Day: June 9, 2016

Do Clinton Voters Care?

Now that the Dems have the person that will carry the mantle of progressivism into thew battle for the hearts and minds of the American people…..time to ask the important question……

My daughter and I have always had political debates…..she is a chip off the old block…..but does not mean that we agree on stuff…..and this election is no different.

Most of my readers know that I am not a Clinton supporter……I wish I could say that my daughter is the same….she is not…..she is a Clinton supporter. (Oh the horror!)….

My daughter has always championed women’s rights and to her having a woman this close to winning the presidency is a dream come true….I have tried to reason with her and Have had very limited success….

There are a couple of questions that I asked her and now I ask my readers……

In America, we do not lock up our murdering politicians. We rarely prosecute or impeach them. The only scandals that stick are sex ones. Serious voters, writers, pundits, and anyone else who feels as if they have deep principles invariably buckle under the partisan weight of the political system. She hasn’t yet been coronated, but […]

Source: Do Clinton Voters Care About War? – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

But with all the stuff, even though they do not care……what will they do if they do not vote for the Hil?

But you’re voting for Hilary, right? Not Trump, are you?” twenty-eight something says, stepping over homeless to get her double vanilla mocha.

“Let me repeat – Both are perverts. Perverted people, perverted thinkers, and a commentary on how blasphemed any semblance of democracy might be.” I am a 59-year-old, with my client, a former meth addicted 59-year-old who once was running the streets of Portland for decades, hundreds of violations of county and city codes, five addiction programs later, a rap sheet as long as Clinton’s illegal and unethical funder list, as deep and lengthy as Trump’s illegal and unethical tax dodging schemes and plain old usury in the Jesus-going-after-Jews-in-the-market sense. I was buying the bloke a coffee and roll for getting a job that day. One big road to recovery, at $10 an hour, after living the life of a dealer with a couple of grand cash in his pocket.…

Source: But If You Don’t Vote for Hillary, Then What…? – LA Progressive

This election no matter which party you are attached at the hip to, will be an interesting one to follow.

Me?  I’m going for a burger and a beer.

Could not resist this one…..

Are We Winning?

If every success some of our supported minions have then we are told that we are winning the war on terror….when we kill a leader or destroy a cash stash or drive a group from this site or another…if every one of those we are told, mostly by the propaganda arm of the government, the media…..we are slowly winning the war…..but are we?

I read a story that says that the number of terrorist attacks has declined over the last year……

The State Department says there was a 13% decrease in the number of global terrorist attacks between 2014 and 2015—the first such decline since 2012. There were 11,774 attacks that resulted in 28,328 deaths in 2015, compared with 13,463 attacks in 2014 that killed 32,727 people, according to an annual survey of worldwide terrorism, per the AP. Of those killed in 2015, 19 were private American citizens, compared with 24 in 2014. Attacks and deaths declined in Iraq, Pakistan, and Nigeria, but they increased in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, the Philippines, Syria, and Turkey. Iran remained the “foremost state sponsor of terrorism in 2015” through its support of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and anti-Israel groups such as Hamas, the report says.

The Islamic State remained the greatest worldwide terrorist threat with a “formidable force” of fighters in Iraq and Syria. Al-Qaeda and affiliates also remained active in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of West Africa and North Africa, where it continued to stage mass casualty strikes, including on hotels in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Tunisia, as well as the bombing of a Russian passenger jet, the report finds. In East Africa, the report notes that Somali group al-Shabab remained a serious threat in 2015 not only in Somalia but in neighboring Kenya. Along with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, the Sinai, Somalia, and Syria, the report designated Libya, the southern Philippines, the Sahara, Yemen, and portions of Colombia and Venezuela as “terrorist safe havens” where groups are able to operate with relative ease due to poor or inadequate governance.

Could that be a realistic indicator that we are winning….or is it just another “feel good” story that the media likes to pass off as news?

Personally, I do not see it….I mean terror is a tactic not an entity…..we can possibly lessen the attacks….but defeating it…..I have my doubts.

Apparently the UN is not that optimistic either….

A new report from UN Undersecretary-General Jeffrey Feltman warned today that despite a lot of talk of ISIS suffering major setbacks in recent weeks, the group is not being weakened strategically, and continues to attract large amounts of recruits internationally.

Feltman’s report conceded that airstrikes have put ISIS’ oil revenue under pressure, but that they have been able to significantly diversify their sources of funding, including smuggling antiquities and taxing the local population of their territory.

The report also says ISIS is converting its stores of local currency into gold and other tradable commodities, and seeking to increase the amount of revenue it generates from kidnapping and ransoming international hostages.

Rather than an ISIS in decline, the report says ISIS is moving to “a new phase,” trying to build up its affiliates, move its assets abroad, and send more returnees back to their countries of origin to launch attacks globally.

What are your, my readers, thoughts?

He Doesn’t Believe in “American Exceptionalism”

American Exceptionalism is a term that many Americans grasp eagerly……I have written a couple of times on the subject in the past…….most heartily embraced by the Right as a leading characteristic of their neocon movement….

But to refresh your memory about those that I posted….

https://lobotero.com/2015/03/06/the-real-american-exceptionalism-the-unz-review/

https://lobotero.com/2015/03/13/its-time-to-rethink-american-exceptionalism-the-nation/

https://lobotero.com/2016/02/19/flies-under-the-banner-of-american-exceptionalism/

Those were a few presses with my on-going commentary…..

Most Americans have no idea where the term originated…..was it just always so or was there a point where it became the “in term”?

American Exceptionalism was widely used during the administration of Woodrow Wilson……

Wilson’s idealism was firmly grounded in the belief that the United States was a nation set apart by its values and principles from the rest of the world. He believed strongly that the “force of America is the force of moral principle” and that the “idea of America is to serve humanity.” Long before he became president, Wilson wrote of his conviction that the United States had a “plain destiny [to] serve [rather than] subdue the world.” Later, as president, he would contend that this destiny to serve was the only possible motivation for American actions in the world. Wilson held that “morality not expediency” must be the guiding principle of all American policy. He applied this principle to the use of American military force. As Frederick Calhoun argues, Wilson “showed no aversion to fighting if the end justified the means.” As Wilson stated, he believed that while other nations used force “for the oppression of mankind and their own aggrandizement,” the United States would use force only “for the elevation of the spirit of the human race.”

(You may thank me for the historical perspective by sending a donation to your local humane society)

Not many people were thrilled when I disputed the term….and now it seems that Trump is not a big fan of the term either…..will be interesting to see if the Right will buck him on this……

“I don’t think it’s a very nice term.

2012, the Republican Party was so hot to hype its love of “American exceptionalism” that it devoted one of the party platform’s seven sections to this notion. In this document, the GOP proclaimed that it embraced “American exceptionalism—the conviction that our country holds a unique place in human history.” But with Donald Trump now the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee, the party may have to delete this doctrine from the platform it will be constructing at its upcoming convention in Cleveland, because Trump has explicitly declared that he does not believe in American exceptionalism.

Source: Donald Trump Says He Doesn’t Believe in “American Exceptionalism” | Mother Jones

I cannot wait to see if there is any blow back….or if the Right wimps out and just rides along on the coattails of Trump….my guess is that they will just ignore it and keep fondling the Trump ego.

What do you think the outcome will be?

What’s Next For Western Sahara?

My regulars know that I have a soft spot in my heart for Western Sahara…..years ago when I was working in North Africa and the Middle East I had the opportunity to visit and work in Western Sahara…I was doing research and analysis for a Spanish newspaper……..I fell in love with the region and the people……

Since those days I have been watching and writing about the area’s struggle for independence from Morocco…..it is not as complicated as the news media and the Moroccan government would have one believe…..

The death of the leader of the Polisario, a group fighting for the independence of Western Sahara, has the whole movement in a quandary…..

Late Polisario Front leader Mohamed Abdelaziz kept the dispute over Western Sahara peaceful, but a fruitless, 25-year-long cease-fire with Morocco has young Sahrawis impatient.

Source: What’s next in Western Sahara dispute after death of Polisario leader?

A leader of the independence movement in Western Sahara died Tuesday. Mohamed Abdelaziz was the leader and co-founder of the Sahrawi people’s Polisario Front movement, which has demanded independence ever since Morocco took over most of Western Sahara in 1975. He was 68. A 16-year-long insurgency led by the indigenous Polisario Front ended with a U.N.-brokered truce in 1991. The resolution promised a referendum on independence, which has yet to take place. Morocco is only willing to grant limited autonomy to the disputed region. Eighty-four countries as well as the African Union recognize Western Sahara as an independent nation. In March, Morocco expelled U.N. staffers from Western Sahara after Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon referred to Morocco’s rule over the region as “occupation” during a visit to refugee camps in the Algerian town of Tindouf, located in southwestern Algeria. The expulsion of the 84 U.N. staffers has put at risk the ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario Front.

It is only a matter of time before this situation explodes again…….the US will naturally come down on the side of Morocco because of some misguided loyalty from the past.

The UN will do whatever the US tells them to do……especially if it falls into the Security Council where the US can use all its power to keep a people oppressed.

What can we expect from the beacon of freedom and liberty?

Migration And Climate Change

I want to touch on the subject of climate change….let me say here that I do not give a crap about your opinion on climate change…..regardless of your views the fact is that it is happening…..I will talk about its influence on the international situations…..

I recently wrote a post about what was happening in the Middle East with climate change…..it is getting hotter and hotter and drought is becoming a yearly norm….but no need to do much of a summary just read it for yourself…..

Source: Climate Change And The Middle East – In Saner Thought

I recently read an interview about the problems with migration and climate change…….

Climate change is now adding new layers of complexity to the nexus between migration and the environment.

Coastal populations are at particular risk as a global rise in temperature of between 1.1 and 3.1 degrees C would increase the mean sea level by 0.36 to 0.73 meters by 2100, adversely impacting low-lying areas with submergence, flooding, erosion, and saltwater intrusion, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

But even before such catastrophes strike, the 660 to 820 million people who depend on a fishing livelihood – more so subsistence-based traditional fisher families who already find catches sharply dwindling due to over-fishing – will have no option but to abandon both home and occupation and move.

Source: Crisis and Climate Change Driving Unprecedented Migration | Informed Comment

Climate change is a problem that is feeding the world’s problems….problems like conflict and migration and famine….many are trying to out run the problems….but unfortunately they cannot run fast enough to do so.