This Year In Democracy

2010 has given us some spectacular shows of democracy -- successes and failures alike. Some were famous, their effects felt and heard 'round the world. Others not quite so attention-grabbing; perhaps a pair of AP wire stories and a brief mention in a cable news text scroll. And, of course, we hear more about the failures than the successes, with Cote D'Ivoire the most recent nation to slip into post-election bloodshed. Globalized Democracy® in the post-Cold War period has certainly not proven to be the panacea some were expecting. However, as always, neither the rose-eyed optimists nor the doom-and-gloom pessimists have everything right. Many blooming democracies have been crushed under the foot of military power grabs or wilted under a corrupt and incompetent state apparatus despite international support. And yet at the same time many countries have found ways to not only bring decades of dictatorship or war to a peaceful close, but also to embrace an open society and forge functioning democratic institutions. Here is a look at ten of this past year's less-heralded success stories (in chronological order):

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"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want,
and deserve to get it good and hard."
--H.L. Mencken

1. Croatia

Ivo Jospovic of the left-wing Social Democratic Party wins the presidential election in a landslide, replacing popular outgoing president Stjepan Mesic, the leader of the right-center party. Mesic had been in power since the end of Tudjman regime which had presided over Croatia's bloody involvement in the region's wars during the 1990s. This election further solidifies democracy in Croatia, and helps in their delayed but ongoing negotiations for accession into the European Union.

2. Chile

Sebastian Piñera of the right-center National Renewal party narrowly defeated former President Eduardo Frei of the left-center Concert of Parties for Democracy in the presidential election to succeed popular outgoing president Michelle Bachelet. This was the fifth consecutive democratic presidential election in Chile, and cements their civilian institutions even further after the 1973-1990 military rule of Pinochet.

3. Ukraine

Viktor Yanukovych defeats Yulia Tymoshenko and incumbent Viktor Yushchenko in the presidential election, representing a shift towards Russia and away from the 2004 Orange Revolution which had originally brought Tymoshenko and Yushchenko to power. These two had grown apart during their time as Prime Minister and President, respectively. This time there was no uprising of "people power", as Tymoshenko dropped her appeal a few weeks after the elections. Ukraine's politics are still wracked with corruption and less-than-democratic Russian influences, but a peaceful, democratic transition of power is never a bad thing.

4. Iraq

Okay, not the least-heralded of 2010 elections, but it's significance may have been underestimated. Iraq held parliamentary elections in March that resulted in a political deadlock that set a record for length (207 days between election and creation of government) but did not result in widespread violence. The voting blocs of Allawi and Maliki, both former Prime Ministers, received the most support, but neither had enough to form a government. Complicated negotiations and machinations followed, with resolution not achieved until October. Nonetheless this election represents a strong step towards productive democracy in Iraq. The individual actors, on the whole, did not resort to violence during the difficult negotiations -- perhaps setting the bar a bit low, but progress is progress.

5. Poland

Bronislaw Komorowski defeats Jaroslaw Kaczynski to become President just two months after a plane crash killed the former President -- Kaczynski's twin brother Lech -- along with many other senior members of the government. The Polish voters showed political maturity by voting with their opinions and not their emotions, and the nation is moving past the worst tragedy in recent history.

6. Colombia

Juan Manuel Santos, former Defense Minister of outgoing President Uribe, defeats surprise Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus, former Mayor of Bogota. The relatively easy Santos victory is a sign that Uribe's right-center policies are well-liked and will continue. An open, peaceful election is still something not taken for granted in this long-suffering country. Colombia's political scene has broken free from the widespread and violent influence of narco-traffickers -- the same cannot be said for some of its Central American neighbors.

7. Kyrgyzstan

In June Kyrgyz voters approved a referendum which limited the powers of the presidency and any single parliamentary party. The 'Yes' vote was 91% with over 70% voter turnout. This referendum was a reaction to the events of April, when anti-government riots forced then-President Bakiyev (who himself had come to power in the 2005 Tulip Revolution) to resign. The country's political future is by no means certain, but every fair election adds to people's trust in the system.

8. Kenya

Kenyan voters approved a new constitution by a 68%-31% margin, and over 70% voter turnout. Kenyan politics have been at a wary standstill ever since the violence which followed the fraudulent 2007 Presidential election. The top vote-getters in that election, President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga, are currently ensconced in a power-sharing agreement. The approval of this constitution is an important step towards rebuilding a functional democracy and allowing for some national healing.

9. Bosnia

Voters elected representatives to Bosnia's tripartite political system, with Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs all having somewhat separate branches. The election seemed to confirm similar levels of political deadlock in the country, with moderates favoring further national unification facing off against mainly Croat and Serb nationalists who want division along ethnic lines. This country suffered terribly during the 1990s, and while this election may not provide an immediate solution to these intransigent problems, continued political haggling is far superior to a resumption of violence.

10. Guinea

Guinean voters placed their trust in Alpha Conde, a 72 year-old former opposition leader, to take the presidency after a long period of political turmoil and the threat of renewed conflict. The country had been in the hands of a shifting military junta since the death of strongman Lansana Conte in December 2008. this period was marred by human rights violations, the attempted assassination of the first military leader, and the repeated postponing of elections. The country is still in the political woods, but this election -- most notably the decision by runner-up Cellou Diallo to concede defeat instead of urging his supporters to the streets -- is a step and a hop away from the edge of the abyss.

Honorable Mentions: The Philippines and Brazil
Both of these countries had successful presidential elections in 2010, but the relatively reliable nature of their democratic processes keeps them off the top ten success stories.

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It is important to recognize these success stories, and this can be done without marginalizing the extremely difficult situations that face the many countries that experienced recent political disasters. Democracy is not easy. There are many people who need to do their job right for an election to work even on the most basic mechanical level. Poll workers are a rarely celebrated breed, but in countries like those mentioned above their work deserves respect and recognition. In the post-Bush doctrine world it has become fashionable to downplay "democracy" as a good unto itself. To be sure, the act of holding elections will not solve deep-seated issues (see: Afghanistan, Russia, etc.). Elections may in fact put a dangerous level of stress on a weak status quo, letting loose the blood-dimmed tide (see: Cote D'Ivoire, Haiti, etc.). Elections may simply act as a cover -- a fake doctor's note, if you will -- for authoritarian regimes with no real interest in sharing power (see: Sri Lanka, Burundi, Rwanda, etc.).

And yet the open society which democracy both encourages and requires IS a good unto itself, and well worth the aforementioned risks. Even a good dictator cannot last forever, and at some point in the near future of every country and every people on earth they will need to deal with the conflicts which grow like mushrooms under the whole of human society. The more these conflicts -- be they based on religion, ethnicity, resources, or any other divide -- are suppressed, the greater the possibility that upon exposure they will cause death and destruction. Iraq after the fall of Saddam and the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s are examples of this danger. However, Iraq, Croatia, and Bosnia are also on the list of 2010 electoral successes, a testament to the perseverance of the democratic forces in those countries.

Democracy is often ugly and slow. It is not the ideal system for effective decision-making. But it provides something which no other political system can: the opportunity for political maturity. We cannot hope for long-term stability and peace unless groups and individuals in conflict can appear together -- in a courtroom, in a public square (analog or digital), or on a ballot -- and have it out. There is no substitute (excepting ethnic cleansing). But courtrooms, public square, and ballots don't grow on trees and should never be taken for granted. Democracy is slow and ugly and it's hard work, no metaphor needed. So let's celebrate these ten success stories from 2010, and hope that 2011 will bring us even more.

Oh, and kitties.

September 12th

Nine years ago to the day people around the world woke up from a strange nightmare. If they were anywhere near a television, the images broadcast would have confirmed that the burning skyscrapers, the dot-people leaping to their death, the massive rubble exploding into dust, and the jetliner banking, over and over again, to its final destination, that these were no slumbering cerebral invention but instead were the death of 2,996 human beings and the echo of the starting pistol for a new era in world affairs. Among those 2,996 dead there were 19 Others, 19 Arabs, 19 who received posthumous responsibility for the events of September 11th. They had been acting in the name of a murky organization which, in the fertile chaos of failed states and repressive but disinterested plutocrats, had managed to fuse greasy petroleum profits and an understanding of modern technology and media with a strand of self-righteous quasi-religious philosophy that imbues its members with a Machiavellian sense of right and wrong. The Western powers, lacking a readily identifiable enemy-word since the fall of Eurasia and Communism, had finally found a replacement in Terrorism. And so newspapers headlines went back to screaming "War!", the President made square-jawed speeches broadcast around the world, and a few billion dollars more of gasoline was bought to send the streamlined machinery of Death on a world tour.

Today we must ask, just as we did nine years ago: What Happened? Who are These People trying to kill Us? And How do we stop Them?

Answers abound, but which ones have proved worthwhile? We spent a great deal of time and money determining exactly What Happened and who These People were. Nonetheless, the conspiracy theory has experienced a rebirth in the (Global) War on Terrorism, and these flames have been repeatedly fanned by major "news" sources and political figures in every country, whether the topic be the events of September 11th, the myriad wars and attacks in the nine years that followed, or even the birth place and religion of the current U.S. President. And although we may mostly agree on Who was responsible for September 11th, we have yet to agree on Why they did it. And the Why is important. Is terrorism fed by poverty? If so, we need to do a much better job of mitigating the aftershocks of globalized capitalism. Do they hate us because of our Freedoms -- gay marriage, cursing and pornography on TV, abortions, etc.? If so, we either need to get rid of those Freedoms or make sure that every country in the world becomes Free™. Are Muslim leaders using Islam to engender anti-Western terrorism? If that's the case, then the response should be to limit the power of those type of leaders by any means possible. Despite our professed allegiance to Rational Thought, over the past nine years we have always justified our actions with an answer to the Why instead of genuinely seeking to answer the Why and then basing our actions on that. The result has been one confused policy after another and a dangerous decrease in the Friend:Enemy ratio.

I must descend from the editorial post and confess that this post is personal. I watched the Twin Towers fall on 9/11 -- not on TV like most of the world, but in person. I looked out the window as a fireball erupted on the North Tower, felt the second plane's impact on the South Tower, listened to the announcement that the country was at war against an unknown enemy, heard and then saw the first tower fall and the dust cloud rush up the street towards me carrying vaporized human remains, walked uptown as the second tower fell behind me. I remember walking by a TV studio in midtown Manhattan and seeing a video of the second plane hitting the South Tower. The immensity of the events of the past few hours began to truly sink in, although I, like the rest of the world, could not even begin to comprehend what was to come. That was nine years and one day ago today. Nine years ago exactly we all woke up and began to wonder what would happen next.

The question I would ask is, knowing what we now know, would we have done things differently? It is easy for any individual to say that, yes, things should have been different: Should have captured Bin Laden. Shouldn't have invaded Iraq. Should have seen the real estate bust coming. But as a people, as a chaotic mass of opinions, fears, desires, would we have done things differently? And will we use the lessons learned over the past nine years to make the next nine better? Can we learn to open our political discourse without devolving into screeching primates? Can we harness market forces to build not only higher corporate profits but jobs and a solid economic base? Can we begin to lend an authentic helping hand to the citizens of the Third World -- especially the Muslim ones? Can we learn to lead with respect -- as a country, as citizens, and as family and community members? As I stated in an earlier post, the election of Obama represents an opportunity for change, even if you don't agree with his particular brand of Change™. Opportunity implies responsibility. If we choose to let this opportunity go by, to fantasize that laissez-faire is suficiente in this globalized world, then we have no right to blame anyone else for anything. Over the past nine years, we have heard time and time again that 9/11 was a "wake-up call". So why are we still asleep?

Out of the Indus Deluge

So the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them."

Genesis 6:7




And it moved on with them amid waves like mountains; and Nuh called out to his son, and he was aloof: "O my son! Embark with us and be not with the unbelievers.

He said: "I will betake myself for refuge to a mountain that shall protect me from the water."

Nuh said: "There is no protector today from Allah's punishment but He Who has mercy; and a wave intervened between them, so he was of the drowned."

Sura 11:42-43

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It has recently come to the attention of various media sources that Western countries do not have a lot of love for the Pakistani people. Despite a flood of Biblical-Quranic proportions which has swept entire provinces away and left millions struggling to survive in makeshift camps ripe for epidemics, the response by Western countries has been described as "lukewarm", "sluggish", and "trickling". The BBC compared the response in the first 3 weeks to those of the recent earthquake in Haiti and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Mosharraf Zaidi does the same, looking at funding given per affected person. Clearly the Christian West -- headlined as usual by the United States, the supplier of the vast majority of the world's humanitarian and development aid, is not jumping to open its checkbooks for the inhabitants of the Indus Valley. But why?

Here's a question from a reporter at Thursday's U.S. State Department press briefing:

QUESTION: But why should the American taxpayer who just this morning got another horrible – more bad economic news be asked to contribute more than they already are to this when the results – as I said before, this is a country that has difficulty or is unable to collect tax money from its own people, the wealthiest Pakistanis who live there, and has not been entirely cooperative in going after people that attacked us.

Here we have the 2 top reasons given as to why donor aid is slow to Pakistan: their government is corrupt and not worth supporting, and furthermore has and continues to support terrorist organizations. Both quite true -- although Transparency International rates Pakistan higher than Haiti in corruption, and U.S. citizens seemed to have less trouble stomaching charity to Haiti -- which suggests that corruption alone can't account for the donor gap. Which leaves us with Pakistani support for terrorism -- and perhaps on a larger scale, a general distrust of the Pakistani government. In the weeks leading up to the flood we had the WikiLeaks episode and the David Cameron "gaffe", both cementing the perception that the Pakistani government isn't "on our side". During the first days of the flood the major story was Pakistani President Zardari's European tour, sleeping in fancy silk bedding while his people struggled to even find hard ground to sleep on. And now in the relative aftermath we have the story of the West's lack of compassion for poor Muslim Pakistanis.

Perceptions are key here, and as often in Muslim-West relations, they rarely reflect the truth. Americans perceive that Pakistanis support terrorism, and that keeps them from putting serious weight behind humanitarian efforts. The reality is that Pakistanis have suffered as much as any people from terrorism, and there is only a very small minority which actively support Al-Qaeda and its Western-hating ilk. Pakistanis perceive that Americans are uninterested in their problems and are willing to support any regional leaders that fight Al-Qaeda and its ilk even when those same leaders are causing the suffering which swells the radical Islamist ranks.

As long as these perceptions remain, the Pakistani-U.S. relationship will continue to get worse. The Pakistani government, corrupt as it is, needs U.S. support in the fight against growing radical Islamist groups -- the same groups that have provided timely aid to flood victims in places where the government and the international community has yet to reach. Simply tossing bags of rice embossed with the American flag at those communities won't be enough. The long-term Pakistan problem is essentially a P.R. problem for the United States, and we need to be at our most opportunistic in using this disaster to "re-start" relations with the Pakistani people. What better disaster than a flood to remind everyone about the commonalities in the Christian and Muslim traditions?

This is not the time to hedge aid on discussions over Afghanistan or the ISI. This is not the time to make a mockery of freedom of religion by denying American Muslims a cultural place in the post-9/11 world. This is not the time to avert our eyes to suffering, even -- maybe especially -- if those suffering don't agree with our world view. Let's helicopter in ten million pounds of rice and ten million mosquito nets to be handed out in mosques -- especially those mosques with half-burnt American flags lying under flood waters. Let's take the private contractors out of Iraq and get them building levees and community shelters in Pakistan, and setting up cricket pitches in the refugee camps for the kids who used to have Osama Bin Laden posters on their walls (more of a metaphor). Let's put together a 100,000 Urdu-English Qurans and send them to Pakistani madrassas with flooded libraries.

The Biblical/Quranic flood can be interpreted in many ways. What is clear in the story is that God was upset with how the world had progressed and was using the flood to wipe the slate clean. This story is almost identical in the Bible and the Quran. While to attribute a divine presence to the recent flood in Pakistan would be, at the very least, sacrilegious, the opportunity to wipe the slate clean is very real. We began to write the history of humanity in the fertile Indus Valley nearly 5000 years ago. How will the next chapter read?

Among the Volcanoes

Guatemala is a land of incredible beauty; cloud-drenched highlands, black sand beaches, rainforests thick with life, and ancient volcanoes. The Mayan culture lives on in the majority indigenous population, a testament to the longevity of tradition. Tranquility seems to float through the populace, characterized by general friendliness and a laid-back attitude. Guatemala is also in danger of becoming the Americas' newest failed state.

Two major reasons for state failure should be familiar to anyone reading news about Latin America: guns and drugs. Massive amounts of guns were shipped into the country during the 40 year "internal conflict", and when the conflict "ended" in 1996 little was done to reduce the number of arms floating around the country. Drug trafficking has long been an issue, but spiraled out of control around 2007 when Mexico began a full-fledged war on drug cartels -- who then shifted operations to Guatemala and found a perfect transport point. The cartels and the drug-based economy they have spawned is incredibly well-armed and more than willing to use violence when necessary. The Guatemalan government, never a paragon of efficiency or transparency, offers next to nothing in the way of law enforcement. Impunity is the key word -- this is a country where might clearly makes right, whether on a dark rural highway or in a well-lit courtroom. Justice, in the mind of the people, lies not with corrupt or blackmailed prosecutors and judges, nor with swiss cheese jails, but with hand-made revenge.

Guns, drugs, and lack of law enforcement are powerful proximate causes that has led Guatemalans towards a failed state. The current government of Alvaro Colom has weakened significantly over the past few months, and in the past weeks has taken to accusing the opposition of trying to bring down his government -- which has been true since he took office in 2007, but the current calls reek of desperation. The head of the UN-supported CICIG prosecutor's office quit in June, castigating Colom for failing to make any significant law enforcement reform and for appointing an Attorney General linked to the drug cartels (whose "election" was summarily nullified by the Constitutional Court). The spiraling violence, while most intense in Guatemala City, has touched all parts of the country. The coming presidential elections in 2011 will bring a period of even more violence, and will without a doubt endanger the future of democracy in Guatemala. If elections only bring bloodshed and never bring any real social change, why would anyone want more? There is real popular support for a "benevolent" dictatorship in Guatemala -- and the person best placed to become such a dictator is Otto Perez Molina, the so-called "Mano Dura" (Strong Hand), a general with dirty hands from the internal conflict and who retains links to violent groups. This is a situation which will get worse, and may never get better.

The proximate causes for Guatemala's unraveling are fairly clear, and steps can still be taken by domestic and international actors to deal with these issues. But there are deeper wounds that need to be dealt with before the country can truly move beyond its current troubles.

The internal conflict began in the late 1960s, pitting a small left-wing intellectual guerrilla movement against a government that clearly and without apology represented the interests of the wealthy landowners. Much of this movement grew out of support for earlier left-wing presidencies of Arevalo and Arbenz, the latter being overthrown in 1954 by the CIA. The guerrillas tried to link their movement to the interests of the poor indigenous population, with some success but without the force strength or unity to ever pose a real threat to the government. Despite the weakness of the insurgency, the government decided to wipe out all the guerrillas and anyone who might support them. This murderous offensive continued well into the 1980s, and its after-effects still linger today.

According to UN investigators, more than 200,000 people were killed during the internal conflict, with over 90% of the murders committed by government military and para-military forces (which often included indigenous men conscripted and forced to kill their neighbors). Violence against women, including rape, was common. Almost every Guatemalan was touched by these crimes in some way -- a family member or friend was victimized, or committed crimes -- and none of them have forgotten. These experiences reaped untold psychological damage, tearing apart families and communities, unraveling centuries of social trust, and leaving hundreds of thousands to go on with their lives with gaping sections of their psyche missing. Yet there was no efforts at real national reconciliation, no official programs to deal with the years of violence, no tribunals for those responsible, and no justice for the victims. In 2010 the first conviction was handed down for his role in the infamous Dos Erres massacre, but the vast majority of those who ordered and led human rights abuses live free without fear of prosecution (at least one is a member of Congress). The subject of the internal conflict is almost entirely ignored in Guatemalan schools.

Dealing with criminals and victims from the conflict would be incredibly difficult at this point. It would require an unprecedented political commitment and a powerful, independent investigative and judicial apparatus, as well as immense international and domestic support. But until past crimes and past victims are given justice, there can be no hope for justice elsewhere in the country. Peace is not simply the absence of public violence; it requires a personal sense of safety, a sense that the beasts of chaos have been banished underground. The new generation of Guatemalans may grow up without the violent memories of their parents, but they will inherit a culture of violence ready to explode at the slightest provocation and rain ash over the people among the volcanoes. How can we possbily have Peace if the beasts of chaos live in our own minds?


See the International Crisis Group's recent report on Guatemala for more information.

World Cup Fever!

Every four years several billion people spend an inordinate amount of time watching television. No, not Eurovision. World Cup fever strikes deep, a potent mix of nationalism, hooliganism, and referee-hatred. Life and death (and a great deal of property damage) are decided by each game. The worldwide excitement is high. The group stage is complete, and tomorrow marks the beginning of the knockout rounds where the fate of each team rides on a single game, and possibly a single foot. What a perfect moment for the first installation of Erratum Terrium's Spellbindingly Entertaining Statistics!! SES!!!

Money is, now more than ever, an integral part of the sports world. Even in the World Cup where player salaries don't figure, rich countries still have a significant advantage. They can recruit and train players from a young age, support them throughout their career, and provide a much higher levels of resources for their national team. And, unlike the poorer countries, they have mountains of extra support from corporate sponsors and therefore don't have to make budgetary sacrifices to provide those same resources.

Yet the World Cup retains fundamental equalizers that the overall international system lacks. The rules are the same for all teams; a goal struck by Cameroon or Paraguay is equal to one struck by France or the United States. But what is the relationship between a country's wealth and its 2010 World Cup success?

At first glance it appears that wealth is a fairly good predictor of success. Only 1 of the 7 poorest* teams (Ghana, the tournament's poorest side) made it past the group stage, while 5 of the 8 wealthiest* teams made it.

*Here we are measuring "wealth" by GDP per capita in PPP$ as measured by the IMF in 2009, with the sole exception being North Korea whose numbers are based on a 2009 CIA estimate. Let it be said loud and clear that Erratum Terrium's use in this situation of GDP per capita is a pure measurement of total country wealth. We do not, repeat, do not believe in GDP per capita as an accurate measure of the economic situation in any given country.

So the wealthiest teams tend to do better than the poorest teams. Fairly predictable, but not the whole story. Let's take a look at efficiency; that is, how well a given country used its wealth to achieve World Cup success. Here we will look at points scored in the group stage as a percentage of GDP per capita. Excluding the two teams who failed the score a point (North Korea and Cameroon, both very poor countries) there were twelve teams whose points scored made up less than 0.02% of their GDP per capita. Except for Algeria ($6,869) all of those teams have GDP per capita above $26,700 and only two of them (the United States and England in a fairly easy Group D) made it past the group stage. On the opposite side, there were 6 teams whose points made up at least 0.05% of their GDP per capita (with the most efficient being Ghana at 0.26%). 5 of those 6 teams qualified for the knockout round, with the only return-ticket team being Ivory Coast, who to their benefit managed 4 points in the Group of Death with powerhouses Portugal and Brazil despite the second-lowest GDP per capita among all 32 teams.

And for the wealthy countries, their successes were costly. Let's imagine that each country's citizens (the fictionally equal citizens implied by the GDP per capita calculations) had to pay for their points and goals with equal contributions based on GDP. The French would have to pony up $33,679 for each point, and the Swiss $43,007 for each goal. Meanwhile the Ghanaians only need to flip over $388 for each of their points, and the people of Ivory Coast only $419 for each goal scored.

Of course in all this analysis we are ignoring the 150+ countries that failed to qualify for the World Cup, most of which are poor. Although it is worth noting that none of the world's 5 richest countries qualified.

So basically we can say that while wealth is a fairly good predictor of World Cup success, it by no means assures any victories -- which France, Australia, Denmark, and Switzerland found out the hard way. And while poverty hinders World Cup success, it cannot contain quality play -- which Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Paraguay have proved this year.

We will have an opportunity to test the effects of the wealth disparity tomorrow when Ghana, the tournament's poorest team, takes on the United States, the tournament's wealthiest team with a GDP per capita nearly 30 times that of Ghana, on the first day of knockout play (Mighty Ducks, anyone?). For the sake of barefoot kids kicking plastic bottles down dirty streets around the world, let's hope the Black Stars comes out victorious.


ADDENDUM (4/7/10)

Victory was short-lived. In the first knockout round Ghana (#151 GDP per capita in the world) defeated the U.S. (#6) and Paraguay (#117) made sushi rolls out of Japan (#23). England (#19) and South Korea (#30) were sent packing. The quarter-finals, on the other hand, brought a harsh dose of reality to the economic underdogs. All four games saw the wealthier country take home victory. The lone, not-so-rich, non-Eurozone holdout is Uruguay (#62), who needed penalties to send the Black Stars home. Trivia Twist: Uruguay won the first ever World Cup in 1930.

A few more statistical snacks...the average GDP per capita ranking for the 32 teams which qualified for the World Cup was 59 (out of 182), and the median ranking was 39. Much of that differential is due to Paraguay and Ghana, the only two teams from the bottom economic half to qualify. Below see the changes in the average GDP per capita rankings of qualifying teams:

World Cup = 59
Knockout round = 49
Quarterfinals = 64
Semifinals = 29

¡Uruguay all the guay!

The Bitten Hand

Much attention is currently focused on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The environmental repercussions will be terrible, and it may be decades before the fragile region recovers. We learned that MMS government regulators were...shall we say, "relaxed" in their pursuit of oversight. And much attention has also been paid to the ping-pong game of responsibility played between the Obama Administration and the owners of the sunken oil platform which caused the spill, BP (No, not "British Petroleum" -- just "BP". Like when Prince changed his name to that symbol.) The administration has made a big show of being "tough" on BP, insisting that the company pay for the clean-up and announcing plans for new regulations and energy legislation. And where there's politics, there's money -- lots of oily BP money, much of which has gone to Obama and Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D).

In recent times we have seen more conflicts between multi-national corporations and local governments in their countries of operation. Usually the battle-lines are far from the front pages. In back rooms it's much easier to solve these sort of problems "amicably". Once things go public the opportunities for bribery and corruption shrink. The BP oil spill is one example of a MNC/national government tiff. Let's take a look at some others.

GREECE

As if things could get any worse, 2 Danish pharmaceutical companies have decided to stop supplying vital drugs to the Greek medical system. The 2 companies, Novo Nordisk and Leo Pharma, previously supplied 17 insulin products, and a anti-blood-clotting agent and anti-psoriasis medication, respectively. Both companies state that their decision to withdraw the products is due to the Greek government's recent decision to cut all pharmaceutical prices by 25% -- a decision prompted by international pressure to reduce government spending. The companies, already owed hundreds of millions of euros by the Greek government, state that the new reduced prices would force them to run their businesses in Greece at a loss and could trigger similar price reductions in others countries. To their benefit, Novo Nordisk did agree to the price reduction on one less-advanced insulin product and will offer another basic insulin product for free. However, "Steve Gaudis" is not convinced of their goodwill. According to that same article, 40% of Novo Nordisk profits come from the modern insulin products. 50,000 people in Greece use(d) these products. The word "blackmail" comes up repeatedly in Greek statements.

SOMALIA/GERMANY

Abdinur Ahmed Darman, a Somali expatriate who maintains his baloney claims to be the President of Somalia*, has apparently signed an agreement with a German security company to send 100 mercenaries to Somalia. According to the contract, the former Bundeswehr soldiers will only arrive in the country when Darman returns as the legitimate president. Asgaard Security Group, the contracted party, has stated that it would wait for UN recognition of Darman before sending its troops. However other reports have the first contingent of mercenaries already on their way to Somalia. The internationally recognized President of Somalia* Sharif Sheikh Ahmed called the contract "laughable" and Darman a "con artist". Con artist or not, Darman is an interesting political character. He claims to have been elected president at a national reconstruction conference in 2003, and that all leaders since are illegitimate. He also claims credit for setting up the relatively stable Islamic Court system that ruled the country before the 2006 invasion by Ethiopia -- there is no evidence that this is true. There was a report made by several Somali journalists that his militia tried to kill them after finding their reporting objectionable. His government operates its own official government and PR websites (check the "Contact" page -- funny, but still a big step up from somalipresidency@yahoo.com). Perhaps coincidentally the PR website is run out of Germany as well. Check out the videos here and here.

Two ways of looking at this situation.
One: Darman and Asgaard are just looking for publicity. Asgaard wants to advertise its services in "unstable environments" (don't get any more unstable than Somalia these days) and Darman capitalizing on a weak Somalian government and a recent failed international conference in Turkey to make his name known to power brokers inside and outside of Somalia.
Two: This shit is for real. Darman wants to "re"-take power in Somalia, and he knows the international community is tired of the weak-kneed and fractional current government. He wants international backing for a new regime -- a.k.a. the Chalabi Gambit -- and he thinks that bringing in former western military types will buy him some Davos cred. Not sure if he realizes that the EU (Germany included) has already sent troops to Somalia to help train the army.

Oh and the * sign after "President of Somalia" is meant to remind readers that this title implies little if any actual control over said country, given that most of said country is run by one of two conglomerated Islamist groups.
SO WHAT?

Here we have 3 situations in different parts of the world, linked by one aspect: the changing dynamic between national governments and multi-national corporations. It is clear to everyone that national governments (NAGs) have less carrot and stick tools in their belt to deal with the MNCs than they used to. It is simply too easy for MNCs to shift operations (or at least legitimately threaten to shift operations) or finances from one country to the next. And at a basic level, the culture of nationalist fealty that used to be status quo in major corporations has been diluted down to a What-Have-You-Done-For-Me-Lately attitude.

Once upon a time privatization was a tool of fiscally conservative NAGs trying to rid themselves of the moral responsibility for the general welfare of the population placed upon them after World War II. This viewpoint (Acronym Game: Reagan-Thatcher-IMF...go!) was founded in a world where corporations were, at the most, representations of the power of their respective countries. Not so far off from the days of the East India Trading Co. Those days are gone. And now we pay. Literally. The BP oil spill will drive up prices, which we have no choice but to pay, and then the increased profits will go to...well, you get the picture. The Danish taxpayers will help foot the bill to set Greece right again, and in paying those debts, their taxpayers dollars will go to Novo Nordisk and Leo Pharma...who will continue to withhold their products from the Greek market, fostering a black market in those drugs where prices for sick Greek consumers will most likely be significantly higher than they were before. And Asgaard will send its former Bundeswehr soldiers into Somalia, where some day they may be contractually obligated to fire on other Bundeswehr soldiers training Somalian security forces under EU auspices...all because a rich businessman with web access and a Napoleon-complex thought that calling a tail a leg makes it one.

OFF INTO THE SUNSET

But the argument here is not one which fulminates blindly against all increases in MNC power. The NAGs had a go at running the world, and the results have been severely mixed. There's no way of knowing whether the next century -- assuredly a century where the scales will tip towards MNCs -- will leave us better or worse off.

What is important to realize is that this new era will be different. In giving greater freedom to the MNCs we have removed some important democratic controls over how the world is run. We will continue to run into situations like the three demonstrated above -- and the NAGs will look (furtively) for ways to pull back on the reins on this runaway train. There simply isn't enough space for the primacy of profit AND nationalist fealty. Your money or your country.

Crash, Collapse, Spill: Whither Corporate Responsibility?

Dear Citizen,

In your blessed and tranquil day-to-day, you may have heard some whisperings about terrible accidents. Accidents, being a natural function of our ever more complicated world, happen all too often these days. We, the Corporations, feel terribly about these accidents and do whatever we can to aid the victims and prevent future accidents -- so long as those efforts do not affect our bottom line. "What's that?" say the faux-populist talkings heads, "So you DO only care about your profits. You are all terrible people and will go straight to hell upon your deaths -- which will all hopefully come about as a result of your own malfeasance!" Well, ratings lap-dogs, you do have one bit right: We do care about our profits. Our purpose is to make money for our stockholders, and we have few qualms about doing what is necessary to increase those profits and prolong our own corporate lives. It is through centuries of our profit-seeking actions that the economies of the developed world have grown so substantially and provided you all with the comforts and resources that you heedlessly enjoy today.
The personal computer and air-conditioning? Us.
AIDS treatment medications and witty greeting cards? Us.
Planes, trains, automobiles, and plastic tricycles? Take a wild guess.

And yet when something does go wrong, when an ACCIDENT does happens -- a commercial airplane with faulty, past-repair-date wiring crashes and incinerates a few hundred passengers, a coal mine originally dug by the light of oil lamps collapses and traps a few dozen underpaid, cancer-ridden miners, or an offshore oil rig pops a massive leak and wipes out a few hundred square miles of aquatic ecosystem -- the spotlight of blame always lands on us.

Now, if you've read this far already then you are unfortunately not among the 95.3% of society that seeks happiness in ignorance [percentage based on the most recent Nielsen research], and it might be that you actually want to know how the world works. And therefore there is less than a 0.02% likelihood that you will ever willingly buy our stock. So we'll give it to you straight: Fuck you and your moral obfuscations about corporate responsibility. You can't have your cake, eat it too, and then complain that you wanted pie. The rich of the world -- and no equivocating; if you are reading this on your own computer, then that means you -- love to reap the benefits of the world we created. Non-Germans and Japanese: How do you think the Allies won World War II? Because despite all the difficulties, we redirected all of our factories to war material output and massively out-produced the Axis. And Germans and Japanese: How do you think you recovered from World War II? It certainly wasn't through socialism. And speaking of that, don't worry about the whole "defeating communism and saving the non-gulag-interred population of the world from being interred in gulags" thing -- that one's on us. By any chance are you living longer and healthier than your grandparents? For that you can thank pharmaceutical companies, corporate agriculture, supermarkets, pharmacies, and the transportation and oil companies that allow all of those goodies to travel across the globe -- not to mention the modern financial and communication networks that provide the foundation for it all.

Your left-wing talking- and typing-heads will tell you that corporations were created in the public domain, originally to serve the crown and later the democratic "common good". They yearn for that halcyon epoch where the economy utilized the country's resources to power growth and the democratic government made sure that every citizen's needs were provided for. Problem is, that epoch never existed and it never will. Every government, even the most "representative", is ruled by the power of money -- just as much so as any corporation. At least we are honest about our methods of operation; democratic politicians always spend an inordinate amount of time denying the truth of how greatly they are influenced by money. The world has always been ruled by the rich, and it always will be. Any attempt to deny this is at the very least foolish, if not outright dangerous.

It's a corporate world: a world you created for us to rule. You created it when you asked for MORE and decided not to care too much about how we got that pair of sneakers, that bunch of bananas, or that gallon of gasoline to you. And sorry bleeding-hearts, but it's far too late to start caring now. We've got the good shit, and you and all of your neighbors are just as hooked as any frothy-mouthed, skin-scratching addict. Did someone say regulation? We dare you -- double-doggy dare you -- to try and regulate us. And when we say "regulate", we don't mean "pass laws which contain regulations". We mean "actually use the legal system to change our behavior". The former is simple, and to be honest, we only put up cursory resistance to regulatory laws because passing these laws takes pressure off us and our political allies. Even the most stringent regulations can be easily outmaneuvered with a good team of lawyers, some offshore accounts, and a few well-placed bribes to government-salary regulators.

If all this talk is depressing your sappy liberal brain, by all means go and work for a charity or a non-profit. Help those people left behind in our free market economy, God knows there are plenty of them. We might even send you a donation every once and a while -- we want poor people to be happy too! Unhappy poor people can start riots and fuel anti-oligarchic movements, and those kind of things are bad for business.

So next time you read a story about some accident caused by the lack of corporate responsibility, don't get angry and certainly don't ask us to sacrifice our profit margins to run maintenance checks more often than necessary or provide counseling to widows. These accidents are part of an unpredictable world, collateral damages resulting from the economic growth. The reality is that billions more people will benefit from what this system of economic growth produces than will suffer from the occasional accident. Our focus-group-tested advice: Don't worry, be happy. Just let us take care of things. Remember, it's our world. You just live in it.


Sincerely,

The Corporations

Outsourced!

by Alfred P. Loafward IX
President pro tempore, Erratum Terrium Board of Directors

Today is a sad day for me, and a happy day, I must imagine, for Hernando de Soto. When I inherited the post of President pro tempore of the Erratum Terrium Board of Directors from my late uncle-in-law, who also happened to be an oft-needed tax attorney, I never imagined a day like this might come. To lay this narrative more squarely in the vein of honesty, this inheritance fell to me several weeks before my emergence from the womb, and my imagination was limited to the sequencing of kicks I delivered to the inside of my mother's swollen midsection. One such kick disturbed her so that she spilled her cup of tea all over her conversation companion, her suitor-of-the-moment, A. Mitchell Palmer. I have been made to believe that this incident, and the ensuing cloth-napkin intervention debacle, led almost directly to the First Red Scare.

Current international affairs have been with me all my life, and so, as previously stated, today is a sad day for me. Just hours ago I dispatched a courier with a parcel of signed papers, with the result of my signature on said papers being the final sale of all Erratum Terrium assets and properties to an international consortium of nose-hair-trimmer salesmen (very popular in Turkey, I understand). This consortium, in turn, transferred everything to a shell company in the the Bahamas, who in turn collateralized our substantial debt into securities backed solely by the mortgage on my third cousin Debbie's St. Augustine, Florida BBQ restaurant -- which, to remain in the vein of honesty, was run out of business and burned down in 1964 after she attempted solve race relations by refusing to serve both whites and blacks equally. These collateralized debt obligations were passed like hepatitis C from one investment banker to the next. To the best of my information Lloyd Blankfein used them accidentally as toilet paper on a restroom break from sworn testimony in front of the U.S. Senate, and then, upon realizing his error, tweeted "...using crap to wipe up crap". This was 30 minutes ago.

The papers, now covered in Blankfein crap, were found in the unflushed toilet 3 minutes later by Justo Rufino Estrada Cabrera, a Guatemalan national employed under a false Social Security number to clean restrooms in the Capitol building. Not speaking more than a few choice words in English, Mr. Estrada Cabrera immediately understood the value of the papers he held in his wisely-gloved hands, wiped off the Blankfein crap, and faxed a copy to his third cousin, a lawyer in Guatemala.

And so, as of May 1st, 2010, Erratum Terrium has been outsourced to Guatemala. I can only hope they continue the same worthy journalistic tradition. After all, neighboring El Salvador was the first country in the world to elect a former CNN anchor as its head of state! And what higher tradition of journalism is there than that found at CNN!

Please excuse the sarcasm. I get cranky when I don't take my daily fish oil supplement. Last night, in the midst of my anxious decision-making process, I went to see my speech therapist (my late mother, spurned in her youth by a haughty Carl Jung, forbid anyone in my family from seeing psychiatrists, speech therapy is the closest I can get) for some advice. "Erratum Terrium is like my child," I told him, "I have put my whole life into it, and I don't want to see it changed." The good doctor took a few long pulls from his thick, dark cigar, removed his sunglasses to reveal his bloodshot blue eyes, and asked the topless masseuse to leave the room. Exhaling smoke dramatically, he said: "If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves." He then leaned towards the glass table and, using a rolled-up $100 bill, snorted a line of cocaine from South America imported by Mexican cartels through Guatemala. The significance of which, lost at the time in the contemplance of the good doctor's wise words, is clear to me only now.



Dictated, not read
May 1st, 2010
Location undisclosed

A Clearing in the Jungle

On the day in question, a wet heat had already settled on the jungle, portending the arrival of the rains after an especially difficult dry season. Not even the slightest of winds drifted through the yellow-frayed leaves. Bird calls and monkey shrieks echoed, growing closer. All the animals were gathered in the clearing, milling around, clustered in quietly whispering groups, eyes glancing ever so often towards the great ceiba tree.

The howler monkeys finally arrived, swinging into the great ceiba. Their piercing cries called all attention, whispers ceasing, and necks turned towards the tree. The great owl sat perched on a thick low branch. He ruffled his feathers calmly, and then began.

"It is time for us to choose once again. For four years now Snake has been our leader. His time has come to a close. We must choose a new leader. In this time of great crisis, we must choose wisely. First, we will hear from each of the candidates. Then the voting will commence. First to speak will be Wolf."

Wolf approached the great tree slowly. For those who were not close enough to see his wide slimy grin, it might have seemed that he was nervous.

"Thank you, Wise Owl. Animals of the jungle, under my rule you can look forward to four years of stability. We must come together to defeat Fear. Over the past four years, who among us has felt fear simply walking through the forest? Who among us has had terrible nightmares about our family members when they have not returned by nightfall? We would not feel this fear if I had been chosen four years ago. We can now correct that mistake. Feel safe again. Choose Wolf."

A thunderous applause erupted among a few animals. A few more booed, while most stayed silent. Wolf bowed slightly, slimy grin never leaving his face.

"Now we will hear from Vulture."

Vulture floated softly onto a high branch of the ceiba. She looked down at Snake, one of her biggest supporters, and smiled.

"Thank you, Wise Owl. We must continue the great work of Snake. We must make sure that no animal goes hungry in the jungle. We must make sure that every animal in the jungle has a place to live and can go to school. We must have pride in our heritage. My opponent, although his words are so smooth, cannot make you forget the atrocities of the past. He does not want to get rid of fear, but merely replace the fear of the criminals with the fear of the government. We cannot allow his type to take control again. We must build a better government, and a better jungle. Unity is our shield, and love is our weapon. Choose Vulture. Thank you."

The large majority of animals applauded quietly. A few of Wolf's supporters booed loudly and one threw a small volcanic rock at Vulture, missing by several meters.

"Thank you, Vulture," said Owl, "now you have heard the candidates speak. It is is time for you to make your voices heard..."
"Wait!" cried a small voice from the back of the crowd, "There is one candidate who has not had a chance to speak yet!"
"There are only two real candidates, Worm," said Owl sternly, "it is time to vote."
"Ant must be allowed to speak," said Worm, summoning as much courage as a worm can summon.
"There is no time," said Vulture, "we still have much to do."
"Ant has no right to speak here," added Wolf, "his views are backwards and dangerous."
Owl paused a moment and appeared to be thinking deeply.
"We will give Ant a voice," said Owl finally, "as our custom has always been to allow free speech."

A narrow crease appeared in the crowd as Ant made his way to the front. Animals began to grumble in low voices. Shouts rang out from Wolf's supporters:
"Stomp him!"
"Crush him!"
"Get a magnifying glass!"
Laughter followed. Ant crawled up to the base of the great ceiba tree, took a deep breath, and began to speak.

"Thank you, brothers and sisters. I stand before you not because I want to be your leader, but because I want you all to be leaders. Our jungle has suffered for too long under the yoke of a government bent on dominating our minds, chipping away at our heritage and our dreams until we are no more than dry leaves felled by the autumn winds. We should be gathering here not to choose the next oppressor, but instead to take back what was once ours. But we cannot stand alone against the oppression and inequality rendered by the forces of history. Only through true unity -- not unity under a flag or political party, but unity as brother and sisters in the same struggle -- can we reclaim our history and take hold of our future. Do not choose Vulture or Wolf. Choose your neighbors, your brothers and sisters. Choose yourself. Thank you."

Ant stopped and looked out at the animals. There was no applause, no boos, no response at all. The animals had not been paying attention. Vulture and Snake and Wolf and their powerful supporters were talking quietly together, smiling comfortable smiles and laughing at re-told jokes. The majority of the animals, not powerful enough to be in this inner circle were standing in small groups, distracted, looking over often at the inner circle trying to understand why they were smiling and what the jokes were and why they were funny. Beyond them were even more animals, mostly the smaller ones, who had to stand on each other's shoulders or help each other climb trees just to see what was going on. No one who could hear Ant had listened, and no one who wanted to listen could hear. Ant let out a familiar deep sigh. He looked up at Owl, hoping at least one animal had heard him. Owl had been listening. He smiled curtly, perfunctorily, at Ant, and then turned his attention back to the crowd.

"Now it is time to choose. Those who would choose Vulture, move to the left side of the clearing. Those who would choose Wolf, to the right."

No one moved.

"Now," said Owl with finality.

About half of the animals moved immediately to one side or the other. The supporters of Wolf and Vulture began to move through the animals that had not already chosen. Wolf's supporters brandished weapons and formed threatening circles around a group of animals until they moved towards Wolf's side. Vulture's supporters moved through the crowd, reminding the animals of all the delicious food they had received from Snake and would continue to receive under Vulture. And they showed them black list -- the list of Wolf's supporters who would receive nothing if Vulture won.

Eventually all the animals either chose a side or left the clearing confused as to why they had come in the first place. Owl set out to count the sides and name the new leader. Ant and Worm stayed for a while, hiding under some leaves near the edge of the clearing. Worm became impatient as the sun started to set.

"Let's leave," she said.
"No," said Ant, "I want to see who wins. Owl is almost finished. It looks like Wolf will win. I think people are tired of Snake's corruption and they don't remember so well the atrocities under Wolf's cousins. They fear Fear more than they love Love, I guess," he finished with a wry chuckle.
"Don't you see?" whispered Worm, "don't you see that it doesn't matter who wins? Nothing will ever change here in the jungle."
They were both silent for a long minute. A slight drizzle began to fall, tap-tapping on the yellow-frayed leaves above them.
"You're right, but" said Ant with determination, "if we stop believing that change is possible, then it will certainly become impossible. I will die with my delusions before submitting to that despair."
There was another silence, cut short this time by a mass of whooping and shouting from the clearing. Someone had won, again.

Such Nice Young Men...

The two young men pictured above are both from sub-Saharan Africa, and both traveled to the United States in their twenties -- with different reasons and different results.

On the right: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young Nigerian who, holding a valid U.S. visa, attempted to murder over 200 civilians on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, apparently on behalf of an extremist Al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. He now sits in jail, subject to federal interrogation but spared federal torture by the results of the 2008 Presidential election.

On the left: Deogratias Niyizonkiza, a now middle-aged Burudian who, in 1993 immigrated illegally to the U.S. to escape ethnic cleansing in his home country -- and has now returned to Burundi to open up medical clinics with the non-profit organization he helped to found. He is the subject of "Strength in What Remains", a new book by Tracy Kidder.

What drives people to do the things they do? Can we possibly know where someone, even ourselves, will end up? We have been a self-aware species for millions of years now. Are we close to any answers? Physical laws give us fairly reliable and accurate predictions about the path of matter through its environment. These are crucial to understanding and improving our world, but give us little help to understand and improve ourselves. Social science attempts to use the proven scientific logic of physical laws to predict how the large mass of matter which makes up a human will act in its environment. Yet despite all of its academic and statistical rigor, social science has often been wrong and sometimes twisted to justify terrible things. Religious laws aim not to predict, but to guide. They do not tell us what we will do (as only the divine can know that), but instead what we should do. These as well have been twisted into justification. In short: we cannot predict ourselves or others, and attempts to predict have often been mutated into attempts to control.

Let us fall back to a real-world situation, and take this discussion out of the theoretical and into the practical. An immigration official reviews the two young men upon their arrival to the United States and must decide whether to allow them entrance. There is no room for intellectual vacillation here, there is only a Yes or a No, a friendly "Go Ahead" or a call to airport security. And let us imagine this official has all the information we have. How do they decide who to let in?

Desgratias is first. He steps up to the official's booth and presents his letter which introduces him as the agent for a coffee company in Burundi. The official knows Burundi has just broken out in civil war (late 1993: Hutu militas vs. Tutsi army -- Rwanda will erupt several months later along the same ethnic lines). Desgratias grew up in a very poor family herding cows, and was only allowed to attend school because his grades were the very top in his class and he happened to be classified as a Tutsi, and not a Hutu. The official can guess that this letter is a forgery, but also that this disheveled young man standing at the booth is in real need of a safe place. In 1993 Desgratias is granted a business visa. Would that still be the decision made today?

Umar steps up to the booth. He is from a wealthy, well-connected Nigerian family. He has the proper credentials. He looks a little shabby for the son of the former head of Nigeria's Central Bank, but he was educated in the poshest British schools available. Umar is granted entrance to the United States. Is that decision defensible?

Okay, okay, point taken. Desgratias is poor and needy -- he should be given as much support as possible. Umar shouldn't be treated any better just because his family is wealthy and well-connected -- his associations should be examined just like a poor Yemeni student's would be. And Desgratias, despite having legitimate grievances with Burundi's colonizers in Belgium or the Hutu militias which tried to kill him, never strapped a bomb to himself to try to exact revenge. Meanwhile, Umar strapped a bomb to himself to try and kill Americans and Europeans -- the same people who had funded his own high-class education and lifestyle. People are unpredictable, we need to do a better job of trying to understand them and not judge them based on superficialities. Point taken.

What then, can we do? We know that we don't understand everything about people, that we can't reliably guide one person -- let alone hundreds, thousands, millions -- to some certain outcome through a logical, scientific process. Nor can we rely on the moral guidance of religion to assure peace, prosperity, or predictability. The world will keep spinning. There will be a thousand more Desgratiases and Umars at our door tomorrow. What can we do?

And now, the long-awaited, extra-mildly wise answer...

We must engage with globalization not only as a market transformation, but as an opportunity to effectively utilize resources to create a better world. there is no doubt that the current trend towards hyper-capitalism is dangerous. There is no doubt that indigenous societies lived, and to some extent, live, a simpler life which represent an antidote to the risk-taking and consumerism which fuels hyper-capitalism. However to phrase the conflict as globalization/future versus simplicity/past solves nothing. Clocks only go in one direction. Denying the future will not help us create a better one. We must engage with the world -- and I don't mean "we" as in the U.S. government, I mean "we" as in "all of us" -- on every level, in every city, every remote mountaintop village, and every social networking site. Borders are irrelevant -- the stories of Desgratias and Umar demonstrate this.

And we must stop assuming that "rich" = "better" or "happy". Sure, we know it in our own personal lives. But we still believe that a country is improving when its economic growth rate goes up. And we believe that angry poor people are the most likely to become terrorists. The truth of the matter, especially in a ever more complex world, rarely stands up and declares itself in the media.

We must search it out, the truth. Each one of us a technological-age Indiana Jones, metaphorical whip and scepticism at the ready. Desgratias and Umar and all of the world's migrants and travelers will keep moving, growing, shifting, cross borders, bumping into each other. And we certainly can't "beat" them. So join'em!