November 2010 Archives
One thing is certain: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was never nominated for Homecoming King. Not that he would have cared, though he's still nobody's darling now. Even without the pandemonium following the WikiLeaks leak, he's still wanted for sexual assault in Sweden, though being a meshugenah, he thought everything was consensual and hunky-dory.
Still, there are lines that a normal person just doesn't cross. A munitions expert doesn't build a bomb that blows up every part of the world except for the one he's in. A sharp shooter doesn't pull the trigger at whimsy or will. No one ever heard about Oscar de la Hoya throwing punches at a young hopeful at a gym and Arnold Palmer never hit anyone over the head with a golf club. So the "use it or lose it" principle doesn't always apply.
Like Jonathan wrote, some of WikiLeak's secrets aren't so secret at all. After all, most people know that the Sunni and the Shiite Moslems aren't going to start a choir and sing "It's a Small World" anytime soon. Hillary Clinton signing an order to spy on American diplomats abroad? Sounds unseemly but who can you really trust after Benedict Arnold? For all we know, Clinton, Obama and Rahm Emanuel may be spying on each other, too.
But the point where it fell off the deep-end is when our esteemed Secretary of State not only gave her off the record analysis of other world leaders but tried enticing American diplomats to spy on their fellow Americans. So she may have some 'splaining to do in front of a Senate subcommittee. But her worries will last no longer than the average Hollywood marriage because of the advent of the PR firm. If they can make some pop tarts look good, think what they could do for her now.
The good news is that Assange exposed some of our feckless leaders for what they are. And the bad news is that he exposed them for what they are. I'd probably want his head, too if it had been me.
It's always embarrassing to get caught taking a WikiLeak in public. The latest revelations of our not so secret correspondence with our diplomats are indeed embarrassing but hardly a national disaster. These leaks do not add significantly to our knowledge base. They neither bust wrongdoers, as did the revelation of the Pentagon Papers, nor do they compromise our security. They merely confirm what we already knew.
This is the diplomatic version of finding out that the world is round, Ellen Degeneres is a Lesbian, professional wrestling is choreographed and Obama is a Muslim. Just kidding about the last one.
The 90 students in my current events classes at American Jewish University all know--because I told them:
1. The Saudis would like us, or even Israel, to attack Iran. They have assured airspace for our planes and refueling landing rights for our return.
2. Israel believes the Saudis will allow over-flights on the way to Iran, but is less trusting of landing and refueling.
3. The Arab nations (mostly Sunni) are in a larger struggle with Iran (Mostly Shiite) than with Israel.
4. This is why there was a relative silence from the Arabs when Israel was bombing the Iranian-supported Hezzbolah forces in southern Lebanon. Israel is sometimes a Saudi surrogate.
5. Israel knew it had to set back the Iranian nuclear program either with real bombs or cyber-bombs. This time they chose cyber warfare, the Stuxnet virus.
6. We do not think much of Hosni Mubarak or fancy the chances of stability in Egypt when he is gone.
7. Turkey is involved in an internal struggle with the elected Islamists pulling it east and the secular military pulling it towards Europe.
8. Nobody thinks well of Kim Jong-Il or his 29 year-old heir apparent. China would be happy to have a united and peaceful Korea.
9. Diplomats collect information and return misinformation. The late Sir Harold Nicholson said that the difference between a soldier and a diplomat is that a diplomat is paid to lie for his country. Diplomats have always gathered personal information on the leaders and potential leaders of the countries to which they are posted--friend or foe.
10. Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy are not great friends, are not popular at home and are both personally pretty prickly. They also represent (and try to govern) countries with very different national interests. Hmmm, Germany and France have different interests? Quel surprise!
11. Bonus: Hamid Karzai and his half brother Wali are considered both unstable and corrupt.
My students knew all this not because I'm either clairvoyant or have secret information, but because all of this has been in the public domain and available for those who search. The release and reprinting of these so-called leaks is neither heroic nor treasonous--but only an embarrassing gaff. Remember a political gaff is understood as occurring when someone accidentally tells the truth.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Just when you thought that LAUSD couldn't be more dysfunctional, they outdo themselves. Someone came up with a hot idea. Why not start the school year in August? That way the kids could get three extra weeks of summer heat and be released into the world in the cool gloom of June. That way we could spend more money on air conditioning with absolutely no educational value. Yeah, that's just what we need.
This idiocy did not spring ex-nihilo from the vacuum inside the head of a professional educator. No, it was rationalized as a way adding extra weeks to prepare the kids for statewide mandated testing. This way they could get a head start and do better on the tests, which, of course, would reflect glory on our local bureaucrats. The purpose of schools being to reflect glory on bureaucrats and not actually confer educational benefits on students, this seemed like pure genius.
The one hitch in all of this--aside from how well the kids would be able to learn in August Valley heat--was that the tests are mandated to take place when 85% (plus or minus 10) of school days have occurred. Thus moving the starting day up three weeks would move the tests up also. Oh dear. So, of course, the idea has been immediately dropped, right? Don't be silly. Bureaucrats hate looking foolish--as if they hadn't bothered to read the rules--so they are working to come up for new rationales for abusing our children.
Aside from the obvious incompetence and lack of care for the children, this misbegotten idea illustrates the dangers of teaching to tests. LAUSD has lost sight of its mission which is to teach. It has adopted a new mission which is to do well in the competitive game of test results. Their mission is to look good and have good numbers. Tragically, but predictably, the children and learning can go to hell--or the Valley in August, whichever is hotter.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
If someone ran a "Whacked Out Contest," or one for those that must have recently been clubbed over the head with some foreign object, then Lloyd Schofield would be the hourly winner.
The San Francisco resident has proposed a measure to ban infant circumcision in the city limits. Hopefully the thing won't get passed, though if he can garner the 7,100 signatures needed, it will go on a ballot. If it does, and let's admit that stranger things have happened, then any violator will be accused of a misdemeanor, fined $1,000.00 and spend a year in jail. The rabbis and mohels probably don't know whether to laugh or cry.
But who knows what really lies in the breasts of mortal men? Maybe Schofield equates the loss of his with a mediocre or paltry sex life. Maybe he thinks that things would be better if he had his back. (No one knows for sure because he's not telling what happened to his, if it is still affixed or not or where the darned thing even went.)
But as an intactivist, as in one who believes in keeping things intact, Schofield says that he wants the practice banned because it is painful, risky and unethical, but he is wrong on all three.
My great-great grandfather, Velvel Koragodsky of Nairodich, Russia, sired eleven children, so the operation didn't hurt him one bit. And it hasn't hurt any of us either, or stopped us from peopling the planet when we so desired. Also, Jewish women have a lower incidence of cervical cancer. Barring variables like mahjong and chicken soup leaves only one other explanation.
Besides, what kind of a memory does an eight-day old baby have? After traveling down the birth canal, just about anything else would look lame by comparison. Some of them are rescued from garbage cans and go on to lead sane, productive and rational lives being none the wiser for it.
In terms of a healthy and functional tissue, he might want to do his homework. In the words of one esteem anesthesiologist before one such operation on a boy, "a lot of gunk gets down there and that can lead to all sorts of infections," so the old foreskin sometimes has to get the heave-ho after all.
My former twelve-year-old neighbor needed one after a series of infections. Six weeks later, he was still walking like he had just gotten off of a horse while an eight day-old baby bounces back and is on to other things more quickly.
Schofield's other argument is that the parents shouldn't be able to tell the children what to do with their bodies. Yet this is exactly the problem. No one is telling them what to do, or if they are, they aren't listening, so they get piercings and tattoos, drink, get pregnant and do all sorts of things to their bodies that have long been thought of as outside the realm of normal.
But that must also mean that we also shouldn't tell them what to do with their bodies as in sit in a chair in a classroom, run the track and field in PE or show up at any other place that the average kid tries to avoid. We should be telling them exactly where to put their bodies and then some.
The next time Lloyd Schofield wants to rally for a cause, let him select something that doesn't have a 4,000 year-old seal of approval and a longer half-life than uranium.
President Obama should turn a deaf ear to the silly chatter about him not running again. He's heard plenty of that in the weeks since the midterm election drubbing. Much of the chatter hasn't come from the usual, hostile GOP and Tea Party suspects. They've flatly said their goal is to make Obama a failed, flawed, president and presidency. The stand down talk has come in a string of op-ed pieces, web and blog talk, speculation and guesswork, from some respected Democrat Party supporters and operatives. If Obama self designates himself a lame duck president now supposedly the GOP will call off the attack dogs, embrace cooperation and bipartisanship, and this will help promote national unity, allow him to make real headway on attaining his foreign policy goals on the Afghanistan war, North Korean nukes, the Middle-East, shepherd through an economic recovery, and spare packs of Democratic incumbents from losing their jobs in another tidal wave against him in 2012. None of this makes any sense.
The GOP declared civil war on Obama not last month, or last year, but the instant the final vote declared him the presidential winner in 2008. The GOP did not launch its take no prisoner's war solely to drive him from office. The war would have been waged against Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat that won the presidency. The only thing different about Obama from them is he's African-American and that opened the racial floodgate to hector, harass, and pillory, and demean him. The GOP war is about regaining power, control, political dominance, protecting its corporate and financial interests, its strict construction definition and enforcement of the laws, and more broadly imposing its philosophical view of how government should be run. The presidency is the grand prize that pulls the political, economic and philosophical threads on how government and power will be exercised together for the GOP.
Then there's this question. If Obama can perform the political miracle that will bring political peace and unity, help the economy and improve foreign policy, by not running then why couldn't he do it as president? The Obama one-term proponents give no real answer to this.
The other blurred crystal ball gazing foisted off as political reason for Obama to pack it in in 2012 is that America has plummeted into an era of scarcity, class gaping divisions between rich and poor, plunging living standards, military decline, and faces major challenges to its economic dominance from China, India, Brazil, Japan, and Western Europe. In this view America is going the way of the Roman and British Empires. This supposedly explains the anger and angst of the Tea Party at Obama. In short, he's the fall guy for America's sink. This is bunkum too.
The Tea Party's relentless rage and hounding of Obama is not fueled by insecurity over where the tomorrow's paycheck is coming from, whether America will get clocked in Afghanistan, what Brazil will or won't do in the financial markets, or that the government can't pay its bills because of massive hock to everyone. It's fueled by race and shrewd media and political manipulation. America has been in the era of economic uncertainty, foreign competition, and military shrinkage, for the past two decades. If America's domestic and foreign slide alone was a reason to tell a president not to run that president should have been W. Bush in 2004.
There were no loud cries, endless polls, and legions of pundits clucking to Bush to step down. And if he did, it would somehow reverse America's slide, or at least let him off the hook for it. But that's exactly what Obama is being told.
A little history is in order. He can't win. He's made a mess of the economy. His foreign policy initiatives have stalled. The inexperience that his opponents repeatedly warned would do him in once he got in the White House proved true. A Gallup poll backed up the rampant talk that the President should not run for re-election because of political failures and public disgust; nearly sixty percent of the respondents said that. The president a multitude said with absolute certainty was irreparably damaged political goods and shouldn't run for reelection, and if he did couldn't win is not named Obama. It was Ronald Reagan. The year was 1982. The economy was still mired in double digit unemployment and inflation, and his approval numbers were in the tank. But we know the rest. Reagan didn't listen to the pundits the critics, or heed the poll numbers. He won a smash reelection victory in 1984. Presidents from Truman to Clinton have all heard the dreaded three words, "one-term president" said about them after popularity plunges, legislative reversals, or midterm party losses.
Two years is an eternity in politics. A recovering economy a hard, and decisive breakthrough in the war on terrorism, or GOP internal self-destruction, could turn the tide in the White House's favor. One more note, Obama's popularity numbers at the same juncture of their presidency are higher than Truman, Reagan or Clinton's, they won reelection and so can he.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk shows on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
In the never-ending crock maker of what some people will do to delegitimize Israel, the anti-Semites are at it again. This time their target is to boycott stores that sell Israeli goods. Because of that, I am planning on going to Trader Joe's to buy some humus and tehina, if I can find any, and whatever else I can lay find that is made in Israel. Whether or not I eat anything of if it just sits and fsters in my refrigeraor is beside the point.
The point is never again. When they are not fighting us with missiles and weapons, they are fighting us through the media. When they are not fighting us through the media, they are fighting us at the universities. When they are not fighting us at the universities, they are fighting us in the aisles of the stores. Maybe one day people will see that there is a domino effect in the world and in life, and when one group is brought down, the rest of civilized society soon follows.
Rupert Murdoch said it rather eloquently here.
The advance PR flacks for HarperCollins knew exactly what they were doing when they calculatedly leaked a provocative passage from Sara Palin's newest ego stroke book, America by Heart. The passage incited race. This time the target is not President Obama, at least not directly. It is First Lady Michelle Obama. Palin dredged up the worn, tired, and patently false charge claiming that Michelle sullied America when she allegedly said at a stop during the 2008 campaign she was not proud of America until Obama became a viable presidential candidate.
The quote was deliberately hacked up out of context. The oft, well-documented cite of the full quote, its context, and Michelle's expansive clarification mean nothing to Palin. In her twist and bend of Michelle's words, it becomes a statement of fact to show that Obama as she put it learned to hate white folks listening to the racial "rants" of their former pastor Jeremiah Wright. Palin's silly, and ignorant distortion makes perfectly good sense when you consider her and the political calculus she's using.
First there's her. Palin's track record in acknowledging, let alone promoting diversity during her short tenure as Alaska governor was abominable. She's on record with only a terse utterance on hate crimes legislation and on cultural diversity. According to the 2000 Census figures, blacks made up officially about 4 percent of the state population. But those who self-identify as at least part African-American bump up the percentage much higher. When American Indians, Aleuts, Eskimos, and Asians are taken together, minorities make up about one quarter of Alaska's population. This makes the state one of the most ethnically diverse in the nation. Palin didn't even bother to pay the customary lip service to hiring and promoting a diverse staff. She had no problem making that clear in a heated and contentious meeting with black leaders in Alaska, including prominent ministers, NAACP officials, and community activists. They met with Palin to voice their complaint over minority hiring and job opportunities. During the meeting she allegedly said that she didn't have to hire any blacks. Even more damning, she purportedly said that she didn't intend to hire any. Her press secretary disputed the charge, but revealingly added that Palin did not hire staff persons based on color, but solely on talent and skill.
But even if Palin had taken a stab at diversity it wouldn't alter her political calculus one bit. Race is and has been the sometimes sneaky and coded, and other times open hammer that packs of bloggers, websites, talk radio jocks, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and gaffe prone GOP operatives have used to fan their institutionalized Obama hatred. They know that a racial tweak here and there will always touch a raw among many bigots who have made it amply plain that they loathe Obama's policies and by extension him and will stop at nothing to get him out of the White House.
Michelle fits into the Palin plan to use her as a racial foil to smear the president. Michelle is gracious, charming, photogenic, smart, and most importantly from a political view, popular. That makes her a ripe target to go after. By playing race and trying to discredit her Palin does two things in addition to taking a backdoor swipe at the president. She tears down someone who can actually pose as a counterweight to the ugliness and mountainous negatives that polls show that Palin has piles of. Her other devious motive in going after the First Lady for her mythical sin is that is it serves as a convenient reminder that Michelle and Obama ala Bill and Hillary Clinton are a tandem team and that the alleged failing or missteps of the president can just as easily be attributed to Michelle as well. That's why Palin picked on Wright to remind her cheerleading crowd that Obama ad Michelle as she put it "spent two decades in the pews of Wright."
Palin double downed on the race beat by rapping Attorney General Eric Holder for his quip that Americans are cowards for not talking about race. Palin of course, conveniently neglects to mention that Obama quickly disassociated himself from the Holder knock, and nothing more was heard about that from Holder or Obama. It was the same though tactic as with Michelle; dredge up and distort an old off the cuff quote on race and stand it on its head to make a grand case that Obama, his wife, and his administration are closet bigots and America loathers.
Race as always is the tried and true vehicle that the GOP hit team repeatedly uses to make that dumb case. Palin in her crude, ignorant, but calculating way, has jumped on that too. Considering the source, surely, that shouldn't surprise anyone.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk shows on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
In times of war and danger people are often called upon to give up something, to sacrifice for the sake of the war effort, the survival of a people, a nation or a tribe. By definition war means sacrifice. People kill. People die. People do without. That's sacrifice.
Great leaders call forth from their people a spirit and willingness to sacrifice--to fight against the gathering storm, knowing that many will wither before its blasts, to go any distance and bear any burden to achieve something of value for nation or just humanity. And people, when called upon with eloquence, passion and truth, usually respond with amazing generosity and bravery.
It is therefore significant that in our ill-named War on Terror we have never been asked in a straightforward manner to sacrifice much of anything. In an otherwise compelling speech following 9-11, everything George W Bush said was right and true but an important paragraph was missing: The call to sacrifice. We were told to be resolute and not to let the terrorists win by making us afraid. We were encouraged to do our economic duty and continue to shop. Shopping is not exactly a clarion call to courage.
The message has not improved under President Obama. We still fight the terrorists. They have not yet broken our spirit but the costs of two wars may break us financially and therefore spiritually. We Americans have, because of the economy, let our side down. We no longer shop with our traditional combination of denial and the abandonment of reason.
We have been frightened into becoming a nation of sheep--meekly lining up to be wanded and searched without probable cause, x-rayed with a clarity that reveals not simply our gender but, for many males, our religion.
With a kind of "double-speak" worthy of 1984 and Big Brother we are told that our freedom depends on surrendering our freedom. Our TSA people, no doubt meaning well, are constantly spending our money, wasting our time and decaying our morale by coming up with new, expensive and intrusive ways of possibly detecting an attempt on us. Like generals preparing for the previous war, our security establishment is busy developing tools and toys that might have foiled previous attacks. TSA is unwilling to share any proof that our gadgets have, in fact, stopped anyone!
Now with full body scans, we are going to be subjected to radiation. Ah, but they claim it is minimal and couldn't hurt anyone. Please look up what our government scientists told our soldiers and their families who were called upon to witness the atomic tests in Nevada in the 50s. Look at the benign claims for Agent Orange in Vietnam. Now check the cancer statistics for both exposed populations.
But TSA is not cruel or inflexible. If you want to decline having your privates made public, then you must agree to being groped, having your groin searched for lumps and having your butt all but penetrated in search of explosive underwear. For females it is having all this plus a thorough breast examination no longer even recommended by the Cancer Association.
Still, even our current intrusive and invasive protocols would not have detected the underwear bomber, the shoe bomber, nor even the terrorist who put a bomb up his rectum and attempted to blow up the Saudi head of security. Our current technology would fail at that to, the x-rays mistaking a bomb for stool.
There are answers, less costly, intrusive and far less humiliating. Profiling, for one, is a start. Random searches are stupid. El Al looks for behavioral profiles as well as ethnic. It is silly to give a child or grandmother the same attention as young males from 20 to 35 of all ethnicities. Wanding can pick up metal. Since dogs will inevitably sniff crotches, let's just work with what God gave them and train them to react to various forms of explosives. It is doable. Dogs are cheap technology.
What we are now doing is wrong as a matter of security, social policy, law and human dignity. The scare techniques making us afraid beyond our actuarial risks will backfire. There will be push back from this Orwellian false promise of security in exchange for giving up personal privacy. Constitutionally we are promised that we will be free from unreasonable search and seizure in our homes and by extension in our person.
At last, our government calls on us to sacrifice for the war. We are asked to sacrifice our freedom, our rights and our dignity. And in exchange for our dignity do we get safety? No. We get groped.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the accused terrorist and plotter of
the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, was acquitted of the most serious charges against him. The judge proudly announced that the Constitution worked. Maybe, but no body is happy. The Obama administration failed to prove two cases. One case was against the defendant, but the other, maybe ultimately the more important one, was the efficacy of our civilian courts for trying suspected terrorists.
That the first case failed is obvious but the second is only slightly more subtle. Ghailani, whatever his sentence, was convicted of conspiracy to destroy government property (and not the murder of 224 people, including 12 Americans). He will stay locked up until America makes peace with Al Qaeda, but not because our courts worked but because he can be held as an enemy combatant. This being the case, civil libertarians, left and right, wonder why we had this trial at all?
This result means to me that it would be utter madness to try Khalid Sheik Mohammad in a civilian court in New York City or any place else. Aside from the security costs, the vulnerability of witnesses and jurors, since KSM is not getting out of jail EVER, what is the point? Since conviction is not assured, as this test case establishes, why give KSM and Al Qaeda a microphone, publicity and let him spread his hate and lies?
There is a Jewish curse: May his name be erased. The evil deserve no monuments. Nor should they be the center of discussion. Their names should find no place in our memories, nor in any part of our souls. Take KSM out of the spotlight. Deny him a platform. Block him from the martyrdom he so clearly seeks. Stick him in a dark hole and: May his name be erased.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Jonathan got it right. We are a bunch of saps. Not only that, but we are saps walking a political plank of our own making. It's the next greatest "to be or not to be" question in the illegal immigrant debate. If we kick all the undocumented workers and their kids out, then we lose cheap labor and tax the law enforcement officials who will have to search for them under every nook and cranny, in factories, in gardens and in some households. If we allow them to stay, we get to take out the welcome mats and strap them on our backs, with the justices leading the ceremony.
The problem is we need them because of cheap labor; the other problem is that we need their progeny, too because they provide jobs for the school system. The truth is most schools would be mighty empty if it weren't for their kids.
So if the 45% that finish high school want to continue on to the hallowed halls of higher learning, let them, but let them pay for it like they do in ROTC. Just let them pay beforehand or by alternating one year of college with one year of service. After all, they aren't here legally, so serving this country ought to be a small price to pay. The lawyers at the ACLU may froth at the mouth over supposed discrimination and the unfairness of it all. But what's unfair is that they are here illegally, as in what's against that oft forgotten body of work called the Constitution and that they are allowed to get in line ahead of those whose only crime was being born and raised not in another country but in another state.
The screams and squawks from the usual suspects were predictable when the California Supreme Court did the economically and socially correct thing and that's simply rule that undocumented workers that work hard in school to better themselves and become educated productive, citizens that enrich the educational and economic tapestry of the country should have a fair shot a completing their education at a cost that they can afford. That cost is not the whopping out of state tuition fees that exclude everyone except those who come from wealthy families from other states or countries.
The court ruling then was not about rewarding lawbreakers, draining hard pressed dollars from cash strapped state coffers to subsidize illegal aliens, and the ruling certainly did not symbolize the connivance of a liberal activist court (the decision was unanimous with conservative jurists backing it) to further turn California and the nation into a dirt poor province of Mexico and other Latin American countries.
In short the decision s not the end of American civilization as we know it to hear the yelps from the shrillest and most bigoted, and xenophobic about the decision. It was a decision for fairness and giving those whether they are here with papers or not that have worked and sacrificed to get a good education and contribute to society a fair chance to do just that. The Supreme Court on that count should be hailed not reviled for making the right call.
The good news about America is that when we send our military into a country--usually for defensive reasons, we do not remain in order to occupy or govern. The bad news is that we do remain. Whether former enemy or friend, we Yankees do not go home. It isn't exactly like the bad old days of colonialism. We don't really exploit them or tell them what to do. But we don't go home.
Forgetting our two current wars, we are still in Bahrain, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Guam, Israel, Italy, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey and the UK. We are renting army and air force bases and naval installations and paying to have our military guard and protect our old enemies and friends. This costs us somewhere between $100 billion and $250 billion per year. Yes, that's quite a spread, but our budgets are pretty opaque, and these seem to be the agreed upon parameters.
Yes, we know we could run a virtually deficit free budget if we weren't fighting two wars and preparing to re-fight the Cold War. While experts suggest raising the retirement age, cutting Medicare and defunding our social safety net, we might consider building bridges instead of nuclear weapons and missiles. We do have more than enough bombs to incinerate the world.
Okay, to even suggest looking at military hardware is treasonous, so let's just build the bombs and missiles as a kind of jobs program, but let's also cut out $100 billion of our annual foreign base costs. Over ten years that is a trillion dollars. This doesn't count "black ops" bases, prisons and the War on Drugs money or private contractors who often out number our in uniform troops.
Let's look at our visible bases and figure out what we're getting. Japan is not in love with our military. The people of the UK aren't clear what we're doing there. We should ask if a re-united Germany needs us to protect them--or to protect us from them? Neither, I suspect.
As for South Korea. They exist at our pleasure. If we went home, does anyone doubt the aggressive North would rain fire on them? And what do our 29,000 rent-paying, economy-supporting, life-sustaining troops buy us? Well, if you followed President Obama's less than successful Asia tour, you'll know the answer: Not much. We keep them alive and in power. We let them grow their economy and we ask only for reciprocal trade agreements. Give us, we beg, the same low tariffs on our cars as we give yours. They say No. The one place where clearly we make a difference, our efforts are important, and we get nothing.
The whole budgetary item of foreign bases needs to be revisited. Now.
It's true. I love politics. I know it's perverse, but it is just so much fun. Take the last election (PLEASE!). In the post-election we can see the difference between today's Republicans and Democrats.
The Democrats got slaughtered. This was an epic defeat. Not simply in the number of congressional representatives they lost, but also the governorships and the state houses. This was Dunkirk, Gallipoli and Waterloo but without any discernable heroism. So, what do the Democrats do? Nothing. Does anyone fall on a sword or take responsibility? Of course not. It's all passive voice like "Well, er, um, mistakes were made." By whom? Unclear. In other societies someone takes the fall--responsible or not. There is accountability. The captain goes down with the ship. Other countries and cultures, the leadership resigns. Some places "falling on the sword" is not just an expression.
Here, the Democrats stand pat. They rest on their rejected laurels and give a vote of confidence to those who led them to this place. While White House staff jumps overboard for other opportunities, there is no evidence that anyone was pushed. As for the House...well Nancy Pelosi rather than resigning stands once more for election. This time not as Speaker of the House, but as Minority Leader. Ah, loyalty.
The Republicans, on the other hand, following a triumph, virtually unprecedented in nearly 70 years, cannot stand success and have no inclination to dance with them that brung them to the mountain top. Their Chair, Michael Steele, is a figure of derision. There are open cabals (if that itself isn't a contradiction) to fire him. He is being strongly discouraged from running for a second term as party chair. Is Obama's currency so debased that the Republicans no longer believe that they need their own Black man?
Meanwhile, some of the Republican victorious are acting like, well, old Democrats and lining up against their leaders. They are pledging their independence and posturing as if they'll refuse to be led. Old-line conservatives are pulling their hard-sprayed hair out. Like Democrats they are angry at each other and devising purity tests that will exacerbate their difference as a matter of principle.
This is why politics is so much fun: Mediocrity is rewarded. Failure isn't punished.
Posing is a judged competition. Mendacity is assumed
Best of all, even in an age of eternal life on the Net, what you say one day and contradict the next isn't a problem.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
The California Supreme Court ruled that undocumented
students who have spent at least three years in a California High School have the right to instate university fees. The court wasn't talking about the children of undocumented people who were born here; they are American citizens with equal rights. This decision conferred rights on children who are here illegally and gave them a better break on tuition than American citizens from other states.
Having lived abroad I know that the ability to go to school or get health benefits is virtually non-existent without papers. While it's always impressive when our Supreme Court rules unanimously, there really seemed to be something wrong here. How is it possible legally to confer greater rights on non-citizens and non-legal residents than citizens?
This seems offensive both to reason and justice. Yet, I also felt a sense of pride--pride in our courts and our generosity. "Only in America," I thought. For all our history of racism and exploitation of undocumented people, we demand less and give more to our foreign residents than anywhere else in the world.
Some believe we're saps. Others believe that granting health and educational benefits make us stronger and safer.
In the absence of real immigration reform and control of our borders, we are faced with some pragmatic issues. If we can't control immigration, are we better off with people being both healthy and educated? Germs don't know about visas or citizenship papers. Ignorance leads to poverty--and while poverty does not cause crime, neither does it confer any societal benefit.
I would however tie tuition breaks to a form of the Dream Act and demand two years of public service (including military) to any recipient--after which full citizenship would be granted.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Everyone is mad at Israel right now. So, what else is new?
Israel is accused of being intransigent and provocative for building more homes and apartments. These actions, our major pundits explain, get in the way and sabotage the "peace process."
According to the world, Israel always picks the wrong time to assert its right to build. It was wrong to announce plans when Vice President Biden was visiting Israel. It is wrong when Netanyahu is visiting America. These are both slaps at America and our credibility. They are analyzed as intentionally provocative.
Palestinian spokesmen announce that this new building plan (as every building plan) is unacceptable and means that Israel doesn't want peace. This is nonsense and a good part of the reason that Israel is not very interested in currying the false-favor of the Arab World.
The truly sad fact is that neither the Arab World nor the Western World has given Israel any reason to care what they think. When every policy and program is met with rage and rejection, at some point normal people and normal nations just know that nothing will please their critics or mitigate the animus against them. If Israelis don't actually stop caring about the world's opinion, they stop acting as if they cared.
Israel withdraws from Gaza. The thanks? Maybe an opportunity to talk? You know better. The Palestinian response was Katusha rockets. A ten month moratorium on building housing on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Arab response? No talks till the 9th month and no talks to continue unless the moratorium is permanent.
After years of arguing over a two state solution, Israel puts it on the table as an objective, and the negotiations begin. After a few years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt says, "Well we want a two state solution with a free and independent Palestine and a secure Israel...but, of course, Israel can't be a Jewish state." Of course. Understandably Israelis are befuddled and wonder what they have been talking about and negotiating over when Israel's very nature, identity and DNA are put on the table.
As with any normal individual receiving only criticism with no positive re-enforcement, Israel stops listening, stops respecting the opinions of others and stops believing in any goodwill on the part of the world.
Whatever Israel does is wrong. And the bottom line is that many Israelis now believe that no moratorium, no ceding of territories, no exchange of land, no dropping of checkpoints, no supplying of humanitarian supplies will create the one single concession that could bring peace to all--and that is the acceptance of a Jewish State in the Middle East.
Israeli experience is that this is the way that peace is sabotaged. When Prime minister Ehud Barak offered most of the West Bank and half of Jerusalem, the Palestinian response was to throw in a demand for the right of the descendents of Palestinians who were displaced at independence to come back. Never mind the virtually equal number of Jews exiled from Arab lands at the creation of Israel. The demand was not a tactic or an obstacle to overcome. It was a refusal to make peace with what they used to call The Zionist Entity. At least that was honest--an honest rejection of Israel's right to exist.
With 45 majority Muslim countries in the world and 38 of them Muslim by law, one Jewish state is a racist apartheid nation? No wonder so many Israelis, and Jews the world over, just no longer care much for the opinion of the world.
©2010Jonathan Dobrer
JonDobrer@mac.com
Life is unfair to satirists and farceurs. Reality is so weird that it cannot be exaggerated. Once upon a time, the comedian of the absurd, Steven Wright, wondered if before giving a lethal injection executioners swabbed his arm with alcohol?
This is no longer a joke. Well, yes it is, but it is also reality. Our courts are, at every level, dealing with how comfortable we need to assure that the people we kill are while we're killing them. One execution was put on hold while a court decided if the use-by date having passed might have rendered one of the lethal drug illegal to use. What, it might have gone bad? What happens when deadly drugs are a week past their use-by date? Do they become good for you?
Another court was asked to decide if the condemned was entitled to the three-drug deadly cocktail or if the state could make do with only two deadly drugs? The two-drug mixture seemed to have worked, but some are very anxious over whether the dead guy (it is almost always a guy) might have had a few moments of pain.
Supporters of the death penalty wonder, reasonably if rhetorically, if the condemned man (and it is almost always a guy) expressed such refined sensitivities for whomever he killed.
Of course California is in the middle of this deadly muddle. We called off an execution because of the stale date of one of the drugs, Pentathol (generic sodium thiopental). Now Attorney General, and Governor elect, Jerry Brown assures us that he has found four doses of the drug that promise to remain deadly through 2114. Does this end our deadly dilemma? Of course not. You knew better, right?
Now the issue is the provenance of the sodium thiopental. Since there is some issue of transparency, opponents of the death penalty are complaining that the drug may have been imported from Europe. And in an extension of the old question about why we can't import drugs from abroad, they are saying that European drug standards might not be as good as ours, and we cannot assure the condemned man (Yeah, I know) and his family that European sodium thiopental is "safe and effective." Safe!?!
Since this is what doctors call, off the books use, it is hard to imagine the protocols for determining their efficacy. I mean do you pick a whole bunch of people and kill them using a double blind methodology, and how would you measure your results from either group of now dead people. Conducting interviews concerning pain levels would take some very talented mediums--and there are only a small number of mediums at large.
Not even hard scientific results would end the controversies. Since killing is not what the drug is designed and manufactured to do, and since no European country has the death penalty, anti-death penalty people in Europe are trying to forbid the exportation of sodium thiopental to the United States for the improper use of killing people.
All of this clearly masks the real issue which is the death penalty itself. We certainly know well enough how to kill people. We do it all the time by medical error and drug overdose. For pro-death penalty people worrying about whether death has a sting is a cruel irony. For anti-death penalty people there is no conceivable protocol that would pass muster.
Personally, I'm not a fan of the death penalty because we have not proven to be even-handed in it giving it--killing far too many poor dark-skinned males and not nearly any semblance of proportional representation of white women. Still, if we are to have it, let's stop being silly and surpassing our leading absurdists.
We all know that pain is more than physical and that psychological pain and anxiety can be far crueler than a stinging shot. With giving the condemned dates for death and moving them, there is some considerable cruelty. In giving the families of their victims dates and moving them--sometimes for decades--there is clear cruelty.
In worrying about the safe use of drugs used for killing we are subjecting reason to cruel and unusual punishment.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Our long national nightmare is ended. Keith is coming back from his "indefinite (two night) suspension." The public has spoken--left and right--and agreed that MSNBC's policy, while legal, was crazy.
Here it is: "Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest. Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the President of NBC News or his designee."
The heart (no brain here) of the policy is the legitimate fear that news people who contribute time, money or endorsements to political campaigns: "jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest."
Okay, we can see the relevance to Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams or David Gregory. But is there any doubt on the political position of MSNBC or its "hosts?" When you have on air advocates like Keith or Rachel there is the obvious fact of their political passions. There is no mere appearance. They are not playing at reporting or being impartial. Being a partisan advocate on air surely frees one to be morally and fiscally consistent in private.
©2020 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Former President George W. Bush seems to be about the only top Republican in the land who hasn't taken a shot at President Obama. There's not one, I repeat, not one single word of criticism of Obama's performance to date in the White House in Bush's near 500 page memoir, Decision Points. In fact, forget the word criticism, the times that Bush mentions Obama in the book he practically gushes over him on everything from the handling of the Afghanistan war to the economic crisis.
The easy answers for why Bush's love fest with the president is that he's a much maligned, much reviled former president who finds it prudent to take the statesmanlike high ground, and shower praise on his successor, lest he run the grave risk of putting his failed, flawed, bumbling and blundering policies back on the table as fair game for attack. Another answer is that he's simply following presidential protocol, and that is speak no ill of your successor. Or, that he's trying to peddle a book, and since it's not a sex and smut gossipy, tabloid tell all, he and the book must come off looking and sounding politically revealing, intriguing, and informative, to get the cash registers jingling on book sales. These undoubtedly are sensible reasons for Bush's gratuitous deference to Obama. But there are other reasons that are even more compelling.
Obama has in part through political necessity, pragmatism, and political belief followed in some of Bush's footsteps. The two most prominent things that Bush praised him for are the handling of the Afghan war and the economic crisis. Obama and Bush have been in lockstep agreement that the war should be waged, and waged to win, and that the US would spend whatever it takes, and make whatever military sacrifices that have to be made to insure that. At every stage of the presidential campaign, Obama's speeches, and his action to escalate the war once in the White House, confirmed that he meant business on this. It was virtually the same tough, unrelenting position that Bush struck on Iraq. If you're George W. Bush you can't help but like this and cheer lead Obama for it. If you're Bush you also have to like Obama's willingness to leave virtually untouched the deals worked out to rescue the banks, the Wall Street houses, and keep in place as your top economic advisors and micro managers those with close ties to the banking and corporate leaders, and who will play it close to the vest on tax, spending, and budget decisions.
Then there's the way things are done in the White House. Obama like Bush did what every other new president does during his first two years in office. He used the early public goodwill to make politically favorable appointments, ink executive orders and push through Congress programs that likely would draw fire later on, while exerting a tight grip on executive power, and casting an eye on building a favorable historic legacy. In Bush's first address to Congress, he cast himself as the education president, talked about health care reform, and made a vague promise to tackle paying off the national debt. Obama has repeatedly talked about these issues, up to and including carbon copying and tweaking one of Bush's few signature achievements, the No Child Left Behind initiative.
Obama like Bush took big campaign hits for being a foreign policy novice and has moved just as quickly to meet and talk with foreign leaders, embark on a busy round of state visits, and try to repair the monumental damage that Bush did in poisoning relations with America's allies. But at the same time, Bush staunchly backed a national missile defense system in Europe. So did Obama initially. He called a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland the most cost-effective and proven defense system. He tied the decision to go ahead with it directly to Iran's nuclear threat and international security concerns. Obama backed away from it on the recommendation from the Pentagon, but a truncated version of the system is not entirely off the military and diplomatic table.
There's much to like and admire from Bush's view about Obama, but that alone wouldn't be enough to explain his heap of praise on him. The final clue to why he does came following a meeting with Obama immediately after the election. He applauded him for shoring up GM and the other automakers. Bush quipped to his economic team, "I won't dump this mess on them." Bush did but he didn't just dump it on Obama dumped the mess on the nation too. For that he can't afford to utter a word of criticism about the effort he's made to clean up that mess he made.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk shows on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Keith Olbermann Gives MSNBC a Finger
MSNBC suspended Keith Olbermann indefinitely. What was Keith's shocking transgression? Did he libel the president of the company? Did he commit high crimes and misdemeanors? No. MSNBC was shocked, SHOCKED to find out that Keith (are you ready for it?) supported three Democrats running for office.
Oh the surprise. The betrayal. A political pundit has an opinion. It must be said not a very secret opinion; and he doesn't just opine, pontificate and blow hot air, he actually acts in a way consistent with both his values and his on-air persona.
Is MSNBC shocked that Keith is not objective? Has Keith violated the code of the news reporter who is supposed to pretend to being objective? He couldn't break the code because he is not a reporter. He is an opinion guy. That's his job.
Does MSNBC not position itself as a partisan player, "Leaning forward" and to the left? Like the NPR Juan Williams debacle, this stinks of policies that are ill-considered and of hypocrisy. The only difference between Keith and Juan is that Keith has better ratings. In fact he has the best ratings on the network. You sinking suits at MSNBC better think this through again.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
South Carolina GOP Senator Jim DeMint gloating in the aftermath of the GOP House wipeout crowed that the election sent a message that the country rejected Obama's policies. The message was not a message but a warning that Obama must toe the GOP line or as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just as bluntly put it the GOP will fulfill its goal of making him a one term president. President Obama now more than ever must turn a tin ear to Jim DeMint and House Republican hawks.
Polls show that voters want Congress to work with the president on solving the nation's problems, starting with the economy. They do not want a repeat of 1994 when a hardball, pig headed GOP leadership shut down government and caused national angst and misery. They want home foreclosure relief, to give health care reform a chance to work, keep hands off financial reform, and an end to the Iraq and Afghan wars. The polls showed that they hold Congress and that includes the GOP in far lower popular esteem than Obama.
The White House must not to panic, be bullied by the Tea Party egged on House GOP hawks, or swallow the media mantra that the election was somehow a total rejection of Obama's initiatives. FDR didn't panic in the face of 1938 midterm losses. He stayed the course, remained true to his populist faith, turned the tables back on his foes, and dared them to move the country forward not backward. Obama should do no less and turn a tin ear to the right.
Being a liberal my friends were surprised by my good mood following the election. It's not that I enjoyed the congressional debacle. I'd thought we'd lose "only 53 seats" and keep the Senate. Nor did I have a sense of pure elation that Boxer won and Jerry (Everything old is older again) Brown won. I was glad that our state isn't for sale and that moneybags had only limited utility across the nation.
Nor was it my realization that the Tea Party will be bigger pain to the Republicans than to the Democrats. It already cost the Republicans the Senate. Delaware, Arizona, Colorado would have gone Republican with regular conservative Republican candidates.
Two facts gave me comfort. One was the role of Hispanics. They came out for Brown after Meg Whitman's terrible fumble of her housekeeper. It wasn't that she employed her but that she fired her without doing what most of us would have done and helped her get a lawyer. They also showed up for Harry Reid after Sharron Angle's racist TV ad featuring swarthy people crawling across our border. Her assertion that they could have been Canadians was risible. Hispanics were not just for Democrats but voted their informed interests, electing three Republican governors: Nevada, New Mexico and Florida.
My greatest pride was in California and how we handled the propositions. We made liberals and conservatives happy or miserable depending on the issue. We did not vote party line. Our votes were informed and nuanced. We acted like thoughtful people, and even though I didn't get my way on everything, democracy worked.
*Okay "Elation" may be too strong a word. Maybe it should be "Cold comfort."
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Just when I think tha all is going to go to Hades in a hand basket, something happens that makes me say, "Hey, ho. Well, maybe it ain't so bad after all. Maybe I won't wind up moving to Tahiti to paint pictures for of the natives for the rest of my life."
Finally, the goose laid the golden egg and some conservatism and sensibility finally came home to roost. The American people sent a message and send a message they did. And here is what we said by standing in line or mailing in those absentee ballots.
We want our America back. Not like it is during times of turbulence and mayhem or world wars, but we want America back with the greatness of a country that was once ours, even with its nicks and kinks and tarnish we've been trying to polish. We want an America with secure boarders. We want out of the drug cartels that are reigning in and bringing nothing but violence and chaos. We want out of a Washington that tells us that everything is getting better even though many people can't find a job and can barely afford food or rent. We want to get away from a House Speaker like Nancy Pelosi who tells us that the Democrats have made some great strides and that their work isn't done. We want to get away from all that.
The basic conservative sweep showed us that it's time to return this country to what it once was and to more of what it can be.
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