Tag Archives: foreign policy

Political Rants

Persistent truths.

As I write this post, the parliament in Crimea has just voted to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, to which it belonged until the mid 1950s. The Russian parliament, in turn, is considering legislation to enable it to accept new provinces, an ominous turn to Where's America in this picture?be sure. There is a referendum on Crimean secession scheduled for later this month, and the new Ukrainian government is crying foul. So … are we on the brink of a new Crimean War? Charge of the Light Brigade, anyone?

The “Putin is Crazy” narrative is dominating the news cycle here in the United States. I can hear it right now, on the evening news. Even supposed activist liberal shows like Rachel Maddow are playing this as a crisis for which Russia is solely responsible, and strong evidence of Putin’s departure from reality. He’s living in another world, the German premier suggests, and that claim is being hammered home, day after day, on every network, every news channel, every media outlet. One would think no one had ever occupied a square mile of foreign territory before. (Ummm …. Afghanistan? Guam?)

I hate to be the lone dissenting voice on anything, but this thing is obviously spinning out of control, and the potential consequences are enormous. Despite his autocratic tendencies, Putin is not hard to figure out, friends. He doesn’t want another Syria as his next door neighbor. With the ouster of Yanukovych, he sees the potential for civil conflict, possible failure of the central government, etc. Putin sees the United States and Europe as having stoked the opposition, and in all frankness, it’s probably true that we did. We regularly support political movements in other countries to an extent that we would consider unacceptable should another country attempt the same on us. Now we openly support the revolution in Ukraine.

Is is about supporting democracy? Well, that’s certainly not a prerequisite for U.S. support. See Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc., etc. In all honesty, I think it would be a really good idea to work towards a diplomatic solution with greater energy. There is a tendency to fall into old cold war habits – a fact that reveals the bankruptcy of our obsession with communism back in the day. It’s really just about great power competition, and that should be considered illegitimate, particularly when so many lives are at stake.

Between us, we still have thousands of nuclear weapons. This is not something to fool around with.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Crapucopea.

Not sure what to concentrate on this week for my rant, so I’ll break it up into bits.

Ukraine drama. I have heard endless reports on NPR and NBC about the Russian flag being raised above the Crimean capital and how much this is becoming like the bad old days of the Cold War. Much, too, has been made of Russian military exercises near the border of Ukraine, termed by the media as “provocative” – a word they no doubt borrowed from McCain or some other favored pol. Just rewind to their last reports about Korea and our planned military exercises there – did they use the same modifier? Didn’t think so. Not provocative in any wayThat potentially catastrophic confrontation-in-waiting apparently can withstand mock-invasions of North Korea and simulated bombing runs without being “provocative”. So, why are the Russian exercises any worse? If there’s a return to Cold War mentality, it’s on the part of our corporate media. (Most of our politicians have never left that particular ideological space.)

Arizona anti-gay bill. This notion of religious freedom, based on the dodgy concept of “who would Jesus refuse to serve,” is obviously based on a very skewed interpretation of Christian values – namely, tolerate no one different from you. That Jan Brewer vetoed it is no surprise. Why did it take her several days? Because the attention of the nation was on her for that stretch of time, and she was happy to bask in it – an art form the senior senator from her state has perfected over his decades in office.

Jobs and health. I’ve heard a number of reports about the CBO estimate of potential job losses related to the Affordable Care Act. These are mainly attributed to people who work specifically for a job related health care benefit choosing to opt out of the workforce. One economist / commentator I heard this morning suggested this might be a drag on the economy. But what, after all, is the economy? Is it metrics on productivity … or is it how well individuals are doing? When someone leaves a job they really don’t want, doesn’t that open a position for someone else? Should we really be chaining people to work and holding them hostage for the sake of health insurance coverage?

I think not.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Austerity rules.

Just a few things I want to comment on this week, not at any great length. Bear with me, please.

Human Rights. In what appeared to be an effort to elicit Vietnam’s cooperation in the looming Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) “free trade agreement” – really an investors’ rights agreement – Secretary of State John Kerry recently paid a visit to Hanoi to discuss new maritime security cooperation measures, against the backdrop of China’s recent declaration of a kind of demilitarized zone in the South China Sea. None of this is surprising, but what kind of made my jaw hang open was the reporting around the visit. The main hook was that Kerry had been part of America’s expeditionary force in South Vietnam during the war, and he toured some of his old haunts in the south. NPR (not to single them out – everyone else did this, too), practically in a single breath, made reference to this trip down memory lane, then referred to problems with Vietnam’s human rights record, which Washington complains about.

Kerry greets a survivor.Really? Just a little bit of context might be nice. What was Kerry doing there in the 1960s again? Vacationing? No. Oh, that’s right – he was part of a massive invasion force that was grinding Vietnam – particularly southern Vietnam – to a bloody pulp, leaving probably 2 million dead and three countries destroyed; a massive crime that we have never been held accountable for. I think it’s a little premature to lecture Hanoi on human rights, frankly.

Work release. The Fed will be dialing back their “quantitative easing” policy in the coming year. I have mixed feelings about this, frankly. The central bank has been the only organ of American power – public or private – seemingly willing to invest in this economy. Much of that investment has been in vain, as the banks the Fed lends to have been extremely reluctant to lend that money out. Corporations are sitting on their money, not hiring at any great clip. And of course, at every level of government, it’s cut, cut, cut; thousands of public sector jobs eliminated. Austerity rules, once again.

I have this nagging feeling that American capital is unwilling to invest in American workers – that they feel it’s a bad risk, and so they seek richer pastures elsewhere, where workers rights are even less protected the meager safeguards we enjoy here. What we need is some public investment entity to pick up the slack. We need to commit ourselves to full employment – if someone is willing and able to work, and the private sector has nothing to offer them, let the government provide them with work. They, in turn, will spend that money in their local economy, supporting private sector jobs and growth. At the same time we need to stop incentivizing corporate off-shoring of jobs (see the TPP, above).

Austerity isn’t inevitable. It’s a choice, a bad one, and we have to reject it if we want a better life.

luv u,

jp