Mark over at The Moderate Republican blog comments on local elections in Minnesota’s Twin Cities.
Anyway, the trend I've really noticed in all of the races is how candidates will promise things that they'll persuade another governmental body to do, once they're elected. In other words, a library board candidate might be selling promises of what the city council will do for the library, once this person is sitting on the library board.
It is interesting how people and the media are so focused on particular issues that they don't distinguish who they ask solutions of.
Take the races here in Glens Falls (NY). One of the big issues locally is what to do about the Civic Center. The sports arena is being subsidized by the city to the tune of nearly a million dollars this year.
Citizens and the media ask candidates for mayor and Common Council what they’ll do about the Civic Center’s fiscal hemmoraghing. This is fair enough since the arena is owned and operated by the city.
Most candidates propose regionalizing the Center’s operations, sharing ownership (and thus costs) with the neighboring towns and the three local counties, all of whom derive economic spillover benefits from events at the arena.
But people ask questions about the Civic Center of city candidates to the COUNTY board of supervisors. This doesn’t make sense since the Warren County doesn’t, at this point, have any say over the venue.
So for a candidate to the county board to talk about regionalization is a vacuous promise, since the initiative must come from the city government.
What a candidate to the county legislature should be asked is HOW he or she would convince the rest of the board that regionalization would be a good idea.
What incentive will officials from the rest of the county have in taking on part of this nearly $1 million (this year alone) drain? The county and neighboring towns already receive whatever economic windfall the Center generates (sale taxes, spillover entertainment dollars, etc), so why would they choose to accept the large subsidy burden while gaining no additional economic benefit from their involvement with the building?
This is the sort of question county candidates from the city should be asked. But they are given a free pass whenever they propose the Mom and Apple Pie ‘regionalization’ utopia. Sure, we in the city would love for others to magnanimously help us heal our self-inflicted wounds, but it doesn't work that way. Governmental entities work under the principle of englightened self-interest and thus proposing Civic Center regionalization need to understand this if they are to have any hope of selling the idea to our would-be Saviors.
The devil is in the details and no one seems to have much of the latter.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Saturday, November 05, 2005
The administration's Crusade against American values
In the midst of all the scandals and other problems plaguing the White House last week, Vice-President Cheney found time to renew his call for the legalization of torture. Even the hawkish Washington Post denounced the idea of giving public approval to this gross violation of human rights.
In addition to being un-American, torture is not even particularly useful in practical terms. When a suspect is being tortured, he will say what he thinks his torturers want to hear, whether it's the truth or not. Torture gets you a lot of information, not necessarily information that is useful, or even practical. One of the most potent denunciations of torture in recent times was made by the former French Gen.Jacques Massu. Torture was widely practice by the French army during the Algerian War, of which Gen. Massu was a prominent figure. French conservatives justified torture against Algerian suspects in much the same way some American conservatives defend it today. "They're the enemy. They deserve it, even though we only THINK they're guilty. What harm can come of it?"
Except Gen. Massu concluded that torture was counterproductive to the French effort on so many levels. It debased French soldiers on the ground, turning them into sadistic monsters no better than the enemy they were fighting. It undermined French public opinion by making Frenchmen question what the purpose of the war was if torture was going to be its result. It destroyed any hope of the French army getting cooperation from indigenous Algerians, which eventually proved fatal to the French military effort. (In colonial excursions, torture and human rights abuses always undermined to any effort to 'win hearts and minds'). It harded the attitudes of enraged locals who had a lot more motivation for a long, bloody war of attrition since they defending their homeland, a sentiment French soldiers generally didn't share. And Massu noted that much of the information extracted under torture was wrong, something which cost French lives. Massu concluded that the French would've been more likely to win the war (and let's not forget they lost it) if they hadn't used torture.
As for Cheney's call, The Washington Post notes that the US state department issues an annual report criticizing countries who practice torture and engage in other human rights abuses. That the vice-president seeks to legalize a practice so often decried when other regimes practice it is emblematic of this administration's hypocrisy. Is this legalization of torture part of the Crusade for 'freedom and liberty' (said breathless) the administration claims to be leading? Wasn't the horrific abuses of Saddam Hussein's regime an important justification for the aggression against Iraq?
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
The paper's editorial noted: The CIA is holding an unknown number of prisoners in secret detention centers abroad. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, it has refused to register those detainees with the International Red Cross or to allow visits by its inspectors. Its prisoners have "disappeared," like the victims of some dictatorships.
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
The paper also reported that the CIA was running a secret prison camp in eastern Europe. Not just any secret prison camp, but a secret prison camp built by an ally of that Evil Empire, the Soviet Union. There are alleged to be other secret prison camps, where kidnapees are held, around the world.
The camps were likely set up to get around pesky restrictions, like US law, US-approved treaties and the Constitution, against inhumane treatment of prisoners. It is believed that over 100 kidnappees have been 'disappeared' (a term usually reserved for old Latin American banana republic dictatorships) into these camps.
The CIA refused to comment on the existence of such prisons.
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
And even at the non-secret camps, things aren't so peachy.
LAST MONTH a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay military base excused himself from a conversation with his lawyer and stepped into a cell, where he slashed his arm and hung himself., notes another editorial in The Post.
No, the suicide wasn't because of alleged 'Koran abuse' or the chicken and rice dinners. But because of the torture of holding kidnapees indefinitely, without trial and without any hope of any resolution, without any hope of anything.
(Again, I call them kidnapees because they're not prisoners of war, according to the administration, and because they haven't been charged with a crime and there's no timetable for them to be so charged. The Post notes not a single al Qaeda leader has been prosecuted in the past four years. The Pentagon's system of hearings on the status of Guantanamo detainees, introduced only after a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court, has no way of resolving the long-term status of most detainees. The CIA has no long-term plan for its secret prisoners, whom one agency official described as "a horrible burden.")
The paper adds: This desperate attempted suicide by a detainee held for four years without charge, trial or any clear prospect of release was not isolated. At least 131 Guantanamo inmates began a hunger strike on Aug. 8 to protest their indefinite confinement
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
Whether you think the Iraq war was a good idea or not, everyone should agree that torture should never be legalized. Not against convicts. Not against the accused. Not against suspects, which is what the kidnapees are.
The vice-president's and the administration's hostility toward basic standards of human decency is loathsome and detestable. This contempt for civilized behavior antithetical to the values almost all people in this country claim to believe in and should be condemned by all Americans with a conscience.
In addition to being un-American, torture is not even particularly useful in practical terms. When a suspect is being tortured, he will say what he thinks his torturers want to hear, whether it's the truth or not. Torture gets you a lot of information, not necessarily information that is useful, or even practical. One of the most potent denunciations of torture in recent times was made by the former French Gen.Jacques Massu. Torture was widely practice by the French army during the Algerian War, of which Gen. Massu was a prominent figure. French conservatives justified torture against Algerian suspects in much the same way some American conservatives defend it today. "They're the enemy. They deserve it, even though we only THINK they're guilty. What harm can come of it?"
Except Gen. Massu concluded that torture was counterproductive to the French effort on so many levels. It debased French soldiers on the ground, turning them into sadistic monsters no better than the enemy they were fighting. It undermined French public opinion by making Frenchmen question what the purpose of the war was if torture was going to be its result. It destroyed any hope of the French army getting cooperation from indigenous Algerians, which eventually proved fatal to the French military effort. (In colonial excursions, torture and human rights abuses always undermined to any effort to 'win hearts and minds'). It harded the attitudes of enraged locals who had a lot more motivation for a long, bloody war of attrition since they defending their homeland, a sentiment French soldiers generally didn't share. And Massu noted that much of the information extracted under torture was wrong, something which cost French lives. Massu concluded that the French would've been more likely to win the war (and let's not forget they lost it) if they hadn't used torture.
As for Cheney's call, The Washington Post notes that the US state department issues an annual report criticizing countries who practice torture and engage in other human rights abuses. That the vice-president seeks to legalize a practice so often decried when other regimes practice it is emblematic of this administration's hypocrisy. Is this legalization of torture part of the Crusade for 'freedom and liberty' (said breathless) the administration claims to be leading? Wasn't the horrific abuses of Saddam Hussein's regime an important justification for the aggression against Iraq?
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
The paper's editorial noted: The CIA is holding an unknown number of prisoners in secret detention centers abroad. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, it has refused to register those detainees with the International Red Cross or to allow visits by its inspectors. Its prisoners have "disappeared," like the victims of some dictatorships.
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
The paper also reported that the CIA was running a secret prison camp in eastern Europe. Not just any secret prison camp, but a secret prison camp built by an ally of that Evil Empire, the Soviet Union. There are alleged to be other secret prison camps, where kidnapees are held, around the world.
The camps were likely set up to get around pesky restrictions, like US law, US-approved treaties and the Constitution, against inhumane treatment of prisoners. It is believed that over 100 kidnappees have been 'disappeared' (a term usually reserved for old Latin American banana republic dictatorships) into these camps.
The CIA refused to comment on the existence of such prisons.
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
And even at the non-secret camps, things aren't so peachy.
LAST MONTH a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay military base excused himself from a conversation with his lawyer and stepped into a cell, where he slashed his arm and hung himself., notes another editorial in The Post.
No, the suicide wasn't because of alleged 'Koran abuse' or the chicken and rice dinners. But because of the torture of holding kidnapees indefinitely, without trial and without any hope of any resolution, without any hope of anything.
(Again, I call them kidnapees because they're not prisoners of war, according to the administration, and because they haven't been charged with a crime and there's no timetable for them to be so charged. The Post notes not a single al Qaeda leader has been prosecuted in the past four years. The Pentagon's system of hearings on the status of Guantanamo detainees, introduced only after a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court, has no way of resolving the long-term status of most detainees. The CIA has no long-term plan for its secret prisoners, whom one agency official described as "a horrible burden.")
The paper adds: This desperate attempted suicide by a detainee held for four years without charge, trial or any clear prospect of release was not isolated. At least 131 Guantanamo inmates began a hunger strike on Aug. 8 to protest their indefinite confinement
Click your heels and repeat after me, "They hate us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
Whether you think the Iraq war was a good idea or not, everyone should agree that torture should never be legalized. Not against convicts. Not against the accused. Not against suspects, which is what the kidnapees are.
The vice-president's and the administration's hostility toward basic standards of human decency is loathsome and detestable. This contempt for civilized behavior antithetical to the values almost all people in this country claim to believe in and should be condemned by all Americans with a conscience.
Friday, November 04, 2005
New address for this blog!
Please note that this blog has a new URL. It's mofyc.blogspot.com. Please change your bookmarks!
Note: Old links to previous entries in this blog may not work. But if you replace the first part of the link (popeyechicken) with mofyc then it should work.
Note: Old links to previous entries in this blog may not work. But if you replace the first part of the link (popeyechicken) with mofyc then it should work.
Lyons withdraws from Glens Falls mayoral race, endorses McDevitt
The Post-Star FINALLY did an article on Esmond Lyons.
Unfortunately, it was an article on the progressive candidate's decision to withdraw (or 'abandon,' to use the daily's language) from the Glens Falls mayoral race.
It's too bad that the only way an independent candidate can get noticed in The Post-Star is by quitting.
The remaining candidates in the race are independent Bill Berg, Peter McDevitt (a Republican, but running on the Conservative Party line), Republican nominee Bud Taylor and Democrat Roy Akins.
Lyons endorsed McDevitt and the pair will be campaigning together during the last week of the election. Even while I was supporting Lyons, McDevitt was the only other candidate who made the slightest positive impression on me so I will probably be voting for him.
Berg is running largely as a result of his long-running feud with the Glens Falls Fire Department, his former employer. He speaks about political and judicial corruption in Glens Falls, but without getting specific.
Such vagueness is the great theme of Akins' candidacy. He's a master of broad platitudes and warm fuzzies; perhaps this emphasis on image over substance is a function of his former work in the tourism industry. He assiduously avoids specifics as much as possible. Mark Frost, editor of the weekly Chronicle, endorsed Akins on this basis: Roy stated that he would CUT TAXES, CUT TAXES, CUT TAXES and ELIMINATE the $1 MILLION tax drain to the Glens Falls Civic Center.
Cutting taxes is great, but how does he plan to do it?
Eliminating the almost $1 million tax drain of the Civic Center is great, but how does he plan to do it?
Some may be dazzled by such broad promises but in a local race, a few specifics can go a long way.
There's a fine line between consensus and paralysis; Republican Taylor does not seem to realize this. If someone proposed taking a 5-minute bathroom break at a Common Council meeting, I fear that a Mayor Taylor would insist on a series of committees to explore the feasibility of such a pause.
In addition to being the pick of the Republican establishment, Taylor seems to think he is owed the mayor's job. If you read his literature, it comes across as him trying to convince you that it's "his turn" based on his long record of public service. Taylor has been on the Common Council for eight years and while he's been active in beautification efforts to the city's wonderful Crandall Park, he's made little impression. In eight years, I can remember very few instances of him making his mark, except to sniff about some alleged slight by Mayor Bob Regan (who's leaving office after this year due to term limits).
With 28 years of prominent positions in city government (8 on the Council and 20 on the planning board), shouldn't he have made more of a mark? Shouldn't that long record give us a better idea of what he believes Glens Falls should be? Critics argue that his record suggests his preference for a Glens Falls controlled by big developers -- a Queensbury South, if you will.
McDevitt has caused controversy before. He got into hot water for referring to day laborers as 'marginal human beings,' though he insisted was quoted out of context (he claimed he meant they were marginal in terms of understanding the city's complex infrastructure and thus shouldn't be used on city projects). He does have a habit of shooting from the hip; there's a fine line between being direct and being offensive.
But McDevitt does really offer more details than any of the other remaining candidates (see here).
Taylor once criticized McDevitt for not having a website (he does now). While not having a website certainly isn't the best idea, especially when the main source of local information is running a campaign against you, it hardly disqualifies one from being mayor. This is the sort of ticky tacky stuff and focus on the trivial that's turned me off Taylor.
Though I haven't agreed with everything he's done, I've been a fan of Mayor Regan. He brought a lot of energy and ideas to the job. As a result, you feel a lot more good vibes in Glens Falls than you have in recent years. With Lyons' withdrawal, McDevitt is the only candidate who appears to have the energy, inventiveness and ideas to keep the city moving in the right direction.
Unfortunately, it was an article on the progressive candidate's decision to withdraw (or 'abandon,' to use the daily's language) from the Glens Falls mayoral race.
It's too bad that the only way an independent candidate can get noticed in The Post-Star is by quitting.
The remaining candidates in the race are independent Bill Berg, Peter McDevitt (a Republican, but running on the Conservative Party line), Republican nominee Bud Taylor and Democrat Roy Akins.
Lyons endorsed McDevitt and the pair will be campaigning together during the last week of the election. Even while I was supporting Lyons, McDevitt was the only other candidate who made the slightest positive impression on me so I will probably be voting for him.
Berg is running largely as a result of his long-running feud with the Glens Falls Fire Department, his former employer. He speaks about political and judicial corruption in Glens Falls, but without getting specific.
Such vagueness is the great theme of Akins' candidacy. He's a master of broad platitudes and warm fuzzies; perhaps this emphasis on image over substance is a function of his former work in the tourism industry. He assiduously avoids specifics as much as possible. Mark Frost, editor of the weekly Chronicle, endorsed Akins on this basis: Roy stated that he would CUT TAXES, CUT TAXES, CUT TAXES and ELIMINATE the $1 MILLION tax drain to the Glens Falls Civic Center.
Cutting taxes is great, but how does he plan to do it?
Eliminating the almost $1 million tax drain of the Civic Center is great, but how does he plan to do it?
Some may be dazzled by such broad promises but in a local race, a few specifics can go a long way.
There's a fine line between consensus and paralysis; Republican Taylor does not seem to realize this. If someone proposed taking a 5-minute bathroom break at a Common Council meeting, I fear that a Mayor Taylor would insist on a series of committees to explore the feasibility of such a pause.
In addition to being the pick of the Republican establishment, Taylor seems to think he is owed the mayor's job. If you read his literature, it comes across as him trying to convince you that it's "his turn" based on his long record of public service. Taylor has been on the Common Council for eight years and while he's been active in beautification efforts to the city's wonderful Crandall Park, he's made little impression. In eight years, I can remember very few instances of him making his mark, except to sniff about some alleged slight by Mayor Bob Regan (who's leaving office after this year due to term limits).
With 28 years of prominent positions in city government (8 on the Council and 20 on the planning board), shouldn't he have made more of a mark? Shouldn't that long record give us a better idea of what he believes Glens Falls should be? Critics argue that his record suggests his preference for a Glens Falls controlled by big developers -- a Queensbury South, if you will.
McDevitt has caused controversy before. He got into hot water for referring to day laborers as 'marginal human beings,' though he insisted was quoted out of context (he claimed he meant they were marginal in terms of understanding the city's complex infrastructure and thus shouldn't be used on city projects). He does have a habit of shooting from the hip; there's a fine line between being direct and being offensive.
But McDevitt does really offer more details than any of the other remaining candidates (see here).
Taylor once criticized McDevitt for not having a website (he does now). While not having a website certainly isn't the best idea, especially when the main source of local information is running a campaign against you, it hardly disqualifies one from being mayor. This is the sort of ticky tacky stuff and focus on the trivial that's turned me off Taylor.
Though I haven't agreed with everything he's done, I've been a fan of Mayor Regan. He brought a lot of energy and ideas to the job. As a result, you feel a lot more good vibes in Glens Falls than you have in recent years. With Lyons' withdrawal, McDevitt is the only candidate who appears to have the energy, inventiveness and ideas to keep the city moving in the right direction.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Smokescreens big and little
Anti-war folks have been wetting themselves in glee over a maneuver by Senate minority leader Harry Reid. The Democratic chief used a parliamentary tactic to force the Senate into closed session. Reid's gambit was intended to speed up a stalled Senate investigation as to whether pre-Iraq invasion intelligence was misused or manipulated in selling the war to Congress and to the American public.
Bush's allies didn't appreciate Reid's move.
"Since I've been majority leader, I have to say, not with the previous Democratic leader or the current Democratic leader, have I ever been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution," bemoaned Republican leader Bill Frist, with a melodramatic tone rarely seen outside the teenage girl set.
That the GOP views attempted accountability as a 'slap in the face' is fairly common knowledge.
"For the next year and a half I can't trust Sen. Reid," Frist sniffed, conveniently ignoring the fact that the real question raised by all this is if anyone should trust President Bush.
Many have suggested Reid for canonization because of what he did, but I am not one of them. While what he did is correct, the timing stinks.
In fact, Reid's move only serves as a bitter reminder of how spineless the Democrats have been in the last 3 1/2 years. Perhaps if they'd bothered to question the intelligence BEFORE the war, we might not be in this mess. Instead, a majority of Democratic senators approved the resolution that gave Pres. Bush a blank check to launch the aggression against Iraq. Now, they're calling for investigations to make people forget about their complicity.
I suspect that most of the Democratic senators knew at the time that invading Iraq was a horrible, counterproductive idea, but were cowed into voting for it by the president's then-sky high approval ratings. Now that the White House is weakened by many scandals and public confidence and trust in the administration are very low, Democrats smell blood in the water.
That's not courage, it's cowardice. While I've come to expect nothing more of national Democrats, I won't praise it. Too little, too late.
Maybe they can instead call for investigation into something current, such as why the CIA is allegedly running secret prison camps into eastern Europe to interrogate kidnapees without meddlesome restrictions like US law or the Constitution.
Just click your heels and repeat, "They hate us because us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
President Bush has steadfastly denounced increasing calls even for setting a timetable for gradual US withdrawal from Iraq. "We must stay until the job is finished," goes the conventional wisdom. The president doesn't like to be seen as caving in to pressure, even if it means refusing to do something blindlingly obvious.
Back in 1996, the Republican Congress passed a so-called welfare reform bill, which was signed into law by President Clinton. The law limited the amount of time welfare recipients could remain on the dole. Supporters (and it was a pet cause of conservatives who never liked the concept of welfare but saw this change as the next best thing to eliminating it) argued that without the pressure of a time limit, recipients would have no incentive to get a job or improve their skills. The bill didn't eliminate welfare altogether and it didn't say that people should be kicked of the rolls immediately; it said that if you are going to be subsidized by the money of American taxpayers, it ought to be for the purpose of helping you on the (not endless) road toward self-sufficiency. The time limit was pushed as a way to add a sense of urgency to those efforts toward self-sufficiency.
Fair enough. But can anyone explain why that same rationale does not apply to the American occupation of Iraq.
Without this sense of urgency, US troops will be in Iraq for decades. Chicken Little rantings, you say. Ask yourself how long American soldiers have been in South Korea. Are South Koreans not self-sufficient in terms of national defense more than half a century after the end of the war? They haven't needed to be because they knew the US would never leave.
Cynics have argued that decades of US military presence in the oil-rich country is precisely what some parts of the establishment want, but clearly most of the American people do not.
I don't advocate immediate withdrawal and I never have. I believe we made a mess and broke a previously stable (if autocratic) country. Therefore, we need to stay either until we clean up the mess we made or arrange for someone else to clean it up. If that means getting on our hands and knees and grovelling to the UN, who actually has both experience and competence in nation-building, then so be it. I can't and won't support an open-ended commitment of US troops and tax dollars in that country. Writing blank checks is an invitation for disaster; that's what got us into this mess in the first place.
Though I don't advocate immediate withdrawal, I would like to have confidence that our leadership had a clue about what it was doing, where it was going and how it intended to get there. President Bush's defiant callings of 'Stay the course' might be a little bit more compelling if Americans had faith that the commander-in-chief actually had some idea of what that course is; for years, the president has been under the delusion that macho, sneering rhetoric is an adequate substitute for a real plan. 'Getting specific will only aid the terrorists' and demagoguery like that don't cut it any more now than it did before.
Bush's allies didn't appreciate Reid's move.
"Since I've been majority leader, I have to say, not with the previous Democratic leader or the current Democratic leader, have I ever been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution," bemoaned Republican leader Bill Frist, with a melodramatic tone rarely seen outside the teenage girl set.
That the GOP views attempted accountability as a 'slap in the face' is fairly common knowledge.
"For the next year and a half I can't trust Sen. Reid," Frist sniffed, conveniently ignoring the fact that the real question raised by all this is if anyone should trust President Bush.
Many have suggested Reid for canonization because of what he did, but I am not one of them. While what he did is correct, the timing stinks.
In fact, Reid's move only serves as a bitter reminder of how spineless the Democrats have been in the last 3 1/2 years. Perhaps if they'd bothered to question the intelligence BEFORE the war, we might not be in this mess. Instead, a majority of Democratic senators approved the resolution that gave Pres. Bush a blank check to launch the aggression against Iraq. Now, they're calling for investigations to make people forget about their complicity.
I suspect that most of the Democratic senators knew at the time that invading Iraq was a horrible, counterproductive idea, but were cowed into voting for it by the president's then-sky high approval ratings. Now that the White House is weakened by many scandals and public confidence and trust in the administration are very low, Democrats smell blood in the water.
That's not courage, it's cowardice. While I've come to expect nothing more of national Democrats, I won't praise it. Too little, too late.
Maybe they can instead call for investigation into something current, such as why the CIA is allegedly running secret prison camps into eastern Europe to interrogate kidnapees without meddlesome restrictions like US law or the Constitution.
Just click your heels and repeat, "They hate us because us because we're free" until you delude yourself into believing it.
President Bush has steadfastly denounced increasing calls even for setting a timetable for gradual US withdrawal from Iraq. "We must stay until the job is finished," goes the conventional wisdom. The president doesn't like to be seen as caving in to pressure, even if it means refusing to do something blindlingly obvious.
Back in 1996, the Republican Congress passed a so-called welfare reform bill, which was signed into law by President Clinton. The law limited the amount of time welfare recipients could remain on the dole. Supporters (and it was a pet cause of conservatives who never liked the concept of welfare but saw this change as the next best thing to eliminating it) argued that without the pressure of a time limit, recipients would have no incentive to get a job or improve their skills. The bill didn't eliminate welfare altogether and it didn't say that people should be kicked of the rolls immediately; it said that if you are going to be subsidized by the money of American taxpayers, it ought to be for the purpose of helping you on the (not endless) road toward self-sufficiency. The time limit was pushed as a way to add a sense of urgency to those efforts toward self-sufficiency.
Fair enough. But can anyone explain why that same rationale does not apply to the American occupation of Iraq.
Without this sense of urgency, US troops will be in Iraq for decades. Chicken Little rantings, you say. Ask yourself how long American soldiers have been in South Korea. Are South Koreans not self-sufficient in terms of national defense more than half a century after the end of the war? They haven't needed to be because they knew the US would never leave.
Cynics have argued that decades of US military presence in the oil-rich country is precisely what some parts of the establishment want, but clearly most of the American people do not.
I don't advocate immediate withdrawal and I never have. I believe we made a mess and broke a previously stable (if autocratic) country. Therefore, we need to stay either until we clean up the mess we made or arrange for someone else to clean it up. If that means getting on our hands and knees and grovelling to the UN, who actually has both experience and competence in nation-building, then so be it. I can't and won't support an open-ended commitment of US troops and tax dollars in that country. Writing blank checks is an invitation for disaster; that's what got us into this mess in the first place.
Though I don't advocate immediate withdrawal, I would like to have confidence that our leadership had a clue about what it was doing, where it was going and how it intended to get there. President Bush's defiant callings of 'Stay the course' might be a little bit more compelling if Americans had faith that the commander-in-chief actually had some idea of what that course is; for years, the president has been under the delusion that macho, sneering rhetoric is an adequate substitute for a real plan. 'Getting specific will only aid the terrorists' and demagoguery like that don't cut it any more now than it did before.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Michael Parkhurst
Kudos to New England central defender Michael Parkhurst, who was named Major League Soccer's rookie of the year for 2005. He becomes the second straight Revs' player to win the award, following midfielder Clint Dempsey.
Parkhurst was only the second rookie in MLS history to play every minute of every game. He anchored a three-men backline that looked like New England's achilles heel at the beginning of the year. Yet the Revs conceded the second fewest goals in the league during the regular season, thanks in no small part to Parkhurst's calm and poise which belie his 21 years.
Parkhurst was only shown two yellow cards, and one was for a handball. More astonishingly, he committed only six fouls all season, an almost inconceivable stat considering the amount of time he played, the key position he manned and the attacking nature of the team.
The Wake Forest graduate led New England to their best ever regular season. They host Chicago on Sunday afternoon for a chance to go to their second MLS Cup championship final.
Go Revs!
Parkhurst was only the second rookie in MLS history to play every minute of every game. He anchored a three-men backline that looked like New England's achilles heel at the beginning of the year. Yet the Revs conceded the second fewest goals in the league during the regular season, thanks in no small part to Parkhurst's calm and poise which belie his 21 years.
Parkhurst was only shown two yellow cards, and one was for a handball. More astonishingly, he committed only six fouls all season, an almost inconceivable stat considering the amount of time he played, the key position he manned and the attacking nature of the team.
The Wake Forest graduate led New England to their best ever regular season. They host Chicago on Sunday afternoon for a chance to go to their second MLS Cup championship final.
Go Revs!
Wanted: a good editor
While the Albany Eye blog likes taking shots at the poor quality of writing on CBS6 News' website, Capital News 9 could just as badly use an editor.
Take this story on the Time Warner-affiliated news site.
The title: Wood Theater celebrates 70th birthday.
As a Glens Falls resident, this caught my eye... since the theater opened in June 2004.
The shabbily written text of the article reads: It's one of the oldest community theater groups in the country and they're celebrating their 70th birthday this week with a compilation of musical performances from shows including the Wizard of Oz, Guys and Dolls, and Music Man. People are already lining up at the Charles R. Wood Theater box office to get their tickets. The big anniversary celebration is on Thursday and the show runs through Sunday.
The end.
Someone not familiar with the Glens Falls cultural scene might think that the Wood Theater refers to that community group, not to the building that houses that group.
Incidentally, the mysterious organization is the Glens Falls Community Theater.
Take this story on the Time Warner-affiliated news site.
The title: Wood Theater celebrates 70th birthday.
As a Glens Falls resident, this caught my eye... since the theater opened in June 2004.
The shabbily written text of the article reads: It's one of the oldest community theater groups in the country and they're celebrating their 70th birthday this week with a compilation of musical performances from shows including the Wizard of Oz, Guys and Dolls, and Music Man. People are already lining up at the Charles R. Wood Theater box office to get their tickets. The big anniversary celebration is on Thursday and the show runs through Sunday.
The end.
Someone not familiar with the Glens Falls cultural scene might think that the Wood Theater refers to that community group, not to the building that houses that group.
Incidentally, the mysterious organization is the Glens Falls Community Theater.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Liberia holds (hopefully) landmark elections
This essay is part of a weekly feature on my blog that presents interesting stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, Israel and Iraq.
The Globalist praises the Liberian general elections which were held recently. Despite difficult conditions and little democratic history (these being probably the first truly free and open multiparty elections in the country's history), some 75% of registered voters in the West African country cast a ballot. Voters conducted themselves well, despite long lines and bad weather.
The two leading presidential candidates, who will face each other in a Nov. 8 runoff, are former soccer star George Weah and former UN official and veteran opposition leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who hopes to become Africa's first popularly female elected head of state.
Johnson-Sirleaf is clearly the most qualified candidate and Weah the candidate most able to unify the once-divided country. So hopefully, Liberia will win either way.
The up-side is that none of the many former warlords who were running in the presidential election will make it to the runoff. Not only will they thus not win, but since they were so soundly trounced, one can hope that they will accept the result of the election and recognize the legitimacy of the next administration.
The Globalist also pointed out the important role played by UNAMIL, the UN mission in Liberia.
Moreover, most agree that UNMIL was crucial to the elections' success in providing an enabling environment and guaranteeing security through its 15,000 peacekeepers, currently the largest UN peace-keeping contingent in the world, it noted.
In addition, the UN provided critical expertise as well as logistical and financial support. A total of $18 million of UN funding went towards organizing the elections.
After 15 years of nearly non-stop and extremely savage war (with a brief interruption for a now-defunct dictatorship) and huge populations of citizens having fled the country, Liberians are ready for their state to become a normal country again. Let's hope these elections are a first step.
The Globalist praises the Liberian general elections which were held recently. Despite difficult conditions and little democratic history (these being probably the first truly free and open multiparty elections in the country's history), some 75% of registered voters in the West African country cast a ballot. Voters conducted themselves well, despite long lines and bad weather.
The two leading presidential candidates, who will face each other in a Nov. 8 runoff, are former soccer star George Weah and former UN official and veteran opposition leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who hopes to become Africa's first popularly female elected head of state.
Johnson-Sirleaf is clearly the most qualified candidate and Weah the candidate most able to unify the once-divided country. So hopefully, Liberia will win either way.
The up-side is that none of the many former warlords who were running in the presidential election will make it to the runoff. Not only will they thus not win, but since they were so soundly trounced, one can hope that they will accept the result of the election and recognize the legitimacy of the next administration.
The Globalist also pointed out the important role played by UNAMIL, the UN mission in Liberia.
Moreover, most agree that UNMIL was crucial to the elections' success in providing an enabling environment and guaranteeing security through its 15,000 peacekeepers, currently the largest UN peace-keeping contingent in the world, it noted.
In addition, the UN provided critical expertise as well as logistical and financial support. A total of $18 million of UN funding went towards organizing the elections.
After 15 years of nearly non-stop and extremely savage war (with a brief interruption for a now-defunct dictatorship) and huge populations of citizens having fled the country, Liberians are ready for their state to become a normal country again. Let's hope these elections are a first step.
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