever force is necessary — bring its leader to justice under both international and US laws. We cannot peacefully await regime change, we must act today to ensure a more peaceful and stable future for our children.

Rambo: “Sir, do we get to win this time?”

In the 1980s Hollywood produced a number of films that allowed America to re-fight the Vietnam war — only this time we would win. Almost all of these films shared the same generally outlandish premise: the weak American politicians had abandoned American soldiers in Vietnam to such a degree that 10 years later serviceman were still being held as prisoners. This trope was the general premise for such fine films as Missing in Action, Behind Enemy Lines, Uncommon Valor, and, of course, Rambo. The cultural-political idea presented in these films was that America lost Vietnam because it lacked the courage and honor to support both its soldiers and its Vietnamese allies. This idea is, today, regularly invoked by neo-conservatives as prima fascia evidence of the failure of American liberalism, if not liberal democracy in general.

Last week, Fouad Ajami invoked the specter of this trope in his epistolary plea to President Bush on behalf of Scooter Libby:

In “The Soldier’s Creed,” there is a particularly compelling principle: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” This is a cherished belief, and it has been so since soldiers and chroniclers and philosophers thought about wars and great, common endeavors. Across time and space, cultures, each in its own way, have given voice to this most basic of beliefs. They have done it, we know, to give heart to those who embark on a common mission, to give them confidence that they will not be given up under duress. A process that yields up Scooter Libby to a zealous prosecutor is justice gone awry.

Ajami does not need to directly invoke the memory of Vietnam in order to engender the feeling of the myth. But by raising the very notion of captured soldiers — or a country — ‘left behind’ he has alluded to the cultural memories of Vietnam. Ajami is arguing for Libby by appealing to historical revisionism within the conservative movement. As David Gelernter, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in The Weekly Standard:

Damned right this [Iraq] is Vietnam all over again. Only this time we will not get scared and walk out in the middle. This time we will stand fast, and repair a piece of the American psyche that has been damaged and hurting ever since we ran from Vietnam in disgrace way back in April 1975.

Libby is more then a White House official caught lying under oath, he is one of the soldiers of the new Vietnam, or as Ajami notes:

To Scooter’s detractors, and yours, it was the “sin” of that devoted public servant that he believed in the nobility of this war, that he did not trim his sails, and that he didn’t duck when the war lost its luster.

To let Libby serve his jail term is to betray the entire Iraq effort — it is the equivalence of walking out in the middle of a winnable war, of kowtowing to politics over battlefield honor.

For Ajami, and many other conservatives, Libby is the poster-child of the good soldier left behind enemy lines to suffer the horrors of the federal Hanoi Hilton while the country looks the other way because of political fear and lack of resolve.

The fact that so many conservatives have come to the defense of Libby only suggests that they now perceive the rule of law as the true enemy of their policies. The enemy holding Libby is federal law, and to suggest that he must be retrieved from a battlefield is to state that this administration is at war with far more then with Islamic extremists or terrorists.