Category: Politics

I guess this is what happens when warmongers get tired and impatient. slacktivist quotes Thomas Friedman (whose NYT op-eds really aren’t worth paying for) as arguing that if the Sunnis in Iraq won’t “come around… [we] should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind” Most people who advocate the withdrawal of U.S. troops do so in the (perhaps naive) hope that this will reduce the tension and reduce the level of violence. Friedman is the first pundit that I’ve encountered who seems to advocate civil war and perhaps Rwanda-style genocide as an appropriate way of dealing with recalcitrant Sunnis. Simply amazing.

P.S. Of course with or without Friedman’s morally bankrupt ideas, a civil war is probably inevitable.

Scanning the HuffPo RSS feeds, I spotted this insightful piece by Jaron Lanier: “I am writing this on a United Airlines flight over the Atlantic. The flight is tense. We had a mechanical delay and United has been having trouble re-routing customers who will miss connections, apparently because it is now understaffed. The major airlines of the richest country in history tend to be bankrupt, and somehow or other that is considered normal.”

That much is familiar. But the analysis is slightly different from what you’d find in the WSJ:

American corporations are increasingly functioning like fashion models. Youth matters most…. The main problem for old companies is that if you’ve had a workforce for a long time, the health care and pension bills pile up…. From them… I always hear complaints about a walloping big “Tax-like expense” they have to pay for health care and pensions, a tax that foreign competitors are excused from…. [C]ompanies facing the Tax that dare not speak its name have a harder time thinking in the long term. Toyota would probably not have been able to fund the development of the Prius if it faced the Tax at home in Japan.

Is this what an America in decline will look like? When Google has been around long enough to have a middle aged staff instead of a gorgeous crowd of healthy young people, will investors dump it for a new Googalike that can hire kids again to get out from under health care and pension costs?

The thing that I’ve always found amazing is that universal health care in the U.S.A. is solidly opposed by the right-wing corporate establishment, even though these are the people who could benefit most from it in the long term through the business efficiencies and flexibility that it would create. But I guess ideology is more powerful than rational self-interest.

Herewith the nostalgic observations of my colleague Robin Wilton on listening to Bill Clinton on the BBC: “This morning I heard a snippet of an interview with Bill Clinton; he was lucid, intelligent and persuasive. Some of his sentences had several linked clauses. He used words like ‘profound’, ‘disproportionately’ and ‘dislocation’, and used them correctly. He coherently related the grim after-effects of Hurricane Katrina to the global geo-political issues of the day.”

(I also listened to Clinton: it was an excellent interview. I strongly recommend that you check out the streaming audio/video version.)

During the last presidential election campaign, there was at least one documentary that presented film clips of Bush campaigning for his father and giving coherent speeches which demonstrated a modicum of rhetorical skill. It was suggested that the folksy, semi-dyslexic style that he adopted as Governor of Texas and subsequently was therefore likely to be a mere facade, an act to appeal to voters distrustful of “smart-aleck politicians”. The implication was that Bush was smarter than he sounded.

But Bush isn’t running for anything now, and even members of his own party are turning on him. If he were capable of giving a speech of the calibre of Clinton, now would be a good time to do it. Maybe it’s alcohol, maybe psychoactive medication, or even too many diet sodas. Whatever the reason, the conclusion is inescapable that today Bush is, quite simply, what he appears: a venal, cunning, opportunistic, but ultimately rather stupid man, incapable of reasoning from B to C, let alone describing A, B and C in well-turned sentences.

And I really miss Clinton. He had his faults, but they didn’t include stupidity and incompetence. Competence would be nice right now.

Comment by Steve Rundio in the Tomah Journal from Tomah, Wisconsin. Rundio is billed as the sports editor, but for a jock he writes really well about politics.:

There are two types of big government. There’s big-government liberalism, in which the government administers broad-based entitlements (Social Security, Medicaid) and provides services collectively that individuals can’t purchase on their own (police protection, roads, public parks, etc.). Has this vision suffered from excess and waste? Of course. But it has raised the standard of living for most Americans. The elderly can’t buy affordable health insurance on the private market, and most individuals can’t purchase their own personal police or fire protection. At the very least, big-government liberalism’s heart is in the right place.

There’s nothing good about big-government conservatism. It’s an iron triangle of politicians, lobbyists and industry wallowing in the spoils of government contracting and favoritism linked to campaign contributions. The recipient of big-government liberalism is likely to be a 90-year-old who can’t get out of bed, or a pregnant teen in need of pre-natal care. The recipient of big-government conservatism is a Halliburton executive or someone who lobbies on Halliburton’s behalf. The owners of Lenco Industries certainly did well when the $180,000 Lenco BearCat assault vehicle landed in La Crosse.

(Via Sully.)

What’s all this in the Los Angeles Times? “The U.S. will halt construction work on some water and power plants in Iraq because it is running out of money for projects, officials said Wednesday. Security costs have cut into the money available to complete some major infrastructure projects that were started under the $18.4-billion U.S. plan to rebuild Iraq. As a result, the United States is funding only those projects deemed essential by the Iraqi government. […] Less than half of the U.S. reconstruction money has been spent, but in some sectors, such as electricity and water, security costs have eaten up much of the budget.”

Not a good way to impress the Iraqis with American efficiency and win hearts and minds.

Read this account of a group of people (mostly tourists, but including EMS specialists) trying to get out of New Orleans last week:

“As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander’s assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn’t cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.”

When the investigations into this shambolic and horrific event take place, they must take account of the screw-ups and abuses at all levels. Yes, of course Bush must fire Michael Brown and fix FEMA, but it’s equally important that people like these Gretna sheriffs pay for their crimes. (We’re talking jail time here.)

(Via Sully.)

Gitmo in Oklahoma? Boing-boing has this Blog account from Oklahoma “FEMA Detainment Camp”: “Jesse Jackson was right when he said ‘refugees’ was not the appropriate word for the poor souls dislocated due to Katrina. But he was wrong about why it is not appropriate. It’s not appropriate because they are detainees, not refugees.” Frightening. And don’t expect any press coverage. Well, maybe that’s too pessimistic….

In the wake of Katrina, most of the media has abandoned the fawning, deferential and sycophantic stance that they’d adopted towards Bush. At first they were inclined to withhold judgement: after all, Bush is known for being slow off the mark. But as one example of cluelessness and insensitivity followed another – the stupidity of the FEMA hack, Bush’s awful speech, Condi’s Imelda moment, Bush’s jokes about Trent Lott’s house, his expressions of support for incompetent subordinates – things reached a tipping point. Most of the media joined in the upwelling expression of anger towards Bush: Stop screwing around smirking at the cameras; fire that unqualified loser Michael Brown that you put in charge of FEMA, cancel Cheney’s vacation, and all of you roll your sleeves up and get down to work, doing the job we pay you to do!!

As Andrew Sullivan points out in the Sunday Times

“The president’s approval ratings were already in the very low 40s. The tracking poll of his response to the crisis showed discontent rising fast. By Friday, 70% were saying the government had not done enough; and a majority disapproved of the president’s handling of the crisis. At times like this, people normally rally round their president. This time, many are turning on him. And my sense is that this is just the beginning. On Friday the Republican Senator Susan Collins announced her intent to launch an investigation into what went wrong. “

But not all of the media has sensed this trend. Case in point: David Broder in the Washington Post, still drifting in Bush’s cloud-cuckoo-land:

“The challenges posed by this natural disaster are in some ways even more difficult than those of the terrorist attack, with anger and frustration now being expressed about the response of governments at all levels. But for a president who believes that actions speak louder than words, this is an advantageous setting.”

An “advantageous setting”? A fortunate distraction from Iraq and Plamegate? Sorry, David: when even Fox News is turning on the President, things are not “advantageous”. Perhaps, like the head of FEMA, you should pay attention to what’s going on in the real world…

[UPDATE] Howard Kurtz has a piece in today’s Washington Post commenting on the new-found passion of [some of] the journalists covering Katrina. Money quote:

For once, reporters were acting like concerned citizens, not passive observers. And they were letting their emotions show, whether it was ABC’s Robin Roberts choking up while recalling a visit to her mother on the Gulf Coast or CNN’s Jeanne Meserve crying as she described the dead and injured she had seen.

Maybe, just maybe, journalism needs to bring more passion to the table — and not just when cable shows are obsessing on the latest missing white woman.

From yesterday’s Gawker:

“According to Drudge, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently enjoyed a little Broadway entertainment. And Page Six reports that she’s also working on her backhand with Monica Seles. So the Gulf Coast has gone all Mad Max, women are being raped in the Superdome, and Rice is enjoying a brief vacation in New York. We wish we were surprised.

What does surprise us: Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman”

(Via Salon.)

I’m glad to see that the bureaucratic mentality that asked me to to declare whether or not I planned to “overthrow the Government of the United States” when I first came to the US is still alive and well. From Harry Mount in New York:

Before Euan Blair took up his job this summer as an intern working for the House of Representatives in Washington, he had to fill out a DS-157 visa form from the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

The DS-157 is a special extra anti-terrorist form that asks Euan to give honest answers to questions like “Do you have any specialised skills or training, including firearms, explosives, nuclear, biological or chemical experience?”

It’s a pretty pointless form. If Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein were applying for a visa, they’d hardly tick the box marked “Yes – please explain.”

But, in any case, they wouldn’t have to.

The form is only for men aged 16-45 wanting an American visa. Saddam Hussein (b. 1937, Iraq) and Osama (b. 1957, Saudi Arabia) don’t have to go through this extra level of American security. Euan Blair (b. 1984, England) and I (b. 1971, England) do.

[…]

Issuing precise, catch-all prohibitions on the sort of post you’re allowed to send, or precise age ranges for extra visas, just means that terrorists work out ways of getting round the restrictions. They develop 15-ounce letter bombs that you are allowed to send by plane. They train adolescents and geriatrics to become suicide bombers.

If [you are going after] terrorists, you catch them by going to war with them abroad, or by using intelligence to track them down in your own country. You do not catch them or kill them by restricting what they send through the post or what diplomatic forms they fill out.

(From today’s Expat.telegraph, a newsletter that I subscribe to containing a few stories and many ads that might be of interest to expat Brits around the world.)