Boundaries "101" - bad politics

OUNDARIES

in the way I mean the term here, refers to the idea of psychological boundaries. I have been thinking about the national and international news and how those events and controversies have been impacted by psychological boundary-breaking. Why is it that the current news about domestic surveillance, detainee abuse, Republican lobbyist/politician scandals, and an imperial presidency, is related to "boundary-breaking"? In my opinion, the relationship has to do with the influence of those of our leaders who themselves have dysfunctional boundaries. As a matter of fact, in writing this piece, I will be doing a bit of boundary breaking myself, by presuming to evaluate the boundary issues of the current administration.

First, I offer a bit of background about the concept of psychological boundaries. Charles Whitfield, M.D., an expert in trauma recovery, discusses the historical and spiritual concept of boundaries:

Some ancient historical perspectives of boundaries; Buddha (c. 500BC) - importance of detachment from individual self (ego, codependent self) and unneccessary pain. Lao-tzu (c. 500BC) - importance of non-attachment to the '10,000 things', which 12-step workers also call 'people, places and things'.
Jesus Christ - importance of living life as true self, connected to God and fellow humans. He also taught that while you can accept, love and forgive those around who are not truly God- minded and who can hurt you, you do not have to stay around them and let them mistreat you.

Recent historical perspectives -With the beginning of modern psychology in the late 19th century, we continued exploring boundaries and limits, and we began to widen our understanding of them.

Pia Mellody, in "Setting Functional Boundaries," explains that,

Boundary systems are invisible and symbolic "fences" that have three purposes: to keep people from coming into our space and abusing us to keep us from going into the space of others and abusing them to give each of us a way to embody our sense of "who we are." Boundary systems have two parts: external and internal. Our external boundary allows us to choose our distance from other people and enables us to give or refuse permission for them to touch us. Our internal boundary protects our thinking, feelings, and behavior and keeps them functional.

Functional boundaries, thus, have just the right amount of permeability. The boundaries around the current administration, in my opinion, are dysfunctional. First, it is too difficult for the public, congress, the courts and the media to get inside and see what is going on within the executive branch. Oversight, information, insight and accountability are dangerously limited. This behavior comes out in the form of stonewalling congress, inordinate secrecy, over-classification of intelligence, the bubble around our current president, untruths and acting as if beyond the law. The boundaries are too rigid, not allowing appropriate entrance into the adminstration in matters of the public interest.

Secondly, members of the administration, and the agencies within it are too willing to get far outside of their appropriate boundaries, too invasive, too quick to ignore others' rights. This behavior comes out in the form of invading Iraq, spying on Americans, refusing to abide by the Geneva Conventions with detainees, spinning the press, mixing church and state, and breaking the law. The boundaries are too loose when it comes to doing bad things to those outside of this Republican administration.

In a previous post (on January 3) I explored the current administration's grab for Presidential power, which originated during the Nixon administration, in my opinion, with Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (both of whom have very rigid boundaries to letting others in). They then enlisted their 21st century president, via his suggestibility (too thin boundaries - to invasion of ideas not originally his own), to be the beneficiary of more widespread executive power. To complicate this, I think that our current president also had boundary dysfunctionality with a certain amount of rigidity at the same time. This comes out with his unwillingness to take in news on TV or read newspapers.
The other aspect of the dysfuntion has to do with the influence of the neocon movement on this administration. Neocon theory is rife with examples of dysfuntional boundaries. In a previous post exploring this phenomena, I quoted an excellent article from the Christian Science Monitor. Highlighting in bold face are what I see as illustrative ideas of inappropriate boundaries; I define the thinking errors in footnotes following the quote:

What do neoconservatives believe? "Neocons" believe that the United States should not be ashamed to use its unrivaled power – forcefully if necessary – to promote its values around the world (1). Some even speak of the need to cultivate a US empire. Neoconservatives believe modern threats facing the US can no longer be reliably contained and therefore must be prevented, sometimes through preemptive military action (1). Most neocons believe that the US has allowed dangers to gather by not spending enough on defense (2) and not confronting threats aggressively (1) enough. One such threat, they contend, was Saddam Hussein and his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Since the 1991 Gulf War, neocons relentlessly advocated Mr. Hussein's ouster (1).
Most neocons share unwavering support for Israel, which they see as crucial to US military sufficiency in a volatile region. They also see Israel as a key outpost of democracy in a region ruled by despots. Believing that authoritarianism and theocracy have allowed anti-Americanism to flourish in the Middle East, neocons advocate the democratic transformation of the region, starting with Iraq (1). They also believe the US is unnecessarily hampered by multilateral institutions, which they do not trust (2) to effectively neutralize threats to global security.

1. Boundaries too permeable from inside the movement to agression towards "the other."

2. Boundaries too rigidly protected against perceived threats from "the other."

Tags: Bush administration psychological boundaries Neocon commentary civil liberties Dick Cheney foreign policy Iraq war

"Across the big pond" - European Union Digest

The European Union should be interesting to those of us who live in the U.S. for several reasons. As competitors in the world market, what they do matters to our economy. They are our oldest allies. Their work on reaching consensus can be a model for us, as we try to get along with each other and respect difference. And what folks over there think about the United States can help us reflect on our own decisions. The following news digest touches on several of these points.

This news is about the agendas of the Austria and Finland (pdf) leaders who will hold the presidencies in 2006. They will be focusing on finances and budgeting, including enlarging the Euro area, and developing a genuine internal market. Work will continue on their constitutional treaty, more economic growth, more jobs, and strengthening international competitiveness.

In the United States, there seems to have been a concerted effort on the part of the current administration to cut out the influence of the intelligencia, a disregard for the opinion of outside experts. The EU has its own problems with this idea. Regarding the EU Constitution, EU Rota carried this story about what The Austrian Chancellor considers as "the masses," who might generally be considered "elites." To quote,

This article in the IHT is entertaining if read in the serious vein of the comments offered. With plans to revive that EU constitutional process, the new President of the Council, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel, is looking to include the 'masses' in the process this time around: Schussel called that process elitist and anachronistic, declaring, "I want to avoid a top-down approach." This time, he said, a broad spectrum of citizens including scientists, journalists and professors should contribute ideas for a new constitution.

Unemployment rates in the United States seem to be improving. But the EU has a longstanding problem with higher unemployment rates. According to Europa (title linked above), November 2005 Euro-zone unemployment is unchanged at 8.3%. Here are the details,

Euro-zone1 seasonally-adjusted unemployment2 stood at 8.3% in November 2005, the same as in October. It was 8.8% in November 2004. The EU253 unemployment rate was 8.5% in November 2005, unchanged compared to October. It was 9.0% in November 2004.
In November 2005, the lowest rates were registered in Ireland (4.3%), Denmark (4.5%), the Netherlands (4.7%), the United Kingdom (4.8% in September) and Austria (5.2%). Unemployment rates were highest in Poland (17.4%), Slovakia (16.0%), Greece (10.1% in third quarter 2005), Germany4 (9.3%), France (9.2%) and Latvia (8.6%).

To elaborate on one of these country's employment situation, here is an earlier BBC story about German jobs. To quote:

German unemployment remains stubbornly high. Germany saw an unexpected sharp fall in the number of people out of work in December. When adjusted for
seasonal variations, the number of jobless people fell 110,000 to 4.64 million people.
The unadjusted figure, influenced by seasonal layoffs in the construction industry, still showed a slight rise. But at 11.2%, the adjusted unemployment rate is the lowest in a year, and reinforces hopes that Europe's largest economy could finally be
recovering.

Except for the current administration's insistence of maintaining a tight hold on information we are not terribly plagued by rampant censorship. But my fear is that all the signs are there that this could change. And, at the very least, Europeans are noticing the administration's general insistence on unprecedented executive powers. This is a EU Rota story about Freedom of speech in Belgium, from which comes this quote,

"I'm concerned that the image of America as a haven of state legality where the state protects the personal freedom of individuals has suffered," said Karsten Voigt, the German Foreign Ministry's co-ordinator for German-American cooperation, who will be traveling in Merkel's delegation during her visit on Jan. 13. "I hope people in the US are aware of the problem."Let us all hope Mr. Voigt makes a stop in Belgium on his way to the US. There he may find the following: Yesterday a Belgian court in the Walloon town of Charleroi condemned Jean-Pierre Walenne, a 60-year old local politician of the Front Nouveau Belge (FNB). Walenne has to pay a fine of 1,500 euro and has lost his civil rights (the right to work as a civil servant, to vote and to stand for election) for a five-year period.

In some ways EU partners can be ahead of the United States on the issue of the environment, for example. This BBC story concerns Sweden's traffic fees:

Stockholm test-runs traffic fees: Drivers pay each time they enter or exit the city under the schemeCongestion charging to cut traffic and pollution has come into effect in the Swedish capital, Stockholm. For a seven-month trial period, drivers entering or exiting the city during the daytime will be charged between 10 ($1.30) and 20 kronor each time. A recent opinion poll suggested two out of three Stockholmers oppose the charge, but campaigners say the growing weight of traffic makes it inevitable. Stockholm follows London, Oslo and Singapore in introducing the tax.

This CNN story is a few days old, but still pertinent, because the situation was so "dicey." It seems that cooler heads prevailed. The headline reads, "Russia-Ukraine reach a deal" on natural gas. To quote,

Moscow and Kiev officials have praised a deal to end a pricing dispute for Russian natural gas that caused shortages in Ukraine and throughout Western Europe.
"Two nations won, Russia and Ukraine; Europe won; it is common sense that won," Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov told reporters Wednesday after an early morning agreement was reached between energy officials from both countries.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko also hailed the deal, saying the "Ukrainian economy is mostly ready for new market conditions," The Associated Press quoted his office as saying. His Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin said the agreement would secure stable long-term export supplies for Europe.

Tags: European Union EU EU unemployment Germany Sweden Russia Ukraine

Bush administration into sixth year-And?

("OCP"=Our Current President, for me, defines the current administration as temporary)

OCP faces his sixth year in office, and it may not be easy, as this story's argument goes.

But he has a plan, noted in this 1/6/05 article in USA Today:

It was in the sixth year of their presidencies that Bill Clinton was impeached and Richard Nixon was forced to resign, that Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower faced the worst scandals of their tenures and that Franklin Roosevelt encountered increased resistance to New Deal legislation. . . . The White House and its allies see opportunities, though, sixth year or not. "This president has a real pattern of defying conventional wisdom," says Mark McKinnon, media adviser for Bush's presidential campaigns.

"I've been thinking long and hard about 2006," Bush told reporters Sunday. White House spokesman Scott McClellan says the basic game plan is simple: "The economy and progress in Iraq."

The article, by David Jackson and Susan Page, lists the White House strategies for combatting "sixth year" historical difficulties. In this list of points in the article (in boldface), I have included (in italics), what I think are the problems with these strategies:

1. Start fast - The trouble with this approach can best be illustrated by the speed with which the administration moved from the war in Afghanistan, of which most of us approved, to the war in Iraq. Refusing to let the UN inspection program in Iraq reach its natural conclusion, the troops were ordered to invade Iraq. They did start fast there and reached Baghdad within record time. OCP landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier, walked out in his flight suit and declared the war was over. Not quite so fast. Within the past two days there have been around two hundred deaths from violence in Iraq, 11 soldiers yesterday alone. Progress?
2. Stay aggressive - Aggression is, indeed part of the problem with OCP. The preemptive nature of the war in Irag was unprecedented for the United States, ostensibly the world's model for democracy. The very style of OCP, aggressive at press conferences, calling out other nations as "belonging to the axis of evil," disrespecting our longtime allies in Europe, appointing United Nations Ambassador- John Bolton - aggression personified, etc., etc.
3. Bring some troops home, or at least keep them safer - This is an utterly cynical stance, in my opinion. I will absolutely applaud this move, however, as the outcome of fewer troops killed and wounded is the goal for which we all can wish. I will believe it when I see it, though the signs are there now, in that a planned deployment of new troops was canceled. A troop drawdown could also help the skyrocketing deficit, which was the other very regrettable effect of the invasion of Iraq.
4. Talk up the economy - According to NPR,

   "U.S. Stocks Lackluster, Despite Buoyant Economy, by Jim Zarolli, Morning Edition-December 29, 2005 · The U.S. economy remained surprisingly robust in 2005 despite the surge in energy prices. Inflation remained under control and home prices continued to rise. But income growth lagged and stocks turned in a mediocre performance."

   Two-income families struggle as globalization continues and there are no raises, scandal has plagued large corporations (business schools were even forced to include ethics in their curricula), and the stock market has been stagnant for some time. And the debt is rising every minute; the link calculates your current share.
5. Scale back big promises - Here are some promises that I expect NOT to be scaled back: Civil liberties must be protected as domestic surveillance is done, under the rule of law and the courts. The American people should be told the truth, not lies. (Scaling back the spin would help). Scaling back the war in Iraq would allow more equitable help for our most vulnerable people. Some of the safety net promises of decades could then be kept.
6. Keep the Republican family together - This is already proving to be difficult. Libertarian Republicans have problems with domestic spying and are calling for Congressional investigation of the NSA. Fiscally conservative Republicans have problems with deficit spending and the largest budget in history. Moderate Republicans have problems with the extreme Right Wing blurring of church and state. People running for election in 2006 are not anxious to ride the coattails of the low opinion ratings of OCP, now clearly a lame duck.

Tags: Bush administration politics leadership Republicans

Directions in the Middle East

No one knows which direction the fast breaking events in the Middle East will take the millions of people who live there. Their fortunes are dependent on fate, the forces of violence, what the West does, and merely the passage of time. Events in the Middle East can change overnight. And very often the change centers on one individual. That is the case of todays big news, which is the health crisis of Israel's Ariel Sharon. Thursday's Aljazeera feed reports that surgeons were able to stem the bleeding in his brain after he suffered a massive stroke. To quote,

Ariel Sharon is to be kept sedated for at least 24 hours after surgeons stemmed bleeding from a massive brain haemorrhage. The Israeli prime minister, who suffered a stroke on Wednesday, underwent six hours of surgery to stem bleeding in his brain. But a subsequent scan showed new bleeding in several areas so doctors then operated for another hour to control it.

Whether Israel's Prime Minister lives and recovers, lives and is unable to govern, or dies, will inevitably make a significant difference in the directions of both Israel and their neighbor Palestine. Palestinian radicals already see this as good news, feeling that their enemy has been vanquished. Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas knows that this has large implications for the success or failure of their two countries' peace efforts.

And with the recent establishment by Sharon of a new political party, it is clear that all of that is now up in the air. Israel's political parties have suspended activities at this time. Political forces already in place will continue the momemtum already established, to some extent. But the directions taken by each individual player could still make huge differences in the outcomes. Time will tell whether Benjamin Netanyahu can make moves in the best interest of his country.

Will a Hamas' leader such as Sheikh Ismail Haneyya perform for good or ill for the people he claims to represent? Hamas has decided to participate in the upcoming Palestinian elections. When will the election occur? Will Condoleeza Rice act deftly during these fast moving events?

After a rather peaceful period around mid-December, violence in Iraq is increasing at a frightening pace. With the outcome of the election becoming more clear, those who are now power down are trying to influcnce the direction of negotiations to form a new government. Juan Cole uses this news as his post's lead today. He links to a story from CNN about our current president's predictions that troop levels in Iraq will soon drop, noting that the briefing seems out of touch:

President Bush's and Vice President Cheney's recent pronouncements do not seem to me to fit very well with the Iraqi reality they say they are describing."Those who want to stop the progress of freedom are becoming more and more marginalized," says Bush.

The BBC writes in this story from yesterday that it has been,

Iraq's deadliest day since poll: After a lull in attacks, there have been a rash of deadly incidentsA string of attacks across Iraq has made it the deadliest day in the country since the 15 December election. In the worst attack, at least 36 people were killed in a suicide bombing at a Shia funeral north of Baghdad. Across Iraq, more than 50 people died.
In Washington, President George Bush said the plan in Iraq was going well. He said Iraqi forces were improving all the time. "As Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down," he
said, touting possible further cuts in US troop levels. Mr Bush said wide participation in Iraq's election showed the people were buying into the new democracy, and had more confidence in their security. "The election results served as a real defeat for the rejectionists," he said. However, after a drop in insurgent attacks around the time of the elections, car bombings and suicide attacks have intensified.

But good things are happening, too. The Kurds seem to be the pivotal players in the outcome of organizing the new government in Iraq. And now they will be a little freer to lead towards a more secular direction as threats from Turkish interference may be lessening. A significant development is occurring with the improvement in relations between the Kurds in Iraq and Turkey. The BBC News reports, in part, that,

The (Kurdish) region's relative safety is drawing in foreign businesses interested in
relocating from other, less secure, areas of Iraq. Much of this construction work is being done by Turkish firms. Ilnur Cevik, president of the Turkish construction firm told me his company has secured about a quarter of the estimated $800m worth of contracts awarded to Turkish contractors in the region. "We are exporting so many of our products here," he said. "Not only for construction, but trading. Everything you see here is Turkish-labelled. So I think if Turkey can overcome some of its mental blocks and start getting more involved in this region, the area will be completely linked to Turkey in many senses. And that will be very healthy for them - and for us."
'Soured relations'
When he speaks of "mental blocks" one of the things he means is Ankara's long-running concern about the effect the virtually autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region might have on the aspirations of its own restive Kurds.

And there is one last development that convinced me that some directions never change. Again, Ahmed Chalabi was named the Iraq oil minister. What are ya' gonna do? The Washington Post in a December 31 story reported that,

As a fuel crisis deepened in Iraq, the government replaced its oil minister with controversial Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi, whose poor performance in the Dec. 15 elections was a setback in his recent attempt at political rehabilitation.
The oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr Uloom, was put on a mandatory, month-long leave. He had previously threatened to resign over the government's recent decision to increase gasoline prices sharply, a move that has outraged motorists and sparked attacks on gas stations and fuel convoys.

So the Middle East is truly at a crossroads, which is very often the case. That is why fascination with the region never wanes with me. It is like the weather in the southwest. If you don't like it, just wait a little while and you can be sure it will change.

Tags: Middle East Ariel Sharon Israel Palestine Iraq Turkey