America’s disappearing weaponry

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America’s enemies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere have regularly been able to arm themselves with a remarkable range of U.S. weaponry. During the fighting around the city of Tal Afar, the Iraqi military recovered a U.S.-produced FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missile and launcher from an Islamic State weapons cache. That’s a weapon capable of taking out an M1 Abrams tank. And this is hardly the first time U.S. anti-tank missiles meant either for the Iraqi military or Syrian rebels backed by the CIA have turned up in the hands of ISIS militants. In 2015, that group released photos of its fighters using U.S.-made BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles.

When the American-trained, funded, and armed Iraqi army collapsed in the summer of 2014 in the face of relatively small numbers of ISIS fighters, that group took vast stores of U.S. weaponry and vehicles that they’ve used ever since. But that was hardly the end of it. The U.S. soon began retraining and rearming its Iraqi allies to the tune of $1.6 billion for “tens of thousands of assault rifles, hundreds of armored vehicles, hundreds of mortar rounds, nearly 200 sniper rifles, and other gear,” much of which, a government audit found, the Pentagon simply lost track of. The weaponry, you might say, went missing in action. In 2007 the Government Accountability Office found that “the United States could not account for nearly 30% of the weapons it had distributed in Iraq since 2004 — about 200,000 guns.”
Similar stories could be told about Afghanistan. In short, the Pentagon has been arming itself, its allies, and its enemies.  (Tomgram 12 Sept 2017)

It is quite extraordinary how the majority of Americans are in awe of the military. It’s harmless, and courteous, thanking ex-servicemen for their service (they must get heartily sick of this, and wish the thanks were reflected in their medical care). What is incomprehensible is the lock the military-industrial complex has on every Administration, Congress, State government and nearly all Republican voters. America used to stand for liberty, freedom, the rule of law and reasonably good governance. Now it stands for never-ending warfare that fuels the most important institution in the country – the military. And this military not only cannot win a war, but accidentally loses loads of its weapons, backing the wrong horse on most occasions. And nothing is done about infrastructure, lousy education and many other pressing problems because far too much money is gobbled up by a military machine too big to be managed. The Roman Empire fell under the weight of a military fighting endless wars, while the lifestyle of the average Roman citizen gradually declined.
We have seen this movie before, several times in history. We are watching the end of Ameriican hegemony, and no one seems to do anything about it, maybe cannot.

Oh, no! Not again!

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Over the last 9 years 971,000 Americans have been killed or wounded by gunfire.

Well, never mind. For a minute or two the members of Congress will be remembering the 59 slaughtered people in Las Vegas in their “thoughts and prayers”, won’t they – before bowing in gratitude to the NRA for further election funds.

“Thoughts and prayers”? Hypocritical balderdash! The National Rifle Association and the Federal and State legislators who resist, nay, encourage, the purchase of lethal firearms with ever more killing power – all of them are complicit in this shameful and seemingly endless slaughter, and should be kept in a safe place, away from gunfire (maybe in the private jails they have designed for poor and coloured people who smoke pot and listen to loud, un-listenable-to music?), until only shotguns for hunting are allowed to be sold, ammunition sales are severely curtailed, and police safety inspections in homes are compulsory.

And to think that the U.S House of Representative was about to vote on a bill allowing free use of silencers on guns, so that innocent people could be shot as silently as the so-called “prayers” being uttered by the politicians. That has had to be postponed until the liberal noise and fuss has died down. Tut, tut!

P.S: So many people don’t “do” irony. To make it clear in non-ironic terms: the Republican legislators supporting the legalisation of ever more destructive assault rifles should be jailed until they develop the backbone to stand up to the National Rifle Association, or National Mayhem Association as it is known in Epicurean circles. The present situation is immoderate, cruel and immoral.

Heaping work on customers

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The “self-service revolution” has been wonderful for companies. What better way to strip out costs than to replace supermarket cashiers with machines, or make passengers print out their boarding passes before setting out? In a new book, Shadow Work, Craig Lambert presents a “dystopian vision”. He argues that “the reason why so many people feel overworked these days is that they are constantly being asked to do ‘unseen’ jobs”, by everyone from Amazon to the taxman. The cumulative effect is to feel like “a slave to the machine”. Perhaps Lambert is too gloomy: many of these developments have in fact been driven by customer preference. But there is now a clear and worrying divide between “cattle class” and “business class” offerings: the service industries have eliminated “the personal touch” from their mass-market products, while “no amount of fawning is too much” for well-heeled customers. And if they abandon trying to differentiate themselves with good service, the effect is “to train customers to shop on price”, making them vulnerable to attack from discounters. Just ask Britain’s mainstream supermarkets. (Schumpeter, The Economist)

We encountered very charming man who, a year ago, had sold his technology company and was looking around for new opportunities. He absolutely agreed that the idea of customer service is dying or dead. One can never get past the young woman on the phone. She either can’t or won’t put you through to her supervisor, and often doesn’t know who he (or she)is. The management treat customers like herds of cattle, ignoring complaints and suggestions, offering limited training to the front line staff, and contenting themselves with sending out gormless opinion polls (we care!). And by the way, most of the websites one visits do not need elaborate “accounts” and log-ins, which are marketing ploys and have nothing to do with security.

Yesterday I was sent an opinion poll email, asking me how well the company concerned did in arranging an annual service visit to maintain our central heating boiler. Actual amount of time taken to choose date and time: one minute 23 seconds. Time it would take have taken to fill in the poll? About five minutes. Ridiculous!* Time for a revolt by the customer!

* I ignored it, of course, in the name of peace of mind.

Idleness and the baby boomers

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Epidemiologist Loretta DiPietro of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University has worked on health for baby boomers and older people.  You would think it was obvious and that the middle-aged would be aware of it by now, but DiPietro says that being immobile for hours each day does more than raise the risk of a host of diseases. She has good evidence that, as the years wear on, it actually reduces the ability of older people to get around on foot at all.

In a study of sitting and walking ability that surveyed people ages 50 to 71 across 8 to 10 years, those who tended to sit the most and move the least had more than three times the risk of difficulty walking by the end of the study, when compared to their more active counterparts. Some ended up unable to walk at all. (The study appeared in the Journals of Gerontology: Medical Sciences).

Prolonged sitting and TV watching were particularly harmful, DiPietro found, especially when combined with low levels of total physical activity. Young bodies may rebound from prolonged sitting with an hour at the gym, she says. But that seems less true in late middle age.  “Sitting and watching TV for long periods, especially in the evening,” she says, “has got to be one of the most dangerous things that older people can do.” And the period studied — the mid-1990s to 2005, or so — was before the advent of online streaming of shows. The problem today is probably even worse now that it is possible to watch several hours without moving.”

“We now use the Internet to go shopping, order groceries, send messages, and even gossip,” DiPietro says. “We used to walk down the hall and gossip; now we send it via email or text.”
.Those who watched five or more hours of TV per day had a 65 percent greater risk of reporting a mobility disability at the study’s end, compared with those who watched less than two hours per day. DiPietro says this association was independent of their level of total physical activity and other factors known to affect the ability to easily move around.

She offers an antidote: Get up at least every 30 minutes when staring at a screen. At least stand up, march in place, jump around, kick legs — do anything to move about for at least one to two minutes.”. The result of that would be “phenomenal,” to mobility, she says, and be at least a start toward heart health, too.

Dr. Andrew Freeman, who directs cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, and represents the American College of Cardiology, says people should do even more higher intensity exercise regularly — at least to the point of being “breathless.”. Exercise, he says, is nature’s best medicine. (a precised version of a piece on NPR, reduced in length for easier consumption. Original Copyright 2017 NPR.)

My wife and I go to the gym three times a week. I normally use the treadmill to walk about 3 miles each time, and I do a number of exercises as well. I say this (hopefully) not to sound holier than the next person, but because there are usually pitifully few people my age
ever in that ,gym. Youngsters, yes, but oldies very few. They say the wheels start coming off when you reach 80. I’m surprised they don’t come off earlier.

Epicurus and Political Moderation

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We’re a big fan of moderation here on the Epicurus Blog. In fact, it’s one of our core values, as you can see on the banner above. Epicurus stressed that avoiding excess was a key aspect of achieving happiness, and we wholeheartedly agree. Thus, we reject rigid dogmas and are generally utilitarian in our ethics and morality.

However, the benefits of political moderation aren’t as straightforward. Political moderates emphasise caution, pragmatism and compromise. They are by definition averse to radical change. In a liberal democracy that treats its citizens well, this is generally a good thing. The present day United States is a textbook example of the damaging nature of political polarisation, where neither side is willing to make the necessary compromises in order to enact desperately needed reforms. Rather, the consensual model of decision-making found in most EU countries- where policy is borne out of compromise and coalition-building, not adversarial bickering and demonisation of the opposition- is vastly preferable.

But in countries that aren’t liberal democracies; where human rights are being violated, where a small group of elites squanders the country’s wealth, where corruption is rampant, and where businesses are overburdened; moderation is actually immoral. To watch injustices being carried out, and to respond by demanding compromise, is to betray those who are suffering. We can all compromise on what the tax rate should be, or how much should be spent on education, but not when people’s basic human needs and dignity are being denied.

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I believe that the Conservative Party in the UK, as well as a large (and increasing) portion of the Labour Party are insufficiently moderate. The former has become totally committed to leaving the European Single Market, regardless of the consequences for business or people’s freedom. The prospect of rapidly falling migration or a weakened Pound does not faze them, in fact they welcome it. They have thrown their brand of caution and stable leadership to the wind, instead promising a utopia of free trade deals and vastly increased exports. Their unrelenting Euroscepticism is totally at odds with the analysis of the Bank of England, the Treasury, every major university and economics think-tank, as well as all of our allies around the world.

The ignorant radicalism of the Conservative Party’s approach to Brexit has contributed to the popularity of Labour’s own new-found radicalism. If the fall in the Pound is to be welcomed after Brexit, then why not after a Labour victory? The same could be said for any fall in the value of stocks or property. Conservatives can no longer argue against reckless gambles since they are taking one themselves. Moreover, Brexit was largely Britain’s older generation embracing radical change. In response, Britain’s young people have embraced radical change in the form of Corbynism- which may be Eurosceptic in ideology, but does not spew out nationalistic tropes like calling the EU an ’empire’, telling it to ‘go whistle’ over our unpaid liabilities, or criticising EU migrants. Unlike much of the Eurosceptic right, Corbyn does not advocate an adversarial relationship with the EU, but one borne out of mutual respect.

So if the Conservatives and Labour (as I explained in yesterday’s post) are insufficiently moderate, then why not support the Liberal Democrats. For the benefit of non-British readers, the Liberal Democrats are a bit like the US Democrats, minus the more progressive people like Elizabeth Warren or Dennis Kucinich. They are socially liberal, pro EU and pro immigration, and are the party most strongly in favour of reforming Britain’s anachronistic constitution. But on economic issues, they aren’t as left wing as Labour. They have never identified as a socialist party, and refrain from engaging in class warfare rhetoric to appeal to their middle class base.

I have a number of problems with the Liberal Democrats. In the 2017 election, a large part of why I didn’t vote for them was their then-leader Tim Farron. An evangelical Christian, Farron holds moderately socially conservative views on a number of issues, but does not wish for those views to be enacted into law. But when asked about those views, Farron repeatedly dodged the question, before eventually lying about his beliefs so as to avoid being mistaken for a political conservative. Following the election (and his party’s underwhelming performance), Farron resigned, claiming he couldn’t in good conscience continue to be the leader of the Liberal Democrats and be a Christian. My problem with Farron was not his Christianity nor his personal views, my problem was that he lied about them. It also seemed a bit inappropriate for an Evangelical to be leader of a socially liberal party; Evangelicals are much more socially conservative than mainline Protestants, who could be Liberal Democrat leaders without any problems arising.

Farron’s successor, Vince Cable, is in a different class. An experienced spokesman, he is highly intelligent and articulate, and thus attracts the media coverage his party so badly needs. My problem with Cable’s Liberal Democrats is some of their policies. On housing, they often block much-needed development at the local level, even if they sing the praises of house building nationally. The obvious example is Oxford West, where the local Liberal MP claims the city’s housing shortage can be addressed by building in the neighbouring town of Bicester. This is total tripe- there is plenty of land available to be built in Oxford, the problem is the green belt which prevents such development from happening. Considering that Oxford’s house prices are the highest in the country relative to local wages, opposition to house-building is totally unforgivable.

On Brexit, the party supports a referendum on the final deal, with the option of staying in the EU should the public find the deal unsatisfactory. This has the obvious appeal to Remainers of keeping the possibility of staying in the EU open. But this referendum would suffer from all of the problems of the first one. A complex issue would be presented as a binary choice, obscuring the nuances of policy. Lies and out of context information could be spread easily by either side. The sovereignty of Parliament would be violated and its expertise rendered inconsequential. And most importantly, there wouldn’t be any accountability. A lot of campaigners could promise all sorts of things, knowing they wouldn’t be held to account for having not fulfilled their pledges. Overall a second referendum is bad policy. We could legitimately stay in the EU, but only if Parliament votes to cancel the Article 50 process following a dramatic change in public opinion as shown by multiple opinion polls. Otherwise, we are going to leave, and the Liberal Democrats will probably just have to accept that.

As the closest thing Britain has to a moderate party, the Liberal Democrats aren’t a terrible bunch. We certainly need an explicitly centrist movement, to tame the extremes of left and right. But too often, they fall into the trap they criticise others for- promising the undeliverable. House prices cannot be lowered without significant development. A second referendum will not necessarily grant the wishes of beleaguered Remainers. And on the economy, Cable promises a Swedish style social democracy, but like Labour, does not propose the tax increases necessary to pay for it. Being moderate is about being honest and realistic. It is a virtue all of Britain’s parties have yet to learn.