9/11 Revisited

I've been doing some reading of books relating to 9/11, which I can now review briefly for readers of our blog. (You're probably weary of seeing my last book review post up for so long anyway...and since most of our regular contributors are out of commission right now, it'll have to be me to change that!)

The first book is Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties (New York, 2004). Despite the sensational title, this book is really a fairly mainstream summary of U.S. involvement in the Middle East since the 1970s, with extra focus on the Bush and Saud families. (Unger was one of Michael Moore's big sources for making Fahrenheit 9/11.) This book is about far more than just the Bush & Saud families, however...it is really a first-rate summary of what we know about U.S. involvement in the making of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, among other things. I think it would be good citizenship reading for anyone in the U.S., regardless of political stance. Unger seems very scrupulous with his sources and is reluctant to make big leaps or speculations without hard evidence. Fact-challenged right-wingers (such as those who still believe Iraq had WMD, etc.) would probably view this book as way out there, but in reality it is pretty mainstream in that it sticks to what we can know with reasonable certainty.

The second book, on the other hand, is something else altogether. David Ray Griffin's The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (2005) follows up on his earlier book, The New Pearl Harbor, which argued that the Bush Administration may have been complicit in the 9/11 attacks or possibly even helped carry them out. Griffin does a good job of pointing out the flaws in the official 9/11 commission, and I must admit that I agree with his view (and the evidence he presents for it) that the Commission systematically failed to substantively or seriously address any of the allegations made by "conspiracy theorists." (Griffin himself rejects the label "conspiracy theorist", rightly arguing that the mainstream view also requires a belief in a conspiracy solely among a certain small group of Al-Qaeda operatives.) But where does this leave us? I must confess that I find myself torn between the mainstream view and Griffin's view. Probably the truth is somewhere in between...the series of events that transpired on 9/11 is, as Griffin argues, not convincingly explained by the conventional account. (Read the book for more evidence on this...) On the other hand, Griffin's alternative explanation also has some holes, such as the problem of collusion by so many U.S. governmental agents who must have known that something strange was going on. In all likelihood, something is being covered up, but what and how much is hard to say. We are dealing with a basic problem of citizen knowledge here. Anyone who has seen power up close knows that the official story told to the public about anything is almost always covering up some embarrassing (or possibly criminal) truths. But how can we figure out what is really going on? I, for one, choose to side with Griffin in his call for being open minded to alternative explanations, even if we grant them a low degree of probability at the start. The certainty with which many people reject even considering such alternatives flies in the face of critical inquiry in a democratic society. The 9/11 Commission was hardly equipped or inclined to really deal with the substantive issues lurking under the surface. The Bush Administration's collusion with 9/11, in my view, was probably a lot more passive and negligent than active and plotting, but the doubts of many Americans will never be put to rest without addressing the discrepancies and evidence for alternatives head on and honestly. (Note: I should also add that Griffin is a seminary professor, who from all firsthand accounts I've heard is a nice, sincere, and thoughtful person, not some kind of raving lunatic who lives in a fortified compound plotting against the government...)

A Moral Battle Worth Fighting: Reflections on Juliet Schor's Latest Book

I just finished reading Juliet Schor's latest book, Born To Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (2004). Like Schor's previous works, including The Overworked American and The Overspent American, Born To Buy is a readable and thought provoking look at recent changes in American culture and life. In this case, the moral clarion call is especially compelling.

Schor basically argues that the consumer culture shaped by commercial advertising has degraded the lives of children, leading to serious declines in quality of life and making parenting more difficult. She looks at television advertising, commercial penetration into schools and other public spaces, and the "new intrusive research"--much of it drawing on ethnographic methods--prying into the inner worlds of children to figure out how to get them to buy more stuff.

I think this is a good example of an issue that can bring together concerned Christians (and others) across the lines of political ideology. We all recoil against the commercialization of childhood. Materialism and the pursuit of wealth are corroding our society, and this is especially heartbreaking when we can see it happening to children. We need to make it easier for parents to be good parents by saying "no": keeping advertising out of schools (especially Chris Whittle's demonic Channel One!), banning television ads to children, etc.

One of the more interesting points made by Schor through her survey data was that even in middle-class, suburban settings, parental attempts to resist their children's entreaties to have more stuff only resulted in increasing child-parent tensions and disaffection, not in changing outcomes much in the end. (Although getting rid of television sets seems to be more promising!) So, yes, parental responsibility has something to do with it, but we must as a society take some community responsibility for protecting children against advertisers intruding into their lives so much and shaping their preferences for bad food, violent toys, and other harmful things they are manipulated into coveting.

An interesting angle that Schor doesn't address is the global context of all this, which has at least two different aspects. First of all, many people around the world, including children, are being sold on the idea that American-style consumer goods will bring them happiness, which is in contradiction to studies that link life fulfillment and happiness not with wanting more stuff, but with having less materialistic attitudes. Second, all this harmful materialistic consumption is a huge part of the environmental resource problems the world is facing nowadays. Those of us in the U.S. cannot continue to consume so much and expect the rest of the world to consume less, yet we were promoting these very destructive attitudes with a vengeance to our children. Isn't it time for us to join a moral battle worth fighting, for our society's children? (And for the world as a whole?)

Gloom or Doom

As a review of my recent posts will indicate, the set of news items most interesting to me of late is the discussion among economists and investors about US economic prospects in the next five to ten years. Although I have not attempted a comprehensive survey of the economics and investment literature, and I frequently have to turn to reference sources to better understand some of the economics items that I do read, my sense of the consensus is that something not-so-good is going to happen to the US economy in the next few years. Aside from some Bush appointees at the Treasury (who inspire almost universal embarassment among the economists I read), I don't know of anyone who thinks the future looks bright and sunny. The argument is rather between those who think a tremendous crash is in the offing (the 'Doom' group), and those who feel that some lesser downturn, a 'soft landing,' is more likely (the 'Gloom' group). I won't attempt here to summarize the entire debate. If you're interested in considering the views on both sides, I suggest this link-filled post from Brad DeLong as a good entry into the conversation.

I would put myself in more worried section of the 'Gloom' category--I think there are simply too many sensible people in the world with too much at stake in the US economy to let it slide into total chaos. But more important than my relatively uninformed opinion is the consensus that current US economic policy is simply unsustainable. No one is arguing for more of the same as the route to fiscal happiness. Those more bullish on the future rely on assumptions that current US policy will at some point return to something more rational--like the Reagan II policies of the 1980s. There is also, as I've noted, a general belief that the people currently in charge of US fiscal policy are either ridiculously naïve, or simply not interested in or capable of actually managing US finances. Hopefully, if there is a crisis point, it can be delayed until after January, 2009; or, if it comes before then, it will finally wake up the Bush administration to the looming danger.

Finally, if you're feeling more Gloomish than Doomish, it's still worth considering what a 'soft landing' might look like. (It sounds kind of nice, doesn't it?) How about looking back to a somewhat analogous soft landing, when the US began to come down from the high deficits and real estate boom of the Reagan years? That soft landing featured a brief recession with a slow recovery, and such 'bumps' as the savings and loan crisis.

Update: Two posts w/ excellent comments describe various scenarios for the hard/soft landings--the first is at Angry Bear; the other is at Macroblog.

Economics Debate

The link above will take you to a debate on the Wall Street Journal's Econoblog between two economists about whether or not foreign investment in US debt is a dangerous thing.

Also worth noting is this post from Roubini associate Brad Setser about the trans-Pacific real estate boom, in part fueled by low interest rates in the US. NPR also recently featured a much less meaty report by Rob Gifford on China's booming real estate market.

Why Does America Hate America?

Now that President Bush's social security reinforcement plan is making its final circles around the drain, it's time for Bush supporters everywhere to start wondering why so many 'mercins oppose W's plan for giving them their own personal stake in the Ownership Society^®--why, in short, do Americans hate America?

First of all, W. didn't get to talk to everyone. Over-zealous staffers kept keeping people out of the town hall meetings of the Phase Out '05 Tour. Yes, certain people should have been kept out. The terrorists. The evil-doers. The gay old people in the AARP who don't support our troops. But those staffers ended up keeping out a lot of other people--ironically, a very high percentage of the people they kept out were exactly the people W. needed to convince to support his plan.

But what W.'s plan was, was to give everyone... Well, all the young people. The Freedom to invest their money in their own private accounts. As long as they invested in certain, rigidly restricted ways. And they could then pass those personal accounts on to their children, if they died at a certain age--giving their children the Freedom to enjoy their fruits of their parents' Freedom. And Freedom would start to spread, and soon everyone would have more Freedom. But liberals like a certain Senator from Taxachusetts, think that the government should keep your money--they hate Freedom, you see, and won't let you pass it on to your kids.

Now the polls and everything--the Filter--are telling people to be afraid. That's fear--not Freedom. Americans shouldn't be afraid of Freedom--they embrace it--they hold it close to the heart. And luckily, policies put in place by our pal, Paul Bremer, and by the noble sacrifices of our heroic men and women of the armed forces, will soon make it possible for Iraqis to begin investing in their own personal accounts. A Free and personally-investing Iraq will be a beacon of light in the troubled Americo-Middle-Eastern-region, and show the people of the world--and America--that Freedom is not something to fear. And then, once again, Freedom will be on the march toward a glorious, personally owed future.

We must act now to ensure a personally investing future for both Iraq and America. If we don't act, millions of young people will be facing the future without Freedom. And I don't care what you say, America—but that's not the way we do things here in America.