Tea with a Side of FUD

The inanity of so-called Tea Parties is matched only by the stupidity by which they are backed. Thousands of “working-class” Americans — a euphemism for middle-class people in what used to be called “blue-collar” jobs — will attend such events, protesting President Obama’s budget. This in spite of the fact that the vast, vast majority of those in attendence will receive tax cuts from the budget that they’re protesting. Or perhaps they don’t want repairs made to the infrastructure that hasn’t been overhauled in forty years. Seriously, guys, it’s been that long. And that’s what is costs to have roads, electricity, water, sewage, and so on.

The events are being billed as “grassroots,” meaning they formed spontaneously and were organized by the people who are attending them. The opposite of “grassroots” is “astroturf,” a movement that is designed to appear as though it is spontaneous — to give it greater credibility — but is in fact organized and planned by The Usual Suspects: think tanks, high-level political pundits, and lobbyists. It’s also a credit to how out of touch these same strategic planners are with contemporary culture that they use “tea-bag” as a verb, blissfully unaware of the kind of laughter it engenders among those of us in the know. (Parents, ask your kids.)

Yes, these Tea Parties are just such an event. Republicans have become the party of “no way, no how” in the explicit sense that they both do not want Democrats to have their way, but neither do Republicans have an alternate plan of attack. Two weeks ago, they unveiled their own “budget proposal,” which was full of grandiose talk but very, very short on actual numbers. These faux-organic “tea parties” are only the latest in Republicans’ embrace of what the online community calls FUD, which stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. FUD is a marketing technique (what else?!) used to make consumers think nasty things about the competitor’s product. FUD almost never comes with verifiable evidence; rather, it is couched in vague, shadowy terms, coupled with equally veiled threats. Microsoft used it two years ago when it publicly claimed that the open-source (and often free) operating system Linux infringed on hundreds of its patents — but never mentioned a single one of those patents by name. Microsoft’s aim was to make IT executives wet their pants with the implicit threat of litigation against any company who might employ Linux instead of Windows. Of course, it was an empty implicit threat, but that didn’t stop Microsoft from digging to the bottom of their bag of dirty tricks to try.

So, too, is it with Republicans. And amidst the tea-bagging, their only response to a cogent plan that will hopefully bring the economy back and provide much-needed renovation to long-neglected public works is … drumroll, please: tax cuts for the wealthy! And not just the wealthy, but the super wealthy. The kinds of people who actually look like Rich Uncle Pennybags (that’s the official name of the Monopoly guy; look how much you’re learning today!). Senator John Kyl of Arizona would like to destroy the estate tax, which will be on vacation during 2010 (expect a lot of wealthy old people to “die” suddenly!) and then return in 2011 to its pre-2001 enforcement levels; namely, a $1 million exemption and a 55% tax rate for everything above that. Sen. Kyl’s plan is to increase the exemption to $10 million and decrease the non-exempt tax rate to 35%. Kyl has billed this as a way to stimulate the economy, since wealthy people will be able to invest in the economy with the additional money they’ll get to keep. Or something.

In this regard, Kyl is either willfully stupid or believes the rest of us to be willfully stupid. In no way will de-clawing the estate tax “trickle down” to the rest of us. The millions and millions of dollars upon which taxes must be paid at the time of inheritance are not located in Scrooge McDuck’s money bin; they’re locked in real estate, which will remain in the family for generations to come.  That means no sale. And that means no trickling. (And, to debunk the “double taxation” bromide that is frequently put forth to criticize the estate tax, if the real property has been in the family for generations, that means it’s never been sold, and if it’s never been sold, it’s never been taxed. At all. The same goes for financial securities like stocks and bonds.) By some estimates, the government will lose $65 billion in tax revenue over 10 years if Kyl’s dreams were to come true. Balanced against that would be the financial gain of one hundred people. Yes, 100 people throughout the entire country would benefit from Kyl’s proposal. Out of 300 million, 100 people — that’s fewer than the number who audition for American Idol – would personally benefit from this legislation. And they are 100 of the super-richest people in the country. Pity them and their billions of never-taxed dollars, locked away in swaths of property.

That’s just one example. Here’s another: the highest marginal tax rate, which Republicans insist must be lowered, lest “small businesses” and entrepreneurs pack up their suitcases and haul off to Ireland so they can take advantage of the tax breaks there. This in spite of the fact that, under President Reagan (who is Hercules, Jesus, and Steven Seagal combined into a bacon-wrapped taco shell), the highest marginal tax rate was 50%, and that it was 91% under President Eisenhower. From 1993 to 2000, arguably one of the longest periods of unrestrained growth in this country, the highest marginal tax rate was 39.6%, and we ended the fiscal year 2000 with a $128 billion government surplus. Are you still laughing, Laffer?

And so, on go the great masses of “grassroots” conservatism, led by their Fearless Leaders as much as they ever were. The fact remains that the Republicans are now, more than ever, the party of pointless obstructionism, perfectly ready to block any Democratic proposal — no matter how it may help the country — without putting forward a viable counter-proposal, all in the name of politics. By obstructing Democrats’ plans, they can, in 2010, point to a lack of progress on the Democrats’ part and say, “See? They did nothing for you in the time they were in office!” They expect voters’ memories to be so short. But isn’t that the card they’ve always played: the Ignorant of Spades? Their success has lain in their hope beyond hope that “working-class” Americans believe every word of what Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh say, and praying that those same Americans don’t look out the window and see that those words are the opposite of reality; namely, that the Republicans have been tea-bagging them for years.

North Korea: An Uncertain Future

Last week North Korea conducted a test launch of what it claimed to be a satellite, now successfully orbiting the globe and beaming patriotic, revolutionary music to the masses. South Korea, Japan, the US, and many others assert this was no peaceful satellite launch but a provocative and threatening intercontinental ballistic missile test in violation of UN Resolution 1718, and have found no evidence of a singing revolutionary satellite in orbit. So either this test appears to have been, in actuality, a missile test or it was a failed attempt to put a North Korean satellite into orbit – both scenarios that contradict North Korea’s version of events.

President Obama, South Korea, and Japan quickly came out with withering condemnations of the launch, describing it as “provocative” and “reckless,” and calling for sharp, immediate action from the UN, possibly including further economic sanctions. China and Russia, the other two participants in the Six-Party Talks and closer to North Korea, cautioned against “an emotional knee-jerk reaction” to the test, reminding all parties to remain focused on the main goal of the Six-Party Talks – the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Regardless of what happens in response to this immediate crisis, one has to wonder: What is going on in North Korea? Often described as reclusive and one of the world’s most closed societies, North Korea is something of an enigma – especially to Americans. Of course there was the Korean War of the early 1950s, but fewer and fewer Americans remember it, know much about it, or care about it. And to be honest, it is hard to see how that conflict – over 50 years ago – has much relevance as a way of explaining what is going on today. However, it does frame the current situation, and for that reason I will provide a brief history of the Korean peninsula and the complex and usually vitriol US-North Korean relationship since 1945.

The Cold War

In August of 1945, World War II ended, and Korea was granted independence from its Japanese colonizers. This independence came with a price however. Korea, like Germany, would be split in two – one part, essentially, to be a US puppet state, and the other to be a Soviet one. Exiles Syngman Rhee (who had been living in the US) and Kim Il-Sung (who had been in the USSR) returned to Korea to rule the South and North, respectively. Within five years, North Korea invaded the South in an effort to unify the peninsula under its own rule. Much of South Korea, including its capital Seoul, was captured by the North, prompting a massive military response from the UN – led by the US and South Korea. By the end of the conflict, at least 3 million Koreans, almost 1 million Chinese, and over 50,000 Americans had died. After the conflict was over, Korea remained divided almost exactly as it had been before 1950. Relations between the North and South have remained uneasy ever since, and tens of thousands of US troops and (until 1991) thousands of nuclear warheads have been based in the South. Over the years, clashes along the 4 km wide Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two countries have not been uncommon. US spy ships and airplanes have been captured or shot down by the North, the North has often threateningly tunneled beneath the DMZ, and the North was responsible for the hijacking and downing of Korean Airlines flight 858 in 1987. At the same time, for 50 years after the Korean War, the US vigorously supported harsh economic sanctions against the North.

Post-Cold War

With the fall of the USSR in 1991, North Korea lost a significant supporter and has struggled with food shortages and a collapsing economy ever since. Since that time, there has been constant speculation about the North’s developing of a military nuclear program and its sharing of military knowledge and technology with nations such as Pakistan and Syria. In 1993 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was disallowed from inspecting North Korean nuclear sites, and the North withdrew from the IAEA the next year. In 1994 Kim Il-Sung died and was replaced as North Korea’s head of state by his son, Kim Jong-Il. While the US and North Korea signed the 1994 Agreed Framework to improve relations, its implementation has been rocky, with both sides failing to fully follow through on their commitments. In 1998 the South’s new president Kim Dae-Jung introduced his sweeping new “Sunshine Policy,” a policy of engagement aimed at spurring improved North-South relations and increased cross-border trade and cooperation. The North continued developing its missile program, but largely within the guidelines agreed upon with the US and the South. At the same time, the US played a role in militarily strengthening Japan and South Korea against the North.

Efforts continued to normalize North-South and North-US relations until 2001. At that time new US President George Bush took a much more hawkish position toward the North than President Clinton had, and famously included North Korea in his “Axis of Evil” along with Iran and Iraq. This stance worsened US-North Korean relations considerably, and over the next few years North Korea defiantly expanded its nuclear program and withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003. New governments in South Korea and Japan treated the North more coolly. Bogged down in Iraq, the Bush administration was compelled to try negotiation through the Six Party Talks – which involved the US, North Korea, South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan. Further bellicose statements by President Bush and disagreements over the terms of the Agreed Framework gave the North excuses to withdraw from the talks, and in October of 2006 North Korea tested a nuclear weapon. Incredibly, talks continued after this test, and were successful enough that some foresaw a breakthrough in US-North Korean relations in 2007; yet by late 2008 talks broke down again. Complicating matters was the reported stroke of North Korea’s “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-Il in August of 2008, creating fears about the North’s immediate future – including the stability of its political system and the fate of its nuclear weapons. However,  the US and the North worked cooperatively during this time to alleviate the effects of famines in the North and to find the remains of American servicemen killed since 1950 in the North, and war was in fact averted through diplomatic channels on many occasions.

Prelude to a Transition?

To the average American observer – myself included – North Korea’s actions are perplexing. Why exactly are they test firing rockets over Japan? Why now? What are their motivations? And more generally, why has North Korea spent so much money and risked so much global animosity on developing its nuclear weapons program? Why has it remained such a closed country? With the fall of the USSR and China’s transformation to free market heavyweight, why has it clung to its rigid form of communism? And this is just the beginning.

Here are a few thoughts, first concerning the immediate situation. Despite Kim Jong-Il’s very public appreciation for the launch, it was the first time since August that he has appeared in public, probably due to his questionable health. If he is in fact in poor health, the North may be facing a rocky transition of power and this launch may be a way of declaring North Korea’s continued military strength and its intention to proceed with a space and military program regardless of whether he continues to rule or not. Indeed, after considerable diplomatic progress in 2008, in recent months the North has been more hostile toward Japan and South Korea, has kicked out US humanitarian aid teams, and has detained two American journalists, indicating an unpredictable government possibly undergoing a significant change.

A Negotiation Tactic?

On the other hand, North Korea has used provocative military tests in the past to extract concessions from the US during the Six-Party Talks, such as having its name dropped from the US’s state sponsors of terrorism list or to procure humanitarian and development aid. So, this week’s action could be a signal that the North’s political regime is weak and in need of assistance, for which it would like to use this test as a bargaining chip.

That the North’s military activities are mainly a tactic to drive a harder bargain with the US is the accepted explanation for North Korean motives. While this is certainly part of the picture, it is hard to believe that this is North Korea’s sole purpose for developing such a large military program. Nearly a quarter of the North’s GNP is devoted to military spending, and it has 1.2 million active duty military personnel, nearly double the South’s standing military. This makes North Korea’s military one of the largest in the world, despite the fact that it is a nation of just 23 million people. So, long before the Six Party Talks, the North has been building a formidable military for its own sake, not just as a bargaining chip. The large and threatening US presence in northeast Asia since 1950 is surely a factor, as is the significant drop in military support from Russia and China in recent decades. It is not surprising that the North feels vulnerable, and its massive military is surely one reason that its government has endured and that it continues to exist at all as a nation.

Game Theory with Obama?

The US is experiencing a transition of power as well, and this launch was perhaps directed at a young, inexperienced President Obama. Before the launch, Obama’s administration indicated a willingness to pursue high-level bilateral talks with North Korea and received no answer from Pyongyang. Perhaps, the launch was an effort by North Korea to get the attention of the new administration, and to engage the US on its own terms. It could also have been, in part, a test just to see what reaction the launch would prompt from the US. Over the past few decades, the North has seemed interested in engaging with the US and the South when given the chance. Some also have argued that the recent launch does not explicitly violate UN Resolution 1718, indicating that the North wants attention, but not to actually break its obligations under 1718. This test may have been a way of gauging the sincerity of the Obama administration’s overtures to the North. If Obama can keep a cool head and avoid Bush’s war-mongering rhetoric even in a sticky situation, the North may take Obama’s offers to engage more seriously. Obama declined to use the US missile defense system to shoot down the North’s rocket, and instead sharply denounced the launch and steered the issue to the UN while working with other members of the Six-Party Talks to come up with a constructive response. Time will tell how much Obama’s strategy will differ from that of former Presidents Bush or Clinton.

Why Isolation?

As for North Korea’s more general isolation from the global community, there seem to be a few compelling explanations. The most obvious and simplistic reason is the desire of a small circle of political and military North Korean elites to retain power at any cost. Life in North Korea is hard, stifling, and unforgiving. The North’s particularly harsh interpretation of communism has propped up a family dynasty and benefited a small group at the expense of most for over 50 years. Yet today’s rulers are not as “beloved” as Kim Il-Sung and the North’s focus on military success seems to be a way of demonstrating its power and bestowing legitimacy on a regime that has few other successes to point to.

Demonizing the North Korean leadership is the easy way to explain its actions, but other factors are in play as well.  As mentioned above, the North received substantial economic and military support from both the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 however, much of the North’s support gave way. In contrast to much of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics, North Korea’s leadership has adjusted poorly to a post-Cold War world, prioritizing its own survival over a more holistic concern for North Korea’s people and place in this new world. It has remained largely isolated economically and politically and has suffered devastating famines since the early 1990s. Legitimate and imagined fears have resulted in disproportionate military spending that certainly prevents the North from investing in economic development, improving government services and infrastructure, or providing humanitarian aid to the extent necessary. This inability to adjust effectively to a new world has led to economic and political weakness that military strength has attempted to compensate for.

Additionally, as mentioned above, between 1950 and 2000 the US enforced an economic embargo on the North that isolated it from the capitalist world. That was not much of a problem during the Cold War when the North could count on support from the USSR and China, but afterward the North suffered tremendously. Economic sanctions in various forms have often been the response to the North’s more recent military activities. Intended to punish North Korea’s defiant leaders, limiting trade and aid to the North since the 1950s has contributed to the small country’s international isolation and have been an obstacle to normalized relations with other nations.

What’s Next?

What the future holds for North Korea is anybody’s guess, especially if Kim Jong-Il’s health deteriorates further. Will he remain in power, engaging with the international community in his characteristically bold and theatrical way? Will a smooth transition of power take place? Or does the country face a political upheaval with unpredictable and potentially frightening consequences in the near future? And what of denuclearizing and even reunifying the Korean peninsula? Both the North and the US show signs of wanting to increase engagement and economic cooperation, and this would certainly be preferable to the prickly and potentially disastrous path they are on now. Yet both must work hard to overcome their mutual distrust of one another while saving face and appearing not to give up too much to the other, long-feared side of the 38th parallel.

Mr. President, We Do Have a Choice

In explaining his most recent escalation of American troop levels in Afghanistan, President Obama claimed that “the United States of America did not choose to fight a war in Afghanistan.” The underlying justification for the additional 4,000 “advisors” was the fact that “nearly 3,000 of our people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, for doing nothing more than going about their daily lives.” His second statement is unquestionably true; the first is not. But even more important than the question of whether or not we had a choice in the matter of invading Afghanistan is the fact that we have one today, more than seven years later.

Normally we might say a country had no choice but to wage war if it found itself the target of ongoing sustained attacks from another country. Having been the victim of a highly coordinated and lethal terrorist attack, there was little question that the US – and much of the rest of the world – had to revamp a wide array of security measures, the results of which are evident in any airport. The decision to fight a war in Afghanistan, however, was quite another matter.

From the beginning, a central goal of this war, as announced by the White House, was bringing the apparent perpetrator of the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, to justice. And a week into the war, the Taliban government then in power in Afghanistan made an offer to turn him over — with several substantial provisos. They would do so if provided evidence connecting him to the crimes; they would not give him to the US, but only to another Muslim country; and naturally it would happen only if they could locate him. The offer was rejected out of hand.

Looking back, the matter of evidence would presumably have proven no obstacle. And so far as the stumbling block of the refusal to deliver him directly to the US goes, it now seems highly relevant to note that the Bush Administration then in power would go on to organize an elaborate worldwide campaign to prevent Americans from ever being turned over to the International Criminal Court despite the fact that 108 other countries have opted to recognize its legitimacy. The White House certainly would never have honored a demand such as it made upon Afghanistan.

Finally, there’s the matter of whether the Taliban was acting in good faith or would do so in the future: Did they know where bin Laden was and would they have delivered him if they did? That’s all speculation, of course, but what is not speculation is that seven plus years of war have not produced him either. And as we consider whether this war is worth continuing today, let’s consider the crux of the President’s argument as to why we had no choice but to get into it – the “nearly 3,000 of our people” killed.

In contrast to the facts surrounding September 11, data concerning Afghan civilians killed by American military action is very hard to come by. In what is arguably the most thorough study that was ever done on the question, University of New Hampshire Professor Marc Herold concluded that there were already nearly 3,800 of them by December 7, 2001. His research report listed the number of casualties, location, type of weapon, and source of information, but Herold believed “the figure I came up with is a very, very conservative estimate. I think that a much more realistic figure would be around 5,000.” These Afghanis too were simply “doing nothing more than going about their daily lives.”

The actual number to this day? No one knows. Certainly the casualty rate abated after the war’s first few months, yet few would question that the number is greater than that of the Americans who died as a result of the hijackers’ activities. Which brings us to the current President’s statement. Do the Afghanis therefore now also have no choice but to fight a war with the US? “An eye for an eye and soon the whole world is blind,” as Gandhi put it?

Whatever one thinks of the logic of getting into this war in the first place, the logic of staying is quite another thing. And actually, it may be a stretch to call it logic. Consider, for instance, the March 28, 2009 New York Times editorial praising Obama for asserting “leadership over the war that matters most to America’s security — the one against Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” while simultaneously complementing “his plans to urge so-called moderate Taliban to abandon their hard-line leaders” and noting that “more than seven years into the fight, the leader of the American intelligence community acknowledged that it knows shockingly little about the Taliban command structure.”

And that’s the current strategy in a nutshell: send in more troops to fight the enemy at the same time you’re trying to negotiate with them and figure out who they actually are. Unfortunately, the level of intransigence of the last administration was such that this approach may strike a lot of people as reasonable by comparison. But even though American casualties may well remain small enough in number and Afghan casualties may seem too remote and obscure to provoke a crisis in confidence back home, the fact remains that these are real people’s lives that the White House is hanging its flimsy strategy on.

Seeking to prevent Al Qaeda from inflicting any further harm on the US is a worthy goal and probably a realistic one. Trying to eliminate everyone who doesn’t like us in Afghanistan – and increasingly in Pakistan as well – is surely a prescription for endless war. We do have a choice

The White House Science Agenda, So Far

A few minutes into President Obama’s inaugural speech, he highlighted the importance of science to our nation:

“For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of our economy calls for action, bold and swift. And we will act, not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We’ll restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.”
(emphasis added)

Nevertheless, the first thing I noticed upon visiting the White House Web site was the absence of Science from the Agenda menu on the home page. They do however list a link to their Technology page on that menu, and thankfully some scientific issues are listed there.

Regardless of how the White House organizes their Web site, many of us are breathing a sigh of relief – and not just because President Obama presumably cares about the environment and will work to make the air cleaner. On a wide range of issues, citizens may now expect a return to sensible public discourse that places science and rational thought above political ideology and pseudo-science. No longer will we be held hostage by George W. Bush’s willful ignorance of life-threatening issues (recall that it took five years for the former president to acknowledge that “America is addicted to oil”). While we will have to rely on Congress to create substantive legislation, President  Obama has certainly set the right tone for better living through science.

In the three months since the inauguration, several important topics have gained attention. Global warming and stem cell research are two issues many people are concerned about, and we have already seen the new administration act decisively on these fronts.

President Obama recently announced an international summit, to be held at the end of this month, to coordinate action to address global warming. Representatives of 16 countries (each G20 members) are expected to attend the “Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate.” The forum is in advance of the United Nations’ Climate Change Convention, which will be held in Copenhagen in December.

Obama frequently mentions global warming as a top issue, including during the presidential campaign and in numerous public appearances and official statements. He signed a memorandum in January requiring the Transportation Department to work with the EPA to enforce the average fuel efficiency standard of 35 miles per gallon for all cars and light trucks (a category that includes SUVs). In February the president signed another memorandum that forces the Department of Energy to establish efficiency standards for consumer and commercial appliances according to previously passed federal laws. These are very important steps considering that increasing efficiency is the quickest and most cost-effective way for Americans to reduce energy usage and the related greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

These clear actions and statements from the president in the earliest days of his tenure are a very encouraging sign of his commitment to reducing the threat of undesired climate changes. It remains to be seen whether government agencies, manufacturers, and the public will work together to rise to the challenge of increasing energy efficiency.

Regarding stem cell research, in March Obama issued an Executive Order that permits scientists to finally work without fear of restrictions by the federal government. Specifically, the order revoked the rules created in 2001 by former President Bush, which prohibited federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and restricted the techniques available to researchers. While research was hampered in the U.S. for eight years, several other countries continued their work, threatening to undermine our progress and competitiveness in this field. Stem cell research is one of the most promising frontiers in biology, and many experts believe that there will be many potential tremendous benefits in curing a wide variety of ailments and genetic diseases.

Other items currently on the administration’s technology laundry list include:

• Ensuring open internet and media, including net neutrality;
• Creating a modern communications infrastructure, with broadband availability virtually everywhere in the country;
• Increasing America’s competitiveness through trade, tax credits, and direct investment in science;
• Fostering entrepreneurial ventures;
• Protecting intellectual property rights;
• Improving science and math education;
• Increasing the use of science and technology to solve national problems;
• Lowering health care costs and improving quality through improved information systems;
• Investing more in renewable energy research and development; and
• Advancing health through biomedical research.

As you can see, this is quite a long and ambitious list. President Obama has said that he expects us to work together with him on the many issues that he highlighted during the campaign and in his presidency so far. Given the country’s many significant challenges outside the realm of science and technology, hopefully we will be able to make meaningful progress in at least some of these areas.

Obama, Mexico, and the Drug War

Remember the War on Drugs? Sure you do. It was after the Cold War and before the War on Terror. It continues to be an attempt to crack down on the illegal drug trade into the U.S. It turned out to be little more than an excuse to continue the Cold War in places like Colombia. It also resulted in new domestic judicial rules such as three-strikes-and-you’re-out, and draconian mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders, over-crowding prisons with disproportionately minority, nonviolent, first-time offenders in possession of small amounts of drugs.

Since September 11, 2001, we haven’t heard much about the War on Drugs. With the attacks of that day, the threat of religiously and ideologically motivated radical Muslim terrorists immediately became more grave than the crime and violence connected to Latin American (mostly) drug cartels. Our collective focus has been on the threat posed by Islamic terrorism since 2001 and we have largely ignored the growing threat posed by increasingly powerful drug cartels on our southern border.

Last year, drug violence and corruption in Mexico surged, especially in towns and cities along the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2008 over 6,000 people were probably killed – that adds up to over 16 people every day – twice as many as in 2007. Many of these killings were particularly gruesome – beheadings and execution style killings. Drug cartels are suspected of downing a plane, killing Mexico’s Interior Minister, and corruption related to drug trafficking has reached the highest levels. The Sinaloa, Gulf, and Tijuana cartels have infiltrated the judiciary, the police, and political parties. The director of Mexico’s Interpol Office and an employee of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency were both arrested for collaborating with cartels. Last spring, the Justice Department declared that Mexican drug cartels pose the “largest threat to both citizens and law enforcement agencies in this country and now have gang members in nearly 200 U.S. cities.” And the U.S. Army High Command has determined that due to the violence, corruption and instability caused by drug trafficking in Mexico, its government, along with Pakistan’s, should “bear consideration for rapid and sudden collapse.” Former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey recently stated that thanks to drug cartels “Mexico is on the edge of the abyss – it could become a narco-state in the coming decade.” Mexico’s foreign minister has had to defend her government against accusations of its being a failed state.

These are damning statements that President Obama’s incoming administration should not take lightly. While I hope the situation in Mexico and U.S.-Mexican relations will be treated with the seriousness they deserve, Obama has not shared his plans concerning Mexico or the Drug War very openly with the American public. Indeed, he appears to have followed Bush’s lead and has focused his foreign policy sights on – you guessed it – Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and other problems in the Middle East. Given our country’s complex and numerous entanglements in the region, this is understandable. But with the drug trade destabilizing our southern neighbor and threatening to cross the border and sow violence, corruption, and instability on U.S. soil it is surely necessary to give our attention to all of these situations, however difficult it may be.

The U.S.-led Drug War has always been deeply flawed and arguably ineffective. The U.S. has always been eager to solve the problem by force – instigating violence in other countries (massive military funding to Colombia, Mexico, etc.) and treating the drug trade in the U.S. as essentially a moral and policing problem that can be solved with a zero tolerance approach and enough cops, guns, and jails. The U.S. has been reluctant to pursue cheaper and more effective ways of battling the drug trade – drug treatment for addicts in the U.S., and development aid for farmers in other countries for example. The War on Terror has pushed the War on Drugs to the back burner, and it has pushed ‘soft’ strategies even further back. It seems we have given up trying to reduce the demand or the supply of illegal drugs in the U.S.

So what exactly does Obama plan to do about the threat posed by illegal drug trafficking? He did not mention Mexico or drugs in his inaugural address, and his public statements since being elected haven’t given many clues. The new whitehouse.gov foreign policy agenda page says nothing about Latin America, preoccupied as it is with Middle East concerns. And as a candidate, Obama said little specific about Latin America or drug trafficking, though at least he mentioned Latin America on his campaign website.

It appears President Obama will not be as hands-off as President Bush when it comes to problems in Latin America. He has indicated a desire for closer and improved relations with Mexico. President-elect Obama was visited by President Felipe Calderon in Washington where they discussed economic issues (including Obama’s campaign pledge to renegotiate NAFTA, something Calderon is opposed to), the environment, immigration, and drug trafficking. Neither man gave many details about their discussion, but Obama has indicated support for the Merida Initiative, passed last June, which commits the U.S. to increasing aid to Mexico for equipment and training to combat organized crime. It does nothing to reduce the U.S. demand for drugs, however.

President Obama also envisions an ambitious new Partnership for the Americas”. In a Miami speech during the campaign he declared:

We need an agenda that advances democracy, security, and opportunity from the bottom up. So my policy will be guided by the simple principle that what’s good for the people of the Americas is good for the United States. That means measuring success not just through agreements among governments, but also through the hopes of the child in the favelas of Rio, the security for the policeman in Mexico City, and the shrinking of the distance between Miami and Havana.

This soaring rhetoric is unfortunately not, as far as I can tell, matched by detailed or original strategies for combating the drug trade along the U.S.-Mexico border. Increased cooperation between the U.S. and other Latin American countries will surely be helpful and appreciated, but in the midst of so many other problems, the U.S. may not have the resources or the political will to see these changes through. Yet there are glimmers of hope – commitments to improve cross border partnerships between U.S. and Mexican states and pledges to increase drug treatment programs in the U.S.

It is also instructive to examine the recent decisions Obama and his inner circle have made regarding the Drug War. As a candidate, Obama promised to end DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in California, but since his assuming office raids have continued. Obama’s staff has said that as soon as new Department of Justice officials are appointed the raids will end, heartening news for those who support medical marijuana laws – and a difficult promise to avoid making good on. Obama does not support legalizing drugs – not surprising for a U.S. president – while at the same time advocating more treatment than incarceration for users, a significant shift from previous presidents. He has suggested ending mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent first-time offenders, and ending a federal ban on funding needle exchange programs reversing years of federal drug policy.

This appears promising, yet Obama’s coterie does not have a history of breaking ranks with the War on Drugs consensus. Joe Biden has been a strong supporter of law enforcement solutions, toughening sentencing rules for drug users, and criminalizing drug use. He played a significant part in creating the position of Drug Czar. He has made more moderate decisions in recent years, but many Drug War opponents remain skeptical of him. Rahm Emanuel has been a vocal supporter of the Drug War, at least when it fits his political agenda, and has a mixed record on issues like medical marijuana. Incoming Attorney General Eric Holder also vigorously supported harsher Drug War policies during his years under President Clinton and as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Obama’s interim Drug Czar – Ed Jurith, a longtime lawyer for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and former Clinton Drug Czar – has been described as “civil and thoughtful” in the ongoing debate over drug policy though he has by-and-large supported the Drug War. It is rumored that Obama’s permanent Drug Czar pick is Republican Jim Ramstad, who has opposed needle exchange programs, a crucial tool in decreasing the spread of HIV and other fatal diseases amongst addicts. While Drug War opponents may not be thrilled with these selections by Obama, many are taking a wait-and-see approach and acknowledging that these individuals are at least politically open to making policy changes.

And in Mexico? Will Obama put forward drug policies innovative and intelligent enough to effectively curb the violence and corruption flourishing along the U.S.-Mexico border? Will he be able to create a new, smarter mix of drug fighting strategies that reduces the violence and corruption that has accompanied drug trafficking in the U.S. and Mexico? While Mexico and the U.S. border states (dealing with the threat of the same drug-related problems) are committed to effectively managing and limiting, if not stopping, the drug trade, it remains to be seen how committed the Obama administration in far-off Washington will be. Inspirational rhetoric is one thing, but confronting difficult societal problems and defeating organized gangs of unrepentant killers is another – just ask former President Bush.

Epoch’s End

I should start by stating that I am a novice in the fields of economics and finance. My career was as a law enforcement officer. I do, however, believe that I have a firm grasp of world history, human nature, and a sense of how much the human spirit can endure until endless mass frustration leads to a chain of events that explodes into actions which can result in regime change and major shifts in worldwide belief systems.

After the First World War, communism and socialism emerged to duke it out with Hitler’s fascism and other conservative regimes for the balance of power in Europe. After the Second World War, unfettered missionary capitalism emerged in the US, bolstered by evangelic Christianity. Liberalism and socialism tended to dominate in old Europe where the relative place of religion diminished, and today is virtually non-existent in many such secular states. Into this mix, multinational corporations emerged, with no allegiance to anyone except their shareholders. Their power enabled them to shape government policies, and their financial weight enabled them to implicitly blackmail governments into giving them sweetheart deals, which were often to no ones benefit except theirs and the richly rewarded politicians who supported them. From this standpoint, I do suspect that the shock waves radiating around the world from the stock market meltdown were not entirely created by a few bad apples running amok in Wall Street, but were rather a symptom of the basic dishonesty that seems ensconced in most stock markets around the world.

Events of the past decade and the past year in particular have convinced me that we are at Epoch’s End and that the current worldwide geopolitical and economic system is so broken that it can never be completely fixed. What will emerge I cannot venture to guess, but it will likely take many years to reach this yet unknown new global equilibrium. In this new equilibrium, the standard of living that many in the western world have taken for granted in recent generations may not be seen again.

Certainly many have been expecting Epoch’s End, through global warming, plagues or famines, but its tipping point appears to have occurred not through those venues, but through economic breakdown. As life has proceeded happily upward for us in the developed world since the Second World War, we have long forgotten that this uninterrupted growth was unprecedented in recent world history. World history suggests that the past fifty or sixty years are more likely to be seen as an outlier rather than as a permanent new paradigm. In the past, plagues have wiped out the working forces, old industries closed down and new ones developed, and populations followed the jobs. Crop failures caused those who wanted to survive to move on to new areas or even to new continents. Growth has been followed by stagnation. Fifty or sixty years may seem like a long time in the scope of a human lifetime. However, it is all but a footnote in world history.

Over the last 50 or 60 years we have come to expect that things will always improve–we will have better cars, holidays, and medical care, and our incomes will continue to provide more of these things. Many companies have based their development on a policy of increasing their revenues as much as 10% a year. Most of these companies have psychologists study shoppers brain waves to use exactly the right words in their sales promotions and to find the best place to put certain items in the store to trigger the buying impulse. We have all happily shopped and shopped for more and more things we don’t need. Products we really need require no advertising. How many television commercials do you see for bread and milk? If the whole world were to enjoy the standard of living that we currently enjoy in North America, we would need three worlds just to keep up. Perhaps most selfish of all, most people now expect to live longer without giving any thought to the potential consequences of this like increasing the world’s population, all the problems of pollution, global warming, polluted water ways, etc. With the world’s population approaching 8 billion plus people, it is close to cardiac arrest. We can’t expect to live forever and have growth forever; death and cyclical stagnation of populations and civilizations are a part of the natural balance of our planet.

As you probably expected, I am nothing of an expert in the ways of the multinational corporation. However, what I do know is that there are many Chinese workers, working at monotonous, dangerous jobs for $5 a day or less, with unpaid overtime expected. They produce cheap quality goods for us that we really don’t need. Who then is the net gainer? At least in the short run, it is a few wealthy shareholders. In order for this situation to flourish, our wage levels must remain 20 times higher, for the same or less effort, than a Chinese worker. The whole approach is broke.

As I write, more and more western governments are announcing huge spending plans to stimulate the economy, using vast amounts of borrowed money. That money is all coming from the sale of our bonds to China. If it works, perhaps we can put off Epoch’s End for a few years, as we attempt to pay the huge debts. Certainly our wages will take a huge hit, and lifestyles will need to readjust. But what if it doesn’t work, what if our spending doesn’t pick up enough to reopen the factories in China? What if China were to ever demand repayment of those bonds to assist their own citizens? We will be bankrupt, there will be no wages for any civil servants, no military wages, no police wages, and no pensions or benefits of any kind will be paid.

Further, as a people, many of us have become lethargic and ignorant. How is it possible to consider people for the highest offices in the land without demanding that they have the knowledge, stability, and honesty to do the job? When you visit your doctor you know that his or her certificate represents years of study, tested time and again by exams and practicum. Yet we are prepared to accept persons for the highest offices because they look good, string a fine line of BS and are just like you and me. Well I have news for you, I don’t want a person like me running a country.

In Canada from where I write, we had a recent Federal Election. The Liberal leader Stephan Dion was put down continually because he didn’t speak perfectly in his second language of English. He didn’t look good in front of the cameras, and he was often filmed from the wrong angles. The saddest thing was that nobody seemed to have the slightest interest in hearing the substance of what he actually was saying. We could save enormous amounts of money and time if we simply gave the job to the best actor and provided a good speech writer. Perhaps getting precisely that for many years has resulted in all our difficulties today. Franklin D. Roosevelt would probably never have been elected today, wheelchair bound as he was. Winston Churchill, similarly, was drunk too often to be electable today. At that time we paid attention to what was said, not the carefully buffed images we see presented today.

In the last U.S. election, most were too polite to state publicly that the election of Sarah Palin as vice president could potentially place every citizen of the US one 72-year old heart beat away from danger. Yes, thankfully Ms. Palin did not become vice president. However, for one of the two major parties of the world’s leading nuclear superpower to even nominate her for vice president should be scary enough. In the case of Mr. Obama and Mr. Dion, being an intellectual was seen as a negative by many. We call this civilization? Thankfully, after eight years of George W. Bush, the America people took a chance on an intellectual. New Canadian Liberal leader and respected Harvard intellectual, Michael Ignatieff, may get a chance in the next few years as well.

If we are indeed at Epoch’s End, we will have all caused this through greed, but most of all because we have failed to keep our eyes on what has really been going on, failed to keep people honest, and preferred to switch on the football game rather than take a glimpse at the foreign-affairs columns or use our computers to access the mass of information which is availably so readily today, yet ignored by most. If we are at an Epoch’s End, it is indeed our own damn fault.

The Hidden Sides of the Israel-Gaza Conflict

Since December 27, the Israeli military has been attacking the Gaza Strip in a large scale fashion, determined to break Hamas and end the showering of rockets into southern Israel. Thirteen Israelis have died and over 1,300 Palestinians have been killed. Observers have accused Israel of creating a humanitarian crisis out of the already precarious living environment in Gaza. Hopefully,the recent cease-fires will bring the violence to an end.

While the narrative may have some basic facts right, the mainstream media in the US has largely reduced the conflict to too simple a narrative – “Israel’s attack into Gaza is one of self-defense against a Hamas government bent on its destruction. Regrettably, many civilians have died.” Even conceding the excessive scale of its attack on Gaza, Israel is ultimately presented as a victim of terrorism with a right to self-defense. Hamas is presented as an illegitimate government (though democratically elected, “who still refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist’ we are always reminded) and an irrationally violent terrorist organization.

While there may be some elements of truth in this narrative, it is far from the complete picture.  Some observers have noted that not much attention has been paid to anything besides this simplistic narrative. But the simple Israel-victim-Hamas-terrorist narrative ultimately fails to answer many broader political questions about the conflict in a satisfying way. Why would Hamas been firing rockets at Israel now? Why would Israel respond with the large-scale force that it did? Why would the US step back and allow the violence to proceed? Why would other actors – Egypt, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon – behave the way they have?

While there are clearly legitimate and clear-cut concerns over sovereignty and security on both sides of this conflict, the motivations and actions of all actors are muddied by the conflict’s political context. The political motivations and factors that may be playing a significant part in driving the conflict have been largely overlooked. Here I begin to explore how certain political concerns may be influencing what has been happening in Gaza.

Israel–Yes, Israel– justifiably wanted to defend itself by stopping Hamas rocket fire. But, with Israel’s apparent victory in this conflict, it has become clear that a significant reason for its excessive assault was to exorcize the failure of 2006’s war with Hezbollah. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – stepping down as PM this year – may have wanted to depart with a success under his belt after 2006’s debacle. His Kadima Party, facing a February election, had to show its toughness against attacks on Israel and its ability to protect Israel and take the battle to its enemies. It was also Kadima’s Ariel Sharon that unilaterally withdrew Israeli forces from Gaza in 2005. Perhaps Kadima felt responsible for curbing Hamas’ current aggression. It remains to be seen if the Israeli public’s overwhelming support for Olmert’s attack on Hamas will translate into success at the polls for Kadima’s Tzipi Livni. During the conflict, there was considerable debate within the Israeli government about how to pursue the war on Hamas, and Kadima would not be the only party to gain by pushing the war. Labor Party head and Defense Minister Ehud Barack is a contender for PM in the upcoming election as is Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu. The main political debate in Israel surrounding the conflict has been how hawkish is hawkish enough. The effect of the war on the election looms large.

Hamas – One part of the reason for Hamas’ improper rocket attacks that we hear little about is the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The blockade has effectively amounted to a siege, intended to make life for residents in Gaza extremely hard. By all accounts, this crowded sliver of land has been on the verge of a humanitarian crisis for some time. With the end of a six-month ceasefire in November, Israel began attacks on tunnels in Gaza and denied Hamas’ demand that the blockade be lifted.  While none of this justifies rocket attacks, this series of events helps to explain what led Hamas to begin sending rockets into Israel again. In addition, the on-going fight for Palestine between Hamas and Fatah offers a possible political motivation for Hamas’ attacks. Palestinians have rallied behind Hamas during the conflict, threatening Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah government in the West Bank. This was likely an intentional move by Hamas, to undermine Fatah, often seen as too accommodating to Israel and the US. During the conflict, Fatah has not allowed open protests against Israel for example. The sympathy and pride Palestinians have felt for Hamas during this conflict could tip the scales in Hamas’ favor in the next West Bank election. One also wonders if the timing of the conflict might be an early test of President Obama by both Israel and Hamas. With hostilities barely over when Obama takes office, his pushing a lasting US-sponsored peace deal is highly unlikely. Perhaps this was a calculation by Hamas – who appears unwilling to agree to any two-state solution – and Israel too – who may see current circumstances unfavorable to its interests.

United States – George W. Bush’s lame-duck administration has had little reason to stick its neck out for either side in Gaza. Its support for Israel has been implicit, though not unconditional while it has also, surprisingly, supported UN demands for a ceasefire. What concerns me more is the silence from president-elect Obama. He has shied away from making statements about the situation in Gaza, arguing that there is only one President at a time. But, that same argument has not stopped him from speaking at length about the country’s economic woes. If Obama is avoiding making statements about Gaza, it suggests two things to me. First, he probably does not see a US role in solving the problem in Gaza as a priority for his administration at this time. This is understandable – there are numerous, bigger problems facing the US, and the UN and countries like Egypt have been ably handling the negotiating of the recent ceasefire. I sense that Obama has made the political calculation that the US need not be heavily invested in the Gaza solution for now. The more troubling implication of his silence is that he would not act much differently than Bush has. By his silence, Obama seems to be painting himself into a corner and agreeing with Bush’s policy – essentially ratifying what will be all but a done deal by the time he takes office. As a candidate, Obama courted AIPAC and returned from a trip to Israel with a great deal of sympathy for its situation. He has vowed to continue the “special relationship” between the two countries and probably doesn’t want to make Israel – or the rest of the world – nervous about his intentions toward the region during his administration.

And this is just the beginning. There are undoubtedly other political calculations that have been influencing the conflict, and other players are significant here too – the EU, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and especially Iran and Egypt. They will be crucial to securing any lasting peace and resolution to this specific conflict and to the Israel-Palestine conflict in general. Yet, all parties bring their own agendas and complexities to the table. We can all hope that peace will one day reign in Israel and Palestine, but it will not be simple, and it will not be possible by looking at the situation simplistically. We will need to see and understand the hidden facets to the region’s challenges and act accordingly.

Hot Rod, Sweet Caroline, and Preacher Rick

When the highlights of the last few weeks are wiretaps, profanity, political dynasties, and invocation speakers, you know you’re in political dead season. As the awkward transition from fear to hope continues, here is my view of some of the highlights:

• Hot Rod on Tape
  

Yes, Mr. Ego himself, Hot Rod Blagojevich, was allegedly caught trying to sell the U.S. Senate Seat being vacated by President-elect Obama. To be honest, this wasn’t much of surprise to me. Blagojevich has long been known in my state of residence as an alleged opportunist crook. I know many who know the governor, and I honestly cannot attest to anyone ever offering good words about him as an individual. He has been a laughing stock, even among Democrats, for years. Before this scandal, he was said to be leaning toward taking his 18% approval rating into a run for a third term in 2010. There are not many good things that came out of this scandal, but at least we’ll be spared of that. Unfortunately, Blagojevich is showing no intentions of resigning, so this mess should drag on a little longer.

• Sweet Caroline’s Ambition
  

Caroline Kennedy, the once reclusive daughter of JFK that we knew so little about, is actively lobbying New York Governor David Paterson for the appointment to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate.  Caroline finally came out of the her self-imposed political exile this past year, co-chairing President-elect Obama’s VP selection committee, and now has apparently caught the family political bug. This lobbying effort has apparently put Governor Paterson and another political legacy, Andrew Cuomo, in a real bind. Cuomo apparently believes the seat is rightfully his. Outside of these two front runners, there are several very qualified candidates, including representative Nydia Velazquez , the chair of the House Small Business Committee and first Hispanic woman to ever chair a full House committee. Although I would prefer someone like Velazquez, if Paterson is going to go with a big name to represent a state used to having big names to represent it, Ms. Kennedy and the Kennedy charisma make more sense than Mr. Cuomo.

• Preacher Rick and the Angry Left
  

And the left goes crazy… Many on the fringes of the left-wing blogosphere are already one step shy of calling for a primary challenge to President-elect Obama in 2012, in part because of who he selected to give the prayer at his inauguration. This ideological purity litmus test garbage is appalling.  In the aftermath of this election, we’ve seen that there are just as many zany political purists on the left as there are on the right. Would Rick Warren as Secretary of HHS be nuts? Of course. But this, in my opinion, is a benign gesture to the millions of younger evangelicals who bucked the wishes of their parents and voted for President-elect Obama.  Obama has stated from the beginning of his campaign that he would work with everyone. If you agree with him on 1 out of 10 issues, he’ll work with you on that one issue that you happen to agree on. As such, I don’t understand why so many on the far left are so surprised at this gesture. Obama has always been honest about wanting to do things exactly like this.  Were people too caught up in the Obama mystique that they weren’t even listening to what he was saying?

I understand the need by many on the left to “get even” after all the harm that has been done to this country by ideologues on the right over the past eight years. However, seeking revenge for the sake of revenge is no way to make this country better.  President-elect Obama is inheriting the worst domestic and international situation of any president in at least three generations. He’ll need the help of many on the other side of the aisle to adequately face these problems. Is health care reform worth a small gesture such as a prayer? It sure is in my book. As Kenny Rogers once said, “you have to know when to hold them…”  It seems that President-elect Obama will do his best to build up goodwill among a wide array of Americans and save his political capital for more important issues. If you’re looking for someone that you’ll agree with on everything, Barack Obama is not your man. In fact, he never claimed to be.

An Electoral Reflection

Now that I’ve had a few days to let the reality of the situation sink in, I feel moved to write down a few reactions and observations about the historic election on Tuesday. First, I was struck by the various reactions of people on all sides of the political forum. Some were indifferent, which puzzled me, considering the historical implications for both candidates. However, maybe they had opinions that they’d rather keep private, which is their prerogative. Others were joyful, even to the point of sounding like they were experiencing a religious renewal of sorts. Some people who hadn’t held a public political opinion in years were openly ecstatic.

Of course, there was a candidate who lost Tuesday night, and he had his faithful supporters too. Some seemed very gracious in their collective loss, putting their faith in Obama as the next leader of the country. I found this very refreshing and a far cry from my own reaction to the Republican victory four years ago. Speaking of that bitter reaction, I have come across people who were, like I was in ‘04, downright dejected and cynical about the whole human race. While there’s a part of me that feels the overwhelming temptation to arrogantly laugh off their seemingly hyperbolic behavior, I stop short, again remembering what it felt like to be on the losing end of a very passionate election season. I know what it feels like to wonder how people, many of whom you respect and love, could fail to see the situation the way that it seemed so blatantly obvious to you at that moment. To those people, the following may sound like bitter consolation at a time like this, and they may even feel like I’m mocking them in my victory (which I am most certainly not doing). However, I know what it’s like to invest so heavily in a set of ideals and to have the bottom fall out from under you. You may make your vows to avoid speaking with certain people of the other camp. However, with any luck, those vows won’t hold much water. You may never fully absorb the shock, but the little things in life go on. Trust me, if there’s one thing I’ve had to learn over the past eight years, it’s that we share a greater measure of simple, common humanity than is usually apparent in the midst of our political bickering and posturing.

Second, and this is my own reaction and opinion, I feel incredibly optimistic. Admittedly, even foolishly so. I have become so used to the idea that my government is diametrically opposed to my core values for the past eight years that I forgot what it felt like not to have to fight the country’s leadership every step of the way. Granted, the new administration is not going to fix every thing that I perceive to be a problem immediately after inauguration, but it’s still nice to know that the new president is at least open to suggestions, rather than believing that he has a moral mandate to rule in a way that doesn’t pay any regard to certain segments of the population.

Finally, I will offer a personal conjecture, and you may feel like this is where my childlike optimism might be boiling over a bit too much. I took in the whole cultural situation Tuesday night, including the unpopular wars, the struggling economy, the civil rights and equality issues, the vested interests doing their best to divide the country, and I couldn’t help but feel a connection with my parents’ generation. When they were young, many of them tried to fight against the war in Vietnam and even more tried to fight for equality of the races and genders. They tried to take on the system, the “Man” as it were, and the vested interests of the day. Of course, from their perspective, they failed on many counts, sparking a decade of disillusionment, lack of direction, a swing of the pendulum back to the right.

Did our generation, those under the age of 30, just pull off what our parent’s generation couldn’t pull off? Did we just (finally) finish the 60’s? I can just hear certain conservatives wanting to brand me a hippy-dippy, socialist flower-child who wants to smoke grass and copulate with random women for saying that we just “finished the 60’s.” It was, as I said, just a little flight of cultural and historical fancy on my part, not an actual claim that I think we’re all going to repeat the 60’s and “try to love one another right now.” Maybe it’s saying too much and reaching too far. Maybe I’m just putting more significance into an election already brimful of meaning. But I can’t help but wonder: Did our “apathetic” generation just bring about a national reckoning with the ghosts from our recent past? I’m skeptical myself, but I still feel compelled to make that leap of logic….

Top 5 Electoral Winners

Demockracy would like to present our list of the top five winners from Tuesday’s election:

5. Socialism

According to the GOP, Obama = socialist. Obama won a mandate. Therefore, if the transitive property (if a=b and b=c, then a=c) holds, then there was a definite mandate for socialism!

4. Young people

Never before has there been such a divide in the electorate by age–18-30 year old voters showed up in record numbers and voted more than two-to-one for Senator Obama.

3. The Midwest

The old rust belt went completely blue for the first time since 1964, the last time Indiana went blue. It’s amazing what can happen when the Democrats nominate someone from the heartland of America. When was the last time the Democrats nominated someone from a Midwestern state east of the Mississippi (e.g., Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, or Ohio)? Try 1956 when the Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson. Outside of Kentucky, Obama won or might have won (Missouri) all states that border Illinois. The Midwestern strategy worked well for the Democrats.

2. Policy

For the first time in a long while (probably since 1992), Americans seemed to have picked their president based on real policy preferences, rather than on petty wedge issues where the president has no real influence. Was it the candidates, or did Americans finally realize they were duped by Karl Rove and company?

1. Community Organizers

Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin, do you know what a community organizer is now?

Well, I’ll give you a clue–you can call him Mr. President!!!

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