Giving Thanks to Our Elders

I didn’t write this, let me say that first. I found this letter at the automatic earth (automaticearth.blogspot.com) and it says in no minced words many of the things I want to yell from the top of hills.

Our generation, the 30 and youngers, is getting fucked over worldwide, and the biggest perpetrators are our parents generation, especially here in the USA. They run our governments, banks, large businesses, and society. Unless we take back our own future soon there will be nothing – no resources, no wealth, no space, no relief – left for us to inherit. And worse, most young Americans are growing up just as bad, just as wasteful as their parents. Enough of me – here’s VK:

VK: I was thinking of writing something about the age of consequences that we have entered. With the world going all topsy turvy and unending chaos. I wanted to write something about the decline of complexity, an age of payback or blowback but before I do that, I reckon I want to thank the old farts who got us here. I mean the baby boomers -and gen X’ers to some extent-. No really, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart from Gen Y. It is not even conceivable how ridiculously spoilt the boomers and Gen X’ers are.

You had everything, and you give us nothing. Now that’s a gift worth giving isn’t it?

Where to begin on the gifts that just keep taking from us. You saddle us with your debt burdens, your legacy costs. You use our names and paint little bullseyes on our dreams and hopes and shatter them with the gift of debt. Trillions upon trillions you’ve saddled upon us to save your McMansions, your stocks, your portfolios and your yachts. Thanks for that.

Youth unemployment across much of Europe and the US is hovering between 20-25% with Spain at 45%. This doesn’t even count underemployment, where the youth have been even worse hit. Unemployment and underemployment among young people could be as high as 40-50% in much of the world. So you gift us with debt as well as with no jobs and low wages!

Why do I feel like a PhD in Greece who’s serving fat tourists on a beach earning €700 a month, or maybe the Italian kids who can’t afford to buy their own house or maybe the Australian kid who was sold out by his government into buying houses that (s)he can’t even afford, in an effort to prop up ridiculously over-valued home prices. Or maybe it was the American kid who got out of college with a huge debt burden and now can’t find a job or even get a start in life because of your reckless greed and exuberance to party. Thank you, you’re so kind and gentle and giving.

I thank you also for the environmental gifts you have given, pollutants, CFC’s, methane and carbon. Dirty rivers and smogged-up cities. Dead babies and frankenseeds. Thank you so much, we’re well past the climate change tipping point at 350ppm, the permafrost meltdown will come to us, from Russia with love, adding god knows how much methane into the atmosphere.

Thanks for the making Australia potentially uninhabitable in a few decades thanks to your desire to garden your quarter acre of suburbia, thanks for ripping Alberta apart, thanks for damming the rivers, for the need to wear face masks in cities just to breathe and turning the Pacific and the Atlantic into great big giant garbage patches.

The rivers will dry, the seasons will alter, add on top of that top soil depletion, phosphate production decline and a smattering of freak weather incidents and we’re all set to have a rocking good time. Thanks. It’s great to know that because you couldn’t live without your iPhone, your double cheese burger and holidays to Florida, you have given a gift that will just keep on giving for multiple centuries.

It’s also great to know that since you couldn’t understand urban planning and build right rail and tax people for driving cars and provide subsidies and incentives for bicycling. You were just too hard headed and stubborn, you wanted it all. You still are and you still do.

No limits, fast muscle cars and cruising to your local drive-in with that hot guy/ gal who turned fat 3 years or 3 decades later on a steady bloated diet of fructose syrup and is kept alive seated, forget standing, with prozac and cialis. You wanted it all! You didn’t want to understand either peak oil or its effects on generations ahead. Let me say it simply, the world is finite. Hence logically it has finite resources. Technology can only do so much, without hitting the brick wall known as the laws of thermodynamics.

You came up with all sorts of excuses, in the 1970’s it was,”This is bullshit, there are no limits”, in the 1980’s you said, “there might be limits, but the market will solve them”, in the 1990’s you said, “markets can be inefficient, but technology will save us, magic bullets people!” and in the naughties you said, “Do I look like I care about you? we’ll all get rich selling houses to each other and stealing our kids futures, they suck anyway”

So thanks, for this gift, you used up the easiest and most precious finite resources discovered by man in about 1000 years, the last 50 have seen you grab and squabble harder than ever before. Thanks for leaving us with all the hard to find, tough to extract energy sources with such low marginal rates of return that civilization might not survive. You’re all heart and a bag of gold to boot.

So thank you really, you had a blast, a great time. You had Elvis, the Beatles, Dylan, free love, cheap oil and free money. You leave us a bitter ponzi scheme. A world burdened with nearly 7 billion people as you couldn’t stop shagging each other now could you? You leave us a world so polluted and so close to the edge that we’ll wonder where to get our next meal from. A world so saturated with debt and bleak employment outcomes, we’ll be servicing your debts forever and then some more.

You’ve sent your kids to die. In wars where rich men argue. You’ve sent your kids to the abyss. With environmental recklessness and greed. You’ve sent your kids to the house of pain and broken dreams. With your ponzi finance schemes. You’ve sold us off to satisfy your strange urges and feelings, your own inadequacies and insecurities and misgivings. Thanks a quadrillion for that! I know you did it all for us, to make us feel better and to give us a bright promising future!

Now please, let the kids sort things out. You geezers should take a hike. Quite literally, go to a park, go trekking, like try the Great Beyond. You’ve done enough damage as it is.

Alone in the Crowd

What is it about these cities that makes them so similar, leave me feeling so nearly identical despite their unique identities? Each maintains its own culture, own customs, traditions, and architecture – so many places, so many different interactions, such a wide range of experiences. Every city is its own world. Yet every city I’ve ever been in makes me feel the same. I’ve been in San Jose or Bogota, Guatemala City, Bucaramanga, or Tegucigalpa, and had the same thoughts and feelings as in Los Angeles, New York, or San Francisco.

People in cities act the same – not all of them, but enough so that I notice. They’re busy, driven, motivated to do things I can only guess at, moving through life from point A to point F, and they can’t be bother to acknowledge the existence of any points B through ZZ in between. I dimly remember a psychological study from a few years ago, where people would be asked to walk between various places, under different levels of distraction, and somewhere in the middle a clown in full makeup would ride a unicycle across their path while juggling. Most people didn’t notice it even happen, especially those on their cell phones or told to hurry. People are so focused and busy that they can’t be bothered with or distracted by anyone around them. I feel like I’m the clown in most cities – holey clothes, a big bag, this goofy grin and that stupid curly mop on my head. Nobody even bats an eye. Perhaps if I did handstands…

It’s relieving sometimes, I won’t lie. There are times when I just want to be hidden in plain view, and I won’t pretend to be alone in that. Other times though, I want to be noticed, acknowledged, seen, grinned back at. Rarely do I get that here, rarely in any city. It’s taboo to break into the worlds of others, verboten to interact with them unless in response to some mistaken contact, shove, bump. Try sitting on the subway sometime and just looking at someone else for too long – the ugly faces I’ve gotten back shouldn’t shock me, but they do anyway. “Fuck you,” the look says, “did I give you permission to look at me?” So cold, so troublesome. What if I just liked your hair, or thought you looked relaxed leaning as you were? It’s such a big deal to break into peoples’ bubbles that most everyone doesn’t bother – I can feel myself disengaging, putting my own shell up already, and it scares me so deeply. What if I become so hard I can’t let others in either?

I guess I understand the rationale – there are a million jillion people around, there isn’t any hope of a lasting relationship with most of them, so why bother, why interact at all with those you don’t have to? I just don’t like it. I think it’s a cop-out, a way to justify one’s own callousness and treat one’s fellow humans as undeserving of simple kindnesses. I think it’s a sign of illness, frankly – a deficiency of spirit, of love, a worrisome trend away from connection with one’s species. On some level it’s an abdication of reality. If you wouldn’t glare at your friend for glancing your direction and smiling, why would you insult a stranger so? So many of us, stuck in such a small area, yet instead of allowing this proximity to aid us in knowing one another better, we instead take it the opposite direction, take offense at our neighbors, segregate ourselves out from the mass of humanity. A tragedy, and yet by the numbers, a far more common, far more “natural” reaction.

Is it self-protection? Are we worried that those around us will hurt us, will sap us of something, energy, a resource, that we hold in short supply and must thus ration out? Perhaps if we smiled at, said hello to every person we passed in a given day here it would be exhausting… except that in other places, the small towns of the world, in Central American pueblitos where everyone knows one another, they really do that, really smile at, greet, talk to everyone they cross paths with! Sure, there are fewer people, but the interactions are far deeper, more open, and require a far more intense amount of oneself. Besides, I’m not advocating that – we don’t have to be Hondurans, but we probably ought to know our neighbors by name, return smiles given to us, say hello to people in elevators and when our eyes meet on street corners. That isn’t much, just the barest level of humanity, to treat others as more than part of the scenery. At least, I see it like that. Perhaps I’m the crazy one.

The second thing I notice in cities is that everything has a purpose. Everything around me, from the trees planted in lines to the cobblestones to the power lines, brick buildings, cars, fences, traffic signals… every single thing in this world was built, created, constructed with some purpose in mind, by someone with a mind and a plan. It changes how you think, subtly yet completely, to exist in this sort of place. It makes intelligent design seem possible, probable, irresistably true when nothing around came about naturally, when evolution has been replaced by creationism, when the egg came before the chicken but not until after they were both analysed in subcommittee, voted on, had funding approved, and were built by the mayor’s nephew’s construction company. It must rewire your brain somehow, to have such a lined out, rule-driven, purposeful world. There’s no imagination necessary!

It takes about a week before I start craving open spaces, sky, grass, a tree to climb. I want to see a horse, or a cow, or a man riding a horse with a machete and a woven hat. I start dreaming of dirt roads full of potholes, open highways, hitchhiking in the backs of trucks past the horizon toward… whatever is there. Who cares? Traveling and cities aren’t compatible – the former being a state of existence where destination isn’t important and purpose doesn’t factor in, the latter being a destination whose very existence demands purpose. It feels like my dreams don’t exist in cities, can’t survive the bright lights and movement, aren’t able to sprout up through the asphalt. Instead that life, fragile and real, shakes itself and slinks off defeated to parts unknown – nobody here wanted it around in the first place.

The third thing I notice in the cities is actually something I don’t see – emotions. People are more guarded, treat their true feelings, reactions, thoughts as if they are something to be saved and protected from harsh reality. I don’t see many smiles, I haven’t heard more than a few people laughing outside, don’t see many hugs or kisses, and when someone is outwardly affectionate it’s weird and awkward. My grinning draws suspicious looks. The loud woman laughing on the phone gets pitying glances, my cousin and I get eyes rolled at us when we embrace on the subway. There are so many masks in cities. Is it so hard to be honest, emotional, raw? There must be penalties I’m not aware of, surely. What else explains how hard everyone is, how brittle armor covers their emotional flesh? It protects them from harm, but at the price of deflecting kindnesses and small loves – the emotional barrier isn’t sensitive enough to differentiate between good and bad attention, and so it all is kept out.

It’s a choice, but I don’t know how many people are aware they are making it – how many actually think “today I’m going to be aloof and cold toward everyone so that nobody hurts or bothers me.” I imagine that the number of those making conscious choices is so much smaller than those who do it without thinking, if only because it’s such an easy rut to fall into – even if you did make the choice, you’d only have to make it once or twice. After that routine is powerful, and if you’re not accustomed to having regular interactions with strangers, how would you even know that they were missing? I admit that if not for my life being so different lately I would probably slide through the world as they do, sidestepping past the cold activists on the street corner, dodging the homeless bumming cigarettes, sliding or hopefully moonwalking past the woman struggling to carry a stroller up three flights of stairs. The problem wouldn’t be a problem if I could ignore it too… right?

The romantic drifter in me says “yes, it would still be an issue.” The difference is just that I wouldn’t think about it and therefore wouldn’t be bothered by something that never entered my mind. Still, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect me – it’s just like that dicho, that saying about how there are things we know, those we know we don’t know and those things we aren’t even aware we don’t know – those who put up their shields and glide through the world aren’t even aware of what they’re missing! They roar through their days like a knife through soft cheese, and I take a grater to the whole block. It takes a lot more effort, gives you a whole lot of small bits, but if you don’t take the effort to see it you’re blind to a whole universe right around you, and that’s just not healthy even if you aren’t aware of it.

I really do worry to think about it – how many people do you know that just blow right through life with the blinders on, rushing from home-work-appointments-reunions-meetings-car-cafe-home again without daring to stop on a street corner and chat with a stranger? How much are they missing without meeting Clayton from Alabama, sharing a lumpy cigarette and hearing how he is stuck living on the streets of NYC because his girlfriend threw him out again? He’s never been in a big city before! I told him how to get free meals at the Whole Foods salad bar – hope it comes in handy. What could be more important than these brief, bare moments with others? Then there’s Tim, sitting at the bus stop drumming on the bench and singing his heart out. How is it that out of everyone passing by or waiting for the bus, I was the only one to join in? It’s crazy! Almost as crazy as the looks people give me when I start up conversations in the elevator – though to be fair, I was way underdressed for that place… The point still stands though, that all of the best things in life are free, unplanned, and completely unexpected, and those who don’t leave themselves open to it are going to miss life dancing, laughing, spinning around them. When it comes down to your final breaths, will you really be proud of the time you spent at work, of your schedule, or the things you did to survive?

There’s a scene I remember in a movie I don’t, where one of the main characters in caught in hell as punishment for committing suicide. She’s unable to see anything outside of her own world, shuts herself off from the beauty of the existence, is too busy and self-involved to realize that everything, everwhere, is heaven, and if we only open our eyes to it, everything wonderful lies spread before us, open and inviting. We’re in danger of doing the same here, focusing so tightly on the finish line that we miss the beautiful vista all around. “It’s all in your head,” I want to scream to the pedestrians chasing laser-beam paths, to the blank stares on the subway, to the crowds of emotionless strangers. How much more wonderful it could be if we all just let the world in, accepted the small hurts in order to take in the song-worthy and beautiful as well. Of course, if I did scream that to them, all I’d get in response is rolled eyes and uncomfortable looks. Rocking the boat is strictly prohibited.

Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m in the minority here – that most people are content to live the life solitary, ignore the connections we all share, because it is safe and easy to just cut ties and live alone. Or at least, it feels that way. It isn’t bad until the cold night – when your boyfriend hasn’t been returning your calls, when you’ve been fighting with the roommate and your brother and parents are on the other side of the continent and all you want is human connection– that you get that sinking feeling inside, start to feel just the outlines of what you are missing. By then the armor is strong, the defenses protecting you impermeable, and the detachment you relied on to keep the cruel world away now do their job so well that you can’t make the connections you need… I wonder how one deals with that but I imagine one side effect is an alcohol industry that does just fine. I don’t know, don’t want to find out, because to me the true value of small gestures, smiles and winks, shared jokes and smokes, is visible and omnipresent. I can’t be closed any more now that I’ve seen what a joy it is to be open – I can’t relate to those sailing past, faces set. We’re drifting apart, and I’m hesitant to even try to interact…

Wait a second! Perhaps this is how it starts – no conscious decision, just a group feeling of isolation in the face of many unknown faces, so many strangers, and it’s all moving so fast. I can feel the allure of just shutting up, setting my face, and turning up my coat. It tugs at my sleeve like a little kid trying to get my attention would. As the cities grow bigger, the buildings taller, and the faces start to blur, what can I relate to, why bother to try?

Half of all humans live in cities now, some three and a half billion people, living in slums, high-rises, apartments, grouped closer together yet further apart than ever before. We’re so close now we could hug, but how many of us would dare hug our next door neighbor? What is her name anyway? I wonder what happens when this city existence is all we know, whether we will even look at each other at all, or if our lens-implanted-facebook-connected virtual wireless internet-enabled devices of the future will allow us to stay entertained, connected, hooked up, jacked in, completely and utterly isolated a full 100% of the time. Every man an island, with more friends and social connections than ever before, and fewer friendships, less human connection than anyone would have thought possible. Like, unlike, tag, comment, buzz, tweet, connect, network, share, mesh – how did we ever meet anyone before all of these helpful technological advances? Surely we’ve come so far that nobody would ever need to stoop to actually talking to a stranger… right?

Heaven forbid. Not in my future!

Advice to Incoming Peace Corps Volunteers

An incoming Peace Corps Trainee sent me a message the other day, asking about my story, and what information I could give on the disciplinary process and standards of the Peace Corps – the “dark side” if you will.  Here is my response to him, and to anyone else wondering the same:

Congratulations on the PC acceptance – that application process is an ordeal wrapped around a shit sandwich, and I still remember the immense relief and joy I felt at finally KNOWING that I was going somewhere, anywhere, and that it hadn’t all been in vain.

Yes, to answer your question succinctly – they really will kick people out for bad behavior, as defined by them, by the Peace Corps handbook, and (this is the kicker) for Trainees, “at the discretion of the Country Director.”  What this last one means is that during training, from day 1 until you swear in, you can be removed from the program without warning, without any specific rule violation, and without ANY RECOURSE WHATSOEVER.  This was my situation – I was removed from FBT a week before Swear-in and subsequently given the options of 1) resigning my post, getting what small sum I had earned for my service, and going home immediately, or 2) refusing, getting kicked out, getting nothing, and being forever barred from serving with the PC in the future.  What I wasn’t told was that in order to have any legal or formal grounds to protest my dismissal, you MUST make them expel you from the program, but even that ground is very, very slim.  As the regional director of Central America in 2009 put it to me “we don’t interfere with the discretionary decisions of Country Directors.”  To conclude: as a PCT, you have no rights, you have no standing, you are there are the pleasure of the PC.

That said, the best advice I can give you is simply to not fuck around, at least not before Swearing in!  Really, it’s 90 days, unless you’re a total idiot, you should be able to keep on your best behavior for at least that long!  Granted, it’s degrading, constrictive, and insulting to your basic humanity, but the reward is 2 years of much looser supervision and a much healthier relationship with the administration.  Volunteers have rights again, they are protected by the rulebook, and are infinitely more autonomous and free to act than Trainees.  If you can make it through training, you will probably not get kicked out so long as you aren’t blatant about your rulebreaking.

You will break rules.  Yes, you.  I’m guaranteeing this you, and if you read through your rulebook, you will probably see why.  The rules aren’t written for you, the human being, but instead for you, the idealized model of a Peace Corps Volunteer.  They protect the organization from being liable for things that happen to you, and give them a better means with which to control you.  Yes, some of the rules, if followed, will keep you safer, but no, that isn’t the primary goal.  The organization comes first, in their eyes, and you are a distant, far-off speck of a third or fifth.  If you stay with the PC, you will eventually come to terms with this in your own way – everyone I’ve met has found their own workarounds and coping methods, and I’ve yet to meet anyone who lives inside of all the rules.  You’d self-destruct, most likely, from the sheer insanity of contorting yourself that badly!  Thus, I’m pretty confident that you will break the rules, and often, during your service.  The advice I give you assumes that you will.

Here’s the take-away portion of this ramble: different violations are weighted more or less heavily based on your personal circumstances.  If you are a nurse, teacher, or engineer, you can bend or break a lot more rules than if you are a 23 year old college grad with no experience.  It’s just a fact of life – to the organization you are a tool, and thus your personal usefulness to them and their goals is taken in as a factor in disciplinary action.  If you were a 40 year old pediatric doctor with  perfect Spanish who happened to be having a midlife crisis and doing an amazing job volunteering, I’d give it about 50% that you could have an illegitimate child with a local teenager, and the PC would cover for you.  As a recent college grad with basic language skills and no specialized degree, you are a pity case in many ways, and don’t get nearly the same leeway.  Don’t get angry, just keep this in mind – I’m not trying to discourage you, but giving you the warning that I wish someone had passed to me.

This might help you to keep in mind – here are the Peace Corps’ top priorities as I see them:

1) Liability
2) Their Image
3) Washington DC Politics (Ex: Honduras’ program is rated against the other nations, lets appear better than the others, and get more funding and attention.)
4) Your Safety
5) Your Work and Progress
6) Your needs and wants

Bear in mind, that’s my opinion – I don’t have a magic list of how the admin thinks, but I’ve seen the Peace Corps from a position very few volunteers get to, which is to say living in the same nation, working in the same fields, and from across the Director’s desk as she kicks you to the curb.  You’ll see some of this regardless, like in Safety&Security briefings where you are advised to not resist rapists and possible killers in any way, but much of it is impossible to see without being first inside and later out.  A lot of the Peace Corps’ partners, the local and foreign NGOs you will be interacting with, will express a lot of frustration about the organization, it’s policies, and limitations.  Again, not discouraging, but giving you a view of how some people see the group from the outside.

Anyway, just be forever wary of everything higher than you on that priority list – those things are more important than you, and so you’d be well advised to keep them in mind when deciding what you should and shouldn’t do.  You do have allies – you aren’t alone in this, and I would never want to leave you with the idea that this is some sort of strict, rule-centric environment where nobody has any fun. The volunteers are your allies in this, as they have had to go through the same ordeals, and have a much clearer picture of how things work.  Befriend them, intimidating as things might seem in the first days and weeks, and you’ll find that they have a lot of very good advice and guidance.  Some of them might even teach you what you can do, what is particularly frowned upon, how to jalon, and they’ll give you your best view into how things work – I’ve been out for too long, things have changed, the rules are enforced differently.  Know that they have been in your shoes, have had your doubts and fears, and are stronger for the help of the volunteers above them.  Let them help you.

Lastly, let me give you an idea of the things that I did that would constitute bad behavior, what got me removed from the organization, and a few final thoughts on the matters of behavior, discipline, and rulebreaking.

Here’s what I did that would constitute “bad behavior” by PC standards:
-Left training site without informing administration
-Went to a concert in Tegucigalpa without permission
-hitchhiked, repeatedly
-rode a motorcycle
-didn’t wear a helmet
-Went to bars in my site, smoked cigarettes
-Was drunk in bars in my site
-Smoked weed with volunteers
-Smoked weed with locals
-Left site during my volunteer visit to go to the beach
-Separated from my volunteer during the visit

Here’s what I was removed for:
-Writing in a US college newspaper, without permission, attempting to persuade graduates to consider volunteer work in lieu of immediately entering the workforce or continuing their education.  (Key part: get permission!)
-Using bad language in this writing, painting the organization in a negative fashion.
-Writing unflatteringly of my work and local customs online (Twitter, titles of blog posts which were passworded)
-“Cultural Insensitivity”
-“Subversive attitude”

As you can see from this, I did a lot of things that could have justified my removal from the Peace Corps.  Despite this, what did get me in trouble were not the things that endangered myself, or went against my work.  Instead, the things that got me thrown out were those that threatened to damage priorities 1),2),or 3) – Liability, Image, and politics.  If your goal is stay in the organization, the rules you need to follow are those which protect the highest priorities.

You can get away with a whole lot if you’re careful, and a whole lot more, albeit for a shorter time span, if you’re reckless.  There are “bad” volunteers that don’t spend any time in their sites, travel around to party, smoke, drink, and party their way through service, who never get in trouble for it.  There are dedicated, serious volunteers who get thrown out for stupid, idiotic reasons, or for first time violations of petty rules.  It’s all about how good you are at hiding what you do, and how smart you are about your behavior – don’t get cocky, cover your bases, and you can do anything you want.

Am I advocating rulebreaking?  I guess I am, but that’s consistent with my personal philosophy – I don’t condone following regulations that you don’t personally agree with.  If you like smoking pot, taking vacations, or living with your boyfriend, and are willing to accept the consequences of being caught for this, then by all means do it!  Better to murder a nursing infant than to nurse an unacted desire – the very attempt to hide yourself, to lie to the world and your own soul is so much more deeply damaging!

I am the conundrum I suppose – the guy who got thrown out but chose to stay, the black sheep who somehow has a rather good reputation with the remaining volunteers.  All I can say is be true to yourself, and if that jeopardizes your service, then perhaps you weren’t meant to be in such a restrictive, conservative organization.  Many people are not!  A full 40% of my H14 class has since returned to other lives, mostly in the US, though I know a few have gone on to other locations.  Honduras is not for everyone, the Peace Corps either, so you should feel no shame in leaving if that is your desire.  It will prove better for yourself, and for the organization too, than for you to remain unhappily and help no one!

Just one last piece of advice, and this will apply somewhat to everyone, but mainly to those who get kicked out – you are a human being, a free, intelligent, and interdependent soul.  You are not scum, you are not a tool, you are not the property of the US government, the Peace Corps, or your director.  It is easy to forget this in the training process – subservience is one of their goals in creating successful volunteers.  If you find yourself facing disciplinary action, remember all of this above all else – you don’t owe them anything!  You enter your service freely, willingly, and as a gift to them.  Never let anyone make you feel guilty for what they have given you, for your gift was far more precious.  Never let them intimidate you, make you cry, or feel worthless.  The Peace Corps does not play nice with those it has discarded, and so you should not attempt to “be the bigger person” or act reconciliatory.  Fuck that!  They owe you volunteers everything, but act as if you are their property.  Never surrender to that sort of attitude, and you will have a much healthier time in your service, and especially in leaving it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this ramble – if you found it useful, pass it along, and if you have any more questions, I’ll happily answer what I can, or pass you along to those who will.  You can and probably will have an amazing time in the Corps, my experience was an outlier and an unfortunate one at that, so please – enter this commitment free, open, and ready for anything.  I just can’t let anyone go off without knowing the darker possibilities!  Have the best of times, and keep in touch – I wish you only the best.  Mucha suerte, contestame pronto!

Ciao -k

PS: here is the longer version of how I got kicked out of the Peace Corps

Various Thoughts on Terrorism

It wouldn’t be my style to go too long without a random philosophical tangent that nobody really wants to read, and since this one was actually a class assignment in Spanish, it seems only appropriate that I write about my position on terrorism and terrorists for a bit. Plus, I’m sure it’ll make me some new enemies in the form of people who label me “naive” and “someone who needs to see the real world.” My preemptive response to you is that I’m living in a world much more real, much more difficult then you are, and I’m seeing the result of real terrorism, economic and political terrorism, every day of my life. Plus, I’m a million miles away, so your emotions aren’t going to reach me without losing their impact. That said, love to hear your responses on twitter (citizen_k) or on my blog, or at citizenk dot blog at gmail dot com. Bear in mind that if you are stupid, unable to argue logically, or use the terms “Nazi,” “appeasement,” or “post-9/11 world” in your response, I will definitely mock you publicly. So here we go, some random arguments on terrorism, terrorists, and the difference between a soldier and a terrorist.

First, I suppose we need a working definition of terrorism. The difficulty is that the word has become so commonplace in society today that it has taken on a variety of meanings. An accurate, non-fearmongering, non-anti-arab definition of terrorism can be stated roughly as follows: terrorism is a tactic of warfare (or fighting if you wish to raise the objection that warfare implies states and state-actors) that relies on instilling fear in one’s enemies, and one’s enemies’ friends and neighbors, in order to achieve one’s goals. An example of terrorism in practice would be a campaign in which a group of actors, state, state-sponsored, or completely independent, begins a coordinated bombing campaign of popular bars and nightclubs in a city, with the aim of reducing night life in their city. The reason for this course of action is unimportant to this example. The tactic of bombing popular areas filled with average citizens is employed not to kill those citizens, but to convey a message that all “average citizens” who frequent nighttime activities in the area are at risk. Thus, fear is used to influence the behavior of citizens, causing them to abandon the bars and clubs, and destroy the nightlife in much the same what that razing all of the buildings to the ground would have done, but cheaper, with less equipment and personnel, and without requiring superior forces. Thus let us add to the definition of terrorism a clause about cost, ease of acquiring desired results, and feasibility of use by small groups. Putting what I have written here together, a more inclusive definition of terrorism might be stated thusly:

Terrorism: a financially cheap and low-resource fighting tactic that relies on the instillation of fear in an enemy population to achieve one’s goals not by force, but by dissuading one’s enemies from behaving as they would normally would due to fear of retribution, harm, or loss, financial, bodily, or otherwise.

It is important to note here that the terrorist does seek fear (terror) as a goal, but instead uses it as a means to advance his goals, or to push a society toward the terrorists’ position in much the same way that a nation-state might use a “shock and awe” or “blitzkreig” campaign to instill terror in its opponent. In all cases, the goal is not the fear, but the paralysis, uncertainty, and unconscious behavioral modification that comes with a fearful state of existence. Those afraid are easily controlled and manipulated, and since this is not uncommon knowledge, the use of “terrorist” tactics, at least by this definition, are in widespread use today, and not just by the groups the US government labels as “terrorists.”

With this definition, who are the terrorists? The groups using terrorist tactics are myriad, but their goal, behavioral modification and self-limitation of freedom by the target group, is the same regardless of race, ethnicity, political affiliation, or means. The guerrilla fighter group that beheads all males in a nearby village because one member of that village aided their enemy is certainly using using terrorist tactics to achieve their goal. (Presumably to discourage other villages from aiding enemies of the group.) Moreover, this sort of activity is easily determined to be of the terrorist variety. However, what of less shocking, more commonplace examples? What is the lower bound of terrorism? Ought we restrict use of the term only to certain activities? Do actual results matter, or only goals? I will try to address these all in due time.

A more confusing example of terrorist activity can be found in the campaigns of baby formula companies in Latin America. Utilizing this area’s weak governments and even weaker corporate legal frameworks, these companies have spent decades on an extremely aggressive series of advertisements that portray mothers’ milk as unsafe, formula as a better substitute, and all but state that not using their product is harmful to the health of one’s infant. As a result of this, large cross-sections of the people do not nurse their children, childhood obesity rates are through the roof, adult obesity, cardio-pulmonary disease rates are skyrocketing, children suffer from weakened immune systems due to not receiving critical immunities from their mothers (which raises early childhood mortality rates) and the overall health, prosperity, and wealth-generation of these nations suffer. Oh, and some baby formula companies make an absolute killing, having convinced mothers to replace a better, free, healthier, naturally-occurring PART OF THEIR BODIES with an expensive, unhealthy, inadequate substitute. It’s awful, it’s inhumane, but is it an act of terrorism?

The tactic used in this fight (between mothers not buying their products and mothers doing so) is certainly fear. Fear of unhealthy babies, fear of being a bad mother, fear of doing something different then what the “experts” say one ought to. Fear is a central element to the campaigns to get mothers using baby formulas, and so in that aspect it definitely qualifies. The companies use no force to persuade mothers to use their products, and their goal is not the fear, but the behavior (buying baby formula) that this fear leads to. Thus, this sort of ad campaign appears to qualify under this definition of terrorism.

However, I would imagine that many people have a big problem using the word terrorism to describe the actions of these companies. This objection probably stems from the fact that it is very difficult to reconcile a baby being too fat, growing up with the resultant health problems, and dying an early death from an obesity-related disease with a person having their head cut off or being blown up outside of a nightclub. The means utilized in both instances is fear, but the intermediate means (what they do to instill fear) and the unwanted result (fat babies versus dead people) are vastly different, and that leads many people to reject the comparison. But are they really so different?

Is not the baby formula company responsible for the health problems, obesity, and early death of those babies raised drinking it? Shouldn’t the company be held, if not fiscally or legally, at least morally responsible for these problems? After all, their business is, in convincing the uneducated and gullible, through fear, to use a shoddy, expensive, and knowingly-inferior product in lieu of a perfectly good one that they already have, and they do so by preying on the love of every mother for her child. Without their interference, the incidence of women using formula in lieu of breastfeeding would most definitely be lower, if it occurred at all, which it wouldn’t if these companies didn’t persist in making their products. While on a single-incident basis this cannot compare to a beheading, or a suicide bombing, surely scale must come into play. Violent acts of terrorism, according to International Red Cross statistics that I cannot access because I don’t have regular Internet access but read a while ago when I did, killed several thousand people last year. How many people died in Latin America due to obesity-related diseases that stemmed from their early childhood? How many infants and young children died because they weren’t receiving the necessary nutrients and antibodies from their mothers? How many people spend their lives unhappy with their looks, with their bodies, simply because these companies decided to create a niche for a product that nobody should use save as a last resort, market it as a wonder-drug cure-all and make themselves rich in the process. I don’t have those statistics; likely nobody does. There’s no concrete way of measuring it, but from what I’ve seen down here, and from what I’ve read and learned, obesity is an epidemic sweeping the area, and early-infancy diet has lasting effects on the remainder of one’s life. While the actions of the baby formula companies aren’t flashy or gory, they are certainly fear-reliant and seek behavioral modification, and thus they are correctly labeled as acts of terror.

Now for something even more controversial. The actions of states in times of war, and oftentimes in times of “peace” are just as much acts of terrorism as those of the suicide bomber. The state uses fear in all actions during war in order to maintain discipline, patriotism, and a willingness to sacrifice in its people. This is not new – it stems from the tribalistic need to band together with those most like yourself in times of need – and tinpot dictators for all of human history have invoked threats of outsiders and those different to cement their rule. States are always guilty of using fear of “the other” to maintain their position at the apex of so-called legitimate society. I cannot stress this enough – fear is one of the great motivators, perhaps the greatest, and its use has been one of the pillars of every form of government that has ever existed on this planet. When times get hard, or when a state wishes to act in a way contrary to the wishes of its citizenry, it will invariably turn to fear to quell dissent and change public opinion.

The soldier is an instrument of fear. He is a tool by which the state can either maintain fear internally, or spread fear to other parts of the world. His job is not so much to kill, but to kill in such a way that he demolishes the power structure of the enemy in its entirety. When the soldiers have finished, those left alive ought to be willing to throw themselves at the feet of the soldiers and the mercy of the state because they fear for their lives and those of their families. This is why the crusaders slaughtered the populace of Jerusalem, why the allies carpet-bombed Dresden and incinerated Tokyo, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima, why the United States massacred Iraqi troops fleeing Kuwait in the first Gulf War, and used “Shock and Awe” tactics against Baghdad in the second. If one searched history, these examples are but drops in the bucket of state terrorism. The simple act of killing sends a message, surely, but the act of utterly destroying a group or location, not restricting violence to combatants and instead killing soft, civilian targets is intended to strike terror into the hearts of a people. By having its soldiers utilize the weapon of terror, a state can modify behavior, crush dissent, and pacify those whom it wishes to control. Terror insures true victory, true subjugation, of one’s enemies.

On the homefront, a soldier is a useful weapon in state terrorism as well. He serves as a symbol, both of the power of the state, and as an ever-present reminder to the populace of the dark, scary, dangerous world that he is protecting them from. The soldier reinforces the message of the state by his very presence, and that message is “the world is dangerous: be afraid, give your freedom to us and we will protect you.” The soldier is an instrument of terror against the people in his state as much as those in neighboring states. He is the face of the beast, the grinning pop-out skull in the haunted house, the gritty, in-your-face reminder of the power of the state. The soldier is used at home to quell dissent, pump up nationalistic thought, to make the people give away their rights instead of the state having to take them by force. Here again terror, specifically the fear of the other, is used to modify the behavior of the people toward that which is easier to control, easier to manipulate, easier to quash when it does not meet the needs of the state. The soldier is the most professional, most well-trained, most efficient of terrorists, and his brand of terror has the backing of a nation.

Two differences is normally granted to the soldier, first that he is merely doing as he is ordered to, and would face penalties if he did not kill, and second that his actions are legitimized by the state. Both of these differences do not hold up to examination, and ironically it is the state-centric legal system that supports my position. First, the soldier’s orders do not legitimize his actions any more then the terrorists’. Both face strong penalties (the terrorist possibly stronger) for refusing to act thusly, they both likely joined their organizations voluntarily (excluding conscription) and they both are beholden to morality regardless of their orders. This final point is proven beyond a doubt in the Nuremburg trials after World War II, where the orders of a state or government were found insufficient to excuse the actions of those on trial. International standards of morality, respect for the basic human dignity, and right to life were found to have greater authority then any state actor, and there were a fair handful of death sentences at Nuremburg. One of the great tragedies of history is that we, the United States of America, one of the nations most responsible for injecting the rule of law into international relations to prevent warfare, have publicly abandoned this position of late and reverted to the use of terrorism and armed force to enforce our opinions. (Not that we don’t have a history of this, but that is beyond the scope of this essay.)

To review: both the soldier and the terrorist are likely voluntarily affiliated with their organization, and if they are not, the terrorist is probably more likely to have been forced to enter service. (You don’t see many 12-13 year olds with AK-47s in the US army, but they appear all the time in terrorist organizations.) They both will be penalized for refusing to act, and since modern militaries rarely shoot/kill their own as punishment for disobeying, the terrorist faces higher penalties here as well. Finally, all fighters, state-affiliated or otherwise, are obligated under international law to morally adhere to a code which puts human life and dignity above all else, and thus both sin equally in their kills. (I would further argue that this is not a matter of voluntary association, but of moral obligation. The taking of another human life in all contexts except self-preservation is morally wrong.) Thus the defining difference between the two is that the soldier is tied to a nation, represents said nation in his actions, and is protected and supported by the power, reputation, and resources of that self-same nation. In return, the soldier is given a level of protection from retribution for his actions, a justification for killing, a shield to deflect his human guilt at his actions. Beyond these superficial differences, the function of both the non-state terrorist and the soldier are the same – to control the behavior of some group through threats and fear.

What then can we conclude about terrorism? I think the wise conclusion would be to realize that terrorists and terror tactics are much more commonplace then we would normally assume, and that we are ourselves subjected to all sorts of fear-based marketing, behavioral modification, and control on a regular basis. Further, with our (tacit) blessing, the nations of the world, especially the industrialized military powerhouses, engage regularly in terroristic tactics to control natural resources, quell the self-determination of peoples, and maintain their positions of dominance/legitimacy. Finally, the most important conclusion here is that terrorism is a buzzword, a phrase that is itself used to invoke terror, to manipulate public opinion, and to delegitimize one’s opponents. Thus, we must be very careful in whom we call terrorists, and not forget to examine the motives of those willing to label others with the term. One may call a group or individual terrorist(s) but that oversimplifies that such groups cannot survive without the support of someone – it would be more productive to examine whom is lending that support, as this will give a better idea of what sort of group one is truly dealing with. This will then lead to strategies of dealing with said “terrorists” successfully, using appropriate means, and without turning the local population against you.

Please question your leaders, for unless you are billionaire investor who has financed their campaign, they do not have your best interests at heart. Terror is not the exclusive territory of poor brown people with bombs strapped to their chest, and the governments of the world are far more adept at it then any of the terror cells our leaders pay trillions of our dollars to fight. Think about it.

These Times We Live In

We are witnessing the greatest power shift that has crossed this earth in nearly a century.   

I used to worry that I was born too late, and that my generation would never have a great struggle, as those before us have had. Now I see that the opposite is true: we are the lucky ones, for we will be the generation that is most affected by this change. 

We will be the first Americans since our great-grandparents to live in an America that is not a hegemonic power. We won’t be able to fall back on military force to spread our ideas and policies, and we will, by necessity, return to real diplomacy and negotiation with other nations. Budget constraints will force us to abandon our military bases around the world, and will likewise reverse the agressive foreign policies of the past two generations. 

On the home front, we will return to sound, savings-based, monetary policy. Our current fiat system is unsustainable without other currencies backed against it, and so our generation will encounter and overcome massive inflation and in doing so we will learn fiscal responsibility. As a consequence of this financial collapse, we will shift toward local economics, with farming, manufacturing, and communal projects replacing foreign imports and individual isolation. Ours will be a collective generation out of necessity.

Ironically, our hardship will also help to solve other world crises.  The coming financial crisis will help to slow the rate of global climate change and also the wholescale pollution of our planet. As the global economy slows, factories will close and global commerce will slow considerably. As we are witnessing this year, increasing gas prices cause dramatic drops in travel. With our global economy dependent on cheap fossil fuels to transport good around the world, one can imagine what will happen as the price of fuel skyrockets. Those formerly cheap Chinese goods will be unaffordable to the average American as the dollar rapidly declines in value. We will be unable to depend on foreign goods, and we will create a sustainable economy to compensate.

Of course, this is not going to be a pleasant transition. The initial dive will be devastating to our economy, and the American people will suffer greatly.  (It is worth noting that we will not be alone in this collapse) In all likelihood it will be the worst dive since the Great Depression, and perhaps worse even than that. Massive unemployment, rampant unemployment, civil discontent, tent cities, and starvation are all ahead. However, within this great hardship is the potential for a revitalized and more stable America, true to her ideals, and no longer a threat to world democracy. We, as the generation coming into power, will learn firsthand the lessons of community activism, self-reliance, and social responsibility that our forefathers knew, and our grandparents learned in the great depression. We will be passionately involved in our governance, and we will take back our government from those who brought us to this great ruin.  We will come out of this crisis stronger, smarter, and more united. The world we grow up in will be more egalitarian, more democratic, and governed by the rule of law, because we will have seen the alternative, and we will have felt the consequences. Truly, these are lifechanging times we live in.