Foreign Affairs and War archives
The motto of the United States Marine Corps is simple and profound: "Semper Fidelis", Latin for "always faithful." And, as any Marine can tell you, there is no such thing as being a "former" member of the corp. "Once a Marine," goes the saying, "always a Marine."
But the government these men and women serve does not always live up to the promise of loyalty it asks its members to make. That's a sleeping problem for the thousands of gay and lesbians who have served our nation honorably in the Marines, or any branch of the Armed Services. At any time, a recent veteran could risk losing his or her health, education or other benefits, even after years of service and their spouses will never be treated equally under the law.
Even after the California Supreme Court's historic decision granting marriage equality, not all Californians have the right to marry - and those who don't are the ones who deserve the right most. With a nervy nonchalance, in it's Q&A on Gay Marriage, the Los Angeles Times states that, "Marrying or attempting to marry a person of the same sex is grounds for dismissal from the service."
That just seems just plain wrong particularly since the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policies let many gays in the military serve with honor and distinction. But the awkward compromise of the Clinton era doesn't just apply to those on active duty. According to the Service Members Legal Defense Network, an organization that fights for equal rights for gays in the military, the injustice of Don't Ask, Don't Tell extends far beyond one's enlistment. It covers veterans of all wars and of all ages.
Regardless of when they served, gay and lesbian veterans and their spouses are denied equal treatment in life and death. Although my grandfather violated military laws by joining the Army before he was eighteen, the enthusiastic soldier lays buried in the cemetery at Fort Sam Houston. Next to him lay my grandmother, who never served a day in her life but was entitled to be buried next to her husband as a dutiful - and legally recognized - spouse. Such a privilege would not be afforded to a gay draftee from World War II or Vietnam.
It is even worse for the men and women who are just now returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. While nearly three thousand service members have been dismissed under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" since the beginning of the Global War on Terror, tens of thousands more have left the service after their first enlistment. Although they survived in the closet for years and finished their active duty honorably, as they return to civilian life, they must still keep the closet door shut, or risk being discharged and imperiling their veterans' benefits. Soldiers, sailors or marines who are no longer on active duty are subject to the provisions of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". So are veteran members of the National Guard, Reserves or Individual Ready Reserves even after they have left active duty and are allegedly living civilian lifestyles. For all these men and women, that means no statements regarding their sexual orientation, nor sodomy, nor hugging, nor hand-holding...and most certainly no marriage!
The burden on these veteran reservists is already great enough. After putting their lives on the line to defend our freedom in combat, they are returned to civilian life with a years-long noose around their neck: the threat that, one day, they may very likely get called back to duty.
For some, this burden can result in a near paralysis, where the uncertainty of their future keeps them from making any commitments beyond the time that they know they have for certain in civilian life. And for our gay and lesbian veterans, the military is telling them that they must go it alone. Anyone who says they support the troops should find this contradiction morally repugnant.
According to SLDN, not only is gay marriage out of the question, but so are accepting domestic partnership health care benefits, joining a group like the Log Cabin Republicans, or being added to a partner's USAA policy (or vice versa), if the law is strictly followed. And these are rules governing civilians in strictly civilian settings.
For gay and lesbian veterans, the unfortunate reality is that, until "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is repealed, they must hope that the ones they love, and those that love them, are more abiding by the spirit of Semper Fi than the government they've so loyally served.
Last September 26, I broke with conventional wisdom and predicted that the economy, not the war in Iraq, would be the deciding issue in the 2008 election. I was wrong. Ironically, the issue that President Bush heralded as the most important challenge facing America before 9/11 will be the issue that determines his successor: China.
Regardless of what happens with the economy - whether we slip into a recession or narrowly avoid one - the issue will be an afterthought by August 2008. Either things will be getting better - as recent activity on Wall Street seems to indicate - or the issue will have lost its political currency as the drumbeat of recession fade to provide little more than the background rhythm to the campaign march.
Much to this political junkie's regret, it looks more and more like the two parties' conventions will provide no more drama than usual. Instead, the conventions and the campaign will be framed by what happens in the two weeks prior: the Beijing Olympics.
How we relate to China is perhaps the critical question facing America today. When he came to office, President Bush made it his top priority, engaging China in a dialectical competition of superpowers old and new. But then 9/11 happened and the world's most populous country fell our of America's consciousness, as the U.S. slowly developed a relationship with China that was more codependent than competitive.
The China Question is about much more than foreign policy and the basic question of whether we should have a competitive or a cooperative relationship with the country. Each approach is a dual-edged sword.
The chief argument for why we need a cooperative approach with China is economic. China is beginning to rival oil in its importance to America's well-being. America's ability to have growth without inflation depends on our ability to outsource manufacturing to China, while growing our science and service sectors here at home.
This trade benefits everyday Americans by keeping the products we buy affordable, and it benefits China by giving working-class jobs to millions of its inhabitants. Ours is a symbiotic relationship that, if broken, could have disastrous geopolitical consequences.
At the same time, China's economic growth comes at a cost to the environment that can be seen on our shores. As much as a quarter of the air pollution in Los Angeles comes from China, and with its smoke-belching ships coming in to port in San Pedro and Long Beach, the Chinese can probably be considered the single-largest source of pollution in California.
China can no longer get a pass on the environment like it got in the Kyoto Treaty. Unless China joins in the fight against climate change, no regulation or cap-and-trade system here at home will make a dent. If we restrict our economic activity with environmental regulation while allowing China to pollute at will, the sun will set on the American empire faster than the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Morally, pursuing a cooperative relationship with China is dubious as well. Beijing's human rights record is notorious and while its subjects are beginning to enjoy economic liberties, the concept of universal human rights is foreign to them. How can we claim to be defenders of freedom, whilst turning a blind eye on the world's great oppressors?
Pulling out of China, economically, would be exponentially worse than pulling out of Iraq militarily, but maintaining the relationship without action on the environmental and human rights front will also place us in peril.
The China Question has everything: the economy, the environment, human rights and geopolitics. But it does not have partisanship, yet. Neither ideology espoused by John McCain, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton provides a logically consistent answer to the many issues it raises.
This voter wants to know how our would-be Presidents would approach this tangled web with China, and after the world focuses on Beijing this summer, many others will be asking the same question: Is China friend or foe, or is our relationship status summed up with, "It's Complicated"?
The Olympic flame is back in California, bypassing its usual destination, Los Angeles, for San Francisco in what's clearly one of the most controversial Olympic Torch relays since the idea was first hatched by the Germans 73 years ago.
The Olympics and its global torch relay, have almost always been an opportunity to celebrate global unity and the hope that there can be peace on earth - if only for a couple weeks. Unfortunately for the International Olympic Committee and the organizer of Beijing's Summer Games of 2008, the relay has been anything but peaceful.
While the Olympics are, on their surface, about sports, their international nature means that the events cannot be decoupled from global politics. China has been looking towards Bejing 2008 as its debutante ball on the stage of global superpowers, expecting to be welcomed with open arms like the toys it produces are welcomed at America's ports.
But in London and Paris, protestors disrupted the pomp, reminding the world of China's horrible record on human rights and the environmental catastrophe that the fast-industrializing nation has inflicted on its citizens and the world. It took the running of the Olympic torch to remind us that Tibet has not been free for the past seven years, nor have the Chinese people for that matter.
Today, San Francisco, a city not known to stand on the sidelines of global protest, is bracing for the worst.
I, for one, am glad to see the protests. Finally, the world is realizing that evil exists and that President George W. Bush is not at its root!
The contrasts between Paris and Beijing, between San Francisco and Shanghai, and between London and Lhasa, could not be greater. Here in California, we consider what we can do to fight climate change, we are asking ourselves why China should get a free ride. As California debates whether to grant marriage equality to all of its citizens, China is oppressing millions of its own.
The International Olympic Committee is now debating whether to ditch the torch relay altogether in order to avoid the embarrassment of further protests. That is the wrong move. If the torch relay has become a symbol of totalitarianism and oppression in 2008, it is not the torch relay's fault, it is Beijing's.
If the torch makes it all the way to Beijing, be prepared for the comparisons to the 1936 Olympics held in Nazi Germany - the folks who came up with the idea of the torch relay. Back then, apologists argued that the games should be about the sports, but the games were really a way to mollify the world into thinking that Germany wasn't so bad after all. That's despite the existence of forced-labor camps.
Hillary Clinton and other politicians shouldn't be calling on the world to boycott the games' opening ceremonies in Beijing, they should be calling on the Olympics to boycott Beijing. Sure it is late in the day but if the last week has been any indication, the IOC should consider moving the games to a more freedom-loving place, somewhere that has the experience to host the Olympics and be ready on day one.
I know: Let the Games Begin on 08.08.08...in Los Angeles!
The world is watching American elections like never before. After eight years of the Bush Administration, the prospect of change is palpable, especially in Europe, a continent that is clamoring to regain its relevance in the world. But the world should be cautioned: Be careful what you wish for.
On a recent trip to Europe, my suggestion that John McCain may well be the next president, drew pleas from Europeans that we Americans cannot let the world down. "It's time for a change," I was told, echoing the monosyllabic campaign message of Barack Obama.
Well, the biggest changes in foreign policy that Democrats are proposing come in the guise of economic policy. Both Clinton and Obama have threatened to pull out of the NAFTA free trade agreement unless their demands are met. That's foolish pandering and Republican nominee John McCain is right to criticize them for this: What message would that send to our allies around the globe about how we treat our two closest friends in the global community?
Globalism is real. Although some Americans may see other countries around the world getting richer and think that wealth is coming - literally - at their expense, that is the wrong lesson to learn from the global economy. Instead, the growing interconnectivity of the global economy means that we must all care about each others' well being and economic welfare because when anyone catches an economic cold, we all stand to suffer the sniffles.
In a speech to the Georgetown University Forum on Global Competitiveness, former Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar hit this point on the head when he pointed out the impact that America has on European economies through trade, investment and labor movement. The economic impact of the U.S. on Ireland is twice that of the impact in China. Anzar's observation that Europe can only be an economic power, not a military one, requires that Europe keep its borders open to trade, and that America do the same.
At the same conference, former Clinton Assistant National Security Advisor Anthony Lake - now and advisor to the Barack Obama campaign - came to a different conclusion from the same set of facts. He started from the basic premise that we should not attack globalism or praise it, we should accept it. That's refreshing coming from an Obama advisor but his solution seems to offer a return to the past, not a move forward.
Lake then spoke about the world's problems - from competition over scarce commodities such as corn or oil, to Global Warming to the War in Afghanistan - and correctly pointed out that no one country can "solve" these problems alone. But even if the United States has the willingness to say "Yes We Can" and change our approach to these issues, Lake worries that the rest of the world - Europe, in particular - lacks the institutional support to make change happen.
When you look at Europe's greatest institutional model - the European Central Bank - Lake seems to have a point. Since adopting the Euro, the less well-off countries of southern Europe have seen their economies flourish, but growth has come at the cost of inflation. Conversely, in northern Europe, the inflation that came after the initial adoption of the Euro has subsided, but they now suffer from the choke-hold of high interest rates and low growth.
My "Amsterdam Beer Index" - handy for the casual traveler trying to figure coss - show that the cost of a Dommelsch has gone from 2.95 Euros down to 2.50 and as low as 2.20 over the past three years, remaining steady in dollar terms, but also a clear (albeit anecdotal sign) of a slowing Dutch economy. Why? The ECB has chosen to forsake growth in order to fight inflation, at the cost of double-digit unemployment and growing unrest.
Militarily, Lake implied, Europe's institutions are even worse off and they must be bolstered if they intend to cooperate with the United States in NATO and fighting the war on terrorism. Europe, the potential future Secretary of State alleged, has gotten a free ride from the U.S. during fifty years of the Cold War and eight years of Bush unilateralism.
The only conclusion I can draw from that is that after pulling out of NAFTA, the Obama Administration would try to re-militarize Europe. As someone who remembers what he learned about the last time protectionism and militarization were the global norms, I have to say that sort of change - a change to the past, not the future - isn't exactly what we're looking for. Is it?
It has become a standard political axiom: when it comes to presidential races, Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. Regardless of whether the voters ultimately confirm this conventional wisdom, there's one bipartisan truth: breaking up is hard to do.
As a sizeable portion of the nation goes ga-ga over Barack Obama, we should remember that political love affairs seldom last as long as the break-ups. Here in California, we've seen just how difficult it can be when a political love-affair turns sour.
Former Governor Gray Davis was popular enough to win two terms in office, but when he cheated on Californians by lying about the extent of the budget crisis in 2002, the Golden State quickly threw the bum out with a special recall election less than a year later.
In dumping Davis, Californians fell hard on the rebound for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, developing what now seems like a co-dependent relationship.
We swept Schwarzenegger into office in 2003, on the hopes that he could shake up the broken system called California government. Two years later, we rejected each of his appeals to fix the state's problems, which sent his popularity plummeting. While many expected a break-up in 2006, Californians went back to Schwarzenegger to stand by our man for another four years. With another budget crisis looming, and the state looking once again un-governable, many wonder what kind of doormat the California voter must be to have Arnold walking all over them!
Likewise, across the pond, the French are rapidly falling out of love with President Nicolas Sarkozy. Although he was elected less than a year ago, his jet-set lifestyle and very public romance with Italian songstress Carla Bruni, the French have soured the President on their choice, like an uncorked bottle of Bordeaux.
With today's news, Democratic voters are no doubt having an inner debate between the attractive, smooth-talking Casanova or the practical fiancée who promises to put food on the table every night. Until Tuesday evening, infatuation had been winning over pragmatism.
But all love affairs must end, and with the candidacy of Barack Obama, the question is whether America breaks up with him before popping the question in November and meeting at the altar on January 20, 2009.
Obamamanics got a taste of what the break-up with Barack could feel like this week, when we learned of secret meetings between the Senator's advisors and a foreign government.
When reports first trickled out of Canada a week ago saying that Barack Obama's economic advisor had met with a representative of the Canadian Consulate and said that the Senator was really not a protectionist despite his rhetoric on NAFTA, the campaign denied that such a meeting took place. But when internal memos proved otherwise, the Obama campaign started backtracking. The lies, and the duplicity left many voters feeling scorned and made what should have been a coronation in Texas and Ohio into just another leg in this marathon primary. Kind of like Obama was cheating on his "wife" - the American public.
A marriage is a lifetime commitment, and one not to be taken lightly. Still, in politics and, more importantly governing, four years can seem like a lifetime. The wedding date is set for America's next love affair. But who will be at the altar? And will we still have butterflies in our stomachs?
Since I am not running for president of the United States and winning over voters in Florida is not critical to my career choices, I can say one thing without hesitation: it's time to tear down the wall between the United States and Cuba.
Although Cuba's "elected leaders" did little more than continue their dynastic politics in handing over leadership to lifelong Cuban President Fidel Castro's brother, Raúl, last week, the handover offers the United States an opportunity to affect change we can believe. It's time to end the Cuban embargo and allow free trade, travel and investment in our island neighbor.
If we learned anything from the end of the Cold War, it should have been that free trade leads to free people. Our embargo on Cuba may have served only to prop up Fidel Castro, but by opening up the borders to Cuba, we will either bring down the regime of Raúl, or force it to bring change.
A year ago, writing about the war in Iraq, I wrote that, "the day we see a Starbucks in Baghdad will be the day we know we've won the War on Terror." That is because multi-national corporations have a stabilizing effect on global politics. They force their host countries to adopt investor-friendly policies, while keeping countries where they hold investments from fighting each other.
My uncle, Jerome Schmidt, just returned to the States from Vietnam. It was his first trip back since he served there in the United States Army three decades ago. In his daily correspondences with family and friends in the states, Uncle Jerry had one recurring question: why did we fight this war?
His questioning of the Vietnam War wasn't fostered by the anti-war sentiments of the 1960s, but rather by the realization that Vietnam today is as free and capitalist as America. In fact, some might argue that there is more economic freedom in the Saigon than in San Francisco! Although the tactical was in Vietnam may have been lost, the war of ideologies was, in the end, won. And everybody is better off for it.
With Kosovo gaining its independence from Serbia, the last remnants of the Iron Curtain hang just off the coast of the Florida Keys. And you have to ask: if Vietnam's politics can change after a healthy dose of global capitalism, why can't Cuba's?
Imagine if investment and travel restrictions on Cuba were lifted. Starwood, Marriott, Hilton and Sandals would rush in to Havana to redevelop the best real estate into mega-resorts. Arnold Schwarzenegger could open a cigar shop! Starbucks could introduce the Green Tea Mojito Latte, and MacDonald's could try its hand at a Torta Asada, Cuban Style.
Faced with a flood of potential investment of the United States, Cuba would have to change its policies to make these companies feel safe in making the investment, and social policies would have to be reformed to make the American tourist feel welcome.
Within a year, I'd bet, the average Cuban would see his or her standard of living double - if not triple - and they'd ask themselves why they tolerated the policies of the ancien regime for so long.
We do not need guns, bombs, or secret assassinate plots to free the people of Cuba. America needs to take leadership in an economic change - and chance - to bombard the island nation with economic shock-and-awe. Free trade leads to free peoples, and is that is the only way we will see a Free Cuba!
If you turned on CNN or BBC News this week you might have thought the year was 1992, not 2008. A Soviet ally stepped down from power while in Africa and Eastern Europe, citizens waved American flags as symbols of the march of freedom.
For the first time in years, the United States is in the middle of a string foreign policy victories. News of the Middle East has been pushed off the front page, as other parts of the world take center stage and the news is resoundingly positive and familiar. Freedom is, once again, on the march.
Although Michelle Obama can think of nothing that the United States has done to be proud of in the last quarter century, in my mind the greatest accomplishment of our nation is to be the example - that shining city on a hill - of how to promote peace through freedom. Democratic, capitalist nations do not fight each other and as the U.S. has promoted the values of democracy and capitalism around the globe, our tolerance for war and its tragic costs has diminished in turn. We're seeing the results of these efforts this week in Africa as it welcomed President Bush and in Kosovo as it declared its independence.
Until President George W. Bush's recent six-day tour to Africa, I doubt many Americans even thought that this administration had a foreign policy when it came to the continent. Neither friend nor foe in the War on Terror, the continent seemed to slog along in foreign policy obscurity as it had for decades previous. The refugee camps of Darfur gets attention from Hollywood but even that cause doesn't resonate much with average Americans.
Which is why it was surprising to hear the President of Tanzania say that Bush, "will be remembered for many generations to come for the good things you've done for Tanzania and the good things you have done for Africa." As Americans stand at the precipice of electing our first African-American President, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete told reporters, "the most important thing is, let him be as good [a] friend of Africa as President Bush has been"
This sentiment is echoed by Bob Geldof, - the rocker who brought us the Live 8 Concerts - saying that Bush "has done more than any other president so far." And the sentiment can be seen in the reactions on the street, which even if they looked a bit contrived, required willing participants and organizers who thought that they were at least plausible demonstrations of gratitude towards the current U.S. president.
The White House has been criticized for pushing an abstinence-first policy towards fighting AIDS but the Bush Administration has increased AIDS funding multi-fold over the Clinton Administration. The current White House's investment in fighting malaria have send disease rates falling. And people's lives are improving as a result.
At the core of Bush's Africa policy are the Millennium Challenge Accounts. Rather than distribute foreign aid willy-nilly around the globe, the Millennium Fund focuses on helping countries with strong records in governance and promoting democracy, making sure that the help that offered promotes core values like pluralism and freedom which America is hoping to spread around the globe.
It's worked in other places. In the streets of Pristina, Kosovo, this weekend, these values flourished still, as the nation declared its independence from Serbia. Amid the pictures of celebrating Kosovars, one image resonated as a global icon of freedom: the Stars and Stripes. Indeed, to celebrate, their freedom, many Kosovars took to waiving the American flag, rather than their own, evoking memories of the beginning of the fall of the Iron Curtain, just as its last vestiges rusted away.
At the core of Bush's Africa policy and Kosovo independence is the principle that, even without guns and bombs, freedom is on the march. With the retirement of Fildel Castro, we're reminded that Freedom's march is not always a fast one, but that it is one from which we should not retreat, and as its pace picks up again, we will realize that it will be morning in America - and around the globe - yet again.
UPDATE: Well they're
protesting in Belgrade now, and those who are opposing Kosovo's freedom are targeting symbols of the west--storming the U.S. Embassy and defacing our flag. You sometimes must take the bad with the good, I suppose, in this reminder that freedom's march isn't
always bloodless.
When Congress returns from its Memorial Day break, it will pick up where it left off debating immigration reform and a series of amendments. But the core of the immigration debate carries an unanswered question: why would any immigrants in pursuit of the “American Dream,” want to come to America in the first place?
First off, let me say that this is no anti-American screed. I love the USA. It’s a beautiful place of natural wonders, unless you are in New Jersey. It’s a place that cherishes freedom and liberty for all, unless you’re born a certain way. It’s a place where anyone can become President - especially if you’re related to one. And America is a place where any ambitious individual can make a living.
But the “American Dream” is to do more than make a living. The American Dream is to accumulate wealth, to live fabulously and to establish a legacy one can pass on when one’s time comes. Too bad the American government - and its tax policies - gets in the way of the American Dream.
Once you start making more than a living, it’s easy to turn sour on America and its paradoxical freedoms. The United States is one of two countries - the other being the Philippines - that has decided that once you are a citizen or possess a Green Card, your earnings are subject to taxation by the Internal Revenue Service, regardless of where you find yourself on the planet. That's just not fair!
See just like you cannot choose to be born heterosexual or otherwise, you cannot choose to be born an American citizen. And once you get that cherished label of freedom, you must pay for it! Which makes me wonder what the clamor for all these people to come to the States is about.
If America’s newest immigrants were truly smart and ambitious Then wouldn’t they choose to emigrate to a country that’s not going to stick their hands in their pocketbooks for the rest of their lives? Why not go to, say, Switzerland instead of South Central Los Angeles? Switzerland has no capital gains taxes on equities, no gift taxes - for giver or recipient - and no estate taxes for direct descendants. For some wishing to domicile in the country, they can even negotiate a lump-sum payment of up to 5 times the cost of their rent or mortgage and be done with taxes altogether.
Because such policies are attractive to the ultra-wealthy, they have led to a sort of accountancy warfare across Europe as different countries battle over who can offer the most favorable tax policies. Unfortunately, if you were born an American or chose to be one - and we granted the privilege - you can't qualify. Even if you repatriated your entire family to the Alpine chalet you visited in Christmas 1991, the long arm of the IRS could come and get you. Regardless of what the tax law is where an American is living, you see, he or she must pay taxes as if they were in the U.S.A. Whether a family patriarch died in 2011 - when the estate tax will be 0% or the following year when Nancy Pelosi proposes raising it to over 50% - would still matter because of the long arm of the American law.
That’s not fair! And if I were an emigrant looking for somewhere to go earn a living, I’d think twice about swearing allegiance to a government who would want to take a slice of whatever I send home to my family.
The only real way to avoid paying the IRS if you are an American citizen, then, would be to renounce your American citizenship - something I would not recommend for a number of reasons. And just like you cannot choose to change your sexual orientation, you cannot choose to become an ex-American solely for tax purposes. Our government does not recognize renunciations of citizenship if they are believed to be for tax purposes.
So I must ask: Why do we assume that everyone across the globe is lining up at the Rio Grande waiting for the Senate to pass a cloture motion and go into Conference with the House so they can get their “Z-Visa.” It's such a deal! Pay Uncle Sam $5,000 for the right to pay taxes on every red cent you earn for the rest of your life!
If today’s emigrants were smartly pursuing the American Dream, they’d be looking towards the Old Continent or Asia where they will have as much or more opportunity as in the States while avoiding the long arm of the IRS. What vision of the American Dream do today’s immigrants subscribe to if they’re not aspiring to the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous? Obviously not the one you and I were growing up believing in. Because if they bought into the American Dream most of us know, they’d never want to come to the U.S. of A.
Republicans in the United States are giddy over this weekend's electoral victory by the center-Right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy in the French elections. But those who believe that we've found the Gaul reincarnation of Ronald Reagan may be disappointed to learn that Sarkozy is more Bill Clinton than George W. Bush.
In what feels like a rainy season for Republican commentators like Larry Kudlow, the election of Sarkozy is a silver lining. To many conservatives in America, the message sent by French voters this weekend is that, without the cloud of war hanging over the Bush Administration, even the hated French are affirming conservative values.
That is a heartening message. But it is also a misunderstanding of the Sarkozy candidacy.
On paper, Sarkozy's platform looks quite similar to the optimist campaign run by George Bush in 2000. Sarko-economics would cut marginal tax rates, practically eliminate the death tax and control the growth of civil service. If those ideas ring familiar, it is because they were at the heart of President Bush's campaign seven years ago.
But I, for one, was never quite comfortable with the President-elect of France after hearing his acceptance speech at his Party convention in France. His policies seemed to me to be disjointed, as if they lacked a philosophy or vision to guide him.
Take a look at what he proposes for France on his website, (according to the Google translation-bot with some help from yours truly):
1. To put an end to the public impotence
2. An irreproachable democracy
3. To overcome unemployment
4. To rehabilitate work ethic
5. To increase the purchasing power
6. Europe must protect in globalization
7. Address the crisis of sustainable development
8. To promote homeownership among the French
9. To transmit the reference marks of the authority, the respect and the merit
10. A school which guarantees the success of all students
11. To have the best higher education and research in the world
12. To leave the difficult districts the relegation and spiral of violence.
13. To control immigration
14. Great policies of solidarity, fraternal and responsible
15. Proud to be French
Mais, oui!
Many of these policies would sound familiar to Republicans who listened to George Bush, from "No Child Left Behind" to immigration reform to the ownership society. But others really do not sound conservative at all. It's more like taking pages from the Democratic playbook. Others - proud to be French? - sound like political mish-mosh designed to appeal to those who are too lazy to think about what, if anything they mean.
Sarkozy took one issue directly from his opponent, Segolene Royal. Neither seemed to notice the irony of promoting a, "stronger Europe to protect," France from globalization. Working together, Europe has been able to strengthen the economies of all of its members with free movement of goods and people. So, now the thinking goes, since free trade of goods and labor has worked so well, Europe should now put a barrier around fortress Europe to keep the world from seeing such economic growth! That makes sense to me. Not!
Then again, I am not French.
But with his election, I realized why Nicolas Sarkozy rubs me the wrong way - he is essentially a French Bill Clinton. He'll triangulate away the core values of his party if it will make him popular.
If the Governors of the Federal Reserve are to be believed, the greatest threat to the American economy today is inflation. But as with many economic slow-downs in the past, the greater culprit may indeed be protectionism - both in trade and immigration.
To combat inflation, the Fed really only has one option - to raise interest rates, increasing the "cost" of money and slowing spending. A rate hike would also strengthen the dollar and thereby make imports cheaper. It would also cool the economy and ease inflationary pressures like full employment and economic expansion. But is that really what we want?
It seems that if there were another option to fighting inflation, putting the brakes on the American economy would not be the preferable route. Luckily, there is something the government can do to fight inflation that won’t hurt the American economy - fight protectionism, not growth.
This week, the Bush Administration announced a trade kerfuffle with China. It seems that the Chinese government is paying businesses to export consumer electronics components to the United States, in a practice called price-dumping. Our response? Slap a tariff on them!
We did the same a year ago when the Chinese Government was found subsidizing the export of polyester pants to American markets.
Let me get this straight. The Chinese Government wants to spend its money in order to make things cheaper for the American consumer. And we’re opposed to that? Why? Rather than raising interest rates as a way to make the dollar stronger, let’s instead encourage the Chinese government to make consumer products cheaper here at home!
The same ill logic is at play around the globe. Using sugar, Brazil makes enough ethanol to make the country practically energy independent. However, because we want to protect the corn industry in Iowa, America has slapped a huge tariff on Brazilian ethanol. Even though the Brazilian-produced product is more environmentally-friendly than our own corn-based ethanol.
If we want to fight global warming and move away from fossil fuels, shouldn’t we stop protecting Iowa farm-owners and start thinking about the fastest and cheapest ways to combat global warming in a non-inflationary manner?
When it comes to another commodity - labor - our policies are just as inflationary. The labor market is essentially running at capacity. We can’t create workers the same way we can create widgets, however. But we can recruit help. Rather than address our country’s labor shortage by passing immigration reforms, making it easier for those who want to work to do so legally, Congress - the Congress led by Democrats - and the Bush Administration pursued an enforcement-first strategy. The year of wrangling on this issue - not mention the misguided enforcement attempts - has had a chilling effect on the hiring of undocumented workers.
As a result, places like In-and-Out, the fast food restaurant, have had to raise wages. Other businesses - from my Laemmle art house movie theater to the neighborhood taco stand - are screaming out that they are “Now Hiring!” If increasing wages push prices higher, no one’s standard of living improves. But the tax man gets a raise - from higher tax receipts. And higher taxes have the same effect: They stifle economic growth.
That’s why it is important to grow our base of labor. The only way to do that in less than a couple decades - about the amount of time left before a growing number of American works hit retirement and leave the workforce - is to accommodate those whose lives would improve by coming to work in even the lowest-paying jobs in our country.
Whether we’re talking about actual commodities like ethanol or soft-commodities like labor, government’s instinct to protect Americans will, by triggering inflation and higher interest rates, hurt us all in the end.
Reluctant to blame the American troops for the failure to win the peace in Iraq, Democrats, when they’re not attacking the Bush Administration, will often point the finger at the Iraqi government: "If the Iraqis don’t get their act together, then we should pull out,” they’ll say.
But if we Americans all looked in the mirror, we'd see that our own government doesn’t look so effective. And our political factions are as vitriolic as the Sunnis and Shiites, minus the blowing-things-up, of course.
A recent survey of Iraqis found that the Iraqi people are losing faith in the democratic process and its ability to get things done. It's, admittedly, not one of the regime’s strong points. As they said, Mussolini, a fascist, got the trains to run on time! Iraqis are by and large pessimistic about the availability of electricity, clean water, schools, medical services, police protection and so on.
While most Iraqis think things will get better in the future, they’re evenly split when it comes to their confidence in the central government. One thing most all can agree on - 94% at least - is that separation along sectarian lines is a bad thing.
Looking at the United States, however, I have to say that, when it comes to building infrastructure and getting things done, we’re not much better off than the Iraqis. The only difference is we’re not shooting each other. Government inaction and delay is a problem at every level.
When was the last time Congress passed a bill which the President signed? It’s been more than three months…and the last bill another two months before that! Despite promises to pass a whole agenda of bills within the first 100 working hours of the new Congress, nearly one hundred days in not one bill has hit the President’s desk and some Senators have the gall to say that the Al Maliki government can’t get its act together!
Ask the people of New Orleans how well the reconstruction is coming along after Hurricane Katrina - I'd imagine they'd be as optimistic as the Iraqis if not less so!
Oh, and just try building critical infrastructure in the United States. Twenty-seven years after Los Angeles voters chose to tax themselves to invest in a public transit system, only 30% of what was promised has been delivered.
Think your company wants to build a landfill to take waste from the nation’s second-largest city? Only if you go through a decade or more of contentious public hearings... In Los Angeles, BFI has been trying to get permits for the Sunshine Canyon landfill since the 1990's
Want to build an off-shore facility to import natural gas to meet California’s growing need? Prepare for the ire of Hollywood who not only thinks it owns the beach in Malibu, but also the ocean!
My point is that, well, Democracy is messy. If you want to get things done - here or in Iraq - then choose another for of government. But if you believe that the people are sovereign and government derives its power from them, then you’ve got to be ready to get dirty as things work themselves out.
Given Americans' rapidly-declining confidence in our own Congress, maybe we should bolster Iraqi confidence by showing them that we're just as frustrated here in the States.
Twenty years ago, President Ronald Reagan stood on the corner of Erbertstrasse and June 17th Street before the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and called upon Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to "open this gate," and "tear down this wall!" Two years later as satellites zoomed images of ordinary citizens taking sledgehammers to that very wall, the world knew, once and for all that the 50-year Cold War was over.
Realists assessing the Global War on Terrorism often compare it to the Cold War. Whereas the latter was a military and ideological struggle between East and West, between capitalism and communism, the former is paramilitary and theological conflict between North and South, between Muslim and Christian. The international dialectic remains - true believes on both sides - even though the paradigm has changed.
The struggles of the cold war are a good lens through with to see today's struggle. But when President George W. Bush or Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani talk about the War on terrorism in a broader, longer context, like the Cold War, I find myself asking, "how will we know the war has ended?"
That question became more pressing for me over the long holiday weekend as I traveled to Berlin just as the City was celebrating its Film Festival and Mardi Gras--one event which tried to portray the City as a global leader, and the other which showed how the City is a follower of others. Berlin in the height of the Cold War, like Baghdad today, was a metropolis divided into sectors, where lives of U.S. forces and those of ordinary citizens were lost on a regular basis as America waged a war for freedom.
Today, the markers memorializing the site of the former Berlin Wall - once a literal and literary Rubicon - are easily confused with bike paths in other parts of the city.
In his remarks to the California Republican Party, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani credited international capitalism for its contribution to bringing down the Iron Curtain. When McDonalds, Pizza Hut and other American corporations opened their doors behind in socialist and communist nations and were embraced by the public, it was a harbinger of things to come. Economic and social freedom, Giuliani said, were advanced through our private institutions, in support of a higher public objective.
But there is no Berlin Wall in the war on terror. Capturing Saddam Hussein did not end the War in Iraq and doing the same to Osama Bin Laden won't end the threat of Al Qaeda and other Islamo-fascist militants. So how will we know that we have won?
Continue reading "War on Terror: How Will We Know if We Win?" »
The environmental movement - always a darling of the political left - is now showing its true colors. Once they were joined by the parties who usually work against their agenda, it did not take long for environmentalists to change their tune about Global Warming. Rather than celebrate the support they've gotten from big business and "evil" Republicans, environmental groups are now turning their movement away from solving problems and into a medium to wage class warfare.
First, George Bush declared war on "climate change" in his State of the Union address. Around the world, political leaders from left to right and now business executives meeting in Davos for the Global Economic Forum have taken up anti-Global Warming positions.
Even the royals are getting in on the act. Just days after Prince Charles cited global warming as a reason to cancel his winter ski vacation to Switzerland, he boarded a British Ariways flight to America, where one of his viewing options in First Class was to watch a personal video of the Oscar-nominated film, "The Queen."
Ironic, of course. But the film provides a nice example of the way the political deck is stacked against those who might be in the best position to help.
In the film, on the night of the car crash in Paris that killed the Princess of Wales, Prince Charles insists that he fly to be by his ex-wife's side in the French capitol. From Balmoral, he had two options—take a private jet or fly commercial. "That is precisely the kind of thing people criticize us for," responds Helen Mirren's Elizabeth when Charles wants to take a private jet in the middle of the night. Ten years ago, populists attacked the Royals for their excesses. Why should the British taxpayers fund midnight flights on private jets, they would ask? The push was to abolish - or at least modernize - the system of privileges to bring the entitled classes closer to the common man. It was class warfare at its most evident.
Being Oscar minded, it was hard not to think of "The Queen" when reading reports of Prince Charles' and the Duchess of Cornwall's trip to Philadelphia and New York last weekend. Environmental activists all but called the two day trip, "plane stupid," and the UK's Minister for the Environment suggested that the royal accept a Harvard-sponsored award for environmental activism over video-conference rather than in person. Similar objections could be heard when San Francisco's flamboyant Mayor Gavin Newsom flew to Davos to meet with global business leaders who were at the same time embracing an agenda to control carbon emissions and combat global warming.
This environmental class warfare has translated into public policy, at least in Europe. Starting Thursday, travelers to and from the United Kingdom will be paying a doubled departure tax - justified by the government as a means to offset the carbon emissions of flying in airplanes. However, the cost of the tax - between $19 and $156 per person - are far greater than the most expensive carbon offset solutions, while it punishes travelers in premium cabins disproportionately, at four times the tax paid by those in coach. Now that's the epitome of class warfare!
Why the environmental movement cannot be happy that business and conservative politicians have come to agree with them, should come as no surprise. Although their politics are labeled "green," most environmentalists are as "red" as their liberal and socialist allies. Heretofore, environmental regulations were a way to thwart capitalism.
Now that markets have found value in going green, these same activists are likely appalled at the thought that their movement is being leveraged for - ack! - profit!
The core of George W. Bush's foreign policy seems to be based on a principle learned from his father—Democracies don't fight each other and by spreading Democracy, we can establish a new, more peaceful world order.
On a short-term basis, that theory is being called into question with election results in Iraq and the Palestinian Authority. However, recent rioting in Hungary reminds us that we should be wary what lessons of Democracy Americans are teaching to these newly-freed countries.
News accounts of the events which triggered rioting in the streets of Budapest this week sound like they could be pulled from the pages of the Sacramento Bee.
The Hungarian premier is resisting pressure to step down after a recording was leaked in which the Socialist leader admitted his government lied about Hungary's economy to win April elections.
Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany seems to be taking the worst of California politics over the last five years.
Early in the 2002 campaign for Governor of California, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan began attacking Governor Gray Davis over the imbalance of the State's budget. The problem he said, was as large as ten billion dollars.
Davis, in turn, attacked Riordan in the Republican primary as a doddering old fool who was just making up numbers. There was no deficit, California voters were told.
When Bill Simon, the eventual winner of the GOP Primary that year brought up the State budget deficit again that fall, Davis reiterated that no such deficit existed.
Shortly after winning re-election, Governor Gray Davis disclosed that, indeed, the State had a structural deficit of $8 billion and a cumulative debt nearly four times as much.
That betrayal of the public trust led to the Recall vote in 2003 which, rather than being a media circus, as it was portrayed at the time, seems like a relatively peaceful for of putch in comparison to what's happened this week in Budapest. I somehow doubt that the Magyar will replace their P.M. with an Austrian, however.
Opponents of Gyurcsany prompted the riots this week by taking a page from Schwarzenegger rival Phil Angelides—leaking secret tapes. When will politicians learn not to record their private conversations?!? It's not just for Republicans any more!
What Hungary teaches us Americans should be that as we spread Democracy around the world, we should be wary that others will emulate us—including picking the worst of American political traditions: mudslinging and lying to voters.
