Pandora Hearts

I guess I’m going to be the first to break and write something about anime, as opposed to these high minded discussions on politics and economics we’ve had before. Curses. Oh well, I’ll just write something on the Technological Singularity next to make myself feel better.



So then, Pandora Hearts. Short version, it’s a mystery/fantasy/action anime taking place in a vaguely Victorian era fantasy world with many references to Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. To go into more detail, I’ll borrow the TV Tropes synopsis, as it does a better job than I could:

“Oz Vessalius, a young boy with father issues is about to come of age and be recognized as the heir to his family. He has allies like his servant and best friend Gilbert Nightray. Despite his smile, it seems that all is not right as his father wants nothing to do with him. Before the ceremony, he falls into a derelict grave and discovers a watch that mentally teleports him into a girl's playroom. He is nearly killed by her before Gilbert snaps him out of it.
Falling victim to the mysterious Baskerville's plot, Oz is sent to the Abyss for the crime of 'existing.' He makes it out under the his own power after making a 'contract' with the powerful 'chain': Alice, or rather, B-Rabbit. They are met by Raven, Break and Sharon Rainsworth who tell him he's been gone for ten years. They belong to the organization Pandora. Now a part of Pandora, he is working for them to find illegal contractors and recover Alice's lost memories.”

Most of the series follows the characters trying to uncover the secrets of Alice’s past, and the truth of what exactly is going on around them. The show does a good job of keeping the mystery tone, although having watched Higurashi, an excellent mystery anime, it was a bit hard to not notice that it was lacking while compared to Higurashi. Although that’s really not much of a comparison; on its own, Pandora Hearts still has good elements of mystery in it. Actions and fight scenes are also very present, although the plot isn’t too reliant on them. Because of the mystery focus, more of the show is spent talking than in epic battles, and for this case, it works out better that way.
It’s fairly common in anime to interweave humorous and somber moments, with varying degrees of success depending on the show. Pandora Hearts doesn’t pull it off so well. The jokes seem forced and out of place; it would have been better for them to just stick with the serious tone, as it works much better with the show. The exception is in Episode 20, which comes as a breather episode after the events of the past few episodes. All pretenses of being serious are completely dropped, and while it feels very odd compared to the rest of the show, it does have a weird charm to it (“Uncle, are you sure that was juice?” “It was juice with just a little alcohol in it.” “The rest of the world calls that wine, uncle.”)

At the start, I mentioned the show has many references to “Alice in Wonderland”, and it indeed does. The female lead is named Alice, there’s a character named the Cheshire Cat, one character is fairly obviously based on the Mad Hatter (and this becomes pretty blatant when he starts using his Mad Hatter power during fights), and so on. However, these are mostly just shallow references. While I cannot claim to be an expert in Lewis Carroll’s literature, the show just seemed to take the names of things from “Wonderland” and fit them in where it would work with the plot. There are a few moments where the show does a good job of giving a dark Wonderland mood (basically, whenever something is happening in the Abyss), but these are scarce. Expect to see some nods of acknowledgement towards “Wonderland”, but don’t go in thinking the show will contain numerous well researched and deep connections to the story.

One of the show’s major failings is the art. When I first started watching it, I assumed I was watching an older series, as the animation wasn’t nearly up to par with what I’d been seeing recently. I was therefore surprised to learn that it came out in 2009, not even a year ago. The animation budget gets a massive bump in time for the last few episodes, but all this seems to achieve is putting the show on the same level as its peers, instead of being inferior. All I can really say in support of the animation is that the outfits people wear in this series look really cool.

Pandora Hearts suffers the same problem as many other animes based on a manga where they catch up with their source material. Thankfully, the producers didn’t start pumping out episodes of filler, which would have likely completely destroyed the mood of the show. Instead, it just kind of…. Ends. The last few episodes provide a small sense of emotional closure, but don’t in any way explain any of the mysteries (except for a few obvious ones which I figured out three episodes in). It’s left open for a possible second season, but I haven’t heard any word on whether there’s going to be one or not.

Overall, the show is good, but nothing special. Watch it if you have the time, but it isn’t anything I’d go out of my way to see.

On the other hand, is the soundtrack. The music in this show is simply amazing. I’d link every song on the soundtrack which I like, but that would take a bit too much space; it’s one of the best anime soundtracks I’ve heard in a long time. There have been two OSTs released for the show (which covers pretty much all the music from the show; it’s not a very long show….). Most of the music in OSTs is obviously meant to be background music, rather than standalone songs, but it’s some bloody good background music. The style is mostly orchestral, although there is some variance. Also expect liberal use of faux Latin choruses.

So, in short: Pandora Hearts. Decent anime, great OST. The series was recently licensed for North America, so we’ll be getting a dub of it soon. Possibly something to look out for if you're interested.

Update

Sorry the posts are scant. Homework and housing issues at the university have ensured that my time (and patience) have been stretched to the max, and Omega's been busy with scholarships and school work. But this weekend will hopefully carry with it some more weight. Omega says he's got a review for the Pandora Hearts OST coming up, and I've been putting a lot of thought into feminism and female representations/portrayals in anime which will hopefully be translated into a post. So stay tuned fair readers! We're still in business I swear.

Big Brother Australia is Watching

http://kotaku.com/5477799/how-australias-proposed-internet-censorship-will-and-wont-affect-video-games

Surprisingly enough, its not Great Britain or the other "welfare" states that forcibly look out for your own interests that decided to give it a shot. Yes, the Australian government wants to censor the internet. Say it with me.

The Australian Government wants to censor the internet.

Equally problematic in this story is the lack of support for 18+ games. In Australia, a game cannot be sold unless its been given a rating by their equivalent of the ESRB. Problem is the ESRB board doesn't have an 18+ rating, so any game that might be considered adults only or mature can't get sold there. Its artistic censorship basically. And if you've read just about any post I've ever written, you probably know how infuriating that is to me. I don't really know if the general populace is in support of such measures, or if they're just too apathetic to fight the bitter, vindictive old white men in charge, but I'm amazed I don't hear more outrage about this.

And you know, regardless of whether or not the people in Australia support this, Michael Atkinson is still a complete idiot.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/11/a-letter-from-michael-atkinson/

If you can't spot the faulty logic in every single one of those comments, you are officially illiterate. Please leave this blog now.

Twilight Tweens are Idiots

http://www.latinoreview.com/news/open-letter-to-universal-your-wolfman-ripped-off-twilight-9247

Courtesy of a friend of mine, Riunin, who showed me this little gem. I've decided that it should now be legal not only to hit your own children, but other people's children as well once they reach the maximum allotment of stupidity.

You Can Thank Me Later

http://en.tackfilm.se/?id=1266893980932RA27


Just doing my part to help. Autographs will be given on request.

Oregon Death With Dignity Act

http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/pas/

Why hasn't this been enacted everywhere?

In fact, it was challenged, though the Supreme Court did its job and determined that physician-assisted suicide was totally legal.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-623.ZS.html

Regardless, many states do not have a similar law.

Consequently, we have this.

http://www.deathwithdignitytexas.com/

Mad love. And thanks.

A Response to Ron Jeremy's Attack on Video-Games

http://kotaku.com/5466746/ron-jeremy-sex-not-violence-is-beautiful-and-natural

First and foremost, I will agree with Mr. Jeremy that sex CAN be a "beautiful" and "natural" thing, even though my inclinations towards them are negative (there's a lot of vulnerability and stuff which I'm not fond of). But I'll address my problems with pornography before I address the comparison between sex in media and violence in video games. My issue with pornography is that it is inherently degrading to the human condition. Essentially it takes any character or individual and then strips them down (no pun intended) to the basic components necessary for sexual exploitation. This ranges from nudity to certain acts to particular body part or roleplay fetishes. The thing is, the individual is lost in this process of dehumanization for the sake of eroticism.

Even the role play elements are ultimately dehumanizing, creating a thin veneer of humanity to be exploited for sexuality. Take police officers in pornographic videos, or fantasy roles like firemen, waitresses, french maids, pool boys, prisoners et all. They effectively only exist to transition from the normal aspects of reality to the more dehumanized pornographic alternate "reality" or existence. The role of police officer or nurse or what-have-you is diminished entirely for the sake of the sexual experience. This remains true even if the role being portrayed by the actor or actress is one which becomes a continual central theme of the pornographic media in question. When reference is constantly made between the role and the actor or actress, it usually is simply meant to cement the connection between the two "realities" rather than glorify anything about the role. In effect, role play only builds a bridge between the real world and the world of pornography to add plausibility to the bizarre sexual experience.

Now, I'll do the extra fun bit and defend violence over sexuality!

I'll admit that I probably have what most would consider an unhealthy like of violence. I've been known to have obsessions with militancy, warfare, weapons, tactics, etc. But I will argue that violence in fact enhances my understanding of humanity and allows me to respect individuals more as people than porn, which in fact denigrates and damages our understanding as people.

I would like to begin defending my interest in violence by defining its perimeters. First, I do not receive any form of physical or emotional gratification from violence. I am not aroused by it or as obsessed by thoughts of committing these acts. I do not appreciate violence for the sake of violence or goriness, which I choose to contrast with serial killers who actually receive physical and emotional gratification from murder or an obsession with the more bodily aspects of violence, namely gore and bloodshed you would see in a slasher flick or a torture-themed movie like Saw or Hostel (which I personally consider just another form of pornography). Rather my interest in violence stems from conflict, conflict resolution, risk, integrity, testing of one's will and commitment to an ideal or vision, self-sacrifice, stepping outside the bounds of conventional morality, individualism and collectivism both (vigilantism and vengeance-seeking as well as collectivized mobilization into warfare for an ideal or goal), principles, motivations, beliefs, and interests. Violence represents the furthest extreme of human existence.

Because of this, I find that when approached and understood from this particular aspect I feel that my own interest in violence, and its exploration in media like videogames are less criminal and damaging to an individual than pornography. As a whole, my views on violence and how I choose to interpret, understand, and study it allows me to take into account an individual as a whole. I become aware, perhaps even intimately, in the desires and thoughts of a person, their motivations and how their methods reflect this. This is reflected in how I play my games. When playing Grand Theft Auto, I am less interested in wanton mayhem, but instead create stories about individuals in my mind about characters in the plot and understand them. Even when its just me using a character to cause "mayhem" I think about it from this perspective, which is why I may consider ideas like roleplay from the perspective of a violent archetype, be it a white supremacist terrorist, low life drug dealer, or lunatic. Not only do I consider the aspects of my archetype, but also individuals who this particular "archetype" comes into contact with. How does a white supremacist terrorist affect the world around him? What has he done to change the world versus a drug dealer? I know that in my experiences playing Grand Theft Auto IV it actually directly affected my play style; My devout White-Supremacist archetype actually stood out in front of a hospital engaging in a prolonged shoot out against the police that lasted until I literally ran out of ammo for every weapon I had. My drug dealer, on the other hand, shot perhaps three people and immediately tried to flee the scene of the crime the moment he had one star.

So in the hand, I have more appreciation for a person as a whole than the average person who, say, indulges in pornography. Take for instance shock pornography, which completely eliminates human dignity from the media for the sake of a purely sexual experience. Though in all fairness shock pornography is a byproduct of society's unhealthy views towards sex (treating it as purely taboo rather than a more logical cost-benefit analysis which would favor understanding the risks and counter-measures), it does highlight the problem with pornography. Shock pornography benefits in being questionable. Our society has become so sexually repressed in its upbringing that we associate sexual gratification from what society deems questionable and impermissible. Shock pornography capitalizes on this by showing content so incredibly questionable that it reaches new levels of sexual gratification by this standard. Imagine if you could graph sexual gratification with objectionable content (again, this relationship being a byproduct of sexual repression). This establishes a 1-to-1 ratio of pleasure to objective content.

http://www.gcse.com/maths/graphs/y=x.gif

Effectively, soft-core pornography could be seen as a 1 on this scale, whereas shock pornography dealing in defecation, genital mutilation, etc could be seen as a 5. The problem is that the more mass media of shock pornography is available and becomes acceptable, the more questionable content is needed to raise the level, taking subjects which should be considered sacred and sacrificing them for the sake of enhanced sexual gratification. What starts as innocent foreplay could end in simulated rape pornography. Which leads to the crux of the problem, namely that the more these acts need to be shocking, the more indignant they have to be of human character. These acts have to be so objectionable and repulsive that the actors have to literally sacrifice their own dignity and self-respect for the sake of the performance. In doing so they begin to equate indignity with sexual gratification. Sex ceases to be about people and purely about obscene acts, which in turn distances sexuality from connecting people and individuals. Because of this, any feeling of sexuality causes individuals to associate less with people and more of actions and continues to dehumanize people. If we need people to be seen purely as objects for sexual gratification, then we start to lose the ability to connect and understand one another on a meaningful level.

Not only that, but to increase sexual gratification, often the associations we make are equally detrimental to our understanding of humanity. Rape pornography is a powerful example. These pornographic films often simulate fake rapes as part of the more shocking element of the performance, again feeding the Y=X principle of sexual gratification. In doing so, we cease to associate the emotional pain and distress of rape with the real life acts and consequences of rape because our bodies are physically gratified by seeing it. Now, rape porn is barely considered shock pornography, merely "disrespectful" and "questionable."

This should highlight what a powerful and negative effect pornography can have on society. We do not, as audience members, want to associate negative and painful feelings with sexuality and sexual gratification. So instead we cultivate the negative directly-proportional relationship of more-questionable-more-arousing, due to society's sexual repression, by ignoring the pain elements of these erotic displays during moments of sexual exploitation and thereby disassociate any semblance of humanity with the actors. And because sexuality is such a powerful motivating force in our everyday interactions, by extension this becomes damaging to how we view people. We stop seeing people as people and instead as sexual potential. Our fantasies become less and less about the actual individual and more as a body to inflict various gratuitous punishments to for the sake of an increased sexual gratification.

In fact, I've seen first hand this process carry on to fields of my own interest. "Torture porn" movies, such as Hostel and Saw, are becoming more and more common and accepted in society as an assimilation of questionable content combined with an interest in sexual gratification. Though not always inherently sexual, we often see ourselves as dehumanizing people in these movies for the shock of watching grossly violent scenes for the sake of gratuity and shock. I'm no psychologist or sociologist, but it would not surprise me at all of this were a similar expression that works with violence the same way porn does with sex. They may both in fact even be based on sexuality.

To give other examples of these in video games (since I think panning an entire form of media in general is a problem which I don't wanna tackle in this specific post) here are some games which do to violence what pornography does to sex.

http://www4.shopping.com/xPO-Gladiator-Sword-of-Vengeance
http://www4.shopping.com/xPO-Vivendi-50-Cent-Bulletproof-Xbox-Pre-Order
http://www4.shopping.com/xPO-Ubi-Soft-UBI-SOFT-187-Ride-Or-Die-Xbox (this one especially, its awful. Everytime you get a head shot their head explodes in a shower of gore and across the screen the words "HEADSHOT" are written in blood)
http://www4.shopping.com/xPO-MTV-s-Celebrity-Deathmatch-710425292293

Some blurr the line.

http://www4.shopping.com/xPO---Conker-Live-Reloaded
Could be seen as a contrast to the cute furry animal aspect of the creatures to provide surrealist humor. The question is which came first; Did they choose to use extraordinary violence to contrast the cuteness of the animals or the cuteness of the animals to contrast with the violence. My guess, based on the fact that there's a lot of sex and stripper jokes, is that they chose the violence before the animals. I'd say no artistic integrity, but I've never actually played I could be mistaken.

http://www4.shopping.com/xPO---Manhunt

Gruesome, yes, but the theme is that he's doing whatever he takes to fight for his life, and its supposed to be (as far a s I know) a re-invisioning of the problems of mass-media-entertainment culture, so there's a good chance the game is making fun of its "OMG GORE" fans.

Games that definitely don't

Any Metal Gear Solid Game
Most GTA games
AVP (any of the games)
Max Payne
Doom
Gun
Twisted Metal: Black (though it was contained to the cut scenes)

Basically any game where the violence is there to enhance the experience as a way of connecting the viewer to the experience rather than as a "shock" selling point. It's hard to create a feeling of realism to a war game, for example, if there's no violence whatsoever. On the other hand, having a soldier's head explode from a luger and then some announcer yelling "HEADSHOT! BRUTAL KILL!" is certainly not realistic either.

In turn violence, as I choose to explore it, is an understanding and embracing of elements of people which make us so unique and different. The beauty of violence is that it allows the existence for two individuals who completely disagree without having to compromise their integrity. Effectively violence is the gateway to acceptance of one's views even against one who opposes your views. So in a world of so many opposites, violence preserves our ability to be different and express different ideals and still exist around others. When two visions are so radically different that they cannot co-exist live in the same world, one does not have to enslave the other or seek compromise, only use violence and still preserve the dignity and purity of the opposing vision. In doing so, those who hold opposing visions can even hold respect for one another because they are not forced to suspend their own vision through compromise, which would build up resentment and hatred. Even when explored against archetypes of people I come to hate (often times I play up the archetype of a pseudo-Darwinist reaping society of its unwanted individuals) I understand them as whole people, people with families and dreams and hopes and ideals, even if I am being critical of their decisions and lifestyles. But I truly and honestly believe that even with my interest in violence I can appreciate a human being, even one that I hate, more as a human being than someone who glorifies meaningless shock pornography for sexual exploitation, because I recognize the individual and the importance they as thinking, feeling people have on the world.

Austin Suicide Attack

At 10 AM this morning (February 18), a man by name of Joseph Andrew Stack, age 53, crashed a Piper Cherokee PA-28 into the Echelon Building in Austin, Texas. CNN has confirmed that the attack was a deliberate suicide bombing, targeted at the IRS offices within the building.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/18/texas.plane.crash/index.html

Stack’s suicide letter, detailing his motivation behind the attack, can be found here:

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/18/stack.letter.pdf

I’ll start of by clarifying that any opinion I state here will likely be affected by the fact that Austin is my home city, and I happen to rather like the place. Blow up whatever you want, but when you fuck with Austin, I am not going to be pleased.
I’ve read his entire letter, and am not all that impressed. After reading Damios’s article, I can sympathize slightly with his anger towards the government. However, to me, the man comes across as less of a rebel standing up for his beliefs as he does an angry man lashing out at people because he couldn’t handle life’s problems. The language he uses is clichéd and fits completely into the stereotype of angry conspiracy theorist rebel without a cause. His grievances start out relatively reasonable; I could understand why someone would be angry with the IRS after reading them. However, he continues to blame more and more of his problems on the government, big business, unions (Yes. Big business and unions. I am not sure how he works out the rationale for that in his mind.)

Towards the end of his letter, I begin to get the impression that the gist of his complaints are, “Hey, things were going bad for me, why didn’t the government hand me money to help out like it’s helping out those businesses?” The government is not there to solve all your problems. That is a mentality I hope will die horribly soon, because it is simply ridiculous. No government can just bail out every person who is experiencing financial troubles. And yes, I am sorry to say this, but the job of the IRS is to get money from you. You can’t not report income and claim that it’s not tax-related; that is possibly one of the worse excuses I have heard. Yes, I agree that there are problems with the system. That is one of the main topics of this blog. But I have no respect for someone who can’t solve their own problems, and expects someone else to help them. I don’t like how the government gives money to large corporations and other companies, but I don’t’ want to replace it with the government giving money to random people on the street who can’t support themselves.

Finally, there’s his target. If you’re trying to send a message about the corrupt nature of the government, why the hell would you crash a plane into a random building in Austin? First off, that building doesn’t have anywhere close to the symbolic importance necessary for an action such as this. Secondly, this type of action is going to put more media focus on the damage caused, and the people he nearly killed than anything else. And third, it’s Austin. Not exactly the most important city out there, despite being the capital of Texas. Based solely on his choice of targets, I could make the assumption that this was just the action of an angry man throwing a very violent and dangerous temper tantrum. Real rebels don’t do useless acts like this; real rebels actually make an effort to change things.

Also, I’d like to give points to an anonymous comment someone had about this issue online:

“On the right we have your teabaggers, and now on the left we have plane crashing IRS guy. Can we agree that the popular left and right are both batshit insane and move on to better pastures?”

The Dog and the Wolf

Well, I really can't let Damios go and get all the postings here. Although I do recommend reading his last one. If you haven't yet, stop what you are doing now, scroll down this page, and read it. It's likely much more important than this little thing I'm putting up here to make myself feel useful.
This fable is taken from www.aesopfables.com.

A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to
meet a House-dog who was passing by. "Ah, Cousin," said the Dog.
"I knew how it would be; your irregular life will soon be the ruin
of you. Why do you not work steadily as I do, and get your food
regularly given to you?"

"I would have no objection," said the Wolf, "if I could only
get a place."

"I will easily arrange that for you," said the Dog; "come with
me to my master and you shall share my work."

So the Wolf and the Dog went towards the town together. On
the way there the Wolf noticed that the hair on a certain part of
the Dog's neck was very much worn away, so he asked him how that
had come about.

"Oh, it is nothing," said the Dog. "That is only the place
where the collar is put on at night to keep me chained up; it
chafes a bit, but one soon gets used to it."

"Is that all?" said the Wolf. "Then good-bye to you, Master
Dog."


Better starve free than be a fat slave.

Absurdities of Political Processes and Trade Protectionism

So, currently studying for an economics quiz tomorrow. My professor, Dr. Pluta, actually wrote a text book on classical vs "evolutionary" economics. Evolutionary Economics is essentially a school of thought pioneered by an economist named Thorstein Veblen who leveled some fantastically powerful criticisms of the Classical and Neo-Classical economists. I might get into my likes and dislikes of "Evolutionary" economics, but that's neither here nor there at the moment. Suffice to say it offers a lot of answers to issues I've traditionally had about free marketry at larger scales (monopolies, cartels, etc) as well as unnecessary regulation. No, what stuck out to me in this chapter is some facts on trade protectionism. For starters, Republican President George Bush actually implemented a 30% steel tariff on foreign steel. Why, you may ask, would the theoretically conservative president support such a clear and strong economic protectionist policy? According to an old Forbes article, its because the steel workers were one of the biggest political supporters of President Bush. Fancy that.

http://www.forbes.com/2003/12/05/cx_da_1205topnews.html

http://www.forbes.com/2002/03/06/0306steel.html

A scathingly brilliant article. But nothing as damaging as what Bush himself said about the protectionism.

"We're a free-trading nation, and in order to remain a free-trading nation, we must enforce the law. And that's exactly what I did. I decided that imports were severely affecting our industry, an important industry, in a negative impact, and therefore provide temporary relief so that the industry could restructure itself."

...

*speechless*

We still see lots of special-interest trade protectionism, and a lot of it is dangerous. Consider the tire tariff levied against China. Protecting the interests of auto-workers of course, because they have a powerful union and because now that the government has gone so far in on protecting the auto industry that an uncompetitive edge could spell absolute doom. Wasted money much? It's ok, I wasn't using the money you stole as taxes.

http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2009/09/china_says_obamas_tariff_on_ti.html

So, how much trade is protected nowadays? Well, here's a link to the Harmonized Tax Schedule the United States government uses. This one is supposed to take effect since January 1, 2010.

http://www.usitc.gov/tata/hts/index.htm

Check out the top one just so you get an idea, but below is a specific chapter-by-chapter reference. The different kinds of goods are divided by chapter. There are 99 different chapters. They vary in length based on content. The first chapter, for example, was only six pages. The steel chapter is 40. The chapter on how to interpret the data has 646 pages.

http://www.usitc.gov/tata/hts/bychapter/index.htm

Oh and just for grins, my favorite has to be Chapter 84, which is import tariffs on Nuclear Reactors. So many questions...soooooo many questions. The fun begins on page 9.

http://www.usitc.gov/publications/docs/tata/hts/bychapter/1000c84.pdf

Free trade, huh? Now, to be fair, not every item listed in these schedules have tariffs on them. Your best bet is to open them up and check for yourself.

Head spinning yet? Oh, it gets sooooooo much better.

So, check this shit out. You might have opened up one of these chapters by now and looked at one of the charts and maybe got kinda confused about them, as there seem to be 3 import schedule sub-sections, two of which seemed kinda squished together (the General and Special import schedule). But that 646-page explanation does seem daunting doesn't it? Never fear, beloved reader! I've gone ahead and picked out what you needed to know, starting with the basics. Here's the link if you wanna see it yourself. Best read side by side with a chart so you understand what's going on. If you haven't opened up a chapter yet, I recommend you do so now and go past the initial introduction to each set of goods and move on to the real charts.

http://www.usitc.gov/publications/docs/tata/hts/bychapter/1000gn.pdf#page=3

"Rates of Duty.

The rates of duty in the "Rates of Duty" columns designated 1 ("General" and "Special") and 2 of the tariff schedule apply to goods imported into the customs territory of the United States as hereinafter provided in this note:

(a) Rate of Duty Column 1.

(i) Except as provided in subparagraph (iv) of this paragraph, the rates of duty in column 1 are rates which are applicable to all products other than those of countries enumerated in paragraph (b) of this note. Column 1 is divided into two subcolumns, "General" and "Special", which are applicable as provided below.

(ii) The "General" subcolumn sets forth the general or normal trade relations (NTR) rates which are applicable to products of those countries described in subparagraph (i) above which are not entitled to special tariff treatment as set forth below.

(iii) The "Special" subcolumn reflects rates of duty under one or more special tariff treatment programs described in paragraph (c) of this note and identified in parentheses immediately following the duty rate specified in such subcolumn. These rates apply to those products which are properly classified under a provision for which a special rate is indicated and for which all of the legal requirements for eligibility for such program or programs have been met. Where a product is eligible for special treatment under more than one program, the lowest rate of duty provided for any applicable program shall be imposed. Where no special rate of duty is provided for a provision, or where the country from which a product otherwise eligible for special treatment was imported is not designated as a beneficiary country under a program appearing with the appropriate provision, the rates of duty in the "General" subcolumn of column 1 shall apply."

In case you were wondering what constitutes special treatment for tariffs under the "Special" column, taken from page 6, sub-section (c)

"(c) Products Eligible for Special Tariff Treatment.

(i) Programs under which special tariff treatment may be provided, and the corresponding symbols for such programs as they are indicated in the "Special" subcolumn, are as follows:

Generalized System of Preferences...A, A* or A+

United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement...AU

Automotive Products Trade Act...B

United States-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act...BH

Agreement on Trade in Civil Aircraft...C

North American Free Trade Agreement:

Goods of Canada, under the terms of

general note 12 to this schedule...CA

Goods of Mexico, under the terms of

general note 12 to this schedule...MX

United States-Chile Free Trade Agreement...CL

African Growth and Opportunity Act...D

Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act...E or E*

United States-Israel Free Trade Area...IL

Andean Trade Preference Act or

Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act...J, J* or J+

United States-Jordan Free Trade Area Implementation Act...JO

Agreement on Trade in Pharmaceutical Products...K

Dominican Republic-Central America-United States

Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act...P or P+

Uruguay Round Concessions on Intermediate

Chemicals for Dyes...L

United States-Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act...R

United States-Morocco Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act...MA

United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement...SG

United States-Oman Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act...OM

United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act...PE"

That's the explanation for the first two columns. What's sad is that there's a Hell of a lot more involved. There's exceptions for goods produced exclusively in the West Bank region. The explanation of the first two columns contains almost 3 pages of exceptions and special cases, starting on page 3 of the document and ending on page 6.

So what's the story behind "Column 2," the one with significantly more tariffs in them than the others, not covered under "General" or "Special" rates? Also taken from the intro report.

"Rate of Duty Column 2. Notwithstanding any of the foregoing provisions of this note, the rates of duty shown in column 2 shall apply to products, whether imported directly or indirectly, of the following countries and areas pursuant to section 401 of the Tariff Classification Act of 1962, to section 231 or 257(e)(2) of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, to section 404(a) of the Trade Act of 1974 or to any other applicable section of law, or to action taken by the President thereunder:

Cuba

North Korea"

Fucking awesome. Page 6 if you wanna see for yourself.

I haven't even begun to cover special interests. It could take months to sort some of these out and see what's going on in terms of voting blocks and special interests. And this is just import tariff schedules. What about price guarantees, subsidies, and other such wonderful measures?

Glad you asked! Carry on good reader.

Here's a beautiful article on corporate welfare, or government investment in private corporations written by Time Magazine.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989508,00.html

Specifically, I'd like to draw your attention a certain organization mentioned in this article known as the "Export-Import Bank of the United States," a Federally-funded organization whose job is to provide American businesses who export regularly to other countries with loans. Though the financial report for 2009 (link provided below) seems to promote their assistance to "small" businesses, there's more than enough assistance going to major corporations. The bottom of page one gives an overview of the funding received by small businesses in America.

http://www.exim.gov/about/reports/ar/ar2009/documents/AuthorizationsListings.pdf

In fact (and feel free to check the numbers yourself), 4.3 billion were given to "small businesses" through insurance and loan-grants. Great, helping the little guy, woohoo...Oh, but wait! Compared to the grand total of 21 billion offered in total as aid, doesn't that mean 16-17 billion were given to businesses who don't qualify as small? Who would that consist of?

Oh. My.

Oh dear!

I'm speechless.

This is just plain silly.

But wait, I know I've been keeping with the trend of using direct sources, and the last few were just that! That's fine, I'll just substantiate them with evidence! Because perhaps the most single-handedly ridiculous, outrageous bit of information you can dig up from these financial reports is the obscene amounts of money that is being loaned to just Boeing. Oh and just to make things annoying you can't actually find Boeing on the stupid state list. I've checked. Yes, that's it, they actually don't include Boeing in the map based on their corporate head quarters. Gods only know where they actually put it because they don't want you to know. My best guess is Alaksa. No one would ever suspect. But the financial reports tell something amazing.

http://www.exim.gov/about/reports/ar/ar2009/documents/AuthorizationsListings.pdf

If you look at the second set of charts starting on page 6. Here, the chart structure is a bit archaic and esoteric, probably to hide and convolute the prices. But I figured out how to read it. Best bet is to open up the chart to page six and read along while I explain. Basically each country has a set of buyers, whose name is included in their country subgroup. The buyer is the name on top in each purchase. So on page six under the Australia purchase, the first and only purchase was made by Virgin Blue International Airlines. Under the name of the purchaser is the American company who sold the goods. In the case of this Australian purchase, it's Boeing. The loans and guarantees are the two methods by which Ex-Im provided financial assistance to the American company who is exporting. Interest rates are included next to the loans. In this case, Ex-Im provided financial support equal to $376,552, 551 in guarantees. But if you think that's a lot, try page seven, where Boeing gets two-fucking-billion dollars in pure financial assistance for just ONE of the TWO sales they made in India. Oh and that's just one country. Consider for the fact that every single dollar that went to aid in the countries of Ireland, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Morocco, Kuwait, Norway, Panama, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates WAS ENTIRELY TO BOEING.

Of course, there are other major companies that benefit from Ex-Im's corporate favoritism. And this is just the Ex-Im.

Free America huh?

And the sad part is, this is only a fragment of what I've unearthed. All of this? These are just the absolute facts I found with two and a half hours of intense reading and research and have concrete, indisputable proof. I literally went out of my way to make sure that I could source the government so no one could argue about these sources. All of them are legitimate, reported by the government itself. They cannot be argued. But there's so much more. I've read stories from countless newspapers about how Boeing gets its support because its in an egregious artificial price war with Airbus, who are getting every bit as much funding from the EU to compete against them. But I don't have data on that yet. I hope to, because if I can substantiate those claims at all, then there can be no defense against the claim that government is a cancer. This ridiculous overseas dick-measuring one-up-man-ship is ripping money out of tax payers for something that no one benefits from. These export-import-tariff wars aren't producing more goods, they aren't helping make goods available for citizens more easily, they aren't dropping prices, and they aren't providing more innovative technology because of all of this. The governments prop themselves up and win for the "European Way" or the "American Way."

Oh and I'm not done here. Corporate welfare is nuts and I have every intention of doing even more research on this. I will explore the Airbus mystery and see if there's any truth to those claims. I will learn about other subsidiary programs and post them in due time. This was the fruit of one night, one three-hour-block of research that I started out of the blue with no starting point except a mention of a policy in a text book. And I've got the rest of my natural born life.

Corporatism =/= Laissez-Faire Capitalism

What's big, white, and thrives entirely on hypocrisy? No, not the Church...Corporate America! Because what on earth makes less sense than a group who supposedly thrives off of free market competition begging the government for import tariffs to be protected from foreign goods and services, tax breaks, and bailouts to be saved from failed economic practices? Gotta love how they hold the working class hostage though. Wasn't the point of the Obama stimulus package that they were trying to help the workers keep their jobs? And yet I'm pretty sure the only reason the wages are where they are is because of the labor unions. Hmmm...quite a quandary. Oh, and does anyone else find it funny that Corporatism is the modern symbol of globalized capitalism when it is, at its base, funded through communal ownership via stocks? They've even got the whole "Some more equal than others" thing through voting shares, and work primarily for the welfare of shareholders.

Oh I could go on and on about how historically corporations have worked to eliminate competition through unique systems of productions like cartels (where the competitors agree to maintain high prices so there is no price war competition to drive costs down specifically so the executives get to maintain high profits at uncompetitive high while the rest of the people starve) and generally tried to do nothing more than secure baseline profits by finding clever cost-efficient ways around competition. But that's just too easy, and much less clever. You'd have to live under a rock not to know about the joys and wonders of the Robber Barons. Though Stossel actually tried to take the unique position of defending them by saying they provided low cost transportation...I'm not sure how, really. Anyone wanna shed light on this one, because insofar as I can tell that's bullshit.

"Republic"

I find some measure of irony that Damios happens to be reading “Anarchism: A Theoretical Analysis”, as at the same time I am reading Plato’s “Republic”. The name is a tad bit misleading; “Republic” has little to do with a republic system of government at all; instead it could better be described as Socrates’ love letter to Orwellian Fascism. The point in his argument I find most amusing is the claim that philosophers, whom Socrates claims to be the wisest, bravest, most honest, and generally best example of the human race, should naturally be the ones ruling his ideal society. This is rather similar to how I hold the opinion that I will throw my full support behind any fascist organization, no matter what previous beliefs I hold, if the goal of said fascist organization is to make me the one in charge.

But ignoring the logical fallacies present in the “Republic’s” argument, and the fact that history has shown the impossibility of some of his claims, there is a convincing rational behind the argument. Reading it feels like listening in on a conversation of generals just before they launch the coup, as they’re all convincing themselves how much better off the country will be once the old, corrupted government is removed. Of course we’ll be better leaders than they are. We won’t make the same mistakes. We’re all honest men here. Honestly.

Now, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with totalitarian governments. I love the implied efficiency with fascism, even though it is rarely actually carried out, and the concept of an elite, chosen by their ability, actually leading a country instead of falling to the opinion of every group that can shout loudly enough, strikes a chord with me. From this perspective, I can see why one would support the ideals presented in the “Republic”. While the government Socrates describes did serve as partial inspiration for Oceania in Orwell’s “1984”, Socrates’ vision isn’t all that oppressive. The purpose of the rulers is to act as selfless guardians of the state, chosen by merit, not birth, and the system he describes seems to allow a great amount of freedom amongst the citizens. I can understand some of his sentiments there, for in my mind, the most efficient form of government would be in the mold of enlightened absolutism. A government which has the power to interfere in their country where deemed necessary for the continued survival of the state, but allows for a great amount of freedoms anyways. Such a system could grant a nearly unprecedented amount of freedom in social and economic fields for its people, while maintaining the power necessary to protect that freedom from any possible threats.

Yet despite my images of a benevolently fascist utopia, the idea is impossible in its very concept. Freedom that exists only at the whim of the governing body cannot count as real freedom. Such a government could possibly suspend any rights available to its citizens at any time. Things such as freedom of speech cease being freedoms if they can be revoked whenever the government decides it doesn’t like what the people are speaking about. Even in the rare case where a leader who would support individual liberties out of principle appears, the life span of a human is going to throw the whole thing off anyways. Take the case of Joseph II of Austria, one of the best examples of enlightened absolutism done (mostly) right. During his reign, he used his powers as absolute monarch to cut through opposition and tradition, freeing the serfs, abolishing the more brutal criminal punishments, creating equality under the law, and ending press censorship, amongst other things. He certainly was not a popular leader, even amongst the common people who resented the numerous petty reforms he made (such as banning ginger bread), but he was one of the few enlightenment rulers who actually put their full support behind the reforms they spoke of. Yet within a few years after his death, ever last one of his reforms had been revoked.

Is enlightened absolutism impossible in today’s world? Definitely. Unless we come across some benevolent immortal content to act as a protector of our species while not interfering with our freedoms, it is unlikely any of us will see a working method in our lifetimes. Until something like that happens, I will continue to put my support behind advocating individual rights and freedom. However, if anyone happens to find an opening for absolute despot, be sure to give me a call. I promise I’ll be an excellent choice. Come on. You can trust me….