A segment on Keith Olbermann's Countdown yesterday encapsulated the history of U.S./Iran interaction over the last hundred years very nicely. The better you understand the context of the situation, the more likely you are to make good decisions going forward. We've all heard what happens when we don't learn from history.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
The G-20 Summit and Labor
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| UK's National Union of Teachers one-day strike, April 24, 2008 |
The Nation's lead article today is a very good one by Max Fraser, called: Global Labor's G-20 Agenda. The international trade union movement is speaking out strongly about how they see the crisis. They want the world to join America in providing stimulus to the world's economy equivalent to 2% of the world's GDP, and they believe that stimulus should focus on job creation, green technology, renewable energy and similar efforts to grow the economy in a forward-looking and sustainable way. They want much stronger regulation, global recognition of workers' rights and environmental issues in trade agreements, and much greater emphasis on nationalizing troubled corporate and financial entities in order to distribute risk and reward in a fairer manner.
At some point, isn't it time to note that, if we're truly honest with ourselves, we're doing this all wrong? The world is focused on solutions to this crisis, and all of us know that the world's financial leaders are still too focused on retaining much of the system that created this mess in the first place. The iron is hot for some really fundamental changes in direction, but the majority of voices are still too dim to be heard. Labor will have its say at the G-20 summit, but in too many ways it will simply be heard politely. The depressing outcome may well be more years of depression as a system the majority have ceased to believe in is coaxed into creaking along on life support. All in all, it's hard to feel hopeful about the near term. The world seems resigned to living a lie long after it's been exposed, and it will not go well for most of its inhabitants, I'm afraid.
It's not for me to say what we should do. It makes me sad, though. I really believe it's when things get loose at the seams like this, it's one of our very few golden opportunities in the history of civilization, and once the gears are set in place to move forward in one direction, it may be a very long time before that chance appears again. This time, that direction may be a very hard one indeed for most of the world's inhabitants.
As I write this, it seems I've drawn an even bleaker picture than I'd feared. I do feel there's a very good chance we're destined for years of hard times if things continue the way they're headed, despite many good moves by Obama's administration. You can argue that there's not much time to debate while the fire is burning, and the task at hand is simply to put it out, but I don't think that analogy captures every aspect of this complex crisis. Once the flames subside, what will we see as we survey the battered landscape? There will still be initiatives to resolve the problems, but they will appear in a climate of reduced expectations, and the internal workings of the economic machinery that now lie so nakedly exposed will once again be withdrawn into opaque containers, visible to only a fortunate few. That reality will have become the new normal, where fewer still are left with resources enough to rebuild, while most are left to wander the charred remains.
Friday, November 7, 2008
A New Era
We're entering a new era with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. I've tried to help as best I could with my donations to the Obama campaign, and with interaction on major political blogs trying to combat the avalanche of smears and lies that proliferated these past months. Now, the hard part is waiting until he actually takes office, and searching for the best ways I might be able to help. I'm not sure if that will include more posts to this blog, but anything is possible right now. I absolutely don't believe we can all just go back to our normal lives now. Since we first saw the darkening storm clouds on the horizon, much more time has passed with very little action, and few would disagree that it's now a full-scale emergency.
The economic downturn is only the tip of the iceberg. I think we're seeing a widespread global disillusionment in old ways of thinking as reports of failure continue to roll in. I believe it's a terrible mistake to think we can sit back and just kibitz as a new president and congress prepare for their upcoming terms. President-Elect Obama has often reminded us that change happens from the bottom up, and we here at the bottom need to embody that change, and begin building consensus for the things we need to see. I feel gratified that so many of the things I've written about most passionately in these pages have revealed themselves to be such important parts of today's dialogue. It makes me feel greater confidence that I'm on my way to understanding, and that I've not gotten too lost or sidetracked by personal prejudice or confusion. But the learning curve is still very steep, and this new vista of possibility has me, for the moment, almost overwhelmed.
There's a new web site associated with Obama at http://www.change.org/, and I've joined it while selecting my personal cause as Fair Trade. I don't always react well to specializing in one particular area, so I selected Fair Trade since it seems to be such a broad umbrella, including the economy, the environment, and worker/human rights as part of its purview. I'm currently studying the topic as it's viewed on the change.org web site, and watching to see if this url or some other becomes a hub from which change can take place. I'm not sure yet either what I can do, or how, but I want to be a part of this somehow. I think we're in a time where so many of the prevalent methods have failed that it provides us an opportunity to take some profound new directions, and I believe it's likely we're not going to do enough unless we're prodded by revolutionary ideas.
I'm mature enough to see that too much change can frighten many to such an extent that change itself, however well-intentioned, can be counter-productive. It's going to be difficult to find the right mix between patient, long-term perspectives and the very fierce urgency of now. For the moment, it's just good to bask in the warm glow of a nation of voters who have in many ways rejected the misguided direction of Bush, Cheney and the NeoConservatives who found a perhaps half-hearted ally in John McCain. Very soon, our prayers for a chance to turn things around will have come to be, and given a government who will listen, we need to know for sure what it is we wanted to say. Be careful what you wish for, they tell us. The problems we inherit are surely more than we bargained for, and our task ahead is daunting in the extreme.
I know that the only right choices will be the ones that embody compassion, and that must extend to those who were wrong as well as those who were wronged. Whatever we do, I know it's going to take a lot of prayer, or meditation in my case. It's going to take a whole lot of love to see the right path to take from here.
Here's to tomorrow!
Update: Actually, the Obama-affiliated site is http://www.change.gov. Guess I'm not used to seeing a .gov site I can believe in. There's a painful period of adjustment here.
The economic downturn is only the tip of the iceberg. I think we're seeing a widespread global disillusionment in old ways of thinking as reports of failure continue to roll in. I believe it's a terrible mistake to think we can sit back and just kibitz as a new president and congress prepare for their upcoming terms. President-Elect Obama has often reminded us that change happens from the bottom up, and we here at the bottom need to embody that change, and begin building consensus for the things we need to see. I feel gratified that so many of the things I've written about most passionately in these pages have revealed themselves to be such important parts of today's dialogue. It makes me feel greater confidence that I'm on my way to understanding, and that I've not gotten too lost or sidetracked by personal prejudice or confusion. But the learning curve is still very steep, and this new vista of possibility has me, for the moment, almost overwhelmed.
There's a new web site associated with Obama at http://www.change.org/, and I've joined it while selecting my personal cause as Fair Trade. I don't always react well to specializing in one particular area, so I selected Fair Trade since it seems to be such a broad umbrella, including the economy, the environment, and worker/human rights as part of its purview. I'm currently studying the topic as it's viewed on the change.org web site, and watching to see if this url or some other becomes a hub from which change can take place. I'm not sure yet either what I can do, or how, but I want to be a part of this somehow. I think we're in a time where so many of the prevalent methods have failed that it provides us an opportunity to take some profound new directions, and I believe it's likely we're not going to do enough unless we're prodded by revolutionary ideas.
I'm mature enough to see that too much change can frighten many to such an extent that change itself, however well-intentioned, can be counter-productive. It's going to be difficult to find the right mix between patient, long-term perspectives and the very fierce urgency of now. For the moment, it's just good to bask in the warm glow of a nation of voters who have in many ways rejected the misguided direction of Bush, Cheney and the NeoConservatives who found a perhaps half-hearted ally in John McCain. Very soon, our prayers for a chance to turn things around will have come to be, and given a government who will listen, we need to know for sure what it is we wanted to say. Be careful what you wish for, they tell us. The problems we inherit are surely more than we bargained for, and our task ahead is daunting in the extreme.
I know that the only right choices will be the ones that embody compassion, and that must extend to those who were wrong as well as those who were wronged. Whatever we do, I know it's going to take a lot of prayer, or meditation in my case. It's going to take a whole lot of love to see the right path to take from here.
Here's to tomorrow!
Update: Actually, the Obama-affiliated site is http://www.change.gov. Guess I'm not used to seeing a .gov site I can believe in. There's a painful period of adjustment here.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
John McCain
I'm doing a terrible job of updating my blog lately, but I wanted to make at least one updated entry for now, with a video that expresses some of my many concerns about John McCain's bid for the presidency. Passersby might want to take a look at it before deciding how to vote this November.
I just don't agree that everyone in American politics is truly well-intentioned. In this video, there's a clip where McCain actually admits to having acted from an excess of ambition when he failed to condemn the display of a Confederate flag. Everyone's human, of course, but the temptations accompanying the most powerful office on earth can be too great for some, and in these critical times, it's imperative that we take a close look at those who would attain that office.
If someone questions why there is no equivalent here for Obama, I can only answer that I agree that Obama has his own personal failings, but I very much believe that we need for him to win this election, so if you want ammunition to use against Obama, please look elsewhere. If there arise any questions about him as troubling to me as those in this video, I won't hesitate to bring them to everyone's attention, through this blog or whatever means I can. At this time, I believe there's plenty of reason to trust Obama, at worst as much as you can trust any Democratic presidential candidate we've seen in the last thirty years or so, and I don't believe for a moment that Obama has any "secret" schemes that he hasn't divulged. My beef is with McCain.
The emphasis in this video is McCain's potential for drawing us into further unnecessary and avoidable conflicts. That's just a tiny subset of the things that worry me, but it's important to consider what a reputation he has developed for showing a preference for the use of force. Coupled with his military background, his traumatic experiences as a prisoner of war, and a record more notable for its lack of support for legislation that would benefit soldiers and veterans, it's very difficult to feel much confidence in the way that McCain might address global issues.
Bottom line, I believe John McCain when he tells us there's going to be "more wars", at least if we elect him into office. I believe he is much too closely tied to that familiar NeoCon school of thought in American politics that heavily champions the use of American military force as a preferred method of supporting American (in this case, corporate) interests. Far from being one who might temper the ambitions of the NeoCon hawks, McCain's temperament would be more likely to exacerbate the problem. All these ingredients and more combine into perhaps an even more toxic brew than the one concocted for our distinct lack of enjoyment these last eight years.
I can't tell you that everything in the video is true, especially with regard to questions about McCain's behavior while a prisoner of war, but that's not the point. The point is to make you think about the sort of world you think this really ought to be, and whether McCain would bring us closer to that world. Since around 80% of America believes we're headed in the wrong direction now, how much sense does it make to simply speed up the pace?
I just don't agree that everyone in American politics is truly well-intentioned. In this video, there's a clip where McCain actually admits to having acted from an excess of ambition when he failed to condemn the display of a Confederate flag. Everyone's human, of course, but the temptations accompanying the most powerful office on earth can be too great for some, and in these critical times, it's imperative that we take a close look at those who would attain that office.
If someone questions why there is no equivalent here for Obama, I can only answer that I agree that Obama has his own personal failings, but I very much believe that we need for him to win this election, so if you want ammunition to use against Obama, please look elsewhere. If there arise any questions about him as troubling to me as those in this video, I won't hesitate to bring them to everyone's attention, through this blog or whatever means I can. At this time, I believe there's plenty of reason to trust Obama, at worst as much as you can trust any Democratic presidential candidate we've seen in the last thirty years or so, and I don't believe for a moment that Obama has any "secret" schemes that he hasn't divulged. My beef is with McCain.
The emphasis in this video is McCain's potential for drawing us into further unnecessary and avoidable conflicts. That's just a tiny subset of the things that worry me, but it's important to consider what a reputation he has developed for showing a preference for the use of force. Coupled with his military background, his traumatic experiences as a prisoner of war, and a record more notable for its lack of support for legislation that would benefit soldiers and veterans, it's very difficult to feel much confidence in the way that McCain might address global issues.
Bottom line, I believe John McCain when he tells us there's going to be "more wars", at least if we elect him into office. I believe he is much too closely tied to that familiar NeoCon school of thought in American politics that heavily champions the use of American military force as a preferred method of supporting American (in this case, corporate) interests. Far from being one who might temper the ambitions of the NeoCon hawks, McCain's temperament would be more likely to exacerbate the problem. All these ingredients and more combine into perhaps an even more toxic brew than the one concocted for our distinct lack of enjoyment these last eight years.
I can't tell you that everything in the video is true, especially with regard to questions about McCain's behavior while a prisoner of war, but that's not the point. The point is to make you think about the sort of world you think this really ought to be, and whether McCain would bring us closer to that world. Since around 80% of America believes we're headed in the wrong direction now, how much sense does it make to simply speed up the pace?
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