Thursday, February 25, 2010
Dumbing down America, continuing
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
This article was going to be about how to remember names and not lose your house keys, addressed to members of my generation who learned at school by memorizing dates, events and names, and who read newspapers. There is a whole Internet and technology schooled generation of us who have been taught not to bother remembering but to look it up, who cannot do crossword puzzles and do such numeric puzzles as Sudoku to keep up their wits, and who read Japanese style manga cartoon and anime picture books instead of fiction. E-books also worry me you cannot pull them off the shelf, mark pages and write notes. And public libraries--- I seem to hear their death knell.
What is going on is a dumbing down of the American mind. Assume the brain is a matrix of billions of memory cells, like a set of spreadsheets, truly multi-dimensional. The learning process fills these cells and connects them via nerve networks, multi-level synapses. Thus, if you learn about Ben Franklin, you will be able to relate to Pennsylvania, printing, Parliament, lightning, Socrates, George III, Louis XVI, Continental Congress, postal service, or inoculations. Your mind has a search engine, better than Sergei Brins Google, that can spider through your brain cells and bring out related information. Miraculously, the more information your mind has, the more easily it will store new related stuff.
Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. If you do not learn simple things, such as arithmetic, you can be like those supermarket checkout clerks who need to enter the payment amount you tendered, in order to find how much change to return to you. I have asked young checkout people: you did not really need the cash register to find that you had to return nine cents, did you? In response, I get a shrug, or they want us to enter the payment. At the supermarket near 3rd Avenue and 17th Street I heard I dont need the calculator, I went to school in Barbados, and I am not American, I can do sums. It appears that not only the school system is inadequate, but that the business enterprises foster more degeneration of mental facilities by demanding that the simplest arithmetic functions not be entrusted to people. The vaunted American technological superiority is also a pipe dream. People in third world countries get better high school and college education, undiluted by diversions. Of course, they have better motivation, economic advancement. This is lacking in the US, where we have everything, household necessities supplied by China on credit, and Americans need not soil their hands in factories and repairing roads, hungry immigrants are glad to take on the dirty and demanding jobs. Even when the recession cuts all those paper- pushing (oops, keyboard) jobs, unemployment insurance and plastic cards pay for daily necessities, and theres an easy 14% rate, supposed to be a good rate, what a mockery put up by the banks. While the government is keeping its interest rates in the low single digit range, when you repay only the monthly minimum on a credit card $3,000 balance, it will keep you indebted for ten (10!) years. No wonder banks literally push their credit cards on you, at these rates they can afford the heavy defaults due rising unemployment.
The economic situation also contributes to the dumbing down of the American mind. Daily work keeps the mind alert, unemployment leads to escape activities and fantasies, and acquired but unused skills deteriorate. Out of work people may gamble, dream of easy money methods, resent everybody, develop anger against all forms of government and imagined oppression, with insane solutions. Think of the computer scientist who killed himself and several innocent people by flying an airplane into an IRS office building. Elected officials flock to the Tea Party, trying to associate with populist ideas and despaired peoples eruptions of hatred for authority, to avoid becoming targets of anger. This movement has no uniformity, no consistency and no solutions other than fantasized ones. TP needs lack of uniform ideas to retain its insane momentum, how much commonality can there be between people who variously find the seatbelt laws, free choice, emission control, budget deficits and any taxation as encroachments on individual liberty and the Constitution, whatever the definition.
But that does not stop the Republican and Conservative parties from capitalizing on dissatisfaction, uniformly defying all legislation proposed by the Democratic congressional majority. The same guys that led the country into despair, initiating immense $multi-trillion deficits, with interest costs that will choke our future generations, conducting no-win wars in Afghanistan and Iraq , and leading the economy directly into a depression, they are the ones that accuse President Obama of incompetence, when he is struggling to find unifying solutions in an impossible environment. Next thing youll find Dick Cheney running for President, claiming to be the next Savior.
The Republican resistance to cooperation is defying the principle of majority rule and minority rights, resulting in bringing governance to a standstill . Meanwhile opportunistic individual Senators in both parties, (e.g. Ben Nelson, NE and Richard Shelby, AL) have held legislation and government appointments in ransom, for special benefits. This also applies in New York State, where Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate (now ejected) have held up the NY Senate, emerging with more authority and committee power. Can the American democracy recover? Some 85% of us feel that the government is definitely broken. Can it be mended? Yes, but It would take laws passed by the same congress people to have their power limited, so figure it out.
Meanwhile, Obama is trying to fix all problems simultaneously, and curing the $600B balance of trade by probably requesting a Value Added Tax for imports. Good luck to all of us.
Next time, lets talk about remembering names and not losing our house keys and glasses.
..
This article was going to be about how to remember names and not lose your house keys, addressed to members of my generation who learned at school by memorizing dates, events and names, and who read newspapers. There is a whole Internet and technology schooled generation of us who have been taught not to bother remembering but to look it up, who cannot do crossword puzzles and do such numeric puzzles as Sudoku to keep up their wits, and who read Japanese style manga cartoon and anime picture books instead of fiction. E-books also worry me you cannot pull them off the shelf, mark pages and write notes. And public libraries--- I seem to hear their death knell.
What is going on is a dumbing down of the American mind. Assume the brain is a matrix of billions of memory cells, like a set of spreadsheets, truly multi-dimensional. The learning process fills these cells and connects them via nerve networks, multi-level synapses. Thus, if you learn about Ben Franklin, you will be able to relate to Pennsylvania, printing, Parliament, lightning, Socrates, George III, Louis XVI, Continental Congress, postal service, or inoculations. Your mind has a search engine, better than Sergei Brins Google, that can spider through your brain cells and bring out related information. Miraculously, the more information your mind has, the more easily it will store new related stuff.
Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. If you do not learn simple things, such as arithmetic, you can be like those supermarket checkout clerks who need to enter the payment amount you tendered, in order to find how much change to return to you. I have asked young checkout people: you did not really need the cash register to find that you had to return nine cents, did you? In response, I get a shrug, or they want us to enter the payment. At the supermarket near 3rd Avenue and 17th Street I heard I dont need the calculator, I went to school in Barbados, and I am not American, I can do sums. It appears that not only the school system is inadequate, but that the business enterprises foster more degeneration of mental facilities by demanding that the simplest arithmetic functions not be entrusted to people. The vaunted American technological superiority is also a pipe dream. People in third world countries get better high school and college education, undiluted by diversions. Of course, they have better motivation, economic advancement. This is lacking in the US, where we have everything, household necessities supplied by China on credit, and Americans need not soil their hands in factories and repairing roads, hungry immigrants are glad to take on the dirty and demanding jobs. Even when the recession cuts all those paper- pushing (oops, keyboard) jobs, unemployment insurance and plastic cards pay for daily necessities, and theres an easy 14% rate, supposed to be a good rate, what a mockery put up by the banks. While the government is keeping its interest rates in the low single digit range, when you repay only the monthly minimum on a credit card $3,000 balance, it will keep you indebted for ten (10!) years. No wonder banks literally push their credit cards on you, at these rates they can afford the heavy defaults due rising unemployment.
The economic situation also contributes to the dumbing down of the American mind. Daily work keeps the mind alert, unemployment leads to escape activities and fantasies, and acquired but unused skills deteriorate. Out of work people may gamble, dream of easy money methods, resent everybody, develop anger against all forms of government and imagined oppression, with insane solutions. Think of the computer scientist who killed himself and several innocent people by flying an airplane into an IRS office building. Elected officials flock to the Tea Party, trying to associate with populist ideas and despaired peoples eruptions of hatred for authority, to avoid becoming targets of anger. This movement has no uniformity, no consistency and no solutions other than fantasized ones. TP needs lack of uniform ideas to retain its insane momentum, how much commonality can there be between people who variously find the seatbelt laws, free choice, emission control, budget deficits and any taxation as encroachments on individual liberty and the Constitution, whatever the definition.
But that does not stop the Republican and Conservative parties from capitalizing on dissatisfaction, uniformly defying all legislation proposed by the Democratic congressional majority. The same guys that led the country into despair, initiating immense $multi-trillion deficits, with interest costs that will choke our future generations, conducting no-win wars in Afghanistan and Iraq , and leading the economy directly into a depression, they are the ones that accuse President Obama of incompetence, when he is struggling to find unifying solutions in an impossible environment. Next thing youll find Dick Cheney running for President, claiming to be the next Savior.
The Republican resistance to cooperation is defying the principle of majority rule and minority rights, resulting in bringing governance to a standstill . Meanwhile opportunistic individual Senators in both parties, (e.g. Ben Nelson, NE and Richard Shelby, AL) have held legislation and government appointments in ransom, for special benefits. This also applies in New York State, where Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate (now ejected) have held up the NY Senate, emerging with more authority and committee power. Can the American democracy recover? Some 85% of us feel that the government is definitely broken. Can it be mended? Yes, but It would take laws passed by the same congress people to have their power limited, so figure it out.
Meanwhile, Obama is trying to fix all problems simultaneously, and curing the $600B balance of trade by probably requesting a Value Added Tax for imports. Good luck to all of us.
Next time, lets talk about remembering names and not losing our house keys and glasses.
..
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Its still the jobs, Washington
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
You still got trouble, in Washington City, and it still starts with J. Even such a level-headed observer as David Brooks of the NYTimes believes that for the first time a third party might gain national control. After the 1932-64 Democratic/GOP reign during which Americans believed their leaders, Vietnam and succeeding events turned their faith into anger against all politicians. Now, Obamas inheritance of wars, recession and deficits is sinking him. Presumably Brooks is not talking of the Tea Party flying solo; Ross Perots Independence people tried that and failed, letting Clinton prevail. The rational way for the TP would be to elect some of their candidates now, then make the Reps knuckle down in 2012 to accept the TPs program, whatever that might be.
In NYS, on the right- wing side, we had a similar revolt - the Conservative Party of New York, which predates the national party, was founded as a reaction to the liberal policies of the GOP Governor Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (1951-73). The new party supported William J. Buckley Jr. for Mayor in 1965, collecting substantial votes, and had its first real success with the election of Bills brother James Lane Buckley (b. 1923) as US Senator in 1981-7 (he lost to Daniel Patrick Moynihan). Fiscal tax cutters, they have been largely supporting Republicans, and had their most recent shock emergence in the 2009 run for 23rd Congressional District, when Douglas Hoffman elbowed aside Republican Assemblyperson Dede Scozzafava to challenge Democrat William Ovens, and lost, after the popular Dede did not support him.
In the nearly six decades since founding, the Conservatives have lost steam, withholding support for liberal Republicans. Thus, they rejected Rudy Giuliani for Mayor in 1989, 1995 and 1997, and in 2006 they rejected Jeanne Pirro's bid for Senate. The Conservatives did support Pirro for Attorney General, but she lost to Andrew Cuomo. Their candidate for Governor in 1990, economist Herb London ran strongly against the Republican Pierre Rinfret, but lost to Mario Cuomo. John Faso, a former Majority Leader and Comptroller General, was the 2006 joint R&C candidate, but lost to Eliot Spitzer. In 2008 they backed John McCain and Sarah Palin nationally, and in 2009 their Mayoralty candidate Stephen Christopher garnered 1.7% of the popular vote. Whether they cooperate with the 2010 Tea Party now is not clear.
Coming back, how did the strange little upstart party managed to capture a US. Senatorship in 1981? Why this reaction to Governor Rockefeller (1908-79), who held the office for 24 years and subsequently was appointed Vice President of the US under President Gerald Ford, 1974-77? A distinguished civil servant, he held policymaking offices under five Presidents, from FRD on. As special assistant to the Eisenhower he advocated development of foreign economies as essential to national security, and proposed an Open Skies policy, proposing exchange of military plans with the USSR. This ran counter to the Cold War directions led by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Leaving federal service in 1956, he returned to NYS politics, and chaired two commissions, that revised NYS constitution, and led to his election as Governor in 1958, defeating W. Averell Harriman, another multi-millionaire.
As Governor, he was a strong proponent or conservancy, supporting parkland development. In transportation he was material in developing 22.000 of roads, including LIE, Northway, creating MTA by merging the NYC subway system with Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, LIRR, Metro North (a purchase). A strong advocate of expanding mass public transportation, he conflicted with Commissioner Robert Moses. In housing, he organized Urban Development Corporation, later Empire State Development Corporation, building 88,000 housing units for limited income people, and prohibited discrimination. He also cut welfare, and implemented state Medicaid. A strong supported of arts, collector of paintings and sculpture and director of MOMA, he built the Empire State Plaza in Albany, state museum and initiated the State Council on the Arts, a prototype for the subsequent National Endowment for the Arts, another controversy. Originally a supported of death penalty, he eventually abolished it, except for murders of police officers. His strong-arm effort to get rid of drug abuse by establishing the "Rockefeller drug laws" turned unsuccessful, the strong penalties are not diminishing drug trade and use, and the social effects have been found to be negative.
Rockefeller also sought the Republican Presidential nomination in 1960, 1964 and 1968, unsuccessfully. He did attain the vice presidency, but his effectiveness was much stifled by the then White House Chief of Staff, Douglas Rumsfeld. Looking at Rockefellers accomplishments, what negatives stopped his further success and caused the founding of the conservative protest movement? It was certainly not his wealth; New Yorkers have trusted their super rich to this day to be acting in public interest. In Nelson Rockefeller's case, there was a hint of artsy flightiness, internationalism, and most important, morality. The Conservative party, a creation with religious and ethnic outlooks, may have well been prompted by hints of the Governor's extramarital affairs, eventually resulting in a divorce and remarriage, with further clandestine affairs suspected.
We will explore parallels to NYC in 2010 and 2012, anon.
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
You still got trouble, in Washington City, and it still starts with J. Even such a level-headed observer as David Brooks of the NYTimes believes that for the first time a third party might gain national control. After the 1932-64 Democratic/GOP reign during which Americans believed their leaders, Vietnam and succeeding events turned their faith into anger against all politicians. Now, Obamas inheritance of wars, recession and deficits is sinking him. Presumably Brooks is not talking of the Tea Party flying solo; Ross Perots Independence people tried that and failed, letting Clinton prevail. The rational way for the TP would be to elect some of their candidates now, then make the Reps knuckle down in 2012 to accept the TPs program, whatever that might be.
In NYS, on the right- wing side, we had a similar revolt - the Conservative Party of New York, which predates the national party, was founded as a reaction to the liberal policies of the GOP Governor Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (1951-73). The new party supported William J. Buckley Jr. for Mayor in 1965, collecting substantial votes, and had its first real success with the election of Bills brother James Lane Buckley (b. 1923) as US Senator in 1981-7 (he lost to Daniel Patrick Moynihan). Fiscal tax cutters, they have been largely supporting Republicans, and had their most recent shock emergence in the 2009 run for 23rd Congressional District, when Douglas Hoffman elbowed aside Republican Assemblyperson Dede Scozzafava to challenge Democrat William Ovens, and lost, after the popular Dede did not support him.
In the nearly six decades since founding, the Conservatives have lost steam, withholding support for liberal Republicans. Thus, they rejected Rudy Giuliani for Mayor in 1989, 1995 and 1997, and in 2006 they rejected Jeanne Pirro's bid for Senate. The Conservatives did support Pirro for Attorney General, but she lost to Andrew Cuomo. Their candidate for Governor in 1990, economist Herb London ran strongly against the Republican Pierre Rinfret, but lost to Mario Cuomo. John Faso, a former Majority Leader and Comptroller General, was the 2006 joint R&C candidate, but lost to Eliot Spitzer. In 2008 they backed John McCain and Sarah Palin nationally, and in 2009 their Mayoralty candidate Stephen Christopher garnered 1.7% of the popular vote. Whether they cooperate with the 2010 Tea Party now is not clear.
Coming back, how did the strange little upstart party managed to capture a US. Senatorship in 1981? Why this reaction to Governor Rockefeller (1908-79), who held the office for 24 years and subsequently was appointed Vice President of the US under President Gerald Ford, 1974-77? A distinguished civil servant, he held policymaking offices under five Presidents, from FRD on. As special assistant to the Eisenhower he advocated development of foreign economies as essential to national security, and proposed an Open Skies policy, proposing exchange of military plans with the USSR. This ran counter to the Cold War directions led by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Leaving federal service in 1956, he returned to NYS politics, and chaired two commissions, that revised NYS constitution, and led to his election as Governor in 1958, defeating W. Averell Harriman, another multi-millionaire.
As Governor, he was a strong proponent or conservancy, supporting parkland development. In transportation he was material in developing 22.000 of roads, including LIE, Northway, creating MTA by merging the NYC subway system with Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, LIRR, Metro North (a purchase). A strong advocate of expanding mass public transportation, he conflicted with Commissioner Robert Moses. In housing, he organized Urban Development Corporation, later Empire State Development Corporation, building 88,000 housing units for limited income people, and prohibited discrimination. He also cut welfare, and implemented state Medicaid. A strong supported of arts, collector of paintings and sculpture and director of MOMA, he built the Empire State Plaza in Albany, state museum and initiated the State Council on the Arts, a prototype for the subsequent National Endowment for the Arts, another controversy. Originally a supported of death penalty, he eventually abolished it, except for murders of police officers. His strong-arm effort to get rid of drug abuse by establishing the "Rockefeller drug laws" turned unsuccessful, the strong penalties are not diminishing drug trade and use, and the social effects have been found to be negative.
Rockefeller also sought the Republican Presidential nomination in 1960, 1964 and 1968, unsuccessfully. He did attain the vice presidency, but his effectiveness was much stifled by the then White House Chief of Staff, Douglas Rumsfeld. Looking at Rockefellers accomplishments, what negatives stopped his further success and caused the founding of the conservative protest movement? It was certainly not his wealth; New Yorkers have trusted their super rich to this day to be acting in public interest. In Nelson Rockefeller's case, there was a hint of artsy flightiness, internationalism, and most important, morality. The Conservative party, a creation with religious and ethnic outlooks, may have well been prompted by hints of the Governor's extramarital affairs, eventually resulting in a divorce and remarriage, with further clandestine affairs suspected.
We will explore parallels to NYC in 2010 and 2012, anon.
It’s still the jobs, Washington
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
You still got trouble, in Washington City, and it still starts with J. Even such a level-headed observer as David Brooks of the NYTimes believes that for the first time a third party might gain national control. After the 1932-64 Democratic/GOP reign during which Americans believed their leaders, Vietnam and succeeding events turned their faith into anger against all politicians. Now, Obama’s inheritance of wars, recession and deficits is sinking him. Presumably Brooks is not talking of the Tea Party flying solo; Ross Perot’s Independence people tried that and failed, letting Clinton prevail. The rational way for the TP would be to elect some of their candidates now, then make the Reps knuckle down in 2012 to accept the TP’s program, whatever that might be.
In NYS, on the right- wing side, we had a similar revolt - the Conservative Party of New York, which predates the national party, was founded as a reaction to the liberal policies of the GOP Governor Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (1951-73). The new party supported William J. Buckley Jr. for Mayor in 1965, collecting substantial votes, and had its first real success with the election of Bill’s brother James Lane Buckley (b. 1923) as US Senator in 1981-7 (he lost to Daniel Patrick Moynihan). Fiscal tax cutters, they have been largely supporting Republicans, and had their most recent shock emergence in the 2009 run for 23rd Congressional District, when Douglas Hoffman elbowed aside Republican Assemblyperson Dede Scozzafava to challenge Democrat William Ovens, and lost, after the popular Dede did not support him.
In the nearly six decades since founding, the Conservatives have lost steam, withholding support for liberal Republicans. Thus, they rejected Rudy Giuliani for Mayor in 1989, 1995 and 1997, and in 2006 they rejected Jeanne Pirro's bid for Senate. The Conservatives did support Pirro for Attorney General, but she lost to Andrew Cuomo. Their candidate for Governor in 1990, economist Herb London ran strongly against the Republican Pierre Rinfret, but lost to Mario Cuomo. John Faso, a former Majority Leader and Comptroller General, was the 2006 joint R&C candidate, but lost to Eliot Spitzer. In 2008 they backed John McCain and Sarah Palin nationally, and in 2009 their Mayoralty candidate Stephen Christopher garnered 1.7% of the popular vote. Whether they cooperate with the 2010 Tea Party now is not clear.
Coming back, how did the strange little upstart party managed to capture a US. Senatorship in 1981? Why this reaction to Governor Rockefeller (1908-79), who held the office for 24 years and subsequently was appointed Vice President of the US under President Gerald Ford, 1974-77? A distinguished civil servant, he held policymaking offices under five Presidents, from FRD on. As special assistant to the Eisenhower he advocated development of foreign economies as essential to national security, and proposed an Open Skies policy, proposing exchange of military plans with the USSR. This ran counter to the Cold War directions led by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Leaving federal service in 1956, he returned to NYS politics, and chaired two commissions, that revised NYS constitution, and led to his election as Governor in 1958, defeating W. Averell Harriman, another multi-millionaire.
As Governor, he was a strong proponent or conservancy, supporting parkland development. In transportation he was material in developing 22.000 of roads, including LIE, Northway, creating MTA by merging the NYC subway system with Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, LIRR, Metro North (a purchase). A strong advocate of expanding mass public transportation, he conflicted with Commissioner Robert Moses. In housing, he organized Urban Development Corporation, later Empire State Development Corporation, building 88,000 housing units for limited income people, and prohibited discrimination. He also cut welfare, and implemented state Medicaid. A strong supported of arts, collector of paintings and sculpture and director of MOMA, he built the Empire State Plaza in Albany, state museum and initiated the State Council on the Arts, a prototype for the subsequent National Endowment for the Arts, another controversy. Originally a supported of death penalty, he eventually abolished it, except for murders of police officers. His strong-arm effort to get rid of drug abuse by establishing the "Rockefeller drug laws" turned unsuccessful, the strong penalties are not diminishing drug trade and use, and the social effects have been found to be negative.
Rockefeller also sought the Republican Presidential nomination in 1960, 1964 and 1968, unsuccessfully. He did attain the vice presidency, but his effectiveness was much stifled by the then White House Chief of Staff, Douglas Rumsfeld. Looking at Rockefeller’s accomplishments, what negatives stopped his further success and caused the founding of the conservative protest movement? It was certainly not his wealth; New Yorkers have trusted their super rich to this day to be acting in public interest. In Nelson Rockefeller's case, there was a hint of artsy flightiness, internationalism, and most important, morality. The Conservative party, a creation with religious and ethnic outlooks, may have well been prompted by hints of the Governor's extramarital affairs, eventually resulting in a divorce and remarriage, with further clandestine affairs suspected.
We will explore parallels to NYC in 2010 and 2012, anon.
You still got trouble, in Washington City, and it still starts with J. Even such a level-headed observer as David Brooks of the NYTimes believes that for the first time a third party might gain national control. After the 1932-64 Democratic/GOP reign during which Americans believed their leaders, Vietnam and succeeding events turned their faith into anger against all politicians. Now, Obama’s inheritance of wars, recession and deficits is sinking him. Presumably Brooks is not talking of the Tea Party flying solo; Ross Perot’s Independence people tried that and failed, letting Clinton prevail. The rational way for the TP would be to elect some of their candidates now, then make the Reps knuckle down in 2012 to accept the TP’s program, whatever that might be.
In NYS, on the right- wing side, we had a similar revolt - the Conservative Party of New York, which predates the national party, was founded as a reaction to the liberal policies of the GOP Governor Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (1951-73). The new party supported William J. Buckley Jr. for Mayor in 1965, collecting substantial votes, and had its first real success with the election of Bill’s brother James Lane Buckley (b. 1923) as US Senator in 1981-7 (he lost to Daniel Patrick Moynihan). Fiscal tax cutters, they have been largely supporting Republicans, and had their most recent shock emergence in the 2009 run for 23rd Congressional District, when Douglas Hoffman elbowed aside Republican Assemblyperson Dede Scozzafava to challenge Democrat William Ovens, and lost, after the popular Dede did not support him.
In the nearly six decades since founding, the Conservatives have lost steam, withholding support for liberal Republicans. Thus, they rejected Rudy Giuliani for Mayor in 1989, 1995 and 1997, and in 2006 they rejected Jeanne Pirro's bid for Senate. The Conservatives did support Pirro for Attorney General, but she lost to Andrew Cuomo. Their candidate for Governor in 1990, economist Herb London ran strongly against the Republican Pierre Rinfret, but lost to Mario Cuomo. John Faso, a former Majority Leader and Comptroller General, was the 2006 joint R&C candidate, but lost to Eliot Spitzer. In 2008 they backed John McCain and Sarah Palin nationally, and in 2009 their Mayoralty candidate Stephen Christopher garnered 1.7% of the popular vote. Whether they cooperate with the 2010 Tea Party now is not clear.
Coming back, how did the strange little upstart party managed to capture a US. Senatorship in 1981? Why this reaction to Governor Rockefeller (1908-79), who held the office for 24 years and subsequently was appointed Vice President of the US under President Gerald Ford, 1974-77? A distinguished civil servant, he held policymaking offices under five Presidents, from FRD on. As special assistant to the Eisenhower he advocated development of foreign economies as essential to national security, and proposed an Open Skies policy, proposing exchange of military plans with the USSR. This ran counter to the Cold War directions led by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Leaving federal service in 1956, he returned to NYS politics, and chaired two commissions, that revised NYS constitution, and led to his election as Governor in 1958, defeating W. Averell Harriman, another multi-millionaire.
As Governor, he was a strong proponent or conservancy, supporting parkland development. In transportation he was material in developing 22.000 of roads, including LIE, Northway, creating MTA by merging the NYC subway system with Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, LIRR, Metro North (a purchase). A strong advocate of expanding mass public transportation, he conflicted with Commissioner Robert Moses. In housing, he organized Urban Development Corporation, later Empire State Development Corporation, building 88,000 housing units for limited income people, and prohibited discrimination. He also cut welfare, and implemented state Medicaid. A strong supported of arts, collector of paintings and sculpture and director of MOMA, he built the Empire State Plaza in Albany, state museum and initiated the State Council on the Arts, a prototype for the subsequent National Endowment for the Arts, another controversy. Originally a supported of death penalty, he eventually abolished it, except for murders of police officers. His strong-arm effort to get rid of drug abuse by establishing the "Rockefeller drug laws" turned unsuccessful, the strong penalties are not diminishing drug trade and use, and the social effects have been found to be negative.
Rockefeller also sought the Republican Presidential nomination in 1960, 1964 and 1968, unsuccessfully. He did attain the vice presidency, but his effectiveness was much stifled by the then White House Chief of Staff, Douglas Rumsfeld. Looking at Rockefeller’s accomplishments, what negatives stopped his further success and caused the founding of the conservative protest movement? It was certainly not his wealth; New Yorkers have trusted their super rich to this day to be acting in public interest. In Nelson Rockefeller's case, there was a hint of artsy flightiness, internationalism, and most important, morality. The Conservative party, a creation with religious and ethnic outlooks, may have well been prompted by hints of the Governor's extramarital affairs, eventually resulting in a divorce and remarriage, with further clandestine affairs suspected.
We will explore parallels to NYC in 2010 and 2012, anon.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Noam Chomsky, meet Osama bin Laden
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Poor Noam Chomsky, libertarian socialist and self-declared anarcho-syndicalist, will find this accolade hard to live down. He has been praised by Osama bin Laden, in the terrorist chief's second speech in a week, first time that he does not vow to rain destruction on the US. On Friday Jan 29 (a week after Osama bragged that the Detroit underwear bomber is his emissary) as reported by Al Jazeera, bin Laden aired in public a statement about climate change, castigated the US and other Western industrial powers for failing to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and called for boycott of US goods and the dollar standard. Noam Chomsky was lauded for comparing US policies to those of Mafia. The professor appears to have earned bin Laden's praising by his November 2009 lectures at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, in which he described what he calls the US doctrine of global domination by control of Mideast oil as based on the "Mafia Principle," starting with the reinstatement if the Shah in Iran in 1953, and proceeding, incident by incident , to the present, including the claim that many Bush critics, including President Barack Obama, consider the 2003 US move on Iraq as merely a "blunder" or a "strategic mistake." The MIT foremost linguist and amateur historian also ridiculed the idea of a nuclear Iran attacking Israel ("another oppressor"), offering a reading of world events that fits in with that of the other amateur globalpoliticist, who happens to be the world's foremost killer of civilian populations. For a detailed recital, see the report of the lectures on PressTV, the Iranian website.
It is obvious that bin Laden intends to use our Washington civil liberties’ observers’ principle of putting the Guantanamo terrorists on trial as civilians rather than subjecting them to military courts, a good and honest effort to show the world the truth about American justice. To the terrorists it means that we are patsies, and not to expect death sentences. That covers also Umad Farouk Abdulmutallah,the underwear bomber sent by Yemeni Al Qaeda, who had already stopped talking until family pressure and US intel turned him around.
If Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks that the terrorist trials in New York City would endanger us, au contraire, note that Al Qaeda would probably be most glad to have this powerful international forum for broadcasting its lawyers' claims of torture and of breaches of civil liberties.
But maybe all this defense of civil liberties is part of President Barack Obama's plan; He appears to recognize that using drones for massive killing of Taliban terrorists who hide among innocent civilians has such heavy collateral damages that it destroys American reputation and severely hurts our future hopes of reconciliation. Buying, or winning enemies over was the Petraeus method in Iraq, the Three Cups of Tea man's approach in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is basic in President Hamid Karzai's new attempts to talk to the Taliban. US has started in the same direction, by persuading a 400,000 member Shinawari Pathan tribe to turn against the Taliban and destroy their incursions into the tribe’s territory, for as bargain-basement $1M at the moment; also the UN and /or NATO have opened visas and unblocked bank accounts of five Taliban spokesmen, to bring them over to negotiate terms. Finally, the some factions of the rebellious are seeing the light of stopping the carnage of mutual bloodshed and provoking killings of civilians, trading peace for possibly gaining a share in governance. Saudi influence in blockage of conservative Islamist Gulf sheiks' fund donations appears to have worked, maybe the recession and drop in the values of sheiks' holdings, also the rebellion in Yemen that threatens Saudi influence there and their rule at home, all these factors may be playing their roles. Osama bin Laden, losing some Taliban friends and Saudi funds, may also be looking for an out this side of a hangman's noose. But the Sunni suicide bombers at Karbala persist, killing pilgrims, which show that al Qaeda has many factions, operating independently.
It has been absolutely essential for the Osama party, negotiators and generals, to assure Pakistanis, Afghans and Iraqis of a continued American presence for years to come. How is that possible, in view of the President's promise to bring all US troops back home by mid- 2011? Obviously, one expects that the present troops will return as promised, to be replaced by others, police trainers, army instructors, Special Services, all most assuredly capable of flying highly controlled drones using satellite and GPS technology to wherever local governments, see trouble. There is credibility to these surmises about the President's peace intents, and Noam Chomsky can help the peace cause by using his new standing with the big terrorist guy and pushing the right buttons. But that, to a professor of linguistics, might read as a service towards US global domination rather than towards world peace. Oh, well, I’m trying.
Wally Dobelis thanks the Paper of Record, the Iranian PressTV and various murky internet sources (you don’t want to go there)...
Poor Noam Chomsky, libertarian socialist and self-declared anarcho-syndicalist, will find this accolade hard to live down. He has been praised by Osama bin Laden, in the terrorist chief's second speech in a week, first time that he does not vow to rain destruction on the US. On Friday Jan 29 (a week after Osama bragged that the Detroit underwear bomber is his emissary) as reported by Al Jazeera, bin Laden aired in public a statement about climate change, castigated the US and other Western industrial powers for failing to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and called for boycott of US goods and the dollar standard. Noam Chomsky was lauded for comparing US policies to those of Mafia. The professor appears to have earned bin Laden's praising by his November 2009 lectures at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, in which he described what he calls the US doctrine of global domination by control of Mideast oil as based on the "Mafia Principle," starting with the reinstatement if the Shah in Iran in 1953, and proceeding, incident by incident , to the present, including the claim that many Bush critics, including President Barack Obama, consider the 2003 US move on Iraq as merely a "blunder" or a "strategic mistake." The MIT foremost linguist and amateur historian also ridiculed the idea of a nuclear Iran attacking Israel ("another oppressor"), offering a reading of world events that fits in with that of the other amateur globalpoliticist, who happens to be the world's foremost killer of civilian populations. For a detailed recital, see the report of the lectures on PressTV, the Iranian website.
It is obvious that bin Laden intends to use our Washington civil liberties’ observers’ principle of putting the Guantanamo terrorists on trial as civilians rather than subjecting them to military courts, a good and honest effort to show the world the truth about American justice. To the terrorists it means that we are patsies, and not to expect death sentences. That covers also Umad Farouk Abdulmutallah,the underwear bomber sent by Yemeni Al Qaeda, who had already stopped talking until family pressure and US intel turned him around.
If Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks that the terrorist trials in New York City would endanger us, au contraire, note that Al Qaeda would probably be most glad to have this powerful international forum for broadcasting its lawyers' claims of torture and of breaches of civil liberties.
But maybe all this defense of civil liberties is part of President Barack Obama's plan; He appears to recognize that using drones for massive killing of Taliban terrorists who hide among innocent civilians has such heavy collateral damages that it destroys American reputation and severely hurts our future hopes of reconciliation. Buying, or winning enemies over was the Petraeus method in Iraq, the Three Cups of Tea man's approach in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is basic in President Hamid Karzai's new attempts to talk to the Taliban. US has started in the same direction, by persuading a 400,000 member Shinawari Pathan tribe to turn against the Taliban and destroy their incursions into the tribe’s territory, for as bargain-basement $1M at the moment; also the UN and /or NATO have opened visas and unblocked bank accounts of five Taliban spokesmen, to bring them over to negotiate terms. Finally, the some factions of the rebellious are seeing the light of stopping the carnage of mutual bloodshed and provoking killings of civilians, trading peace for possibly gaining a share in governance. Saudi influence in blockage of conservative Islamist Gulf sheiks' fund donations appears to have worked, maybe the recession and drop in the values of sheiks' holdings, also the rebellion in Yemen that threatens Saudi influence there and their rule at home, all these factors may be playing their roles. Osama bin Laden, losing some Taliban friends and Saudi funds, may also be looking for an out this side of a hangman's noose. But the Sunni suicide bombers at Karbala persist, killing pilgrims, which show that al Qaeda has many factions, operating independently.
It has been absolutely essential for the Osama party, negotiators and generals, to assure Pakistanis, Afghans and Iraqis of a continued American presence for years to come. How is that possible, in view of the President's promise to bring all US troops back home by mid- 2011? Obviously, one expects that the present troops will return as promised, to be replaced by others, police trainers, army instructors, Special Services, all most assuredly capable of flying highly controlled drones using satellite and GPS technology to wherever local governments, see trouble. There is credibility to these surmises about the President's peace intents, and Noam Chomsky can help the peace cause by using his new standing with the big terrorist guy and pushing the right buttons. But that, to a professor of linguistics, might read as a service towards US global domination rather than towards world peace. Oh, well, I’m trying.
Wally Dobelis thanks the Paper of Record, the Iranian PressTV and various murky internet sources (you don’t want to go there)...
