Month: December 2004

Conyers on the Ohio Elections

Democratic Underground Forums – Final version of my speech today

“The Recount effort is simply a search for the truth of what happened during the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio. We have now repeatedly seen election officials obstruct and stonewall this search for the truth. I am beginning to wonder what it is they are trying to hide.”

…

There are people out there who think we are crazy, who think we are bitter-enders, sore losermen, conspiracy theorists and tinfoil hatters. We just cannot accept the outcome of a truly legitimate American election, and we are flailing about like pathetic boated fish trying to change what cannot be changed. But the Ohio Secretary of State is brazenly breaking the law by denying public access to public records. The terrorism bugaboo was thrown in the way of those who wished to observe the counting process in Warren County, though nobody seems to know who tossed out the warning nor why terrorists would want to blow something up in southwestern Ohio. And now, legitimate hearings on these issues are being thwarted.

If demanding answers to these questions, along with all the other questions that have arisen – more than 30,000 reports of voting irregularities and fraud all across the country, including thousands of reports of malfunctioning electronic touch-screen voting machines, plus the disenfranchisement of as many as a million minority voters, and the startling reality that virtually every single ‘malfunction’ or error favored George W. Bush – if demanding answers to these questions makes me crazy, then damn it, bring on the boys with the butterfly nets, because I am completely out of my mind.

The B-Scan

NYT:

Ever wonder what leads a lavishly compensated C.E.O. to cheat, steal and lie? Perhaps he’s a psychopath, and now there is a test, the B-Scan 360, that can help make that determination. The B-Scan was conceived by Paul Babiak, an industrial psychologist, and Robert Hare, the creator of the standard tool for diagnosing psychopathic features in prison inmates. The B-Scan is the first formalized attempt to uncover similar tendencies in captains of industry, and it speaks to a growing suspicion that psychopaths may be especially adept at scaling the corporate ladder.

Indeed, Babiak and Hare could not have chosen a more propitious moment to roll out the B-Scan, which is now in the trial stage. The recent rash of damaging corporate scandals — combined with legislation making boards far more liable for executive malfeasance — has given companies good reason to screen current employees more rigorously.

According to Babiak and Hare, white-collar psychopaths are not apt to become serial rapists or murderers. Rather, they are prone to being ”subcriminal” psychopaths: smooth-talking, energetic individuals who easily charm their way into jobs and promotions but who are also exceedingly manipulative, narcissistic and ruthless. The purpose of the B-Scan is to smoke out these ”snakes in suits.”

The individual being evaluated does not actually take the test. Instead, it is given to his or her superiors, subordinates and peers. They rate the subject in four broad categories — organizational maturity, personal style, emotional style and social style — and 16 subcategories, like reliability, honesty and sincerity.

Babiak and Hare say that decisions to promote or dismiss ought not to be made on the basis of the B-Scan alone and that it is possible, with good coaching and training, to turn a talented executive with mild psychopathic tendencies into an effective manager. They acknowledge too that strong corporate leadership may require a certain degree of guile, egoism and callousness.

But they point out that the frenzied nature of modern business — the constant downsizing, the relentless merging and acquiring — provides a very fertile environment for havoc-wreaking psychopaths, who thrive on chaos and risk-taking. As Hare put it in one interview, ”If I couldn’t study psychopaths in prison, I would go down to the Stock Exchange.”

The thing is, the people commissioning these tests are going to be largely psychopaths themselves, if they’re typical CEOs…

Anti-Consumerism is Consumerist?

I’m not particularly invested in the whole “anti-consumerism, culture-jamming” movement, so I’m not particularly scandalized by that, but I’m not sure I get it.

Rebel Sell linked from MetaFilter (which has several other links.)

UPDATE: reading it. Getting it. Makes total sense.

The basic idea is this: the whole “anti-consumerism” meme is predicated on the notion that”capitalism/consumerism” is all about conformity. And that you can be different by not conforming and buying special differen things which those ordinary consumerists don’t buy.

But that’s not true; capitalism and consumerism don’t want everyone to try to be like everyone else — that would actually be fairly achieveable, on the materialistic side of things anyway, and capitalism doesn’t want you to have achieveable goals; you might reach them and stop buying things. Capitalism wants you to always try and be better, more special, than everbody else. And being anti-consumerist makes you the most special of all. So it’s the same vibe. “I’m one of the few cool ones because I buy Nike” is exactly the same thought, phrased in different words, as “I’m one of the few cool ones because I buy things that are more enlightened than Nike.”

Brilliant little article. I like. But of course, I would like. I’ve never been cool enough to choose a “rebel” product except for Linux, my current Mac I guess, and one lone pair of actual Birks bought back in grad school. So it’s easy for me to say “yeah, that is totally true,” cause I’m not the one he takes aim at.

Creepier Still

Apparently the Christian Reconstructionist movement, which is the theological basis for the neo-Confederate thinking behind the previously mentioned pro-slavery history booklet, is based on the theology of a Christian Reformed minister named Cornelius Van Til, who, like me, went to Calvin College. Reconstructionism itself was articulated by a fellow named Rushdoony, a student of his. Hip reconstructionists don’t call themselves that anymore, for the same reasons that Amway doesn’t call itself Amway anymore. The name took on a justifiable stink.

I am not sure what relationship the Christian Reformed Church has had with Christian Reconstructionism, historically. I vaguely remember reading an attack on Reconstructionism in some journal of theology when I was a Calvin student.

It’s disappointing to see that my alma mater has borne such evil fruit.