Iraqi telecom conference--selling their airwaves as well

This Iraqi telecommunications conference is being managed by a surviellance technology firm called International Procurement Services . I haven't had much time to dig deeper, but it seems strange that it would be managed by such a firm.

The website for the conference, unlike this e-mail from the US department of Commerce below-- makes no mention of the coming auction of mobile licenses. I think this indicates that these licenses will be owned by these firms. In the discussion of private property going on, this seems like the ultimate understanding of "eminant domain:" ownership via invasion. The statement also mentions that it will be important for whoever "wins" the contracts to have a concern for intellectual property rights. I wonder what this will mean about the development of the Iraqi communications infrastructure. In addition to creating a free market utopia there, perhaps there will be more of an expieriment with the kind of totally controlled infrastructure media corporations desire in this country.

Text of an e-mail yesterday from the US department of commerce:

Mobile Telecommunications Licensing Conference
July 21-22, 2005, London, U.K.

The Iraqi National Communication & Media Commission (NCMC) will
host a mobile licensing conference in July 2005. This event is the pre-cursor to
the mobile license auctions scheduled to be held at the end of 2005, the most
important Iraqi telecommunications project of the year. For more information and
to register for this event, please see the attached event flyer and event
website: http://www.iraqdevelopmentprogram.org/idp/imt/ncmc.htm
. Don't miss this opportunity to learn about Iraq's latest plans for mobile
telecommunications licensing!

On the MLG-ICS

as Marxist criticism increasingly gained a foothold in the academy, the MLG lost some of its raison d'etre. These remarks should not be taken to imply that the MLG has gradually but irreversibly declined since the heydays of the early 70's but that, as I shall point out in relation to the summer Institute, its function has significantly changed in the recent past as it has come to address a new, more theoretically and politically aware, audience.

Having just come from the MLG, I can only say that I don't know if I can count myself as one of these theoretically and politically aware audience members and, therefore, I don't know what purpose the Institute played for me. I heard some smart papers and witnessed some unique interchanges between speakers and audiences. The confidence and consideration that the participants had for themselves and one another displays not only a deep self awareness but also a sense of community. In this way, I might describe my experience there as somewhat anomic.

as a side note I am becoming habituated to only speaking with people I know at conferences. I can't actually recall meeting anyone at a conference since my first at KSU when I was the only person from GMU who attended. This is a combination of a wierd egotism that inspires introversion. I say it is because I do not want to force my views on others, but deep down it is because I secretly don't beleive they could stand up to scrutiny. Learning more about the subjects I am trying to talk on only lends itself to this secret insecurity I rarely admit to myself. I also think that much of it is a desire to continue to be open to new ideas and be reflexive about the ones I have. But it is clear that, on topics I care about, I am willing to take a stand: What is cultural studies, for instance. At the past three conferences I've been to, the difference has been that I have not been able to produce a paper that clearly takes a stand. When I do, it inspires conversation. When I only produce analysis--convoluted and usually filled with jargon that I don't take enough time to unpack--like this weekend, it falls flat. I have had no comments except for pity comments from people vaguely interested in the topics that think they might glean some observation for their own work. I don't blame them for this. I just can't expect an audience to be so generous as to truly engage with ideas that aren't framed in a polemical argument or posed in terms of pop-culture references.

On the other hand, the greater problem I face, which the Institute has certainly helped me to see, is my level of abstraction. I am neither theoretical nor practical enough. The people in this group are obviosuly interested in immersing themselves in a variety of ideas and learning about them deeply. But they also are committed to Marxism in a way that is completely foreign to me. I think I have traveled a very long distance from my suburban Texas roots in my critical thinking about culture and society, but I have never imagined a day when I would identify myself as a Marxist. This is mostly because I wouldn't know what that meant at this point. I can confidently say that the Institute hasn't really cleared that up for me because it was used in a way I am always supicious of: "I think we, as Marxists should do/think..." Ever since I started to question christianity in th 7th grade, any doctrine and especially one that requires allegiance that seems unclear or instrumental, something inside me revolts. Of course I have the same reaction whether someone is asking me to give money to a charity or attend a meeting, so this could basically be rooted in some fundamentally selfish individualism which I don't believe in ever really renouncing. Then again, part of this is also rooted in a lack of confidence in my own interpretation. I simply lack the qualifications to be able to argue with someone experienced about what Marxism means. Therefore it is not something I can argue about or help to define or participate in considering in that way. It is something that I have been content to be inspired by at times and to consider things through, but I have never felt interested in having it define me or my existence.

There is no such lack of committment on the part of the folks at the MLG and, for the most part, there wasn't a lot of questioning of people's committment. There was an implicit solidarity to what was a vague notion of Marxism that was never defined upfront. The final panel, however, helped to solidify for me how different their notion of what this means is from my own. Labor organizers were there to speak on that subject and of the need for organizing.

pick this up later...

voice of america during the 1950s

I was surprised to come across this earlier today. There are a few other documents looking at the way that the Voice of America network was involved in the McCarthy hearings. Most of the story surrounds the use of a US novelist by the name of Howard Fast who worked for one or another arm of the government's propaganda services. Evidently, the VOA was using some of his writings in their broadcasts precisely because he was a "leftist." In another article a few days earlier, the idea was more fully elaborated in the context of a State Dept memo:

At issue today was a State Department memorandum that apparently had been accepted as instructions to Voice of America officials regarding material to be used in broadcasts. The part that caught the subcommittee attention said:
"The reputation of an author affects the active utility of the material. If he is widely and favorably known abroad as a champion of democratic causes, his creditability and utility may be enhanced."
Similarly, if - like Howard Fast - he is known as a Soviet-endorsed author, materials favorable to the United States in some of his works may thereby be given a special creditability among selected key audiences."
Senator McCarthy brought out that, apparently as soon as Secretary Dulles had learned of this phase of the memorandum, the Secretary ordered its immediate cancellation

There are a couple of important aspects to this story for me. First, is the rather insane purgation that this was signalling at the time, such as the testimony of "W. Bradley Connors, identified as the top man in Voice of America operations policy, told the subcommittee today that he was acting immediately to sweep the organization's libraries clear of writings by leftists."

I knew that the anti-communist campaign was virulent, but I really thought that one had to actually be a member of the Communist Party of America to get blacklisted. But to simply say that anyone who was a "leftist" should be purged, that is really rather extreme.

Also, I am struck by the fact that this new call to make sure that there was a significant anti-communist messages were inserted into the programming in Latin America. This from the first article:

Earlier the subcommittee went into Voice of America broadcasts in Latin America. Stuart Ayers, acting chief of that division, testified that he "suspected but could not prove" that certain key men in the program had "deliberately" attempted to lessen the effect of anti-Communist propaganda in the programs broadcast there. He previously had named the suspects to the subcommittee, but the names were kept secret.
From Mr. Ayers' testimony it appeared that most of the Latin-American budget was spent on "juvenile" programs of the Superman variety. Tough anti-Communist propaganda was missing from the scripts, despite promises of its insertion, he said.

The accusation is that people were using something to soften up the hardline anti-communism of these earlier messages. Or, as McCarthy says in another article, "there are some people in the Voice of America who are doing a rather effective job of sabotaging Dulles and Eisenhower's foreign policy program." This is really relevant in the year or so before the VOA was used specifically as a disinformation and propaganda platform for the CIA assisted (if not sponsored and carried out) overthrow of the Arbenz government in guatemala. These articles appeared in the NYT in Feb 19, 20, and 14 respectively on pages 1, 9 and 1 also respectively.

americans no longer standing tallest (if they ever were)

interesting post on the relationship of hieght to general health and well being. In short, Canadians are getting taller than USians.