Outis

The Memo:

Mora thinks that the media has focussed too narrowly on allegations of U.S.-sanctioned torture. As he sees it, the authorization of cruelty is equally pernicious. “To my mind, there’s no moral or practical distinction,” he told me. “If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America—even those designated as ‘unlawful enemy combatants.’ If you make this exception, the whole Constitution crumbles. It’s a transformative issue.”

Mora said that he did not fear reprisal for stating his opposition to the Administration’s emerging policy. “It never crossed my mind,” he said. “Besides, my mother would have killed me if I hadn’t spoken up. No Hungarian after Communism, or Cuban after Castro, is not aware that human rights are incompatible with cruelty.” He added, “The debate here isn’t only how to protect the country. It’s how to protect our values.”

The piece ends with this sad moment of cognitive dissonance — known elsewhere as a paradox:

“These were enormously hardworking, patriotic individuals,” he said. “When you put together the pieces, it’s all so sad. To preserve flexibility, they were willing to throw away our values.”

This myth will die a hard death but when it does…

The popular view of our ancient ancestors as hunters who conquered all in their way is wrong, researchers have told a major US science conference.

Instead, they say, early humans were on the menu for predatory beasts.

This may have driven humans to evolve increased levels of co-operation, according to their theory.

Despite humankind’s considerable capacity for war and violence, we are highly sociable animals, according to anthropologists.

Among the academic publications on the web site of one such researcher is “A neural basis for social cooperation.” (PDF)

Earlier news reports include: “Why cooperation feels so good” which notes:

An Emory University study indicates that cooperation, teamwork and reciprocated altruism stimulate areas of the brain that result in feelings of pleasure. Brain scans have revealed a biologically embedded basis for cooperation.

From the NYT:

In his new book about Mr. Bush, “Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush,” Fred Barnes recalls a visit to the White House last year by Michael Crichton, whose 2004 best-selling novel, “State of Fear,” suggests that global warming is an unproven theory and an overstated threat.

Mr. Barnes, who describes Mr. Bush as “a dissenter on the theory of global warming,” writes that the president “avidly read” the novel and met the author after Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, arranged it. He says Mr. Bush and his guest “talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement.”

“The visit was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more,” he adds.

And so it has, fueling a common perception among environmental groups that Mr. Crichton’s dismissal of global warming, coupled with his popularity as a novelist and screenwriter, has undermined efforts to pass legislation intended to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that leading scientists say causes climate change.

While many liberals and conservatives are familiar with such Latin American political luminaries as Hugo Chávez, Agosto Pinochet, Fidel Castro and, faintly, Manuel Noriega, there’s a man in office just two miles away from the United States who is likely as sinister, criminal and, potentially, as powerful as all of these men: Jorge Hank Rohn, the mayor of Tijuana.

Josh Kuhn has written a thorough account of this favorite son’s ascent to power for the LA Weekly.

For more on the corruption that leads to the savage murder of hundreds of women in Juarez and the mass exodus of tens of millions of Mexicans (many illegally) to the United States, check out Bordering on Chaos by Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer.

(Thanks, Ejival)

Brad Plumer has a long, detailed and chilling review of a new Mike Davis book “Planet of Slums.”

I’m not a fan of the breathless quality with which Davis has described, on more than a few occasions, the meltdown of Los Angeles.

However, I am far more predisposed to take his current project seriously, a sobering look at how capitalism around the world is failing to incorporate a growing number of people. That’s a fact today and one that has dire implications for tomorrow if nothing changes.

According to Plumer’s summary:

There are 250,000 slums around the world today, and by 2030 or 2040 there will be around two billion slum-dwellers living on this earth, people who live in areas with few, if any, utilities—in Nairobi the poor rely on “flying toilets” (crapping in a plastic bag)—people who are barely subsisting in the “informal” economy, breeding disease and dying at an alarming rate, plagued by crime, and often forced into quasi-feudal dependencies by local officials.

From what little I’ve read, this extrapolation doesn’t even take into consideration the impact of environmental degradation although I would be surprised if it weren’t a central thread in Davis’ book given his penchant, in the past, for tying together earthquakes and corruption — not unlike many Biblical writers of yore.

Plumer points out that according to Davis, “in the absence of a Left (if there even is one anymore) in Third World urban areas, the slum class will eventually turn in increasing numbers to populist Islam and Pentecostalism.”

Davis may be the smartest and best known liberal writer in the apocalypsis genre, though none of his books have sold as well as the right wing’s “Left Behind” series. It’s a genre that is as old as most founding myths — many cosmologies combine both world destruction and creation — and as relevant today for good reason: by taking apart our world, we can better understand just how it is put together.

(In a sense, all philosophy takes place within a kind of ecstatic awe — terrifying or pleasant — in which the present moment is set aside and foundational principles can be turned upside down and closely inspected.)

I hope “Planet of Slums” inspires more than a few talks, papers, articles and, most importantly: a blockbuster movie and tv series. But, if it does, let’s not forget that apocalyptical writing is not born of moralistic condemnation but rather (and rather unexpectedly), like Jared Diamond’s books, of sober self-awareness.

Personal postscript

As some of my friends know, I’ve spent the last two years working out a story about illegal immigration set in the future. A central character in the story is a corporation called IBS which not only manages the world’s borders it also serves as a temp agency, bank and social networking tool for a few billion of the world’s population.

This fictional transnational entity not only profits from the friction of so many transactions per day, it also exploits telepresence, allowing billions of commuters to travel around the world in the blink of an eye in order to satisfy the demands of an incredibly dynamic and transparent marketplace.

All this telecommuting takes place via a process not unlike lucid dreaming and so it was quite a pleasant surprise to find that the post on Brad Plumer’s weblog following his synopsis of the Mike Davis book cited above is a short review of an intriguing book on dreaming: “The Mind at Night: The New Science of How and Why We Dream.”

I think I might want to hurry and finish that story before it is written by the blogosphere.