Thursday, March 27, 2008
Obama answers questions, raises other inquiries
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The donkey’s ears are growing longer, and The Democratic National Committee has to take the blame. Or should it be the Michigan State Democratic Committee, or the one in Florida, that wanted to rob Iowa and New Hampshire of their birthrights? Or are those inherited rights to early primaries really justified?
In any event, MI and FL Democrats were deprived of their primaries’ votes, for lack of DNC’s exit strategy (where have I heard that expression before?). Now the Michigan DC wants to revote, which is not to Sen. Obama’s liking, since he was not on the ballot (was that strategy or what?), and many of his supporters cannot participate, having voted in the Republican column, the only game in town for them on that day. Florida DC has just folded its arms and wants to let the vote stand, since both candidates were on the ballot. Quo vadis, DNC?
Sen. Obama keeps coming back to the center of the stage. In that masterful emotionally rousing speech, he completely disavowed the palpably racist ideas of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s and affirmed his responsibilities to both the white and non-white races that constitute his genetic makeup. Yet, his review of the injustices suffered by black Americans to this date does not explain the minister’s irresponsible charges against the rest of us. Rev. Wright is an educated man, with eight honorary DDs and an earned one, in sacred music, besides two masters’ degrees and a medical technicianship of three years learned in the US Navy (redirected from the Marine Corps), and should know better than to accuse the US, for instance, of spreading the AIDS epidemic. He knows that he and his defenders are not doing any good for the Obama campaign and has taken a low profile, retiring from the ministry of the Trinity Church earlier this year and avoiding interviews. He has refused to answer questions by the right-wing interviewer Sean Hannity, because the ex-seminarian had not read the books by Black Liberation’s religious leaders James Cone and Dwight Hopkins.
Looking further, one finds that Cone and Hopkins are both distinguished university professors, with many references on the internet that enlighten us about this branch of Christianity. Historically, it came to light in 1966, with an advertisement in the NYTimes by 51 black theologians. We find that in liberation theology the black experience is the starting point for ascertaining theological truth, and Jesus is seen as a political leader, freeing black Israel from bondage and into salvation. Harking back to the acceptance of slavery by the early American church of the South, the Christianity accepted by the black liberationists is the one that fights for the rights of the oppressed. This political theology evidently relates also to Rev. Wright’s support for Libya’s Col. Ghadaffi and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Sen. Obama’s cause might have been served better if Rev. Wright had retired earlier, short-cutting the political connections that Obama’s Republican opponents are now freely conjecturing.
New Mexico’s Gov. Richardson’s endorsement came as a timely counterpoint to the doubts and attacks raised by Obama’s associations with Rev. Wright. The former Clinton appointee – Cabinet Secretary and Ambassador to the United Nations – sees Obama as a unifier and the best kind of American emissary to the world, countering the image created by the churlishness of the early Bush policymakers, no matter how hard Secretary Rice tries to shake it.
There is one more point that Obama can offer, as confirmation to his birth-given facility to unite people of several continents and ethnicities – his wide –spread family of half-siblings. To begin, there’s his half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, child of his mother Ann Dunham (d. 1995) and Lalo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil company and government functionary (d.1987). She is a teacher of history at a girl’s school and a professor at the University of Hawaii, a mother of a two-year old, who is married to Konrad Ng, a Chinese -Canadian UH professor. Then, Obama has seven living ethnically diverse African siblings, six brothers and a sister, from his father’s three other marriages, to one American and two African women. Several of the siblings have left Kenya and live in Britain and the US.
To explain the elder Barack Obama’s life and family relations, he was married in Africa, before coming to the US and meeting Ann Dunham at the University of Hawaii. They divorced when young Barack Obama was two, and the father received a scholarship to Harvard, where he earned an MA. Returning to Africa, he taught at a university in Uganda, and then worked for an US oil company until accepting an offer to join the Kenyan Treasury as a senior economist. A tribal disagreement with President Yomo Kenyatta ended that career, and, disappointed, he returned to his family village of Nyongoma-Kobelo. He died in a car accident in 1982.
The donkey’s ears are growing longer, and The Democratic National Committee has to take the blame. Or should it be the Michigan State Democratic Committee, or the one in Florida, that wanted to rob Iowa and New Hampshire of their birthrights? Or are those inherited rights to early primaries really justified?
In any event, MI and FL Democrats were deprived of their primaries’ votes, for lack of DNC’s exit strategy (where have I heard that expression before?). Now the Michigan DC wants to revote, which is not to Sen. Obama’s liking, since he was not on the ballot (was that strategy or what?), and many of his supporters cannot participate, having voted in the Republican column, the only game in town for them on that day. Florida DC has just folded its arms and wants to let the vote stand, since both candidates were on the ballot. Quo vadis, DNC?
Sen. Obama keeps coming back to the center of the stage. In that masterful emotionally rousing speech, he completely disavowed the palpably racist ideas of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s and affirmed his responsibilities to both the white and non-white races that constitute his genetic makeup. Yet, his review of the injustices suffered by black Americans to this date does not explain the minister’s irresponsible charges against the rest of us. Rev. Wright is an educated man, with eight honorary DDs and an earned one, in sacred music, besides two masters’ degrees and a medical technicianship of three years learned in the US Navy (redirected from the Marine Corps), and should know better than to accuse the US, for instance, of spreading the AIDS epidemic. He knows that he and his defenders are not doing any good for the Obama campaign and has taken a low profile, retiring from the ministry of the Trinity Church earlier this year and avoiding interviews. He has refused to answer questions by the right-wing interviewer Sean Hannity, because the ex-seminarian had not read the books by Black Liberation’s religious leaders James Cone and Dwight Hopkins.
Looking further, one finds that Cone and Hopkins are both distinguished university professors, with many references on the internet that enlighten us about this branch of Christianity. Historically, it came to light in 1966, with an advertisement in the NYTimes by 51 black theologians. We find that in liberation theology the black experience is the starting point for ascertaining theological truth, and Jesus is seen as a political leader, freeing black Israel from bondage and into salvation. Harking back to the acceptance of slavery by the early American church of the South, the Christianity accepted by the black liberationists is the one that fights for the rights of the oppressed. This political theology evidently relates also to Rev. Wright’s support for Libya’s Col. Ghadaffi and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Sen. Obama’s cause might have been served better if Rev. Wright had retired earlier, short-cutting the political connections that Obama’s Republican opponents are now freely conjecturing.
New Mexico’s Gov. Richardson’s endorsement came as a timely counterpoint to the doubts and attacks raised by Obama’s associations with Rev. Wright. The former Clinton appointee – Cabinet Secretary and Ambassador to the United Nations – sees Obama as a unifier and the best kind of American emissary to the world, countering the image created by the churlishness of the early Bush policymakers, no matter how hard Secretary Rice tries to shake it.
There is one more point that Obama can offer, as confirmation to his birth-given facility to unite people of several continents and ethnicities – his wide –spread family of half-siblings. To begin, there’s his half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, child of his mother Ann Dunham (d. 1995) and Lalo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil company and government functionary (d.1987). She is a teacher of history at a girl’s school and a professor at the University of Hawaii, a mother of a two-year old, who is married to Konrad Ng, a Chinese -Canadian UH professor. Then, Obama has seven living ethnically diverse African siblings, six brothers and a sister, from his father’s three other marriages, to one American and two African women. Several of the siblings have left Kenya and live in Britain and the US.
To explain the elder Barack Obama’s life and family relations, he was married in Africa, before coming to the US and meeting Ann Dunham at the University of Hawaii. They divorced when young Barack Obama was two, and the father received a scholarship to Harvard, where he earned an MA. Returning to Africa, he taught at a university in Uganda, and then worked for an US oil company until accepting an offer to join the Kenyan Treasury as a senior economist. A tribal disagreement with President Yomo Kenyatta ended that career, and, disappointed, he returned to his family village of Nyongoma-Kobelo. He died in a car accident in 1982.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Combining economic and environmental solutions – go nuclear
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Does the declining dollar push the oil prices up or is it the other way around? I don’t really care, the fact is that they work in tandem. What we should care about is that we have reached a historic moment: the dollar I at its lowest, about $1.50 to the Euro, and oil costs above $110 a barrel, with gasoline moving from $3.35 to $ 4 , with perhaps $5 on the horizon.
Even the greatest optimist SUV owners of Stuyvesant town must be getting the message; the February sales of cars are down 4.9%, while light trucks (SUVs) declined 14.1%. At an annual volume of 7M cars and 8M SUVs, Chrysler, GM, Hyundai lost in double digits. Even Toyota did not remain unscathed; its Corolla lost 27%, followed by Chevy’s big Silverado and GM’s Sierra, while the Chew’s compact Cobalt and Pontiac’s G6 made gains (49 and 44%). With GM’s market share down 1.7%, to 24.3%, the giant has offered buyouts to 74,000 employees, following last month’s Ford’s offer to 54,000 employees. It is not as deadly as it looks, some 46,000 employees are already eligible for retirement, and will receive full benefits plus $46K to $63K in cash. Note that the company hopes to save billions on new replacement employees – under the new contract GM can hire up to 16,000 people at $16 or less per hour, as opposed to the $28 /hr under the old union contract.
The possibly good but definitely painful news is that the new pay scale trend may help US to regain some of its industrial standing in this post-industrial world, where our country, along with Western Europe, and, surprisingly, Japan, have become heavily service oriented – from US 50% manufacturing jobs (of total population of 150M, 40M employed) in the 1950s, to under 20 % in the 2000s (total 300M, 130M employed). This lower labor cost may partly reverse, by 2010, the balance of payments and restore some of the value of the dollar. The sickening news is that the American standard of living will go down and the great consumer economy will flatten out. We will have to curb our dreams and expectations. The saving factors for the US economy will be continued advances in technology, to keep us a step ahead, and the continued willingness of Americans to work hard and spend more hours at our jobs, a characteristic that has bailed us out before.
Reviewing the cost side, energy has been the main item, and it is evident that we finally are getting serious about renewable energy. For example, in Arizona, Nevada and California deserts, solar thermal plants re being constructed, with the aid of Spanish experts, on the principle of generating steam , just like coal-fired plants, except that the sources of heat are thousands of concave mirrors concentrating solar heat on a ”tower of power. Not as Buck Rogers as it seems, .currently eight plants are in construction, in Spain, Algeria and Morocco, with more planned in China. Further, large wind farm projects in barren parts of the country have been taken up by the oil companies, sensing the potential of a good profit margin. Transfer of energy without excessive power loss will requite growth in major transmission lines across the country, and cars and gas stations will require big changes. Fuel cells are an already a reality, with hydrogen/gasoline/hybrid engines in cars being tested by major car producers. White Plains municipality is putting up a hydrogen fuel station for government and private cars, the latter being lent to consumers for three-month test periods.
.
With all these good hopes, we have to come to a reality check. Globally, renewable energy still constitutes only 18% of energy resources, of which 13% comes from wood, a slow grower and an environmentally bad CO producer. Whether we like or not, renewable energy is slow to arrive and inadequate in volume. Some 600 coal-fired electric plants are responsible for 36% of the US CO2 emissions , that’s 10% of the world’s volume. Some 103 nuclear plants provide the US with 20% of its energy, and 80% of their neighbors have no problems. France, 75% nuclear, has been providing neighboring Germany and non-nuclear Italy with electricity for years. The Three Mile Island accident in 1979 that scared us off was a success in control, while the Chernobyl 1986 disaster cost 56 directly attributable deaths from burns and radiation. Although hundreds of miners died in the early years of uranium mining, think of current 5,000 annual deaths from coal-mining.
Given the dangers of global warming, even Al Gore and Patrick White, founder of Greenpeace, see the need for revisiting nuclear power. Japan, France, Britain and Russia have joined in recycling of nuclear used fuel (“waste”), which still contains 95% of potential power, which reduces the dangers of storage (also, used fuel after 40 years has less than one-thousandth of the radioactivity). The danger from terrorist attacks is dealt with by having six-foot reinforced concrete containment vessels , which protect the contents from inside as well as from outside. With the dangers of global warning, much of Europe wants to be nuclear. This may also be our long-term economic as well as environmental solution.
My thanks to Patrick White.
Does the declining dollar push the oil prices up or is it the other way around? I don’t really care, the fact is that they work in tandem. What we should care about is that we have reached a historic moment: the dollar I at its lowest, about $1.50 to the Euro, and oil costs above $110 a barrel, with gasoline moving from $3.35 to $ 4 , with perhaps $5 on the horizon.
Even the greatest optimist SUV owners of Stuyvesant town must be getting the message; the February sales of cars are down 4.9%, while light trucks (SUVs) declined 14.1%. At an annual volume of 7M cars and 8M SUVs, Chrysler, GM, Hyundai lost in double digits. Even Toyota did not remain unscathed; its Corolla lost 27%, followed by Chevy’s big Silverado and GM’s Sierra, while the Chew’s compact Cobalt and Pontiac’s G6 made gains (49 and 44%). With GM’s market share down 1.7%, to 24.3%, the giant has offered buyouts to 74,000 employees, following last month’s Ford’s offer to 54,000 employees. It is not as deadly as it looks, some 46,000 employees are already eligible for retirement, and will receive full benefits plus $46K to $63K in cash. Note that the company hopes to save billions on new replacement employees – under the new contract GM can hire up to 16,000 people at $16 or less per hour, as opposed to the $28 /hr under the old union contract.
The possibly good but definitely painful news is that the new pay scale trend may help US to regain some of its industrial standing in this post-industrial world, where our country, along with Western Europe, and, surprisingly, Japan, have become heavily service oriented – from US 50% manufacturing jobs (of total population of 150M, 40M employed) in the 1950s, to under 20 % in the 2000s (total 300M, 130M employed). This lower labor cost may partly reverse, by 2010, the balance of payments and restore some of the value of the dollar. The sickening news is that the American standard of living will go down and the great consumer economy will flatten out. We will have to curb our dreams and expectations. The saving factors for the US economy will be continued advances in technology, to keep us a step ahead, and the continued willingness of Americans to work hard and spend more hours at our jobs, a characteristic that has bailed us out before.
Reviewing the cost side, energy has been the main item, and it is evident that we finally are getting serious about renewable energy. For example, in Arizona, Nevada and California deserts, solar thermal plants re being constructed, with the aid of Spanish experts, on the principle of generating steam , just like coal-fired plants, except that the sources of heat are thousands of concave mirrors concentrating solar heat on a ”tower of power. Not as Buck Rogers as it seems, .currently eight plants are in construction, in Spain, Algeria and Morocco, with more planned in China. Further, large wind farm projects in barren parts of the country have been taken up by the oil companies, sensing the potential of a good profit margin. Transfer of energy without excessive power loss will requite growth in major transmission lines across the country, and cars and gas stations will require big changes. Fuel cells are an already a reality, with hydrogen/gasoline/hybrid engines in cars being tested by major car producers. White Plains municipality is putting up a hydrogen fuel station for government and private cars, the latter being lent to consumers for three-month test periods.
.
With all these good hopes, we have to come to a reality check. Globally, renewable energy still constitutes only 18% of energy resources, of which 13% comes from wood, a slow grower and an environmentally bad CO producer. Whether we like or not, renewable energy is slow to arrive and inadequate in volume. Some 600 coal-fired electric plants are responsible for 36% of the US CO2 emissions , that’s 10% of the world’s volume. Some 103 nuclear plants provide the US with 20% of its energy, and 80% of their neighbors have no problems. France, 75% nuclear, has been providing neighboring Germany and non-nuclear Italy with electricity for years. The Three Mile Island accident in 1979 that scared us off was a success in control, while the Chernobyl 1986 disaster cost 56 directly attributable deaths from burns and radiation. Although hundreds of miners died in the early years of uranium mining, think of current 5,000 annual deaths from coal-mining.
Given the dangers of global warming, even Al Gore and Patrick White, founder of Greenpeace, see the need for revisiting nuclear power. Japan, France, Britain and Russia have joined in recycling of nuclear used fuel (“waste”), which still contains 95% of potential power, which reduces the dangers of storage (also, used fuel after 40 years has less than one-thousandth of the radioactivity). The danger from terrorist attacks is dealt with by having six-foot reinforced concrete containment vessels , which protect the contents from inside as well as from outside. With the dangers of global warning, much of Europe wants to be nuclear. This may also be our long-term economic as well as environmental solution.
My thanks to Patrick White.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
More on the dangers of the Clinton-Obama struggle
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
More on the dangers of the Obama-Clinton struggle
The Clinton - Obama battle may become the most pernicious blow to America's racial relations and the future of the Democratic Party
If Hillary Clinton pulls all stops with super delegates and wins, Black Obamans may see it as an ultimate racist act, destructive to national unity and Democratic Party. Civil disobedience and worse may result. Other Obamans may actually vote for McCain.
Conservative Radicals are pulling for Clinton victory in the remaining state primaries, urging their voters to cross-vote for Hillary - it is easier now when McCain has locked his candidacy. Then, in a McCain/Obama finale, the middle people who find Obama too leftist and might have gone for Hil will vote for McCain and give the Republicans another four years.
A most destructive Republican tactic is to feed the young Clinton-weary Obamans some Whitewater and Vince Foster material. Foster, a Clinton Arkansas friend and White House Counsel who handled the Clintons' Whitewater 1978 real estate investment review (their S&L banker McDougal was eventually sent to jail for misreporting taxable interest), a deeply depressed person, shot himself in the head in a Washington park. The Special Counsel appointed to investigate, Robert Fiske, cleared the Clintons. His successor Ken Starr, working after 1996, under a Republican Congress, dragged the investigation, clearing the Clintons three years later, with the final Whitewater clearance in January 2001.
What was behind the actions were the private investigations prompted by billionaire Pittsburgh oil and newspaper magnate Richard Mellon Scaife, and other wealthy Conservative influentials. Scaife spent several millions of dollars, hiring journalists to investigate and publish “revelations” of the Troopergate, Clinton's women and Whitewater, under such headings as the Arkansas Project, and in financing press services. One of his well-paid reporters, David Brock, eventually recanted and revealed the machinations.
Scaife is known to have financed his investigative reporter Christopher Ruddy and others to cast doubts about the suicide, in view of some limited facts - that Fosters' suicide note was held by the White House for 30 hours, that the bullet was missing, and more. Ruddy published a book about the suspicious Foster death (which was denounced as pushing spurious material even by Conservative critics, including Ann Coulter) and other anti-Clinton material. He was financed to start a major journal and websites, NewsMax, which continues its political revelations, presently amazingly quiet about their Foster/Whitewater bombshells. Interestingly, Scaife had financed a new Law School at Pepperdine University in the 1990s, and Special Counsel Ken Starr was asked by the university to head it, after completing his stretched-out public service. Starr decided not to accept the appointment, to avoid any implications. In 2004, when his report was well put to rest, he quietly became head of the Pepperdine Law School.
The Foster/Whitewater stories are coming back, and are whispered - not published - from some Obaman sources. The Republicans e-mail a Peggy Noonan story, portraying Hillary as an antediluvian force of nature, not to be stopped no matter what the public interest. As for the Democrats, anti-Clinton pieces by such writers as Frank Rich, Christopher Hitchens and Ariella Huntington are coming through the chain e-mail letter stream. They revive issues of greed, business as usual, and tell of renting the Lincoln bedroom by the night to donors, selling access, and the Chinese oil company lobbyist who bought his way into the White House 51 times and had a free pass to the employee lunchroom. Obama critics’ e-mail is rare and relatively mild, such as a Chicago reporter’s tale of the Senator’s six inactive years in the state legislature (he got there by invalidating his competitors’ petition signatures) under Republican leadership, with one hyperactive year under the sponsorship of the new Democratic leader, Emil Jones, Jr. The sex scandals of Obama's two US Senate competitors, the Democrat and then the Republican, cleared his way to Washington. (Curiously, this story came to me on the day Gov. Spitzer admitted to having sex with a prostitute.)
The sniping continues, and Democrats waver. In our 74th AD only one of four Democratic clubs, the Tilden people, produced a clear-cut endorsement, favoring Clinton. The best thing for survival of the Democratic Party and its victory in November would be more definitive votes for one contestant or the other even before April 22, and the loser’s acceptance of a Number Two post. It is incumbent upon the top Democratic leadership to get together towards this objective of unifying the party, and force the action, else indecision will lead to snowballing of problems and side tracks, such as a Florida and Michigan re-vote. Regrettably, one sees little alternative. This intensifying of mutual hatred without clarifying the issues should stop.
A little story. At a social event, two Pennsylvanians who know my views came to ask for whom to vote, claiming that the last four Presidential candidates they voted for had not fulfilled their promises. They liked Obama, but he had promised to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months, 10,000 troops a month, which they saw as naïve. We then agreed that he had also said that Americans would not completely withdraw until reliable promises of peace were in place, a waffling worthy of a seasoned politician. They were comforted to conclude that Obama the change prophet will not be a wild radical. That’s politics, folks.
More on the dangers of the Obama-Clinton struggle
The Clinton - Obama battle may become the most pernicious blow to America's racial relations and the future of the Democratic Party
If Hillary Clinton pulls all stops with super delegates and wins, Black Obamans may see it as an ultimate racist act, destructive to national unity and Democratic Party. Civil disobedience and worse may result. Other Obamans may actually vote for McCain.
Conservative Radicals are pulling for Clinton victory in the remaining state primaries, urging their voters to cross-vote for Hillary - it is easier now when McCain has locked his candidacy. Then, in a McCain/Obama finale, the middle people who find Obama too leftist and might have gone for Hil will vote for McCain and give the Republicans another four years.
A most destructive Republican tactic is to feed the young Clinton-weary Obamans some Whitewater and Vince Foster material. Foster, a Clinton Arkansas friend and White House Counsel who handled the Clintons' Whitewater 1978 real estate investment review (their S&L banker McDougal was eventually sent to jail for misreporting taxable interest), a deeply depressed person, shot himself in the head in a Washington park. The Special Counsel appointed to investigate, Robert Fiske, cleared the Clintons. His successor Ken Starr, working after 1996, under a Republican Congress, dragged the investigation, clearing the Clintons three years later, with the final Whitewater clearance in January 2001.
What was behind the actions were the private investigations prompted by billionaire Pittsburgh oil and newspaper magnate Richard Mellon Scaife, and other wealthy Conservative influentials. Scaife spent several millions of dollars, hiring journalists to investigate and publish “revelations” of the Troopergate, Clinton's women and Whitewater, under such headings as the Arkansas Project, and in financing press services. One of his well-paid reporters, David Brock, eventually recanted and revealed the machinations.
Scaife is known to have financed his investigative reporter Christopher Ruddy and others to cast doubts about the suicide, in view of some limited facts - that Fosters' suicide note was held by the White House for 30 hours, that the bullet was missing, and more. Ruddy published a book about the suspicious Foster death (which was denounced as pushing spurious material even by Conservative critics, including Ann Coulter) and other anti-Clinton material. He was financed to start a major journal and websites, NewsMax, which continues its political revelations, presently amazingly quiet about their Foster/Whitewater bombshells. Interestingly, Scaife had financed a new Law School at Pepperdine University in the 1990s, and Special Counsel Ken Starr was asked by the university to head it, after completing his stretched-out public service. Starr decided not to accept the appointment, to avoid any implications. In 2004, when his report was well put to rest, he quietly became head of the Pepperdine Law School.
The Foster/Whitewater stories are coming back, and are whispered - not published - from some Obaman sources. The Republicans e-mail a Peggy Noonan story, portraying Hillary as an antediluvian force of nature, not to be stopped no matter what the public interest. As for the Democrats, anti-Clinton pieces by such writers as Frank Rich, Christopher Hitchens and Ariella Huntington are coming through the chain e-mail letter stream. They revive issues of greed, business as usual, and tell of renting the Lincoln bedroom by the night to donors, selling access, and the Chinese oil company lobbyist who bought his way into the White House 51 times and had a free pass to the employee lunchroom. Obama critics’ e-mail is rare and relatively mild, such as a Chicago reporter’s tale of the Senator’s six inactive years in the state legislature (he got there by invalidating his competitors’ petition signatures) under Republican leadership, with one hyperactive year under the sponsorship of the new Democratic leader, Emil Jones, Jr. The sex scandals of Obama's two US Senate competitors, the Democrat and then the Republican, cleared his way to Washington. (Curiously, this story came to me on the day Gov. Spitzer admitted to having sex with a prostitute.)
The sniping continues, and Democrats waver. In our 74th AD only one of four Democratic clubs, the Tilden people, produced a clear-cut endorsement, favoring Clinton. The best thing for survival of the Democratic Party and its victory in November would be more definitive votes for one contestant or the other even before April 22, and the loser’s acceptance of a Number Two post. It is incumbent upon the top Democratic leadership to get together towards this objective of unifying the party, and force the action, else indecision will lead to snowballing of problems and side tracks, such as a Florida and Michigan re-vote. Regrettably, one sees little alternative. This intensifying of mutual hatred without clarifying the issues should stop.
A little story. At a social event, two Pennsylvanians who know my views came to ask for whom to vote, claiming that the last four Presidential candidates they voted for had not fulfilled their promises. They liked Obama, but he had promised to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months, 10,000 troops a month, which they saw as naïve. We then agreed that he had also said that Americans would not completely withdraw until reliable promises of peace were in place, a waffling worthy of a seasoned politician. They were comforted to conclude that Obama the change prophet will not be a wild radical. That’s politics, folks.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
New positive foreign policy scenario revealed
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The prestige of the US abroad is not irretrievably lost. The US has been on a bad tack for five years, but we and our allies can recover our conciliator/peace lover image.
A revelation that Britain’s Prince Harry, third in line for the crown, has for several months risked his life as a soldier in Afghanistan, once more puts the finger on one of the two basic problem areas. Radical terrorist Islamism, as expressed by al Qaida and Taliban, is the most destructive force in the Mideast, maybe more so than the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. The latter has been fed for 60 years by the dictators of the Arab League, fearful that the restless and educated Palestinians might spread democracy and threaten the traditional autocratic Muslim orders. To isolate the threat, Anwar Sadat in Egypt and King Hussein in Jordan conceded Gaza and the Green Zone (West Bank) to Israel, and Saudi King Abdullah in March 2007 essentially prompted the Arab League into accepting Israel’s existence, provided the Palestinian Arabs can return – a no-no for Israel, but the gates have been opened.
The fact that the murderous Islamist radicals are unacceptable for the overwhelming masses of Muslims was expressed by the 2008 popular vote in Pakistan, decisively rejecting the Islamist parties in the al Qaida power base, the North West Frontier Province, home for 21M Pakistanis and 3M Afghan refugees. This was one instance where the armed terror advocates could not terrorize the ordinary electorate. Muslims want normal life, as expressed in the pre-Intifada relations of Palestinians and Israelis, before political troublemakers took over, using people’s inability of self-actualization for radical political and self-aggrandizing purposes. Pakistan is the second largest Sunni country, after Indonesia and about even with India, and the vote should be clearly indicative of the positive attitudes of ordinary Muslims in critical countries, contrary to the dire future Samuel Huntington and other US “Clash of Cultures” advocates warn us about.
Here the US government –Bush, Clinton, McCain or Obama – can emphasize the positive. The winning Pakistani anti-Musharraf parties, PPP, PML-N, and Awami (PPP’s ally), as well as his PML-Q are all largely modernists, in seeking normalcy with economic gains, Making an alliance with the Pakistani moderates in eradicating the Taliban/al Qaida threats may also bring in line – surprise, surprise – the Iranians, who lined up $500M to help Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban government before Bush decided to include Iran in his deadly enemy triad. This policy of the Iranians comes under the chapter of Shiite Farsis’ desire to deter the Sunni al Qaeda attackers who kill Shiites (note persistent bombings of pilgrims at the holy city of Karbala at religious gatherings) and might be more interesting if not more vital to them than supporting Hezbollah’s fight against Israel. Less pressure from Palestinians against Israel would aid normalcy. bring some peace in Gaza and the West Bank and would stabilize the live of the fearful rulers of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, once US withdraws its main forces from Iraq.
This makes the Dream Team of Obama and Richardson more intriguing, as suggested in this column months before the primaries. Imagine the configuration of Obama matching visionary wits with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and company, while the Hispanic Richardson bear-hugs the Venezuelan anti-US leader Hugo Chavez into acquiescence. I want to keep dreaming, don’t wake me up.
Some wakeups cannot be avoided, when we find that more than 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars.
The Pew Center on the States reports that 2,319,258 US adults are in jail, one of every 99.1. This is a frightening increase from the 2001 figure of 1.329,367, when 70,199 New Yorkers were incarcerated, a rate that ranked just behind the leaders, Texas, California and Florida. The current 2008 US ratio also doubles that of 1995, when 47 in 100 Americans were in prison, one in 112 men and one in 1,724 women. Is it that our moral standards have changed, despite the overwhelming majority of Americans claiming religious convictions? Has the ruthless march of technology, loss of job security, inability to learn new trades and processes, inadequate education, disinterest in low-pay and menial jobs and lack of employment opportunities pushed so many of our fellow citizens over the brink?
James O. Wilson, the sociologist who spearheaded the “broken window” theory responsible for the growth in penalties for early and minor offenses since the 1980s, is not alarmed, and ascribes the increase to the growth in security awareness. One should be alarmed, considering the explosions in proportions of white vs. minority (men and women both) crimes, and disproportionate growth in incarceration vs. education costs.
Locally, New York State prison population has shrunk, since the beginning of this century, to 63,315 end 2006 to 62,620 end 2008, a decline of 1.1%, while New Jersey’s, a smaller population, declined by 2%. NYS’s expenditures for incarceration are $2.682B, 5.1% of general funds, while NJ spends 4.9%. National incarceration costs in 20 years have grown 137%, while higher education has increased only 21%. Voters to note.
The prestige of the US abroad is not irretrievably lost. The US has been on a bad tack for five years, but we and our allies can recover our conciliator/peace lover image.
A revelation that Britain’s Prince Harry, third in line for the crown, has for several months risked his life as a soldier in Afghanistan, once more puts the finger on one of the two basic problem areas. Radical terrorist Islamism, as expressed by al Qaida and Taliban, is the most destructive force in the Mideast, maybe more so than the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. The latter has been fed for 60 years by the dictators of the Arab League, fearful that the restless and educated Palestinians might spread democracy and threaten the traditional autocratic Muslim orders. To isolate the threat, Anwar Sadat in Egypt and King Hussein in Jordan conceded Gaza and the Green Zone (West Bank) to Israel, and Saudi King Abdullah in March 2007 essentially prompted the Arab League into accepting Israel’s existence, provided the Palestinian Arabs can return – a no-no for Israel, but the gates have been opened.
The fact that the murderous Islamist radicals are unacceptable for the overwhelming masses of Muslims was expressed by the 2008 popular vote in Pakistan, decisively rejecting the Islamist parties in the al Qaida power base, the North West Frontier Province, home for 21M Pakistanis and 3M Afghan refugees. This was one instance where the armed terror advocates could not terrorize the ordinary electorate. Muslims want normal life, as expressed in the pre-Intifada relations of Palestinians and Israelis, before political troublemakers took over, using people’s inability of self-actualization for radical political and self-aggrandizing purposes. Pakistan is the second largest Sunni country, after Indonesia and about even with India, and the vote should be clearly indicative of the positive attitudes of ordinary Muslims in critical countries, contrary to the dire future Samuel Huntington and other US “Clash of Cultures” advocates warn us about.
Here the US government –Bush, Clinton, McCain or Obama – can emphasize the positive. The winning Pakistani anti-Musharraf parties, PPP, PML-N, and Awami (PPP’s ally), as well as his PML-Q are all largely modernists, in seeking normalcy with economic gains, Making an alliance with the Pakistani moderates in eradicating the Taliban/al Qaida threats may also bring in line – surprise, surprise – the Iranians, who lined up $500M to help Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban government before Bush decided to include Iran in his deadly enemy triad. This policy of the Iranians comes under the chapter of Shiite Farsis’ desire to deter the Sunni al Qaeda attackers who kill Shiites (note persistent bombings of pilgrims at the holy city of Karbala at religious gatherings) and might be more interesting if not more vital to them than supporting Hezbollah’s fight against Israel. Less pressure from Palestinians against Israel would aid normalcy. bring some peace in Gaza and the West Bank and would stabilize the live of the fearful rulers of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, once US withdraws its main forces from Iraq.
This makes the Dream Team of Obama and Richardson more intriguing, as suggested in this column months before the primaries. Imagine the configuration of Obama matching visionary wits with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and company, while the Hispanic Richardson bear-hugs the Venezuelan anti-US leader Hugo Chavez into acquiescence. I want to keep dreaming, don’t wake me up.
Some wakeups cannot be avoided, when we find that more than 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars.
The Pew Center on the States reports that 2,319,258 US adults are in jail, one of every 99.1. This is a frightening increase from the 2001 figure of 1.329,367, when 70,199 New Yorkers were incarcerated, a rate that ranked just behind the leaders, Texas, California and Florida. The current 2008 US ratio also doubles that of 1995, when 47 in 100 Americans were in prison, one in 112 men and one in 1,724 women. Is it that our moral standards have changed, despite the overwhelming majority of Americans claiming religious convictions? Has the ruthless march of technology, loss of job security, inability to learn new trades and processes, inadequate education, disinterest in low-pay and menial jobs and lack of employment opportunities pushed so many of our fellow citizens over the brink?
James O. Wilson, the sociologist who spearheaded the “broken window” theory responsible for the growth in penalties for early and minor offenses since the 1980s, is not alarmed, and ascribes the increase to the growth in security awareness. One should be alarmed, considering the explosions in proportions of white vs. minority (men and women both) crimes, and disproportionate growth in incarceration vs. education costs.
Locally, New York State prison population has shrunk, since the beginning of this century, to 63,315 end 2006 to 62,620 end 2008, a decline of 1.1%, while New Jersey’s, a smaller population, declined by 2%. NYS’s expenditures for incarceration are $2.682B, 5.1% of general funds, while NJ spends 4.9%. National incarceration costs in 20 years have grown 137%, while higher education has increased only 21%. Voters to note.
