Mideast Peace?

The conflict between Israel and the people who once owned and occupied their land began many years before the declaration of Israeli nationhood. Since that time many people have spoken out about the injustices Israel has inflicted on its indigenous population. None of those speakers has been clearer and more incisive than Rashid Khalidy. In today’s NYTimes Khalidi comments on President Obama’s forthcoming trip to Israel, his first as President. In the ‘kabuki’ performance that is American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there is little hope that the President will do anything to resolve it. Khalidy makes that abundantly clear…

Is Any Hope Left for Mideast Peace?

Rashid Khalidy | NYTimes | 13 Mar 13

WHAT should Barack Obama, who is to visit Israel next Wednesday for the first time in his presidency, do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

First, he must abandon the stale conventional wisdom offered by the New York-Washington foreign-policy establishment, which clings to the crumbling remnants of a so-called peace process that, in the 34 years since the Camp David accords, has actually helped make peace less attainable than ever.

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The Ignorance Caucus

Someone once said, “The truth, believed, is a lie.” Looking at the present-day republican party gives new meaning to that statement…

The Ignorance Caucus

Paul Krugman | NYTimes | 10 Feb 13

Last week Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, gave what his office told us would be a major policy speech. And we should be grateful for the heads-up about the speech’s majorness. Otherwise, a read of the speech might have suggested that he was offering nothing more than a meager, warmed-over selection of stale ideas.

To be sure, Mr. Cantor tried to sound interested in serious policy discussion. But he didn’t succeed — and that was no accident. For these days his party dislikes the whole idea of applying critical thinking and evidence to policy questions. And no, that’s not a caricature: Last year the Texas G.O.P. explicitly condemned efforts to teach “critical thinking skills,” because, it said, such efforts “have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”

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Tomorrow Majority

I’m not sure the writing is on the wall for the republican party but there do seem to be lots of egg and tomato stains. As Timothy Egan suggests, it appears the nation has moved while the republicans have not. And the direction of the move is left…

The Tomorrow Majority

Timothy Egan | NYTimes | 24 Jan 13

Oh, the horror: a gay bar mentioned in the same sentence as Selma and Seneca Falls, a call to fix a gasping planet, a stirring defense of health care for the elderly and citizenship for 11 million people living in the American shadows. And now, women in combat. What’s become of this country?

“One thing is clear from the president’s speech: the era of liberalism is back,” said the perpetually puckered Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell.

“Unapologetically liberal,” was the takeaway quote in a video sent out this week by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS.

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Obama

Of all the verbiage on the internet today (and there is a ton of it) one article by Gene Robinson of the Washington Post stands out as the quintessential statement of Barack Obama’s second innauguration. Four years ago today I stood a a couple of hundred yards away as Obama took the oath and the cannons boomed (scared me a lot). On that day it was like watching the Civil War come to an end. Almost two million people stood with me in the freezing air and watched the earth move. Today I watched it on TV. The earth didn’t move today. It just rolled on as it always does and Barack Obama was President again. Nice speech. Good poem. Four years ago I watched and cheered as George Bush flew into history as one of America’s worst presidents. Today I watched Barack Obama take his second oath as one of the best. Bush stayed home…

The Black President No Longer

Eugene Robinson | Washington Post | 20 Jan 13

President Barack Hussein Obama’s second inauguration was every bit as historic as his first — not because it said so much about the nation’s long, bitter, unfinished struggle with issues of race, as was the case four years ago, but because it said so little about the subject.

Reflect for a moment: A black man stood on the Capitol steps and took the oath of office as president of the United States. For the second time. Meaning that not only did voters elect him once — which could be a fluke, a blip, an aberration, a cosmic accident — but then turned around and did it again.

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Fear

The debate over gun control in this country has been going on for many years. It appears that no amount of violence or busloads of slaughtered school kids is enough to stop it. The crazier this country gets the more people reach for their Glocks. Amidst all the violence I have not heard or read any authentic reports of how all this armament actually succeeded in protecting anyone. In fact one report quoted an onlooker to the Gabrielle Giffords shooting as saying he opted to not use the weapon he was carrying for fear he would be mistaken as a partner of the shooter. So what is this argument really all about? This writer has an interesting reply to that question…

Both Sides Have Something to Fear

David Ropeik | NYTimes | 7 Jan 12

Lots of statistics are being thrown around in the debate about whether guns make society safer or more dangerous. But the gun control argument is intensely emotional because it is about so much more than public safety. Guns have become symbols in our polarized society, figurative weapons in a war of conflicting cultural values that is compelled by deep and ancient instincts.

Humans are social animals. We have evolved to depend on our group, our tribe, for our health and safety. So we adopt views and positions that align with those of our group, in order to be accepted and supported — and protected — as a member in good standing. Agreeing with the group also helps protect us because social unity helps our tribe prevail in the competition with other tribes for control of society in general. So we see and interpret the facts about guns, or any issue, through these deep lenses.

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Guns?

The never ending debate about gun laws in this country centers around the myth perpetrated by the gun lobby that “guns don’t kill people…etc.” As this article points out, that argument doesn’t hold up when you compare the statistics on gun-related violence in the US versus the rest of the planet. Plainly stated, the reason so many guns kill so many people in America is because there are so many guns here…

Why does America have so many guns?

Harold Meyerson | Washington Post | 19 Dec 12

Compare the rate of murder by gun in the United States to the rate in any other advanced industrial nation, and you’re forced to draw one of two conclusions: Either there are far more homicidal people in this country than just about anyplace else on Earth, or far more guns. We must either be home to more people who succumb to murderous rage or who kill out of the coldest of calculations, or it’s easier to pick up a gun and start shooting here than in any comparable country.

And yet, I’ve never heard even the staunchest gun advocate make the case that Americans are inherently more homicidal than everyone else. They repeat ad nauseam that people, not guns, kill people; but they don’t argue that there’s something about Americans that make them kill more than their counterparts in other nations.

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Thinking the Unthinkable

The following article appears on a blog called The Anarchist Soccer Mom. The writer chooses to be nameless but describes herself as “a total nerd who loves my Steinway, my four kids, and my fancy design software, not necessarily in that order.” She is also an incredible writer…

Thinking the Unthinkable

In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

The Anarchist Soccer Mom | 14 Dec 12

Three days before 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants.

“I can wear these pants,” he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises.

“They are navy blue,” I told him. “Your school’s dress code says black or khaki pants only.”

“They told me I could wear these,” he insisted. “You’re a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!”

“You can’t wear whatever pants you want to,” I said, my tone affable, reasonable. “And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You’re grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school.”

I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.

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Terrible Trillion

A brief tutorial on deficit economics from Dr. Krugman. Given the subject of his article today I thought it might be useful to show what a trillion dollars actually looks like (see graphic below). Lot of money—until you compare it with America’s economy. From Wikipedia… “The economy of the United States is the world’s largest national economy and the world’s second largest overall economy, the GDP of the EU being approximately $2 trillion larger. Its nominal GDP was estimated to be over $15 trillion in 2011, approximately a quarter of nominal global GDP. Its GDP at purchasing power parity is the largest in the world, approximately a fifth of global GDP at purchasing power parity. The U.S. is one of the world’s wealthiest nations, with abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. It has the world’s sixth-highest per capita GDP (PPP). The U.S. is the world’s third-largest producer of oil and second-largest producer of natural gas. It is the largest trading nation in the world. Its four largest export trading partners are as of 2011: Canada, China, Mexico and Japan.”

That Terrible Trillion

Paul Krugman | NYTimes | 17 Dec 12

As you might imagine, I find myself in a lot of discussions about U.S. fiscal policy, and the budget deficit in particular. And there’s one thing I can count on in these discussions: At some point someone will announce, in dire tones, that we have a ONE TRILLION DOLLAR deficit.

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Looking for America

I wish I could post this article on the moon so everyone on this planet could read it…

Looking for America

Gail Collins | NYTimes | 15 Dec 12

“I’m sorry,” said Representative Carolyn McCarthy, her voice breaking. “I’m having a really tough time.”

She’s the former nurse from Long Island who ran for Congress in 1996 as a crusader against gun violence after her husband and son were victims of a mass shooting on a commuter train. On Friday morning, McCarthy said, she began her day by giving an interview to a journalist who was writing a general story about “how victims feel when a tragedy happens.”

“And then 15 minutes later, a tragedy happens.”

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Crisis

Wow…!

The G.O.P.’s Existential Crisis

Paul Krugman | NYTimes | 14 dec 12

We are not having a debt crisis.

It’s important to make this point, because I keep seeing articles about the “fiscal cliff” that do, in fact, describe it — often in the headline — as a debt crisis. But it isn’t. The U.S. government is having no trouble borrowing to cover its deficit. In fact, its borrowing costs are near historic lows. And even the confrontation over the debt ceiling that looms a few months from now if we do somehow manage to avoid going over the fiscal cliff isn’t really about debt.

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