Peaceful Burma (ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းျမန္မာ)平和なビルマ

Peaceful Burma (ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းျမန္မာ)平和なビルマ

TO PEOPLE OF JAPAN



JAPAN YOU ARE NOT ALONE



GANBARE JAPAN



WE ARE WITH YOU



ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေျပာတဲ့ညီညြတ္ေရး


“ညီၫြတ္ေရးဆုိတာ ဘာလဲ နားလည္ဖုိ႔လုိတယ္။ ဒီေတာ့ကာ ဒီအပုိဒ္ ဒီ၀ါက်မွာ ညီၫြတ္ေရးဆုိတဲ့အေၾကာင္းကုိ သ႐ုပ္ေဖာ္ျပ ထားတယ္။ တူညီေသာအက်ဳိး၊ တူညီေသာအလုပ္၊ တူညီေသာ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္ရွိရမယ္။ က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ ညီၫြတ္ေရးဆုိတာ ဘာအတြက္ ညီၫြတ္ရမွာလဲ။ ဘယ္လုိရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္နဲ႔ ညီၫြတ္ရမွာလဲ။ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္ဆုိတာ ရွိရမယ္။

“မတရားမႈတခုမွာ သင္ဟာ ၾကားေနတယ္ဆုိရင္… သင္ဟာ ဖိႏွိပ္သူဘက္က လုိက္ဖုိ႔ ေရြးခ်ယ္လုိက္တာနဲ႔ အတူတူဘဲ”

“If you are neutral in a situation of injustice, you have chosen to side with the oppressor.”
ေတာင္အာဖရိကက ႏိုဘယ္လ္ဆုရွင္ ဘုန္းေတာ္ၾကီး ဒက္စ္မြန္တူးတူး

THANK YOU MR. SECRETARY GENERAL

Ban’s visit may not have achieved any visible outcome, but the people of Burma will remember what he promised: "I have come to show the unequivocal shared commitment of the United Nations to the people of Myanmar. I am here today to say: Myanmar – you are not alone."

QUOTES BY UN SECRETARY GENERAL

Without participation of Aung San Suu Kyi, without her being able to campaign freely, and without her NLD party [being able] to establish party offices all throughout the provinces, this [2010] election may not be regarded as credible and legitimate. ­
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

Where there's political will, there is a way

政治的な意思がある一方、方法がある
စစ္မွန္တဲ့ခိုင္မာတဲ့နိုင္ငံေရးခံယူခ်က္ရိွရင္ႀကိဳးစားမႈရိွရင္ နိုင္ငံေရးအေျဖ
ထြက္ရပ္လမ္းဟာေသခ်ာေပါက္ရိွတယ္
Burmese Translation-Phone Hlaing-fwubc

Friday, January 9, 2009

Many condolences on the death of U Saw Mra Aung

http://www.narinjara.com/details.asp?id=2020



Many political parties inside and outside of Burma have sent condolences to Arakan League for Democracy and the family on the loss of Dr U saw Mra Aung, who was president of Arakan league for Democracy, a biggest ethnic political party in Burma.

United Nationalities league for Democracy (Liberated Area) said in the condolence letter that U Saw Mra Aung was working for democracy and equal rights for all ethnic people in Burma. U Saw Mra also accepted the position of chairman of parliament in order to fight against military government unitedly among pro democracy groups when CRPP was formed in 1998. Therefore the death of U Saw Mra Aung is a great loss for all people in Burma.

The Burma Campaign UK ( BCUK) also sent a condolence letter on the loss of U Saw Mra Aung and expressed that the Death of Dr. Saw Mya Aung is a great loss for the Arakan people and the movement of ethnic nationalities in the struggle for democracy, human rights and freedom in Burma.

BCUK said that BCUK honours Dr. Saw Mya Aung for his strong leadership and his dedication to the struggle for freedom and equality for the Arakan and all the people of Burma against the repressive military dictatorship.

BCUK said that he did not live to see the freedom for the Arakan people, but the struggle will continue and his dream will come true.



The Chin National community - Japan also expressed in its condolence that U Saw Mra Aung was not only a lover for Arakanese people but also other ethnic nationalities in Burma because he scarified his life for democracy and freedom in Burma.

The Muslim Liberation Organization of Burma (MLOB) also expressed condolence on the loss of U Saw Mra Aung and said that it is not only a loss for Arakanese people but also other nationalities in Burma because he scarified his life for democracy, human rights and equal rights in Burma.

The organization honoured U Saw Mra Aung as a great leader for his contribution for democracy in Burma.

An Arakanese group, All Arakan Students and Youth Congress spoke of his background history and said that U Saw Mra Aung was a great leader of the Arakanese community and he scarified his life for the Arakanese people for development like other people in the world.

Dr. Saw Mya Aung, 92, who was president Arakan League for Democracy as well as president of CRPP parliament, was elected as a Member of Parliament representing Mrauk U township constitutioncy 1 in the 1990 elections. His party won 11 seats in 1990 elections in Arakan state.

He died in his house located in Than Lwin Road, Kamar Wrat Township, in Rangoon on 5 January 2009 and he was buried in Ray Way cemetery January 6 morning .

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Top Bush Aide Hopes Obama Will Push Burmese Cause -IRRAWADDY

http://www.irrawaddy.org/print_article.php?art_id=14888



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By LALIT K JHA Thursday, January 8, 2009

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WASHINGTON — A top aide to US President George W Bush said on Wednesday that he hoped the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama would continue to push for democracy and protection of human rights in Burma.

“I hope the new administration will continue pushing the cause of human rights and freedom in Burma,” said Bush’s national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, in his valedictory speech at the prestigious Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

During its eight years in power, the Bush administration led the international community in imposing sanctions on the Burmese military regime and calling for the restoration of democracy and release of all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi.

Although it was not able to achieve any of these objectives, the Bush administration was successful in putting Burma on the agenda of the UN Security Council.

First Lady Laura Bush also took a strong interest in the people of Burma and often encouraged the administration to take measures against the country’s ruling junta.

Since becoming the president-elect, Obama has remained largely silent on foreign policy issues. Although he and his team have occasionally expressed their views on critical foreign policy issues, they have said nothing so far on Burma.


Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org

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Foreign investment in Myanmar soars

Wednesday, January 7, 2009


Foreign investment in military-ruled Myanmar nearly doubled in the first 10 months of last year, with the bulk coming from Chinese-backed mining projects, official figures showed yesterday.

Between January and October 2008, China invested 855 million dollars in Myanmar's mining sector, making up most of the 975 million dollars total foreign investment.
Foreign investment for the same period a year earlier was 505 million dollars, according to the ministry of National Planning and Economic Development.

China made its massive investment in July, alongside another five million dollars from Singapore, 94 million dollars from Russia and 20 million dollars invested by Vietnam in Myanmar's oil and gas sector, statistics showed.

The Chinese investment is the largest since Thailand invested six billion dollars in the 2005-6 fiscal year for a hydroelectric dam project.

The United States and European Union have both tightened trade sanctions on Myanmar since a brutal crackdown on protests against the country's military rulers in 2007.

But neighbouring countries such as Myanmar's ally China continue to buy vast amounts of Myanmar's natural resources -- mainly gas, precious jade and gems.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962. It began to open up its economy in 1989 after a 1988 democracy uprising in which around 3,000 people were killed.

Posted by Saigon Charlie at 6:15 PM

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Drug Trade In The ‘Golden Triangle’

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0901/S00106.htm


Thursday, 8 January 2009, 11:51 am
Press Release: United Nations

Real Lives Touched By Drug Trade In ‘Golden Triangle’ Featured In UN Photo Stories

New York, Jan 7 2009 11:10AM The lives of real people affected by the illicit drug trade in the area known as the Golden Triangle – Thailand, Laos and Myanmar – are showcased in a new set of photo stories published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The second volume of the photojournalism book “De Narcoticis” is produced by award-winning photographer, journalist and UNODC Goodwill Ambassador, Alessandro Scotti.

The project “gives a face” to a problem that is often depicted through data and numbers, and focuses on a range of actors, including law enforcement officers, traffickers, plantation workers and addicts, notes Mr. Scotti.


“It’s an underworld which has been examined closely enough to give us plenty of figures and statistics, but which is less known for its personal stories,” he says.

“The people involved in trafficking have only a very partial perception of the overall phenomenon, and yet their lives are powerfully affected by it. They are simple people with a limited perception of the impact of their actions.

“Most are in any case tied to the ‘job’ for their very survival; desperate people with otherwise limited life chances or opportunities,” he says.

This is why UNODC’s work is so important, Mr. Scotti adds. “UNODC offers a holistic approach including development strategies which allow alternative businesses to grow and become sustainable. A stronger economic and social framework leads to a different balance.”

The first volume of “De Narcoticis” focused on Colombia, which now produces only 5 per cent of the world’s opiates – down from over 70 per cent some 30 years ago – and where UNODC has been partnering with local authorities in combating the drug trade.

ENDS

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Presuming a democratic Myanmar: Looking beyond election 2010

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/01/08/presuming-a-democratic-myanmar-looking-beyond-election-2010.html

Nehginpao Kipgen, , Rockville, MD | Thu, 01/08/2009 10:36 AM | Opinion

It is sad to see a government sentencing its own citizens to prison terms ranging from six months to 65 years. The alleged convicts are none other than some of the most admired artists, revered monks and peaceful activists who dearly love their country.

The international community's political rhetoric, without any substantive action, has emboldened the military generals to advance their seven-step road map toward a "disciplined and flourishing democracy" slowly but steadily.

It was not surprising to see UN chief Ban Ki-moon's lukewarm reaction toward a largely symbolic petition submitted to him by 112 former world leaders asking him to visit Burma (Myanmar) in the wake of widespread arrests in recent weeks and months. The Dec. 3 petitioners included Jimmy Carter and Tony Blair, among others.

Out of frustration, Ban -- through his spokesperson Michele Montas -- responded to the letter and said: "...will not be able to do so without reasonable expectations of a meaningful outcome, which is what we have been saying all along...."

What could that paper tiger achieve anyway? Had the same letter been sent by the same number of incumbent world leaders, it would have had better leverage. The move was an encouraging sign, but will have very minimal impact, if any.


It would be more efficacious if the 112 world leaders instead convinced their own governments to take pragmatic action in line with what the UN chief is asked of.

It is the UN Security Council that can initiate effective action and the good offices of the Secretary-General that can implement, and not vice-versa. Ban Ki-moon sees the limitations his good offices can play in the absence of any enforcement mechanism.

If Ban were to go to Myanmar without having to achieve any substantive results, he could demean the Secretary General's office. His basic demands such as the release of political prisoners and an initiation of dialogue with the opposition groups have not materialized.

Instead of listening to the repeated calls for the release of political prisoners, the military authority -- in recent weeks -- has handed down long prison terms to anyone seen to be a disturbance in the upcoming 2010 election.

On the other hand, the military was sending yet another clear message to the international community. Senior General Than Shwe was heard bragging about the 15-year existence of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and its rising 24.6 million members.

On the fourth day of the association's 15th anniversary on Nov. 29, Gen. Than Shwe was heard saying: "....plans are well underway to see to the remaining steps including the 2010 transition work program. So, it is fair to say that the future of the State structure is certain to materialize".

In the new constitution, 25 percent of the seats in both houses of parliament (House of Representatives and House of Nationalities) are reserved for the military. Amendment of the constitution will require the approval of more than 75 percent of the votes. In other words, the constitution has been designed to perpetuate military rule.

The generals learned a lesson from the 1990 general election -- any free and fair election will go in favor of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and other democratic opposition groups. It remains to be seen whether the NLD will be allowed to participate in the election.

If the NLD is barred from the election or if the party chooses not to participate, the political scenario beyond the 2010 election could become even murkier. While the new government will be busy with its own agendas, the NLD will continue to lobby the international community to recognize the 1990 election results.

The 2010 election will bring a transition to Myanmar, but the new government will still be directly or indirectly under the military. One other significant implication is that the results of 1990 general election will become bygone history.

As usual, the international community will send mixed responses regarding the election outcome. While most western nations will not or perhaps will reluctantly recognize the results, many Asian governments will welcome it as a positive step toward democracy.

It is these conflicting approaches that have given the military generals political breathing space. Sanctions versus engagements and or appeasements by the international community are responsible for the military regime's survival.

One must not, however, believe that the successful implementation of the State Peace and Development Council's seven-step road map will bring an end to Burma's decades-old political problems.

We will continue to see simmering political turmoil in the country. The military generals are indifferent to and even anathema toward any concept of federalism, which has been the basic demand of the country's ethnic nationalities -- with the exception of the Myanmarese.

A long-lasting solution to Myanmar's problems needs the sincerity, honesty and participation of all ethnic groups. Different ethnic groups should be brought into confidence, and their legitimate demands should be examined. This process of democratization has to be an inclusive approach.

Myanmar's political landscape could still be dramatically changed before and after the 2010 general election provided that the international community steps up a coordinated "stick and carrot" approach.

Meanwhile, the military junta's capability should not be undermined. The regime takes pride in having one of the largest armies in the region with over 400,000 personnel. The military is also well protected by the UN Security Council's veto structure.

If the international community is serious about finding a solution to Myanmar's political problems, it should take actions that can make a difference. There are ways to bring down or convince the military generals.

Military intervention, a model based on the six-party talks regarding North Korea's nuclear stand-off and the UN Security Council Resolution will be some of the swiftest, if not most effective, tools to bring about a democratic change in Myanmar. However, none of the above is likely to happen in the near future.

If no realistic action is on the agenda, the international community should look beyond the 2010 election and start planning for new policies and strategies to be pursued under a new military-controlled government.

The writer is the General Secretary of U.S.-based Kuki International Forum (www.kukiforum.com) and a researcher on the rise of political conflicts in modern Burma (1947-2004).


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Fw: [BRCJ]1月の活動案内

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    ビルマ市民フォーラム メールマガジン     2009/1/8
People's Forum on Burma   
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
日本ビルマ救援センター(BRCJ)からのお知らせを転送させていただき
ます。


(重複の際は何卒ご容赦ください。)


PFB事務局
http://www1.jca.apc.org/pfb/


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新年明けましておめでとうございます
今年もよろしくお願いいたします

今月の月例学習会のご案内です。
なお、2月は20日(金)、3月は19日(木)に実施いたします。

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
■月例ビルマ問題学習会             (16日、大阪市・谷七)
「ビルマ難民の第三国定住について」
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
○日時:1月16日(金) 19:00~20:30
○講師:中尾 恵子
○内容:昨年12月19日に難民対策連絡調整会議から「第三国定住による難民
 の受入れに関するパイロットケース実施の具体的措置について」が発表されま
 した。BRCJが年に2回実施しているタイ・ビルマ国境の難民キャンプ訪問
 より、現地の難民の声や、すでに第三国へ出発した難民の報告などをご紹介い
 たします。
○会場:大阪ボランティアセンター(大阪社会福祉指導センター)
地下1階ボランティアルーム
地下鉄「谷町6丁目駅」より谷町7丁目交差点を右
地下鉄「谷町9丁目駅」より谷町7丁目交差点を左

*向かいの大阪社会福祉会館ではありません。お間違えのないように。

会場周辺の地図は、次のアドレスからご覧いただけます。
http://www.osakafusyakyo.or.jp/sidoucenter/sidoucenter-access.htm
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◇■日本ビルマ救援センター(BRCJ)事務局■◇

FAX:050-2008-0125
E-Mail:brcj@syd.odn.ne.jp
URL:http://www.burmainfo.org/brcj
-- Burmese Relief Center-Japan

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Outrages and Musings -The Open Society and Its Enemies Today

http://outragesandmusings.blogspot.com/2009/01/open-society-and-its-enemies-today.html

Outrages and Musings

Wednesday, January 07, 2009
The Open Society and Its Enemies Today
The term 'open society' connotes personal liberty, tolerance, transparency, and democracy. It was employed by the French philosopher Henri Bergson to describe political cultures that are non-authoritarian and based on the twin pillars of personal liberty and human rights. But it was another European philosopher, Karl Popper, who gave the term its popularity when he chose it as the title of a two volume study of the roots of totalitarian and fascism that he wrote during the Second World War.



When his book, The Open Society and Its Enemies (OSE), was published in 1945 his primary target were the "closed societies" of the time, the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Popper's main goal in this work, and in his Poverty of Historicism (1957), was to trace the historical roots of these totalitarian ideologies in the history of western thought. In the first volume of OSE he argued for a heterodox interpretation of Plato's Republic which Popper portrayed as the source of the idea of utopian social control. In the second volume he attempted to show that influential nineteenth century thinkers, particularly, Hegel and Marx, adapted Plato's dangerous ideas and set them loose on the world in the form of utopian holistic historicism. While Popper vigorously opposed these systems of totalitarian control, he was emphatic about the need for open societies not not to tolerate intolerance and warned repeatedly that in order to safeguard liberty we must be constantly vigilant about forms of social control and intolerance that would subvert the possibility of openness. We must, he argued, "claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant" (OSE vol.1, p. 265).




More than sixty years after OSE appeared we live in a much more open world. Nazism was defeated and forever discredited; the totalitarian regimes the former Soviet Union and its planned economy has likewise fallen and has been replaced by a market economy and somewhat greater tolerance of dissent. The Chinese are this year celebrating twenty five years of economic liberalization that has ushered in an era of unprecendented economic growth and prosperity for the most populous nation on earth. There are only a handful of totalitarian societies left today. One can mention the regime in North Korea, the military dictatorship in Burma, as perhaps also al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other religious extremist groups who seek to create an Caliphate that will enforce an orthodox form of Islam.



But we should also understand that there are enemies of the open society in our midst. These foes of freedom and reason employ more subtle means of silencing dissent, sowing division, and promoting intolerance and bigotry. These enemies employ forms of propaganda and thought control designed to control what people think and believe in democratic societies, and unless we learn to recognize their tactics, we can fall prey to the threat of closing our minds to new ideas and frustrating the process of inquiry.



The idea of a open society is based on tolerance of difference and indeed the celebration of diversity of race, of religion, of politics, of culture, of taste, of values. Open societies value plurality and oppose homogeneity and above all purity. But a culture of tolerance of openness is vulnerable to various forms of lies, deception, and manipulation. By being open such societies are vulnerable to attack from elements within the society that seek to close it, not in the crude way of earlier forms of totalitarianism, by excluding people or ideas from full participation in it, but rather by sophisticated techniques of thought control and manipulation of public opinion. These techniques have gotten out of control in American politics and have created a culture of deception, in which every kind of lie and deception is tolerated and indeed celebrated as "spin".



Noam Chomsky was among the intellectuals to clearly understand this threat. Writing in the 1980s in books like Necessary Illusions and the Manufacture of Consent, he identified the forms of thought control in democratic societies that are used by the enemies of liberty and democracy to maintain their power and privilege. They employ sophisticated techniques of public relations, advertising, and propaganda to manipulate public opinion. They use the "big lie" favored by Hitler and Goebbels; they engage in revisionist historical myth-making; and they distort language in ways that Orwell would have recognized so as to make things appear other than they are. In an age of mass media and mass communication, these techniques are even more potent because those who employ them are able to use the media as an electronic megaphone to pour their poison into the ears and eyes of millions.



The the recently deceased playwright Harold Pinter was another voice who warned us about the dangers of lies and deception particularly by politicians. He contrasted literary truth, which is in his view multifaceted, and partly subjective, with factual truth:
Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.
He used the occasion of his receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature to denounce in not uncertain terms the way in which, in particular, the United States government lied about its reasons for invading Iraq saying that:
The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading -- as a last resort -- all other justifications having failed to justify themselves -- as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.



But exposing lies can be a challenging enterprise. In order to prove that someone is lying one must first show that the statements he or she made are factually false, then one show that the speaker believed that these statements were in fact true, and finally, one must prove that the speaker intended to deceive his or her audience by claiming certain things to be true that he or she believed to be false. Because politicians can easily conceal what it is they believe to be true and their intention to deceive, our political culture is rife with lies. But it is also awash with something else that may be even more common and more insidious --- bullshit.
I am using the term "bullshit" here in a precise, philosophical sense identified by Harry Frankfurt in his small book of the same name. In this work Frankfurt defines bullshit as speech that has no regard for the truth, but is chosen because it is likely to influence people's perceptions of reality. Lies and bullshit are closely related, in that they both involve misrepresentation: in order to lie, one must believe that something is true and then speak with the intention to make one's audience believe the opposite of what one believes to be true. Both the honest person and the liar must therefore have some regard for the truth. The bullshitter, on the other hand, "does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose" (p. 56). As Frankfurt further explains the distinction between lying and bullshit:



What bullshit essentially misrepresents is neither the state of affairs to which it refers nor the beliefs of the speaker concerning that state of affairs.... What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise.... Both he and the liar represent themselves falsely as attempting to communicate the truth. The success of each depends upon deceiving us about that. But the fact about himself that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something that he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it. (pp. 53-55)
Frankfurt's analysis of bullshit allows us to distinguish between bullshit and fiction. When a writer of fiction, such as Pinter, or any other novelist or playwright, writes without regard for the truth, we do not call it bullshit because there is no attempt to deceive us into thinking that the speaker is attempting to tell the factual truth -- he or she is asking us to willingly suspect our disbelief and play along with the fictional premises of the work of art. Writers of fiction aren't interested in reporting the truth or concealing it, but neither are they trying to conceal that fact. But bullshitters are; they are trying to make us believe they are speaking truthfully when in fact they have no regard for the truth at all.



There is no better example of bullshit than "Joe the Plumber" from last fall's presidential campaign. Here is a guy, Samuel J. Wurzelbacher by name, who asked then candidate Barack Obama a question about the implications of his tax policies by portraying himself as a licensed plumber who was planning to buy his boss's business which he claimed was worth $250,000. In fact, as we later found out, Mr. Wurzelbacher does not have a plumber's license, his bosses' business is only worth $100,000, he himself makes $42,000 a year and owed back taxes on that amount. "Joe the Plumber" represented himself as a hard-working and successful small businessman, but in fact he was a fraud and what he said was total bullshit. He did not care whether the premises of his question were true or false, all that mattered to him was that he thought he could get Obama to admit that under his proposed tax policies he would be subject to an increase in his marginal tax rate. He just made up facts to suit his purpose.



So what happened to this bullshit artist? Instant meida celebrity and, at least among the Republican faithful, Joe to Plumber became a symbol for the notion (also bullshit) that Obama is a socialist because he favored having rich people pay a modestly higher marginal income tax rate. Rather than being ridiculed and publicly shamed, Joe the Bullshitter was lionized.



Our media culture is awash in bullshit. It is full of speech that does not even attempt to communicate truths or make claims whose veracity can be rationally assessed. Most people no longer seem to be interested in truth; what matters is someone's ability to lead his audience to accept something, or as Stephen Colbert says, to believe things on account of their "truthiness". We are suffering from "truth decay" that is rotting our ability to determine what to accept as true and worthy of belief.



The key question for defenders of open societies is how best to respond to this brown tide of bullshit that is polluting our public discourse? The financier George Soros, who was a student of Popper's, and whose main philanthropic foundation is named the Open Society Institute, wrote an interesting editorial commentary that identified the reason why lies and bullshit are threats to an open society:

Popper failed to recognize that in democratic politics, gathering public support takes precedence over the pursuit of truth. In other areas, such as science and industry, the impulse to impose one’s views on the world encounters the resistance of external reality. But in politics the electorate’s perception of reality can be easily manipulated. As a result, political discourse, even in democratic societies, does not necessarily lead to a better understanding of reality.

Soros argues that, "the separation of powers, free speech, and free elections alone cannot ensure open society; a strong commitment to the pursuit of truth is also required." He suggests that we need to have new ground rules for political discourse, that we need to inoculate the public against various forms of deception by exposing them to public scrutiny, and that we need to name and shame those who use them. Likewise, Pinter concluded his Nobel speech with these words, "I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory."
If in order to protect an open society we should not tolerate intolerance and bigotry, then neither should we tolerate lies and bullshit. In traditional closed societies, the pursuit of truth is frustrated by techniques of social control that limit dissent and critique of current orthodoxies. But in democratic societies such as our own, the pursuit of truth is under an even more insidious attack. By tolerating and rewarding bullshit we indicate that the truth does not matter; that one need not consider it as relevant at all. All that matters in a society that tolerates so much bullshit is that people come to believe what the bullshitters want them to believe, at least for a while.



What is to be done about the bullshit storm? I suggest that our first line of defense is to put our bullshit detectors on high alert and be prepared to recognize it and name and shame those who use it. I see some evidence that this kind of response to bullshit and deception is beginning to appear more frequently in the mainstream American media. As a long time reader of such publications as the Nation, the New York Review of Books, and Salon.com (not to mention Chomsky and Pinter), I am used to learning that the things reported in the mainstream corporate new media are lies and bullshit. But I have recently been amazed that correspondents from these liberally biased news media have begun to become regular guests on cable TV news shows such as Keith Olberman's Countdown and on the Rachel Maddow Show. What I appreciate about these cable new shows is that their hosts, Olbermann and Maddow, are not afraid to name and shame the liars and bullshitters. The other night, for instance, in talking about the flap over Pastor Rick Warren claiming that he never compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia, Maddow simply showed a video clip of Warren saying that he is opposed calling relationships between brothers and sisters, men and children, and men with multiple wives "marriage" and that he believes that gay marriage is comparable to them. She nailed him in a lie and he was even a finalist for the "Denial is not just the name of a river in Egypt" award for the most barefaced lie of the year (Sen. Ted Stevens won that one).



Olbermann and Maddow are, of course, using humor and political satire as defenses against bullshit; a technique pioneered by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on their wildly popular late night shows on Comedy Central. Using comedy to convey political criticism is a great anti-bullshit technique because comedy, like fiction, is not supposed to be taken seriously as an attempt to speak the truth. However, like fiction, one can invert their assumption by mocking and making fun of those who lie for a living -- what Olbermann calls professional prevaricators -- and with tongue in cheek, outing their deceptions. While seeming not to be pursuing the truth, one can speak truthfully about what others are lying and bullshitting about.



The Blogosphere is, of course, also full of bullshit, but it is sometimes a good place to go to find bullshitter detectors doing their duty. The You Tube effect, shown, for instance, with the "macaca" episode involving the Virginia politician George Allen, came from blogs that posted the video showing exactly what Allen had said. Politicians no longer have plausible deniability when there are video cameras on everyone's mobile phones.



To be continued....






Posted by Morton Winston at 6:50 AM
Labels: bullshit, Chomsky, Colbert, deception, Frankfurt, Joe the Plumber, Maddow, Olbermann, Open Society, Pinter, Popper, Soros, Stewart, tolerance
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About Me

Morton Winston
I am Professor of Philosophy and Chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at The College of New Jersey. I also have a long career as a human rights activist with Amnesty International and Social Accountability International.
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Soldier’s Arrest for Transporting Drugs a Sign of the Times

http://www.irrawaddy.org/print_article.php?art_id=14885

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By MIN LWIN Wednesday, January 7, 2009

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A warrant officer from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 701, based in Hmawbi Township, Rangoon Division, was arrested for drug trafficking in late December, according to a source close to Rangoon Regional Military Command.

“He was not selling, he was just a carrier,” said the source. “He did it because he couldn’t support his family on his salary.”

The man was found to be in possession of the drug while going through a checkpoint on the main road from Rangoon to Mandalay, the source said. No further details about the type or quantity of the drug were available.

The arrest highlighted a growing problem among low-ranking members of Burma’s 400,000-strong armed forces. Unlike the top generals who use the military to maintain their hold on power in the country, most rank-and-file soldiers are struggling to get by.

“Regional military authorities don’t provide sufficient rations and other supplies for soldiers and their families,” said a sergeant from LIB 701, speaking on condition of anonymity. “That’s why soldiers are always looking for some other way to support their families.”


While many military families try to subsist on earnings from a variety of side businesses, from raising livestock to making bricks or wooden furniture, even this extra income is often not enough. Like other public servants in this impoverished country, many soldiers survive on the spoils of petty corruption and other illegal activities, including drug trafficking.

Non-commissioned members of the armed forces are paid less than half as much as junior officers, with monthly salaries starting at 21,000 kyat (US $16) for a private. First class warrant officers can make as much as 50,000 kyat ($40) per month.

“We earn small salaries and work six days a week, even though we are not on the frontlines,” said the sergeant from LIB 701. “We don’t care where we get our money from, as long as we can support our children.”

With such attitudes prevalent among lower-ranking soldiers, commanding officers often look the other way or engage in illegal activities themselves. When caught, however, soldiers often face harsh sentences for their crimes.

Unlike soldiers near the bottom of the military hierarchy, those close to the ruling generals rarely face serious penalties for breaking the law.

Last year, Aung Zaw Ye Myint, son of Lt-Gen Ye Myint, was briefly detained at the Wat Htee Kan military camp in Prome, Pegu Division, after Burmese police raided his office at Rangoon’s Yetagun Tower on May 29 and found illegal drugs and six guns.

The Wat Htee Kan camp has served as a sort of reform school for the miscreant sons and grandsons of top-ranking generals since Burma’s socialist era.

Aung Zaw Ye Myint was a familiar figure in Rangoon’s elite circles, mingling with movie stars and the children of other top generals. He was well known as a reliable source of hard-to-find street drugs for a small but well-connected clientele.


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