President Bush sealed his fate in history with his own words in a recent interview billed as a reflection on eight years as highest leader of the nation. He stated that 9/11 was the defining moment of his presidency. With that said, one could imagine Osama Bin Laden, watching from a cave semewhere in western Pakistan saying to himself: "Mission Accomplished."
Bush never got it and the world and the nation he led has suffered because of it. For the terrorists, there is nothing more to have been gained from 9/11 than that the U.S. would allow such an event to define the next seven years of its life. This is exactly what terrorists do. Terrorists cannot take control of a nation or a national project as they are a very distinct minority. Terrorists cannot manage a society as they have a plan that is unacceptible to the majority. What terrorists can do and did in the case of President Bush, is make society abandon its real mission for the sake of combating terrorism.
So, President Bush, who began his presidency with the stated mission of implementing a plan of government that he called "compassionate conservatism", ended his presidency by sending the nation and the world into an economic tailspin and leaving the nation captive to two wars that cannot, in any acceptable way, be won.
If the President had responded by saying that he would not allow the terrorists to define America or his presidency, today we would be celebrating seven years of high accomplishement, no wars and a stregthened economy. Instead, the President allowed the terrorists to define the agenda for the nationa and the world, he took his eye off the eonomy, wasted more than a trillion dollars of taxpayer money on wars we cannot win. What a sad day for America when a radical fundamentalist with a burning hate in his heart can capture the agenda of our nation.
It is true that there were no more terrorist attacks on American soil during the remainder of the Bush Presidency. No need to expend such energy for the terrorists when the President himself is helping you to accomplish your mission.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
We All Make Mistakes, Mr. President
We all make mistakes. President-elect Obama seems not to make too many. Inviting Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation is a mistake. It is a political mistake which willpolarize not unite. It it is one thing to invite Rick Warren to be a guest and another to give the invocation. Jesus often sat with folks he didn’t agree with, but it was Jesus who prayed, not the Pharisee, not the tax collector. So, Mr. President, let Rick join the crowd at the podium, dance with him at the party afterward, invite him to have lunch at the White House, but don’t let him pray over you or, much less, over us.
It is a political mistake to invite Rick Warren to give a prayer at the inauguration because it will divide, not unite. That is what is politically wrong with Evangelicals. They divide, they polarize, they accuse and they do not unite.
Mr. Presdient, in this case you have met the enemy and it is you and/or your advisors. This could be your first “McCain choosing Palin” kind of mistake: it sounded good when you thought of it, but when it actually took place, the result was not so helpful.
But, the worse mistake for those of us who have an interest in Theology is that Rick Warren gets God wrong, misunderstands Jesus and, thus, insults believers. Jeremiah Wright gets God right (it is not a pun). The American public, especially the good ole boy evangelicals who run the GOP might not think so, but that is because they get God wrong. Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet, was rejected by the King and King’s priests exactly because he had a message that called the nation to repentance, not self glory. Jeremiah Wright, in what I have heard of him, does the same. It is the word of God that interests Jeremiah, not the approval of the “silent majority”.
Rick Warren dilutes God for the sake of book sales, reducing God to being the source of our “purpose” in life. The God whose love is shown in its depth exactly for its special concern for the poor, for justice, for peace, for human understanding, for those who are marginated by society and cast out and made weak is not to be found in Rick’s theology. His God will save your soul for a quick prayer at the altar, but will not ask you to love the one you hate or sacrifice for the sake of justice for the other.
Let me state it another way. If the purpose of an invocation is to call down or ask for a blessing upon our new president and the nation he will serve that can really “save” us from the current trouble, the God Rick prays to cannot give this blessing because the God he will pray to is not Almighty God who heard the cry of his people and delivered them from slavery, but rather God in the pocket of political ideologues who pander to self absorbed Americans who want individual salvation (exemption from problems) with no social responsibility. The problem with Rick is that he get’s God wrong and we don't need more false gods showering blessings upon us. We all make mistakes, Mr. President. When we make mistakes the best thing to do is to confess them and change our ways and I hope you do.
It is a political mistake to invite Rick Warren to give a prayer at the inauguration because it will divide, not unite. That is what is politically wrong with Evangelicals. They divide, they polarize, they accuse and they do not unite.
Mr. Presdient, in this case you have met the enemy and it is you and/or your advisors. This could be your first “McCain choosing Palin” kind of mistake: it sounded good when you thought of it, but when it actually took place, the result was not so helpful.
But, the worse mistake for those of us who have an interest in Theology is that Rick Warren gets God wrong, misunderstands Jesus and, thus, insults believers. Jeremiah Wright gets God right (it is not a pun). The American public, especially the good ole boy evangelicals who run the GOP might not think so, but that is because they get God wrong. Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet, was rejected by the King and King’s priests exactly because he had a message that called the nation to repentance, not self glory. Jeremiah Wright, in what I have heard of him, does the same. It is the word of God that interests Jeremiah, not the approval of the “silent majority”.
Rick Warren dilutes God for the sake of book sales, reducing God to being the source of our “purpose” in life. The God whose love is shown in its depth exactly for its special concern for the poor, for justice, for peace, for human understanding, for those who are marginated by society and cast out and made weak is not to be found in Rick’s theology. His God will save your soul for a quick prayer at the altar, but will not ask you to love the one you hate or sacrifice for the sake of justice for the other.
Let me state it another way. If the purpose of an invocation is to call down or ask for a blessing upon our new president and the nation he will serve that can really “save” us from the current trouble, the God Rick prays to cannot give this blessing because the God he will pray to is not Almighty God who heard the cry of his people and delivered them from slavery, but rather God in the pocket of political ideologues who pander to self absorbed Americans who want individual salvation (exemption from problems) with no social responsibility. The problem with Rick is that he get’s God wrong and we don't need more false gods showering blessings upon us. We all make mistakes, Mr. President. When we make mistakes the best thing to do is to confess them and change our ways and I hope you do.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Bush League
"Bush league" is, I hope all know, a term from baseball which denotes a group of persons or teams put there because of a decided lack of talent. The political commentators are now beginning to try to summarize the Bush years and the
ush legacy. I think it can be summed up by saying that any President who has demonstrated extreme incompetence in office will be called a "Bush leaguer." This is, of course, unfair to senior Bush who was a tad bit above the competence level of his son.
In the commentator analysis I have read, I was surprised to come across the following remarks from Harvard University political history scholar Barbara Kellerman who opined: "I think it's possible when people have stopped being as angry at the Bush administration as they are now ... that they will realize that some of this is just ... the luck of the draw."
Kellerman, author of the book "Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters," noted that Bush has not had luck on his side for the past eight years.
"He [Bush] has been a quite unlucky president. Certain things happened on his watch that most people don't have to deal with -- a 9/11, a [Hurricane] Katrina, the financial crisis, being three obvious examples," she said.
"And yet they happened on his watch. He is being blamed," she said.
Let me start by saying that the problem with phrasing the question of a President's effect upon the future by talking about the president's legacy is one that is uniquely suited to the American culture's concentration upon the individual, the superstar, the celebrity. President's have unequal ability to bless or curse the rest of us by their actions. Their legacy may be something that determines the financial stability of the eventual presidential library they will build, but, for the rest of us it is what we have to live with for years to come - curse or blessing. You know where this is headed. President Bush was a "Bush Leaguer" not because of what happened to him but because of how he responded to what happened to the country. By the way, Harvard educated Kellerman, the financial crisis is unlike 9/11 (an evil force plotting to damage you) or Katrina (a natural force which cause extreme damage to human community). The financial crisis is the result of policy or the lack of it. Ups and downs in the economy are normal parts of life. What we are living through in this moment of extreme economic instability is the result of the last eight years of free reign to the market and the greed that feeds it. It is a fundamental mistake that causes extreme hardship. This will be the legacy of the Bush Leaguer - years, decades of suffering that did not need to occur because of mistakes: no WMDs, no Iraq connection to Al Quaeda, no welcoming as liberators, no oil revenues to pay for reconstruction, no cheap oil as a result of conquering Iraq, no Mission Acccomplished -istakes that cost us and the world tons of money, tons of suffering with no good gain. We pay the bill for decades to come in many ways.
President Lincoln is remembered as a good president because he got the question of slavery right and the country, though it paid a high price to resolve the question, only was better for what he got right. President Bush got the analysis of 9/11 wrong, he got the wars wrong, he got the economy wrong and the debris piles up on us and our sons and daughters. At least he and we could have come out even if he had "done no harm."
In fact, it is too light a thing to say that our current president will be remembered as a "Bush Leaguer." The consequences of what a President does are too serious a thing for us and our world to try to describe it in terms of the national pasttime.
Things always happen, but how we respond determines if what happens results in a blessing or a curse. I dont know what kind of political science or history they are teaching these days at Harvard, but I don't think that legacies are determined by what happens that is, more or less, out of our control, but rather by what we do that is within our control.
It evidently is not just a Harvard problem, this less than professional way of analyzing political affairs combined with some kind of implicit heroworshiping, US focused interpretation of history. Julian Zelizer, professor of history and political affairs, from Princeton stated, in the same CNN article on the web, that: "If you imagine that an Iraq in 10,15 years is actually a vibrant, stable democracy and other countries neighboring it move in that direction ... I think you'd have a strong Bush revisionism,"
Let's assume, contrary to everything that normal people could deduce from an honest appraisal of the current reality, that Iraq could achieve the kind of stable, vibrant democracy that, let's say, Iran has today, why is it that this would be attributed to Bush and not the Iraqis? I suppose the logic is the same US-centered logic that states that we saved Europe from Germany in WWII and it was not the huge strategic mistake of Germany to fight on the Russian front which sucked all armament and energy out the German military that resulted in the German defeat. Or, the same kind of logic which credits the fall of the wall in Berlin to Reagan and not to the interal forces within the Soviet Empire or to the long overdue breakdown of the rotting structures built to keep the Soviet system in repair way past the days of its usefulness. I guess Al Gore did invent the internet!
Drawing on the compassion left over from the first ten days of the "compassionate conservatives" who vanished almost immediately upon the inauguration of the Bush Leaguer, I have to say that it gives no pleasure to try to imagine how President Bush will be evaluated in years to come; the world would have been better to do this kind of evaluation after the first four years. Hardly anything good comes from criticizing someone whose mistakes are so obvious and so damaging to the world around them. What would be good is to remember what it means and the damage that can be done when Presidents get it wrong. This could be the best of the Bush legacy - his presidency taught us what to avoid in the future to ensure that we do not spend the rest of our careers in the Bush League.
ush legacy. I think it can be summed up by saying that any President who has demonstrated extreme incompetence in office will be called a "Bush leaguer." This is, of course, unfair to senior Bush who was a tad bit above the competence level of his son.
In the commentator analysis I have read, I was surprised to come across the following remarks from Harvard University political history scholar Barbara Kellerman who opined: "I think it's possible when people have stopped being as angry at the Bush administration as they are now ... that they will realize that some of this is just ... the luck of the draw."
Kellerman, author of the book "Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters," noted that Bush has not had luck on his side for the past eight years.
"He [Bush] has been a quite unlucky president. Certain things happened on his watch that most people don't have to deal with -- a 9/11, a [Hurricane] Katrina, the financial crisis, being three obvious examples," she said.
"And yet they happened on his watch. He is being blamed," she said.
Let me start by saying that the problem with phrasing the question of a President's effect upon the future by talking about the president's legacy is one that is uniquely suited to the American culture's concentration upon the individual, the superstar, the celebrity. President's have unequal ability to bless or curse the rest of us by their actions. Their legacy may be something that determines the financial stability of the eventual presidential library they will build, but, for the rest of us it is what we have to live with for years to come - curse or blessing. You know where this is headed. President Bush was a "Bush Leaguer" not because of what happened to him but because of how he responded to what happened to the country. By the way, Harvard educated Kellerman, the financial crisis is unlike 9/11 (an evil force plotting to damage you) or Katrina (a natural force which cause extreme damage to human community). The financial crisis is the result of policy or the lack of it. Ups and downs in the economy are normal parts of life. What we are living through in this moment of extreme economic instability is the result of the last eight years of free reign to the market and the greed that feeds it. It is a fundamental mistake that causes extreme hardship. This will be the legacy of the Bush Leaguer - years, decades of suffering that did not need to occur because of mistakes: no WMDs, no Iraq connection to Al Quaeda, no welcoming as liberators, no oil revenues to pay for reconstruction, no cheap oil as a result of conquering Iraq, no Mission Acccomplished -istakes that cost us and the world tons of money, tons of suffering with no good gain. We pay the bill for decades to come in many ways.
President Lincoln is remembered as a good president because he got the question of slavery right and the country, though it paid a high price to resolve the question, only was better for what he got right. President Bush got the analysis of 9/11 wrong, he got the wars wrong, he got the economy wrong and the debris piles up on us and our sons and daughters. At least he and we could have come out even if he had "done no harm."
In fact, it is too light a thing to say that our current president will be remembered as a "Bush Leaguer." The consequences of what a President does are too serious a thing for us and our world to try to describe it in terms of the national pasttime.
Things always happen, but how we respond determines if what happens results in a blessing or a curse. I dont know what kind of political science or history they are teaching these days at Harvard, but I don't think that legacies are determined by what happens that is, more or less, out of our control, but rather by what we do that is within our control.
It evidently is not just a Harvard problem, this less than professional way of analyzing political affairs combined with some kind of implicit heroworshiping, US focused interpretation of history. Julian Zelizer, professor of history and political affairs, from Princeton stated, in the same CNN article on the web, that: "If you imagine that an Iraq in 10,15 years is actually a vibrant, stable democracy and other countries neighboring it move in that direction ... I think you'd have a strong Bush revisionism,"
Let's assume, contrary to everything that normal people could deduce from an honest appraisal of the current reality, that Iraq could achieve the kind of stable, vibrant democracy that, let's say, Iran has today, why is it that this would be attributed to Bush and not the Iraqis? I suppose the logic is the same US-centered logic that states that we saved Europe from Germany in WWII and it was not the huge strategic mistake of Germany to fight on the Russian front which sucked all armament and energy out the German military that resulted in the German defeat. Or, the same kind of logic which credits the fall of the wall in Berlin to Reagan and not to the interal forces within the Soviet Empire or to the long overdue breakdown of the rotting structures built to keep the Soviet system in repair way past the days of its usefulness. I guess Al Gore did invent the internet!
Drawing on the compassion left over from the first ten days of the "compassionate conservatives" who vanished almost immediately upon the inauguration of the Bush Leaguer, I have to say that it gives no pleasure to try to imagine how President Bush will be evaluated in years to come; the world would have been better to do this kind of evaluation after the first four years. Hardly anything good comes from criticizing someone whose mistakes are so obvious and so damaging to the world around them. What would be good is to remember what it means and the damage that can be done when Presidents get it wrong. This could be the best of the Bush legacy - his presidency taught us what to avoid in the future to ensure that we do not spend the rest of our careers in the Bush League.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A Dream Come True
Dr. Martin Luther King set the standard for when we could know that the dream he had for our country had been realized: "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." At lest one of his children was at Ebenezar Baptist Church last night, November 4, when the nation chose a new President on the basis of his character, not the color of his skin. That, it seems to me, is what should make the nation jubilent and the world appreciative, finally, of the American electorate.
President-elect Obama demonstrated that his character is good enough to lead the nation by guiding his election campaign on the high road of reasoned and thoughtful policies while avoiding what even many democrats demanded: the negative campaign.
But other dreams were realized as well, causing more than just the MLK admirers to enjoy the evening. Some have been dreaming of having a president who is intelligent, articulate and really compassionate. For eight years we have suffered through one who is not any of these things. Now, we believe that actual dialogue on issues is possible,and, therefore, that the nation will not be subjected to the unreasonable whims or neurotically driven urges of immature adults who believe that the nation belongs to them to do with as they please.
More importantly, the reasoned nature of Obama's approach to solving problems is, I believe, deeply connected to and rooted in the kind of profound empathy for the suffering ones of humanity that holds within it the possibility that reason will be on the side of the true development of humanity, not just the short term need to be successful.
There is another dream that could come true that does not flow only from the nature of Obama as a person or politician, but from the symbolism of what his electoral victory means in terms of demonstrating where the nation is in regard to to its vision for the future. According to all the data, the oldest generation was the most supportive of McClain. Symbolically, McClain was the perfect representative of what is sometimes called "the greatest generation" (from Brokaw's book, however mistaken this nomeclature might be). My generation (the next one down in age) was split, a cause of disappointment for me - I thought our 60s training would have brought us to a more enlightened place in life. The generations below - the younger folks - all were dramatically in support of Obama who is the one who came with the idea of change (Obama did actually begin this theme and then Hillary and then McCalin adopted it), whose background is extremely out of the norm for presidential candidates and whose manner of being is extremely at odds with the most recently elected presidents. This could be a sign that the nation is ready to redefine what it values, how it perceives itself in the world and where it would like to go. So, maybe we will not have to labor under the heavy hand of those who defined patriotism by the desire to fight a war; or national security by the desire to establish global hegemony; or success as only monetary and a sound economy only in terms of how many millionaires there are.
The Obama victory holds forth the promise that we can begin to redefine the dream we have of what we might be as a nation for the future and that this reformation will happen as the result of a dialogue and an interaction not just confined to the elite, but open to all the generations, all the reces, men and women. If this were to be the case, the election of Obama could signal the beginning of a new age of dreaming that would go beyond what even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. could have imagined. If this were to be true and the new dream would articulate how a nation such as ours could use its wealth for social justice in the global community and in support of peace around the world and proper care of the earth and all its resources, then I would have to change the URL for this site from www.empirefalling.blogspot.com to www.newworldcoming.blogspot.com. It is way too early to make the change, but one can always hope.
President-elect Obama demonstrated that his character is good enough to lead the nation by guiding his election campaign on the high road of reasoned and thoughtful policies while avoiding what even many democrats demanded: the negative campaign.
But other dreams were realized as well, causing more than just the MLK admirers to enjoy the evening. Some have been dreaming of having a president who is intelligent, articulate and really compassionate. For eight years we have suffered through one who is not any of these things. Now, we believe that actual dialogue on issues is possible,and, therefore, that the nation will not be subjected to the unreasonable whims or neurotically driven urges of immature adults who believe that the nation belongs to them to do with as they please.
More importantly, the reasoned nature of Obama's approach to solving problems is, I believe, deeply connected to and rooted in the kind of profound empathy for the suffering ones of humanity that holds within it the possibility that reason will be on the side of the true development of humanity, not just the short term need to be successful.
There is another dream that could come true that does not flow only from the nature of Obama as a person or politician, but from the symbolism of what his electoral victory means in terms of demonstrating where the nation is in regard to to its vision for the future. According to all the data, the oldest generation was the most supportive of McClain. Symbolically, McClain was the perfect representative of what is sometimes called "the greatest generation" (from Brokaw's book, however mistaken this nomeclature might be). My generation (the next one down in age) was split, a cause of disappointment for me - I thought our 60s training would have brought us to a more enlightened place in life. The generations below - the younger folks - all were dramatically in support of Obama who is the one who came with the idea of change (Obama did actually begin this theme and then Hillary and then McCalin adopted it), whose background is extremely out of the norm for presidential candidates and whose manner of being is extremely at odds with the most recently elected presidents. This could be a sign that the nation is ready to redefine what it values, how it perceives itself in the world and where it would like to go. So, maybe we will not have to labor under the heavy hand of those who defined patriotism by the desire to fight a war; or national security by the desire to establish global hegemony; or success as only monetary and a sound economy only in terms of how many millionaires there are.
The Obama victory holds forth the promise that we can begin to redefine the dream we have of what we might be as a nation for the future and that this reformation will happen as the result of a dialogue and an interaction not just confined to the elite, but open to all the generations, all the reces, men and women. If this were to be the case, the election of Obama could signal the beginning of a new age of dreaming that would go beyond what even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. could have imagined. If this were to be true and the new dream would articulate how a nation such as ours could use its wealth for social justice in the global community and in support of peace around the world and proper care of the earth and all its resources, then I would have to change the URL for this site from www.empirefalling.blogspot.com to www.newworldcoming.blogspot.com. It is way too early to make the change, but one can always hope.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Getting It Right Matters, 2
It really does matter if we "get it right". I dont think we can overemphasize the importance of it. What if, for instance, long ago when President Carter tried to get the nation to embrace a huge initiative to develop alternative, safe and clean energy we would have "gotten it right" and supported him? What a difference that would have made for our day.
Why didn't we "get it right" then? I have the memory that what happened was a huge diversion caused exactly by the folks who had the most to lose if we would have "gotten it right." The large energy companies, heavily invested in oil, caused the price of oil to go out of sight and contribute to high inflation which, along with the October Surprise, engineered by these same folks, knocked Carter off the stage and brought on President Reagan who never again mentioned the subject. Still today, many honor the memory of Reagan. Reagan got it wrong!!! And still today we pay the price for it.
Just think what a huge difference it would have made if we had gotten it right and listened to and followed President Carter. Think of what would not have happened because we we would not have needed foreign oil so much, energy addicts that we are - the US interventions in Middle Easter and oil rich nations, the resulting development of terrorist networks resisting the "westernization.", the incredible economic, military and political damage of Afghanistan/Iraq. We would have less Global warming, more freedom, and a stronger economy because the new safe, clean and green energy would have created huge multiple business development opportunities that actually would be producing something that only a few companies in the hands of relatively few stockholders are proding now - the indispensible energy that we need for every aspect of life.
Excuse me, but are we absolutely so stupid that we get the most basic thing in life wrong - hello, sun and wind - no wars needed to harness the energy. No need to sell off the nation to China, Saudia Arabia, Venezuela, etc. so that we can guzzle gas.
But, no one wants to admit that we got it wrong.....in spades.. So, we are still only timidly getting into the whole arena of developing new energy sources. We are getting it wrong again. It is new energy sources - especially solar and wind that are in the national security interest and the road to economic recovery. $700 billion not for banks, not for war, but for solar and wind development. The new energy companies that would emerge actually employ real people who invest in the stock markets, pay taxes and need services - what a great idea: improve the economy by having bailouts creat jobs that contribute to the peace of the world.
Alternative energy tax incentives is not enough. We need a huge national effort to encourage production and research. This would be "getting it right." for us and for the world.
It will not happen, of course. Because if soon to be President Obama actually thinks about doing this, the vested interests will make sure we get diverted away by ...well, whatever they convince us puts our lives in immediate danger - maybe a war, maybe inflation, maybe another terrorist attack. Whatever it takes to keep us stupid.
It really does make a difference to "get it right."
Why didn't we "get it right" then? I have the memory that what happened was a huge diversion caused exactly by the folks who had the most to lose if we would have "gotten it right." The large energy companies, heavily invested in oil, caused the price of oil to go out of sight and contribute to high inflation which, along with the October Surprise, engineered by these same folks, knocked Carter off the stage and brought on President Reagan who never again mentioned the subject. Still today, many honor the memory of Reagan. Reagan got it wrong!!! And still today we pay the price for it.
Just think what a huge difference it would have made if we had gotten it right and listened to and followed President Carter. Think of what would not have happened because we we would not have needed foreign oil so much, energy addicts that we are - the US interventions in Middle Easter and oil rich nations, the resulting development of terrorist networks resisting the "westernization.", the incredible economic, military and political damage of Afghanistan/Iraq. We would have less Global warming, more freedom, and a stronger economy because the new safe, clean and green energy would have created huge multiple business development opportunities that actually would be producing something that only a few companies in the hands of relatively few stockholders are proding now - the indispensible energy that we need for every aspect of life.
Excuse me, but are we absolutely so stupid that we get the most basic thing in life wrong - hello, sun and wind - no wars needed to harness the energy. No need to sell off the nation to China, Saudia Arabia, Venezuela, etc. so that we can guzzle gas.
But, no one wants to admit that we got it wrong.....in spades.. So, we are still only timidly getting into the whole arena of developing new energy sources. We are getting it wrong again. It is new energy sources - especially solar and wind that are in the national security interest and the road to economic recovery. $700 billion not for banks, not for war, but for solar and wind development. The new energy companies that would emerge actually employ real people who invest in the stock markets, pay taxes and need services - what a great idea: improve the economy by having bailouts creat jobs that contribute to the peace of the world.
Alternative energy tax incentives is not enough. We need a huge national effort to encourage production and research. This would be "getting it right." for us and for the world.
It will not happen, of course. Because if soon to be President Obama actually thinks about doing this, the vested interests will make sure we get diverted away by ...well, whatever they convince us puts our lives in immediate danger - maybe a war, maybe inflation, maybe another terrorist attack. Whatever it takes to keep us stupid.
It really does make a difference to "get it right."
Friday, October 24, 2008
Getting It Right Matters
The benefits of "Getting it Right" are many and extremely important to getting the next part of life right. Normally, when you get it wrong, the next step is also wrong and so on, with the wrong increasing with each new next moment carrying forth more of the "wrongness." "Getting it right" normally brings a blessing, something good, even if "Getting it Right" carries with it some kind of pain (for example, "getting it right" by admitting that we "got it wrong"). Conversely, getting it wrong usually brings a curse, even if getting it wrong brings momentary pleasure or even the feeling of victory.
"Getting it Right" is not easy. It is not an exact science. It might not even be totally possible. Fortunately, getting it "mostly" right is of considerable worth and can bring many blessings to life.
It once was the case that "Getting It Right" actually mattered to people. Recently, "Getting It Right" seems to be on the decline in popularity. Still, some of us believe that "Getting It Right" matters for such things as healthy living, healthy relationships, possibilities for a good future , living in some kind of helpful harmony with others, peace, justice, etc. All good things.
That is why Iraq is really important, or going back even further, the reaction to September 11. If we don't get these two things "right", the wrong keeps mounting and the curse keeps growing. Whether or not Bush/Cheney lied to the nation about Iraq and the reasons for going to war may come down to semantics or defintions of "lie." The problem is more that Bush/Cheney got it wrong not only on the obvious things - no WMDs, no welcoming as victors, no relationship to Al Quaeda, etc (the list is too long) - but also on the not too obvious, but hugely important things - such as the wrong understanding of national security, the wrong strategy for encouraging democracy, the wrong way to build stability in the region, etc. (the list is too long).
But, tolerance for the Bush/Cheney mistakes was incredibly wide and deep not only among the political elite of both parties but also in the public mind. No one wanted to say that they go it wrong. Maybe it was a misplaced sense that saying "we got it wrong" would demoralize the troops. Maybe it was because it would be obvious to the world (as it was already) that "getting it wrong" in this case really has a hugely negative consequence for the world. Whatever the reason, there evidently is no consequence in our current political climate, for getting it wrong, except maybe lower popularity ratings. Bush/Cheney got it wrong economically, politically, geopolitically, internally and internationally. It was a clean sweep! Who evidently pays the consequences are soldiers, the reputation of the country, the economy and all of the world in a more unbalanced and unpredictable climate in almost all important arenas of life. No matter. No one wants to look at how we got it wrong and why we got it wrong.
I will make a modest suggestion. Until we go back and get it right we will continue to get it wrong and continue to suffer the consequences: economically, politically, internally, internationally.
I will make a further modest suggestion. We got September 11 wrong and, thus, created a world of insecurity, danger and instability that didn't have to be. It was not the beginning of a war. It was the work of a limited, relatively isolated terrorist network which took years, perhaps decades to develop the capability to make one strategic and dramatic strike against its perceived enemy. The only hope for Al Quaeda was that we would over react, decide to attack Afghanistan and wipe them out. They got just what they wanted because we "got it wrong" and nobody wanted to say that "we got it wrong." We got it wrong and now the terrorist networks grow internationally, have gained widespread notariety and need no public relations department for advertising their cause, and, best of all, they have what they never had before and maybe never dreamed they would have: opportunity to attack our interests on a daily basis, not in a protected area like the United States, but on their very own turf.
Going to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq is exactly what the terrorists wanted us to do. The moment we sent troops to both countries, the terrorists won the encounter. Now they had a permanent opportunity to inflict political, military and economic damage on their perceived enemies with little cost and on a daily basis.
The alternative to going to war, would have been to make peace with as many friends as we could and thus isolate the terrorists more and reduce their field of action, meanwhile increasing collaborative efforts to bring together intelligence and international policing to reduce the number of terrorist and disrupt their limited and isolated ability to inflict damage on the world.
The "surge" was wrong because it built on a wrong premise: that it is possible to find a way out of Iraq with a "victory." That possibility was eliminated the day we went to Iraq. Withdrawal is what would have defeated the terrorists because it would have denied them what they want most - daily ability to inflice damage upon our society. This is not even to mention that the primary reason the "surge" works is not 30,000 extra troops, but billions of dollars paying for the temporary loyalty of the Sunnis while heavily arming them for the internal civil wars to come in Iraq. By the way, arming the Sunnis is just another of the "getting it wrong" actions we have taken in order to try not to admit that "we got it wrong" in the first place.
Empires have this bad habit: confusing what is victory and what is defeat. Empires are blind and deaf. We will not admit it, but we really know that we got it hugely wrong in Iraq, but we still think we "got it right" in Afghanistan. But, Afghanistan is wrong for the same reasons as Iraq. Invading Afghanistan, even if by proxy, does not advance the mission of detering terrorism, but rather aids the terrorists. So, even as candidate Obama gets it right on Iraq (we should leave), he gets it wrong on Afghanistan (we should not send more troops). At a time when we need to be concentrating our economic resources on building the infrastructure of our country and improving health and education for our youth we are involved in actions which create enemiew, waste resources, entangle us in conflicts which are not our making nor available to be solved by us. Meanwhile we cannot take really effective action against the limite threat to us posed by terrorists because we cannot focus clearly, strategically and intelligently on actions which really would deter the terrorists from growing as a threat to us and others in the world.
Now, my last modes suggestion. Victory for our nation would be to provide quality education to all our youth, health care for all our families, jobs that provide living wages for alll working age people, and policies that encourage justice and peace to prevail in our nation and around the world. For the moment, the terrorist set the agenda, not common sense.
Getting it Right really does matter.
"Getting it Right" is not easy. It is not an exact science. It might not even be totally possible. Fortunately, getting it "mostly" right is of considerable worth and can bring many blessings to life.
It once was the case that "Getting It Right" actually mattered to people. Recently, "Getting It Right" seems to be on the decline in popularity. Still, some of us believe that "Getting It Right" matters for such things as healthy living, healthy relationships, possibilities for a good future , living in some kind of helpful harmony with others, peace, justice, etc. All good things.
That is why Iraq is really important, or going back even further, the reaction to September 11. If we don't get these two things "right", the wrong keeps mounting and the curse keeps growing. Whether or not Bush/Cheney lied to the nation about Iraq and the reasons for going to war may come down to semantics or defintions of "lie." The problem is more that Bush/Cheney got it wrong not only on the obvious things - no WMDs, no welcoming as victors, no relationship to Al Quaeda, etc (the list is too long) - but also on the not too obvious, but hugely important things - such as the wrong understanding of national security, the wrong strategy for encouraging democracy, the wrong way to build stability in the region, etc. (the list is too long).
But, tolerance for the Bush/Cheney mistakes was incredibly wide and deep not only among the political elite of both parties but also in the public mind. No one wanted to say that they go it wrong. Maybe it was a misplaced sense that saying "we got it wrong" would demoralize the troops. Maybe it was because it would be obvious to the world (as it was already) that "getting it wrong" in this case really has a hugely negative consequence for the world. Whatever the reason, there evidently is no consequence in our current political climate, for getting it wrong, except maybe lower popularity ratings. Bush/Cheney got it wrong economically, politically, geopolitically, internally and internationally. It was a clean sweep! Who evidently pays the consequences are soldiers, the reputation of the country, the economy and all of the world in a more unbalanced and unpredictable climate in almost all important arenas of life. No matter. No one wants to look at how we got it wrong and why we got it wrong.
I will make a modest suggestion. Until we go back and get it right we will continue to get it wrong and continue to suffer the consequences: economically, politically, internally, internationally.
I will make a further modest suggestion. We got September 11 wrong and, thus, created a world of insecurity, danger and instability that didn't have to be. It was not the beginning of a war. It was the work of a limited, relatively isolated terrorist network which took years, perhaps decades to develop the capability to make one strategic and dramatic strike against its perceived enemy. The only hope for Al Quaeda was that we would over react, decide to attack Afghanistan and wipe them out. They got just what they wanted because we "got it wrong" and nobody wanted to say that "we got it wrong." We got it wrong and now the terrorist networks grow internationally, have gained widespread notariety and need no public relations department for advertising their cause, and, best of all, they have what they never had before and maybe never dreamed they would have: opportunity to attack our interests on a daily basis, not in a protected area like the United States, but on their very own turf.
Going to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq is exactly what the terrorists wanted us to do. The moment we sent troops to both countries, the terrorists won the encounter. Now they had a permanent opportunity to inflict political, military and economic damage on their perceived enemies with little cost and on a daily basis.
The alternative to going to war, would have been to make peace with as many friends as we could and thus isolate the terrorists more and reduce their field of action, meanwhile increasing collaborative efforts to bring together intelligence and international policing to reduce the number of terrorist and disrupt their limited and isolated ability to inflict damage on the world.
The "surge" was wrong because it built on a wrong premise: that it is possible to find a way out of Iraq with a "victory." That possibility was eliminated the day we went to Iraq. Withdrawal is what would have defeated the terrorists because it would have denied them what they want most - daily ability to inflice damage upon our society. This is not even to mention that the primary reason the "surge" works is not 30,000 extra troops, but billions of dollars paying for the temporary loyalty of the Sunnis while heavily arming them for the internal civil wars to come in Iraq. By the way, arming the Sunnis is just another of the "getting it wrong" actions we have taken in order to try not to admit that "we got it wrong" in the first place.
Empires have this bad habit: confusing what is victory and what is defeat. Empires are blind and deaf. We will not admit it, but we really know that we got it hugely wrong in Iraq, but we still think we "got it right" in Afghanistan. But, Afghanistan is wrong for the same reasons as Iraq. Invading Afghanistan, even if by proxy, does not advance the mission of detering terrorism, but rather aids the terrorists. So, even as candidate Obama gets it right on Iraq (we should leave), he gets it wrong on Afghanistan (we should not send more troops). At a time when we need to be concentrating our economic resources on building the infrastructure of our country and improving health and education for our youth we are involved in actions which create enemiew, waste resources, entangle us in conflicts which are not our making nor available to be solved by us. Meanwhile we cannot take really effective action against the limite threat to us posed by terrorists because we cannot focus clearly, strategically and intelligently on actions which really would deter the terrorists from growing as a threat to us and others in the world.
Now, my last modes suggestion. Victory for our nation would be to provide quality education to all our youth, health care for all our families, jobs that provide living wages for alll working age people, and policies that encourage justice and peace to prevail in our nation and around the world. For the moment, the terrorist set the agenda, not common sense.
Getting it Right really does matter.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
And The Lord Hardened the Pharoah's Heart
With these words, the Jewish scriptures describe how powerful nations come to that point in their life when they no longer can recognize what is good for their own well being. The Pharoah was on the edge of deciding to grant the Israelites their freedom, after some rather persuasive arguments called plagues, but, the scriptures report, the Lord hardened the Pharoah's heart and he was unwilling to let the Israelites go. Big mistake! It landed the Pharoah and his huge military machine at the bottom of the Red Sea. Actual real history aside, it is the ancient minds way of describing a phenomena that is contagious among all nations/peoples who get to that point in their history and their power where they believe themselves to be outside of the normal cause and effect nature of reality.
This may be the only way to explain the American acquiesence to the deceptions of Bush/Cheney in the lead up to the war in Iraq, the "Mission Accoplished" mistake, and now the idea that the Surge Worked! and that we could possibly save the situation in Afghanistan. We have, in similar fashion to the Pharoah, passed the point of being able to recognize reality, including the most simple of all truths that normally guide human societies toward actions that are beneficial to their well being.
I suppose it will take, sometime in the future, a team skilled analysts to determine exactly what it is in the nation's history and psyche that drives them to this point where the heart is hardened to the point where even self interest is betrayed, but it might be a good guess that, like most self destructive tendencies, it begins with some deep insecurity. Insecurity, in turn, begins with substantial misplaced myths about oneself and the world.
In Egypt the hardened heart played right into the hands of the Israelites and allowed them a stunning victory over a superior military force, because the Pharoah could just not believe that a rag tag bunch of unwelcomed and illiterate immigrants could overcome his jugernaut of a nation. He committed a huge mistake and his power was drowned in sea of arrogant miscalculation.
The reality he could not see is that the Israelites were not his subjects, nor did they believe that Egypt was their home. Sooner or later they would leave and go back to where they had been born and where their dreams had always lain.
I want to skip right over all the classic mistakes that Bush/Cheney made in both Afghanistan and Iraq in both intelligence and national security theory and military strategy. I cannot think of a single thing they did right. To simplify we can just say that in Afghanistan they tried to kill a fly with a hammer and the only result was to squash the country while the fly went free and turned into a vulture. Everyone knows, of course that you cannot kill a fly with a hammer - you either surround it and eventually capture it in your net, or you kill it with a quick slap by a flexible instrument. In Iraq they fought a war no one was willing to fight and were not prepared and still are not to fight the war that the locals were ready to fight. Or, to put it even more simply: we forgot that it is not our country. Never will be. Someday we have to go home and then the locals will do what they want to do according to the histories, cultures, faiths and politics which are in their hearts and minds. That, more or less, is the way the world has always and continues to work. It happesn also to be true about Afghanistan: it is not our country!!!
If it seems too simple, it is. But a nation with a "hardened heart" has trouble seeing things so simple. It does not matter how many troops we put in either country, we will not win in either country and those who pretend that we can only continue the march toward the Red Sea.
Victory for us would be to regain our senses of what is good for ourselves and the world. Let the Middle East go! We cannot still get out of them what we think we need to be a successful nation. We have to find it within ourselves and our own country. If we have interests, as others in the world do, then join with others and start a dialogue that can actually have real benefits to us without putting not just our military, but also our society in the middle of the Red Sea in chariots not made to float. It is not our country and there is nothing there that we need for our security, much less for our prosperity and even more, for our sense of dignity.
What the Pharoah lost in his refusal to let the Israelites go was the possibility of good friends who might actually have wanted, eventually, to do something that was of mutual benefit. Instead the Pharoah wanted to control the way the Israelites served the interest of his nation and subject them. In the end he not only had no friends around him in the region, he had no army to defend him.
Removing ourselves from Iraq is smart. Moving more into Afghanistan is not smart because it is still the case that it is not our country and never will be and someday we have to leave and then the Afghanis and others in the region will do what is in their hearts, their history, their visions for the future to do.
We need a new way to engage the Middle East to create friends for the future who might actually want to do something of mutual benefit with us in the future. This is not isolation, this is not to leave confrontation of the terrorists to the side...this is something smart to do for ourselves, our children's world, the world and the future which could be full of promise.
For the moment we have met the enemy and it is us.
This may be the only way to explain the American acquiesence to the deceptions of Bush/Cheney in the lead up to the war in Iraq, the "Mission Accoplished" mistake, and now the idea that the Surge Worked! and that we could possibly save the situation in Afghanistan. We have, in similar fashion to the Pharoah, passed the point of being able to recognize reality, including the most simple of all truths that normally guide human societies toward actions that are beneficial to their well being.
I suppose it will take, sometime in the future, a team skilled analysts to determine exactly what it is in the nation's history and psyche that drives them to this point where the heart is hardened to the point where even self interest is betrayed, but it might be a good guess that, like most self destructive tendencies, it begins with some deep insecurity. Insecurity, in turn, begins with substantial misplaced myths about oneself and the world.
In Egypt the hardened heart played right into the hands of the Israelites and allowed them a stunning victory over a superior military force, because the Pharoah could just not believe that a rag tag bunch of unwelcomed and illiterate immigrants could overcome his jugernaut of a nation. He committed a huge mistake and his power was drowned in sea of arrogant miscalculation.
The reality he could not see is that the Israelites were not his subjects, nor did they believe that Egypt was their home. Sooner or later they would leave and go back to where they had been born and where their dreams had always lain.
I want to skip right over all the classic mistakes that Bush/Cheney made in both Afghanistan and Iraq in both intelligence and national security theory and military strategy. I cannot think of a single thing they did right. To simplify we can just say that in Afghanistan they tried to kill a fly with a hammer and the only result was to squash the country while the fly went free and turned into a vulture. Everyone knows, of course that you cannot kill a fly with a hammer - you either surround it and eventually capture it in your net, or you kill it with a quick slap by a flexible instrument. In Iraq they fought a war no one was willing to fight and were not prepared and still are not to fight the war that the locals were ready to fight. Or, to put it even more simply: we forgot that it is not our country. Never will be. Someday we have to go home and then the locals will do what they want to do according to the histories, cultures, faiths and politics which are in their hearts and minds. That, more or less, is the way the world has always and continues to work. It happesn also to be true about Afghanistan: it is not our country!!!
If it seems too simple, it is. But a nation with a "hardened heart" has trouble seeing things so simple. It does not matter how many troops we put in either country, we will not win in either country and those who pretend that we can only continue the march toward the Red Sea.
Victory for us would be to regain our senses of what is good for ourselves and the world. Let the Middle East go! We cannot still get out of them what we think we need to be a successful nation. We have to find it within ourselves and our own country. If we have interests, as others in the world do, then join with others and start a dialogue that can actually have real benefits to us without putting not just our military, but also our society in the middle of the Red Sea in chariots not made to float. It is not our country and there is nothing there that we need for our security, much less for our prosperity and even more, for our sense of dignity.
What the Pharoah lost in his refusal to let the Israelites go was the possibility of good friends who might actually have wanted, eventually, to do something that was of mutual benefit. Instead the Pharoah wanted to control the way the Israelites served the interest of his nation and subject them. In the end he not only had no friends around him in the region, he had no army to defend him.
Removing ourselves from Iraq is smart. Moving more into Afghanistan is not smart because it is still the case that it is not our country and never will be and someday we have to leave and then the Afghanis and others in the region will do what is in their hearts, their history, their visions for the future to do.
We need a new way to engage the Middle East to create friends for the future who might actually want to do something of mutual benefit with us in the future. This is not isolation, this is not to leave confrontation of the terrorists to the side...this is something smart to do for ourselves, our children's world, the world and the future which could be full of promise.
For the moment we have met the enemy and it is us.
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