The Ice Flow

By Matthew Storey

I took Scout for a walk this morning, a Saturday, a little before 7AM. It came as no surprise to see the black garbage bags out front of our building, torn open and rummaged through - that has been a reality on East 89th Street for longandlong, but it is still sobering...

In some respects, this actually reflects an improvement in conditions in this part of Manhattan, an area (between 86th Street and 96th Street, East of Lexington Avenue on the upper East Side) that was a buffer zone between moneyed Manhattanites south of 86th and poor residents of Spanish Harlem, north of 96th, when I was growing up. In those days, violent crime was prevalent in the projects that line 1st Avenue going North and homeless encampments littered the area that Jimmy Cagney had grown up in some 100 years earlier. Its an odd mix, gritty urban elements and block after block of newbie New Yorkers who spill out of America's Universities every Summer for their chance at the NYC dream, the first job, the nightlife, the freedom to wear what you wish, fuck who you want, party like a rock star and do it all unjudged - as long as you show up at work, and pay your rent.

The college kids have a little boost from mom and dad back home and quickly gravitate to the bars in the neighborhood, bars that illustrate how diverse an American cross section actually lives here - around the corner is 'Elaine's', the legendary saloon and meeting place for lions of literature, media and entertainment, next door to that is a place that calls itself the 'Largest New England Bar in the Area' (an area 30 miles south of New England), across the street from that is a place that caters to fans of Ohio State AND the Pittsburgh Steelers, an unthinkable combination to the bar another block away that goes with the traditional OSU/Cleveland Browns mix.

The Homeless who are working their way through the garbage bags are from all over as well. They know the Sanitation schedule and jockey for position in the wee hours to get first shot at the goodies in the bags. They know that these kids have yet to really worry about the cost of things or the value, and can find stuff that is relatively new but boring to its owner. They can collect cans and bottles for deposit of course, and there are always those who go for the high end score - financial records that can be sold to Identity theft outfits who empower homeless efforts just as much as the recycling centers do.

Lately, however, Scout and I have noticed a new group amongst the mostly minority, mostly drug addled denizens of the streets. Where mumbling and odor have become familiar, we find occasional isolated individuals sitting on a stoop, poring over the newspaper, reading a discarded book, sipping not a bottle of rotgut, or a generic cup of coffee from some bodega but one from Starbucks. Brand identity not typically being a concern to the downtrodden, but still registering in the value system of these new homeless, those college kids from a few crops past who came to town, learned the neighborhood, got the job, started to party, found they needed the party more than the job, lost the job, kept the 'party' and ended up on the street. I've seen still fresh faced versions, late '20s to mid '30s. The only NYC place they really know is this transitory one they first came to, and so, when the gravy train ended and the gut craving took over - they remained here. Home.

Its only one of the signs of a Manhattan that has, in some respects, been at the epicenter of the Financial crisis as home to Wall Street and the center of Finance and, in others, has been immune to some of the pernicious impact that has rippled out to what we arrogant New Yorkers like to call 'The Provinces'. Construction jobs, evaporated all over America, have been everywhere in Manhattan, as tax incentivized projects planned during the time of plenty are forced to completion before the tax break ends. Where once these developments dreamed of selling off multi-million dollar apartments to bonus stuffed kids from Wall Street, their projects spring up on seemingly every corner to vast emptiness or as mid level rentals. It is just another example of how the 'crisis' impacts differently on folks who have made different choices.

At the high end, in Manhattan's wealthiest precincts, is where the bulk of the money has always resided and it is there that the bulk of damage has occurred. Real Estate values have plummeted across the board but that has a drastically different impact upon a former Bond Trader who has seen his multi-million dollar condo drop down below the value of his mortgage than it has on a working class person happy to see rent controlled apartments in good neighborhoods readily available, sans broker fees, with free months tacked on, at prices 30% below what was available just two years ago.

Businesses that are built upon 'luxury' sales to the moneyed classes, or services to these elite cash machines have shuttered or had to downsize their expectations, but well run businesses that serve a more egalitarian mix, and do it well, continue to thrive. As always, the upper east side retail indicates the working woman heavy mix of residents, as nail salons, dry cleaners, spas, eyebrow threaders, boutiques, chain clothing outlets and user friendly (read:affordable) restaurants and bars continue to thrive and propagate.

I'm a Dogwalker and a Catsitter, which places me in a crawl space between the 'Upstairs' clients and the 'Downstairs' building staffs of doormen, porters and superintendents and the army of service people (like me!) who care for cleanliness (maids), repair (contractors), apartment look (interior designers). personal look (stylists)., transport (drivers)..even the creatures themselves, blissfully unaware of the stratifying impact of greenery, have their own levels of care beyond the walker/sitter who writes to you today...the groomer, the vet, the vet-tech, the vet receptionist, the vet physical therapist, the vet chauffeur...and because I have a huge mouth, have been in one place or another all along this spectrum at some time in my life and am endlessly curious...

I talk to them.

*Phyllis, is 45, she's a designer at an auction house, married with a kid and a dog (where I come in). She lives across the street from Madoff's place in mid-level luxury (for Manhattan). In 2006, she made $250,000, working 9 months of that year and vacationing/traveling all over the world. In 2008, she made $41,000 and is desperate to sell her condo before she has to tap savings. Her daughter is in an expensive private school that costs almost as much per year as she made last year, which is more than she will this year. Her life was built upon assumptions that no longer exist. By any measure, she has 'enough' and is unworthy of sympathy, but simply of note, she will have to adjust and I suspect she will. But the private school tuition seems likely to evaporate and tough choices about where to live and where to school await.

*Marco is 34. He has an MBA from Wharton, the first in his family to go to college, let alone the most prestigious B-School in the land. He took a job right out of grad school that paid him $180,000 his first year, by his 4th year (2006) his income bordered on seven figures. He met a woman, who had an MFA and a taste for fine living and they purchased a condominium apartment in a top tier new high rise and appointed it in style, she decided not to work - preferring to focus on their lifestyle and travel for new art and design elements while her man plugged away at the Bank. They occupied their new 58th floor paradise on January 19, 2007, his companies stock, where most of their wealth was concentrated was trading above $170 per share - making them multi-millionaires.

On St, Patricks Day, 2008. Marco was barred from entering his office at Bear Stearns. The shares he had stubbornly held onto, after conferring with senior executives at his firm and others, was essentially worthless and was sold the next day to JP Morgan for $2 per share. He was out of work, wiped out in his investment account and overextended for art, rugs, travel, clothes in his bank account. Within 3 months, he was unable to make the $8,000 per month 'Maintenance' payments on his condo and his lady left him. 3 months after that, he'd been evicted from his residence by the board and his possessions were sent to auction. He moved in with his brother, a doorman. Since February of 2009, he has been working part-time as a porter in the building his brother tends door. He remains a brilliant, innovative guy and will recover, in time. But right now, he is lucky to have a family who love him, a place to sleep and a job that keeps him fed. His wife divorced him and remarried a 62 year old Mexican millionaire who made his money in ceramic tiles, the sort that can be found in the jacuzzi of the apartment Marco used to call home.

These are the first tales, the 'Upstairs' snapshots...next time we'll look at the other side of the coin, at some New Yorkers who are doing BETTER than before.

Until then...

Posted by Matthew at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Matthew Storey

'Let all the laws be clear, uniform and precise. To interpret laws is almost always to corrupt them.'
Voltaire

'How bad do you want it? Not bad enough'
Don Henley

Guru is the sort of fellow who looks at History with a eye to what 'works' (and can be proven) and what does NOT (and can be shown). For this reason, there is little room for absolutism in my world-view as it pertains to left-right identifications or party-affiliation. This is not meant to be disingenuous, obviously I am generally 'Progressive' in my views towards much of life, but simply to say those views are composed on a CASE by CASE basis. I am a Progressive because that can be shown to be the approach that WORKS for the greatest majority of citizens and to have moved forward the aims of humanity throughout history. I oppose Conservatives, because from Pompey to the Dark Ages to Islam, the Vatican, Louis XIV, George III to be on the Conservative side of history is to be on the WRONG side of the discussion, what Bill Clinton calls 'the wrong side of history'.

But being a Progressive, in the American historical context is not necessarily to find oneself on the Progressive side of CURRENT debate - the Progressive movement of the Founders and the Roosevelt's is not that of Eugene McCarthy and the Anti-War movement, indeed, progressives were in power for almost ALL of America's Wars - the Revolution was a radical excursion against Conservative order, the Civil War, a bloody suppression of Conservative views on Private Property and race executed by progressive Abraham Lincoln, the War of 1812 waged by Progressive James Madison, the Spanish-American war conducted with the impetus of progressive Teddy Roosevelt, WW1 under Democrat/Princeton academic, Woodrow Wilson, WW11 under FDR...These men were champions of free enterprise and capitalism who believed it has to be built upon fairness and offer opportunity to all to be genuine and that it's excesses must be corrected with laws, taxes and restraint of oligarchic impulses against which, this Republic sprang forth - NOT by those who sought to denigrate enterprise and insure state control. The modern hybrid of Socialist/Capitalist state echoes these views by making a distinction between that which is PURELY the province of 'Free Enterprise' (Baseball, Entertainment, Finance, Widget sales) and that which, by definition, cannot be left to the profit incentive, less it be allowed to IMPEDE progress for all (Garbage collection, Defense, Education, Health Care!).

My identification with Progressive values in governance is built upon a lifetime study of its champions - Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR - in the context of their OWN lifetimes and in our own. Each of these men has had their lives coopted and corrupted by future generations seeking to place their arguments on one side or another of some modern context, but such twists and turns are negated by reading WHAT THEY WROTE (try it!).

It is the height of absurdity to listen to modern progressives denigrate Jefferson, one of history's most eloquent debunkers of slavery as having his moral authority undone by being a slaveowner, his own words and an understanding of the time he lived in explain the conundrum and the dilemma of the black slave in late 18th, early 19th Century America. His slaves were part of his household, and their lives were not to be helped by emancipation into a society that had not a place for them - his attempts at eliminating their bondage in the Virginia Colony and the nascent United States of America were not to be doable in his own lifetime, not through any failure of his effort, but in the context of the momentous changes already being wrought. He went to his grave assured that the issue would be undone at some point, and wishing he had seen it so during his life. Like him, we dream of a better world that will be beyond the reach of our own lifetimes, let us all wish to do a FRACTION as much to insure that happens as he did in his time.

'...up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over. The income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that.'

Grover Norquist - Anti-Tax crusader, describing the America he wants to see...

Similarly, it is nothing short of a travesty to listen to modern Conservatives, the very opposite of Teddy Roosevelt in his lifetime and in their views, hold him up as some sort of Conservative ideal. Teddy was the arch-enemy of the landed aristocracy (which Norquist GETS) from which he hailed and who considered the GOP their privately owned organ prior to his Presidency. Roosevelt was both a thinker AND a doer. When his family money waned, he took to his pen and wrote books to support himself, worked as a Cowboy, a Cop, a Police Commissioner, as Secretary of the Navy...he was a naturalist who wrote more books before he was thirty than the recently departed President has read in his lifetime. He was tapped to be a VP candidate by the Karl Rove of his day, Mark Hanna, who imagined he could utilize the great man's celebrity and universal appeal to hammer home Conservative themes for a generation.

Roosevelt detested Hanna and used the 'Bully Pulpit' to champion the needs of the common man, eviscerate monopolistic practices in business, build in employee protections, outlaw child labor abuses, champion the inheritance tax (see second item below), raise America's profile in the world, welcome unprecedented waves of immigrants and encourage them to become Americans and contribute to an American mindset rather than expat-champions of their former homes. In his lifetime, the Conservative backlash retook the GOP under his succesor, WIlliam Howard Taft and Teddy responded by running in 1912 as the first 'Progressive' candidate in USA history, a candidacy that put him in contest with three other eloquent spokesman for varying places on the American Political spectrum, the conservative Taft, the moderate Democrat, Woodrow Wilson and the Socialist (that's right Antonin Scalia, we've had them here for more than a Century and they've served us with distinction, thank you) Eugene Debs.

Want to understand the reality of the Progressive era and take a look at an American election that was conducted through a vigorous and fair-minded exchange of ideas? Read '1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs, The Election that changed the Country', by James Chace.

Google Books

In this vein, the issue with Capital Punishment is NOT one of 'state killing' but of the state killing INNOCENTS, an argument can be made (and I would concur) that the Chinese approach of putting to death those who have utilized public office to enrich themselves at the expense of the populace is both just and effective and is one Guru heartily endorses - if Dick Cheney, Jack Abramoff and Rod Blagojevich pulled their Halliburton, Indian Tribe or Senate-seat-for-sale scams in China, they'd have swung from the nearest pole.

Can any argue that would have had a chilling effect upon succeeding generations of wannabe Vice Presidents, Lobbyists and Governors?

Similarly, the United States allows a de facto segregation of its prison population amongst races that is 'policed' by inmate gangs. Huh? Would a policy of zero-tolerance for gang activity and racial segregation actually work?

Only if it was enforced by Capital Punishment.

“Supporters of capital punishment bear a special responsibility to ensure the fairness of this irreversible punishment.” - Bill Clinton

Inmates want to live, for the most part. If violence against other inmates resulted in capital punishment for the second offense, things would change. If violence against Guards resulted in capital punishment for the FIRST offense, those attacks would plummet. But that means thousands of inmates would be put to death annually.

I'm cool with that.

Especially if it meant those who cannot function within the rules of a society in which they spend most of each day alone behind bars will not return to a society where they move about freely. We don't need more jails, we don't need larger power centers associated with prison guards, we need concrete standards and reliable behavioral standards, enforced by honest application of the law. Recidivism IS a social ill. We cannot correct it by ignoring its causes and that does NOT mean we adopt racist, murder-by-decree forms of punishment - what it DOES mean? If government officials know their bacon is on the line and they are answerable, ultimately for their conduct - they will work within the law. If inmates know their lives are on the line, they won't cross it.

If either can't work with that? Let 'em swing!

Which is NOT to say these laws should be strengthened to support Private Property, they should not. Capital Punishment is effective and in some cases justified in response to Violence and in prevention of further violence by those who have PROVEN, by their repeated conduct, they are incapable of avoiding resorting to its application and by those who appropriate PUBLIC property for their private benefit, an offense that is levied against society.

American law has been allowed to be co-opted by the Private interests for the better part of a century and a half, despite the noble efforts of previously mentioned progressives - Capital Punishment and its application cannot be allowed to drift towards those aims, nor can a cynical disposition that claims we cannot justly apply the law or be counted upon to control those forces. We CAN and we MUST if we are to lay claim to justice and we cannot fail to search for and move towards both the just and the fair and call ourselves 'Americans'.

Put aside your cynicism AND remove the blinders from your eyes. A people who could defeat the English Empire and crush the Confederates can do anything it sets its mind to, but, as then, the price of liberty and progress is not insubstantial. America can't be fixed (nor can anything else) by the 'Wish Theory', just ask Howard Dean or Sarah Palin.

'The Death Tax is unfair, inefficient, economically unsound and, frankly, immoral'
Senator Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), speaking of inheritance taxes.

"I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in . . . a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, . . . increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate." Theodore Roosevelt

'There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose goods after their death' - Adam Smith, Father of Modern Economics, Author of 'Wealth of Nations'.

"As riches increase and accumulate in few hands . . . the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard." Alexander Hamilton, Architect of the American Economic System

Thomas Jefferson, the author of 'The Declaration of Independence' and Thomas Paine, author of 'Common Sense' and 'The RIghts of Man', looked at English Liberty not as the blueprint for their new country but as a flawed example of common ideals, and they identified the differences in three principle areas:

1.) Elimination of inherited power, position and wealth.

Paine (and Alexander Hamilton) who came from nothing, rose on the strength of his ideas when he landed in America after being ignored in England. Jefferson, who came from an Aristocratic lineage, understood only too well that it was his intellect that mattered and not his name and that a system based solely upon lineage, as the English system was, left him and his unlettered, uncurious fellow descendants of wealth on equal and undeserved footing - it was this truth that led him to the concept of a 'Natural Aristocracy'.

2.) Separation of Church and State.

Every person of European descent knows the reality of an alliance between the State and the Church, European and Middle Eastern history are filled with millennia of examples of what this wreaks.

3.) A country of LAWS not of MEN.

This Lincoln phrase, not spoken, was instrumental in everything the progressive founders did (notably opposed by Adams, the conservative). Washington limiting his own powers, refusing grand, monarchal title and limiting his tenure voluntarily to two terms...landed gentry advocating laws limiting their OWN positions and putting lives of vast wealth and property under the English colonial system on the line for an IDEA (try and imagine the Bush and Cheney lines putting theirs on the line!).

Men like Adam Smith, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have spoken far more eloquently and effectively for the Inheritance Tax than yours truly will attempt. It is a fundamental conception of the founders and stands in direct opposition to the conservative view of 'Blood and Soil' that IS based upon English Empire conceptions.

As for the Tory claims on both sides of the pond that American laws are merely derivative of the English, let Thomas Jefferson 'take us out'....

'It is very important to unlearn the lessons we have learnt under our former Government, to discard the maxims which were the bulwark of that, but would be the ruin of the one we have erected'

That, my friends, is indisputable.

Posted by Matthew at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (1)

By Matthew Storey

On Thursday night, in East Harlem, 25 year old NYPD officer, Omar Edwards, was shot dead by an NYPD officer named Andrew Dunton. Officer Dunton had been part of an anti-crime patrol, who had come upon Officer Edwards, off-duty and out of uniform, with his gun drawn while chasing a man who had broken into his car. Reports from the scene state that Edwards stopped when Officers told him to drop the gun and turned around slowly, when he was plugged by Dunton's gun, six shots fired from a distance of 15 feet. NYPD regulations require Off-duty officers to identify themselves as NYPD and there is no indication that Officer Edwards did so, nor any independent witness who can testify that he did not.

Officer Dunton is a 4 year veteran, who lives in a small hamlet in Suffolk County, where he grew up. He attended Siena College in Upstate New York. Suffolk County is 85% White, 7% Black, 11% Hispanic and entirely suburban and rural. Siena College lists its student body demographic as being 15% Minority; the surrounding community of Loudonville, New York has less than 10% minorities. Suffolk and Loudonville are both separated geographically from direct access to urban populations.

Officer Edwards was newly married, to the mother of his 1 1/2 year old and 7 month old. He was a 2 year veteran who grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Brownsville is 85% Black, 14% Hispanic, 4% White and entirely urban. Brownsville is a neighborhood within Brooklyn, a borough of 2.5 million people in NYC, a city of 8.5 million people, all reachable on foot or via public transportation.

East Harlem, also known as 'Spanish' Harlem, was a predominantly Italian neighborhood until the 1950's, when huge influxes of Puerto Rican immigrants settled in the community and it became known by its new name. In the last 15 years, the neighborhood has seen broad development and a greater demographic diversification has blurred the lines between the Upper East Side neighborhood to its South in Manhattan and Central Harlem to its West. Current demographics indicate East Harlem is 42% Black, 31% White and 23% Hispanic, but it is safe to assume the Hispanic population is significantly larger given the huge numbers of uncounted immigrants (also true, to a lesser extent in Suffolk and Brownsville)

In Harlem, in 2009, Hispanics, Blacks, White are more likely to live side by side than at any other time in the community's history, and white collar workers, students, blue collar workers and artists live more harmoniously than they ever have. The economy works in East Harlem, Public Housing works in East Harlem, the streets are safer than they once were and much of the credit belongs to the NYPD, who have effectively worked to foster better relations with all the constituents in the community and to weed out the violent crime that terrorized earlier generations 'Up East'.

At this point, and I expect at no point, has any evidence been revealed that makes any suggestion that Office Dunton, who is a white man from a suburban community, has ever demonstrated that he is a racist. From the first account of this incident, and early reports about both men's service records, this appears to be a case of two good young cops who came upon one another during a crisis, and tragedy resulted.

We can look at the demographics of the places that formed these men's understanding of the streets and shape conjecture, but no genuine understanding of this particular INCIDENT is suggested here or required for the scope of this discussion. All that we KNOW is that a good man is dead and a good man shot him.

For several decades, New Yorkers have debated the imposition of a 'Residency Requirement' that would require NYC employees, and specifically, NYPD, to live in the 5 Boroughs of the City. This is problematic in the sense that Americans have the right to live anywhere they wish, and the Patrolmen's Benefit Association (PBA) have argued against the provision, noting the high cost of living in many parts of the city and the difficult social conditions that exist in more affordable areas - places like Brownsville, or to a lesser extent, East Harlem.

Officer Edwards, who has been described by Brownsville neighbors as a 'Mama's Boy', was a hulking physical specimen who was a star on the NYPD Football Team and wanted to be a cop since he was a boy. Growing up in Brownsville, he would have found the East Harlem community to be easily interpreted and relatively safe. It is also possible that he grew up seeing White police in conflict with young Blacks in Brownsville and internalized a sense of vulnerability to such encounters.

Officer Dunton, a quiet, well regarded student, officer and neighbor. Growing up in Suffolk, attending school in Loudonville and living in Suffolk, it is entirely possible that the street scenes he encountered and the community he served in East Harlem, were unfamiliar to his experiences and that he may have internalized a sense of menace from young blacks, who account for a disproportionate percentage of arrests and convictions in Harlem.

It isn't much of a leap to imagine a furious Officer Edwards, interrupted from a legitimate chase of a suspect he'd caught red-handed stealing from his OWN car - failing to follow procedure and not understanding the gravity of doing so. It is certainly no stretch to imagine an adrenaline fueled Officer Dunton, encountering a huge, powerful, suspect with a drawn weapon, failing to exercise appropriate restraint when Officer Edwards turned towards him. A cool, rationale response is not to fire until one HAS to, emptying six rounds at short range indicates fear, panic and a perception of threat.

For Officer Dunton, regardless of intent or character, the preponderance of evidence (60% of Crimes in NYC are committed by Black men under 40 years of age) and the weight of personal experience resulted in a snap decision that left a cop dead. Had he been exposed to more life on the streets, he very well may have come to a different conclusion about Officer Edwards. We'll never know.

What we do know is that a Large Black man with a gun is a person who is threatening and an understandable fear requires no suspension of disbelief.

Understandable then, that Edwards, of Brownsville, was less than enthusiastic about being detained and that Dunton, of Suffolk, made a snap decision based upon profiling and circumstances.

Understandable, but unacceptable.

The NYPD is not a Social club or a Political party, it is a Law Enforcement organization that sends armed officers into every community to protect the public. Those officers cannot be left to their backgrounds, emotions and biases, when they confront the infinite variety of possibilities in a modern urban environment. They have to rely on TRAINING, and preparation. They have to KNOW what they will do in a situation, no matter how laced with peril it may be - they are Cops - it IS going to happen.

In an ideal circumstance, every neighborhood would be patrolled by officers who grew up on those streets, who could read the vibe with a heightened understanding. Residency requirements make a lot of sense, but they cannot be installed, because of the individual rights of officers. Individual rights make things more complex, but also make things FAIR and in this instance, fairness dictates that the Officers rights and the communities rights must be balanced.

Nobody should bury a 25 year old like Omar Edwards, a hero with a lifetime of service and joy with his family in front of him.

Make his loss mean something.

There are young officers from Suburban communities, who ride in fear every day through Urban neighborhoods they can scarcely be expected to relate to or understand, any more than many of us Urban dwellers would relate to life on Long Island's Eastern end. There are young officers from Urban areas, who have incorporated a sense of mistrust for the very badge they wear, putting themselves and their partners at risk in a dangerous situation. Officers need to rely LESS on probability and 'profiling' and more on interpreting the individual circumstances of a scene - the only way these sorts of tragedies can be avoided is to relentlessly drill and train, drill and train. That suspect may be a Cop. That Cop may be a suspect. Anything can happen out there, and probably will.

Officer Edwards should have laid his weapon down and shouted 'I'm NYPD!'.

Officer Dunton should have positioned himself so that the turning suspect would not threaten him, should have been prepared to shoot in the leg, IF needed, after the maximum amount of precaution and discretion had been observed.

Instead Edwards is dead, shot in the back.

Prepare them. No cop should die at the hands of a cop.

Posted by Matthew at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Matthew

Wow.

Captain Phillips is S-A-F-E.

Praise God.

...or Quantum Theory. But certainly, lets all praise those Navy SEALS and their sharpshooters who had the balls to try and the skill to succeed, with a world watching and the Captain's LIFE on the line.

Words fail.

And they will. But an attempt must be made.

Three hijackers killed, one captured. The ship is safe, its humanitarian cargo has been delivered to Mombassa, Kenya and the American President is the son of a Kenyan.

Never before has the hypocritical horror that is the Gulf of Aden been revealed in such stark relief.

Take a bow, America, its our best day in longandlong.

Get home safely, Captain Phillips, we've got a sorely underused Canyon of Heroes in Manhattan's battered Financial District that is just begging to let you know how much your selfless heroism means to us.

First Captain Sullenberger keeps his cool and saves his passengers and is saluted by a Mayor who keeps HIS cool and thinks forwardly.

Now this? Can it be a trend?

Call it 'Captain's Courageous' and it says here 'It's a HIT!'.

Posted by Matthew at 07:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Didn't see this one coming...

Chinese vessels harassed American Military Surveillance ships in International Waters, South of Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The small boats dropped debris in the Navy ships path, steered their boats in direct obstruction, shouted at the American sailors and waved Chinese flags...

Ugly Nationalism is apparently not limited to the US and Russia.

The more things change...

What a shame.

Certainly the Chinese have the right to assert a greater degree of autonomy in these Seas, this is an area analogous to the North Atlantic waters off of Cape Cod - it's C-L-O-S-E to China and Hainan is the major Chinese Naval installation. In the spirit of their broad alliance and need to maintain close ties for the good of the World - these are the types of situations that can and should change. The days of American impunity in that region have obviously ended and that will only benefit everyone, America included.

But.

With regular contact established, a positive beginning to the new administration's relationship with China has seemingly been established. Secretary of State HIllary Clinton made China her first destination and made fostering positive vibes the focus of her visit. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is a China expert who speaks Mandarin, and should be a breath of fresh air for the Chinese after eight years of arrogant lectures from the likes of Economic 'experts' advising less savings and more structured finance and, by the way, we'd like to see more Churches...ugh.

A blind, bullet-ridden desperado with a catastrophic haircut could see that President Obama will make a more responsive, engaged partner than his predecessor...

So why would the Chinese set up a confrontation that could, easily, have led to disaster. Those Navy kids kept their cool and used hoses to deter the screamers, thank goodness. Where would the World be this morning if that had been bullets instead of water?

It was reckless symbolism. The LAST thing anyone needs. The sort of thing the Chinese seem to be preoccupied with...perhaps out of a sense of a emerging from a long-neglected period on the World stage, but that is long gone. No Country, least of all the United States is ever going to attempt to place China in a box and none COULD, even if they wished to. The threat to China is internal, not from the Tibetan dreamers, the Taiwanese entrepreneurs or the 'East Turkistanians' - but from the paranoia of its leadership.

Barack Obama must seize this incident as a chance to provide the Chinese with some good-feeling concessions in the South China Sea and to insist, in return, that the next time something is on the mind of the leadership - get Secretary Clinton on the PHONE or call the President directly. Change needs to occur to more accurately represent the balance of power in the region and the world, but that change need not come through intimidation or symbolism, it should come from conversation and negotiated agreement. No Chinese should seek to intimidate Americans with nationalistic displays...

...and Vice Versa.

For goodness sakes, we've got a global economy on its knees, an intransigent Islam on the docket, a resurgent totalitarianism in Russia and a 21st Century need to share science and shift the paradigm into Space. Childishness is not needed, vision and humility are.

The goal for both should be a relationship of mutual respect and open conversation.

Buzzing Naval vessels in the years after the USS Cole was sabotaged by Al Qaeda off of Yemen and Somalian pirates have been hijacking shipping in the Gulf of Aden is a provocation that should never have occurred.

China and the United States must see that it never does again.

Posted by Matthew at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

The more I watch the maneuvers emanating from the Obama administration, the more certain I am that America is in excellent hands.

I've watched as he avoided the FDR style confrontation that I was looking forward to and has instead, consistently and without fail, offered a branch to his opponents, be they domestic or foreign.

He went out of his way to stress Bi-Partisan intentions to an undermanned GOP he does not 'need' to govern, and gained both credibility and wiggle room by doing so. When the GOP spurned his advances and went off down the familiar road (Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee...), it was the one with a black eye, and the legislation passed without them anyway (Stimulus Spending).

He went out of his way to build strong chain-of-command dialogue with his Military and Foreign Relations staff, potentially alienating his Anti-War supporters, but did so unswervingly and without rancor, insuring that any lost support will probably be gained elsewhere.

Then, Hillary Clinton, made the rounds in the Far East and quickly brought a better tone to the dealings with China than had existed at any point in the Bush years and has followed that up, amazingly, by establishing frameworks for conversation with the Palestinians on Gaza, the Israeli's on the West Bank, the Syrians on Golan Heights and the Iranians on Afghanistan.

Then the discussion moved to the Russians and the Missile Defense issue.

Now the administration has floated the idea of talks with 'elements of the Taliban'!

The whole pace has been breathtaking and totally altered the dynamic of intransigence, and, as with the courtship of the GOP domestically - they've effectively blunted the other players from languishing behind the idea of an uncooperative USA. In each instance, the conversations chosen focus on areas of potential agreement, rather than some ideological beachhead that is DESIGNED to be unattainable (think Pope Benedict telling 30 million Horny Brazilians under 25 years old that they need to refrain from doing that old wild thang until they get hitched. Um...sure Papa!) or one of Dubya's sermons compelling Texas-style values.

*Iran wants and NEEDS the Taliban to be kept under control in Afghanistan and has consistently been able to be a reliable partner to its Eastern borders in a fashion thus far unachievable in the South and West. By focusing on the achievable, the conversation can at least begin and the contrast between the administration and its predecessor can become known to the Iranians. How they will handle this knowledge is a mystery, but it removes the smoke and speculation and adds a note of direct action.

*Russia is desperate since the collapse of Energy prices, the Russian Market and its international trade and has consistently focused on theatrical assertions of its desire to re-establish its 'sphere of influence' to Soviet levels in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Through it all, the main source of anger and concern has been the Bush plans for Eastern European missile Defense. By placing that program, one that has doubtful technical and strategic importance and ZERO support within the current administration, BACK on the table is a risk-free way to assess the degree of Russia's ability to get things done diplomatically in its current configuration and to offer her the easiest chip on the board.

*Syria, Hamas, Taliban all have been out of the loop diplomatically and have now been forced to formulate a response. Instead of responding to events, the Administration is forcing the agenda to areas of the possible, from which intentions can be ascertained, bluffs can be called and a clear picture can evolve. They have to maintain a certain aloof posture within Islam and pay lip service to that defiance, but they cannot afford to place a hand in the chest of a more accessible America and they realize it.

Ultimately, these early forays are no more likely to alter the dynamic internationally any more than they changed the GOP approach, but by CALLING THEM to the table and offering them opportunity, the world understands that the administration is TRYING to find common ground.

This approach has already led to the passing of the Obama agenda domestically and to the GOP being forced out on a Limb (augh), that only makes it appear even MORE disconnected than it was in November. In the end, it will come down to the success of policy, but by unwinding the perception game in its favor, the administration will be dictating events, rather than reacting.

The GOP hoped to soften its stance in the post Bush years, with Jindal in the lead chair and Michael Steele at the RNC. Now they cluster in frenetic back rooms with the despised-by-all-but-the-same-old-base that is demographically incapable of delivering post Bush elections. Instead of BROADENING their appeal and becoming viable, somehow, they have actually gotten narrower and more boxed-in.

All of that from a subtle hand.

Well played!

Posted by Matthew at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

That new day?

We're here.

Mulatto President, Barack Obama delivered a tour de force in his first speech to the American People, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Supreme Court and both houses of the United States Congress.

And the Cabinet, and White House Staff.

The GOP countered with a first-generation son of Indian parents, Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal.

These guys look different. More importantly, these guys, whose life stories and education are loaded with lesson materials - appear to actually have gotten the lessons.

Well...one did. 

Governor Jindal is new on the National stage and has enthusiastically embraced his role as the immigrant face of the GOP and a broken down party has endorsed this far right thinker with the dark complexion...if he succeeds, they take away their banner as the 'Bigot Party', if he doesn't?

Well...you know.

It's a setup, the sacrificial lamb. And Jindal is betting on himself, as is Sarah and the four other American governors who DECLINED Federal Funds on PHILOSOPHICAL grounds, taking money OUT of the pockets of American citizens to make a point.

Not a new point, mind you, the same one you've all become used to - your suffering is good for America. Jindal's Gator constituents know that rap better than anyone. His very presence in the Governor's Mansion is attributable to those realities. How a battered populace will respond to such brinksmanship with THEIR lives is an interesting question. Apparently Jindal believes that is still possible, in the American South to tell poor people and soon-to-be-poor people to take their concerns inward and return those who arranged that condition back to office.

Not surprising. Like WWII Japanese, Oglala Sioux and Hamas, the American Right long ago identified its willingness to fight on against any odds, and to stay 'on message', no matter what the data, the voters and even a nodding acquaintaince with reality might otherwise lead to.

As a Yankee fan who bails on any game or series that doesn't show signs of falling easily into the Pantheon of Propaganda (PoP), I have seen such miracles occur, at my expense.

I saw the defeated Arizona DiamondBacks come back and defeat Mariano Rivera.

I saw Red Sox fans with signs saying 'Why not us?', and saw their faith rewarded by an unprecedented comeback from 3.8-0 to the first World Series in Nine Decades.

It CAN happen.

Won't happen here. But I thought that in Boston too, you crazy fools...

It's never the way to bet. 

Posted by Matthew at 03:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On North Korea...

'Maybe this is unusual because you are supposed to be so careful that we spend hours avoiding stating the obvious. I think it's worth, perhaps, being more straightforward, trying to engage other countries on the basis of the reality that exists'

'North Korea is not going to get a different relationship with the United States while insulting and refusing dialogue with the Republic of Korea'

Secretary of State - Hillary Clinton

On China...

'I see our job right now, given where we are in the World, and what we've inherited, as repairing relations, not only with Governments but with people'

'We know what they're going to say, because I've had those conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders'

“I think that to worry about something which is so self-evident is an impediment to clear thinking,”

On the job one HAS...be it First Lady of Arkansas, First Lady of the USA, Senator, Candidate, Secretary...

'Bloom where you're planted'

"Amnesty International is shocked and extremely disappointed by U.S. Secretary Clinton's comments that human rights will not be a priority in her diplomatic engagement with China.

"The United States is one of the only countries that can meaningfully stand up to China on human rights issues. But by commenting that human rights will not interfere with other priorities, Secretary Clinton damages future U.S. initiatives to protect those rights in China.

"The Chinese people face a dire situation. Crackdowns on Tibetans, Uighurs and religious groups such as the Falun Gong are widespread, resulting in thousands of political prisoners--some of whom have been executed. Half a million people are currently in labor camps. Women face forced abortion and sterilization as part of China's enforcement of its one-child policy.

"It's not too late for Secretary Clinton to do the right thing for the Chinese people. Amnesty International urges Secretary Clinton to repair the damage caused by her statement and publicly declare that human rights are central to U.S.-China relations before she leaves Beijing."

T. Kumar, Amnesty International USA advocacy director for Asia and the Pacific

“The US government cannot afford to let Beijing set the agenda”

Tenzin Dorjee, Students for a Free Tibet

'The sound of gunfire, off in the distance
I'm getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstone, lived in the ghetto
I've lived all over this town'

David Byrne, 'Talking Heads' - 'Life During Wartime'

Where oh where to START!

1.) TIBET

Let's start at the last quote. The US cannot let Beijing set the agenda on Tibet?

Think that through for one moment.

We'll wait...

Turn it around for a moment.

Tibet has been a part of The People's Republic of China since 1950.

The CIA attempted to promote a Tibetan insurrection in 1956.

'The Dalai Lama has said that he sees the millions of government-imported Han immigrants and preferential socioeconomic policies, as presenting an urgent threat to the Tibetan nation and culture'.

Of that, there can be no question.

That is what modernity will do to a Faith-Based enclave living in a remote region of a secular, emerging Global Power.

Ask the Sioux of South Dakota if they'd have preferred the Tibetan deal for gradual integration, rather than the 'Manifest Destiny' they got in its place.

China is a country of 1.5 Billion, mostly Han citizens. Like Americans streaming into the Black Hills and over the American West, that they are going to spread throughout the Country is a given, and, that spread is going to signal cultural change.

'The Dalai Lama has stated his willingness to negotiate with the PRC government for genuine autonomy, but according to the government in exile and Tibetan independence groups, most Tibetans still call for full Tibetan independence'

A man whose acolytes proclaim to be a 'Living God' is WILLING to negotiate with a sovereign Government for autonomy?

Ask the Confederate widows what happened in America when the South declared a determination to preserve 'their' culture and assert 'their' independence.

The Dalai Lama, of course, understands this and has modified this unrealistic stance "We are willing to be part of the People's Republic of China, to have it govern and guarantee to preserve our Tibetan culture, spirituality and our environment."

No such guarantees exist in life. Culture is fluid, changed and altered by every element, 'preservation' is futile. All that can be hoped for is a peaceful and enlightened approach to coexistence and assimilation. More than that is a fantasy. Tibetan Nationalism, as it exists currently, is an American construct, much like the Irish-Americans who brayed on about the UK and Northern Ireland, belligerent and unwilling to compromise while safe on the streets of New York or Boston, while Belfast mothers and children, orange OR green, took their lives in their hands on each trip to the store...then the parties sat down with Clinton and George Mitchell, and things got better. Today, of course, Arab expatriates, thriving in Brooklyn or Michigan, continue demanding a radical approach to Israel by Lebanese and Palestinian citizens who have nothing and live in fear of their overlords who fuel on such rhetoric AND the Israelis who those groups exist to destroy. Not enough food, commerce or progress.

More fantasy.

How refreshing to see an American Administration engaging the World and talking about REALITY, acknowledging the REALITY of American power in 2009, the interconnectedness of Chinese and American interests across a BROAD, rather than narrow, spectrum.

2.) Falun Gong

Unlike Tibet, which has existed in some form since the 7th Century, and therefore can at least claim precedent for its cultural and spiritual separateness, Falun Gong came into existence in 1992.

That was the year Secretary Clinton's husband won the Presidency...if you're reading this - you can remember that time pretty well.

Falun Gong, once again, is fueled by American critics of the Chinese, this time on the Right, who see it's theology as being a hopeful foot in the door against Chinese secularism. It is likely that both they AND the Chinese Government see parallels between the grass-roots nature of Falun Gong, the resultant persecution of its members and the experiences of Roman Christians.

It is just as likely that they read the lessons of that history differently, with the Christian Right hopeful for a blossoming of mystical belief overtaking the regime, as Augustine's conversion forever altered Rome and the future of the West.

Meanwhile, the PRC, immersed in unprecedented efforts to modernize its huge, formerly agrarian Nation on BEHALF of its people, may note that Christian Rome evaporated, fell and that Christianity led the West down a Thousand year 'Dark Ages'.

Benedict may pine for such times and the Southern Baptist Convention is on record as agreeing.

Not the Chinese.

3.) Xinjiang - Uyghur Province (East Turkistan)

As peace loving American leftists agitate the Chinese on behalf of gentle Tibet, and faith-based American rightists support moralizing Falun Gong, Islam and Russia both have a hand in the aspirations of dissident Islamics in Central Asia who clamor as their brothers do for autonomy and freedom to create a Islamic society in Ughyur of Western China.

For Russia, who continue to consolidate their grip on the other 'Stans' in the region, agitating for anti-Western policies in Kazahkstan, Kyrgyzytan, Uzbekistan and for a way to extend a solid buffer zone between the succesful economic model of the Chinese and the subjugated former provinces of the Soviet Union.

For Russia, its about influence and energy.

Unlike China, Russia has nothing going for it Economically or Demographically. There are ten times as many Chinese and their economy not only dwarfs Russia's, but is growing, organically, WITHOUT energy resources. Conversely, under Putin, Russia has moved away from Market economics and towards becoming a Petro-State - a strategy his people cheered when Oil was at $150 and tanks rolled through Georgia. But with oil having shaved two thirds of its value and Winter fast receding, money for Putin's expansionist fantasies has evaporated, along with Russian markets and currency. Putin is desperate to remain relevant, as evidenced by the spigot wars with Ukraine and Belarus and the sabre-rattling over Poland and Eastern European NATO membership.

For Islam, it is about maintaining and expanding the Islamic World on every border. As it is, from the far Eastern tip of Islamic Indonesia' Jayapura in the South Pacific Westward to the Atlantic Coast of Casablanca in Morocco, only Japan, India, Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam and Israel join China in being distinct from Islam. Like the American Christians, Islam views secularity as apostate, beyond even the sins of other 'Peoples of the Book' (Jews, Christians). To Muslim sensibilities, those who believe in a monotheism of the Middle East have at least SOME of the story right, but what to do with a people who not only refute belief but militantly refuse to allow an Islamic toehold in their secular republic?

Imagine that. Almost as if the Chinese leadership have not ONLY been studying economics, engineering, geology, space and history...but also watching the news.

In Gaza...

In Mumbai...

In the Philippines...

In London...

In Madrid...

In Manhattan...

In Washington, DC...

In rural Pennslyvania...

Think that list is too long to make the point?
The list is massively abridged, out of concern for space, not accommodation to sensibilities.

But the point is made and it is this, China says 'not here'.

4.) Taiwan

Relationships ebb and flow. Two people may be 'made' for one another at a particular point in their lives and hopelessly mismatched at another. The Same is true for companies, neighborhoods or even NEIGHBORS.

It is true for Countries.

Times change, interests alternately converge and diverge.

Taiwan understood the need for Democracy when mainland China was under totalitarianism.

Taiwan understood the need for Market economics and broad educational opportunity when China was under a morass of ideological and cultural control.

China has come around to the Taiwanese model, first on education, then on economics, and utilizes it's central control more in response to items 1-2-3 on this list and the urgency of its population issues than it does to impose Maoist style repression.

China in 2009 'gets it' in a manner unimaginable to anyone in the World, scarcely two decades ago.

Taiwan is an engine of growth, tolerance and accomplishment right off of China's shore.

Taiwan has more to gain from fuller engagement with 1.5B Chinese than it does from a meaningless flirtation with hard line American Right concerns that were more appropriate in Nixon's day than in 2009, with a China whose economy is poised to bestride the globe. Taiwan is BUILT upon commerce and commerce means China.

Pretending otherwise is, what?

You got it!

A fantasy.

And, while we're on the subject of self-serving, detached-from-reality scenarios...

5.) Human Rights

Does anyone in the World doubt that Hillary Clinton is an advocate for women all over the world?

Does anyone believe that women in Asia do not realize that she is?

This is the one place where the typically opposed fantasists on the American right and left come together, whether from cynicism or naivety.

As previously discussed, American History hardly stands up to a ringing endorsement for any particular virtue in this arena.

You know all those PHD's in the Chinese Government?

They can read.

They know about the Slaves, they know about the Indians, they know what it meant for the Irish, the Italian, the Jew, the Slav, the Hispanic and the Chinese when they first knocked on the door of America.

They sat on their hands when that idiot, Bush, and his blundering henchmen, lectured China on Economics and Investment as Chinese coffers stood brimming with Dollars and America's passion for 'structured finance' and the internal-combustion engine sent it tumbling down a hole that cannot yet be measured (since the tumble continues...) and has damaged the economy of every nation on Earth.

In America, Dick Cheney goes from Halliburton to the White House and the Government then spends more money with Halliburton than it did in the entire Second World War. Cheney now leaves the Government and unwinds a 'blind trust' worth hundreds of millions of dollars due to these expenditures under his watch.

In China, bureaucrats are found to have taken bribes at the expense of the common good and are executed.

Different? Sure.

Guru knows who he believes got it right.

They sat again, as Bush, leader of an American sect with perhaps 150 years of history, the aforementioned holders of slaves, slaughterers of indians and abandoners of New Orleans added cultural absurdity to the economic by lecturing a 5,000 year old China, essentially, on how to be more like Texas.

Both left and right are apparently still beholden to the notion that we Americans somehow are 'calling the tune' in this and other relationships. How grateful we can all be that the President and the Secretary are under NO such illusion.

READ that laundry list of complaints from Amnesty International, We've addressed them.

We have plenty on our plate, thank you. Reforming China from afar, with our own fortunes plummeting is CERTAINLY not 'change', right Joe Biden?

'That's more of the same'.

The World will get better the way it always has, incrementally, through education, commerce, peaceful coexistence. Or there will be War.

In China, India, Brazil...the accumulation of such incremental steps has resulted in an undeniable progress that none can question. Are they ideal constructs?

Nope.

Ideal and Human Society are not compatible.

But they are better than they've ever been and moving the fortunes of their populations upward and the interactions with other nations forward. Beijing, unlike Moscow and Teheran, does not desire conflict - that is the LAST thing they want. If conflict was their goal, Bush was the ticket and our current weakness and indebtedness would make us ripe for the picking.

That too would be fantasy-based.

As Hillary noted, China and America are the two most important players on the Global stage and, for the first time, both seem to realize it.

Further than that, the Chess board that is the World of conflicting interests finds an unprecedented opportunity for agreement in the wake of the economic meltdown.

We've learned how linked we are. We realize that ALL of us need the engine of progress, of trade, of environmental stewardship, of future exploration and that NONE of us wants nor needs more destitute peoples to care for or more armed conflict that creates such populations.

Barack and Hillary realize that America can build a coalition of allies like India, Japan, Australia, Canada, Israel. South Korea...places where honest business can occur, human rights are desired and the FUTURE is the guiding spirit, not the past.

China is already there. So is Brazil. The USA needs to emphatically strengthen its relationship with both.

A 'United Nations' implies something. That something has never been more attainable, but it requires CLARITY, honesty and humility.

In Latin America, Brazil is the dominant player and its market-friendly socialism has trumped Hugo Chavez and his Castro-esque pretentions. Venezuela is zero threat to the United States. Chavez anger with Bush was right on target, Bush is an oligarch with long attachment to the deposed oligarchs of Venezuela AND Cuba who tried to effect a coup in Caracas. Barack is no such thing and Chavez knows it. America, under Obama, will make it easy for Chavez and Raul Castro to navigate back towards the middle and ratchet down both the rhetoric and the condescension. Obstructionism, given the reality of the circumstances, is futile.

That is where things can get done.

If Latin America can be included in the alliance with those other freedom and peace-loving peoples, all can be considered as 'opting-in' to a working global dynamic.

Which leaves three players on the Globe not accounted for.

The first is Sub-Saharan Africa, and the allied countries have the ability to effect change through TRUE economic integration and reform that will finally result in an Africa that stands firmly in the modern world and cares for her own. Africans look to the future as well, they have little to hope for in the past.

There are two systemic obstructions to African progress. The first is an ecclesiastical 'cold war' that uses Africans as proxy for its conflicts, much as the Cold War combatants sacrificed Vietnamese lives for no purpose whatsoever. Islam converts and arms one side, Western Christians convert and arm others and gangster hordes maneuver between the cracks and gunfire to insure spoils for themselves while African people die needlessly, underfed, undermedicated, disconnected from any meaningful say in their own futures. Africa IS on the front lines of any confrontation between the World and Islam, but that cannot be, as Bush hoped, a 'conflict of civilizations' - a crusade, it is simply between the modern world (life) and antiquity (death). Africa can be fixed, but not under a cross or a crescent.

Not so, Russia and Islam. Neither has effectively integrated into the global economy or culture. Neither bases its goals and aspirations upon thinking of the Future and looking to the well-being of its citizens.

Concerned about 'Human Rights' and the plight of women? Don't ask about China, speak with a woman who has spent time in 'The Kingdom', or Afghanistan.

Think the Chinese are not transparent enough, go stand next to a Russian journalist with a dissident view.

Remember to duck when the sedan rolls by, Compton-style, or is it Chicago?

Russia is busily attempting, 19th/20th Century style, to 're-fight the last war' and, once again is lurching towards 'strong-man' control, as they did under Monarchy, Communism and Oligarchy. Having found the fluctuations of markets, diversification and regulation too difficult to implement, they have instead hoped for the Petro-State model and its promise of instant gratification and now, in its reversal, bandy about borders and 'sphere of influence'.

Russia wants to MATTER. The way they once did, but they do not. Under Putin, they've made it clear that they will work to change that, not through measured, incremental changes, but through force, coercion, extortion.

The usual recipe.

Islam, of course, owes its entire economic existence to that same Petro-model, and is beholden to 7th Century Theology. Like American Conservatives at the 'Cato Institute' or who admire WIlliam F. Buckley, Islam seeks to stand astride History and yell 'Stop'.

They only differ on the Century they'd have us return to. And who gets to hold the reins.

Russia and Islam do NOT 'opt-in', they have no rationale that gets them there.

An alliance between America, China and the others effectively blunts Russia AND Islam. A united commitment to dramatic new Energy policies will only further isolate and destabilize these corrupt and dangerous players. And that will result in conflict. An alliance assures that conflict will resolve itself in favor of those places looking towards the FUTURE, not hopelessly dependent upon yesterday's theology, yesterday's energy, yesterday's technology or yesterday's map

As long as America and China are not in alliance, those players can work in the cracks and the Globe can be held hostage.

This President and this Secretary of State are a formidable voice for change that can WORK.

It is hardly surprising that they will have to attempt its implementation over squabbling children on either side of the American aisle.

But it remains eternally disappointing.

Posted by Matthew at 05:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

'Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.'

Proverbs 16: 18-19

'We didn't start the fire, it was always burning, since the worlds been turning...'

Billy Joel - 'We Didn't Start the Fire'

'Funny how it's usually the bigots that make the public 'bigot' accusation first, and generally, as in this case, is a guy making the claim with zero factual backing.'

Curt Schilling on Facebook, responding to being called a 'Bigot' by Guru

Gee, Curt...you came to Boston, an overwhelmingly progressive place and set yourself up as Advocate Number One for the political goals of the Christian Right, championed George W. Bush, advocated anti-immigration policy, advocated anti-gay policy, advocated policies that would diminish the rights of single women...alienated Immigrant teammates (imagine being Manny, a New Yorker and a Dominican from a neighborhood with more Dominicans than there are PEOPLE in Boston, where 200,000 illegals live in FEAR every day of people JUST LIKE CURT...and be listening to Curt rap on the City and anti-immigration themes...) and you have continued to be a tireless blowhard for a GOP that received;

Curt Schilling's Official Blog

5% of the Black Vote

(influenced by a Mulatto candidate to some degree, but the GOP received only 11% in '04 and 9% in '00, despite successive African-American Secretary's of State)

43% of the Female Vote

(despite the Female Democrat losing and the presence of a Female GOP candidate for VP)

31% of the Hispanic Vote

(despite the Hispanics Democratic choice by a 2/1 margin in the primary losing)

21% of the Jewish Vote

(despite unprecedented outreach by Christian Right organizations seeking influence in Israel)

35% of the Asian Vote

Clearly, Guru is not the only one who sees bigotry in Mr. Schilling, his brethren and his party.

Three days ago, I had posted a note on a Facebook photo of our old friend, Morrissey, of his wife, Mrs. Mo, wearing a Schilling t-shirt. At the time, I didn't realize that the photo was Mrs. Mo (not really visible, just the shirt) and hadn't stopped to consider the propriety of politicizing the photo.

On the one hand, Curt is a Baseball Player, a dynamic winner who has been part of the only two championships Boston has known in 90 years - a natural choice for honor to a Red Sox fan...and having such a person sleeping in my home and another one as my right hand colleague here on VagabondGuru.com - I certainly have no issues with Red Sox fans and their passion for their team.

On the OTHER hand, as mentioned above...Curt, like the despicable Charlton Heston, before him (may there be a Hell, simply so that his flesh can burn for longandlong...), has long ago shaken off the role of being just a 'ballplayer'. There has been no more forceful advocate for the Right in the public sphere than Schilling, certainly not in the solid blue North East, where it is possible to go YEARS without encountering someone who shares his belief system. At every turn, on every topic, in the game and in society, he has been OUT FRONT, happy to identify his Baseball celebrity with Right-Wing, Evangelical politics.

It's a dilemma, an ethical one. Curt is a bad guy who has done a great deal of harm and will continue to do so as long as he draws breath, he has PROVEN who he is, countless times and has earned the rage and condemnation of every American - no less than others of his ilk.

But...Facebook is not a forum for argument, it is a place for friends and Mo has been the classiest of men in my experience, we disagree on much, but honorably, and I have never detected the types of venomous hatred that Schilling spews from Mo. In this case, the benefit-of-doubt should have gone towards my friend and I should have restrained from commentary. There have to be safe spaces where people can live their lives and hold to their preferences without being trampled upon...what Manny and Pedro might have felt about their workplace prior to Curt.

Took me two days of teeth-gnashing contemplation to understand that...my typical approach is to attack anytime a Right Wing presence is detected, and to use FULL VOLUME ABUSE in so doing.

I'm conditioned to respond this way, by a lifetime of the fight against the Religious Right, its ignorance and its all-encompassing bigotry. I watched Alexandra Pelosi's Documentary 'Right America: Feeling Wronged' on HBO this week and it is S-C-A-R-Y.

This problem is way beyond contain.

In every meaningful way, the vanquished ideals of the 19th Century;

...the Nativist instincts of the Protestant 'Know-Nothing Party', perversely intertwined with the Conservative Catholics who the KNP were seeking to expel in 1850 and who now, under Benedict, find common cause with their former tormentors against latter-day Immigrants and non-English speakers.

...the sense of racial entitlement felt by Southern and Western Confederates to live their lives amongst others of similar racial and cultural belief systems and to oppose 'progress' that would seek to dilute this ability.

...the belief that only that which can be extracted from the Earth, in the form of raw materials or agriculture is a desirable form of commerce.

...the belief in 'Creationism', 150 years after Darwin and 84 years after the 'Scopes Monkey Trial.

...an abhorrence of the Homosexual, the sexually active single woman, sexually aware teenagers.

Are alive and well in these 21st Century Americans. As Islam and its fundamentalist movement has stood in the way or progress for nigh on 1,500 years, its twin 'ankle weight' on Humanity, the fundamentalist Christians are prepared to hold on, hold out, obstruct and subvert America until it can LOOK and FEEL as they wish.

What I didn't realize until I watched this film, is that these people have ZERO intention of joining the 21st Century, making common cause with their Blue State brothers, the rest of humanity...ANYONE. They are dug-in, culturally, as deeply as the Japanese in World War II, their Confederate forefathers, Hamas in Gaza...it is possible to hear, when listening to their rhetoric and that of Benedict an actual LONGING for the 'Dark Ages'...something that most Westerners hear, recognize and revile in the ideology and theology of Al Queda and Zawahiri - a fanatical devotion to what WAS and aversion to what IS.

For years, decades really, I have tried to use logic, reason, rational thought to connect the historical and scientific D-O-T-S for those on the wrong side of this divide and had zero success. I've come to realize this is not, in any meaningful way, different from trying to counter Yankee-Haters with facts or perspective...only to realize that they too, do not CARE about the 'quality' of the game, about 'free enterprise' or the primacy of large places in all things - what they DO care about?

1.) Folks JUST LIKE THEM doing well.

2.) Folks just like GURU doing poorly.

However that can happen. Ethics, which I grapple with daily, are simply not a consideration to the 'Holy'.

If blathering on about Whitewater and Monica can defeat the Clinton's - do it.

If nonsensical idiocy about drug tests and salary caps can defeat the Yankees - do it.

It's not enough for them to do well, or have a CHANCE to do well, its important that those who represent modernity, urbanity and success do POORLY for them to feel better about the world.

And here is the thing, for an America crumbling in on itself, economically, culturally, politically, environmentally...it is impossible to imagine a scenario where the likes of Guru and Curt might combine their resources and energy to work TOGETHER - our world view and goals for America are as different as Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton - diametrically opposed.

We CAN make it if we can just rely on the Constitution and the guidance of the founders, free to be as each sees fit...but to the Evangelical (listen to Mike Huckabee...) the founders were/are a Secondary authority to that of scripture. These people REJECT the enlightenment, they REJECT a multi-cultural, secular society in tune with the wider world...they want, what they WANT.

Abraham Lincoln sacrificed the lives of 360,000 Americans to insure that the Confederate nightmare was not allowed to spread. But his assassination insured the cleansing could not be completed.

Enlightened thinkers of the day, believed that the South and the Right, thusly chastised, would JOIN modernity and adopt the ideals of Jefferson/Paine that guide the Declaration and Constitution.

They did not.

The 'reward' of Union victory was 100 more years of Racial segregation, anti-intellectualism, adherence to supernatural fantasy...

Lyndon Baines Johnson was a man of the South. He knew that America could not be whole if it did not resolve its racial wounds and that, until Black men were truly free in the South, America would not be free. He ALSO knew that White Southern Segregationists would never relinquish those rights willingly and he sent in the National Guard to insure those people would not be able to obstruct the intent of integration, 100 years after the Civil War.

Enlightened thinkers of the day, believed that the South and the Right, thusly chastised, would JOIN modernity and adopt the ideals of Jefferson/Paine that guide the Declaration and Constitution.

They did not.

What followed was George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, Grover Norquist, Bill Kristol, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hanitty, Ann Coulter, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin...Curt Schilling...The Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, Homeland Security, FOX, Focus on the Family, Moral Majority, Christian Broadcasting Network, Southern Baptist Convention, Opus Dei...

There have never been meaningful triumphs for enlightened Americans without bloodshed.

There will never be meaningful triumphs for Israel without bloodshed.

There is no negotiating with people who claim supernatural or racial domain.

N-O-N-E.

Which leaves two choices.

Fight, persevere and see an America that is built for the 21st Century, free of 19th Century baggage.

Continue to live the 'wish theory' and see the likes of Curt Schilling advocating racist, regressive policies and attitudes and see MORE generations of Americans suffer the fate of the Post Reagan 'lost tribes' who have no real way forward in the Modern world.

Time's up America. Act, or perish. How do we heal the divide between us, which is and has been, irreconcilable, without killing one another?

Posted by Matthew at 05:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The Media missed it.

Shocked?

Sure you are. So is Guru.

They refer to Judd Gregg (R-NH) withdrawing from his nomination as Commerce Secretary in the Obama cabinet as the '4th Blow for Obama'.

Gee, I don't know...let's look!

1st 'Blow'

The 1st Commerce Designate was Bill Richardson, a guy who is Apostate to the Clinton Democrats, both in the cabinet and the country. Appointing him, a supporter with a solid resume was no blight on Barack - nobody doubts Richardson is competent, the guy has served his country and state with distinction.

But...he's got a thicket of ethical concerns to wade through, and his withdrawal in no way reflects upon Obama. In fact, by acknowledging the political debt to the guy and still not having to deal with the divisive energy around actually having him AROUND. Obama comes out in a win-win scenario, and the smirks on we newly docile NorthEastern dissidents accrue to the President without him having to do anything.

What could be wrong there?

2nd 'Blow'

Then there is Tom Daschle at HHS (Health and Human Services). Another political chit that had to be observed, another serious player with vast experience and a bust-out resume, another perfectly valid reason for the appointment, another guy with ethical baggage, another undesirable in the Upper RIght Hand corner of the Map disappears for reasons entirely of his OWN doing.

Who's complaining?

3rd 'Blow'

Guru has no idea what a 'Chief Performance Officer' (is that a Urologist?) does, so its tough to get worked up about the 'loss' of nominee, Nancy Killefer. One thing is sure, that is not a 'blow' that Barack will feel.

4th 'Blow'

And so we come to the 2nd Commerce Designee, the aforementioned Mr. Gregg. Ole Judd is a dinosaur, one of the last New Hampshire GOP still standing after a generational/demographic shift that has taken the Granite State from Red to Purple to Blue in the past two decades. He engaged in a series of balletic moves upon being considered and had to place language in his deal that insured the NH Senate slot he'd be vacating would not be given to a Democrat (ahead of the 2010 election when the natives will do so on their own, thank you).

Then, having secured those assurances, and seeing the Democratic Governor of NH, John Lynch, accede to them and select R - Bonnie Newman, to succeed him and seeing Ms. Newman, dutifully report and begin the introduction process in a tricky spot, he now pulls the rug out on EVERY deal he made...leaving the President looking for another Commerce Secretary and having wasted his time along with pissing off BOTH NH parties, creating useless waste work for Lynch and a life/career upheaval for Newman. Sure he has made himself a hero to the Trogolodytes. So is Sarah, and Cheney...

So let's see...Barack honors his goal of selecting a GOP member of the Cabinet (along with Defense Secretary Robert Gates) AND honors the spirit of the candidates concerns with an unprecedented re-working of traditional deference to the Governor and still doesn't have to deal with the schmuck in his cabinet - infused with the types of moronic, bad economics that are the hallmark/millstone of the GOP.

Final Score?

On Judd...GOP vow kept. Feudalist idiot not in Cabinet. NH looking like a lock for Dems in '10.

Keep taking 'blows' like that B-Bam and we may just have something!

As for the overall tally...all 'paybacks' and promises were honored without having Cabinet members that many Democrats do not want anyway. Barack certainly loses nothing with his base, losing out on political lifers with longer careers than the average Obama voters been alive.

He should break the box he was in and go for what he WANTS with the rest of the team, now.

He doesn't owe anyone else, and doesn't have to play this ridiculous game out any longer.

One observer, who shall remain nameless (but has a HUGE forehead!) would like to see Michael Bloomberg, NYC Mayor, self-made Billionaire and the state-of-the-art on Infrastructure and Budget offered the role. While the Mayor is likely to decline (he has a bigger job now and won the right to run again in '09 for a third term...), he is a patriot and a problem solver, in total control of himself, beholden to none and the absolute POSTER-child for post-partisanship (there's a phrase...) as a lifelong Democrat, who switched to the GOP to avoid a crowded Democratic primary, rode out that ruse as long as it benefited his City (with a hostile GOP President in office) and then switched to Independent the SECOND said loser could no longer benefit/harm his town.

Bloomberg automatically becomes the biggest and most trusted economic mind in the Administration and calms Obama base fears about Summers and Geithner, who would effectively slide into deputy roles.

It's a brilliant idea (wish I knew it's anonymous parent!) that would turn the 4 'blows' into the wind, where we've shown they already reside, in every sense but in the minds (teensy) of the Gossip columnists writing Politics from the Capital. They'd catch on to the above, probably...in July.

Posted by Matthew at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

"Let us remember that we are doing so as servants to the same flag, as representatives of the same people, and as stakeholders in a common future, that is the most fitting tribute we can pay and the most lasting monument we can build to that most remarkable of men, Abraham Lincoln."

Barack Obama, February 12, 2009

Well said, Mr. President.

Both of you!

Both of you know that eloquence is no guarantor of Greatness, and its lack, no impediment.

But when it is found in a leader who is Great, the World moves forward.

Barack Obama, need not be 'great' to be a success, but we all should be grateful for his eloquence, his humility and his balance.

I was not a Barack Obama supporter.

I am now.

I looked and I saw and heard...Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Howard Dean, John Edwards...Joe Trippi, David Axelrod, Michael Moore, Matt Taibi...Michelle Obama...I missed the man, was too busy listening to those who have demonized the Clintons and betrayed John Kerry, allowing the maniac to scorch American Earth in order to prevail at a future date.

Then I looked again and saw and heard...Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel, Leon Panetta, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton at State, John Kerry chairing Foreign Relations...and I said, 'wow'.

Another look brought worry, Tom Daschle, Bill Richardson, Caroline Kennedy...but events intervened, they disappeared, and conflict...poof..., was gone. I supported Barack Obama.

Today, when I read those words..I wanted to be a Better American and a Better Matt.

That is eloquence.

But this place is about keeping it real. And so we will.

We are not what our President would have us be. Not 'United', in any meaningful sense of the word, beyond currency, it can be difficult to find ANY commonality in our belief systems, in our values, even in our sense of what America, actually IS.

That moment, awesome...breath-taking...horrible, that we had, in Manhattan rubble, did not last.

Bush knifed it.

The rest of America, kicked it.

The left, denied it.

The worst, endorsed it.

Those who flew the planes are stronger now.

Those who saw, in their despicable acts, a means to separate ends, plot still against us.

We are split in more ways then 'Red' and 'Blue', 'Liberal' and 'Conservative'...on the Left, on the Right...there are numerous competing belief systems, each category stronger than it was, but less in line with its opposite numbers or former allies.

We are a mess.

And a mess we shall remain.

We must find the common ground the President seeks and it is in our founders intentions.

Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia...

They had few illusions of commonality of lifestyle.

Those are generated by marketers, not realists. The beauty of our system is what you see in that list.

Diverse. Different. Willing to work together, despite it.

The very FIRST words that are part of something that came to be called 'The United States of America' can be found in the Introduction, by Thomas Paine, in his pamphlet, 'Common Sense' that was the call for not only Revolution, but for an entirely new way of governing, of seeing man's place amongst his fellows, of organizing...

'Perhaps the Sentiments contained in the following Pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general Favour; a long Habit of not thinking a Thing 'wrong', gives it a superficial appearance of being 'right', and raises at first a formidable Outcry in defence of Custom.

But the tumult soon subsides.

Time makes more Converts than reason.'

Of Paine, another American master of Eloquence in the White House, Thomas Jefferson, said;

'It will be your glory, to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man living, to bring about the greatest of revolutions'

They understood that we, as they, would learn more, and change more, with time...and left in place a system that allows that growth to be reflected in government.

Lincoln saw, at unimaginable cost, that their ideas survived and that their beliefs would spread to more of her citizens, a process that has continued but it is more a continual struggle than 'destination'.

Freedom's enemies do not rest. Equality's enemies do not rest.

We must find the strength to come together, as we did that day...to unite, in the ways we CAN, and to allow others to live as they wish in the ways we MUST.

We cannot pretend. We cannot equivocate. We cannot blow it.

Posted by Matthew at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

VagabondGuru.com is a website about ideas.

The Ice Flow is the place on the site where Political discussion takes place.

Guru established the site as a forum for views borne of education and life experience that are identified solidly with the much derided American 'center'. Guru comes from a place that has been all but forgotten by an America that scarcely knows who she is in 2009 - a place that formed the BASE of FDR's support in the '30s and '40s, but was shunted aside in the post war ebullience and saw its voice move from the mainstream to the off-beat. A place co-opted by mainstream media and political operatives and mis-categorized over the past thirty years, but which still contains, broadly, the generic belief of America.

This form of Working Class Progressivism once fueled the American Labor movement - no more.

It was once THE voice of the American Left - no more.

It was found in the words of Jack Newfield, Jimmy Breslin, Mario Cuomo, Barney Frank, and still can be found, just not as readily as it once was...before the Religious Right hijacked the debate and used semantics and phraseology to marginalize this constituency, which it rightly blamed for the FDR progressivism that had marginalized the Religious Right! They called these people 'Reagan Democrats', even though, the overwhelming majority of them would no more vote for Reagan and his anti-labor ideas than they'd cut their legs off with rusty saws. The idea being, associate the demographic with its antithesis and it will wither.

It Worked.

Beautifully.

As a result, many working Americans feel disconnected from the Left they once represented, they feel estranged from an ideology that comes from those who have never known toil and regard their efforts and their pride as displaced, a form of 'Wage Slavery' (Chomsky). This thinking, an academic elitism speaks to the working person from 'on high', offering condescension and emancipation fantasies with no grounding in real-life experience.

Guru's view of the American Electorate, 2009, holds that the country is split (effectively) between Democrats and Republicans, Left and Right and that this split exists upon a continuum.

On the Right, the GOP is dominated by Religious Right, Feudalist and Jingoist elements, comprising some 60% of the Party, or, roughly 30% of Americans - something like 90 Million people.

On the Left, the Democrats are less ideologically polarized, but not by much. The party is split about 50/50 between Leftists who want fundamental changes to American economic, social and cultural approaches (75 Million people) and those who believe America already has the system in place, as designed by the founders and developed in 233 years of this experiment, to handle all that ails it, as long as it avoids the hubris and criminality of the Feudal right.

The Mainstream media has concentrated, in the post Internet age on defining Party politics by these polarized extremes, the coverage and the bulk of public debate rage on between Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Rick Warren and their various cohorts on the Right and MSNBC, Moveon.org, Howard Dean and their acolytes on the Left.

These elements comprise approximately 165 Million Americans. They have no in-house voice in The Ice Flow. But their voices cannot be drowned out, so ubiquitous is their braying...they need no forum here to be heard yet they cannot be AVOIDED in American discourse, a forum must be provided.

Accordingly, Guru will file The Ice Flow on Weds, Thurs and Friday of each wee, speaking from his working class progressive viewpoint and will bring in voices 'From the Right' every Monday and 'From the Left' every Tuesday to discuss a defined topic that will be presented in Friday's column. ANYONE who reads the site and believes their views to come from either camp is invited to address the topic in column form and submit their writing to the editor - each week, the strongest voice from each group will have a forum. It is my hope that this will provide an honest exchange of ideas without detaching from our charter, which is to serve an underserved center of American Political thought that comprises some 135 Million Americans.

Posted by Matthew at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Can you hear that sound?

Teeth gnashing, heavy sighs, furtive e-mails...on one side.

Hands rubbing furiously together, strategy sessions, veiled threats...on the other?

Is it Pre-School?

Nope. It's the American Media, the American Electorate and the American Congress (both Houses).

It's the sound of insta-analysis, wherein all parties observe events through the prism of personal position.

In this reading, from the Left - Obama is our 'hope', and his travails with RIchardson, Daschle et al and unwillingness to confront those evil-right-wingers may indicate they are going to be MEAN to him and he might be damaged. Where are the ethics? Where is the change? Where is the subjugated Right?

On the RIght, it's 'rev up the machine - we're still in business', cue Rush, tune in Fox, begin the impossible (but achieved many, many times by the same folks...) task of selling fiction as truth, even to a few Billion worldwide that saw the lie put to the fiction WITH THEIR OWN EYES.

What is happening is none of the above.

Obama is a good man, an earnest, intellectually and emotionally gifted President. That has ALWAYS been evident. He is also a first-time Manager, first-time commander-of-any-kind (let alone in-CHIEF), first-time decision maker on senior-level hires....

The points, obviously valid, that were made in Campaign season...that he would, BY DEFINITION, have a steep learning curve 'on day one' and, as Joe Biden made clear in the campaIgn - that he would 'be tested early in his Presidency' are coming true. The fervent belief of a campaign forces dismissal of one's weaknesses in the minds of one's supporters. Stay POSITIVE - we'll deal with that when we get there. Doesn't work that way. He needs time to sort this out and cannot be judged on the weight of his supporters expectations, which were NEVER grounded to the reality of his resume or the National circumstance, but are pure Cult of Personality.

As for his Campaign assertion 'Judge me as a manager upon my campaign', as we wrote back then - this is a FALSE comparison and he did not appear to realize that. Campaign's are places where everybody who works for you is, or should be, on the same page - fighting for the same purpose. Governance, on the other hand, is a completely different arena - everyone is fighting for their own perception of solutions, their own conception of their interest and the interests of THEIR constituents.

Obama pleading for a removal of 'partisan politics' has no meaning, in the real world. Partisan politics that benefit Oklahomans, in their estimation, will continue to be reflected in their representatives. While Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma makes Guru PHYSICALLY ILL, I understand why his constituents vote him into the Senate. He aggressively prosecutes their world view. There are hundreds of such individuals in this process, Media organizations with their own take/spin/agenda, cabinet members jockeying for influence...

It's maddening. Carter never learned how to deal with it. Obama is a former Senator, he WILL get it, he still has to transition from what he 'wishes' would be the climate to what the climate IS.

He's the President, we need him to get it and we need Congress to keep things steady as he does so.

That is why it is nothing short of disgraceful to see this American Auto Purchase Tax Break passed,
76-21, in the Senate. Are they kidding?

Got to bring up Joe Biden's Convention speech - again.

'That's not change, that's MORE OF THE SAME'.

These stimulus packages and 'bailouts' are paid for by TAXES.

Providing a tax CUT as an incentive, is an accounting trick, at best and, more to the point - a LIE.

We'll give you back this money that you owe anyway.

In this case, we're going to do this so you can futilely prop up a dead business, with a major purchase at a time when your cash is likely to be under duress for a product that will only exacerbate our issues environmentally and economically.

No. No. No.

D-U-M-B.

We need to STOP making cars that nobody needs (and few want) made by businesses that ran out of ideas a generation ago and exist solely:

1.) To fulfill a fantasy that Americans have about their products, and their corporations.

2.) To acknowledge a nostalgic debt to a bygone era, and the contributions of these companies to past war efforts and economic growth periods.

3.) To keep tens of thousands of Americans employed.

Items Number 1 and 2 are not to be encouraged, for goodness sakes - that is what Reagan and Dubya did and that is why this business never transitioned itself to the 21st Century when it could have. Why exurban areas are dotted with houses, hundreds of miles from services, population density and sustainable commerce while ready-to-rock, modern cities like Cleveland, Buffalo and Providence sit underutilized. Vanity. Fantasy. No longer able to be facilitated.

Why?

'The undue influence of Custom'

Opus Majus - The Four Causes of Ignorance (Google for the other three and reflect that Ol' Rog was hip to this eight centuries ago, and we are arguing about creationism, extraction industries, homophobia and celebrity relationships.)

Roger Bacon, 1214-1294

This President is SMART.

This is the transitional time for these United States.

We must begin to move ALL of our population into the 21st Century and along with it, discard those ideas and tools made for another time and another circumstance

Those workers MUST be saved and the Manufacturing capability MUST be maintained. But not to make Domestic Cars.

Not anymore.

We can run three shifts of manufacturing in retrofitted factories and have those workers churn out things we DO need.

Wind Turbines. Put one everywhere the wind blows.

Solar Panels. Put one everywhere the sun shines.

Hi-Speed Public Transportation - not 19th Century Trains - 21st Century, cutting edge transportation.

Bridge Parts.

Levee Fixtures.

Electrical Grid Overhaul.

Permanent energy gathering devices that HELP the problem of employment, the environment and prepare people for the way they will live and work in the Future, not the way their Grandparents lived - because the rest of the world isn't going to subsidize that anymore.

Americans need S-T-U-F-F made. We can't pay retail anymore. We need blue-collar workers making good stuff at good jobs. We need to move PAST the Auto/Oil era and run towards a future built upon Science. The rest of the world is going there, and they won't wait on us and aren't beholden to our fantasies.

The corporate, auto-making capacity we DO need can be taken up, in the short term, by unwinding inventory of designs that NEED to come offline. There is a tremendous amount of inventory, it should be used, just not added to. Future auto needs in the short-term, will be met by foreign companies, as most of the global demand already is. We used to make radios and calculators too, we'll survive this.

The companies, as they exist - should die. They had their day, they blew up the cash and will be fondly remembered. Executives who have the chops to transition the manufacturing/design capabilities to the actual needs of the American people, can be retained for FAIR market value. Workers who work should all be retained and those benefits? National Health Care will be BUILT on the type of large thinking, future forward, budget savvy constructs like this one.

Health care paid for. Real, necessary work, a living wage. Access to affordable housing and transit. Access to solid education for their kids. An improving environment and an idea-based economy made POSSIBLE by the manufacturing base efforts.

That is change we can, most certainly, use.

Groups in the lead-dog position believe their own bullshit. Happens to teams, beautiful women, businesses and countries. It is SPECIFICALLY the root of decline in places that have known Empire or relative dominance. Some, like Islam, literally become so beholden to their 'glory days', that they legislate against the interests of their people and the entire world, simply to maintain a fantasy of what used to be or, tragically, what SHOULD be.

Those days done been gone.

Get over it.

The British had their empire bombed out from under them. We do not want to go there.

We have to work to defeat this bill and the message it contains.

We have to take 'Yes we Can' - to 'Yes we Are' and hand off the baton when we can say 'Yes we Did'.

Posted by Matthew at 06:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

'There is noting more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to implement than initiating change. Innovation makes enemies of all who prospered under the old regime'

Niccolo Machiavelli

One week in...and all illusions about unity and collegiality are beginning to disintegrate.

Minority Leader, John Boener, (GOP-R, Ohio) feels Republicans will oppose the $825M economic stimulus plan on the account that it has 'a lot of wasteful 'Washington' spending padding the bureaucracy' (not explaining what form of spending might preferably be voted upon in Washington) and '...given the concerns that we have over the size of the package, we don't think it's going to work'.

Boener, a hard core advocate of 'Trickle-Down' economic policies under the Bush administration that focused on Tax cutting and private-sector deregulation has plenty of experience with what 'doesn't work', as evidenced by the wreckage of his own state. Cleveland at half of it's 1950 Capacity, Youngstown a vast ghetto of jobless, addicted victims of Trickle-Down, promised to them by a generation of GOP candidates who could rely upon their votes. Desperate for relief, Ohio turned to Obama and his promise to derail such thinking. Boener says 'wait a minute, we still have to do it the same way we've been doing it'.

He's an idiot

And, when 2010 arrives, the people of Ohio will send him on his merry way and, perhaps, if he is the dedicated public servant he purports himself to be - he will get his ASS over to Youngstown and tell his former constituents that the Rubber and Auto plants are NEVER coming back and the Government does not have enough money to fix all their problems, but if they forget all the nonsense that Boener, his idol, Reagan and his buddy, Dubya peddled on them the past three decades and GO TO SCHOOL, STOP SPENDING MONEY ON THINGS OTHER THAN ESSENTIALS and PUT DOWN HARD DRUGS and WEAPONS, that their lives MIGHT get better in the 21st Century World that is being born.

Or they can do nothing to change their outlook, their world view, their economic hopes, dreams and desires and then they might as well stay high, because they will be assured of dying in misery.

John McCain, who is NOT an idiot, but is also not the slightest bit conversant with Economics, opined that 'We need to make Tax cuts permanent, and insure that there will be no new taxes', not deviating even a scintilla from the Mantra of the deposed jackass - the same surefire strategy that served him so poorly this October.

McCain, would be well served to ignore the Boeners of the world (funny!) and put his back into the real-world topics where his expertise is strong and desperately needed (Foreign Affairs, Military personnel). He has nothing left to pretend to the Conservative caucus, who have nothing left to bargain with but the rapidly diminishing calendar days on their Washington lives.

Is this response surprising? No.

Disappointing? Irrelevant.

It is what it is. What is has always been. The elevation of selfish considerations over communal well-being. It was the reason that so many of us desired the forged-in-fire elements of Hillary Clinton for President and why we worried that the new President, brilliant, thoughtful and deeply in tune with America's ailments as he is, would be in 'deep' dealing with antagonism of entrenched interest. But then he 'put aside childish things' that appeared to be guiding much of his campaign architecture and forged a deep Cabinet with all the relevant experience required, unlike another brilliant outsider who came to Washington with a mandate for change and found the opposition remained...opposed, relied on team of novices, kept an arrogant 'above the fray' mentality and was drummed out of Washington and into infamy for his efforts, a guy named Jimmy Carter, our 39th President.

To this day, Carter and his former advisors never cop to having made mistakes, instead blaming it all upon the 'toxic climate of Washington'. To this day, despite the lessons of Post Reagan America, they remain so parochial and arrogant to have assumed winning 50%+ of Cast Votes somehow signifies a broad, unifying energy centered upon the protagonist.

That is meaningless.

It was in 1976, it is in 2009.

Tens of Millions of Americans voted for George W. Bush. Many of these same voters are enamored of Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee and will vote for them in 2012 NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS.

Oil & Gas, Insurance, Banking, Medical, Paper, Defense and Auto executives whose businesses will be changed by the coming Global and Government changes will oppose those changes, broadly desired by the electorate and needed by an honest review of the evidence, NO MATTER WHAT THE TRUTH IS.

We are 300 Million, in total. But the Global arena, the enlightenment and the current administration are not the motivating principle for at LEAST 100 Million and, for those who came of age in a Post Reagan world and who have been laden with Feudal dogma about taxes, faith, immigrants, globalization, the U.N., race, sexuality...the leap to the 21st Century is going to be too challenging, too revolutionary, too displacing. It is those folks that Boener and McCain hope to woo, one last time, against all odds...to drag us backward and comfort us with lies about the joys of the 19th Century, the '50s, the '80s...and how the damages of the '00s were really all the fault of 'that woman's husband' - the same nonsensical conceit mined by Obama to peel off some of their votes.

After all, if some people are BOUND AND DETERMINED to maintain their fantasies, who is a politician not to capitalize upon them?

We live HERE. We are not a 'W-E' at all, anymore than Lincoln faced, or LBJ. Change that is good for ALL of us is going to be bad for MANY of us, and those people are going to fight like hell to keep it from happening and that is why this is going to come down to what it always does...

a FIGHT.

Because the only people who are able to 'put aside childish things' are those who perceive that doing so is in their OWN best interests. As long as some Americans continue to cling more closely to their fantasies, the more of them are going to be left behind.

It can't be helped. Change hurts, but NOT changing, as we have been trying - hurts WORSE.

A lot has been made by the media and element of the Obama campaign about the FDR parallels, what they have NOT said is that FDR put not a moments thought into the coaxing of enemies, he BLUDGEONED them - hoisting them on their own nonsense and hypocrisy. Obama is smooth and he is right to give the opposition their rope, but the lines are already being drawn, here at week one.

Guru is hoping that someone in his Office hands him FDR's quote from his Second Inauguration, if he adheres to its principles FEARLESSLY, he can book his own;

'I'd should like it said that of my first administration, that in it, the forces of selfishness and lust for power met their Match. I should like it to be said of my second administration that these forces met their Master'.

If Obama succeeds, it will not be with a vast 'Group Hug' from the displaced interests, any more than the South rewarded LBJ and the Democrats with support for removing segregation...it will be rather from having 'earned the hatred of entrenched greed' (FDR).

Smiles are nice, nice is nice.

This is not the time for nice.

Posted by Matthew at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

We all have them.

These vicious bastards have made the Millenia a fucking mess, pissed off all our friends all over the world, inspired those cretins amongst us and given the finger to a guy from Vermont who isn't named 'Howard Dean' - what's to like?

Nada.

Guru is NOT a fan. Did'ya know?

But here we are, the cake, eating, even a bottle of Bailey's for the hard core amongst us. (Present!)

But we gotta chill. Cause they no longer M-A-T-T-E-R!

How cool is that?

HOW fucking cool, is that?

It's cool.

Leave them be. BUT, I am composing a column about REVENGE fantasies and want to know YOURS.

Write me with them and we'll chat!

Matt

Posted by Matthew at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

How many people all over the World, their lives thrown into chaos by events of the past Eight years...

Woke up today feeling better than they did yesterday?

It happened for Guru. It took me a couple of hours to identify the sensation, and certainly there are differences to the SPECIFICS for each of us...but I finally understood it.

Sweet tasting air...Women look cuddly, chow goes down easily...the plant a bit greener and the wine more crimson.  

I felt this way once before, in January 1993. A Democratic President had been inaugurated, NOT the one I wanted and yet, from the first moment that someone named George Bush left Washington, DC and took all that Reagan nonsense with him, I felt like a weight had been lifted, a grudge abandoned, opportunity opening.

It's the old effect of going out of a room where you've been getting smacked upside the head, day in and day out...the FREEDOM, from pain, from inertia, from paranoia, from shame and of course...

Nobody hitting you in the head.

Naturally, now, as then, there is that little nagging voice wondering how we actually subjected ourselves to such unrelenting torture in the first place. But that is still a threat to return, we KNOW that now...we got rid of Nixon and had Reagan six years later, tossed Reagan/Bush and managed only eight years before Babs was rearing her ugly mind and brood again on the White House lawn (it's quite obvious that she will be the Anti-Rose Kennedy and linger on well past her minions).

The knowledge that we have a CHANCE, but that chance is finite in scope and time actually ENHANCE the sensation. In 1993, I was cocky and dismissive of the possibility that Kevin McCarthy's nightmare would flare up AGAIN. In 2009, I and billions GET IT and we have to get it RIGHT, or Left, as the case may be.

This chance is made even sweeter by the quality and depth of the changes afoot.

Obama marshalling an eloquent, tenacious humility, Hillary at State, John Kerry chairing the Senate Foreign Relations committee, George Mitchell on his way to Israel...Holder, Donovan, Geithner...

Joe Biden is the Vice-President, possibly providing the single greatest UPGRADE in American History. A working class hero replacing the unspeakable menace?

Pinch me!

(not there...here. Sigh...)

And while there were certainly moments of feeling 'left out' in the love-in for the Obamas and slight residual yearning for Hillary, there IS Hillary AND Bill, looking happier and better than they have in years, something that was noticeable in their New Years Dance under the Times Square Ball with Mike Bloomberg, his daughter and Diana Taylor, his squeeze. I keep coming back to something she said about beginning her life in Arkansas way back when;

'Bloom where you're planted'

That is deep. Solid. I was one who watched in admiration as she took in the disappointments of her public years, stood honestly with neither bluster or recrimination and MOVED ON.

I was amused to hear Bill's take on things, seemingly grafted whole from yesterday's Ice Flow; 

'You know they have such Smart people, and a lot of them are New Yorkers. You've got Geithner. You've got Donovan. Hillary. So, I'm upbeat, I expect New York to do quite well'.

I was laughing at Chris Shott's piece in 'New York Observer', discussing the demise of the 'W' train;

'If the proposed cuts proceed as planned, the 'W's exit would somewhat coincide with that of the outgoing U.S. President, with whom it appropriately shared an initial, an era (2001-2008) and dismal approval ratings'  

But beyond the removal of the trash that assailed us and the inclusion of the people who have worked so well for us before is the reality of the new, of the man and the moment. Of Obama.

Guru has never been much for 'Hope', my dreaming days have been hardened over the decades and I tend towards policy specifics and away from symbolic meanings. Barack Obama, a mulatto about my age, is not a revelation in my life.

My best friend from 4th grade on was Danny Marciano, a kid with a Dad who was a lapsed Italian Catholic/converted Buddhist/Union Carpenter, Mom was a Jewish social worker and Stepfather was a Black Transit Worker. Naturally, Danny adopted Japanese culture and languge and has been married to a Japanese women, living in Okinawa for twenty five years. My romantic rival and close friend in High School, Dave Moe, had a Jewish Mom and Black Dad and was certainly my academic superior, excelling in Engineering at RPI. Black, Hispanic, Gay, Asian, this...that...the other...not a change in that for any of us who live in American cities.

But I'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to note that MY experiences have not been those of the vast majority of you and to see the impact of the symbolism on so many. My favorite quote amongst the millions, being this one from Basketball Legend, Shaquille O'Neal;

'I'm sure he was one of those African-American kids like myself who wanted to do something, and a lot of people told them it could never be done. And it got done.'

The greatest thing about the sentiment being that, if you remove 'African-American' from the sentence, you echo the experiences, hopes and dreams of EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US.

This doesn't 'belong' to any of us. The truth of Democracy is that we ALL get what the majority selects, the same reality that had us STUCK with the W Train has us poised to BENEFIT from Obama, regardless of how we voted. We're in it together, irrespective of whether we like it. I've voted for President every year since 1984, being too young to vote while working for Kennedy in 1980 and only have been RIGHT in the voting booth twice (1992,1996). I thought I would DIE when Kerry lost and my life actually turned around for the positive from the energy.

I voted against Mike Bloomberg and passionately endorsed Fernando Ferrer in 2001, a candidate who surely WOULD have won but for the timing of the primary day. Tuesday, September 11. When I later met Ferrer and spent time with him, we clashed a bit over the '04 slate (he was an early Dean supporter, who I ABHOR, and our progressive visions saw different solutions). Then Bloomberg came into office, pushed aside the partisan and did an incredible job. I knew what a loser Grey Davis was from my time in California and was an enthusiastic supporter of Arnold, who I have always admired for making so much of his life and refusing to adhere to any ideology other than 'what works'.

Obama, it appears to me now, is more like Bloomberg and Arnold than Dean and Ferrer. This 45 year old moderate who has been burned by his own partisan excesses thinks that is just FINE.

Teach away Professor, class is in session and nobody's absent, except for those fun Texas boys, who are determined not to sit on the laurels of having produced Phil Gramm, Dick Armitrage, Tom DeLay, Dubya and their minions and produce new geniuses like Cornyn, who blocked Hillary's role call, allowing Senators from freedom-loving paradises like Louisiana and South Carolina to provide the only 'no' votes in her 94-2 landslide confirmation.

Proof positive that, no matter what the President looks like, some folks will manage to..

miss the point,

miss the irony

and miss the moment.

Posted by Matthew at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

If you've followed Guru's writing in other forums, you know that Guru didn't Vote for Barack Obama. I voted proudly for Hillary Clinton in the primary and was embittered by the vitriol directed towards the Clintons by elements of the Obama campaign.

I voted with difficulty for John McCain in the Election. The first time in my life that I have voted for a Republican candidate for National Office. I admire McCain and his moderate service to his country and require his resume to support a candidate. But I joined millions of Americans in reviling the elements of the GOP represented by the outgoing administration and the Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin - a woman whose every utterance is at odds with who John McCain has been in the Senate.

The truth of my vote, in a Blue Manhattan that would go 80% for Obama, was the importance of holding to your convictions. McCain and Biden, different men from different parties, represent the type of experience that I admire, having spent their lives in Government and Military. Barack Obama is a different cat, a cool customer...an academic, an activist, a social worker... honorable traits and experiences, but atypical for the role he has chosen. Still, any disaffection towards him on Guru's part is not substantive, simple style points. We wouldn't hang together, but on POLICY and HISTORY, we walk as one. Bill Clinton made that point beautifully at the Convention. Bill is MY guy, but there isn't a dimes worth of difference between ALL of us in terms of what matters.

Since the election, Obama has been masterful in the composition of his cabinet, allaying concerns about the team he would build and avoiding the types of rancor that was so disappointing during the campaign, by returning succesful elements of the progressive braintrust under the Clintons to key roles in the cabinet, including Secretary of State Designate, Hillary. New York is well-represented with Treasury Designate, Timothy Geithner, Attorney General Designate, Eric Holder (from Stuyvesant High School, a Senior when Guru was a Sophomore!), HUD Designate, Shaun Donovan...Rahm Emanuel is Chief of Staff, Lawrence Summers is on board with the Economic team. I would prefer to see the brilliant, General Wesley Clark at Defense, but cannot quibble with the logic of continuity given the extent of inherited activity Obama inherits. The mess must be cleared and that is best done by those who understand what has come and where we stand. There will be time for a change when it is time for new challenges, perhaps two years? Maybe four.

It matters little that Axelrod and Jarret are there as well, it is Obama's victory and they are his team. What matters is that the Administration has been built with wisdom and breadth and has not memorialized the differences between us that flared up in the campaign, but instead has blown them apart through sheer inclusiveness and with an absence of ideological declaration. Guru isn't the type to wear a button with an 'O', stand in a stadium for a Politician or shudder in the cold at the inaguration. The Presidency is a J-O-B and he has demonstrated vision and balance, delivered from a progressive voice.

That works for Guru.

I'm not interested in Barack's family life any more than I was Bill's sex life, but is sure is nice to see SMART back on the job. There IS a place for the 'C' Students that Dubya sent his Yale shout out to...it just shouldn't include 'Leader of the Free World'.

I welcome and salute the new President, he authored a rationale that I did not share and PROVED its construction - stunningly in his election victory. He marshaled disparate elements of the electorate, assembled the right team and hit the ground running with a brilliant speech that discarded the soaring rhetoric of campaign for the pragmatic details of vision. He understands the world and shares the values of the Progressive founders, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. He deserves ALL of our support and ALL of our efforts to join him in finally ushering the 21st Century to America, here, in the century's 9th year.

As for the reason we went from the digital '90s to the feudalist, fundamentalist fantasies of the past eight years...THAT guy hopped a Helicopter to Texas at 1:16PM and I've spent each of those eight years writing about him. He's DONE and so is Guru's energy to speak of him.

We move forward.

Posted by Matthew at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy New Year.

2008 was certainly the most History-laden one we've lived through in the past twenty years, a summer of Barack and Hillary, Chinese glory in Beijing, Russian regression in Georgia, madness and death in Central Asia, the evaporation of the financial underpinnings for the world's 'bad' actors in Teheran, Moscow, Caracas and Houston with the collapse of commodities and oil, Israelis besieged by rockets, Gazans destroyed by drones...

We've closed the chapter on the 20th Century and are ridding ourselves of the feudal designs of the Bush years, crashed in upon themselves amongst shattered financial markets and broken international alliances. We watched a moderate McCain try to unite his party, only to resort, in deference to reality - to the only tool the GOP has developed in 30 years with the nomination of Sarah Palin, who reminded us of both our great promise and its diversion from the path the founders set. A living embodiment of 'can do' optimism, work ethic, earnest ambition and unfettered confidence undone by ignorance, superstition and bigotry.

Biden was right, of course...

'That's not change, its more of the same.'

Watching McCain attempt to speak truth to a room full of GOP operatives, half of them ignoring him and the others openly CHEERING for more of the same only serves as a chilling echo to the problems faced in Kashmir, in Israel, Kabul Tibet...As Islam seeks to deny modernity through religious education, relentless bigotry and fanatical devotion to the absurd premises of 7th Century theology and 14th Century practice, we watch Americans follow the same path, removing their children from public school and secular teaching in favor of faith-based superstition, bigotry and fanatical devotion to the bastardized Mythology of the 19th Century..immigrant bashing, nativism, 'Manifest Destiny', feudalism, corruption...

In a 21st Century world, whose economic continuance relies upon the ability of the human mind to develop scientific concepts into planet saving energy sources, space-enabling propulsion systems, biological and digital solutions to that which ails us...we are confronted with the reality of two thousand years of our past clutching at our ankles and weighing humanity down.

Whether it is the 14th Century or 19th Century that our assailants intend, it is no more a solution for a 21st Century World than it was for the times in which it held sway...the clash of History can be seen for what it is in the rubble of Oklahoma City, 1 World Trade Center, Madrid, Bali, London, Mumbai..

Amidst the ruins, we see these ideologies for what they are and see the impact they make on a modern world..doesn't matter which fantasy vision of the past holds sway, modern lives are lost or diminished wherever the 21st Century is resisted...

...subtle admonitions from Rick Warren or overt threats from Osama Bin Laden - territorial pissing contests driven by Vladimir Putin, George W. Bush, Hugo Chavez - at the end of the day, its the same clash and these ideologies are running headlong towards a reckoning...their rationale as undone as the Vatican's view of the Solar System before Gallileo, you can lock truth in a dungeon for a lifetime, but not for eternity...to which a lifetime is a blip...

How many lives were held back by the Medieval faiths?

How many futures crushed by a thousand years of 'Dark Ages'?

How many dead, enslaved, held ignorant are enough?

How many centuries do we have to settle for the occasional Renaissance or Enlightenment to bring mankind lurching forward, before we INSIST on reason and progress and attack ignorance?

How much human promise will go wasted as we sort out boundaries and obsess over differences that are as meaningless as different color feathers on an Eagle?

The preponderance of truth that our Science has revealed to us through a decoded genome and a newly understood cosmos will not be fully revealed to us in our lifetimes, we are not the future...we are a TRANSITION to the Future. It is not we who will know the majesty of the cosmos, of sentient artificial intelligence, of single-World currency and Governance, of colonization of space, nanotechnologies that allow humanity to adapt our physical selves to new environments, of an interface between our carbon life forms and silicon systems, of particle driven technologies that send sentience across great distance at the speed of thought - of spacetime understood and tamed.

That world will no more benefit us than the development of the New World benefited 15th Century humanity....we, like those ancestors cannot yet bridge our humanity and last long enough to see the grand themes play themselves out...we live and die, love and breathe in human time, but our minds are free to understand that our obligations to our future as a SPECIES is as theirs was, to explore and confront the new understanding, not whither from it in superstitious fear or selfish desires

2009 lies at the dawn of a new world.

That isn't in dispute.

Will we as HUMANS, say 'Enough' to the preacher who counsels hatred? to the iman who preaches violent confrontation with modernity? Will Americans continue to purchase copies of 'Left Behind', not able to grasp the inherent irony...inadvertantly supplying their own epithet? Do we finally tell the strong-men to STOP? Can we open our minds and our borders to the future or will we settle for the established order and a progress built upon lies and nonsense?

We stand at the crossroads of History.

The Old World has broken and the fault lines contain no wiggle room...tens of thousands, if not millions are going to die in the coming conflict. Will we shy from the challenges of modernity? Will we set aside our personal dreams for the greater good? Will we dare to acknowledge the truth supplied 45 years ago by Lenny Bruce...



'The Truth is what IS...and what 'Should Be' is a fantasy, a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave the people long ago'...

All that is built upon faulty premise must inevitably crumble, be it a bridge in Minnesota, a government in Moscow, a faith in Salt Lake City, Vatican City, Delhi, Jerusalem, Mecca...

Will we be stewards of this world and deliver the Future to those who will follow, or will we be the Spaniards, awash in the magical revelation of the New World and seeing only gold and evangelical opportunity?

Things have not BEGUN to be as scary and horrific as they are headed towards, but we have stripped much of the blinders we have worn, away....we have a new opportunity for humility and work to prevail.

Let us not fail to meet the challenges head-on and EMBRACE the future that IS and discard the 'Should-Be's that never were.

Posted by Matthew at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (1)