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Tibet and China

by Elizabeth S. Dahl, Guest Contributor

I completely understand and sympathize with the outrage people feel about the repressive treatment of Tibetans and others in the PRC. However, as someone who teaches Chinese politics, I want to caution those who agree with Jonathan Zimmerman about how to deal with the People's Republic of China (PRC). There is an important question of how to be most effective in addressing these concerns to Chinese leaders and thereby promoting constructive change.

As a good professor of 20th–century American history, Professor Zimmerman is operating from a Western understanding of the politics of protest. The American, French, and British protesters who blocked Olympic torchbearers also probably share this worldview.

Unfortunately, such tactics are not completely understood by Chinese leaders, nor even by many of the mainland Chinese. (Note how some China supporters now are jogging alongside the Olympic torch to prevent future attempts to disrupt the torch relays.) Based on a complex mix of different cultural factors and issues of historical memory, Chinese leaders view such actions as driven by “troublemakers” from former imperial powers who want to keep a rising country from reaching its true potential. This interpretation means that such protesters will not change minds in Beijing. Indeed, some Chinese leaders may be so insulted by such “unseemly” actions that they will crack down all the more on dissidents within their borders.

Fortunately, as so often is the case, there are ways of peaceful protest that may be more effective. In this particular situation, there even is a key figure who demonstrates such an approach: the Dalai Lama. By embodying a quiet, peaceful, reasonable attitude toward Chinese oppression—merely advocating nonviolence, greater autonomy for Tibetans, and even granting the right for the Chinese to hold the Olympic Games—the Dalai Lama is a model of courage along the lines of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. It is no wonder that Chinese leaders find him a particular thorn in their side. It is because he is potentially far more dangerous to them than a protester trying to seize the Olympic torch or Western professors who send them a petition decrying Chinese repression. Those who want to change China would be well served to follow the Dalai Lama’s humble example. When it comes to China, the crucial point is that “it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.”

Another positive approach is to educate oneself about Chinese history, going farther in the past than 1989’s Tiananmen Square massacre to begin to understand the conditions that made such an event possible. For example, the “hundred years of humiliation”—the period when China was carved up by imperial powers—continues to have an impact on the worldview of Chinese leaders and citizens alike. A greater understanding of Chinese culture and politics will show us better ways to address such issues.

Elizabeth S. Dahl is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. This article appeared in slightly different form as a letter to the editor in The Omaha World-Herald on April 15th, 2008.

Ben Franklin Would Roll Over in His Grave: Dr. Rice’s Awards for Public Diplomacy

by John H. Brown, Guest Contributor

I’d like to write a few words about Dr. Condoleezza Rice’s “Benjamin Franklin Awards for Public Diplomacy,” recently in the news . Public diplomacy is defined by the State Department as “engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences.” As a Foreign Service Officer who practiced public diplomacy for over twenty years, mostly in Eastern Europe, I find it disconcerting that such awards should be given by a person -- the Secretary of State -- who has shown such elementary disregard for foreign public opinion.

One of the favorite occupations of communist leaders during the Cold War was awarding prizes for activities they were unwilling to carry out themselves. They had, for example, a much-hyped Lenin Peace Prize. But what the Soviets really believed in, despite their talk of “peaceful co-existence,” was propaganda-propelled perpetual war, domestically and overseas, as the sure way for them to justify their hold on power. Or at least that it how they -- until, conceivably, Gorbachev -- saw it.

Secretary of State Rice, whose academic specialty is the non-existent Soviet Union, appears to be following the path of the communist Mafiosi she studied in her youth. Like them, the Doctor in her official capacities in the Bush administration has had the dubious distinction of using the basest form of propaganda, shamelessly employing it to mislead the nation into an immoral and wasteful war and occupation of a country that did not attack us -- supposedly in order to “win” an even wider war, the indefinable “war on terror.” Some would say that this seemingly endless conflict and the fears it evoked in the United States are why Mr. Bush, our “war president,” got reelected.

Now Rice -- the holder of a Ph.D. who, by the way, has penned only one book by herself, a superficial volume panned in 1985 by The American Historical Review because it “frequently does not sift facts from propaganda and valid information from disinformation or misinformation” -- is offering her own version of the Lenin Peace Prize.

She’s called it the Benjamin Franklin Awards for Public Diplomacy. Here’s a blurb from the “media note” recently issued by the State Department:

"The creation of the Benjamin Franklin Awards for Public Diplomacy was announced by Secretary of State Rice in January 2007 at the Private Sector Summit on Public Diplomacy to recognize that all sectors of American society -- individuals, schools, foundations, associations, and corporations -- actively contribute to advancing America’s ideals through public diplomacy. The awards highlight that solutions to the challenges of the 21st century will come from these sectors working together."

But were Benjamin Franklin, arguably America’s greatest diplomat, to witness the harm “Condi” has done to America’s relations with the rest of the world (and America’s public diplomacy) through her gross misuse of facts and language and approval of torture, he would roll over in his grave, with much condolence for our country, seeing his name a cover-up for the Bush administration’s failure to reach out to the world in a civilized fashion.

The recipients of the Benjamin Franklin award -- among them the legendary composer and pianist Dave Brubeck, who did so much to introduce jazz in Eastern Europe during the Cold War -- deserve recognition from ordinary Americans for showing, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.”

But by ordinary Americans, I do not mean Rice and the administration she serves, given the damage they have done, despite the awards they hand out, to America's image and credibility overseas through their neglect of public diplomacy, including educational exchanges and cultural presentations, the best antidote to the appalling propaganda they themselves have promulgated for far too many years.

Author Note: John H. Brown is Adjunct Professor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown University. His most recent articles on line can be found at American Diplomacy.org and Common Dreams.org.

Old Russian Merchants and New French Modernism

By James West, Guest Contributor

Dr. James L. West is Professor of Humanities, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont.

Leave it to the Russians to confuse ancient tradition and avant-garde modernity in ways that leave westerners scratching their heads. Such hallucinogenic juxtapositions of old and new can easily be seen in the streets of contemporary Moscow, as ancient cathedrals long destroyed are resurrected alongside soaring twisting glass towers of the latest Deconstructive architectural design. The current show of Russian and French art at the Royal Academy in London calls to mind another time exactly a century ago when Russia’s mixture of ancient and contemporary nurtured the nascent Modernist movement in art and music. In the last years of Imperial Russia, Russian elites and Russian artists were able to draw out of Old Russian culture elements of astonishing modernity. In little-known ways, the Russians fueled and shaped the Modernist canon as we know it today.

Explosion of Russian cultural activity

In the first years of the twentieth century, Russia virtually exploded with cultural creativity. It could literally be said that Russian artists and musicians led the Modernist revolution before the First World War. Much of that experimentation consisted of reinterpretations of Old Russian Culture in modernist idiom. The brilliant abstract art of Vasilii Kandinsky was heavily influenced by medieval Russian icons, the brilliant original hues of which had only recently been discovered by a hapless chemist who spilled acid on a darkened icon and was the first since the Middle Ages to see it true colors. Kandinsky’s modernist canvases of the pre-war years are literally “abstract icons,” whose bright yellows, reds and greens were inspired by the vibrant tones of the Moscow, Novgorod and Tver Schools of medieval icon painting. In a similar way, the young Igor Stravinsky looked to Russian folk culture and peasant tales to inspire his modernist musical compositions for Diagilhiev’s Ballet Russe in Paris from 1908 until 1913. The ancient tale of the Firebird became the ballet of the same name, the traditional Russian Shrovetide carnival inspired Petroushka, and the breakthrough piece of modernist music, The Rite of Spring, was Stravinsky’s exploration of the most ancient time of all, the pre-Christian world of Kievan Rus.’ Likewise, Natalia Goncharova’s modernist-primitivist paintings of the same period were drawn from the folk tradition of the lubok, colorful wood-block prints which served as the art of
the peasantry at least from the time of Peter the Great.

The history of Modernist art has amply recorded these retro explorations by Russian modernist artists and composers. What is less known, however, is the way in which certain individual Russians influenced the creation of the Modernist canon in Europe.

In the years before the First World War, the Russian merchants Ivan Morozov and Vassili Shchukin stalked the studios of Paris buying modernist art from obscure and poverty-stricken painters like Picasso and Matisse, virtually keeping these struggling artists afloat in a market that disdained their work. The paintings they bought and shipped off to Moscow later became some of the most important on the century. The story of how these men got to Paris, and the role they played in shaping our contemporary understanding of Modernism, is another fascinating example of Russia’s ability to jostle tradition and modernity in surprising ways.

"Quieter than grass, lower than water"

Traditionally, Russian merchants were the most deferential and most despised of Russia’s elite groups. Shunned by aristocrats and peasants alike, the kuptsy remained “quieter than grass, lower than water.” Calamity followed upon unpopularity, as the old merchantry of Moscow was virtually destroyed by the great fire of 1812. From the ashes of that conflagration emerged the lowest of the low, itinerant peasant rag-pickers hawking their wares around the streets and bazaars of the reviving city. These industrious peasants were the founders of the Moscow textile dynasties, whose descendents three generations later emerged as the wealthiest and freest men ever to live in Russia until the New Russians a century later. Flush with resources and self-confidence, this new private elite set forth to do battle both with the tsarist government, whose repressive instincts feared all initiative from below, and with the aristocratic elites, whose taste and influence dominated Russian culture and politics.

Many activist merchants and industrialists were Old Believer descendants

Ironically, many of the activist merchants and industrialists of this period were of Old Believer origin, descendants of the schismatics who, in the seventeenth century, rejected reforms of the Orthodox Church under Patriarch Nikon, as well as the later westernization of Peter the Great. Through more than two centuries of persecution as heretics, the Old Believer peasants remained faithful to their Muscovite rituals, and consistently rejected innovation in either religious or secular life. In order to distinguish themselves from the “Nikonians” (Orthodox) majority, they followed the path of religious minorities elsewhere by cultivating the virtues of literacy, sobriety and enterprise.

Perhaps because of their “Protestant Ethic” ethos and practices, many of their number were included in those merchant elites who transformed the Russian economy with their entrepreneurship in the early nineteenth century. By the end of the century, many, like Ivan Morozov, had adopted a modern lifestyle without forsaking the faith of their ancestors. Thus it was representatives of families like the Riabushinskys, the Konovalovs, and the Morozovs who patronized the modernist artistic experimentation, while others struggled for the rule of law in Russia in order to put an end to the arbitrary power that had persecuted their ancestors. It was another ironic twist of old and new in Russia that this most traditionalistic group contributed to the modernization of Russia’s culture at the end of the tsarist era.

Merchant Moscow the only place in Europe where modernism was accepted - that, by the way, includes France

Morozov the Old Believer, and Shchukin the loyal Orthodox, became protean figures whose resources and restless search for self-identity fueled much of the artistic experimentation of Moscow Silver Age. Shunning the classicist aesthetic of the aristocracy they despised, they patronized modernist experimentation the theater, in literature and in the arts. The strange thing was that merchant Moscow was virtually the only place in Europe where modernism was accepted- European bourgeoisies, including the French, mimicked the classicist pretensions of their social superiors, and nymphs and satyrs dominated the art production of Europe right up until the First World War.

Gnothi Geytones: Know thy Neighbors

By Alexandra Huddleston, Guest Contributor

Alexandra Huddleston is a documentary photographer who has worked extensively in West Africa. Most recently, for ten months over 2006 and 2007, she worked on a Fulbright grant project titled “Islamic Scholarship in Timbuktu: a Photographic Documentation,” in Timbuktu, Mali. Additional information about Ms. Huddleston and the captions for the photos in this post are found at its end.

During my first month in Timbuktu, when I wandered down the sandy streets under the blazing sun, and into town, the kids would shout “toubab!” (white foreigner) and beg for change. Sometimes adults did as well. When I went to the dusty and infernally slow cyber-café for thirty minutes of virtual contact with the rest of the world, the young hustlers tried to sell me Tuareg daggers at astronomical prices or cage a gig as my guide.

In contrast, by my last months in Timbuktu, I couldn’t walk half a block without an acquaintance waving,
without a friend pausing to pass the time of day, or without the kids yelling “photo!” begging me to take their picture. Indeed, I learned what all citizens of the town knew: which back alleys to take if I was in a hurry, so I’d actually make a meeting on time, without too many cordial delays.

I recently returned from over ten months in Mali, much of that time spent on the edge of the Sahara desert in the town of Timbuktu, on a Fulbright Student, Islamic Civilizations Grant. I was researching and photographing a project documenting the tradition of Islamic scholarship in Timbuktu. Timbuktu was a world center of Islamic learning from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries, and the town still houses over 100,000 ancient manuscripts. Over the last eight years the Malian government and a handful of private individuals have been working with foreign donors to properly house, catalogue and restore this scholarly heritage. My work was to document the traditional Arabic scholarship that produced this valuable cultural legacy.

During the course of my Fulbright, I learned an immense amount about Islam and about West African history, but perhaps my experience of living in a small town, a tightly knit community, was just as important as my research. It was certainly an essential part of my research.

While in Timbuktu I lived with a Malian family who run the Fondo Kati, a private manuscript library that has
received funding from the Spanish government to house and preserve over 7,000 manuscripts. The family traces its roots to both the Visigoth kings of Spain and the Sonrai emperors of Mali. Indeed, I slept no more than 30 feet away from those ancient manuscripts. I also worked closely with Savamba-Dci, a Malian NGO that has received funding from the Ford Foundation to help house and preserve private manuscript collection throughout Mali.

I gradually realized that in a small town everyone knows almost everyone else, and moreover this interconnectedness is woven into the very fabric of the culture, especially into the system of traditional Islamic learning.

There was a half abandoned building across the street from the Fondo Kati where Ismael, the head of the family, allowed an itinerate marabout to stay with his students. Soumaila, the marabout (a teacher in a traditional Koranic school), ate for free at the foundation and was good friends with Younoussa, another traditional teacher who lived a couple of streets over. Both Younoussa and Soumaila were not only teachers, but also students of Hamou, one of the most well respected marabouts in town, with whom I studied Arabic for a few months. (Indeed one of the aspects of traditional Islamic education that most impressed me was that every scholar, from the youngest boy or girl learning his to write to the most venerable imam, insisted that his learning never ended.) Hamou also taught at one of the most important early morning maglis (a traditional school for older students), where the Hadith were read every morning at 5:30 with the elderly Sidi Lamine, a descendant of the Kounta family, famous for having brought the Al-Qadiriyya branch of Sufism to West Africa. It also happened that my favorite bead vendor was also a regular at Hamou and Sidi Lamine’s maglis. I could go on with such examples.

Stirring the Greek Nation: A Guest Book Review

by John Brady Kiesling, Guest Contributor

Stirring the Greek Nation: Political Culture, Irredentism and Anti-Americanism in Post-War Greece, 1945-1967, by Dr. Ioannis D. Stefanidis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Press, 300 pages, €87)

In early February 2008, I attended a lecture in Greek at the Athens Technical Chamber on the “Eleftherna Mechanism,” a piece of ancient technology recently discovered in Crete. For an hour, the lecturer wielded PowerPoint slides and CAT scans to keep us on the edge of our seats. Ultimately, the object of his research proved to be a rusty padlock on a chain – a padlock from AD 364 to be sure, and quite handsome in its way. After hearty applause, a well-dressed man stood up to hail this important scientific contribution “not just to Greece but to all mankind.” The next asked timidly whether this was indeed a Greek padlock and not a Roman one.

Early in Stirring the Greek Nation, Professor Ioannis Stefanidis quotes Maurice Barré writing in 1906 about his visit to Greece, “I have never seen anyone other than four-year old children … admire themselves with such naiveté and, I must add, sincerity, as this nation does” (p. 12). But Barré, a French nationalist himself, ought to have known better. National narcissism is universal. Greeks differ from French or Americans only in their craving for regular public reassurance that they deserve the Periclean pinnacle to which they cling.

Stefanidis identifies darker implications to this craving. Attempts to play an imperial game beyond its resources led Greece to military defeat in 1897 and to catastrophe in 1922. Unchastened, many Greeks felt little gratitude when the Paris peace conference of 1947 handed over the Dodecanese islands. Greeks’ moral and cultural superiority over their neighbors, combined with their sufferings in World War II, entitled Greece to much more: all of Cyprus, plus territory in Albania, Bulgaria, Yugoslav Macedonia, European Turkey, and perhaps even Libya.

The United States, however, failed to recognize Greece’s entitlement. With the Cold War looming on the horizon, the U.S. government wanted to avoid the mistakes of the Versailles Treaty. There would be no further rectification of Greek borders. That was a disappointment. But the U.S. government added insult to injury, treating Greece and Turkey, publicly as well as privately, as equally valued allies or (once the two quarreled over Cyprus in 1955) as equally blameworthy children. For proud Greek nationalists, this even-handedness was betrayal.

It’s Not Too Late to Vote for Hillary, or Another Independent for McCain

Democrats are trying to figure out whether Barak Obama, who has attracted so many independent votes in the primaries, will be able to garner the same support in the general elections. The Washington Post, for example, is running stories with titles like “Obama's Red-State Prospects Unclear; Democrat's Support May Have Limits” and “Could Obama Turn Red States Blue?” That being the case, it might be interesting for WhirledView readers to learn the current thinking of a New Mexico independent who voted for Hillary Clinton. Elizabeth Trickey is an attorney who practices in Santa Fe.

It’s Not Too Late to Vote for Hillary,
or Another Independent for McCain

By Elizabeth Trickey

The conservative pundits on TV have had that ‘cat that just swallowed a canary’ look lately…fat and happy. And why shouldn’t they be? It seems their plan has panned out. First they, and other conservative media representatives, spread the idea that Hillary had “too much baggage” to win. What was the baggage? Bill Clinton, arguably the most popular politician in both the 20th and 21st century. Then, in a Democratic field filled with legitimate, experienced candidates well tempered in the fire of the American political scene, they let it be known that their most feared candidate was Barack Obama.

Barack Obama? A guy with only a three year track record at the federal level, and before that as a state representative? The man known to have the most liberal voting record in the Senate. A man with a catchy slogan, “Yes We Can,” but no evidence of a plan for what that might be. In contrast, Hilary Clinton, has proven to be measured in her responses, extremely well-informed and statesmanlike. She’s in the middle of the road, like the rest of America, and she works well with her colleagues in the Senate. Even many upstate Republicans like her now. So to what can we attribute her latest losses? Perhaps to a media that likes Obama’s sound bites rather than her substance. Or one that fell for the conservatives’ line.

What has her biggest crime been to date? Not divorcing Bill? Could it be that staying married under very difficult circumstances might represent a strong mainstream Christian response, or even true love and forgiveness? Hmmm! Wouldn’t that appeal to the very conservatives so desperately courted by McCain, whose own marital past is a potential minefield of difficulties?

Hillary has been attacked with stated fears that her presidency would simply be a third term for Bill. Sure, a re-elected, successful Senator from New York, top of her class from Wellesley, Yale Law graduate when a very small percentage of that class were women would cede her presidency to her husband!

So what are we seeing here? Perhaps a vast right wing conspiracy to manipulate the Democrats into running what, after the disastrous Bush Administration, is the only Democrat that could lose? Or is it just more evidence of the glass ceiling which prevents women from leaving the pink collar world for the boardrooms? It's said that this election isn’t about gender or race, to which I have to say, “Oh, yeah?” African-Americans are choosing Obama at a rate of something like 80%- 85% range. And who else? White men. And the last group, one that pains me most, is young women. Those too young to know that they will grow up to hit the same ceiling when their turn comes unless they get behind the one candidate with an unimpeachable record, the experience and maturity to lead our great nation in these troubled times. The one that can truly make this nation work for the majority. Now that would be change!

I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton’s presidency would look out for all Americans equally, but her election would change things for women exponentially. Obama’s campaign has proven that race is no longer the obstacle it once was, and that gender remains the greater political problem. In fact, with his highly privileged background as a former Harvard Law Review editor, I view him as indistinguishable from some equally inexperienced white guy. He’s not ready. The Republicans know it, and they will attack him with everything Clinton’s campaign has left unsaid.

The last time we sent a Democrat president to Washington with a proud claim to being a Beltway outsider, Jimmy Carter was nearly ridden out of town on a rail after a one-term, largely ineffective administration.

So where does this leave me? If Hillary is not the Democratic candidate, I’ll be just another independent for McCain. Like me, he’s moderate, so moderate in fact that his name was bruited about as a good candidate for the DEMOCRATIC Vice-Presidency in the last election. Obviously, he plays well with others and would work well with both parties in Congress. Yes, his stance on the war troubles me, but I know he didn’t take it for political gain. It was considered political suicide when he announced it, before the surge in Iraq started to work. His forthright support for campaign finance reform, business reforms and the like make him entirely attractive, and trustworthy. The contrast with Obama could not be clearer. We know who John McCain is, as we do Hillary Clinton.

A choice between McCain and Clinton would be a fight among equals, with the choice coming down to real issues like their plans for Iraq. A choice between McCain and Obama will be a choice between a polished political statesman, and a neophyte. But, it’s not too late, fellow Independents and Democrats. We can make the right choice, an electable candidate who deserves the credit for what she’s done, not blame for her husband’s conduct. Yes we can. Get behind her, and we can make real changes for America.

Dispatch from 2012

By Carla Norton, Guest Contributor

Writers' strike got you down? Me, too. So here's a little news parody for all you Jon Stewart fans:

"DISPATCH FROM 2012"

Good-evening from FXSF News. We have a ground-breaking report tonight from Future Correspondent Samantha Oh, who has time-traveled to the year 2012 to report exclusively to us on the next presidential race. Sam, hello, can you hear me?

Of course, John, you don't have to shout. (Our technology is sooo much better than yours.)

Great. So tell us, how's the 2012 presidential race shaping up?

Exciting news, John: the Republican candidate is apparently unstoppable.

Unstoppable?

Yes, current polls give Dick Cheney a 78 percent approval rating across both parties- that's right, both parties!-so he should easily take the Republican nomination and the presidency.

Dick Cheney? That's astonishing! What's behind Cheney's candidacy?

Simply put, the Grand Old Party has gone back to its roots, with emphasis on the "Grand." Rather than casting their agenda in dusty post-9/11 rhetoric, they're presenting a strong, clear message that everyone can support: "Money Means Might."

Catchy. But why is the GOP's message resonating so strongly with American voters?

Ironically, because President Edwards's anti-poverty initiative has been so successful, the poor have almost disappeared from the American landscape, and the GOP has capitalized on this by appealing to the wealthy, the extremely wealthy, and the truly filthy rich. That's virtually the whole country. Just imagine Edwards' support spilling, like the last drops of champagne, out of the bottle and into Cheney's crystal slipper.

But how did Cheney become the GOP frontrunner?

Given his brilliant reign as Vice-President, he's the heir-apparent for the Throne, I mean, the seat. Excuse me, we're still calling it the Presidential seat. But once Cheney is elected, it's a cinch to be renamed the "Presidential Throne"- a very popular plank of the Republican Platform.

But what has Cheney been doing since 2008?

Well, he's made oodles of money, something all Americans admire. And his brilliant book, Taking, has been on best-seller lists for months.

Wait, Cheney's book is called Taking? Is that in response to Bill Clinton's book, Giving?

Oh no, Clinton's book had limited appeal, with its emphasis on "loser philanthropy" (or "LP," as Cheney dubs it in his humorous and oft-quoted chapter 39), while Cheney's book is so wildly popular that it's being made into a video game, a musical, and a children's version, called Gimme!

I see. Any other reasons the 2012 race is shaping up so well for Cheney?

Yes, his campaign manager does a fabulous job of out-maneuvering the Democrats, stomping on their toes with her spike heels at every turn.

Spike heels? Who's his campaign manager?

Paris Hilton, of course. And she's really distinguished herself in the game. Ha! Little joke, there, referring to the hugely popular board game, "Cheney-opoly." Yes, her talent was recognized early on, with that very first bumper sticker: "Let Them Eat Oil!"

That brings up another question: What about Cheney's foreign policy platform?

Well, rather than trying to explain, explain, blah, blah, blah, Cheney's come out with a schedule for hostilities so we can predict which countries will be fighting at any given time-far simpler (and more profitable), than the tedious diplomacy undertaken by Secretary of State Joe Biden.

Scheduling hostilities? That seems complicated.

Oh, no. It's based on "Cheney-opoly." Anyone with the game can move their pieces around-the little oil wells, the fighter jets, the battalions-in step with actual events. Plus, there's the pleasure of raking in all those Halliburton-bucks!

But what happened to Clinton and Obama?

Who? Ha-ha, just kidding. Well, Michelle Obama has distinguished herself as vice-president-

What? Michelle Obama is V-P? What about Barack?

Well, he kept harping about his wife's brains and talent, so the Dems simply took him at his word and put Michelle Obama on the ticket.

But what about Hillary Clinton?

Oh, after that unsavory "S&M" video on YouTube, and then the Satan-worshipping exposé, plus the dog-fighting allegations. . . Well, she and Bill are living up in Canada. Not so bad, since the weather is so lovely up there now. And next week I'll be there to report on the Canadian border wall.

Don't you mean the Mexican border wall?

Oh no, the Homeland Security & Annexation Department has installed a free market zone across Mexico.

What? We've annexed Mexico?!

Yes, what a masterstroke by Homeland Security & Annexation Czar Bill Richardson. Instead of out-sourcing jobs to Asia, we just ship 'em south.

Well, Sam, thanks for that, uh, enlightening report from 2012. Any final words?

Just that my bill will be there yesterday. Please remit in Euros.

Happy New Year, wherever your time-travels take you! Carla Norton

Author note: Carla Norton is an author, journalist, futurologist and, now, satirist. Her articles have appeared in various publications and the Japanese edition of “Reader’s Digest” where she worked as an associate editor. She has also written two nonfiction books about notorious California crimes “Perfect Victim” (coauthored with Deputy District Attorney McGuire) that became a #1 New York Times paperback nonfiction best seller and “Disturbed Ground” a true account of the life and crimes of the Sacramento landlady who murdered her tenants and buried them in her garden.

Our “no recollection” President – Where are Congress and the press?

By Elizabeth D. Dyson, Guest Contributor

PHK Note: Washington, DC attorney Elizabeth D. Dyson wrote the following letter to The New York Times last week. The letter was not published although other letters to the Times editorial board on the subject were. None of those published, however, addressed the question Ms. Dyson raises below, namely the significance of the president’s apparent memory problems regarding his awareness – or lack thereof - of the tapes or their destruction. This question should be crucial in the Congressional investigation. The question, therefore, needs to be on the table and Ms. Dyson has given permission to post her letter on WV.

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018

To the editor:

Answering the question whether President Bush had any knowledge of the C.I.A.'s 2005 destruction of interrogation videotapes, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino is quoted as saying that the president "has no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction" ("Congress Looks Into Obstruction As Calls for Justice Inquiry Rise," Dec. 8).

Such carefully chosen "no recollection" language should ring alarm bells loud and clear. How many times did the recently-departed Attorney General dodge admitting any knowledge of unfolding events in the U.S. attorney scandal by saying he had "no recollection" of certain meetings or phone calls? Why didn't Ms. Perino simply say outright that President Bush had no knowledge of the tapes or their destruction?

There's an obvious answer: should one of the several investigations currently planned turn up evidence that Mr. Bush was advised in advance about the existence and destruction of the tapes, he can always attempt to dodge obstruction of justice or other claims by saying that he had "no recollection" or "didn't recall." Nevertheless, what the president knew and when he knew it should be one of the key questions in whatever investigations are conducted by Congress, the Justice Department, or any other agent or agency appointed to get to the root of the matter.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth D. Dyson
Washington, D.C.

The Almost Forgotten Colombia and Why It Shouldn’t be That Way – Speech by John Heard at the World Affairs Forum, Santa Fe, New Mexico

By PHK

In 2000, Colombia competed with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for domination of the US headlines. Colombian drug lords, leftist guerrillas, and rightist paramilitaries were portrayed as running rampant. The US initiated “Plan Colombia” a multi-pronged five year approach to help stabilize the war-torn country. The five year follow-on, “Plan Colombia II” is now in progress. What does this mean? What has worked and what hasn’t? And is what happens in Colombia as crucial to the US as in 2000? These questions still demand our attention.

John Heard is a former senior Foreign Service Officer with USAID, who spent most of his career in Latin America and recently returned to the US after four and one half years in Bogota as head of the Pan American Development Foundation Office (PADF), which administers major USAID projects there. Heard described the situation and discussed these issues at the September 17, 2007 World Affairs Forum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The text for John Heard’s presentation follows. It is entitled “Why we should pay attention to Colombia and support rational policies for our most important ally in Latin America."

(begin text)
The Major Points in a Nutshell:

• Afghanistan may be the world’s poppy capital, but Colombia is its coca capital and the US is the largest recipient: Over 70 percent of the cocaine in the US comes from Colombia. The US has spent over $5.4 billion trying to solve the problem since 2000 without success. This scourge poisons both the US and Colombia but for different reasons. Opium poppies are cultivated in Colombia too, but the crop is nowhere near as large or as important as coca.

• Terrorism: The continuing conflict in Colombia threatens US interests in the country and the region. Leftist guerillas hold hundreds of hostages including three US citizens. Both the guerillas and the partially demobilized United Self Defense Forces (paramilitaries) use terror as a weapon and they both thrive on the drug trade. Meanwhile, the conflict that began as an ideological one has morphed into one that is all about business - political and economic power. It is now 95% business and 5% ideological.

• Displaced persons: As a result of the conflict, between two and three million Colombians are internally displaced. This places Colombia second only to Sudan – despite a major US financed program to assist these people reintegrate into their communities.

• US investment and trade interests: Colombia is the eighth largest supplier of oil to the US. The largest operations are run by Occidental Petroleum, Chevron, Texaco, BP and Exxon. Colombia is a major supplier of coffee, oil, fresh flowers and garments. In fact, Colombian flower exports result in 200,000 jobs in the US and 90,000 in Colombia. Colombia is also an important market for US goods and services.

• US foreign assistance: Today US military and economic support for the Colombian government runs between $400 and $500 million per year. Of this, two-thirds to three-quarters are devoted to the military. The US Embassy in Bogota is one of the largest in the world with over 400 direct hire employees, 40 government agencies and hundreds of military and contract personnel – in uniform and out. Well over a hundred million dollars a year are awarded to business contractors and grantees (NGOs) for program implementation. We need to make sure the money is well spent.

• Current US policy: The goal is promotion of peace and reduction of the flow of drugs to the US through Plan Colombia II. So far – with the exception of a shaky ongoing paramilitary demobilization - it has not produced the results the US and Colombian Government seek.

• US-Colombian relations: the country under President Alvaro Uribe is a friend. Uribe, first elected in 2002, is extraordinarily popular. Over the years, the Colombian government has had warm relations with both Clinton and Bush administrations. The US needs all the friends it can have in Latin America: as it stands now, Colombia is flanked by anti-American leftist governments in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.

THE THREE MAKE OR BREAK ISSUES: Continuing Conflict, War on Drugs, Grinding Poverty

1. The Continuing Conflict

Although Colombia’s level of violence – ordinary murder and crime rates have fallen - has been significantly reduced under President Uribe, internal conflict continues. Kidnapping and extortion remain high and thousands of families are driven, homeless, from their communities every month. This is a byproduct of a continuing war fueled by the proceeds of the drug trade. The situation in Colombia, however, is not like Central America after the fall of the Soviet Union where state-sponsored funding for insurgents dried up within a year or two.

The vicious circle: Hundreds of millions of dollars from the international drug trade feed the leftist guerillas and rightist paramilitaries – a seemingly unending revenue stream. The guerillas pay salaries, purchase modern weapons, and use modern communications technology, not only for internal communications but also to finance strong public relations campaigns in Europe and Colombia. They have professional websites and also strong recruitment programs.

The answer: In addition to military pressure, e.g. pursuing them where they live under Uribe’s Democratic Security program with better trained and strengthened military forces, the existing unending income stream needs to be cut.

Indecent and Mindless:The Way We Treat Our Hispanic Countrymen and Neighbors

By Gene E. Bigler, Guest Contributor

Columnist George Will recently railed against exaggerated concerns for decency in America, citing a controversy over four-letter words in Ken Burns’ latest documentary, “The War,” and presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s statement dumping Senator Larry Craig from his campaign “as devoid of human sympathy.”

Yet where was Mr. Will when Ken Burns left over 400,000 Hispanic WWII veterans out of the original version of his documentary? More importantly, why is there so little concern over Republican presidential candidate refusals to participate in a debate simply because it is in Spanish? And where is the outrage over the way so many of us have (again) shamelessly berated our Hispanic countrymen and neighbors during the immigration policy debate.

A few days ago Univison announced that it would cancel the Republican debate in Spanish, scheduled for September 16, because Senator John McCain was the only candidate who agreed to appear. More surprising was the cancellation after Univision won such a large national audience for the Democratic debate September 9.

Evidently, our Spanish-speaking voters are more interested than English-speakers in what the candidates have to say.

Republican candidate Tom Tancredo was more forthright than most of his competitors when he scoffed at the idea of a debate in Spanish as somehow unpatriotic or anti-American. Perhaps the Congressman from Colorado already knows how many recent migrants -- and true, a majority are Spanish speaking -- feel about his proposal that the U.S. should place a moratorium on migration to the U.S.

Now that is true indecency. Because the man dislikes Spanish speaking people, he suddenly wants to end the policy that has enabled tens of millions of Americans for nearly 100 years to bring family members to join them here after they have been the first to make the perilous journey. Perhaps like Ken Burns (at least at first), the Congressman fails to recognize Hispanic patriotism. Maybe some think that speaking Spanish long after arrival is a sign of disloyalty?

Perhaps Tancredo and Burns have the same problem that the prominent American historian, John Ferling,
had in his rightfully highly praised new history of the American war of independence, Almost A Miracle. Ferling provides a gripping account of the heroism of some of our founding fathers, but he completely neglects how Hispanics may have actually won the day for America.