of the broader political system. When the media runs too fast, sometimes a story gets
wings of its own and the results escalate beyond anyone’s interests, as in this case.
As to the second point,
the presidency being under seige and suffering—so? Is this a problem—morally,
politically, or socially? Suppose Clinton was removed from office. It would be on the
official grounds that he had violated the public trust, not served the public interest,
and lied to the public. First, these are fine reasons to remove any president or other
elected official from office. If it were to occur, this could actually legitimate the idea
that elected officials are recallable and that they have to be honest and serve the public
or suffer recall—an impossibly dangerous pair of notions so that even though the
story has run wild, it will not happen. Second, it wouldn’t be a miscarriage of
justice if it did occur. However opportunist his main critics are, Clinton did lie and he
doesn’t and has never served “the public interest,” in this episode or any
other. There is a misallocation of justice, yes, because, there are much better reasons to
recall Bill Clinton. Even if we ignore the obvious overarching one, that he represents
only the interests of elites, lies like a rug all the time, and presides over a massive
apparatus of hate and destruction—there are in his case many specific violations as
well. For example Clinton immorally attacked the compound of a religious sect in Waco
killing eighty-one men, women, and children. He rejected a Canadian proposal to ban
antipersonnel land mines for reasons of warfare, not the public good. He assaulted Somalia
on behalf of elite policy-making, leaving human devastation as his service to the public,
and he has embargoed Cuba and Iraq, causing untold unwarranted misery in Cuba and hundreds
of thousands of deaths (social murders) in Iraq, all against international law. He gutted
welfare aid to poor families with dependent children, causing a predictable escalation of
poverty, hunger, drug-dealing, tuberculosis, and sexually transmitted diseases and even
starvation and death for the many, and a storm of profits for the few. He maintains a $250
billion military budget to prime the corporate profits pump as against rebuilding
infrastructure to enhance the lives of the populace. He allocated $8 billion dollars for
new prisons and virtually nothing (other than police round ups) for millions of homeless
people in need of aid, He bombed Afghanistan and the Sudan without evidence of his claims
and violated the war powers act and international law when he pummeled Iraq, again, as a
holiday gift to suffering humanity. Finally he abets the international multinational
forces currently expropriating via IMF and World Bank policies means of production
throughout the world to major U.S. and European corporatists in a vile legal “land
grab” that before it is finished may actually outstrip more typical means of imperial
robbery of past centuries. So we aren’t going to waste our time worrying about Bill
Clinton’s fate or the sacrosanct piety of his office or even of the government per
se. There are better things to focus on both for bringing news to our audience, for
understanding recurring social patterns, and for providing analysis and vision that can
fuel positive steps by responsible social actors, than Bill Clinton’s sex life or
even his lies about that “life” or Republicans lip-smacking hypocrisies over
both.
Y2K
Y2K is a real issue.
Lurking in billions of lines of computer code an infinitesimal fraction that is very hard
to find refers to years by using two digits to denote them (58, 84, 00) rather than using
four (1958, 1984, 2000). This seemingly trivial scheme, chosen to save computer memory
back when chips were scarce, can cause immense systems or your little desktop to halt or
to spit out meaningless or misleading results, in certain cases. But like impeachment,
there is no shortage of commentary about the facts. Like impeachment, the source of the
story isn’t the systemic characteristics of society but a kind of anomaly (yes,
markets impose a short timeline and cost cutting attitude that contributed to not catching
or paying attention to the problem at its inception, but even in a good society this error
might well have occurred). More, those with the most resources and means to fix these
coding problems now have a huge interest in doing so. Of course corporations, banks,
governments, and similar institutions will focus first on problems they think impact them
most (billing, keeping track of debtors, etc.), but basically, they have to try to get
this whole thing gone. And they are trying to do that, in fact, applying to the problem
huge outlays of time, energy, minds, and resources. As a result, it is reasonable to think
that while they certainly won’t patch up or upgrade everything into Y2K readiness,
they will get most of it, precisely because it is so overwhelmingly in their interests to
do so.
No one knows what the
impact of what they miss or botch will be, but the most plausible view is that it will be
like a bunch of horrible weather systems hitting here and there rather indiscriminately
over a period of a few weeks, with some straggler storms popping up over a few months, all
around the world. And yes, that is certainly consequential. But why is it such a consuming
focus for media and personal attention? Two reasons, it seems to us.
First, like sexgate,
media can talk about it endlessly and never come near the elite workings of
society—it is safe copy. Second, while
Y2K problems will hit the poor and weak hardest, it will hit the well off and even the
rich as well. Thus, unlike most social problems, the media notice this one. What does it
mean that educated and comfortable members of society are in a growing state of worry,
even panic about Y2k failures—given that those failures will be temporary, affect a
modest number, and be nowhere near as consequential to life, limb, or dignity as the
normal everyday operations of corporations and governments that these same comfortable
people and pundits routinely take for granted? The afflictions suffered in Hollywood
Hills, Miami Beach, Scarsdale or wherever else due to Y2K won’t even make life in
those places a fraction as constrained, limited, and curtailed as life (when it is
liveable at all) is every single day in the slums of Calcutta or of New York City, for
that matter, So whose priorities are off? Periodicals that are focusing on matters of
income distribution, of sexual battering, or police brutality, of racial bigotry, and of
systemic oppression and potentials for innovation more generally, or periodicals that are
acting as though Y2K is the be-all, moral, social, and political phenomenon occurring in
the world this year?
But, okay, if we must,
here is some advice that is proportionate, we think, to the Y2K problem as we currently
know it. (1) Read one sensible, informed source on dealing with your own computer, if you
have one, and act on the advice you find. Don’t waste more time than that. We’ll
put a single good link on our ZNet site sometime in the next few weeks for that purpose.
(2) If you are really worried about societal impact impacting you, make believe that
starting on January 1, 2000 some fraction of neighborhoods in your country are going to be
in a very harsh (but certainly not tornado-level) weather system on and off for a few
weeks. Prepare accordingly.
If impeachment or Y2k
move into realms of important social implication or structural revelation or even needed
self defense, we will provide more coverage. Otherwise, we think issues such as those
covered in this issue—for example, the global economic crisis, its roots and
meaning—are far better topics for Z. We hope you agree.