Cyberspace: The Anarchical Society?

Who owns the Internet?  A better question, and one more pertinent to understanding some of the major issues in international politics today, is Who governs cyberspace?  Some, including many of the Internet's most obsessive users, argue that no one governs cyberspace, nor should anyone attempt to govern it.  The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), two bills that were, until last week, moving through Congress at the behest of major economic interests concerned about Internet piracy, were derailed because many netizens rebelled against this particular effort on the part of government to regulate cyberspace.  It was not the first time that the Internet had "organized," in its own disorganized fashion, to fight back against attempts to rein in the anarchy of cyberspace.

Saki Knafo, in a two-part story for the Huffington Post entitled "Anonymous and the War over the Internet" (see Part I and Part II), describes the "Chanology War of 2008" in which the Church of Scientology found itself under "attack" on the Internet and being protested--in a non-virtual way--on the sidewalks of 142 cities around the world for having pressured YouTube into removing a video of Tom Cruise rambling incoherently about Scientology.  Knafo regards this as the point at which the geeks gathering in certain IRC rooms began to realize they had the power to influence events irl (in real life).

The success in organizing anti-Scientology protests worldwide earned public recognition for a movement--if that is the right word--called "Anonymous."  Anonymous has no leaders, no hierarchy, no formal structure of any kind, and no members, in the usual sense of that term.  It does, however, have an ethos, one which is focused on preserving cyberspace as an unregulated sphere of activity--an anarchical society, if I may use the term Hedley Bull applied to the realm of international relations.  Consequently, Anonymous acts (and that generally means hacks) in defense of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks or Kim Dotcom and MegaUploads or others thought to be victims of efforts to curb Internet freedom.

It is not immediately clear how we ought to conceptualize cyberspace in terms of its relationship to government.  The U.S. Department of Defense (and other military organizations around the world) view it as the "fifth domain" of conflict (after land, sea, air, and outer space).  It is a realm of espionage and warfare--that is, another space in which U.S. national security interests must be defended.  The U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Commerce see cyberspace as a medium of economic activity, but also a criminal wasteland.  It is a domain in which terrorists plot, digital pirates steal intellectual property, and hackers routinely defraud the Internet's most gullible users (your grandmother, perhaps) and occasionally wreak havoc on its most sophisticated users (your bank or credit card company).  The U.S. Department of State regards cyberspace as a tool for the spread of liberal values across the world.  What must be defended  in this conception are free access to uncensored information and free expression of political views.  Other parts of the U.S. Government view cyberspace as a venue for the dissemination of information, a tool for advanced communications, a means of spreading educational opportunity, or a forum for advocacy.  Cyberspace is all of these things and much more.

Norms for the governance of cyberspace are emerging, but not easily.  There are clashes of interests being played out between states (e.g., China and the U.S.) because states see themselves as the logical sources of regulation where regulation (perhaps in the form of arms control or copyright protection) is needed.  But here, as in so many other aspects of the emerging post-Westphalian system, states are not the only actors with interests and the ability to advance them forcefully.  As Anonymous has demonstrated on numerous occasions, there are cybercitizens who in a very real sense live in cyberspace and see it as territory to be defended against the encroachments of governments, corporations, international organizations, or interest groups.  And this fact adds a layer of complexity to efforts to develop forms of governance for this new anarchical society.

An African Criminal Court?

The mention of an "African Criminal Court" is usually a sardonic reference to the fact that all seven of the International Criminal Court investigations currently open involve African states.  Yesterday, at the 18th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, outgoing chairperson Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo actually proposed the creation of an African Criminal Court.  Obiang's stated rationale is that the International Criminal Court has discriminated against African leaders.  It is an objection that is consistent with other positions Obiang has taken to try to insulate African dictators, himself included, from external scrutiny.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, addressing the summit on Sunday, defended the record of the ICC in Africa by noting that many of the investigations have been supported by Africans themselves.  He also noted that the newly elected chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda of Ghana, is an African.  Speaking to a Voice of America reporter, Ban argued that the ICC has handled its responsibilities well, using the situations in Cote d'Ivoire and Libya as examples.

In his speech to the AU, Ban urged the assembled leaders to "adopt a preventive approach to human rights."  The Arab Spring, he said, demonstrated that "police power is no match for people power seeking dignity and justice."  Ban also urged African leaders to "live up to the ideals of the Universal Declaration" by ending discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.

The African Union Summit took place in a new headquarters building constructed at a cost of $200 million by the government of China.  The building, one of many examples of Chinese largesse in Africa, exemplifies the ongoing battle for hearts and minds--and resources--across the continent.  While the West views Africa (along with the Middle East) as one of the last bastions of political repression--a bastion breached by the Arab Spring--China appears to view the dictators of Africa as allies in the defense of sovereignty against the broad incursions made by the ideals of human rights and international justice.

Drones over Syria?

The United Nations Security Council is set to consider a resolution on Syria tomorrow.  Secretary of State Clinton, along with the foreign ministers of France and the United Kingdom, will be present for the debate to underscore Western support for removing Bashar al-Assad from power.  Russia has indicated that it will not support the resolution being put forth by Arab states calling for Assad's removal, nor will it support harsher economic sanctions.

Amid the diplomatic backdrop in New York and a much more violent backdrop on the ground in Syria, the two co-founders of the Genocide Intervention Network are suggesting that drones be deployed over Syria to monitor human rights abuses against opponents of the regime.  Although the Syrian Air Force may be no match for Israel's, it would have little difficulty targeting drones operating in Syrian airspace.  NGOs cannot afford to replace drones that are shot down; states would generally perceive the use of drones to be military intervention, a policy option that thus far is not being seriously considered.

Even though the use of drones in Syria is unlikely, the pilotless planes, commonly called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are fast becoming the preferred solution to almost every conceivable problem.  The Department of Homeland Security uses drones in the United States, most prominently for patrolling the long U.S.-Mexico border.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acquired its ninth Predator B UAV in December for border patrol duties.  Although the U.S military has exited Iraq, the State Department is operating drones to help protect the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and consulates in other parts of the country.  In fact, Iraqis are said to be angry about the use of American drones there.

Earlier this month the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy and digital rights watchdog group, filed suit against the federal Department of Transportation, which oversees the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), asking for information regarding the use of drones in domestic surveillance.  The FAA, according to the plaintiffs, has failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests seeking the identities of those organizations that have been certified to operate drones in U.S. airspace.

Ai Weiwei: Art and Human Rights

Ai Weiwei, a Chinese artist and dissident, has been barred from leaving China since his arrest last year for "economic crimes."  He was accused of tax evasion (to the tune of $2.4 million) and incarcerated in a case that outside observers view as state harassment in retaliation for criticism of the Chinese government.  Ai spent two and a half months in jail on the charge, which remains unresolved.

Evan Osnos, a staff writer for The New Yorker, reports on a meeting with Ai at the artist's home in Beijing.  The home is under the constant gaze of security cameras and is visited by the police regularly.  Once a week,  Ai is taken to the police station--for education.

In 2010-2011, Ai's installation of porcelain sunflower seeds was exhibited at the Tate Modern in London.  (The artist discusses the creation of the exhibit, which includes millions of hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seeds, in a brief documentary on the exhibition website.)  In China, the sunflower seeds have become a symbol of freedom.  People have written to Ai asking for some of the porcelain seeds, and he has responded by giving them away.  In return, many people have sent money to Ai to help him challenge the tax evasion charge.  Osnos reports that people discuss the seeds in China's heavily censored online forums in a way that makes them a proxy for the artist.  Ai states:  “They talk about seeds and it moved like a wave. They couldn’t talk about me and they couldn’t talk about the government, but when they talked about seeds, nobody could do anything about it, because they aren’t talking about anything--just sunflower seeds!”

Ai's story is told in a documentary by Alison Klayman, Ai Weiwei:  Never Sorry, that has been featured at this year's Sundance Film Festival.  Ms. Klayman was interviewed about the documentary on The Colbert Report last May.

Art has the potential to prompt reflection, to raise questions, and to generate conversation--even about politics and structures of repression.  As Ai puts it in the Tate Modern's documentary, "I always think art is a tool to set up new questions."  For this reason, among others, the cultural rights that some Americans consider even less worthy of defense than economic rights, are important.  They are a part of what it means to have freedom of conscience and freedom of expression.  The suppression of art (and artists) stifles  society as surely as the suppression of political speech.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Its observance falls on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet army in the waning days of World War II.

Sixty-seven years--two-thirds of a century--have now passed since the Red Army, advancing across Poland, came upon the most infamous of the Nazi concentration camps, a place where between 1.1 million and 1.6 million people were killed.  The few who survived are rapidly disappearing.  In fact, Kazimierz Smolen, an Auschwitz survivor who was director of the museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau from 1955 to 1990, died today at the age of 91.

Henry Appel, another survivor, said, "There is only one thing worse than Auschwitz itself and that is if the world forgets there was such a place."

An Abysmal Anniversary

It was ten years ago today that the first prisoners in the so-called "War on Terror" arrived at Guantanamo Bay.  Today, there are 171 detainees there, at least 12 of whom arrived with the first group.

Guantanamo remains a legal black hole in most respects, even though some legal challenges have wound up in the U.S. Supreme Court.  This brief film by Amnesty International makes the very important point that the U.S. Government has consistently avoided all discussion of the applicability of international human rights where Guantanamo is concerned.  This, of course, contributes to Guantanamo's status as a place the law can't reach.

Lakhdar Boumediene, who was imprisoned at Guantanamo from January 20, 2002 to May 15, 2009 without being charged with the crime, told his story in the New York Times on Sunday.  It is well worth reading.

Abolition

This may well be the year that another 12 percent of the United States--California, to be specific--moves to abolish the death penalty.  An organization called SAFE (Savings, Accountability, Full Enforcement) California is working to put repeal of the state's capital punishment law on the November ballot.  Should the initiative succeed, California would join sixteen other states that have already abolished the death penalty.

The principal argument that SAFE California makes in favor of abolition is that the death penalty is costly and ineffective.  There is data to support the claim.  According to the Death Penalty Information Center, California had 721 inmates on death row on January 1, 2011.  But, since 1976, only thirteen people have been executed in the state.  (There have been no executions in California since 2006 when a federal court struck down the existing method of lethal injection.)  Some may argue that this simply means the state needs to streamline its use of the death penalty rather than abolishing it, but such an argument is, fundamentally, an argument that California ought to be more like Saudi Arabia or the People's Republic of China in circumventing such legal niceties as the rights of the accused and prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishments.  Furthermore, it is an argument that runs contrary to the fact that, since 1973, 139 people on death rows across the United States have been exonerated.

As Adam Cohen notes in a Time magazine essay, what is happening in California and elsewhere in the United States is abolition prompted by grassroots pressure in the states.  It is not what many death penalty opponents have been hoping for since the U.S. Supreme Court's reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976, that is, outlawry (or at least suspension) in one fell swoop by Supreme Court fiat.  That is what had happened, temporarily, in Furman v. Georgia in 1972.  There are, Cohen notes, certain advantages to death penalty abolition state by state.  "What we are seeing," Cohen writes, "is not a small group of judges setting policy.  It is a large number of Americans gradually losing their enthusiasm for putting people to death."

Viewed from the standpoint of international relations, abolition of the death penalty is one of a number of issues on which the Untied States lags behind international human rights standards.  The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is premised on the belief "that abolition of the death penalty contributes to enhancement of human dignity and progressive development of human rights" and thus mandates that "no one within the jurisdiction of a State Party to the present Protocol shall be executed."  The Protocol is, of course, optional, but it has been accepted by 73 states, including most of the democracies of Western Europe, Canada, and Mexico.  Those the United States would include among its closest allies have abolished the death penalty.  Those often condemned by the United States for their lack of respect for human rights--the People's Republic of China, North Korea, Iran, and Syria, for example--have not.

It's time to end the death penalty all over the United States, but if abolition has to be accomplished one state at a time, so be it.  California should be next.

Going Latin American

Latin America has long had a reputation for inequality.  It has been a place where, in the popular imagination (and all too often in reality), large landowners have lorded it over the far more numerous peasants or government ministers, grown rich from corruption, have ruled with disdain over the masses.  Inequality has fueled revolutions from time to time--in Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, and El Salvador (among others)--but has more often resulted in authoritarian regimes committed to defending the status quo against "communism," a catchall term that was commonly applied to any movement that was critical of the prevailing inequality.

Today, Jorge G. Castañeda, former foreign minister of Mexico and current professor at NYU, suggests in an essay in the New York Times that the United States might have something to learn from Latin America's experience with inequality.  He writes:

The United States--that epitome of the middle-class society, of the egalitarian dream that pulled millions of immigrants away from Latin America--has begun to go Latin American. It is in a process of structural middle-class shrinkage and inequality expansion that has perhaps never occurred anywhere else.

The frightening thing is that Latin America's historical experience indicates that it is very difficult to rebuild a middle class once inequality has reached a certain point.  Worse yet, the level of inequality toward which the United States is rapidly moving is simply incompatible with the kind of democratic governance that many Americans believe to be safe from all challenges here in the United States (as if money were not already compromising democracy).

For almost two centuries, the United States sought to strengthen democracy by promoting equality.  Slavery was abolished, educational opportunities were expanded, women were enfranchised, Jim Crow laws were dismantled, and a modest safety net was created.  Now, however, only those in the Occupy movement seem to understand why inequality might constitute a political problem.  The rest of the country needs to get a clue, unless Latin America circa 1980 is what we hope to become.

Presidents in Prison

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is being flown from Paris to Panama today, leaving a French prison for a twenty-year prison sentence back home.  For the last twenty-two years, since his capture by the U.S. military forces that invaded Panama in what was called Operation Just Cause, Noriega has been imprisoned--first in the United States where he was convicted on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering, then in France where he was convicted for money laundering.  In Panama, Noriega has been convicted on various human rights charges stemming from murders of political opponents committed during the six years he ruled Panama.

Noriega is not the only former leader in prison.  Former Liberian president Charles Taylor has been incarcerated at The Hague since 2006 when he was surrendered to the Special Court for Sierra Leone by the Liberian government headed by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first democratically elected female leader in Africa.  (Sirleaf was one of three women awarded the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday in Stockholm.)  Taylor is awaiting the Court's verdict in his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by forces under his control in Sierra Leone's civil war.

Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo was turned over to the International Criminal Court by the new government of Ivory Coast two weeks ago.  He is now awaiting trial in The Hague.

Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president ousted by protesters earlier this year, is on trial on a variety of charges including corruption and ordering the killing of protesters.  Due to health problems, including stomach cancer, the 83-year-old Mubarak has been detained in a military hospital in Cairo.  His trial, currently on hold, is scheduled to resume on December 28.

Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the former president of Tunisia who was ousted in the first wave of the Arab Spring protests, has thus far avoided prison.  However, he has been convicted in absentia of corruption and drug possession.  He and his wife escaped during Tunisia's revolution to Saudi Arabia where they remain in spite of a Tunisian extradition request.

On Wednesday of last week, former Israeli president Moshe Katsav entered prison to begin serving a seven-year sentence for rape.  (The presidency in Israel, it should be noted, is a largely ceremonial office.)  Although Katsav maintains his innocence, his conviction was affirmed by a three-judge panel of Israel's Supreme Court.

Current president of Sudan Omar al-Bashir is currently under indictment by the International Criminal Court. for crimes related to the Darfur genocide.  He, however, remains in office.

Of course, the imprisonment of former leaders is not always a good thing.  In October, former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison on a charge of abuse of office.  Ms. Tymoshenko denounced the verdict, which observers outside Ukraine have widely criticized as having been politically motivated.

Human Rights Day

Sixty-three years ago today, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since then, the concept of human rights has come to permeate every aspect of international relations, including the internal behavior of most states and the business practices of many multinational corporations.  International human rights law has grown slowly but steadily and is now being enforced not only in the courts of many states but in international or mixed courts from The Hague to Arusha, Tanzania and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  Corrupt and brutal dictators have been overthrown--and in some cases put on trial--in the name of human rights.

While many wrongs in the world remain to be righted, the concept of human rights gives us more hope for improving the human condition than we have ever had reason to feel before.  There are many rights-abusing regimes still to be eliminated, but they can no longer count on the support of international law or, by and large, other governments.  And when the United States departs from the standards established in international human rights law--when it departs, that is, from its own highest ideals--there are others beyond our borders who can, and will, offer correction.  That, too, is a good thing

New Lows for Africa's Longest-Ruling Dictator

President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea continues to act as if the fact that his country's people are among the poorest in Africa is of absolutely no concern to him. Colum Lynch reports that Obiang has approved a contract with a South Korean firm to build a $77 million "presidential guesthouse."

While the regime touts the benefits to Equatoguineans of its "zinc roofs campaign," which is replacing roofs made of palm fronds with corrugated tin roofs, President Obiang is building a guesthouse that will be an architectural showpiece.  Its construction cost alone makes it more expensive than all but three homes listed in the United States, according to a story on Forbes.com last August.

Gbagbo at the ICC

Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Cote d'Ivoire, appeared before the International Criminal Court today.  Although former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and former Liberian president Charles Taylor was tried by the Special Court for Sierra Leone (both in The Hague), Gbagbo is the first former president to face trial at the ICC.

Gbagbo became president of the former French colony in 2000.  He was defeated by Alassane Outtara in the 2010 presidential election, but challenged the results and refused to cede power.  Violence ensued and supporters of both Gbagbo and Ouattara are alleged to have committed serious human rights violations in the struggle for power that followed the election.  Ultimately, Ouattara's supporters, with help from French and UN military forces, succeeded in ousting Gbagbo from power.  Gbagbo was placed under house arrest until his rendition to the ICC by the Ouattara government.

The ICC investigation into post-election violence in Cote d'Ivoire was initiated by President Ouattara in December 2010.  Gbagbo has been indicted on four counts of crimes against humanity, most related to incitement of his supporters to violence.

(The website of the Boston Globe, boston.com, has a great photo essay here on the election and part of its aftermath.)

WWII UXO

Not every bomb dropped or shell fired in a war explodes.  Those that don't are called UXO, or unexploded ordnance.  UXO can kill long after the war comes to an end.

Nearly half the population of Koblenz, Germany has been evacuated following the discovery of a 3,000-pound bomb dropped by the Royal Air Force into the Rhine during World War II.  The evacuees include the residents of seven nursing homes, two hospitals, and a prison.  German authorities will attempt to defuse the bomb tomorrow after draining the water from an area of the river surrounding the bomb.

In June 2010, three German explosives technicians were killed in Gottingen when the World War II bomb they were trying to defuse exploded.

UPDATE:  The bomb in Koblenz has been successfully defused, along with a smaller one found in the same place.  German authorities have also defused a small bomb in Nuremberg after evacuating 200 people there.

Moreno-Ocampo's Successor

Deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will soon succeed Luis Moreno-Ocampo as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.  Ms. Bensouda, 50, is from Gambia and has served the ICC since 2004.  Prior to that, she served as a prosecutor on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Ms. Bensouda must be elected by the Assembly of States Parties to the ICC at its meeting on December 12, but diplomats have indicated that she will be the only candidate for election to the post of chief prosecutor.

At present, all of the cases before the ICC involve conflicts in Africa.

Obiang Fights Back

Reuters reports that lawyers for Teodorin Obiang are fighting the Justice Department's recent complaint for forfeiture in rem.  This will likely result in prolonged legal proceedings (and an attendant delay in the seizure of Obiang's $30 million Malibu home) as well as some interesting disclosures.  If the Justice Department is pressed to defend its allegations that Obiang's mansion, Learjet, Ferrari, and Michael Jackson memorabilia collection were purchased with the proceeds of corruption, it will likely bring to light information about how the Nguema clan operates that has not previously been made public.

Bring it on!

War School

This short film has been out a while, but I just learned about it recently.  Warning:  It's pretty intense.  (It's also pretty effective.)

Canine PTSD

Today's New York Times has an interesting story about canine post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Five percent of the roughly 650 dogs deployed to combat areas by the U.S. military are thought to be affected by canine PTSD.

A year ago, a story about Gina, a four-year-old German shepherd with canine PTSD, was posted on a U.S. Air Force website. According to the story, Gina's behavior changed dramatically after she came close to an IED explosion while deployed in Southwest Asia. Back at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Gina was being retrained with no plans for redeployment to a combat zone for at least two years.

In the aftermath of the raid that killed Osama bin Ladin, there was widespread speculation regarding the dog that accompanied Seal Team 6 into Abbottabad. While the dog's breed and precise function is still not known, experts speculate that the dog was present in order to sniff out explosives or persons hiding in the compound. The New York Times reported that dogs used by Special Forces may be decked out in high-tech gear:

Last year, the Seals bought four waterproof tactical vests for their dogs that featured infrared and night-vision cameras so that handlers--holding a three-inch monitor from as far as 1,000 yards away--could immediately see what the dogs were seeing. The vests, which come in coyote tan and camouflage, let handlers communicate with the dogs with a speaker, and the four together cost more than $86,000. Navy Seal teams have trained to parachute from great heights and deploy out of helicopters with dogs.

Military working dogs (MWDs), however, are not fitted with titanium teeth.

In July 2010, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would "recruit" 600 dogs a year for five years for use in sniffing out bombs, drugs, cash, and people, primarily at border crossings. The bid solicitation stated that DHS was looking for dogs that are "alert, active, outgoing, confident" and "extremely tolerant of people."

Equatorial Guinea on the Big Screen?

Various sources are reporting that Ridley Scott is planning a film based on Simon Mann's 2004 effort to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea, a plot that Adam Roberts described in a book called The Wonga Coup.  Gerard Butler will play Mann in the film.

Much remains unclear about the coup attempt that ended with Mann's arrest--without a fight that Scott would be able to embellish with spectacular pyrotechnics--in Zimbabwe.  The drama for those who know about the episode (all four of us?) will lie in seeing (1) how far Scott takes dramatic license to turn a failed coup attempt into something worthy of his directing talents and (2) who Scott (and his screenwriter, Robert Edwards) decide to blame for it.  Was it simply a big money-making proposition--with Margaret Thatcher's son, Mark Thatcher, as the primary investor?  Were American and British intelligence services involved?  The word is that Simon Mann's forthcoming book, Cry Havoc, will not provide the answers to these questions.

Is America Over?

This is the question that dominates the cover of the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs.

Foreign Affairs is an Establishment publication.  It is, in fact, the flagship publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, an Establishment establishment.  It doesn't engage in demagoguery.  And, in the November/December issue, it doesn't offer much reassurance in response to the big question on the cover.

The key article related to the big question is George Packer's essay entitled "The Broken Contract:  Inequality and American Decline."  It is not, strictly speaking, about foreign policy, although the implications of its thesis for foreign policy are very clear.  That it appears in Foreign Affairs should be reason enough to take notice of the argument.

Packer argues that the the unwritten social contract that for decades ensured Americans would work together in common cause to solve the great collective problems of society has been broken by the rise of "organized money" in the nation's political system.  This, in part, was an unintended consequence of reforms implemented in the 1970s that were designed to bring greater transparency and equality into the system.  But the rise of political action committees, independent expenditures in political campaigns, a form of lobbying that is tantamount to legalized bribery, and more is only part of the story.  Ultimately, Packer states, "inequality is the ill that underlies all the others."

For those who doubt that inequality is a problem in the United States, Packer cites these indicators:

Between 1979 and 2006, middle-class Americans saw their annual incomes after taxes increase by 21 percent (adjusted for inflation). The poorest Americans saw their incomes rise by only 11 percent. The top one percent, meanwhile, saw their incomes increase by 256 percent. This almost tripled their share of the national income, up to 23 percent,the highest level since 1928.

The entire article deserves to be read and discussed widely.  Here, however, we skip to Packer's conclusion and another big question:  What difference does inequality make?  Packer answers eloquently:

Inequality divides us from one another in schools, in neighborhoods, at work, on airplanes, in hospitals, in what we eat, in the condition of our bodies, in what we think, in our children’s futures, in how we die. Inequality makes it harder to imagine the lives of others—which is one reason why the fate of over 14 million more or less permanently unemployed Americans leaves so little impression in the country’s political and media capitals. Inequality corrodes trust among fellow citizens, making it seem as if the game is rigged. Inequality provokes a generalized anger that finds targets where it can—immigrants, foreign countries, American elites, government in all forms—and it rewards demagogues while discrediting reformers. Inequality saps the will to conceive of ambitious solutions to large collective problems, because those problems no longer seem very collective. Inequality undermines democracy.

Equatorial Guinea's Constitutional Referendum

The government of Equatorial Guinea is claiming that 99 percent of the electorate approved a package of constitutional reforms in a national referendum yesterday.  Opposition groups claim the vote was a sham.

The referendum will establish a two-term presidential limit, create the office of vice president, and remove the constitutional limit barring a president from serving beyond 75 years of age.  The current president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has been in office since overthrowing Francisco Macias in a coup in 1979.  He is 69 and in the second year of a presidential term set to expire in 2016.  It is unclear whether the new term limit would prevent him from serving one or more terms beyond the current seven-year term.

Those who observe political developments in Equatorial Guinea generally believe the constitutional changes effected by this referendum are designed to make it easier for Obiang to ensure that his oldest son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, will be able to succeed him as president.  The younger Obiang is expected to be named vice president soon.  This expectation has been bolstered by the fact that he has, in recent months, been named vice president of the ruling party, chair of the constitutional reform campaign, and ambassador to UNESCO.  He has also been hit with legal proceedings in France and the United States aimed at seizing assets that are the products of bribery and extortion, but such embarrassments seem to have little effect on politics inside Equatorial Guinea.