POLITICS – Page 6 – Ramparts of Civilization

February 6, 2016

Reagan at 105

Ronald Reagan 1911 - 2004 — Ronald Reagan 1911 – 2004

February 6th is the 105th anniversary of the birth of the last great President of the United States. The fortieth of a line of greats, near greats, disappointments and even scoundrels, the reputation of Reagan has only grown in stature since he left the political scene in 1989. Greatness, as always, is not just a list of accomplishments. It is the sense, by friend and foe alike, that the real achievement of Reagan was that he was consequential in the lives of people in a way that left an indelible memory. Reagan secured renewal in America, which is an innate American characteristic flowering intermittently, permitting the country to throw off the pessimism and corrosion of previous versions, and restore the core beliefs that make this country like no other. Approaching another period in time when people fear that the country may be in a permanent decline, the search for another Reagan-like figure is driving the political process, as a general exhaustion for the divisiveness of the last 25 years progressively looks to unify behind a leader that believes in the infinite capability of a people that believe in themselves.

Reagan was the antithesis of the modern model for an executive of an organization as contentious and complex as the United States. The modern model calls for elite training, breeding in the corridors of influence, intellectual power, vigor of an executive personality at the height of its powers, and calculated ruthlessness. Reagan was born of backwater parents in Tampico, Illinois, and attended not Ivy League, but backwater schools, graduating with gentleman’s grades from little Eureka College, and striving not to become a captain of industry, but a reflection of the common man. The natural goodness that was Reagan resonated upon the fairly recent form of mass communication known as cinema, and secured in Reagan a belief that the stories told in the movies were characteristic in form to the real life stories that created the unique American society. To Reagan later in life, the cinema stories blended with reality, not because he was deluded by their contrived nature, but because he believed stories evoked the true, formational American psyche. Having essentially finished one career as celebrity, he then proceeded later in life to a second career of working the levers of power to respond to his beliefs that the success and influence of America was best appreciated in its people and their story. He didn’t see Americans as needing constant direction to prevent chaos and ill considered decisions. By the time he ran for President in 1980, he was already one of the oldest men to do so, but somehow his simple, principled manner and his unwavering confidence in the American dream blew through all generations as a bracing rush of fresh air and energy.

Reagan didn’t need to feel himself the smartest man in the room as more insecure men who followed him to the office did. He sublimated the concept of intellectual heft to the equally awesome power of personal wisdom and understanding of what motivates people to achieve great things. He did not need to demean people or ruthlessly use them, because he knew the gains would be short and superficial. He understood that true power resided in a country’s sense of self esteem and shared story. He crushed the opposition time and time again not by explaining to the people why trusting themselves would overwhelm any insecurity, and the people became his army that no opponent could hope to fractionate. When Reagan ran for re-election in 1984, he didn’t really need to tell them it was Morning in America. They felt it at the very core of their conviction, and they knew that he had renewed them.

To the elite of the country, Reagan’s simple faith in Americans and their ability to seize opportunity and trust themselves , was polyannish and ultimately irrational. Elites knew that most Americans could not be expected to understand the complexities of modern society and make good decisions. Real, altruistic governance would always be not so much a safety net as a it should be a hammock, designed to soften the blows and disappointments of life for those that could not possibly be expected to absorb and overcome failure. Reagan’s simplistic view of Americans having more in common with the concept of being American rather than the bonds to any individual group, suppressed grievances and blurred the political divisiveness that could build voting blocks. By the time an Obama positioned himself as a deliverer, Americans had subjugated themselves to smaller and smaller self interest groups, and the exploitation of perceived grievances allowed base instincts of envy and advantage to take rigid hold. Obama saw no value in shared success and people feeling self worth. Political power lay in making sure if there was failure, it was important to have someone who would clearly reveal for those who failed who was responsible – their neighbor, their fellow American. Obama’s over-riding impulse was to extend this attitude to the global perception of America, If there was instability and chaos in the world, America could be seen as a driver of such malfeasance, and she could make it up to others only by apologizing and getting out of the way. The self esteem of America and its people, renewed by Reagan and allowed to flourish for twenty-five years, required an Obama to restore the elites and crack America’s can do spirit.

Reagan unbelievably at 105 somehow seems younger than the tired contrivances that pass for leadership today. The restless rejection of the so called establishment candidates for president in Clinton and Bush seem to foretell however, a stirring of another renewal. If the country begins to sense there is real hope, not the nonsense of 2008, and that people will once again be given the chance to live their lives unencumbered by those who would crush their spirit for renewal, we may yet see a tidal wave of confirmation in the person who can define a path back out from the wilderness. If so, like 1980 and 1984, you won’t be needing to interpret any broken chads to know who won. It wont be a republican or democrat wave, it will once again be an all American one.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Reagan.

January 31, 2016

The Brokenness of Government

Venezuelans wait in line for food at a supermarket businessinsider.com — Venezuelans wait in line for food at a supermarket *businessinsider.com*

The world is looking like a progressively scary place, and it’s not from the usual bad guy good guy conflict. Its what passes for a government nowadays. Governance as defined by the dictionaries suggests a governmental body is to establish policies, monitor their implementation, and assume accountability,in order to provide for the prosperity and enhancement of the governed. Increasingly, real governance is the last thing these governments have in mind. The swelling size, scope, and grasp for power is their calling, and the people who have to put up with them are increasingly angry, and increasingly desperate. Media takes passively takes pictures and reports the presence of the increasing chaos and occasional violence, but is blind to accept the cause as a failure of the governing class for what it would mean for the perceived notion of an ideal society. The longer the disconnect remains in perception, the larger the risk of a real calamity developing.

The bloated government: World history has not seen an economy the size of the United States of America. For a country with an annual greater than 17 trillion dollar marketplace of prosperity, the government has progressively grown to install its brand of ‘fairness’ on the interactions through regulations. The original design of a limited government with checks and balances has been thrown out with an exploding executive branch, that thinks every decision an individual makes should be weighted on equality of outcome, and a legislative branch that has abandoned its role in assuring budgetary restraint and oversight guidance. The anger of the population is palpable this election season. A healthcare program built on monstrous legislation and ever more monstrous regulation fails on every conceivable level, but no one will do anything because it is a centerpiece of a president’s legacy. The nation’s debt balloons out of all conceivable proportion, having doubled in just 8 years weighed against the previous 230 with over 100 trillion in unfunded mandates, more worth than exists in the world, and nobody will do anything because they risk their re-election. Laws are that define governmental integrity, paying of taxes, respect for individual privacy, and care with the nation’s secrets are blatantly ignored by the governing class, and no clean up of the corrupting and corroding influence is undertaken, as the governing class protect their own. Bloated beyond all credible size, the government exists to exist, to redistribute, and to grow some more.

The Utopian government: Governments more firmly are designed to construct societies as utopians wish they would be, rather than how societies best function. The current free-fall in Venezuela is the Primus Inter Pares. Despite the explosion of national wealth and massive industry expansion brought by the discovery of Venezuela’s enormous oil reserves, the inequities created between the poor and the flourishing middle class and nouveau riche led to the election of a uber-socialist government of Hugo Chavez, patterned after the equally utopian autocracy of Cuba. The nationalizing of the oil industry allowed the government coffers to fill directly, providing patronage money for electoral success through 2 cent a gallon gasoline, and essentially free goods, transportation, and housing for the poor. The inevitable collapse of infrastructure in the oil industry, collapse of oil prices, and explosion of the black market has led to only more delusional moves by the Chavez successor Maduro, and the doubling down of every economic malfeasance. The printing of money with rampant inflation destroying currency value has led to the monetary black market, price controls destroying any available goods, and increasing enforcement of these unworkable decisions by government backed thugs, a pattern seen over and over in countries like Zimbabwe and North Korea, but it has not distracted the Venezuelan autocrats one bit. Suffering is the daily bread of utopian paradise.

The Nanny State Government: When the European Union implemented fully the Schengen Area in 1999, it was to tell the 400 million Europeans under the union they knew the world better than any of their inhabitants. Designed to eliminate borders by eliminating passports, it put all trade and immigration under the province of a supra-national government in Brussels who wants to eliminate 2600 years of cultural diversity and create a european superstate. The single currency followed close behind with the adoption of the Euro, and the vision of vast continent of a like minded social compact gave the governors in Brussels ecstatic chills. Give Greece the Euro, and a Greek will become efficient and frugal, undifferentiated from the Germanic. Open the borders, and the immigrants will flow and provide low cost labor for the overseers, liberalize themselves, and become the Europeans of the tomorrow, joyous in the vision of a protected life, and immune to genetic callings of their tribe. The whole Potemkin Village is crashing down with the onslaught of a million undocumented immigrants from the Middle East and Africa with little to separate them but their desire to be brought under the nanny state economic safety net, and their complete distain for any contact with the European social libertine streak. The various governments have determined to ignore the severe cultural clashes that express themselves violently in assault, rape, and even murder and pretend this has nothing to do with the greater assimilation. The inevitable result is the rise of hard right movement predicated upon protecting their homes, family, and culture, but using the tools that echo the vigilante actions of times past with their inherent dangers.

The Adversarial Government: Governments reacting to any political activity to limit growing efforts to limit their scope or power are increasingly hostile and frankly dangerous. Individuals who looked to develop opposing political views in the United States to the prevailing government found their phones tapped, the tax returns audited, and their businesses hounded by governmental agencies. In Russia the would be czar has used a more effective tool of at least indirectly supporting the murder of political opponents through means as diverse and criminal as street assassination and radioactive poison. In China, the preferred means, is societal erasure, with massive prison sentences. In the nascent state of ISIL, the medieval means of drowned, burning alive and beheading are used with the joy of totalitarian zeal. These governments are no longer responsive to public pressures for they have assured themselves that they are too big to fail, too powerful to resist. In the world where government is your boss and not your servant ,the temptation to use available levers of power and hide behind the bureaucracy is great. On such assumption, revolutions are borne.

The Demagogue Government: The governments are progressively fronted by Demagogue Leaders. Appealing to the raw emotions of inequity and promoting the assurance of equality of outcome, the politics of leaders is to demand the increasing accumulation of powers in the hands of a single individual who will protect the people against the weakness of deliberative processes or the blind justice based on laws not emotions. From Obama to Trump, the promise is you can have what you want, you need only a leader who is willing to take any means necessary to achieve the end result. The checks and balances placed to prevent just such demagoguery is to be subverted and overwhelmed. In a society where the hard work of democracy seems passe’ and the idea of principles of governance antiquated to the speed of our current discourse, a strong handed leader seems the easy out.

We are entering into dangerous times with our eyes half closed. As a member of the diminishing group of people willing to discourse and legislate to a proper end, we need to be forceful in our defense of the constitutional concept. Listen before you speak. Read a book, and then another opposed. Think about our past, and reason about our future. Demand competence. Demand oversight of your government. Protect freedom of expression above all. Respect your traditions, and teach their value. Secure your future opportunity and guard it against all poseurs who would usurp it. And …make sure those who govern, that they do so only with the expressed assent of the governed and that they are under the same laws that govern all free society – none different, none selective. Hopefully, real push back, and the self correcting forces of an alert and engaged society will protect the world against the dark intent of predators and scoundrels.

Message: Go vote your principles, and if necessary, throw the bums out. Tomorrow is February 1st, and the future world we will live in is in our electoral hands, starting in Iowa. The world is watching carefully to see if there’s still a chance, that in the land that once was the beacon for hope for those under the yoke, good will still prevail.

January 24, 2016January 24, 2016

Oh Boy – Here We Go…

The chaotic and unpredictable American process for electing a chief executive is about to commence. On February 1st, the 2016 Iowa caucuses take place and the first delegates to a national convention for each party representing the peoples’ choice will be selected. The total delegate count received for the winner of each party in Iowa is likely to be less than one half of one percent of the total amount needed to receive the party nominations, yet it continues to carry the outsized impact expected of a much larger state. The reason is simple – as George Herbert Walker Bush stated in 1980, the winner gets the Big Mo – the mantle of being a winner in a crowded field of aspirants. The traditional start has been Iowa, a caucus, and New Hampshire, a primary. The caucus process is of course run by political parties, and is therefore a device by which the enthusiasms of individual blocs supporting political causes can best find their voice. The primary is run by the state government, and reflects the whims of a voting public that reflects the candidate impressions of the moment. The candidates like the structure because it allows predictability in geography and media expense, and lends to as ‘equal’ a playing field as is possible for the long shots. And thus, the continuing drive of the start of the political process further and further back towards the previous election.

The people 'who would be President' 2016 — The Republican hopefuls ‘who would be President’ 2016

It already seems in 2016, that this electoral process has gone on forever. In the republican field, seventeen candidates filed papers to run, and before the first vote has even occurred, six have been defeated by the process. Walker, Jindal, Perry, Patakis – the proven executives at the state level, thought to be voters’ desire after the election of the experience light Obama, fell quickly. The gadfly Senator Lindsey Graham and the Republican Party executive Jim Gilmore. Others have had their moment in the sun – Fiorina, the outsider computer executive-who used her preparedness to shine in the debates. Carson – the surgeon who started the anyone but a politician frenzy. Rand Paul – the owner of his father’s libertarian legacy. The two former Iowa caucus winners, Santorum and Huckabee. The six who are truly left standing for the first vote, come in with the scars of a titanic battle already underway. Bush – the legacy candidate, saddled with the name, establishment money, and a diminished political skill set, forced to strike out against all others to try to survive to a two man race. Kasich and Christie – the Curmudgeons candidates, attempting to hold up the governor as superior manager mantle, damaged with the defeats of Walker, Perry, and Jindal. Cruz and Rubio – the Senators are the Future candidates – potential real electoral talents that legitimately can take on Trump or Clinton, but only after they have fatally destroyed the other, for there can be only one. And of course, Trump the Demagogue, who stands athwart the entire field, watching joyfully, as the rest pick each other off.

The democrats are under essentially the same schedule, and every bit as unsettled a process. Classic for this party, a larger fix is built in to remove surprises for the entrenched powers – almost 25 percent of the delegates are unpledged, super-delegates designated by the party, allowing considerable manipulation of the outcome to the highest bidder. The presumptive Queen,Hillary Clinton, assumed to proceed in a cake walk in an inordinately weak field of competitors, is being staggered by her profound tendency to be her self. Her inherent unlikability as a retail politician, exposed easily by Obama in 2008, has been magnified by progressive evidence of her deceitful incompetence in her time in government. She very likely could be the first nominated candidate to have to face a felony inditement for her willful exposure of state secrets in setting up and using a private unprotected server,and her attempt to destroy evidence. One would assume that to be enough to bury even the most preening candidate, but at the same time, she must fight off a 74 year old Socialist, who appears more energetic and real to the voters than she ever could, forcing her into ever more radical statements that blunt the veneer of her election inevitability.

The artillery is coming fast and furious. Joe Biden waiting for the Clinton Collapse. Mayor Bloomberg possibly joining the fray on the idea that America’s Billionaires Know Better, and the real possibility of an election resolved in the House of Representatives. The National Review Editorial Board declaring the Republican front runner is a liberal democrat. The FBI possibly forced to detail the obvious; one of our leading Presidential candidates is a felon. Donald Trump determining that whatever he thought yesterday and whatever he said today, doesn’t have to be what he believes tomorrow – and you will learn to love it.

From Iowa and New Hampshire, to South Carolina and Nevada, to the 15 state Super Tuesday and beyond. Perhaps by April 1, we will have settled on the two candidates to lead this nation. Or simply selected out such unpalatable realities that we will see a multiple party 3 or 4 candidate presidential election free for all. Whatever happens, it will be exciting, unpredictable, uplifting, brash, ludicrous, inclusive, and definitely – American.

January 9, 2016

Trump Change

The entry of Donald Trump into the political arena was met by most (certainly Ramparts) as an insignificant sideline to what would be the compelling stories of the 2016 race. Last spring, according to the ‘experts’, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush were the politicians that had the famous supposed gravitas and organizational heft that would swallow the rest of their opponents in short order, and compared to such political leviathans, Donald Trump was considered ‘chump change’. The first vote has yet to be taken, but indications are that Trump is anything but political chump change. Instead, the political world is slowly coming to the realization that this etherial phenomena may be significantly more than previous sideshows, and what we are looking at more and more is the Main Event – Trump Change.

Enduring political phenomenae have to be understood in their contexts. This is the reflection of both the unique qualities of the political figure and the times in which they reside. Trump is not the first celebrity attempting to capture the wave of public recognition and turn it into political votes – Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jessie Ventura, among others, brought comic book hero status to the political arena and prospered. Nor is he the first demagogue – the list is infinitely longer displaying that trait. What he is capturing is that very special American desire that, if ignored by the establishment long enough, there is a real desire to ‘stick it to the Man’. The rapidly increasing money amounts pouring into political campaigns have brought value to the distressing trend to make to contrary political philosophies progressively more diametrically opposed to each other, with the victory of either felt to be intolerable to the other. A liberal or conservative label is no longer about political ideas as it is about sacred immutable oaths, to which deviation or compromise is anathema. The average voter lodged on losing side of the argument has his nose rubbed in the loss by opponents, and demand for increased loyalty by the losers. To which the average voter is progressively responding with the Trumpian call to arms – You Are All Losers.

Trump as the hybrid political creature Celebrity Demagogue is immediately recognizable to people as someone who will say what they feel and cannot say, and someone too celebrity big to be harassed into shutting up. When he is called offensive, he becomes more offensive. When the establishment remarks that what he expounds is just not said in polite politically correct society, he becomes more politically incorrect. And the crowds love it.

Serious political observers are focusing their attention on the Trump phenomena. The essays are important and should be read in their entirety, as they are very prescient in what is going on and say it so much better than I. Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal describes Trump as the “Great Disruptor,” :

But issues do matter, and Mr. Trump has functioned this year not as a great communicator or great compromiser but as the great disrupter. He brags that he has brought up great questions and forced other candidates to face them and sometimes change their stands—and he has. He changed the debate on illegal immigration. He said he’d build a wall and close the border and as the months passed and his competitors saw his surge, they too were suddenly, clearly, aggressively for ending illegal immigration.

The great Mark Steyn attempts to inject the Trump virus directly, by attending a Trump rally in Vermont. Steyn, one of the intuitive observers of mass culture ever, senses a significant part Trump’s power is derived from his authenticity with the voters. Not Jimmy Carter authenticity “I will never lie to you” but the authenticity that Trump knows that people know how the world works, and they know Trump is authentic in letting them know, he does too:

What is “authenticity” in contemporary politics? Is it a man who parlayed a routine Congressional career into a lucrative gig at Lehman Brothers presenting himself as the son of a mailman? Or is it a billionaire with a supermodel wife dropping the pretense that he’s no different from you stump-toothed losers in the rusting double-wides? Trump’s lack of pandering extends to America, too. He doesn’t do the this-is-the-greatest-country-in-the-history-of-countries shtick that Mitt did last time round. He isn’t promising, like Marco Rubio, a “second American century”. His pitch is that the American dream is dead – which, for many Americans, it is. In 1980, Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” was an aberration – a half-decade blip in three decades of post-war US prosperity that had enabled Americans with high school educations to lead middle-class lives in a three-bedroom house on a nice-sized lot in an agreeable neighborhood. In 2015, for many Americans, “malaise” is not a blip, but a permanent feature of life that has squeezed them out of the middle class. They’re not in the mood for bromides about second American centuries: They’d like what’s left of their own lifespan to be less worse.

That’s the other quality on display: at certain points – for example, when Trump started talking about “beautiful Kate in San Francisco” being killed by an illegal immigrant – I turned around and saw men and women tearing up.

Steyn reviews many facets of the Trump phenomena and the article captures the uniquely American political experience that allows such phenomena to flourish. In a parlimentary system, the party puts the party first, and a candidate flying by the seat of his pants will be cut off before any momentum can risk the party structure. Not so in the American model. The contest for leadership starts in the local barns of Iowa and the storefronts of New Hampshire, where every candidate story is vetted voter to voter. The power of this living room politic was first promulgated when Georgia governor Jimmy Carter came out of political obscurity to win the Democrat Iowa Caucus in 1976 and springboard into national prominence and eventual presidential election victory. Ever since, candidates have hope for the springboard effect, based on having to actually entice relatively very few voters. In 2012, Rick Santorum secured 29000 votes,to win the Iowa caucus, likely not enough votes to win an attorney general contest in Polk County, Iowa. yet Santorum parleyed the momentum into a second place finish behind Mitt Romney for the nomination. The assumption is that local organization carries the day, but with the crowds Trump has proven to be able to draw, it is conceivable that the usual door to door techniques will be turned on its head, and Trump will blow out the model.

Americans at the national level have proven resistant to demagogues, but the average American’s faith in the constitutional process has been degrating for decades, and it may prove that this year the immunity is gone. Trump is transcendantly without policy drafts, position papers, or a kitchen cabinet of advisors. He defines political errors as the result of people without the personal skills or intellect to do better, and he is that better facilitator of the Art of the Deal that we have been missing. Whether this will translate into votes that will coalesce as his opponents fall by the wayside, or whether he be cornered by increasingly stronger opponents as the voters become more serious about the next President given the performance of the last two, is soon to play out. What is clear is that Trump Change is real change – more visceral, honest politics that may yet bring out the best in our system and candidates simply to prevent a demagogue from destroying the system of government for good. If Trump has at least managed to have slapped America out of its somulence, Trump Change will be all to the good.

November 16, 2015November 16, 2015

War Against the West: Paris Joins the Notorious List

Eiffel Tower displays French patriotism after the November 13, 2015 terror attacks

A coordinated set of carefully drawn out attacks on the night of November 13th, 2015 in Paris, France by Islamic assault troops resulted in the deaths of 129 and the wounding of 352. The aggressive reaction of the stunned and aggrieved French nation was to close its borders for the first time since World War II, initiate a international manhunt, declare the event as an act of war, and bomb the assumed headquarters of the marauding ISIS in Syria with multiple bomb strikes. In other news, the President of the United States reiterated his claim that the terrorist clique claiming responsibility for the attacks was “contained”.

Somebody has lost his mind.

Let’s remind ourselves briefly of the extent of our previous ‘containment’ of this problem:

September 11, 2001 New York/ Washington DC/ Pennsylvania 2996 deaths October 12, 2002 Bali, Indonesia bombing 202 deaths October 23, 2002 Moscow Theater hostage massacre 120 deaths March 11, 2004 Madrid Train Bombings 191 deaths July 11, 2005 London Train Bombings 52 deaths November 28, 2008 Mumbai Terrorist Attacks 171 deaths September 11, 2012 Benghazi Consulate Assault 4 deaths April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing 3 deaths July 7, 2015 Paris Charlie Hebdo Attacks 20 deaths

Of course, such a short list leaves out the hundreds of other bombings, near bombings, beheadings, kidnappings, knifings, and shootings that didn’t quite make the list but were every bit as lacking in ‘containment’. It is a world wide war where at least one of the combatants doesn’t feel the least ‘contained’. It has succeeded in carving a caliphate out of Syria and Iraq, weaponized parts of the Sinai, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, and Yemen. It sees an enemy willing to perform self containment, accepting hundreds of thousands of refugees infiltrated by the marauders themselves, passively watching the progression of genosides, focusing on the self immolation on the pyres of global political correctness, and downsizing their defense structures at every turn. It is almost beyond what any marauding barbarian force could possibly have hoped for.

The French at least have recognized the last outrage for what it is: an act of war in a many year series of war acts. They have responded with what they once disdained of President Bush – taking the war to the enemy on his home ground, to weaken his ability to project upon your own – but even the French felt constrained. They dropped 20 bombs on the alleged ISIS headquarters in Syria; the average major raid in WWII dropped ten times that many. No troops followed to rout the survivors, take territory or put the enemy brigades on the run. No this was modern western strategy – get mad, get even, then, get lost. Even that was better than the President of the United States who still feels this is a battle formulated by wackos who don’t want to get with the program, rather than legions of holy warriors.

The President has perceived that in the long view political victory in the struggle will be achieved by avoiding physical victory, against an enemy fighting a holy war for whom defeat is simply not an option. He is of the opinion, that given room, the enemy will come to its senses. His enemy thinks that whenever room is given, the gift comes with the invitation to take more room.

On a Friday night in Paris, people went out to enjoy a meal, a soccer match, a concert, and live out the gift of free society. In just a few minutes, the gift was taken forever. Lighting in color a few buildings in solidarity is a nice touch, but its not going to bring anyone back, or dissuade anyone jihadi from trying a worse cataclysm the next time western civilization lets its guard down. It would be nice if after all the playing of defense, we played a little offense, and let this clique know their days are numbered.

October 17, 2015

The Obama Doctrine

President Obama meets with his National Security Council

The world has become an exceedingly dangerous and unstable place in the seven years that President Barrack Obama has been the steward of American foreign policy. Certainly some realities as an outgrowth of September 11th, 2001 and the radicalism of Islam subsequent to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 were unpleasant gifts the previous administrations bequeathed to this president, but a substantial number of metastases of instability, chaos, and dramatic violence have sprouted from multiple directions in response to his decisions. As much as he has been comfortable of blaming every untoward response to American interests as a reaction to President Bush’s aggressive foreign policy, the pattern of Obama as more than just “anti-Bush” is beginning to project as a premeditated decision process, what used to be referred to as a policy philosophy, or a “doctrine”.

Presidents in the modern period have structured their foreign policies behind attempts at consistent interpretations and responses to world events, known as doctrines. The Truman Doctrine, in response to a post war Soviet Union bent on expanding its rigid grip on eastern Europe and Asia, defined a policy of containment as outlined by George Kennan, that became the benchmark of American foreign policy for the next forty years. The Carter Doctrine, reacting to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian Revolution, declared that any effort by foreign powers to attempt to usurp the status quo of the Persian Gulf would be considered in direct conflict with America’s vital national interests and would be met militarily. The Reagan Doctrine declared the goal of American policy toward the Soviet Union was no longer containment, but rather a comprehensive effort to “roll back” the global influence of the Soviet Union – or as Reagan so presciently described it, “we win, they lose”. The George W Bush Doctrine grew out of the catastrophe of 9/11 and became a multi-pronged strategy essentially defined as, if necessary, preemptively attacking enemies of the United States at their root, to prevent the fight being brought to America’s shores.

These doctrines, some successful, some not so successful, at least defined a consistent and articulated national policy process and understanding of a national interest. But what of the current president? Is there a discernible American interest in Obama’s seemingly haphazard declarations?

Niall Ferguson, a Professor of History at Harvard and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford, has editorialized on what he believes is the “Real Obama Doctrine”. A must read, the editorial reflects what one of America’s most astute intellectuals sees as the essential pattern of the “patternless” and seemingly contradictory Obama actions. Sadly, he concludes all these colossal ‘mis-steps’ are on purpose:

“But what that meant in practice was not entirely clear. Precipitate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq, but a time-limited surge in Afghanistan. A “reset” with Russia, but seeming indifference to Europe. A “pivot” to Asia, but mixed signals to China. And then, in response to the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Libya, complete confusion, the nadir of which was the September 2013 redline fiasco regarding the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons in Syria and Mr. Obama’s declaration that “America is not the global policeman”–..

An approximation of an Obama strategy was revealed in April last year, at the end of a presidential trip to Asia, when White House aides told reporters that the Obama doctrine was “Don’t do stupid sh–.””

Dr. Ferguson sees the Obama Doctrine as much more than threat avoidance. He now believes the President is driving a forced re-set of America’s position in the world and a particular desire to create a new balance of power, most particularly in the Middle East. The Doctrine as Dr. Ferguson sees it is directed by the pre-conceptions of the president himself, with almost no significant intellectual counterweight in the administration in the skill set of policy development. The president has surrounded himself progressively with fellow lawyers who are predominantly concerned with the process of negotiation rather than reflecting a world view. That leaves President Obama himself to refine the rationale and his strong opinion of his own intellectual prowess leaves little room for the discussion alternative scenarios.

The result – has been nothing short of disastrous. A resurgent Al Qaeda after Obama declared it dead and a even more murderous cousin ISIS after Obama disdained it as “junior varsity”. A catastrophic collapse of nation states in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen. A ruthless Russia that has forced itself back into the position of power broker in the middle East after 50 years as irrelevant and the United States as the definitive arbiter, and has brazenly absorbed the Crimea and thumbed its nose at NATO and the US in creating a proxy war in Ukraine. A China that is aggressively threatening to turn the world’s busiest sea traffic lanes into an internal Chinese sea. And perhaps, most stunningly, the President agreed to a massive infusion of cash and capability into the world’s most aggressive supporter of terrorism, Iran, which has declared its intent to ignore all the supposed agreement Obama crowed about negotiating with it, including ballistic missile and nuclear weapon development. And ominously, repeated its stated goal to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

The Obama Doctrine is succeeding beyond even the President’s projections in re-setting America’s position in the world, and the result is calamitous. For a President that planned to “stop” America’s addiction to “ceaseless wars”, the doctrine is looking like it will make 2016, the last year of the Obama presidency, at risk for real non-stop global conflict.

It turns out that thinking you are the smartest guy in the room, might just make you the dumbest man on the planet.

September 26, 2015September 26, 2015

Boehner and the Tea Party Insurrection

Boston Tea Party illustration by Currier — Boston Tea Party
illustration by Currier

Speaker of the House, John Boehner, third in line to the Presidency of the United States, was felled by a procedural dispute. The dispute unfortunately for him was with a group of congressmen and women he could no longer ignore, or avoid. Maligned and derided, miscast as at best doofuses or at worst racists, the tea party insurrection has quietly gone about its business, and is now progressively shaking the very core of what represents the conservative political movement in this country, The tea party movement, now just over six years old, has managed to help win first the House majority for Republicans in 2010, then the Senate majority in 2014, elect political stars such as Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz, take down House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and now, Speaker of the House Boehner. Not bad for doofuses.

Who are these ‘doofuses’ and what do these ‘doofuses’ want? The establishment politicians, enamored with their supposedly invincible incumbent status, gold plate retirement plans, and propensity to support the version of democracy that functions as a one party state, the government party, are asking the question much as the British establishment did at the original tea party in Boston Harbor in December, 1773. It was hard to project in 1773 how such an obscure rebellious act would result in the revolutionary tumult only a few years later. Such is the obscure origin of the current tea party insurrection. Smoldering for years, as Washington grew progressively larger and larger and more and more tone deaf, the ignition spark occurred when a little known financial reporter for CNBC, Rick Santelli, went on a spontaneous rant on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, on February 19, 2009. Santelli railed against the new Obama Administration that was willing to spend billions of stimulus money to secure mortgages that had been given out by many banks to individuals who had no assets to pay for them. Santelli spoke up for the average person who plays by the rules, takes appropriate risk, and has no one look out for them when fate determines a bad outcome. Santelli felt something profound had just been broken, the equal opportunity that was at the heart of the American Dream. Little did he know what his four minutes of rant would start:

Within weeks “tea Party” movements broke out across the country, and a slow steady wild fire began. Initially formed as Tea “Taxed Enough Already” Party, the movement began to develop unappreciated depth, impressive patience, and significant political acumen. Early missteps with unprepared candidates such as Christine O’Donnell and Todd Akin were learned from, and the skill and winning ways of the candidates began to take hold. Scott Brown winning the Senate seat previously ‘owned’ by Teddy Kennedy in deep Blue state Massachusetts, Scott Walker achieving and then retaining the governorship of Wisconsin despite a furious and vicious effort to defeat him in three elections over four years, and Eric Cantor’s stunning loss to unknown David Brat showed a disciplined and committed movement. Further earthquakes prior to Boehner began to show themselves in the summer Presidential process, with establishment favorites Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton loosing traction despite enormous money advantages, and a ‘throw the bums out and make America great again’ demagogue named Trump storming to the top of the polls. The concept of Trump is closely tied to the poor selections of O’Donnell and Akin but can be seen as the temporary weapon the modern movement is using to evidence its displeasure with the status quo and warn everyone what is coming.

Which brings us back to Boehner. The final straw had nothing to do with taxes per se. It had everything to do with leadership mistaking their positions are not related to their experience with process, but rather, their grasp of principle. Boehner committed the ultimate sin in suggesting that an electoral success of 2014 putting Republicans in the position of leadership of both legislative houses, would lead to clear actions thwart the runaway train that is the constitution subverting Obama administration. Rather than show backbone and take stands that would make clear distinctions of philosophy between republicans and Democrats, the two houses sheepishly folded time and time again, as the President ignored laws and made laws that were never legislated with Obamacare, outsmarted Boehner and McConnell in avoiding any vote on the disastrous Iran agreement that would have at least made all parties responsible for their actions, and finally crumbled into silence on any action on defunding Planned Parenthood’s development as a fetus factory for profit.

The phony tears that are those of Boehner’s supporters suggest that there was little he could do with the numbers in the President’s favor. For Tea Party proponents, the excuses rang hollow. They had labored mightily to give Boehner his majority and hence his Speakership. They saw him much like General McClellan in the Civil War, blaming his lack of action on the forever excuse of not having enough troops or provisions. Lincoln, much like the tea party finally exhausted by the excuses, was willing to take a chance and absorb some heavy punishments on a considerably non-establishment figure, General Ulysses Grant. He stated, ” I can’t spare this man- he fights”. The tea party was not looking for Boehner to win in order to fight, it was looking for him to fight to win.

The tea party has grown into a principled social movement that demands that America return to rules of behavior, limited governmental size, reducing repression on personal freedom, equal opportunity, fiscal sanity, and firm defense of its exceptionalism. In six short years, it has grown beyond insurrection, into something that is beginning to look like revolution. Revolutions are unpredictable, but sometimes are necessary to re-orient a lost compass. One thing is for certain, and John Boehner knows it now if he didn’t before. The tea party is not the provence of a few raving reporters and political outcasts. It’s a political movement that’s rocking the world.

September 19, 2015September 19, 2015

Media Democracy

John Kennedy/ Richard Nixon Presidential Debate October 7th, 1960 — John Kennedy/ Richard Nixon Presidential Debate
October 7th, 1960

Television was barely a decade old in being available to a substantial cross section of the American public, when it vaulted to the role of ‘decider’ in the nation’s democratic process. On the night of October 7th, 1960, two politicians vetted their philosophies in front of a large shared real time audience, and television was there to frame for all time our memory of it. The U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, John Kennedy was seen by viewers as young but capable, prepared, tanned, energetic, and the promising future; the sitting U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon old, cautious, pale, and the establishment past. The image television perpetrated of Kennedy as clear “winner” was out of keeping with the relative realities of the debate itself. Heard by millions more Americans on the radio, it was Nixon, not Kennedy, that was felt to project a more measured, prepared, and in-depth performance. At 47, Nixon was barely three years older then the ‘young’ Kennedy and had shared with Kennedy the generation’s defining life experience of World War II combat service. Unbeknownst to most everybody, it was Kennedy, not Nixon, who was sickly and medicated, only still recovering from an Addisonian crisis several years previously. It was Kennedy, not Nixon, who declared a nonsensical ‘missile gap’ existed between the Soviet Union’s capabilities and that of the United States, ignoring that fact that the US had a several hundreds times more nuclear delivery capacity, but clearly designed to reinforce the vision of the shock of Sputnik in the uninformed audience’s mind.

Kennedy, following the debate, secured public perception as ‘up to’ the job of President with his projection on TV that night, and defeated Nixon in one of the closer elections in US history. Television, as the new media, found in its discovery of Kennedy’s on screen projection, the definition of ‘telegenic’, and was happy to promote the Camelot myth of a young vibrant President and his family as the new definition of leader. Camelot sold a lot of television sets.

In the 55 years since that debate, television has ruled supreme as the venue for definition of a politician, and has guarded that role ruthlessly. Television was adversarial to Lyndon Johnson and particularly Nixon, despite their political success, as they projected poorly on television, and prominently in Nixon’s case, saw the media as the enemy in defining their public perception. The media wanted Reagan to fail, painting him as dangerous and a dullard, but television could not undercut his telegenic presence, that masterfully projected calm, dignity, and humanness.

As television moved into its middle ages as a media force, it has rallied to the need to re-instill the Kennedy magic, first through Bill Clinton, and in a tour de-force, Barrack Obama. Clinton, who nearly put every viewer into a coma with his 1988 droning, overwrought Democratic National Convention speech, finally achieved telegenic Valhalla wagging his finger at the camera, denying sexcapades in the White House and inventing the political television reality show. Obama preened in front of Greek columns and claimed olympian talents of controlling sea levels and ending division on the strength of his world diversified telegenic projection, echoing Kennedy but with a fraction of the political grasp or respect for process. Television needed to balloon these two in particular because the threat of the internet to be even more real time and defining than television, was slowly becoming a reality and threat to the force that television played in defining our discourse.

Unfortunately for television,, the emerging media, the social media through the internet, has loosened television’s tight grip on the narrative. Progressively, the internet has screwed severely with the narrative television has been built to project. The Internet has broken down multiple fortifications television had built around its star child Obama as the global unifier and the smartest man on the planet. Television media groups were stunned when it positioned Donald Trump for collapse by projecting his most stupid, offensive comments and discovered the more he did it, the more the Internet liked what it heard. Trump has thus far proved immune to television defining of him, because he has turned out to be the hybrid, fully cognizant of the reality show deterioration of television and the synthesis of the visual with the immediate and emotional qualities of the Internet.

The latest debate of Republican candidates shows television trying to respond to its slipping position as the primary media vehicle to define this nation’s direction. A large group of diversified, intelligent, and capable conservatives is not exactly what television has in mind when it sees itself as owner and pathfinder for the nation’s consensus. The debate was designed by CNN to be part reality show and part circus side show.

Republican presidential candidates, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, right, and Donald Trump both speak during the CNN Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, in Simi Valley, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) — CNN sponsored Republican Presidential Debate – AP photo

The idea was to develop a bunch of mudslinging matches that would show the nation the pettiness and vacuousness of the Republican field, and distract from the emerging disaster that is Hillary and her effect on the virtuous party, the Democrats. Fox was stunned when 24 million Americans tuned in to see the first debate, and CNN wanted to magnify the Trump celebrity factor to make the irrelevant cable network seem relevant again. More than 20 million Americans tuned in to see this second debate. CNN treated them to questions like, ‘Mr Trump says you’re ugly, what do think of him’, ‘Mr. Bush speaks Spanish, shouldn’t he speak English?’ , and ‘ Mr. Paul, Mr. Trump says you don’t belong on this stage, because you only poll at 1%, how do you feel about that?”‘ – among other questions, in this most dangerous and serious of times. Despite CNN’s best attempts, surprisingly and progressively though, an actual debate broke out in the second half, and this bright field of candidates began to find its legs and maneuver into serious discussion, directed at the internet generation, more directed, and personal, and deliberative. Stream of consciousness born for Internet discussion started to develop that television struggles with – What do living fetus organ harvests say about our nation’s character? What are the consequences of citizenship? How does the nation achieve personal highways to success for the most people? What are our mechanisms for dealing with a dangerous world? Progressively, no one missed the visual references as to who is the prettiest, shortest, meanest, or tanned. The celebrity Trump was mollified, quiet, and progressively a non-participant.

Television is in danger of being marginalized into the corner of an internet screen feed, competing with the huge diversity of opinion drivers available. The concept of the nation huddling around the television in the living room is becoming a dated concept in the same way that the newspaper delivered to the door once connected our thoughts. Something that may be quite profound is beginning to project with the lack of message control that once dominated our thoughts through the visual media. It may turn out that the huge audiences are continuing to tune in to the debates, are doing so not so much to watch as to organize their own thoughts. The debate the other night, so designed to define our way of thinking, may have initiated our journey back to a more town hall vetting of ideas, shorter on visual magnetism and longer on the victory of ideas. Whatever comes after television, an internet nourished democracy built on ideas, not personalities, may not be the worst thing The Trump personality comet may actually come to represent nadir of visual consensus, fundamentally mis-interpreted. It may actually be speaking to the final divorce with forced consensus based on visual manipulation. The Trump factor may be saying, we will form our own opinion, thank you. And now we will start looking to the pathfinders that can articulate the ideas that we form. That kind of media democracy might finally put us back on the path to salvation.

September 6, 2015

War and Peace

Syrian War refugees struggle to gain access to Europe greekreporter.com — Syrian War refugees struggle to gain access to Europe /greekreporter.com

In between golfing expeditions on his recent extended summer vacation, the President of the United States must have at various times noted the recent news of the day. There was of course that irritating Hillary Clinton struggling to explain how she had determined to house the nation’s secrets on an unguarded server for her own benefit, as a matter of preference. Then there was that silly Donald Trump ranting about something or the other. Most importantly, it appeared the various golf outings had managed to secure the Iran deal with his democrat politicos, making it possible for a non treaty, with provisions no one has seen, and inspections no one intends to uphold, secure the jihadist radicals as the secure rulers of an Iran emerging as world power for the next President to deal with. That last bit of news, now that was a good one.

Lining up the putt on the 18th green of the Cape Cod golf course, perhaps the President briefly gazed upon the vast ocean that separated his country from the continents beyond, and thought, how wonderful a time of peace can be. After all, he had ended two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, pulled American influence completely out of the Middle East, and punctured the quant and old fashioned American resolve to try to always do the right thing, no matter how difficult or potentially risky the situation. That martial, imperial impulse that had dominated American foreign policy since the beginning of World War II had finally met its overdue demise under the disciplined, steady direction of this smartest of all presidents. Now, finally, some real Peace. And the opportunity to spend the Peace Dividend on more pressing needs.

Unfortunately, it turns out, it is our Peace, their War. Despite the determination to remove the warmonger USA from inciting the locals in the Middle East, warmongering has continued at an accelerated pace. An increasingly nasty war contagion is filing the void created by the American withdrawal, and the damage is cataclysmic. Michael Ledeen, a long standing Middle East observer, notes that increasingly larger players are taking sides and developing war strategies in the region that supposedly would have been pacified by removal of the American hegemonist, and are savagely feasting on the carcasses of Syria, Iraq, and Libya the Americans left behind. The visible result is human misery on a massive scale, with millions of refugees fleeing the horror most profoundly effecting Syria, and risking everything to come to the shores of a Europe that doesn’t want them. The Arab nations, trained for decades on the ability to ignore Palestinian refugee plight, are comfortable with thrusting all the refugees toward the hated ottomans in Turkey and the colonialists in Europe, making sure none land in their own countries and mess with their oil monies. The Russians, who have always been world players, seek to mold the war in a way that serves their interests, and are increasingly taking a direct role in the mad center of the tornado, Syria. The greatest war strategists of all are Obama’s new partner, the Iranians, buying anti-ship missiles from the Russians for when it becomes time to clear American ships from the Persian Gulf, strategizing with the Russians to secure President Assad’s position in the Syrian holocaust, and reaping real casualties from the Saudi and United Arab Emirate troops in Yemen, testing their resolve and willingness to die for their oil princes.

War and Peace. Throughout history, the two expressions of human existence have always co-existed, each preventing the other through hard choices. Peace is not the absence of war, but the prevention of it. Despite all the historical precedents, the President thought somehow by withdrawing the policing forces from a pacified Iraq, removing the leadership of Libya and defining no alternative, ignoring the progressive disaster of Syria as if it were a local affair, and releasing the restraints on a jihadist Iran, peace would ensue. Instead he, and the U.S. leadership to come, will have War. Europe, other than Great Britain, always willing to avert its eyes from responsibility and assume that the victory in the cold war was achieved by the attractions of passivist socialism, is now facing the reality of millions of entrants to their societies, and the urgent need to do something. The something is unlikely to allow them to wait to be rescued once again by the U.S. If Europe’s recent brief period of “peace” is to be extended, they may have to finally be willing to admit that the concept of Peace does not survive without constant, aggressive vigilance and defense. The millions and millions of people caught in the middle, as always, will be the sentinel sacrifices, of the dithering democracies.

The President, in his final year of office, probably has plans to enjoy the Peace dividend he has created, and get in some serious golf. I suspect, that War, is going to turn out to be his very uncomfortable caddy.

August 30, 2015August 30, 2015

Now is the Winter of Our Discontent

Trump, Clinton and the decline of a nation abcnews.go.com — Trump, Clinton and the decline of a nation
abcnews.go.com

At the opening of William Shakespeare’s peerless study of malevolence, Richard III, the protagonist initiates his soliloquy with the seven words that focus the entire play – Now is the winter of our discontent. To Richard the seeming stability enjoyed by the elites is about to see the havoc of the discontented, from unpredictable and opaque directions, until the world experiences the reordering that will upturn the status quo. In more down to earth terms, the whole miserable truth is, that the joke is on them.

Such is our current season of discontent. The polls suggest that the position of chief executive of the most powerful country on earth may come down to a choice between a bombastic clown and a truth-addled crook. In Great Britain, there is a groundswell in the Labour Party to select as leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a man who would make Karl Marx blush regarding his proletariat uber-sympathies. In France, the leading candidate for the Presidency of France is forced to evict her father from his own party for saying out loud the prejudices upon which the party was founded.

The discontent crosses philosophies and principles. The unifying force is the discontent itself. Legions of people who feel their particular issues have been stomped in the dust by the elites who set the rules that the rest must live by, and the elites blithely ignore. To the discontented, it is refreshing for a Donald Trump to admit what they always suspected – that patronage is purchased, and the entire governing body is in on it. He does what they wish they could do, act out, and call people out, without recriminations. The rule of law has crumbled behind the ever shifting sands of lawyerisms, so why not suggest extra-legislative means harshly correcting the inequities? For the discontented, Trump doesn’t have core beliefs, just the cojones to do something to restore their voice.

Trump is pitted against Clinton, the poster child of name calling and victimhood. She stands for the nihilist principle – Let me do what I want, and you get to do what you want. She might be the first candidate in history to whom the candidate who presumptively will run against her, proudly admits to having previously bought her patronage. Yet even Clinton stands vulnerable to attacks from even farther out on the anarchist fringe from a progressively popular Bernie Sanders, who wants to take the ‘us versus them’ to a celestial level. The toxic stew stands to drowned out any deliberative debate as to the country’s problems, as the emotional discontent gains further traction.

The discontent in Great Britain threatens the status quo, with competing nationalisms driving progressive unprincipled extremism, from the ‘throw the rascals out until it looks like England again’ mentality of UKIP, to the ‘drain the capitalists of their money and power’ invectives of Corbyn the rest of the Labour party seems helpless to thwart. Tony Blair stands aghast at the unleashing of Corbynmania but seems clueless as to how his peculiar brand of elitism helped to create the monster. The European Union, and by proxy the dominant German backers, cling to their bureaucratic dictums that demand the obedience of all under its puritan reach, yet are progressively alarmed at the increasingly nationalistic populations that thumb their nose and suggest that if they are to be ruled by a bastard elite, better a bastard elite they recognize and to which they can relate .

The discontent surges not knowing necessarily what it wants, only sure it doesn’t want the status quo. Why have a constitution if no one follows it? Why follow the rules if the elite tell you that those that don’t follow the rules, will receive an equal if not greater piece of the pie? We are deep into our winter of discontent, and the former balancing forces of a stable society maybe unable to restore the accepted order, or the predictable outcomes. For Richard III, when the tidal forces he unshackled came back upon him, he temporarily sought refuge from the progressive calamity, willing to give up “A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!” When Catesby urges him to withdraw from battle, achieve the steed, and therefore safety he requested, Richard III knows his destiny is the calamity he has unleashed, responding, “Slave, I have set my life upon the cast, and I will stand the hazard of a die!”

It is the mystery of our time to see whether our current protagonists will have Richard’s courage to see their role in stoking the darker shades of our nature, to destiny’s fitting conclusion.