Dana Blankenhorn

The Voice of Reason?

When Pat Buchanan is portraying the voice of reason on TV, you know you're in Cloud CuckooLand. You're through the looking glass, over the rainbow, you've passed through Neverland and landed on the other side.

But there he is, on MSNBC. His schtick has always included less-than-absolute support for Israel, and he's been accepted into the club despite this. But, as on every other issue (where he usually is seriously Out To Lunch) he's a pretty lonely voice these days.

In fact, if Democrats have their way (and Republicans would be happy about it as well) you might just have seen the last of ol' Pat on the living room box. America has officially become a secondary factor in its own National Security considerations.

Look. I can sort of understand turning our news into propaganda when we're the ones at war. I can even understand the use of American news and entertainment to sell policies the government wants to pursue, but can't because of political opposition. (FDR used the movies in this way.) But when two other countries are at war, and only one side can be heard – then the media is playing with fire.

Voice From the Past

Juan Cole reminded me of something today.

Abraham Lincoln opposed the Mexican War.

It cost him what was then a promising political career in the Whig Party. He was a peacenik. He opposed U.S. expansionism. That would not do.

And he was not alone. The Mexican War was a far more-seminal event in U.S. history than most today credit. Many of the great generals of the Civil War, north and south, served in that war. The tactics of our own war were first used in Mexico. And, of course, we got California (for which many of today's Republicans are not thankful).

But I digress. What I wanted to note was that Lincoln was far from alone in opposing the war, as evidenced by this anecdote brought to me today by Prof. Cole:

The New Vaudeville

I wasn't able to write here yesterday because I was taking my son to camp in North Carolina.

It's a great camp organization, by the way. It has done wonderful work with John. I recommend it.

Since driving straight back would get me into Atlanta in the middle of rush hour, I detoured via the Blue Ridge Parkway and through Cherokee.

You know who I saw there? Merle Haggard. Well, Haggard on a billboard.

How To Win The War on Terror

Peace.

The only way to win the War on Terror is through the instruments of peace. It's through justice. Just as the only way to defeat disorder is through order.

You can't win a war against non-state actors. You kill their women and children, they win. You bomb them into the Stone Age, you're only bombing yourself. Yet every attack they launch on you hurts 10 times, because you have something to lose and they don't.

So the question becomes, how do we support order? How do we create justice?

And the answer is just as clear. We support order by endorsing order. We sign on to the International Criminal Court. We subject our own people – all of them – to its dictates. No one, not even the President of the United States, should ever again be immune from prosecution for war crimes. Including this one.

Have war crimes been committed, in Iraq and elsewhere? I don't know. We should investigate. That's what Congress is for, it's what prosecutors are for. Give those powers over to people who will do those jobs and you have the first step toward winning the War. Collect the information.

Americans have the lesson of 9-11 completely backward. We rounded up a posse, we went off to kill us some Indians. But what you have here is a Liberty Valance situation. The law has to deal with him. Shooting him in the back won't do – the world street is too well-lit.

Generational Politics, the Elliott Wave, and the End of the World

Ever hear of the Elliott Wave?

It's pushed by a guy named Robert Prechter in Gainesville, and I've followed it out of a corner of my eye since the late 1970s.

The idea is that markets proceed in five waves.  First there's a long up, then a correction, then a longer up, then a correction, and finally a big-up with no relation to reality, and finally it all falls down.

Prechter, one of those Republicans who likes to call themselves Libertarian (so they can get out of the blame when their theories fall apart) sells this  as technical analysis to stock traders.  The fun part of it is that the dreaded "fifth wave" can be anywhere, and the hammer can fall at any time. In Prechter's universe, it's always ready to fall, because the numbers tell him so.

I don't believe in technical analysis, but in examining the generational theory I've been preaching here lately, some interesting parallels emerge.

Business Week Learns, Break Up The Bells

Business Week has finally learned what I call "the lesson of Dennis Hayes."

Hayes was the leader in the PC modem business until he decided to believe phone industry innovation claims. He bet his company on ISDN modems. The Bells never rolled out the service, and Hayes lost his company.

Today, TechDirt links to a Business Week article that teaches the same lesson, only now it's trying to teach this lesson to the entire country.

The subject is the Bells' hatred of innovation. And it's important to remember. Change frightens the Bells. They think only of short term profit -- that's all they've ever thought about.

It was one thing when this was just sinking businessmen like Dennis Hayes. But now it's threatening the entire U.S. economy. The Bells are presently engaged in a giant shell game - running ads claiming they're innovators, ads that tell us networking is so hard only giant companies can do it.

These ads are lies.

The Bells are also engaged in an immense political war. They seek nothing less than an unregulated, total monopoly over Internet service.  They want to determine not only what they can charge, but which sites will win and which will lose in the continuing competition.

This would be a disaster.

Clouds at Google

Despite another stellar quarter of growth, clouds are forming over Google.

In terms of real earnings, the company remains a one-trick pony, the pony being AdSense. AdSense is now riding a trend that is taking ad revenue out of other media -- even TV.

But what else is making money? Analysts note that video ads are starting to sell, but are they material to profits? Nope.

The bigger problem is bureaucratic. Google is having to build a system to manage its various technology efforts, along with metrics with which to measure results, and a process for replacing managers who don't perform.

This is proving the most difficult challenge.

Take Google News, for instance. (Please.) Google has yet to place any ads on it, fearing a backlash from media that will claim it's profiting from their efforts, stealing their content. The online landscape for media is already abysmal, with some news sites sitting behind paid firewalls, others sitting behind registration firewalls, and some refusing entry completely except to designated readers (like Billboard).

The news engine is also, well, cranky. Some lead stories stay up for a day or more. And the choice of which sites to include, and which to exclude, remains unclear.

For instance, my open source blog at ZDNet is included. Using open source as a keyword, I will often be greeted by one of my stories in the morning. I've sometimes seen my own face staring back at me. But I've yet to figure out the method used for putting some of my pieces on the top of the stack, and I'm not really trying to break news there.

TechDirt has been in contact with the Google News team over issues like this, and the answers they've gotten back are as clear as mud. At some point Google either needs to put someone there who can be clear about things, find a business model for the service, or (frankly) pull the plug.

This Week's Clue: Rage Against the Dark Ages

The following is the lead essay in my 10-year old free e-mail newsletter, A-Clue.Com.

You can get it in your own mailbox by subscribing here. Always free.

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One of my favorite movies this summer has been King Arthur.  (I save money by watching cable channels.)

The idea, which is supposedly based upon recent archeological studies, is that Arthur was actually a Roman soldier at the end of the empire, fighting the locals alongside indentured knights from Sarmatia (in what's now Ukraine). What gives him nobility is his belief in principle, in freedom. He claims it's being taught in Rome, but in fact Rome has rejected, and killed, the teacher he follows.

It's when Arthur learns that Rome has rejected what he was taught that he resolves to fight for England, for its native "Wolds," against the Saxon, who represent the coming dark ages. And in doing this, he and his knights become legends, throughout those Dark Ages and beyond.

Keeping the spark alive is vital, no matter the odds, because the spark can be re-lit. It's like what Billy Crystal's mage says in The Princess Bride -  "mostly dead is part alive." (All dead is "let's rifle his pockets.")

The 1966 Game: Who's Sam Walton Now?

The 1966 game has two purposes:

1. The fun purpose  is to find analogies between major figures at the pre-dawn of the Nixon era and people today.
2. The hidden purpose is to show just how long ago 1966 was.

Today's game piece is a good example of the latter purpose.

Sam Walton.(left)

Sam Walton today is a titanic figure in the history of American business. Wal-Mart bestrides the world of retailing like a colossus, its power and reach infinitely greater than the firm it displaced, Sears.

Walton is also a great story. A humble man, he based his firm on some simple precepts. Low prices, serving the underserved, and bringing rural America into the mainstream.

He's also dead. Sam Walton left this Earth in 1992, the richest man in America.

Since then, as I noted yesterday, his legacy has been changed. His kids are right-wing nuts. His board is a me-first bunch of greedheads who bleed communities dry, fight wars with their own workers, and spur our record trade deficit. Wal-Mart the company today is the most controversial firm in America, if by controversial you mean a firm with strident defenders and equally-strident detractors. (I don't know of anyone who really likes Exxon.)

But remember. This is The 1966 Game. So who's Sam Walton Now?

Why Make Half the Market Hate You?

There is something I don't understand about Wal-Mart.

I have never, ever seen a company so determined to piss off half the country. Rule number one in business is supposed to be, don't do politics. Rule number two is, if you do politics do it privately.

Nope, Wal-Mart's heirs have to get in our face about how wonderfully far-right they are. And their corporate officers have to do everything they can to crush labor and anyone else they perceive as The Left.

Well screw that.  Not because I happen to be a Democrat. Because I happen to be a business reporter, and that's just very, very bad for business. It's the kind of stuff companies like Pullman did in the 1890s, the kind of stuff Standard Oil used to pull, and the pushback was ferocious.

From a political point of view I should love what Wal-Mart is doing. Yet from a business point of view I keep asking myself, What Would Sam Think?

I think I know what Sam Walton would think.