Category: Uncategorized

The Internet, Secrecy and the United Nations

secrets2We all have secrets.  Over the years, every one of us has collected a list of things we’ve done, said or maybe even just thought that we kinda keep to ourselves.  We all have our individual “reasons” for this, but, in fact, the only real reason for keeping secrets is if they are let out into the open air, they would reflect badly on us or someone we know.  Therefore, we just keep our mouths shut and tell ourselves it’s a harmless bit of selective reporting.  Of course, at the end of the day, we also know that this isn’t strictly true.  In fact, no secret is harmless; if it were, there would be no need to keep it a secret then, would there?

Okay, now that we’ve established that, let’s move on to what I really want to write about: the United Nations.  Remember them?  They’re that international body of scoundrels who have spent the last couple of decades making the world safe from democracy.  I don’t have time to present the litany of their malfeasance here, but there are literally millions of graves all over the world to bear silent witness to their thoughts, words and deeds.  So what are they up to this week?  Nothing short of making a desperate grab for control of the Internet.   Alright!  Alright!  Alright!  Too much hyperbole, I’ll grant you, but hear me out.

Last week, the United Nations convened a secret committee of God only knowssecrets3 who to discuss the future of the Internet.   Apparently (and nobody knows for sure) these folks are considering a host of recommendations which might deal with everything from who pays for what to whether wdfyfe is dot com or dot ca.  Interestingly enough, this committee is holding its secret discussions in Dubai, the world’s most exclusive all-inclusive resort, which has a particular Internet record of its own.  Last month, they enacted a law which made it illegal for anyone to use, not only the Internet, but any electronic technology to criticize the current regime, or any of its officials, or to distribute information that did so.  So if you want to text your BFF that Sheik Somebody-Or-Other is an old fart, you better not do it in Dubai.  Personally, I’m stunned by the irony, and that’s not the half of it.

First of all, what’s the UN doing with its sticky little fingers on the Internet in the first place?  These are the folks who stood around with their hands in their pockets while 800,000 people were getting butchered in Rwanda.  They’re also the ones who hosted a Conference on Racism in Geneva in 2009 where the major speaker, President Ahmadinejad of Iran, said the Holocaust was an “ambiguous and dubious question” and called Israel a “totally racist” country.  (A little bit of the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?)  In fact, it got so bad, even the host nation, Switzerland, walked out.  This is the same United Nations which routinely acts as a rubber stamp for some of the most repressive regimes on the planet while simultaneously accusing some of the most progressive ones of racism, sexism, intolerance and anything else they can think up on the spur of the moment.  Trusting this bunch of clowns with anything more than wasting money and pissing people off is like giving an eight-year-old an unlimited credit card and the vote.  Think about it: when Iran, Malawi and Zimbabwe are all members of the Commission on the Status of Women, can you imagine who they’d pick to run Facebook and YouTube?

However, I can’t really say; nor can anyone else outside the United Nations upper echelon.  Why?  Because the entire conference is so super secret we peons are not allowed to know.  And why is that?  Your guess is as good as mine.  But this is what we do know.  A bunch of has-been diplomats, with a track record that would get any thoroughbred sent to the glue factory, are sitting around one of the most expensive and least democratic places on the planet.  They are deciding the fate of the cheapest, most far-reaching and completely democratic institutions in human history.  And they’re doing it because? … Nobody knows why.

secrets4Call me paranoid, but when a bunch of people I never voted for, don’t know and, most importantly, don’t know anything about, may very well be deciding what I can download, upload, look at or comment on across the future of my Internet connection, I get a little worried.  Especially when the best explanation they’ve given so far is “Don’t worry.”

And beyond all that, they’re conducting this shady business under a Maxwell Smart Cone of Silence.  It all kinda sounds like the plot from Get Smart doesn’t it?  The problem is, with the United Nations playing the incompetently evil organization trying to take over the world, we’re going to need more than Agent 86 to thwart them.  ‘Cause even Max would tell you, “This kind of secrecy is never benign.”

These Are Just Two Of My Scariest Things

scared2There are certain things that scare the hell out of me.  I’m not talking about spiders or demons or even fear of loose hair.  (Dig this: it’s common enough we have a name for it: trichophobia.)  Nor am I talking weird superstitions like Friday the 13th or black cats.  I’m talking about things that, if I thought about them too much, I’d actually lose sleep over.  Things that are big enough to rip our little world off its moorings and bring the civilization we all know (and prefer to ignore) crashing down around our ears.  I’m an optimist, but this stuff tests my faith like forty days in the wilderness never could.

Recently, an official North Korean news agency reported that North Korean archeologists had discovered an ancient site which confirms the existence of … wait for it … unicorns.  Apparently, some ancient emperor guy had a herd of them or some such nonsense and, now, here in the 21st century, North Korean scientists have found their lair.  To be fair, after a small but pointedly hilarious Internet storm, the North Koreans have recanted saying it was all a big mistaken translation.  Yeah, right!  I believe that.  I don’t know many words in Korean, but I imagine the word “unicorn” is just as unique in that language as it is in mine.  That’s not my point, however, I don’t care if the North Koreans think they’ve found unicorns, a flock of migrating Phoenixes or the Fountain of Youth; my scaredproblem is these guys have nuclear weapons!  Not only that, but they’re busy working on a system that would deliver them — in a big hurry — to my little corner of the world.  Somehow, people who find unicorns under the bed don’t fill me with maximum confidence on the judgement front.  My four-year-old nephew believes in unicorns, and we don’t even let him play with the television remote.  The closest he gets to pushing buttons is some Spell and Speak electronic game that went nuts one night and kept shouting “fart” – to his obvious delight.

However, as much as Kim Jong whatever-his-name-is-this-week in North Korea scares me skinny, the folks who really keep me awake at night are Madmoud Ahmadinejad and his band of mad scientists over in Iran.  These people gave up on the 20th century back in 1979 and haven’t looked forward since.  They routinely accuse each other of consorting with jinns (“genies” to you and me) and nobody thinks this is the least bit odd.  In fact, several close associates of scared1President Ahmadinejad have been arrested and jailed on charges that range from being magicians, to practicing witchcraft.  Like 15th century Salem, Mass., dabbling in the dark arts is a biggie in Tehran.  And these people are not trailer trash from the Iranian equivalent of Rubberboot, Nebraska (No offence, Nebraska) they are highly placed members of the government.  And that’s the problem: there are people in the Iranian government, including Ahmadinejad himself, who firmly believe in the Second Coming and the destruction of the world, and Iranian scientists are only a couple of isotopes away from giving them the means to make that happen.  Remember, this is the guy who has publically stated, given half a chance, he’d turn Tel Aviv into a radioactive ashtray.

It’s pretty obvious that nuclear holocaust scares the crap out of me, and yes, I know these aren’t the only two nutbars who have their fingers on the buttons.  I realize that Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, this new guy in Beijing, could wake up tomorrow morning all pissed off and vaporize half the planet before Starbucks could brew them a Decaf.  That’s something we all just have to live with.  The thing is, though, these boys at least look as if they’re in touch with reality.  They don’t run around riding on unicorns or accusing each other of black magic.  For all the animosity in the recent US election, I can’t recall Obama ever denouncing Romney for giving him the evil eye (although the first debate might have been close.)  M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) doesn’t work if one of the mutuals is mad as a hatter.  However, for all my fear of nuclear destruction at the hands of some space cadet who thinks he should play with the big boys, there’s something else that scares me even more.

Friday: The Scariest Thing in the West

The Tale of the Bulgarians’ Levis

Bulgarians not exactly as shown

Many years ago, when there was still an Iron Curtain and most thinking people were very much aware of Brezhnev’s missiles, I met a Bulgarian (several of them, actually.)  He was on a cultural exchange program to America with some other bureaucrats and a phalanx of stoic minders who loomed large getting off the plane.  Several people and I were supposed to show our Communist visitors the wonders of the West — without pissing off the minders, who looked like they weren’t about to be trifled with.Before we go any further, you must understand I was never a diplomat.  The only reason I was even there is the guy from the Chamber of Commerce, who was one of the hosts, blew out his appendix the night before.  I was a serious third-string, emergency replacement, so my Bulgarian was young and nobody special, and his minders were definitely not members of the A Team.

We were given a list of “approved” places to take our new friends, but after the first morning of dull and boring, I thought “What the hell!  I’ve got a week off, a pocket full of government money and I’m driving.”  So we broke away from the group and went to Eddie Basha’s grocery store for Pepsi and Doritos.  It’s amazing how quickly solid walls of sugar and sodium can thaw a Cold War.  It was as if I’d given mis nuevos amigos the keys to snack food heaven, and they were going to stock up before it was all gone.  I had to explain to them — more than once — that we could come back tomorrow and get more.  They didn’t believe me.  Even at the end of the week, after we’d been shopping many times, I’m sure they still thought it was all a capitalist scam that they’d been clever enough to take advantage of.  Anyway, on the first day, we ended up with Camel cigarettes, Miller beer, a bag of assorted candy bars, pantyhose, and band aids, and three boxes of Froot Loops™.  From then on, the four of us got along famously.  Every morning, we’d follow the group to the designated snooze fest, and every afternoon we’d mysteriously get lost.  As long as they were back at the hotel in time for the nightly “We’re all friends here” reception, nobody seem to care.  I don’t think the folks running the show realized that the two minders were in on the plot.  My Bulgarians found the America that never makes it into the Anti-American Instruction Manual, including a video arcade, Go Kart Racing, Whataburger and a trip to the barrio for authentic chicken, chitlins and greens, courtesy of my friend Sam who had filial connections to the street gang that ran things down there.  All things considered, I think my guys quite liked the Land of Milk and Money.  They certainly got comfortable enough to laugh at the Wild West’s attempts at culture and make fun of the beer.  They maintained that someone drank it first — before Miller put it in the bottle.  I, for my part, genuinely liked those guys, had a great time, and even in the full flush of arrogant youth learned a little bit about how wrong I was about life on the Black Sea of communism.  The only discordant note was when it got to be good-bye time and everyone was getting on the plane.  Suddenly, the more senior minders stopped everything and made a big show of taking away the blue jeans I’d helped my buddies buy.  My Bulgarians dutifully gave up their prize possessions.  Interestingly, in all the huffing and puffing, nobody but me wanted to notice that the mucky-muck babysitters weren’t making them leave those Levis in the decadent West; they were confiscating them.  It was a sad reminder that no matter how much sugar coating you sometimes get, real life eventually intervenes.

Of course, the moral of the story should be that even the most antagonistic strangers are just one box of Froot Loops™ away from being friends, but it isn’t.  It’s a lot deeper than that hackneyed homily.  The real moral is that the world is full of self-righteous bastards who, given an opportunity, will use their power to steal our metaphorical Levis or anything else they can get their mitts on.  They are the most dangerous among us because they have convinced us that they do this in the name of some esoteric common good.  I learned a valuable lesson that day at the airport.  Capitalism may very well be a brutal system that allows man’s exploitation of his fellow man, but under communism, the opposite is true. At least we get to keep our Levis.