Tag: Political Solutions

Can We Be Hopeful?

These are days that try men’s souls….our nation seems to be dissolving in front of our eyes.

Many of us are worried the nation will destroy itself and others are just as certain that all will be okay if we just give it time to straighten itself out.

This is an opinion piece along these lines…..

I grew up in a place called Freedom.

Freedom, Pennsylvania, to be exact. In the borough of Economy. My high school is in a town named after the American Bridge Company. The son of an Army veteran and a nurse. A literal white picket fence. Family of five. A dog. The American Dream by many measures.

Nearly 40 years later, I’m not sure I believe in that American Dream. And I’m not alone in that doubt. This year, the United States will celebrate 250 years of independence — with fireworks, reenactments, and the familiar stories of founders and freedom. But for a lot of us, the milestone lands differently. Not as a celebration, exactly. More like a question we can’t stop asking.

Independence from what? And for whom?

I’ve watched the definition of freedom narrow in my lifetime. I’ve felt the quiet suggestion — sometimes subtle, sometimes loud — that people like me are outside the frame of what this country was meant to be. And yet, queer people have always been here. In towns like mine. In families like mine. Serving, building, showing up. We were never separate from the American story; we were just edited out.

When I say I’m not sure I believe in the American Dream, I mean: I’m not sure the version I was handed was ever the whole truth. What I’m still reaching for is something underneath it — a possibility that requires participation, friction, and revision. Something that asks more from us than nostalgia.

Which brings me to hope. And how hard it is to hold onto right now. Author and civil rights activist James Baldwin once wrote, Hope — the hope that we, human beings, can be better than we are — dies hard; perhaps one can no longer live if one allows that hope to die. But it is also hard to see what one sees. Published in 1972. It could have been written this morning.

https://thefulcrum.us/democracy/i-m-not-optimistic-about-america-at-250-im-still-hopeful

What do you think?

I think we can survive….but not from the sidelines as a by-stander….I think we need to go out and make our positions known and demand our rights and the survival of our country.

But that is just me.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Should We Redraw Our Map?

The country is “Slipping Into Darkness”……song made famous War….(the group not the conflict)……

For a couple of decades now the US has been separating itself into tribes…..and it has only gotten worse and the last election illustrates just how far this division has gone.

Of course you know I have written on the subject before, right?

https://lobotero.com/2018/05/11/tribes/

Our beloved nation is slipping further and further into ‘tribalism’…..which, in my opinion, will destroy this country and all we have made of it in the last 200+ years.

For about five decades the politics of fear have us dividing ourselves into tribes….basically it is ‘us against them’……these tribes that will destroy all we have accomplished.

People have always used fear for intimidation of the subordinates or enemies, and shepherding the tribe by the leaders. Recently, it appears that Pres. Trump has used fear by suggesting in a tweet that four minority congresswomen go back to the places they came from.

There is a longstanding history of employing the fear of “the others,” turning humans into illogical ruthless weapons, in service to an ideology. Fear is a very strong tool that can blur humans’ logic and change their behavior.

Fear is arguably as old as life. It is deeply ingrained in the living organisms that have survived extinction through billions of years of evolution. Its roots are deep in our core psychological and biological being, and it is one of our most intimate feelings. Danger and war are as old as human history, and so are politics and religion.

https://theconversation.com/the-politics-of-fear-how-it-manipulates-us-to-tribalism-113815

How you may ask?

All this division and tribalism is threatening the pillar of our nation…the Constitution.

“Americans have come to view the Constitution not as a statement of shared principles but as a cudgel with which to attack their enemies”  Gordon Wood…….Not a more accurate observation has been found.

The U.S. Constitution was and is imperfect. It took a civil war to establish that the principles enumerated in its Bill of Rights extended to all Americans, and the struggle to live up to those principles continues today. But focusing on the Constitution’s flaws can overshadow what it did achieve. Its revolutionary ambition was to forge, out of a diverse population, a new national identity, uniting Americans under a banner of ideas. To a remarkable extent, it succeeded.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/the-threat-of-tribalism/568342/

Maybe we should forget about Greenland and do some work on the good old US of A…..(link has an interactive map for your ease of comprehension)….

… a new way to map the diverse lands that make up the United States. Unlike a traditional classroom map, this uses counties rather than states as the building blocks for its regions. The United Regions of America map solves the problem that many states actually lie in more than one distinct region (for example: Ohio, Texas, Virginia, Colorado, California, or New York, to name a few). And since there are 3,142 counties (including areas equivalent to counties), the regional boundaries can be drawn much more precisely than with just 50 states.

https://jeremyposadas.org/regions/

If you did not like that map…then maybe this one will be more to your liking…..https://considerable.com/us-map-38-states/

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Your Country Needs You!

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

The Partition Of Syria

Back in the glorious year of 2003 and the invasion and the following occupation of Iraq there was an answer floating around to all the sectarian violence……partitioning.

The idea was first floated in the media by Sen. Joe Biden…..he stated that this would make all units or factions in the country happy….in essence a power sharing deal for all people.

Later others jumped on the bandwagon as the violence grew and grew..

Now the same type of idea is being floated about the violence in Syria…..

Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama emerged from talks this week predictably far apart on the question of Bashar Al-Assad’s future. Russia wants him to remain as their client, recognising him as the country’s leader. Britain and the US say he will never be accepted by a majority of Syrians, who want him to go. What neither side will countenance is the only feasible option: dividing the country into separate ethno-sectarian cantons.Putin and Obama agree on the need to take on ISIL. But doing so now, when the war has come to be defined as Sunni versus Alawi – and other minorities – will only feed Sunni resentment and bolster the popularity of ISIL. A key first step is to create two arenas: one a coastal strip dominated by Alawis, Christians and sections of the urban middle classes; the other a Sunni zone, much of which is already controlled by opposition groups. Only with a safe and defensible canton will Alawis be willing to see Assad fall. Once the Sunni zone has been established, the West can assist ISIL’s opponents without bolstering Assad or conferring legitimacy on IS.In other words, intervention only becomes possible with the creation of a federal Syria operating under a power-sharing, or consociational, system.

Source: Partition: It’s time to recognise reality in Syria | USAPP

Image result for partition of syria

 

The Partition of Syria is a scenario to end the Syrian Civil War.  It would mean the division of the country along sectarian (religious) and ethnic lines.   The war is viewed of as largely a sectarian conflict.   Russia, the United States, Israel, and other UN representatives have suggested the idea of “federal division” (an effort deemed “Balkanization” President Bashar al-Assad has not ruled out the possibility of a federal democratic state of Syria. The opposition, however, has rejected the offer during negotiations; it has been stated that “dividing Syria is not acceptable at all”, and that a “non-central government” is the right direction. The Kurds, however, are open to the idea.  (wikipedia)

This idea will hold the same outcome as that in Iraq…..the violence will not end and the central government will be unable to govern.

Source: Iran’s Plan B: The Partition of Syria | Middle East Briefing

Then there is the US and their “Plan B…….

US secretary of State John Kerry called for Syria to be partitioned saying it was “Plan B” if negotiations fail.  But in reality this was always plan A. Plans to balkanize Syria, Iraq and other Middle Eastern states were laid out by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a 2006 trip to Tel Aviv. It was part of the so called “Project For a New Middle East”. This was a carbon copy of the Odid Yinon plan drawn up by Israel in 1982. The plan outlined the way in which Middle Eastern countries could be balkanized along sectarian lines. This would result in the creation of several weak landlocked micro-states that would be in perpetual war with each other and never united enough to resist Israeli expansionism.

“Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan… ” Oded Yinon, “A strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”,

Source: John Kerry’s Plan to Balkanize Middle East Countries. The Partition of Syria “if Negotiations Fail” | Global Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

Personally I do not believe that this, the partitioning of Syria, is the answer to this problem……I think it will create more hard feelings than there exists today.

Here are 10 new ways other countries are actually solving problems

The US is facing many domestic problems….this country is more than capable of solving these problems it is just the leaders are not willing to do so……

Other countries have handled such problems as the thieving bankers,  alt energy, drugs….just to mention a few……see how other countries are solving problems…..

The Presidential candidates have been sounding off for almost two years now, pointing out (or in many cases manufacturing) all of America’s problems, and offering solutions they believe will make them the next President. The candidates, especially to the right of the political spectrum, extoll America as being exceptional, and they score empty points with voters by talking about how the rest of the planet looks to the United States to solve the world’s woes. It is surprising, then, to see how many of these seemingly intractable problems are being far more effectively tackled by the countries we are supposed to be “leading”. Maybe it’s time for America to start looking elsewhere for innovative solutions.

Here are 10  examples of problems being solved everywhere but in America:

Source: Here are 10 new ways other countries are actually solving problems — and kicking America’s ass

If these countries, which have less resources than the US, can do amazing things then why is the US slow to do so?

The citizens, all citizens, of this country deserve better from the clowns we elect……but will this election prove any different from the past ones?

Iraq: Is There A GOP Plan?

I have written often that it is a shame that the GOP has not got a clue……on every issue they are scratching their heads trying to find something the American people can get on board with…….so far they got NOTHING!

Seeing that most of the WAR HAWKS are in the GOP you would think that they would have at least a stupid idea of how to handle the Islamic State……..they have their fair hair boys and among these is the Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio…….

But first let us look at the plan that Obama mapped out during his speech……..

First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists.  Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense.  Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are.  That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq.  This is a core principle of my presidency:  If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

Second, we will increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground.  In June, I deployed several hundred American servicemembers to Iraq to assess how we can best support Iraqi security forces.  Now that those teams have completed their work –- and Iraq has formed a government –- we will send an additional 475 servicemembers to Iraq.  As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission –- we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq.  But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment.  We’ll also support Iraq’s efforts to stand up National Guard Units to help Sunni communities secure their own freedom from ISIL’s control.

Third, we will continue to draw on our substantial counterterrorism capabilities to prevent ISIL attacks.  Working with our partners, we will redouble our efforts to cut off its funding; improve our intelligence; strengthen our defenses; counter its warped ideology; and stem the flow of foreign fighters into and out of the Middle East.  And in two weeks, I will chair a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to further mobilize the international community around this effort.

Fourth, we will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians who have been displaced by this terrorist organization.  This includes Sunni and Shia Muslims who are at grave risk, as well as tens of thousands of Christians and other religious minorities.  We cannot allow these communities to be driven from their ancient homelands.

There you have Obama’s plan………

Now back to Rubio…..in a recent interview he critiqued Obama’s plan thusly…….

. In an Op-Ed for the Washington Post, Rubio writes that Obama’s speech offered the “potential to begin a departure from the isolationism that he and former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton have advocated during their years in office,” but there is a “risk” that Obama’s “focus on a counterterrorism campaign akin to those waged in Yemen and Somalia, and his reliance on regional partners to deal with the challenge posed by the Islamic State, could lead to the continuation of what has been the most disengaged presidential foreign policy in modern American history.”

Okay Rubio is not happy with Obama’s plan….he sees it as leading to failure.

Then when asked just what his plan would be if it were up to him…….

To confront the Islamic State terrorists, we need a sustained air campaign targeting their leadership, sources of income and supply routes, wherever they exist. We must increase our efforts to equip and capacitate non-jihadists in Syria to fight the terrorist group. And we must arm and support forces in Iraq confronting it, including responsible Iraqi partners and the Kurds. In addition, we must persuade nations in the region threatened by the Islamic State to participate in real efforts to defeat it.

There you have it….a GOP plan for the handling of the situation in Iraq and Syria……..

You know I think I have heard that plan somewhere else recently…..can you think of where that would be?

Congress: Everybody Needs A Good Laugh

The US Congress has been a gutless, spineless and none productive organ of government…..it has sunk to its lowest approval rating EVER!

They are concerned about the gridlock….and they now have an answer……..wait for it!

A bipartisan group of over 90 congressmen today announced the formation of a caucus, expressly created to answer the burning, difficult question of our time: How can Congress solve problems?

For real, The Hill actually reported that the group announced its existence at a No Labels summit this morning, and vowed to find bipartisan ways to solve some burning problems, such as energy independence and budget-balancing, since it is so very hard for Congress to solve a problem.

There you have the big joke of the day…….Congress has formed a caucus to find why nothing is getting done in the Legislative Branch……..

And that is the humorous story of the day………the problem will find a solution…….yep, and your check is in the mail!

Just Wait For It

An issue that has had much confrontation is that of immigration……there is a wealth of solutions to the problem but NO one will support any of them…….the Right has said of years that the best way to handle the issue of immigration is for people to put their names on a list and wait for the opportunity to come to this country legally…….sounds good right?

Here is what that solution will get you……..

In 1981, Norma Uy was deemed eligible for an immigration visa by way of her sister, a U.S. Citizen. At the time, her two-year-old daughter also applied for a visa through a provision of U.S. immigration law that allows the children of visa applicants to also be considered. The petition was approved the very same day it was filed. But it wasn’t until 21 years later that Norma’s name got to the top of the visa waiting list and she was granted legal permanent residence. By that point, her daughter Ruth was 23 years old, and wasn’t permitted to immigrate with her mother, under an agency interpretation of federal law that deemed Ruth no longer a “child.” Norma was forced to choose between leaving her daughter behind and attempting to bring her over later, or not going at all after a 21-year wait.

That mindless solution seems to be no solution at all…..I can understand why some choose to enter the States illegally……doing it the right way is NO way not all…….

Thoughts?

It’s A Polarized World

I wish there were other things to go on about these days….but all we have is Christie and personally, don’t give a crap what he does….and then we have Gates’ book and his ‘damning’ of the prez and Clinton….again….yawn!  So I will divert my attention to a subject that the media loves to point out almost hourly…………

Yep, the media likes to keep harping on the fact that the country is becoming more and more polarized…..that we cannot agree on much beyond the day of the week…they see the country as broken as the government in DC…..it’s the polarization that is keeping this country down.

I will agree with them, the media, that the government is in sad shape….but as far as the country goes….I just don’t see it.

About now many people are thinking…..”has the old professor lots what little mind he has left?”

Let me explain……on my site I have several people that do not quite agree with me on a whole array of subjects and their sites seem to be so full of hate….but when I visit their site or they mine we seem to have a civil conversation and in some cases find that we have the same beliefs on some subjects.  We talk without the usual insult slinging and find we are on the same side on a few issues….and to me that is a good starting point…as long as we can get past the traditional love/hate paradigm.

After I started this post that I intended to store as draft I found an article that is pretty much along the lines I am talking about…….

Conventional wisdom has it that America is more polarized in terms of politics and culture than at any point in history. “Not so fast,” writes Nick Gillespie at Time. It may seem that way because of the talking heads on cable news and the fringe politicians who love to make headlines, but a closer look at the views of actual Americans tells a different story. He ticks off a list of issues such as pot legalization, attitudes toward homosexuality, and abortion (only 20% think it should be legal in all circumstances, which is pretty much unchanged over decades) and finds a majority of Americans in sync on them. Of course, gray areas and rooms for disagreement exist in those and other issues. “But with so many pressing problems confronting Washington, acknowledging that more unites us than divides us might be a smart way to create a future that doesn’t revolve hermeneutic readings of the theological implications of reality TV stars or actively ignoring what large majorities of Americans actually believe,” writes Gillespie. Click to read his full column.

Americans, if they can get past the ideological mud slinging, will find that many of us have the same doubts and desires for the direction of the country……granted we may not want to approach the solutions exactly the same but agreeing is a great place to start in finding those elusive solutions to the complex problems.

Please, do not let the media, both right and left, crap on the idea of Americans agreeing to work together for the country.

Turn The States Loose!

College Of Political Knowledge

Since the election of ’08 we have had numerous attempts or perceived attempts, if you like, to limit some of the rights that we have as Americans…..like voting, electing officials, civil rights, on and on……and recently Americans have had an outlet, besides the internet, for their whining and dislike for the direction of the country…….that outlet has been the site where they can partition the government for certain things….the most popular has been the secession partitions….Texas alone has over 100,000 signatures and all 50 states has one also….so it is not an isolated occurrence…..

There are federal laws concerning many of what we like to call rights….but in the recent past the states have started limiting these rights……while the states cannot make them illegal they can, once they stack state legislatures they can severely limit the access to these rights…..want examples?  FINE!  Abortion, whether one approves or not, it is still not illegal by federal law……more?  Marijuana…..federal law against but states are staring the process to de-criminalize it……..voting–states are attempting to regulate who gets elected by using some obscure crap about voter fraud–there is NO rampant voter fraud!  Or states that can eliminate elected officials at the whim of the governor……there are more about for the brevity of this post, you get the idea……

Since states want to control these federal rights and want to undermine the federal government I say there is a way…….since the Tea Party came to power they have stubbornly insisted on massive spending cuts….not so much to make the the government more stable but rather to undermine the federal government to the point that is is nothing more than a group or people that get paid to do nothing but show up once in awhile in the capital…….like I stated previously…..there is a way to do this and make the whiners and the small government people happy……..

Professor, what could that simple answer be?

Articles Of Confederation–return to the beginning and re-install the AOC……but why would this make those people I mentioned happy?

Well, let’s look at the Articles

  1. Establishes the name of the confederation with these words: “The Style of this confederacy shall be ‘The United States of America.'”
  2. Asserts the sovereignty of each state, except for the specific powers delegated to the confederation government, i.e. “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated.”
  3. Not being sovereign, it does not call the United States of America a “nation” or “government,” but instead says, “The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.”
  4. But to instill a national feeling, “[t]he better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this union,” it establishes equal treatment and freedom of movement  for the free inhabitants of each state to pass unhindered between the states, excluding “paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice.” All these people are entitled to equal rights established by the state into which he travels. If a crime is committed in one state and the perpetrator flees to another state, he will be extradited  to and tried in the state in which the crime was committed.
  5. Allocates one vote in the Congress of the Confederation (the “United States in Congress Assembled”) to each state, which is entitled to a delegation of between two and seven members. Members of Congress are appointed by state legislatures. Also, individuals may not serve more than three out of any six years.
  6. Only the central government is allowed to conduct foreign political or commercial relations and to declare war. No state or official may accept foreign gifts or titles, and granting any title of nobility is forbidden to all. States are restrained from forming sub-national groups. No state may tax or interfere with treaty stipulations already proposed . No state may engage in war, without permission of Congress, unless invaded or that is imminent on the frontier; no state may maintain a peace-time standing army or navy, unless infested by pirates, but every State is required to keep ready, a well-regulated (meaning well trained), disciplined, and equipped militia, with sufficient public stores of a due number of field pieces, tents, a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage.
  7. Whenever an army is raised for common defense, colonels and military ranks below colonel will be named by the state legislatures.
  8. Expenditures by the United States of America will be paid by funds raised by state legislatures, and apportioned to the states based on the real property values of each.
  9. Defines the sole and exclusive right and power of the United States in Congress assembled to determine peace and war; to exchange ambassadors; to enter into treaties and alliances, with some provisos; to establish rules for deciding all cases of captures or prizes on land or water; to grant letters of marque and reprisal (documents authorizing privateers) in times of peace; to appoint courts for the trial of pirates and crimes committed on the high seas; to establish courts for appeals in all cases of captures, but no member of Congress may be appointed a judge; to set weights and measures (including coins), and for Congress to serve as a final court for disputes between states.

I think these would make the whiners happy….they could run roughshod over their constituents at will…….they would be in complete control of others lives and rights….but also would mean the each state would have to bear the brunt of the costs for disasters, education, etc……..but they would NO longer be accountable to a central government…….and is not that what all these toads really want?

Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government’s power was kept quite limited. The Confederation Congress could make decisions, but lacked enforcement powers. Implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures.

States would be in total control of the destiny of the state as well as its residents……now that is what they really want!  If that is what they want….I say screw them….let them go…….

Personally, I think it is a damn silly idea……but I bet we can find a bunch of people that will like it……whatcha think?

Remember….Remember…..The 5th Of November

DISCLAIMER:  I am in NO way advocating any violence or violent act….all am doing is just…. saying……also this post was written before the tragic shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords……

The year is 1605, a gang of conspirators are planning the ultimate political statement…..the “Big Bang” theory….if you will……

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I see of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
‘Twas his intent.
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below.
Poor old England to overthrow.

And now the history lesson that you all so deserve……..the most notable of the conspirators mentioned is one Guy Fawkes…..

Guy Fawkes is the most famous among the conspirators who took part in 1605’s “Gunpowder Plot,” a failed attempt to blow up King James I of England and the Houses of Parliament. Fawkes and his partners were Roman Catholics who decided desperate measures were required to replace the king, a Protestant. The plot was hatched in the spring of 1604 by Robert Catesby, and eventually came down to a plan to blow up the parliament on 5 November 1605, the date of an official opening attended by members of both houses as well as the king. Fawkes and a dozen others took part in the plot, with Fawkes designated as the one in charge of the explosives. (During the 1590s he served in the Spanish army in the Netherlands, and it is thought he had experience with munitions.) Fawkes and his cohorts stashed 36 barrels — nearly two tons — of gunpowder in a rented cellar beneath the House of Lords. A search of the cellar the night of 4 November found the explosives and Fawkes, and he was arrested and tortured; within a few days the other conspirators were either killed or captured. On 31 January he was executed, after being tried and convicted of treason. Because the plot was foiled, 5 November was designated a holiday, but over time the holiday has also become a celebration of Fawkes’s revolutionary intent.Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/guy-fawkes#ixzz19dqCeDhy

I would bet that you, the reader, is asking just what I am going on about and why….am I right?

Over the centuries it has been shown that the people are unwilling to change the way things are being done in politics and for that reason I believe the Fawkes was not too wrong in his thinking….

Since the people are truly unwilling to do anything about the corrupt and ineffectual nature of their politicians maybe some form of direct action is needed….and I would say that Fawkes’s approach would be considered as just that….a direct action.

Years ago in my more radical days….I saw that the people were content with the lousy job that politicians are capable of and I said then that maybe we should call a joint session of Congress….gas all the reps and senators and then send a letter back to their state’s and districts say….they are all dead….start over!

Since politicians are NOT afraid of the will of the people…..Maybe then we would find some people willing to work for the country….knowing what would possibly happen if they didn’t…..we could move forward and cease the endless array of political games……

Just A Thought!  Just thinking out loud!