March 2011 Archives
Hello out there in Readerland:
I'm up with another post on wordpress, as if you didn't know. This one's about my pepper spray vs. Krav Maga as a form of self-defense. Read it here...
Thanks and Tootles,
Gail-Tz.
I always thought that the Norwegians were such a fair-minded and peace-loving people. Scratch that and drop it down the nearest receptacle.
It turns out that some of their university elite and politicians are as anti-Semitic as other university elite and politicians elsewhere, like those in Palestine, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Russia, Germany, England, Venezuela and many other countries.
Let's consider their choice of university guest speakers. They'll allow pro-Palestinian lecturers in, but they won't extend the same courtesy to Alan Dershkowitz and other pro-Israel lecturers into their universities, even gratis.
This shows up even in their choice of leaders. When Obama appointed Rahm Emanuel to be his chief of staff, former Norwegian Prime Minister, Kare Willock said, "It doesn't look too promising. He has chosen a Jew." Good thing that Willock isn't a political analyst because Emanuel was elected as Mayor of Chicago.
Maybe they're not so elite after all.
Here's the clip.
Anti-Semitism doesn't even mask itself as anti-Zionism. ALAN M. DERSHOWITZNorway to Jews: You're Not Welcome Here
I recently completed a tour of Norwegian universities, where I spoke about international law as applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the tour nearly never happened.
Its sponsor, a Norwegian pro-Israel group, offered to have me lecture without any charge to the three major universities. Norwegian universities generally jump at any opportunity to invite lecturers from elsewhere. When my Harvard colleague Stephen Walt, co-author of "The Israel Lobby," came to Norway, he was immediately invited to present a lecture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Likewise with Ilan Pappe, a demonizer of Israel who teaches at Oxford.
My hosts expected, therefore, that their offer to have me present a different academic perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be eagerly accepted. I have written half a dozen books on the subject presenting a centrist view in support of the two-state solution. But the universities refused.
The dean of the law faculty at Bergen University said he would be "honored" to have me present a lecture "on the O.J. Simpson case," as long as I was willing to promise not to mention Israel. An administrator at the Trondheim school said that Israel was too "controversial."
The University of Oslo simply said "no" without offering an excuse. That led one journalist to wonder whether the Norwegian universities believe that I am "not entirely house-trained."
Only once before have I been prevented from lecturing at universities in a country. The other country was Apartheid South Africa.
Despite the faculties' refusals to invite me, I delivered three lectures to packed auditoriums at the invitation of student groups. I received sustained applause both before and after the talks.
It was then that I realized why all this happened. At all of the Norwegian universities, there have been efforts to enact academic and cultural boycotts of Jewish Israeli academics. This boycott is directed against Israel's "occupation" of Palestinian land--but the occupation that the boycott supporters have in mind is not of the West Bank but rather of Israel itself. Here is the first line of their petition: "Since 1948 the state of Israel has occupied Palestinian land . . ."
The administrations of the universities have refused to go along with this form of collective punishment of all Israeli academics, so the formal demand for a boycott failed. But in practice it exists. Jewish pro-Israel speakers are subject to a de facto boycott.
The first boycott signatory was Trond Adresen, a professor at Trondheim. About Jews, he has written: "There is something immensely self-satisfied and self-centered at the tribal mentality that is so prevalent among Jews. . . . [They] as a whole, are characterized by this mentality. . . . It is no less legitimate to say such a thing about Jews in 2008-2009 than it was to make the same point about the Germans around 1938."
This line of talk--directed at Jews, not Israel--is apparently acceptable among many in Norway's elite. Consider former Prime Minister Kare Willock's reaction to President Obama's selection of Rahm Emanuel as his first chief of staff: "It does not look too promising, he has chosen a chief of staff who is Jewish." Mr. Willock didn't know anything about Mr. Emanuel's views--he based his criticism on the sole fact that Mr. Emanuel is a Jew. Perhaps unsurprisingly, fewer than 1,000 Jews live in Norway today.
The country's foreign minister recently wrote an article justifying his contacts with Hamas. He said that the essential philosophy of Norway is "dialogue." That dialogue, it turns out, is one-sided. Hamas and its supporters are invited into the dialogue, but supporters of Israel are excluded by an implicit, yet very real, boycott against pro-Israel views.
------ End of Forwarded Message
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What Americans don't know about the world, and particularly the Arab and Muslim World could fill volumes. At the start of the Iraq War the fact that there were Kurds and Shiites and Sunnis and each group was also divisible, was unknown at the top policy level. There were Christian Kurds, Sunni Kurd and Communist Kurds--even a small remnant of Jewish Kurds. There were secular Sunni and religious Sunnis. There were secular Shiites, religious Shiites, Arab ethnicity Shiites and Persian ethnicity Shiites.
Three years into the Iraqi War most of our FBI didn't know the difference between Sunni and Shiite. Eight years into the Afghan War our generals admitted that they were just coming to terms with the various ethnicities and tribal structure. Now add tribal systems and we start to glaze over.
So now let's see what we don't know about Libya. Well, to start with, it is an assembled country--like Iraq and Afghanistan, not a real nation like Egypt or Tunisia. It is highly tribal and the tribal differences make up for the seeming simplicity of being close to 100% Sunni Arab. And the thing is about tribes: They're extended families. You may not like each other, but that is your business. Anyone outside the tribe attacks your brother, with whom you do not speak, you will still kill for him and die for him.
The rebels were sweeping eastward towards Tripoli. The momentum was on their side. All that stood between them and Misrata and Tripoli was Sirte. What could go wrong? Nothing at all if you're just looking at the map, the momentum and the geography. Unfortunately quite a bit can and did go wrong because we in the USA and the punditocracy did not know who lives in that city and that region of Libya. Oh, sure, we knew it was Gadaffi's hometown, but how important could that be?
Very. It is also the home of the Gadaffa tribe. Yes, the whole mid region is inhabited by people who might not like Muammar Gadaffi personally, they might even agree that he's a monster, but he's their monster. Gadaffi is of the Gadaffa, and family counts for a lot in that part of the world.
It used to be a cliché that Americans learned geography by going to war. It would be nice if we learned a little cultural anthropology before going to war.
©2011
Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
My father used to tell me to consider the source when it came to dealing with people. Maybe there would be less mayhem in the world if everyone just stopped, looked and listened.
The same is true for Ohio Democrat, Representative Dennis Kucinich who said that Obama should be impeached for bombing Libya. Around the same time, Mitt Romney said that Obama wasn't bombing enough. Which just goes to show that that you can't please everyone. Personally, I thought that Obama should have done us all a favor and dropped a missile on Gaddafi's head. But that's just me. I am funny like that.
I don't know if it is some kind of a PR ploy on the way to running for president, if Kucinich is just a nut or both. But what else can you expect from a man who bites into a sandwich containing an olive pit and sues for $150,000.00? I read the reports. I know he suffered excruciating pain, but are his bicuspids really worth that much? In the end and after several surgeries and ill-fitting replacements, they settled.
Maybe Kucinich suffers from some kind of malady where he projects his inadequacies onto others. Either way, his foibles can be traced back early. When he first became mayor of Cleveland, Ohio in 1977, he nearly drove the city into bankruptcy when he refused to sell some power to private companies during a budget crises.
Is this someone people should be listening to? Unless he wants to order scrambled eggs, probably not.
The United States hasn't licensed a nuclear power plant in nearly four decades, and the last plant to come on line was in 1996. (This tells you something about how difficult it is to fund and build nuclear facilities) We are unlikely to build another one in the foreseeable future--certainly not in my lifetime. Just when even semi-green folks were looking at nuclear energy again and were coming to believe it was safe, or safer, than drilling for oil in deep water or burning coal, just when Obama was saying it should be pursued, Japan woke us up and the tsunami threw cold water on any nuclear dreams.
The catastrophe in Japan reminds us that nothing is fool proof. We cannot engineer against every possibility. We cannot prevent what we cannot foresee. And we cannot trust the information that we get from experts tied to power companies, the nuclear industry or government.
No one is consoled by our NRC(Nuclear Regulatory Commission) people telling us that Diablo Canyon or San Onofre can withstand any foreseeable earthquake or tsunami. Hearing a spokesman promise that neither of the known off-shore faults by our two plants could generate the local acceleration needed to compromise the reactors, was neither comforting nor credible. An unknown fault was discovered virtually under Diablo only a year ago. What we don't know can hurt us.
Our old "very safe" reactors also have an important design flaw, quite apart from the reactor's chamber potentially being compromised. The spent fuel pools are accumulating hot fuel rods, and they are stacking up. Why? Because we haven't found a good place to dispose of them. They constitute a danger and are not protected like the active reactors. While we don't put them virtually unprotected on the roof as in Japan, they are vulnerable to both terrorism and natural disaster.
The lack of credibility of the Japanese spokesmen has been embarrassing: "No danger. Some leaking but no health risk. Uh, don't drink the milk or eat the spinach. Go 10k away, make that 30k. Run! The water is 10,000,000 times over the safe limit. Oh, never mind, the good news is its only 100,000 times over the limit."
Let's assume that the only 100,000 figure is for the moment true (could change for the worse by the time you read this), it is not comforting when the scientists charged with protecting society misplace decimals by three places. It is difficult to tell deception from incompetence, and that's a Faustian choice.
All energy sources have drawbacks and costs. From fighting to control oil-producing nations to the deadly particulates we produce when we burn oil and coal, to earthquakes from geothermal plants and unsightly (to some) wind farms, there is no energy without cost and consequence. However, when considering, or reconsidering, nuclear energy, when things go wrong, the consequences could prove to be beyond imagining. This is a genii best stuffed back in the bottle. Now, just where can we bury that bottle?
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Hi,
I'm back again with another pepper tale. I am sorry, but I just couldn't help myself.
Gail-Tz. ; )
President Obama is not quaking in fear from the criticism of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, nor should he. Obama does have some explaining to do about his reversing of campaign positions on consulting congress. He was against George W's unilateralism, his failure to build real coalitions as well as his assertion of his war-making powers.
Note that during the primaries, Hillary, believing she would be president, refused to endorse the War Powers Act. Now that Obama is president, he too sees things differently and is acting without showing congress the deference they believe they're due.
Ironically, he becomes politically vulnerable by his careful and artful creation of a real international coalition. Obama and Hillary worked well in involving both NATO and the Arab League. Getting a very elastic resolution from the UN took time but was worth it--even with some squabbling among the allies.
The congress and the right wing will never approve of anything he does (Newt Gingrich was for intervention before he was against it). Many congressional reps, Democrat and Republicans, are offended that Obama took more time in consultation with potential allies than with them. They feel dissed.
Add to this the squeaky voice of Kucinich and Earl fears the political sky is falling. I don't think so. Kucinich has no troops. He's an outsider amongst Democrats--their version of Ron Paul. Obama can benefit from criticism from the left; it bolsters his centrist bona fides. It won't hurt him with real liberals who have no other place to go. In order to win in 2012, Obama has to carry the center while not alienating the activists. The left will always complain--as will the right--but not having Kucinich in his corner is far better than having him.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich didn't stop at blasting President Obama on his Libya war policy recently in a meeting of ultra-liberal Congressional Democrats. He practically invited Congress to consider an impeachment discussion of Obama.
The real troubling thing about Kucinich's far-fetched hint that Obama could be subject to impeachment is that there are more than a few Republicans that would gladly relish the thought of having a contentious, distracting, and uproarious debate over Obama's conduct not only in Libya but also over every other one of his policies. This would be more than a classic case of politics makes strange bedfellows, it would be a major destabilizing debate just at the point when Obama is gearing up in his push for re-election in 2012.
The outbursts from Kucinich and other Democrats, then, about Obama violating Congressional trust and prerogatives on Libya, simply adds to the political confusion. And that's political manna from heaven for the GOP. Kucinich has found a warm reception on some conservative talk shows; shows that normally would not give him the time of day at any other time. But a lambaste of Obama coming from a liberal Democrat is something that the Right will always gleefully welcome. The GOP noise machine gets their fondest wish of pillorying Obama without saying a word, all courtesy of the Democrats.
Real Estate tycoon Donald Trump's talk about a presidential bid is take your pick: a bad joke, a cheap publicity stunt, or the delusional raving of a guy with too much money, too much ego, and way too much time on his hands to stroke both. But Trump did manage to figure out one angle that was a sure fire, can't miss way to get attention. That was to dredge up the Birther's lie about President Obama.
Trump knew it would get the tongues wagging and an invite on a popular talk show. Though one of the hosts tore into him on it, Trump was non-plussed and repeated the stock line, "I want him to show his birth certificate" not once but twice. That as more than enough to get cheers from at least one Tea Party leader who gleefully said that Trump's revisit of the bogus issue got instantly elevated his presidential stock. It didn't. But the horrid and appalling truth is that it did put a household name, quasi public figure on record that the issue has enough merit to become a campaign issue. It won't, simply because it's now so discredited that it's joined the pantheon of politically correct no-nos for any of the pack of would be GOP presidential contenders to raise. Trump knew that, and that's partly why he blurted it out. But he also knew that why its taboo subject to raise in polite political circles, a significant number, if not majority of Republicans actually believe or want to believe that Obama's birth is a legitimate issue to dump back on the political table. This is not an insignificant point. More than two dozen lawsuits and petitions have been filed in various state courts contesting Obama's U.S. citizenship. The Supreme Court's refusal to demand that Obama pony up his birth certificate has done absolutely nothing to take any steam out of the movement. If anything, it probably added some vapor to it, by convincing more that the Courts are in cahoots with the Obama White House to keep the real "truth" about his imagined foreign birth secret from the American people. In the past year, eleven states have in one form or another taken up the cry for presidential candidates , and of course the president to prove that they are bonafide U.S. citizens. The even scarier thing about the bogus controversy is that in each of the states that are trying to get a birther law passed, the bill's sponosrs have gotten dozens of legislators to sign onto to their bills. Georgia is a good example of the popularity of the birther line. GOP state rep Mark Hatfield got more than one -half of the Georgia legislature's 180 members (including one Democrat) to endorse the bill that flaly demands that President Obama produce his birth certificate to get on the Georgia's 2012 presidential ballot. Hatfield and the other bunch of signers rejected Hawaii's repeated public exhibit of Obama's birth certificate as "not sufficient."
The Obama birth certificate clamorers kicked their rumor mongering campaign about Obama's birth into even higher gear when some mainstream papers found the birth certificate controversy good copy and grist for public chatter. Since then the birthers have crudely cloaked themselves in the mantle of public spirited citizens and legal experts with no personal, political, let alone racial, ax to grind with Obama. Their sole goal they claimed was to insure electoral truth and accuracy, to make sure that all the legal requirements for holding a presidential office are met, and to head off a constitutional crisis. They even promised that they would put the matter to rest if Obama simply produced the original.
The real value of the Birther movement is that it's a tailor made back door movement to destabilize, or at the least keep the Obama administration off balance on policy initiatives he's pushing on health care, the economy, and a softer foreign policy outreach. The GOP and especially Tea Party leaders and activists are ferocious opponents of that.
Trump latched onto the birth certificate issue in part to keep his screwy, media grabbing presidential tease alive and along the way to make mischief against Obama. Beyond Trump doesn't have a single policy idea that anyone one stage beyond comatose would listen too. But then again he doesn't have to there are just too many millions out there that want to believe and think the worst about Obama. The fraudulent birth certificate controversy will always fit that bill.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a national Capitol Hill broadcast radio talk show on KTYM Radio Los Angeles and WFAX Radio Washington D.C. streamed on The Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on blogtalkradio.com and wfax.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Hello, Peeps,
Just wanted to let you know that I posted again at Wordpress here.
Enjoy and have a great weekend.
Gail
I don't understand. No. Really, I don't understand why CNN has been making Ahmed Al Mehdi the hero of Benghazi. Yes, I know the "I don't understand gambit" is an over-used rhetorical trope, but in this case I am truly befuddled.
You see Al Mehdi was a suicide bomber. He loaded his car with containers of gasoline and bottles of cooking gas. He parked outside the barracks housing the pro-Gadaffi soldiers in Benghazi, and read the Quran for a half hour. Then he drove into the barracks and blew them up.
Now normally we call suicide bombers cowardly and morally despicable. Normally we see this not as the instinctual act of bravery of a soldier sacrificing for other soldiers in the heat of the moment, but a kind of religious aberration and example of fanaticism.
In a world of situational ethics and moral relativism, this lionizing of a suicide bomber is still shocking. Do we really want to celebrate this? And if we do, does this not throw our already confusing policies into moral disarray? Is this cynicism on CNN's part or just the proof of the absolutism of moral relativism? I don't understand.
©2011Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
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In the end, Elizabeth Taylor was an inspiration to us all not only because of her astounding beauty but because of her passion, humor and loyalty. She may have had her missteps; she may have had her scandals. But we forgave her because she was unflinchingly and unapologetically Elizabeth.
She taught us about love and beauty and giving and passion and friendship, the things of which life is made, and she taught us how to live. After everything, when all was said and done, she was a blessing and a life force. May she rest in peace. She will be missed.
Elizabeth Taylor came to our dinner for The Friends of Tel Hashomer, the Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Israel in 1992. This was a dinner with a purpose, and she was a lady with a purpose. She was, as we all know, a fierce battler in a war against AIDS.
I was president of The Friends at the time, and Ms. Taylor was our dream "get." But the obstacles seemed overwhelming. Every celebrity, indeed every person I know, receives an endless number of invitations and exhortations to contribute to many truly worthy causes. We could only imagine how many solicitations Ms. Taylor received. Even the wealthiest must turn down more requests than they could possibly accept.
So, why did Ms. Taylor accept our offer of the annual Humanitarian Award? She certainly didn't need the ego satisfaction of another dinner in her honor or even a nice award plaque. She allowed herself to be honored because there was a greater purpose--the establishment of the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Institute at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center Israel. She said Yes because she wanted this night, as she wanted her life, to make a difference in the fight against AIDS.
There was an extra-added attraction to this dinner. She was presented her award by Jehan Sadat, the widow of Anwar Sadat of Egypt. This too was emblematic both of Ms. Taylor and the Sheba Medical Center, where neither religion nor nationality gets in the way of research, treatment and teaching.
Indeed Ms. Taylor's appearance at our dinner and her willingness to involve her friends have led to teaching and treatment not simply in Israel and not only of Egyptian and Palestinian doctors and nurses, but also throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Elizabeth Taylor's considerable beauty was far more than skin deep. She lent her grace and passion to the larger world and with great generosity of spirit did much to leave our world a better place for her having lived here. Fifteen-hundred of us cheered her that night and we, and so many millions more, continue to applaud both her passion and compassion.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Aside from the horror of another Palestinian bombing, the thing that scares me as much is that it has become such a frequent part of their routine that I am afraid that the world's becoming anesthetized to them.
Yet, it's like Toronto Star journalist, Rosie DiManno once wrote, "it is only dead Jews, and we are accustomed to their dying."...
I don't know what to say to a people who air their supposed grievances like this - and to a world that excuses them. I hope Israelis bring the perpetrator(s) to justice and build and expand on land won in a war and is rightfully theirs to begin with.
Nations have neither permanent friends nor enemies, only permanent interests. If you take the alliances and enemies that nations have had, it starts looking like string art on cardboard with lines leading here and there, all over, and back.
In World War II, we were allied with the Russians. Then came the Cold War, and all that changed. Now we are at least back on civil terms with them. The same with China or Japan and most other places.
And now it is with Libya. While Gadhafi was probably on few party lists, he was on good enough terms with us to consider selling him weapons and okay enough for us to let him do whatever he wanted for forty years. And some of it was pretty awful. That's because no matter how he behaved, he always had that trump card up of oil up his sleeve.
But that was then, this is now and our ever changing needs have changed once again. Of course, we, like most of the civilized and uncivilized world, deplore Gadhafi, but we tolerated and put up with him because of that natural (geologic) resource. Otherwise, someone would have let him have it long before now.
On the other hand, there is that bit about right and wrong to consider. And some of his behavior and henchman-like ways have offended even the most deadened statesmen's pallet. That's why his days in office are numbered, and the sooner the better, too.
Our current policy towards Libya and humanitarian wars has parts that are good, bad and ugly. Like pre-emptive war, a humanitarian war incarnates some pretty hard to reconcile elements. Our desires, so far as we can discern them, seem good. Obama's articulation of our interests, goals and exit strategy is bad. And the absence of a cohesive alliance that is reading from the same page, or even the same book, is ugly.
President Obama has come into much criticism from all sides on Libya. Some say he was too slow in coming to the rescue of the rebels. (Note: We don't call them insurgents) Others say he acted precipitously by not speaking to the American people before committing our armed forces or consulting more fully with Congress. Some say he shouldn't have waited and worked to form a coalition. Others say that it isn't really a coalition. Most believe that sending our forces in was an act of war and that announcing it while on a foreign trip was inappropriate.
As a strong supporter of the president, I am forced to say that all these criticisms--even if seemingly contradictory--are justified. Our policy in regards to Libya is tactically, strategically and morally incoherent. This is different from wrong, but not by much. We do not, in fact, have clear objectives, only wishes and hopes, and these do not constitute policy. Yes, we would like Gadaffi out. He is deeply despicable and has no friends even in the Arab World. Besides sponsoring acts of terrorism against the west, he has also worked to destabilize Arab countries. The world would be better off without him.
When the Arab Revolt spread to Libya and the people rose up in the streets, even in Gadaffi's stronghold of Tripoli, there was a chance he could be quickly toppled. When we took our time and worked to build an international consensus, it was not a bad idea in terms of process. Going alone would have been a mistake, although it would likely have been effective. Getting the Arab League to act took time. Putting a coalition together in the UN's Security Council, where both China and Russia had a veto and were generally opposed to intervening in the internal affairs of nations, took both skill and leverage. Obama and Hillary Clinton were brilliant and persuasive. However, the convincing came awfully late and by then Gadaffi had found his footing and was already driving back his opposition and brutally punishing all who seemed less than perfectly loyal.
Almost like Saddam pretending to have weapons of mass destruction and daring us to attack, Gadaffi 's promise to slaughter his own, "to go house to house and closet to closet and show neither mercy nor pity" were credible and intolerable threats. Tragically, by the time all the pieces seemed in place it was very late in the game, and Gadaffi had moved to the gates of Benghazi.
The resolution we obtained from the UN, Security Council res.1972, was not a narrow imposition of a No-Fly zone, which would have been pretty useless by that time, but an open ended invitation to protect civilians "by all necessary means." This could mean what anyone wanted it to mean. The only thing forbidden was the occupation of the country. But nothing was actually defined--not the strategy, the tactics, the goals or the leadership.
While the so-called allies were still conferring, France jumped the gun and sent planes in to strafe Gadaffi's tanks outside Benghazi. It was a breach of process, but it was also the right thing to do. Another day of negotiations and it could all have been over with Gadaffi occupying Benghazi. But this unilateralism by France is emblematic of the whole operation. We not only do not have an exit strategy, we didn't have an entrance strategy either.
Then there is the question of Obama's public leadership. No, this should not have been casually announced from Brazil. He needed to tell us what we were doing and why. Starting a third war in a Muslim country is not a footnote to the day's news. And his announcement did not coherently convey our national interest, distinguish why this slaughter of civilians was different from those perpetrated by our friends in Bahrain and Yemen or what our true goal was.
To say we were only protecting civilians and not trying to overthrow Gadaffi did not pass any smell test. It is an insulting lie--and to try to distinguish between his personal policy objective ("Gadaffi must go") and the UN resolution which did not call for regime change was, to use an old-fashioned word, Jesuitical. Maybe even worse, while trying to assure the American people that we really weren't making much of a commitment and would hand over leadership in a matter of days not weeks, he took us into a war with an attitude of diffidence. This could not be paired with his Bushian assurance that "our cause is just and our resolve firm." Our cause may be just but our resolve is neither firm nor its goal clear.
Our alliance held together for, well, hours. Actually, since the French pre-empted while we were still talking, there never was a time of plausible agreement. The Arab League started backing away at the first sign of violence--obviously a pacifistic organization. The Russians too were shocked that the allies were bombing Libyan military targets. Really? Sec. of Defense Gates made it clear that No-Fly Zones had to start with taking out anti-aircraft defenses. The mandate to protect civilians from slaughter seemed to imply hitting the tanks and artillery that were firing on civilians in cities.
When we do go to hand over leadership, when our major military objectives (though not policy objectives) have been met, we don't know to whom to hand it over. Is this a NATO operation or jointly NATO and Arab League? Or shall we follow the French suggestion and create a new wheel made up of foreign ministers and convene a new Diet of Worms or a Confederacy of Dunces? Who literally gets to call the shots and select the targets? What does winning look like? How do we get out? If the rebels begin advancing and start to kill civilians, will we turn our firepower on them? What the hell are we doing? We mean well, of this I'm sure, but what are our objectives really?
It is good that we mean well, bad that we have no clear objectives and ugly that our alliance is clearly fractious and likely fictitious.
©2011Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
To say "All the Lies & Hypocrisy" is to mislead the reader. There is no room in an 800-word article for all the lies. In fact, books would be needed. Forests would have to be harvested to print a complete rehearsal of even the lies and hypocrisies about Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Accept this as an outline of the high (low?) points of our collected deeper mendacity.
Start with the "No Fly" resolution that we obtained at the UN and that the Arab League and Gulf Cooperative Council requested and endorsed. It was not a simple "No-Fly," but an open-ended empowering resolution that gave us--some undefined collective "us"--the right to protect Libyan civilians from Gadaffi by any necessary means. Its only restriction was no ground troops or occupation. Its wording did not demand "regime change," but regime change was exactly our stated policy--and seems to be our goal. Our denial of this is politically expedient but a falsehood. Anything short of Gadaffi's removal will be a failure.
For us to attack his headquarters and compound with bombs and missiles and say he was not a target is another falsehood. And the problem is that everyone knows this and so, worthy as an objective or not, our denials weaken further our already shaky credibility. No one believes anything we say. Nor should they.
Nor, in fact, should we believe anything that our critics and allies (often the same nations on the same day) say. The Arab League implored us pass the resolution and enforce the resolution, until the military action started, and then they were "shocked, shocked" to find out that knocking out anti-aircraft defense caused damage and was accomplished through violence. By the time of this writing, they are back on board. But when you read this...well, who knows?
We were in favor of this action because a "mad man was killing his own people." This felt a lot like Groundhog Day, because in Iraq we were out to stop another mad man who was killing his own people. The amount of psychoses in the world of any of our adversaries is quite amazing and coincidental. Gadaffi, Saddam and, of course, Ahmadinejad. I understand why we don't want to use theological words like evil, which they clearly are, but the mental health diagnoses leads me wonder why we don't stand down our military and bomb the mad men with anti-psychotic medication--or send the CIA Black-Ops folks in with blow-darts tipped with Thorozine.
It was also jarring to hear Obama, on the very anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, use W's same words, "Our cause is just and our resolve firm." At these prices, can't we find an original writer somewhere in government? More Groundhog Day.
Meanwhile, our good friends the Saudis wanted to be part of the No Fly process because the US and NATO acting without the Arabs would be wrong. They, however, didn't need "no stinkin'" process to send their military into Bahrain to violently subdue the Shiite majority. We were offended enough by the Bahraini Sheik killing his own people that we issued a strongly worded, though non-threatening, complaint. We do, after all, want to keep our Saudi friends happy, and we want Sheik Khalifa to allow our fleet to remain in Bahrain. Such are our principles.
At the very same time, down south in Yemen, another despot is brutally putting down several rebellions. We don't approve, but President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been president of all or part of Yemen since 1978, also allows our fleet to dock and refuel. His violence, therefore, gets nothing more than an impotent shrug.
So the world might well wonder why some fratricide is intolerable and some not so much? The world might also wonder why no one in the diplomatic world can acknowledge the simplest of truths. Sir Harold Nicholson remarked that while soldiers are paid to die for their country, diplomats "were sent abroad to lie for their country."
While Gadaffi is a truly bad man and a murderer who has no friends in the Arab World, he is hardly unique in our violent world. We must all wonder if this would be happening if Libya's primary export were not oil but artichokes? Just a rhetorical question. I don't expect a straight answer from anyone.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Dear Four Readers Out There:
I'm up and running again on Wordpress under the above title here.
Thanks, Peace and Blessings,
Gail-Tz.
Perennial congressional gadfly Dennis Kucinich completely lost his political screws when he even uttered the word "impeachment" of President Obama over his action in Libya. Kucinich has often been the lone, outraged voice, in blistering Obama on everything from his tax cut compromise with the GOP to his Afghan war policy, but the Libya outburst made no sense by even Kucinich's radical rhetoric standards.
No one disputes the legal, constitutional and political need of Presidents to get approval from t Congress when the issue is waging war. This obligation is clearly spelled out in the War Powers Act. And those congresspersons that made that point were right to make it. Kucinich and the handful of Democrats that rip Obama about Libya certainly know that there is virtually no possibility that Obama will blatantly abuse that power as Bush did in Iraq and Afghanistan and commit American ground troops to combat in Libya. That would be a gross violation of the provisions of the Act.
Obama backed the Libyan no fly zone because the United Nations 'Security Council by unanimous vote backed it. The House Foreign affairs and intelligence committees backed the action. The Arab league backed it. And nearly every humanitarian group around has backed it. But most important he backed it because it's the politically and morally right thing to do. Kucinich and others would have screamed the loudest if Obama had done nothing and Khadafy slaughtered thousands in a revenge blood lust rampage against the rebel groups. In his case, and that of every other dictator that's ever been under siege from their own people that almost always translates out to the slaughter of innocent women children and old folk, under the guise of restoring order. If Obama hadn't acted he would have been even more loudly damned as being weak, indecisive and a chronic ditherer when it comes to making tough decisions on foreign policy issues.
He's already heard that slander endlessly from his GOP attackers. So the screams about the president violating congressional trust and prerogatives simply adds to the noise. Kucinich and some of Obama's severest critics among Democrats real goal is to send the message that they don't like a lot of what Obama does and they will pick at every little issue to dramatize their pique at him. They continue to hope that they can nudge Obama from his cautious, centrist stance they loath on issues a little more to the left. Libya is just the latest, and the most convenient way to do that.
Obama's UN no fly zone is a cheap, easy, and ultimately effective way to show that the United States can for a welcome change actually push nations to do the right thing when it comes to confronting a brutal, maniacal dictator who has absolutely no compunction about trampling on human rights, and that includes massacring his own people. Obama's willingness to take the right stand, in the right place, and in the right way has earned the U.S. the praise and gratitude of the millions that struggle against repressive, dictatorial regimes in the Middle East and are daily being met with bombs and bullets for their effort.
At any other time, Kucinich would lustily demand and cheer the action Obama and the UN took. The fact that he and few others don't, but chose to nitpick instead tells more about their ongoing political anger at Obama than any real concern over whether Obama snubbed his nose at Congress. Impeach Obama over Libya, you got to be kidding. When Kucinich uttered the word even Obama's Democratic critics howled at that delusional thought.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a national Capitol Hill broadcast radio talk show on KTYM Radio Los Angeles and WFAX Radio Washington D.C. streamed on The Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on blogtalkradio.com and wfax.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Well, I was wrong. Against my expectations, the UN did act and pass not only the No-Fly resolution but also an extra-added right to protect the civilians by any means. This is a carte blanche that allows over-flights, bombing of airports, tanks and even troops.
This resolution comes as a surprise and marks just how much the whole world holds Gadaffi in contempt. For China and Russia to abstain and allow the UN to "interfere" in an internal issue of another country, is remarkable. The United States, France and England did a very good and focused job of lining up support for the UN resolution. The delay was caused by the Arab League and their slow pace. Their call for the No-Fly was an absolute pre-requisite for the west acting. There was, in my view, no case that we could make for doing this alone or with only the usually transparent fiction of a NATO coalition. The Arabs had to assert some ownership. And to be fair, it was hard for them to call on the mostly white, mostly Christian west to potentially kill their fellow Arabs and Muslims. But Gadaffi had tried to kill some Saudi Royals and had made trouble all over Arabia.
This resolution comes at least two and half weeks late. Whether too late is still in question. Gadaffi was on his heals three weeks ago. Military officers were defecting and all the energy was with the anti-Gadaffi people. Now, the once invincible feeling, if under-armed and undisciplined, rebels have met real fire, many have been slaughtered and the survivors are deeply dispirited.
Yesterday Gadaffi promised no mercy and threatened to crush all opposition. After the resolution, he called for a ceasefire and has suddenly become a humanitarian. He is certainly not to be trusted. He has never been worthy of any trust. Our question is now that we have the right to strike, what shall we do? Will we cripple his air force and strafe his tanks and artillery? Will we supply the rebels or get involved in training them?
Most importantly, do we know who these rebels are? They are certainly not "pro-democratic." They are united, understandably, in not wanting Gadaffi. They are also tribal, and we have little nuanced understanding of tribal systems and politics. Libya does not have a national identity as Tunisia and Egypt do. They are more tribal and clannish--more like Iraq, though without the Sunni/Shiite schism.
We should have learned in Afghanistan that arming and training for a good cause--the Muhajadine against the Soviets--got us an armed, blooded and fanatical Al Qaeda and Taliban. Our path from here is not self-evident. Our path is made in the blowing sand chaotically swirling across the Sahara.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
I just learned that Doctors without Borders treats everyone in the world EXCEPT Israeli Jews. Their justification? That the Israeli Red Cross does the same thing. But that's really no justification because the Arabs also have the Arab Crescent Society. Funny, I thought that doctors took the Hippocratic Oath, not the hypocritical one.
Now that I know what a bunch of hypocrites they are, I will never donate to them again.
We can talk all day about radiation threats, blew-ups, meltdowns, and Armageddon scenarios of whole cities being wiped out by a nuclear plant catastrophe, but it won't mean a hill of beans when it comes to stopping the proliferation of nuclear power plants in the US Japan notwithstanding, the bitter reality is that money is the name of the game when it comes to comes to the nuclear energy conglomerates getting their way. And they are getting their way.
The Obama administration and the overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans and Democrats have been stone silent on the loud demands from environmentalists and even many scientists for a permanent ban on building new nuclear power plants in the US. It's a money game. And here's how it's being played to get their silence.
The Nuclear Energy Institute which is the front organization for the nuclear power industry has been virtually camped out on Capitol Hill the past few years pushing hard for a lifting of the three decade old moratorium on new nuclear power plant construction.
They have opened up their checkbooks wide to get a seat at the political table. How wide? In the past eight years they've tripled the cash they've given to Democratic and Republican campaign committees (nearly a half million). Their corporate benefactors have been even more lavish in their giving. Fourteen companies have shelled out $8 million through their political action committees to Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
The companies, just coincidentally, are seeking to build new reactors. As it now stands there are 18 applications pending for new licenses to build the plants. And with the never ending fear and mania about where America is going to get its energy in the next couple of decades if the Mid- East blows up, few in Washington will dare say a flat no to nuclear energy; again Japan notwithstanding.
Jonathan, things may go back to normal - years from now. But if there were ever a wake up call to develop alternate forms of energy, then this is it. Chernobyl was it, too, but few listened after the initial shock wore off as we went along our merry way.
Even the oil companies, like Chevron, have started to agree that enough may be enough. Though it makes sense for a conglomerate to jump on the bandwagon if it is the wave of the future and could reap financial rewards. The detractors say that this is a fluke, we need the energy and the safeguards are in place.
Perhaps because we have been doing the two-step with the tiger for so long, we're afraid to stop. We've known all along. We knew after Chernobyl. We knew by the increase in cancer and other radiation-related diseases, yet we kept right on knowing that we were sitting on a time bomb that one day could blow. Perhaps we were afraid that developing alternate forms of energy will leave us short, or a fear of change of fueled by politicians and lobbyists.
Yet, if the horrific events in Japan teach us one thing, it is that with all our intelligence, know how and ingenuity, in many ways we've been no smarter than the dodo bird. The meltdowns in Japan and Chernobyl were warning signals. We need to start listening and doing something before we go the way of the dodo.
Chernobyl blew up in 1986 and the Soviet Union lost a whole region. It is still uninhabitable. Three Mile Island in 1979 had a partial meltdown and we lost considerable confidence in nuclear power--and we haven't built a new reactor since.
Now, just as nuclear power climbed back onto the table, we get a reminder of its potential costs. All power has a price. Oil is dirty and its price is subsidized by our military, as we aid nasty countries and defend pipelines and shipping lanes. Coal is dangerous to mine and dirty to burn. Dams, well, dam up wild rivers. And no one wants a wind farm in their backyard or bay--blocking their view and cuisinarting birds.
Now we have Three Mile Island times 6. We have 6 reactors in various stages of self-destruction. Three active reactors are in extremis, with two of them leaking radioactive material and two with core breaches and at least partial meltdowns. Radiation is leaking into the sky and is already being found in ground water. This is not good for the workers trying to prevent true core meltdowns or for the food chain.
Three other reactors, that are off-line, are also in trouble--presenting an even more immediate danger. They were pulled off-line by taking their fuel rods and placing them in the so-called "spent fuel pools." Hydrogen explosions have blown the roofs off two of the pools and the fuel rods are heating the water to the point of evaporation. We now have one pool that is empty. The fuel rods are melting.
While we already have a "dirty" radioactive event, we have not had a nuclear explosion. But a chain reaction is possible. Remember not all the fuel rods in the pool are actually spent. They were active before going off-line. If they melt together, there is some chance of a chain reaction. The explosive blast would not in itself be the disaster but the dissemination of the dirty materials into the air and even into the jet stream would be. It could reach here.
Even if this truly worst-case scenario is averted, there are already Cesium, Strontium and heavy Gamma ray emissions. If the winds change and blow back on Japan, Chernobyl may seem like the good old days. Between a core meltdown and a spent fuel pool meltdown Japan will never be the same.
The earthquake was a horror. The tsunami was an unimaginable catastrophe. But the worst may be coming--a slow tsunami of radiation in the air, in the water, in the food and in the bodies of the Japanese.
We have lost regions and cities. We have lost confidence and now, we must ask, will we lose Japan?
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Dear Two Readers:
I'm back at wordpress with the above title here. This time, as an added treat, I even included a picture. It may look primative, but at least it's progress.
Best,
Gail-Tz.
It's good in these hectic times to sit back and reflect on the good old days, like last week when "meltdown" referred to Charlie Sheen or last month when if you said Libya, people confused it with labia.
The world just changes in an instant. Nations rise and fall. Tectonic plate strike, slip and subduct. Buildings fall, nations are crippled and human beings die. A relatively small earthquake (7.0) in poor and unprepared Haiti kills 300,000. A large (7.5) earthquake in Indonesia causes a tsunami that kills 285,000 people. A monster quake in Japan (9.0) and we can't know the death toll yet. Who by fire and who by flood. Who by earthquake and who by radiation.
As bad as the death toll will be from the quake itself and the normal disease and exposure, the four explosions in fail-safe nuclear reactors are likely to be the long-term story and possibly tragedy. At every stage of these meltdowns the official spokesmen for both the Japanese government and the nuclear operators have hedged, minimized and prevaricated. Not wanting to cause panic is probably good, but so much conflicting information reduces credibility and leads to more panic later.
Watching the tsunami's tide of death sweep boats, cars, planes, buildings and lives away hold our attention and drown the cries coming from Libya. Gadaffi is winning by using brute force against under-armed, untrained and undisciplined rebels. While we dithered, the chance to stop him with minimum bloodshed may have passed. A simple no-fly zone may no longer be enough. I don't believe we should have imposed such a zone unilaterally, but the slow pace of the Arab League pretty much stayed our hand.
While the Arabs couldn't get it together to come to the aid of the rebels against Gadaffi, whom they despise, there was little hesitation for the Saudis to send troops into Bahrain. This may be the most important story of the week in the Middle East. Sunni Saudis have sent their Sunni forces to come to the aid of the Sunni king who rules a Shiite majority. But this is not simply an issue concerning a small island. This could be a shot in a proxy war with Iran. The Shiite Iranians lay some claim to Bahrain and side with their fellow Shiites.
The United States has an interest in keeping the Sunnis happy because they allow us our port, where our fleet has access to the gulf and is in close proximity to Iran. This shadow war is coming out of the shadows this week.
Meanwhile on last week's big union story in Wisconsin, the American people are confused. This is not unusual; just look at any election returns. Workers fought for the right to be in unions and have the absolutely critical ability to bargain collectively. But that was last week. This week, NFL football players are fighting for the right to decertify their own union in order to gain more leverage by not bargaining collectively. While there is an explanation that does make sense, this does explain why America watches TMZ, Access Hollywood and Inside Story rather than PBS's News Hour.
The one story that bridges politics and prurience is Newt Gingrich. We can follow his follies on News Hour and TMZ! While he doesn't get good grades for morality, he does score high for both chutzpah and creativity. In explaining how he could have been attacking Bill Clinton for immorality while carrying on an affair with a member of his staff while married, he admitted it was wrong. However, he explained that he loved this country so passionately that he worked too hard. I guess he got so passionate and fatigued that he forgot he was married. Or maybe he got so accustomed to messing with the country that he couldn't stop himself when he left the floor and got back to his office. I'm sure that we are all happy that God has forgiven him. My one slight worry is that if 20 years ago he exhausted himself into a moral blackout, how is his physical/moral stamina now and how would the pressure of being president effect his moral judgment?
What a week...so far. I miss the good old days of Charlie and Lindsey and all the mass distraction. Mass destruction, which we face on many fronts, is so much harder.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Sorry, folks. We're going to have to split the UTLA ticket here. I'm not endorsing Linda Guthrie. I'd rather wash Moammar Gadhafi's sweat-ridden tees than do that, but I am endorsing Warren Fletcher for UTLA President. Never mind that they're on the same ticket.
Though he may not remember it, I met him by phone when I was a lowly sub in the LAUSD food chain and he was the grand, high exalted sub rep. I called him with some question or other. He patiently answered it and may have prevented me from walking into a sub manhole, career wise.
I'd also spoken to him a few other times when he was trying to raise the lowly status of subs. If there's ever a guy to work without getting all puffed up, taking long lunches and who will be for the people, by the people and of the people to form a more perfect union, then Warren Fletcher's it.
Some message board commentators were so adamant I expected them to start dueling with a Samurai. Why help the Japanese when they were so brutal to us during the war? Why help those who put barely alive GI's in a hole and immolated them?
Ah, because it's the right thing to do, and the war was over 65 years ago and those who participated in the crimes against out GI's are probably long gone.
I was in the waiting room of the doctor's office watching the scenes of the tsunami, and I was so shocked watching people's homes wash away, I cried. Though part it seemed so surreal I couldn't imagine what it must have been like.
But in the end we learn. We learn that while we can't control the course of nature, we can control how we choose our energy sources, and nuclear energy with all its potential for danger and radiation ain't it.
Maybe we also learn, like the man rescued from the sea after two days of floating on the roof of his house, that being prepared for a disaster is not completely possible. But more than that, I now know something that I've always suspected, that underneath it all maybe we're not that different from one other. Maybe underneath all the surface differences of race, religion, creed and culture, maybe we really are all the same and have the same fears of loss and loneliness and hunger, and the same need for recognition and love.
We can also marvel from the Japanese sense of order because they are a respectful society and believe in working together. Miraculously, not one store has been looted as shop owners handed out cell phone chargers, water and other necessary supplies. In the United States, it would be a miracle if one store remained standing. And it's all because we are a privileged people with that me first, Westward Ho mentality. Add uneducated and entitled to the mix and a tsunami here would spell disaster and the ultimate collapse of our civilization by the average noodle walking along the street. It's a pity, too because we were once such a great nation, though those days may be long gone.
On the other hand and maybe as a beacon of light, we can commend ourselves and those people who gave charity and countries that sent aid and have shown that we really are one community after all.
She's Baaack. That's Linda Guthrie and her bid United Teachers' of Los Angeles American Federation of Teachers Vice-President in a run-off race with Becky Robinson. Heaven help us should Linda Guthrie win.
Her campaign motto is, "An independent and unyielding voice who is focused on the classroom!" which pretty much sums it up except for the classroom part.
I worked with her a little over twenty years ago at Virgil Middle School in my first teaching assignment with the district. It was a rude awakening, if anything.
Three months after I started, there was a strike. Because I was new and relatively happy, I went to work. This did not bode well with Ms. Guthrie, who was the union's chapter chair at the school, and she went to great lengths to express her feelings.
A few days into the strike, I drove into the school's parking lot and saw her splayed against the fence while yelling, "Hey, scumbag, b_ _ ch, want to call me? Why don't you call me yourself?" at me.
I found this rather odd because I thought she was unkempt and unappealing with her unwashed toes peering out beneath her earth shoes, her massive frame and unkempt hair. Not only did I not want to call her, I had no idea what she was talking about.
I found out after school that day as she approached me at the front gate, stepped towards me and made a fist. Fortunately, the principal pulled me back onto the school grounds and called her into his office for a little fireside chat. She alleged that someone claiming to be my boyfriend called her in the middle of the night and threatened her if she didn't leave me alone. When the principal pointed out that I was new and that there was no way I would have her phone number, she allegedly started to cry.
She continued harassing me during the year and even refused to give my students books after the principal ordered her to do so. How this makes her someone "who is focused on the classroom!" is anyone's guess except perhaps hers.
I wasn't the only one in her path, though. At the end-of-the-year faculty luncheon, she got up, smirked and publicly thanked the principal for "doing so much to help the union." There's teamwork for you.
Fortunately, she railed against me in public where there were witnesses, and the school's employees would either tell me how crude and unprofessional they thought she was or compliment me on how well I stood up to her.
I know that twenty years is a long time and that people change. The few times I ran into her at the district's headquarters, she sneered in my direction, which I assumed was her version of a smile, though she never apologized. Also, during her stint as the union's Vice-President of Secondary Education, the graduation rate of high school seniors in the district was below 50%. Maybe it had something to do with being independent and unyielding.
It appears that her reputation has spread far and wide. In the February 2008 UTLA election after being VP of Secondary Education, she ran against incumbent A.J Duffy for president and got creamed. Duffy garnered 58% of the vote to Guthrie's 24% with two other candidates comprising the rest. Although many teachers didn't vote, I wasn't surprised. They'd probably either heard of her or thought she was as independent and unyielding as well.
Luckily, Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker doesn't know her. His anti-union provisions would have sailed through unopposed.
Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Institute announced Sunday (Saturday in California 2PM PST) that the release of radiation and explosion were associated with a nuclear meltdown. The Tokyo Electric Power Company also confirmed a partial meltdown.
When we think of a meltdown, we think China Syndrome and the idea that the whole reactor will simply melt and sink into the earth. Technically, a meltdown takes place when core pile temperatures become high enough to melt any of the nuclear materials in the fuel rods. It is always bad, always dangerous but not automatically catastrophic.
The government minister in charge denies any meltdown and said that the venting of steam and explosion reduced radiation. While he does not seem credible, he may not simply be dodging accountability--as one would assume were he an American official. He may, quite reasonably be trying to avoid panicking the entire nation.
With all the pain and death, with a nation in shock and supplies shrinking, panic is to be avoided if at all possible. While we all admire the idea of transparency, sometimes a little opacity can save lives.
We accept the limit on our freedom of speech knowing that crying FIRE! In a crowded theater is dangerous and wrong. We all assume this to be the case when there is n fire. But what if there is a fire? Giving a warning is, of course, important but full information should be useful and words that lead to chaos, while legal, may not be morally right.
As we all continue to watch, with mounting horror, the scenes of destruction from the quake and the unimaginable power of the tsunami, the greater killer may be invisible. What a terrible irony that Japan, the first, and so far only, nation to suffer a nuclear attack, is now threatened by radiation from its own reactors.
What this means for the future of nuclear power is unknown but not good. What this may mean for the Japanese people is beyond words.
©2011Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Wishing the Japanese people Godspeed in their recovery in the wake of their devastating losses.
Rep. Peter King is correct that radical militant Muslims have attacked us and want to attack us again. He is correct that there are efforts by both Iranian-financed Shiites and Saudi Wahabi Sunni to convert non-Muslims to radicalism and corrupt birthright Muslims to hate and violence. Yes, there are efforts all over the world to make converts to jihad--from Afghanistan to South America, from Mexico to our own communities and prisons.
There is danger, but King is more likely to recruit radicals rather than find them.
The irony here is that King's record of support of and excuses for IRA (Irish Republican Army) violence should have sensitized him to the difference between some few violent individuals and smearing whole communities. Some wanted to stereotype Irish Americans and smear them.
Yes, the IRA wanted to recruit people of Irish ancestry in this country to their violent cause. And they succeeded to some level. It was fair to say that most IRA violence came from Irish Catholics and most IRA recruits in America, who gave money or other forms of support, were also Catholic Irish Americans. I just don't remember congressional hearings on the dangers posed by Catholics, Irish, or Catholic Irish-Americans. Had we done anything so stupid, I'm sure the first, and likely hostile, witness would have been Peter King. Had Guantanamo existed back them, I'm pretty sure Peter would, by now be tanned, rested and in endless detention. Oh irony.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
New York Congressman Peter King is at it again. This time the showboating, loudmouth, gaffe prone, King screamed on every cable show that he could get his mug on that he'll witch hunt Muslims. He's got the perfect attention getting platform for it, his Homeland Security Committee. The hearings he'll hold on the alleged Muslim threat have absolutely nothing to do with the King's loud and fraudulent claim that he wants to alert the public to the supposed continued danger to the nation's security of terrorism. Other than a handful of cranks, xenophobes, and some in the GOP that are eternally always on the prowl for an angle, any angle, to scapegoat Muslims to stir up anger and hate and hopefully a few more votes, most have figured out that King's phony hearings are just another cheap attempt to snatch some camera action. And sadly, it's worked,
King got what he wanted, front page headlines, tongues clacking, and his name in lights. The price for King's tawdry publicity stunt is that millions of law abiding, solid American citizens that are Muslim have to endure the barrage of press ink that again dredges up every lie, stereotype, and fear about Muslims as terrorists. They have to be again endlessly have the 9/11 terror attacks shoved in their faces as if every Muslim in America is personally responsible for the carnage.
King created a trained seal media spectacle, and now he can sit back and chuckle to himself at how he can play Congress and the press for suckers at his every showboating whim. Make no mistake it won't be the last time for this.
Talk about a damned if you do, damned if you don't, walking on the edge of a fence moment, this is it. Congressman Peter King, R-NY, is holding hearings on Muslim extremism in America to a brouhaha.
On the one hand, King is right to be concerned because underneath, it is about safety. Like one AOL commenter wrote, "It's not like you're talking about a group stealing candy bars or cars." We're talking about the group behind 911 as well as other terrorist attacks.
Still, and there is a still here, it reeks of the McCarthy witch hunts in the '50's with religion now replacing supposed political ideology. It also reeks of Nazism in the '30's and 40's.
Are all Moslems evil? No, as I have met some peaceful and helpful ones. On the other hand, they brought this on themselves not with any supposed dangers but with real ones, like 911, Lockerbie, Mumbai... and all the other incidents that one group has claimed responsibility for while their brethren sit in silent acquiescence. And this is where they get in trouble.
The hearings should continue. A witch hunt should not because then the gauntlet can swing to other groups as well, to you and you and me. One of the best ways for the government to handle this is to do what they've always done and continue spying. And the best thing for the rest of the Muslims to do is to pony up and denounce the hostile and aggressive actions of their brethren.
On the map of North Africa and the Middle East (March 9th, p. 8), in the paper of record, the hallowed (or maybe now hollowed) New York Times, Israel does not appear. Oh the outline of the nation is there, but Israel's name is not there.
There was room for Morocco, Algeria andTunisia. Libya even has three cities labeled (Tripoli, Ras Lanuf & Damah). Egypt gets Cairo and then we see Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and even little Eritrea. But no Israel!
Now, this is the New York Times, so I'm thinking that this is not anti-Semitism or an editorial position erasing or delegitimizing Israel. This one might expect from an Arab paper. No, this may be worse: damn sloppy journalism.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
What a shock. The Obama Administration planned on sending 50 refurbished armored tanks for $77 million dollars to Moammar Gadhafi of all people. That would be like giving a penknife to Hitler and generally unwise.
Buying and selling things like machine guns and military supplies, even to opposing sides at times, helps keep the economy running like the well-oiled rickety machine it is. Yet the White House and the State Department suspected that Gadhfi was up to his usual no good when he asked for the extra shipment in 2009 to increase his ground defense, and he got his sons, Khamis and Saif, to do his bidding as well. So long as it didn't have too many pointed objects and only a single gun attached, the State Department only raised one or two of their collective eyebrows and reluctantly okayed the order. Shortly thereafter, much of Europe followed Gadhafi's call into the wild, though theirs probably remained stationary.
What no one questioned was why the sudden interest from the Libyan leader and sons. A few weeks ago while Tripoli was burning and Gadhafi's supporters were firing at the rebels, they learned that he long ago knew trouble was a'brewing and wanted to increase his defense forces when it finally came a'calling. This nixed the deal for the Americans even if the sale would have helped our economy and the BAE, the British company that has a defense arm called BAE Systems, which is the government's 12th largest contractor. If ever there were a textbook example of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours," kiddos, this is it.
As for me, I wouldn't have sold Gadhafi one armored tank because there are certain people who should never have any sharp objects of any kind, including a plastic serrated knife that comes with a McDonald's salad.
In no particular order, they are: Moammar Gadhafi, Ahmadinejad, Napoleon, the Marquis de Sade, Klaus von Bulow, Joseph Goebbels, all Nazis and skinheads, the Mexican drug cartels, the man that caused me to buy pepper spray and more that I can't think of right now. But they top the list because they don't know how to play well with others.
You Say Qadhafi and I Say Gadaffi, or is it Kaddafi, maybe even Gadhafi? Should it start with a G, a K or a Q? Shall we double the D or the F? How can we get him in our sites if his name won't stand still? What is his name?
Ah, all these questions presuppose that there is an answer. Sorry, but life and transliterating Semitic languages are not for the faint of heart or sticklers for clarity. Our problem, you see, is not simply the rendering of Arabic sounds in the Roman alphabet; it is also a question of the specific dialect in Arabic.
Just to show you that Arabs and Jews share something in common--besides wanting the same piece of real estate--we Jews cannot agree on how to render our own, uh, Festival of Lights known variously as: Chanukah, Channukah, Hannuka, Khannuka, Hanukka or even Chanakah.
Part of our shared challenge are the sounds that don't have English equivalents. The Ch or Kh in both languages are not Ch as in churlish or church. They are Ch as in Loch Lomond. It makes a kind of gargling sound, kind of like clearing your throat. Then there is the hard guttural Q as in Quran. It is far back in the throat and made like a K with a glottal click. Okay?
Now it gets to be fun. Gadaffi should probably be spelled pretty much as the New York Times spells it: Qaddafi. The Arabic letter in his name is that guttural Q. But almost all of the classical Arabic words starting with Qs are pronounced as guttural Gs in the Bedouin dialect spoken in North Africa--particularly by the Gadafa tribe to which Gadafi belongs.
If all of these insertions of sounds and differing pronunciations seem strange, just consider our dialects, Bostonian in particular, and the disappearance of the R sound in Harvard and its mysterious re-appearance in their version of Cuba--Cuber.
As for Muammar, I mean Moamer, lets call the whole thing off
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
In 1936 a very young, and not yet tarnished by history, Emperor Haile Selassie stood before the League of Nations and cried out for help. Industrialized, and seemingly civilized, Italy was using modern weapons and airpower to slaughter his helpless people. The League of Nations did nothing and in this non-action condemned the people of Ethiopia to death from above and doomed the League to death by immoral passivity, impotence and irrelevancy.
Today, the people of Libya are crying for help. Modern technology, supplied in the past by the Soviet Union, then by Russia and recently and increasingly by NATO powers including, to our shame, the United States, is being used to kill under-armed and untrained civilians. Now, in the 21st Century the United Nations is united only in deadlock and unable to act, not only swiftly, but at all.
As in the violent breakup of Yugoslavia and the genocide against the Bosnians, as in Rwanda and their genocidal slaughter of civilians by tribe, the UN is impotent. Their shameful impotence is by design. Neither Russia nor China will allow the precedent of intervening in the "internal affairs" of another nation. They fear, with some reason, that the UN might be called to get involved with Chechnya or Tibet respectively.
This structural impediment is institutionally deadly and leaves the UN a laughing stock. After all, Libya till last week was on the UN's Human Rights Commission--even chaired it for a while. I'm caught between laughter and tears. As a one time strong supporter of the UN, as someone who believes both in the democratic process and international law, this is heartbreaking. The UN is left with one legitimate function and that is to be a diplomatic version of a No-Tell Motel where diplomats, who cannot otherwise meet, can slip into a room and talk.
Meanwhile Libyans die. Gadaffi flies in mercenaries from Sub-Saharan Africa, paying them with money he gets from selling oil to Italy and, of course, Great Britain which traded its integrity and the Lockerbie Bomber for a mess of oily potage.
Libyan rebels, protestors, freedom fighters, pro-democracy insurgents (our labels betray our political positions) are calling for help, requesting a no fly zone. We say it isn't simple--and it isn't. We say bombing their anti-aircraft sites would be an act of war. And it would be. However, doing nothing, except demanding that it is time for Gadaffi to go, is also a crime against humanity. There is some duty when the virtually defenseless are being slaughtered with weapons we supplied.
No, we should not go in alone. Our coming in alone or with the thin cover of NATO--as in Afghanistan--will lessen the credibility of the rebels and give Gadaffi street cred in the Arab Street. Any effort must truly involve other nations, critically Arab and Muslim nations. This cannot be a mostly white, nominally Christian, ethnically European effort. The various Sub-Saharan African nations are as unlikely to sign on as China and Russia. They fear interventions in their own deplorable internal wars and tribal slaughters.
Any military action must begin with the Arab League calling for intervention and offering arms, aid and troops. This means that in order to stop this most uncivil civil war and level the deadly playing field, the Western World and the Arab World have to choose to cooperate. Whatever we do chaos and pain will follow, but some good could come to all of us if our two worlds reach out towards one another.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
To My One Reader:
I just posted again here on Wordpress, though I have to tell you that this one is more serious and that I am not my usual jovial self.
Gail-Tz.
The latest Pew Research Center survey found a lot of things that should cheer President Obama. Voter anger against government even among those that identify as Tea Party backers is down, the Wisconsin union standoff hasn't stirred any widespread anti-labor backlash, and there's more tolerance than ever for same sex marriage. But the poll also found a troubling note, a continuing troubling note for the White House, and a happy one for the GOP. White males still by big margins either disapprove or strongly disapprove of the president's job performance. The continued high disapproval ratings among this group is even more glaring since it comes at the point where more Americans than in the past year say they like the job Obama's doing. That is again all except, a majority of white males. The temptation is to chalk the continued skepticism and downright hostility to Obama of many white males up to the stereotypical gun rack, beer guzzling, white blue collar Joe. Many of those that don't like Obama do fit that image. But many don't. A significant percent in the Pew Center survey are middle to upper income, college educated, and live in a suburban neighborhood.
Their numbers are big and their political influence potent. The current crop of GOP presidential candidates know that, and bank on them to once more be the driving force in the 2012 presidential election. There's some reason for that expectation.
In 2000, exit polling showed that while white women backed Bush over Democratic Presidential contender Al Gore by 3 percentage points. White men backed Bush by 27 percentage points. Without the big backing of Southern white males for Bush in 2000, Gore would have easily won the White House, and the Florida vote debacle would have been a meaningless sideshow. In the 2004 election the earlier polls that showed Bush getting sixty percent of the white male votes nationally were totally accurate. In the South, he garnered more than 70 percent of their vote. Four years later the margin was 26 points for Bush over Democratic presidential rival John Kerry among white males. Bush swept Kerry in every one of the Old Confederacy states and three out of four of the Border States. That insured another Bush White House.
In 2008, GOP Presidential candidate John McCain got nearly sixty percent of the white male vote. Though this was down slightly from prior presidential years, it still was high enough to keep McCain relatively competitive.
The intense and unshakeable loyalty of a majority of working and middle class white men to the GOP is not new. The gender gap was first identified and labeled in the 1980 contest between Reagan and Carter. That year Reagan had more than a 20 percent bulge in the margin of male votes he got over Carter. By comparison, women voters split almost evenly down the middle in backing both Reagan and Carter. Men didn't waver from their support of Reagan during his years in office. In fact, many of them made no secret about why they liked him. His reputed toughness, firmness and refusal to compromise on issues of war and peace fit neatly into the often times stereotypical male qualities of professed courage, determination, and toughness.
Though the penchant for white males to back Republican presidents gave Bush the electoral edge in the race against Gore and Kerry in 2000, Gore won the popular vote as well as the electoral votes in more than a dozen states and women voters provided the margin for victory in those states for him. The GOP's grip on male voters, however, could have even spelled doom for Bill Clinton in his reelection bid in 1996.
If women had not turned out in large numbers and voted heavily for Clinton, GOP presidential contender Robert Dole may well have beat him out. While men rate defense, a strong military, the war on terrorism, and national security as high on their list of concerns, women say abortion rights, education, social security, health care, equal pay and job advancement, and equal rights are highest on their list of concerns.
While racial, gender, and economic tensions and fears are major forces behind white male devotion to the GOP; they're hardly the only reason for their political love affair with the party. Republicans have also played hard on the anger, frustration, and hatred that many males harbor toward government and their swoon over military toughness. The Tea Party, Palin, the Fox News Network and the shrill pack of right wing bloggers and talk show hosts have fanned and inflamed the anti-government and borderline racism of many white males to power their movement. This paid big dividends in the November mid-term elections. And for four decades before that it has been the trump card for winning GOP presidents and even losing GOP presidential candidates, like McCain.
Win or lose, the GOP still banks heavily that that vote will be there for whomever emerges from the GOP presidential contender pack again. The Pew Center Survey simply confirmed it's not a fawn hope.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts national Capitol Hill broadcast radio talk show on KTYM Radio Los Angeles and WFAX Radio Washington D.C. streamed on ktym.com and wfax.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Dear Four Readers:
Today I am back with another blog about the above, meaning FB and Sociology. View here and thank you for reading. You will be richly rewarded!
G. Tz. ; )
Gail's they were all just thugs and criminals itching for an excuse to be thugs and criminals view toward the civil disturbances following the acquittal of the LAPD officers that beat Rodney King tells much about why America at times seems hopelessly divided between black and white. True, the riots were lawlessness, death and destruction on an appalling scale, and should and were roundly condemned by every responsible black community leader.
But those same leaders also recognized that the cops who nakedly, and brutality hammered King was also disgusting and appalling. They also recognized that the verdict of the smug, head in the sand, Simi Valley jury with no blacks that turned a racially bigoted blind eye to the beating and acquitted the cops was just as disgusting and appalling.
But most of all, most African-Americans in Los Angeles were frustrated, angered and enraged at having to stomach and swallow two decades of racially skewed, taunts, abuse, brutality, and lawless street justice from the LAPD that only remotely resembled real policing. Did that justify burning a city down? No. But the violence was a wake-up call to a complacent, indifferent city and nation, and its police department that operated outside of the very law it was sworn to enforce that it better change, and change fast. Thankfully the city and the LAPD got that message, a message that 20 years after the King beating many like Gail still haven't gotten.
Well, Gail Tzipporah, you certainly put the fire in Friendly Fire with your incendiary comments. Of course, most will agree that getting mad and feeling marginalized are not reasons to riot, rob, loot and burn--particularly not your own neighborhood. But I think it is a mistake to see this exclusively through the distorting lens of race. It is more about class. Let me illustrate.
I was at my mechanic's in Encino when the verdict came in and the Rodney King riot began. Immediately the nice young man who picked up and dropped off customers, smiled and said he was taking the rest of the day off to get himself a new TV. He was an American born Hispanic. In an attitude of friendly race relations, he invited another nice young man, this one white, to join him. The white kid declined. Did he make the right decision because he was white? Well, yes, but it doesn't mean what you think it means. I asked him why he didn't go, and his response was that he didn't want to be a white guy in the middle of that riot. He did not say that he didn't go because it would be wrong to riot and steal a TV. And yes, I asked my Hispanic friend if he doing this for Rodney. He laughed and said "No man, I'm doing it for the TV." I suspect there were few Asians and whites out of fear and not goodness.
These riots are not about the excuses; they are about being in a mob--and that can be a fun experience. There is passion and energy in being lost in the enthusiasm of a mass movement. But there is seldom conscience or responsibility. The reason for the riot is arbitrary. If the Lakers win the finals, the police know there will a celebratory riot. If we lose there will be an angry riot. They look just the same and act just the same. The participants run the spectrum of color and ethnicity--but not of socioeconomic class. To get the upper quartile to riot, USC or UCLA has to be involved.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
The Rodney King beating 20 years ago was about what was wrong with the LAPD. Outside of testimonies, I have no way of knowing how things have changed because I am Caucasian and have green eyes, fair skin, brown hair and a dazzling smile. And the only way to know what it's like to be of a certain race or creed is to live in that skin.
The beating put a mark on the city that rippled throughout the country by spotlighting our long-simmering racial problems. And things really blew back then. What I don't understand is how the African-American helped themselves and others by rioting after the four officers were acquitted and how they helped themselves by rioting after O.J. Simpson was acquitted a few years later. Because they rioted, looted, destroyed and burned from one extreme to the other. Maybe it's because some people can't think years into the future, let alone minutes. They can't think of how their actions will reflect not only on themselves, but on others of their race, religion and creed, or maybe they just don't care.
Still, it rankles me to no end to read statements from black community leaders excusing the riots because of long-simmering racial tension. We all have tension. I've had tension, too. People have said anti-Semitic things to me. They are sometimes mean. I come from a family of Holocaust survivors. But we never used it as an excuse to light that match or raise our hands in anger over any long-simmering tensions.
It's official, hell has frozen over. No, it wasn't the weather, nor am I denying global warming. Today, however, I was shocked to find myself agreeing with Justice Scalia--but, as they say on infomercials--"That's not all folks!" I was also in agreement with Justice Alito.
I felt a certain madness, a desire to deny my feelings and what was left of my reason. You see, to make it even stranger, Scalia's opinion was a lone dissent. Not even Justice Thomas agreed with him. So, I had to wonder, what the hell could I be thinking?
The first case involved the admissibility of unsworn testimony from a dying witness. Is it an admissible exception to both the hearsay rule and the right of a defendant to confront, and cross-examine, a witness?
It seems pretty clear to me that my right to confront and examine a witness would be compromised, hell erased, if the witness were not present but something he might have said could get in. I know there is an assumption that people who know they are dying are more honest than most. Although, I'm not aware of any actual studies. I fear it may be as reliable as In vino veritas, which most of us know is actually "In vino gibberish" much of the time. However, I am very secure that this side of a séance, a defendant is pretty much stuck without the ability to examine if this comes in. But again, that's not all folks. The eyewitnesses to these dying revelations (they are not technically testimony) are also then presumed to be accurate and unbiased reporters. Do the police always tell the truth? Any cop could interview any corpse.
When my civil liberties, not to mention my actual liberty, are potentially dependant on a gravely injured person, perhaps in shock or simply with a grudge, as well as accurate reporting by the police, I think I'm in trouble. And when I have to look to Scalia to protect my civil liberties and Constitutional rights, I think we're all in trouble.
Yet, it was Scalia who held out, who thought that the decision rendered the right to confront an accuser nonsense; and that this was a terrible weakening of a fundamental constitutional right.
Then later today, Alito, again in a lone dissent, held that the Westboro Baptist Church, the fringe group that shows up at military funerals and screams that our soldiers are dying because God hates America because we're to soft on "faggots." We just don't hate enough to please this perversion of Christianity, so they have to represent their warped view and protest when families are at their most vulnerable.
The rest of the court held that this was purely a free speech issue and thus obnoxious speech is protected. I understand and am sympathetic to the primacy of first amendment issues. The court seemed to imply, but not officially hold, that buffer zones keeping them away from being heard at the funerals were sufficient protection for mourners. And this is all true, if the issue is seen as solely about free speech. We can mostly agree that safe speech and popular speech don't need protecting. It is only relevant for edgy, offensive and obnoxious speech. But the action that was brought against Westboro Baptist was not about free speech but "the intentional infliction of mental anguish." That is clearly the intent of these church members.
They can hold their noxious views, put them on the Internet, publish them in their newsletters and march in public places. Their intent is at the core of this issue. If their protests are to share a message, even a disturbing message, this is about speech. But if it is primarily designed to cause pain and not communicate, I am with Alito. This is disturbing the peace, and the intent is to inflict emotional pain. Possibly there should be no such charge. But if there is such a charge and it is legal, then surely the intentional disturbing of mourners should qualify.
I seldom believe Scalia and Alito are right in their reasoning, only far right in their politics. So finding myself in agreement them twice in one day, well, I just hope I'm alright.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
There's not a decent, right thinking person on the planet who would disagree with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said when he said "Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case." The case was the lawsuit against the hate mongering Westboro Church. The church has made an unholy fetish out of tormenting the families of dead soldiers who just want to bury their fallen loved ones in peace have earned the much deserved loathing contempt and revulsion of the nation, And Alioto made that precise point in dissenting from the High Court's 8 to 1 decision to uphold the hate church's First Amendment right to torment. He got that right.
But as odious as it is to say it, Alioto's vote to ban the church from tormenting the living and the dead is wrong. The point has been endlessly made every time these type of cases hits any court is that the First Amendment is not a smorgasbord to pick and choose what one likes and doesn't like. It's the very foundation of a free society that separates such a society from the totalitarianism that has been the bane of the world through much of history. If the court had ruled against the church and effectively scrapped the fundamental principle of free expression then it would have opened up a door to danger that once opened would be hard to close. That's to say that anyone could then put a clamp on anything that they didn't like by just by screaming it's hate speech. It would usher in the day of the censors. The court wisely closed that door. And as noble as Alito 'sentiments about the hate that Westboro spews, he was wrong to try to open that door.
Some weeks ago a news reporter for LA channel 2 seemed to have suffered a stroke on air. Though it turned out to be a complex migraine, many neurologists thought that the tape could have served as a valuable diagnostic tool, an instructional tape for emergency docs and EMTs. The poor reporter was spouting gibberish, making no sense and seemed utterly lost. Thankfully, she recovered.
However, if one is looking for a diagnostic tape to instruct emergency personnel in evaluating mental breakdowns, this week provided two horrifying, if edifying, examples. Right in front of our eyes--again and again and yet again--is Charlie Sheen. Though he may think of himself as a wild exception to all the rules, an untamed eccentric only playing mad like Randall McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, he is, in fact, quite mad. He is literally the poster boy for an addled addict. Wonderful actor though he is, he could not fake this terrible fugue from reality. Were he, as an actor, to study the many tapes of this week, he might see a character gone mad. He is a tragic role model.
But he is not alone on the stage. He shares it with Muarmar Gadaffi, whose behavior and misbehavior might be considered daffy if he were not perpetrating such hellfire and death on his own people. Usually just considered strange, this week he is detached from reality and any sense of morality or shared humanity.
What they share in common as walking diagnostic tools are over the top expressions of grandiosity, manic energy, agitation, anger, a sense of persecution and total denial that they are in denial of the reality the rest of the world shares. They both project an invincibility that fails to acknowledge the danger they are in.
Watch the grand gestures, the wild stares and the dismissive waving away of reality. See the threats for what they are--frenzied fear. Charlie threatens, "Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body."
Struggling to keep up is Muarmar Gadaffi who proclaims, "I am much bigger than any rank, for those who are talking about rank, I am a fighter. I am like the Queen of England." Charlie then pushed for first place and royalty with, "I'm extremely old-fashioned, I'm a nobleman, I'm chivalrous." Either one could have uttered, "These resentments, they are the rocket fuel that lives in the tip of my saber," but it was, in fact, our poor Charlie.
There is something that draws us to human train wrecks, this schadenfreude makes us shudder and thrill at the same time. There is, what Aristotle characterizes as the tragic impulses to withdraw in horror and approach in pity. Gadaffi gets no pity, only horror and revulsion. He is a monster. Mad yes, but a monster undeserving of pity. Charlie Sheen is a tragedy--a not so slow-motion wreck decompensating before our eyes. We will always watch this kind of spectacle and the cameras will always be willing to put them on the screen. But there is the frustration. We can see it. We can diagnose it and name it, but we are helpless to fix the madness. We can try to protect Charlie's family and Gadaffi's country. But we can't save them.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
To My Three Readers:
Thank you for following my blog on wordpress. Here's another one for your heavenly enjoyment.
G.Tz.
Just how stupid do they think we are? This is usually a rhetorical question, but I mean it literally. Our states are out of money. Our social safety net is being shredded. Our Democratic president proposes cutting aid to the elderly for heating their homes. Our schools, libraries, police and fire departments are suffering all over this land.
Meanwhile, we have bailed out General Motors, Chrysler, AIG and most of our major banks. At least the GM bailout seems to have given us a return on our money, while the banks have kept our hard-earned money as compensation for the losses caused by their greed and incompetence. They are sitting on our assets and getting up only to pay themselves bonuses for their incompetence.
When we speak of a "mixed economy," we must mean that we are a capitalist market economy for the middle class for whom failure is an option but a socialist economy for the wealthy, who are too big to fail. Only the great corporations have the moral hazards eliminated and their mistakes compensated for by We the People.
While some believe that our economy is recovering and the numbers are looking better, these numbers reflect profits by corporations and not employment or the lives of the middle class and poor. Unemployment and under-employment remain tragically high, but intervening on behalf of anyone other than the super rich would be wrong, would be "a job killer," according to many conservatives.
They know the cause of our economic malaise. They know why we are adrift in the doldrums. It is all obviously due to unions in general and public employee unions in particular. Yeah, it's all that collective bargaining that's wrecked the economy, all those people who deferred income in exchange for benefits who are keeping us from being fully employed and unleashing the mighty magic of the market.
How stupid do they think we are? Well, pretty stupid, if they expect us to give up our way of life to finance their greed. Pretty stupid if they think we won't notice that they are cutting, really hacking apart, our once great society by slashing major chunks from only 12% of our budget. Pretty stupid if they think we will really blame collective bargaining for our problems while they give tax breaks to the very richest. Pretty stupid if states go bankrupt while we spend 1.12 trillion dollars per year on Iraq and Afghanistan. They must believe we are paying no attention if they think we won't get mad that there is no money for the poor and sick but a 35 billion dollar contract to Boeing for an air-tanker will go unnoticed.
Clearly they believe we are this stupid and distractible. We dare not allow them to be right.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
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