We interrupt our regularly scheduled program ... for torture

This week, the Senate Committee's report on torture was released. I would have liked to have ignored it, but I can't. I would have liked not to feel compelled to say something, but I can't. I would have liked that it didn't turn out like it did, but it did.

Disclaimer: Unwillingly, I was a soldier in the United States Army on active duty between 1971 and 1975. My Military Occupational Specialty was Interrogator of Prisoners of War. In other words, there's a part of this post that is simply personal.

Two things, in particular, bother me. On the one hand, there are voices that say the report should never have been made public. I couldn't disagree more. While I know it's not true in reality, I still believe that a government should be the servant of the people, and the people have a right to know what those who are acting in their name are doing. I know from first-hand experience that far too much is classified and too often it is because we simply don't want others to know what we are doing. But we know anyhow. On the other hand, there are those who assert that the release of the report could tarnish America's image in the world. It is already tarnished, by its own actions. My mother told me that if I did something wrong, I should own up to it and take the consequences. I don't know why this wisdom would not apply to supposedly adult representatives of one of the most influential nations on earth.

And, oh, for all of you national-security paranoids who believe that the release of such information could be a threat to the safety and security of the nation: wake up, get real, and get a life. The United States has never been more threatened that it is right now, and this report had nothing to do with that. The people who authorized the actions that are the focus of the report bear the full responsibility for that threat.

There is a fairly strong consensus across what little there is of a political spectrum in the US that the actions which were investigated did in fact take place. It might have been the Nation or The American Conservative or the wire agencies or the mainstream press or so-called liberal news or journalistic services on the internet.

But the list wouldn't be complete without at least one voice that would like to play it off as nothing more than a partisan ploy by the Democrats to distract from the "real issues" facing our country. Oh yes, there's always one. How calloused and, well, ignorant does one have to be?.

I, for one, am appalled that it took this long to get this far. As an interrogator, I was trained not to torture for it was well-known in those circles that the only thing torture gets you is inaccurate intelligence. There were, I will admit, some heartless, nasty, immoral, and downright sadistic folks in the branch who looked for every excuse to satisfy their own dishonorable desires. Unfortunately, they weren't send home (or anywhere else where they might have got some help), and so they remained, and, as it appears, eventually gained the upper hand.

What the (the executive summary of the) report tells us is that we, as a nation, are guilty. We betrayed our own values in the name of expediency. We committed acts of inhumanity and violated the human rights of others for our own trivial ends. We might like to think we are the beacon of hope to all freedom-loving peoples of the earth, but we have shown our true face, the twisted, distorted grimace of power-addicted bully.

But, we still have a chance. We can own up to our actions and face the consequences, just like my mom once encouraged me. The perpetrators need to do the same, and if they are not willing to do so on their own, they need to be brought to justice by the rest of the world. If we, as America, fail to act, we forfeit every right we ever thought we had to the moral high ground of international politics.

Are we able to do the right thing? I can only hope so.

The American disease

There is no doubt that the USA has been something of a powerhouse for a good deal of its very short history. It has benefitted from accidents of time and nature, of geography and sometimes blind determination. Not everything it has ever done, of course, like any other modern (or ancient) nation-state, is worth praising. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone gets some things wrong, but it is the sign of a healthy mind that we learn from these and not do them anymore. Unfortunately, this is precisely the virus that is infecting the country right now: it refuses to learn.

America talks a good game when it comes to ideals: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness; freedom, democratic processes, and equality of opportunity. Unfortunately, the reality is anything but this. It is actively seeking to restrict democratic processes, through legislation and precedent; it is raping the environment in the name of economic growth, it supports corruption and lawlessness, as the recent refusal to prosecute the criminals involved in the recent economic crash has shown; it has gone after whistleblowers with a vengeance; it has suppressed its minorities (again); it refuses to admit to, or even acknowledge, its genocidal past; it knows no solution to international problems other than war and violence; it has no hesitation committing war crimes (drones, torture) in pursuit of its interests; and it is doing all it can to suppress the last remnants of opposition at home.

Now, I don't know if this is what the majority of Americans want, nor whether this is the America that the majority of Americans see. It really doesn't matter. This is their country and the simple fact that there is no visible resistance to this reign of power and terror -- political, social, and economic -- makes those of us outside believe that Americans are, well, OK with all of this. This is really a situation of silence being assent, of not-acting-against being support-for.

Unfortunately, part of America's current power is perceived to be expressed in economic terms. The American capitalist system, the great delusion of trickle-down, the rape of resources, the blatant disregard for human feelings or rights, is one of the two vehicles the country has chosen to spread to the rest of the world (the other being outright war, including drone attacks and clandestine operations). What Americans apparently don't realize and what too many non-Americans don't recognize is that we not only don't need this, we don't want it either.

The US is ill, in so many ways, and it is simply bad manners and inconsiderate to go out and deal with others when you should be at home recuperating. My suggestion, therefore, is that the US simply go home. Go back to your own four walls and sort yourself out before you insist on sorting the rest of us out.

Yes, America has traditionally liked to think that it knows what is best for all us. It doesn't. It is in such a state of delirium that it can't even see what it is doing to itself. It's time to stop spreading this American disease. "Physician, heal thyself."

Those still haunting Brussels blues

Don't worry, you'll be off the hook soon. I promise: this is the last reaction from Brussels. And yes, I managed to find my carbonnade, and Belgian beer is still excellent, so there are still things that are right with the world. But, still ...

Just missing the motivation boat is not the only blunder that "the industry" has allowed itself. There was the constant drone at the conference that not enough women were getting into the industry. One large, international telecommunications company gave us samples of one of their latest marketing gags: nail polish; one a light green (Mint) and one deep magenta (an important color for the company). (I need to add here, that MINT is the German form of STEM, not everything translates perhaps as well as we would like.). I have a bottle of each on my desk right now. I'm still marveling at them. This is how you attract young girls to become interested in getting into telecommunications, I suppose. I'm glad to see that in our emancipated world today, old stereotypes have been eliminated so completely. It just goes to show you, though, just how out of touch organizations can be.

It amazes me how out of touch most organizations are. I'm not picking on any one in particular; the one just mentioned is merely an example. The young are not, at least as far as those at the conference were concerned, all that motivated by glitter, glamor or even so-called prestige. Another young participant stated quite clearly in the plenum that the companies up front talking the loudest and making the biggest pledges were simply not offering him the opportunity to follow his technologically relevant bliss, the were more of a hinderance than a help. This is in harmony with the notions I mentioned last time. What is driving the young technologically savvy these days is being able to do one's own thing together with others while remaining true to what is good and right and that benefits others (that's the real "Hacker Ethic"), and that is, I'm afraid we all realize, antithetical to the maximization-of-profit ideal that so many -- particularly these large, globally active, mostly American corporations.

It is quite the dilemma, I will admit. Most people, the vast majority of people, inside or outside this industry, here in the West, work for companies that are small or tiny. Too often, they are simply looking to survive while the really big players are wallowing in their wealth. This means that what's making the world go round is not their riches, it's the blood, sweat and tears of the little guys. But it is there that the ideals that seem to resonate with the young people seem to be.

You can make it about technology, and you can make it about growth, and you can make it about money, but that doesn't make it real. If you want to attract youth to the the hard, tough, demanding world of STEM, don't try to make it fun or attractive or lucrative. Make it worthwhile. Go ahead. I dare you.

Those haunting Brussels blues

No, I'm not obsessed, either with Brussels or the blues, but I do have a bit of this and that I have to work through yet. Here's another notion that's been haunting me for the past couple of days: STEM.

Once you get even a little close to any kind of bureaucracy, you start getting overwhelmed with acronyms and abbreviations. I guess bureaucratic days are so full that they just don't have time to speak in full words. STEM stands for "Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics", and it alludes to those disciplines of learning and study that we need to emphasize if we are going to remain competitive as an economic area and if we are going to advance as a civilization (whatever that means). We simply don't have enough people getting into these areas and over the day-and-a-half in Brussels there was a lot of urgent debate and a lot of wringing of hands, how we were going to accomplish this. I don't know about you, but I find the whole issue rather odd.

STEM is supposed to be about hard science, mathematically rich disciplines of technology (whereby I think IT is most often meant, as if there weren't any other kinds) and engineering. I suppose it's only physicists, mathematicians, technologists and engineers who get anything done. OK, it is an American neologism. I suppose that explains a lot more than we might like to think. Young people are apparently not all excited about entering these fields. They are perceived as too hard, too demanding, too complex, or are they simply uninteresting? The surrounding discussions remind me of those I've heard from church representatives regarding the lack of attendance and participation of young people in church. Their answer is make it more "attractive": more singing, dancing, role-playing, play-acting ... whatever, so that it will be "fun" to go to church. Yes, if we could only make STEM more "fun", then wouldn't young people flock to it in droves? Well, to be honest, no.

The world in which we're called to work these days is anything but fun. Employers think that so-called smart technology can make you accessible 24/7, so now your employer has access to you 24/7. If you come up with a good idea, it belongs to the company, not to you. When you enter the workplace, you leave your conscience at the door and sell your soul. I, for the like of me, can't figure out why young people aren't lining up for that. By the way, once your current skill set is no longer productive, you're out, and by the way, we're not going to pay for your development, personally or professionally, you have to do that on your own, especially on your own dime, and by the way, I'm going to pay you well, but not nearly enough to make repaying those student loans too easy; nothing worth anything should be obtained too easily. Yes, that's the world I'm inviting you to, so why aren't you beating down my door to get it? Yeah, I don't understand it either.

One young panel participant near the end said that he got into technology because of three concepts he had gleaned from the book The Hacker Ethic which he referred to as freedom, challenge, and impact. I took this to mean that he was driven by wanting to do things that may not be easy but needed to get done in such a way that others would benefit and, as is often stated so blithely, that the world would be a better place. I found it fascinating that the motivators weren't anything related to STEM. Those things are just means to a much bigger -- may I say, softer -- end.

I really have to ask myself. Who's not getting it?

Brussels blues deja vu

It was an interesting day-and-a-half, not exciting, not surprising, but interesting nevertheless. There was a lot of "high-level dynamism", as it was called, or hot air, as it could be understood, and there were a lot of serious and sincere individuals who showed quite clearly that they wanted to find a solution to a problem ... unfortunately a problem that probably does not exist.

The real problem as I see it doesn't have anything to do with a skills gap or getting more people into work. It's about big IT companies pitching their wares so that they appear more important than they really are. The biggest round of applause of the day went to a question from the audience asking why the big-company certification programs are so expensive. The answer was that we get national governments to pay for them, so it's not an issue. Not an issue? Our tax euros are at work again, giving money to people who don't need it for a problem that probably doesn't exist. Or, how about the day before when an economist in the crowd merely asked what's the answer to the supply/demand equation? No response. You can't expect the "industry" to make things more attractive to potential employees, just because they are needed. No, I didn't think so. It would appear we're seeking solutions to a problem that doesn't really exist.

Throughout the day-and-a-half, I heard of project after project that was being implemented and what unmitigated successes they were. But we've still got a problem. The participants were allegedly key players in the technology revolution that changes everything, but none of these projects had been heard of by others, so I have to ask who's using the technology for what? This topic has been on the table for at least 15 years, it was interrupted once when the "industry" imploded (remember that dot.com thing?) and once they got their bearings again, they started crying wolf that without qualified personnel, the industry in Europe was doomed, Europe was doomed. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being told that if we didn't do what they wanted this time, there would be hell to pay. And I suppose there will be.

For me, one of the most telling moments of the conference was when a well-placed individual from one of the largest high-tech companies in the world, and particularly in Europe, stated with unmitigated candor that in his company alone, within the next two years, over 10,000 people were going to lose their jobs if they did not re-skill. Yes, there is a skill gap, in this company at any rate, and it was also clear, that this company didn't feel the slightest necessity at all to do anything about their own employees. They are their employees, I suppose, when they are helping deliver profits, and they're on their own, when it looks like they won't be able to.

Yes, the next round of give-me-what-I-want has kicked off. Now, who is going to rise to the challenge? Who's going to make the necessary sacrifice? We know who isn't, so now it's up to either government or potential employees to react. Do we have what it takes? I hope not.

Brussels blues, redux

Perhaps I shouldn't be blaming the technology. Perhaps the real source of my aggravation is not the industry looking for a handout (I mean, they could say "no", but who says no to a free lunch), but rather the unmitigated nonsense that passes for rational argumentation. There is more at stake here than just "jobs". Although it may not seem so at first blush, the issue lies much deeper.

Over the past few years, I've been involved in a number of IT-industry-related projects, all of which have been funded by the European Commission. We have received funding for these initiatives because they have sought to narrow the gap between skills that are needed in the industry and those that potential employees are in possession of. It's been a matter of providing people with the right knowledge, skills, and competences for the positions that exist and will exist in the industry. Sounds noble, I know. And it is, in a sense, but the longer I deal with the matter, the more I am coming to believe that the cure is worse than the illness.

The big general push, both here in the EU and in the US is getting the right people in the right jobs. Across the board, people are pushing for a closer cooperation between education and industry so that the matches are better and more long-lasting. Both here and there, a lot of criticism has been raised against the education sector, be it public schools, vocational education and training, or (so-called) institutions of higher learning: find out what industry wants/needs, and give it to them. And that, my dear friends, is precisely the problem.

The key word describing this is "employability". We have to make people more "attractive" for the employer. Why? No, I don't want to hear about how the employee will be more productive. Employees have been more productive than ever for the past 40 years and all they have to show for it is higher rates of unemployment, lower wages, and highly exaggerated management compensation. No, I don't want to hear how the employee will deliver higher quality. Insisting that one person do the job of two, insisting on unpaid overtime "to get the job done", to push for ever higher margins all have nothing to do with quality. The customer gets the quality that is possible at the lowest cost of production, period ... at least that's how it works in consumer markets. So that's not it either. No, I don't want to hear about how the highly skilled workforce is what drives the economy forward. High-skilled means higher pay. High-skilled means the worker knows what s/he's doing and when you're cutting corners. High-skilled means ... well, trouble.

Oh, I hear what industry says they want, and they want lots of it, especially if the government is willing to subsidize it so they they don't have to pay for it themselves, but at bottom what they want are ready, willing, and ably conforming drones to do what they're told and to go away when they are not needed any longer. We might say it's about training and education and skills and competences, but what it's really about, in the end, as always, is money.